Seeing people have that kind of faith in invisible sky wizards can have an effect on one's faith in humanity's tendency for progress. Jesus Camp is both the scariest movie ever made and completely fucking real, holyfuckingshit.

Father Reginald Foster is pretty cool.

Let me try: People are not very credible.

Particularly when it comes to film-inspired things. I watched The Ring when I was fifteen and I kept seeing long-haired girls in white crawling on the ground.

Besides, you mentioned yourself that it was something of a shared experience between Christians, and Christians only. Wouldn't it make sense if weird things happened to everyone? Some religious people, religious fundamentalists in particular, have totally alien mindsets, so maybe seeing things - or interpreting things which are something else as something that scares you - is a part of that.

That's the problem with relying on personal experiences. Especially other people's personal experiences. A Christian person will tell you she saw Jesus or cloaked figures, a Hindu guy will tell you he remembers his past incarnations, and if those are arguments for existence of God or Vishnu, both probably can't be right.

Yeah :p

*walks in*

Group Hug, everypony!

GROUP HUG!

I think there could be some kind of higher power, but it is pointless to follow someone else's religion.

If it can't be explained by science, then I have just as much knowledge of the subject as the pope.

I was thinking about it a while ago, and tried to explain to my religious friend that I see life as a maze, following a religion is like following someone else through the maze. It is more pleasing if you make your own choices. I mean sure, you can choose who to follow, but after that, you are following that person.

I think about life, the universe and everything quite a lot, and come up with many theories. Like that god may have just started the universe off with the big bang, and spectated from there on.

however, I do not "believe" in any of my theories. I only accept that they could be a possibility.

i've never said that it only happens to christians, i said that everyone who i've been talked to about it, just so happened to be christians, and it happens to a lot of christians too. i know that people outside of the religion have experienced the same thing, even if they are athiests.

I'm on the fence with God's existence. I think if he does exist, he's completely hands-off now and all our goodwill and misfortune can be chalked up to our own positive thinking and happenstance. I simply don't see the difference between someone expecting good things and someone expecting God to give them good things if the end result is the same.

Morals have taken a backseat to "religion" in this day and age. Organized religions has got a lot of confused Christians thinking they're inherently good when they're either shit people or completely uninvolved in the world. Still, that's not too say I don't feel some prejudice against the Christians that do try, I admit. When I see that some girl built a house in South America for her missionary group, I gag on my goat heart and wait til dawn to finish the blood ritual I'm appalled by the following self-righteous indignation that she is somehow doing God's work. It bothers me that things are done in the name of God and not goodness. Because when you attach a person to an act, and God is just a person to most of us don't try and tell me you imagine him as the God he really is because that's impossible, you create some serious favoritism. "I'm God's servant," really means I'm his favorite.

I subscribe more to the idea that everything just is, much like how God is supposed to just "be," but on a much larger scale. Pretty much what Poly said, in that we are afraid of death until it comes and it's the most natural thing in the world and there is no need for a religion or big bearded man in the sky to comfort us.

It's funny, I can remember many years ago when I first joined the GMG and I made one comment on a thread where Cesque was arguing for evolution and I disagreed with him. Now I lean much closer to his opinions.

I was almost run over in the street by a huge white suburban truck. There was a stop sign that the woman driving almost completely flew by, and she stopped about 3 inches away from hitting me. She then proceeded to lean out the window and scream "Watch where you're fucking going!" I stepped back and she sped off with me left shaking in the middle of the street.

The bumper stickers on the back of this woman's truck were all about Jesus and God and her church. Since that day, I really can't look at organized religion the same way. I do believe in God, but I don't believe in what a lot of churches say. They all say you can be the worst, most fucked up piece of shit person and if you go to church and say "Jesus, forgive me!" then ok, everything's fine. So what's the point then? We're all spoiled children and Jesus is the mother that keeps handing us toys to break.

I try my best to be a good person for my own good. If I was a hypocrite and joined a church, it would be like saying "I'll be good to this person, because I want to go to heaven." A good person will be good without the bait of eternal life being dangled in their face. Not almost run over a little girl (I was in the seventh grade at the time) cursing and screaming, on their way to church. Nah. I don't even know what to call myself. I guess I'm not a Christian if I don't like Jesus constantly having to forgive stupid things I do, not learning a damn thing from it.

Meh, I prefer the Hitchhiker's Guide.