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I actually had a middle sentence in my original reply, but deleted it thinking it might be taken the wrong way. That sentence was "Honestly, I tend to run screaming in horror from people with prayer books, of any faith or creed."
If I had to describe my "faith" I would say I believe in the concept of a "higher power," call it what you will, but I think "religion" is a manmade concept and as such, extremely flawed. So, while I believe in a "high power" I don't believe in religion.
I do, however, believe it's an extremely personal choice and one that is due common courtesy and respect, whatever the faith is someone professes to believe in.
GAH! This is to much deep thinking on a vacation day! ;-)
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You know, it's funny - I've had the opposite experience of wanting to deconvert someone. She says she's Christian, but hasn't been to church in years, doesn't know the Bible apart from the broad outlines of the popular stories like Noah's Ark and such, doesn't actually accept many of the important points of most major sects, doesn't include God or Jesus as a factor in... well, anything, really, and generally conducts herself like a materialist and secular humanist. The contradiction between that and her stated beliefs makes me want to go (to paraphrase you), "Face it: you're a deist at best, so make it official!"
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Yeah, I can see that. I mean... I guess I can also see how (for instance) a person coming out of a bad experience might need to go through the stereotypical "rebellious and angry pseudo-atheist" phase, or for someone who just hasn't given it much thought to call themselves a deist or atheist for whatever reason, instead of the "I don't believe in supernatural deity-like anythings, and here are all the positive things I center my life around instead" approach. But it makes it harder for a lot of the others in the process, especially when trying to explain to people that no, not everyone in Group X is really secretly Y at heart deep down. (Hm, this example is perhaps over-complicated, given that unlike many religions, atheism doesn't actually have any required beliefs other than that one, and so you can be all kinds of completely different atheist. But I think you can see what I mean?)
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Interesting discussion you got going here. It's very true what you say about faith (or lack thereof) being something that is extremely personal, and that sometimes people who want to convert others is really tresspassing on the other person's personal space.
I've seen that happen too often i think.
I'm from Thailand, so here the main religion is Buddhism so it's rather different. There's no single creator but rather a system in how it all works and balances out. Personally i think Buddhism is a great philosophy, but as an established religion, and how it plays out in Thailand... Well, i don't think it's how Buddhism is intended to be. Buddhism coming to Thailand, it gets mixed a bit with hinduism but also in the animism that had already existed within the culture and some stuff i think are more animism than it is buddhism, such as for example, Thais are very big on icons, they have all sorts of huge ones on gold chains around their necks but it's actually against Buddhism to be worshipping icons.
That's just one examples... there's also holy trees and such too. To be honest, that stuff, it doesn't bother me that much, but still, I wouldn't say I'm someone who goes through the motions and doesn't believe it and then get away from it and say I'm an atheist and go on about the hypocracies. Rather, I think its cause of my family, my grandmother is religious but in a really pushy and supersticious(sp) way and she just pushes everyone on the issue and just make everything about religion, and at some point mum became a christian just to get back at her and somehow dragged me into it (I was like 9yrs old).
By the time I was 11, I came to the conclusion that I don't have faith in any of it, don't believe in any of it and that I might actually be better off that way than to be caught up in the mess. Once i realised not having a religion was an option (I did say I was a kid at the time) I went with that. I remember feeling very... free at the time. I've been without a religion since... and to be honest, not having a religion still feels very freeing for me, even now.
I think it's great, that for certain people, religion is an inspiration, something they can hold onto in tough times and something that makes them aspire to be a better person. I can respect that so long as they don't try to push their faith onto me.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents. Hope you don't mind me sharing.
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