Your belief/religion: why?

Why do you believe it? I understand it's not always something that can be described in words or logical terms. I know that quite well. But explain it to me. What is it that keeps you believing? What is that point where you say... Ok.... this is true? Just elaborate on your beliefs and why you have them. I want to know the nicks and crannies of it.

I believe in a higher power...in fact, I actually know there is a higher power, but I can't get too into it
If you want to know, PM me

I'm still searching...I kinda believe all faiths and religions can offer some truth
I'm very interested in exploring all religions to gather these truths and my thoughts on religion
For the most part, my stance is that the world, life, and death are all mysteries that won't be solved until until after we die
But I firmly believe that there is something more to this world and no one can really convince me otherwise...it's just how I feel and how I view things

I still need to explore religion though...I'm more spiritual than religious and I think I'll always be that way

Argh, such a huge question. I don't even know where to begin. I'm of the mindset that all religions are ultimately trying to say the same thing, and that the interpretations are the only difference.

I believe in religion/faith the same way I believe in other aspects of different cultures:
-The traditional music of Ireland is different than that of Brazil, but it is still music.
-The food served in Japan is different than the food served in Italy, but it still food.
-The Deity/God/Supreme Being is different in each culture - but it is still Deity, dressed in different clothing.

I find it fascinating to learn about the pantheons of the early faiths. Each region had their own take on the various god/gods/goddesses, and their interpretation incorporated their own cultural depth. Yet the archetypes are so similar! This was not the age of the internet - there was no universal connection to explain why people of different paths were experiencing very similar things. Each faith had sun gods, earth goddesses, gods of war, gods of love, etc.

While the Abrahamic religions believe they alone worship the one True God, I don't see a conflict between the Christian god and the pagan gods. This is an analogy I found in a book, and it reflects the idea perfectly - the gods and goddesses are like facets of a diamond. Christians are simply looking at the diamond as a whole - they see the great shining God, complete, and need nothing more. Polytheists tend to look at the facets, seeing many different aspects of God (or Deity, however you want to name it), and personifying them into the gods and goddesses in a way to feel closer to god.

Let me clarify, to me, God = Life force. Not some man up in the sky, but a universal force that runs through all life.

"As above, so below." Look at the composition of the atom. Then look at the composition of our galaxy. Hello, mini-me! For this reason, I believe all life on earth is divine. I believe a galaxy can be seen in an atom, and I believe divinity - the Life Source that makes the earth orbit on its axis, that makes the seasons change, that causes birth and death - I believe this is exhibited in each and every human life. We are miniatures of the divine, going through the same process of birth and death, but on a much smaller scale.

I don't see why religion conflicts with science either - outside of politics, it really doesn't. "Alternative medicine" is now getting huge, and these are not new ideas. They are ideas that date back thousands of years. They worked then, even though we didn't have the fancy scientific terms to describe WHY they worked.

In my eyes, modern science is simply catching up to what the ancients already knew - we're just breaking it down and learning how very scientific it is. I believe in things that many would label "hokey" or "new age", like chakras, witchcraft, astral projection, transcendential meditation, etc., but I don't see these things as illogical. The opposite, in fact. Quantum physics has proven that the astral plane exists, and are currently explaining to us how it works. People have been traveling on the astral plane for thousands of years - again, science is finally catching up. :)

Oh my gosh I could fill an entire novel with this stuff. I feel like I've barely skimmed the surface of my beliefs, but I'll stop rambling for now. Basically I'm very spiritual. And have a hippy-dippy sense of oneness. I just don't see these beliefs as flaky; I think they are equal parts faith, science, and art.

(I'm also completely, totally smitten by Hinduism, and the concept of Kundalini awakenings. I've actually had to let my spiritual progress plateau lately, because the Kundalini energy scares me shitless. And this would open up a can of worms that I could talk about forever.)

thehigher, It's not a thing of belief with me. I don't believe in anything. I strive to know. If I must have a belief, then I only have one temporarily until I can verify it. I have had higher experiences, been privileged through various practices and methods of experiencing miraculous states of being, that I believe is possible for all of us.

If I had to live by belief alone, I would not be satisfied. My path is one of becoming. The striving to become myself. This has a peculiar meaning to me, but that is deep of purpose and substance that feels me with a emotion that I feel is indispensable for my being. To become myself, not the self that I have come to know, with all it's aggregations, all it's vanities, all it's contradictions and suffering, but to cleave to that which is real in me and cultivate its reality through developing those natural functions in myself that makes such a process of Real growth possible. To become my Soul, to become my Authentic Self, which knowing, can lead to that level called "God."

To me it is only possible to come to know, if there is such a thing, God through first coming to know thy self. A man is acme of creation, a intricate formation with all the possibilities that God must have in him. After all if it is true as they say, that Man is in God's image, then it goes without saying that man has a great potential that is beyond his current understanding. To me faith is understanding, a blending of knowledge acquired with the being to live that knowledge which gives forth a condition of verification. It is a conscious faith, which the practical labors and intentional efforts has given me capacity to be in a way that I could not before.

All religions, imo, at their core are ways of reaching what is, the completion of their being. I am one who feels that our physical birth was not supposed to be our last birth, but merely the beginning of the process of birthing. The various ways all use avenues reflective to their aim, to reach that universal end, that is true for all of man. While they differ in approach and method, nonetheless everything returns to its source, so we all had a similar beginning, and thus a similar end. In the Way I walk, which is Gnostic, it works for me. This is what is important, that whatever you do, let your religion work for you, as it ought to be for you and your possible evolution in being.

god is to adults what adults are to children. thats why i believe. it's functional.

I just went into this in another thread about an hour ago, so at the risk of repeating myself...

I believe Jesus Christ is The Savior and consider myself a Christian, but am probably not a very good one. I don't go to church and am more likely to fight than turn the other cheek. I'm doing good to keep myself in check much less tell everybody else how they should be doing it. I want to go to Heaven but only by the Grace of God will ever get there, cause I sure don't deserve to go by any good deeds I've done.

Anger has been an issue most of my life but I've learned to deal w/ it as I age. Anger, along w/ pride and arrogance were my downfall. Now I just try to get by and not hurt people in the process.


IMO, this stuff that's going down now is just the prelude to the Second Coming and all the things foretold in Revelations. I believe it word for word and feel like I'm being pulled along w/ it. I don't think anyone, whether they believe in God or what God they believe in, can honestly say the things foretold for the end times aren't coming true.

And w/ all the natural disasters like supervolcano and asteroid strikes that could be coming, not to mention wars or slavery to some mark, it's scary as hell to me.


As for the 6000 year old Earth? I think there may have been more than one go round on planet Earth. Adam had another wife before Eve, Lilith, so we really don't know what else went on. God could have created and destroyed things time after time. But that's just my opinion and something to think about.

My "religion": Naturalistic Pantheism.

Is it true? It can't be one or the other. It's a conscious choice, as I like to see it. There isn't anything "true" or "untrue" about my love of nature. It's personal and subjective. It has nothing to do with facts; it asserts nothing about reality.

I just watched Dogma yesterday, and it brought up a very good point. Ideas are easy to change. Beliefs aren't. I choose to never be emotionally committed to any stance regarding God. If I do, that's belief. I refuse to believe. I'd much rather rationally hypothesize, even if my hypothesis claims the existence of God.

I think if I had to summaries my belief system, it would be something like this - I don't believe there is a god, I do believe that we can never prove nor disprove the existence of a god and I do believe that if there is a god then they are not any god worshipped in any human religion. I also don't believe that we can prove or disprove the existence of an afterlife (I've actually got a fanfiction called Afterlife, in which characters from a certain television programme die, and wake up in a field of flowers close to a town - if two random people die in New York, they go to the same place in the afterlife - and there was no god or anything, just an eternity in this plane of existence.

When I was in my teens, I did a bit of looking around at certain religions, with the Bahá'i and Taoist beliefs being the most interesting. For a time I even considered Unitarian Universalism. In a way, I would like to be more spiritual, but I just don't believe in a lot of things that more spiritual people do.

Holy shit! Another religious thread? LOL

Anyway, I'm a Muslim. My parents are Muslims, but they don't understand at all about their religion. So is my sister and brothers. I grew up almost as an Atheist. We celebrate Islamic important dates, but it was more like tradition than a religious celebration, like Christmas.

My interest with Islam start since I was a child. ZOMG it's such a long story, I don't even know where to begin.

Anyway, since I was born nearly as an Atheist, I need to learn everything about Islam from the very bottom lesson. A long with my journey to find the truth, I found that Islam is a religion which has been slandered the most. Not only it was attacked by external force (press, Christians & Jews, atheist, feminist, australian/american/european countries, brats, human rights organizations, traditional people, etc) but also by internal force (Muslims who misinterpreting the Quran and hadiths for their own benefit, some of Shia people, deceiver Muslims, Islamic leaders, some of the scholars, liberalist Muslims, traditional Muslims, radical/anarchist Muslims, Muslim teachers, Muslims who doesn't know much about Islam but act like they know everything and spreading lies about Islam, etc).

In my earlier time of studying Islam, I found lots of false Islamic books. Not only they contradict each others, they also manipulating and faking the verses in Quran and hadiths. Many of them contains very dangerous thoughts that against its own teaching. I also met many deviant groups who brings their own thoughts about "Islamic Law". Some of them were nice but stupid, they were very accepting and weren't critical about things their teachers teached them. Some of them were radical and manipulative, they would do anything to keep me as their member, like hypnotize me to brainwash me. While facing those deviant groups, I kept studying and searching.

Then I met this very decent lady. She asked me if I want to join Quran discussion at a mosque she used to go regularly. I agree. When we got there, there are less than 20 people, male and female. The discussion started with pray, and then one of them sat in the center and began reading Quran in its real Arabic language. Everyone sat quietly, listening him reading. I bet nobody understand what he was reading about, because majority of Indonesian Muslims are like that, including me. We can read the Arabic sentences in the Quran, but we don't know what the words means, unless we read the translation.

The man was reading for 5 minutes, when suddenly one by one of them began to cry, both male and female. Their body trembled, and tears just drop like flood from their eyes. The more he read, the more they cry. I watched, in disgust, when all the guys were crying like whiny gays. They didn't seem embarrased. And some of the girls even more dramatic, they almost hysterical. I ran to the toilet and burst in laugh. WTF?! Who is this people, actually? Bunch of emo gays and girls? Were they being brainwashed? Right. I don't need this. I'm outta here.

Few days after that, the lady call me and asked me if I want to join Quran reading session where she became the teacher. I said yes. I'm quite proud about my Arabic reading. I can read beautifully. I was planning to show off my reading style. LOL

When I got there, I met several girls at my age, and we began to read the Quran one by one. Everytime one of us reading the Quran, my new teacher always hold their shoulder. "Read it slowly," she said gently, "stop fighting."

When my turn to read it, I was sure I read smoothly and beautifully. But she kept saying, "Stop fighting. You're pushing yourself too much. Release yourself."

In every session, she teached me how to read Quran with the right techniques, and kept saying the same thing. I didn't know what she means, but she refuse to explains. So when she repeated the same old "Stop fighting," I got pissed and kinda yelled at her, "It's just some meaningless Arabian words, for God's sake! I don't even know what it means without the translation verse!" She was just smiling as her respond and said, "Repeat your reading at home. And don't forget, stop fighting."

One day, I was alone at home. After praying, I took the Arabic Quran and began to read it. I did that almost automatically and my head was empty that time. After reading one page, I moved to another page. Suddenly, I felt this beautiful sensation. I'm not sure I can describe it right. My body began to trembling. And it's almost feels like someone throw a bucket of cold water upon my head, and I felt unspeakable feeling. It was so very very beautiful, I couldn't stand it. My tears fell down.

It feels like when you missing someone very very very much, but in the same time you know that the person is beside you. I didn't feel happy or sad, but it's like an overwhelmed melancholic peace.

I continued reading. The more I read, the more I felt the missing feeling and the overwhelmed melancholic peace. It's sooo overwhelmed, it makes me cry very hard. And I love the feeling! It's... It's... addictive? It's so beautiful, I feel like I want to cry forever and I don't wanna stop. It's overwhelmed, yet I can't get enough of it. It's addicting, yet so peaceful. I felt so light-headed and drunk, yet I'm truly conscious with my surroundings. I felt like I wanna be alone forever and have this beautiful feelings with me forever. I don't care about anything anymore. Nothing in this world is important compared with this feelings. I don't care even if the whole world isolate me. I don't care about the world. I don't care even if nobody loves me. I don't need their love. I don't care even if I live a poor life and have nothing but the clothes I wear. Nothing is matters anymore. I can live forever by just having this beautiful feelings with me. Nothing is matters anymore. Nothing.

Suddenly, everything is make sense for me. I can understand every sufism poetries I had read. It's perfectly make sense. And I was wondering why can't I see that before. Why can't I understand? Everything was so simple and easy.

I wonder
from these thousand of "me's",
which one am I?

Listen to my cry, do not drown my voice
I am completely filled with the thought of You.
Don't lay broken glass on my path
I will crush it into dust.

I am nothing, just a mirror in the palm of Your hand,
reflecting Your kindness, Your sadness, Your anger.
If you were a blade of grass or a tiny flower
I will pitch my tent in Your shadow.

Only Your presence revives my withered heart.
You are the candle that lights the whole world.
and I am an empty vessel for Your light.

- Jalaluddin Rumi


Oh! Supreme Lover!
Let me leave aside my worries.
The flowers are blooming
with the exultation of Your Spirit.

By Allah!
I long to escape the prison of my ego
and lose myself
in the mountains and the desert.

These sad and lonely people tire me.
I long to revel in the drunken frenzy of Your love.
and feel the strength of Rustam in my hands.

I'm sick of mortal kings.
With lamps in hand
the sheikhs and mullahs roam
the dark alleys of these towns
not finding what they seek.
I long to see Your light.

You are the Essence of the Essence,
The intoxication of Love.
I long to sing Your praises
but stand mute
with the agony of wishing in my heart.

- Jalaluddin Rumi


In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something?
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?

- Rabia al-Adawiyya


The next day, I met my teacher and told her everything I experienced. She was just smiling and nodding slowly, like "yes, I get you."
"How do you feel at that moment?" she asked.

"Like nothing in this world matters," I told her. "What's happening to me?" I asked.

She smiled gently and said, "You have surrendered. Only when you stop fighting, will the truth reveal itself to you."

The next day, she introduce me to another teacher to continue my study to the next level. That's the last time I saw her. I will never forget her.

Well, that was one of the many reasons I stay with this religion. I am so very glad that I am a Muslim. Islam is my life. Islam is the beat of my heart. Islam is the blood that courses through my veins. Islam is my strength. Islam makes my life so wonderful and beautiful. Without Islam I am nothing, and should Allah ever turn His magnificent face from me, I could not survive.

You can judge me anything you want, I don't care. Nothing is matters to me anymore in this world. I have found my way, my path, and I'm going to stick with it until my last breath take me away.

Wicked, that made my eyes water up a bit. Why? Because at points you spoke from your being and it acted upon my being, as my being recognizes what you have experienced, as it has also. Not the personality, but the being, what is Real in us.

While I am not a official Muslim, but Gnostic, at the same time I know about Islam, as I know something about must religions. It is difficult to be a Muslim, in the true sense of the word. To completely surrender to a Higher State of being, it is necessary to make that false personality state in yourself lower. The Jihad is this inner struggle. I love sufism, a man by the name of Gurdjieff understood Authentic Sufism and was taught in the schools of it. One thing I have wanted to learn so much is the twirling of the Dervishes! The dances and twirling of the dervish is like living art that exceeds even meditation. It's a very deep and penetrating Way.

Thanks for your essence post!