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I am religious and believe in free will

70 (27.6%)

I am religious and do not believe in free will

10 (3.9%)

I am not religious and believe in free will

113 (44.5%)

I am not religious and do not believe in free will

61 (24%)

Total Members Voted: 249

[timferius]

About that, there should be a tvtropes page titled "All religion is fundamentalist christianity" because, seriously, tell me the last time you heard someone complain about Buddhists or something like that.

Read back a bit. There have been a few people saying what they were. Fundamentalist Mormon, Wiccan (I think?) and Muslim.

Probably more I don't remember.

Isn't Mormonism technically a split of Christianity?

Yes, according to a quick google their a branch of Restorationist Christianity.

[i2amroy]

Have you ever tried replicating buddhists directions for enlightenment? the underlining logic behind it is very sound and can be easily understood and experienced, its just the end result which require belief.

As a casual listener, you have no way to verify whether the Higgs boson exists or whether enlightenment exists. the theory behind both is known. the basics are simple to understand. the ultimate proof of personal experience or personal direct knowledge is beyond our grasp in both cases, yet we both choose to believe the scientists at CERN and not the countless Buddhists monks.

(Not to say these two contradict or even relate to each other. i am just giving examples of things we can replicate, can't replicate and choose to believe in)

I actually like buddhism and its related religions, they are some of my more favorite ones. (I'm actually taking a class on them right now, even)

If you look closely though there's a difference once again. For the Higgs-boson all the exact steps you need to do to be able to understand it are present (I've even done enough reading to get some of the basic gist of it). It's a "understand all of these things and you can understand the Higgs-boson" type of thing. Buddhism and the related ones appear similar, until you notice one thing. Instead of a complete guide to how to become enlightened, there is a complete guide minus the very last step. It's always "do all of these and then the actual last bit of enlightenment will be revealed to you", not "do all of these and then you will be enlightened". It's the difference from having the entire set of steps to reproduce a recipe (like baking a cake) and being short one of them (like not knowing what temperature to bake it at).

While I certainly could attempt to replicate the Buddha's enlightenment, since I don't know the last step I can't actually replicate it the same way. Because (good) scientific observations detail every step, I could for sure replicate their experiment every time, no guessing or faith required. It's a small difference, I know but it's the difference from having a metaphorical delicious cake and having a charred hunk of charcoal.

[scrdest]

I took so long writing a response that i2amroy ninja'd it more concisely.

[Bohandas]

Read back a bit. There have been a few people saying what they were. Fundamentalist Mormon, Wiccan (I think?) and Muslim.

Probably more I don't remember.

I'm SubGenius

[Cryxis, Prince of Doom]

My sister has mixed feelings about (wicen?) people.
She met one that was nice and really smart, photographic memory and aced every test, that ended up getting so mad at everyone that his would sit up in his bunk all night cursing everyone to fail their tests

[Frumple]

About that, there should be a tvtropes page titled "All religion is fundamentalist christianity" because, seriously, tell me the last time you heard someone complain about Buddhists or something like that.

Not too long ago? Buddhism has its sectarian conflict and violent branches just like all major religions do. There's places in the world, right here and right now, where buddhist adherents occupy the same sort of social niche as fundamentalist christianity. Even if most of what siddhartha said was even less offensive than normal as religious platitudes go, you've still got the problem of buddhists being human and organized, and the attendant issues that arise from time to time because of such.

All of the major religions have periods in their history that were pretty nasty. Many of the rest do, too. It's a fairly common (and unfortunate) artifact of power consolidation on a social level...

[Bohandas]

My sister has mixed feelings about (wicen?) people.
She met one that was nice and really smart, photographic memory and aced every test, that ended up getting so mad at everyone that his would sit up in his bunk all night cursing everyone to fail their tests

I don't really like Wicca. I take exception to anything that presents itself as ancient but is actually significantly less than a century old (I've got the same problem with people who celebrate Kwanzaa; another thing that was created whole cloth during the mid 20th century)

And new religions bug me. If there's a deity out there that cares about humanity I think that they would've already contacted us prior to 1954. And they don't fill a need like the ancient religions did; there's very little out there that's still unexplained and needs explaining, and much of what is still unexplained is esoteric particle physics trivia that isn't very relevant to day to day life.

EDIT:
And yes, I am aware that SubGenius is new as well, but they're open about being new, and mostly just practice religion to be ironic anyway

[That Wolf]

Go to the bush for a few days, take a knife, good boots, warm clothing, small amount of food. Dried meat, some rice,
And you will find your 'self' thinking.. "oh a burger would be good right now, i feel like a coffee, this food is getting boring I want to eat a ham sandwich" you may even make a mental list of the foods you are going to eat upon going back home.
This is what you are evolved to do.
Meditation is realising these thoughts as they appear, sometimes even before they appear. Realising that you just live in your thoughts all your life without actually thinking about it.
Enlightenment is release from this way. Liberating yourself from millions of years of endless thoughts.
Have fun meditating, remember it takes practice. Its not something you pick up in a year or two.
Dont try for a few months then say you are adept at it, thats just hipster.

[That Wolf]

My sister has mixed feelings about (wicen?) people.
She met one that was nice and really smart, photographic memory and aced every test, that ended up getting so mad at everyone that his would sit up in his bunk all night cursing everyone to fail their tests

That kids obviously not a wiccan cause if hes cursing people to fail tests, his religion says he is also cursing himself the same fate.
He just thinks hes cool being a wiccan, but he needs help....

[Rolan7]

About that, there should be a tvtropes page titled "All religion is fundamentalist christianity" because, seriously, tell me the last time you heard someone complain about Buddhists or something like that.

Fundamentalist Christianity gets the most attention because it's an easy target, and it's also aggressively trying to re-establish control over secular life.  Hence it's "attacked" by people trying to defend the status quo.  No one minds because it's extreme, even to other Christians.

Normal Christianity is much harder to criticize, because even typical Baptists at my grandmother's church agreed that problematic portions of the Bible were metaphorical, or deprecated by Jesus.  Pretty much everything which conflicts with science gets thrown out.  So it gets less criticism, because it's like the reed in a storm.  It bends but doesn't break, while the fundamentalist oak holds firm until it falls.  Also normal Christians are normal, so any criticism of them comes off as an extremist "attack" (as opposed to attacking fundamentalists, which no one minds).

But then a lot of these people use the Bible to justify positions on morality, which is safely outside science.  Abortion and homosexual rights, for instance.  And trying to defend against legislated morality gets twisted into an "attack" on poor, normal Christians who just want their right to believe in Jesus and ban gays (who they love, of course) from marriage.

And then there are "Christians" who just believe that the nice parts of Jesus's story are nice, whether or not it happened.  They identify as Christian, and maybe go to Church on Easter, because that's the easiest way to fit in to American society.  They're basically secular but don't want to be an ATHEIST.

Fundamentalist Islam would receive similar attention except that it's a bit alien to Westerners.  It does get a lot of discussion though, particularly in areas with growing Islamic populations.

I have heard criticism of Buddhist monks, but it was more about the caste system.  Which, I think, is more cultural than religious?  I honestly don't know.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm assuming that if an sufficiently powerful god is keeping people alive forever with the intention of not torturing them (also assuming that's the intention here), he can do something to make it non-torturous.

Depends on what qualifies as torturous, I think. LDS theology says that heaven/hell is just being stuck with people like you...but if you're bad enough, that can be pretty bad.

The LDS understanding of eternal punishment basically boils down to 'Hell is recognizing how badly you messed up, and being stuck with similar people for eternity'.  They're not actively tortured, but are left without much power, glory or various eternal benefits, and are the very last in line to get their bodies back (LDS believe that everyone gets their bodies back, just some get it a lot sooner).  It's generally considered horrifying and shameful in the same way that people who wasted their lives are horrified at being compared to people who made good choices, but it's also simply a natural consequence of their priorities in life.

The 3 degrees of glory take effect post-Spirit-World, where everyone gets the Gospel preached to them and a chance to accept it if they want. They are:

1) Celestial, where God lives and everything is awesome. Getting in here requires making eternal covenants with God. Compared to the sun.

2) Terrestial, where honorable and good people live, who maybe followed the Gospel but weren't valiant in it, or who were just good people and always tried to do the best but don't want the Gospel. Compared to the moon.

3) Telestial, comprised of liars, whoremongers, adulterers, etc. People who deliberately made bad choices.  Compared to the stars.

That's the end of the those who receive glory. 

The worst punishment is 'outer darkness', reserved for people who genuinely embraced evil, and they basically are cut off from being powerful and awesome forever due to their deliberate embracing of bad, abusive and vile decisions. 

"For they shall be judged according to their works, and every man shall receive according to his own works, his own dominion, in the mansions which are prepared;" Doctine & Covenants 76: 111   There's a bunch more in 76 outlining how people will be organized in the different degrees, it's pretty interesting https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76

Thanks for explaining this, Ghills!
I apologize for suggesting that the LDS missionaries I talked to were telling me what I wanted to hear.  It's true that I heard a rumor, but repeating mere rumors is intellectually dishonest and disrespectful.  Thanks for giving a thorough explanation instead of calling me out on that.

[TD1]

And new religions bug me. If there's a deity out there that cares about humanity I think that they would've already contacted us prior to 1954. And they don't fill a need like the ancient religions did; there's very little out there that's still unexplained and needs explaining, and much of what is still unexplained is esoteric particle physics trivia that isn't very relevant to day to day life.

2000 years ago, I'm sure the people saw Christianity as an upstart-religion. In fact, less. A small cult with a few peasant followers.

Hinduism, I think, is the oldest "alive" religion AFAIK. Christianity is the newfangled one.

[i2amroy]

I have heard criticism of Buddhist monks, but it was more about the caste system.  Which, I think, is more cultural than religious?  I honestly don't know

The caste system is sorta a cultural thing that got incorporated into religion deeply enough that it stuck in a lot of ways, similar to, just as a random example, a lot of the kosher stuff in the Jewish system (as always, correct me if I'm wrong). The main purpose of it is to serve a cultural purpose, but it's been around for so long that it's sorta entrenched in the religious system as well.

(That said IIRC there is a fair bit less of the caste system present in buddhism then there is in Hinduism).

[Bohandas]

About that, there should be a tvtropes page titled "All religion is fundamentalist christianity" because, seriously, tell me the last time you heard someone complain about Buddhists or something like that.

Fundamentalist Christianity gets the most attention because it's an easy target, and it's also aggressively trying to re-establish control over secular life.  Hence it's "attacked" by people trying to defend the status quo.  No one minds because it's extreme, even to other Christians.

Normal Christianity is much harder to criticize, because even typical Baptists at my grandmother's church agreed that problematic portions of the Bible were metaphorical, or deprecated by Jesus.  Pretty much everything which conflicts with science gets thrown out.  So it gets less criticism, because it's like the reed in a storm.  It bends but doesn't break, while the fundamentalist oak holds firm until it falls.  Also normal Christians are normal, so any criticism of them comes off as an extremist "attack" (as opposed to attacking fundamentalists, which no one minds).

...

Fundamentalist Islam would receive similar attention except that it's a bit alien to Westerners.  It does get a lot of discussion though, particularly in areas with growing Islamic populations.

Also, if you criticize Islam then overly PC people will accuse you of being racist.

[Bohandas]

And new religions bug me. If there's a deity out there that cares about humanity I think that they would've already contacted us prior to 1954. And they don't fill a need like the ancient religions did; there's very little out there that's still unexplained and needs explaining, and much of what is still unexplained is esoteric particle physics trivia that isn't very relevant to day to day life.

2000 years ago, I'm sure the people saw Christianity as an upstart-religion. In fact, less. A small cult with a few peasant followers.

Yes, but it was a direct offshoot of Judiasm, a well established religion. Wicca isn't a direct offshoot of anything.

[Frumple]

Go to the bush for a few days, take a knife, good boots, warm clothing, small amount of food. Dried meat, some rice,
And you will find your 'self' thinking.. "oh a burger would be good right now, i feel like a coffee, this food is getting boring I want to eat a ham sandwich" you may even make a mental list of the foods you are going to eat upon going back home.
This is what you are evolved to do.
Meditation is realising these thoughts as they appear, sometimes even before they appear. Realising that you just live in your thoughts all your life without actually thinking about it.
Enlightenment is release from this way. Liberating yourself from millions of years of endless thoughts.
Have fun meditating, remember it takes practice. Its not something you pick up in a year or two.
Dont try for a few months then say you are adept at it, thats just hipster.

... the first bit isn't really evolution, nor is it a universal thing. I've been in that situation and... it doesn't work like that for everyone. I'm perfectly content to eat more or less the same thing and drink plain water pretty much indefinitely. It can be part of the socialization process, but it's not a terribly physiological thing.

As to the second bit, there's quite a few different sorts of meditation. Some of them -- frankly, the kind I personally use the most -- have absolutely nothing to do with thought processes and are entirely physical (ordered and organized breath and muscle control, in my case). Others focus on various different things and obtain their goal via different methods than what you're describing. Don't try to pigeonhole a very complicated and diverse practice, yeah?

Does tend to take a while to really pick up on, regardless, I'll give that. Do note that even relatively little time of some of the more basic, more physical sorts can net pretty good returns, though -- there's a reason simple breath control, a standard meditative practice, is part of a fair number of medical practices these days, even if just for short and temporary periods. It's good stuff.