I am sorry about condensing the lists for some religions, and leaving quite a few off. Aslo with Islam, I am fairly ignorant of the sects, and I have a surface knowledge of Jewish Sects, so if you would like to educate me, please do, I would love to know more. If your religion was not listed, I apoligize, and please tell me what you believe if you are comfortable.

This is for curiosities sake only, as I do like to learn about other religions.

To start it off, I am Baptist.

I voted other. I'm an agnostic, not an atheist.

I've been brought up semi-Catholic, semi-Anglican. I was baptised an Anglican, and I go to an Anglican highschool.. but I've never been to church (apart from being baptised and going to a friendof the family's uhh.. 12-year old thingy that I can't remember the name of right now, gah). I'll go with athiest, but I'm more agnostic at the moment.

To Nika, First Communion I beleive

edited to prevent misinformation....

Not at all. The prefix a- means 'without'.

Gnosticism: The doctrines of certain pre-Christian pagan, Jewish, and early Christian sects that valued the revealed knowledge of God and of the origin and end of the human race as a means to attain redemption for the spiritual element in humans and that distinguished the Demiurge from the unknowable Divine Being.

Agnosticism: a religious orientation of doubt; a denial of ultimate knowledge of the existence of God; "agnosticism holds that you can neither prove nor disprove God's existence" 2: the disbelief in any claims of ultimate knowledge

BIG difference.

Well now I feel dumb... *pulls out his bat and is going to go beat his bible study partner.* Be right back...

*loud noises, and a cracking noise*

Ok... let me see if I can add Agnostic to the poll...

I would think that Agnosticism falls under all catagories. you Can be an Agnostic Catholic or Orthodox jew just as much as any other religion. Because to as quote all the big religious thinkers... Faith starts with doubt. And most religions deal with a lot more subjects than just the belief in a god's existance, otherwise Christianity, Islam and Judaism would all be the same religion.

Hrm, yeah. You're probably right. I thought there was another, special, name for it..

I've always found religion to be more the angle at which you view the prism of life from rather than whether or not you believe in this metaphysical reality or another.

For example.. I always feel I can tell that people who I'm with are Jewish because of the way they look at things, or what they prioritize more than anything else.

Just out of curiosity, can you give some examples Daganev? Other than Christian people automatically assuming that everyone else is Christian (Which I don't really have a problem with seeing as the great majority of people here are, however annoying it may be to remind people that I'm not), I've never noticed any great differences in worldview between people I know of various religions...

There are minor differences, for example in Islam, one of the pilars is generosity and kindness, which is why if you ever piss off a Muslim (at least in my experience.) they tend to be polite with you, even if they are telling you, you angered them.

However, it is hard to tell no matter how good you are at reading, espically Jewish/Christan...

Jews tend to feel portable wealth is worth more than non portable wealth, such as knowledge and or money. Or getting jobs that do not require you to be under the authority of a "boss".


There also seems to be a strong leaning towards "social causes."

the guys I play poker with, I find the non jewish people are more willing to lend money during the game, while my jewish friends tend to lend money only before or after the game.

I was born into an Athiest family, raised as an Athiest, grew into an adult Athiest, and still am an Athiest.

I don't try to convert anyone, but all of my friends who were religious when I became friends with them, always end up becoming athiest or agnostic.

Personally, I don't understand Athism... some things that happen just can't be explained scientifically. Although I wont say its wrong, just I do not understand it, same as I don't understand the Jewish people, or a Muslim...

I feel the same way. But the way I see it, when someone says they are an aethiest, they normally mean that they reject the definition of a god that they were perceived to need to believe in.

To be truly aethiest you would have to believe in complete randomness.

I can understand that some things haven't yet been explained scientifically, but I believe that everything has a perfectly logical reasoning behind its happening, and that everything can be explained, humans just haven't scientifically discovered/proved it yet. I, personally, can't understand how a religion could possibly exist, so I take the opposite stance to you.

I'm not sure exactly if I'm agnostic or athiest, but this is what I believe:
I believe that the is probably a perfectly explainable reason behind everything, although I don't discard any ideas, I don't completely doubt anything. Like, to me, there could possibly be a chance of being a god(s), but that chance is like 1/100000000000000000000. There could possibly a chance that we are all in a computer program (maybe like The Matrix), and aliens are running this program for some unknown reason, but the chance of that is still only 1/100000000000000000000 (although I mentioned that, I don't take this topic as a joke). I believe anything is possible, but I also believe everything can be scientifically explained.

Dammit , now I've gone and confused myself .

I'm a pentecaustal christian (You know those huge black churches with lots of people singing? *grin*) but that wasn't listed, so I figured it was more down a "Protestant" christian route being as we dont belive in the trappings of religion like the catholics.

I was born into a fiercely atheist family and somehow took up faith at the tender age of 3 years old, and have remained so to this day. I've seen some amazing things in my time, but I've become jaded towards my fellow "Christians" who I believe focus too much on religion and not enough on faith.

Most of my friends are agnostic at best, and those few I do know that are christian are mostly Catholics, and we have fun bagging each other out in good spirits about our respective sects.

I'm accepting of just about any faith that I believe promotes views which are helpful to people in general, and I have read the Koran in its entirety, as well as countless books on various occultic religious sects. I've also read most of the book of mormon (funnily enough I did so merely to understand my role as a mormon at a fancy dress party).

I take Samuel Clemens' view on free will and universal probability though, in that from a scientific perspective there is no randomness or chance. The angle and velocity at which the first atom struck the other atom determined every single interaction afterwards, unto the end of existance (which is never). In that way, we have no free will, and I am predestined to act as I do (though I'm also predestined to think that I have free will though muse over not truly having it).

As someone educated in University level physics, I also understand a good deal of Quantum Physics, which is interesting. Interestingly enough, nothing I have ever learned in any science (Except biology, which I dont consider to be a true science but more of a religion itself) has contradicted my ultimate faith. I tell you what though, Relativity sure screws with your head at its higher level applications...maybe we should all make a religion based around worship of the Lorenz Length Contraction equation.

I've gone through stages in my life where I 'believed' in things. In the end it was my Christian friends who turned me away from Christianity.... I doubt I'll remain Agnostic forever, but for the time being I am yet to find a religion that I am even mildly comfortable with.

I'd have to definitely agree with Zaltan, that everything can be scientifically explained, but we just haven't reached that point yet to be able to explain *everything*.

You can't believe that we've reached the cap on scientific knowledge. We still have a long way to go, and I know one day we'll get there. Look at the history of man (Meaning humans, by the way, not the gender). In medical books 500 years ago, mental illness was caused by demonic possession. That was a fact, by a religion-driven society. Would you personally believe that someone with schizophrenia is possessed by a demon and can be cured by exorcising it? Or do you believe that its a chemical imbalance in the brain due to genetic traits or unhealthy prenatal conditions?

The point is not to say you're wrong, but is just to say my opinion on the matter. I think anything can be explained, eventually, and that's my reasoning why.

Raised Baptist, currently agnostic, though I flirted with discordianism . And I'm a determinist (read: scientific fate).