for myself, i don't like any religion or spirituality. for others, my opinion varies from apathy to 'i wish you didn't exist,' depending on how much people use it to define themselves and whether they use it to justify being an asshole

Uh-oh Liquidwave by admitting your radical views Floasis' Terror Alert has risen to orange.


But more alarmingly Floasis' Teenage Identity Alert has risen to DEFCON FIVE RED ALERT!!!!!!




What happened to you being Buddhist and wandering the earth like Kane? You already give up on that?



Let me give you some advice... I know... I know... you're a teenager and know everything.... but please stop defining yourself through these abstract religions and philosophies. It's not the ideas so much that are going to get you in trouble it's going to be the predators who use your naivety to their advantage. 

I keep ignorant with most religion tbh... But I guess I am agnostic. I stick with "if I see it, i'll believe it". Sure some would say "Get out there and discover" but I have the mindset that I have better things to do... for now anyway.

It seems to me that Alyosha was even more of a realist than the rest of us. Oh, of course, in the monastery he believed absolutely in miracles, but in my opinion miracles will never confound a realist. It is not miracles that bring a realist to faith. A true realist, if he is not a believer, will always find in himself the strength and ability not to believe in miracles as well, and if a miracle stands before him as an irrefutable fact, he will sooner doubt his own senses than admit the fact. And even if he does admit it, he will admit it as a fact of nature that was previously unknown to him. In the realist, faith is not born from miracles, but miracles from faith. Once the realist comes to believe, then, precisely because of his realism, he must also allow for miracles.

This question really needs to be divided in to two parts- what does one think of Islam and what does one think of Muslims?

The reason I phrase it this way is that most Americans don't know squat about Islam. And to be upfront, I don't profess to know much either. However, with less than 10% of Americans able to name the 5 pillars of Islam, if we can't even name what lies at the heart of this religion, we can't form an educated opinion. Separate from issues of whether one believes in it (sorry, sticking to my usual Ecclesiastes style on faith issues here), the pillars are very logical in how they support religion. They are a declaration of faith (shahada), daily expression of faith (through prayer- salat), annual expression of faith (fasting and more at Ramadan), a once in a lifetime expression of faith (pilgrimage to Mecca- hajj), and support of others faith (tithing- zakat).

I learned the above from an incredibly informative book, "Who Speaks for Islam?" which really opened my eyes on these issues. It also shaped my views on what I think for the second question- what does one think of Muslims? In the wake of 9/11, Gallup performed tens of thousands of hours of interviews with Muslims in 35 countries to form a comprehensive understanding of what Muslims really think. The version for the lay person was released as the above book. The results are eye-opening. Americans are more supportive of a theocracy through the Bible than practically all Islamic countries are through the Qu'ran. In terms of willingness to attack unarmed civilians if one felt it would protect one's own country, Americans are more than twice as likely. The list goes on and on, but the evidence is clear- if we are to stereotype Muslims as extremists, as a country we must first be more introspective as we are far more likely to justify our own radical views according to this book.

T
  (Matthew 7:1)