Losing your religion

Did Dante go to heaven and come back to tell us all about it?

Did you say "IF" they exist??? Are you the atheist? i can't remember. so if you say "IF", you also realize that you are saying that there is a possibility they DO exist?? hmmm, verwy intewesting.

 

Dante just used his imagination.

I'm pagan, not atheist. I don't think heaven & hell exist as places--possibly they are states of mind.

 

but when you die your mind stops working, so the way you think they couldn't exist cause your beliefs are that when your body dies, you put it in the ground and that's the end, is that how Pagans think? i'm not being a smartass, i'm just asking cause i really don't know anything about Pagans, i just thought they were this biker gang that is here in roanoke. i didn't know it was like some religion, i just thought it was a name they used.

 

I appreciate your sincere interest, jb. Pagans are definitely not atheists--people who don't believe in any god at all. But they do vary widely in their individual beliefs. It's not a truly "organized" religion, & we don't feel it's necessary for all of us to agree on any sort of doctrines. (I suspect the bikers chose the name because most people think of the word "pagan" as meaning "anti-god.")

Some of us are agnostic--meaning we say we "don't know" whether or not there is any sort of supreme being. Others believe in a variety of gods &/or goddesses. Personally, I suspect there is something "out there," but think there's too much conflicting information to form a solid opinion about who or what it is. I tend to think of it as a form of energy. Some think of gods & goddesses in very literal terms. But when I talk about a god or goddess, I'm generally just giving a limited name to some PART/ASPECT of what I suppose is an infinite sort of being.

I do think life goes on in some way after we die. It just seems natural & logical to me that it would. There is some biological law or other that I can't recall exactly at the moment . . . I'll have to look it up. Something about matter & energy not being able to be destroyed, only changed from one form to another.

Generally, paganism is a term that's applied to what we call "earth-based religions." Pagans tend to see ALL earthly things--plants, animals, people, stones, the soil itself, etc.--as divine, or as having an element of spirit. We tend to place supreme importance on the here & now, as opposed to many of the major religions, which try to get followers to focus on a reward in an afterlife.

It's far too varied & complicated to cover briefly, but I hope that gives you an idea of where I'm coming from

 

That's a very good explanation... well done!

 

It's not google cutting and pasting, I only looked at google to find research on a homosexuality gene. And no, I didn't look at all the material.

 

Fred, I know what your saying, and I don't think you made a conscious choice either. But logically, it can't be a gene. If sexuality is a gene, then there is only one way to explain bisexuality, co-dominance. I'm assuming you know what that is, but for those who don't it means that if you inherit both alleles, they are expressed equally in the phenotype. Now, if that's true, then the only way to be heterosexual is to inherit two copies of the heterosexual allele. If you do Punnent squares, then it comes down to about 25% of the world should be straight, and half of the world should be bi. To me, that doesn't seem right. That doesn't mean there definitely isn't a homosexual gene, but it makes it highly unlikely.

 

Not like, "I wanna fuck another man" tendencies.

 

Something I forgot in the first post. It also means that if you're parents were straight, you'd HAVE to be straight as well.

 

Both my wife and I are right handed. Both my children are left handed. WTF happened?