What is your Faith ?

Sounds like fertile grounds for the seeds of Buddhism.

truth
I like to think of it, presumptously, of course, as the flowering of Buddhism.

Wilso, however you want to put it, people care about their own existence.

Duke, I don't mean that religion would cause a lack of history (yes, written history) and memory - I mean that the same thing that causes religion also causes people to care about their pasts. As for the Holocaust, religion didn't cause it - Hitler's frustration with the system created by World War I caused it. I don't think he even justified his actions with religion (though I could be wrong).

Very ironic, considering born Catholic, graduated from a Jesuit High School, and study medieval religion!

1. Neo-Pagan (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (89%)
3. Reform Judaism (87%)
4. Liberal Quakers (83%)
5. New Age (83%)
6. Hinduism (81%)
7. Jainism (80%)
8. Mahayana Buddhism (78%)
9. New Thought (78%)
10. Scientology (76%)
11. Bahá'í Faith (73%)
12. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (68%)
13. Orthodox Judaism (67%)
14. Sikhism (65%)
15. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (63%)
16. Islam (60%)
17. Secular Humanism (58%)
18. Theravada Buddhism (54%)
19. Taoism (52%)
20. Orthodox Quaker (49%)
21. Nontheist (37%)
22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (31%)
23. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (28%)
24. Seventh Day Adventist (26%)
25. Jehovah's Witness (18%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (14%)
27. Roman Catholic (14%)

Born Catholic, baptized and went to catholic school and live with a catholic family but I am rated as:
Reform Judaism 100%
Sikhism 94%

It seems I have a similar belief with Ideal Singh

Sikhism is that close to Reform Judaism? That's interesting. I was sort of raised in Reform Judaism.

Waht a wonderful name for a characer in a cyberpunk story! May I?

Truth
Hobitbob, please explain your percentage system. I don't know what it refers to?

Its from the quiz listed in the first post.

I came up 100% Liberal Quaker. I do eat a lot of oatmeal.

Where's the Satanist category?

truth
Thanks, Hobitbob. That was fun. I'm content with my bottom scores (20%) for the three major religions: catholicism, Islam and Ortho.Judaism, but Universalist Unitarian 100%? Wow, I should look them up. I don't accept 91% for ""mainline to liberal christian protestant. Wonder what led to that. I should think that "secular humanism" would be a higher score (only 72%); I suspect that's because I favored too many Buddhist questions, yet the scores for Buddhism and Taoism were lower than I would have thought, probably because I do not believe in reincarnation, except as a nice metaphor for things happening in this life. I think that kind of throws off the scores for many people. One can be a Buddhist or a Christian (at least in terms of one's own self-ascriptions) without endorsing all doctrinal positions literally.

Orthodox Judaism isn't the main branch - that's Conservative Judaism. Orthodox and Reform Jews are the radical outliers.

That would be either the "Roman Catholic" or "Condervative Protestant" category. they are always willing to save your immortal soul. The hard part is remembering where they put it!

I was thinking about this last night and came up with an interesting thought. Consider a person with no contact with the external world. i.e. This person has lost the use of all his senses. He is blind, deaf, dumb, cannot taste or feel anything (touch, heat etc). He also is paralysed and cannot use any muscle. The only thing he CAN do is think. Also assume that he has no memory of life when he did possess all these senses.

Now under these conditions, what will "reality" mean for such a person? Since there is no contact or information transfer between him and what we call as the "external" world, will this external world even exist for him? Will it be included in his "reality set"? Will not the complete darkness be his entire universe and he (i.e. his thoughts) be the only entity existing in it?

Now, since all he can do is think, he comes up with the idea that there indeed exists such an "external" world where there are other beings like him and they possess a thing called as a "body" and can do activities like "seeing", "hearing" etc. How will he evaluate this idea to check if this is true or not? How will he decide whether this new idea of his represents reality or not? If he has no way of verifying this out and still accepts this idea as true, will not this new idea be simply a matter of faith for him ?

The situaton you propose would appear timeless and without change. For change to be percieved, movement in time/space has to occur. Your example does not provide for the subject to either move, or percieve movenment, hence no understanding of the sort of reality that we "exist" in.

What sort of thought is possible for an individual in this scenario? First, I very much doubt that the person would be able to concieve of the notion that they are an individual. Being cut off from difference, what and how might a person arrive at the idea that they exist as one of many? If the person could not separate themselves from others, wouldn't they be without personality, ego, etc. In such a world notions such as happiness, sorrow, or suffering would not, could not exist because they would be outside the "thinker's" experiential foundations.

This seems to draw us to the conclusion that thought itself, being a system of categorization and weighing of information, would be possible in terms we would understand. The individual and situation you describe might exist in our perception, and therefore be said to exist, but within their own perception no "thought" as we know it could exist.

If the the person can not think, at least in out terms, are they alive? The physical system that lies on the hospital bed may continue to process food and air into the constituent parts needed to sustain life, but wouldn't the "person" inside be "brain-dead". Without the electrical activity associated with "thinking" why wouldn't the plug be pulled?

What is it that makes us human anyway? Is it only the physical functioning of our bodies? Or is it something more, the thinking process by which we interact with a world of multiplicity and change?

Can we all agree on one thing?

Nobody knows for sure....any one of us could possibly be right.

If there's a God we'll find out when we die.
If there's not we'll just go to sleep.

If believing in God, and I mean in a sincere fashion that helps us conduct our lives in a positive manner turns out to be bullshit at the end, what have we lost, if that belief indeed produces a positive result in our lives?

That's the litmus test. If our beliefs right or wrong produce a positive result in our lives and the lives of those around us then good deal.

If they produce a negative result, and become wasteful or even dangerous, hurtful to others and ourselves then bad deal.

All of course in the opinion of your ever humble bipolar bear.

Just for the record:

1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (99%)
3. Liberal Quakers (84%)
4. Nontheist (80%)
5. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (79%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (71%)
7. Neo-Pagan (62%)
8. Taoism (49%)
9. New Age (44%)
10.Bahá'í Faith (43%)
11.Reform Judaism (42%)
12.Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (41%)
13.Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (39%)
14.Mahayana Buddhism (34%)
15.Orthodox Quaker (34%)
16.New Thought (32%)
17.Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (29%)
18.Sikhism (28%)
19.Scientology (27%)
20.Jehovah's Witness (26%)
21.Jainism (18%)
22.Seventh Day Adventist (18%)
23.Hinduism (14%)
24.Eastern Orthodox (12%)
25.Islam (12%)
26.Orthodox Judaism (12%)
27.Roman Catholic (12%)

Which contains few surprises for me. I am a secular humanist, I used to be a Unitarian Universalist, and I admire, although have never been, a member of the Friends.

Do I win? What is the prize?

truth
Greyfan, if you get the prize you have to share it with me. Our profiles are very similar. You know, of course, that we are going to Hell?

I am a firm believer in NothingDoesn't Suck-ism......