Korean Job Discussion Forums

[seoulunitarian]

Religious opinions are varied and often heated in the Cafe, and I have always wondered why certain believers are so firm in their convictions. It's one thing to wear a label, and it's quite another to defend that label. So here is your chance, and I hope to see many replies. There are no rules except staying on topic. Defend you position and be ready for criticism - I'll go first since it's my thread:

True to postmodern Gen X fashion, I have been part of and experimented in a host of religious and spiritual (they can be different) philosophies and groups. I was born into a Free Will Baptist family, and identified with that particular denomination until about the age 15. At that point, I thought I decided I was through with fundamentalist religion, and started to drift toward Unitarian Universalism. I found the philosophy of valuing the journey more than arrival at a destination alluring. Even though I no longer refer to myself as a UU, I still value the freedom I found in that group, and in some ways, make it part of my present faith.

When I was 19 years old, I met my now ex-wife, who is Southern Baptist. Her life-long dream was to be a missionary with the International Mission Board, and in order to do that, she needed to get a graduate education at the nearest Southern Baptist Seminary - New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. We moved there when I was 20. Since I never had the courage to fully remove myself from my childhood Baptist heritage, and never actually joined any particular UU group, I thought I could transition back into Baptist life. The reasons for this attempt are myriad. I am gay, and felt guily about that at the time, so I thought I could change that part of me by immersing myself in fundamentlist religion. I loved my ex-wife, and I did not want to be selfish in denying her the dream she always had. So I went to the seminary with her and finished my undergraduate degree there. I thought I was doing quite good keeping my sexuality and orthodoxy in check, so we signed up to be missionaries in China.

This was the biggest blessing in disguise of my life. We were in rural China, the only foreigners we knew of in the city. We lived there for about a year and a half. In the process of trying to convert people to a belief system that wasn't really my own to begin with, dealing with severe culture shock, and increasingly becoming aware that homosexuality wasn't something I could just sweep under the rug, I had a nervous breakdown. I did not leave our apartment in China for over a month. Our missionary supervisors who lived in Thailand had to come to our home in China and take me out of the country. While we were staying with them in Thailand, I told me wife I could no longer act straight (she knew about my sexuality before we were married - you will not understand the dynamics of the situation unless you grew up in a southern fundamentalist family), and that I did not really believe in Christianity. Needless to say, we were both pretty much in a state of shock. We took seperate flights back to the USA, where we attended counseling and finally agreed to divorce....

[seoulunitarian]

... Because my undergraduate degree is in religious education, and because I no longer believed in the religious part of my religious education degree, I couldn't really work in a job I liked in the US. So I thought my best option was coming to Korea to work on a Masters degree in another field.

I completed my Master's degree (and am almost finished with the 2nd one) in Korea. When I first arrived in Korea, I reveled in and cherished atheism. It was such a freeing philosophy for me. It was not a license to do as I pleased. It was simply a freeing of myself from a God who I thought was overbearing and sadistic. Gradually, I realized it was foolish to through the good out with the bad, and tried to reconcile my Christian faith with an acceptance of who I was as a gay man. The problem with this was not my gayness, as I thought, but the fact that I really could not intellectually believe in so many of the miraculous Christian doctrines. Try as I might to twist my mind around such doctrines as the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, etc., I just could not bring myself to "be" Christian.

For about a year, I lived in a sort of surreal, meaningless existence. Not that I was severely depressed. Everything just seemed completely nihilistic to me. I filled my emptiness with sex and alchohol. One day, I was a liberal Christian, the next, I was a pantheist, the next a Quaker or Unitarian. I even attended JeunSanDo meetings for about three months during this period. That was fascinating to say the least. However, I could not find that niche I so desired.

Finally (and I say that tentatively^^), I discovered Reformed Judaism. My grandmother was Jewish, and I remember the sense of meaning she derived from her faith. However, I also remember (as she was an orthodox Jew), the many senseless rules she had to follow. The beautiful thing I have discovered in Reform Judaism is a sense of change, not for the sake of change, but because faith is living, and living things grow. A stagnant faith really loses any effect it has if it refuses to grow and adapt. Reform Judaism teaches that God is constantly in a state of revealing Himself to his creation. To me, the beauty of this is that is keeps the follower from getting too arrogant, and it allows room for questioning. I can love God, and follow Him in Reform Judaism, without feeling locked into a stagnation of blind faith.

I feel that Reform Judaism will be my faith home for the remainder of my life because it is constantly expanding and encourages a faithful search of truth wherever that may lead.

Peace,
Daniel

[RACETRAITOR]

Without going into too many details, I'm atheist, because the jesus vampires failed to get me when I was young. They tried to take my sister by telling her that her family is evil and hates her. I guess you're not breaking any commandments if you're dishonouring someone else's parents, or trying to convince them to do so.

I'm third-generation atheist on my mom's side. My grandmother took her family out of church because she was tired of them all being treated like crap for being poor. Shortly after they made a fortune in real estate and the church suddenly was very nice to them. What did Jesus say again about how it's easier for rich people to get into heaven?

[4 months left]

Nobody knows for sure if there is a g/God and nobody knows for sure if there is no g/God, not the pope, not the head Muslim, not the head Jew, etc. I went to Catholic school until grade 8 and was forced to go to church until my early teens.

I think any religion is a crock. Some people think they need it for support. Everyone has problems, it is inevitable. If you realize that and know that you can eventually solve them with hard work or the passage of time, things will eventually get better.

Some people let stress and problems get to them and think a religion or g/God can save them.

I think if there is a g/God, he/she has more respect for someone who questions his/her existence rather than blindly following like a fish in a school, a bird in flock or a Korean at World Cup time .

[SPINOZA]

Agnostic, because it's just unknowable, so why bother even believing?

The really big questions like that lie beyond the graspability of human concepts and knowledge and I just simply don't know. There are some excellent arguments for the existence of God and there are likewise some great arguments for the nonexistence of God. It's very difficult for me to decide.

[Qinella]

Anyone ever heard the claim that there's no such thing as an atheist? Some jackass designed this feeble argument a couple years back, and weak-minded minions latched onto it and like to spew it forth when they want to look smart with a "gotcha" one-liner.

Anyway, let's look at some good working definitions of atheism:

Weak Atheist: Doesn't believe any gods exist.

Strong Atheist: Believes no gods exist.


By this measure, I'm a weak atheist.

[seoulunitarian]

[flotsam]

Avyakata

American Humanist Organization

[RACETRAITOR]

One time in a Korean university class, the professor got all the students to rank their religious convictions on a scale of 1 to 5. He then asked if anyone had chosen 5. My girlfriend was the only one to raise her hand.

He asked her, "You have really strong religious convictions? What is your religion?"

She replied, "Atheist."

He argued that it's impossible for her to choose 5, because she doesn't have any religious convictions.

Her reasoning? "I really really really don't believe God exists."

[Satori]

I refuse all labels...

[RACETRAITOR]

[Ya-ta Boy]

I consider myself an Apathetic. I don't mean that to sound as frivolous as it may seem.

While a theist or an atheist may have reasons for choosing a position, those reasons are essentially private reasons and don't work to convince anyone else, as far as I can tell. At the heart of the matter is a choice to believe one thing or another with no objective proof either way. In other words, there is no answer.

Until I was 15 or 16 I went to church and then gradually dropped out. Except for weddings and funerals I haven't been in a church since I was 20. I don't find any difference in how I live my life before and after I was a church-goer (except sleeping in on Sunday mornings).

It's my observation that people are either (mostly) good or not. Whether they are religious or not doesn't seem to be a factor in their behavior as far as I can tell. Slime balls come in religious and non-religious versions; good people do too.

So if the mystery has no answer and doesn't affect the way I or other people act, I can't see that it has any importance. Hence, my apathy.

[The Bobster]

Can't say that I've cared much about religion, despite the fact that I have had one or two things happen to me that clearly point to the presence of a spiritual world that exists alongside the one we experience daily with our senses. I grew up in a Presbyterian church in a suburrban city, but it served (for me) as a focus for a social life that could augment and enhance the group of people I knew from school. There was so much to doubt about the doctrines taught - and I enjoyed making the Sunday School teachers squirm by asking them - but I think I agreed with Pascal at the time that it constitutes a wholly favorable wager, low investment (one day a week) and maximum return (the possibility of eternal life).

My father encouraged my questions, and although he attended services with the rest of the family, I learned through late-night and weekend afternoon discussions with him that he really believed in some form or another of reincarnation. In truth, I tend to lean in that direction in my mind : as a teacher, it resonates somewhat to think of life as a series of lessons, and you will keep returning to the classroom until you do learn them.

Generally, though, I do think organized worship is not required by any Supreme Being to create all that we see around us and all that know exists due to science, as well the spiritual realm I spoke of earlier, which I cannot deny exists due to certain experiences I have had.

I do not pray, not because I think God doesn't care to hear from me, but rather because I think God already hears from me every single moment of every single day - hence, prayer is either an arrogant demand on my part to be heard, a desperate desire to communicate something back, or a craven plea for some sort of favor.

I think I've already been given everything I need to solve my problems, and I can express gratitude for that, but I don't think expressing it inside of a church or other kind of temple means more than if I simply quietly feel that gratitude inside myself as often as I can.

[flakfizer]

Hmmm. To post or not. As a theist (Christian), I am wary of this thread as I am almost certain to be in the minority and fairly certain to be attacked. I guess I can answer the question and leave it at that. I'm not going to get bogged down in a debate. It is difficult enough to have a meaningful discussion on this topic with one person face to face, let alone with several people on a message board. I am a theist for the simple reason that I know (there is a) God. That does not mean I can prove it to any of you. I cannot prove to you that I exist. I can't prove to anyone that my wife loves me. I don't have to. I know she does and that is enough. Some would say that it is arrogant to claim, "I know there is a God." I don't think so. At least, it is no more arrogant than to say, "I know there isn't a god," or "I don't know if there is a god or not and therefore, nobody else knows; If I don't know, no one can."
To claim to know God is to claim to know a part of reality. To claim you know there is no god, is to claim you know all of reality and that god(s) ain't there. To claim that no one can know is to claim that there is no one who might know something you don't.

[flotsam]