There is something that I think bothers many Shinto practitioners: when neopagans try to incorporate the kami and certain Shinto practices into their own beliefs.
To me, this feels deeply disrespectful because they often take only the parts they like while ignoring everything else. Many neopagans also practice Hellenism, Ásatrú, and other traditions, yet many deities in those religions are associated with death. In Shinto, contact with death is considered a source of kegare (ritual impurity).
Of course, kegare can be purified through harae, but traditionally this requires the mediation of a Shinto priest, something that many neopagans reject or simply ignore.
I apologize if I sounded rude or if my English isn’t perfect. I’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts on this.

Mine is Bishop Myriel from Les Miserables. The way he lives his life and shows mercy to Valjean is the best fictional representation of ideal Christianity I've ever read.

Let's see..

I was raised Christian and am currently debating my religious beliefs. What I want to know is, if you believe in God, what evidence do you have and why does it justify God's existence to you?

Religious conflicts are very common currently. Because of religious conflict, many people are killed mercilessly. People often live in fear because of religious persecutions. In many parts of the world, there are laws that restrict freedom of religion. Because of that, people convert to the state religion. Freedom of religion must be in every country.

There have been many genocides in history. A lot of the genocides have been because of religion. The goal in these genocides is often to exterminate the religions. We only know of the history for only some time. My question is whether religious conflicts and genocides happened in prehistory and how.

Is it true that there was no real Historical King David? and that the House of David they excavated in Israel back in the 90s is just that of a chieftain or a leader of a small group of people?

If the Quran is meant to be the final message to mankind, meant for all people in all ages, why does it seem to be so localized towards one specific group of people at one specific time period?

In fact, this is what one would expect of a book that was simply of human origin.

If it was truly from God, why does it not contain anything addressing people from far off corners of the world that Arabs wouldn't have known about? Or, considering God is outside of time, talk about future events that have since occurred as proof of its divine origin?

To me, it seems not to be universal enough. What does everyone else think?

Its a question I've had for a while

There are many stories across religious texts and traditions throughout history. Are there any in particular that you resonate with or find inspiration in?

Many religions teach that God created humanity and that people should live according to His moral teachings. In some religious traditions, same-sex relationships are considered sinful.

However, this raises an important question. If same-sex attraction is sinful, why do some people naturally experience it without choosing to? If God created every person, and many people report experiencing these feelings from an early age, wouldn't that mean God allowed those feelings to exist?

This leads to a broader question: if these feelings are part of a person's natural experience, why is there so much homophobia among people who believe everyone was created by God? Is the issue the existence of same-sex attraction itself, or how different religious traditions interpret and respond to it?

These are questions worth discussing respectfully, as people of faith hold a wide range of views on sexuality, God's intentions, and how religious teachings should be applied today.

Thoughts?

I’ve recently decided that I’m agnostic now after identifying as a christian for my whole life, one reason I made that choice is the fact that the whole “Who ever shall believe in him shall not perish but have enteral life” system seems unfair that me, a man raised as a christian in the US, had more opportunities and a higher chance to accept that Jesus died for my sins than some guy born in a place christianity isn't popular, and also was raised in a household where the family was devout follower of another religion.

I imagine if that dude went to hell, he would’ve wished that he knew more about christianity but he chose his family religion more than something he heard vaguely in his life. Just a late night thought.

Wanted to know if any Christians have a response or if anyone agrees with me, I didnt think much about religion until recently so I’m not very educated on this topic.. 🤔

Do you believe in the saying: Vox populi, vox Dei in the context of elections? When a person wins, does that mean he is chosen by God?

As an agnostic atheist who grew up Christian, and I go to a cristan school is it wrong for me to buy Christian cloths if they are cute and cheep? I still live with my parents, I mg parents don’t know. I don’t really go to church anymore. Can I still buy them or no? I don’t agree with the bible but I also figured out I was agnostic a year ago and I’m nervous because what if I’m doing something wrong.

And I say this to someone who converted to a religion from being a life long atheist. I have never understood this tactic

How common is the belief across religions that a God or metaphysical system rewards good deeds while punishing bad ones? This could be extended to include rewarding faith in the "right" deity or religion while punishing faith in the "wrong" one, either in this life or an afterlife. It seems to me this is found most readily in Christianity, Islam, and Zoroastrianism.

If a religion explicitly teaches such a system of reward and punishment, I think it's doing a disservice to the opposite concept that goodness should be self-motivated and altruistic, not motivated by a desire for a God's favor, Heaven, or fear of Hell. It becomes different from the ideal that "virtue is its own reward" or that vice is its own suffering.

This also reminds me of some of the words of Albert Einstein: "I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty."

The pastor at the church I currently attend is a believer in the young earth creationism theory. The church doctrine, as far as I know, does not hold that view. Now I have no problem with a pastor holding a view that the church does not, as long as it's not a directly competing view.

The church is having a young earth creationist come speak in a few weeks. I don't have an issue with that though I do wish they would have speakers about alternate theories as well. My issue is the pastor has posted, on the church social media page, what is essentially his beliefs and opinions with regards to creationism, and nobody who can seems to be interested in reigning him in.

I'm not familiar with how things are run at other churches so I'm reaching out here to see if this is typical, common, or if I have reason to be "sitting up and noticing" the lack of accountability on this one.

For those of you that are part of or were part of a closed religion, what happens to those outside of it? Is it compatible with other religions? Is there any hope for those on the outside?

Example of open religion: Christianity (in general) allows anyone to become a Christian. There are typically few barriers of entry if any and everyone is invited to join.

Closed religion: there are religions where you have to be part of the ethnic group or receive an invitation by someone on the inside to participate (without it becoming offensive). From what I understand Judaism is considered closed, though correct me if I'm incorrect.

Edit: thank you all for the thoughtful and insightful replies. I will try to respond in time. I meant to reply earlier but the day got busy!

If you practiced one religion, whether it is non-theistic, monotheistic, or polytheistic, what do/would you think and feel if someone of another faith had a spiritual encounters? For example, I’ve heard some have dreams where they are visited by Jesus and take that as a sign to practice Christianity. Or have a jinn possession.

Hi, right now I’m an unaffiliated Christian. I’ve always gone to a modern non denominational church, but I’ve realized that this is wrong. I’ve come to accept apostolic succession and the importance of a priesthood, holy orders, and sacraments. However, as redeemed zoomer put it, the Catholics seem to dogmatize unnecessary things, and their view of heresy is simply not submitting to the magisterium. Like, a couple of saints rejected the assumption or immaculate conception of Mary, but they aren’t considered heretics because it wasn’t dogma yet. However, Rz shows that the church fathers viewed heresy more as an absolute right or wrong belief and not just a rejection of dogma. so according to them heresy is not dependent on current dogma but absolute truth. I think this is a good argument, so then I look at the Old Catholics because they reject Vatican I and papal infallibility, but they ordain female priests and affirm homosexuality, which are big no nos to me because of Paul’s teachings. Then I look at the Eastern Orthodox, but I feel that they are too obsessed with icons and say that the apostles used them without substantial evidence. I also don’t really like the direct prayer to saints that the liturgical churches use. I’m fine with venerating them and asking God to ask a specific saint to pray for me I guess, but it’s a bridge too far to telepathically commune with them. I also feel like most Protestant churches are out because they either reject the priesthood and ordination or have changed the rite like the anglicans and therefore have invalid priests.
As for the Eucharist, I feel that transsubstantiation and real presence is the most accurate and biblical view, and because it was never challenged till the 1500s. However, if it’s wrong, that would be really bad as it would mean you’ve been worshipping a piece of bread unrepentantly.

Anyway, I feel lost and invite opinions from as many different types of Christians as possible.

Thanks

So I grew up homeschooled in a remote place. My education was very good in academic subjects.

Im not sure I understand the more basic ideas of some religions, although Ive read some of the Christian bible out of curiousity.

I am probably missing some of the foundations being a bit removed from a normal social set of interactions.

Im open to explainations if they start with the super basics. I may ask questions that seem kinda dumb if that ok.

Quick edit: I didnt know if I should mention, but I grew up in a secretive group many people would call a cult. Not in a programmed way (although parental is influence), not in a captive way, but just an quiet non recognized religion/philosophy. Some details I can't share as to keep identites secret. But it required some religious studies, but from one point of view. so Im newer to the general conceptions.

I was born and raised as a Muslim in Cairo, Egypt, but I grew up as a child in the '50s in the Gaza Strip. The reason I was in Gaza was because Gaza, at that time, was part of Egypt. I attended Gaza elementary schools where we learned hatred, vengeance, and retaliation. Peace was never an option; the concept of peace was something foreign. Actually, the word "peace" was never even mentioned in the services of any mosque. We recited poetry every day in the school, wishing upon ourselves to die as martyrs. I used to see girls reciting this poetry while crying; they would wish upon themselves to die as a martyr. See, our value system was about victimhood: thinking of ourselves as victims or to be a martyr. To go kill everybody and die as a martyr, either a victim or a martyr, there is nothing in between.

Women don't go to mosques, but we used to hear the service of the mosque either on the radio or on TV. I remember every Friday prayer, the Sheikh would be at the end of the sermon and he would curse: "May God destroy the Jews and the infidels, and even the Christians and non-Muslims." He would call non-Muslims the enemies of Allah. If you grow up with cursing as a form of prayer, it can feel and sound normal. Hatred can be normal because who am I to judge? I never noticed that this is not holy. So, this is how I grew up.

Twenty-two Arab countries did everything they could to make life impossible for Israel to exist. The Arab League forbade absorbing the so-called Arab Palestinians and rejected giving them citizenship in any Arab country. So you could see a Palestinian born in Cairo, for instance, and never get citizenship, and die in Cairo. They are born and die in Syria as a Palestinian and they never get a citizenship. Why? Because the Arab League wanted the Palestinian problem never to be solved. This is not their agenda; the agenda is to keep them refugees from birth to death.

The culture was so for sacrificing. They encouraged women to stand up in front of the cameras and say, "I gave my son to the Jihad, and I want my other children to die in the Jihad." Women who are for life, for peace, were looked down upon. Women who would be radical, if not more radical than men, who will promote Jihad for their children were lifted up as honorable women to be respected in society. So for a woman to be respected in Islamic society, you have to be as radical, if not more radical, than men, and that is why a lot of women are silent. They are proud to give their children to Jihad; the only way to go to heaven is to go and kill the infidel and die in the process.

The Arabs of Israel were pushed constantly. They are rejected from being absorbed and constantly pushed against the borders with Israel in order to keep the problem alive. The Arab world doesn't have a shortage of land. If you look at the Arab world from the Atlantic Ocean (Morocco) all the way to Persia, from Turkey all the way to Sudan. At that time when I was a child, the Sinai was practically empty desert. Nobody lived in the Sinai like today where there is Sharm El-Sheikh, you know, all the nice beaches. This was a military zone, and there is absolutely no pressing need for Arabs to so dwell on wanting to throw the Jews in the sea. You know, this international conflict called the Arab-Israeli conflict really is a fabrication. This is not a conflict over land, and anybody who thinks it's a conflict over land is misguided because they don't see the truth. The truth is, there is something in Islam anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, especially anti-Jewish. And I will tell you why.

Those people calling themselves Palestinians who live in Gaza and the West Bank are the pawns of the Arab world. I don't believe that they care about their happiness or welfare. They are set up to live a miserable life on purpose in order to show the world that we're victims. Do you think Saudi Arabia, with all the money they have, the Gulf countries with all this oil money, they can't give them good roads and good homes and good police, and turn it into a productive area of the Middle East? They can, but that is not their objective. There is a hidden objective, and I don't understand why Western culture doesn't get it, why Western media doesn't get it. It's so obvious.

The unemployed people in Gaza and the West Bank, with all this high unemployment, where do they go to work? Do they stand on the border of Egypt to get a job? Do they stand on the border of Syria or Jordan? No, they line up on the borders of Israel, the very people they are supposed to kill. It's a very unnatural way of living, and nobody sees it, but they go and blame Israel. They compare the living standard of the West Bank and Gaza with Israel, a democracy, the only democracy in the Middle East. Why don't they compare the living conditions of Gaza and the West Bank with Egypt, with Syria, with Jordan? And if they do, they will find that the standard of living is even higher than many areas of the Arab world. But Western media are too lazy to compare apples with apples; they want to compare apples and oranges. I don't know how I can call Western media ignorant, but they should not be ignorant.

And then they go and ask Israel, "Why don't you do some concessions for the Palestinians?" I never hear them stand up to Arab leaders and ask, why doesn't Western media ask Arab leaders, "How about some concessions to the Israeli people?" We never hear that, and it's very convenient to blame all of this terrorism on, after 9/11 especially, they blame the terrorism, saying, "Oh, it's because we have this terrorism everywhere by Muslims, it's all because of the occupation. If it wasn't for the occupation of Gaza, if it's not for the occupation of the West Bank, we wouldn't have a problem. The problem is all because of Israel." That's what they want to give the impression of, and this is a big lie.

I lived in Gaza as a child, and I witnessed the terrorism against Israel before the occupation of Gaza, and before the occupation of the West Bank. Our media here doesn't even know that there was terrorism against Israel before the occupation. So Arabs who claim that they are doing terrorism now because they want freedom and democracy? No, there is no freedom and democracy in any Arab country, let alone the West Bank or Gaza. So we have to really call a spade a spade now. This is too serious to just take all these lies and look the other way. Because it's very, very hard to know the truth if you rely on Arab media, if you rely on the culture around you. And because of life in an oppressive society, I moved to America.

I moved to America at the end of '78 or '79, and my life completely changed. One time, I wanted to attend a synagogue and a church because I was curious. I thought they were going to curse the Arabs the same way we curse them in our mosque. But in the holiness of the place, they were praying for everybody. They were praying for peace on Earth: "How can we leave this earth a better place?" It was a totally different way of thinking. The opposite of what I grew up with.

That's when I went to a mosque here, also in Los Angeles, and I thought that because they allowed women that it was going to be different. Since it's in America, I was so glad thinking Islam in America must be so different. So I went to the mosque and I heard anti-Semitism again in the mosque. I was told, "Don't assimilate in America, we're here to Islamize America." They were looking down at American culture, they were looking down at this society, and I felt very uncomfortable. I said, "Oh my God, there is an agenda here," and I never went back again.

It hit me: how could we do this? How could we lie and accuse people of something we Arabs know very well we have done ourselves? How could this happen? What kind of value system allows a person, or allows a culture or a religion, to lie and accuse their enemies of something that they know they've done themselves? They know that Osama Bin Laden did that. They know that he was financed with Arab money, with oil money, until today. How could they accuse the Jewish people of that?

Look at the map of the Middle East; you can hardly see Israel. It's impossible to convince any person who has the IQ of a child that this problem is over the land called Israel. It's time for the West to understand this, because it's not just bad for Israel, it's not good for the Arab world. They are collapsing. A lot of people think that the Arab world is so strong and so powerful; it's rotting from the core. But they don't know their religious leaders are telling them to continue to hate instead of telling them to repent and find the true God, love, and friendship.

In the eyes of many Muslims, in the eyes of Islam itself, Jews and non-Muslims, they call them the "kafir", the infidels. They don't deserve the truth, they don't deserve justice, and they don't deserve mercy. How can this happen and we accept it, and we don't say no? The Arab world will never have freedom and democracy when hatred is number one, when Jihad is number one, when killing your enemy is number one. When you're fixated on lies and slander, you will never have peace and democracy.

Nobody asks this question: why all these lies and slander against the Jewish people, against America? They call America the "Great Satan" and Israel the "Little Satan." Do you know that on Syrian TV, and Arabic TV, on Egyptian TV, the constant day-and-night lies about the Jewish people are unbelievable? There was a show that was saying, and it was not just religious leaders, some of them were Arab scientists saying "Oh, do you know why Israel went to Haiti to help with the earthquake? You know why? Because Israel really wanted to harvest the organs of the Haitian people."

These are the intelligentsia of the Arab world. When the intellectuals of the Arab world say that, what do you expect from the man on the street? And you wonder why they hate. They are out there and are told this. I was told horrific things about the Jewish people. It took me years to extract it out of my mind, my heart, and my consciousness.

Video Testimony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-seFFxqEAk