STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

blink · Coach

RE: Non-christian / religious members - thoughts?

nunzi182 · Kate Spade

I have brought this point up to my FH several times (actuallly whenever truly bad things happen). We are both Catholic, although he is not so much a believer where I am. Even when 9/11 hit four years ago, I was thinking of the end of times. I think these disasters are a direct correlation with the end of the earth.

I am very conflicted when it comes to this because while I believe that the apocolypse will occur eventually and that God get rid of things that aren't "right", I cannot believe that He could be behind such hateful acts when He is supposed to be a loving God.

That said, I do remember reading a Bible excerpt that told of how God killed a bunch of supposed "bad" people. The Bible is in effect a pretty scary "book", for lack of a better word, to read. The times were different and things were justified differently, which is why I find it so hard to live by rules that are 2000 years old.

It's very hard for me to against my beliefs and relilgion, but I am finding myself lately questioning the doctrines of the religion; not God, but the rules that were supposedly set in place by Him.

Is that making any sense?

esquiress · Marc Jacobs

I have no idea. i know that the muslim religion believes in "judgment day" or something along those lines but i don't know much more than that. i do find myself thinking whenever some kind of natural disaster happens or just something awful in general, "it's like the end of the world!" but i don't really take that thought much further than that initial reaction. because the thing is it's never the end of the world, the sun always rises the next day. and you just gotta keep on keeping on, you know? like what's the point of thinking about something you have absolutely no control over, something that might never even happen anyway?

oh and about katrina, i have no idea why it happened, but i believe very strongly that it wasn't to punish anyone. the God i believe in just isn't like that.

kisa · Dooney & Bourke

Card Game
Just wanted to paste this link, the pictures of the cards and the articles beside them are the important part. (scroll down :P) I am non-christian, I don't support organized religion. I think that the hurricane Katrina was strengthened by global warming, and when combined with weakened precautionary measures became a disaster. I think that the world will end when the sun ages, and expands, until it swallows the earth.

ayo · Coach

Unfortunately no one truly knows why Katrina happened. We can only speculate...

I don't think it's simply a freak of nature..or it's as a result of global warming. I do not believe things just happen nor do I believe that there is always "natural" explanation for everything.

I am also a believer (like honey I loathe the word religious) I believe that while God is a God of mercy he is also a God of judgement. When Sodom and Gomorah was destroyed everyone went down with it. Whether you were living "right" or not.

I don't know if what happened in New Orleans happened as a result of judgement. I personally have do not have a strong conviction either way. In the interim I choose pray for mercy and compassion towards those that lost everything in that disaster because I know that is what my God would rather have me do.

baglady · Nine West

I am of the school that believes that the earth is a self-regulatory "machine" so to speak. Maybe it is trying to control population, pollution, dependency on fossil fuels, etc.

tina242 · Kate Spade

My points on this matter and religion in general are very in tune with everyone else's (for once!). While we're being candid...

I read AndreaJulia's post and thought maybe I wrote it in my sleep. I am agnostic as well. I believe there is no way to know if there is a God (s). We humans invented God (s) (a very long time ago) to answer our questions of why/how we are here, and it is a BIG question. Just as we are baffled by space - does it end? Is in infinite? How? If it is, is time not? If time ends, what then? Black space that stands still? The Bible, Koran, etc. were written so long ago (by people) and have been passed down through sooo many generations. Technology has come such a long way. We know now that many of the things in the Bible are scientifically impossible, so the only way they could have happened was by a force or power we cannot begin to conceive, except by blind faith.

However, as for the end of time, I do not fear it. I don't have an answer to what happens after life, but I'm not going to make up a story either to explain it. I was raised Presbyterian (mom) and raised around Catholicism (dad, my friends, St. Louis in general). At an early age I was aware that they were instilling fear in us in church, and I did not appreciate it. I am not overcome by emotions - as in I am more rational. I have good morals and am giving/caring/loving by nature - I don't need to be threatened to be that way. I also do not fear an apocalypse. Believers often say that God is loving and just, but it's nonsensical for me to believe that he/she/it could do such a thing as kill off all his people b/c they were bad. Especially because he would have created us, so essentially he would punish us being what he made us to be. Could he have made us with the freedom to make choices to be moral or not, and then punish us for not doing what's right? Sure, but what in interesting game to play. And to be okay with sending us to hell, that's another story. Are he and the devil a team?

oops.....I wrote that and then read this:

lorelei: God gave people free will, to do evil or to do good. That is, if you believe that either. Now it would be an interesting world if God struck down evil doers...I remember thinking this when that internet televised beheading of Nic Berg (sp?) surfaced, I just wished that my God would just eliminate the terrorists who did this, but of course I knew better.

As for the recent natural disasters, the ST'rs have made many excellent points. I agree with SephoraBlue: "The reason things like the tsunami, and the hurricanes/cyclones, have the opportunity to be so deadly is because population has exploded so immensely, ESPECIALLY, in the case of Katrina, along the US Gulf Coast." -sephorablue

Another good point is the one about how there's been fear of the end of time since the beginning of time, by honey: "...also my basic (and somewhat limited understanding) is that people have been talking about the end of days, since the dawn of time." -honey