| You scored as Hedonism. Your life is guided by the principles of Hedonism: You believe that pleasure is a great, or the greatest, good; and you try to enjoy life?s pleasures as much as you can.
?Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!? More info at Arocoun’s Wikipedia User Page…
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That was quite an interesting one actually as I do regularly ponder about religion. Hope in writing this I won’t offend anyone as I am totally respectful of other people’s views on religion but these are mine…
I have never held any sort of religious belief – I recall asking my Mum as a very small child whether she believed in God – I think it was probably even before I started to doubt the existance of Father Christmas and she didn’t really have an answer. Both my parents are sketchy in what – if anything – they believe although they did have a church wedding and both me and my brother were christened aside from other B, D & M type occassions we never went to church.
Although I went to C of E schools they didn’t push religion much further that a hymn and the Lord’s Prayer in assembly each day – I used to sit and sing Rick Astley’s ‘never gonna give you up’ in my head as a protest to stop myself joining in with the prayer 🙂 I did do religious studies at GCSE simply because by then I developed a curiosity in the concept of religion and why people believed. I had a close friend at school who aged about 14 found God and was very vocal on the subject – her and I sat for hours and hours talking about it all.
Later at college I did A level sociology with a fair sized chunk of the course on religion. Again I really enjoyed that and found myself getting high grades for my essays about subjects such as ‘Marx described religion as the opiate of the masses. Discuss.’ Again I found the subject fascinating but in a very detached way, pertaining to why people believed as opposed to questioning whether or not there was anything to believe in.
I have over the years come into contact with people who have very strong religious beliefs and those who are happy to discuss it with me have given me all sorts of reasons for their belief. Faith is a very personal part of someone’s life but also a very large part. Reasons people have shared with me are that their faith makes sense of the world for them – quite often they are people who have suffered great sadness, bereavement or other difficult periods during their lives; I have met people who have strayed very far from the path and in trying to get back on track they have found God and that has helped them and aided them in forgiving themselves for their wrongs (real life Nicky Cruz’ if you will). I have met people who are simply ‘good’ and their faith is an extension of that and sadly I have also met people for whom religion is an excuse for their lifestyle choices – be it violence or prejudice in the name of following ‘their god’ . I also know a huge amount of people who have faith without any of the traditional trappings of organised religion – with God simply being a part of their everyday lives.
For me I find it impossible to either choose to believe or not to – it simply makes a mockery of the whole thing if it is about me deciding whether or not I have faith. Many people have told me that God found them as opposed to the other way round and I do feel that if there is a God (which I don’t actually believe there is at this moment in time) then that is how you should meet Him. Or is that wrong, is the responsibility ours to go and find Him – don’t know…
I think religion and belief and faith can give people meaning in their lives, help make sense of the crap the world has to offer, offer comfort in dark times, focus in times when the path has gotten lost; I also think religion is used as an excuse for all sorts of dreadful happenings and that if you look hard enough for something you will always find it.
Ramble over 🙂
If you just look at the code and take out the first table bit, it will stop throwing your page layout out – that’s what I did, as well as taking out the line spaces in the table below 🙂 And felt stupidly happy about having sorted it out. Small things …
Comment by Sarah — 04 May 2005 @ 12:24 pm
God definitely met me halfway when I went looking. I think its important to have the urge to look but only when you are ready.
Comment by Jenny — 04 May 2005 @ 7:38 pm
I think the responsibility is ours to think deeply about the subject; after all if what a faith claims is true, then it’s pretty vital to be aware of it and to make an informed choice, rather than an ignorant one. Also our thinking and choosing should be based on the true claims of the faith in question (i.e. the holy book, and its most respected teachers) rather than any trends, fashions or extremes of that faith. After that, if we are truly seeking the truth, then we’ve done our bit! The rest is up to Him ;-), should S/He exist….! And I do differentiate very strongly between ‘religion’ and ‘God’….
Comment by Joanna — 04 May 2005 @ 9:22 pm