I believe in Christianity. Although I believe in the trinity, resurection, etc I don't belive in church for many reasons.
I've also been in a sort-of free-lance form of Wikken and have experienced more than enough eveidence of an afterlife to be doubtful. But what exactly had I experienced? Was it some form of spiritual beings stuck in an afterlife? Some form of invisible energy which mimicks human activity? A demon(s)?

I'd also think it's possible these things are figment of imagination, except that often others witness all the same things at the same time. We've learned to accept things we see with our own everyday eyes as real but often reject things not seen. Without getting too descriptive....

If several people sit around a table with paper and pencil in hand with instructions to describe a physical object (Vase,etc) with no interaction among themselves- and later the object is removed only to find everyone wrote approximately the same description:
If the exactly the same thing was done only this time with an unseen object: visual, audio, smell, emotion with the same outcome, should the unseen be dismissed?

I suppose it's possible for some form of brain-link to happen, allowing multiple people to experience some imaginary but identical things all at the same time, but It's easier for me to figure in some form of afterlife.

The way I figure it's like tuning a radio. If you only hear one station for all your life you'd doubt there's anything else. But if an adjacent station should skew a bit and interfere with yours then things get strange.

Ok I know this is way to wierd for probably everybody so I'll stop now!

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Alan I'm sorry we are having trouble with certain words. I had no idea what a deist was so I looked it up on Wiki and they said:

"# Human beings have souls that survive death; that is, there is an afterlife.
# In the afterlife, God will reward moral behavior and punish immoral behavior."

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deist

Perhaps I read it wrong or perhaps only "constructive" deists believe such?

As I read this rather extensive discussion of deism on Wiki, I see that there is a wide spectrum of deists, much as I claimed above for atheists and agnostics. This article does mention one end of deists thought, the "constructive deist" which expressly accepts an afterlife. I believe that would not be typical of most deists, but I could easily be wrong, I do not speak for deists (only for veracitorians!).

Thanks for pointing out this excellent Wiki discussion.

-- Alan

Alan--What is a veracitorian? I googled it and the only hits I got were your posts here on greenhybrid.

This poll doesn't really have an option for me. As a "hard agnostic", I would not be able to say that I believe that there is or is not. I lean more towards the atheist side, but I truly believe there is no way to know.

Thanks for asking!

Veracitorianism is an ancient teaching that traces its roots all the way back to a much earlier time when fellow rationalists, while discussing the deity in a life, politics and religion forum, resulted in one of the forum participants proclaiming another participant the Veracitorian Pope. I declined that title, and settled for Veracitorian Muser instead. The vast worldwide fellowship of Veracitorians consists of me, and perhaps someone else from that Radio Controlled Model Airplanes newsgroup! I think we had another member, but lost him to the Flying Spaghetti Monster cult. Are you interested in proclaiming eternal loyalty to the most humble order of Veractorians and singlehandedly doubling the membership?

Somewhat similar to you, I consider myself a hard atheist with respect to all gods I have studied, but a mild agnostic with respect to both whether there may or may not be a god(s)/creator/whatnot, and to whether it is possible to ever know.

-- Alan

This is not pasta-ible. It sounds like an oregeno word being sauced up for some parmesan purposes. Where there ever any meatings?

Cheeze,
Bob Wilson

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This is somewhat off topic, but I try to encourage poll makers to include an option that is essentially not an answer. A choice that says "I don't know" or "I can't comment on this", as a way to get statistics on the rest of the community instead of forcing them into your specific slots.

So my reply would be choice 5) I don't know.

Dear Loud

Of course nobody knows for sure what is up in the grand scheme of things. If the poll asked what do you know for sure and it included your option 5 then everybody answering honestly would be forced to pick option 5. The poll asks what you BELIEVE not what you KNOW. If you don't know what you believe than you can pick the closest poll option or just not answer (as you did).

So what do you suspect? Which option is closest to what you might believe? Or are you a strict/hard/closed agnostic?

Wow! I just noticed that some people picked option 4. What do you all call your belief? If you would rather not get into it in public please PM me.

Ahem, asked and already answered . . . but let me clarify.

The Unitarian-Universalist association combined the Unitarians with the Universalists. The Unitarians see God as one and rejects the doctrine of the trinity. It means we respect the teachings of Jesus as inspired but not evidence of his divinity. God is and an afterlife is debatable. There is no requirement for an afterlife to love and respect God and follow the teachings of Jesus and the prophets.

The Universalists are trinitarians in every aspect. They believe that a loving God would not condemn souls to eternal ****ation. An afterlife is required for the existence of even a limited judgment. Yet we get along, well enough.

No doubt there are Unitarians who believe in the afterlife but I'm not one. An afterlife is not required to know God is.

Bob Wilson

Operation Iraqi Oil Freedom:

Automatic, stock, project car.

My other 1500 cc car:

Automatic, stock, backup car.
Free speech, dialog and knowledge thrives without the poison of SPAM.