Greetings

[Thantor]

My name is James, and I'm a freelance writer. I'm working on my first real novel at the moment, though I've yet to make any real progress on it. For now writing the occasional piece for the local paper will keep food on the table... well, for the most part anyway.

I consider myself to be an agnostic pagan, but I've always preferred atheist forums because the conversations and debates are usually of a higher quality. Faith is all well and good, but logic and reason make for better arguments.
My conversations with religious folk usually ends up as "My god can beat up your god," or worse quibbling over dogma. Neither arguments are things that I care about. Again, I'm an agnostic so I don't believe I can rightly say anything about the nature of deity.

Now that I got the rant out of the way, I hope to have some interesting conversations and to get to know some interesting people.

[theVOID]

Welcome Agnostic Pagan? That's not common these days, What are your positions?

[Thantor]

Positions?

[theVOID]

1 deity? multiple deities? Personal god? What does this deity do? Do we get morals from it? etc

And more interestingly, why do you believe this?

[Thantor]

I don't know if gods exist, why would I know what they want?

If I was so inclined, I would pray to a generic father god and a generic mother goddess. I don't really believe that this is what god, or the gods are like but rather how I invision it/them.

However, more often than not, I usually take matters into my own hands and deal with my problems myself. No need to bother them/it with my petty concerns.

We most likely get our morals from a combination of our genes and upbringing. If a god is involved with that, it'd probably only be indirectly.

I believe because it makes sense based on my observations, and because why not? If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. I can deal with that.

[theVOID]

Ah, you're one of those believers, cool Why call yourself Pagan and not Deist? Is there some ritualism?

Oh, What are these observations? And what rationale did you use in deciding that some celestial being exists based on those?

[Thantor]

I say "pagan", because my beliefs are non-Christian, Earth based, and poly-theistic/animistic.

Most of my "observations" have to do with visions, dreams, feelings and ponderings. For example: Sometimes I like to go out into the woods and meditate for hours on end, feeling the energies of the land. It could very well just be my imagination, then again it might not. Who's to say?

[theVOID]

Imagination? More likely misattribution, but we'll leave that for another thread I know what you mean though, I was big into the Psychedelic scene for a long time, at least in my case there was always someone who would put some label and a far-fetched sense of knowledge onto every experience to the point where it became utterly irritating I had some of the same experiences from climbing a mountain or leaving a Maiden concert though, so endorphins and other biochemicals seem more likely the cause to me.

Given that people's intuitions about the type of thing you describe give them so many contradictory conclusions and experiences, do you think yours are any different to the other religious experiences that have involved experience of Jesus and the trinity or Allah or Multiple deities all of which are mutually exclusive?

[Thantor]

It's like the rorschach ink stain test, people can look at the exact same thing and see something completely different.

If I was in a different state of mind that day I might have ended up as a Buddhist, or a Quaker, or goddess forbid a Scientologist... But I didn't. I saw what I saw, and I made the conclusions that I did, and that probably says a lot about who I was then and consequently who I am now.

[theVOID]

The Rorschach test doesn't actually represent anything though, it's an algorithm around one line of symmetry, the ability for a person to obtain structure where there is none is the whole point. I don't know if the analogy best suits your interpretation... It seems to do the opposite.

Suppose for now that it is the case that people have these contradictory experiences and even conversations with these deities, what does that say about the ability of the deities to communicate or their intentions? A being who either fails to communicates effectively or tricks people though multiple personae and narratives baffles me, especially considering the notion that wars started on theological grounds have been so devastating and the laws that arise from them potentially even more so. What sort of conclusions do you draw about these beings with that taken into account?

Have you been able to verify your visions or do you believe you will be able to?