When i was a kid (or when i was in Nepal), i used to believe in God. I did however have reservations on religion but i still believed in God. Its been a year in US now and having met people from other cultures, the existence of a supreme being doesnt make sense anymore. 

I think that believeing in GOd instills in a person faith, confidence and positivity to get through good times and be appreciative of the bad ones. I want my children to have these qualities so i dont want to tell them that GOd doesnt exist. Moreover, i cant imagine what my parents/relatives will make of me when i talk to them about this. It isnt going to be pretty. 

It does give me great discomfort to think about all this. I must admit i feel less confident and more pessimistic these days. I want to believe in God but my logic doesnt give in anymore. In fact, i get irritated when i hear things like "God COMMANDED you to.." "GOd will PUNISH you if..", "We are SERVANTS in from of Him" "(on Christianity): "Jesus died on the cross for you"(THere are many who have made a similar magnitude of sacrifice). 

I think that God and religion are ancient theories that havent been discarded yet. And it hasnt due to the fear in people of what might happen if they didnt. One of my teachers once said "if there is no god and you believe in god, there is no harm but if there is god and you dont believe in god, there is harm". i feel this and cultural and social stigmas lead people to be religious and not question their beliefs. 

I wanna know what you guys make of this.

You keep presenting YOUR PERSONAL BELIEF as if it's an all out universal truth .... FOR example you said:

"On the other hand the new born babies who are surrounded by irreligious persons, hear the sounds of uncivil and abusive language, are exposed to amoral music and songs, will no doubt grow up to be persons similar to those in whose company they are growing up."


That is an ASSUMPTION you are making based on your PERSONAL OPINION ...NOT A FACT....and yeah just cause you present your pile of garbage in BOLD font does not make you look any more intellegent or correct. ;)

Anyway you just agreed that you were wrong that BABIES ARE NOT BORN RELIGIOUS....they are BORN INTO A RELIGIOUS FAMILY and their minds are altered into accepting these as they are inflicted with the religious teachings much later correct?

 bittertruth,
I wasn't accusing you of being stupid or wise in my last post. I was just saying that the logic was stupid. We all make stupid or wise statements at different times, I think that one single statement isn't enough to judge a person's intellectual standing. I don't know you and hence my evaluation of your intellect would be inappropriate, or inadequate to say the least. So just to clear things, I said the logic was stupid, not you.

About the things you replied in BOLD: Can't you realize that your own sentences point to the fact that religiosity is induced into people, it's not an attribute that they are born with? And your generalizations about religious and irreligious upbringing is askew, based upon your personal presumptions and bias. I am an athiest but I don't "hear the sounds of uncivil and abusive language, I am not exposed to amoral music and songs." 

 GT, you are absolutely right. My vulnerability is, I couldnt be self-made genius, wise and practical as someone has boasted above. That was just an expression what I think is real with no intention to impose them on others. 

chaurey, your edit upon edit on your own posts show your mind is going through turbulent state, It's a state of shock when you can't decide what is true or false or when you lack taught logic, you lose your decision making ability or you get things in your head very late(tubelight). When that happens you simply refuse what other has to say , refusing someone without backing your own reasoning is the height of the ignorance.

Babies are born religious, it has deep spiritual meaning in a spiritual sense. I'm pretty much sure none of you doesn't really want to spend time understanding spirituality. Most of you probably spend time in gossiping around boys/girls/bar/beers. Life-in-making inside woman's womb itself is a religious. Here by religious, I'm not refering to any specific religion, I'm refering to one creator concepts. The life force or the energy that separate dead from alive, I'm talking that religious. Like I said before, I don't believe any god of your belief, so forget about it. Don't assume me being atheist, and still talking about 'religious', no I"m not, I don't have split personality but I'm one of those people whom they refer as being 'pantheist'. All the physicist, scientists, doctors, most of them are 'patheists' who believe in one creator , they are not religion specific like most of you are. I deny all your religions. I'm not being disrespectful but that's how my mindset is.

Dictionary meaning of 'religious':re·li·gious  (r-ljs)adj.

I really like what you say.. Finally someone who actually makes sense and dose not have to swear to prove his point.. well done.

Here is exactly what I've to show to back my concepts: 

you are confused sir, not me....i was merely trying to understand your concept however with the pile on of assumption packaged as universal truth somehow made me think twice about your approach.. for someone who believes atheists are immoral and uncivil, babies are born religous, life in woman's womb is religious act etc. i think i'm done trying to understand your view.

complement to bittertruth

This is how i view about god, belief systems and society..........
 I know that belief system is really mysterious. A black cat crosses the street and then we think oh it might bring bad luck, a sane mind overcomes his belief and gathers his courage and crosses the street while the "what if " minds stay for others to pass or changes his way. 
That was just an example of how belief effects our daily life. Similar, examples follow with religiosity. It is hard for someone who has been told that god exist and so we should direct our effort to please gods will, to abandon his thought about god and allied belief. But we need to question things which do not look appropriate to get the answers. Sometimes we don't get answers for our question like the existence of god. Nobody can prove existence of god. We can only find people who claim of feeling god or meeting god in dream etc. But that is not enough, not enough at least for now where we give credibilty to things that can be seen, touched, predicted etc. So it's better to analyze things in your own way to come to conclusion.
There are lots of question which can not be answered. Just that it could not be answered now does not mean it cannot be answered. But it should not be mistaken for god's will or power. In the past people could not answer mysterious things so instead named it god or god's will so let us not think that god is really a supernatural being who is in constant vigil. 
People can be civil and humanistic without fear of god.  If a fear is employed to make people diciplined than once that fear is gone they may think that they can do anything but if you fill people with ethics and obligation of society then they will turn out to be better human being.
 There are some people who do things without thinking of god. They don't even know that if there is god. But they think that there is something called soul or spirit. I don't think there is any soul or spirit or anything of that sort. Like someone asked how does a living becomes dead all of sudden. Its simple, some of our parts stop to function as they should so they die. Just like any machine which stops all of sudden because something breaks down. Machine can be fixed. But humans cannot be fixed. Why? It is simple, machine are not constantly evolving once a machine is made it remains the same but humans are not. Just like a fruit which starts from flowering to being a green fruit and then ripe fruit followed by senescence ultimately to decay in the soil, humans are born to decay. 

it's called biology and natural process...nothing to do with devine intervention about it....no need for a GOD LABEL to name a naturally occuring process.

 Exactly Chaurae........... There is shield that people have put which they don't want to open................................so what can we say.......

Religon is very much like a diaper:

Guys,

Like GrgDai and others have said in their comments above: Loving religion or hating religion is not enough. Let us take our energy and do something practical for Nepal.
 
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FountainDew,

You make some excellent points.
But, they are not exclusively and only related to religion.

Think of corporate marketing. Think of advertisement. Think of brand wars. All of these are indoctrinating their own dogma on people. You are right. The mind is very powerful. And it is this power of the mind that Coca-cola uses to sell sugar-water as nectar of the gods. It is this power that Gucci uses to pay $2 to some South Asian child worker to make a purse and then to sell it for $200 in New York. It is this power allows paintings and music to be sold for millions of dollars.

Are you complaining about all of these things?

Having said that, the consumers who do not get all the above products, feel that they cannot live without it. They would feel deprived and their lives would feel meaningless. They would be sad. Many of these people feel that these corporate brands would cure them of depression and their misery. I have yet to see if believing in everything that advertisements on TV tell you is a permanent cure for a lack of meaning of one's life.
If anything, you're working like a rat in the race, trying to make ends meet all the time. Trying to earn enough money to your superficial friends. I haven't seen anyone being permanently cured of sadness by any corporate brand, unlike what they all tell you.

Are you complaining about all of this also?

Finally, all these brand wars is causing a lot of hatred between people. There are people fighting which brand is superior and which is inferior. Capitalism brings about all kinds of it's own problems around the world. Look at the streets of Kathmandu and tell me what this culture of materialistic showing-off has produced of our nation. As long as people can don the latest and greatest brands that Madison Avenue has advertised, people in Nepal feel they don't need to have any morality or responsibility for what happens to the nation. They are living in corporate Nirvana. They are in heaven. They don't need anyone else's blessings or approval.

My friend, Are you complaining about all of this, also?

Look at the 'take back Wallstreet' movement or the 'green movement' and the demonstrations happing against APEC in Honolulu this week. These movements have sprung out of needing to fight against the absolute grip of the power of Capitalism all over the world.

Are you complaining about all of this also?

So, I agree with you. There is a lot of work and attention to be focussed on practical problems happening on earth that concern us Nepalese than to spend all of our time in either loving religion or hating religion. Do you agree with me or not?

This thread is about 'God and religion'. Would love to see more on it, than you yapping out on capitalism crap. would appreciate if you would start you blah blah biah in new thread.

I never understand, why ppl talk unrelated stuff in threads. I'm an admin to other forums, I move them to new thread without a question.

Dear Bitter Truth,

Namaskar. Aaap kaise he? You are obiously no Nepali. At least you are no Nepali that I would want to know.

Are you telling me that the culture of showing-off in Kathmandu culture is not hurting Nepal? This is what capitalistic culture is bringing to all poor nations all over the world. You don't have a problem with that? What kind of a Nepali are you?

Are you a Nepali first or are you an a secular athiest first? Tell me, Bitter Truth which topic is more urgent to discuss for you and why?

I am patiently waiting for your answer,

With much love and respect for you, my brother,
Homey-G, the Clown

homey Ji,
the place where I was born is known as the land of Buddha and the top of da world. I'm a proud Nepali. No doubt.
I didn't mean to slash your post in anyway, but the content was not totally connected to the topic of the thread.
no pun intended, was just saying it wasn't related. dats it.

America is the worlds most powerful and greatest nation. fact ! So, It doesn't take much for people with right mind to
understand why everyone is trying to emulate the socio,economic and cultural aspects of this nation. US showed the
world it's military might with it's nuclear power. I know, before you jump on me, let me tell, nuclear is an atomic energy
it's not being used only for weapons, okay? it's been used for alternatve source of energy to run cities and a country
as a whole. Unfortunately, during wartime, US did drop first ever known nuclear bomb on Japan. That changed the history
of the world. USA became and still the world's super power. Now, other countries over the course of time paced with
America and now bunch of them have nuclear weapons as well. So, just notice, it started more than 5 decades ago.
China, Russia, India, they all copied(still copying) America or at least to say, they all want to possess what US has in
it's arsenal. That's in the part of the nation. Lets go to the general public, they all copy american culture, because it's
simply fabulous. USA has now immigrants from all around the world and it welcomes people from all around the world.
Questions?? some of you must be here under their diversity visa program. Welcoming 50,000 people every year is not
a joke. To make it short, USA is the country of immigrant. It's us who have enriched american culture and spread the
influence all over. I don't  see anything bad in that. If you are worried, that our own tradition is being superseded slowly
by invading american culture, then it's needless. Because, blame yourself, don't blame USA. You seek out, you live
american dreams, you copy their hip-hop culture, you copy the way they live and eat, you do that , because it's
simply too cool. You know what I mean? 

Talking about me, I had few gray hairs since I was 18, it runs in the family. My hair still 95% black, rest gray. I don't
necessarily copy their everything, I haven't colored my hair ( I know it depends on one's preference, but many of you
definitely must have bleached your hair to look like an american before you took flight to US, I'm saying this because many
whom I know did this and that was ridiculous), I'm still the way I was back home. Simple getup, I set my own fashion whatever
is comfy on me. I don't dress hip/hop, I don't copy accent (many of you do that to mix in here). I've retained my own fashion
and accent. I proudly tell ppl that my accent is Nepalese and they quite like my accent. I've been spreading a thing or two
about my country in my own way. (I don't go on and say 'waduup doug' like many of you do that, and I can instantly differentiate
madeup from the real one) If you do that, stop it cause you look douchebag faking accents. I do copy the way they live, I grab
all the positivities in their way of living, decency, dealing with people, respect and all the stuffs. You don't see this much in younger
population in here but I'm in touch with other decent group of population and I believe , you should copy them. It's upon you , what to take
and what not to take. I take all the good stuffs. Our nepalese youth, whatever they are into, I don't really care as long as they don't
forget 'Nepal'.

homeyji, it's against your moral saying capitalism is bad, this and that blah blah blah.. if you are in US, breathing air in here, part of this capitalist structure and making your living. In nepali ,we have a say ' jun thal ma khayo, tehi thal ma thukyo'.
You don't have any right to say something like that but guess what? this great nation would respect your view because you've a freedom of speech. So, go ahead and keep lashing out.

And, one last thing about capitalism, capitalism was not evil. Everything has it's time and prime, All this industrial revolutions, developments, comforts where do you think it came from? thanks to capitalism. But it's charm is fading out. Like I wrote before, everything has it's prime, so did it's and now it's over. People are being treated as machines, not as human anymore. That's the worst part of the capitalism. But it's gonna be here for long time. Improvised version of any +ism is what people are eagerly waiting for.
Before you go on refering me to michael moore' capitalism:love story', 'food inc' blah blah to me, yeah, I'm aware of it and have watched it and yeah, .. saying once more just in case. it's charm is fading out

These are some of the things, where you don't have to use your book knowledge, just use your common sense. And, that's what we are lacking, because we're constantly being brainwashed. If someone tells you one thing, ' stop yourself ' and start asking ' is it really so'?? 
Look how stupid we Nepalese are , we still think we are the no 1 in the hydro power in the world, that's ironic, we are not. This is a proof that we're constantly being brainwashed and don't have our own logic to analyze. need proof? we are in information boom era where thought provoking concept of accessing information is emerging, just go to google and see the world information in your finger tip. That's what I do, that's what you should do. educating yourself is not always limited to teachers, you yourself is a teacher in the pathway of the life where you learn from your mistakes and experiences.

homey ji, I don't know you, don't pretend you know me and I'm not anywhere near to atheism. So, don't address me as if I'm secular atheist. If you don't know the dictionary meaning of 'panthiest' , I've clearly put on a video right at the top of this post, yeah yeah.. right up there see?? click it.

BitterTruth....stop avoidingHomeyji's questions!

He wrote:
So, I agree with you. There is a lot of work and attention to be focussed on practical problems happening on earth that concern us Nepalese than to spend all of our time in either loving religion or hating religion. Do you agree with me or not?

Bitter truth doesn't love Nepal or Nepalese. He just uses Sajha's free services for his own pleasure like he uses America's services for his pleasure. He has no loyalty to anyone. What is the use of such a person? He doesn't care about Nepalese or Nepal. He is just here to make himself look good at all cost. Nepal could burn to ashes and Bitter truth wouldn't care at all.

That is the kind of Nepali he is.

rashika,
truth is bitter. I wrote we are not no 1 in hydro power and you didn't like it, I'm just assuming. It's the reality. I'm proud to be a Nepali and I'll always be a Nepali. I don't mind, your frustation is emotional. I'm loyal to my country and this country as well. If Nepal starts to burn into ashes, I"ll be the first in the line to service my country.
Message of my last post was no matter whereever you are just don't forget who you really are and where you are from.  I don't really bother with this western cultural revolution, cos there are lot other important things to take care first. That last post was answer to someone's capitalist remarks.

And, can you please let me know which sentence made you feel that I'm anti-Nepali, Did I insult my country anywhere?? I just went through the whole writing of mine to make sure, I didn't find anything like that. I can't even dream of insulting my country. I talk about Nepal how great it is and encouraging ppl to go there, it's one of the places to visit before you die. I don't count but pretty much sure at least 10-15 americans must have visited my country through my words.

Why am I having this weird feeling that I'm exchanging words with teenagers with little understanding about the language, life and philosophy? 

There are people who come to Nepal. They climb the steep hills and breathe in the fresh mountain air. And they think that they love Nepal.

No, you don't love Nepal. You don't even know Nepal enough to love Nepal. So don't tell me that you love Nepal.

Bitter Truth, people like you insult the words 'love' and 'Nepal' by putting it in the same sentence saying that you love Nepal. It's not that you shouldn't utter these words. Do so, by all means. Just know that you will never love Nepal as much as I do.

Us Nepalesee feel violated when tourists came to only enjoy but are not doing their part to invest and preserve what we have held sacred for centuries. People visiting Nepal can’t just assume that Nepal belongs to them just because they can pay for it financially. You cannot afford the Nepali hospitality, my friend. We give it to you despite you being able to afford it, because my Nepali heart is so big. Never forget that. You cannot demand Nepalese bow down to you just because you swiped your plastic off the of the ass-crack of the credit-card machine. No, I don't care how much you pronounce love for Nepal, you don't have equal rights to it as much as Nepali natives do--as I do.

Many come as conservationists to further their own careers. You want to preach your sermons and tell me how I should love my Nepal. You may know all that about environmental science, but don't assume that you love Nepal as much as I do. Don't go there, my friend. You don't want to go there.

Generations of my ancestors died in Nepal. The Nepali spirit was a part of their blood. It was a part of their spirit. It was who they were. How could you, who has just come in your air-conditioned jet-liner on your two week vacation understand how they felt? How my people feel. How I feel? How dare you assume that you love Nepal the way I do? How dare you insult what I feel for my Nepal by daring to assume that you feel the same as I do about my Nepal?

Please don't.

Here is what you may do:

Come. Respect. Even enjoy Nepal. Respectfully. Be willing to invest back in at least what you took out. You are welcome to. Don't disturb the peace and leave this sacred space as you have found it, in the minimum. Invest in sustainable development of this sacred land and the spirit that makes it Nepal. That spirit goes a lot deeper than you will see with the most expensive polarised glasses.

But never assume that you are one of us. You will never be.
Don't be foolish enough to imagine and assume that the spirit of my ancestors will haunt you as they haunt me. Do you remain awake, troubled at night because of feeling their ache and pain of what Nepal has become? Do you feel the guilt churning in your blood stream? Do you feel the responsibility grip you in your bones?
If you don't feel all those things, my friend, don't assume that you feel for Nepal as I do.

So come and visit this beautiful land. Come to Nepal, my friend. You are welcome to. Welcome to come and enjoy and be tourists. Come experience all that is sacred, spiritual, beautiful and wonderful about Nepal. Heal your hearts and go home to where ever you came from. Take Nepal and the Nepali hospitality back in your hearts. Us Nepalese over-flow with this hospitality. We have so much that we give it away with a smile on our face. Such is our culture. Such is the heart of our people.
But you will never be one of us untill your family and your ancestors give many many lifetimes of their labor and love and blood to this sacred land called Nepal. Know that! Never forget that. It is not that cheap to call yourself a true Nepali--one that loves this land and it's people and the culture with his heart and soul.