For religion, you can start checking these two polls to get an idea of the trend in beliefs on the forum :
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In what God(s) do you believe ? (describe
how is the god in which one believes, or
why we don't believe in it)
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What's your religion ? (explicit)
As for me. I am an Atheist, but also have my own elaborate philosophy and morals. In short (note that when I say "believe" it means that it cannot be physically demonstarted, only by logical reasoning) :
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Metaphysics : I believe in an eternal and infinite Universe (or Nature), made of matter and energy (no supernatural properties, as anything that exists, even ghost/souls if they do, is basically energy). My definition of Universe is "everything that exists", so it is logically infinite, as anything existing "beyond the limit" is included in it. It is eternal because it is logically impossible for existence to spring up out of nothing, or cease to exist. This could only happen if there was a Higher Power (e.g. God)
outside the Universe. But as by definition the Universe is everything that exists, God is also part of it, otherwise it wouldn't exist. So even the "other dimension" where the hypotetical god would be, is one part of the Universe (the Whole). We could also conceive that all that exist (the Universe) is God (i.e. Pantheism), but why call it differently, and not just the Universe or Nature then ?
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Soul : Neuropsychologists have now demonstrated by experiments that the soul did not exist, simply because all our toughts, memory, emotions, sense of existence, etc. are located in various parts of the brain, and that without a specific part of the brain, each of them cease to exist. For instance, the case of patients with a brain tumor, that had the frontal lobe of the brain removed, has shown that the patients could not feel any emotion (joy, anger, fear...) anymore, while they could still speak, hear, understand, calculate, reason, imagine or walk normally. There is thus nothing that the soul would contain (not even conscience or the "feeling of oneself"), as everything has been shown to be in the brain.
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God : I reject the very concept of god for several reasons, explained in various threads in this subforum. In short, a personal god (i.e. with human emotions, a gender, feelings such as love, anger, compassion...) cannot exist because emotions and feelings require a material brain to exist. An immaterial god could not have created the "existence" without creating itself, which is impossible, out of nothing. With an eternal Universe (i.e. that has always existed), God could only exist as being all the Universe of part of it. Part of it doesn't make much sense, and all of it equals calling it the Universe itself.
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Afterlife : One of religion's strongest attraction is its belief in the afterlife, usually a better one called "heaven" or "paradise". Because I reject the concept of soul and god, I do not believe in "heaven", "hell" or whatever. But I do believe in a material afterlife. How is that possible ? Very easy, we are part of an eternal Universe, and are made of energy and matter that compose it. This energy and matter are also eternal, and when we "die", as humans, this energy only changes forms - but we are still there, forever ! Given eternity, there is an infinite number of chances that this energy will form again other life beings. We won't be aware of the continuity, and that it as well. Once we are dead, we won't be conscious of being dead. So, it doesn't matter whether it takes 1000 years or quintillions of years before the energy that makes our inner brain (the center of consciousness) forms again into another life being. It
will happen, sooner or later, and for us it doesn't make any difference when, as we won't notice the time pass being dead. The good thing with the eternity of the Universe (i.e. of all existence), is that we will have an infinite number of lives, in an infinite number of forms, on an infinite number of planets...
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Morals : This is much longer to explain, given all the possible cases of situations. Basically, I dislike lies, hypocrisy, dishonesty, cheating or stealing more than most people do (more than conservative Christians :blush
. There is no such thing as a "good lie" (e.g. to avoid shocking someone) to me. There are always alternatives, such as not saying anything, or say it in a diverted or "softened" way. Lies can only be used to protect oneself in dangerous situations, and in
force majeure (e.g. to save your life when threatened). This is partly because of this strong moral feeling toward lies that I am so outspoken and cannot understand how people manage to live happily while deceiving themselves.
My "public moral' is to always seek to improve society and humanity, by improving any government or system, or seeking more knowledge that can benefit humanity and life in general, be it in sciences, arts, technology, philosophy or society. This determines my political attitude, more than any fixed orientation. I am naturally more of a reformist, and more on the liberal side, but not always or at all cost. There is no point changing what already works, when we could concentrate on the problems (I can't believe that any system ever be perfect).