My last post made me start to think. How much do I really LIVE what I believe. It's easy to say "Yes, I do what's I know what is right." But if we, who have ANY belief system, were honest with ourselves, CAN we say that we TRULY follow the guidelines of what we say we believe?
For example, I am a christian. I say that I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a believer in His bible. But how much do I truly live the way He lived? The older I get the more I see that I am nowhere near as close as I thought I was.
One of my New Year's resolutions was to start making the rubber meet the road when it comes to what I believe.
SO... the purpose of this post is to ask you, and even make you think, do you live what you believe? And how much? A little? Do you go to church only on Easter and Christmas (to give an example) or are you a mirror image of your faith's forefathers (Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, etc.)?
I am Christian too, and I go to church Sunday mornings for service, Wednesday nights for bible study, Friday nights for youth group and most Saturdays for an hour of choir practice.
Yet, that doesn't mean I live everything I believe. It's difficult, but I try. There are some sins in my life and some things that I know I need to change, but they're all issues I'm still trying to deal with. I'm not perfect at it, but I try to live what I believe as much as I can.
It's hard, because we're naturally flawed. We have a natural stain on us, because we are man, and we automatically fall short of God's glory. For us, we're lucky to have a merciful God who wants to forgive, if we choose to believe.
We are unperfect. Our hair isn't always done up nice, we don't always smell the greatest, and sometimes our faces break out in acne. My point is that we will always sin, but repenting is what it's about.
That being said I try to live as close to the Bible as I can, but many times I fall short - but we can always pick ourselves back up.
My answer:
Around average closeness - not extremely fundamentalist about the Bible, but I follow it closer than many others.
I take my beliefs pretty seriously.
They are a matter of life and death to me. But that is just me. Most people I know have little if anything they feel is of life and death importance.
This is a nice topic, RisingSunn.
I suppose we could argue that religions of "doctrine" ideally should have followers that espouse every rule set down by the high-ranking clergy, but in reality I don't think that happens (perhaps that why we have so many sects/denominations). So, I wonder if we might make a small distinction here between living what we ourselves believe and living what we're supposed to believe according to our religion. To expand on RisingSunn's example a bit, there may be a distinct difference between how many times a month your church believes you should attend and how many times you yourself believe are necessary.
So, I've asked myself two questions here -
The first: how true am I to the "rules" of my faith?
I'd say fairly true (though there's always room for improvement 
). Many of the "rules" in my religion are not carved-in-stone, unbreakable, literal rules. They are guides to good living and generally work well as such (cf. The Nine Noble Virtues). They are meant to help the individual improve themselves and to help foster a healthy family/community. And I try to live by these as closely as I can.
The second: how true am I to my own beliefs?
Very true I think. This comes as a result of following my heart and tempering that with reason. There are times when "the letter of the rule" must be put aside in order to foster the spirit that lies behind it. Living according to the spirit of my religion is what keeps me in good faith.
After thinking about these two questions, I feel my own beliefs merge well with the belief system of my religion and I suppose that's why I chose it.
Take care,
Eyvind I'm a very religious Christian, and I take my faith very seriously. As a child of God, my religion and beliefs are of the utmost importance to me, and I follow them whenever I can
I'm an atheist, but I'll answer the question anyway.
Most of my beliefs concentrate on what's "universally" right, which pretty much means I can do whatever I want, as long as it doesn't interrupt other people (or the society). Surprisingly, my beliefs have a lot in common with christianity and judaism, although I'm not a religious man at all and don't believe in god.
I too find it hard to live by those standards. we all have our sins, be they against god's commandments or against other "universal" laws. nobody's perfect!
I think that the point is, as mentioned in this forum before me, to "try". Try to be a better person by doing what's right. And there's constant tension between doing what's good for you and what's good for those around you. This tension between one's personal freedom and the laws of the society has been an issue for great discussions for ages.
I can go on for pages about Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, and the idea of "the golden mean" (look it up in Wikipedia if you don't know what that means). I'd like to know what you guys think about that...
Eyvind,
I am Asatru as well. And you are very correct in saying our religion is much less Authoritarian. We do as we please. As long as we do not hurt the Folk.
I am Asatru because I got tired of religions that had been forced on our Folk. We were made into Chirstians by force and it is alien to our ways.
It has made us a slave to Israel and been very destructive to our people's self esteem and fame.
Plus I don't like bowing to a god as their slave.
My Gods are family to me. Not Rulers of me.
I don't want to sound like one of those stuck-up atheists who believe that they are superior, merely because they don't believe in some past belief system, because I'm not. I accept my belief system to an extent, but I think that if Roman Catholicism is a valid road to salvation, then why not other religions? Whatever floats your boat, I guess. About religion, though, while I vaguely accept that concept of salvation, I feel that it was more an invention by regular people, rather than deities. In my opinion, religion was created to regulate society, and allow people to live through a moral code, which is great. Although I don't believe in any of the origins of religion, I do believe in the concepts.
Drawingguy, I'm an Atheist. Does this mean I'm stuck-up? Sir, I beg you to be respectful towards followers of all faiths and non-faiths.
As for the topic, I take being an Atheist very seriously. Although it's not that hard to question yourself as an Atheist, since it's very hard to force yourself to believe in something you don't believe in.
I dont realy belive in a god or things like that, i'd rather say i hope that there is somethin greater than humanity (since humanity sucks) and that there is some kind of heaven after life. I hope that if there is a god it would forgive anything bad you've done, when you do it.
I regular life i try to be a good person, help my friends, not polluting the planet to much and stuff like that. Why? Since i want my friends to be there for me, and i want my kids to have a livable planet. For me that has nothing to do with belief. It is to be a human.
Oh and according to my.. err.. in lack of better word, belief, there cant be a hell, if things are the way i hope with a god, that forgives and loves you, how could anyone possibly go to hell? I've never understood the whole hell idea.. Oh well
I do not set my "beliefs" on a religious base, but rather on personal principles. And I tend to respect them most of the time, while, as this post tend to underline with everybody, we're not perfect 
For example, I decided I'd never drink any beer or alcoholic beverage, because it's frankly useless. And so I never drank any. With just a little will, resist social pressure and there you go...
So my point is that you may base your principles over the Bible or the Coran, still you are the only one responsible for them.
