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Questions for someone of a different religion

Taylor Raines

New Member
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks!

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?
 
Last edited:

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?

  1. SalixIncendium
  2. Hinduism - specifically the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy
  3. The earth is illusory manifestation of Brahman
  4. My understanding of God is called Brahman, specifically Nirguna Brahman.
  5. Good and bad are a human constructs. In my view, everything that happens is a product of causality. Everything is subject to karma, not just people.
  6. It is the body and mind that die. One's true nature (pure consciousness) is immortal and does not die.
  7. Right and wrong are social constructs. I live in accordance with my dharma.
 

Brickjectivity

Turned to Stone. Now I stretch daily.
Staff member
Premium Member
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?
1. Brick. Hi I attended a Christian school, too. We used PACES and then Abeka. Christian schooling is unnecessary, and you can't choose for your kids once they get to 5th or 6th grade. By then its up to them. You also can't protect your kids from ideas once they get that old. One thing Christian school did for me was taught me to recite the books of the Bible in order plus some scripture verses, but beyond that it was not an advantage.
2. Liberal Christianity which believes the spirit goes where it wills, just like the wind. Because of that I recognize that other Christians are Christians even if undereducated, snake handling, dancing naked around podiums etc. So, I include as Christians a broad variety of cults and even students from Christian schools, too. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up etc. I loathe endless sermons day after day and week after week, but I think reading the Bible once through and listening to some instruction is quite good so long as we learn it. At the same time people shouldn't be paying ministers to pump us up. They are like steroids, giving us big boobs. I think we should be unified but not by a podium.
3. The creation of the physical planet is irrelevant to faith. Creation has to do with the creation of ministries and of people. Hence the light is created before the Sun and so forth.
4. Yes but I recognize God to be conceptual, not derived, omnipresent, no respector of persons and non-physical, just like I believe a Christian should believe God to be.
5. Good people also happen to bad things, so its fair.
6. Physically we remain stuck in the past, however that which we have invested in Christ lives on in Christ. Those who are in sin are dead even though they live.
7. Our ability to choose right and wrong is what sets us apart from the animals. Its an intelligent power, but its not pure logic which would destroy us all probably. Therefore it can't be described within a few lines.
 

Vinayaka

devotee
Premium Member
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?
1. Vinayaka
2. Hinduism, Saiva Siddhanta sect
3. It wasn't. It was emanated. Like sparks from a fire, droplets from a cloud.
4. Yes
5. No such thing as good and bad. 50 shades of white
6. The physical body disappears, the personality disappears, the soul reincarnates to a new body, unless nirvikalpa samadhi has happened, then there's moksha, on to other planes, but finally total merging with God.
7. We don't. They're human constructs, and vary from person to person.
 

Polymath257

Think & Care
Staff member
Premium Member
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?

1. Polymath257
2. Non-theism
3. Gravity
4. No
5. Because events aren't caused by morality
6. They either decay or are mummified
7. Mostly intuition developed while young.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks

What is your name?
Frank Doonan
What is your religion called?
Baha'i Faith
How do you believe the earth was created?
Created by God naturally

Do you believe there is a God?
Why do bad things happen to good people?

Obvious physical bad things happen to good people.

What happens to humans after they die?
The soul journeys through other worlds.
How do we know right from wrong?

I do not 'know'. The spiritual knowledge of God and other worlds is not the result of objective verifiable evidence.
 

beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?
1-Beenherebeforeagain
2-technically, I don't have a religion, as I am an eclectic solitary practitioner...my way of being religious is animism as opposed to monotheism, polytheism, etc. I suspect that what you think I mean by animism is not what I mean (especially if you just grab a dictionary)...to me, animism has to do with our relationships with the other human and other-than-human persons that make up the world .
3-the evidence shows that the earth formed during the formation of the solar system about 4.55 billion years ago, in a natural process, the same way in which all the other stars and planets in the universe have formed.
4-If there is an omnimax deity, it is well beyond my ability to perceive it or conceive of it. If there is one or more lesser deities, my ability to perceive or conceive is unlikely to be able make sense of it. Therefore, I really don't do gods. But I do recognize some entities that seem to be a great deal larger and more powerful than me and humans.
5-because things happen. Some events we call good or bad, using our sense of preference rooted in cultural preferences and experiences, as well as our biological predispositions...regardless, things happen to people, and looking at only one of the four possibilities in that scenario is not particularly productive.
6-the chemicals and energy return to the environment, where it is claimed by other life. Spiritually, I really don't know, but I believe that the spirit is not-one, and parts may be reborn in other life, and others go elsewhere...to live with the ancestors in the spirit world, for example...
7-Part of our moral sense seems to be established by our genetics, another part seems to come from our social upbringing, and another part comes from our own personal experiences and thoughts, our 'reasoning.' Together, the members of a society construct meaning, including ideas of 'right' and 'wrong' and other such concepts...but our socialness is biological in the main.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
Well, different Hindus will have different answers for your questions. There is no 'standard' Hindu answer. We don't work like that.
  1. What is your name?: Amar Nath
  2. What is your religion called?: Hinduism (of the 'advaita' variety - non-dualism)
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?: As Salix said, it is only a mirage. We too are none other. At our level of reality, the current scientific model is by a Big-Bang.
  4. Do you believe there is a God?: No, I do not even believe in the possibility of any God's existence, strong atheist.
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?: Chaos, Uncertainty, Probability.
  6. What happens to humans after they die?: Chemical recycling.
  7. How do we know right from wrong?: What harms one's society is wrong, what helps is right.
 
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osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks!

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?

1) Osgart
2) spiritual naturalism
3) natural intelligence
4) no
5) because the physical nature is indifferent to any suffering.
6) we bond with an eternal source in an eternal sea of life.
7) Trial/error and self discovery of the soul.
 

Shantanu

Well-Known Member
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks!

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?
1. Shantanu Panigrahi
2. Satya-advaita (Truth Accommodation)
3. God created the universe including the Earth.
4. Yes I believe there is a God.
5. How do you know that they are good people?
6. They disintegrate into their atoms and molecules when buried or cremated.
7. If you survive you are/were right: if you were wrong something bad is going to happen that will cause you anxiety, suffering and early death.
 

sayak83

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks!

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?
1. Sayak
2. Hinduism.
3. As the geologists say it was. 4.5 billion years ago through accretion from the solar proto-planetary disc.
4. Yes. That is called by us "Brahman" and abides as the inner-Self in all beings, and is the essence of all things that exist.
5. Bad things are bad because they cause suffering. Suffering exists because we are attached to our ego, attached to our bodies and sensations, and yes, attached to virtues and vices. As long as this attachment exists as a habit in our mind, the ups and downs of this reality are perceived as suffering. To remove suffering from our lives, first we transcend evil, and then transcend even the good and act in the mode of detachment in all things good or bad. Only then will suffering not exist for us.
6. The psychological structure that is our mind returns to Brahman and then again re-emerges in some other form at some other space-time point. Just as a wave crests from the ocean, subsides into it..and then re-emerges into another crest a bit downstream. It popularly called rebirth, but more accurately its re-becoming or re-emergence.
7. Is an action causing avoidable suffering to oneself and to others? If so, that action is wrong. If not it is right (or neutral).
 

arthra

Baha'i
What is your name?

Arthur Gregory

What is your religion called?

Baha'i Faith

How do you believe the earth was created?

The earth and "creation" is a result of emanation:

"The world of existence is an emanation of the merciful attribute of God. God has shone forth upon the phenomena of being through His effulgence of mercy and He is clement and kind to all His creation."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 79

Do you believe there is a God?

Yes I believe in God and His Manifestations:

"GOD sends Prophets for the education of the people and the progress of mankind. Each such Manifestation of God has raised humanity. They serve the whole world by the bounty of God. The sure proof that they are the Manifestations of God is in the education and progress of the people."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Abdu'l-Baha in London, p. 42

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Good people in my view know how to deal with bad things and over come them:

"We hope the people realize and know that unity is good, and we also hope that they will not be content to stand still in that knowledge. Do not only say that Unity, Love and Brotherhood are good; you must work for their realization."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Abdu'l-Baha in London, p. 60

What happens to humans after they die?

"The rewards of the other world are the perfections and the peace obtained in the spiritual worlds after leaving this world; whilst the rewards of this life are the real luminous perfections which are realized in this world, and which are the cause of eternal life, for they are the very progress of existence."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith, p. 324

How do we know right from wrong?

".... from time immemorial even unto eternity the Almighty hath tried, and will continue to try, His servants, so that light may be distinguished from darkness, truth from falsehood, right from wrong, guidance from error, happiness from misery, and roses from thorns."

~ Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 8
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
What is your name?

Arthur Gregory

What is your religion called?

Baha'i Faith

How do you believe the earth was created?

The earth and "creation" is a result of emanation:

"The world of existence is an emanation of the merciful attribute of God. God has shone forth upon the phenomena of being through His effulgence of mercy and He is clement and kind to all His creation."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 79

Do you believe there is a God?

Yes I believe in God and His Manifestations:

"GOD sends Prophets for the education of the people and the progress of mankind. Each such Manifestation of God has raised humanity. They serve the whole world by the bounty of God. The sure proof that they are the Manifestations of God is in the education and progress of the people."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Abdu'l-Baha in London, p. 42

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Good people in my view know how to deal with bad things and over come them:

"We hope the people realize and know that unity is good, and we also hope that they will not be content to stand still in that knowledge. Do not only say that Unity, Love and Brotherhood are good; you must work for their realization."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Abdu'l-Baha in London, p. 60

What happens to humans after they die?

"The rewards of the other world are the perfections and the peace obtained in the spiritual worlds after leaving this world; whilst the rewards of this life are the real luminous perfections which are realized in this world, and which are the cause of eternal life, for they are the very progress of existence."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith, p. 324

How do we know right from wrong?

".... from time immemorial even unto eternity the Almighty hath tried, and will continue to try, His servants, so that light may be distinguished from darkness, truth from falsehood, right from wrong, guidance from error, happiness from misery, and roses from thorns."

~ Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 8

30rcpf.jpg
 

Bird123

Well-Known Member
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks!

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?


1. Bird123

2. I have found no religion actually understands God. For this reason, I do not follow any of them. Truth is what I am about.

3. Just like a seed grows into a giant tree, the universe started by God at a single point and unfolded into what we have today and beyond. The real genius comes in that it unfolds in such a way that mankind will be able to figure it all out.

4. God Exists.

5. How do you define good and bad in order to answer your question? In reality, everything we do returns to us in time. This is not to punish. This will teach us what our actions really mean. Some can choose some really hard lessons for themselves. This also works on multiple lifetimes and since the average observer does not see the entire picture, it is easy to assume things are not fair.

There are also great, wonderful souls who are willing to volunteer to go through great adversity in order that someone else might learn.

Since this world is a giant multilevel classroom, it works toward that goal. Example: without illness mankind would never learn about biology and medicine. Have you ever noticed that when a cure is found the a new disease pops up to advance the learning further. Yes, so often adversity points the way to learning.

6. When one dies, their life passes before them. They go to God and experience God's Unconditional Love. They realize that it has never been about punishment. People take adversity personal yet adversity is part of the learning process. In time, learning becomes impossible. That is the reason for death. Death is no more than a change.

God's Unconditional Love feels so good, so complete that we would do anything for it. We want to be just like God. At this point we realize where we are and where we want to be. This is where we judge ourselves.

Who knows how long one basks in God's Unconditional Love? It's long enough to get over any hardships we have faced. We are open again. You can see this in the youngest of children. By looking at them, you can see God for they have just left God's arms.

At some point kiddies must go back to school. We are born again into a new physical body to continue our lessons. We are Living our lessons.

7. When our actions return to us, we learn what our actions really mean. When we have discovered all sides, intelligence will make the Best choices. You see, there is no need to precisely define good and evil, right and wrong simply because when we become intelligent we will make the Best choices.

When I say everything we do returns to us to teach us, this is not just the bad choices. Our good choices will return as well. In time, this will teach us all to Love Unconditionally. After all, that is what everyone wants to return.

God's system is amazing. The dynamics are amazing too. There is Genius behind everything. There is so much yet for this hungry student to learn. My journey continues.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Hey, I'm a Student at a Christian school. For our last project, we have to interview someone who practices a different religion. Just answer these 7 questions. Thanks!

  1. What is your name?
  2. What is your religion called?
  3. How do you believe the earth was created?
  4. Do you believe there is a God?
  5. Why do bad things happen to good people?
  6. What happens to humans after they die?
  7. How do we know right from wrong?
* Nowhere Man with Nowhere Plans

*Thus I have heard.... Some say its Zen. Some don't.

*Like any planet that forms within a primordial solar system. Massive amounts of dust, gas, admist other matter that clumps into ever larger and larger masses with the help of gravity and energy.

*Only in a metaphorical context for artistic and philosophical reasons. The natural micro and macro universe is my 'god' for all intents and purposes.

*There are no bad or good things no more than bad or good people.

*Nothing whatsoever. All the atoms are still there. Just fell apart, that's all. Things are as they always are. Nothing actually goes anywhere.

* Whenever you go "damn, that wasn't right".
 

Jainarayan

ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय
Staff member
Premium Member
  • What is your name?
  • What is your religion called?
  • How do you believe the earth was created?
  • Do you believe there is a God?
  • Why do bad things happen to good people?
  • What happens to humans after they die?
  • How do we know right from wrong?

  • Jainarayan is an Indian name I took as an internet handle. It means “victory to God”. My real first and middle names: Frank Jason; last name: not a chance. :D
  • Properly: Sanātana Dharma, colloquially: Hinduism, Vaishnava specifically (devotee of Vishnu).
  • Scientifically: accretion of a proto-planetary disc. Religiously: we have stories that are not necessarily in conflict with science, but I think the majority of Hindus think of the stories as allegorical and metaphorical. Simple ways to explain.
  • Yes absolutely, and he (she for many Hindus) takes many forms.
  • Many reasons including karma and the universe sucks, but none of them being punishment from God. He doesn’t do that.
  • The two possibilities I believe are reincarnation or moksha, which is release from the cycle of birth, death, rebirth. Our souls may take a break before reincarnating.
  • Stories and examples, lessons from those stories, civil and societal rules and laws, does an action cause harm or benefit to anyone. We don’t have religious commandments.
 
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