On preserving your extended cultural, racial, religious identity...

My cultural Customs and Traditions are most what i want to have preserved and religious beliefs mean nothing to
me no longer

The only one I care about is preserving my customs/traditions. By my customs/traditions, I mean the general Western way of thinking of the late 20th early 21st century, general American way of doing things, etc. In other words, voting, being part of a republic, no arranged marriages, more or less balanced out mixed economy, individual rights, some sense of civics, rule of law, healthy debates, just sitting around chilling during weekends, watching sports, sex, relationships, 2.5 kids, balanced work life, etc. These are the types of things I don't want to go away--- ever.

Religious beliefs / political philosophy / general philosophy about life and death come in second. I don't want skeptical agnosticism to ever die out. I don't want future generations to be fundamentalists believing whatever some 2000 year old book tells them without questions (especially not radical Islam), nor do I want a society where people just sort of think once you die that's it.

Racial stuff, I could give two craps about. Supposedly Hispanics are supposed to be the majority in the US by year 2050, which frankly they can be 99.99999% of the population for all I care as long as they assimilate to my customs/traditions. I have no loyalty to the "white race", which what exactly is it anyway? Italians, the Irish, WASPs, Germans. I care about ideas and values, not ethnicity.

Hym, I have a feeling this is a Kristal survey.

Customs and traditions. ^^See SY's first paragraph.

My religious beliefs. Whoever is left here should have a chance at a good life.

Next, my customs. Things like holidays, recipes, fashion, guitar get-togethers, vacationing, or Irish lore.

I could care less if the people of the future are green or purple.

> My religious beliefs. Whoever is left here should have a chance at
> a good life.
>
> Next, my customs. Things like holidays, recipes, fashion, guitar get-togethers,
> vacationing, or Irish lore.
>
> I could care less if the people of the future are green or purple.

My religious beliefs i could care less about them any more and quit going to church

You said that already. I did give a moments pause to consider your position when I read it. You did get my email about fuel-lines, didn't you?

Sounds like this is something you are bitter or confused about too. Why? Were your expectations not met? Did you have some revelation? You were pretty heavily immersed there for awhile.

I care for nothing like this.

I'd like to see my family traditions passed on; that means a fusion of Colombian and Irish (not recognizing any Irish King) customs. But family customs would mean a synthesis of all the above customs as well.

I honestly don't know how to answer this question.

Did a Neanderthal man stand in a field in Germany 80,000 years ago and think to himself, "I sure hope my customs and racial identity are preserved as the world evolves". Fat lot of good it did him if he did.

I'm not going to be selfish enough to assume that my race, culture or lack of religion will be useful enough to survive in the future. I suppose that I hope (if only in a very weak sense) that my culture survives. Even so, my cultural identity is completely different to that of an Englishman living only a few hundred years ago. So it seems remarkably self-centred to assume that in a few hundred years time my descendants will have the same customs and traditions as me.

However, there are things that have been fought for and gained in the last few hundred years years which I would wish to either survive or even be improved/extended (e.g Universal suffrage, the abolition of slavery, free access to healthcare and education, safe and fair working practices, freedom of expression)

This is, of course, very hard to answer. And, it's not because I "don't care."

My RACE - well, I would never pick this answer. I give almost zero consideration to my race. I'm "white", what does that even mean? I'm apparently Irish if I were to try to be more specific, though I'm not 100% sure of that and there must be other elements. What is there to preserve? I couldn't tell you. I'm also under the impression that when other people get too focused on their race, bad things happen. Still, I think one could make an argument for preserving racial diversity, both from the scientific (genetic) and aesthetic (homogeneity sucks) point of view.

CUSTOMS and TRADITIONS - visions of people wearing old-timey embroidered costumes, dancing around a pole come to mind. Um... I have little to no interest in that sort of thing. Though at the same time I try to respect it and I think it would be sad to lose it entirely. But, maybe this aspect encompasses more. I could put all kinds of things about our culture under this heading. Law? The golden rule? Capitalism? Democracy? There are things I see as nearly essential and critical to preserve, at least until we come up with some better refinements. But, this seems too much of a mixed bag to choose.

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS - this seems like an answer I would never pick either. Though, the inclusion of "(including a lack of any)" certainly inspires me to chose it. That feels more like something the survey author added at the last minute knowing some of us are atheist. There's nothing to preserve with atheism. My atheism motivates me to tear down religious beliefs.

ABSTAIN ..but "good" rating.

Most races, have their own culture, and religion. Each race is a family. All races want their family to be preserved.

mmmmmmmmmm...I'm going with Religious Beliefs. And my religious beliefs include more options :0p

My religious beliefs are unlike most. I wonder if personal freedom could come under that, but it wouldn't be under the rules of others' religious beliefs.

> You said that already. I did give a moments pause to consider your
> position when I read it. You did get my email about fuel-lines, didn't
> you?
>
> Sounds like this is something you are bitter or confused about too.
> Why? Were your expectations not met? Did you have some revelation?
> You were pretty heavily immersed there for awhile.

Yes got your email for the fuel lines and shared this with Mike my friend he is going to fix my car , and as far as religion
other christians just make me want to stay away from church because of their attitude and being a bunch of hypocrites
and bigots they make me sick to even want to be a christian being an atheist is much better

For me, my lack of belief is what I identify with first and foremost, so that's is what I'd like to be preserved more so than the other options. I see it as an achievement in the progress of mankind.

My cultural CUSTOMS and TRADITIONS are what I'd most want to have preserved.

Race is something arbitrary, something irrelevant, something that matters only as a visual difference. It's sad some people make a big deal out of it. I want my religious beliefs preserved only as far as they coincide with my customs/tradition.

My atheism, because the loss of that would represent the loss of rationalism and, to my mind at least, a reversal of progress.

Customs and traditions. Race is a meaningless and artificial construct, and religious beliefs are the same thing as customs and traditions, in my opinion.

My family came from druids =P

I picked Customs and Traditions. I am for total basic human rights for all AND... AND I would not like to see a world where there were no longer pure (or close to) Japanese, Polynesian, African, Norse, Native American, Mexican, etc. races and cultures. I love the differences. I love sharing our differences. Can't we all just get along? Oh.... maybe that wasn't the question...? Maybe?

Hey! fbylymm! My family comes from the Druids, too. Cool! The dark Scottish blood. And there were a lot of lies spread about the Druids from the Church.

Well what was your motivation in the first place? To have something more to do with God, or to join some social group? I sure hope you aren't basing your attitude about or belief in God based on how church people act. I'd think either you believe in God or you don't. If you do, I don't see why attitudes of church goers hold more sway than God.

If you believe that believing in God means going to church well that's an unfortunate misconception. One could conceivably believe in God and yet be opposed to the beliefs of every church and religion on the planet (aside from the existence of God part).

Of course any of this enduring is preposterous. It's peoples identity and values I was curious about.

"visions of people wearing old-timey embroidered costumes, dancing around a pole come to mind." - I love that too. Done it once even. Thank God for the Renaissance faires and witches.

I disagree. Preserving atheism is preserving your cosmology. Either you would prefer people in the future not believe God is to blame for some or all things, or you don't. I suppose if you had doubts, and wanted everyone else in the future to continue having doubts too, that would be a different matter, but atheism is a belief, not just the absence of beliefs. Even if your philosophy is one infinite scientific inquiry, either you believe there's potential of a supernatural founding of things like the big-bang, or you don't. I suppose though it is possible to believe in something like physics in which things are born from nothing without supernatural cause, or possibly even that the future will eventually create our past, as just plain physics (I'd still be wondering how the whole cycle got here though).

Alas, everyone interpreted 'culture' more broadly than I hoped for (for inquiry purposes), although that they did so is encouraging. I meant more specifically along the lines of racial culture.

Only two of 38 visitors, two of 25 votes, cared most about their race, and if you read the comments, they often go as far as indicating that race means nothing to them.

Part of the motivation of this survey was to indicate that to you. People believing race defines them is getting rather rare these days.

The one thing that caught me by surprise, but in retrospect is no surprise at all, is that a large portion of people here are most interested in preserving atheism.

Those wishing to preserve their culture turned out to not indicate racial based culture much at all, but rather modern generic worldly socio-political values like democracy and freedom of thought.

Your comment implies that race and culture is more important to you than religion. Is this true? It's suddenly dawning on me that perhaps preserving your tribe (whatever that might be) - is your religion. That would explain a lot.

> Well what was your motivation in the first place? To have something
> more to do with God, or to join some social group? I sure hope you
> aren't basing your attitude about or belief in God based on how church
> people act. I'd think either you believe in God or you don't. If you
> do, I don't see why attitudes of church goers hold more sway than
> God.
>
> If you believe that believing in God means going to church well that's
> an unfortunate misconception. One could conceivably believe in God
> and yet be opposed to the beliefs of every church and religion on
> the planet (aside from the existence of God part).

Kristal i will just believe in my own God and jesus and want nothing to do with any religion at all they are hypocrites
all of them and i find more peace being Atheist ?
But yes still believe some things like heaven my way and not their way and my home is my church

If I wanted my great-great-great-great-great grand kids to remember me from anything as the world evolves. I would want them to associate me with my Customs and Traditions for holidays and what I did with my family then my religious beliefs or race.

I believe, generally speaking, you're right. The tribe, are Christians. They are of the 10 lost tribes of the House of Israel. The 10 lost tribes, crossed over the caucas mountains, went into Europe, into the U.S., Canada, Australia, and a few other smaller Christian nations, New Zealand...some in to So. Africa I believe. We are our faith. Now many, through spreading the Word, some third world people are becoming Christians.

If you believe in God of any sort or form or purpose or method at all, you're not an atheist. Atheist believe nothing is or ever was influenced by or had a spriritual component. Just because you don't believe in any churches you know of or modern christianity doesn't make you an atheist.

That being the case, it might help to you understand that most all other faiths of the world, including most other Christian religions, are about the very opposite; Not about God favoring any people, but about all people 'transcending being people' to find God. Identification with material things at all including being any sort of people is seen as holding people back spiritually, not as solidifying their spiritual identity.

It's faiths like yours being around which make the world an interesting place. What you've got going though is not only objectionable to most 'transcendance' based faiths, it's also the thing most atheists find most offensive about religions.

That being the case, I can see all my socio-political arguments about immigration won't matter to you much, because you have some rare faith which you believe wouldn't survive if your people did not survive. That's not true of most other religions. The whole world could be replaced with Asians or Mayans with customs from tribal Africa, and it wouldn't matter to their religion as long as people still believed in their religious beliefs. There should be a name like Old-Testamentism for your religion. Not even fundamentalism is as OT based as your core belief. I suppose there's not a name for it (well, maybe there is somewhere) because it's not common enough to need a word.

You're not alone though. Just as every faith like Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, or Islam has it's mystic sects, they each (I'm fairly sure) have their sects which believe in their faith as belonging to a particular people.

- Oh wait, I suddenly recall of a religion that is based on tribe, one so based on tribe that in order to be of their religion one of your parents has to be of their religion, and, it's based entirely on the Old Testament. There is a word for Old Testamentism - Judaism. You my friend, are a Jew - an odd breed that believes in Jesus without teaching much of his teachings, that doesn't practice the ancient culture and customs of the ancient Hebrews, but still in concept, with the God's chosen people thing, a Jew. The Muslims are kind of Jews too. In spite of their believing in Jesus and Mohammed, as with you, the teachings of Abraham count for far more of their ideology and core operating principles than anything Jesus had to say. In spite of this they see Jews as their enemy, and I wouldn't be surprised if your church looks down somewhat on Jews either.

In today's world, overall your church sounds more similar to Islam than either common Christianity, Catholicism, or Judaism. - and it's world's away from hinduism or buddhism.

Actually, doesn't Hinduism preach the caste system? They supposedly have 7 castes, one of them the untouchables, whom you can't even talk to and they live on the outside of society. Kinda hard for their religion to thrive if every Indian ever died, as you wouldn't know what caste you are since your lot in life is determined by your parent's birth.

I identify as a person coming from the country in which I was born and my core values are about providing and caring for my family. I imagine this is the same for most people on the planet.

Either this survey has a narrow focus or it doesn't. If it does, then people haven't changed much in thousands of years. We grow, we fall in love, we work, we raise children and then we die. The difference is in the details, and the details of my cultural identity won't and shouldn't survive as the world evolves.

I would preserve my religious beliefs. GO MORMONS!!

Christianity is based on two texts. Hinduism is based on 1400 texts which more resemble scientific dissertations arguing with and referencing each other than history full of ethics decrees. They are understood to be the works of sages of differing opinions, and not works of God. Yeah, the caste system was a majority trend, but there is no core Hindu belief. The range of beliefs don't even necessarily include the pantheon, and when they do, that can be anywhere on the spectrum between cultural custom fiction, symbology, spirit energies, or literal deities. Those two middle two are the more popular. Even when they do believe in the pantheon somewhat, they usually have their own favorites, just like Baptists are fond of fire and brimstone.

Their gig is more about a range of yoga paths to spiritual liberation including devotion, physical discipline and body energy awareness, and immersion in spontaneous madness. The only substantial common denominator in Hinduism is that they believe in monism, that this is all made of God, and that we something else because of the delusion of our egos. This is in contrast to Western religions which are dualistic, and while attributing creation of everything to God, conceive of God as something somehow separate from creation.

Interesting problem you bring up in the context of caste believers. Kind of it's opposite is the birth of the Dalai Lama who might be born to anyone on the planet.

I still don't think you're getting the gist of my question. You and I both agree on what human nature is.

I take for granted that love, children, and such, will always prevail, and thus didn't bother to ask about that. Those though are just what people do anyhow, not how they define themselves.

What I am indirectly asking is who people think they are (at perhaps an abstract level) , by asking what they hope survives them that they can relate to.

You've answered : "I identify as a person coming from the country in which I was born and my core values are about providing and caring for my family. I imagine this is the same for most people on the planet."

Any race or religion can occur in most countries, so apparently you identify with culture. Some people though might relate more to religion or race, and see their culture as a comparatively random incidental aspect of their being. For a true Christian zealot, it would be Christianity they felt must persevere, not their viking blood or the fashion and diet they picked up living in Tahiti for 20 years. For a racist, they may not care about religion or culture, just so long as the people of the future have their skin color.

> |> My religious beliefs. Whoever is left here should have a chance
> at
> |> a good life.
> |>
> |> Next, my customs. Things like holidays, recipes, fashion, guitar
> get-togethers,
> |> vacationing, or Irish lore.
> |>
> |> I could care less if the people of the future are green or purple.
>
> My religious beliefs i could care less about them any more and quit
> going to church

You used to attend Church regularly and it sounded like you really enjoyed it along with the Bible studies and fellowship. What happened? Please don't denounce God and Jesus.

> |> |> My religious beliefs. Whoever is left here should have
> a chance
> |> at
> |> |> a good life.
> |> |>
> |> |> Next, my customs. Things like holidays, recipes, fashion,
> guitar
> |> get-togethers,
> |> |> vacationing, or Irish lore.
> |> |>
> |> |> I could care less if the people of the future are green
> or purple.
> |>
> |> My religious beliefs i could care less about them any more and
> quit
> |> going to church
>
> You used to attend Church regularly and it sounded like you really
> enjoyed it along with the Bible studies and fellowship. What happened?
> Please don't denounce God and Jesus.

Oh just some people have this problem and they really get into being just so religious and forgetting about the Love
of God and Jesus and this just stinks and turns me away from the church they are mind control set
and all i want is to be Spiritual and leave out the religious bull they are so full of it and all the reasons to just say no"

They want to keep stabbing people in the back over and over again and had enough of this garbage

Religious beliefs. I could care less about race, and as an American I have no culture. ;p