Turned My Back On My Religion ...

[AdamAnt]

Interesting thread indeed. It seems there are a number here who are Christian but questioning the traditions we were raised with. I was raised in a really strict denomination, but now that I'm older, I'm basically taking my religion apart and putting it back together again to better suit what I feel to be real.

It seems the more I dig, the less I question the validity of Chrisianity, but I have the feeling that somethings been lost or hidden. I'm reading about the Nag Hammadi at the moment. Just soaking up all I can on the dead sea scrolls and the lost books of the Bible. I'm really wanting to know what criteria was used when so long ago a committee was formed to decide what would become canon for us to read and apply to our lives and what was thrown out. The gnostics were and still are considered heretics for embracing these books. I just wanna know what it's all about before I totally dismiss it!

Dang, I do hope that doesn't seem like a drag! I can feel the eyes roll that I'm over-complicating things again. What if God only had one commandment...BE HAPPY!...ha! What a concept. I wonder if heaven would be fuller or emptier? hmmmm

 

[anni]

I have a theory that it's an awful lot harder to get into hell than I was taught. Just a theory! I do a ton of wondering, too, which would make my Lutheran minister father pop a gasket or two-he's also a theolgian and very well founded in academics so I'd pop TWENTY gaskets with this but what if the commandments were common sense rules to live by? If you read them, seem pretty basic to me, and it's always seemed rather like we must have torn God's last nerve if he had to finally actually write all that down for us to GET it! If you consolidate them, with the exception of one God ( also basic, really, but everyone insists on identifying who they're speaking to as HIM, and therefore somehow seperate from who everyone else is refering to-what if it's the same 'Him'?)it seems to me to all come down to BE NICE, PEOPLE.

I do truly believe God wishes us to be happy. If the basic premise here is that he is our Father, what else is there as the ultimate wish for a child that that? It would of course be the first order in things, wouldn't it?

I don't think that's at all a drag to think about. :)

 

[AdamAnt]

This seems like a subject that most PTSDers would struggle with. For many, in order to contract PTSD, the "golden rule" has been thrown out the window and evil has shown it's face. In times of extreme hardship those hard questions inevitably arise...why would any higher power allow such a horrible thing to happen to his children? Is there a God? Etc.

I'm not so familiar with how paganism addresses these types of questions. would be interesting to know.

 

[Jline]

Has anyone seen "What the Bleep Do We Know!? & What the Bleep!? Down the Rabbit Hole"......very interesting. Good thread guys! j

 

[anni]

Chalk another one up for not knowing anything- yes-have often wondered about the whole "What is God THINKING' thing. I just left a note on another thread about the times I've yelled at God. I sure as heck know evil is out there- there's a hypocritical statement for me, since have just finsihed claiming some sort of blanket open-mindedness. It was evil in there, though-in all it's stinking manifestaionsand am going to allow myself that one. I've also felt God's presence, and felt many actual prayers to have been answered, don't think I'd survive a desert of existance if I disbelieved 'his' existance at all. So yes, where was HE-is he when Katrina hits, our service men head for that hidden bomb in the road, that baby is beaten or the plague eliminated a third of Europe?

My head hurts.

 

[emmat]

The experiences I had with PTSD helped cement my secular-athesism.

I find the idea that an all-knowing being with free will let me suffer very depressing. I don't want to believe that something could have stopped all that anguish and simply chose not to for some perverse reason I'll never know. I find much more happiness and freedom not believing there is something out there.

 

[seedling]

I found the book "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis to be very interesting. Found it in a used book store this spring. He talks about why pain exists. Won't get into it here, has been a while since I read it and I don't remember the whole thread of it. But very good.

Also, just saw part of a show talking about the ten commandments and it mentioned that it's written in the Bible that these commandments are already written on our hearts. That we should already know to do/not do these things.

When I read the "Wizard of Oz" books to the kids when they were little I found out that the only rule in the land of Oz is to: Behave Yourself! Thought that summed it all up. Now if we could all agree on good behavior :)

 

[anni]

C.S. Lewis has SO many things one keeps bumping into like that-I'm going to go look that one up. I always end up feeling rather as if I haven't been talked down to, also, or have been expected to understand concepts on some level beyond me just because HE said something profound, you know? I revisited his Lion/Witch/Wardrobe series as an adult just for fun and it pretty much says all the same things-wrapped up in enchanting other-worlds so one didn't even know, as a child, HOW profound was the message there. Same with Tolkein, althoug of course he didn't have theological works, really.

 

[AdamAnt]

C.S. Lewis! Quite the well rounded fellow! I've always thought he was an amazingly interesting person...Tolkien too, I had read the trilogy a few times before the 70's were done!
Both of these guys can paint a picture of how a bond between people should be, and interestingly to me, how one should treat their enemies!

 

[Froggie]

Oh boy,this forum has some interesting threads ... I had a pile of stuff to do, but I prefer getting new insights here. This is absolutely a great topic and one that many people seem to be intrigued by their spiritual existance. Used to be a practicing Catholic, but after I read the Bible and started asking questions and getting answers that meant - husssssshhhhh don't say that just believe it .... that didn't work on me. So I started my quest quite a while ago. One thing I was glad is in my university years, I had learned some real neat tricks for research. So I researched on different beliefs ... I've met so many different types of believers, I would have really great convesations with them, I have even met real atheists who are great people, when I say real, it's because they are coherent with that philosophy, others are "trying out" the philosophy and aren't sure if it's really them ... and you know what ... lots of people have gone through the same questionning as we all are and many - as one of my clients told me :"I put this thing and that thing and so on in my shaker and what comes out is my belief". That's pretty much what a majority of my clients do ... and what I do - but they don't need to know that. In their situation, I'm the T, and my responsibility in that is to make sure that their beliefs is making their life better or giving them a direction.

Also in my research concerning Karma, I have found out that not all souls reincarnate, some souls have accomplished all their cycles and accepte to come back because there are things that are going really bad in this world. Without these generous souls amongst us, PTSD would be nothing compared to what humans would have to deal with.

Ask yourself or some people around you if they have this weird feeling since a very long time that there was really a reason why they were born ? food for thought.

Also, how can you believe that God (be it a He, a She or an it) is good and loving when the person didn't even have loving parents ? Our parents are our first exemples of what God could be - very hard to believe in anything good when born into a dysfunctional family.

So who is God and where is He, She, It ? If we are his/her children, then we are part of God ... if we have PTSD, maybe God has that too after seeing what goes on Earth ... Many members are learning how to be good to themselves, have a greater respect, more compassion, have a deeper insight to existence, maybe that's what the members are to do in order to change their lives.

When I need to get in contact with this Essence of Infinite Love, I light a candle, do smudging and any other ritual from different Beliefs that seems appropriate for the moment. So what do I believe, I have a hunch that I may a gnostic and not an agnostic.

Good thread to be true to oneself.

 

[Deleted member 5760]

I hope this isn't too off topic. It concerns 'the afterlife' (?) so I guess I can slip it in with the disclaimer that I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. Just sharing a true story.

About, hmm, 5 years ago now I went to a medium. Not a tarot card reader or something of that nature - a medium (ie claims they can communicate with those who have passed). I gotta tell you - I was blown away. She launched straight into this spiel of FACTS - not generalisations like 'oh I see you've had some relationship problems' (who hasn't at some stage, etc). Facts - like 'your grandfather worked as a ....... and passed from .....'.

But here is the bit that really stumped me! About 10 minutes in she says 'Your sister's here. There are three sister's in the family, right?'

I said 'no, there's only 2. Myself and my older sister'.

'Well I am telling you right now that your sister is here and she's telling me there are 3 of you'

I said 'look, I'm not trying to argue with you, but I think I know how many siblings I have, and there are only 2 of us'

This went on for a few minutes and she absolutely refused to back down. I thought 'ohhh just keep moving. You're allowed one mistake'. And she pipes up with 'look before I move on I want you to take this with you in relation to this because I'm right. She didn't have to have been born. A soul exists when it's conceived, ok? Doesn't have to mean she was born'.

Anyway, so I spoke to my Mum afterwards and was telling her all this. What does my Mum say --- 'Jen there's something I think I should tell you. Before your older sister was born I had an abortion'. HMMMMMM. Now I can't explain this woman's degree of accuracy and I realise that any room is going to be divided between skeptics, believers, and 'not sure's'. All I can say is 'how the %^&* did she know all that?'.

Food for thought.

 

[AdamAnt]

Food for thought.

I had what could be considered a similar experience, Jen. This one did have to do with tarot cards though. Now there are several different ways that they can read cards, and this one was the longest most detailed way the person knew. He proceeded to describe everyone in my life, past and present, situations, everything, it was uncanny. Then he pretty much told me that something really bad was about to happen. This was all happening in my motorhome, and then before we finished my hosts called and said everyone was ready to go to dinner. We left the cards there on my table and left, and it was 2 weeks before I got back to the cards...I won't go into it, but something really bad DID happen.

I sat there and looked at those cards for a long time. They were accurate for me. I felt I had a big decision to make. Do I trust these cards and use them from then on to help guide me? That could be very useful!!! In the end, I tossed them. My reasoning was that even though there were clearly forces involved that had access to more information than me, I felt like I would then be controlled by whatever it was that knew so....I tossed 'em!