when you have nothing, praying helps, when dad died i gave up faith in everything. now im slowly starting to belive again.

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I understand what religion is. I understand most of them. I understand the personal strength and faith it takes to stay true to a certain way of thinking and certain ways of living.

I get all of that. I really do understand why people pray, I understand why prayer is so important to them and why at times they do need to believe in that "friend" or that "extra something" that will make their life complete. I get all that.

This was merely my asking because I wanted to know how strong some people's convictions are.

There is simplistic understanding but I believe that if a person can't answer every question posed to them about themselves in detail and with the full understanding of how it truly represents who they are, then they really don't know themselves and thus probably aren't fully happy. They probably give some bullshit answer about themselves saying, " I don't need to know everything to be happy."

Fact is, yes you do. Some people just coup with the fact that they don't know everything about themselves and that is cool. ^^ I don't really care if I know everything about myself. But I do strive everyday to learn why I do the things I do and why I do them in the way that I do.

I think that asking questions like this, making people think about why they do things the way they do allows us to grow. Not only individually, but collectively as a community.

Thanx BoSz for the point. I'll be sure to give you back one as soon as it is back up ^^!

 

 

 

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Spawn.. i agree with you. Humans DO need to pursue self-awareness to achieve any measure of happiness as an individual.. unfortunately (as far as i can tell) this isn't a widespread philosophical truth in Christian communities. I was raised baptist; when faced with difficult questions i burned with, my parents and their peers would often reply with "we are not meant to question... all will be made clear when we reach God." That usually meant upon death. I think the idea is that there is no need for individual development... you submit your identity to God.. and to the christian community.. and to your family.

What i couldn't make them understand is that some of us don't have that option... some of us were born with questions to which we MUST have answers, and we can't surrender ourselves to a community that fails to provide satisfactory answers to those questions. Some of us are left with no option but to find those answers ourselves. My mother, in particular, was aware of this struggle ... but she percieved it as a battle between God and the devil over my soul. In her eyes, the devil won out.

I'm an occultist now, and i 'pray' in my own way. For me, God isn't an invisible friend that listens to my pleas when no one else will, or a Man in the sky who loves me as an individual as my mother or father does, to whom i can hand a wishlist to be fulfilled according to my whim. God is a visible and active force that oversees and permeates all things.. that forces all things to adhere to its Laws and patterns. According to this force, Our cells are held together, our synapses fire, trees grow the way they do, the wind and the water moves to keep this place habitable to life... all of these things should be impossible in the face of entropy, and the "chance and coincidence" that made them so are literally the machinations of God. God speaks through order and seeming coincidence, and can be turned to when we cannot understand our places in the interactions of 'all things under heaven.' God does speak, but most of us explain the omens away as "merely coincidence'. Take out the 'merely' and you have the voice of God. Coincidence. Synchronicity of pattern.

We have a saying in the circles i frequent: "you find what you seek." Too many of us view the subject from the modern bias that 'God is improbable," and when we look around with our conditioned vision we find exactly that: the improbability of God. This view itself comes from faith... faith in what our fellow man tells us. Too many of us listen when others tell us God does or does not exist, or tell us what God is or is not.

We don't have to listen to the various factions of men who battle for what we will believe.. and try to tell us what is in front of us. We have eyes to see for ourselves, whether God gave them to us or not. Believe whatever you feel compelled to, just make sure such compulsion doesnt come from other men, with their own human agendas.. involving you.

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Toyclergy,
It sounds like your stance is a reaction to the misunderstandings around you.
God is invisible, and since he's omniscient, he always hears what we tell him. But he's more than just an invisible pal.
Taking some things from the Bible:
God does have the role for us of father, since we are his children and we can turn to him for protection and support (matthew 7:11). But he's not like earthly fathers, who are imperfect, and as a result end up wounding their children's hearts. God cares for his people (Hosea 11).
God wants us to pray to him. But he doesn't want us to come boasting about how great we are (Luke 18:9-14), he wants us to come to him with our needs.
Since God created the universe and all that is in it (Colossians 1:16), he is the origin of the order that we observe around us. He preserves this order actively (Acts 17:28).
God does speak to us (John 10:27), and his workings can be plainly seen (Romans 1:20).

There are two ways to let someone else shape your beliefs: one is to dumbly believe what they tell you to believe. The other is to reject everything they claim, without saving the valid parts.

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Toyclergy.. that was an awesome read. I totally congratulate you on finding your own path.

But I give everyone a pat on the back for even answering this. Finding yourselves and having the ability to communicate what it is you believe in is a great step towards what I feel should be a world where free communication shoudl reign.

No offense SynapticFlame. But the bible only tells you what you what to believe it tells you. I could read those words and believe that god is a despot cruel leader who wishes to be omnipitent and control everything around him.

It is all about interpretation.

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The Bible, despite being written by a whole bunch of diverse authors, is consistent in its messages. The verses I mentioned in my post aren't considered as isolated verses, like if I quoted Matthew 27:5 "...Judas went and hung himself" and then Luke 10:37 "...Go and do likewise." The ideas I am getting from those verses are supported by the surrounding verses. Feel free to read the verses and verify for yourself that they are relevant, and that I am not reading anything into them.
As you said spawn, it is very nice to see people talking about what they believe.

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Yes, but if you quoted Matthew 27:5 "And [Judas] cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself", and then Acts 1:18 "Now [Judas] purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out," you have two very clear and contrary accounts of the same events: what Judas did with the silver and how he met his end. Being written by a whole bunch of diverse authors, the Bible is, of course, inconsistent in its messages.. be they spiritual guidelines or historical records. Feel free to read the verses and verify for yourself that they are relevant, and that i am not reading anything into them.

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These accounts of Judas' death aren't necessarily contradictory - when one dies by hanging, the body doesn't necessarily stay hanging there as it decomposes... it is quite possible that Matthew is telling how Judas killed himself, and Luke is telling of the result - that his guts were spilled all over the place.
Yech.

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Uhm, yes, the accounts ARE necessarily contradictory - unless, of course, the corpse had second thoughts about casting his 'reward of iniquity' down in the Temple, went back to retrieve it, bought a field with it in another geographic area (Aceldama) at a later time, went frolicking in his undead glee over his new property and THEN burst asunder in the midst of this new location.

It isnt infrequent that unreasonable stretches of the imagination MUST be employed to upkeep the illusion of the bible's infallibility.

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I personaly don't believe in god, and refuse to believe that someone up there is controling my life. I mean, if god really exists, would he allow all these wars and s* to happen around the world? If god loves us as his children, why would he make us suffer like this? This is the sole reason I strongly refuse to believe in god, and if I'm wrong... well, I'll suffer the consequences...

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