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I'm technically not an agnostic because I do believe in God. But I can't seem to get into the whole Christianity thing. I've tried. (Not recently, as evidenced by my posts. But I've tried.) I wish so badly that I could just be a "normal" person. I wish I could "just believe". Or "just open my heart" or what have you. 80% of this nation (the U.S.) is Christian. It would be so much easier to be Christian. And then I'd have this belief in there that would carry me through the hard times and all that. I've prayed so hard to God to just wake up a normal person and be like everyone else but I can't.
Life would be so much easier if I weren't searching, if I just thought "I'm going to heaven when I die because I subscribe to these teachings!" A lot of Christians have espoused the belief here that people "refuse" to "become" Christian because we just want to do whatever we want and not have to obey God. You have no idea. None. This way is a thousand times harder. When you're like me, you have to think for yourself 100% of the time and not rely on a book. It is NOT a question of things being "easier" this way, trust me.
Anyway, I'm just wondering if there is anyone else out there who feels as I do and who is searching for solid belief but is not Christian, and would like to compare notes on the journey. If you fit this description, could you PM me? I would love to have conversations with people who feel as I do. I don't want to feel alone like this anymore but I can't just default to Christianity. I mean how insulting is that? If I were Jesus and someone defaulted to me out of fear I think I'd say "Thanks but no thanks, go on your merry way, don't do me any favors."
Please feel free to PM me if you would like to discuss any of these thoughts.
Oh, and as far as an actual religion goes, I guess I'd classify myself as more or less a Deist. That probably comes closest.
But I can't seem to get into the whole Christianity thing.
If you’ll forgive my saying so, I think you might be going about it the wrong way. Christianity is not just a philosophy or dogma or even a community of believers. It is all that certainly. But that’s just the fruit on the tree. You need to start with the root.
Don’t seek Christianity. Seek Christ. A vital difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ
It would be so much easier to be Christian.
LOL! No way. Love your enemies. Do good to those who do evil to you. If you can get to the end of your life and be able to say, “I’ve finally achieved everything Christ taught in the Sermon on the Mount,” then you’ll be way ahead of most of even the greatest saints.
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” (G.K. Chesterton)
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ
Life would be so much easier if I weren't searching
That search never ends though. As soon as you get one question answered, you’ll discover that the answer has spawned ten more questions.
But that’s part of the fun really. Even knowing Christ, you are knowing infinity. It’s going to take a while to even scratch the surface of it all. Eternity even. Here’s another good one to ponder:
Quote:
“Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”
--G.K. Chesterton
Don’t get so caught up in analyzing the notes that you can’t hear the song.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JerZ
"I'm going to heaven when I die because I subscribe to these teachings!"
That isn’t Christianity. It’s not about the rules. It’s about the Person.
LOL! No way. Love your enemies. Do good to those who do evil to you.
But that's just the problem, Mark. Not being Christian doesn't absolve one from ethics either. I think that's a common misconception about non-Christians. If anything I feel I have even more of a responsibility to "do the right thing", since, in searching, it's easy for one to see that no matter who is "right", all major religions espouse the same values. Therefore it's very obvious that they're sincere human values whether religious or not. So you get all the responsibility...none of the promises (i.e. eternal life and all that).
Your post did give me food for thought...as it always does. Mark_S. Once again you've touched my Oobie Doobie! (But not in an inappropriate way!)
Mark, go read Alpha's thread about our mental images of one another, I posted one for you on there!
JerZ,
Would you be open to the idea of having a supportive discussion of this on the forum? I would love to hear other thoughts on this.
I don't believe in God, but otherwise I share very similar feelings to you on this...I would LOVE to believe there is an afterlife. I think it's really hard to think about others (and myself) dying, adn that's it. Nothing. I think it's really hard to think that I'm all alone on this journey (not all alone--I have other people, but no deity). And I totally agree with you on the "morality" thing--I take it very seriously and I do try very hard to do the "right thing", which includes the Christian ideas of the "right things"--I just don't believe there is a God who is proclaiming them or requiring them, but I require them of myself and of my children, and hold us to very high moral standards.
anyway, I would love to hear more on the topic if you're open to it. If it turns into a criticism of your views, or you'd rather not have the discussion publicly, I totally understand.
I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to believe in God, or Christianity, or Judaism or any other religion, but I don't.
JerZ,
Would you be open to the idea of having a supportive discussion of this on the forum? I would love to hear other thoughts on this.
I don't believe in God, but otherwise I share very similar feelings to you on this...I would LOVE to believe there is an afterlife. I think it's really hard to think about others (and myself) dying, adn that's it. Nothing. I think it's really hard to think that I'm all alone on this journey (not all alone--I have other people, but no deity). And I totally agree with you on the "morality" thing--I take it very seriously and I do try very hard to do the "right thing", which includes the Christian ideas of the "right things"--I just don't believe there is a God who is proclaiming them or requiring them, but I require them of myself and of my children, and hold us to very high moral standards.
anyway, I would love to hear more on the topic if you're open to it. If it turns into a criticism of your views, or you'd rather not have the discussion publicly, I totally understand.
I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to believe in God, or Christianity, or Judaism or any other religion, but I don't.
I would LOVE to encourage you BOTH to start asking us more specific questions so that we can start trying to give you better more specific answers . With all due respect to some of my Atheist friends here on the forum...I really cannot image going through life not believing in GOD! He really IS an AWESOME GOD! You just cannot sit back and expect Him to make Himself KNOWN to YOU...YOU have to seek Him!
Amplified version (easier to understand)
Jeremiah 29:12-13
12 Then you will call upon Me, and you will come and pray to Me, and I will hear and heed you.
13 Then you will seek Me, inquire for, and require Me [as a vital necessity] and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
Matthew 7:7-8
7 Keep on asking and it will be given you; keep on seeking and you will find; keep on knocking [reverently] and [the door] will be opened to you.
8 For everyone who keeps on asking receives; and he who keeps on seeking finds; and to him who keeps on knocking, [the door] will be opened.
We are here for you...if you don't want to post here, please feel free to PM myself or any other Christian on the board that you feel comfortable with
kawpgz550,
I can't speak for JerZ of course, and I mean no disrespect to your beliefs by this, but I will not ever believe in God...I am not looking to become Christian, and I can say with a lot of certainly that I won't ever want to, b/c to me it is nonsensical....but I AM interested in talking to others who are in similar situations...not to try to convert me to their "side", but more to talk about the path we walk (not looking to get the path, just to share the walk on it).
I do appreciate your willingness to answer questions kawpgz, and that you were not criticizing or talking down to us...it's just not a direction I can go.
kawpgz550, it's nice of you to offer but I definitely have asked specific questions of Christians here and when they were unanswerable, or showed inconsistencies, etc., was basically told "Well, it's a matter of faith." So I know I've taken the questions as far as I can. The end result of most of my questions is that you have to have faith or that the holy spirit has to enter you or whatever and that's exactly the sticking point for me. The holy spirit hasn't shown up yet and from the looks of things, he's not about to.
Maybe some people are meant to be accepted by Jesus and some aren't. Maybe there wasn't even a Jesus (I won't even go into that--you've seen my threads regarding this). Maybe God really is all-knowing he knew before I and others like me were born, that we were going to fail. Maybe there is more than one heaven. I mean I just don't know. But these aren't questions that can be answered by Christians except from the viewpoint of Christianity and that's the whole problem--I'm not Christian!
You have your beliefs and they're firm but they're not mine so as many questions as I can ask, and as much "proof" as I can put forth, and as heated and angry I can get and as heated and angry as people can get back, I still can't have a bottom line be "well, it's a matter of faith" or "things can be true without being accurate" or "you can't understand until the holy spirit jumps into you" and just be happy with that.
Maimouna, this is pretty much why I wanted to do it by PM, LOL. I've been on here long enough to know how such a thread is going to go. But I didn't know how to ask people en masse whether they felt like I do.
But, okay, I'm willing to try and we'll just have to see how many other non-Christians have opinions on this stuff too, to see whether they have any thoughts or revelations that can help. Okay...heaven. Or an afterlife. Do you believe in an afterlife? You said you want to believe so I'm thinking you've entertained the idea...what do you think it might be? I actually have always felt reincarnation was logical. And "felt" logical. I can see that. It explains an awful lot, and basically has the premise that you can't get back to the "source" until you've learned enough from various lifetimes so as no longer be a harm to anyone. Then you can go back to the source of everything and just be a positive addition. What do you think?
I guess I haven't been on here long enough to know that..sorry!
I don't believe in afterlife in teh sense that I will get to look down on my friends and family, and be reunited with them in "heaven." I am afraid that I pretty much view it as the end...Yet, I will say that I have wondered about other possibilities too. Like...
I know this is going to sounds NUTS (I recognize it before I even say it..) BUT...my parents have a house built in the late 1700s. Right after they bought it, I was sleeping there and I swear I saw a woman in a long dress carrying a baby and laying the baby down. OK, so I figured I was dreaming, end of story. Later, I found out that a young mother had a child in that very room, and the baby died soon thereafter...so I started wondering...was she somehow stuck in that room b/c of this? I have no idea. Maybe it was just a dream, but it seemed very real, and the history of the room (which I didn't know at the time) took me aback. Especially b/c I think we just head into darkness and that's it when we die. And yet...
Another strange thing is two-fold, and I suppose it rather goes along w/reincarnation, although I don't think I really believe in reincarnation...(full of conflict I am!). So..I have always felt really claustrophobic around a lot of trees (like the NW...I know people love it, but I get around all those pine trees, and mountains,a dn I feel trapped). And, since I was in 6th grade (I remember it clearly) I have been absolutely obsessed with the Holocaust. Not with other human tradegy so much, but with the Holocaust absolutely. No, I have no German in me, no Jewish (that I know of) in me, so it's not about the personal connection. One day a woman, who I can only describe as a self-proclaimed "seer" (who, btw, I did not seek out), came up to me and told me (out of the blue) that she felt like I'd survived the holocaust in "another time." Again...SO wierd. I was thinking....what if the mountains had something to do with an escape or something? I dont' know. Sounds nuts. I haven't ever said any of this to anyone in real life...but here...who cares? I may as well.
My more logical side (which 99% of the time wins out) sees it kind of like a drop of water. We're a drop of water in a lake, we're picked up in the air, hover there for a while, then drop back into the lake...a reincarnation of sorts I suppose, but more the cycle of life and how we're all a part of everything. I don't know if taht made any sense at all.
So I basically believe it ends in nothingness, yet I've had these experiences that sometimes pop up in my head and make me wonder "hm...now how does THAT fit in??"
Perhaps you're now thinking "I KNOW I should have done this by PM so I could block this woman out!"
If you're still reading and willing to continue....I would really like to hear more of your thoughts on how you think of reincarnation...
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. With all due respect to some of my Atheist friends here on the forum...I really cannot image going through life not believing in GOD! He really IS an AWESOME GOD! You just cannot sit back and expect Him to make Himself KNOWN to YOU...YOU have to seek Him! 
Then you can go back to the source of everything and just be a positive addition. What do you think?
