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Chirpy
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31# |
Registered:
03/06/2003
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/11/2005 10:14:39)
About filling the emptiness. Becoming a christian did in the beginning as it opened up an area of life and provided new interests as well as bringing me into contact with types of people I had never met before and also different age groups. But sooner or later when I gave up my old interests and friends my life became even narrower than before. Depression crept up on me gradually so that I didn't even know I was depressed. It was only when I gave up going to church I realised how free I was, but then again I had something to give up going to church for - going out in a group on Sundays to take a long country walk over moors or on long distance foot paths. It was only when I made brief returns to church I realised how depressing it was.
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CatholicSeeker
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32# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:2
Registered:
04/13/2005
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(Date Posted:04/13/2005 23:26:04)
This is very interesting to me. I'm a 21 year old Catholic who is just beginning to try to live out my faith in the real world, and definitely struggling. Sometimes fundamentalists almost frighten me into going along with them. Other times, I'm tempted to be even more liberal and support homosexuality and be opposed to all war, among other things.
It's sad that so many of you have had such bad experiences. I think I have been damaged greatly by the fundamentalism I've been exposed to, and I don't blame any of you. But many Christians, and many Catholics, are not like that. I beleive that intellect and faith always have to work together. I beleive that tithing should be done carefully, and we should do it just because people need our help and not always expect to be blessed in return.
We also beleive that the state of a person's soul is always a mystery; the Bible says NOT TO JUDGE PEOPLE. I may occasionally have to tell someone that I beleive what they're doing could send them into the state called "Hell" , but ultimately only God knows their heart.
We beleive that, if you take the Bible literally, it DOES contradict itself. We beleive many stories in the Old testament are myths. Sacred myths, but myths nonetheless. God is so big and mysterious that humans make many errors in recording his revelations.
If I met any of you in person, I probably would have an intelligent response to any question you would ask. But I would always be patient enough to let you rant for a little while first.
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We are Christians who don't see the world in black and white. We see it in color.
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CatholicSeeker
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33# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:2
Registered:
04/13/2005
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/13/2005 23:28:48)
Oh, and by the way, isn't my quote at the bottom awesome? I heard it from a group of post-modernist Christians in the magazine Christianity Today.
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We are Christians who don't see the world in black and white. We see it in color.
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snakechic
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34# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:3524
Registered:
11/02/2004
Time spent:
6158 hours
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(Date Posted:04/14/2005 01:38:18)
Reply to : CatholicSeeker
But I would always be patient enough to let you rant for a little while first.
Sounds awfully patronising - I hope you wouldn't expect the same 'patience' from someone like me to your little gospel message err..rant.
I probably would have an intelligent response to any question you would ask.
I'm not going to go there
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In exchange for obedience, Christianity promises salvation in an afterlife; but in order to elicit obedience through this promise, Christianity must convince people that they need salvation, that there is something to be saved from. Christianity has nothing to offer a happy person living in a natural, intelligible universe. If Christianity is to gain a motivational foothold, it must declare war on earthly pleasure and happiness, and this, historically, has been its precise course of action. In the eyes of Christianity, woman(man) is sinful and helpless in the face of God, and is potential fuel for the flames of hell. Just as Christianity must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, so it must destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation.
-- George H Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God
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VioletsApostateSoul
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35# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:61
Registered:
02/10/2005
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/14/2005 06:04:16)
Reply to : CatholicSeeker
I'm sure you are very well meaning, but your message does come across with a bit of a "oh, you poor wounded things-- Jesus will make it better." We are on this board because we have grown disgusted with and hostile towards that attitude, no matter how nicely a person trys to say it. You probably will not get a very warm reception here. You will find that a lot of us are like... wounded cats (sorry guys. It's the first thing that comes to mind). Normally, we would never bother you, but if you cross us now, we are likely to scratch out your eyes.
I am glad that you have found a spirituality that speaks to you. I do not have any questions to ask of you. I am sorry-- you may find this a bit arrogant-- but I can pretty much guess most of the answers (no matter how "intelligent"). I have heard them before. Over and over and over. I rejected those answers. I am here now.
Beware of the cats!
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John_Galt
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36# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:508
Registered:
03/14/2002
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/14/2005 16:24:35)
While this website focusses on christian fundamentalism, which by its traditional definition is protestant, there is little solace to be found in the popish religion, which has all of the flaws of fundamentalism.
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Il n'y a que deux puissances au monde, le sabre et l'esprit: à la longue, le sabre est toujours vaincu par l'esprit - Napoléon Ier
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SeasideSolitude
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37# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:15
Registered:
11/21/2001
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/14/2005 18:09:44)
Reply to : CatholicSeeker
I beleive that intellect and faith always have to work together. ... The Bible says NOT TO JUDGE PEOPLE. I may occasionally have to tell someone that I beleive what they're doing could send them into the state called "Hell"
Sorry but we've heard this many a time. You feel that your faith is tempered with reason and intellect and yet you believe in a god that is sending most of us humans to hell and you think it's okay to worship such a god. I say shame on you! If you have to have religion at least pick a god that isn't so vicious.
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Religion is like any addiction ... at first it feels good and then it slowly sucks your humanity out of you.
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rhiana
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38# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:469
Registered:
09/08/2002
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/16/2005 23:49:13)
Reply to : CatholicSeeker
I'll buck the trend and say "welcome". And then qualify that by pointing out that you've come here, this is our safe place, and if people snap at you/rant at you/say something about your faith that will make you uncomfortable, that's your problem, not ours though we're not out to persecute you, personally.
I think I have been damaged greatly by the fundamentalism I've been exposed to, and I don't blame any of you. But many Christians, and many Catholics, are not like that. I beleive that intellect and faith always have to work together.
To echo what the other said, this comes over a little patronising, "I don't blame any of you." I plies you think we made a mistake somewhere along our backsliding way, something most of us here would challenge.
We know that not all Christians are bad. But think of it this way, there's a woman, and she's been raped. So she freaks out every time a man comes near her. Logically she knows this man has nothing to do with her being raped, and isn't going to hurt her, but her instinctive reaction is to lash out/hide. We've been hurt, we get triggered, we lash out/hide. Unfortunatly, many Christians are unintentionally triggering (and some are intentionally so, and that just makes the whoe thing a whole lot harder. Most Christians who come here, come to witness, so sorry about the inate skepticism that greets you.)
Stick around if you want to, we can all learn from each other, just be aware of who's here.
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sunspots
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39# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:151
Registered:
06/02/2002
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/17/2005 06:41:34)
one perplexing one is my idiot mother's contention that I somehow "rejected" something!
The fallout of a lie long ago helped poison my life....... back in the 30's my mothers dad was a drunk..... and her little brother died from some disease.......at the kids funeral some goofball halfwit hillbilly relative "preacher" claimed that God snuffed the kid because his dad drank. My mother and her idiot family swallowed this bullshit without question... my mother has spent her whole life living a lie.... citing the above as an indisputable truth.....the idiot just could not understand that I figured out that was bullshit from jump.
my first memory of being drug of to a goofball institutionalized mental illness xtian baptist mind gulag was sitting there amazed that all these people were lying to themselves.
I missed out of so much when growing up......... the worst of which was no real guidance.... just attempted bullshit
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One theme that is Taboo for American publishers, noted by Vladimir Nabokov:........"the total atheist who lives a happy and useful life, and dies in his sleep at the age of 106."
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Voltaire
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40# |
Rank:none
Score:0
Posts:1490
Registered:
07/08/2001
Time spent:
0 hours
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(Date Posted:04/17/2005 07:01:32)
I missed out of so much when growing up......... the worst of which was no real guidance.... just attempted bullshit .
A lot of us missed out on a lot when we were growing up. I can't tell you how many times it would have been nice to spend Saturday with my family and friends sans church taking up half the day. All the rules and regulations of the things we weren't supposed to do on Sabbath taking up half of every weekend. All the trips we could have gone on, and so forth. Do you realize I was an Adventist for 40 years, keeping the Sabbath almost every weekend the whole time. That's 2080 Sabbaths, or over 5 years!
*sigh*
But I'm out now and free of that now. And oddly enough I'm still so in the habit of thanking gawd for everything, I still find myself occasionally wanting to thank him for freeing myself of my religion!
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Zombies, Unicorns, Devils, Sea Monsters, Satyrs, Dragons, Six Winged Angels, Gods, Demons, Witches, Astrologers, A walking & talking snake, Magical fruit, Talking donkeys, human headed six-winged beasts, Ghosts. All that stuff is in the Bible and yet they tell me it"s not mythology?
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