It's been a struggle but now it's official. I'm what you may call an Atheist.
Now, I grew up in the church. My mother forced my sister and I to go to Bible Study as well as morning service EVERY Sunday. And on Wednesdays we went to J.A.M a program for preteen and teens. Don't get me wrong. My mother never had to drag me to go..I wanted to!! Oh man..I Believed. I believed so much that when I got saved I thought Jesus stood me up and walked me to the front of the church....
I'm a man now. I'm a man that has gone to college and gotten an education. My beliefs have changed. Through the study of World Religions and developing my own Philosophy on life. Did you all know that Shakespeare wrote a large portion of the Bible?? I mean Shakespeare!!
I’m not going to go into every reason I don’t believe but I remember the LAST time prayed....
"God, I couldn't even exist on this planet without you creating it..."
Then it dawned on me...
"But if you’re the God that created me as well as the planets....Who created you?? How, can a God just *poof* out of nowhere?"
Who thought of the idea of "God" any way. In the Hindu, religion there are thousands of "Gods". All in which have a symbolic meaning. You know morality, monogamy, faith etc..All of the Gods help the Hindu's live their life and manage in their area. The same could be said for Christianity. The faith in God, develops morality in people which helps us from killing ourselves to extinct. It also gives us faith that things will work out eventually.
You know, I didn’t lose my faith. I just lost my belief in the idea of "god"...
We think having faith means being convinced God exists in the same way we are convinced a chair exists. People who cannot be completely convinced of God’s existence think faith is impossible for them. Not so. People who doubt can have great faith because faith is something you do, not something you think...In fact, the greater ones doubt the more heroic they can be...
A lot of you all are speaking only from how you perceive GOD and the natural order of things. It is not in anyone's place to try to convince others that their religion is right or wrong because religion and spirituality are subjective and two different things. Going to church doesn't make you a better person. Praying doesn't make you a better person. Instead your OWN relationship to GOD is what makes you a better person. You can ask the "what if" this and that about God or religion all you want, but it is not until you have strengthened your spiritual intellect and mind that you will have become a better person. Kool, study the bible, analyze it, research religion, research spirituality, distinguish the two. You have a right to believe in what you believe. YOU HOPE YOU ARE WRONG? WHY? WRONG ACCORDING TO WHOM? Being that you are older you need to find your own spiritual path on your own by gaining a spiritual relationship with God. And church is not going to get you there and praying is not going to get you there either.
Everyone know my opinion on this.
Christianity is possibly the worst thought out religion...EVER. The only viable substance that can be acertained from the Bible is the Q source...and no one knows exactly WHAT the Q Source is.
Thunder
A lot of you all are speaking only from how you perceive GOD and the natural order of things. It is not in anyone's place to try to convince others that their religion is right or wrong because religion and spirituality are subjective and two different things. Going to church doesn't make you a better person. Praying doesn't make you a better person. Instead your OWN relationship to GOD is what makes you a better person. You can ask the "what if" this and that about God or religion all you want, but it is not until you have strengthened your spiritual intellect and mind that you will have become a better person. Kool, study the bible, analyze it, research religion, research spirituality, distinguish the two. You have a right to believe in what you believe. YOU HOPE YOU ARE WRONG? WHY? WRONG ACCORDING TO WHOM? Being that you are older you need to find your own spiritual path on your own by gaining a spiritual relationship with God. And church is not going to get you there and praying is not going to get you there either.
To me your statements are a contradiction...you saying not tell someone what's right or wrong, but you're telling people not to do what we believe is right. Those who are of Christian faith are taught to be our brother's keeper or to help guide. So in actuality, you are telling us we shouldn't believe in what we believe in.
He brought the issue up, so obviously he wanted feedback or maybe even some guidance or he would have kept it to himself.
^^Yeah i agree with you on the pastors part. That's why i don't believe in the pastors or priests, i just believe in God. They're human just like us, and i just don't trust them. And i know of hella pastors/ministers that are still heavy in the drug game.
Interesting subject. Yesterday I was at a seminar called "Apostolic v.s. Pentacostal" and it was some nice info. Talked about how much religions that believed in God has evolutionized (catholic, protestant). The standards of holiness is going to the pits. Preaching and just the gospel it self is becoming more and more diluted. The New Evangelicals were one group that started this. They believed in doing whatever you have to do (compromising, doing a "little bad") to spread the gospel. Their the same group Billy Graham was apart of. Charasmatics (Oral Roberts peoples) were on some of the same things. They put personal experience over scripture. These demoninations believe in unity and they acted on it by compromising in unification with catholics even. Promise keepers are on the same thing. All this is directly correlated to the end times. Religion is going to become more and more compromisingly unified. Sooner or later it's going to be like a Free Mason from Kentucky said: Sanctuaries with every holy book, with all the different religions in one place. A one world church..hmmmm...Anybody ever heard of the one world government thats going to be formed? NWO....Verichip....Eurodollar.....It can only be so many coincidences.
I just had to share that lil piece of info and give my opinion on some things that everybody is saying. I see a few people are mentioning that faith is decreasing because of -preachers, hypocritical christians, etc. Thats the thing, faith is a individual thing. Its not about what other people are doing, its about you and God. Alot of people grew up in the church which is nice. Alot of people go to church which is nice. But if you don't have a personal relationship that consists of prayer, fasting, and Bible reading then how much faith can you really have? I'm not talking about saying "Jesus come into my heart", or repeating after the preacher. I'm talkin about the initiation of a relationship like the Bible says. No man can say that Jesus is who he is but by the spirit. Repent, be baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins. Following- Acts 2:4....
The only way other people can affect you is if you are trusting in them and putting your faith in them instead of God.
Why I believe. Not because of what the Bible says so much, but because of what I've gone thru. I been at the point of sayin there can't be a God, because some scriptures just didn't make any sense. But I found out that nobody can say this unless they actually know the Bible and what its all sayin. Even studying it back to it's root translation. Why some people are in the circumstances that they are? God's will for everybody on this earth can't be understood. But his will for you can be understood. I discovered that it can be only so many coincidences. A prophet told me about my present. Ok...lucky guess...He told me about my future...hmmm ...maybe, maybe not. He told me about my past.....ok its somethin up if thats the case.
In my opinion a athiest is just someone who didn't have the full truth in the first place and quit their search for it. Or somebody who just wasn't in church in the first place and was raised in that type of environment. Thats just my opinion tho. From my perspective. Cause I noticed that people who didnt grow up in church tend to differ some from people who did. In that those who grew up their leaves the church just about the same time as the person who didn't shows up and becomes planted.
For a document written by several different men in several different persepectives written on complete hearsay aside from a few chapters...
I don't like my chances.
For a document written by several different men in several different persepectives written on complete hearsay aside from a few chapters...
I don't like my chances.
Yea I guess you could justify your chances w/ unproven info about the Bible. But personal experiences can't ever be refuted.
