Your religious/spiritual journey

[moralorel]

I have mentioned quite a bit about my journey before, but anyway...

Since I was a little kid I have always questioned what people tell me. I still do. I started reading the Bible at age 5 because I was already annoyed by people talking about Jesus and how we needed to believe in Him in order to go to Heaven. The Jesus they told me about and the Jesus I found in the Bible seemed quite different. My parents divorced when I was very young so I was raised by my mother and step-father for most of my life. My father was not an absent father by choice. My mother was a politician and very good at convincing the courts that he should never be around me. That was my first introduction to the ethics and power of politicians. Most of my family members were named Joseph, John, Josephine, Mary, Johnathan Joseph, Joseph Johnathan, etc. so you know what religion my family was. Even so, I often argued with priests and deacons at church because I couldn't find an agreement between the Bible and our church's teachings.

College was a breath of fresh air for me. I was finally in a place where I could be myself and have discussions with people who had an open mind and/or were spiritually diverse. I started sharpening my beliefs by often debating with people I actually agreed with. I would take points that I was struggling with in my own set of beliefs and use these points to debate people who had similar beliefs to my own. Often they had no clue that I actually agreed with them. I still do this sometimes, but it's harder to do with everyone getting so offended so easily nowadays. I don't try to convert people, I try to understand points of view and try to argue against my own beliefs.

I used to live in the Chicago area and, while I don't like the corrupt leadership or the crime, I loved the different people and perspectives I encountered. Spending time with Buddhists, Taoists, Jews, Muslims, Hmongs, Wiccans, Satanists (LeVay), Pagans, Mayans and the Baha'i really opened my mind. I had an atheist mindset, but after some very strange experiences (maybe I'll go into that some other time), I really started to question the logic behind atheism as well. I started spending time online on religious forums and visited numerous churches looking for answers to many of life's questions. I did finally find people who are similar to myself around the world. But I don't belong to any denominational churches. I approach the Bible as a book without any bias. That's how I approach any religious writings. I read the words and ignore the outside dogmas. I have learned (on here) that this makes me a literalist. On other forums I was labeled a legalist. But I'm just someone who is trying to figure all of this out.

 

[juantoo3]

I'm just someone who is trying to figure all of this out.

I can relate.

I spent a lot of years "sharpening my sword" with anyone who would discuss with me. I'd argue with a fencepost.

Some lessons didn't come easily.

I brought a lot of those lessons here, and over time they filtered into my essays.

I've met a lot of people who "know" a lot of things, but few are able to consistently apply what they preach in their daily lives.

I'm no angel, I'm no saint, but I strive to live what I preach.

 

[wil]

. I'd argue with a fencepost.

Me too! And obviously many of us on forums...

Reading these makes me recall a crass joke.

Half of them were born gay and the rest just got sucked into it.

It is not the majority who followed the religion (or lack thereof) of our parents. Makes sense as we all seem to be seekers and questioners.

My parents were Christian but not of any particular denomination. My Grandparents were Masons and my dad got into the lodge for a while. We moved around a lot and my mom would find a church based on talking to friends from work. So we were Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian and Methodist over the years.

My dad quit going to church when I was young. I got in trouble in Sunday school from questioning everything and wanted to stay home with my dad. So by 4th grade I stayed home and garden or worked in the garage while mom and my sisters went to church.

My dad quit going to church because he asked the minister if you would be able to ask questions after the sermon. The preacher said sure come into my office anytime. My dad said he didn't want to come into his office and ask the questions he wanted to ask in front of the congregation so they could I'll hear the answers. He also wanted to hear other people's questions. That appears to where it be where I got it from.

I got back into church again in high school a group called Young Life, a kid's group that met in the evenings. Because there were girls there. Seriously, that was the only reason.

For the next years I I read stuff I attended churches with friends occasiona)y to see what was going on. I never saw a place where I did not see hypocrisy though, people unaligned with the message that I heard.

Organized religion to me became a joke, brainwashed masses and I began to play with the door knockers that made the mistake of crossing my property line. I would question and drill them offer them water and lemonade as they sat on the couch and try to keep them till I got bored, similar to the way I do cold call salesman. The door knockers walk to the other side of the street and avoided my house after a while.

One day when my twins were about 2 years old my wife says that we ought to give our kids a religious education. I looked at her incredulously asking why? We don't believe any of that crap. We don't go to church.

I was working at a Healing Center and a lot of people that came through would ask me where I went to church, particularly if I went to Unity, simply because of my comments and my way of being. I had no idea what Unity was I only knew a Unitarian.

They suggested a local church, and I took my kids there. I dropped them into the Sunday school program and went into the church. I honestly thought I had died and gone to heaven, not really but close. On the walls were tapestries of all the major religions the people laid back and friendly. The preacher that day was a guest speaker, Native American and told of their beliefs in the great spirit and their reverence to the Earth and all its creatures the winged, the slithering, the swimming, the four-legged and the two legged.

My kids expressed that they had a good time I can't recall exactly what they showed me they learned or did but recall being impressed as well. I went back the next week on the regular preacher was there, she spoke of Jesus and God but in a way I'd never heard before and she quoted from other religions indicating that we can find value in everything.

At the meet and greet afterwards I found out that there was a unity in my town. So I went to a local high school where they met. And definitely got sucked into it. The preacher was Butch Mosby his talks were intense. He basically spoke from a place that was discussing his something he was struggling with either religiously or physically in this plane of existence. He used scripture to identify thoughts and actions which would comfort him in that moment helping him to understand what was going on and how he perceived it. And that's what he shared with us every week.
By day he was a marketing professor at a local College by night he was researching for his next talk. He indicated it was like trying to write a term paper every week, knowing he wouldn't be graded by a professor but by his congregation.

By the third or fourth week there I had come in and the person that was going to do the daycare/sundee school for the little ones had not come in and I was asked to help. I was told I'd be given a tape of the service so I could listen to the songs, the music, The Talk and the meditation.

So I said sure, after all they're my kids. She gave me a syllabus, guideline for the kids. Told me she could care less if I actually got through it, that the most important thing was for them to know they were cared for, valuable, heard and loved the entire time they were there.

I agree to do this once a month working the kids program. I got bounced around wherever they needed me, infants and toddlers to high school students I bounced around from class to class over a few months.

It wasn't long before I did the Sunday school teacher thing every week. This was completely self-serving in multiple ways. First off I was Raising twins, I had no idea what I was doing like most parents. But being in the classes with these kids for a couple hours every week gave me insight to the way they thought the actions I could expect from mine over time. So I taught my kids classes regularly and then moved on the next year to the age group older than them.

When they became first graders I taught them for one year and then moved on to fourth through sixth graders. When they became fourth graders I taught them for one year and then moved on to middle schoolers and so on. I was always learning the attitudes, the questions, the issues that the kids a little older than my kids are dealing with it prepared me.

I also got that tape, and as soon learn the value of the tape for me. Every time Butch would talk somewhere during his sermon he would say something in a thought would pop up and my brain would connect it to another thought and another thought and then when I got back to hearing the sermon he had moved on and I missed a bunch.

With the tape I could stop and Rewind as I drove down the road and we listened to one spot over and over until it sunk in. I would pause it at the end of the sermon and leave it queued up to the meditation. I would intentionally get to meetings or work early and before I went into the office or into the meeting I would pop in the meditation, sit in the parking lot and set my mood and prepare myself for my day or whatever was to come next.

These tapes and teaching Sunday School we're incredibly valuable to making my life easier to make me understand life to prepare me for the next moments put me in a space of acceptance, I was sucked into it.

Well the youth and leader gave me the programs for each week as I said she pushed me to make sure the kids knew they were loved and accepted in the classroom. My Minister Butch implored me to not teach them what to think but to think, sounds like an old adage but he meant it. So I followed his lead and didn't do much regarding the program necessarily every week but what trials the kids were complaining about dealing with in Life or school or at home and finding someone in Scripture that I could use to reference, maybe a parable or allegory that was fitting.

During those years it came across this place called the interfaith.org or was it comparative religions. I know I'm not 100% Unity, 100% Christian, or 100% Buddhist but gather what I can use from wherever it comes.

And I appreciate that you all put up with me here

 

[juantoo3]

And I appreciate that you all put up with me here

You know as well as anybody the years I put in trying to get everyone to place nice around here.

It is a balancing act, not disenfranchising folks who I philosophically disagree with, while encouraging discussion. To my way of thinking, that is the error of so many sites that focus on one or another while ridiculing and harassing all others. Ultimately I think the way I did things allowed me greater understanding, it allowed me to appreciate that others, also G!d's Creation, reach for "Him" every bit as much as myself and those I sympathize with. "Religion" is always couched in cultural jargon, and combined with language and translation errors; but the underlying quest is there, so many of us around the world are simply trying to comprehend the ineffable questions staring all of us in the face. So few of us take the time to listen, to see, to comprehend; but those of us who sincerely do are blessed to have these thought provoking and insightful discussions.

Most of us are consumed with the cares of the moment...is there enough gas in the car, gotta pick up milk and bread at the grocery store, gotta pay the utility bill...and religious philosophy takes a back seat, and is often set aside and forgotten. Some focus exclusively on why their belief is not only the right way, but the only right way to the exclusion of all others. That builds walls and makes interfaith communication really difficult.

I know you've seen the countless times some new "prophet" comes charging in with answers to questions nobody is asking, and sitting in judgment of anyone who disagrees. That isn't conversation. Interfaith dialogue is by definition conversation. We don't have to agree, we do have to get along. That was always my motivation and purpose.

 

[Ahanu]

But if the New Testament Christ stories are regarded as fables, how is it possible to use the same NT to justify a new age Christ?

You would have to ask mythicists since they believe the entire thing is a fable. They believe Christ never stepped foot on Earth. They believe he was in the heavens above the Earth's atmosphere. Your question would be more applicable to them, not me.

But I will try to answer your question anyway.

I guess you mean the following: If the NT stories about miracles - such as resurrections - are all symbolic, then how is it possible to use the same NT to justify a new age Christ? Is this your intent? I don't know.

This question is best answered in terms of the stages of human development, I think. As I grow older, I do not say the four-year-old me is not me. Rather, I transcend and include my four-year-old self simultaneously as an adult.

 

[RJM]

You would have to ask mythicists since they believe the entire thing is a fable. They believe Christ never stepped foot on Earth. They believe he was in the heavens above the Earth's atmosphere. Your question would be more applicable to them, not me.

But I will try to answer your question anyway.

I guess you mean the following: If the NT stories about miracles - such as resurrections - are all symbolic, then how is it possible to use the same NT to justify a new age Christ? Is this your intent? I don't know.

This question is best answered in terms of the stages of human development, I think. As I grow older, I do not say the four-year-old me is not me. Rather, I transcend and include my four-year-old self simultaneously as an adult.

Anyone can get anything out of the Bible to seem to support any weird theory that they want it to, if they are determined enough. It may be convincing to themselves, but it doesn't mean much in reality, imo

 

[RJM]

You would have to ask mythicists since they believe the entire thing is a fable. They believe Christ never stepped foot on Earth. They believe he was in the heavens above the Earth's atmosphere. Your question would be more applicable to them, not me.

Do mythicists try to use the NT to find 'fulfilled prophecy' to justify their own new messiah Jesus update?

 

[Ahanu]

Do mythicists try to use the NT to find 'fulfilled prophecy' to justify their own new messiah Jesus update?

They believe there is no historical Jesus. They do not believe in a new messiah. It is possible that they could invent one.

Do they believe it is all a fable? Yes.

 

[Ahanu]

Do mythicists try to use the NT to find 'fulfilled prophecy' to justify their own new messiah Jesus update?

Furthermore, it all depends on what kind of mythicist you ask. There are modern ones and ancient ones.

With ancient Christian mythicists (those that believed in "cleverly contrived myths" according to 2 Peter 1.16), they used OT prophecies to justify their new messiah.

 

[RJM]

They believe there is no historical Jesus. They do not believe in a new messiah. It is possible that they could invent one.

Do they believe it is all a fable? Yes.

Mythicists do believe it's all a fable. Everyone knows what they believe. So what's your point?. Are we talking about mythicists or Baha'i?

 

[Ahanu]

Mythicists do believe it's all a fable. Everyone knows what they believe. So what's your point?. Are we talking about mythicists or Baha'i?

That Baha'i don't believe it is all a fable.

 

[Ahanu]

Mythicists do believe it's all a fable. Everyone knows what they believe. So what's your point?. Are we talking about mythicists or Baha'i?

That Baha'i don't believe it is all a fable.

I thought post #45 made this clear. Well, I do not want to derail this thread, so I will just leave it at that.

 

[RJM]

I thought post #45 made this clear. Well, I do not want to derail this thread, so I will just leave it at that.

Just to be clear -- you accept the healing miracles of the Christ, in principle, but don't regard them as overly mportant -- in that Baha'u'llah does not put much store upon healing miracles as a property of the new updated Christ whom he claims to be?

 

[RJM]

It's fine. You're quite entitled to your beliefs. I just wanted to understand what you were getting at here:

is also one reason why I opted out of Christianity, an ancient religion that emphasizes miracles and takes them to be of central importance.

 

[EricPH]

I guess you mean the following: If the NT stories about miracles - such as resurrections - are all symbolic,

The biggest miracle is the creation of the universe and life. If God can create Adam from the dust of the ground, then the resurrection and all other miracles are child's play by comparison.

The first life had to happen somehow, tell me how it happened without God.

 

[RJM]

The biggest miracle is the creation of the universe and life. If God can create Adam from the dust of the ground, then the resurrection and all other miracles are child's play by comparison.

The first life had to happen somehow, tell me how it happened without God.

I believe the book should be read, and then the question can be asked? Abiogenesis is simply about how life -- eventually man -- could have originated from inanimate matter -- as Adam was created from the dust of the earth.

Abiogenesis proposes mechanisms for the origin of life from inanimate matter. If God wanted to create life, was there a mechanism -- or did life just poof into existence?

Abiogenesis does not have to exclude purpose, by trying to propose a mechanism for the origin of life, imo?

 

[RJM]

However there are colossal coincidences involved, especially the one-time-only in the entire 3.5 billion plus (?) year history of life on earth jump from prokaryote bacterial to eukaryotic multi celled life, by endosymbiosis between one single archae and one single corresponding bacteria -- this is an astronomic coincidence, never again repeated anywhere in the entire history of life on earth.

However, of course in science, no probability ratio can be derived from a single event: it happened, so that's the way it is, lol

 

[RJM]

It sounds technical, and I don't pretend the least expertise, but before discarding the science it's right to try to get a basic overall of the science? Imo

 

[Modesty]

Depending on where you are though -- in some more populated areas where there is more diversity, like cities or larger towns, or on some (not all) university campuses, in some circles within that larger population, being religious would be stigmatized.

My city (and the uni I went to) is very liberal. Of course you can be very liberal and also highly religious, but I find modern liberal societies tend to display more religious prejudice. This isn't a political statement or anything, just personal experience.

 

[Modesty]

During those years it came across this place called the interfaith.org or was it comparative religions. I know I'm not 100% Unity, 100% Christian, or 100% Buddhist but gather what I can use from wherever it comes.

Thank you for sharing your story! I don't think I had ever heard of the Unity Church until a little while ago, which is surprising because its apparently quite popular. I've seen several people mention it here. It seems to be influenced both by Christianity and New Age beliefs?