What lead you to your faith / Religion ?

for me I tried yoga, gnostism, islam, budhism, mushrooms, lsd.

alcohol and marijuana filled my spiritual void for many years, or rather they distracted me.

finally I came to Christ, I was in a dark place in a hole, I asked Jesus to come into my life and he did, lifted me up out of that pit and set my feet upon a rock :)

psalm 40:1-2

I waited patiently for the LORD;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
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GlorytoGod said:
how did you come to your spiritual path ?
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Coming from a Christian background, about 6 years of intense, sequential thought on the matter established the beginnings of my current position. Since that time, I have continued to think and develop from mere atheism, to secular humanism, to Humanism, to what I call humanist contemplative thought (which includes inspirations from Buddhism, Taoism, Stoicism, and more).
 
What lead you to your faith / Religion ?
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Nice thread. Although it should read "faith/religion or lack thereof". Except that's kinda long lol.


I also came from a Christian background. My "deconversion" was a very gradual process. After I stopped calling myself a Christian, I still held firmly to theism. I started to learn more about other religions because I thought I could find "truth" in all of them. After a while I started calling myself agnostic because I realized I had been kidding myself when I said that I still believed in God. It was around this time that I joined these forums. only recently have I started calling myself an atheist.
 
GTG,

What I like about my belief system is that it makes absolute, perfect, logical sense to me. I will not tolerate a belief system that has discrepencies, and mine has none.
 
StarshipEnterprise,

That's very interesting. I have heard of a lot of people like you who moved up the branch from most specific, to the more general (theist) then looked around their for a bit before moving along the branch more and then coming back up on the atheist side.

For me, however, the critical questions that lead to my leaving Christianity were very core things that spoke directly to the root of theism. They had to do with "how we know" something and so on. Therefore, I went directly to atheist, and all other supernatural religions were never a question since they all sprang from the same root ways of thinking about faith and knowledge. So, that period of jumping from religion to religion never happened for me. My journey did take place, but it started from that first jump from Christianity to base of the alternate branch at atheism, and then moved down that branch to a more specific humanism.
 
We had another thread similar to this it seems not to long ago.

Seems I posted there...so anyway the latest update is that I think I'm exploring a nontheistic Christianity. You know when you see some busses that are all painted with some logo or advertisement, but from the inside you are looking out normal windows, but from the outside you see all this drama, but you know it is still a bus?

I'm working my way thru the fluff and stuff and seeing Jesus.
 
DT Strain said:
StarshipEnterprise,

That's very interesting. I have heard of a lot of people like you who moved up the branch from most specific, to the more general (theist) then looked around their for a bit before moving along the branch more and then coming back up on the atheist side.

For me, however, the critical questions that lead to my leaving Christianity were very core things that spoke directly to the root of theism. They had to do with "how we know" something and so on. Therefore, I went directly to atheist, and all other supernatural religions were never a question since they all sprang from the same root ways of thinking about faith and knowledge. So, that period of jumping from religion to religion never happened for me. My journey did take place, but it started from that first jump from Christianity to base of the alternate branch at atheism, and then moved down that branch to a more specific humanism.
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The reason it took me so long is because I was afraid of atheism. An atheist was the absolute last thing I wanted to be known as.

My initial thinking that lead me away from Christianity was basically that all religions essentially serve the same God, so I shouldn't be exclusive to one of them.

Meanwhile, I felt a certain cognitive dissonance about the God concept. Only later did I address it.
 
GTG,

You said,

"sounds really boring"

--> It is actually quite exciting. To me, having a belief system that does not make sense is boring.
 
DT Strain said:
Coming from a Christian background, about 6 years of intense, sequential thought on the matter established the beginnings of my current position. Since that time, I have continued to think and develop from mere atheism, to secular humanism, to Humanism, to what I call humanist contemplative thought (which includes inspirations from Buddhism, Taoism, Stoicism, and more).
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Interesting. I was raised with no religion, but was intensely interested in science. I followed the scientific paradigm of atheism, but the more I studied, the more I noticed how scientific principles were often bent over in order to support the 'scientific' atheist paradigm. It didn't make me give up science, but it made me question my atheism.
All the different things that have brought me to my current beliefs would be very difficult to gather together and pin down. I can't say that I was drawn to a specific belief system. (However, I can say that I was warned away from a few.)
 
Snoopy said:
I described myself as an atheist till I "met" our mutual friend k. ;)

s.
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I kinda miss him. At least he was entertaining. (Yes, I'm strange.)
seattlegal-albums-emoticons-picture99-loco2.gif


Hey, welcome back, Old Fart!
seattlegal-albums-emoticons-picture113-hugs.gif
 
seattlegal said:
I kinda miss him. At least he was entertaining. (Yes, I'm strange.)
seattlegal-albums-emoticons-picture99-loco2.gif
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Yeah, well we know that! :p It wasn't his POV of course, just his relentless abusiveness. (I know it was matched by others!)

Hey, welcome back, Old Fart!
seattlegal-albums-emoticons-picture113-hugs.gif
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Thanks :). Naturally I've tried to make you a friend or a contact or a reputable dealer or something but who knows what I've ended up doing. I may go back to writing letters and using wax seals. :rolleyes:

s.
 
Nick the Pilot said:
GTG,

What I like about my belief system is that it makes absolute, perfect, logical sense to me. I will not tolerate a belief system that has discrepencies, and mine has none.
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GlorytoGod said:
sounds really boring :eek:
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Boring? Are you saying your belief system doesn't make logical sense and you acknowledge it? Why would anyone believe something that doesn't make sense?


seattlegal said:
the more I studied, the more I noticed how scientific principles were often bent over in order to support the 'scientific' atheist paradigm.
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How so?
 
StarshipEnterprise said:
Boring? Are you saying your belief system doesn't make logical sense and you acknowledge it? Why would anyone believe something that doesn't make sense?
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its hard to explain but I will try,

if I wanted something that made logical sense then I would read a technical manual.

however I dont believe that God makes logical sense, God is beyond that and beyond my understanding.

therefore I don't believe that we can understand God with our logical minds, knowledge of God only happens in our spirits.

if all my spiritual beliefs made perfect logical sense, then I would think, somethings wrong :rolleyes:
 
GTG,

First of all, I want you to know that I respect you and your belief system, and I am glad that it makes you happy.

You said,

"if all my spiritual beliefs made perfect logical sense, then I would think, somethings wrong"

--> Fortunately, all of my spiritual beliefs do make perfect logical sense, so I do not have to deal with this problem. Whenever a religion starts throwing inconsistencies and contradictions at me, and stops making sense, I head for the door (which I have done many times).

Like they say, whatever floats you boat!

dancing.gif



"I dont believe that God makes logical sense...."

--> I am sorry to hear that.

"God is beyond that and beyond my understanding."

--> I agree.
 
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