My Personal Crisis of Faith

reply to post by AfterInfinity


I understand that you are not an atheist and although I disagree with them I do respect your beliefs. I still consider you as support as you do not dismiss scientific facts like Christians do.

reply to post by GafferUK1981


Haha. My beliefs come FROM scientific facts. They just aren't as concrete, obvious, or readily observable as...say...gravity. Which is a most ironic example, considering I believe gravity to be one of THE purest expressions of "God". Consider: if gravity no longer existed, what would happen to our reality? What has gravity done for our reality?

It's an interesting thought, and if you follow it all the way, your mind might be blown by the end of the journey.

reply to post by SeekerofTruth101


Wow you really are a delusional fella, you do realise that the OP is losing his faith. He is finally realising the truth that there is no good. What kind of people would us atheists be if we did not provide support for somebody who may break free from the shackles of religion and have the desire to educate themselves.

I know you are certain that there is a god but without proof you simply have blind faith. There is no more likely a god than there is an Easter bunny.

You may try condescend us atheists but as we are the ones who actively seek the truth rather than believe in an ancient madness we are the ones who should be condescending towards you.

You speak so highly of religion but what good has religion really done for mankind. An atheist wouldn't fly a plane into a building, only a brainwashed idiot would do that.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


It's not a journey I have any interest in going on. There is too much supposition for me, I prefer proven facts than ideas construed from proven facts.

reply to post by GafferUK1981


If supposition and speculation is what you're avoiding, you will die without the answers, only opinions that bring you comfort.

That is your choice and your right.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


But I already have comfort and there are no answers I am seeking that I do not already know.

reply to post by GafferUK1981

But I already have comfort and there are no answers I am seeking that I do not already know.

You have switched out the word "know" for the word perceive. You say you "know", but you only "perceive", and since that is the only reality you have experienced, that is all you can "know".

If your perception brings you all the comfort you desire in this life, then you are blessed. If your perception blinds you to the realities of this life, then it is a cursed blessing, for you will die never knowing anything - and the blessing part is that your dying will be therefore be peaceful.

And in the end, that's all that matters, isn't it? A death that doesn't bring us pain until the last. A death that we welcome, having no more use for the life we lived. And see, that's not faith. That's satisfaction. And faith is the opposite of satisfaction. Why do you think everyone wants religion? Because no one is ever satisfied. And religion is the easiest way of satisfying our soul. But Christianity is McDonald's - full of the stuff we want but don't need, and far too little of the stuff we don't think of but desperately require.

Perhaps, in that regard, you are lucky. You have not been trained to see it one way, so you still have the choice to see it another. Like I said, that is your choice and your right. But remember: sometimes, we don't know what we're doing until the consequences have already destroyed us. We just haven't realized we are dead.

And that's what the second coming is. That's our resurrection - resurrection, from the death of our future.

I highly recommend you look into Antiquity Unveiled by Jonathan Manning Roberts.

archive.org.../n7/mode/2up

You seem to think that the crisis originated with issues outside of yourself. You are projecting what are internal issues that led you to think that the church, faith, or even God are to blame...

You just want to change..let yourself.

reply to post by manykapao


Could you explain that in deeper detail? What led you to these conclusions...or assumptions, rather?

reply to post by AfterInfinity

I really don't think it's supposed to be a last resort. And honestly, if you ARE doing it as a last resort, I don't think it's love of the lord that drives you, but a last desperate need for salvation. You're doing it for yourself. You're doing it out of fear of mortality, not out of commitment to any higher power. And last but not least: "I will try to believe..." Do or do not. There is no trying to believe. I think that alone would render it null and void. Just saying.

How in the ....... No wait......... WT........... I agree !

reply to post by randyvs

How in the ....... No wait......... WT........... I agree !

There's the trick! Well done. There's no need to ask questions, the lord works in mysterious ways. But you've accepted it without too much difficulty, so there you go. You'll make a perfect Christian.

reply to post by grayeagle

Why is there pain, suffering, hunger, sickness, agony and decay? Why you ask? Your question emancipates man from all accountability and places our condition of sin upon our Creator. Here is where you have misdirected truth because the answer is finite and complete. The answer to this question clearly shows that our Creator is ever Loving and respectful of our choices even if those choices result in the cause of our own sufferings.
The moment we relinquished our union with G-d for the passage into our own free will was the moment that everything changed. Even in the natural processes of all things living in our planet. The entire dynamic altered to meet this new physical reality of our free will.

Everything physical and everything beyond the physical literally transformed to make way for the new laws in application of the very thing we chose which was free will over complete union. Once that happened we enabled the other force, the powers and principalities of the air, the fallen ones to have legitimate power over us in decay, sin and destruction.

Sin entered and became the main player in our lives and so the consequences of our free will have been the result of all the suffering ever since. Inside these new laws that we chose our Father has had to work within them in a way so as not to go against our free will. That was the new precept of the changed laws in accordance with our free will put in place.

Our Father had to allow every cause and effect to occur because that is what we chose and HE could not over ride that. The breakthrough comes in understanding this because it is our own spiritual condition in the choice that we made in free will that has resulted in the demise of everything that is corrupt and painfull in this world.

The true emancipation comes in understanding that this is why we need to be saved and only in our salvation will we be reunited with our Loving Father upon our completion in this world. Until then once saved we relinquish our free will in true wisdom and only then can HE apply new laws in our lives. HE can abide with us at this point and protect us moreso but HE still cannot change the world because the world must exist and continue in accordance to the laws of our free will which must come to the fruition in final judgement of every living soul in order to once and for all eradicate this law of destruction cause and effect, that of Free Will.

As a result of our choosing free will, the powers of darkness were allowed to manifest their influence upon us in everything according to our free will and the cause and effect of the sin factor which was born out of our free will. Once we lived and operated under the law of sin it gave legal ground for the powers of darkness to feed our own sins and in so doing we created the world we live in. We therefore created all the demise, destruction, sickness and suffering.

Do not think for one moment that our FATHER is not suffering even moreso than us in the perilous result of our ego when we chose to break our union with HIM. We gave the devil a right to our lives and everything in this world at that very moment, everyone born after that inherited the new law inside our souls and in the world we found ourselves being born into. Earth.

HE must respect the new laws because HE knows that in order for us to return to HIM we must come to the knowledge of the truth and accept the gift of salvation. In accepting the gift of salvation we abandon the law of free will and can henceforth allow our FATHER to defend us, protect us and strengthen us while we continue to live in this world where the laws of free will give favor to the dark enemy of the fallen in their attempts to lay waste in the agenda of deceiving and robbing people of the knowledge of the truth for the purpose of their salvation.

This is what the war is in this world over souls. Our Father will not over ride our free will and all our sinfull choices to make right what we have made wrong. It is only through salvation that we can be saved and not through our FATHER doing everything for us. We are reaping what we have sown.

The culmination of the end of this war will occur with the final destruction of the world as we know it and every soul coming to the place of judgement and only then will it and can it be a new world in HIM. Only then will the forces of darkness after every soul has been judgdged and completed will the fallen be contained and destroyed.
When the enemy doesn't have any more souls to manipulate and influence in this world only then can 'they' be destroyed. As long as man exists here due to the free will law then our Father in Heaven has to respect that and allow the person to come to the knowledge of the truth so that they may be saved on their own. Saved from the sin factor and its destructive and perilous result..death.

reply to post by Egyptia


I have a hard time believing this guy is or ever has been a Pastor.

Originally posted by jonnywhite
reply to post by grayeagle

 

If you genuinely ask these questions, how is that evil? If asking these questions means you're condemned to hell then there's no freedom in heaven, is there? What freedom?

Free will means little if there're too many rules and only two roads: hell and heaven.

"I confess I stopped being a christian probably 10 years ago almost".
**********************************
People don't lose faith. They never had faith to begin with. People don't stop being Christian. They never were Christian to begin with. A true conversion is never forgotten or put away. A lot of people are not meant to be truly converted to Christianity. Jesus said that "straight is the gate and narrow is the way and few there be that find it"
That narrow straight way is Jesus of Nazareth for there is no other name under heaven by which one can be saved.
But as long as there is life, there is hope I guess. I'm just thankful that I'm one of those few. I am blessed above many. Who so ever will.

Originally posted by grayeagle
reply to post by guitarplayer

 

One of my concerns is if we are not to be just observers, withholding help when we know how to do good, but to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, is God holding us to a higher standard then himself? I am talking about the here and now. If nothing escapes his notice, the bird that falls to earth, then how does he stand by and watch the children I have seen abused. I know many will say that it is man's sin that is causing it. I agree it is man's fault however that doesn't answer my question. Could you stand by while a little child is raped. Then my painful question is how can God? Pain and sorrow are things I experience in immediacy. I have trouble denying their immediate consequences. To take that position that pain and suffering are all good because it strengthens us and makes us better people allows us to dismiss the pain and suffering of others as inevitable and to be desired. Could you stand next to that small child and tell them to rejoice in their pain and suffering because it will make them better people? There has been a whole lot of pain and suffering in this world and I don't see any positive results. I don't see the world or people getting better. If we see evolution as the effort to better survive then why don't we see it not just change the physical but change the more important behavior. If we look around at human behavior it appears to me that it has gotten worse. We have less assurance of our survival every day. I ask these question with all sincerity! I am not ashamed to ask them nor do I think that I blaspheme God because I ask them! Obviously it is important to me!

You say you don't undstand how God lets all this crap happen. First of all, God enters into many things where his saints are concerned and where he wants to make certain things happen. Second of all I told you before(short memory?) All these injustices and sorrows are a RESULT of the world rejecting God. THis is what you get world for rejecting God. Stop whinning and start faithing or get out of the way. God don't like continual whinners. He likes can do people. Didn't I tell you before that he's coming soon to balance the budget? Let the faithless whine their way to hell.

yes op....the old testament is different.......now it's just in your heart, if you believe ...then you're in....that is what your judgement will be....did you believe?, yes, then enter....the ten commandments are a witness against those who follow them, it's impossible to do so.
so, there were the first 2000 years...no ten commandments...
then 2000 years of that
then 2000 years of no ten commandments, so most of the time, see?
we still love to do good and discover God's sabbath, which we will have in heaven still......( it was around before the ten commandments)....but the spirit is now in us....be still, and know He is God....who? Jesus, or yahushua IS yahuweh....God himself in the 3 dimensions....God's right hand come down sticking down out of the clouds for us to have a lighter burden and an easy yoke!....we have been given His power here on earth....wield it magically

I have never been attracted to faith to begin with. The world wants you to have faith, but the stronger path is direct interior experience of the divine, however it is that you experience that.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


when we describe external as opposed to internal conflicts, like world peace, poverty, corruption, and ascribe to them an internal process we are trying to make a loose connection to something within us that we cannot control.

Similarly we look to other such parts of reality we have no control over in an attempt at finding resolution to conflicts in our immediate reality we do not like that will never come. like starting a task, knowing it will never be accomplished, so when the question of progress comes along we can say it is on the way. "how is that homework coming along? "I am working on it"

This man would have the same issues with himself even if all the injustices in the world were solved because what led him to identify with them was internal mechanisms trying to see the light of day, but being that he sees their solution as futile as for example trying to end corruption, he will take the impossible road. That road is more comforting since nothing is really wagered.

If his sense of impotence in "fixing" his internal issues of ethics or conscience is dependant the world fixing its own global issues with the same, he cannot put pressure on himself to change.

Like if I were to have a problem with infidelity, I might say that the big problem as I see it would be that society does not raise woman as they did in the past and that most are not loyal, or not conducive to loyalty. I would then be off the hook with my own conscience when the issue comes up in my mind since I have no control over society and its complexities.

I would be avoiding simply controlling my urges and being loyal to my partner.

The things he describes are not conflicts with his self VS God, they are in essence conflicts of one form of society with another.

that is my assessment not my assumption. I did look at what he offered first. An assumption would be to speak without looking at what he wanted me to see.

Originally posted by randyvs
reply to post by Egyptia

 

I have a hard time believing this guy is or ever has been a Pastor.

edit on 25-10-2012 by randyvs because: (no reason given)

I'm curious why you have your doubts, randy?

I hope it's not because you think a pastor is some how super human and not beyond doubt, struggles with faith, or anything else the average man suffers from? There is a reason the congregation is supposed to pray for the pastor. He is under that much more stress.

Anyone who can look me in the eye and tell me they have been a Christian and never once had a struggle with their faith or a moment of doubt is either a liar or a wolf in sheeps clothing.