What is so scary about thinking, or discovering, your Religion is false?

reply to post by NewAgeMan


Okay, NAM, I believe it's your turn.

reply to post by Jim Scott

What's it like? Well, people who liked me when I was a member later completely abandoned me. It was a lifestyle, not a religion, so it changed everything. In order to get past the guilt of being condemned to Hell forever as they say all apostates are, I was making certain that my facts were straight.

Sorry about that....the abandonment.

Now, you say that the Bible has the truth? What if you found out the Bible ISN'T the truth after all?
(Just encouraging you to take one step farther outside your comfort zone).

:thumb up:

reply to post by wildtimes


Namasute,

What I was referring to was a link posted which showed a "professor" trying to validate the existance of God by highlighting the words hidden in certain biblical passages but I see that link was now changed by the author of the post to two other links.
It is unfortunate that your thread is constantly on the verge of decending into:

'Fraid Not!
Nuh-uh...'fraid so!
You can't prove that!
I just DID.

But it would appear few can refute the medical documentation on this subject.

-Amitaba-

AfterInfinity
Has anyone actually answered the question being asked here? What would be the worst part of discovering your chosen religion is false? What is your worst fear? What would you lose in losing your religion?

The questions have been fairly answered, if not by the defensive default position, despite the invitation to answer a hypothetical question...like the child that implicates itself in a misdemeanour when not actually prompted by direct accusatory questioning.

It is interesting to note that the questions were inclusive of any faith (and I'm not pedantic enough to trawl the previous pages) but, my distinct impression (and I welcome a correction) is that the posters who are exhibiting the kind of response/behaviour I have described, would probably describe themselves as Christian...and the prevailing tenet of Christianity posits the standard of sin in thought and deed upon innocence...funnily enough (to wheel backwards) the OP is answered by thier diversionary responses...

Å99

reply to post by wildtimes


You might have missed what i meant by half Roman, because it's pretty clear that Joseph found out Mary was pregnant and was placed in a quandry as to what to do ie: divorce her. They were under Roman occupation and such dastardly deeds are not out of the question.

"Behold woman (look mon) I make all things new." (virginal) said Jesus to Mary while carrying the cross.

He also replaced himself with his disciple as her son while on the cross, and on another occasion refused to see his family when they were asking about him ie: there were "issues".

It explains many other things as well in terms of the hidden message of the Gospels which were written as Apocrypha which means to both reveal AND to hide.

It would explain for example why Jesus might have remained pure and sinless for such a long period of time to make himself "the lamb of God" at the appointed time. He was also closely died to the Essenes who were orthodox Jewish ascetics, like his cousin John.

wildtimes
reply to post by NewAgeMan

 

Okay, NAM, I believe it's your turn.

It would be hard to "un-know" Jesus, but if the whole thing was discovered to be entirely false (don't know how you can alter the movement of the earth-moon-sun, planets and stars to undo the celestial framework) but for me it would remove a very meaningful context in regards to the purpose and destiny of the human being, and it would undermine my hope for redemption, at all levels, placing me into a meaningless, purposeless absurdity without real justice, so for me, it would make me less humorous and much more cynical, without hope in the triumph of universal principals of truth and justice.

AfterInfinity
reply to post by NewAgeMan

 

You go first. How would you handle losing your atheism in discovering that Christianity is true?

All it would do is vindicate my attitude regarding your god and his philosophies. And I would still be atheist: I would continue to live without a god, and would do so quite happily. Your turn.

So if you were discover yourself framed by Christ at the center of it all as a beloved Child of God integral to God's Great Work of all Ages, you would say "no thanks, f-off!" ?

reply to post by NewAgeMan

for me it would remove a very meaningful context in regards to the purpose and destiny of the human being

What if you learned that we are ALL saved; and our purpose is to be "God's" eyes and experience?

, and it would undermine my hope for redemption, at all levels,

What do you need 'redemption' for? You are the creature that God made you. Why be ashamed? What did you do that makes you feel worthless and in need of redemption? Don't others think you're okay, just the way the universe made you? Is it ONLY YOU who feels you need redemption? Or did someone else tell you that??

placing me into a meaningless, purposeless absurdity without real justice,

This is a very 'pregnant' statement....absurdity? Meaningless? WHY?

so for me, it would make me less humorous and much more cynical, without hope in the triumph of universal principals of truth and justice.

What?? What does Jesus' possibly being a myth have to do with Universal principles of Truth and Justice????

See, that's the bothersome bee in my bonnet...... !!!

If it's Universal Truth and Justice- then, it's EVERYBODY....not "only those who claim to be [pick your potion: Born Again; Christian; Pentecostal; Catholic (also Christians); SDAs; Mormons; et al]" will get in!!

Letting go of a set of modern dogma, or modern/ancient interpretation of writings, does NOT CAUSE there to be NO HOPE for the triumph of Universal Principles.

reply to post by wildtimes

Letting go of a set of modern dogma, or modern/ancient interpretation of writings, does NOT CAUSE there to be NO HOPE for the triumph of Universal Principles.

Some people just don't grasp that. Kinda of saddens me, really. The troubles they will have to go through before they realize how much power they really have over their own meaning and significance. You want hope? Then be hope! Don't just sit there wishing for a reason to be hopeful. You can be that reason.

reply to post by NewAgeMan

So if you were discover yourself framed by Christ at the center of it all as a beloved Child of God integral to God's Great Work of all Ages, you would say "no thanks, f-off!" ?

The problem with that is that there's no way I'd be at the center. Do you really think God would give me any credit for his grand design? Pfft! I would be there to be his servant, to be a reflection of his own glory. He wants me there to make him feel special, not because I'm of any particular value or significance to him. Mind you, that's the exact impression I've gotten from those who describe their idea of the Christian God to me. It has nothing to do with "Oh he's real and this is what I think of the old codger". It has everything to do with how his followers understand him, and how the Bible is interpreted.

No, this is how I feel about the character. The fictional figment called God. He's worse than Voldemort. So yes, I would reject that position.

reply to post by wildtimes


So you're trolling and then picking apart the responses?

I'm ought to direct that kind of thing your way, because the sense I have of the OP and how you've handled my reply, is that it's you who are being defensive and that this whole thread is a type of passive aggressive exercise or a type of trolling thread.

To explain the whole context of what I said would take a LOT of time and energy.

By redemption I'm not referring only to my own but that of the whole world and by extension the whole of all creation even if only from the POV of mankind.

Here, this article might offer you some insight into what I meant by that word, for starters.

Eco-Doom or Redemption: The Mad Movement and the Sixties' Counter-Culture Project

Never assume and always keep an open mind.

reply to post by AfterInfinity


The whole idea of the end-game of Christ is that we are co-inheritors of God's kingdom so yes, the whole of it all is shared, including the power and the glory, and it can't be any other way, what would you try to steal the creators glory and hog it all for yourself? LOL

"If I seek only my own glory then that, is no glory at all."
~ Jesus

reply to post by NewAgeMan


Wow.

And here I thought you and I got along pretty well.!!!

No. I am not trolling. I am asking questions - these are the types of questions that a counselor or therapist would ask a client in order to help them 'deconstruct' their worldview. It's called "Narrative Theory" - to have someone think, REALLY THINK, about how their 'worldview' developed, and what influences they were exposed to, and where their beliefs came from, and why they, as a person, "bought into" the set of rules, viewpoints, doctrines, etc.

The aim of the thread was to encourage people to stretch beyond their comfort zone and think about the questions.

If it made you uncomfortable, I'm not surprised; that was the intent. Prompting people to THINK about their belief system, and to THINK about what it would mean if it turned out to be a false one, is not harmful.

If it 'made' you feel "bad" or "hopeless", I take no responsibility for that. All I did was ask people to think about their worldview and what 'drives' it. I can't 'make' you, or anyone, feel anything. All I can do is communicate. That includes asking questions. And giving responses to questions.

So, if you're offended...it's not on me.
Take care, NAM

I never needed to believe anything. Had I believed in complete atheism and the "light goes out" idea, that of that you die and that's it, you're dead, I would have had no problem with that. I do remember being sent to Sunday school when I was four and just "knowing" it was not for me, and wondering why so many adults believed in it.

My interest as I grew up was life after death, if it existed or not. The question was raised from having heard any amount of people's ghost stories, documentaries on NDEs, etc. Here were people saying, 'oh come and follow us with our 2000 year old book," while people still living today were having experiences that no one was listening to. But I did, and to me, over the years until I turned 20 and beyond, I've found the proof I need through my own experience, and through the simple deduction that thousands, nay, millions of people's experiences aren't all made up. I eventually gravitated towards some (and I mean *SOME*) of the channeled material, again, because it's made sense to me, it's ideas have been proven in my own life, and the very method by which it comes makes sense to me.

That's the how - basically I just got slowly convinced of all this, and it all seemed very logical to me.

What would happen if it were proven to me if was all BS? I suppose I'd have a few weeks of readjusting, and then I'd get over it and be the same person I've always been.

wildtimes
reply to post by NewAgeMan

 

If it 'made' you feel "bad" or "hopeless", I take no responsibility for that.

Not in the least. lol It was just the um.. presumptuousness.. in reading between what few lines were being offered and then taking that and projecting all over the place for reasons that I can't quite fathom at present..

Mine is a very complex frame of reference.

And, you know of course that this entire line of inquiry slices BOTH ways..


Christianity isn't a mental crutch of some kind for me, but a rational basis for a rather astonishing and extraordinary worldview where faith isn't a great leap but more like a discreet quantum jump of reason to supra-reason, and of logic of ultra-logic.

We could start with the meaning of my avatar and background which contains in many ways an encoded representation of my theological framework.

You jump the gun so fast in so many ways, and here again with this stuff about feeling bad, or hopeless that's absurd.

You could read through my posts here at ATS and get a good idea of my complex worldview.

I'm what I would call a rational, evolutionary Christian mystic. Decoding and deconstructing THAT in and of itself would take a number of pages to explain before you'd have enough data to jump to any conclusions.

As to therapy, that's how I experience the Lord, greatest therapist ever, and he knows and speaks in such a way, that curiosity alone is enough to drive a person in-sane or into sanity, even though it might explode your prior conception, worldview and sense of self identity and valuation ie ego, even though you might "pop" like new wine into an old wine skin so to speak.

According to my framework and worldview for example, me and you, everyone, is given a value of incalculable measure in the creation as a truly sacred being and child of God and by God I mean a whole host of things, not the least of which is a type of first/last cause in eternity by anticipation and with intent. In other words we're definitely here for a reason and a purpose, but that it's also given for us to achieve or realize working together in mutuality for the greatest possible good of one and all makes of it the most unfathomable "calling" to the highest good and Virtue, and for me that's delightful, a victory that gives us cause to celebrate, even if we are only in the process of realizing it in the fullness of time and history.

It's a great calling to a better life and a happier and more joyfilled world, the evolutionary Christian mystical messianic hope and expectation, which God has sought to work out through us, and never without us.

According to messianic thinkers, both Jewish and Christian, our state of conflict with the world, our mortality and suffering is not a permanent human condition but is a result of our historical estrangement from God. The Kingdom of God, the reunion of God and humanity, is the remedy: "For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9). Buber emphasized that this was not a matter of gradual progress but something "sudden and immense" (Lowy 52). In Isaiah God says, "I create new heavens and a new earth." The long awaited age of peace and happiness is called the "day without evening" in Eastern Christianity, thus connoting a state of immortality. Even in the Indian Vedas we find evidence of the messianic longing in the symbol of a new beginning also connoting immortality, "the eternal dawn." The messianic age is universally described as the union of heaven and earth.

More than any other religious Jewish thinker, Buber placed the active participation of human beings -- as God's partners -- at the heart of messianism. "God has no wish for any other means of perfecting his creation than by our help. He will not reveal his Kingdom until we have laid its foundations" (Farber 90). In the early 1920s Buber stated, "We are living in an unsaved world, and we are waiting for redemption in which we have been called upon to participate in a most unfathomable way"

www.realitysandwich.com...

reply to post by NewAgeMan


That's very elegant...and I'd posit that there were many more contributors whose personal faith is as complex and uplifting as yours is to you...it's refreshing, We may not share its form or agree with the finer points - but, there needn't be the compulsion to convert complete strangers lifelong experiences to your/our own...after all, it is the diversity of experience that is being played out...and total agreement would be futile in this exercise...

Å99

reply to post by akushla99


There is still a compulsion..


"Our Liberation is God's compulsion."
~ C.S. Lewis

It's both elegant and also very liberating and expansive in terms of the possibility for free human self expression, so yes, it celebrates the unique personal experience of everyone, while inviting people to simply try on new and different paradigms for size but by no means is it one size fits all, on that we both absolutely agree.

reply to post by NewAgeMan


Namasute,

Do you know what else "compulsion" is an prime indicator of?
Mania.
Just saying.

-Amitaba-

Ya'll should accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, instead of
arguing about fear, compulsion , mania etc.

Just Sayin

reply to post by NewAgeMan

It was just the um.. presumptuousness.. in reading between what few lines were being offered and then taking that and projecting all over the place for reasons that I can't quite fathom at present..

Thank you for this clarifying response. I now see where you are coming from more accurately.

As for "presumptuousness" - I took what you wrote at face value (that is all I can do), and it was possible - and my first impression - that you were talking about your personal relationship to "God", not taking on the mantle of the entire world and all souls.

So, I would naturally ask questions that came up regarding hopelessness, redemption, cynicism - all words that you used to describe your potential reaction to discovering the premise of your faith might be fabricated.

I am not an atheist, and I actually agree with just about everything you said in this later, clarifying post - I simply don't believe Jesus is the centerpiece, and since neither the "virgin birth" nor the "resurrection" makes or breaks the VALIDITY of his message (The Golden Rule), to me it doesn't matter whether it's myth or true history. All signs that I see point to "myth" - but I'm still open to finding out eventually that I was wrong.

I've had "supernatural" and "paranormal" experiences; and I won't EVER deny there is "another side" that we can't see for the most part. I have had communications from the other side...

and I'm fine with meeting Jesus one day - at which time I'll ask him myself. Maybe he doesn't even KNOW that people think he was born of a virgin and was resurrected and taken up to heaven! THAT would be a kick to find out, eh?

I can just imagine him, on the other side, saying, "They think WHAT? LOLOL!! No. Nonono; that's not the point. I just wanted them all to be nice to each other and realize that life is about the common human experience; that they are all connected; that they could all do what I did and more; and that we are eternal souls who do not ever "die. That it's NOT about worshiping or bowing down to 'clergy people' or tithing/hoarding money and so forth. And it's CERTAINLY not about being thrown into a pit of fire for eternal punishment. What good shepherd would do that?!! That lamb stuck his foot through the fence and I've told him not to - BURN HIM!!"