Huehuecoyotl said:

All faith is for the lazy. Spiritual belief should be based on personal experience.

---

Damn, wish I wasn't so long winded. Could have summed it all up with what you said there 

Basilides said:

You're referring to exoteric Christianity, not esoteric Christianity.

---

SketchyTX05 said:

Basilides said:

You're referring to exoteric Christianity, not esoteric Christianity.

---

I hope you looked at this post a little deeper.


Exoteric Christianity could be summed down to the kind of Christian you are talking about for the most part. These people likely half-hazardly believe, but let's assume for our sakes that they go to church every week and go through all of the motions. These are the folk who go to church to scratch the itch of 'show,' and 'make-believe' when they can truly feel like they have done something good by going to church. It solidifies the basis of their "faith." But, on the days they aren't going to church, many of these kinds of believers (the exoteric-styled if you will) find themselves living their own lives and not paying much attention to God.

I stopped beleiving in God for about 3 years. I was an athiest, and I argued with me some Christians indeed. I won a lot of the time too. But, by the third year coming, God and Jesus happened to slap me in the face. It is absolutely undeniable in my world the work He has done. But then, that's my world.

This is where the Esoteric Christianity comes in. I see now that for the first 15 years of my life, I really WASN'T believing in anything, even though I thought I was. Now that I'm back in Christianity, I see how much of a deeper concept it is. It goes right to your spiritual wants, and focuses on the execution of your flesh (the ego). It talks about karma plenty (in different words and phrases), denying yourself of your earthly posessions, the kindness you should not only SHOW to people, but feel.

It discusses the great love you should display to all people, the bible wants you to FORGET earthly matters -- because the Earth isn't what matters. It's the spiritual ascention of your soul. And THAT is neat stuff. The Book of Life has changed me completely since God showed himself to me.

I think, for all of you who don't believe in God at all (and believe me, I remember what that is like. It was nice.. but I assure you HAVING one is far far greater), I challenge you to do this: If there IS a God, you would certainly want to know about Him; when you're by yourself, ask earnestly to the supposed creator to show Himself to you.


(I was challenged to do that very thing, and about three months after I did it I was finally shown beyond doubt, and then I submitted and it was the best thing I have ever done. Ever. I reccomend this experience highly. Nothing is greater than walking with God. Nothing!)

---

Quote:

I actually DO believe in a higher power, but the only way I can describe it is that it's just the purest form of energy that can exist, and it connects everything in this universe together.

---

  I agree, though I do not necessarily see this power as "higher," since it is not above or beyond this experience.  What makes the most sense to me is that the connective, cooperative energy that comes together to create material reality is Love.  Not romantic love, not attachment love, not needy love, but the unconditional flow of unifying energy. 

To personify this as a vengeful, controlling, demanding father figure is very human, and very mistaken (IMO).  Perhaps we imagine Love is like the love we got from our parents?

Veritas said:

Quote:

I actually DO believe in a higher power, but the only way I can describe it is that it's just the purest form of energy that can exist, and it connects everything in this universe together.

---

  I agree, though I do not necessarily see this power as "higher," since it is not above or beyond this experience.  What makes the most sense to me is that the connective, cooperative energy that comes together to create material reality is Love.  Not romantic love, not attachment love, not needy love, but the unconditional flow of unifying energy. 

To personify this as a vengeful, controlling, demanding father figure is very human, and very mistaken (IMO).  Perhaps we imagine Love is like the love we got from our parents?

---

Syle said:

Him? How do you know God is a male?

It's stuff like this that makes me suspicious of christianity. There is too much random writing and too much room for personal input from random people millenia ago when the bible was written.

I actually DO believe in a higher power, but the only way I can describe it is that it's just the purest form of energy that can exist, and it connects everything in this universe together. The concept of a God is not tangible for our minds to comprehend, and much more complex and vast than a silly book written can even begin to describe.

---

Veritas said:

Christianity is not the one and only path to the "light," and Biblical stories written by men are often used to generate negativity, rather than encourage positivity and love. This is the Christianity to which Syle is referring, not a heartfelt (and non-religious) connection with divinity. Why insist upon a particular form of communion with divinity, if the important point is Love and Light?

---

Syle said:

Almost every christian I know is one because their family is. Doesn't that seem unfair to anyone?

---

TODAY said:

Syle said:

Almost every christian I know is one because their family is. Doesn't that seem unfair to anyone?

---

That's true, but the smart ones break out of the religious cycle. The weak hold onto their faith, the strong realize they are their own life's director. The people that turn from no religion to religion are something else, i'm not sure what...

I was educated in a catholic k-8 school, church every sunday because my parents made me go. It never made any sense to me, so I dropped religion. There was a lot of guilt inside of me for not believing what they were telling me to believe when I was younger, and for doing things the church would consider inappropriate. Since then I've come to feel almost hatred toward the church.

---

Silversoul said:

I didn't just choose Christianity out of laziness.  It found me.  When you've had a direct experience of Christ's presence, it's hard not to find faith.  I don't categorically accept the Church's teachings or Biblical infallibility.  I have faith through experience.  I cannot "just be human" when I've been given gnosis, because I have seen that our true nature is spirit, not body.  Finding God is an indescribable experience, and I hope you can experience it one day, too.  Not because I think you're going to hell or any bullshit like that.  But simply because once you experience it, you will understand.

---

Once you have tasted honey, you would know its sweetness directly, and therefore would no longer require "faith" in how that honey is any longer.

Quote:

most Americans identify themselves as Christian

---

Quote:

Many religious leaders actively encourage discrimination and hatred of "sinners," a group which usually includes single mothers, homosexuals, feminists, atheists/agnostics, controversial authors, and anyone else whom they can direct a Bible verse at.

---

Quote:

Huehuecoyot said:

All faith is for the lazy. Spiritual belief should be based on personal experience.

---

Syle said:

Still, how do people get anything out of christianity when so little personal worth is used to really delve into their religion?

And don't tell me stuff like: they go to church, they pray, they do fundraisers. Almost every christian I know is one because their family is. Doesn't that seem unfair to anyone?

---

I'm not really sure what you're referring to. From my experience of places of worship, such as Churches, Hindu Temples, and Mosques, the experience of congregation seems neither pathological or unenjoyed. Many enjoy worship, and many enjoy worship with others.

As for "why" people are Christians.. you don't know the inward lives of others, so why speculate? How is it do the activities and beliefs of others somehow penetrate into your world-view comfort zone thus creating an "unfair" situation?

Ranting about Christianity is so 1990's anyways. It seems people are more busy complaining about Christians than actually having negative encounters with them

Huehuecoyotl said:

All faith is for the lazy. Spiritual belief should be based on personal experience.

---

sup3rhuman said:

Think about this- every facet of human knowledge since the dawn of time has been changing with new discoveries EXCEPT spirituality and it doesn't make ANY SENSE! Chemistry, biology, medicine, psychology, mathematics, EVERYTHING has been revamped at some point in time, except religion. This is because we used reasoning and experiments to determine the true relationships between us, our lives, and our environment. Religion has no place in science because it doesn't hold up to reason.
  The bible, quaran, and torah are all at least a thousand years old. Almost EVERY belief about relationships in the human experience have been changed in the last 600 years. We believed the sun rotated around the earth, and wound's should be treated with bandages and boiling hot oil. Then one day a doctor didnt have oil so he just used a bandage and it healed much faster.
Religion was introduced to make humans better in society. Someone believing they will serve ETERNITY in fire by mistreating other people (lying, stealing, cheating) will try not to piss off their God, therefore be a better person. It also seems much more inviting than reason. Say your son contracts leukemia, and on the way to the hospital lightning takes out a power line in front of your car, killing your wife. Based on reason alone, your life, once full of love and happiness, is now very miserable. But if you believe God came for them because it was their time, and they are now in eternal bliss and happiness in a Cloud city where you will join them and everyone else you loved, then it will seem like destiny, and it will be at least bearable.
Religion has its purposes, it gives hope and guidance to many, but the suffering it causes is much worse. More people have died in the name of God than for any other un-natural reason. Religion is always taken out of its original context, a recent example is the protests at soldiers' funerals, inspired by the lovely christian site godhatesamerica.com

If we are to advance as humans, we must disregard everything we think we know about religion, and start anew, basing our knowledge of it on an empirical level.

---

Well, with string theory and M theory suggesting a multiple or even infinte dimensional universes, these scienfitific views seem to be comming very close to Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and Vedic knowledge about matter, anti-matter, infinty, etc.

All varities of Buddism, Hinduism and other various traditions are still very much practiced as religion all over the world.

Quote:

You did not bother to read the actual data source to which I provided a link. This was a survey in which 50,000+ Americans were asked what their religious affiliation was, if any. You claimed that Americans were not religious, and not into practicing any particular faith, and I refuted that claim.

---

Quote:

The larger the population to be surveyed, the smaller the sample can be and still be representative

---

Quote:

I see far too many examples of hypocritical Christian influence in society to accept that Christianity is a positive (or even neutral) force in our country, nor that Christians (hypocrites or not) are a minority.

Quote:

and this is just an opinion with no factual or accurate data to support it, but yet you seemed pretty convinced, or maybe you made a few correlations that suggest that you have an accurate opinion,

I base my opinion on my data and experiences as well, and your survey is not accurate data, being it such a small sample, less than 1% of the American population, you have to say its inaccurate to certain degree, which makes this nothing more than an opinion

Basilides said:

Syle said:

Still, how do people get anything out of christianity when so little personal worth is used to really delve into their religion?

And don't tell me stuff like: they go to church, they pray, they do fundraisers. Almost every christian I know is one because their family is. Doesn't that seem unfair to anyone?

---

I'm not really sure what you're referring to. From my experience of places of worship, such as Churches, Hindu Temples, and Mosques, the experience of congregation seems neither pathological or unenjoyed. Many enjoy worship, and many enjoy worship with others.

As for "why" people are Christians.. you don't know the inward lives of others, so why speculate? How is it do the activities and beliefs of others somehow penetrate into your world-view comfort zone thus creating an "unfair" situation?

Ranting about Christianity is so 1990's anyways. It seems people are more busy complaining about Christians than actually having negative encounters with them

---

Basilides said:

From my experience of places of worship, such as Churches, Hindu Temples, and Mosques, the experience of congregation seems neither pathological or unenjoyed. Many enjoy worship, and many enjoy worship with others.

---

Quote:

Ranting about Christianity is so 1990's anyways.

---

Maybe I would accept this argument if I was a thirteen year old schoolgirl...

Quote:

Huehuecoyotl:

You don't need faith if you have certain knowledge. Faith is for those that do not know. I have certain knowledge in my spiritual beliefs.

---

Quote:

and the willingness to convert a lot of preachy noise into information.

---

What? Care to rephrase that, I'm not sure what that means..

sup3rhuman said:

Christianity is more for the weak than the lazy; they simply can't deal with death. They had to make up a wonderful place and add rules to enter it so christians don't just kill themselves to get there.

p.s. Christianity isn't any worse than other religions, theyre all in the same boat too.

---

sup3rhuman said:

Christianity is more for the weak than the lazy; they simply can't deal with death. They had to make up a wonderful place and add rules to enter it so christians don't just kill themselves to get there.

p.s. Christianity isn't any worse than other religions, theyre all in the same boat too.

---

Syle said:

Basilides said:

Syle said:

Still, how do people get anything out of christianity when so little personal worth is used to really delve into their religion?

And don't tell me stuff like: they go to church, they pray, they do fundraisers. Almost every christian I know is one because their family is. Doesn't that seem unfair to anyone?

---

I'm not really sure what you're referring to. From my experience of places of worship, such as Churches, Hindu Temples, and Mosques, the experience of congregation seems neither pathological or unenjoyed. Many enjoy worship, and many enjoy worship with others.

As for "why" people are Christians.. you don't know the inward lives of others, so why speculate? How is it do the activities and beliefs of others somehow penetrate into your world-view comfort zone thus creating an "unfair" situation?

Ranting about Christianity is so 1990's anyways. It seems people are more busy complaining about Christians than actually having negative encounters with them

---

I was generalizing when I should have been more specific. I was referring to people who are born into a christian family and don't generally get the chance to explore other views and theories.

About people not enjoying worship: it might just be my personal experience, but when I was growing up, all I could hear my friends and other family members talk about on Saturday was, "Man, we have church tommorow...sigh". Perhaps this is just my ignorance, but that is the way I have always seen it.

"As for "why" people are Christians.. you don't know the inward lives of others, so why speculate? How is it do the activities and beliefs of others somehow penetrate into your world-view comfort zone thus creating an "unfair" situation?"

Because christianity and other world religions have been the sole cause of war, violence, and hatred for who knows how long. That is the reason for this speculation.

"Ranting about Christianity is so 1990's anyways. It seems people are more busy complaining about Christians than actually having negative encounters with them"

So what, just because it's not the 90s doesn't make these points or "rants" any less relevant.

---

Basilides said:

Syle said:

Basilides said:

Syle said:

Still, how do people get anything out of christianity when so little personal worth is used to really delve into their religion?

And don't tell me stuff like: they go to church, they pray, they do fundraisers. Almost every christian I know is one because their family is. Doesn't that seem unfair to anyone?

---

I'm not really sure what you're referring to. From my experience of places of worship, such as Churches, Hindu Temples, and Mosques, the experience of congregation seems neither pathological or unenjoyed. Many enjoy worship, and many enjoy worship with others.

As for "why" people are Christians.. you don't know the inward lives of others, so why speculate? How is it do the activities and beliefs of others somehow penetrate into your world-view comfort zone thus creating an "unfair" situation?

Ranting about Christianity is so 1990's anyways. It seems people are more busy complaining about Christians than actually having negative encounters with them

---

I was generalizing when I should have been more specific. I was referring to people who are born into a christian family and don't generally get the chance to explore other views and theories.

About people not enjoying worship: it might just be my personal experience, but when I was growing up, all I could hear my friends and other family members talk about on Saturday was, "Man, we have church tommorow...sigh". Perhaps this is just my ignorance, but that is the way I have always seen it.

"As for "why" people are Christians.. you don't know the inward lives of others, so why speculate? How is it do the activities and beliefs of others somehow penetrate into your world-view comfort zone thus creating an "unfair" situation?"

Because christianity and other world religions have been the sole cause of war, violence, and hatred for who knows how long. That is the reason for this speculation.

"Ranting about Christianity is so 1990's anyways. It seems people are more busy complaining about Christians than actually having negative encounters with them"

So what, just because it's not the 90s doesn't make these points or "rants" any less relevant.

---

Does war seem Christ-like to you? If you answer "No", then you have just defended Christianity.

---