I’m a Christian with very unique viewpoints and would like to hear people’s thoughts on them

[The Emperor of Mankind]

And I said, as politely as I know how, NO.

Well don't be upset if your posts get reported and/or deleted. I won't be doing it - it's not worth the effort. I'm just putting that out there though.

 

[Luciferi Baphomet]

Hmm. What about a religion that advocates killing everybody else? Is that pathetic, too?

Your god has killed many already.

 

[Lyndon]

And the Prince of darkness, the source of all evil has a better plan?????

 

[-Peacemaker-]

Your god has killed many already.

Seriously it's laughable hearing a satanist talk about killing

 

[Luciferi Baphomet]

Seriously it's laughable hearing a satanist talk about killing

Lets just say that people of all religions kill people.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Seriously it's laughable hearing a satanist talk about killing

And to Jews it's laughable hearing Christians blame a rebellious archangel for God's own actions of testing mankind. (There is no such thing as a rebellious archangel in the majority of Jewish belief.) You have a difference of belief on what Satan is. As do theistic Satanists.

 

[-Peacemaker-]

And to Jews it's laughable hearing Christians blame a rebellious archangel for God's own actions of testing mankind. (There is no such thing as a rebellious archangel in the majority of Jewish belief.) You have a difference of belief on what Satan is. As do theistic Satanists.

Who cares

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Who cares

People who like to learn things about others instead of sit and simmer in personal ignorance I suppose.

 

[Luciferi Baphomet]

Who cares

Is it because I am a Satanist that you do not care?

 

[-Peacemaker-]

People who like to learn things about others instead of sit and simmer in personal ignorance I suppose.

I'm well versed in the way of pagans

 

[ADigitalArtist]

I'm well versed in the way of pagans

I would be quite surprised if you were. From the sounds of it you mostly fit the 'I've learned everything about pagans from Chick tracks' sort of profile. By all means, I'd love to be proven wrong, though.

 

[whirlingmerc]

God is the gospel and the ultimate treasure of heaven. I would be concerned if a Christian had no desire for God

by the way, there is a book called 'what to do when you don't desire God' by John Piper you might look into

 

[vaguelyhumanoid]

It seems bizarre for a follower of the Christian God to reject that god's benevolence instead of rejecting the truth of homophobic scriptures. Why?

Your beliefs are classic paganism and in my opinion most of the view points on this forum are from a pagan perspective

Classic paganism would be the notion that there are many gods and a countless number of nature and ancestral spirits who are to be honored thru seasonal festivals and sacrifices in hopes of gaining their favor. Does that sound like the OP's beliefs here to you?

 

[-Peacemaker-]

It seems bizarre for a follower of the Christian God to reject that god's benevolence instead of rejecting the truth of homophobic scriptures. Why?



Classic paganism would be the notion that there are many gods and a countless number of nature and ancestral spirits who are to be honored thru seasonal festivals and sacrifices in hopes of gaining their favor. Does that sound like the OP's beliefs here to you?

its idol worship. Instead of worshipping gods of wood and stone like the ancient pagans, he's worshipping his own understanding. Its the same principle in action. We just view it as more sophisticated for some reason

 

[vaguelyhumanoid]

its idol worship. Instead of worshipping gods of wood and stone like the ancient pagans, he's worshipping his own understanding. Its the same principle in action. We just view it as more sophisticated for some reason

Please do not spread misinformation about pagan religions and use our identity as a snarl word.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

I’m a Christian with very unique viewpoints and would like to hear people’s thoughts on them. I’ll give some backstory of my life first so it’ll be easier for you guys to understand why I think the way I do. I have a habit of writing novel sized posts, so just a warning.

I’ve been a Christian since age 3. I’m now 22. My perception of Christianity has changed a lot over the years. My life experiences have been a huge factor.

A lot of what I mention will be ripe for debate, but I know this isn’t a debate forum, and my goal isn’t to question my individual beliefs, but rather to come to a clearer understand of whether my beliefs have been formed by erroneous logic or not. So I’m interested in if you guys think I’m basing my beliefs on logic, or if I’m letting the emotion of my past experiences get in the way.

I was a very devout Christian the first 8 years of my life. In Sunday School, I was almost always the first to answer questions, and possessed knowledge of the Bible that even stumped the pastors at times.

However, when I was 8 my dad lost his job and we were forced to move. My mom started constantly yelling at me out of stress, and was extremely restrictive of my activities out of fear. She’d been involved in a cult when she was younger, and wanted to make sure I stayed close to God so something similar never happened to me. As a result she extensively monitored everything I did. I was at timid kid, and my dad was scared of her too, so I grew up terrified of sinning, afraid of both what God and my mom would do.

When I was 18 I became bedridden due to an extremely rare side effect from depression medication I was on. This lasted two years, and for most of those two years doctors had no clue what was wrong. I constantly pleaded for God to heal me, as I was afraid of being helpless and miserable for the rest of my life.

Eventually doctors found a cure at age 20. For the next I did very little with my life, as I was terrified of life. But being bedridden had a plus, and I developed a yearning to no longer be a coward, and to live life the way I wanted instead of letting my anxiety dictate my life. On my 21st birthday I started a journey to reach that goal.

It’s now a year and a half later. I just recently achieved my goal. I’m now an optimist instead of a pessimist. Not only do I rarely experience anxiety, but hardly any situation stresses me out due to the coping mechanisms I developed myself and through my counselor. Even if I do become afraid, my motivation kicks in and the vast majority of the time I’ll do what I need to do. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and I understand myself better than I ever have before. But one thing that still confuses me is my relationship with God.

I’m very thankful to him for how he’s helped me. He healed an additional injury I had when I was bedridden that never heals unless you have surgery. And in the past year and a half of my life, during my journey, it’s absurd how well things have worked out every step of the way. I can’t believe things were merely coincidences. I’m very proud of how hard I worked to achieve my goal, but I don’t believe it would’ve been possible without his help.

Yet I feel the only reason I still follow God is out of gratitude of how he’s treated me. I don’t have any desire to read the Bible, I rarely ever pray, and I don’t desire a close relationship like when I was a kid. I go to church, but it doesn’t have a big effect on me.

Looking back on my life, I know that I extended my healing time when I was bedridden by relying too much on God instead of trying to find new doctors. Over-reliance on God was a theme throughout my life, and in the past year and a half I found my growth was at its best when I did things myself instead of looking to him for help. I feel like he would give me things to overcome, and my job was to do just that.

I also feel his treatment of people varies a lot. I’ve seen how people like my dad do their best to follow God yet end up miserable. They don’t get all the chances I did. I was a pretty cruddy person for a good portion of my life, yet God gave me a chance. But people who always followed him, who are really great people I’ve seen end up miserable, without the same chances.

I also disagree with him on certain things. I’ve never felt homosexuality was a sin. Some of the nicest people I know are gay, and I see no detriment to being homosexual. I don’t believe it’s a choice, and I feel that it’s absolutely horrible of God to allow people to be a certain way that they can’t change, and then tell them to change themselves. I recently read an article about a Christian who was gay and tried his entire life to change himself only to fail, and his misery broke my heart.

As a result I simply don’t feel that God is good. I feel he shows favoritism to certain people, such as myself, while ignoring some of his most devout followers, while being downright cruel to others, such as homosexuals.

I know no other Christians who feel like I do. And I would really like to hear what other people here think. Do you think my views are logical? Do you think I’m not seeing the big picture, or missing key information? Am I letting my emotions from past experiences influence my judgement? I’d really like to know. Thank you!

May I ask you a question? In your opinion, who is controlling this world, right now? Understanding the answer to this might be a first step to understanding other issues.

 

[JesusBeliever]

I’m a Christian with very unique viewpoints and would like to hear people’s thoughts on them. I’ll give some backstory of my life first so it’ll be easier for you guys to understand why I think the way I do. I have a habit of writing novel sized posts, so just a warning.

I’ve been a Christian since age 3. I’m now 22. My perception of Christianity has changed a lot over the years. My life experiences have been a huge factor.

A lot of what I mention will be ripe for debate, but I know this isn’t a debate forum, and my goal isn’t to question my individual beliefs, but rather to come to a clearer understand of whether my beliefs have been formed by erroneous logic or not. So I’m interested in if you guys think I’m basing my beliefs on logic, or if I’m letting the emotion of my past experiences get in the way.

I was a very devout Christian the first 8 years of my life. In Sunday School, I was almost always the first to answer questions, and possessed knowledge of the Bible that even stumped the pastors at times.

However, when I was 8 my dad lost his job and we were forced to move. My mom started constantly yelling at me out of stress, and was extremely restrictive of my activities out of fear. She’d been involved in a cult when she was younger, and wanted to make sure I stayed close to God so something similar never happened to me. As a result she extensively monitored everything I did. I was at timid kid, and my dad was scared of her too, so I grew up terrified of sinning, afraid of both what God and my mom would do.

When I was 18 I became bedridden due to an extremely rare side effect from depression medication I was on. This lasted two years, and for most of those two years doctors had no clue what was wrong. I constantly pleaded for God to heal me, as I was afraid of being helpless and miserable for the rest of my life.

Eventually doctors found a cure at age 20. For the next I did very little with my life, as I was terrified of life. But being bedridden had a plus, and I developed a yearning to no longer be a coward, and to live life the way I wanted instead of letting my anxiety dictate my life. On my 21st birthday I started a journey to reach that goal.

It’s now a year and a half later. I just recently achieved my goal. I’m now an optimist instead of a pessimist. Not only do I rarely experience anxiety, but hardly any situation stresses me out due to the coping mechanisms I developed myself and through my counselor. Even if I do become afraid, my motivation kicks in and the vast majority of the time I’ll do what I need to do. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and I understand myself better than I ever have before. But one thing that still confuses me is my relationship with God.

I’m very thankful to him for how he’s helped me. He healed an additional injury I had when I was bedridden that never heals unless you have surgery. And in the past year and a half of my life, during my journey, it’s absurd how well things have worked out every step of the way. I can’t believe things were merely coincidences. I’m very proud of how hard I worked to achieve my goal, but I don’t believe it would’ve been possible without his help.

Yet I feel the only reason I still follow God is out of gratitude of how he’s treated me. I don’t have any desire to read the Bible, I rarely ever pray, and I don’t desire a close relationship like when I was a kid. I go to church, but it doesn’t have a big effect on me.

Looking back on my life, I know that I extended my healing time when I was bedridden by relying too much on God instead of trying to find new doctors. Over-reliance on God was a theme throughout my life, and in the past year and a half I found my growth was at its best when I did things myself instead of looking to him for help. I feel like he would give me things to overcome, and my job was to do just that.

I also feel his treatment of people varies a lot. I’ve seen how people like my dad do their best to follow God yet end up miserable. They don’t get all the chances I did. I was a pretty cruddy person for a good portion of my life, yet God gave me a chance. But people who always followed him, who are really great people I’ve seen end up miserable, without the same chances.

I also disagree with him on certain things. I’ve never felt homosexuality was a sin. Some of the nicest people I know are gay, and I see no detriment to being homosexual. I don’t believe it’s a choice, and I feel that it’s absolutely horrible of God to allow people to be a certain way that they can’t change, and then tell them to change themselves. I recently read an article about a Christian who was gay and tried his entire life to change himself only to fail, and his misery broke my heart.

As a result I simply don’t feel that God is good. I feel he shows favoritism to certain people, such as myself, while ignoring some of his most devout followers, while being downright cruel to others, such as homosexuals.

I know no other Christians who feel like I do. And I would really like to hear what other people here think. Do you think my views are logical? Do you think I’m not seeing the big picture, or missing key information? Am I letting my emotions from past experiences influence my judgement? I’d really like to know. Thank you!

Hi there, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences. I can relate to so much of what you've shared. The only place I'd differ is in regards to God being cruel to homosexuals. I have seen Christians be cruel to homosexuals but I doubt greatly that God feels the same way about them as some Christians do. I was in a gay relationship as a teen, and was exposed to the LGBT community for a few years, establishing life long friendships with some. From that experience I learnt not to judge people superficially, to try and look deeper to see the heart of the person through their story. I currently have a lesbian niece who is on fire for Jesus and is one of the gentlest souls you could ever meet. Despite being harshly judged and shunned by some Christians she hasn't let that deter her from walking in love with the Lord and even sharing her faith with others. I have watched her pray for strangers on the street while I watched cowardly from the car. Already her testimony has drawn the hearts of 2 other nieces and my daughter to Jesus. Something I was desirous to do but lacked the faith and love that she obviously possesses. I am in awe of her and seek to learn from her example.

 

[urbrother]

I’m a Christian with very unique viewpoints and would like to hear people’s thoughts on them. I’ll give some backstory of my life first so it’ll be easier for you guys to understand why I think the way I do. I have a habit of writing novel sized posts, so just a warning.

I’ve been a Christian since age 3. I’m now 22. My perception of Christianity has changed a lot over the years. My life experiences have been a huge factor.

A lot of what I mention will be ripe for debate, but I know this isn’t a debate forum, and my goal isn’t to question my individual beliefs, but rather to come to a clearer understand of whether my beliefs have been formed by erroneous logic or not. So I’m interested in if you guys think I’m basing my beliefs on logic, or if I’m letting the emotion of my past experiences get in the way.

I was a very devout Christian the first 8 years of my life. In Sunday School, I was almost always the first to answer questions, and possessed knowledge of the Bible that even stumped the pastors at times.

However, when I was 8 my dad lost his job and we were forced to move. My mom started constantly yelling at me out of stress, and was extremely restrictive of my activities out of fear. She’d been involved in a cult when she was younger, and wanted to make sure I stayed close to God so something similar never happened to me. As a result she extensively monitored everything I did. I was at timid kid, and my dad was scared of her too, so I grew up terrified of sinning, afraid of both what God and my mom would do.

When I was 18 I became bedridden due to an extremely rare side effect from depression medication I was on. This lasted two years, and for most of those two years doctors had no clue what was wrong. I constantly pleaded for God to heal me, as I was afraid of being helpless and miserable for the rest of my life.

Eventually doctors found a cure at age 20. For the next I did very little with my life, as I was terrified of life. But being bedridden had a plus, and I developed a yearning to no longer be a coward, and to live life the way I wanted instead of letting my anxiety dictate my life. On my 21st birthday I started a journey to reach that goal.

It’s now a year and a half later. I just recently achieved my goal. I’m now an optimist instead of a pessimist. Not only do I rarely experience anxiety, but hardly any situation stresses me out due to the coping mechanisms I developed myself and through my counselor. Even if I do become afraid, my motivation kicks in and the vast majority of the time I’ll do what I need to do. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, and I understand myself better than I ever have before. But one thing that still confuses me is my relationship with God.

I’m very thankful to him for how he’s helped me. He healed an additional injury I had when I was bedridden that never heals unless you have surgery. And in the past year and a half of my life, during my journey, it’s absurd how well things have worked out every step of the way. I can’t believe things were merely coincidences. I’m very proud of how hard I worked to achieve my goal, but I don’t believe it would’ve been possible without his help.

Yet I feel the only reason I still follow God is out of gratitude of how he’s treated me. I don’t have any desire to read the Bible, I rarely ever pray, and I don’t desire a close relationship like when I was a kid. I go to church, but it doesn’t have a big effect on me.

Looking back on my life, I know that I extended my healing time when I was bedridden by relying too much on God instead of trying to find new doctors. Over-reliance on God was a theme throughout my life, and in the past year and a half I found my growth was at its best when I did things myself instead of looking to him for help. I feel like he would give me things to overcome, and my job was to do just that.

I also feel his treatment of people varies a lot. I’ve seen how people like my dad do their best to follow God yet end up miserable. They don’t get all the chances I did. I was a pretty cruddy person for a good portion of my life, yet God gave me a chance. But people who always followed him, who are really great people I’ve seen end up miserable, without the same chances.

I also disagree with him on certain things. I’ve never felt homosexuality was a sin. Some of the nicest people I know are gay, and I see no detriment to being homosexual. I don’t believe it’s a choice, and I feel that it’s absolutely horrible of God to allow people to be a certain way that they can’t change, and then tell them to change themselves. I recently read an article about a Christian who was gay and tried his entire life to change himself only to fail, and his misery broke my heart.

As a result I simply don’t feel that God is good. I feel he shows favoritism to certain people, such as myself, while ignoring some of his most devout followers, while being downright cruel to others, such as homosexuals.

I know no other Christians who feel like I do. And I would really like to hear what other people here think. Do you think my views are logical? Do you think I’m not seeing the big picture, or missing key information? Am I letting my emotions from past experiences influence my judgement? I’d really like to know. Thank you!

It does. Carlita is twisting the language around. People often do it to rewrite the Bible to what they think it ought to say instead of what it really does say.

 

[urbrother]

Hi there, thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences. I can relate to so much of what you've shared. The only place I'd differ is in regards to God being cruel to homosexuals. I have seen Christians be cruel to homosexuals but I doubt greatly that God feels the same way about them as some Christians do. I was in a gay relationship as a teen, and was exposed to the LGBT community for a few years, establishing life long friendships with some. From that experience I learnt not to judge people superficially, to try and look deeper to see the heart of the person through their story. I currently have a lesbian niece who is on fire for Jesus and is one of the gentlest souls you could ever meet. Despite being harshly judged and shunned by some Christians she hasn't let that deter her from walking in love with the Lord and even sharing her faith with others. I have watched her pray for strangers on the street while I watched cowardly from the car. Already her testimony has drawn the hearts of 2 other nieces and my daughter to Jesus. Something I was desirous to do but lacked the faith and love that she obviously possesses. I am in awe of her and seek to learn from her example.

 

[ShadowFire]

I like your name Legend Of Shadow, my religious name is ShadowFire, I guess it's the resemblance of our names I can relate too lol. At any rate I hope I can give you a positive perspective regarding your questions about your life and religious background. I have been a Christian for my entire life as well as a practicing Witch that is very Wicca friendly. I hope my unique look on life can give you some pointers on what I have read what you have been through.

First of all I am so sorry you had such a rough start on your life, from illness, to being in an environment of poverty and hardships. I am glad you have been able to rise up to the occasion and still have a positive outlook on life, never give that up, because in the end that is where your core strength will come from!

To answer some of your concerns about God, I hope you are not disappointed or angry at Him. I personally believe God is an Awesome, Forgiving, and Loving Being! I truly believe we are all His children and He has provided a home and family to come back to if we choose when it is our time to cross over to the other side! Regardless if you are a sinner or saint, a witch or gay, or any other spectrum of human being that is out there if you desire to have a personal relationship with Him, He will welcome you with open arms.

A lot of His followers make the terrible mistake for thinking you have to be perfect in order to be with Him, but every single Human Being on this earth has some type of flaw that will disqualify them from Heaven, but that is where the free gift of salvation comes through by Christ!

In essence it really doesn't matter who you are, where you came from, what you did in the past or how you are going to fail in the future living up to the expectations of God. For God knows you are part of His family if you so wish and He will never turn His back on family.

As a Christian and as a Wicca friendly Witch I want to make a statement that I see a lot of good in many of the Christian or Pagan Faiths that worships in peace, loves one another unconditionally and has the maturity to see that we are trying to get in touch with our Divine to become better people for our individual life and the ones we have contact with.

These are the goals of my life and as a witch who chose Christ as the vessel to connect to my Divine, I humbly say that there is no shame for a witch or anyone else for that matter to say that they love God through Christ.

The last concern I want to address is the perceived treatment of people by favoritism or luck from God and sadly I don't have the answers but there is an indication in the bible about rain falling on the just and unjust. In (Mathew 5:45) there seems to be some spiritual law that bad things can happen to good people and vice a versa. It seems according to Spiritual Law that random good/bad luck happens to everyone regardless of if they are good or evil in nature and it doesn't seem fair, but what gives me comfort is that when terrible things happen to me or I have to face adversity, I don't have to face it alone because I have Faith in a wonderful creator that is watching over me and will never desert me even in my greatest time of need!