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Where are you on the journey?
- Thread starter Spiderman
- Start date
wintersolstice
Member
In which port do you find yourself?
I was born an atheist, & remained so. It seems simple when stating it that way, but reality & perception of it is complicated & full of illusions. I'm currently at stage 61. What defines the stages? Years alive.
Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
Gosh, wow! How do you keep up with all those beliefs?
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Unveiled Artist
Veteran Member
I've been through Witchcraft (I consider the practice my faith as well now), Catholicism, and Buddhism.
They do not mix at all, though. I was gradually transformation from Christian, to Buddhist, to Practitioner of Witchcraft (rather than Witch, which sounds weird). I became Catholic three years ago. Stopped practicing about a year and a half. Started with Nichiren Buddhism (Shoshu), stopped that because of denominational interference. Visited a SGI organization and practicing with them off and on.
I settled with paganism, though I don't like calling it that. I saw witchcraft--but even that word is loaded. Some say pagans believe in multiple Gods. I don't believe in deities. While paganism is also a category that fits for people who do not believe in Abrahamic faiths--so by default I am.
Where I am now? I'm looking into ancestor veneration. My grandmother passed two months ago. I have been trying to help put our family together since they split in 96. My mother is finally slowly getting over her grudges almost thirty year grudge. My aunts are helping of course. I found after losing family members and trying to find out about where I'm from is a religious practice in itself. Giving offerings, talking to my relatives, and just doing what I do makes me more close to living spiritually than I had with Christianity and Buddhism.
I'm trying to figure how to say I don't want to practice with the SGI anymore. They want me to get their sacrament with which they chat to. However, the organizational rules (charging for the sacrament) bothers me. May advice how to say no--it's a beautiful practice. I believe in what the Buddha says about our Buddha-nature and Nichiren's Words. So, it makes it hard without having a community. That, and I'm not sure if they support witchcraft since the Gohonzon (their sacrament) is seen within themselves and the Buddha taught not to look outside oneself for spiritual revelation.
I don't like newagism; so, where I'm at in my journey is trying to find my own authenticity in beliefs and practices and making sure that what I believe and practice are not taken from other cultures and also correlates with the natural world as well.
Baladas
An Págánach
Nice to meet you!
I was a very devout Christian from age 15-24, and was a youth leader for about 6 of those years. I studied the Bible in depth, and had taken a few courses in theology. Every time I came across verses that disturbed me, I either forced myself to put it aside or I asked my pastors and decided to let their answers be enough. Eventually, I came to the realization that I couldn't honestly reconcile what I was reading with my experiences of the Divine.
A mentor of mine told me that to believe God as unconditionally loving was to create a new God to my liking. Like I've said before, this disturbed me greatly.
I couldn't understand how I could possibly think up a God that was better than the real thing. It didn't make sense.
That's when I dove into studying the history of the Christian scriptures in more detail, and branching out to explore other religions and philosophies.
It has been a rich and rewarding journey so far, and I have never been more at peace with myself. I respect each person's spiritual journey, and I love to meet people of all different paths and discuss spirituality, philosophy and religion. Or anything really.
I am a Panentheist (The Universe is a part of God, but God is still transcendent as well) and a Perennialist (I believe that the Divine has been revealed in every culture and religion, in part but never fully). I subscribe to much of what Laozi and Zhuangzi teach in their writings, as well as other teachers of Taoist philosophy (but only small amounts of religious Taoism as of now). I try to remain open-minded and am always willing to learn, or even to be proven wrong.
I was a very devout Christian from age 15-24, and was a youth leader for about 6 of those years. I studied the Bible in depth, and had taken a few courses in theology. Every time I came across verses that disturbed me, I either forced myself to put it aside or I asked my pastors and decided to let their answers be enough. Eventually, I came to the realization that I couldn't honestly reconcile what I was reading with my experiences of the Divine.
A mentor of mine told me that to believe God as unconditionally loving was to create a new God to my liking. Like I've said before, this disturbed me greatly.
I couldn't understand how I could possibly think up a God that was better than the real thing. It didn't make sense.
That's when I dove into studying the history of the Christian scriptures in more detail, and branching out to explore other religions and philosophies.
It has been a rich and rewarding journey so far, and I have never been more at peace with myself. I respect each person's spiritual journey, and I love to meet people of all different paths and discuss spirituality, philosophy and religion. Or anything really.
I am a Panentheist (The Universe is a part of God, but God is still transcendent as well) and a Perennialist (I believe that the Divine has been revealed in every culture and religion, in part but never fully). I subscribe to much of what Laozi and Zhuangzi teach in their writings, as well as other teachers of Taoist philosophy (but only small amounts of religious Taoism as of now). I try to remain open-minded and am always willing to learn, or even to be proven wrong.
I don't think I can....=-O
Whiterain
Get me off of this planet
Where do I begin... Just kidding...
For a lot of people this is a vent, me included, as well as the laughs. Some users are authentically trying to get closure or direction from the internet.
I was subject to my Parents trying to do the right thing - Neither one extremely religious, just trying to put their children into good places. That included a horrible private Christian Baptist school that poorly educated my brother and I on the basics of grammar and arithmetic. The school should have been shut down, I suppose... All they taught was religion, We moved after some debacle of the Preacher/ Principle trying to lay hands on my Mother's Mustang after it siezed in their parking lot... A bunch of good people there though...
My younger Brother and I were a bit subject to our parents trying to put us in good places, religious, but weren't strictly religious, just trying to do good for us. It was a minor series of tumultuous tragedies that aren't their fault, really. Religious whacks, corrupt churches... ect... After the private school experience I was sent back to public school and couldn't do basic arithmetic or for proper paragraphs or grammar. It was a bad experience for me but I'm not one of those people that blames their parents - they were authentically trying to do good for us. I'm not going to go into fine details but they weren't horridly religious - extremely unorthodox by any means.
As the years went by, I guess you could say I remained somewhat receptive to Christianity, I knew nothing else? I came from a late family and my Fathers Father used to tell tales of the Titans and mythology to me as a youngster. That seeded my interest in myth but it was something I believed was myth and fiction. I went a long time thinking the Gods were fairy tales. My folks really had nothing to do with that but my Mother has reminded me she raised me to believe in Christ the Savior the Holy Ghost and Mary. My Mothers experiences were a little physically stricter than my own.
While I felt some wondering that something was wrong spiritually.. I drifted into the cosmos, not abandoning faith, though. Greek Myth, Norse Myth, Irisih Myth - what's going on...
Since going into uncertainty it was then a journey into madness.. Not Atheism, entirely... One blue day I have a psychotic break with some assistance. Learning about the pineal gland brought me some closure, amid the journey into psychosis. It's a series of events I can not articulate but it continues.
Now I'm a Polytheist.
For a lot of people this is a vent, me included, as well as the laughs. Some users are authentically trying to get closure or direction from the internet.
I was subject to my Parents trying to do the right thing - Neither one extremely religious, just trying to put their children into good places. That included a horrible private Christian Baptist school that poorly educated my brother and I on the basics of grammar and arithmetic. The school should have been shut down, I suppose... All they taught was religion, We moved after some debacle of the Preacher/ Principle trying to lay hands on my Mother's Mustang after it siezed in their parking lot... A bunch of good people there though...
My younger Brother and I were a bit subject to our parents trying to put us in good places, religious, but weren't strictly religious, just trying to do good for us. It was a minor series of tumultuous tragedies that aren't their fault, really. Religious whacks, corrupt churches... ect... After the private school experience I was sent back to public school and couldn't do basic arithmetic or for proper paragraphs or grammar. It was a bad experience for me but I'm not one of those people that blames their parents - they were authentically trying to do good for us. I'm not going to go into fine details but they weren't horridly religious - extremely unorthodox by any means.
As the years went by, I guess you could say I remained somewhat receptive to Christianity, I knew nothing else? I came from a late family and my Fathers Father used to tell tales of the Titans and mythology to me as a youngster. That seeded my interest in myth but it was something I believed was myth and fiction. I went a long time thinking the Gods were fairy tales. My folks really had nothing to do with that but my Mother has reminded me she raised me to believe in Christ the Savior the Holy Ghost and Mary. My Mothers experiences were a little physically stricter than my own.
While I felt some wondering that something was wrong spiritually.. I drifted into the cosmos, not abandoning faith, though. Greek Myth, Norse Myth, Irisih Myth - what's going on...
Since going into uncertainty it was then a journey into madness.. Not Atheism, entirely... One blue day I have a psychotic break with some assistance. Learning about the pineal gland brought me some closure, amid the journey into psychosis. It's a series of events I can not articulate but it continues.
Now I'm a Polytheist.
Hi im a Muslim and we believe that the Bible was inspired by God, however over time people started editing and changing it and thats why it is the way it is today.. The Qur'aan we believe was also inspired by God but was never ever changed.. There is also a passage in the Qur'aan that challenges the readers to find mistakes in it if they don't believe it is from God.. There is also another passage that challenges the reader to produce one chapter the like thereof if they doubt it comes from God
maggie2
Active Member
I was brought up in the Christian church and went until I was a teenager. Then I stopped going but when I had children of my own I thought they needed to have a spiritual home so we started going back to church. As I began to really take a look at the Bible I began to be very troubled. I couldn't figure out how a God of love could possibly kill all the babies in Egypt and throw people into hell even if they didn't know Jesus.
Then I got involved with a really fundamentalist group within our church. That didn't feel really right either but I kept persisting. They said that if we just believed the Bible and they could help us interpret it then we would be okay. Finally, one night the 'leader' of the group ordered me to fall on my knees and repent before God because I had offered to look after her kids for a couple of hours because she had a cold. A mutual friend had told me she wasn't well. This 'leader' said I was a gossip and I needed to repent. That was enough for me. I told her that if I was going to have any conversation with God it would be in private, not before her or anyone else.
That year and a half really shook me up. I began to realize that I needed to take a long hard look at what I believed and why I believed it. That started me on a life-long journey of exploring my beliefs. To begin with it was quite a scary time. I kept thinking, "What if they are right and I'm going to hell?" I had to confront my fears each time I thought about my faith but I persisted.
Through reading and study I came to understand that these people were only after power and were really not spiritual at all. I also came to a place where I had to acknowledge that I could no longer be a Christian. My vision of God really didn't have much to do with the God of the Bible and I just wasn't comfortable with the main belief in Christianity, that Jesus died for our sins. I also didn't believe in hell any longer and my God had little to do with the God of the Bible.
I have been on this path now for almost 30 years and each year my faith in God has deepened and become stronger. I find great joy and pleasure from my spiritual journey and I love to discuss spirituality. I don't consider myself to be any religion at the moment, just a seeker.
I believe that we each must walk our own path and find our own way to the Creator. I don't think my God might be the same as yours or others and that's okay. And I hope and pray that each human being can find their own was to a God that makes sense for them.
Then I got involved with a really fundamentalist group within our church. That didn't feel really right either but I kept persisting. They said that if we just believed the Bible and they could help us interpret it then we would be okay. Finally, one night the 'leader' of the group ordered me to fall on my knees and repent before God because I had offered to look after her kids for a couple of hours because she had a cold. A mutual friend had told me she wasn't well. This 'leader' said I was a gossip and I needed to repent. That was enough for me. I told her that if I was going to have any conversation with God it would be in private, not before her or anyone else.
That year and a half really shook me up. I began to realize that I needed to take a long hard look at what I believed and why I believed it. That started me on a life-long journey of exploring my beliefs. To begin with it was quite a scary time. I kept thinking, "What if they are right and I'm going to hell?" I had to confront my fears each time I thought about my faith but I persisted.
Through reading and study I came to understand that these people were only after power and were really not spiritual at all. I also came to a place where I had to acknowledge that I could no longer be a Christian. My vision of God really didn't have much to do with the God of the Bible and I just wasn't comfortable with the main belief in Christianity, that Jesus died for our sins. I also didn't believe in hell any longer and my God had little to do with the God of the Bible.
I have been on this path now for almost 30 years and each year my faith in God has deepened and become stronger. I find great joy and pleasure from my spiritual journey and I love to discuss spirituality. I don't consider myself to be any religion at the moment, just a seeker.
I believe that we each must walk our own path and find our own way to the Creator. I don't think my God might be the same as yours or others and that's okay. And I hope and pray that each human being can find their own was to a God that makes sense for them.