The stagnantly closed minds of the religious elite
- Thread starter SkippingStones
- Start date
I want my grandparents to stop beating themselves because they think it's their fault I jumped off the deep end. So, I want their religion to be something that either releases them from this pain, or to be something I can follow.
As of now, their Christianity doesn't make sense to me and so I am looking for underlying qualities that make it worthwhile. But alas, all I find are more things that grate on my nerves.
If people I love and respect believe so wholeheartedly in something that affects their life so forcefully, it must have some validity, doesn't it?
For 2000 years, Christianity has spawned some of the greatest poetry, art and music the world has ever known. Critics will sneer and tell you that great atrocities have been commited in the name of Christ but actually, this is no tarnishment of Christianity. Christians, are representatives of Christ. There are good reps, bad reps and great reps.
The great mind, A.W. Tozer, put it this way:
Thee love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses. There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart.
Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf in springtime. - Luther
The great mind, A.W. Tozer, put it this way:
Thee love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses. There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart.
Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf in springtime. - Luther
I'm not calling Mary Satanic, I'm just saying that the God in the Bible is Satan, and all forms of religious control is Satanic. All the followers of Christianity believe the God in the Bible to be the "good" God, but he's not. So all the followers of today have good intentions, it's just that they're worshipping a wolf in sheep's clothing when it comes to specifically worshipping the God in the Bible. If someone has good beliefs and worship the "good" God, they have the right attitude but just place the wrong face with that God. That's all it is, manipulation trying to make Satan seem more powerful than he is and appear "good".
So continue just doing what you're doing believing in God, Jesus' words, Mary, and all that, just don't think that the God in the Bible is the God you love or the God in which Jesus refers to. Just because God in the Bible is Satan, it doesn't devalue the messages in which they taught.
As for Satan winning the rebellion, that's not so, although it may appear that way. This is the Hell in which he was cast down to which mortals used to have no escape until the Space Age. We were his created slaves and is why he was able to seem like our God. The "good" God and Satan aren't actually Gods, just god-like just as we today would seem to be to ourselves of the past, but I still believe in an Almighty Creator of All God (whatever it may be) and he/she/it is the one we'll never be able to know.
And that's some of the stuff that sounds unbelievable, I just mentioned it because you thought I disregard the whole Bible as Satanic and that Satan won, but that's not so. Just because someone loses a war, it doesn't mean propoganda can't be created to glorify themselves and make themselves look better. Anyone can write a book ya know, but it doesn't automatically make it 100% fact. The greatest deceit Satan can use is something that is 99.9% truth and 0.1% lie.
- N
Leo Volont
Registered Senior Member
Dear Neildo,
You probably picked up on my vibes, here. I hate everybody. But I don't hate you.
I want you to take just this one thing on trust, that Mary is different from all other Religions which you hate.
I noticed that you have been very careful not to Insult Mary even after speaking more than three sentences. Anyone under the Curse of the Prophecy of Simeon would have definitely Insulted Her by now. This can mean only one thing -- You are under Her Protection and Intercession.
So, whatever your Instincts are in regards to Religion, be assured that Mary agrees with you 100%. She is on your Side.
Whatever you see or hear to the contrary -- about what other idiots might say regarding what they suppose Marian Doctrine must be, rest assured that where they disagree with you, they must be wrong.
By comprehending Mary in this Way, you will come to be closer to Her, and that will do the rest.
You probably picked up on my vibes, here. I hate everybody. But I don't hate you.
I want you to take just this one thing on trust, that Mary is different from all other Religions which you hate.
I noticed that you have been very careful not to Insult Mary even after speaking more than three sentences. Anyone under the Curse of the Prophecy of Simeon would have definitely Insulted Her by now. This can mean only one thing -- You are under Her Protection and Intercession.
So, whatever your Instincts are in regards to Religion, be assured that Mary agrees with you 100%. She is on your Side.
Whatever you see or hear to the contrary -- about what other idiots might say regarding what they suppose Marian Doctrine must be, rest assured that where they disagree with you, they must be wrong.
By comprehending Mary in this Way, you will come to be closer to Her, and that will do the rest.
SkippingStones said:
First of all -- are they beating themselves physically?! I hope not. I take you're saying that they feel guilty that you are the way you are -- and they don't like it.
SkippingStones said:
I don't think this is an either -- or situation.
Probably the only way they know how to deal with that pain is through their religion, and I take they are quite old people by now, so they are not likely to make an 180 turn. You may not like it the way they deal with their pain -- but I think that you can't take that pain away from them, or tell them they shouldn't have it. When it comes to family matters, motivations and reasons become so unclear and ununderstandable sometimes, that there is nothing one could do.
As for yourself, a religion can not be or become "something you *can* follow". It is, or it isn't.
SkippingStones said:
I can understand that well. A while back, I too worked very hard on becoming a Christian -- believing in God. But Christianity made no sense to me either, it was all so distant, light years away. I think that one cannot believe by wanting to believe.
And yes, looking for those underlying qualities that make it worthwhile: My experience is that it doesn't work this way. When it comes to an established religion like Christianity, one cannot choose and say "I like verse 12:11, but I don't like verse 12:12." But this doesn't mean that all things that are in the Bible are bad or to be rejected! Unfortunately, many believers meet you with the "all or nothing attitude" -- which makes it so hard, if not impossible to make your point.
Faith per se is an abstract and invisible thing, you can see the effects and actions of it, but no it. Faith is an emotional-cognitive phenomenon, and as it is with these phenomena, they cannot be the goal of an action -- they are side-effects or side-products of other actions.
If you strive, for example, to be more disciplined, it won't help you one bit to tell yourself "I must be disciplined". There is a thousand little things one does, and if done regularly and consciously, they can lead to something that can then be given the overall name "discipline".
Or similarily, if you want to lose weight: It won't help one bit to tell yourself "I must lose weight" -- it is the exercising, the diet you need to concentrate on, and losing weight is just a description of this process.
And the same goes for faith or belief: it is in the thousand little things you do. Of course, if one is not a declared religious person, with a clearly verballizable belief, then other religious people may resent you for it, even say you have no faith, that you lack belief. But I think that those are just failing to understand you, or even have something against you as a person.
Either way: you will have to be strong in this situation. Nobody can do it for you.
SkippingStones said:
Of course it has some validity -- but primarily *to them*. This is an exaggerated comparison, but I think it illustrates well what I want to say: If someone's favourite colour is red -- will you, if you love this person, feel bad, or think you should feel bad if red isn't your favourite colour too? Indeed, the other person may even end up telling you that if your favourite colour isn't red, this shows you don't love them -- but this is emotional blackmail, and you shouldn't allow it.
I have seen Christians having this attitude: "If you are not a Christian, then you don't know what love is, and you are unable to love. If you say that you love me, but aren't a Christian, it must be that you are lying." This seems harsh, so one asks, "What does it mean to be a Christian?" -- "To believe in Christ, Eternal Life, God ..." And if you continue asking, they are even more likely to snub you.
In the end, it comes down to "being a Christian means that you go to Sunday Mass" or "being a Christian means that you declare your belief in Christ".
But what if this is someting you can't do, what if you feel like your belief is not genuine, and you feel that declaring it would be a hollow claim? That you need more time? I often felt this way around Christians -- and they downright expected, if not demanded me to declare my belief. While I felt like I have a broken leg, with bones sticking out, all in blood -- and that they refuse to see it, and demand me to run.
I take you have a good reason for your choice of title -- "The Sheltered Kid". Don't be afraid of your strength.
Well Mary isn't a religion, she's a figure. The reason why I dislike religion is because of what it is. Religion is a mass of people sharing the same philosophical ideas and assumptual truth about God. It's the followers that I dislike the most, not the thoughts that have come from the originating prophet of those ideas and beliefs. People are free to have their own ideas about God as God is an entity in which we cannot possibly know, so naturaly philosophical assumptions are going to be made to try and figure it all out.
The reason why I dislike the followers is because most blindly follow those man-made (not divine) thoughts and then dedicate their lives to someone else's ideas. I have no problem with an educated person following a certain religion because it follows their same idealogy in which they first came up with on their own, but most follow the religion they do either blindly or because someone else forced them to. Either they were brought up at a young age by their parents to follow their religion, or most of the people in their town follow it, or some other sort of peer pressure happens without them being able to follow that religion, or their own, on their own free will.
Religion is also harmful as it pushes people further from God. Aside from the religious zealots, people tend to see many flaws and contradictions in their religion that just don't make much sense. The reason being is that those thoughts are someone else's and not their own. So once people see those flaws which others claim as 100% truth, they then think God and everything to do with him is pure bullshit and this is why we have so many people that convert to another religion, either hate their previous religion with a passion or turn athiest, or have always been an athiest. Aside from the fanatical religious zealots, those that follow their own beliefs on God through their own free will tend to be the most spiritual and closest to God.
Following someone else's beliefs just confuses those that are actually paying attention and not being blindly brainwashed, it makes everything less believable, and creates lots of chaos as well. At least when everyone has their own personal beliefs, people can be more humble because they know everyone has differing beliefs, but when you have masses all believing the same wrong things, that's when trouble happens because it's all en masse. Even if there may be an outspoken person with their own personal beliefs, at least then it can only be one on one trouble, but when a conflict arises between two religions, it's then hundreds, thousands, if not millions of people now waging war. They're making themselves look like fools being so arrogant as to think their beliefs are the correct ones, but making themselves look like even bigger ones by waging war when violence usually goes against their beliefs. Be humble before God. Knowing that you know nothing about him is the first step.
Those are some of the reasons why I dislike religion. Again, I have nothing wrong with the beliefs people may have about God, so long as they've come to it on their own conclusion. I find what you write to be fascinating, Leo, as I do of every holy scripture there is. Each claim to be the truth though, so all I can do is absorb as much information as possible and come to my own conclusions in trying to put the pieces to the puzzle of God together.
- N
SourStar: The Lord's Prayer is a mighty example of this.
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M*W: Surely, you are aware that Paul wrote "The Lord's Prayer," not Jesus.
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M*W: Surely, you are aware that Paul wrote "The Lord's Prayer," not Jesus.
Enigma'07: Lie! Niether of them wrote it down. It was Matthew and whoever else wrote the gospels. Paul did not write the gospels.
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M*W: "Lie!" NOT! It's been established that Paul influenced the writing of the gospels. No one knows for sure who really wrote the gospels, they're only CALLED the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Luke, and Gospel of John. That does NOT mean the gospels were written by these characters.
Too bad Jesus wrote down nothing, and Paul never even knew Jesus! Everything written about Jesus was taken from earlier dying demigod myths.
Hey, read some other book once in a while besides the Bible, and you may learn something factual.
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M*W: "Lie!" NOT! It's been established that Paul influenced the writing of the gospels. No one knows for sure who really wrote the gospels, they're only CALLED the Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Gospel of Luke, and Gospel of John. That does NOT mean the gospels were written by these characters.
Too bad Jesus wrote down nothing, and Paul never even knew Jesus! Everything written about Jesus was taken from earlier dying demigod myths.
Hey, read some other book once in a while besides the Bible, and you may learn something factual.
Neildo: "Religion is also harmful as it pushes people further from God."
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M*W: This is true. Since I've been away from organized religion, I have come to know my creator in a more personal way, and I am empowered by that.
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M*W: This is true. Since I've been away from organized religion, I have come to know my creator in a more personal way, and I am empowered by that.
Medicine Woman said:
What are you talking about? The Lord's Prayer is recorded in the DIFFERENT biographies of Christ completed before Paul. This is a preposterous claim not respected by any historian who understands the chronology of the New Testament writings.
SourStar: What are you talking about? The Lord's Prayer is recorded in the DIFFERENT biographies of Christ completed before Paul. This is a preposterous claim not respected by any historian who understands the chronology of the New Testament writings.
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M*W: Liar, liar, pants on fire! "The Lord's Prayer" is NOT recorded in any "biography of Christ completed before Paul." If you're talking about the gospels, they came way after Jesus and were influenced by the fanatic imagination of Paul. The first gospel, the "Gospel of Mark" was written circa 70 AD, long after Jesus was gone. Again, Paul never knew Jesus, and it's still questionable that Jesus ever existed! From where do you get YOUR information???
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M*W: Liar, liar, pants on fire! "The Lord's Prayer" is NOT recorded in any "biography of Christ completed before Paul." If you're talking about the gospels, they came way after Jesus and were influenced by the fanatic imagination of Paul. The first gospel, the "Gospel of Mark" was written circa 70 AD, long after Jesus was gone. Again, Paul never knew Jesus, and it's still questionable that Jesus ever existed! From where do you get YOUR information???
COMPLETELY secular historians and literary critics have verified these things and you might want to check a history book.
The writing styles of the authors of the synoptic gospels are VASTLY different from the writing style of Paul. Your accusation makes no sense in light of the glaring evidence.
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the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke in the New Testament. Since the 1780s, the first three books of theNew Testament have been called the Synoptic Gospels because they are so similar in structure, content, and wording that they can easily be set side by side to provide a synoptic comparison of their content. (The Gospel of John has a different arrangement and offers a somewhat different perspective on Christ.) The striking similarities between the first three Gospels prompt questions regarding the actual literary relationship that exists between them.
Enyclopaedia Britannica
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The term gospel has connotations of the traditions of Jesus' earthly ministry and Passion that were remembered and then written in the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They are written from the post-Resurrection perspective and they contain an extensive and common Passion narrative as they deal with the earthly ministry of Jesus from hindsight. And so the use of the term gospel for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John has taken the place of the original creedal–kerygmatic use in early Christianity. It is also to be noted that, in the Evangelists' accounts, their theological presuppositions and the situations of theiraddressees molded the formation of the four canonical Gospels written after the Pauline Letters. The primary affirmations—ofJesus as the Christ, his message of the Kingdom, and his Resurrection—preceded the Evangelists' accounts. Some of these affirmations were extrapolated backward (much as the Exodus event central in the Old Testament was extrapolated backward and was the theological presupposition for the patriarchal narratives in Genesis).
SourStar: "For 2000 years, Christianity has spawned some of the greatest poetry, art and music the world has ever known. Critics will sneer and tell you that great atrocities have been commited in the name of Christ but actually, this is no tarnishment of Christianity. Christians, are representatives of Christ. There are good reps, bad reps and great reps.
The great mind, A.W. Tozer, put it this way: Thee love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses. There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart.
Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf in springtime. - Luther
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M*W: Luther was a nut case, just like you!
The great mind, A.W. Tozer, put it this way: Thee love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and makes alive, it draws and repulses. There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart.
Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone but in every leaf in springtime. - Luther
*************
M*W: Luther was a nut case, just like you!
My question is whether the definiton of "open-minded" is in any way static, or if it's just a word we define for ourselves to make ourselves feel better.
I think it very fair to look at someone who rejects fact in favor of myth in order to maintain political or social injustice and say they are not open-minded.
Similarly, I think it fair to look at someone who is willing to consider possibilities of fact in unclear situations and say they are open-minded.
I agree that it's not wise in any political sense to tout one's own open-mindedness, but that becomes inherent with the presumed moral authority of charging someone with a closed mind.
Dictionary.com: "open mind"
I think it very fair to look at someone who rejects fact in favor of myth in order to maintain political or social injustice and say they are not open-minded.
Similarly, I think it fair to look at someone who is willing to consider possibilities of fact in unclear situations and say they are open-minded.
I agree that it's not wise in any political sense to tout one's own open-mindedness, but that becomes inherent with the presumed moral authority of charging someone with a closed mind.
Dictionary.com: "open mind"
@ Cris
I'm afraid you are mistaken. Paul ministered to Gentiles. Peter to Jews. Now historically speaking, it is only logical that some significant impact on the Jews would "birth" Christianity. These recordings have been placed in the book called 'Acts'.
Do not listen to Medicine Woman, who can provide NO archaeological evidence whatsoever to her point.
There were a GREAT number of Christians before Paul even became converted. There is a good deal of evidence for this in the Bible and has never been refuted by historians. As this is the case, it is illogical to propose that Paul somehow pioneered the Christian Church through his own doing since it was well under way from the Day of Pentecost.
I'm afraid you are mistaken. Paul ministered to Gentiles. Peter to Jews. Now historically speaking, it is only logical that some significant impact on the Jews would "birth" Christianity. These recordings have been placed in the book called 'Acts'.
Do not listen to Medicine Woman, who can provide NO archaeological evidence whatsoever to her point.
There were a GREAT number of Christians before Paul even became converted. There is a good deal of evidence for this in the Bible and has never been refuted by historians. As this is the case, it is illogical to propose that Paul somehow pioneered the Christian Church through his own doing since it was well under way from the Day of Pentecost.