Hi there.

I've heard more than I like. There's too many people (and that's all of the number too many) going from certain Christianity to "enlightenment" and then uncertain irreligion.

I think it would be nice to hear two things from the people who are migrating in this manner.

1. What do you think Christianity is and thus why do/did you regard yourself as a Christian?

2. What is your difficulty with Christianity? You can also tell how you've tried to deal with it and what the results so far have been.

This is not meant for bashing or fighting. If you are migrating, you must have real issues to deal with. If you are staying, you must have real confidence rooting you down. Let's see what each one has and whether we can learn a thing or two from each other.

Did that alot as a young Christian. At times, I just did not "feel" worthy or saved enough. The semantics can also get disorienting for a young Christian. It became decicive later on after what I would refer to my "twilight zone" moment. I just met God. Don't know how, but I did. Inside.

Enough about me. Am interested in YOUR Christianity. I have read some of your diary and abit of your posts. I am curious about how you came onto some knowledge. Both spiritual/Christian and about life. Am curious esp on (general) spiritual experiences.

Feel free to answer in parables, if you prefer it that way, or to kindly (but expressly) refrain if you think it is too invasive a question. (But I see you post a lot on yourself so I do not think it will be too much of a problem.)

My brother, thanks for checking in here.

God has been a consuming interest for me for as long as I can remember. I don't know how it started. But I was always curious about Him, pleasing Him, living right and all that.

I read a lot of material. I remember that when I was little there were stacks of Jehovah's Witness magazines and I was always thumbing through them. My parents maintained a small library too and I was told that I was something of a voracious reader.

I don't know where I got the appetite or when it started but I always had a desire to understand everything, but God more than anything else.

I remember sometime, maybe before I was 10, I'm not sure, when I wondered where God came from and how eternity would end, whether after all the earthly hullabaloo we'd become angels and join God in creating a new world and a new race of humans whom we would try to guide too until their own world ended and then the whole process would repeat itself.

I used to think like that a lot. In short, I wondered. That was my normal. And I was that way about everything. It made me pretty slow physically and with decisions and maybe a bit non-conformist albeit unintentionally. And stubborn too.

I read a lot. And I tried to practise what I read. One of my big bros once said that as long as something's written in a book I would know how to do it. But it didn't always work like the books said. That was why it took a long time before, as with you, God found me.

As for other stuff about life I watched a lot of TV, read a bunch of novels, snooped on people, I think. At least, I know I was the CIA in my house always hunting letters and stuff. And, well, yeah, school was boring. But I did hear what the teacher said, even if textbooks were very tasking to read. And I argued a lot.

Thanks. Its just that I have had to go through hell and back (quite literally) just to learn a lesson you talk over so easily. Made me wonder who you are. I still do.

muskeeto and co, where are you oh.

Op,
Why do you automatically think that someone migrating away from Christianity has serious issues ?
I mean, by asking or suggesting that, are not yourself perpetuating the myth that religion is about magically solving human problems?

People migrate away from Christianity because Christianity suffers from a crisis of meaning.
J B Joshua Christianity is different from Pope Francis Christianity, which is different from cherubim and sarafim Christianity, which is different from Oyaks Christianity ( God needs your money Christianity ), which is different from the Christianity of the pastor kissing the naked asses of women on a beach in the name Christianity.

Crisis of meaning.
Christianity had its golden age when churchmen were the definers of reality to a blind and frightened humanity.
To the still blind and frightened, Christianity is still relevant.
But once a person recognizes the contradictions of stone age myths in an information age, the curtains come down, allowing individuals to have mental sovereignty.

So I reiterate, crisis of meaning is what Christianity suffers.

plaetton:
Op,
Why do you automatically think that someone migrating away from Christianity has serious issues ?
I mean, by asking or suggesting that, are not yourself perpetuating the myth that religion is about magically solving human problems?

People migrate away from Christianity because Christianity suffers from a crisis of meaning.
J B Joshua Christianity is different from Pope Francis Christianity, which is different from cherubim and sarafim Christianity, which is different from Oyaks Christianity ( God needs your money Christianity ), which is different from the Christianity of the pastor kissing the naked asses of women on a beach in the name Christianity.

Crisis of meaning.
Christianity had its golden age when churchmen were the definers of reality to a blind and frightened humanity.
To the still blind and frightened, Christianity is still relevant.
But once a person recognizes the contradictions of stone age myths in an information age, the curtains come down, allowing individuals to have mental sovereignty.

So I reiterate, crisis of meaning is what Christianity suffers.

What is the meaning of life?

Image123:


What is the meaning of life?

life
noun
1. the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. "the origins of life"
synonyms: existence, being, living, animation; More
antonyms: death, nonexistence

living things and their activity. "some sort of life existed on Mars"
synonyms: living things, living beings, living creatures, the living;

vitality, vigor, or energy. "she was beautiful and full of life"
synonyms: vivacity, animation, liveliness, vitality, verve, high spirits, exuberance, zest, buoyancy, enthusiasm, energy, vigor, dynamism, elan, gusto, brio, bounce, spirit, fire; More

2. the existence of an individual human being or animal. "a disaster that claimed the lives of 266 Americans"
synonyms: person, human being, individual, soul

No need to thank me

Image123:


What is the meaning of life?

To quote Solomon, a lot of vanity. One generation comes up, dies, but not after introducing another to the same vain existence.

Life is a huge crowd of people who find meaning by usury of fellow men to find satisfaction in it, and die never achieving it.

It is like a huge flock of sheep, all doing exactly what the mischevous ones at the fore are. And making it their purpose.

Image123:
muskeeto and co, where are you oh.

I'm cool. You?

I never really believed, even though I went to church until I was 16. The whole thing sounded like the fantasy stories I had read as a child. When I finally actually read the Bible, that convinced me that it was just a man-made book. Same with the Quran, after being told what an amazing book it was I was terribly disappointed when I read it. Both books are just attempts to manipulate the beliefs of gullible people.

I found God and he loves me with an endless love. Oh! how real is he, more real than the device you are using to browse.
I saw him, I hear him, I feel him and he touch me. I am in his hands as he holds me with such love.
He guides me jealously. He is jealous for me.
He unleashed his untamed love for me and it intoxicated me.
He made me an outlet of his all consuming love and it gave me a restless passion.
Words are scares to explain how he makes me feel.
I am lost in is love, I am hopelessly in love with him and he won't stop showing me how much he loves me. He is never tired of expressing his love for me.
And I don't need to do anything for him to love me because it pleases him to love me, he just enjoy loving me.
I can't make him love me more neither can I make him love me less for his love for me is perfect and complete.

What more do I need, his love is just enough.

And you can call me gullible, you can call me stupid and you can say I am a fool. But it isn't my fault, it is his love that intoxicated me.
Yes I am gullibly, stupidly, foolishly, senselessly and hopelessly in love with God.

I realized that man is God !

@Hiswordxray, nice one.

Please explain your first real encounter with God.

muafrika:
Thanks. Its just that I have had to go through hell and back (quite literally) just to learn a lesson you talk over so easily. Made me wonder who you are. I still do.

I talk over so easily? Lol.

I'm almost 29, bro. I have so many broken utensils that I've grown rather shy of telling my story. Curiousity and a hunger to understand make people experimentative. Experiments tend to be expensive. I used to freely talk about what drastic choices I've made on the way to learning some lessons but now, ehn, market value is a big deal, lol. So I find myself quite shy to tell some of my story.

A tip of the iceberg: I gave up a degree and a diploma (the latter I'd already earned and just refused to pick up for a moral reason and the former I didn't finish the program for) in my pursuit of understanding of how we must live on earth as Christians.

Hell is very familiar to me. Sometimes it feels like I live there everyday. I got so used to it that I started to suspect those rare times that there was joy and gladness. They started to seem like bad omens that something particularly terrible was about to happen.

It's a lot better now. Not that the heat is gone. It hasn't. But a lot of the confusion I started out with is gone and there is generally hope and light now. Shadows pass before the face of the sun sometimes but that is better than when the sun broke through occasionally.

I've put everything on the line, bro. This has not been a pretty walk in the park for me.

plaetton:
Op,
Why do you automatically think that someone migrating away from Christianity has serious issues ?
I mean, by asking or suggesting that, are not yourself perpetuating the myth that religion is about magically solving human problems?

People migrate away from Christianity because Christianity suffers from a crisis of meaning.
J B Joshua Christianity is different from Pope Francis Christianity, which is different from cherubim and sarafim Christianity, which is different from Oyaks Christianity ( God needs your money Christianity ), which is different from the Christianity of the pastor kissing the naked asses of women on a beach in the name Christianity.

Crisis of meaning.
Christianity had its golden age when churchmen were the definers of reality to a blind and frightened humanity.
To the still blind and frightened, Christianity is still relevant.
But once a person recognizes the contradictions of stone age myths in an information age, the curtains come down, allowing individuals to have mental sovereignty.

So I reiterate, crisis of meaning is what Christianity suffers.

So you left Christianity because you felt it had a crisis of meaning? Is that what you're saying?

muafrika:
To quote Solomon, a lot of vanity. One generation comes up, dies, but not after introducing another to the same vain existence.

Life is a huge crowd of people who find meaning by usury of fellow men to find satisfaction in it, and die never achieving it.

It is like a huge flock of sheep, all doing exactly what the mischevous ones at the fore are. And making it their purpose.

Actually, there's more to Ecclesiastes than the idea that Solomon was knocking life. It's one full document where Solomon explained what life is when you look at it horizontally and thus why it only works to look at it vertically.

It's a beautiful book, not nearly the depressing story of futility and meaninglessness that we tend to make it out to be. Perhaps at some point we'll discuss it more fully.

As for the meaning of life... Life is harmony, music, beauty. Life is good. Life is relationship and interaction. Life is connection and edification and mutual benefit. But that's an absolute meaning. Life here on earth is actually school. We're learning the harmony and beauty and music that life is here. That's why we're here. We're here to learn to value relationship, how to build them and the proper place to put each person.

Remember Jesus's new commandments? You shall love I AM your God with everything in you and everything that you are and you shall love the next human to you like your own self.

That is the same as the meaning of Life.

Not born into christianity, but mother got converted when I was few months Old ; with a testimony of seen Christ himself in a dream couple with instructions. Given a name "God Brought This", while growing up I did some good and bad, my mom also discover a faith similar to that of the shunamite woman in me "God is alive IT IS WELL"

Am a grown up 20s and my conversion I would say it was when my mom got converted (or else why would "God Brought This". A genuine Salvation and serious Commitment started in 2006.

Staying in christianity means a lot to me, why? I had vision only meant for me alone and am running it , WINNERS NEVER QUIT they say

muafrika:
@Hiswordxray, nice one.

Please explain your first real encounter with God.

Ever seen I became born again I new God loves me.
But their was a time I was so worried about my life and my future. And God spoke to me. He told me he hears every of my thought and it breaks his heart to hear me worried.
I was young in the faith and I could hardly recognize Gods voice but I went to Church (a student's fellowship ) and I saw this young pastor ministering with so much anointing. I spoke in my heart asking God , if he was really the one that spoke to me the other time let this pastor call me and tell me what on my mind. And just before the service ended the pastor called me and told me things that others didn't know, things that were bordering my mind.
I now know that it was God who spoke to me. And I told him to help me always recognize his voice.
When I come to think of it, Almighty God, the ruler of the whole universe didn't have anything better to do than to sit down and listen to me 24 hours. He is never too busy for me because to him I am the most captivating thing in all of the universe.
He wants me to all be happy. And ever seen then he had reassured me that his love never fail.
At another time he told me that I should trust in him because he would never watch me put my hands in fire without doing anything.
At another time he told me whether I am unfaithful or not and it doesn't matter the amount of mistakes I made he would never stop loving me and he would always be faithful to me.

He always answer every of my prayer. He doesn't get tired of being good to me.

What more do I need than is love.

That was the answer I was looking for.

Life is about relationships? Some of those are just oppressive. Am a little older, but just came to the realization of what is inside men. I am actively cutting off people and vain company and in the process finding back my way to peace.

I do love people to the best of my ability, but some, from a safe distance.

I once read a passage where Christ was followed by so many, yet He chose not to attach Himself to them as "he knew what was in men." So I asked, whatever is that? (Can't remember exact verse.)

2. What is your difficulty with Christianity?

For me its having faith and believing in something even if reason tells me not too.

ihedinobi2:

So you left Christianity because you felt it had a crisis of meaning? Is that what you're saying?

I left Christianity because the more I looked the more meaningless it seemed.
And over last few decades, it has become even a lot more meaningless.
Like I hinted, religious superstition is for a bygone era. Religion thrives on ignorance and fear.
Enlightenment takes care of ignorance, and empowerment takes care of fear. Here, religion, custodian religion, becomes less relevant as people begin to seek rational answers to existential questions.

plaetton:
Op,
Why do you automatically think that someone migrating away from Christianity has serious issues ?
I mean, by asking or suggesting that, are not yourself perpetuating the myth that religion is about magically solving human problems?

People migrate away from Christianity because Christianity suffers from a crisis of meaning.
J B Joshua Christianity is different from Pope Francis Christianity, which is different from cherubim and sarafim Christianity, which is different from Oyaks Christianity ( God needs your money Christianity ), which is different from the Christianity of the pastor kissing the naked asses of women on a beach in the name Christianity.

Crisis of meaning.
Christianity had its golden age when churchmen were the definers of reality to a blind and frightened humanity.
To the still blind and frightened, Christianity is still relevant.
But once a person recognizes the contradictions of stone age myths in an information age, the curtains come down, allowing individuals to have mental sovereignty.

So I reiterate, crisis of meaning is what Christianity suffers.

Atheism has over 17 types and some of them contradict each other in concepts.
Its even still suffering from crisis of meaning.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=6487

But ironically you do not see anything wrong with it?

You don't have any excuse bro. You've still not told us the actualy story, maybe due to a crisis of reason.

2. What is your difficulty with Christianity?

Waiting on the Lord to "part the Red Sea" when you can easily choose another path so you'd get to "Cannan"
Struggling with unanswered prayers, not just for months but years......
Some days, it's a lot harder to wait and one's bank of patience depletes

plaetton:

I left Christianity because the more I looked the more meaningless it seemed.
And over last few decades, it has become even a lot more meaningless.
Like I hinted, religious superstition is for a bygone era. Religion thrives on ignorance and fear.
Enlightenment takes care of ignorance, and empowerment takes care of fear. Here, religion, custodian religion, becomes less relevant as people begin to seek rational answers to existential questions.

Now the bolded is an intelligent explanation you can give for leaving. Now you still don't have an excuse because many intelligent and intellectual people openly proffess to be christains: from a college proffesor to a hollywood celebrity.

Whilst you may be right when you say some part of our beliefs are unreasonable, you ought to know that not everything that makes sense is the truth.

paulGrundy:


Atheism has over 17 types and some of them contradict each other in concepts.
Its even still suffering from crisis of meaning.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=6487

But ironically you do not see anything wrong with it?

You don't have any excuse bro. You've still not told us the actualy story, maybe due to a crisis of reason.

Like many others of your type, you still fail to see what atheism means. It is just a lack of belief in god. Atheism does not have goal, like religious people whose goals are salvation, favor from god, and eternal life in Paradise.

The only thing that atheism MEANS is the absence of belief in god.

However else an individual atheist finds meaning and purpose in life is up to the individual.

@Hiswordxray,
Thats quite cool.

Hold on to that season for as long as you can.

timmy2409:


life
noun
1. the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. "the origins of life"
synonyms: existence, being, living, animation; More
antonyms: death, nonexistence

living things and their activity. "some sort of life existed on Mars"
synonyms: living things, living beings, living creatures, the living;

vitality, vigor, or energy. "she was beautiful and full of life"
synonyms: vivacity, animation, liveliness, vitality, verve, high spirits, exuberance, zest, buoyancy, enthusiasm, energy, vigor, dynamism, elan, gusto, brio, bounce, spirit, fire; More

2. the existence of an individual human being or animal. "a disaster that claimed the lives of 266 Americans"
synonyms: person, human being, individual, soul

No need to thank me

thank you, you have being very kind.

muafrika:
To quote Solomon, a lot of vanity. One generation comes up, dies, but not after introducing another to the same vain existence.

Life is a huge crowd of people who find meaning by usury of fellow men to find satisfaction in it, and die never achieving it.

It is like a huge flock of sheep, all doing exactly what the mischevous ones at the fore are. And making it their purpose.

My point exactly. Life is full of crisis,and a confused maze for most. this however NEVER justifies an opting out. The point is on plaetton.

Image123:


My point exactly. Life is full of crisis,and a confused maze for most. this however NEVER justifies an opting out. The point is on plaetton.

I agree with your statement about life.
But how does opting out of blind faith religion equate to opting out of life?

plaetton:


I agree with your statement about life.
But how does opting out of blind faith religion equate to opting out of life?

the OPTING OUT part, i suppose.