How many ex-Christians are there here on CF and reason for leaving Christianity?

[ICONO'CLAST]

To the OP, one of the images of God that worked on me for quite a while in my de-conversion process is that I kept seeing a Greek/Roman Pagan God bubbling up. Instead of sitting on a mountain, the God I worshiped was sitting on a Golden Thrown. And rather than throwing lightening bolts around, the God I was worshiping was causing world floods, burning cities, directing wars and genocide and judging people for correct obedience. Those who did not pass His test of obedience were sent to eternal torment in Hell. It took a while, but eventually I became freed from that God.

No problem. Unless you repent and believe, you will be freed from Him for all eternity.
I do not recommend that.

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

It's not a choice he can actually make if god foreordained it, god is the only who can choose so there's no point for him to stress about the outcome. Effectively, god chooses who goes to heaven and hell.

All men are responsible to repent and believe.
Excuses will not cut it.

 

[FireDragon76]

You make choices everyday. You choose sin over God's word because your sin nature loves to sin.
You are responsible. What God does or plans is His concern. You are commanded to repent and believe.

How exactly does the above fit with the CWR's statement of purpose?

"Mutual respect means that members will not mock, degrade or belittle each others' religious beliefs, or make posts that are disruptive to the peace and harmony of the forum."

Evangelical rhetoric too often is exactly about degredation, both of outsiders and of believers. And that's exactly the sort of thing many of us find objectionable and are discussing here. This rhetoric is not edifying for anyone.

 

[awitch]

You are fully responsible for your sin. You are already condemned in your unbelief.
You need Gods mercy.
You walk whatever path you want, but if Jesus is not your Saviour, He is your judge..
Your hatred and rebellion for the living God is not a surprise. Salvation is not for everyone. Only those who come humbly to Jesus.

Jesus said All the Father gives to Him will come to Jesus.
If you have not come yet, I would be concerned.

You've convinced me that I shouldn't waste my time on such a malevolent deity that you describe. But I don't believe it's true, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Fear not, for my deities will not bother you for your unbelief, in this life or any others.

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

How exactly does the above fit with the CWR's statement of purpose?
Evangelical rhetoric too often is exactly about degredation, both of outsiders and of believers. And that's exactly the sort of thing many of us find objectionable and are discussing here. This rhetoric is not edifying for anyone.

This forum is named Christ Forum.
Christian's have a right to post scripture.
Answering your posts is not an insult or mocking.
Stop looking for loopholes to avoid the interaction.
This thread is for non believers to give their POV.
Man up and stand by your posts.
I have given you straight answers urging you to repent and believe.
You are free to do and believe w and whatever you want.
World religions are condemned by God in Romans1.
They are not viable alternatives to answer the problem of sin and death.

 

[ananda]

If you are a Buddhist, you know there are "senses" that transcend the five, or even the six we know of. To do this, you have to see yourself as a point particle in space, and look "down" on your entire existence - seeing a bigger picture.

I agree, more or less.

The Most High God gives you experiences and life as a form of communication. He also gives dreams, and He gives spiritual conviction (we grossly marginalize this as consciousness) to guide and direct you just like a human father may not show you the way with flashing lights, but rather directs you through experiences to a place he believes you should be. It is still your choice to go that way, and it is still your choice to trust that your Father actually 1) wants the best for you, and 2) knows the best for you. When you see your life as a point particle, you see how those experiences evolve a path that is either closer or further to Him - if you know Him.

You can know Him by asking to know Him in Truth; it shouldn't be a whim or a compulsion. If you want a relationship with the Most High God just ask Him. But, that means building that relationship - which implies going through "stuff" with Him.

I'm curious about experiencing the other party - the being itself (as we understand the word "being") ... not whatever it supposedly gifts us (life experiences/dreams/conviction/consciousness/etc.).

Without that experience of the being itself, I can just as easily claim that those gifts come from some other person, god, goddess, etc.

 

[Zoness]

You make choices everyday. You choose sin over God's word because your sin nature loves to sin.
You are responsible. What God does or plans is His concern. You are commanded to repent and believe.

Oh I thought you were a Calvinist, my bad. I assumed that based on your OSAS assertion earlier. Are you not a Calvinist?

 

[Kaon]

I agree, more or less.

I'm curious about experiencing the other party - the being itself (as we understand the word "being") ... not whatever it supposedly gifts us (life experiences/dreams/conviction/consciousness/etc.).

Without that experience of the being itself, I can just as easily claim that those gifts come from some other person, god, goddess, etc.

Experiencing the "being" is going through life experiences, dreams, consciousness, etc. A few thousand people experienced the being Himself, but then the majority of people wanted to control Him, and when they couldn't control Him they conspired to kill Him. So, since He already saved the world once, He isn't going to keep coming to us in such a way only for the rest of us to try to kill Him; He let Himself be killed the first time.

If we consider ourselves as the source of projection of our reality, then we miss the huge calling card from our Father called "Life". Until we mature into entities that can fathom Him, we are comforted through experience and richness of life. Life itself is the guidance of the Most High God if we do not fight.

As a baby, direct communication between parent and child is out of the question; you aren't speaking any language to a baby because it isn't mature to understand the language, much less context. So, how do parents gain the trust of babies, and show them love if they cannot verbalize it? They show it. Your parents are there to comfort you when you experience trauma (get hurt); they give you nourishment when you cry out in pains of hunger, they cleanse you so that you do not live in corruption (e.g. diapers), and they shower you with reassurance even through confusion and aimlessly navigating through what we call life.

We are spiritual babies; we don't even understand the realms around us, much less the magnificence of the Most High God. We barely know ourselves - which is why experience is such a great teacher and relater. When we experience Life, and when we see the words of our Father manifest in experience, we gain more and more trust in Him that He is who He says He is. That frees us to be holy(ier), and get closer to the Entity that actually created us.

 

[Zoness]

You've convinced me that I shouldn't waste my time on such a malevolent deity that you describe. But I don't believe it's true, so I'm not going to worry about it.

Fear not, for my deities will not bother you for your unbelief, in this life or any others.

I tend to agree, this feels so foreign now that I'm not apart of it and have years of distance between my Christian times and now. The deities I've connected with are so entirely unlike Yahweh I had no framework for dealing with that. The love of Hathor feels so unlike interacting with the god who is named Jealous (Exodus 34:14). I almost felt like a scared animal the first few times I reached out because of my conditioning, only in the last year have I actually learned to appreciate deity again.

 

[ananda]

Experiencing the "being" is going through life experiences, dreams, consciousness, etc.

When I speak of experiencing another being (for example, in reference to another man or woman), I would refer to the process of observing their physical form, shaking their hand, speaking with them & hearing them speak back to me in return, etc. - these are life experiences & consciousness which involves another separate, unique entity.

I do not consider "life experiences", "dreams", "consciousness" itself as indicative of experiencing a specific, separate, unique entity.

A few thousand people experienced the being Himself, but then the majority of people wanted to control Him, and when they couldn't control Him they conspired to kill Him. So, since He already saved the world once, He isn't going to keep coming to us in such a way only for the rest of us to try to kill Him; He let Himself be killed the first time.

If we consider ourselves as the source of projection of our reality, then we miss the huge calling card from our Father called "Life". Until we mature into entities that can fathom Him, we are comforted through experience and richness of life. Life itself is the guidance of the Most High God if we do not fight.

As a baby, direct communication between parent and child is out of the question; you aren't speaking any language to a baby because it isn't mature to understand the language, much less context. So, how do parents gain the trust of babies, and show them love if they cannot verbalize it? They show it. Your parents are there to comfort you when you experience trauma (get hurt); they give you nourishment when you cry out in pains of hunger, they cleanse you so that you do not live in corruption (e.g. diapers), and they shower you with reassurance even through confusion and aimlessly navigating through what we call life.

We are spiritual babies; we don't even understand the realms around us, much less the magnificence of the Most High God. We barely know ourselves - which is why experience is such a great teacher and relater. When we experience Life, and when we see the words of our Father manifest in experience, we gain more and more trust in Him that He is who He says He is. That frees us to be holy(ier), and get closer to the Entity that actually created us.

I'm not looking to experience life itself, I am looking to experience a specific life/being/entity.

 

[PloverWing]

The love of Hathor feels so unlike interacting with the god who is named Jealous (Exodus 34:14). I almost felt like a scared animal the first few times I reached out because of my conditioning, only in the last year have I actually learned to appreciate deity again.

I know nothing about Hathor, except for what I've googled just now. Can you tell me what Hathor means to you, and what your veneration of her is like? I'd like to understand this part of your spirituality better.

(Note: The SOP says that "Non-Christians may state their beliefs when asked". I'm asking.)

 

[PloverWing]

World religions are condemned by God in Romans1.

This is only part of the picture. Romans 1 condemns the sinfulness of Gentiles. Romans 2 condemns the sinfulness of Jews, especially those Jews who would condemn the Gentiles of chapter 1. Romans 3 says that we have all sinned, Jew and Gentile alike. Romans 4-8 goes on to say that none of us are good enough to earn God's favor, but rather that Christ died for us all while we were still his enemies, and nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

 

[Zoness]

I know nothing about Hathor, except for what I've googled just now. Can you tell me what Hathor means to you, and what your veneration of her is like? I'd like to understand this part of your spirituality better.

(Note: The SOP says that "Non-Christians may state their beliefs when asked". I'm asking.)

Absolutely! Though I'm not a monolatrist I picked on Hathor because she's easy to describe. I've worked with other gods in the past.

Hathor ("The house of Horus") symbolizes many things; she was widely addressed in and out of her cult centers in Egypt, by rich and poor alike. Her priests could be of either gender and she welcomes all. It's helpful to think of gods and goddess as being over a domain but that's a simplification that doesn't always do them justice, still I'll use that paradigm.

She represents many forms of love, of course romantic and sexual but also a passion that drives you, a love for mankind and a desire to see others flourish. Her love is often represented through other aspects in her domain; she's also been called a goddess of motherly love, music, dance, drunkenness, the milky way, joy, and beauty as well of course she is regularly depicted as both a woman and as an anthropomorphized cow. The cow form is the depiction I also use on my personal shrine.

Milk is the great nourisher of humanity and mammals as well is symbolized in the skies by the milky way. Since a young age I was always in awe of the night sky and stars as well as the moon and sun, of which she is one of the few female deities of the sun. Just something I find personally interesting, as it defies stereotype. The connection to her feels something akin to "everything is going to be okay, I want you to thrive and enjoy this life you have while making life better for others so that they may do the same thing". Part of that is UPG (a pagan term meaning Unverified Personal Gnosis, as in something I've found myself and not necessarily historically attested to). She loves when others are happy and I hope to make that a goal of my life, to help others be happy while learning more about myself.

I'll admit this took some getting used to. My experience with religion and gods has been very logical and clinical, I focused on concrete things such as Occultism or platonic mysteries and their hidden symbols but Hathor is experience and connection driven rather than clinical and reserved like some of her counterparts.

My personal shrine to her is adorned with soft pastel colors that she prefers and contains an incense holder, and symbols denoting horns. I'm working in acquiring something nice as a statuette centerpiece to tie it together. Worship is usually in the form of short personal prayers and offerings of liberation's (especially beer) and sweet smelling incense. There's no grand mission to anything I'm doing here, I think if I could physically speak to her she'd simply be grateful for the recognition at all, but ya never know.

I feel like I can't end this post without at least mentioning Sekhmet. She's seen as a separate goddess and an intense manifestation of Hathor. She is destructive and driven and what happens when a mother's child is interfered with by an outsider. She will protect them! While I'm not as tightly connected with this aspect, I do also recognize it.

If you have more questions feel free to ask. Sorry if it seems a bit incoherent writing these long and in depth posts is hard on a phone!

 

[Kaon]

When I speak of experiencing another being (for example, in reference to another man or woman), I would refer to the process of observing their physical form, shaking their hand, speaking with them & hearing them speak back to me in return, etc. - these are life experiences & consciousness which involves another separate, unique entity.

I do not consider "life experiences", "dreams", "consciousness" itself as indicative of experiencing a specific, separate, unique entity.

I'm not looking to experience life itself, I am looking to experience a specific life/being/entity.

But that already happened, and we killed Him. He's still alive, but I mean, why would would the Most High God continue to come to us in a form that is allegedly comforting and relatable to us? Every time it happens, we deny it, or kill it. He has sent prophet after prophet to give a bounded image of the Entity known as the Most High God. We (humans) either derided them, rejected them or murdered them (sometimes all three). Then, the Most High God sent His Literal Image in our form, and we denied Him, derided Him and killed Him.


As far as states of being: life and death is contained in the human notion of this. Your state of being as a meat sack is defined by sensate phenomena because you are a sensual entity. But, this is basic life; even sixth, seventh and eighth senses are still senses. "Ego" is not defined by sensation (touch, sight, etc), and neither is life, or death. With that said, life is much more than seeing and touching the Most High God, for example. That is one facet of a fullness of life. One day (whether we like it or not), we will directly face the Most High God and have direct words with Him.


We, as the ones who messed up and disobeyed Him, are having the most proper relationship allowable by His rules. We are in prison for our action, and we have limited ways to experience our Parent through the "glass"/fog of ignorance due to our action. One day, some of us will be released (resurrected), some of us will stay in prison and our visitation rights will be revoked after the final hearing. We have to accept these consequences. A contrite heart are the sacrifices of the Most High God; actually rehabilitating/repenting/weeping and suffering (as it were) is what gets His attention in the same way it would be considered in your positive favor by a judge. Other religions understand this by expressing the "need" for suffering. Part of the suffering comes from doing everything right when this meat sack wants to disobey the Most High God by nature.

 

[FireDragon76]

This forum is named Christ Forum.
Christian's have a right to post scripture.
Answering your posts is not an insult or mocking.
Stop looking for loopholes to avoid the interaction.
This thread is for non believers to give their POV.
Man up and stand by your posts.
I have given you straight answers urging you to repent and believe.
You are free to do and believe w and whatever you want.
World religions are condemned by God in Romans1.
They are not viable alternatives to answer the problem of sin and death.

I prefer discussion over debate and polemics.

 

[TheOldWays]

Oh I thought you were a Calvinist, my bad. I assumed that based on your OSAS assertion earlier. Are you not a Calvinist?

I don't think Calvinist's subscribe to the OSAS doctrine.

 

[TheOldWays]

I was a Christian for 8 or 9 years. Went on quite a journey trying a variety of faiths and practices since leaving but have settled on agnostic for the past few years. Although I am becoming Catholic currently.

 

[Chris V++]

Sorry if I misrepresent anything. What I remember from my own Buddhist studies was a striving toward neutrality and an escape from the self (the non self) Anatta - Wikipedia realized thru meditation but which in turn was to lead one to enlightenment and a more highly developed self.

' According to Peter Harvey, while the Suttas criticize notions of an eternal, unchanging Self as baseless, they see an enlightened being as one whose empirical self is highly developed.[61]This is paradoxical, states Harvey, in that "the Self-like nibbana state" is a mature self that knows "everything as Selfless".[61] The "empirical self" is the citta (mind/heart, mindset, emotional nature), and the development of self in the Suttas is the development of this citta.[62]'

What are Christians doing ideally but replacing our sinful evil nature for a more Christ- like nature. I think it's what the Eastern Orthodox refer to as Theosis. I think they see it as a gradual process. I'm a born again Christian. I was changed in an instant. By no means perfected or anything, just reborn. It wasn't by mental exercise, but by through humble repentance and belief. He made it easy for me to believe. I was compelled to belief. I'm sure this probably contradicts some denominational definitions of salvation or regeneration or enlightenment. I don't have better words to describe the experience.

 

[Zoness]

I don't think Calvinist's subscribe to the OSAS doctrine.

Oh you might be right, also nice to see you again!

 

[ananda]

But that already happened, and we killed Him. He's still alive, but I mean, why would would the Most High God continue to come to us in a form that is allegedly comforting and relatable to us? Every time it happens, we deny it, or kill it. He has sent prophet after prophet to give a bounded image of the Entity known as the Most High God. We (humans) either derided them, rejected them or murdered them (sometimes all three). Then, the Most High God sent His Literal Image in our form, and we denied Him, derided Him and killed Him.

That's good and all for those previous generations that had that direct experience. Is it wrong for me to seek the opportunity for that same experience?

As far as states of being: life and death is contained in the human notion of this. Your state of being as a meat sack is defined by sensate phenomena because you are a sensual entity. But, this is basic life; even sixth, seventh and eighth senses are still senses. "Ego" is not defined by sensation (touch, sight, etc), and neither is life, or death. With that said, life is much more than seeing and touching the Most High God, for example. That is one facet of a fullness of life. One day (whether we like it or not), we will directly face the Most High God and have direct words with Him.

If these additional senses does not provide an experience of a separate, intelligent consciousness (a "being"), then they cannot be used as evidence for that being.

We, as the ones who messed up and disobeyed Him, are having the most proper relationship allowable by His rules. We are in prison for our action, and we have limited ways to experience our Parent through the "glass"/fog of ignorance due to our action. One day, some of us will be released (resurrected), some of us will stay in prison and our visitation rights will be revoked after the final hearing. We have to accept these consequences. A contrite heart are the sacrifices of the Most High God; actually rehabilitating/repenting/weeping and suffering (as it were) is what gets His attention in the same way it would be considered in your positive favor by a judge. Other religions understand this by expressing the "need" for suffering. Part of the suffering comes from doing everything right when this meat sack wants to disobey the Most High God by nature.

I'd like that experience now, before I make a decision for this particular deity. Until then, without that experience, who's to say that other theistic paths aren't just as valid? They can claim the exact same thing.