where did you get your faith from? did you develop it on your own or adopt one that already existed? if you adopted one that already existed, does it bother you that some of your own thoughts aren't incorporated into the doctrine you follow?
I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.
~Thomas Jefferson
2007-10-23 11:20:51 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
To truly understand a belief system, you have to try it out. Then you have to try not believing it. Unless you've done both, you don't really know what you're talking about.
I was raised a Catholic and I did it very well. I studied other faith traditions and was prepared to defend my faith against all comers. My arguments made perfect sense. Then one day I tried not thinking like a Catholic, and everything changed. I saw gaping holes in some of my most cherished defenses and Christianity didn't seem any more valid than most other systems.
I now have a synchretic understanding of most belief systems but I take none of them too seriously. I acknowledge the allegorical value of each, but include a heavy dose of doubt about their substance.
2007-10-23 11:32:37 · answer #1 · answered by skepsis 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I'm technically a theist by definition, but I consider myself more Agnostic. I believe that God could be out there, and very well might be, but if that's true then the last time He did anything meaningful on Earth was (depending on which religion you follow) either 1400 years ago or 2000 years ago. In either case it's been over a millenium since He has done anything of great significance on Earth.
2007-10-23 18:26:00 · answer #2 · answered by Professor Farnsworth 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I got what I believe in which is the Bible, by asking God to lead me when I was a child. He has shown me many things which had nothing to do with most of the doctrine I was exposed to.The only "doctrine" I follow is Jesus. Organized religion teaches some of the things that Jesus did not. I search for a pure form of worship that is undefiled. I seek to worship like Jesus did in spirit and truth. If it is not found in the Bible, I don't do it. Religion has too much legalism and not enough of what Jesus taught. I have my questions about religion, but never about God or His son, my Savior. My thoughts or any one man's thoughts are not important to me. What matters is what God thinks. Man has always let me down....God never has!
2007-10-23 18:48:18 · answer #3 · answered by Marie 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I was made aware of the reality of God and of his champion for man about this time of the month in 1975. I had been to a church against my better judgement and while there, I felt a presence(collor fruit cake if you will) which was absolutly accepting the praise of the people I heard singing. This caused me to consider the posibility of ....God?
A week later, I accepted Christ as my savior, but it wasn't until a few nights later, still not being sure of what I was thinking about all this, that I began to pray to this God I was unsure of. I told him I thought I deserved to be saved if there was such a thing, because in my life I had only hurt myself by my dumb dissions (taking a lot of drugs, smoking a pack and a half of cigerets a day and drinking my brains out). But when I told him, "If I have sinned, show me my sins!" my past came in like a rush and I was left with no doubt that I needed to be forgiven. Big, fowel mouthed, estern philosophy studying, heathen though I was, I began to cry and I saw Jesus crucified for me. I asked God to forgive me and as I did I knew I was. I began to laugh a clean laughter and I prayed and told God I was His for whatever he wanted.
Next day, I told my bunk mate,(I was in the army) that I was a Christian. He said, "You are a drug attic, a drunk and you have the fowelest mouth of anybody I know. You are not a Christian!" I insted he did to.
God has made himself real to me on many ocations. MANY!
I am not a spoon fed church goer. I know God for myself because he first knew me. I study the Bible with reverence but I believe it is only the Word of God, when it comes into me like a sword (I won't try to explain that).
I hate any thing that comes between people and a living, active experience with God throug Jesu Christ.
In other words, I HATE RELIGEON !
I realize that the word "religeon" is used in the Bible to discribe the relationship between man and God, but I think it's true meaning is obscured today.
As for Politics, I don't buy in to any party completly. I don't think any of them represent me completly.
I think I should rule the world.
just kidding
Gypsy Priest
2007-10-23 18:58:30 · answer #4 · answered by Gypsy Priest 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm with Jefferson there. I subscribe to my own informed deductions and beliefs, even the most basic of which are still far too unproven for my liking, rather then those of any particular external system. I think I'm probably too much of a skeptic to do otherwise (I only just avoid solipsism........)
2007-10-23 18:26:09 · answer #5 · answered by Rafael 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Only a fool refuses to listen to those who have greater wisdom than he....and who is the greatest teacher of all if not the one who created all things?
What part of God's word would I be able to add or subtract to in order to make it better?
2007-10-23 18:25:19 · answer #6 · answered by whitehorse456 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I built my belief by my own but I got ispired by Darwin , Buddah , scientists , Jesus , Moses , Mohomet , phylosophes , singers , musicians , ordinary people , may be God , animals , trees ....but I am still quite lost
I NEVER CONSIDER MYSELF LESS OR MORE CLEVER THAN WHOEVER
2007-10-23 18:30:36 · answer #7 · answered by Heterodox Idiosyncratic Algerian 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋