christianity

[Flyndaran]

Atheism is nice. You still get to keep your holier than thou attitude, but now it's all cool and ironic.
You only have decades to live, so just find what makes you happiest.

[IDrinkaRum]

Why aethism? Why not Agnosticism?

How about The Spock Church in Lynchburg, VA? I'm sure they'd love to have another church somewhere in the country.

There's even the Jews for Jesus. Also an easier to read version of the entire thing at wikipedia. It was founded by a man who was born Jewish, converted to Christianity at age 17, and now wants to bring the Jewish people in line to accept Jesus Christ as their savior because Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, they just failed to realize it at that time.

Smiley could start his own church. With his own beliefs. Doesn't have to use the Bible, can write his own books about it (ala L. Ron Hubbard).

Also, he can just simply become one with the spritual entity that governs this universe and all the others in the cosmos.

*shrugs*

But it's up to Smiley. We can give him suggestions, let him know that not all Christian churches are full of a$$hole$ and give him support in whatever he chooses to do.

[Kalli]

What is everyone so sorry about?

I'm stoked for you, Smiley!

I've said it to you before, I believe there is nothing but pain for you in Christianity, and the sooner you realise it, the better for you.

Looks like you've realised it, which in my opinion will lead you down a much happier and more fulfilling path in life.

Congratulations!

[Skunkle]

I agree with Kalli that you should never be required to join any church, and I won't say you "need" it, because I'm obviously not you. Should you decide you want God but not the church, yes - you need only God, yourself, and your own Faith. You don't need a Church, a building. The Bible can be used well, provided you take parts of it (actually much of it) as allegorical and intended as teaching aids on the ways of being good, but other posters here are, I think, quite correct. What was written by Prophets was filtered through fallible human minds, and many of the things written in the Old Testament may have begun under one of two guises: either "I lead my people under God, and if I tell them we need to do (thing important to me for any reason, selfish or not) because God sayus so, they will believe me" OR "We are Godly people, these are our laws. These are laws of Godly people, thus these are by definition God's laws". IDrinkaRum has the right idea, too: The Bible was composed of a number of existing 'books'. People creating a 'book of God's laws' would choose which booiks to put in and which to leave out - and some WERE left out - by various means, and would translate into another language which was subject to diffiocult translations or concepts which could be concisely explained by a few words in one language but were difficult to desacribe in another (Try to imagine attempting to translate the German concept of "schaudenfeude" in a translation, but feeling that you had to make it concise by using the most similar single word possible).

IDrinkaRum and I are just saying that, should you decide you want to look at an affirming and loving side to Christianity, the Episcopal church - parts of it - are a good place to look. You can always attend a service, or talk to people, and if they're good about it, there'll be no pressure to join. I say avoid, avoid, avoid any church which pressures you or whose members tell you that you've really got to join, and join them, or else! I'm also wary of things like Forsque Churches, which tend to be quite conservative but hide this behind a bouncy, overly-cherry front (one in my area has streamers, balloons etc. hanging inside, visible through the windows, and the sign says "The party starts at 11 am Sunday!" Another local, not a Foursquare but some individual sect, has a banner showing a young couple almost jitterbugging, tagl;ined "They're having fun.....at church!") I DO find the Episcopal ceremony enjoyable...when I go, which isn't often.

In the end, the choice is, and must be, yours. I can voice my opinions, but I will not say, will not beliewve, that you must follow any one person's idea of the "right" path.

[Depot Denizen]

Unitarian Universalists seem like a pretty accepting crowd, from what I've seen. Also, Tabernacle churchs seem to be pretty upbeat, from what I've seen.

Full disclosure. I am atheist, have been since high school. Before then I was a casual Roman Catholic growing up. One day I realized I didn't really believe in what was being said and decided to let it go. I have no ill will towards Catholics (I've defended and explained certain practices to others who views it as a cult) but I disagree with what is believed.

Agreeing with some other posters, you don't have to belong to a church in order to have faith. If you want to, that's fine, but I know folks who are spiritual but not religious. One doesn't need a church to pray, so it's said.

There's nothing wrong with being agnostic or atheist, despite what others may tell you. I feel that being atheist has lead me to be more accepting and open minded than otherwise and still allows me to be a compassionate, level-headed person. If you truly need faith to get through the day, I won't dissuade you.

Take a comparative religion class. Read books on the subject. Look at different creation myths and stories. It's fun learning about belief systems. It may help you find the right one, or you may find that you just don't believe it anymore.

[Lace Neil Singer]

There's always this religion: http://www.venganza.org/

I'm atheist, with a touch of satanism. No, that is not devil worship.

[kiwi]

I can't try the Episcopal Church... it's still based on a book that advocated killing me.

This book also advocates stoning to death any woman who isn't a virgin on her marriage day. It also says a man can and should have many wives.

You don't have to have a church to be christian, you have to believe that Jesus Christ was the messiah sent from God for the salvation of man. Thats it.

If you believe that you are a christian, if you don't then you are not. God did not create "churches" man did.You don't have to go to a building once a week to be a good christian, you would be better off (in my opinion) to worship in your own spiritual place.

[MystyGlyttyr]

Dude, just do whatever makes you happy. If someday you decide to look into churches again, awesome. If you can find happiness without it, awesome. I was raised Catholic and I'm still more that than anything else, but I haven't regularly attended church in quite some time because I find it's a lot easier to understand God one-on-one than anything else.

I'm mad as HELL at Him most of the time, no pun intended, but at least I understand Him, heh.

[Slytovhand]

Yo - Smiles.... Haven't we been down this path a couple of times before??

I ain't gonna tell you what to do, or what I think you should do.

I'm just gonna ask you a couple of questions...

1 - Do you need a religion? Why/why not?

2 - Do you need someone else to tell you what to believe? Why/why not?

3 - Do you need someone (including a God-like being) to tell you how you ought to behave in life? Why/why not?


4 - Don't you think you should answer these questions for yourself before you bother looking at church groups??


Now, you know I follow a different path to you, and you know that I'm basically a priest of my path... mostly cos they've told me that ('they' meaning 'not some other human'). The whole 'God' question is, for me, rather irrelevant (as I look at the 15 Billion years of this universe as a guide to the importance that any such creator would have for my life of ~80 years or so)... I find that I live my life how I think it 'should' be. End of story.

I can accept me for who I am.

I have desires to be different and to make changes and improvements, but I can still accept me for who I am.

Anyone else's opinions about me are rather irrelevant.

I'm happy.


How are you going??




(btw, hugs man!!)