Are You A Believer?
Is that the truth? If I lie, if I get angry at someone, if I say “jesus fucking christ”, I really deserve to burn in hell for all eternity? I didn’t think to ask any of those questions when I was told that, at the age of 8. I didn’t ask that until I was 40.
When I went to Catholic school I was told purgatory is no place you wanted to end up, but it was better than hell. I was ok with that. Then my mom listened to a televangelist and found Jesus. We started going to another church. There was no organ, there was no wine and wafers, there was no ceremony and there was no priest. There was a rock and roll band, grape juice, crackers and a bunch of people who started dancing and talking weird after they were whipped into a frenzy by a pastor who slicked back his hair and drove a Cadillac. Purgatory was lie. You deserved to go to hell, but you didn’t have to. Jesus is here. I’m on board. Who want’s to go hell?
I learned there’s all kinds of churches. There’s new kinds coming out all the time. There’s the first two I was familiarized with; Catholic and Pentecostal. There’s Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, Mennonite, Amish, Unitarian and last but certainly not least, everyone’s favorite middle ground, Non Denominational. If you want to take a walk into the isolated cult like side, there’s also Mormon and Jehovah’s witnesses. All believing that their version of god is the ultimate truth. What ever makes you happy. We all need a place where we belong. However, I need some rum and coke, to listen any music I want to and have pre marital sex.
I was pacing in my living room, staring at the red carpet with a bible in my hand ready to go to Church. Why do you believe this? That was all it took. A simple question and all went away. The only disappointment was that I didn’t do it sooner. I wasted a lot of precious time.
I was always told in heaven there was no more pain. No more sadness. Nothing bad would ever happen again. Only eternal joy and happiness. Is being happy all the time even desirable? As for all the other things, doesn’t death hold those promises too? I’m ok with that. Eternally.
I don’t know, but I have faith. What that faith doesn’t do, however, is give me the right to tell others to live and believe as I do.
@control-h
Pardon me if this sound a little harsh. Tone can’t really be conveyed on here, but faith in what exactly? I’m not sure what people mean when they lead with terms like faith because it has such an ambiguous meaning since there’s so many flavors of religion.
@redplasticactionhero No offense taken. 🙂 But to answer your question — In God, Jesus, and heaven.
@control-h and hell?
Very skeptical. Also part of what flipped the atheist switch. Surely Hitler is in hel, no? Well, he could be spending a long, long time in Purgatory. If it’s actually Purgatory almost forever, that isn’t good news for th idea of Satan….
But many of those stories were intended for simple people retelling things orally. Was there a Noah’s Ark? Quite possibly. Very skeptical that two of every type of animal was aboard.
@control-h So does your skepticism extend to God, Jesus and Heaven? The Bible, the so called source of all these things, why isn’t it just all nonsense? Do we really need a book to tell us to be kind to others. Do we need a book to tell us to love.? Do we need a book to tell us that there’s comfort in a perfect afterlife after all this is over? I don’t pretend to have answers, but maybe the purpose of existence is finding heaven in ourselves? I don’t need god or jesus for that.
@redplasticactionhero I’m pretty sure there was a Jewish guy named Jesus who lived in the Roman Empire. Believing that there is a God, and Jesus is actually God, too, well….. I also am pretty sure there was a guy named Mohammad who lived in Mecca.
As for the texts, Old Testament is allegorical. New Testament is a translation of oral stories. Sorry, American Fundamentalists, the Bible was went written by the disciples. Certainly not in the prose of a seventeenth century Brit.
You mentioned love; how do you prove that exists?
(I have, again, faith that there is a bond between myself and my wife beyond sexual attraction…..)
@control-h Well, you have a good point about love, but I think I’d have an easier time proving that before I would proving god.
As for Jesus, probably just highly fictionalized legend, much like Mohamed. Is he the salvation from hell and all your “sins” or was he just some rabbi who got far too much credit than he deserved? My money’s on the later. Why bother paying any attention to him?
@redplasticactionhero Not sure. Again, that’s a matter of faith. Modern Catholicism doesn’t adhere to the fundie get out of hell free things that other faiths do. (And please ignore that Calvinist predetermination thing…..really, if you’re now saved the slate is wiped so you’ll go to heaven!)
Avoiding sims might make your time in the afterlife easier. Even if they don’t, avoiding them generally will make your time here on earth better. We all sin. Some sins are really great when youre doing them. But the repercussions aren’t. (And, yeah, maybe a bit too much tequila last night. Coffee, pls.
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Religion is really just a holdover from a less enlightened but more ceremonious time.
Personally, I never believed in much, never went to church. I guess that saved me a lot of time!
@d-_-b That right there, is the best possible scenario
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So two people have left notes using the term “faith”. When people use this term, it seems as if they are hiding because it’s such an ambiguous term. Faith in what exactly? The Yahweh of Judaism? The Dharma of Buddhism? The Brahmen of Hinduism? The Allah of Islam? The triune god-head of Christianity? Which of the many thousands of denominations of Christianity?
To me that’s part of the problem. Terms like “Faith” are almost deceitful because the so called owner of faith isn’t being up front about the source of that faith.
Also, that’s another problem with religion itself. It’s not a complete indicator that something is true, but usually it’s a good indicator that something is true if most people can agree. With religion, people are more fractured over time. The disagreement gets bigger every day.
To me the definition of faith is believing that something is true relying on feeling rather than proof. I don’t live my life that way and I’ve been better off for it.
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@redplasticactionhero Not sure. Again, that’s a matter of faith. Modern Catholicism doesn’t adhere to the fundie get out of hell free things that other faiths do. (And please ignore that Calvinist predetermination thing…..really, if you’re now saved the slate is wiped so you’ll go to heaven!)
Avoiding sims might make your time in the afterlife easier. Even if they don’t, avoiding them generally will make your time here on earth better. We all sin. Some sins are really great when youre doing them. But the repercussions aren’t. (And, yeah, maybe a bit too much tequila last night. Coffee, pls.
@control-h This is where we part ways. Our heaven, our hell, our paradise for treating others with love and respect, our torment for being selfish and uncaring, are all right here.
Not only am I certain there is no afterlife, I’m certain there is no need for one
@redplasticactionhero Yep. That’s kind of where I was until about ten years ago. There wasn’t one particular thing that made me reconsider. After considering it, I weighed the arguments I saw, and decided in the affirmative.
(That speaks to what I’m not, which is an agnostic. Yes, you can make a decision one way or the other. You can’t choose to be ignorant; you have information to make a declaration. I might disagree with your decision, but you do have the power to make it.)
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