Calling all Christians!

Personaly....I dont have the kind of story that some are looking for. Some feel that if you are a Christian, you have to feel some divine force in your life. Like in the end of Street Fighter Zero when Ryu was all like "Whoa....I feel teh powah....HADOKEN!" THE END. :)

But I think that its not going to be like that for us all. God doesnt allways just give us some awe inspireing moment that eliminates all doubt from our minds. So you might ask.....what does it all come down too?

I remember reading somewhere that faith has a translation/meaning that was lost along the way. Faith is also trust. A trust that there is a God and a trust that God looks out for us. A person might say, "that is a weaksause answer" but at this point with the way that the world is, I think that that is just the kind of answer that we get. Nothing is meant to be easy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DOVESKI

Oh my, if there is a God why did he or SHE create us as imperfect and expect us to live up to his perfectness, then have to kill us cos we werent as perfect as the him, the creator of the grand cosmos and all existence....blah, blah, blah, so God could be entertained or needed to kill some time, that doesnt sound like a very nice God to me, I'll pass. Your train of thinking is what turns people of to the message of Christ.

With that said, I do believe in some sort of higher oneness and some sort of instinctual moral code within all of us that doesnt require reading the 10 commandments to understand. I do go to Church and would consider myself a Christian in the most radical sense, in that I am a direct follower of Christ and Christ's teachings clearly showed that God is within, not in a Tabernacle,or in a cloud watching us, or in a 5000 year old book. I really believe Jesus thought the Old Testament was a bunch of bullshit fables that was holding people down, hence he was killed and his teachings were twisted to fit political agendas and here we are, technologically advanced savages, monkeys who press buttons.


Violent Happy, I say be happy and enjoy life, grow some roses or get a slice of pizza. Do something, paint, play the guitar, love yourself, love your parents, anything. You dont need some dogmatic lunatics holding you down.

---

Hypocrit.

Churching does not a Christian make. It's liberal people like you who make God fearing, Jesus loving, Holy Spirit inhabited people like me look like the fool you are.

You come in here, tell me, of all people, that I'm dogmatic to a fault without any prior interaction or...Hell! Probably without even reading this friggin' thread, and then skip right into a tyrade consisting wholely of the defamation of the character of Jesus, all the while calling yourself a "Christian," bacause, "Hey, man! You go to church," while exibiting talk and behavior that betrays your very claim...go push your twisted, self-inspired version of "Christianity" else-where.

About Jesus thinking the Old Testament was a crock...funny that everytime He refuted Satan, and every time He had a lesson to teach the pharasees, if He quoted anything it was the Old Testament.

You do not know who your are dealing with. I suggest you step down...quickly.

We need an "pwned by a Christian!" pic :)

Anyone?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brisco Bold

We need an "pwned by a Christian!" pic :)

Anyone?

---

Lhadatt could probably help with this...and thanks for your support. :D

Man, veggie has been getting lethal lately:D must be the cute girl avatar thing.

Anyhow, Violent, its good that you are initiating this process yourself, that shows well foryour resolve. the journey to faith is one that benefits from others, but in the beginning,and truthfully, in the end, it is one of one person and God coming to terms, so take the neccesary time,and dont be afraid of setbacks, doubt and despair hit us all in this path, just be calm and have faith.


Ok, and since violent asked about how some of us stumbled into our faiths, Heres my story

It was a dark and stormy nigh...er,wrong story.

Since i was young,my fmailay was always a pretty good church going group,fairly tightly knit,and as a child of such a background, i promptly took it for granted and totally ignored my faith. Then when i was in grade school, my famiy split up,and i was really bitter,having renounced faith in humanity, Fatherhood, and petty much everything. I generally was a troublemaker who got into fights regularly,and ignored all schoolwork outside of science and history. At this time i went to a catholic school(we werent rich, but my mother provided for what she thought was important),and one of the few men i actaully respected was this hyperimposing priest we had,though i saw him as more of a Gandalf type(i read a lot) of wize old guy than an actual religious person who carried a message larger than himself.

Later in school i calmed down and started really getting into school(again,particularly science, with a big thing for biology, psychology,and taxonomy) So at this time, i started to get an academic Interest in my religious faith. the existence of God wasnot particularly hard for me to concieve, since i was inundated with all sort of mythical things from the books i read. I figured if you could beleive in dragons and werewolves,whats an omnipresent diety among friends? So at this time my protean faith that had been developing almost in the background in my youth started attaching to my sense of mythos and semi reality.

This continued until i hit high school,and fell in with a group of really religious kids,and i worked well with them. I was a bit less conventional, but they liked the odd way my more abstract logic actually worked. Around thsi timeiinvested a lot more rational thought into my faith and less whimsy,At this point i had come to concieve god as a real, existent being, though a distant and alien one who was more about making andmaintiaing reality than a personal one. This was also the time i got into the idea of maybe joining the clergy, to really immerse myself in the intellectual exercise i saw faith as.

On the advice of the school chaplain, i went to college rather than hitting the seminalry right out of school, so i flew into a degree in psychology(something i considered an integral part of both delaing with people,and also looking "behind the curtains" of the mind and how it can recieve the concepts of religion. At this time i got a bit too into the intellectual exercise part of faith,and wound up dispelling my faith entirely and becoming something of a logial positivist. For me everything reduced to a simpler definition, so i went athiest for about 2 years, till i just started finding too many cracks in that "faith" and i started reading more fully into my original faith,and i got more into the human aspect of really feeling a part of God.

I havent got there yet, but there have been moments in prayer / meditation where i have seen glimpses of that place I am trying to get to,but it dosent happen often, nor with any particular consistency. regrettably,the current bishop (who has recently became embattled for the actions of some of the priests he kept in the fold) turned me, and a number of friends of mine, away from becoming priests. So now i just try to stay active in the church and some charities when i have time, but the funny thing is, the thing i have found out if i have found anything is, the feeling you get when you are absolutely convinced in both the correctness of your faith,and the absolute love of god, its not a constant thing, and its not as intense as many people who try to become too intense about their faith and inevitably burn out, Its really just a calm, relaxed feeling,and its not something you should push hard for and Its something you just eventually happen into.

Ok, end of long post, i hope this helps violent, and also i recall 88 asking somethign along these lines too, so there ya go.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by frostwolf ex

Man, veggie has been getting lethal lately:D

---

What I will and will not stand for seem to be more and more clear as each day goes by. And what I will not stand for, I will not stand for.

;)

Quote:

---

...must be the cute girl avatar thing.

---

This reminds me!

*WOOSH!!!!!*

New avatar! :D
Curtousy of sggg.

D'OH! I just realized "Vegetable" is misspelled. Oh well. Sggg can take the blame. :D

the vegetable is great. nice avatar by the way. thank god for avatars.

Thanks, rama. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Captain Vegetable

Hypocrit.

Churching does not a Christian make. It's liberal people like you who make God fearing, Jesus loving, Holy Spirit inhabited people like me look like the fool you are.

You come in here, tell me, of all people, that I'm dogmatic to a fault without any prior interaction or...Hell! Probably without even reading this friggin' thread, and then skip right into a tyrade consisting wholely of the defamation of the character of Jesus, all the while calling yourself a "Christian," bacause, "Hey, man! You go to church," while exibiting talk and behavior that betrays your very claim...go push your twisted, self-inspired version of "Christianity" else-where.

About Jesus thinking the Old Testament was a crock...funny that everytime He refuted Satan, and every time He had a lesson to teach the pharasees, if He quoted anything it was the Old Testament.

You do not know who your are dealing with. I suggest you step down...quickly.

---

Hmm, when I mentioned dogmatic folk i wasnt referring to you, sorry but the fact that you are so full of anger and defensive reflects the reality of your character. I also find it funny that you immediately judge my character traits and refer to me as a liberal.

I happened to believe the Bible is up to your own personal interpretation and I happened to believe Jesus felt the same way, again that is why he was killed. You sound more like a Pharisee that the Son of God or a man filled with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was about making religion a personal thing, a direct link to God through his example, not being judgmental and inflammatory. Calling my brand of Christianity twisted is odd, who ever said your brand of Christianity was right, the Roman Council and later Martin Luther....if so, your brand of Christianity is the kind that is designed to control minds and keep the masses docile like a flock of sheep, I prefer to think on my own terms, much like Jesus did.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DOVESKI

Hmm, when I mentioned dogmatic folk i wasnt referring to you, sorry but the fact that you are so full of anger and defensive reflects the reality of your character. I also find it funny that you immediately judge my character traits and refer to me as a liberal.

I happened to believe the Bible is up to your own personal interpretation and I happened to believe Jesus felt the same way, again that is why he was killed. You sound more like a Pharisee that the Son of God or a man filled with the Holy Spirit.

Jesus was about making religion a personal thing, a direct link to God through his example, not being judgmental and inflammatory. Calling my brand of Christianity twisted is odd, who ever said your brand of Christianity was right, the Roman Council and later Martin Luther....if so, your brand of Christianity is the kind that is designed to control minds and keep the masses docile like a flock of sheep, I prefer to think on my own terms, much like Jesus did.

---

Sounds like Jesus was pretty dogmatic to quote the scripture all the time. You say that the Old Testament is crap, and yet follow a guy that was pretty Jewish in terms of what he believed in :)
I know that you have turned on the Old Testament, but the fact is that God hasnt explained everything that has happened. Seeing as the way that things are on Earth, (As opposed to Eden or Heaven) this is what we have untill we get to have the oppurtunity to ask God for a more satisfying answer. And as to Captains attitude....well I doubt that chastising him for getting angry (were all human remember?) after you said "The Old Testament is Bullshit" Id say its what is to be expected. From that comment you sounded as if you were standing on you own soapbox.