I was raised in a Christian home. I went to church at least once a week. I remember being taught many things about the Bible and applying it to life. I still remember a fear of God drilled into my head by constantly reminding me (and others around) about the rapture (the coming of God), seven years of tribulation, and all how I was punished for every sin I committed. During my teenage years all these teachings turned me into a conservative young boy who thought the world was lost and needed to be saved from Satan's evil deeds. I remember always being told that there was this greater purpose for me. I'll never forget the few times I strayed away from God (I was around 14 or 15), it was always awkward since the whole time I was afraid of making a mistake and being punished heavily for it. A few times I had dreams about God taking away his kingdom and I was left behind everytime; by the end of the dream I was usually running away from soldiers who had a mark on their foreheads (not the number). At this stage of my life I became a Sunday School assistant. I was only 15 but I was helping the wife of the Pastor with kids ages 9-11. I remember a few times she let me teach a couple of courses. Shortly after she paired another girl and myself to become teachers of a young adolescents class (ages 12-15). During these years (started when I was 15, left when I was 18) I was filled with the holy spirit. I remember I was into church so much. I based a lot of my teachings of the Bible and applied it to my life as well as I could. Fast forward a few years later I have changed my beliefs a lot. Today I went to church for the first time in a month. I been going to church only every other month or so. The preacher talked about the rapture and the coming of God an all this other stuff. She was great, she was well prepared and just delivered a good message. The different about listening to this now is that it had no effect on me. All it helped me realize is how much things have changed for me. I've gone through some sh!tty things in the past but somehow I still have been pulling through. After saying all this my question to you all is how do you cope with suddenly just changing a faith. I still have faith but I no longer believe everything I'm taught at church; heck a lot of things I just apply from life. I no longer believe in taking everything from faith and rather lean a lot more towards the science of life. I still believe in God but not to the effect where I'm scared of doing things that will not please him. I just believe in God as an all loving father who is there for and I can lean him when I need help or heck I just love talking out of randomness to this spiritual being. I have a hard time accepting how drastically I changed this faith. I know I'm not being extremely detailed but I just felt giving a slight background info with some new info would help whoever reads this understand what has gone on with me. I am the same person I was back then from now except I added a few things to my persona. I'm now a lot more confident and a lot tougher. I tend to analyze situations a lot more rather than just accepting things for what they are. I no longer consider myself part of religion but rather someone who stands outside looking in just observing what I use to believe and still appreciate and respect those who still believe in that stuff. I've gone through some hard times these past few years in college. I've learned a lot though. I just want to know how to accept why I am no longer the strong believer I once was. Sometimes I tend to stress about it more than I need to. I guess I am just confused and seek advice from those that have gone through this. Let it be known I'm not wishing for this to turn into some huge debate about distinct beliefs where there will be arguing going back in forth. I'm more or less looking for some advice and perhaps words of guidance since at times I'm not sure where to seek them. Thank you.
I think you're far more likely to find God in the hard crap you went through than you were in a sermon about the rapture, anyway. I think the Church is doing it's very best to make sure no one really understands who Jesus is/was....or what it is to follow him. I find that for many Christians to find the wonder of God, it requires a sort of deconversion. Sometimes that happens in a church. God is bigger than the boxes that Christendom wants to put Him in. if you ever want to talk it out, feel free to email me.
I've joined multiple small groups. What happened is that they led me stray further away from the word since it was putting my mind to think a whole lot and sometimes things just did not add up and made absolutely no sense. I guess I grew out of my mentality where whatever the Bible says is absolutely right and went with these were just incarnated men who wrote the word for their own benefit and of course due to multiple translations (by man) it just ended up being a book who was just driven by self beliefs of different authors rather than the true word of the God.
Not a lot of power grabbed by the early church. Conversion usually meant death, thrown to lions. It meant selling off any property you didn't absolutely need to share with others. It certainly meant not being part of mainstream society. That changed 300 years later.
I agree with you which is why I just went away from Christianity altogether. I was angry watching so much bullcrap. A lot of people seem fake. Heck I looked at myself one day and really wondered if I was being the person I wanted to be. I remember thinking I was in some moral high cloud just because I didn't drink nor smoke etc etc. Now I respect every person's belief and many times I value the way the went about life. I remember one time going to the altar at church and praying to God, "I'm sorry Lord, but I don't feel every single soul is lost. I'm sorry that I don't feel I have to try to give hope to everyone." I remember feeling that day that everybody approaches life a different way (whether it be through religion or other paths) and I felt that was so beautiful. I felt I was more or less put into a robot situation and accepted what was said to me otherwise I'd burn in hell. Now I feel I can do and live the way I want but of course I always want to make sure to contribute to society. I hope that I can help those who are in need after I get out of college (even though I still help but not financially but through time). I still love every person. I only changed faith wise. I think that I've gone through a transformation though that has made me a better person (although those in my church would have me believe is the work of Satan that changed me which I think is complete bs).
The problem is you went to a church that made you afraid to address God honestly, when the Bibles all in the pews contained a whole crapload of writers and verses they never preached on who ask God, "where are you?? where's your promise? where's your justice? why are you silent???" Who had enough faith to question instead of putting on a religious masquerade. In my view, God isn't interested in the masquerade of religion. I think Jesus makes that point pretty clear.
I'm an atheist, and here is my suggestion to you: treat everyone in the same way you want to be treated, enjoy your life, and don't worry about god.
I've been there myself. Try picking up: "The Kingdom That Turned the World Upside Down" by David Bercot. Helped me realize a lot of flaws within the church/society today. Questions are good. They lead to answers.
I'm a little curious as to what the underlying issue is... it's clear from your post that your beliefs changed a lot, and it seems that you think this is somehow a bad thing. Why? You've started questioning what you were brought up to believe. The way I see it, questioning and observing your own beliefs can only be a good thing. It will either strengthen/validate your original beliefs, or it will reveal to you where they are lacking. There's nothing to be overly disturbed about.
For some reason this has been tough for me. I can't accept that I suddenly changed like this. I guess one thing is that my grandma would be disappointed in me. She is such a strong believer and she knows at one point I was the same. Letting go of something I believed for so long has been hard. I still believe in God but rather as a higher being who is there to take care of this world but not necessarily to interfere with us everyday since we did something that didn't please.
Maybe? I haven't given myself a label to by yet. I'll research Deist and see if it goes hand in hand with my developing new faith.
Ah, your grandma... Well, I can tell you that my dear old mother was rather disappointed in me in the religious sense for quite awhile. I was raised Catholic... around 5th grade or so I realized that I had simply been following what I was told, and that when I considered things for myself, I really didn't believe in this stuff at all. I started telling my mom that I didn't believe, and that I didn't want to go to church anymore. Naturally, she took that as "oh, he's just rather stay home than go to church, it's not like he REALLY stopped believing." Well, 2-3 years of being forced to go to church, refusing the Eucharist every time, and being guilt-tripped so many times I lost count, she finally gave up. She seemed very disappointed in me for a few years. Slowly, over time, she came to accept that I was my own person. I could be a "good" person without being Catholic. Just remember that no matter what, no significant amount of your self-worth should be placed in the hands of someone else. Your grandma isn't right about everything. In fact, your current picture of god seems far more positive and constructive than the old-school, vengeful god. Perhaps she would do well to follow your example.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the person who looks within himself to discover what he truly believes rather than blindly following what someone else claims to be the truth is someone to be admired. At some point, faith (necessary in just about any religious belief) somehow morphed into blind faith. Believe the Word as interpreted by the particular church you attend else you will pay the consequences. But, to my mind, informed faith is much more powerful and much more real. Even deeply religious people can question their religion. It's not blasphemy. It's a process that, I believe, can bring a person closer to God and closer to himself.
Deism is pretty interesting, infact, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson...all deists. Belief in reason and a higher power God, disbelief in supernatural and religious dogma(everything in the Bible is true). I'm at about that level right now, with a tad speculation that Hell is to cease to exist after you die, as Heaven is the continuation of your spirit. Kinda funny how our Founding Fathers actually were and how certain people try to portray them.
I feel I might be somewhat like this. I remember at what I point I believed what they were teaching at my particular church was selfish. Basically we need to save people to go to heaven. The way I interpreted that was you either try to do work for God or you go to hell. In a way I feel people were doing it just to avoid hell. I guess the way the church portrays it is a scary place. I've pretty much accepted the fact that I'm not willing to compromise what I believe in to be scared to going to hell (if it even exists). I'm more or less leaning with Confucius and try to not even think about the afterlife. I don't see why I should worry about that. There is so much uncertainty.
I too was raised on a religious diet such as yours. I know its hard what you're going through. I was pretty much forced to attend church 3x a week. At 15, I got a job and pretty much quit going, and I never looked back. The next few years were invaluable to me. At 21, I got myself in a situation that required me to take a long hard look at my life. I started to intermingle with the church crowds again. At one point, i was dating a PK. In the few years I knew them, i seen the whole family go down in flames, but even though her father was far from perfect, he taught me how to figure things out myself. I felt my walk with Christ was stronger than ever, but it doesn't take long to stray away. Now I feel like I am distant as ever. It seems the more I learn, I realize how much less I know. I have found that I have no desire to be a proactive Christian in America. Religion and politics are so tightly intertwined that people are locked into their own sheltered beliefs, making its hard to find open minded christians who are willing to do more listening than talking. Its hard to offer suggestions. Each persons faith is uniquely different as is their problems. Understand that nobody is perfect and we all have skeletons in our closets. People will always disappoint, regardless of their background. Always make a bad circumstance a learning experience.
Everyone's spiritual journey is different. I don't know your reasons for the lost motivation. Is that church the wrong one for you? Or is it deeper rooted and you feel like you've lost faith in Christianity? Maybe there's a twinge of rebellion and coming of age involved. It seems like you've made up your mind, but you're afraid of your family's opinion. It's interesting you mentioned Confucianism. Family values and honoring face plays a big role in it... I wonder if it's that cut and dried though. There are Christians who feel the same doubts as you but continue to work with it in their faith. Since you're an adult now, maybe looking into other religions and other Christian churches will fill that vacuum left behind from years of church going. But I'm assuming you that don't want the "science of life" replacing it if it hasn't already. Even if it has, there's no harm in understanding the whys gathered from up to 4,000+ years of time tested material. The "science of life" will never be that complete. Every decision one makes is in its own bubble. And those factors in the bubble require trusting or having faith in the thoughts and words of others, secular or religious. You'd be amazed at the amount of truly original or independent thinking we really have. Thinking more and questioning more is good. One of religions' intent was to promote such thought. Rabbis of old had a tradition of throwing stories with uncommon circumstances off each other. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Samaritans at the time were thought as the lowest of the low. So a lot of religious context gets lost over time or has been retold to the point where the revolutionary thinking becomes culturally accepted or ingrained. I'm not a Christian, but I think being a Christian should be a hard path to undertake. It goes beyond blindly accepting what your peers tell you, which I think is the reason for your spiritual wall. It's not that easy, and it's ironic. It should be filled with opening an area in your mind that wants to be shut off for convenience. If for example, you don't agree with Church positions on sexuality, read more on why it came to be. Use your mind on Paul's opinions and what aspects you agree with. If you don't agree with it, look inside yourself on whether it's selfishly derived or inconsistent with what you believe in. It'll be hard to put that focus upon yourself, and it'll take a lot of time and effort. While rewarding, it's perfectly understandable if you decide to move on and not undertake the effort to understand your religion more. But it might help clear up exactly what it is you're leaving behind.
I used to believe in organized religion and what not. Then I went through a very difficult time in my life and no matter how much I prayed or asked God for help nothing ever changed. When I gave up on God and organized religion my life turned around for the better. As soon as I stopped asking others (i.e God, religion) for help and realized I was the true cause of my own pain and suffering did things become rosy in my life. I don't despise organized religion, but my life experiences tell me personally there is no higher power. If there is a higher power, he is a mean, angry and vengeful God. I certainly don't want to follow someone like this. The closest thing I follow to religion is Zen Buddhism, which is more a philosophy of life rather than praying to an ultimate being I can't see. Its good to challenge your beliefs from time to time. It helps you grow and have new experiences in life.
