Back from a year of thinking Christianity was real

[PepperBlossoms]

A year ago I was considering lots of perspectives about reality and would try to fully take them on to see what they were like (skepticism/open-mindedness?).  I eventually ended up studying ghosts/exorcisms/christianity and had myself thinking it was possible again (yes y'all were warning me but nothing y'all said was good enough for what I needed to prove me wrong).  It wasn't till I came across a list of biblical contradictions on quora randomly like a week ago and saw that A and B contradict each other and both can't be true and that that happened hundreds of times that I allowed myself to say the faith is bullshit, which is what I thought before when I was on here.  I looked into books and read All That's Wrong with the Bible: Contradictions, Absurdities, and More. Turns out that is what I needed.

Now I am back to - I can't say what happens in any notion of afterlife/other realms but I can speak on this earth and that the human eats the deer eats the rabbit eats the bugs eats the human; the snake "eats it own tail"; everything destroys/creates everything; when we take one perspective, we blind ourselves to another perspective; the love of one thing coexists with the hate of another thing; imaginary and real blend together

even skepticism and science is flawed based on whatever assumptions/explanations one makes

this was all said but I am just like having to revisit it after what I just went through.  I was having hardcore anger about christianity the past few days so going back to this has helped calm me down.

My hardcore christian friends that really pushed me down that path though didn't change at all when I sent them the information about the contradictions and refuse skepticism and either its all about the devil and hell or its "I just have hope" or "god spoke to me (but that person is schizophrenic but they were also the ones that told me about the possession thing they saw so I believed it.. but who knows)".  

One thing I did take away - Christians have the attitude - You might as well believe because just in case it is true, you don't want to go to hell, otherwise you have nothing to lose;  (My aunt said that to me).  I then realized that maybe she had nothing to lose because she was an old white lady who couldn't get pregnant and already had all the money she needed and wasn't gay but lots of people (women who need jobs for money, women who may get pregnant and need an abortion/contraceptives, gays, minorities, other religions) all have freedoms to lose.  one should have the attitude of hoping the faith is false so that gays, women, slaves, minorities, other religions, etc. can be treated well and look for every reason the to find any possible hole that the faith could be false instead of just being lazy and saying, the devil is giving you doubt and that there are no biblical contradictions and that the gays/everyone should be screwed.  one should have hesitations about making laws that take away freedom of religion/speech/gays/women's rights/minorities/animals/abortions/etc. and not want to and should be super happy when they find holes in the faith instead of just being satisfied that they believe what they believe and screw everyone else... (I saw last night that the speaker of the house of reps in the us is anti-gay... : (

It was also weird how my psychology professor has been teaching us about skepticism and how you have to question everything and yet she wears a cross necklace...

My weird christian thoughts I had though: whenever anything bad happened to atheist person or they a got upset or injured, I assumed it was the devil or god punishing them.

I came across a book called The Jesus Hoax: How St. Paul's Cabal Fooled the World For Two Thousand Years and it had a theory for how the bible was made up to lead to the weakening and eventual collapse of the roman empire... something like rome was pretty powerful because of its knowledge/technology and the bible would weaken the integrity of rationality.  I need to look into the roman empire collapse some more and other theories for why the bible could have been made up. or not bother but it's kinda interesting but I also just get angry about religion.

I guess I need to just have the "I don't know what is going on and may never know". 

Then goes into the wonder if Christianity is part of the decline of the american empire and that the american empire will fall like rome where it had a massive military, christian take-over (roman catholic church), and money problems. but everything that falls eventually gets turned into something else.

[Yimpa]

17 minutes ago, PepperBlossoms said:

It was also weird how my psychology professor has been teaching us about skepticism and how you have to question everything and yet she wears a cross necklace...

You’re assuming that you and her share the same meaning of what that cross represents.

[ZzzleepingBear]

Never expect to find the full truth through any group of people alone. Group thinking will always contain a group bias. And that is true for individuals as you and me as well. 

The best advice is to listen with an open mind and see what resonate with you or not in that moment. I like to listen to spiritual/religious  and atheists, not to find out who is more right than the other, but rather to see it more from the perspective they hold as true out of curiosity. 

[Salvijus]

In my personal view, christianity is indeed full of holes, flaws, corruption, alterations, mistranslation and bunch of other nonsense. But it's still real. The essence is that of truth. The spirit and the grace of Christ can still impact your life in a positive way even through a distorted teaching. Because it is not the words that matter. But the spirit behind the words that is most important. 

However you can find some deep and profound and pure Christian texts that aren't distorted if you search deeper. You just have to look beyond the surface a bit. If you're genuine and ready, the spirit of Christ itself will guide you to the next person, the next book, the next place to take you further on the path. 

Edited October 26, 2023 by Salvijus

[Sucuk Ekmek]

20 hours ago, PepperBlossoms said:

 

I came across a book called The Jesus Hoax: How St. Paul's Cabal Fooled the World For Two Thousand Years and it had a theory for how the bible was made up to lead to the weakening and eventual collapse of the roman empire... something like rome was pretty powerful because of its knowledge/technology and the bible would weaken the integrity of rationality.  I need to look into the roman empire collapse some more and other theories for why the bible could have been made up. or not bother but it's kinda interesting but I also just get angry about religion.

I guess I need to just have the "I don't know what is going on and may never know". 

Then goes into the wonder if Christianity is part of the decline of the american empire and that the american empire will fall like rome where it had a massive military, christian take-over (roman catholic church), and money problems. but everything that falls eventually gets turned into something else.

Rome could not allow christianity because the original gods were Rome, it's proof to rule, eventually christianity took over but Rome's core structure integrated to there. Nowdays the technology is about to take over all the religions and the states but the same structure will be there also. 

Even today doesn't matter wherever you are all roads lead to Rome.

[DLH]

On 10/26/2023 at 0:46 PM, Salvijus said:

If you're genuine and ready, the spirit of Christ itself will guide you to the next person, the next book, the next place to take you further on the path.

You don't need someone else’s spirit to guide you!  There is no middle person, church, building, spirit, Christ or entity that you need help to discover God consciousness! 

If you're genuine and ready, you just need to open/expand your mind to your own "higher-Self", the “Self” that is beyond duality! 

You, the duality you, the Ego you, just needs to open/expand to your ever "Expanding-Self”! 

You, the duality you, the Ego you, just needs to open/expand to your "Infinite-Self", which will guide you to the next level of awareness and Truth!

Edited October 28, 2023 by DLH

[Salvijus]

2 hours ago, DLH said:

You don't need someone else’s spirit to guide you!  There is no middle person, church, building, spirit, Christ or entity that you need help to discover God consciousness! 

If you're genuine and ready, you just need to open/expand your mind to your own "higher-Self", the “Self” that is beyond duality! 

You, the duality you, the Ego you, just needs to open/expand to your ever "Expanding-Self”! 

You, the duality you, the Ego you, just needs to open/expand to your "Infinite-Self", which will guide you to the next level of awareness and Truth!

I don't disagree with this in general. I'm simply talking about something else. That there are forces in the universe that can hasten your spiritual growth and bless your journey in many ways. Grace is of immense value to a spiritual seeker

Edited October 28, 2023 by Salvijus

[DLH]

59 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

Grace is of immense value to a spiritual seeker

I agree, grace is of immense value, but grace can only come from within! 

Within the "Self", within the expanded mind of consciousness and awareness!

The answers are within, humans just need to learn how to return there expanded awareness to the inner knower!   

Not through a middle person, church, building, spirit, Christ, religion, story or entity, which are all second hand perceptions and beliefs accumulated  from the human collective Ego mind.   Yes, they can point to expanded consciousness and awareness, but the pitfalls are numerous and can be very deceptive! 

[Salvijus]

3 hours ago, DLH said:

but grace can only come from within! 

Mmm. That's not really true.. There can be energy from within. And there can be energy from outside. From the sun. From the food. From an enlightened master. From a holy book written from a place of truth. From the grace of ascended master. From a consecrated holy sites and places, temples etc. Like that you can receive much positive influence for your spiritual journey from many sources. 

Edited October 28, 2023 by Salvijus

[Razard86]

On 10/26/2023 at 10:38 AM, PepperBlossoms said:

A year ago I was considering lots of perspectives about reality and would try to fully take them on to see what they were like (skepticism/open-mindedness?).  I eventually ended up studying ghosts/exorcisms/christianity and had myself thinking it was possible again (yes y'all were warning me but nothing y'all said was good enough for what I needed to prove me wrong).  It wasn't till I came across a list of biblical contradictions on quora randomly like a week ago and saw that A and B contradict each other and both can't be true and that that happened hundreds of times that I allowed myself to say the faith is bullshit, which is what I thought before when I was on here.  I looked into books and read All That's Wrong with the Bible: Contradictions, Absurdities, and More. Turns out that is what I needed.

Now I am back to - I can't say what happens in any notion of afterlife/other realms but I can speak on this earth and that the human eats the deer eats the rabbit eats the bugs eats the human; the snake "eats it own tail"; everything destroys/creates everything; when we take one perspective, we blind ourselves to another perspective; the love of one thing coexists with the hate of another thing; imaginary and real blend together

even skepticism and science is flawed based on whatever assumptions/explanations one makes

this was all said but I am just like having to revisit it after what I just went through.  I was having hardcore anger about christianity the past few days so going back to this has helped calm me down.

My hardcore christian friends that really pushed me down that path though didn't change at all when I sent them the information about the contradictions and refuse skepticism and either its all about the devil and hell or its "I just have hope" or "god spoke to me (but that person is schizophrenic but they were also the ones that told me about the possession thing they saw so I believed it.. but who knows)".  

One thing I did take away - Christians have the attitude - You might as well believe because just in case it is true, you don't want to go to hell, otherwise you have nothing to lose;  (My aunt said that to me).  I then realized that maybe she had nothing to lose because she was an old white lady who couldn't get pregnant and already had all the money she needed and wasn't gay but lots of people (women who need jobs for money, women who may get pregnant and need an abortion/contraceptives, gays, minorities, other religions) all have freedoms to lose.  one should have the attitude of hoping the faith is false so that gays, women, slaves, minorities, other religions, etc. can be treated well and look for every reason the to find any possible hole that the faith could be false instead of just being lazy and saying, the devil is giving you doubt and that there are no biblical contradictions and that the gays/everyone should be screwed.  one should have hesitations about making laws that take away freedom of religion/speech/gays/women's rights/minorities/animals/abortions/etc. and not want to and should be super happy when they find holes in the faith instead of just being satisfied that they believe what they believe and screw everyone else... (I saw last night that the speaker of the house of reps in the us is anti-gay... : (

It was also weird how my psychology professor has been teaching us about skepticism and how you have to question everything and yet she wears a cross necklace...

My weird christian thoughts I had though: whenever anything bad happened to atheist person or they a got upset or injured, I assumed it was the devil or god punishing them.

I came across a book called The Jesus Hoax: How St. Paul's Cabal Fooled the World For Two Thousand Years and it had a theory for how the bible was made up to lead to the weakening and eventual collapse of the roman empire... something like rome was pretty powerful because of its knowledge/technology and the bible would weaken the integrity of rationality.  I need to look into the roman empire collapse some more and other theories for why the bible could have been made up. or not bother but it's kinda interesting but I also just get angry about religion.

I guess I need to just have the "I don't know what is going on and may never know". 

Then goes into the wonder if Christianity is part of the decline of the american empire and that the american empire will fall like rome where it had a massive military, christian take-over (roman catholic church), and money problems. but everything that falls eventually gets turned into something else.

1. The problem with the Christian religion...is they cannot even agree on what Hell is first. And second of all they project human characteristics onto God's love. They say everything is God's will, but then said that God hates things. They portray God as NEEDING something from mankind like worship and devotion....it's like you make God appear as weak as humans...

2. The other problem with Christianity is they portray humans as not being strong enough to resist the devil and needed help from God, yet if they are too weak to resist the devil and reject God's help...then why would a loving God punish them in hell for eternity? (There is a verse that says its not eternal). Think about it....even the most hateful human would get tired....so they are saying God wants to torture you forever? What kind of crap is this? Even worse they start saying things like masturbation is a sin...its like what the fuck? Why would a loving God create sin in the first place?

So if you are truly logical...you would have to realize that God wouldn't create anything bad, and that bad is our own creation which is what the Garden of Eden story was trying to teach. All human knowledge is created and dualistic and self-serving. We created bad to serve our interests. Its why we cannot even agree on what is bad or what is good.

[SamC]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I have always find it interesting to learn more about the mechanics of how we get brainwashed into different worldviews and perspectives.

Reading your story thourgh christianty and beyond was very intriguing and helped me gain more perspective on how easy it is to get trapped in different worldview.

Maybe you should write a book on it (;