losing my religion

i was sitting in church on sunday, listening to a very boring sermon...and i realised how much shit the vicar was talking. The churches talk shit, i know more truths about the bible than the whole congregation, they all drip feed from the vicars table, and he knows half the stuff in the bible he preaches is wrong. the final straw came for me when he talked about equal rights for gays in the church-when the bible clearly states that this is against gods laws. i dont have anything against gay people, but then i dont think they should be put in positions of religious authority when the bible clearly states god does not approve of gay practises.

so i have decided to quit the church-i dont know a single christian religion than actually adhears to the bibles teachings fully-i have done the work for myself to find out about bible truths as the church hasnt helped me at all. this has severly destroyed my faith-god has not provided a clear religion for us to follow....so how am i meant to follow in jesus's footsteps???

i have no guidance spiritually, and i dont know what i am going to do. maybe i will become an agnostic, and try and forget about religion, but i doubt this will happen. i believe in the bible, but i have no guidance anymore. the churches are hypocrites.

i am lost, and dont know what to do. so i am posting on here to get some reassurance, or help in finding some real guidance.... if you read all of that, then thank you

[The Crusader]

Personally I'm deeply sceptical of those few who believe totally and utterly in the bible. But my biggest problem with the church is its failure in trying to accommodate to modern day populous'. What I mean by that is they simply refuse to accept the fact that we are educated, rational people who have freed ourselves from that ridiculous hereditary faith system in which we belief what our parents belief. We are not illiterate medieval peasants relying on the church for our information, sanity or even guidance.

It's about time the church recognized its failings and tried to rectify the situation of losing its popularity (this concerns mainly Europe as most American's seem to be immensely gullible and God fearing.) The church needs to work in unison with ID scientists etc and put forward coherent arguments for the existence of God. Otherwise, as we become more and more educated, influenced more and more by mainstream science, the church will eventually cease to exist.

[Hexadecimal]

As many others in history have done in your situation, you could create a new sect of Christianity. Or, as even more have done in history, you could lose faith and move towards agnositicism or atheism. Or perhaps, you may move on to a different religion; perhaps even one of the roots of Christianity.

[Faithless]

I take it your C of E or some other prod sect?

Probably the only way to follow Jesus' footsteps is to convert to Judaism.

No Christian sect can follow the Bible, since it is a collection of contradicting human opinion pieces. Take the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John for example: all reporting the same events in completely different ways.

On the other hand christianity isn't about hearing sermons, have a go at other religous activities done by your church like summer fetes.

Edited to add:

On reflection the Christian sect that is in my opinion nearest to Jesus' way would be the Salvation Army.

[This message has been edited by Faithless (edited 05-08-2004).]

[shuu]

Most christians are really nothing like the way they are meant to be...they're just as much arseholes as everyone else is.

They are told to forgive their enemies, love thine enemies, treat others the way they would want to be treated...they do none of this, and I suppose their excuse is jesus. And I think that they should stop using that as an excuse and carry out the personal spiritual practise the bible tells people to carry out.

Most churches are shit and none of them are truly christian. I agree, if you are a christian, then you shouldn't allow gay preists and ministers, it's against god's rule. But then someone could argue that gay people can't help it and that is why there is jesus...

[Craftian]

nevermind, I sure hope you're clothes aren't made of blended materials or God's gonna be pissed.

yeah, god maybe pissed at me...

but at least i'll have my first lie in on a sunday morning in about 10 years

only probs is how to break the news to the folks :S i have no idea how im gonna tell my mum (who is VERY religious) that ive given up the church....

[Hexadecimal]

Well, when I first left the organized religion scene, I told my folks that I felt I was prepared to learn at a much faster pace studying the religion on my own rather than waiting for the pastor to get to what I needed to read. They were okay with that so long as I visited church every couple of months.

Church-going does not correlate to being religous...personally, I find that the most zealeous church-goers are the furthest from the core of the religion.

Nevermind, you're certainly not on your own. As someone said, there's bucketloads of people who get fed up with much of "the Church", and I'm one of them. You might find groups like the Quakers or Anabaptists more coherent.

There is also a pretty big post-church christanity/ alternative worship movement that links up a lot with the Radical Discipleship movement. RD is all about actually living a wholistic and genuine life trying to follow Christ. You could try googleing to find similar faith communities nearby.

[NightVision]

i find most modern protestent religons too......jewish. but talking about gay rights in church? thats fucked up.

well its sunday morning over here in the uk...im still in my boxers and a t shirt and it feels so nice to not be in church

i think im gonna write a letter to the church to be read out or posted on a notice board in effect, handing in my resignation as it were... i think im going to give religion a break, my girlfriend always found it annoying anyways. i think im going to discover it for myself, when i feel like it.

ps: i just worked out the blended materials joke , a bit slow but then i dont know if many people will get it...

[Hexadecimal]

Anyone comfortable with their knowledge of Leviticus does.

[sp0rkius]

Another thing stupidly forbidden by a religion?

<A HREF="../../img24.photobucket.com/albums/v73/redwasp/lgstfu.jpg.gif"></A>

You could always tell your mum that God told you to do it.....

[redzed]

quote:Originally posted by nevermind:



so i have decided to quit the church-i dont know a single christian religion than actually adhears to the bibles teachings fully-i have done the work for myself to find out about bible truths as the church hasnt helped me at all. this has severly destroyed my faith-god has not provided a clear religion for us to follow....so how am i meant to follow in jesus's footsteps???

i have no guidance spiritually, and i dont know what i am going to do. maybe i will become an agnostic, and try and forget about religion, but i doubt this will happen. i believe in the bible, but i have no guidance anymore. the churches are hypocrites.

i am lost, and dont know what to do. so i am posting on here to get some reassurance, or help in finding some real guidance.... if you read all of that, then thank you

http:../../www.aimoo.com/forum/freeboard.cfm@id=319472

Namaste

Instead of looking for the truths in the Bible, look for the untruths:

In the book of Matthew, one of the Evangelists, suggests that Jesus was born in King Herrod's time, for it was this king who, hearing from the Magi that a King of the Jews was born, decided to destroy him; but Luke, another Evangelist, tells us that Jesus was born when Quirinus was ruler of Judea, which makes the date of Jesus' birth about fourteen years later than the date given by Matthew. Why this discrepancy? The theologian might say that this little dificulty was introduced purposely into the scriptures to establish infallibility, but it is only religious books that are pronounced infallible on the strength of the contradictions they contain.

quote:Originally posted by redzed:

http:../../www.aimoo.com/forum/freeboard.cfm@id=319472

Namaste

haha i dont think i need that, but cheers anyways. whatever people say, the bible is an amazing book-but my stumbling block is that i havent met a religion that meets up to my ideals of what the book actually teaches.

my main doubt is that if the bible is inspired by god, howcome he hasnt given us a religion that follows it?? if god is perfect then he wont settle for religions that are almost there, but not quite.... bah i dont really know what exactly to do now, most of my friends who were devout christians dont want to associate with me anymore, some less devout people from the church still do, but its a good thing most of my friends are atheists

they all think ive finally awakened from a religious induced stupor. im still religious, but just not mainstream i guess...

the name of this thread is the name of a song.....

quote:Originally posted by Blades of Hate:

the name of this thread is the name of a song.....

I think that R.E.M. sang it. That song sucked. I am going to download it now.

quote:Originally posted by RandomHero:

Instead of looking for the truths in the Bible, look for the untruths:

In the book of Matthew, one of the Evangelists, suggests that Jesus was born in King Herrod's time, for it was this king who, hearing from the Magi that a King of the Jews was born, decided to destroy him; but Luke, another Evangelist, tells us that Jesus was born when Quirinus was ruler of Judea, which makes the date of Jesus' birth about fourteen years later than the date given by Matthew. Why this discrepancy? The theologian might say that this little dificulty was introduced purposely into the scriptures to establish infallibility, but it is only religious books that are pronounced infallible on the strength of the contradictions they contain.

Matthew cites "King Herod". Herod the Great reigned from 37-4 B.C.

Luke cites "Caesar Augustus issued a decree...the first census... while Quirinius was governor of Syria".

Quirinius was in office twice, and a census is associated with each term. Therefore, he refers to the period 6-4 B.C.

Cosmological events around 5 B.C. line up with those that a) astrologers (i.e. Magi) from either Persia/ Southern Arabia would have interpreted as denoting a rulers birth.

b) those breifly described in the Gospels (star from the east, over Judea.

(This last paragraph came from a BBC (i.e. secular) Doco called 'Son of God')

Go figure...

NeverMind- life's all about being "not yet there"; the importance is keeping your journey genuine and truthful (most of all to yourself). Whatever beliefs you may hold, I'm sure God is big enough to bring you through to the right conclusion, whatever that might be.

[This message has been edited by inquisitor_11 (edited 05-16-2004).]

i decided to visit a new gospel church the other day, as i was handed a leaflet by some guy wearing an orange cross telling me to bounce for jesus... most strange but i visited it, like the only white guy there-but the pastor talked some sense, and then something amazing happened.

a really old vicar got up and rapped his sermon ..... it was pretty amusing but hey it kept me intrested-i dont know if i will go back there, as i didnt really feel i learnt anything new from it, but it had a good atmosphere ect...anyways i'll soon probably find a place in which im religiously happy