Chat Room
05-25-2015, 07:14 PM
I've been deciding whether I want to post an answer to this thread or not. Not that it doesn't deserve an answer but because I literrally wrote enough for a good sized book to formulate my own thoughts on the matter. So, without further ado ...
History:
I was raised generally as a Catholic. Mom told me that she converted to Catholicism so she could marry my father (who wasn't a Catholic, btw) in The Church (they weren't) ... but that's neither here nor there.
For much of my schooling, mom sent me to Catholic (parochial) schools when we lived where there was one. While I did count one priest as friend, most of the clergy I knew were drunks, panderers or worse.
She also took me to church every Sunday, she seldom went but she made sure I was there.
At one point I thought I wanted to become a priest and actually spent one summer at a prep-seminary - one of the places I first ran into overt pedophiles. Cured of that desire, I spent some time in a small Benedictine monastery, these were lay brothers not full members of the order but ones who followed the Rule of Benedict by choice. Once again ran into a pedophile brother and escaped physically unscathed but emotionally and religiously fragile.
At about 16 I decided that I needed to look at Catholicism; decided that the attitude that "I can do whatever I want and confess and be forgiven" just didn't make it with me and started looking at the alternatives available to me.
If Catholicism was the first victim of my inquiries then Christianity as a whole became the second. If each of these "religions" could claim to be true to the teachings of Jesus then how could any of them be true?
To summarize this part of this book, I've over the years looked at many of the oriental religions and found them appealing; looked at Islam and it's offshoot Baha'i and found them distressing I'd come from one religion that believed in absolutes, I wasn't going to another. I looked at Judaism and almost married a Jewish girl, her father objected, her mother objected, they moved to Denver and that was the end of that. I've looked at the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) and didn't see that much difference from Christianity - except a nice fairy tale (I've since learned a lot more about them and still consider them a nice fairy tale).
Current:
Without excuse, I am a Deist - I *do* believe that there is some deity, you can call him/her/it God, Allah, whatever, I don't care. Generally I refer to him as god, but often refer to the gods. Specifically, when I'm referring to the creator it's god; when I'm talking about some display in nature it's the gods.
Is there a heaven / hell? Personally, I have no idea. I would like to think that a truly loving creator would not condemn someone to eternal punishment.
Is there a life after death? Beats me! Too many religions (and cults) use the concept of an afterlife to ensure that their members adhere to their standards. If you don't do this then you're going to be condemned to eternal hellfire (see the previous question). As I've matured in my life, I find it more important that we treat each other with respect, simply because that's the right thing to do. But it's taken me a long time to get top this point and being human, I sometimes don't.
With little provocation I could go on so I'll stop (and no, don't provoke!)
History:
I was raised generally as a Catholic. Mom told me that she converted to Catholicism so she could marry my father (who wasn't a Catholic, btw) in The Church (they weren't) ... but that's neither here nor there.
For much of my schooling, mom sent me to Catholic (parochial) schools when we lived where there was one. While I did count one priest as friend, most of the clergy I knew were drunks, panderers or worse.
She also took me to church every Sunday, she seldom went but she made sure I was there.
At one point I thought I wanted to become a priest and actually spent one summer at a prep-seminary - one of the places I first ran into overt pedophiles. Cured of that desire, I spent some time in a small Benedictine monastery, these were lay brothers not full members of the order but ones who followed the Rule of Benedict by choice. Once again ran into a pedophile brother and escaped physically unscathed but emotionally and religiously fragile.
At about 16 I decided that I needed to look at Catholicism; decided that the attitude that "I can do whatever I want and confess and be forgiven" just didn't make it with me and started looking at the alternatives available to me.
If Catholicism was the first victim of my inquiries then Christianity as a whole became the second. If each of these "religions" could claim to be true to the teachings of Jesus then how could any of them be true?
To summarize this part of this book, I've over the years looked at many of the oriental religions and found them appealing; looked at Islam and it's offshoot Baha'i and found them distressing I'd come from one religion that believed in absolutes, I wasn't going to another. I looked at Judaism and almost married a Jewish girl, her father objected, her mother objected, they moved to Denver and that was the end of that. I've looked at the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) and didn't see that much difference from Christianity - except a nice fairy tale (I've since learned a lot more about them and still consider them a nice fairy tale).
Current:
Without excuse, I am a Deist - I *do* believe that there is some deity, you can call him/her/it God, Allah, whatever, I don't care. Generally I refer to him as god, but often refer to the gods. Specifically, when I'm referring to the creator it's god; when I'm talking about some display in nature it's the gods.
Is there a heaven / hell? Personally, I have no idea. I would like to think that a truly loving creator would not condemn someone to eternal punishment.
Is there a life after death? Beats me! Too many religions (and cults) use the concept of an afterlife to ensure that their members adhere to their standards. If you don't do this then you're going to be condemned to eternal hellfire (see the previous question). As I've matured in my life, I find it more important that we treat each other with respect, simply because that's the right thing to do. But it's taken me a long time to get top this point and being human, I sometimes don't.
With little provocation I could go on so I'll stop (and no, don't provoke!)
We live by each other and for each other. Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.
-- Helen Keller