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Post by indigolink on Jan 3, 2012 20:04:06 GMT -5
I went through a stage of fundamentalism when I discovered some High Octane Nightmare Fuel on the web regarding hell. I found everything about hell, god, and the entire morality of extreme Christianity abhorant, but the fear of hell and paranoia about Satan kept me from thinking logically so I was going back and forth with my beliefs. I kept coming up with some main page worthy theories regarding hell and the afterlife. It took me at least six months to get out of the mind fuck. With the exception of still having my fears of death "triggered", I am firmly in the "I don't know" camp. All theories regarding god and the afterlife are just that, theories. Like the OP, I take the diest stance, but I have doubts on that too. So in short. Liberal Catholic with some unpopular conservative political beliefs --> fundie nutjob who was afraid of hell --> Agnositc diest who's more Liberal politically. The whole idea of hell is the kicker for a lot of people, I think, just the possibility that a person will be tortured for infinity years if they aren't convinced something is true, suppresses their desire to determine its veracity, because they are reacting out of fear instead. I think the reason Christianity and Islam have been so much more successful at evangelizing than Judaism is largely due to this.
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Post by Tigger_the_Wing on Jan 3, 2012 21:25:41 GMT -5
I thought that it was because Judaism isn't an evangelising religion; I thought that they preferred people to be born into it.
Edit: I'm a recently ex-Catholic.
Catholic ==> catechist (teacher of the RC faith) ==> wanting to be a nun ==> lapsed/non-practising ==> studying other religions to find one that didn't contradict reality (fail…) ==> back to being Catholic only for the purposes of form-filling ==> Pastafarianism for fun, atheism for the reality.
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Post by Wykked Wytch on Jan 3, 2012 21:37:46 GMT -5
I thought that it was because Judaism isn't an evangelising religion; I thought that they preferred people to be born into it. That's correct. You have to born into the religion, and even if you convert or deconvert to something else, you are still considered a Jew. (And if you become a Jew for Jesus, you're considered something of a turncoat, because Jews consider the worship of Jesus to be idolatry.) Also, anyone with a Jewish mother is automatically considered Jewish, whether or not they are religious. Judaism traditionally disapproves of intermarriage with non-Jews, unless the non-Jewish spouse performs a complete and sincere conversion, in which case they are treated just as if they were born into the religion. I am one of those "intermarriage" kids, but my father did not convert. (He is a lapsed Catholic turned wishy-washy theist, I think.) Another reason for not pressuring people to convert to Judaism is that if people only convert because they are pressured into it, it will not always be a "sincere" conversion. In my experience, it's the ultra-orthodox Jews who tend to be schmucks to Jews who aren't as devout as they are. /infodump
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Post by Tigger_the_Wing on Jan 4, 2012 0:15:47 GMT -5
Thanks for the infodump, it was very info-y and not at all dump-y. ;D
It's good to know that something I thought I had heard from a reputable source is, in fact, correct and not mis-remembered.
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Post by Dragon Zachski on Jan 4, 2012 0:38:54 GMT -5
Fundamentalist Evangelical Christian > Liberal Episcopalian > Druid > Agnostic-Atheist-Pagan-Mashup
Glad you finally got out of there, dude. We're here if you need anything :-)
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Post by SpukiKitty on Jan 7, 2012 11:09:23 GMT -5
Presbyterian Church U.S.A -> Roman Catholic -> Charismatic fundie-face (Assemblies Of God or NonDenominational) -> Syncrentic mix of Wicca/Shaktism/Liberal-Esoteric Christian/Gnostic & VERY Liberal & a Pantheist/Qualified Monist.
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Post by anti-nonsense on Jan 8, 2012 12:20:03 GMT -5
atheist raised by atheists.
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