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    I thought this doubt would be over...

    But again, I'm feeling sort of 24/7 uneasiness with religion because I do feel I am a pagan but at the same time there is this nagging feeling "what if those Christians are right after all and I will go to Hell because I'm pagan/this/that".

    I'm the kind of person I'd willingly follow whatever orders given and be happy with that, sort of ideal attitude for a Christian I presume, but I also know there are some things in the Christian theology that are hard to accept - and I would be hard to accept for Christians. But then comes the thought, what if I just have to change myself to please their God, that would be a huge sacrifice and an act of faith after all.

    I just wonder if I haven't been "pagan enough", because I haven't been doing any rituals etc. Sometimes I feel like Paganism is just a nice thing, sort of accessory to wear just because I like it (and I remember some Bible verse, from Leviticus, with the core idea about people listening to teachers who they like, not those who speak the truth. What if the entire Paganism thing is about that after all? Cherry-picking and avoiding the true, though not very nice, things?)
    The fact that I will be working on a Christian graveyard for a while won't help a bit...

    But I know, I'm not a Christian. And probably I will never be. (And I have never been, that's the odd part. I was raised atheist.) Anyone else had the same problem?
    baah.

    #2
    Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

    Occasionally I think to myself and laugh at the irony if the Christians are indeed right. But the thought passes quickly for a couple of reasons...

    Christian theology and doctrine just doesn't make sense to me. Even if there is a Supreme Being called God, the God Jesus spoke of is not the sadistic pull-the-wings-off-butterflies-for-jollies kind of God. It's not Jesus or his God I have a problem with, but his followers ("Please Lord, save me from your followers!"). I daresay that this God would have the attitude expressed by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita 4.11 "Whosoever worship Me through whatsoever path, I verily accept and bless them in that way. Men everywhere follow My path."
    śivāya vishnu rūpaya śivaḥ rūpaya vishnave
    śivasya hridayam viṣṇur viṣṇoscha hridayam śivaḥ

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      #3
      Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

      If there is a god(s) or godess(es), and they are even half-way worthy of anybody's respect, trust that he/she/it/them care more about the type of person you are than about what vague, contradictory, unclear "evidence" you pick to believe in.

      And if he/she/it/them insists you be right without giving you any good evidence" to form a right opinion, then screw 'em.
      Every moment of a life is a horrible tragedy, a slapstick comedy, dark nihilism, golden illumination, or nothing at all; depending on how we write the story we tell ourselves.

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        #4
        Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

        Thank you Thorbjorn and B. de Corbin!

        I remember reading the Bhagavad Gita a couple of years ago and that line spoke to me a lot. Even though I couldn't find any comfort in the Gita itself, but the idea of a god with "many faces" (after all, I've worshipped gods with literally many faces...) struck me as true, given the smorgasbord of religions we have on the planet... But just what if the thing lies in that, that the truth is the most irrational option of all... Now that I wrote that down it does sound a bit silly.

        And good points there, Corbin. Perhaps I'm just avoiding the responsibility of being an upright person...

        Thank gods (oh the irony), for this forum, such a refreshing experience to get some reasonable thoughts into this muddy mind.
        baah.

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          #5
          Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

          I even still have all those doubts. Ironically, the idea that I'm not "pagan enough" because I haven't done any rituals often stops me from doing rituals. It doesn't solve the issue, but I find it sometimes helps to integrate one or two little things. I can't drink mead, but sometimes if I'm drinking apple juice or something, I'll pour a little for the gods, and I have learned to consider studying as a ritual or a sacrifice. It's time I set apart from the rest of my day, and I often give up social time or sleep for it.

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            #6
            Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

            What I always say to myself, "If this Heaven/Hell thing is true, then all the cool people are going to hell, it's going to be one fun eternal party."

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              #7
              Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

              From a purely historical perspective as, I also have doubts and think What if the atheists are right they probably are ,lol Christianity is purely an evolution of henotheistic and dualistic ideals from multiple cultures , I mean how could one chosen group of people be a single gods people when there are so many different peoples and religions. Christianity came out of the henotheistic (meaning one god is viewed as more important than other gods) cult of Yahweh that was worshiped by the Canaanites who overthrew there kings and declared themselves Israelites . the stories about the exodus are completely false and are supposed to be representative of the Canaanite rulers who were allied with the Egyptian pharoh and were "enslaved" meaning they created a new nation. The concept of monotheism most definitely evolved from persian zoroastrian thought of dualism and Ahura Mazda which influenced the babylonians, assyrians and canaanites in the region. Basically the christian faith is a frankenstein of ancient paganism combined with backwards humanist morality that came out of strict Israelite laws that wanted to control their new society and also medieval writers who decided to add their values into the texts.

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                #8
                Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

                Thanks everyone for your replies!
                Seems like I have to take a look at the history of Christianity...
                baah.

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                  #9
                  Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

                  To go with my normal answer,

                  Fundie Christianity posits that God:

                  1) Is all powerful
                  2) Is all knowing
                  3) Loves all
                  4) Deals out eternal punsiments for some silly reasons

                  This doesn't actually work. You can get 3 of them to combine and it's pretty flexible which of the four statements can be dropped but

                  1) provides the ability to do anything
                  2) provides perfect knowledge of the consequences of one's actions
                  3) is self explanatory
                  4) cannot exist in a being motivated by 3 and possessing 1 and 2

                  If God is not omnipotent then he can be forced to deal unwamted punishments. If God is an idiot then he might not understand why such a system is neither merciful nor just and if God doesn't love humanity then he can do whatever he pleases anyway but a being who can be described with 1-3 will not deal in 4.
                  life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                  Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                  "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                  John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                  "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                  Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


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                    #10
                    Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

                    Originally posted by MaskedOne View Post
                    To go with my normal answer,

                    Fundie Christianity posits that God:

                    1) Is all powerful
                    2) Is all knowing
                    3) Loves all
                    4) Deals out eternal punsiments for some silly reasons

                    This doesn't actually work. You can get 3 of them to combine and it's pretty flexible which of the four statements can be dropped but

                    1) provides the ability to do anything
                    2) provides perfect knowledge of the consequences of one's actions
                    3) is self explanatory
                    4) cannot exist in a being motivated by 3 and possessing 1 and 2

                    If God is not omnipotent then he can be forced to deal unwamted punishments. If God is an idiot then he might not understand why such a system is neither merciful nor just and if God doesn't love humanity then he can do whatever he pleases anyway but a being who can be described with 1-3 will not deal in 4.
                    That's the clearest explanation of the "problem of evil" that I've read in awhile. I like it
                    My Divination Shop

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                      #11
                      Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

                      The problem of evil actually goes further. It assumes that if God is 1 through 3 then we wouldn't have evil in this world. I don't have an issue with an eternal Power permitting evil in this world because it operates on an eternal time scale and can remedy whatever it allows in its own time. I only get vindictive on the issue when said Eternal Power starts dealing out Eternal Punishments in response to crimes that only have Eternal Consequences if our hypothetical Omnipotent being is too lazy to fix them. Or to put it differently

                      If God (pick whichever you want) is planning to be interacting with me on a scale that makes the life span of a star look like a mayfly then what happens in the decades to century plus of a my mortal life is not a spectacularly critical concern except as a cheap shortcut to developing a personality. The second that God starts issueing eternal damnation over anything that occurs in this world though, he is dealing punishments exorbitantly out of proportion to the crime and that is an evil directly on the Power in question.
                      life itself was a lightsaber in his hands; even in the face of treachery and death and hopes gone cold, he burned like a candle in the darkness. Like a star shining in the black eternity of space.

                      Yoda: Dark Rendezvous

                      "But those men who know anything at all about the Light also know that there is a fierceness to its power, like the bare sword of the law, or the white burning of the sun." Suddenly his voice sounded to Will very strong, and very Welsh. "At the very heart, that is. Other things, like humanity, and mercy, and charity, that most good men hold more precious than all else, they do not come first for the Light. Oh, sometimes they are there; often, indeed. But in the very long run the concern of you people is with the absolute good, ahead of all else..."

                      John Rowlands, The Grey King by Susan Cooper

                      "You come from the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve", said Aslan. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth; be content."

                      Aslan, Prince Caspian by CS Lewis


                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

                        I feel like a lot of your fear is coming from just the culture you grew up in. Its similar to how Christians in China that converted from Buddhism still will keep buddist shrines. You should meditate on what you believe is right for you even if that means making it sort of a hybrid. Do what feels right to you. If God is all loving and all forgiving then you don't have anything to worry about. IMO.

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                          #13
                          Re: I thought this doubt would be over...

                          It's hard to hear the same thing most of your life, and not have it flash back into your mind. I still get instance of "oh, I'm sinning" at times, even though I walked away from Christianity in my teens. It will get easier to ignore after a while.
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