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Post by Rob O on Aug 1, 2011 2:02:26 GMT -5
FWIW, people don't choose their religion. You can't choose to believe something, instead you become convinced about something ie. that some version of Christianity is true, that religion is hokum, that all is God, whatever. Beliefs are formed, not chosen. What you can choose are conditions that are conducive to forming belief P (eg. associating only with people who believe P and refusing to read any literature that may challenge P), but that still doesn't guarantee that you will come to believe P, or refrain from forming the belief not-P.
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Post by Lee on Aug 1, 2011 2:26:13 GMT -5
FWIW, people don't choose their religion. You can't choose to believe something, instead you become convinced about something ie. that some version of Christianity is true, that religion is hokum, that all is God, whatever. Beliefs are formed, not chosen. What you can choose are conditions that are conducive to forming belief P (eg. associating only with people who believe P and refusing to read any literature that may challenge P), but that still doesn't guarantee that you will come to believe P, or refrain from forming the belief not-P. So when one is deceived, it may not be assumed that ones heart is involved?
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Post by Rob O on Aug 1, 2011 2:36:30 GMT -5
Lee,
I couldn't legitimately assume anything about someone's motives in relation to their beliefs. Even the individual will not understand the full range of factors involved in how they come to believe something.
FWIW, what I personally find more interesting then the why of someone's changing beliefs are the rationalisations of people around them who still hold to the former belief of the individual.
eg.
"Tsk, she never really got the revelation." "So sad to see them backsliding" "I thought he was intelligent. How could he be sucked into something as stupid as Christianity?" "Oh, she lost her faith when she went to that liberal arts school."
People have very strong emotional ties to their worldview beliefs and when a friend or family member leaves a given belief system, it is often perceived as a personal threat or challenge. The easiest way to deal with that challenge is to locate a character flaw in the person who left in order to avoid the uncomfortable thought that maybe the belief system itself is problematic.
Of course, it's rarely ever simple but anywhere you look, and this forum is a great evidence pool, you will find those who discount 'apostates' with these kind of rationalisations. Human nature tends towards the path of least resistance and it's always easier to fault the other than ask questions of one's self.
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Post by CrissySnow on Aug 1, 2011 2:45:16 GMT -5
FWIW, people don't choose their religion. You can't choose to believe something, instead you become convinced about something ie. that some version of Christianity is true, that religion is hokum, that all is God, whatever. Beliefs are formed, not chosen. What you can choose are conditions that are conducive to forming belief P (eg. associating only with people who believe P and refusing to read any literature that may challenge P), but that still doesn't guarantee that you will come to believe P, or refrain from forming the belief not-P. very wise!
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Post by Johnny DeRaad on Aug 1, 2011 10:16:42 GMT -5
Of course there are. And if you do not like the ones that are around it is not a stretch to develop a new belief system where the creator of the universe lives behind your outer ear and whispers advice 24 hours a day. A belief. [/quote] If you have a relationship with our Creator you know that you do. If you don't then you'll wonder what someone is talking about and be critical of that. Is your idea of relationship one where your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/friend/anyone follows you around and whispers to you??
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Post by Johnny DeRaad on Aug 1, 2011 10:18:11 GMT -5
sorry..guess I still don't have this goofy copying quotes thing down. . .
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Post by Dubious Disciple (xdc) on Aug 1, 2011 16:17:13 GMT -5
Lee, I couldn't legitimately assume anything about someone's motives in relation to their beliefs. Even the individual will not understand the full range of factors involved in how they come to believe something. FWIW, what I personally find more interesting then the why of someone's changing beliefs are the rationalisations of people around them who still hold to the former belief of the individual. eg. "Tsk, she never really got the revelation." "So sad to see them backsliding" "I thought he was intelligent. How could he be sucked into something as stupid as Christianity?" "Oh, she lost her faith when she went to that liberal arts school." People have very strong emotional ties to their worldview beliefs and when a friend or family member leaves a given belief system, it is often perceived as a personal threat or challenge. The easiest way to deal with that challenge is to locate a character flaw in the person who left in order to avoid the uncomfortable thought that maybe the belief system itself is problematic. Of course, it's rarely ever simple but anywhere you look, and this forum is a great evidence pool, you will find those who discount 'apostates' with these kind of rationalisations. Human nature tends towards the path of least resistance and it's always easier to fault the other than ask questions of one's self. Do we still have that "post of the week" thread going?
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Post by rational on Aug 2, 2011 15:12:58 GMT -5
Of course there are. And if you do not like the ones that are around it is not a stretch to develop a new belief system where the creator of the universe lives behind your outer ear and whispers advice 24 hours a day. A belief. If you have a relationship with our Creator you know that you do. If you don't then you'll wonder what someone is talking about and be critical of that. Is your idea of relationship one where your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/friend/anyone follows you around and whispers to you?? Paranormal belief systems are not my forte but I was proposing a new belief system, not a recycled one!
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Post by Lee on Aug 2, 2011 21:57:59 GMT -5
Lee, I couldn't legitimately assume anything about someone's motives in relation to their beliefs. Even the individual will not understand the full range of factors involved in how they come to believe something. FWIW, what I personally find more interesting then the why of someone's changing beliefs are the rationalisations of people around them who still hold to the former belief of the individual. eg. "Tsk, she never really got the revelation." "So sad to see them backsliding" "I thought he was intelligent. How could he be sucked into something as stupid as Christianity?" "Oh, she lost her faith when she went to that liberal arts school." People have very strong emotional ties to their worldview beliefs and when a friend or family member leaves a given belief system, it is often perceived as a personal threat or challenge. The easiest way to deal with that challenge is to locate a character flaw in the person who left in order to avoid the uncomfortable thought that maybe the belief system itself is problematic. Of course, it's rarely ever simple but anywhere you look, and this forum is a great evidence pool, you will find those who discount 'apostates' with these kind of rationalisations. Human nature tends towards the path of least resistance and it's always easier to fault the other than ask questions of one's self. Do we still have that "post of the week" thread going? The only criticism of Rob's post I might have made was to point out that intentions are given consideration in our courts, if not our courts of public opinion.
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Post by Johnny DeRaad on Aug 2, 2011 23:26:24 GMT -5
If you have a relationship with our Creator you know that you do. If you don't then you'll wonder what someone is talking about and be critical of that. Is your idea of relationship one where your wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/friend/anyone follows you around and whispers to you?? Paranormal belief systems are not my forte but I was proposing a new belief system, not a recycled one! man..yer last two responses make little sense to my befuddled brain. . ..probably not your fault. . ....care to clarify what relationship has to do with PBS .. ..and what is your new belief system. .. .and is Christianity what your referring to as a recycled one?
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Post by mrlasns1 on Aug 3, 2011 6:08:07 GMT -5
I believe in Yahweh
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Post by ghost on Aug 5, 2011 8:32:28 GMT -5
The following article shows that Christianity can be anything and this means it is not worth following it (especially if one considers that it has nothing to do with bettering peoples' attitudes and behaviours - despite all the hypocritical talk one hears in churches, meetings and other christian religious gatherings) ... Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful worldBy Robert Pigott, Religious affairs correspondent, From www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14417362 5 August 2011 The Rev Klaas Hendrikse can offer his congregation little hope of life after death, and he's not the sort of man to sugar the pill.
An imposing figure in black robes and white clerical collar, Mr Hendrikse presides over the Sunday service at the Exodus Church in Gorinchem, central Holland.
It is part of the mainstream Dutch Protestant Church, and the service is conventional enough, with hymns, readings from the Bible, and the Lord's Prayer. But the message from Mr Hendrikse's sermon seems bleak - "Make the most of life on earth, because it will probably be the only one you get".
"Personally I have no talent for believing in life after death," Mr Hendrikse says. "No, for me our life, our task, is before death."
Nor does Klaas Hendrikse believe that God exists at all as a supernatural thing.
"When it happens, it happens down to earth, between you and me, between people, that's where it can happen. God is not a being at all... it's a word for experience, or human experience."
Mr Hendrikse describes the Bible's account of Jesus's life as a mythological story about a man who may never have existed, even if it is a valuable source of wisdom about how to lead a good life.
His book Believing in a Non-Existent God led to calls from more traditionalist Christians for him to be removed. However, a special church meeting decided his views were too widely shared among church thinkers for him to be singled out.
A study by the Free University of Amsterdam found that one-in-six clergy in the Dutch Protestant Church was either agnostic or atheist.
The Rev Kirsten Slattenaar, Exodus Church's regular priest, also rejects the idea - widely considered central to Christianity - that Jesus was divine as well as human.
"I think 'Son of God' is a kind of title," she says. "I don't think he was a god or a half god. I think he was a man, but he was a special man because he was very good in living from out of love, from out of the spirit of God he found inside himself."
Mrs Slattenaar acknowledges that she's changing what the Church has said, but, she insists, not the "real meaning of Christianity".
She says that there "is not only one answer" and complains that "a lot of traditional beliefs are outside people and have grown into rigid things that you can't touch any more".
Bini Von Reingarden, who's been going to Exodus Church for 20 years, is among lay people attracted to such free thinking.
"I think it's very liberating. [Klaas Hendrikse] is using the Bible in a metaphorical way so I can bring it to my own way of thinking, my own way of doing."
Wim De Jong says, "Here you can believe what you want to think for yourself, what you really feel and believe is true."
Churches in Amsterdam were hoping to attract such people with a recent open evening.
At the Old Church "in the hottest part of the red light district", the attractions included "speed-dating".
As skimpily dressed girls began to appear in red-lit windows in the streets outside, visitors to the church moved from table to table to discuss love with a succession of strangers.
Professor Hijme Stoeffels of the Free University in Amsterdam says it is in such concepts as love that people base their diffuse ideas of religion.
"In our society it's called 'somethingism'," he says. "There must be 'something' between heaven and earth, but to call it 'God', and even 'a personal God', for the majority of Dutch is a bridge too far.
"Christian churches are in a market situation. They can offer their ideas to a majority of the population which is interested in spirituality or some kind of religion."
To compete in this market of ideas, some Christian groups seem ready virtually to reinvent Christianity.
They want the Netherlands to be a laboratory for Christianity, experimenting with radical new ways of understanding the faith.
Stroom ("Stream") West is the experiment devised by one church to reach out to the young people.
In an Amsterdam theatre young people contemplate the concept of eternity by spacing out a heap of rice grains individually across the floor.
"The difference from other churches is that we are … experimenting with the contents of the gospel," says Rikko Voorberg, who helps to run Stroom West. "Traditionally we bring a beautiful story and ask people to sit down listen and get convinced. This is the other way around."
Stroom focuses on people's personal search for God, not on the church's traditional black-and-white answers.
Rikko believes traditional Christianity places God in too restricted a box.
He believes that in a post-modern society that no longer has the same belief in certainty, there is an urgent need to "take God out of the box".
"The Church has to be alert to what is going on in society," he says. "It has to change to stay Christian. You can't preach heaven in the same way today as you did 2,000 years ago, and we have to think again what it is. We can use the same words and say something totally different."
When I asked Rikko whether he believed Jesus was the son of God he looked uncomfortable.
"That's a very tough question. I'm not sure what it means," he says.
"People have very strict ideas about what it means. Some ideas I might agree with, some ideas I don't."
Such equivocation is anathema in Holland's Bible Belt, among the large number of people who live according to strict Christian orthodoxy.
In the quiet town of Staphorst about a quarter of the population attends the conservative Dutch Reformed Church every Sunday.
The town even has a by-law against swearing.
Its deputy mayor, Sytse de Jong, accuses progressive groups of trying to change Christianity to fit current social norms.
"When we get people into the Church by throwing Jesus Christ out of the Church, then we lose the core of Christianity. Then we are not reforming the institutions and attitudes but the core of our message."
But many churches are keen to work with anyone who believes in "something".
They believe that only through adaptation can their religion survive.
The young people at Stroom West write on plates the names of those things that prevent earth from being heaven - cancer, war, hunger - and destroy them symbolically.
The new Christianity is already developing its own ritual.
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Post by faune on Dec 19, 2015 9:20:30 GMT -5
I have never personally known an ex who chose a different religion (Buddist, Hundu, Islam, Jewish). It seems that most who leave the group either stick with Christianity (of some form) or reject it completely? A few go for minority groups that barely qualify as a religion (like the resident witch--no offense intended) is there anyone here who left the group and actually chose another one of the major world religions to follow? just curious. Most people who professed swallowed hook, line and sinker, the only true way doctrine and that all other ways, Christian or otherwise, are false and hellbound. Basically they sold their souls into this being the only right way. The "had to" way ! This causes most to turn their backs on almost everything. When they encounter the gut wrenching discovery that this is not what it was made out to be and is just another card in the deck, many find they can hardly entertain God again, never mind religion. After all, why did he allow them to be so deceived when they thought they were putting their best into serving him. What is remarkable in these circumstances is that many do indeed go on to seek God in other denominations of Christianity. For most though, there are massive culture shocks to overcome. This in itself deters many from pursuing God through another Christian denomination. This is one of the most insightful threads I have viewed in a long time! It really causes you to think deeply about your personal beliefs and what happens when they are altered by a revelation of unforeseen truth.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2015 16:57:06 GMT -5
Many ex2x2s try all sorts of non-Christian belief sets. And most of them are New Age, Humanist, etc. This thread is full of examples. All of these examples have one common driver - the need for a set of moral guiding principles. They could have just read Kant's Groundwork on the Metaphysics of Morals for that. What all of these examples are lacking, is that all of them show little to no understanding all of the other aspects Christianity provides - it is not just a moral code. Christianity has something so much better - it is a system of beliefs which solve many of the psychological issues of the human condition: hope, compassionate leadership, forgiveness, friendship, to love and be loved, afterlife, meaning, purpose, community, culture, identity, civilization.
People who live in Western Civilization and are not Christians are people who are extremely ignorant of Christianity. They simple do not understand how important Christianity really is. They think it's only a belief about ontology. And that can't be further from the truth. That's why arguing with atheists is a complete waste of time. Atheists are only willing to talk about ontology, which is a very small part of what Christianity is. Just how important is Christianity to Western Civilization? Permit me the example of Japan, a country which aped Western Civilization and where nearly all of the elite Japanese are educated in Christian schools and are practicing Christians. Same goes for South Korea.
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Post by magpie on Dec 31, 2015 5:06:27 GMT -5
You write a good article Simpleton.. When are the ignorant going to realise that Islam is "one" religion, Christianity is "one" religion. So the 2x2s are actually and sadly a denomination (reg'd) and part of the many divisions within Christianity.Man has created many persuasions or denominations although more and more are working together at last. As we see the I.S threat to us christians and many areas of Islam the closer we embrace each other and put aside the few theological points that divided us in the first place,the stronger our resistance to these threatening terrorists must be. So other religions does not mean,as your divisive teachers use to turn you away from other christians,it means other than christianity.
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Post by rational on Dec 31, 2015 12:02:09 GMT -5
FWIW, people don't choose their religion. You can't choose to believe something, instead you become convinced about something ie. that some version of Christianity is true, that religion is hokum, that all is God, whatever. Beliefs are formed, not chosen. What you can choose are conditions that are conducive to forming belief P (eg. associating only with people who believe P and refusing to read any literature that may challenge P), but that still doesn't guarantee that you will come to believe P, or refrain from forming the belief not-P. This really speaks to the whole idea of free-will. People in general feel sorry and forgiving when a person develops, for example, ALS. But when a brain disorder, Klüver–Bucy syndrome for example, turns a normal person into a something different there is certainly less forgiving.
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