Do you believe in Christianity, the Bible, God-----Or are you in the "I'm not sure what to think" class?
Is Organized Religion Something You'd Be Involved In Again?
by minimus 51 Replies latest jw friends
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ButtLight
Both? Is that possible?
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kaigh
I feel like I'm in the "I'm not sure class." After being in the organization for so long I have kind of a bad taste in my mouth for it. There is so much hypocracy in so many religions, and after this being engrained in your head for so long, I've found that it is hard. It's funny because my boyfriend would like to find a church to go to and all I can do is find something wrong with it. Does anyone else feel this way? kiley
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minimus
Either a person believes (for sure) or they don't, imho.
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Valis
nope
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minimus
Kaigh, welcome to the board!!!! I feel like you do. I'm not of the mind to pursue another albatross around my neck in this lifetime.
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Freedom Fighter
Nope
I'll second that Valis. FF
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TheOneBuck
Well I strongly believe in grey area, nothing is as black/white as it appears. I find this the hardest thing for me to deprogram, and that there is several sides to every story. Anyway back to the question. I would love to find a religion/church I could go to to thank God for everything he has done. I know that I do not need it but in a way it makes me feel better. As the one poster has said everytime I go to one, I find somehthing wrong with it. Maybe it is not even wrong, just different from what I still hold on to from the my JW days.
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blondie
I have checked around.
I talked to some Bible Students but they are too much like the JWs...I know they would say not but our experience was like deja vu, watching JWs try and "convert" someone.
I have attended Catholic and Lutheran churches but their doctrinal position I could never embrace totally. But I appreciate that many of them love and help their fellow humans.
I'd like to visit a local Quaker group. Life has not give me much time to do that and I am a little nervous.
An ex-JW recommended this book to me. It is out of print but I'll share some excerpts from it.
Charles Davis--A Question of Conscience--1967
Charles Davis was Britain's leading Catholic theologian, but decided to leave the Church.
"The Christian faith as a living intellegent commitment no longer fits easily into the patterns that have been used to shape and define it. The temptation in this situation is just to drift, to renounce a deliberate, personal choice and allow oneself to be carried along by what others are thinking, doing and saying...
People are afraid of freedom. They soon want to give it up when it becomes demanding, Continued submission to external authority is more comfortable than making personally a radical decision, and obedience can provide a respectable cover for avoidance of personal autonomy, while verbal rebellion releases some of the tension caused by the failure to confront one's inner convictions. But the inability or refusal to be free eventually brings weariness of life, and it excludes genuine happiness. To endure the upheaval and discomfort of rending but truly personal decision is in the long run better."
"I knew that even were I mistaken in my assessment of the Roman Church I could personally and intelligently recoginise this only by first shaking off the irrational grip and emotional conditioning caused by my envelopment since childhood in a powerful authoritative system imposed with divine sanctions. Psychologically I could have reached a genuinely personal faith in the Roman Church only by passing through apostasy."
Blondie
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prophecor
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!