I grew up in a strong Southern Baptist home and was "forced" to go until I was 13. My parents then gave me a choice if I wanted to attend church on Wednesdays and Sundays or I could stay home. I chose to keep attending because I've always viewed what the southern baptist convention taught to be correct. I guess the only real way anyone can say their religion is the correct one is through faith. The Bible also has many prophecies that have been fulfilled and that helps me view it as being the correct one.
Well, that's as far as I wanted to develop that particular faith. I just wanted to lighten you up a little. You've been so seriously philosophical lately. Religion is whatever one imagines it to be. And it is always the right one for that individual. Funny how that works.
I have been feeling particularly philosophically lately. I have a summer internship that involves alot of monotnous clerical work & I use my brain power to think about larger questions during work rather than live in the moment & realize that my job sucks. Just curious, how did you come across Fresbetarianism? Don't tell me that's something you actually knew without looking it up.
for whatever reason, my parents did not baptise me when i was a tiny kid, so when i was 13 and i was sent to confirmation i was baptised also. i think my parents only did it to me so their friends at church wouldnt get mad at them. it meant nothing to me, and they didnt seem that interested in it either. at that age, i was totally disinterested and willing to do whatever i was told in order to hasten the time when i was finished and could go outside and play. i was not so much anti-religious as i was non-religious. i didnt care about the whole thing one way or another. adults told me eat the bread and drink the grape juice, so i did. i think it is silly to consider children religious, because they dont really give a damn, they are just avoiding punishment. i have already told my story here about how the realization that my friend the jewish kid had a completely different view of the universe due to accident of birth was the first step in my falling out of step with jesus. cparso was a hardcore 13 year old for refusing confirmation. as far as this question goes, it leads me to another quote by my favorite living scientist, richard dawkins, discussing the condition of having faith: "1. The patient typically finds himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as 'faith.' " "If you have a faith, it is statistically overwhelmingly likely that it is the same faith as your parents and grandparents had. No doubt soaring cathedrals, stirring music, moving stories and parables, help a bit. But by far the most important variable determining your religion is the accident of birth. The convictions that you so passionately believe would have been a completely different, and largely contradictory, set of convictions, if only you had happened to be born in a different place. Epidemiology, not evidence."
It was a catch phrase of a guy I used to see on the disc golf course years ago. He was a complete dischead. Ultimate team, disc golf tournaments, everything. Plastic discs were his god, he had a collection of about 400 of them, all hanging on nails in every room in his house. And a frisbee dog, of course. I had no idea there were more Frisbetarians. But I should have suspected. And, since you were serious . . . my true religion is the right one of course. Like almost all things religious, I believe The Answer must be "We have no way of knowing the nature of God nor what he expects from us". An atheist will accept nothing he cannot see, feel, taste, hear, touch, or logically deduce. This I can understand. The faithful will accept many things purely as a matter of faith. This I also understand. I was raised Baptist but have evolved into something like an agnostic. So I'm a bapnostic who accepts that anything is possible, including matters of faith, but realizes that we can never know the answers. So I don't worry about it much.
This thread brought up one of my favorite memories from my young adulthood. We had a mandatory meeting of some sort where everyone had to attend that was confirming and for some reason, when the meeting concluded, they opened the floor up for questions. The next 30 minutes was me raising up and asking various questions about the Catholic church's archaic stances on birth control, premarital sex, abortion, etc. and my mom standing up next to me and answering all the questions. The other kids all got a supreme kick out of it because my mom got really flustered on the ones dealing with sex (probably would have lost it's humor had I gone on for an hour plus like I had intended), but I truly wanted my questions answered. I didn't have the balls you all had to stand up to parents about being confirmed and went through with it like a sheep. Took a philosophy class my first semester at LSU and it so changed my perspective that I've only been to church once since. Ironically, both my parents stopped going to church shortly after my younger brother confirmed as well.:lol: I'm thinking it was all a sham just to make it easier to get married in the church, if we so choose.
I find it interesting that many here claim to have found enlightenment outside of Christianity altogether after rejecting the Catholic Church. Don't reject Christ just because of the fear of being brainwashed....
My family was/is Catholic. Once I started doing some reading I decided it was not for me. I actually wound up studying with a group of 10-12 people in a elderly couple's living room. They were Christians, just Christians. Today I am still just a Christian, and nothing more. Our local congregation has about 250 members. Although we consider ourselves "just Christians" in a restoration movement of the 1st century Christian church, the sign outside the auditorium says Church of Christ. BUT it could say anything, it's not the sign on the door that makes up the church...... Greet one another with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ greet you. Now I urge you, brethern, note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them. For those who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple. Romans 16:16-18 -- NKJV
It took my complete divorce from Catholicism to find out what I beleived. Turns out deep down I beleived what Catholicism taught. It had just never been presented to me in a way that reconciled. My parents were pretty liberal by Catholic standards (use contraception, don't beleive in Confession, don't read the Bible or the Cathechism, my dad thinks the Eucharist is just bread and wine the list goes on) but when I began studying other religions Christian and non-Christian I found myself asking why does this sect beleive this. I also found the sects that base their faith soley on the Bible tended to disagree with one another as much as they did with Catholicism. That's when I began to see the importance of a the Magisterium, of Sacred Tradition, and of the Papacy. So do I know my religion is the right one? Nope. I beleive it is. I also beleive the JC knows how to sart this stuff out, sp I trust even if I picked the wrong club he'll set me straight.
