I'm in an extremely unrelatable situation, but I'm

File: jesus_pew.jpg (167KB, 342x500px) Image search: [Google]

167KB, 342x500px

I'm aware that the Bible is basically an artifact of some random culture in the desert. I'm aware of its shaky origins, internal contradictions, implausibility, etc. But, that internalized 'experience' simply makes it *impossible* for me to deny it.
In Christianity, to have 'seen' god and to still turn away from him is perhaps one of the worst possible things a human can do. It is in another dimension than murder, adultery, etc. The guilt is so strong that it affects my body physically. My life is being ruined; my mind is cracking under the longterm stress. If i give in though, I know all of it will go away instantly. However, I know myself and I know there will be no other possibility than for me to full monty - no 'moderate' business.

Also, if I give in, I'll be forced to do the following:
-Give time, money, and effort to my local church
-Proselytize other people
-Take political action on social issues against homosexuality, abortion, etc
-Have kids and indoctrinate them with the whole thing


...all of which i give zero fucks about. All I want in life is to have some good experiences, make some success, do some good, and then just die. Cease to exist. No heaven, no hell, or whatever eternal bullshit. Just nothing.
But I'm trapped in this belief system, and I can't think of any way to get out - only to give in.

Believing there is god is not the same as believing in the Christian god.

You are not trapped in christianity, you are trapped in you belief of God. And maaaan... there are so many ways you can believe in god. Some people even kill for it.
...

My point is. If god exists, like you felt it, that doesn't mean he is christian or muslim or whatever. It means he is there. So... you are here, what you gonna do?

Did he actually say "Don't have sex before marriage! Give money to church! Work your ass for religion!" or was he just a soothing presence?
Did he demand anything, or was he complete, leaking this completion into you?...

Listen to Him before listening to those that speak for Him.

thats fine. even if one could prove god exists it doesn't mean that what his 'prophets' wrote in the bible was true.

>>18033417
What the fuck did you experience that cannot be explained as just your brain hallucinating on its own? You know it's not that uncommon for people to hallucinate sometime in their life without taking drugs. Even infections can do cause it.

So what did you experience?

Convert into catholicism

>>18033417
Thank you.

There are two kinds of people:

>god told me to feel guilty and sit on my ass like a crab in a bucket

>god told me to rampage and prevent people from having nice things

Doesn't matter what they believe, period. Just replace god with whatever they claim their authority-over-everything from, which everyone inevitably does.

>>18033438

It was a very conscious experience, though not visual or verbal. But if god is a universal, belief-system-agnostic entity, it chose to reveal itself specifically in the 'avatar' of the Judeo-Christian god.


>Some people even kill for it.

Side note: This experience of mine is why i'm wary of other religions, specifically Islam - because i'm aware of what religious devotion is like and how it works. Except for them, it's not 'voting against unisex bathrooms' - it's possibly blowing yourself up with other people.

>>18033537

>Be 16
>Have a crisis of faith; not sure if god exists
>Drop everything i'm doing/are involved in to embark on quest to find out
>100% of my will at the time is devoted to finding out
>One day, sitting at home, doing nothing
>Out of the blue, it happens:
>1. Unbridled sense of peace and ecstasy to an extent never experienced before or after
>2. Mind taken into overdrive - ideas form in short term memory at a magnitude I cannot usually operate at; ideas link up to form coherent model/understanding of the cosmos and human existence (parts of which slipped away as the experience ended)
>3. Psyche subjected to an extremely strong 'presence' that is instantly identifiable despite never having felt it before; felt like breathing oxygen for the first time. It's the Judeo-Christian god; not a shadow of a doubt of this
>4. Every ounce of will immediately and uncontrollably reoriented towards this presence

Experience lasted ~45 minutes. I've heard descriptions of psychotropic drugs like LSD being like this. But as I said, at this point, I hadn't even done so much as had a drink of alcohol. Perhaps my brain did this to itself - but even if this is the case, it is logically invalid for me to dismiss the subjective going-through of the experience. It's like taking the sensory and conscious input you're using right now, and denying it for whatever reason. It's like if someone months from now, after all traces of it have gone, tells you that this thread never existed. At that point it'd unverifiable - but you were here. No one can tell you otherwise, not even yourself.
>But who knows? Maybe you *are* hallucinating right now


>>18033540
For what?

I must say I envy you. I believe without having ever had a similar experience. I do not think you have to, as a consequence, lose all free will. That is not what He said or intended, I believe (He could have made Adam and Eve obey if He wanted to). What you describe are requirements of your church, which I take to be a kind of U.S. Protestant church. In mine, I'm told to do as much as I want/can. They are grateful for the pittance that I do contribute in money and effort.

There are things about any church which are BS, even mine (Eastern Orthodox here), though we are theologically and dogmatically better than most (I'd say than any of them, but I have to say that, as would a devout Catholic for themselves etc). The BS is when you see what some priests do, and this BS in Orthodox church (and Catholic, they are guilty of mostly the same shit, like corruption) is mirrored in the lack of actual, genuine faith in the Protestant ones. I am sorry I don't differentiate much, but those kinds of Protestant churches in USA I've seen seem more like social/political organizations than an institution founded by the Holy Spirit and guided by Him.

So, my advice is, just try to help people around you, judge yourself before you judge any, go to Liturgy on Sunday, marry a good girl, if you have children devote time and effort into helping them grow into good people instead of running after career 100%, and the rest is His job. This whole guilt thing seems like some effort to 'deserve' what you experienced after the fact. Screw that, He has his ideas, and why He does stuff is beyond our reasoning, you should do what you believe is right within your powers and not either ask impossible of yourself, or turn away from Him.

>>18033417
my god you are fucking retarded

There is nothing supernatural that exists. All we have is right here. You experienced a delusion. Same thing happens to me when I smoke too much pot.

>>18033417
There are different interpretations of the Bible, just look for the one that best fits with your own beliefs. There are only a few issues that every christian body takes the same position on (like abortion, for example)

>>18033417
Also grew up in conservative christian home, baptist in fact.

Mom and dad still live day by day with the goal to be perfect in the eyes of jesus.

So bad they kicked me out for smoking cigarettes at 18.

I'm a christian now though, but you can't let sin control your life. I have sex with my girlfriend daily, I smoke, drink, curse, and lust every day. These are all sins in the biblical sense. How do I do these things and am still a christian? I know that theyre wrong, im just refusing to do anything about it. I'm a bad christian but I'm still one. The bible is very clear on the identification of being a believer, believing in the Resurrection, his entire sacrifice that thing. Ultimately, a 'good tree bears good fruit' meaning the fruits of the spirit which im sure youre familiar with. You have those characteristics in your life.


Fuck churches btw, churches are more ungodly places than a strip club. The unforgivable sin, grieving the holy spirit 0_0

>>18033417
It's not so unrelateable OP.
>born and raised catholic but not too strictly
>stop believing in that crap around 12-13
>become wiccan during teens, evolve into more generic paganism, ceremonial magic, anything esoteric really until I'm 30
>start wondering about god
>talk about it with a friend who tells me to go back to church even at least once, just to see
>do that
>get really confused
>one day, meditating at my altar wonder what god looks like
>start feeling something warm come up all over me
>be like, nope nope nope I'll get out of this shit
>unable to get out
>sense of ultimate peace and good and loving comes over me
>like literally just sit there with a face of extatic feels like a retard, starts laughing and sort of spiritually "came" of some sorts, can't describe it
>feeling sticks with me for days
But then:
>spirit guide had always looked a certain way, next time I talk to him, looks like a fucking angel
>ask him literally if he's a guardian angel
>cryptically answer that he looks like whatever I need him to look like
And then:
>sit at altar again doing ritual stuff
>settle down and meditate
>hear usual meditation chatter
>hear a voice ask me "do you believe in God"?
>ignore
>voice starts getting super close and angry
>hesitate but say yes
>voice laughs
>"do you believe Jesus is the son of God?"
>hesitate again
>there I realize that I don't believe in the exact physical sense but yeah, there was a dude called Yeshua who was so imbued with god taht etc etc
>say so to the voice
>literally screams in rage
>have to cleanse and purify whole appartment after because plumbling starts banging uncontrollably at night

So yeah, I have no clue what to do. In exactly the same boat even, "god wants this" and "god wants that" but on the other hand part of me doesn't want to give up all the magic and woo woo, but I can't deny his existence, nor that of evil entities. Which I had only once experienced up close like that and threw off with magical shit.

It's schizophrenia, dude. Not the kind you readily think of, the "disorder" comes on a sliding scale and sometimes is very useful. A subconscious process made a grab for ascendancy and left a lasting imprint.

>>18033621
I did not say you need to deny that you went through it. I'm saying that when something crazy happens that can be explained easily as a hallucination, which we know that they happen, then then it's rational to say it was probably a hallucination instead of assuming that a god exists, that he cares about humans, that he decides to communicate with hallucinations and that that day he chose to touch your mind.

Do you take your dreams as realnexperi needs too? Why not? They feel real in many cases. But we know that dreams happen so we don't take then as something real. We also k kw that hallucinations happen.

Also even if you don't think that hallucinations happen, how do you know that you didn't take LSD? Maybe someone put it in something you ate, either accidentally or on purpose.

Anyhow, keep believing whatever crazy shit you want if that makes you feel more important even though there are simpler explanations.

>>18034287 So sure of yourself, though you probably can't tell me (with the currently accepted scientific argumentation) ONE of the reasons you think so. Care to explain the carbon dating? The statistics and nuclear physics involved? Didn't think so.

You, sir, have been indoctrinated. This has no correlation with whether you are right or not. But the basis of your argument is "I heard this from the authority XXX", which is the exact same basis as the argument you oppose (their XXX being the Bible and some related writings).

>>18034417
Try fishing in a lake first.

File: Not Sure If Bait.jpg (54KB, 604x453px) Image search: [Google]

54KB, 604x453px

>>18034417
I'm talking about schizophrenia, not carbon dating, dude. Nor did I ever reference another person as a source for my opinion. I just consider the probability of a god actively intervening in someone's life to be lower than that of a cluster of neurons misfiring.

>>18034462 Well, I don't think the accepted scientific explanation for schizophrenia is "a cluster of neurons misfired", but I am not well versed in those areas myself, so I may be wrong. I always thought that schizophrenia can't just happen once and never again without even a treatment.

I am no expert on God's interventions, but I do believe some people did experience them (not me, sad to say). Let's just say all the saints and nobody else to keep the calculations simple. Given these two somewhat arbitrary assumptions which are more or less given for those believing in God (with most believing it happens way more often), the PROBABILITY is in the realm of 1 in 100 million, offhand (or less if you believe God actively intervened in more lives than the saints'). Not high, but not astronomical, either.

So, your argument says more or less:

I don't believe in God, but I don't want to offend anyone who does by saying so out loud, so I'll just say the odds are low.

Am I right? If I am, forgive me, but that sounds a bit patronizing to us who do believe.

Myself, I believe in God, but also like logical arguments. Not baiting, not trying to offend, at least not intentionally.

>>18034514
It's been hypothesized that the misfiring of neurons causes schizophrenia, but no one definitively knows what causes it yet. Some people say it's due to malformation of the brain or because a reflective thought process has gone rogue like an independent mind in miniature and saved itself into your memory. I kind of use the suggested causes interchangeably in conversation because no one knows what's right yet, but regardless, it's a malfunction that occurs in an estimated 1.1% of humans and it can occur once without doing so again. And if I were worried about offending people I wouldn't be on 4chan. No, I don't believe in spiritual beings, but I'm not going to argue with you over their existence because that would require paragraphs and paragraphs of back and forth with you and your demeanor is that of a spaz.

>>18034546
Fair enough. I have to apologize, it seems that you do know something about some stuff you speak about. Your initial remark triggered me, a lot of people give offhand comments like that without a single logical argument.

>>18033417
>>18034275
My two bits. Stop. You didn't have a religious experience. It's kind of backwards. You had an experience that you interpreted as being a vision from god.

This kind of experience is not uncommon in humans, and it isn't the result of a brain disorder and can occur without drugs. I know there are studies done into these... heightened states of conscious, I think they are called. You might want lo look them up.

Specifically, though, you interpret them as a specific religious experience simply because you were raised in that religion. Were you raised, say, Buddhist, you would have interpreted it differently.