How difficult is it to not be Abrahamic?

[Spiderman]

Honestly, I get a lot out of going to a Catholic mass and praying Catholic prayers, liturgies, chaplets, rosaries, holy cards, miraculous medals, icons, etcetera.

Despite, I'm not really Catholic. Unless Shinto Shaman Catholicism is actually a real thing.

I simply don't believe everything the church teaches. Also have a repugnance for many Catholics.

I like how I can walk into a Catholic church or the cathedral, stay for the service, receive the sacraments, and walk out of the church without anybody approaching me like at the Protestant services.

I go to Protestant services as well, but they are really annoying me.

I was inspired to make this thread from something @Quintessence said about Druidry and how beautiful the Earth is.

It does sound like a much more beautiful spirituality without all of the guilt and scrupulousity about sin.

Thing is, I would rather not adhere to an Abrahamic faith. It's not very easy to do that.

Every time I try to practice a faith that is not abrahamic, or anytime I try to be an unbeliever, I get a lot of guilt and fear.

Do you experience that?

It makes it feel like I have demons.

I'm saying, it's very difficult for me to believe in a faith that is not abrahamic, and practice that faith with peace, without any feelings of guilt or fear of punishment/hell etc.

 

[metis]

I tend to sorta blend things together so, for example, I often use meditation during a religious service. Also, I simply do not believe, and I never have as an adult, that any one religion has some sort of monopoly on the Truth, whatever that may be.

BTW, I have long considered Gandhi to be my main mentor, not that he was in any way perfect (he certainly wasn't and never claimed to be) but because he was so open to other religious faiths and other ways of looking at things. Let me recommend the excellent book "The Essential Gandhi" by Louis Fisher, whereas Fisher quotes from Gandhi's writings and speeches and arranges them by topic.

 

[JoshuaTree]

You can't receive the sacraments unless you are a baptized catholic in good standing with the church... can you???

 

[metis]

You can't receive the sacraments unless you are a baptized catholic in good standing with the church... can you???

"Baptized" and confirmed, yes; "good standings", no, but with the possible exception of marriage within the Church. [if one really doesn't go to mass at all, why get married within the Church if it means that little]

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Honestly, I get a lot out of going to a Catholic mass and praying Catholic prayers, liturgies, chaplets, rosaries, holy cards, miraculous medals, icons, etcetera.

Despite, I'm not really Catholic. Unless Shinto Shaman Catholicism is actually a real thing.

I simply don't believe everything the church teaches. Also have a repugnance for many Catholics.

I like how I can walk into a Catholic church or the cathedral, stay for the service, receive the sacraments, and walk out of the church without anybody approaching me like at the Protestant services.

I go to Protestant services as well, but they are really annoying me.

I was inspired to make this thread from something @Quintessence said about Druidry and how beautiful the Earth is.

It does sound like a much more beautiful spirituality without all of the guilt and scrupulousity about sin.

Thing is, I would rather not adhere to an Abrahamic faith. It's not very easy to do that.

Every time I try to practice a faith that is not abrahamic, or anytime I try to be an unbeliever, I get a lot of guilt and fear.

Do you experience that?

It makes it feel like I have demons.

I'm saying, it's very difficult for me to believe in a faith that is not abrahamic, and practice that faith with peace, without any feelings of guilt or fear of punishment/hell etc.

Never been a problem for me, but I do tend to rationalise things pretty savagely and override emotion.

I don't think guilt is a good way of determining path. I think it's something that has to be worked through, so you can understand it's origins (which are different from person to person and situation to situation).

 

[LuisDantas]

Thing is, I would rather not adhere to an Abrahamic faith. It's not very easy to do that.

Every time I try to practice a faith that is not abrahamic, or anytime I try to be an unbeliever, I get a lot of guilt and fear.

Do you experience that?

It makes it feel like I have demons.

I'm saying, it's very difficult for me to believe in a faith that is not abrahamic, and practice that faith with peace, without any feelings of guilt or fear of punishment/hell etc.

I stand a bit surprised.

My personal experience is quite unlike yours. Honestly, I do not think that the Abrahamic faiths are even very well suited to being believed in. They simply work much better if taken figuratively.

It takes me literally no effort whatsoever not to be Abrahamic.

 

[LuisDantas]

You can't receive the sacraments unless you are a baptized catholic in good standing with the church... can you???

If by sacraments you include participation in the Mass and the Communion, then the "good standing" part is at least questionable.

Catholic Masses are definitely open even to explicit non-Christians such as yours truly. And while I have not attempted it, I feel confident that I would be allowed to participate in the Communion if I wanted to.

It is true that I have technically been baptized into Catholicism (and much later completed Eucharist training, well against my best judgement and without any input from me), but I don't think I qualify as a Catholic of any standing.

I suppose, though, that you could consider that at the moment that I sincerely decide that I would rather participate in Communion that might arguably make me a Catholic "again". There is considerable evidence that such might be a legit situation in theory.

 

[Terese]

I like Jesus but i generally have no interest in joining Abrahamic religions.

 

[metis]

but I don't think I qualify as a Catholic of any standing

Because you're always laying down?

 

[England my lionheart]

For me it's easy, what has something that some say happened long ago in a far away galaxy, oops I mean country got to do with me.

I was baptised in a protestant church and without my permission, no choice as a baby,abrahmics faiths have no allure for me and indoctrination from birth isn't on my "OK list".

 

[LuisDantas]

Because you're always laying down?

I wish...

 

[LuisDantas]

For me it's easy, what has something that some say happened long ago in a far away galaxy, oops I mean country got to do with me.

I was baptised in a protestant church and without my permission, no choice as a baby,abrahmics faiths have no allure for me and indoctrination from birth isn't on my "OK list".

Same here.

There is an unavoidable ambiguity arising from that tradition of baptism of infants, from the general choise of the Abrahamics to presume people to be adherents before they can even voice any form of agreement.

It can hardly surprise them that they face so much criticism when so many people are effectively forced to choose between being their silent supporters or else their outspoken critics.

 

[England my lionheart]

Same here.

There is an unavoidable ambiguity arising from that tradition of baptism of infants, from the general choise of the Abrahamics to presume people to be adherents before they can even voice any form of agreement.

It can hardly surprise them that they face so much criticism when so many people are effectively forced to choose between being their silent supporters or else their outspoken critics.

We're on the same page Luis, it's not just baptism in the church though, circumcism of infants I find a bit disturbing in 2 branches of the abrahmics, again no choice.

 

[Jainarayan]

I like Jesus but i generally have no interest in joining Abrahamic religions.

Pretty much ditto. If we take the "red letter" editions of the Bible (only the sayings of Jesus, nothing else), then we have a pretty good code to live by, either by itself or as an augment to other codes.

Though much of it does overlap. How many ways can you say the same thing?

Well, one linguistics professor claimed that a sentence in Sanskrit could be constructed grammatically correctly and meaningful in 15 different ways. But I digress.

 

[Jainarayan]

Every time I try to practice a faith that is not abrahamic, or anytime I try to be an unbeliever, I get a lot of guilt and fear.

Do you experience that?

No. I left that guilt and fear behind a long time ago.

 

[Revoltingest]

Honestly, I get a lot out of going to a Catholic mass and praying Catholic prayers, liturgies, chaplets, rosaries, holy cards, miraculous medals, icons, etcetera.

Despite, I'm not really Catholic. Unless Shinto Shaman Catholicism is actually a real thing.

I simply don't believe everything the church teaches. Also have a repugnance for many Catholics.

I like how I can walk into a Catholic church or the cathedral, stay for the service, receive the sacraments, and walk out of the church without anybody approaching me like at the Protestant services.

I go to Protestant services as well, but they are really annoying me.

I was inspired to make this thread from something @Quintessence said about Druidry and how beautiful the Earth is.

It does sound like a much more beautiful spirituality without all of the guilt and scrupulousity about sin.

Thing is, I would rather not adhere to an Abrahamic faith. It's not very easy to do that.

Every time I try to practice a faith that is not abrahamic, or anytime I try to be an unbeliever, I get a lot of guilt and fear.

Do you experience that?

It makes it feel like I have demons.

I'm saying, it's very difficult for me to believe in a faith that is not abrahamic, and practice that faith with peace, without any feelings of guilt or fear of punishment/hell etc.

I've always been "non-abrahamic".
It suits me just fine.

Your difficulties aren't with picking the wrong religion.
Work out those personal issues.
Then see what calls to you.

 

[Orbit]

The fear and guilt were instilled in you probably as a child growing learning about hell. Research "hell" a bit and you'll find that what you think of as hell was invented in the Middle Ages, used for social control. Research "gehenna" if you want to know the word that gets translated as "hell". It was a garbage dump outside Jerusalem where fires were always burning.

 

[Vinayaka]

Honestly, I get a lot out of going to a Catholic mass and praying Catholic prayers, liturgies, chaplets, rosaries, holy cards, miraculous medals, icons, etcetera.

Despite, I'm not really Catholic. Unless Shinto Shaman Catholicism is actually a real thing.

I simply don't believe everything the church teaches. Also have a repugnance for many Catholics.

I like how I can walk into a Catholic church or the cathedral, stay for the service, receive the sacraments, and walk out of the church without anybody approaching me like at the Protestant services.

I go to Protestant services as well, but they are really annoying me.

I was inspired to make this thread from something @Quintessence said about Druidry and how beautiful the Earth is.

It does sound like a much more beautiful spirituality without all of the guilt and scrupulousity about sin.

Thing is, I would rather not adhere to an Abrahamic faith. It's not very easy to do that.

Every time I try to practice a faith that is not abrahamic, or anytime I try to be an unbeliever, I get a lot of guilt and fear.

Do you experience that?

It makes it feel like I have demons.

I'm saying, it's very difficult for me to believe in a faith that is not abrahamic, and practice that faith with peace, without any feelings of guilt or fear of punishment/hell etc.

Some faiths have fear as a motivator because that's what the adherents need to get going. Your words are proof that it works.

 

[Vinayaka]

Pretty much ditto. If we take the "red letter" editions of the Bible (only the sayings of Jesus, nothing else), then we have a pretty good code to live by, either by itself or as an augment to other codes.

Though much of it does overlap. How many ways can you say the same thing?

Well, one linguistics professor claimed that a sentence in Sanskrit could be constructed grammatically correctly and meaningful in 15 different ways. But I digress.

Jeepers, you mean you haven't yet figured out that Satan is just another version of Sanatan?

 

[Jainarayan]

Jeepers, you mean you haven't yet figured out that Satan is just another version of Sanatan?

Dat old debbil is tricking me! After all, he planted those phony dinosaur bones to make us believe in evolution instead of God creating the world in 6 days.