How difficult is it to not be Abrahamic?

[columbus]

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.

Mother Church is nothing if not syncretic. You are welcome to come anytime.
But it would be very disrespectful to take Communion. The priest won't do a background check first, but there are some rules on that subject and I am confident that you don't qualify.

Neither do I. So when I go up to Communion I bow my head and put my arms over my heart. I get a Blessing instead of Communion, and that works for me.
Way better than receiving Communion that I know I wouldn't get legitimately. Even though technically i do qualify. It's too much like stealing, I would rather not have have it, especially since I totally qualify for the Blessing. Absolutely everyone qualifies for the Blessings.

Tom

 

[Vinayaka]

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.

You're one of the few people these days I can say my stupid sarcastic humour to without figurin' I might insult them. Thanks for that.

 

[Jainarayan]

Mother Church is nothing if not syncretic. You are welcome to come anytime.
But it would be very disrespectful to take Communion. The priest won't do a background check first, but there are some rules on that subject and I am confident that you don't qualify.

Neither do I. So when I go up to Communion I bow my head and put my arms over my heart. I get a Blessing instead of Communion, and that works for me.
Way better than receiving Communion that I know I wouldn't get legitimately. Even though technically i do qualify. It's too much like stealing, I would rather not have have it, especially since I totally qualify for the Blessing. Absolutely everyone qualifies for the Blessings.

Tom

True story:

When my parents died, being Catholic, the funerals were Catholic. Actually, my family is Catholic-when-necessary, but I digress. I was Eastern Orthodox at the time, and while the Catholic Church might have permitted that I take Communion (I don't know for a fact one way or t'other), it would was definitely forbidden by the EOC. So, I stayed in the pew while everyone else went for Communion (keep in mind the Catholic-when-necessary thingie... Confession, anyone? No thank you), getting what I thought was a disapproving look from an aunt (well, she's not really my aunt, she's my late uncle's 2nd wife), because I didn't take Communion at my own parents' funerals. Oh well...

 

[Jainarayan]

You're one of the few people these days I can say my stupid sarcastic humour to without figurin' I might insult them. Thanks for that.

Yeah well, mine gets me into trouble too, so I know what you be talkin' about. I've almost blown snot out laughing at some of your responses to people.

 

[Vinayaka]

Yeah well, mine gets me into trouble too, so I know what you be talkin' about. I've almost blown snot out laughing at some of your responses to people.

This religion stuff is very very serious for some ... heck I got scolded for writing limericks about it a few years back. Revolt got me started, that bad man.

There once was a group of Bahai's,
That insisted they weren't tellin lies, .... See how that would go, eh?

 

[Drew Henefer]

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.

Muslims all Christians(catholic) and Hebrews are Jews as being children of the God of Israel. Go to a nunnery for a little bit each sabbath, chill, and be Jesus

 

[sealchan]

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.

Is that, do you think, because if you aren't focussed on your guilt then you must be taking the easy way out? We have so much of that sort of self-maintained guilt language in our Abrahamic cultures that it is hard to not respond to it.

The idea is that we must cultivate self-discipline, we must respond to the pain and suffering of others especially if we have some role in it. So long as we do this, I see no need to constantly self-criticize as a way to ward off evil. I think that it probably creates more problems than it solves.

Like a competitive social environment where one constantly needs to prove one's worthiness by criticizing and ostracizing others. Too strong a belief in sin actually creates sin.

 

[stvdv]

it's very difficult for me to believe in a faith that is not abrahamic,

For me it's the opposite "It is very difficult to believe in a faith that IS abrahamic"

 

[stvdv]

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?

Fear and Guilt. I had this a lot. Thanks to Sai Baba His Teaching a lot less. But it takes a lot of time to drain this out of your system. Good you feel it. The trick is to feel the guilt and then keep on breathing (through the guilt). Do not run away or suppress this feeling. Accept the feeling and offer it to God, do some prayer. And remember that there have been many examples of people who were in a sect. When getting them out it took a lot of effort to reprogram. This is the same with leaving a Church, or killing a tarantula by accident. Guilt is just an emotion. It will come and go. But when it happens it feels terrible and first reaction is to suppress or go back to the old situation.

You overcame spider fear. Not by taking a mini spider in your house but a giant tarantula, not keeping in a cage, but running on your face and exchanging bodily fluids.
Think about that. When you remember this, you can overcome any fear I think. You have the power in you. That you have proven to yourself.

Another trick is to read Scriptures that do not talk about "sin", "hell", "guilt" etc. But that only talk about love. That works miracles I have experienced. But it's a tough road.

 

[metis]

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.

Adult baptism was the norm in the early Church but when one of the plagues hit that killed an estimated 1/3 of the children in Europe, the Church relented because of parents' fear that their child may not be able to go to heaven if not baptized per Mark's warning. The precedent for this is found in Acts whereas it says an entire family was baptized.

What the Church then did was to split the sacrament of baptism into two sacraments: baptism and confirmation to avoid the problem you well stated above.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Things are a million times easier for me since I gave up the God of Abraham than they were when I did follow that god.

 

[metis]

Things are a million times easier for me since I gave up the God of Abraham than they were when I did follow that god.

How about "Spinoza's God" that Einstein said he believed in, which is more a pantheistic/panentheistic approach?

 

[crossfire]

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.

Dealing with your own repressed psychological hang ups can be uncomfortable, especially when you first stop repressing them and they start boiling up. These are your demons you are feeling.

 

[Vinayaka]

For me it's the opposite "It is very difficult to believe in a faith that IS abrahamic"

That's true, but for Marcion its getting out of it that's the problem ... if there is guilt tripping going on, it's hard to get out of anything ... imagine a non-workable marriage for example.

 

[Salvador]

"The Abraham story cannot be definitively related to any specific time, and it is widely agreed that the patriarchal age, along with the exodus and the period of the judges, is a late literary construct that does not relate to any period in actual history." Reference: Abraham - Wikipedia

Since there's neither archaeological nor historical evidence Abraham actually existed outside of any religious mythology, it's rather quite easy for me not to be "Abrahamic,"

 

[Shadow Wolf]

How about "Spinoza's God" that Einstein said he believed in, which is more a pantheistic/panentheistic approach?

I've never really personally considered myself a pantheist, although my own personal views are heavily influenced by those such as Einstein and Sagan. Though, from such views, I'd say it's a "null position." It doesn't make life harder or easier. Though I suppose it could be said it makes life easier when you aren't stuck pondering the reasons behind some divine/cosmic justice.

 

[Riders]

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.

Although I broke away from Christianity Pentecostalism,I was into Paganism for awhile.

Though I still feel somewhat earth based when I use Zen meditation ,I feel like I'm becoming one with Mother earth, I still have gone back to a belief in basically one God. One God with both female and male quality's but one God. Its easier for me having raised up in Christianity till was 13.

Its just easier for me. Although I am not Christian I won't say no to Christianity in the future if i decide to be Quaker,or Universalist Christian, it depends. So I may go back to Christianity but not on the same level I use to be.

Its just easier to stay in what you were raised in. I was raised in Alateen and AA a lot through my teen years, my one God ideas sounds very much like my Moms version of God was for a long time when she first got into AA.

I think we memic our parents a lot.

 

[blü 2]

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 know people who get a sense of comfort and reassurance out of such ceremonies. It seems fair to say the appeal is emotional, not analytical, but comfort / reassurance have their value.

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

Fundies? Yeah.

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?

Not as an adult, no. And never in a big way, that I can recall.

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.

Stay with the peace, see how much of fear and guilt you can shuck, and if they're any use, take my best wishes with you.

 

[Jumi]

It's easier not to be one. I imagine it would take effort if I tried being one.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

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?

Not even the slightest bit. I truly feel like the width and breadth of knowledge and existential meanderings available to us via the travails of our forebears pretty much precludes all possibility that any of the Abrahamic faiths have anything "right" when it comes to facts about our existence, the conditions of the universe and spiritual realm and, of course, the aspect of God. To the point that more and more I find myself surprised and dismayed that people continue to buy into these faiths as an appropriate take on "reality." You want to say Jesus (or whoever) taught some good, solid things about morality and peace? Fine - I'll give you that. But the "facts" that these religions attempt to impose upon reality are absolutely laughable.