Question to those who are seriously religious

...

That was fucking beautiful holy shit

>abrahamic religions

I also want to mention that pre-christian pagan's sexual morals weren't any better than the christians. They actually executed adulterers and homosexuals. Christianity had a progressive influence on them in this sense.

Constantinople shall be ours once more.

youtube.com/watch?v=RwFYUJb03d0

>This is how the Orthodox Church converts people

Read that all and it just seems the poster is an impressionable and one of those who are easily led on.

Have to say it is working more on me than any televangelist or door to door converters

It speaks to the soul. Like our Lord said, The spirit willing but the flesh is weak

this is interesting. tell me more.

I was lead on because I knew my shepherd's voice.

There is no conversion taking place. You, the lost sheep are returning back to your shepherd Christ whom promised you everlasting life in his kingdom.

youtube.com/watch?v=MKLwutElZ-s

>I see no reason to believe the bible over greek mythology or JRR Tolkein's Legendarium.
My morals align with the Bible, therefore it is the religion I follow.

Simple as that.

No. First it was Nietzsche who was the figure of authority, then it changed to nature and the latest one is the bible study group. All these phases are marked by an incredible hostility towards any opposing view.

I like it. I love religious songs/chants without accompaniment. Here's one where the whole congregation sings the Psalms a cappella: youtube.com/watch?v=vZBgjepiRJc

I also confess a certain admiration for the Islamic adhan, when done well and without too much fancypants shit.

>bible mandates that rapists marry their victims
>libfags and feminists ree
>too stupid to realize that when left to their own devices men prefer women that aren't pre-owned and that a woman whose had her packaging fiddled with in ye olden times isn't going to find a man willing to marry her, to say nothing of the risk of her being pregnant with the rapist's child
>somehow ancient child-support laws are a bad thing in the eyes of modern feminists

grinds my gears that people can't put two and two together and would rather meme

Upon comparing Nietzche's voice with Christ's I found that Christ's was more familiar. This was odd because even though I had deliberately rejected Him before He still knew me and He still knows me now. I know Nietzche's voice but he only knew the adolescent me.

This is the one where I first felt the presence of God.
youtu.be/EzeifvBH_cs

beautiful

Same OP. I really admire the messages/lessons/aesthetics that religion brings to the table, but I can't reconcile that with the evil done in its name now and throughout history and the arrogance of some of its adherents

I tried really hard when I was a kid to believe, I even went to private christian school from k-5 but there was always a voice in the back of my head that knew it was false

I remember one story in particular, we were doing our morning chapel and the principle/pastor was talking about Eden I think. He mentions in a nonchalant way: "Yeah, they found human fossils riding on top of dinosaur fossils"

This is when I quit religion gg

You may like this Christian Orthodox chant in Arabic

youtu.be/8-EfW7gYzns

Speaking purely for myself, my main reason for believing is that I have faith. I have faith in the reality of God, in the truth of the Gospels, and in the divine foundations of the Church of Rome. I know that won't satisfy you or other doubters, but that is why I believe. I know beyond knowing. I know it's true in a transcendent sense.

My "logical" reason may be even more wild to you: I believe in the inescapable reality of the supernatural. I believe there is a spiritual, mystical, otherworldly aspect of our existent world that simply can't be escaped if a person is honest with himself or herself. Prophecies come true. People take photos of ghosts on their iPhones. Prayers are answered. Our world is ghostly, demon-haunted, populated by gods, monsters, spirits, angels, and above all, God is evidently real and is active in the world. As a practicing Catholic, I have particular awareness of this, because the Church still bears witness to miracles that occur in Christ's name, from weeping statues to bleeding Eucharists to apparitions of the saints, the angels, the Blessed Virgin, and even of Christ Himself.

So I suppose my "logical" reason for believing is that I totally reject skepticism and materialism. I've gone full /x/, and religion is easy for me as a result.

>ghostly, demon-haunted, populated by gods, monsters, spirits, angels
that sounds like heresy

Basically you believe because you really want to. Cool. You realize the same argument could be made with respect to Islam or amy religion, and even secular utopian ideologies such as Marxism as a matter of fact, and it is impossible to decide in favor of the truth of any of them? I thought religion was supposed to be about the ultimate truth. If you had been born in another country you would believe in whatever the dominant religion was?

Not really, Medieval Catholics all took those sorts of things seriously. They genuinely believed in witches, for example. Thomas Aquinas even writes about them in the Summa.

I used to be Christian, like lots of people my parents were Christian so I basically became one. As I grew up problems for me started arising, one of my problems was that I kept overthinking everything when it came to the concept of hell, sexuality, natural disasters, disabilities, etc.. A lot of my overthinking caused me lots of anxiety. Once I found out there were other religions and I started reading about them(specifically Judaism and Islam). I wondered why An all knowing and loving God would create beings that would create these different religions and split them up. According to Christianity all non believers go to hell, so why would he pre determine lives that he knew he would send to hell? Like how do Christians or people of any religion know that their one is the "right" one. I could've been born in a Muslim household and I would've followed that religion and believed the same thing too about how non believers go to hell. It felt kind of messed up to be that all these people of different faiths would go to hell simply because they grew up with different religions. I may sound like a pussy, but it was kind of hard for me to cope with, I had friends of different religions at a young age. Then there's stuff like the problem of evil which also caused me to question my faith. All this overthinking and feeling overly ashamed caused lots of anxiety and it wasn't healthy for me. I don't consider myself a perfect person now that I left or "enlightened", but I feel happier this way. I still follow morals and shit, I consider myself an agnostic now. Who knows maybe if I grew up with a better understanding and teaching of Christianity, I would still be part of the faith

Religion has more to do with things you can't measure, such as values, meaning and purpose.

I'm a Christian. When I read the Bible, I read a story of violence, slavery, falls from grace, injustice, anger, sadness, hatred, violence, and finally a man who comes along to show what it truly means to human, which is that you treat even your worst enemies with dignity, and that you consider even the worst forms of life sacred. The Bible to me is life in book form. It has all the ups and downs one encounters in real life, all the horrors and tribulations, all the villians and heroes, all the great crimes and great gestures of character. To me, it is astonishing, in its scope, its layers of meaning and its richness of subject matter. I've thrown everything I had at it in my life, but I simply could not shake off my roots. I tried to leave, I tried to go my own way, but it never worked. Now, going your own way might work for some people, but it just doesn't work for me. I simply need some overriding structure to guide me through life, and the Bible provides that for me, and with me billions of people, every day.

When I was like 15 I prayed for 50 dollars and literally got 50 dollars the next day, my old lady neighbor payed me to clean up her house.

it always freaked me out and I never prayed for anything materialistic since then.

...

That and he only seems to be interested in power and how influential something is, not whether it actually deals with empathy and human dignity.

I see this copypasta a lot, and I cringe every time I see it. I seems that people like him are solely religious for cultural reasons, and not because anything spiritual, anything beyond themselves drew them in.

They also seem obsessed with whatever is deemed 'white': 'white' culture, 'white' civilisation and 'white' values, which sounds like idolatry to me.

It's also hilarious to consider that many of these people are anti-semitic, when Jesus was a jew himself

I can't tell you why I choose Christianity. It clicked with me in the most subjective manner possible. When you're out 'shopping' for a worldview, it can never really click with you, because stuff like this has to be experienced first hand. Maybe Marxism fits you. Maybe existentialism fits you. It just depends on your specific set of needs. I didn't become a Christian because I wanted it, I became one because I needed it. I can't tell you what you need, all I can do is show you what I need

Because believing in Jesus is serious business.

(seriously)

>I discovered Nietzsche and decided that I didn't need God anymore

Wew. Way to miss the fucking point.

Okay, so it's a supernatural problem eh? Do you believe that miracles can only exist in one religious belief system?

This OP can't be answer seriously. This is one of the dumbest questions I've heard.

I personally think that there is an innate need in men for faith. It is faith in everything will be good. The details matter not and are part of personal preference, local and family culture.
But I think that the essence of many religions, mystical systems, magical systems, ideologies, scientific discovery and so on, if stripped of all details that (in my view) are means of but not the goal, is strive towards ultimate good.

What about christian gnostic systems then? Those I know about do not fall into this trap of adding hebrew religion into it (which in my opinion caused incoherence in roman state christian church started with dispute between fathers of church and Marcion of Sinope).

>those who disagree with my righteous beliefs are brainlets
I see.

>Those gorgeous chord progressions

Because we need to be saved when Judgement Day has come

I'll never understand "Christians" who are in interfaith marriages/relationships or "Christians" in relationships/marriages with non religious people

>tfw no Christian bf to respectfully disagree with

Because it's true and real. Not much more to it than that

It's surprisingly hard to get married to other Christians in some places and churches. I know that in the church I went to when I was religious, men were pretty much guaranteed to be single for the rest of their lives, and if any single women visited or joined the congregation, it was like sharks in a feeding frenzy. It was incredibly depressing. I had joined because of the theology and worship, but left because the people made me want to kill myself (amongst other reasons).

Also, Christians are as horny as any other group. Perhaps even more so. It is not at all uncommon for Christians, Muslims, Jews, to date outside of their religions, despite prohibitions against this. Affairs are incredibly common. I once read a while back that evangelical youths were more likely than nonbelievers to have had multiple sexual partners by some certain teen age that I can't remember. On a popular level, really, religious people barely know anything at all about their religions. Practice is inconsistent, at best. Every single major world religion has this problem.

I get what you're saying. I don't see how a Christian can be in a relationship with a muslim and get married to one even though their views on Jesus Christ and the trinity contradict each other. It literally says in the bible to not be yoked with unbelievers and that only Jesus is the way to salvation. A lot of this happens in America, I wonder how many "Christians" in America are actually devout Christians

>and I can't get on board with the anti-lgbt and some of its strict edicts on sex
>christians won't let me have my buttsex, how could they possibly be true about anything!
jesus fucking christ

Shit bait mate.

Why would an all knowing God Create people that would be homosexuals that would engage in homosex, get AIDS, be persecuted by Christians/Muslims, and go to hell. Since homosexuality is a sin and God supposedly loves all his children, why would he pre determine the lives of people that would homosexuals that would burn in hell for eternity? Why would he create homosexuals in the first place? It's seem pretty cruel desu

Go on /r9k/ homosexuality is a choice made by sinners because they are weak.

Not a bait at all, it's basically "I want hedonism, therefore christianity is wrong". Shit argument.
>Why would an all knowing God Create people that would be homosexuals that would engage in homosex
Nobody is putting a gun to their head and telling them they have to be homosex. Even more, nobody is telling them to do so at the rates they are.

So God isn't all knowing then, he doesn't pre determine everyone's lives then?

Also this "people are born gay" stuff is getting old. Homosexuality has a very low heritability. Placental explanations are still dead in the water

> I want hedonism, therefore christianity is wrong
It is the legit argument, God created us to be hedonistic.

> Homosexuality has a very low heritability
Doesn't mean that you can't be born gay.

you can be born with homosexual desires but nobody forces you to act on them, that's your choosing.

Some people might be born with the propensity to drink heavily and shirk their responsibilities but it is up to them to realize this and remedy it themselves.

Why would god even put homosexual desires in people in the first place

To test their self-control and ability to refrain from sinning.

Also, homosexual desires need to be nurtured like normal sexual desires, nobody is born thinking about getting fucked in the ass, a propensity for that behaviour has to be consciously nurtured

Nope.
Then what causes it? It's not genetic, we don't have any working hypothesis for pregnancy related effects, what is it? It's literally the only trait leftists assume is inborn until proven otherwise.

> Nope.
Yeap. Humans are naturally attracted to pleasure and if God was so against it, he could change what are pleasurable for us and what is not.

> Then what causes it?
Could be the hormonal influence of the mother on a baby development for example. Same way how people are born stupid if their mother abuses drugs so much.

>we don't have any working hypothesis for pregnancy related effec
Could be doesn't mean shit. We barely have any evidence on that.
r/atheism-tier objection

> r/atheism-tier objection
Looks like it is strong enough to not be answered properly.

> We barely have any evidence on that.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_hormones_and_sexual_orientation

Exactly, we barely have any evidence for that. If you read the page you linked, you'd know the evidence is scarce and often contradicted by other findings.

There is no way to convert a person, they have to be willing to go into it like a small child, umble themselves if you will. Forgo your intellect at least during the beginning, if you truly want to believe. All the responsibility and workload on the be believer is on him/her, if you want to believe you will, if you're looking for a debate you will find yourself mocking the scriptures.

Sorry for typos, phoneposting. Umble=humble. The be believer= the new believer

>I see no reason whatsoever to believe Jesus rose from the dead of Muhammad
I don't communicate with retards

I don't belong to a specific church anymore and I don't really consider myself a Christian, but it's how I was raised and I still believe in God. I'm one of those people who thinks all the major religions are valid. I know it sounds new agey but whatever.

A religious/spiritual view of the world is just the one that makes the most sense of what I experience to me. The comparison I usually use is that it's like a pair of glasses. If we both wear glasses, they're probably not going to be the same prescription. If I wear yours the world will look fuzzy and vice versa, but it looks clear when we wear our own. Doesn't mean either of our pairs of glasses is better or more correct.

youtube.com/watch?v=THopBTyIrH0

Because Christianity is the truth, and all other faiths are of demons. So get baptized.

I found the teachings of the Buddha to be wise, and useful when applied to my everyday life. He questions many oft-assumed concepts like causality that lead to nothing but infinite regress, and compositions like the soul that are purported to be everlasting, but are composed of ephemeral aggregates. Gotama Buddha himself stated it was important to live a virtuous life even if karma and rebirth weren't real, and I can't find a single sutta that condones violence.

You keep using this claim as if it holds any real value. This is why no one takes you seriously. People need to be shown the way, not told that it's true because it's true.

Read your bible. I'm not going to beg you to come to Christ. The majority of people do not believe and do not inherit eternal life, Satan.

Thats a pretty sad story about the closing of a persons mind before settling on the one of the making truth based on it providing comfort alone.

No engagement with other religious texts and theologians and practice

No engagement with athiesm besides a single thinker in the teenage years

This is what religious conversion in a consumer society looks like

>Read your bible
>Educate yourself
The only response you can give when you know you're not Christ-like enough to teach others.

>I know that in the church I went to when I was religious, men were pretty much guaranteed to be single for the rest of their lives, and if any single women visited or joined the congregation, it was like sharks in a feeding frenz

Which group was this I thought most religions were a majority women?

>but left because the people made me want to kill myself

How so?

Source? Not all pagans are the same.

Because I have Beheld the Almighty Glourie of The Amazing Dildoni, and I know that it will soon penetrate all the anuses in the world.

Bow and you might be spared.

I think there's good messages in most religions, but it's ultimately irrational nonsense packaged up to dupe people.
I was raised in an atheist environment and have never felt a religious impulse.

Nobody owes you explanations.

Homosexuality is not the sin, sodomy and fornication are.

>I see no reason whatsoever to believe Jesus rose from the dead

This is just your normalcy bias and empiricism talking.

I see no reason whatsoever that God cannot do as he wills.

He didn't.

They created themselves for their own reason. Have you never noticed that gays reject God first, and then act out on being gay?

That 99.99999% of gays hate God?

It's all due to confirmation bias desu

>homosexuality is not the sin
It says in the bible that it's an abomination and that homos will not inherit the kingdom of god. Jesus said "those who look at a woman lustfuilly has already committed adultery in their heart". I don't see why this logic shouldn't also be applied to homosexuals. Having homosexual desires is also a sin. Again, why would god put these desires in people in the first place. He created people that he knew would go to hell in the first place, gays never stood a chance according to the bible.

Where did Jesus get his Y chromosome?

Male children get their X chromosome from the mother, and the Y chromosome from the father. Jesus did not have a father, so where did he get the Y chromosome?

No, it says people who actually commit the act are sinners.

Fornication with the same or opposite sex is the same crime, lust is the same sin whether it is for the same or opposite sex.

So no, homosexuality is not, in itself, a sin.

Matthew 19:12 - "For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others--and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."

>Again, why would god put these desires in people in the first place. He created people that he knew would go to hell in the first place, gays never stood a chance according to the bible.

First, he didn't put those desire in these people, homosexuality is the result of many different environmental and biological factors working together. Second, they absolutely have a chance, as being gay is not in itself a sin, fornication and lust are.

There is ZERO difference between a straight couple fornicating and two gay people fornicating in terms of sinfulness.

This is something that I have been trying to figure out myself. I have recently been watching a lot of Jordan Peterson's lecture where he emphasizes the "moral truth" that can be found in religion and religious stories and how they are crucial to our belief and value systems and thus how we act in the world. However where I got lost is where do you make the leap from saying that the bible and religious stories must be approached like literature such as Dostoyevsky or Shakespeare and saying that God actually exists? Peterson makes a good point with some stories where God is a representation of culture or the archetypical father figure yet it isn't clear to me at what point you say that he actually does exist. In response to a similar question like this all Peterson seems to say is that he acts as if God exists rather than consciously believing that he does.

It just isn't clear where to draw the line in the sand between what is metaphorical and what is taken as, I guess, literal. Even in the examples you put forward, such as other religions and Tolkien, there are many archetypes, themes, and moral stories that are shared between them while the specific details could be vastly different. There is reason to believe there is inherent value in religious stories, but I find it hard to believe in the specific details. Why would I believe that Jesus rose from the grave anymore than I believe that Gandalf rose from the grave? They are both stories of sacrifice and resurrection, and so you could argue that the archetypical meanings of the two are similar but it is the literal interpretation which I just don't follow.

>he didn't put those desire in these people, homosexuality is the result of many different environmental and biological factors working together.
If he's omnipotent and omniscient, he's ultimately responsible. He "invented" the environment.

He's about as responsible as a parent is for their child growing up to become a criminal.

i.e. Not really