[tatdool]

Why did you choose to be a certain religion or to follow a certain set of beliefs?

Or were you forced to believe in something you didn't by your parents?

None of my family are Christians, they have been Christened, and get married in Church but other than that have nothing else to do with Christianity.. yet I ended up becoming a Christian. So I'm intrigued to see if anyone else has a family who are believe totally different things to you as well.

What were you reasons for picking/choosing to be that way?

For me it just felt "right", and how could I deny the existance of God any longer when even when I wasn't Christian and I didn't believe in him I asked for help and he gave it??

Looking forward to your replies

[Kina]

Originally Posted by tatdool

Why did you choose to be a certain religion or to follow a certain set of beliefs?

Or were you forced to believe in something you didn't by your parents?

None of my family are Christians, they have been Christened, and get married in Church but other than that have nothing else to do with Christianity.. yet I ended up becoming a Christian. So I'm intrigued to see if anyone else has a family who are believe totally different things to you as well.

What were you reasons for picking/choosing to be that way?

For me it just felt "right", and how could I deny the existance of God any longer when even when I wasn't Christian and I didn't believe in him I asked for help and he gave it??

Looking forward to your replies

I also go by more of what feels right for me. I was raised catholic, but I was constantly questioning it. Like...if God is all

loving why did he create a hell...I was questioning it at a pretty early age, however my mother made me go to church until

the end of high school even when my beliefs were mostly aethiest (throughout highschool until I was 20 or 21) . When I was

maybe 20 or 21 I became interested in reincarnation and spirituality and that is pretty much what I have believed ever since.

Kina

[psyrebel]

:?:

Here in UK we have the Seven Principles of Spiritualism, the first of which is the Fatherhood of God. This offends feminists, atheists and agnostics.

I don't believe in God myself, if by that you mean a divine, all-wise Creator who created itself and everything else out of nothing. This to me makes no more sense than the Big Bang theory as an explanation of the existence of the multi-universe. Something can't come out of nothing.

If something exists now, it must always have existed in some form or other, and will always exist in some form or other. Thus everything is eternal, or to put it another way, Time is a meaningless concept, an illusion.

Nor can I believe an all-wise, loving God would allow so much cruelty in Nature - the survival of the fittest, carnivores, natural disasters. Or that God would need millions of years of Evolution to come up with humans. And I certainly don't believe in the Adam and Eve story of instant creation. As a friend pointed out, there is a serious flaw in the Genesis story of the Creation. If the stars, moon and sun were not created till later in the week, where did the light come from on the first day?

But I digress. The first principle of Spiritualism, in UK at any rate, should be replaced by something else. This needs to be discussed. Possibly something like the Existence of the Great Spirit would be acceptable to all.

Then there is the case of Spiritualist centers in UK terming themselves Christian Spiritualist Churches. Often that instrument of death and torture, the Christian Cross, gets prominence, often with pictures such as Jesus as the Light of the World knocking on the wooden door. Spiritualist centers should not call themselves 'churches' or identify with any one religion in any way. They must be open-minded and equally acceptable to those of all religions and of none. If religious symbols are displayed, those of all religions should be displayed equally. If pictures are displayed, include Jesus, The Buddha, Mohammed, Moses, Mahatma Gandhi, maybe even atheist philosphers like Karl Marx - they were all geeat teachers, though some may have made many mistakes. They also all still exist in some form or other, as nobody ever dies.

There is another fundamental problem with the term 'Christian Spiritualist' - the Christian doctrine of salvation directly contradicts another Spiritualist Principle about having personal responsibility for our own actions, and taking personal retribution. We must all acknowledge our past mistakes, regret them and learn from them, trying to do better in future. In the words of 'The Internationale' 'No Saviors from on high deliver'. We won't go instantly to Heaven just because we accept Jesus as our Savior, or because we were born again. Nor because some Catholic priest performed the last rites. Nor will Moslems go instantly to Heaven and be greeted by 21 virgins after commiting some act of mass murder/martyrdom.

Thru many lifetimes we have to regret our past mistakes, and try to learn and progress, experiencing many different things and situations, then finally our spirits will be developed sufficiently not to need to reincarnate any more. Eventually we will merge our individuality with the Great Spirit, or Unified Conscious Energy Field.

No one will be condemned to Hell or Eternal Damnation for believing in the wrong religion or in none. Atheists/agnostics often remain atheist/agnostics on the other side, there is no instant conversion.

Many atheists and agnostics now accept life after death as a scientific fact based on the evidence, and fully in line with the theories of Quantim Physics and parallel universes/alternative dimensions interpenetrating our own. I am one of these.

I believe Evolution is the key to everything, and we are all evolving, including the Great Spirit. This Unified Conscious Energy Field, a.k.a. the Great Spirit, which some people call 'God' or 'Allah', has evolved and is continuing to evolve. We will all become part of it one day, as we progress to a sufficiently high spiritual level.

So can Spiritualist centers worldwide be very careful of terminology, symbols and practices. They shouldn't be celebrating Christian/pagan ceremonies like Christmas/Mid Winter, Easter/Spring regeneration in Spiritualist centers, much less singing hymns about children born of virgins in mangers and resurrected on the Third day. We will all survive death, there was nothing remarkable about Jesus doing the same.

Psyrebel, London, England

[Sibyl]

Before we can start discussing changing the 7 Principles of Spiritualism, may I suggest the Articles of Association and the Memorandum of Association of the Spiritualists' National Union are checked. These Principles were given by the medium Emma Hardinge Britain in 1871 when the Socialist Robert Owen, then in spirit, used her mediumship to deliver them. They are enshrined in the Articles of Association and would need a lot of work and expense to change them and for what? To be politically correct? Lets just take the essence of them as they are still great guidelines for life. The Ten Commandments are even more archaic, are we going to suggest to the Christian Church that it changes them to conform? I think not.

[psyrebel]

I am wary of Commandments and Principles handed down thru the years, and treating them as it carved in stone. OK, according to the Bible the Ten Commandments WERE carved in stone, but only as a guidance for humanity.

If we never revised things we'd never progress. Most of the Ten Commandments are not in need of updating/revision, but many need clarification as few are adhered to. What does 'Thou Shalt Not Kill' mean for instance? In all circumstances? Don't even kill animals for food? Or what?

The one about adultery seems a bit obsolete in this day and age when a lot of people don't even bother to go thru a marriage ceremony, and who has the right to dictate people's private lives? An open relationship is perfectly acceptable to some people, for all sorts of reasons.

As to the Seven Principles of Spiritualism, Robert Owen could have been wrong. They were only his opinions. Spirit is not always right. Just because he used the term 'Fatherhood of God' thru a medium, who may have even misinterpreted it, doesn't mean we can't revise it and update it.

If we stick rigidly to Principles/Commandments as written down years/centuries ago we are slavishly following a dogma and not learning or progressing, or utilizing or mental faculties.

[myself]

Commandments, Principles, whats the point in arguing about wording?
If in this day and age we can't read the words and translate them into what makes sense for us where is mental capacity?
Words that were written hundreds or even thousands of years ago change in meanings as years go by. God 100 years ago was seen as a man sitting on a throne with a long white beard, now a lot of people see this very differently.
Do we need to change the whole language for this? No, we just need to adapt out thinking.
You can take from the words what you wish, but that is just it, take what you wish and disregard the rest. Apply them to yourself and adapt as you wish or need. No need to take offence at what was written in a time when the words were appropriate, just apply the changes that are required for today. If we change them now we would just need to rechange in a few years, and again a few years after, and so on and so forth. Just change them within your own mind. Thats the point of having free will.
Joy xxxxxx

[beckie181]

well you see i don't know what religion i believe in but i do know that i think and this is against nobody it is my opinion but i think that god is just someone who seperated from everybody who did create the world and created something like the garden of eden and said he created life.i mean how can a man sit here and say a woman is created the same way a man is no she isn't becuase she has menstrual cycle and giving birth pains and giving birth period.but i think if there wasn't more then one godess then there is atleast one.and if there isn't more then one god i think there is atleast one and both the god and godess worked together to create the world and us and the whole universe so thats what i think.

[chargrill]

i am an agnostic; because I'd rather be happy than right anyday. although of course I'd love to know why we're here and how quite frankly life's too short to care. don't get me wrong i do believe in some things, spirit for example, and i have a moral system based on my own conception of whats right and wrong, mainly on a basis of how would i feel if it happened to me line, and a lot of my beliefs are cobled together from a mix match of religions. why did i choose my beliefs? well i was Christianed and raised Church of England but once i reached the age of reason it didnt take me long to believe that a lot of the bible was probably lies or at least embelished a bit (no offense to christians it's just ifeel there's a leap of faith and then there's just gullability) after losing faith in christianity I shopped around a bit and looked at what other religions taught and realised that many just seemed to be creating an idol for people to worship so that they could impose morals on people. then i found bhuddism. No God no possibility of worshipping a false idol oh wait there is bhudda but he was a real person and his teachings were mainly morals which are good guidelines to follow. so i almost became bhuddist but i soon realised that i was just choosing bhuddism because i wanted to believe in something but i wanted the least possible chance of being lied to and then i found out about the bhuddist belief in reincarnation and i thought to myself so basically they believe that earth is hell beep and bye bye goes bhuddism now there was one religion i couldn't find agnosticism, whenever i asked my dad what he believved he said he was agnostic so one day I asked him what that meant and he told me and since then i've been agnostic. I have my own set of beliefs and morals and i don't worship anything, except maybe family and friends. anyhow i feel i have babbled too long and should get back to my life and let you get back to yours so toodle pip

[enna]

in my opinion, any religion that teaches respect for fellow man whist incorperating a "moral guidance" system cannot be all bad.

however what i feel is sad is that too many people become fanatical about religion. it doesn't matter who first gave "the words" they were all a form of moral story - do things this way or else!
like chargrill i to have searched most of my life for something that fitted my way of thinking - not including the line of whatever u do wrong u'll be punished in the here-after ( where ever that is !)

when i finally found spiritualism i found the one thing that had eluded me - and it's right up there in the 7 principles - personal responsibility- i'e - whatever happens good or bad in my life is all mine - not gods fault. and no god aiont gonna give me a pat on the head because i have twisted the word to fit what i want to do.

so thats why i picked my religion - cos it says what i do is down to me - and lets be honest that is free will !
pam

[Magnet]

I am not sure if this is final choice. It seems like it is.
See my signature.
I was looking for love and honesty.
Found it.