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Originally Posted by mercuryrising

If you take a look in most areas of this forum, people refer again and again that it's what you believe that matters. People's problems arise from self-defeating and nihilistic beliefs. People become enslaved to money, sex, work, food and so on because they believe they need these things. People's reality becomes whatever they believe themselves to be. Reasoning can only conform to whatever it is we believe. Reason can not create, it can only dissect, analyze, categorize, compute. Change the central belief and a whole new lattice of rationale is constructed.

Sadly, it took me years to realize this. I was always chasing after the next high, only to discover that God is the only thing that can fulfill me.

Originally Posted by mercuryrising

Whatever I am, I have always been a man of faith. And in that capacity, I have never understood the man of reason. We are subjective, creative, feeling creatures and instead of utilizing that we want to be objective, reductionist, insensitive, mechanistic. That's what I find interesting: the man who so dearly wishes he was his machines.

I completely agree—and I do think this echoes what I posted earlier about humans believing they can usurp God with their knowledge. I truly believe that people just need to cease questioning and reasoning so much, because it’s only making life more complicated and turning us away from our Godly purpose. A coworker of mine I think said it best—“people have become so educated to the point that it has made them stupid”.

I have no problems with Christ. Christianity has very little to do with his real teachings.

I can very well understand why many people become disillusioned with Christianity. Hypocrisy abounds--in my experiences, the people who claim to be 100% purebred Christians actually indulge in more activity contrary to their religion than those who claim they aren’t Christians. While I think it is ideal for a person such as myself who is attempting to be a Christian to find a good church to attend, I myself have yet to find one that doesn’t flaunt hypocrisy. I haven’t been to church in years—instead I have tried to study the bible on my own, and watched some of the few Christian televangelists that I truly believe are sincere in their beliefs and teachings (Charles Stanley is my favorite).

I think disillusionment with Christianity also occurs because it has been force-fed to so many people. There are parents who make their children go to church before they can fully comprehend the idea of even being alive. Interest and learning should be a natural progression, and exposure, rather than force, should be its medium.

God bless to all.