Evil On a Sugar High. ;]

[Rippy]

Hello, and may I say that I adore this forum so far.. By no means do I consider myself a "smart person" but I certainly hope that y'all let me stick around anyway-- I'm always interested in increasing my (ever dissolving) intelligence and (hardly existent) maturity. ;]

Me in a nutshell: I'm fifteen, photographer, writer, (poor) artist, philosopher, poet, RPer, Texan, vegetarian, non-theistic pagan raised by devoted Christians, Slightly OCD, animal-obsessed, future wildlife biologist, empathetic, sophomore in high school, etc, etc, etc. ;D

Anyway, hope I'll enjoy it here. The name's Stephanie, but please, call me Stef or Rippy.


PS; Anyone here ever heard of soulbonding/multiplicity/headmates/'glorfied' imaginary friends? ;___;

[Shamou]

Hello and welcome aboard Stef...

Very glad that you decided to join... and hope that you like it here...

From that intro, I get the feeling that things around here are going to be even more interesting now that you've joined...

I Googled for, "Anyone here ever heard of soulbonding/multiplicity/headmates/'glorfied' imaginary friends " and Google cacelled my account... so, I won't be much help there...

That being said, I'll be looking forward to reading your posts... and hopefully to share, learn and grow with you...

Have a good day... and post away...

.

[oharrell]

Where in Texas? Im moving there soon, and it'd be cool if we ended up in the same high school. I'm 15, too. I like writing and art and I am DYING to have someone expand my horizons concerning philosophy. Most of my friends dont care for it.

[Rippy]

I live in Katy, Texas. It's kinda close to Houston. And yeah, that'd be pretty awesome. Where are you moving to?

[Matthew Shea]

A friend of mine lived in Katy for a while. Welcome to the board, Stef.

I'd be curious to hear the "non-theistic pagan raised by devoted Christians" story if you're willing to open up. That's another thread, though. To be completely frank, I'm Christian myself (Catholic specifically) and am always very curious to know how and why people get scared away.

[Rippy]

Ahh.. here comes a big ramble. However it has no point so there'd be no reason to make another topic in the appropriate section for this. But to answer your question.. if you really care to read all this... rofl. Hmm, I suppose I was a self-proclaimed Christian up to... twelve-ish.

Well, it wasn't any huge transfer of beliefs. There wasn't some huge depression that destroyed my faith. On the contrary, it was quite an enlightenment. I slowly began to "come to my senses"-- please don't be offended by the term-- but that's exactly what it felt like. I realized quite slowly, without much impact to my emotional state, that Christianity, and religion in general, was quite flawed. Especially with the Bible. I spent a few months with immature scorn toward Christianity, laughing in the face of proclaimed Christians and going out of my way to prove them wrong. After this passed, I was still in search of a place to "fit in", despite my slight disdain toward religion. I ended up deciding to become Wiccan, a faith which I had studied on-the-side for a few years. However, I slowly began finding nonalignment with the Wiccan faith as well, once I began digging deeper in both myself and the religion. I found that I was more a generalized pagan. Before that, though, I spent a while considering myself a pure atheist.. Being so young (as I still am) I really didn't have the slightest idea that you could be a pagan and an atheist... or rather, non-theistic, as I prefer, at the same time. Basically-- I don't believe in worshiping a deity, or the existence of one. However, I believe in the existence of souls within all things-- be it animal, plant, or mineral. (One of my major disagreements with the Christian religion, one of the few things which can send me into a mindless rage when speaking to one of them about the topic.. Being an animal-person I don't quite hold my temper when someone insults my passion..) I believe in focusing on the earth, healing the earth, and all things encompassing it, rather than just focusing on humanity. I don't have the "i'll beleive it when I see it" mentality, in fact, quite the opposite-- the "I'll see it when I believe it." I'm a vegetarian, and I consider that part of my spirituality. I believe in possible reincarnation, or perhaps the.. choice to either be a spirit guide for another to to be reincarnated... or something like that.. I'm open to options. But, I defiantly don't believe in a sort of.. "heaven", I think that you definitely move on to somewhere-- no where close to paradise-- and start over. Maybe it's in a hundred years or the next day, I don't really care to know. Either that or you simply... stop existing. I don't believe in Hell, or the devil, for that matter. Alot of other things as well.

Anyway, yeah, there could be other names than "Non- Theistic Pagan" that fit me better, but I've found that when I stop searching for names and just let myself exist as I am without caring for giving it a title... I'm much happier, more successful, and can find my true self much easier... Overall, I've found that most religions restrict my spiritually and disrupt the peace I search for.

[Matthew Shea]

Thanks for the explanation!

[Erki]

Hi, Rippy. I have to say that your last post in this thread was very interesting, I hope you stay for a longer time and care to share your views on numerous subjects. You surely sound very mature(at least to me - especially in comparison to my 15-year old sister...).

[Old Soul]

Hi Rippy.... ( from a fellow poet in progress)

I'm not a smart person either, but nobody has figured that out as of yet.... hehehe

Or they have figured this out and they are just to enlightened to concern themselves with that :-))

[Chinese Dragon]

Welcome to the forums Step, I'm 15 too by the way. You don't sound immature or not-smart in the slightest to me compared to other 15 year olds I know. Long response to your last post follows...

If my number 1 rule of life wasn't to always keep an open mind, I probably would've been offended by your post on religion. I'm a Christian myself (Catholic) and while experimenting with some of the things on Steve's site, I've decided that God isn't really one person like most people think. We all are God. When we put all our strengths together we are perfect, like Jesus. Most people forget that God is within us all, and I'm probably not going to ditch Christianity because what it teaches is still really, really good. (If you don't mind could you please explains some of the flaws you found in it?) I have a hard time understanding people who say they aren't Christians because they don't want to put their life in a higher power's hands. But we are that power.

I have no doubt that there is a Hell, because the only people who ever go there are those who want to go there. What a lot of people don't know is that sins will not sentence you to Hell. God doesn't send you there; the Devil doesn't even do it. Only way you can get to Hell is if you want to.

That eliminates a lot of stress right there, and even better is that God never bans people from Heaven.

I have a problem where I can't half believe in Christianity when it makes more sense to me to do so, because if Christianity is right, then I'm constantly violating the first amendment. I could add beliefs to Christianity that are empowering, but then I could be known as a "cafeteria-catholic", and Catholicism is supposed to be all or nothing. Maybe I should start from scratch and build my own religion and see how empowering it is, but then the bible is always saying how believing in God means believing without proof. It could be right. Can someone help me on this?

I'm not sure what to do with Catholicism, or how empowering it is when you look at the naked rules of it and forget things like the mistaken belief that the Devil sends people to Hell. The only thing I'm 100% sure of is that in one form or another that there is a God, that can be proven mathematically.