My current beliefs are eing hindered by old faith

[mindzer0]

First off, I just want to make it clear that I am not against any religion, I just think that everyone has their 'fit', ya kno?

Ok, I use to be a christian, but it was so very wrong for me, I was born into a christian family, went to a christian school, and was actually very faithful. However I always had this underlying dislike for the religion, I didn't agree with it, often questioned it, and the dogma just made me feel bad about the things I wanted for myself . Basically the entire religion made me feel really bad and unhappy. So I left christianity and slowly started to feel better.
Eventually I came across things like meditation, lucid dreaming, Personal Developement, and the concept that I wouldn't be judged for my actions and condemned, that as long a I followed my passion I'd be fine, I felt liberated! HAPPY, JOYOUS, ALIVE, better than I had ever felt before, it just felt right! So i stuck with it.
I was really starting to make progress until recently I met this really intelligent christian who basically managed to use biblical scipture to 'stir up' an emotional response from the old christian in me (tears and everything) to the point that I was questioning what I currently believed. However after he left, I couldn't figure out what had just happeden to me. Why was I crying? I wasn't 'Feeling God's Love' or anything like that. What I was feeling was despair at the possibility that what had made me so happy might be wrong, not Joy at returning to christianity. Just to be sure I analyzed my feelings, and it was the same negative miserable feeling I had when I used to be christian. The very idea of returning to that belief system made me feel empty and hopeless.
Prior to meeting this guy, I felt like I was making a breakthrough. I was feeling great, Loving everyone and everything, even people I had once hated.

I decided a long time ago that I simply cannot follow a belief system that doesn't make me happy, and hopeful about life(who can??), but my problem is that these thoughts and feelings reguarding my old beliefs are persisting and they taint every ambtion and intention I have with doubt. I keep thinking this is my mind trying to resolve a block to my progression in a displeasing way, but then I don't know what the block is. Can anyone explain or rationalize this in some way for me please?

[magickmystik]

The way to leave old beliefs not by 'don't like it' or 'hate it' or 'resist it' but by total acceptance and unconditional love

[Christian223]

"Christianity" has many sects that are simply wrong on what they teach, you seem to have grown up with a group like that. If you belive in god, you dont need to return there, but ask Jesus with all your heart and he will do, youll find a new group where you feel comfortable. Start to Read the bible, learn from it.

[Dating Specialist]

Originally Posted by Christian223

"Christianity" has many sects that are simply wrong on what they teach, you seem to have grown up with a group like that. If you belive in god, you dont need to return there, but ask Jesus with all your heart and he will do, youll find a new group where you feel comfortable. Start to Read the bible, learn from it.

Yeah Christian223, I have to agree with you.

I'm a real life testimony. I used to be anti-Christ as I was very put off by some too-agressive and disrespectful tactics used on me to convert me.

Until I eventually came to know this Catholic nun, who's a very wonderful old lady, and slowly I guess that's how God touched me.

I'm now finishing my RCIA (a one-year journey for all who wish to be baptised into this faith) and I'll be baptised coming Easter together with my sister and father!

God works in mysterious ways. So mindzer0, do not be too hard on yourself that you're not feeling any connection with God in your previous faith. It could be just the teaching you're not comfortable with.

Reading the Bible could just open you up to new horizons, if you choose to see it without any tinted lens.

But if you're still not comfortable, ask yourself what exactly are the reasons? Face them and accept these reasons. Because if you keep resisting, you're not going to resolve them.

God bless you, my friend and brother in Christ

[AndyMartin]

Part of the problem is beliefs are dealt in sets and systems. The implication of any belief system is that if you have an experience the validates X, then Y and Z must also follow. Most people do not move on to seek the personal experience of Y or Z, or to discover what comes next.

Another part of the problem is the ego response gets tied up in both sides of the equation. On one hand, we don't want to feel bad about ourselves, which causes a reaction towards some beliefs. On the other hand, it doesn't seem natural that a single template can apply to all individuals.

So what we naturally do is ignore those parts that don't sit right with us because it makes the other parts easier. So we end up a fragmented person with fragmented faith. When we're looking at adjacent fragments we feel good, and when we're looking from one fragment into a separate fragment, the gap raises fear, despair, confusion, etc.

It does you no good to try to reconcile this through blind acceptance of any total system. Blind acceptance of a single idea lowers consciousness. This is not what is meant by faith; faith is exercising your ability to experience the truth of every idea. Experiencing the truth of a thing eliminates the fragment, creates oneness, wholeness of being. That experience is spirit-expanding, but looking for it is much harder than blind acceptance, much harder than following a list of behaviors, much harder than declaring a belief.

But no experience will bring you closer to god.

Good luck!
Andy

[ahimel]

Originally Posted by mindzer0

I was really starting to make progress until recently I met this really intelligent christian who basically managed to use biblical scipture to 'stir up' an emotional response from the old christian in me (tears and everything) to the point that I was questioning what I currently believed.

In my experience, most religions say pretty much the same thing, or are "different paths to the same destination." That's why different religions fit different people, just like I like rock climbing and my husband likes shallow switchbacks.

In Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, book one includes Wizard's First Rule: People will believe anything, either because they want it to be true, or they are afraid that it's true.

I'd guess that one of these two happened to you. Either the scripture was something along the lines of "he who departeth my path shall burn in everlasting flame" and you cried in fear of hellfire, or it was something along the lines of "He who believith in me shall have everlasting life" and you wanted so badly to have everlasting life.

Either way, the defense against Wizard's First Rule is always the same: take a step back from your emotions, and decide why you've decided to believe this. If it's because of fear, determine whether your fear is justified, and whether the risk is worth the cost (in this case, converting back to Christianity.) If it's because you want it to be true, determine whether your hope is justified, and whether the risk is worth the cost (in this case, converting to Christianity to discover, after death, that Buddha was right all along, and you wasted your life in misery to no good end.)

The final possibility I see is that your associate quoted a scripture that happens to overlap the wisdom of Christianity and the wisdom of your religion. In this case, you were overwhelmed by emotion because you wanted it to be true and yet you were afraid that because it was in the Bible it couldn't be true, and your religion must be wrong. (Wizard's First Rule Whipsaw). Christianity may be the wrong path for you, but don't reject its wisdom just because it hurt you. There is still truth for you in the Bible and in Christian dogma, and you don't have to go back to guilt and misery to accept/use it.

*hug*s from a born-again Unitarian Univeralist,

Amanda