Dave, you come across very irrational regarding this subject. You present as someone who has been hurt significantly. This is mere speculation, on my part. So, if I am incorrect, please accept my sincere apology. I make my observation from the position of someone who, themselves, have been hurt very significantly. I shall not go into specifics. However, suffice to say, it was significant. There is so much that I could say. But, I will refrain, for now. I will tell you that my damage profoundly affected me. I blamed everyone - Everyone! But, a coworker made a comment to me that made a lot of sense; to me, at least.
He told me that abuse messes with our emotional and rational hard wiring. What I was guilty of was projecting human evil onto God. Since I didnt really know God, it was too easy for me to develop this negative, hate filled, narrative about what God must be.
I was 100% wrong, Dave, and so are you. God does love you. It was very hard for me to actually hear that about God loving me. You owe it to yourself to not allow whatever to define you. Anyway, I am sorry, if I offended you. It was not my intention.
Doug Walters said:
"What happened to you when you were young to bring about such intense hatred against God, Dave?"///
Why do you have such an intense hatred of the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny, Doug? Can you see how absurd your question is? How can one 'hate' a myth parents inculcated in one's mind in early childhood, which one has thoughtfully outgrown and is now pretty damn sure doesn't exist? ◄Dave►
Doug Walters said:
"Ok, rebellion against your parents. I get it.'///
LOL !! Good one, Doug. ;-) ◄Dave►
There is actually proof that not only is the Bible correct. But, that Jesus Christ is God. Let me repeat that, there is actual proof.
Dave, let me be clear, the only reason why you are so troubled is because God is calling you AND you are resisting Him. Take that as a good sign. A sign that He wants you to know Him and He wants you to come to Him. He hasnt turned his back on you.
I would challenge you to set out to prove your ascertain that God, Jesus, and the Bible are mythology, or fairy-tale. There is proof that you are wrong. However, in the end, it all comes down to what each of us does with Jesus Christ.
Robert Watson said:
"Dave, you come across very irrational regarding this subject. You present as someone who has been hurt significantly. This is mere speculation, on my part. ... Anyway, I am sorry, if I offended you. It was not my intention."///
If you stick around long enough to get to know me, Robert, you will discover that I am pretty thick-skinned and do not offend easily. We have been over a lot of this territory before hereabouts. Rather than repeating it, perhaps you would profit from perusing this old discussion:
http://www.freedomtorch.com/groups/topic/view/group_id/225/topic_id/583
...it should help bring you up to speed, and disabuse you of the notion that I am irrational, or suffering from some psychosis, or have not thought through my positions on this matter. ◄Dave►
Eric Lundrbeck said:
"...it was wrong of me to state that there is a matter of choice on the part of the adherent, but rather the calling of the Gods to the adherent. The same can be said of Yahweh calling upon His adherents as opposed to His adherents choosing Him."///
I don't know, Eric. It was the powerful preaching of the charismatic evangelist in that sawdust filled tent, who had us worked up to a feverish pitch at the point of the altar call, which 'saved' me for Jesus. I only thought it was God calling. I suspect that if all my friends and neighbors were Amen'ing and Hallelujah'ing and 'Glory Be'ing' over his sermon all around me, he could just as easily have saved me for Zeus... don't you think?
There has to be some logic in the fact that children tend to believe in the same gods their parents do, in whatever culture they happen to have been born. Now, switching gods as an adult is a choice; but even then it is likely to have been heavily influenced by others, as I suggested above. Peer preasure and the desire to be accepted in one's family and community can be powerful stuff.
After I gave up on Christianity, I went seriously god shopping on my own, among the Eastern religions. Seeking 'Truth' I was wide open to being 'called' by a new god; but without the outside influence, they all failed to interest me. I thus remained agnostic for decades. It wasn't until the outrage of 9/11, when it occured to me that the world had gone mad, with people killing each other over how best to worship the same damn God, and whether He prefered their devotions on a Muslim Friday, a Jewish Saturday, or a Christian Sunday, that I finally gave up the notion of the existence of gods, or at least any sane, just, and benevolent ones worthy of worship, and proclaimed myself unabashedly godless. ◄Dave►
ThoughtsAloud ◄Dave► said:
There has to be some logic in the fact that children tend to believe in the same gods their parents do, in whatever culture they happen to have been born. Now, switching gods as an adult is a choice; but even then it is likely to have been heavily influenced by others, as I suggested above. Peer preasure and the desire to be accepted in one's family and community can be powerful stuff.
What you state makes a lot of sense, but the criteria you've stated above doesn't meet with my life experience. My parents, though having a belief in Jesus Christ and Yahweh, aren't overtly religious nor did they ever thrust upon me their ideas of Divinity. So, using the learned behavior from my environment during childhood I should, by your logic, be a non-religious monotheist.
Next my peers, nope. Not one of them is religious. Not even a speck of spirituality peaks from their minds.
As for being accepted, since I know no other heathen such as myself there's nothing really to be accepted into nor do I care. If I seriously had the desire to be accepted by people I wouldn't be here. That's just not my thing.
And of course, which wasn't stated amongst your theories, is the rebellion factor. I'm no longer a teenager and find such "rebellions" rather tedious to keep up with. In fact, it's far easier to believe in one God than many and sure would cut the prayer time down, but my stubborn faith in the old Gods doesn't eb and wane like the tides. It's strong and keeps getting stronger with each new lesson learned and with every rise and set of the Sun and Moon.►
So fo course we're left with two other options. The first one is the favorite and flagrant excuse many militant atheists, this excludes you since a) you're not as militant as the rest and b) you have a dislike for the term atheist since it's been tarnished by the Leftist militant atheist, is that I'm an irrational fool. This is a misconception considering I love science and have yet to find anything remotely disagreeable with my beliefs. Lets take the 9 Worlds of Asatru and how all of them are linked by Yggdrasil. Now it can be considered the reflection of the 9 Planets of the Solar System (I still consider Pluto a planet) or we can apply it to the fledgling field of the multiverse theory. I tend to believe that it has a dualistic meaning to it, like most things pagan. So, how would being religious make me a dullard and unaccepting of science? It doesn't. Along side my Havamal and Voluspa are books by Richard Dawkins (love him), Carl Sagan, Charles Darwin, Michio Kaku, and many other science authors. People tend to forget that a lot of our discoveries from astronomy to genetics were made by Christians. These men were hardly dumbasses. However, if the militant wishes to still call me a mental midget due to my beliefs...so be it. I can't whip their ignorant mind to a different perspective that some us can accept the supernatural and science at the same time.
So now we're left with the second option, that my original proposal, the calling of the Gods, is the only logical answer to my, just be a sarcastic bastard, "malaise".
