ArchivedFrom chance to truthThere was no one event that turned me away from the church. There were several catalysts that fueled the fire of my discontent - discontentment which had its root in a pastor who was my mentor but turned out to be totally out of touch with god. Some of those catalysts were: 1 - observing the blatant hypocrisy that was evident in the church 2 - observing the blatant contradiction within scripture 3 - realizing that if the god of the bible were real, he certainly did not deserve my praise, especially considering his treatment of non-Israelites. 4 - coming to learn of the dubious authenticity of Jesus 5 - coming to learn of the dubious authenticity of the bible. There are specific things that transpired that pushed me away from my church fellowship, but I won't waste space here going into them. Just understand that I did not walk away from the church on a whim; I had to be prodded out the door. I believe that the energy that animates us (makes us alive) returns to its Source. While it may never take on its current form ever again, I do believe that should I choose to do so, I could indwell another living creature. I don't believe in reincarnation, per se, rather a type of Energy recycling. It sounds a bit strange here, but given the opportunity, a board and marker, I could do a much better job of explaining this concept. My ideas about "afterlife" do not include heaven or hell, therefore living by the Wiccan Rede is merely a pathway by which we live a better life rather than being self-serving barbarians. -------------------- You are talking about religions that are known archaeologically to predate christianity. The fact that the known texts post-date the alleged time of Jesus is for one of two reasons: 1 - no older texts are extant that can be tested or 2 - the religion wasn't recorded in writing until that time Linguistically, writing is a foreign concept to humans. A fair percentage of human languages throughout history never had written structures and could only be analyzed phonetically and then written. Religions before christ were known to be passed down orally. The Druids in the British Isles and Western Europe were well known to have kept no written documentation of their religious practices. Are we ready to state that because the only written texts regarding Druidism are post-christian that Druidism did not exist before Jesus alegedly did? Certainly not! Even if you manage to rule out the few god-men that I've listed here, I'll be glad to list a few dozen more that you can look into. |
🌈Pride🌈 goeth before Destruction
When 🌈Pride🌈 cometh, then cometh Shame