I have returned to my religion

[Terraniux]

I was grown as a Christian, but I left my faith in Christianity, for I was ignorant and did not listen, and didn't see what was ment to be seen. For years I lived as a atheist, non-believer, and rejected Him, as my creator and Lord.

This night my eyes and ears where opened, by the only Devine / Holy One himself.
Not through images, not through sounds, not through the mind, but by letting me open myself to Him.

On that moment when I opened myself to Him, I shed more tears than I could ever imagine. I asked for forgiveness.
I kneeled to him, and wished to be filled with his spirit. It was absolutely the most great moment I ever had in my entire life.

I want you to know this, and I even though wanted to share this on pm to certain people, you deserve to know. It should be this way.

I lost my path, but found it again. I hope you all way find the way back to Him soon, for those who do not recognize Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Lord of all Lords.

[EvilGrins]

I started Christian, I've widened my view more than a lil' bit since then.

First off, for your own faith, his name wasn't "Christ". That's a title, not a name. Technically his first name was translated for the Bible and wasn't actually Jesus either... but it's more the lessons taught so I won't bore you with all that.

Keep to the path that leads you to happiness.

[David]

“All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Terraniux, good for you. We all need to take our own journeys and to learn for ourselves what we feel is right. But "Man's" knowledge will never substitute faith. Keep the good fight.

[Hook]

Awesome Terraniux!!!
I myself would be a complete ignorant fool if I did not believe in the Lord God.
For I was and am very lucky - why?
I have witnessed way too many of his works for me not to know he is there.

[Kelly]

We were having a pretty good chat on UT99 about faith vs. non-faith and there was even a peppering of charismatic and new-age spirituality thrown in. Sadly the conversation has all but stopped on the subject, mostly because their objections were dealt with head-on.

I'll just openly say it: Judeo-Christianity is by far the most logical and sensible choice for a religious worldview. There is a massive amount of historical, papyrological (look it up, worth it), and physical evidence all backing up the truth claims of the Bible. No other religion even approaches the proofs that we have concerning Christ and Christianity. Most other major religions begin with bastardizing the Bible then spinning it off into another direction. I never understood that...If the Word is right then it should stand on it's own. You won't need the book of Mormon or the Koran to 'add' to it. The basic instructions are right there:

1 Thessalonians 5:21

21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

I've been a very unkind person in the past. Now, I want to be better.

Roll back about 7 months...It was 2 in the morning after a full day of throwing up from pain. I was laying in the bathroom floor, fever was 103. The cancer treatment was killing me. My guts were on fire from the chemo, my neck and mouth were raw, bits of radiation burned flesh hung inside my mouth. Earlier in the day my doctor had told me that "some people don't make it" when I called and asked if I should go to the ER. I elected to stay home and face it with my family. In that moment, at 2am, it was the only time I ever felt 'me' starting to slip away.

One of my favorite sayings is from the singer Mary Chapin Carpenter. It was passed to her from her mom. She said, "No matter how dark the night, the morning shall surely come." I was just surreal for me to think that it was very possible that I may not see the coming morning and that the cancer would win.

My wife and I prayed in that moment. I didn't ask for healing or for God to 'fix' things. I simply submitted. I submitted myself to whatever He has in store for me. If I was going to die then I was going to do it in full assurance that I was supposed to. I only asked for peace for my family and for my children to be protected while they dealt with things. I got up from that floor a dead man, I had nothing left inside and no strength to fight on.

Six hours later my fever was gone, completely. I've never had another one.

Everyone gets their Damascus road moment and being forced to my knees and shown death was mine. It forever changed who I am and I thank God every chance I get. Look, some people are Baptized by water, mine happened to be the fire of tribulation. Whatever it is for you, take the time to listen to your heart. I know it's very real, and it took a complete humbling of me to realize that. Am I cured? Nah, but even Lazarus died again. It's what you do in that time of realization that matters.

Good on you Terra. I hope it brings you peace and happiness as it has done for me.

[Terraniux]

I thank you all for being open and kind to me, reading all this , really gives me the feeling that we all have something or better be 'somethings' in common. Please, don't get me wrong on this, I place this with a positive entention:


We praise the Lord.
We share, show respect , and help regardless of person(nality).
We enlighthen each other minds when we ask for it, or are in need of it.
And Unreal (Tournament) is our game!


Friends will be Friends!!!

[Kelly]

We praise the Lord.
We share, show respect , and help regardless of person(nality).
We enlighthen each other minds when we ask for it, or are in need of it.
And Unreal (Tournament) is our game!

T, that has got to be a candidate for Quote of the Year. Well said my friend!

[EvilGrins]

Random: My mom used to insist I say grace for dinner, and she was usually pretty impressed with whatever I came up with as I never stuck to script...

...until the one day I invoked Lord Neptune.

She hasn't asked again since.

[Terraniux]

Random: My mom used to insist I say grace for dinner, and she was usually pretty impressed with whatever I came up with as I never stuck to script...

...until the one day I invoked Lord Neptune.

She hasn't asked again since.

I bet you had the most great time of your life haha.

[EvilGrins]

I bet you had the most great time of your life haha.

She was kinda mortified.

[Hermskii]

I sit back impressed, happy, honored, thankful, amazed and so many other wonderful things. It is the Lord who works in mysterious ways. I see it often and am happy because of it. More later.

[EvilGrins]

It is the Lord who works in mysterious ways.

I'm actually convimced God works in a very clearly defined and obvious manner. We humans are just too dense to appreciate it.

[Kelly]

This is a video of Neil Tyson. He's a very confirmed atheist astrophysicist but he's a real favorite of mine. This is a short (4.5 minute) discussion on chimp vs. human DNA:
http://www.maniacworld.com/Neil-deGrass ... n-DNA.html
In essence he says that chimps differ from humans in about 1% of our DNA. However in that one percent lies everything that makes us 'human'. Our creativity, our intelligence, even our self-awareness lies in that single percent.

He goes on to postulate 'what if' we were to encounter a being who is one percent greater than us? Could we even comprehend what this person is any better than a chimp can comprehend what it's human trainer is? We can't even communicate with the chimp, let alone try to explain who we are. Is it even possible we could communicate with that higher being? Would we understand even generalities about it, let alone specifics?

I was struck the very first time I watched this that Tyson is talking about God and he doesn't even realize it. We were made in God's image but to think we can comprehend His mind is beyond what will ever be possible for us in this existence. All we can ever get is dark glimpses of truth far past what we can possibly understand.

[a nameless entity]

Science and religion had to go their separate ways a few hundred years ago when science began to discover that things are not the way that church doctrine insisted that they were. I read a book called What the *bleep* do we know? a few years ago that addresses some of that issue. I also saw a TV program around then that went along the same lines. Basically both were saying that all the way down to the sub atomic level, there is an intelligence behind the way things are and behave.

So it seems that science and religion are beginning to find their way back together again, if you can accept that this intelligence is what we call God.

I also read a book by Tom Harpur called The Pagan Christ. In that book Reverend Harpur (an ordained minister of the Anglican Church and a Rhodes Scholar) points out the mistakes made by the early Catholic church starting around AD 400 whereby they began to interpret the bible literally. This is where the narrow literal interpretation of the bible so favoured by fundamentalists got started. Which lead to the split between science and religion, and so on.

Actually, there's a lot more to both books than that, but this is a small part of what they both have to say. I highly recommend both of them.

For myself, I believe in the Big Bang Theory and evolution. Those fundamentalists who attack the theory by blathering on about how the whole of creation could not possibly have happened by "accident" miss the whole point. I once saw a TV show describing in reverse the whole process of the big bang as far down to a billionth of a second right after it occured. It also pointed out that the odds of a universe such as ours coming into existence afterwards were quite infitessimal.

I would say that there is indeed an intelligence behind that all for sure. God exists, but he is so much more than traditional religion says he is. He is far more complex than that, and that is why we will never be able to fully comprehend him.