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Opinions on religion
Opinions on religion .
Alright , Ive been scared to
post this because I don't know how it's going to be perceived .. but it's
something I'm really interested in hearing your opinions on . I'm a
Christian , if you didn't all already know .. but I don't really know
what you all are . I'm pretty sure most of us live in America , but if
you don't , I'd love to hear about your culture / religous practices (
as goes for us Americans as well !) .
Now , this is NOT a
debate . Please
NO bad mouthing other religions or denomimations . It's okay to state your opinion but please , don't speak ugly . And if someone tries to come at YOU , be MATURE about it please . Thanks everyone .
( Whether or not you agree with someone's beliefs , please read their statement all the way . It's only fair Thanks . )
Ok . So here is what I believe . I belive that Christianity is not a religion ; it's a relationship with God . There is only one True God , and He is the God of Abraham , Isaac , and Jacob . I believe without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ died on the cross a HORRIBLE death ( see John 3:16 ) so we don't have to , in Hell . He saved us from the eternal fire and torment in Hades . Jesus was Perfect . He was Sinless . He was the Son of God , sent down to this earth through Mary , the Virgin . Jesus was a human man . He truly walked the Earth . He really did face temptations ( see Mark 4 ). I believe in sowing and reaping . If you sow money , you will reap money . If you sow time , you will reap time . If you sow hate , you will reap hate . If you sow love , you will reap love , and so on .
As humans , we are tempted . We all have bad habits , issues , and so on . No one is perfect , that was Jesus' job . BUT , as Christians we are to live in LOVE , we are to obey the BIBLE , we are to PREACH the Gospel message ,and we are to try and live our lives as our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ lived His . I beleive that even the worst of the worst people can be sinless through Christ . The Bible says that no sin is greater than the next . So the serial killer on death row can have the exact same Grace that the teenager who said a cuss word can have .
Now , don't think for a SECOND that because I'm a Christian my life is perfect , that I don't have drama , I don't have temptations , and I'm a Saint . Because Lord knows , I am NOT and neither are any of my friends . Sometimes , it's even harder for us because we KNOW there is a God . We KNOW when we are doing something wrong . But trust me , I am not perfect . Heeeck no . I sometimes cuss . I've done stuff that no teenager should've done . I've turned my back on God before . BUT , I've repented . And now , I KNOW that I will go to Heaven . I KNOW that I will meet my dead loved ones and I have peace that if I die , I am not really dead because I will be in the Presence of my KING , and that I will meet all the GREAT people in the Bible and the people that many have been saved because of them . And He will do the same for you . You may say there is no God , or God would never love you . But baby let me tell you something . The THIEF comes to STEAL , KILL and DESTROY , but JESUS has come to give you life , and life more abundantly ( see John 10:10 ) . All you gotta do is talk to Him .
Alright . There you have it everyone ! That is what I believe . It's my own words , it's not copied and I didn't steal it from some preacher . So now you've heard what I have to say , I'd like to hear what YOU have to say . Go for it .
( if you have any questions about what I believe , just comment below. ) 
submitted by Vida, age Finally 14
(January 15, 2014 - 3:53 pm)
(January 15, 2014 - 3:53 pm)
I am ridiculed because I only sing songs praising the Lord.
(January 16, 2014 - 8:49 pm)
This is a bit of a sticky topic, but if you'd really like to know, I can explain an abridged, kind of simplified version of what I believe. I tell people I'm an atheist simply because I don't believe in any human gods and my human family are all atheists (well, my grandmother worships the Native American spirits, but I was referring to immediate family). The world I believe in has magic in it with magic users of lots of different species. Supposedly, the world was created by five different powerful beings who work to destroy the world and create a new one. The beings work to create and destroy their worlds endlessly.
(January 15, 2014 - 8:31 pm)
@ Maggie: A sin to us is basically anything you know is wrong, and goes against God's ordinances. It can be anything, from slapping your sibling when you're mad, to robbery, to murder. The Ten Commandments are good examples, though of course sin isn't limited to that.
(January 15, 2014 - 10:08 pm)
@ Ruby: The original sin was the fall of Adam and Eve. They ate from the Tree of Knowledge though God told them not to. They were tempted by Satan, who came into the Garden of Eden in the form of a serpant.
(January 16, 2014 - 12:37 pm)
@ Blonde Heroines Rule , that's an awesome way to explain what we believe !
Because they were tempted , and gave in to temptation , they were separated from God forever .
@ Maggie , I don't mean to be rude . But there's nothing amusing about not going to Heaven . Nothing at all . You've seen Percy Jackson right ? Well , the real Hell is about 1,000,000x worse . ( Please don't get offended , lol ! )
@ Ruby M. , wow . That's also very interesting ... are they Spirits ( like demons ? ) or like Gods like in the Greek & Roman times ?
(January 16, 2014 - 1:20 pm)
I guess I wouldn't call them gods, and I don't think they are. They're spirits (I guess you could call them demons if you want?) that, in this world, don't have their own bodies. After their body dies, they're reborn into new bodies of any living thing.
Captcha says zogm. It can't decide whether it wants to say "omg" or "omz".
(January 16, 2014 - 6:13 pm)
I'm an atheist. This stuff means nothing to me. (and considering the fact that religious belief and belief in an afterlife aren't exactly connected, I don't believe in an afterlife either) So I can laugh at heaven and hell (and my prospects of getting into either one) all I want. I swear I'm not trying to mock your beliefs.
(January 16, 2014 - 11:14 pm)
@ Ruby: What BHR said is a great description of what the original sin was. Another thing that it did was that it locked the gates of Heaven, so Jesus died on the cross for us to unlock the gates and to save us from sin. All humans born into the world are born with original sin, and baptism is the only way to get it out of the soul.
(January 16, 2014 - 3:19 pm)
Is anyone else a Roman Catholic?
(January 16, 2014 - 9:08 pm)
I am. I'm getting confirmed as a Roman Catholic this year. I don't talk about it much outside of church. I'm not afraid of being ridiculed; I just want to respect other people's beliefs by not shoving it in their faces. I'll talk about it when prompted. I'm not the most religious person, but it is definitely a part of my life.
I would like to add something to what the Admin said earlier about Episcopalian priests being allowed to marry: in Catholicism, deacons can be married and also serve a purpose pretty similar to a priest on the altar. My grandfather's a deacon.
I do believe in an afterlife, not only because of Christian beliefs but also because it makes no sense to me how we could just stop existing.
(January 16, 2014 - 10:13 pm)
I am. I am not afraid to say it.
(January 17, 2014 - 10:40 am)
I am!
(January 17, 2014 - 5:05 pm)
Super-duper late here, but I'm Catholic too!
(February 19, 2014 - 8:27 am)
I consider myself an atheist because I find it extremely statistically unlikely that the source of everything is sentient. I was raised as a Christian, and I considered myself one until I was twelve. I believed it because it's what I'd been taught all my life and it didn't really occur to me to question it. There were things about the Bible that seemed a bit off to me, though, because God does and says a lot of things in the Bible that, to me, seemed unethical, and while I took it for granted that God existed and was perfect, it didn't seem like the Bible was really consistent with my idea of a perfect God. I know now that to most Christians, God defines morality, and if he does something, that makes it right, but since my moral convictions were things I'd been questioning and changing and growing all my life, they were much more a part of me than my Christianity was, so I assumed that a perfect God couldn't possibly have done those things and therefore He didn't. Also, I really value internal consistency; I felt like much of the Old Testament and even some of the New were not consistent with statements such as "God is love," which summed up my beliefs at the time pretty well. I'd just sort of been ignoring that for years, assuming that there must be some good explanation I just didn't get, and then eventually I realized that that was a completely baseless assumption that I should probably get rid of, which meant I didn't consider myself Christian anymore. I liked the texts of Zarathustra a lot, but I knew mainstream Zoroastrianism wasn't for me. Then one day I realized that my belief in an afterlife was really just a vestige of Christianity that I hadn't bothered to question and not based in anything, so that was pretty much gone. Then I realized that prayer didn't seem to statistically work and there was no compelling reason for me to believe in it, either. Then I realized that my entire belief in God boiled down to, "Well, I value love more than anything, so why shouldn't it be sentient and the most powerful thing in the universe?" which wasn't rational as my desires do not dictate what stuff has been like since before our universe was even here, so I no longer believed in God. And that's pretty much it.
I recently read the Dao De Jing and the Zuangzi, and they're beautiful, and they seem to mostly make a surprising amount of sense, but I'm not really sure how to put any of that stuff into practice. I'm planning to work at that.
I don't feel any different from when I was religious. I still get the feeling of awe and wonder at all the beauty the universe contains, just as frequently as before. I'm really, really happy with my life, and I want to help others as much as I can. I just don't believe in the supernatural, although I have no issue with people who do.
(January 17, 2014 - 4:16 pm)
That's cool , Ima . I'm glad that even though you don't believe in God , you're happy and you're still trying to live in Love towards others !
(January 22, 2014 - 1:11 pm)