On Thursday 04 October 2007, chip_embere wrote:
> I admittedly have a strong bias against all organized religion (and
> MLMs)- because it allows charlatans to control people - just like
> they are trying to do to you. I would urge you to not confuse your
> personal faith with allegiance to organized religion. Nobody
> appointed these people spokespersons for JC.
>
> One thing that MLM and organized religion(Christiani
> organized as any) have in common is a requirement by adherents to
> suspend judgement and believe without reservation. That is probably
> why MLMs do great business with devout Christians, and particularly(
> don't know why exactly) with the mormons of Utah - most MLMs are
> based there and apparently do great!
>
> MLMs are no different than organized religion - They are both about
> mind control.(Just my biased view :) ).
I have to emphasize that what I say below is about MY choice and MY
belief. I'm NOT slamming, trying to slam, indirectly slamming, or
trying to demean any person's belief or choice of belief.
I did a LOT of searching. I was a strict "fundamentalist" at one point
and in college, I gave up religion for Lent, which led to atheism, and
eventually I explored many religions, including Wicca, Taosim,
Buddhism, and others until I finally found the one place I felt was
perfect for me.
What I like about where I am is that each individual is responsible for
his/her relationship with God. We don't have a minister that tells us
what is right or wrong. We're expected to figure that out on our own?
Do we believe in a woman's right to chose or that life begins at
conception? While our Meeting has issued comments on that particular
issue, someone agreeing with it just to go with the "party line" is
frowned on as opposed to someone realizing that "that of God" within
them leads them to believe the opposite and stating such, which is
encouraged.
There are, in Christianity alone, thousands of churches across this
country with thousands of ministers in their pulpits for worship each
week and we know they don't all agree. If I just took all the sermons
spoken in churches on ONE Sunday in just Richmond (where I live), we
are going to find that these ministers do not all agree with each
other. How would we know when one is right and one is wrong? Who
decides at which point their faith has an absolute stand and at which
point disagreement is okay?
Faith is not blind believe in everything one is told. Faith is, as one
intelligent minister told me when I was a teen, the *willingness* to
believe. Yet God gave us a brain. Why? So we can ignore it and
listen to whatever anyone who claims to speak God's word can tell us
not to think?
If we don't challenge our own faith, we do now know how strong it is. I
know people that refused to read Harry Potter because they felt it
endorsed witchcraft (and the magic in Harry Potter, by the way, is
nothing like that done by real witches), but because they were so sure
it was bad and refused to read it or even look at it, they'll never
know that when it's all over, the whole series of books is a Christian
allegory. Someone that things they'll disagree with it could actually
find a stronger faith by reading the book and deciding, on their own,
what parts of it are right and wrong, good and bad.
I've had a long spiritual journey and know what unthinking and thinking
faith is.
My experience is that thinking faith, when I challenge myself over and
over, is a much stronger faith then unthinking and unchallenged faith.
Many times I challenged myself and realized I was wrong. I had to go
back and start from scratch. What I ended up with was much stronger
than what I knew before.
Just my 2 cents worth on faith vs. blind faith.
Hal
Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required)
Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional
Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe
__,_._,___
No comments:
Post a Comment