Quote:I do not alter my perception to experience God, in prayer I talk to Him like I would with a friend or family member, because God is my friend and I belong to His family.

That's because you are a delusional fuckwit, G-C.

Still didn't get an answer GC. Do you really hear God talking back to you?

(July 22, 2013 at 5:58 am)Godschild Wrote: I do not alter my perception to experience God, in prayer I talk to Him like I would with a friend or family member, because God is my friend and I belong to His family.

Those must be some interesting family portraits!

(July 22, 2013 at 5:58 am)Godschild Wrote: Christ rebuked the religious leaders of His day for the rituals, especially those that dealt with leaving others outside of worship and those that put some on pedestals. We have some things in our churches that we might call ritual, but in the case of the Baptist it's to bring the church together in worship of God. There are rituals in today's church that are beneficial, now I'm speaking of the protestant churches. The Catholics and Orthodox will have to speak up for their rituals. Prayer should never be a ritual in any denomination.

Is it not a ritual to go to Church every Sunday? So you're telling us that you're against that?

(July 22, 2013 at 2:51 pm)Rationalman Wrote: Still didn't get an answer GC. Do you really hear God talking back to you?

Apparently, he does...

I did this too, back when I was a believer; I actually used to strongly concentrate on a single thing and to listen to what I thought I could hear in my mind regarding the subject. And since I could *hear* this voice inside my head telling me what to do, I thought it was god, the omniscient, omnibenevolent kinda guy. The one with the big hand that raises you up when you are down etc.

I think this is what GC does, even though we come from completely different Christian backgrounds.

Yet something like a year and a half ago I realized it was just me speaking to myself and there was no need for a god behind my own conscience. Nor there is a need for a god to strengthen a community, as long as there is simple survival instinct and love for each other.

Back when I was a Mormon, I prayed hard for a confirmation that God was even there listening to me. I prayed every morning and every night, but I never got an answer the way that others of my faith described it to me. Some said it would be a "Burning in your bosom" and others claimed it would be a "Still small voice". Others even claimed small to large-scale manifestations of the Holy Ghost, and I wanted something like this so that I could more fully root myself in the faith of my parents.

One night I knelt down and prayed for 3 hours straight. I could have sworn that about 2 hours into it that I was starting to feel something. I thought, "Is that the burning in my bosom?" The feeling went away, and I continued. Soon, I was seeing images come to my mind: vague, ghostly apparitions with no apparent rhyme or reason, but there, all the same. I dismissed it as my mind playing tricks on me, but I soon felt I needed to accept these ambiguous feelings and images as signs of something supernatural listening to my prayer. I continued on, and soon enough I was hearing a full-on conversation in my head, as if there was someone there talking to me, telling me what I wanted to hear and know all along.

When I finished, I thought I would feel more fulfilled, for I had accomplished what others before me had done. Instead, a new feeling was nagging at me. The feeling was doubt; the rational, human part of my brain was telling me that there was no way to verify if what I had experienced was of god, or of the devil, or even of myself. It was this realization that the whole process was so uncertain that helped deconvert me from Mormonism, and eventually to deconvert me from god entirely.

(July 22, 2013 at 3:19 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: The feeling was doubt; the rational, human part of my brain was telling me that there was no way to verify if what I had experienced was of god, or of the devil, or even of myself.

Exactly! You start with doubts such as these, and then end up changing your mind entirely... It's like dominoes: the first one falls and then all the others follow. It's interesting to see that prayer contains the seeds of deconversion!

(July 22, 2013 at 3:29 pm)oukoida Wrote:

(July 22, 2013 at 3:19 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote: The feeling was doubt; the rational, human part of my brain was telling me that there was no way to verify if what I had experienced was of god, or of the devil, or even of myself.

Exactly! You start with doubts such as these, and then end up changing your mind entirely... It's like dominoes: the first one falls and then all the others follow. It's interesting to see that prayer contains the seeds of deconversion!

Well, finding the contradictions and inconsistencies with the Book of Mormon was next...then the Bible...and all this was while I was on my Mormon mission to Poland!

(July 21, 2013 at 5:14 pm)oukoida Wrote: Yet as my present position developed I could not help but think about how rituality is actually the "centre of mass" (no pun intended) of any religion.

Repetitive routines are an effective way of sticking to a program of any kind, because we are creatures of habit. We reinforce habits by repeating them until they become second nature. I think it's our mind's way of being efficient; the more things we can reduce to near-instinctive behavior, the more things we can do concurrently.

(July 22, 2013 at 5:17 pm)Tonus Wrote:

(July 21, 2013 at 5:14 pm)oukoida Wrote: Yet as my present position developed I could not help but think about how rituality is actually the "centre of mass" (no pun intended) of any religion.

Repetitive routines are an effective way of sticking to a program of any kind, because we are creatures of habit. We reinforce habits by repeating them until they become second nature. I think it's our mind's way of being efficient; the more things we can reduce to near-instinctive behavior, the more things we can do concurrently.

Yeah... I remember reading something along these lines in Erwin Schrödinger's "Mind and Matter". Apparently we tend to view the world by recognizing patterns inside of it, and thus we also try to program our own lives in a standard, codified way. When we find ourselves out of all common experiences and known patterns, consciousness comes into play.
Another very interesting point, no doubt!

(July 22, 2013 at 3:09 pm)BadWriterSparty Wrote:

(July 22, 2013 at 5:58 am)Godschild Wrote: Christ rebuked the religious leaders of His day for the rituals, especially those that dealt with leaving others outside of worship and those that put some on pedestals. We have some things in our churches that we might call ritual, but in the case of the Baptist it's to bring the church together in worship of God. There are rituals in today's church that are beneficial, now I'm speaking of the protestant churches. The Catholics and Orthodox will have to speak up for their rituals. Prayer should never be a ritual in any denomination.

Is it not a ritual to go to Church every Sunday? So you're telling us that you're against that?

That IMO is not a ritual, it is a day of rest and worship that is set aside for God, some Christians worship on Saturday observing the Jewish Sabbath, which I believe is fine, actually Christians should be in worship every day.