Hey folks, I know I've already posted a couple of times but I might as well properly introduce myself.
I'm Vox, and I'm a twenty year old male Religious studies student in the United Kingdom.
I'm...Honestly not quite sure what I should classify myself as faith wise. I was raised as a Catholic, but I've since been forced to reconsider and eventually reject a number of their teachings.
Some of my family are fairly devout, a number of them are Catholic priests and nuns within although neither of my parents were especially religious, but much to their surprise and delight of some of my other relatives I'm sure I took a very keen interest in religion. I was fascinated by what a powerful and influential force it could be in the world. It can lead to some of the most unbelievable acts of charity, mercy and has inspired many of the worlds most impressive works of art, yet at the same time can just as easily be used to command genocide and tyrannize the masses. I can't say I was a weekly attender, but I did attend more often than not and eventually ended up running a number of Church youth groups.
I probably would have remained ignorant and continued to follow what I had it not actually been for one thing. Long story short one of the younger teens in the group I ran (I was 18) came out to me as gay, he hadn't told anyone else and wanted advice (He actually thought he was going to hell, and was scared witless about it).
Being the good little Catholic boy I was I did what I had been told to do and spoke to the priest on the quiet (nice guy really, bit surprised at how liberal some of his views are, wouldn't ever say them in public mind). He gave me a bunch of links to Catholic Gay ministries and told me to revise up and explain in simpler terms what was expected of the kid (i.e: Less limp wrist and more butch behavior).
I'll be honest, what I read was a total crock of shit, and even then in my more devoted days I could see it didn't make any sense at all. Sure, it wasn't as bad as the "pray the gay away" ministries but the basic message was "Being alone and suffering is good, it's repentance, your gayness is an affliction from satan ect ect obey or burn, it's a curse". Some of it even made me laugh, even I knew playing on the football team wasn't going to magically turn a gay straight. It just seemed to encourage them to mentally torture themselves.
it sounds silly now, but that was like something snapped for me. I knew as far as the Church was concerned "homosexuality was a sin" but prior I didn't really know how they handled it, hell I didn't even know any in my little perfect bubble world. For all I knew they could have had six heads and spewed glitter but even I could see then how they proposed "treating" them was wrong. I didn't go along with it, and I encouraged the kid to go to his parents, spill and accept that was just part of who he was. The parents seemed fine with it, and I resigned soon after before they got the chance to sack me.
After that I got really into Theology and Apologetics, not so much to argue my faith but more just to see what was actually taught and why (and boy did I learn a lot; makes me wonder what I was actually taught about what we believed in as a kid). The deeper I went the more things like infallibility and that Natural family planning (i.e: contraception that's not really contraception-contraception) sounded stupid and contradictory.
That said, while my belief in many doctrines of the Catholic Church has evaporated, I think I'm far away from being an Athiest. If there is anything my studies have shown me it's that while the approach and understanding can vary, pretty much every recorded civilization on earth has had some sort of awareness in their life of something "more". It's not always an afterlife, or even the belief in a anthropomorphized deity but there is a similarity in all of their conclusions; there is more to the universe that meets the senses.
That thinking could just be my upbringing influencing me, but alongside a few experiences of my own...I don't know how to describe it, prayers answered (they seemed to me at least), some events just being too much to be coincidences..Perhaps its gut instinct, but I do believe in a single, benevolent deity. More than that, I am inclined to believe that deity is Jesus.
Do I think the bible is the inerrant word of God? No, don't be silly. It's just a collection of books, a few of many recounting what people claimed Jesus said that were cherrypicked to make the bible and uphold one cannon view (and boy, look how that failed). It's useful certainly, but anyone who believes Adam and Eve was a literal couple or that Noah had millions of animals on a glorified raft is an imbecile. Times move on, and morality and knowledge of the world develops too. Back then we didn't know how the world was formed so we took a wild guess, now we know better. Some portions of the Bible are relevant today, others are from a bygone age.
Obviously like all Theists I cannot prove there is a God, I can only rely my personal feelings on the matter and say from my experiences how ever cherrypicked and erratic they themselves might seem. I don't bother to preach, it seems pretty pointless and I think a good degree of doctrine (how can we know what Mohammeds "nature" was? Does it matter?) borders on meaningless. Most world religions can manage the basic things that matter like "murder is bad" even if their followers don't always practice it. So long as it's not bothering anyone else, it's none of my business.
Well, thats enough from me. Hope to stick around a while and learn a few more things!
Vox
I'm Vox, and I'm a twenty year old male Religious studies student in the United Kingdom.
I'm...Honestly not quite sure what I should classify myself as faith wise. I was raised as a Catholic, but I've since been forced to reconsider and eventually reject a number of their teachings.
Some of my family are fairly devout, a number of them are Catholic priests and nuns within although neither of my parents were especially religious, but much to their surprise and delight of some of my other relatives I'm sure I took a very keen interest in religion. I was fascinated by what a powerful and influential force it could be in the world. It can lead to some of the most unbelievable acts of charity, mercy and has inspired many of the worlds most impressive works of art, yet at the same time can just as easily be used to command genocide and tyrannize the masses. I can't say I was a weekly attender, but I did attend more often than not and eventually ended up running a number of Church youth groups.
I probably would have remained ignorant and continued to follow what I had it not actually been for one thing. Long story short one of the younger teens in the group I ran (I was 18) came out to me as gay, he hadn't told anyone else and wanted advice (He actually thought he was going to hell, and was scared witless about it).
Being the good little Catholic boy I was I did what I had been told to do and spoke to the priest on the quiet (nice guy really, bit surprised at how liberal some of his views are, wouldn't ever say them in public mind). He gave me a bunch of links to Catholic Gay ministries and told me to revise up and explain in simpler terms what was expected of the kid (i.e: Less limp wrist and more butch behavior).
I'll be honest, what I read was a total crock of shit, and even then in my more devoted days I could see it didn't make any sense at all. Sure, it wasn't as bad as the "pray the gay away" ministries but the basic message was "Being alone and suffering is good, it's repentance, your gayness is an affliction from satan ect ect obey or burn, it's a curse". Some of it even made me laugh, even I knew playing on the football team wasn't going to magically turn a gay straight. It just seemed to encourage them to mentally torture themselves.
it sounds silly now, but that was like something snapped for me. I knew as far as the Church was concerned "homosexuality was a sin" but prior I didn't really know how they handled it, hell I didn't even know any in my little perfect bubble world. For all I knew they could have had six heads and spewed glitter but even I could see then how they proposed "treating" them was wrong. I didn't go along with it, and I encouraged the kid to go to his parents, spill and accept that was just part of who he was. The parents seemed fine with it, and I resigned soon after before they got the chance to sack me.
After that I got really into Theology and Apologetics, not so much to argue my faith but more just to see what was actually taught and why (and boy did I learn a lot; makes me wonder what I was actually taught about what we believed in as a kid). The deeper I went the more things like infallibility and that Natural family planning (i.e: contraception that's not really contraception-contraception) sounded stupid and contradictory.
That said, while my belief in many doctrines of the Catholic Church has evaporated, I think I'm far away from being an Athiest. If there is anything my studies have shown me it's that while the approach and understanding can vary, pretty much every recorded civilization on earth has had some sort of awareness in their life of something "more". It's not always an afterlife, or even the belief in a anthropomorphized deity but there is a similarity in all of their conclusions; there is more to the universe that meets the senses.
That thinking could just be my upbringing influencing me, but alongside a few experiences of my own...I don't know how to describe it, prayers answered (they seemed to me at least), some events just being too much to be coincidences..Perhaps its gut instinct, but I do believe in a single, benevolent deity. More than that, I am inclined to believe that deity is Jesus.
Do I think the bible is the inerrant word of God? No, don't be silly. It's just a collection of books, a few of many recounting what people claimed Jesus said that were cherrypicked to make the bible and uphold one cannon view (and boy, look how that failed). It's useful certainly, but anyone who believes Adam and Eve was a literal couple or that Noah had millions of animals on a glorified raft is an imbecile. Times move on, and morality and knowledge of the world develops too. Back then we didn't know how the world was formed so we took a wild guess, now we know better. Some portions of the Bible are relevant today, others are from a bygone age.
Obviously like all Theists I cannot prove there is a God, I can only rely my personal feelings on the matter and say from my experiences how ever cherrypicked and erratic they themselves might seem. I don't bother to preach, it seems pretty pointless and I think a good degree of doctrine (how can we know what Mohammeds "nature" was? Does it matter?) borders on meaningless. Most world religions can manage the basic things that matter like "murder is bad" even if their followers don't always practice it. So long as it's not bothering anyone else, it's none of my business.
Well, thats enough from me. Hope to stick around a while and learn a few more things!
Vox
