Christians, what is it like to have a personal relationship with Jesus?

[chimp3]

Years ago at a low point in my life I tried to give this personal relationship thing a go. I sat on my fence in the front yard and sincerely asked God for guidance. A Mockingbird shit on my head. Thanks. Thanks a lot! Last time I tried that.

[purplepurpose]

Years ago at a low point in my life I tried to give this personal relationship thing a go. I sat on my fence in the front yard and sincerely asked God for guidance. A Mockingbird shit on my head. Thanks. Thanks a lot! Last time I tried that.

This couldn't have been a coincidence! How can you follow God if you can even take humbly shit on the head?

[Drich]

 

This is both a blessing and a curse. as sometimes people who have spent most of their lives trying to serve God in a way that comes naturally to me tend to over look the simplicity but solid answers I've been given. At the same time I also find myself struggling to remind myself it is not me that produces these answers but the access I've been given to God's "google."
 

Yes I now see your problem .... having Google at your fingertips  can make you feel like you have all knowledge ... 

A bit of advice ...  depending on Google to acquire or maintain a faith is not the action of a well balanced person as you can find anything in there to support any delusion ....

If you will accept a bit of friendly advice ... stay off Google or even Bing one the the Devils search engines and just read the "Bible" and I am sure you will join us in the light after shedding the shackles of indoctrination 

....oh bother....

God's google is a metaphor for the access to God's wisdom I have been given. It not an actual search engine...

I likened my spiritual gift to a search engine because the wisdom I derive from it does not come from me but this external source. It was my way of giving credit to God as He is the source of my gift and I am one who has simply been given access to it.

[Drich]

. . . I would point to the dozens of messianic prophecies in the OT that were all fulfilled by Christ.  It's really quite telling when all taken together.

Well . . . . . . .


You can thank (or curse) the Mormons (yes, the Mormons again) for showing how that little bit of religious chicanery is accomplished:


* say they did when some/most/all didn't

* rewrite the prophecies, a little or a lot, and repeat as necessary

* rewrite the records of the supposed 'fulfillments' to make them closer

* make up more 'fulfillments' if the existing provenance seems inadequate

* rely on the pew warmers to not look at any of the pesky details too closely

* lock away in old musty filing cabinets anything that might upset the apple cart

* claim inconsistencies or problems are due to imperfections in translations that are unavoidable

* divert, deflect, obfuscate

* excommunicate any of the pew warmers that seems to be catching on to the chicanery


So, that's how that bit of sausage is made. I suppose for the rest of the religious folks it's a real kick in the shins the fucking Mormons published the play book, but here we are, and as even the highest muckety mucks in Salt Lake City have come to realize, it's DAMN hard to get that kind of shit back in the can.

I'm thinking the True Christians of the 1820s on might have tried a bit harder to exterminate the Mormon menace had they but realized the peril LDS would put all their religions in.

Well, you still have the whole book of revelation to look forward to.

[Drich]

It's not the people I hate... it's their stupid ideologies and religious thinking. It causes them to do some really fucked up things.  I have plenty of friends who are christian. If I hated christians so much, I wouldn't have those people as friends.

Can you give one example from your life, where religion caused harm?

9-11-01

[Drich]

What do you mean by fucked? Did it really get that bad?

My mother is a Christian and my dad is an atheist. It's always been so. She started going to a new church when I was 14 years old, and the pastor there began immediately showing my mother all of the scriptures about why she shouldn't be married to a non-believer. After about a year of this she left my dad. I was torn between two homes and a horribly heartbroken father and a brainwashed mother - it continues to this day. That's what I mean by "fucked".

Our home was sober, well kept, and non-violent. My dad never berated my mother for her faith. There was no reason for our family to be dismantled because some old-fashioned myth says so.

Then she should have consulted her bible first... Or she just wanted to leave all along and this moron's sermon gave her an easy out.

If she wanted to follow biblical Christianity This is what the bible says about being married to unbelievers:
1 cor 7:
12 The advice I have for the others is from me. The Lord did not give us any teaching about this. If you have a wife who is not a believer, you should not divorce her if she will continue to live with you. 13 And if you have a husband who is not a believer, you should not divorce him if he will continue to live with you. 14 The husband who is not a believer is set apart for God through his believing wife. And the wife who is not a believer is set apart for God through her believing husband. If this were not true, your children would be unfit for God’s use. But now they are set apart for him.

15 But if the husband or wife who is not a believer decides to leave, let them leave. When this happens, the brother or sister in Christ is free. God chose you to have a life of peace. 16 Wives, maybe you will save your husband; and husbands, maybe you will save your wife. You don’t know now what will happen later.

[Drich]

[FatAndFaithless]

Can you give one example from your life, where religion caused harm?

9-11-01

Welp, there's another of the handful of times I have to agree with Drich.

[Spirian]

A pastor told my mother to divorce my father because he wasn't a Christian. She divorced my dad - life was fucked after that.

I am working on the assumption that you reject Christianity, is this experience the basis for that sir?

No. I had already decided by the age of about 12 that I didn't believe the bible and Christianity. This experience only served to strengthen my conviction.

[purplepurpose]

9-11-01

Welp, there's another of the handful of times I have to agree with Drich.