@revoxley
active 3 months, 1 week agoForum Replies Created
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“I tease my Christian friends to pray for the ‘anointing’ of Esther- because her God given skill was being awesome in the sack so King Xerxes chose her. I’m not buying it that his overnight ‘choosing’ of a queen was all playing chess and having witty conversations.
I think the moral of the story is, she saved the Hebrews by being a good lay. Bwahaha!
And, God has His own naughty romance novel in the Bible. It cracks me up when my Christian friends are feeling guilty for reading some romance smut novel. I’d love to have a study group on Song of Solomon what all those word pictures mean. LOL” ~ @jenianandaWe need a Like button David.
I was a virgin until my wedding night. Pretty dumb decision that I think had a lot of weight in how difficult my first year of marriage was.
My wife and I dated through 8th grade up. 8 years before we got married – 8 years of fighting every natural urge and feeling an immense guilt for even having the urge. I think somehow all that guilt made sex something I fear – my first year of marriage we probably only had sex 6 times? Kinda unheard of, especially for people that had been fighting the desire to do the deed for so long. I think guilt programmed me not to enjoy it, to feel bad about it, and to ignore my desires.
It’s better now, but I don’t think it’s close to a normal sexual relationship because of that first year.
Do you mind explaining what a Reader is exactly as it pertains to Anglicanism…in the Deep South Anglicans don’t exist so it’s a new term for me.
No one mentioned not having to wake up early on Sunday.
Your first example more or less describe my view.
I don’t know that Y’shua ever existed – I don’t know that a man named Emmanuel was actually a historical figure at all and I’ve scoured ancient texts in search of him to come up with absolutely nothing. So, I don’t believe He did… I think if He did then there would have been a great historical record of it that didn’t just pop up 70+ years after his alleged death and I honestly think that serious inquiry into the validity of Christianity should start at validating the existence of the man that it is derived from.
There is a chance though, that he did exist – but that the great things attributed to him were largely misrepresented by lore and eventually the gospels. If this is the case I’m still not sure that this means that Jesus existed…I mean…not THE Jesus…just some guy not worthy of even a jot or tittle in the annals of reliable historicity.
But, what of the character of the legend?
I think there is a lot to learn from Jesus, from some of his sermons – but there are also some things that we could do without. It’s a tumultuous story at best and I don’t think any of the moral lessons he allegedly provided are unique.
Am I the only Southerner in here? Just wondering.
I wrote a couple blogs a while back that kinda go along with the OP’s theme.
A local church recently spent 2.5 million dollars on a new building. 2.5 million dollars. Where I’m from that sort of money is unheard of, the average income is in the 30k range and nearly 30% of our population is in poverty. This church has no food program and the benevolence fund is in the thousands…not the tens of thousands, just a few thousand dollars to help people pay their electric bill. I wouldn’t give money to these people if I believed the pastor was Jesus himself.
Thank you for sharing – I know you’ve already read my story so I won’t bother to revisit it. I certainly recognize your savior and his love and the intimacy of that relationship. I’m glad that it serves you in the way that it does and that you’ve become a better person as a result.
You can call me Matt, or Rev. or RevOxley, or doodie head – doesn’t matter.
I guess I should clarify: Much of what I have written here is reflective on a time where these emotions and feelings were very present and raw – thankfully they’ve waned greatly. I don’t technically feel abandoned by god at all – I understand now that I’ve left my faith, I don’t believe because I don’t have any good reasons to believe and because my mind has now come to recognize that it has been allowed to let go of the belief that I did have.
When I look back on my time as a Christian I now recognize that the god that I was abandoning was myself. He was the god I had created and admired and loved but he was what I needed to fill the holes in my life. Abandoning that god meant learning to love myself and those around me – it meant gratification out of my love and service to humanity rather than gratification out of slavery to a deity. I, thankfully, don’t require god any more – it is OK that he is dead – I have grieved his passing and I have grown as a result of it. The pain was soul crushing – but it molded me into a new man.
Today I’m much better than I was. I was in some very intense darkness and now I feel like I am intensely in the light though continually searching for a better understanding of that light and this world.
I was outta the church a couple years before I left the faith – but I grew very accustomed to sleeping in on Sundays, with my work schedule it’s very nice to have at least one day to sleep an extra couple hours and then get stuff done around the house.
Today, however, I’m heading to a UU church about an hour away, fellowship with some very nice people is never a waste.
One of my first preludes into the ministry was performing an exorcism at Teen Challenge. It was my first exorcism (of hundreds) – and I was only there for one night as part of a musical ministry team when I was very young. What I noticed was how strict the rules were, how grown men were given such explicit – prison like instructions and how they seemed to only comply because they feared the consequences if they didn’t.
I know that they use the men in the program as money raising tools – the men perform odd jobs, contract construction, etc and give all the proceeds to the ministry. The men are generally just playing the part of Christian to stay out of trouble and out of jail or they are genuinely so entrenched in the fear culture of modern Christianity that they learn to hate themselves and their sin rather than learn to love themselves and hate what their addiction does to them.
Thank you Jo, I’m very fortunate in that my depression only occurs in spurts – a week or two at a time maybe once every 8-12 months. 90% of the time I’m incredibly happy and surrounded by people that reinforce my happiness.
IF you look at the sources cited in the text of pretty much any book by Strobel some 90%+ of them are Christian or theistic sources. Pastors, Rabbis, Scientists (whom are Christians talking about subjects outside of their realm of specialty) – and it shows, rather than it’s stated intent of finding what is true, an immediate bias toward confirming what he already believed. IF Strobel was searching for truth in his first book I think he went about it the wrong way.
Yes, this is quite familiar to me.
Thanks again for the kind words everyone.
