Anyone non-religious here? Please be nice!

[michickenwrangler]

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I apologize, the wording was not the best. I meant to illustrate that the Christian religion is influenced by other religions with striking similarities and some Christians do not like hearing that information.

I'll be good

Anyone else here read anything by Joseph Campbell? Masks of God?

 

[EweSheep]

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I would like to know your story as well. You have shared glimpses here.

Ditto!

Me too three!

I can understand why some folks would not talk about the painful past and sometimes to them, it would be best to let the sleeping dogs lie as they are. Sometimes some information like that would give us compassion and empathy for them to share the pain they endure in those awful times.

Like my uncle, who was not religious at all, survived the Vietnam War but he never wanted to talk about it. From what my aunt was saying when he came back, things have changed and the citizen dehumanized particuraly the church members of thier town, has called him a "baby killer". Well he didn't kill babies or infants but under orders of his leader, he HAD to kill those poor people in the village and see his buddies get killed. She said she has awaken many nights of him yelling and crying and sobbing uncontrollably. Like my dad said, War is Hell!

So Hell could mean many different things to people and how they vision Hell or some would not even believe there is a Hell. To me, I do not think there is a Hell as in a place but surely I can feel Hell as a bad feeling, bad omen or downright unmoral.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

Quote:
I apologize, the wording was not the best. I meant to illustrate that the Christian religion is influenced by other religions with striking similarities and some Christians do not like hearing that information.

I'll be good

Anyone else here read anything by Joseph Campbell? Masks of God?

Masks of God is a good one but my personal fave for the historic development of religions is Kelsey Graves The Sixteen Crucified Saviours. I do not agree entirely with what either say, but it is historically clear that religions develop in part due to people migrating and taking ideas with them. Then if the new location does not coincide with the old religion they make alterations. Ie If you worship a winter god in the winter and your tribe moves toward the equator and there no longer is a winter you need to switch things up a bit or craft new mythologies. The book the Geography of Religion is a good one too.

 

[I have WHAT in my yard?]

Another interesting religion that many people misunderstand is Luciferianism.

Surprisingly wikipedia does a halfway decent job on this one and religious tolerance.org does not mention it. The Luciferians I have spoken to differentiate themselves strongly from Satanists, although most people do not perceive the difference it is huge. Luciferians believe that Lucifer is the bearer of light of god and that the division of good and evil is related to the bearer of light being cast out of heaven. There are, of course, sects with different takes on this, some reject god because they think lucifer was cast out unjustly. Others believe that they must do good works and achieve a spiritual high plane in order to heal the breach between lucifer and god and thus bring about a rejoining of heaven and hell.

Aspects of this religion have also been around for a very long time, but it is gaining traction again. Many christians are very worried about this and perceive it to be part and parcel of the spiritual battle they expect here on earth. The luciferians see it as a sort of family feud and think if the two groups could learn to love one another again they could heal the breach.

 

[redux]

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We need to reiterate this.

This is about those who are not religious, not anti religious. Bashing religions is not the spirit of this thread.

Redux, let me know if you need me to clean anything up.

Thanks, Terrie. No, I just saw a trend developing and I wanted to remind people that the purpose is to share our own personal beliefs, not denigrate those of others.

 

[farmerlor]

When I discovered the Masks of God series by Joseph Campbell it was love at first paragraph.

 

[redux]

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yeah, but you read Dr. Seuss.

 

[farmerlor]

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yeah, but you read Dr. Seuss.

HEY!!! You promised not to tell!

 

[Up-the-Creek]

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I will have to check this out. I am very interested in the topic of religion.

I myself am not a religious person,...more spiritual I would say. I find it fascinating how many religions are supposedly different, but yet really the same.

 

[michickenwrangler]

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I will have to check this out. I am very interested in the topic of religion.

I myself am not a religious person,...more spiritual I would say. I find it fascinating how many religions are supposedly different, but yet really the same.

That's the way I feel. It's really amazing that nearly every culture's version of a thunder god is similar and that so many myths are the same. I had a great mythology professor in college that made us read Joseph Campbell and that's really the way I view things, that the "Sky God" whether its Zeus or Yahweh or Tengri or Raiden or Tlaloc, it's just the same.