nightwyrm

Level 6 Heretic, though I scored very high on Level 2 Lustful too. :devil3:

They need to get rid of limbo to keep up with the times man.

Overkill

Get rid of Limbo? But all the cool people plus me are in Limbo.

IvanJames

Just ask her when, exactly, she rejected Thor.

burning flames

well she said she had feelings in church choir or worship that she attributed to something supernatural.

Perm

There are many arguments that address this. Transcendent feelings of spirituality or unity with the people near you, especially when singing/praying are pretty widespread. However, this says nothing about the evidence that Jesus Christ is the lone means of salvation and entrance to heaven.

Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, etc, etc, ad infinitum have these same experiences all over the world. Is she that presumptuous that she thinks HER interpretation of that "supernatural" experience is the only right one? How pretentious is that?

burning flames

yeah but after experiencing it, you wonder if your experience was "realer" than others. plus you know that at this point, denial of the validity of that experience leads to the worst of all hells.

David B

Not pretentious at all, IMV.

It just shows a certain amount of self esteem.

I thought that my, and the similar allegedly supernatural experiences of my buddies near the heart of the TM movement decades ago, thought that ours was the only right one.

Though we would concede that others came close.

None of us would diss Buddha, for instance.

Self esteem is, IMV, something that is selected for, in the human condition.

Some of those lacking it top themselves.

Rather more of them, I'd surmise, aren't very good at pulling chicks/hunks, especially alpha hunks.

Or even the less beautiful women or less athletic/handsome men who have something good going for them.

Self esteem is a natural human thing, with a lot of variance to it. Thinking you are right about things, especially things you hold dear, is a part of self esteem, IMV.

I think that makes sense.

Hope so.

David B (wonders if that extra glass of wine didn't lead him to put a little too much skunk in the joint)

burning flames

David B, have you ever felt the holy spirit? or a pull toward accepting jesus into your heart? or accepting him in your heart as the savior?

if you did, was it a comparable feeling to anytihng else or to what you experienced previously in the cult?

how sure can we be that christianity is a huge misguided cult?

are there ways to deprogram or unbrainwash? its so intrenched in so many areas of thought

David B

Trying to respond to this, I suddenly wish I were soberer.

I'll just have to do the best I can.

I had a brief period of attending Baptist services that my parents didn't send me to, when I was 10, and tried quite hard to get them to go with me.

Then I saw through Christianity, as painlessly as I saw through Santa.

The only way I can relate to your post is thinking about the process by which I, over a period of years, slowly came out of the TM cult, after I'd left a monastic life close to the core of the movement.

I'll give you one old cliche, which might sound patronising, but isn't meant to be.

Time is the great healer.

The other way I know about to get out of stuff like this is to educate yourself.

There are lots of high quality thinkers, some of whom know more than I do about their specialities than I, some of whom are better generalists than I, some of whom are better at expressing themselves than I, and all sorts of combinations of those.

These we both can learn from. I do - lots, at 58 and a happy atheist for many years. Though I'm pissed off with religin, of all sorts, because of the damage it does, or has done to people like Cat, and OIF, and Vicar Philip, and Johnny Scholar, like COAS. And like me and you.

But http://skepdic.com/ and http://www.randi.org/ are excellent places to go to to get fed a good dollop of common sense.

De programme by doing your homework, (which you can do something about) and by letting time pass, because time is needed for grieving about important things in your life that have gone, be they parents, friends or parts of your self identity.

Read the experience of others who have gone sown the same route of losing an important faith.

Look at the responses of those still stuck in their faith to deconversion.

Perhaps a good place to start would be what I shall link to below, because you have never been a mormon, but I think you might see similarities between both the escapees from mormonism and yourself, and the responses of still mormons to the exmormon site to more, not orthodox -wrong word - mainstream Christians

http://www.exmormon.org/

http://www.exmormon.org/mormonletters.htm

David B

VitalOne

What? Jesus Christ does not say that you either accept him or go to hell....rather he says quite the opposite...

"Now John answered and said, "Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow with us."

But Jesus said to him, "Do not forbid him, for he who is not against us is on our side."" (Luke 9:49-50)

According to Jesus anyone who is not against Christ, like say Gautama Buddha, Krishna, Lao Tzu, etc...is actually for Christ...

Here the Bible says non-Christians (Gentiles) may go to heaven if they performed good works:
"For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another; In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel" (Romans 2:14-16)

"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God" (Corinthians 10:31-32)

Therefore anyone who is actually following the teachings of Jesus Christ (not the teachings of a church or institution) would be very tolerant of people of other religions...