Charlie

Good Day!
Just wondering if anyone is willing to share how they became Christian?

I'm not setting this up so that I can debate you! I simply would like to learn. I am not looking for you to defend your belief or to make a case as to why you believe. Instead I was hoping to keep this a very straight forward thread in asking not why, but how? How did you become Christian?

My assumptions are as follows:
You were born into a Christian family and were raised that way?
You were not born into a Christian family, but later converted?
If you converted to Christianity, would you like to also share how that happened?

Thanks for any and all responses!
Charlie
(btw, just so you know, I am not a christian)

seebs

To make a long story short, I was raised nominally Christian, but it never made any sense to me. The general aura of hypocrisy, and the total irrelevance of anything I was told by the church leaders, left me uninterested. I actually did like one of the youth pastors, but he left... the guy who replaced him pretty much convinced me the whole thing was meaningless noises. Anyway, over the next maybe ten years, I gradually migrated from agnostic/atheist to Deist, and eventually to Christian... Not so much because of the "evidence" that people love to natter on about, but because the teachings fit my understanding of the world well enough for me to think there was something to them.

I'm not especially dogmatic, in general, simply because I'm not even always sure I understand the cosmology well enough to have strong opinions... but that's fine, I don't really care.

Sabine Grant

Bonjour charlie ! you will find a thread still in Religious Discussions entitled " Christians : how did you decide" in which several theists have already answered a question similar to yours. Mine can be found on page 4 of the thread, May 1st 2003 at 1029 pm.
Sorry I still have a hard time figuring out how to paste another text from another thread....anytime I try I loose the text. pouf ! You will find the thread around last posting being May 23d.

Charlie

[QUOTE]Originally posted by seebs
[ I gradually migrated from agnostic/atheist to Deist, and eventually to Christian... Not so much because of the "evidence" that people love to natter on about, but because the teachings fit my understanding of the world well enough for me to think there was something to them."]


Seebs, May I ask, "Did the teachings fit because your understandings of the world was from your Christian upbringing?" In other words, at that time was your world understanding primarily based on your Christian upbringing even though it appears you were still some what searching?

Thanks,
Charlie

Charlie

Bonjour Sabine!
Thank you for letting me know about the other thread.. I too am still learning to figure out how to do things in this forum.. I went to your other post and have quoted part of your words from the other thread below:

["I can tell you that my conversion was not necessarly the product of a choice based on " christianity is better than hinduism or wicca etc..." It was simply a need on my part. Right place, right circumstances, right time... and they all happened to take me to that conversion some 10 years ago."]

You refer to your conversion to Christianity as a "need". May I ask what you mean by this?

Thanks, Charlie

Sabine Grant

Sure Charlie.....I thought as I developped my post on the other thread I had explained the process of personal growth I was in need of. As you read further I comment on the how that need came about.
By a need I mean the awareness that the person I was was not quite functional.....my need was and still is at times to heal. It is a process. There was nothing truly intellectual based on evaluating what made sense or what did not make sense. I sought to be inspired to be a " better version of myself" with more tools to work with. Christ happened to fulfill that need. Since I am not a christian who converted thru doctrinal conviction, it has allowed me to remain opened to the benefit of other secular ideologies or other faiths. Though my personal spiritual choice is Christ, I do not demean the accomplishments of other individuals who follow other paths.
It is interesting though that I will encounter adversarial responses to my being accepting of those accomplishments from both sides, theists and non theists. It is as if I must abide to an extreme to be validated in my faith.
Charlie , I was caught in the midst of social , political and religious conflicts in my childhood. I saw what extremes can engender.
I also found the inspiration in Christ to believe in the potential mankind has to do better if we only overcome our egos and refocus on what needs to be accomplished among the outcast and the needy.
To summarize my spiritual beliefs which may agree with basic christian theology : I believe in an afterlife after physical death, I believe human beings have souls, I believe Christ is divine and intended to demonstrate and illustrate the character of God, I believe in the duality of good and evil within the human nature, I believe Christ is the solution to overcome the evil part and enhance the good part by following his teachigs but also in the purely spiritual sense that he is my personal mediator between me and God. I do not debate creation and evolution as I consider God to have been the author of life no matter how it came about. I am not a Bible literalist as I seek an application for myself which must result in a positive outcome where no harm is done to others.
I shared fundamentalist beliefs early in my faith and realized that they contradicted how Christ taught his followers to treat others.

I hope you will enjoy this forum as much as I have.

Charlie

Sabine Grant,
Thank you for sharing your experinece and your beliefs. I am curious about you saying you are not a Bible literalist. I assume you mean you do not take the Bible literally and do what some call, pick and choose, which parts you want to believe and which you do not want to believe? May I ask if you have read the entire Bible? If yes, then do you recommend others read it? I myself have just started reading the Gideons Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments. I must admit, not being a christian, reading the Bible so far has been (how can I put this politely... oh well, the nicest word I can think of is) "unreal". And I'm wondering if I should even read it. My main motivation is to try and understand more as to why Christians believe. This forum has been a great wealth of understanding and I'm thinking that this forum is all I need, instead of reading the Bible.

Also, curious about how Christian fundamentalists contradict how Christ taught his followers to treat others? I thought the fundamentalists took the Bible literally? And I'm assuming the Bible tells how Christ taught his followers.. (although I haven't gotten to that part of the Bible yet, just started reading it).
Thanks,
Charlie

(yes I'm enjoying the secular forum and I'm glad Christians are engaging in discussions with nonbelievers. )

Sabine Grant

Bonjour again Charlie.....yes I am what is defined as a " cherry picker" in this forum. When I first converted I would diligently follow a day by day reading plan from Genesis to Revelation. However my first Bible was the Old English King James which resulted in my having to use a dictionnary every two sentences or so. When I went back to France, I got the Jerusalem Bible and in my native language. However again, I skipped the OT quite a bit and started focusing on the 4 Gospels. I got discouraged by the time I reached Deuteronome and Levitiques as I was wondering how I was to apply those scriptures to my personal life ! Whereas I studied Proverbs and Psalms with more interest.

I mostly enjoyed Psalms as I could relate to David's communication with God and what he personaly expresses.

In the past 5 years, I have been focusing my study and reading on themes presented in the 4 Gospels. I mostly look to find examples of Christ's behavior and handling of certain situations. That is what constitutes my " spiritual food". My Bible is now " The student's Life Application Bible" from the New Living Translation. Which I usualy recommend people who want to survey the entire Bible to use. It translates entire thoughts ( rather than just words) into natural everyday English. But I also use my NIV ( new International Version) to compare when it is necessary ( mostly to clarify semantics).

I think that the Bible can be read for other purposes than a spiritual search. There are non christian scholars. In fact if you wish to undertake a serious and evenhanded debate with a scholar christian theist, you have to be prepared to be able to discuss the content of scriptures. Using other commentaries from secular scholars may not be sufficient.

Where I found that legalistic beliefs contradicted Christ's teachings is in the sense that some fundamentalistic views do not promote applying Grace in the way we are to deal with other individuals. For example, some fundamentalistic churches promote restrictions and limitations in interacting with " sinners". I cannot fathom how it does not contradict Christ's ability to socialize and interact with all sorts of people from various backgrounds and conditions. I also found it quite contradictory that where christians are to believe that they benefit of God's Grace to forgive any sin, some legalistic christians would beat to the ground other christians forming doctrines where a divorced individual is banned from being a minister for example. Sort of like a need to keep rubbing someone's nose in their choices and insuring they will bear some type of negative consequences. And the skills and sincerity of that person who could have been an asset to that church would be dismissed.
Where Christ demonstrates " go and sin no more " I found legalistic views to not demonstrate that quality of giving a person a second chance and erase the " sin".
There is also the fact that legalistic beliefs are mostly based on church doctrines which can be man made. Such as if you are not baptized you are not saved. Or you do not have the Holy Spirit unless you can speak in tongues. I suggest you also document yourself on various church doctrines so you can yourself compare those with the teachings of Christ.

My biggest problem with fundamentalist legalistic beliefs is that they promote in the individual the " right to judge" by comparing his or her rigtheous attitude with others'. Again Christ teaches to take care of our own plank in our own eye rather than the speck in someone else's. Basicaly this is about working on ourselves.

Moreso, Christ's personal grief was towards the " teachers of the law"and how they empowered themselves to manipulate masses. Their actions resulted in driving people away from God by misrepresenting His Intent. The mention of God as supreme authority can be easily used to gain personal power and fame and also financial wealth.

Why some fundamentalists legalistic christians will not follow Christ's teachings on how to treat others........ because it challenges the human ego! it challenges the human nature to set aside that ego and adopt alternative responses to others. Well illustrated as Christ rebukes a mad crowd about to stone an adulteress and he states " that the one who has not sinned cast the first stone". Basicaly as you point one finger to someone.... you have got the four others pointing back to you. He makes us revise over and over our own state of mind in our choices. Introspection is never easy as we explore the intents of our minds.

I think that unless you read the Gospels you may have a hard time understanding the nuances between various christian doctrines.

A bientot. Veronique.

Sabine Grant

oh and as an aside some of us do more than engaging in conversations with non believers.... we married one! I think quite a few non theists have a theist spouse and vice versa in this forum.

Eric H

Hello Charlie,
quote
My main motivation is to try and understand more as to why Christians believe. This forum has been a great wealth of understanding and I'm thinking that this forum is all I need, instead of reading the Bible.
-----------------

If you read the Bible you may not find the proof that you may be looking for, you can read all the books, and talk to many people.

No book or person can prove to you that God exists, in a way you have to prove to yourself that God exists, despite all the contrary evidence that you will find. Despite all the hypocrites in religion, despite all the conflict in religion, and despite all the thousands of religions and their varying beliefs. Despite all the so called ‘evidence’ in the old testament that shows there is a vengeful God and not a loving God.

You have to want to find God, and as Sabine said, you have to find a need for God for yourself.

God either exists totally, or there is no God at all, it takes a certain amount of conviction to hold either view.

If and only if God exists then he must be very real, If a God exists then he is the God of the whole world, and all the religions of the world share the same God.

Even if they do not act in a way that shows they share the same God.

I was brought up as a Catholic until about the age of 18, when I felt that people teaching the Catholic faith did not appear to do the things they where teaching; and I left the church for around thirty years.

Total proof does not exist for the theist or atheist, you could say that a theist is ninety percent sure God exists, an atheist is also ninety percent sure that God does not exist.

If as I did for a long time say that God possibly exists, then you don’t have to do anything, its sort of hedging your bets.

It is almost like you have to believe in God first, then read the Bible, so that you may define a greatest God to believe in.

If you believe in God you have to do something,

Christ said to love one another as I have loved you, by this all men will know that you are my disciples.

In a way you should be able to recognise a Christian by their actions rather than their beliefs, but to act in the way Christ did is a real struggle and I know I fall short on that.

Despite all that we keep struggling day to day to do what is right.

Peace

Eric