My Belief system

[Kate*]

I guess I'm posting this mostly just to get this out. I want to establish first and formost that this is NOT intended as an attack on anyone who happens to disagree with anything I say or an invitation to force your beliefs on me or tell me I'm going to Hell.

I was baptized Catholic and raised non-religious which gave me the opportunity to figure out my belief system for myself. It is mostly based on non-denominational Christianity, but I seem to find something wrong with every religion either because something makes no sense, is hard to believe or it is impossible for me to agree with it. I used the little bit of religious knowledge I have, the morals I was raised with, and my own life experiences and opinions to develop a belief system I can live with and I've come up with the following:

God exists, but He is a lot more accepting than Christianity tells us.
I do believe in the trinity (father, son, holy spirit)
Satan/the devil does not exist

There is Karma (I've witnessed very clear examples)

There is Hell, but the only people who go there are murderers, sex criminals, or anyone else who has committed an obvious moral/societal offense. This is not the case in accidents, for example a car accident where someone is killed, the driver who caused that would not go to Hell because it was not intentional and the person is clearly sorry.

Purgatory I'm not sure about, Catholicism says yes, but I'm just not sure.
Same with patron saints, Catholicism tells us that patron saints act as intermediaries between us and God, I think sainthood is more about acknowledgement of someone's achievements than anything.

We have freewill

There is a plan for our lives, but it's more of a general plan and God gives us choices along the way. For example, if you are meant to become a counselor, you will eventually become one, even if you have different careers first, or don't do it until you're older, or whatever. If you're meant to do something in life you will eventually get there even if you have to take the "long way"
Bad things happen to teach us something

Our purpose in life is to learn and teach. When everyone is born God knows that there are certain concepts that we will struggle with (self esteem, moral issues, life concepts etc.) and He will continue to present us with opportunities to learn those lessons from different people, in different situations, at different times until we finally get it. Then we will feel compelled to reteach what we learned to someone else who needs it. Once you've learned everything you needed to learn and have retaught those lessons, you die. Death in itself is a reminder to refocus on what is important in life. And children who die young or suffer are our greatest teachers. They are given the task of teaching us the hardest lessons and then they are allowed to rest in Heaven.

I'm not sure where I stand on the Bible, I have read a little and some of it I just don't get, therefore I can't believe in it fully or decide that I don't

I don't think it's right to convert people and I do believe that there are many ways to Heaven or the other religious equivalents. People who are not Christians in the evangelical sense are not wrong. There are a lot of different belief systems because God is trying to teach us to respectfully disagree and to teach us acceptance and tolerance of one another at least as fellow human beings. I'm unclear about a lot of things, but I know He's very clear about not judging.
We have control of our actions and shouldn't use religion as an excuse not to take responsibility for them, taking responsibility for your actions is part of being a mature person.

Gay people DO NOT go to hell, there is A LOT more scientific proof that people are born that way than there is spiritual proof that they aren't. I think God created them to instil acceptance of difference, not as an excuse to judge or condemn in His name because that would make absolutely no sense

Suicide is NOT a sin, most religions now agree on this because it is the result of mental illness and the person isn't entirely rational at the time of their death.

I don't really believe in the "second coming" of Jesus, I just can't wrap my mind around the concept. When we die, God decides whether we go to Heaven or Hell with most people going to Heaven

I have recently become interested in the concepts of "eastern religions" just because I'm curious and I think some of them are cool

Any questions, just ask. Again ths was posted more because I needed to get it out more than anything and it is not an invitation to crucify me, nor is it meant as an attack on someone who happens to disagree.

[brokensmilexx]

I used to believe most of what you posted up above. But now, I see things a lot differently. I believe that we are all connected and that there may be a 'god' but he is just a part of who we are. He created this life that we can physically enjoy together.
He has given us free will to do what we want, and will not punish people for their misdoings. He never punishes people through pain, or accidents that happen, etc. Free will comes with pain and consequences to every action. One little thing can have a ripple effect and have an impact on many, or even just a few people.
I do not believe in a hell. Although I would love to think that all the people who do horrible things get sent to the fiery depths with the devil. God sees them as his children.. and children make mistakes. He forgives and is always with us. We are all apart of each other.
I do not believe in a 'heaven' either. But another dimension where we are freed from our bodies and our soul/spirit lives on. There is no hate, jealousy, pain, or any kind of emotions like that there. Just the truth of what we are and how we all connect in a significant way that we can't even notice in this life.
If god was judgmental he would have made us all the same, and we would not have free will to do as we please.. he would always be interfering with our lives and running it.. and I don't believe that is what this world is meant for.
It is for exploring, learning, loving, caring and sharing.
To me, the world is a playground god has created for us to climb around on and have fun with.
Too bad a lot of us are destroying it.. -.-
As for karma, I believe in it. What goes around comes arounnnd.
(I just kind of felt like posting what my views were on here.. heh)
<33

[OMFG!You'reActuallySmart!]

Interesting belief system but I'm confused on a few things. First, if there is no Satan or devil, then who "runs" hell? Second, you stated individuals who committed an obvious moral or societal offense will go to hell, but each society has unique societal norms and values, so one's behaviour could violate societal norms in society A but be perfectly acceptable in society B, so how do you handle it? Lastly, you said we have control over our actions, which I think is great and agree with, however, I'm confused how this exists alongside a general plan god has already made for us because our goals are pre-destined, meaning those actions also are. For example, using your example, god would have control of your actions to denote being a counselor.

[Kate*]

I don't think Hell is necessarily "run" by any being, but I mostly don't believe in Satan because I hate when people blame him for things as in Satan made me do it, or X bad event happened because of Satan when really it was a person's own actions that caused said bad thing

Second, this honestly never occured to me I think I used the phrase here in place of etc. to include any obvious Hell deserving deed that I hadn't thought of. I think that God has the final judgement and will base that on the culture in which you were brought up because technically He's the one who placed you in that culture to begin with.

I realized as I was writing this that that didn't make sense even to me. I think this goes along with the lessons as well. Just as we are meant to learn certain things, we are also meant to do certain things and there are "easy" and "hard" ways to get there. God guides us in a general direction and gives us choices along the way. For example, lets say that someone is meant to be a counselor, as part of preparing them for that, they go through a loss of some kind. The "easy" way would be for them to say "I'm going to become this because of my experience" around the time that they are recovering from the initial emotions that go along with loss. The "hard" way would be that they decide that they cannot cope with said loss and get mixed up in alcohol or drugs, once they seek treatment and learn coping skills they come to the same career decision it just took them longer. If they were to die as a result of their addiction, their death would be used by God to teach their family, friends, etc. lessons that each person was missing. If the person survived, the counselor's relatives would learn their lessons another way.

[OMFG!You'reActuallySmart!]

Originally Posted by Kate*

I don't think Hell is necessarily "run" by any being, but I mostly don't believe in Satan because I hate when people blame him for things as in Satan made me do it, or X bad event happened because of Satan when really it was a person's own actions that caused said bad thing

Fair enough.

Originally Posted by Kate*

I think that God has the final judgement and will base that on the culture in which you were brought up because technically He's the one who placed you in that culture to begin with.

I find that problematic for two reasons. First, people can change cultures. Second, and this delves more into the sociological realm, people can be in multiple cultures or sub-cultures at once. For example, a teenager can act rebellious and be part of the goth sub-culture, whilst still living with his incredibly wealthy parents that adhere to a strong religious and racist culture.

Originally Posted by Kate*

I realized as I was writing this that that didn't make sense even to me. I think this goes along with the lessons as well. Just as we are meant to learn certain things, we are also meant to do certain things and there are "easy" and "hard" ways to get there. God guides us in a general direction and gives us choices along the way. For example, lets say that someone is meant to be a counselor, as part of preparing them for that, they go through a loss of some kind. The "easy" way would be for them to say "I'm going to become this because of my experience" around the time that they are recovering from the initial emotions that go along with loss. The "hard" way would be that they decide that they cannot cope with said loss and get mixed up in alcohol or drugs, once they seek treatment and learn coping skills they come to the same career decision it just took them longer. If they were to die as a result of their addiction, their death would be used by God to teach their family, friends, etc. lessons that each person was missing. If the person survived, the counselor's relatives would learn their lessons another way.

The "easy" and "hard" ideas make sense to me, as well as the individual learning lessons. I'm a bit confused though how god teaches one's family a set of lessons after one dies because wouldn't that overload the family members, as they have their own lessons plus the lessons the deceased was meant to learn? It seems to compound and if the parents cannot learn all of the deceased's lessons, then you have a snowball effect of burdening future generations, doesn't seem fair to me as the family is always getting the short stick.

[Kate*]

Okay, I guess this is what I get for replying to threads when I'm tired I swear this makes sense in my head! The cultural subject never occured to me so I'll have to think about that. I'm thinking that if you change cultures then He had that planned for some reason and would take it into account at the final judgement because it was supposed to happen. Also, He might look at why the teenager is rebeling, if he or she holds different values than the parents that aren't necessarily "wrong" (for example refusing to follow racist beliefs, or not exactly follow a family's religious practices) then that person probably doesn't have to worry so much about a harsh judgement (I can't imagine God judging someone harshly for NOT being a racist, or for being accepting of others who that person was originally taught not to accept). Since there are many ways into Heaven, holding a different set of religious beliefs than the family or not going along with the specific beliefs wouldn't necessarily lead to hell (unless they included something that God would consider Hell deserving). For example, my mom was raised in a home that strictly adhered to Catholicism. Now my mom considers herself agnostic and disagrees with a lot of the concepts she was taught. She will NOT go to hell for changing her mind or not continuing in that religion. I'm also not condemned to Hell for not following Catholicism after being baptized. A lot of this also has to do with changing culture. You once went to Hell for being gay and the Bible still says that you would. Anyone who is gay or who accepts gay people will not go to Hell now because the culture has changed and God would want us to accept them. It's also "wrong" in Catholicism for women to be clergy members, I've decided that I disagree with this. I won't go to hell for disagreeing because I was raised in a culture where women should have equal rights.

As far as the lessons go. Everyone has different lessons to learn so if someone dies, the family doesn't take on the lessons of the deceased person, but the death is used to teach the surviving family members whatever lessons they themselves are missing. For example, if someone died as a result of a drug addiction, that person's learning stops, but the death is used by God to teach his mother that it wasn't possible for her to "rescue" him (or anyone) that people make their own choices, or it teaches a sibling to refocus on what's important, like family because you don't know how long you will have them for. Each person learns different things as a result of the death based on what lessons they are missing, not the ones the deceased person didn't get to. If someone dies as a result of freewill God reworks their destiny, their missing lessons are no longer necessary and he uses them as a teacher. If the person in question did not die as a result (say they got treatment for an addiction) they would still need their own lessons and would learn them as a result of the treatment. Since they didn't die, the other family members would learn their own lessons another way. The mother would learn from the counselor that she can't "rescue" people instead of learning that from the addict's death.

The end result (destiny) of your life is planned, but it isn't necessarily set in stone. God would say "You can choose option A or B" and he would have the resulting consequences of both laid out in front of him. Lets say option A is the "easier" way and God would prefer you choose that. If you chose option B God would have all the ways your life could work out for that one too. If option B is an addiction, He would know that one of the consequences of that could be death, and He would have a plan for dealing with that (turning you into a teacher and using your death to teach something) as well as how life would work if you recovered. I don't know if that helps or not.