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Barriers to belief

Barriers to belief

Spirituality

Fetchmyjunk
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Originally posted by FMF
I alluded to Christian fellowship and Christian community and you went off half cock about how it indicated that I supposedly believed stuff "simply because all other people do" and for "no other reason than just following the crowd".

While this might be you simply champing at the bit to wave your Christian willy in a juvenile way - as divegeester has observ ...[text shortened]... s I said - you would define fellowship, community and commonality in terms of Christian beliefs.
I grew up in a legalistic 'Christian cult' where I was indoctrinated from a young age to believe that the teachings of my church was true and that all other churches that didn't believe exactly what we believed were lost. I was indoctrinated to follow laws that weren't even in the Bible. I was not allowed to talk to the opposite sex, watch tv, listen to non Christian music etc, and believed that I needed to confess every bad thought that I had to a counsellor in the church who would pray with me for God to forgive me. Women in our church were not allowed to wear trousers or jewelry, and you weren't allowed to be romantically involved with the person you wanted to marry. You had to marry someone from the same church. You had to 'hear from God' who the person was that you were going to marry and you weren't even allowed to talk to them before you got married. Anyone who questioned the rules of this church were excommunicated and everyone in the church believed they were going to hell and shunned them like lepers. I was born into the church and for 24 years I believed that everything they taught was the absolute truth. Parents would disown their children if they decided to leave. So I know exactly what it was like to 'follow the crowd'. And to believe stuff simply because the people around you believed it. Until I started questioning their beliefs. Maybe some of this information will help you understand why I now tend to question everything. At the time my faith felt real and I thought my faith was genuine, now I see it couldn't possibly have been because it was based on stuff that I now know can't be the truth. So that's why I can't see how you can call your faith genuine if you now believe that the things you used to believe were not true.

diver

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Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
I grew up in a legalistic 'Christian cult' where I was indoctrinated from a young age to believe that the teachings of my church was true and that all other churches that didn't believe exactly what we believed were lost. I was indoctrinated to follow laws that weren't even in the Bible. I was not allowed to talk to the opposite sex, watch tv, listen to ...[text shortened]... an call your faith genuine if you now believe that the things you used to believe were not true.
You are confusing beliefs with faith. Faith is always genuine as there is only one faith.

If this account is true then you have been blessed to escape the clutches of that church; and if it is true then I respectfully suggest Philippians 3:13 as a start point.

Do you wish to say which "cult" it was?

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Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
So if the Bible was self-evidently true, why is it no longer self evidently true? What about it changed between then and now?
I have told you time and time again about how I came to lose my faith in the Bible as evidence of the things Christians claim about God, Christ and themselves. You're pretending I haven't.

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Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
So I know exactly what it was like to 'follow the crowd'. And to believe stuff simply because the people around you believed it. Until I started questioning their beliefs. Maybe some of this information will help you understand why I now tend to question everything. At the time my faith felt real and I thought my faith was genuine, now I see it couldn't ...[text shortened]... an call your faith genuine if you now believe that the things you used to believe were not true.
Well your unpleasant experience has certainly taken its toll on you in interpersonal terms as a conversationalist and as a promoter of your current beliefs. Your manner and rhetorical tricks are like those of someone who is still trapped in a cult. These things you claim about your past also go some way to explaining why you were utterly tome deaf yesterday to my personal testimony about my own completely different experience - including my positive memories and my lack of regrets and my continuing closeness with the same Christians as I enjoyed fellowship with at an earlier time in my life - and you instead kept projecting the upshot [and part of the narrative] of your own bruising experience onto me regarding how you followed the crowd and believed stuff simply because the people around you believed it.

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Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
I grew up in a legalistic 'Christian cult' where I was indoctrinated from a young age to believe that the teachings of my church was true and that all other churches that didn't believe exactly what we believed were lost. I was indoctrinated to follow laws that weren't even in the Bible. I was not allowed to talk to the opposite sex, watch tv, listen to non Christian music etc, and believed that I needed to confess every bad thought that I had to a counsellor in the church who would pray with me for God to forgive me. Women in our church were not allowed to wear trousers or jewelry, and you weren't allowed to be romantically involved with the person you wanted to marry. You had to marry someone from the same church. You had to 'hear from God' who the person was that you were going to marry and you weren't even allowed to talk to them before you got married. Anyone who questioned the rules of this church were excommunicated and everyone in the church believed they were going to hell and shunned them like lepers. I was born into the church and for 24 years I believed that everything they taught was the absolute truth. Parents would disown their children if they decided to leave. So I know exactly what it was like to 'follow the crowd'. And to believe stuff simply because the people around you believed it. Until I started questioning their beliefs. Maybe some of this information will help you understand why I now tend to question everything. At the time my faith felt real and I thought my faith was genuine, now I see it couldn't possibly have been because it was based on stuff that I now know can't be the truth. So that's why I can't see how you can call your faith genuine if you now believe that the things you used to believe were not true.

You have dodged the question - which your long post above purported to answer - which was how would you define fellowship, community and commonality in terms of Christian beliefs?

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Originally posted by FMF
Well your unpleasant experience has certainly taken its toll on you in interpersonal terms as a conversationalist and as a promoter of your current beliefs. Your manner and rhetorical tricks are like those of someone who is still trapped in a cult. These things you claim about your past also go some way to explaining why you were utterly tome deaf yesterday to m ...[text shortened]... how you followed the crowd and believed stuff simply because the people around you believed it.
A timely and interesting post by Fetchmyjunk; it has more than a hint of decoy about it.

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Originally posted by divegeester
A timely and interesting post by Fetchmyjunk; it has more than a hint of decoy about it.
For someone with such a completely different experience from me to seek to reach back retrospectively into the life I have lived and take it upon himself to declare what was what, what it meant, and who I was, all seen through the prism of the abuse he claims he was subjected to, and with fragments of it simply projected onto me, is certainly "interesting" ~ to say the least. It's certainly steeped in impudence and a kind of debilitating self-absorption. "Interesting" in that way.

Fetchmyjunk
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Originally posted by divegeester
You are confusing beliefs with faith. Faith is always genuine as there is only one faith.

If this account is true then you have been blessed to escape the clutches of that church; and if it is true then I respectfully suggest Philippians 3:13 as a start point.

Do you wish to say which "cult" it was?
The way I see it your faith can be sincere, but also sincerely wrong, as was the case with me. I had genuine faith that 'my good works' and legalism could save me. But I clearly see now my faith (as genuine as it was) was misplaced.

It was a Christian evangelic cult in South Africa. This is a website run by some who have been fortunate enough to escape. http://www.ksb-alert.com/

Fetchmyjunk
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Originally posted by FMF
I have told you time and time again about how I came to lose my faith in the Bible as evidence of the things Christians claim about God, Christ and themselves. You're pretending I haven't.
Yes I know that you lost faith in the Bible as evidence of things Christians claimed about God, Christ and themselves. I was interested in what specific 'events', 'experiences' or 'discoveries' lead to this loss of faith, but it is quite obvious that you are not willing to discuss it so I will not press it any longer. I apologize if I have annoyed you with my persistence in this regard. I sincerely wish you all the best. I may be taking an extended/permanent break on this forum, but I wish you the best of luck and thank you for putting up with me.

Fetchmyjunk
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Originally posted by FMF
Well your unpleasant experience has certainly taken its toll on you in interpersonal terms as a conversationalist and as a promoter of your current beliefs. Your manner and rhetorical tricks are like those of someone who is still trapped in a cult. These things you claim about your past also go some way to explaining why you were utterly tome deaf yesterday to m ...[text shortened]... how you followed the crowd and believed stuff simply because the people around you believed it.
It's one thing to get out of a cult but it is another thing to get the cult out of you.

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Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
... I will not press it any longer.
Thanks.

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Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
I may be taking an extended/permanent break on this forum, but I wish you the best of luck and thank you for putting up with me.
I think this is a good idea.

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Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
I was interested in what specific 'events', 'experiences' or 'discoveries' lead to this loss of faith, but it is quite obvious that you are not willing to discuss it...
It was quite "obvious" that I didn't want to go over it all again and discuss it with you ~ by which I mean a poster with your mind map and your intellectual behaviour ~ because I kept telling you directly and explicitly.

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Originally posted by FMF
I think this is a good idea.
Or maybe I will just avoid getting into discussions with you about how you lost your faith. 😛

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Originally posted by Fetchmyjunk
Or maybe I will just avoid getting into discussions with you about how you lost your faith. 😛
I had a look the other day at the people that were willing to talk to you when you first got here. For all intents and purposes, none of them do anymore. Of late, I have been one of the very few posters here who could be bothered to indulge you. One wonders if your ultimate intellectual objective has been to use discourse to alienate everybody and then play an elaborate victim card before moving on to some other message board somewhere to do it all over again.

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