Why Not...

This goes along with the question I asked last week - "Why Christianity". This time, it's for those that at least know something about Christianity-

Why didn't you choose to become a Christian? What things do you find in your beliefs that you feel are missing in Christianity. Or is there something in particular that turns you off entirely.

I'm looking for answers that don't include "The Bible has too many contradictions". That one's already on the list and overdone.

Ah thats simple , Yeshua said that if i found out the truth that it would set me free , and it did , but when i shared that bliss with other christians they started making it more difficult for me and started with all these does and donts so i gave up on being a christian and became me again. I have looked at a lot of faiths in the years and now i am a Jedi i know that i dont have to be a christian to uphold Yeshua's teachings ...

I was a Christian for 20+ years of my life. Granted most of that was childhood so I don't know if that counts haha.

I believe in the Abrahamic God, I believe in Jesus. I like many of the Christian teachings. I love the stories. But the title just didn't...fit me. Any more than if I dyed my hair pink. What I do now, I was told doesn't exist/isn't real when I was growing up. My experiences just don't match with how I was taught. The rituals and practices just don't really jive with me. God was so....impersonal. It was like he was this bloodless statue in the sky I was suppose to talk at and believe that He'd fix all my problems. (Experience is a little different now but ya know ) It's not so much that I'm NOT Christian, as I'm MORE shamanic person like thing.... o-O there's gotta be a more efficient way to say that hahahahaha.

"To each fox his hare". There's something for everyone and I'm glad to have found mine

I manifested what I consider a peak experience of it in my early 20's, and so used that as a reference to explore synergies with other paths. I don't think there is much if anything which is un-Christian about my path but its not useful for me at the moment to use its symbols and methods... to develop a closer relationship with the God/Gods/Goddess/Force/self/universe etc.

It's a religion based on fear. I live and breathe courage. I have never found a home in Christianity.

I was a christian for 22 years and was training to become a minister. I'd prayed for 22 years. Nothing. There was literally not a single thing there that couldn't be explained by something else. Almost every christian idea is borrowed from somewhere else, and I hated that the only reason people around me were doing good things was to avoid some eternal punishment. Then I realized what a dickbag the god of the bible was, regardless of whether he was old or new testament. Why would I want to serve anyone like that?

I came to the conclusion, after years of soul-searching, that god had never existed in the first place. Humans will deceive themselves in all kinds of ways just to make it through the day, and other folks could lie to themselves if they wanted, but I was going forward with my eyes open. I would face reality, whatever it was, and deal with what was really there.

I don't get to choose what to believe. I believe anything and everything I can and nothing I cannot. I could of course at my own discretion join the club at any moment, by pretending that I believed what I know I really don't. In fact, were I to live in some kind of Christian theocracy I probably would in public pretend to be part of the flock, if that saved my skin, but whether I am actually convinced of the proposition is not a matter of my so choosing. So far nothing has convinced me, and thus I am not a Christian, because the moment I begin lying to myself is the moment I give up on everything it can stand for.

I was raised catholic. Our church had a rather pessimistic priest, droning on and on about how we are all sinners, how damnation awaits and the only way out is ‘to eat humble pie’ (quotation marks because it is an idiom I’ve never heard before suggested to me by dict.cc).
I resented the idea. I did nothing wrong to deserve anything like this and the whole thing just felt unfair to me. That was me at age 10. Nowadays I still strongly resent the idea of guilt forwarded from previous generations, also I understand the priest was a rather specific kind and quite poorly conveying the idea of salvation through Christ.

Even still I feel the catholic church is not for me first and foremost since I oppose the strict set of rules. I don’t believe a god to be so limited they would bother telling me to visit a stack of bricks in their honor on a specific day – what do they care when I honor them as long as I do?
Also I agree with snowy. Doing something good to avoid punishment or to earn some kind of afterlife bonus feels like hypocrisy to me because both motivations are entirely selfish. That’s what I like specifically about the force: It doesn’t care how I act, that doesn’t even affect my afterlife in any way. Being good is as much as a choice as being a d***. I chose to be nice because I like people around me to be happy and it makes me happy too.

I think most posts will be "why not Christianity anymore?", lol...

The reasons are many and long...

To remain brief, as I can, lol, I was told 'God is the father'...

And, if my real dad acted like the God of the Catholic's, and he did at times, as he was trained in a Catholic seminary, I would rebel against him as well...

No parent acts like that to his children... Not a loving parent, anyway...

There are plenty of examples of his love, but, the example (to just pick one) of him asking for the death of whats-his-names son, or (ok, a second, lol) him cleansing the world with a great flood, are not very 'parent-y' things, and I would have run away from a home like that...

Thus, I did...

I am glad I was exposed to it, as it gave me a foundation for understanding faith, something those (like my wife) do not have, and thus have an unattached feeling to the world much of their lives...

This, 'not a good parent' thing was probably reason number one...

So, I floundered for a few years, calling myself a 'Jedi', as a quasi-joke, but, yet not really... As a teenager, lol... Although I did get confirmed, and first communion...

As I watch the evolution of human thought, for me, my personal observation (looks at Gisteron, lol.. ..) is that we have evolved to this point....

We (humans) used to have many gods, generally in the shape of things we know (animals or humans) or in combinations of things we know (animals AND humans) and as we evolved, we went from the 'god' of every single living thing, to 'gods' over genres (Poseidon, Mars, and Zeus as the all-father), finally to just God (Jesus' dad) and our level is to remove the 'name' and understand that while "right now it is inexpiable and [magic]", it will not always be so... As science will explain it, but then, science will show us the next level of [magic] and we will be lost in wonder, again, lol...

Just as we are striving to remove 'vicious' from the description of (lets say a shark) as they are not really vicious, yet, when we didnt understand them, they were descibed that way... We are striving (I feel, glancing at Gisteron, lol) that we are working toward the removal of human characteristics from non-humans.... (Despite my recent post on the "Killer Wales".... lol)

huh, not as short as I'd hoped, lol... Ah well...

I believe that Jesus was a genuine person and an amazing teacher. He showed others how to be loving and compassionate, even to our enemies. His selfless acts and treatment of all people equally put him ahead of his time. His capacity for forgiveness was admirable. He inspired a movement that became a religion.

I believe the problems began for me when this amazing person was deified. Seeing Jesus as God actually takes away from the man he actually was. It makes it seem as though all of the good ideas he had to offer to humanity came from God speaking through him. Almost as if no mere mortal is allowed to be this good, so he must be God.

All of the miracle hocus pocus does the same. I don't need Jesus to perform magic tricks to convince me that he was wise. It cheapens the message, in my opinion, and I feel like we have outgrown the need to be mesmerized. I prefer to see Jesus as similar to the modern Dalai Lama. No need for tricks, just share the wisdom.

In short, I am not a Christian because I do not believe in salvation through Christ and I do not accept much of the Bible. Instead, I incorporate his teachings into my life and strive to be a good person as he did.