Why do you follow your religion? What influenced your beliefs?
I am just curious as to why people believe what they believe. This is not a debate, I am not going to pick on anyone for their answers, I am just curious.
I follow a non-Christian religion that includes the study of the Sound and Light of God, reincarnation and karma, dream study, Soul travel, and a number of other "goodies".
In my late twenties, deep in the middle of an intense spiritual search, I was handed a book by Paul Twitchell titled The Far Country. Having no understanding of the concept of moderation, I devoured the entire text in one all-night reading session. It made sense, fit pretty closely with a number of conclusions I'd already reached on my own...and the die was cast.
In the 37 years since, life hasn't necessarily gotten easier--but I've usually been able to understand WHY circumstances and conditions were what they were.
There's more, but that's definitely one key factor: I understand my life now.
I'll answer as concisely (and honestly) as I can; hoping the reader will appreciate that in matters of belief or unbelief, there are myriad influences both good and bad.
As a child the most influential person in my life was my mother (no surprises there); as young as I can remember she was a woman of deep faith, having, what seemed, such hope and peace and wisdom. Contrastingly my father was an unbeliever, and not a happy man, apparently angry at my mother for her faith. Of course, I made the assumption that religion brings joy.
Time went on and life matured my thinking regarding the complexity of people and truth, such that in my later teens I began to question my prior concepts of God and faith. I turned to the literature of apologists and theologians, finding again more solid footing.
Whether by providence or mere chance I was raised in the Christian faith, therefore the Bible dramatically influenced my beliefs and centred my reasoning around its teachings, warnings and promises.
Surer in my faith, I adopted several male mentors within the church I attended, men who I admired for their wisdom and integrity. Some of those have since fallen in my esteem, but their impact in my life lives on.
My wife has been a powerful influence throughout my adult life. In her I see the fruit of living for Jesus; and I am truly humbled by it.
And lastly the secular world influences me, either reinforcing or challenging my faith and beliefs.
the bible influenced me, no other book has been put to the test and survived through out the ages. Jesus Christ is the truth the way and the light.. no man come onto the father but by him,...
I am the only one in my "religion." But I have had many mentors in my past.
My maternal grandfather was a Southern Baptist minister. My father was a non-denominational minister. Reading the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita in one day was for my father not a contradiction. For half his lifetime he studied Scientology.
I too have studied Christianity, Scientology, but also Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism and the Kabbalah.
I have experienced full-blown miracles -- circumvention of physical law. I have experienced being outside of my physical body but with the ability to see everything clearly. I have remembered hundreds of past lives, and find myself far less attached to this one.
With all of my studies, I have come to a new understanding of Christianity. Many of the confusing passages now make sense. The purpose of the Bible, of humanity and of civilization now has a simplicity to it -- that of awakening the lost souls -- the true selves within each of us. We are the fallen ones, led by the master of this world, ego. Only with humility do we stand a chance at the freedom the Nazarene talked about.
For those who think their way is the only way, they may one day come to the rude awakening that their way is a dead-end, fraught with ego. If one needs to follow Christ, then what does this mean? Shoving your own ideas down someone else's throat is following ego, not Christ. And if you really find out what "following Christ" is all about, will you discover that Gautama Siddhartha Buddha was doing just that 2500 years ago? I wonder....
Ceegee 415,
I believe in divinity because I've been touched by it throughout my life. I wanted to deny that anything exists outside of my understanding for a long time, but now I see that it's true (at least for me). I suppose everything is subjective and so it may not be true for some people that there is anything beyond death, or that there is meaning to the world, or that intelligences greater than our own exist somewhere.
I believe everyone is right, somehow. Some people may claim I'm highly confused for seeing truth in every religion---but it fulfills me in ways nothing else can. It makes more sense to me that an all-powerful, all-good, all-present God would be so complicated and so nimble in working with our beliefs that each idea of God is correct in some way.
Thanks,
Dan
by taburkett 6 years ago
Why are so many people afraid of the Christian religion?Jesus teaches love and compassion. Christianity teaches the Ten Commandments. So what is so frightening about the Christian religion that makes people attack those who believe? Is it the pagan level of society today? Is...
by kknde 10 years ago
Why religion have so big influence in people behavior?About impact of religion in day to day life.. And why is this happening? Is something people want or they are taught to want this.
by cruelkindness 10 years ago
Why is there so many different forms of Christian Religion? When they all preach that they believe in only God, Holy Spirit, Son of Christ.
by Kat 13 years ago
Religion with the most questions, have you noticed?As I look over the Questions here I find that all religion based questions are of the Christian religion. Don't you find it odd that none of the other religions seem to have as many problems or questions in their faith?Why is it that the only...
by aka-dj 12 years ago
God hates religion, or anything else that keeps people from Him.He sent Jesus to make the way free and open to all who will come in.Wy fight it and reject it?
by Mathivathani Sakthivel 10 years ago
I'm a Hindu by birth but I follow Christianity...What should I do to save my husband?My husband is not a religious person. He is a Hindu too. Whenever we fight, the only topic he brings about is my faith in Jesus. He doesn't understand the importance of Bible.
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |