growing up Christian Options

[eunie03]

I've lived a pretty dogmatic life. I haven't known much else. I started talking to a friend who's a philosophy major, and he up and tells me he thinks we just disappear after this. We have no soul, no spirit. We just live and die, and decompose. Like we never existed.

It's kind of pointless then. To live a Christian life.

I've been trying to get away from it since the end of high school. Christianity, I mean. But no matter how hard I try, it's so hard for me to believe that this is it. That there's no heaven or hell. Then I think about all the years I've wasted going to church and essentially just talking to the ceiling in my room.

It's just as easy for me to doubt it all.

Anyway, the point of my topic. If you've grown up in a church, you've probably noticed how much stronger the fire is in the newborn Christian. Growing up with it... it just makes everything mundane and routine. Have you ever denounced Christianity, just so you can have that newborn fire? Do you think it's a sin? To want to experience the world and gain some sort of insight before blindly following the faith?

[Heewee]

I know exactly what you mean when you talk about growing up Christian and just going through the normal routines. I grew up going to church every Sunday and going to religious education once a week. However, for a lot of kids in my church, what makes or breaks their religious faith is usually on this church retreat weekend that we have to go on sophomore year in order to be confirmed into the church. Most people go into the weekend with a really bad attitude, expecting that it's going to be a boring and dull weekend. Most people go home on Sunday with a strengthened relationship with God. I believe that it's not what happens on that weekend or who talks on that weekend that makes you believe...it's what you get out of it. Nobody can make you believe but yourself. I know there are people out there that have different beliefs or none at all and I respect their opinions. However, my opinion is that there are some things that happen in this world that are unexplainable without believing in a higher being. I know I wrote a lot and I really want to write more but I'm already late for my doctor's appointment.

[eunie03]

However, for a lot of kids in my church, what makes or breaks their religious faith is usually on this church retreat weekend that we have to go on sophomore year in order to be confirmed into the church. Most people go into the weekend with a really bad attitude, expecting that it's going to be a boring and dull weekend. Most people go home on Sunday with a strengthened relationship with God. I believe that it's not what happens on that weekend or who talks on that weekend that makes you believe...it's what you get out of it. Nobody can make you believe but yourself.

You see where I'm coming from. I'm relieved
But you're no stranger to the pattern of retreats. How long does that fire last... you know? We always come back and say "This is it! I swear this time it's different! I'll make every day like a retreat!" Come a week, two weeks, or two days... we all know how it ends.

But there are those people who hold on so strong. They're the ones that keep me from throwing this away all together. Somethings gotta give 'em that strength, right?...

She used to get this Christian movie guide that would count all cuss words, even divide them into categories like hell and damn versus the f word and if they said Gods name in vain, it counted sexual references, implies nudity, sex scenes, homosexual references, everything.  Then it gave it an entertainment rating and a Christianity rating.

Haha! The same thing happened to me. Well... we didn't have a rating system. I just remember I couldn't watch Charmed (but I did), read Harry Potter (that I would've read... if I read), or watch Pokemon (I don't even know where that one came from)

Thank you for your words of encouragement though... You are quite the lady.

But in the end, there is more proof for me that God exists than there is evidence supporting some of the scientific theories we learn in school.

That's so true. But you know... and I'm not arguing... science is a work in progress. Who knows if ten thousand years from now, we'll discover the secret to life. DNA was only discovered... what... 60 years ago? We've only begun.