I decided to write this post in order to dispel any kind of assumptions about my religious background, which seems to be important when having discussion about religion.
I was brought up in a Catholic family. My parents were/are not strict Catholics although it’s getting worse with their age. When I was a kid my mom read the Children’s Bible to me. I can hardly remember anything now.
Personally, I never liked going to church and would always try come up with excuses not to go. That’s why pretty much every Sunday we would have a fight about going to church which would end up with me going anyway just to appease them.
I thought confession was a ridiculous concept and went for the last time about 12 years ago. At first I felt bad about it but not anymore. While I still believed, I would get on my knees at home and ‘confess’ straight to God. Then I would lie to my parents about going to confession, oh irony!
I don’t like rituals and could never understand why I have to pray in church instead of my own house. Hypocrisy of people didn’t cease to amaze me. Turning up for Sunday mass all done up ready to compare clothing and show to the entire congregation how pious they are.
When I left the house for studies in another city, I stopped going to church altogether even though I lived just across the street of one! I would go before exams, just in case. That’s when I rememberd God. I would still pray before bed and that’s just about it.
My mom wasn’t impressed with me getting into a relationship with a Muslim + Arab man and was very disappointed with me even entertaining the idea of conversion to Islam.
What she didn’t know is that as I was researching Islam, I pretty much lost all faith in organised religion.
I don’t pray at all these days but I do think about God a lot. Whether He is out there, whether He cares at all, what’s the point of it all...
9 comments:
And that's why i don't believe in the Church. It's an institution, it makes some things wrong and other right, for many people it's like a family... but mainly, at least for me, it's also a huuuge business. Like you, i can't understand why God could want us to pray in a church on Sundays and if you don't it's bad if he's everywhere, make ceremonies to join in it when you don't even understand the meaning of God (cause you're too young) and praying saying some words that you have memorized and that in the most part of the times, don't have the real meaning or message you really want to express to God, cause you didn't make it, that's why I think you just should pray when you really need it (not like a routine, every night or every morning) and saying what you need to say. And all that things about the Church make many people despise christianism, i feel a big impotence about that.
I hope i have express myself right, english isn't my maternal language.
Saludos:)
Maybe your journey is still long to go to Islam. It's not the right time yet but you do have interest in Islam which is good.From your writing I can see you're a bit lost in your own faith about God at the moment. I hope when the day come, you will receive hidayah from Allah. Allah chooses people to be in Islam...InsyaAllah my dear :D
hi L.F. :-) thanks for stopping by :-) your english is just fine, i understood everything perfectly!
my idea of God doesn't coincide with the idea of God that Abrahamic religions hold.
@ Anonymous
no disrespect but I will not come to Islam. There was a brief moment I wanted but I snapped out of it. Islam is full of holes that for me are impossible to mend and I'm not prepared to perform any kind of intellectual acrobatics to make them go away.
I know Allah chooses people to be in Islam:
2:6-7 Sahih International
Indeed, those who disbelieve - it is all the same for them whether you warn them or do not warn them - they will not believe.
Allah has set a seal upon their hearts and upon their hearing, and over their vision is a veil. And for them is a great punishment.
Do you notice anything in particular about this verse?
Very healthy one, we are looking forward for these kinda topic more so that we can know the reasons behind not reverting to Islam. May God guides you the true path.
hi Fahad, thanks for stopping by.
I wrote a massive post about it but it's sitting in draft as I'm unsure the world should see my enormous resentment :-)
have a good day!
I understand you're probably real disillusioned and burnt on religion and skeptical of Christianity from all the hypocrisy (church goers, but not God followers), and hurt caused by Islam.
I just wanted to metion something to you, maybe you didn't know.
If you read Matthew chapter 23 you can see Jesus's mind on the religious hypocrites:
Mat 23:23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees (the religious leaders of the time), hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: JUSTICE and MERCY and FAITHFULNESS. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
Mat 23:24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
Mat 23:25 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
Mat 23:26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
Mat 23:27 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
Mat 23:28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Mat 23:29 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous,
Mat 23:30 saying, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.'
Mat 23:31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.
Mat 23:32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.
Mat 23:33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?
Mat 23:34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town,
Mat 23:35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
Mat 23:36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Mat 23:37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!
Mat 23:38 See, your house is left to you desolate.
Mat 23:39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"
... so far as comercialization of Church... well if the master who some of the churches profess to serve were to visit them they might find themselves in a similar situation to the Pharisees in the temple:
Mat 21:10-14 And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, "Who is this?"
And the crowds said, "This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth of Galilee."
And Jesus entered the temple and drove out (he acutally made a whip) all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.
He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you make it a den of robbers!"
And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.
Lastly, this will probably be hard to believe because of all the emotional association you have with religious hypocrites, but if you want to know God, this is what JEsus said:
John 12:44-46 And Jesus cried out and said, "Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.
I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.
I guess I want to say give the gospels and chance. Read them without all the hypocritical association you have with them and see what you think of Jesus.
Finally, about obligatory prayers in certain places...etc. This isn't prayers, but the idea of worship in a certain place as discussed by a Samaritan (non-Jew) woman.
John 4:19-24 The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship."
Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
Finally, you may well know this, or this may have been lost in all the rituals and ceremonies of Catholicism (something Jesus, would've had something to say about, doubtlessly) so I'm going to include it just in case:
Mat 22:35-40 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.
"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."
God bless you. HOpe your heart heals quickly.
-James
Hi James,
Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment. Apologies for late reply.
I'm really disillusioned and not interested in Christianity at all. I must say that I only skimmed through the verses you provided cause even though I don't know the Bible very well I don't think that quoting a couple of verses is going to change my mind about Christianity.
I also request you to refrain from copying and pasting walls of text in your next comments (if you decide to leave them of course :)
thanks for best wishes and same to you :) take care!
What I learned from this post that to this date you were not interested any organized religion.
But still you used to think about God a lot.
Did this mean that at this stage you believed in the existence of a Creator or were you close to atheism?
Just studying your story because you are taking a challenge of research in a religion and such researches are not an easy job to do.
With best wishes!
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