Does Your Religious or Spiritual Belief Help You?

This thread is not for debate. I want to know does your belief, what belief that may be, help you? If so, how does your belief help you?

My answer is “yes.” I had some anger issues. Let me tell you, that took a lot of prayer. Also, for more than eleven years, my dissociative disorder was harming others and I did not see it. A few weeks ago I got a clue-by-four upside my head and I'm glad I did. I have been lying on the Internet for more than eleven years and I didn't even see it. I'm glad God forgives, I am glad He is getting the junk out of my life and I pray that He continues to work on me. One of my desires, when I get to Heaven, is to have the honor to wear the robe of righteousness.

If God forgives, why is there a Hell?

I was raised Christian but I'm not much into it anymore. My dad's a very loving and liberal pastor, so I never had any negative experiences with it, but it just feels to me like it lacks a true way of really engaging the mind in a manner that benefits both body and soul. I'm more into Buddhism now, and my practices with meditation have really helped me be at ease and learn to calm down my overaactive mind and learn to control my sex drive a bit better. I do still believe in God though, but I can't fathom the concept of Hell existing. It just seems like more of something people invented as a guilt trip, and I don't believe a truly loving and forgiving god would punish anyone for their mistakes. We go through enough hell on Earth lol.

HesDeltanCaptain wrote:If God forgives, why is there a Hell?

Because it's a natural consequence of free will.

Hell is for people who haven't accepted jesus christ.

I had to teach this lesson in sunday school last week. The children were actually really upset. I felt bad.

HesDeltanCaptain wrote:If God forgives, why is there a Hell?

This thread was not intended as a place for theological or Biblical discussions. However, If you want, I can answer your question in private.

I suggested taking this in private because I want us to to follow the rule of religious tolerance. If I am being overly cautious, perhaps the moderator can chime in.

Always liked Buddhism, at least until I began to study it Whole thing about striving to attain Nirvanna and end the cycle of life, death, and rebirth, since life is all about suffering put me off. As a Jew, I still go through periods of intense religiousity, and equally intense atheism. Much as the scientist in me is ready to chuck religion altogether and fully embrace science, it's difficult. Seems like the question of G-d existing can be reasonably argued either way. Since you can't logically prove negatives, you can't logically prove there's no god(s) just as you can't prove there is since all deities are absent from the overt world. Have written at length about religious ideas very thoroughly. But the bottom line remains, if there is a god, and it's the one described in traditional Abrahamic religion (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) then it isn't worthy of being worshipped because it never does anything like those holy texts describe.

As to the OP, we can choose to believe anything we want. God, BIgfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, little gray aliens, or fairies, it's all a matter of personal belief. My only concern or objection is when personal beliefs effect others who may not share them. With religion, this goes hand in hand so there's very often huge objections to how people practice their faith because it does seem to effect everyone else. As to more trivial things like prayer in school I have no problem with that as long as you don't expect classes to grind to a halt so you can go pray. But I have no problem with providing Kosher/Halal meals in the cafeteria like, or the ability to practice your faith while at school. Long as your beliefs effect only you and those who believe as you do I don't see the disconnect between a secular government and faith.

As to do our faiths help us. Religion doesn't have mental illness. Any kind of behaviour one might say was mental illness is treated as demonic possession or influence. So it's improtant to remember all these major religions were founded before science and medicine. So there isn't going to be any provision for treating mental illness except in brand new faiths. So how they would help us when they don't address us accurately escapes me. As with the OP's mention of a robe of righteousness, it seems to me there's two versions of people's religions, the actual scriptural one, and the pop-culture one that has a lot of warm n fuzzy sounding things but no basis in the holy texts themselves. Can't have a robe of righteosness in heaven because the Bible says we leave our bodies when we ascend. Marriage ends with death because we no longer have a body to exercise marital bliss with. Let alone clothes. So when I see this kind of thing all I can conclude is the person doesn't know much about their own faith, or does, and is hoping no one else knows more.

HesDeltanCaptain wrote:As with the OP's mention of a robe of righteousness, it seems to me there's two versions of people's religions, the actual scriptural one, and the pop-culture one that has a lot of warm n fuzzy sounding things but no basis in the holy texts themselves. Can't have a robe of righteosness in heaven because the Bible says we leave our bodies when we ascend. Marriage ends with death because we no longer have a body to exercise marital bliss with. Let alone clothes. So when I see this kind of thing all I can conclude is the person doesn't know much about their own faith, or does, and is hoping no one else knows more.

I assure you I have done my homework and I can back up my claim with the Bible. Only once does it mention “robe of righteousness” by name, Isaiah 61:10. Four times in Revelation they are referred to as “white robes.”