Aquarelle
Starcrossed Seafarer
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2010
- Messages
- 3,144
- MBTI Type
- INFJ
- Enneagram
- 4w5
- Instinctual Variant
- so/sp
I was raised protestant (Assemblies of God) but I've largely fallen away from that faith, for the following reasons:
1. I don't believe in evangelism - how can I possibly claim with absolute certainty that my way is the "right" way? Who am I to force my beliefs onto others?
2. The AG church tends to encourage a culture of guilt. Yes, we as humans are innately flawed and we do bad things, but I think Jesus and/or God would be a lot more forgiving than a lot of their modern-day disciples.
3. I cannot in good conscience attend any church that vilifies homosexuality.
4. I cannot in good conscience attend any church that promulgates white privilege.
5. At times I'm not sure I still believe in God.*
*But when it comes down to it, yes, I do believe in "God," not necessarily the God of Christianity, but in some sort of higher power. I don't believe in Hell, and I'm not sure I believe in Heaven either (it's hard to imagine that Heaven would exist without Hell, but at the same time it's hard for me to believe there's not SOME sort of afterlife).
What I do believe:
I believe we all should do our best to be good people (to be good stewards of the environment, to be kind to each other, to work to make the world a better place).
I believe that creation theory and science are not mutually exclusive (isn't it possible that God created the earth and the heavens... by means of the Big Bang??)
I believe that the Bible is largely metaphoric, not meant to be taken literally, and also that it was written by imperfect human beings hundreds of years after the events took place.
I believe that we all can have our own relationship with God, with no need for intermediaries.
I believe that God speaks to us in strange ways.
I believe that God loves us. All of us.
1. I don't believe in evangelism - how can I possibly claim with absolute certainty that my way is the "right" way? Who am I to force my beliefs onto others?
2. The AG church tends to encourage a culture of guilt. Yes, we as humans are innately flawed and we do bad things, but I think Jesus and/or God would be a lot more forgiving than a lot of their modern-day disciples.
3. I cannot in good conscience attend any church that vilifies homosexuality.
4. I cannot in good conscience attend any church that promulgates white privilege.
5. At times I'm not sure I still believe in God.*
*But when it comes down to it, yes, I do believe in "God," not necessarily the God of Christianity, but in some sort of higher power. I don't believe in Hell, and I'm not sure I believe in Heaven either (it's hard to imagine that Heaven would exist without Hell, but at the same time it's hard for me to believe there's not SOME sort of afterlife).
What I do believe:
I believe we all should do our best to be good people (to be good stewards of the environment, to be kind to each other, to work to make the world a better place).
I believe that creation theory and science are not mutually exclusive (isn't it possible that God created the earth and the heavens... by means of the Big Bang??)
I believe that the Bible is largely metaphoric, not meant to be taken literally, and also that it was written by imperfect human beings hundreds of years after the events took place.
I believe that we all can have our own relationship with God, with no need for intermediaries.
I believe that God speaks to us in strange ways.
I believe that God loves us. All of us.