Zone1 My religious journey.

[PredFan]

Some of you might enjoy this.

I was raised Catholic. As a kid I went to catechism (catholic version of Bible school) on Saturdays and church on Sundays. I was an Alterboy as soon as I was old enough and up until i was about 13. In my teenage years (during the late 60s and early 70s) I drifted away from church and religion in general, something that wasn't unusual for those rebellious times, but I didn't consider myself an atheist at all.

Right around that time, a movie was made and released called "Chariots of the Gods". If you never saw it, it tried to prove that aliens had come to earth and were the cause of humans worshipping Gods. It claimed that things like the pyramids, the Nasca Lines, the Easter Island heads, Stonehenge and a host of other monuments are all made by aliens. the main gist of it was that we worship aliens that we call God. Well, I fell for it hook, line, and sinker (hey, I was like 16 years old).

I became absolutely convinced that the God and his son that I had been raised to worship were actually aliens. I remember that it seemed to explain everything. How "God" created man by altering the genetic makeup of apes (DNA = dust), the "burning bush" speaking to Moses, the "Virgin birth" of Jesus (artificial insemination), the basket of loaves and fishes that never emptied (teleporting), the raising of the dead (medicine or possibly an advanced method that we know nothing about), and the curing of leprosy. There are more but you get the picture. It seemed as if every miracle of the Bible could easily be explained by alien technology.

I was still, not technically an atheist.

Then, maybe 3-5 years later, I was home one Saturday morning flipping through channels when I came upon a show where scientists were going around the world debunking everything that was used in the movie as proof. I won't go into details for each one but just as an example, they showed that the Easter Island heads were made by ordinary islanders and they showed where they were made and even some of the half-finished heads still lying in the pits where they were created. They also showed how easy it would be to make the figures on the Nasca Plains in Peru. My whole belief system was shattered, and I was extremely embarrassed that I was taken in so easily. Right then and there i became a complete skeptic and vowed I would never be taken in by anything ever again.

At that point I was an Atheist.

I remained an atheist for many years, but as I grew older, got married and had children, life softened my stand. I witnessed things that ate away at my belief in pure chance and coincidence. I changed my stance to "Intelligent Design" where I believed in a higher power but didn't accept any one religion's dogma. However, I did attend Catholic Church with my wife and growing children. I believed that my children needed the basic religious upbringing and could decide for themselves what to believe when they were adults. gradually, I returned to God and Christianity, though I didn't and still don't, accept all of the dogma surrounding modern christianity.

Currently, I believe in God, though I do not know exactly who or what God is. I don't think we can ever know until we pass on from this world. I do not believe in hell. I believe that God knows a hell of a lot more than we can even comprehend and that eternal damnation is a human construct. I believe that the Bible was written by humans under the guidance of God and that it was never meant to be a factual historical record. It is a book about how to live your life according to God, and is meant to guide us through this world. I believe in evolution, I have studied Evolutionary Theory and the more I learn and observe, the more I see God's hand in it.

I have been blessed in my life, especially recently. I cannot count the many ways God has blessed me. My beautiful and wonderful wife is my #1 blessing, my wonderful children, my happiness, and my family's happiness are some of the blessings. I cannot have been this lucky, and I surely didn't achieve all this with my wits. There is a God and for reasons unknown to me, he has seen fit to reward me for something. though I know not what or why, I think him every single day.

Maybe I'm the Prodigal Son? I don't know by am grateful.

Anyway fwiw, that's my religious journey.

 

[Flash]

Thank you for sharing that with us.

 

[Harry Dresden]

i was raised catholic too,so i know the horrors......and when i started asking questions at catechism i got a run around or some stupid answer.....thats when i said goodby to that shit....

 

[Oddball]

Nobody needs an organized church to have faith, show genuine gratitude, believe that there's something out there bigger than you, and to understand that we're not all merely some cosmic coincidence.

 

[JoeB131]

If you became an atheist because of Chariots of the Gods, that was a little silly, that book has been debunked six ways to Sunday.

What you describe yourself as being is a Dieist. Dieism was very popular in the late 18th and early 19th century. It holds that God created the universe, but really doesn't take much of a stand on moral issues, those are matters for men.

 

[crossbody]

Some of you might enjoy this.

I was raised Catholic. As a kid I went to catechism (catholic version of Bible school) on Saturdays and church on Sundays. I was an Alterboy as soon as I was old enough and up until i was about 13. In my teenage years (during the late 60s and early 70s) I drifted away from church and religion in general, something that wasn't unusual for those rebellious times, but I didn't consider myself an atheist at all.

Right around that time, a movie was made and released called "Chariots of the Gods". If you never saw it, it tried to prove that aliens had come to earth and were the cause of humans worshipping Gods. It claimed that things like the pyramids, the Nasca Lines, the Easter Island heads, Stonehenge and a host of other monuments are all made by aliens. the main gist of it was that we worship aliens that we call God. Well, I fell for it hook, line, and sinker (hey, I was like 16 years old).

I became absolutely convinced that the God and his son that I had been raised to worship were actually aliens. I remember that it seemed to explain everything. How "God" created man by altering the genetic makeup of apes (DNA = dust), the "burning bush" speaking to Moses, the "Virgin birth" of Jesus (artificial insemination), the basket of loaves and fishes that never emptied (teleporting), the raising of the dead (medicine or possibly an advanced method that we know nothing about), and the curing of leprosy. There are more but you get the picture. It seemed as if every miracle of the Bible could easily be explained by alien technology.

I was still, not technically an atheist.

Then, maybe 3-5 years later, I was home one Saturday morning flipping through channels when I came upon a show where scientists were going around the world debunking everything that was used in the movie as proof. I won't go into details for each one but just as an example, they showed that the Easter Island heads were made by ordinary islanders and they showed where they were made and even some of the half-finished heads still lying in the pits where they were created. They also showed how easy it would be to make the figures on the Nasca Plains in Peru. My whole belief system was shattered, and I was extremely embarrassed that I was taken in so easily. Right then and there i became a complete skeptic and vowed I would never be taken in by anything ever again.

At that point I was an Atheist.

I remained an atheist for many years, but as I grew older, got married and had children, life softened my stand. I witnessed things that ate away at my belief in pure chance and coincidence. I changed my stance to "Intelligent Design" where I believed in a higher power but didn't accept any one religion's dogma. However, I did attend Catholic Church with my wife and growing children. I believed that my children needed the basic religious upbringing and could decide for themselves what to believe when they were adults. gradually, I returned to God and Christianity, though I didn't and still don't, accept all of the dogma surrounding modern christianity.

Currently, I believe in God, though I do not know exactly who or what God is. I don't think we can ever know until we pass on from this world. I do not believe in hell. I believe that God knows a hell of a lot more than we can even comprehend and that eternal damnation is a human construct. I believe that the Bible was written by humans under the guidance of God and that it was never meant to be a factual historical record. It is a book about how to live your life according to God, and is meant to guide us through this world. I believe in evolution, I have studied Evolutionary Theory and the more I learn and observe, the more I see God's hand in it.

I have been blessed in my life, especially recently. I cannot count the many ways God has blessed me. My beautiful and wonderful wife is my #1 blessing, my wonderful children, my happiness, and my family's happiness are some of the blessings. I cannot have been this lucky, and I surely didn't achieve all this with my wits. There is a God and for reasons unknown to me, he has seen fit to reward me for something. though I know not what or why, I think him every single day.

Maybe I'm the Prodigal Son? I don't know by am grateful.

Anyway fwiw, that's my religious journey.

What a blessing you are on the right track now as a believer.

The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy. The reason he comes to steal first... is because he comes to steal with Word of God from believers especially "New" believers. That is Satan's most tastiest meal; the stealing of the truth of God's Word. That is also the first thing he did to Jesus when he tried to tempt him.

God says if a child is brought up in the way he should go (truth of God's Word) as he gets older he shall not depart. It's good that you are bringing up your children to know God's truth. Stay with God. Satan has lots of adult demons helping him steal the word.

 

[Votto]

If you became an atheist because of Chariots of the Gods, that was a little silly, that book has been debunked six ways to Sunday.

What you describe yourself as being is a Dieist. Dieism was very popular in the late 18th and early 19th century. It holds that God created the universe, but really doesn't take much of a stand on moral issues, those are matters for men.

Deism makes no sense to me because if God is indifferent to us that God may as well be dead to us.

The kicker is that human beings are not indifferent, so it would stand to reason that God's creation would reflect the same about that God.

Creation is a reflection of the Creator after all.

 

[Votto]

Some of you might enjoy this.

I was raised Catholic. As a kid I went to catechism (catholic version of Bible school) on Saturdays and church on Sundays. I was an Alterboy as soon as I was old enough and up until i was about 13. In my teenage years (during the late 60s and early 70s) I drifted away from church and religion in general, something that wasn't unusual for those rebellious times, but I didn't consider myself an atheist at all.

Right around that time, a movie was made and released called "Chariots of the Gods". If you never saw it, it tried to prove that aliens had come to earth and were the cause of humans worshipping Gods. It claimed that things like the pyramids, the Nasca Lines, the Easter Island heads, Stonehenge and a host of other monuments are all made by aliens. the main gist of it was that we worship aliens that we call God. Well, I fell for it hook, line, and sinker (hey, I was like 16 years old).

I became absolutely convinced that the God and his son that I had been raised to worship were actually aliens. I remember that it seemed to explain everything. How "God" created man by altering the genetic makeup of apes (DNA = dust), the "burning bush" speaking to Moses, the "Virgin birth" of Jesus (artificial insemination), the basket of loaves and fishes that never emptied (teleporting), the raising of the dead (medicine or possibly an advanced method that we know nothing about), and the curing of leprosy. There are more but you get the picture. It seemed as if every miracle of the Bible could easily be explained by alien technology.

I was still, not technically an atheist.

Then, maybe 3-5 years later, I was home one Saturday morning flipping through channels when I came upon a show where scientists were going around the world debunking everything that was used in the movie as proof. I won't go into details for each one but just as an example, they showed that the Easter Island heads were made by ordinary islanders and they showed where they were made and even some of the half-finished heads still lying in the pits where they were created. They also showed how easy it would be to make the figures on the Nasca Plains in Peru. My whole belief system was shattered, and I was extremely embarrassed that I was taken in so easily. Right then and there i became a complete skeptic and vowed I would never be taken in by anything ever again.

At that point I was an Atheist.

I remained an atheist for many years, but as I grew older, got married and had children, life softened my stand. I witnessed things that ate away at my belief in pure chance and coincidence. I changed my stance to "Intelligent Design" where I believed in a higher power but didn't accept any one religion's dogma. However, I did attend Catholic Church with my wife and growing children. I believed that my children needed the basic religious upbringing and could decide for themselves what to believe when they were adults. gradually, I returned to God and Christianity, though I didn't and still don't, accept all of the dogma surrounding modern christianity.

Currently, I believe in God, though I do not know exactly who or what God is. I don't think we can ever know until we pass on from this world. I do not believe in hell. I believe that God knows a hell of a lot more than we can even comprehend and that eternal damnation is a human construct. I believe that the Bible was written by humans under the guidance of God and that it was never meant to be a factual historical record. It is a book about how to live your life according to God, and is meant to guide us through this world. I believe in evolution, I have studied Evolutionary Theory and the more I learn and observe, the more I see God's hand in it.

I have been blessed in my life, especially recently. I cannot count the many ways God has blessed me. My beautiful and wonderful wife is my #1 blessing, my wonderful children, my happiness, and my family's happiness are some of the blessings. I cannot have been this lucky, and I surely didn't achieve all this with my wits. There is a God and for reasons unknown to me, he has seen fit to reward me for something. though I know not what or why, I think him every single day.

Maybe I'm the Prodigal Son? I don't know by am grateful.

Anyway fwiw, that's my religious journey.

I get it, you believe in God but not necessarily everything a particular religion believes about that God.

But you don't want to believe in hell cuz, hey, that's horrible so how could a loving God allow hell?

The approach I take is, I don't sell out to any one particular religious organization or specific personality. Why? because they are not God. If God exists, there is no possible way for us to know everything about him, even after we die, simply because the finite is not capable of fully comprehending the infinite.

At the same time, that does not mean we cannot meaningfully interact with such a God. In my view, the Bible is a historical account of man's attempt to interact with the one true God. As such, it is invaluable to understanding the one true God. The Bible gets it right, and that is, man must walk by faith if such a God exists, because when man stumbles upon things they are unable to understand, then God is required because of his infinite wisdom. Really, it is the only logical possible relationship between an infinite Creator and the finite creation. Without faith, you will embrace folly at some point due to your own natural limitations.

And yes, I believe that a hell exists. It's not that I want it to exist, but it just makes sense to me that it exists.

1. There is suffering, so to assume God does not allow suffering is obviously wrong. You are then left with the theological conundrum of why God allows suffering. As a theologian once said, "The one question you cannot fully answer as a person of faith is why God allows suffering. However, if you are an atheist, it is much worse, because then you have to explain everything else." To me, suffering simply arose from mankind's rejection of faith in God, and then embraced folly and misery as a result.

2. Evil exists. I've had enough encounters with it to understand that there is no reasoning with it. It is palpable when in your presence. I can't really explain it other than that. Without God's divine deliverance from it, we are all doomed. Yet this deliverance is not mandatory, is it because it does not come to all.

3. Hell, therefore, is the eternal answer for the rebellion against God for those for whom deliverance never comes because God will not put up with such rebellion forever for those who choose a different path. After all, if salvation is mandatory, did man ever really have the choice to reject such a God to begin with?

 

[SweetSue92]

Some of you might enjoy this.

I was raised Catholic. As a kid I went to catechism (catholic version of Bible school) on Saturdays and church on Sundays. I was an Alterboy as soon as I was old enough and up until i was about 13. In my teenage years (during the late 60s and early 70s) I drifted away from church and religion in general, something that wasn't unusual for those rebellious times, but I didn't consider myself an atheist at all.

Right around that time, a movie was made and released called "Chariots of the Gods". If you never saw it, it tried to prove that aliens had come to earth and were the cause of humans worshipping Gods. It claimed that things like the pyramids, the Nasca Lines, the Easter Island heads, Stonehenge and a host of other monuments are all made by aliens. the main gist of it was that we worship aliens that we call God. Well, I fell for it hook, line, and sinker (hey, I was like 16 years old).

I became absolutely convinced that the God and his son that I had been raised to worship were actually aliens. I remember that it seemed to explain everything. How "God" created man by altering the genetic makeup of apes (DNA = dust), the "burning bush" speaking to Moses, the "Virgin birth" of Jesus (artificial insemination), the basket of loaves and fishes that never emptied (teleporting), the raising of the dead (medicine or possibly an advanced method that we know nothing about), and the curing of leprosy. There are more but you get the picture. It seemed as if every miracle of the Bible could easily be explained by alien technology.

I was still, not technically an atheist.

Then, maybe 3-5 years later, I was home one Saturday morning flipping through channels when I came upon a show where scientists were going around the world debunking everything that was used in the movie as proof. I won't go into details for each one but just as an example, they showed that the Easter Island heads were made by ordinary islanders and they showed where they were made and even some of the half-finished heads still lying in the pits where they were created. They also showed how easy it would be to make the figures on the Nasca Plains in Peru. My whole belief system was shattered, and I was extremely embarrassed that I was taken in so easily. Right then and there i became a complete skeptic and vowed I would never be taken in by anything ever again.

At that point I was an Atheist.

I remained an atheist for many years, but as I grew older, got married and had children, life softened my stand. I witnessed things that ate away at my belief in pure chance and coincidence. I changed my stance to "Intelligent Design" where I believed in a higher power but didn't accept any one religion's dogma. However, I did attend Catholic Church with my wife and growing children. I believed that my children needed the basic religious upbringing and could decide for themselves what to believe when they were adults. gradually, I returned to God and Christianity, though I didn't and still don't, accept all of the dogma surrounding modern christianity.

Currently, I believe in God, though I do not know exactly who or what God is. I don't think we can ever know until we pass on from this world. I do not believe in hell. I believe that God knows a hell of a lot more than we can even comprehend and that eternal damnation is a human construct. I believe that the Bible was written by humans under the guidance of God and that it was never meant to be a factual historical record. It is a book about how to live your life according to God, and is meant to guide us through this world. I believe in evolution, I have studied Evolutionary Theory and the more I learn and observe, the more I see God's hand in it.

I have been blessed in my life, especially recently. I cannot count the many ways God has blessed me. My beautiful and wonderful wife is my #1 blessing, my wonderful children, my happiness, and my family's happiness are some of the blessings. I cannot have been this lucky, and I surely didn't achieve all this with my wits. There is a God and for reasons unknown to me, he has seen fit to reward me for something. though I know not what or why, I think him every single day.

Maybe I'm the Prodigal Son? I don't know by am grateful.

Anyway fwiw, that's my religious journey.

I'm so grateful to God that you're on the way back to Him. What a gift you've given your children.

Fwiw, once you ponder the Holiness of God, you understand Hell. I do believe in Hell; Jesus spoke of it a lot. However, since there are varying rewards in Heaven, it surely makes sense that there will be varying punishments in Hell. All Hell is bad, but not all will be punished in the same way. That is in line with a just God.

 

[PredFan]

Nobody needs an organized church to have faith, show genuine gratitude, believe that there's something out there bigger than you, and to understand that we're not all merely some cosmic coincidence.

Exactly.

 

[PredFan]

If you became an atheist because of Chariots of the Gods, that was a little silly, that book has been debunked six ways to Sunday.

What you describe yourself as being is a Dieist. Dieism was very popular in the late 18th and early 19th century. It holds that God created the universe, but really doesn't take much of a stand on moral issues, those are matters for men.

I didn't become an atheist from CotG, I believed that the gods were aliens. I became an atheist because scientists showed me what a fool I had been and I swore never to be fooled by anything ever again.

 

[PredFan]

I get it, you believe in God but not necessarily everything a particular religion believes about that God.

But you don't want to believe in hell cuz, hey, that's horrible so how could a loving God allow hell?

The approach I take is, I don't sell out to any one particular religious organization or specific personality. Why? because they are not God. If God exists, there is no possible way for us to know everything about him, even after we die, simply because the finite is not capable of fully comprehending the infinite.

At the same time, that does not mean we cannot meaningfully interact with such a God. In my view, the Bible is a historical account of man's attempt to interact with the one true God. As such, it is invaluable to understanding the one true God. The Bible gets it right, and that is, man must walk by faith if such a God exists, because when man stumbles upon things they are unable to understand, then God is required because of his infinite wisdom. Really, it is the only logical possible relationship between an infinite Creator and the finite creation. Without faith, you will embrace folly at some point due to your own natural limitations.

And yes, I believe that a hell exists. It's not that I want it to exist, but it just makes sense to me that it exists.

1. There is suffering, so to assume God does not allow suffering is obviously wrong. You are then left with the theological conundrum of why God allows suffering. As a theologian once said, "The one question you cannot fully answer as a person of faith is why God allows suffering. However, if you are an atheist, it is much worse, because then you have to explain everything else." To me, suffering simply arose from mankind's rejection of faith in God, and then embraced folly and misery as a result.

2. Evil exists. I've had enough encounters with it to understand that there is no reasoning with it. It is palpable when in your presence. I can't really explain it other than that. Without God's divine deliverance from it, we are all doomed. Yet this deliverance is not mandatory, is it because it does not come to all.

3. Hell, therefore, is the eternal answer for the rebellion against God for those for whom deliverance never comes because God will not put up with such rebellion forever for those who choose a different path. After all, if salvation is mandatory, did man ever really have the choice to reject such a God to begin with?

Thanks for sharing, I disagree about hell but we cannot know who is correct can we?

 

[Votto]

Thanks for sharing, I disagree about hell but we cannot know who is correct can we?

The question must be asked, what is this current state of suffering to various degrees all about?

It seems to me the world is nothing but a gigantic threshing floor, to separate the chaff from the wheat as the wheat is pounded into oblivion.

This threshing is the suffering we experience, so it has a purpose.

If not, what do you think the purpose is?

 

[The Irish Ram]

Does Jesus fit into any of your scenarios?

 

[Red Front]

Some of you might enjoy this.

I was raised Catholic. As a kid I went to catechism (catholic version of Bible school) on Saturdays and church on Sundays. I was an Alterboy as soon as I was old enough and up until i was about 13. In my teenage years (during the late 60s and early 70s) I drifted away from church and religion in general, something that wasn't unusual for those rebellious times, but I didn't consider myself an atheist at all.

Right around that time, a movie was made and released called "Chariots of the Gods". If you never saw it, it tried to prove that aliens had come to earth and were the cause of humans worshipping Gods. It claimed that things like the pyramids, the Nasca Lines, the Easter Island heads, Stonehenge and a host of other monuments are all made by aliens. the main gist of it was that we worship aliens that we call God. Well, I fell for it hook, line, and sinker (hey, I was like 16 years old).

I became absolutely convinced that the God and his son that I had been raised to worship were actually aliens. I remember that it seemed to explain everything. How "God" created man by altering the genetic makeup of apes (DNA = dust), the "burning bush" speaking to Moses, the "Virgin birth" of Jesus (artificial insemination), the basket of loaves and fishes that never emptied (teleporting), the raising of the dead (medicine or possibly an advanced method that we know nothing about), and the curing of leprosy. There are more but you get the picture. It seemed as if every miracle of the Bible could easily be explained by alien technology.

I was still, not technically an atheist.

Then, maybe 3-5 years later, I was home one Saturday morning flipping through channels when I came upon a show where scientists were going around the world debunking everything that was used in the movie as proof. I won't go into details for each one but just as an example, they showed that the Easter Island heads were made by ordinary islanders and they showed where they were made and even some of the half-finished heads still lying in the pits where they were created. They also showed how easy it would be to make the figures on the Nasca Plains in Peru. My whole belief system was shattered, and I was extremely embarrassed that I was taken in so easily. Right then and there i became a complete skeptic and vowed I would never be taken in by anything ever again.

At that point I was an Atheist.

I remained an atheist for many years, but as I grew older, got married and had children, life softened my stand. I witnessed things that ate away at my belief in pure chance and coincidence. I changed my stance to "Intelligent Design" where I believed in a higher power but didn't accept any one religion's dogma. However, I did attend Catholic Church with my wife and growing children. I believed that my children needed the basic religious upbringing and could decide for themselves what to believe when they were adults. gradually, I returned to God and Christianity, though I didn't and still don't, accept all of the dogma surrounding modern christianity.

Currently, I believe in God, though I do not know exactly who or what God is. I don't think we can ever know until we pass on from this world. I do not believe in hell. I believe that God knows a hell of a lot more than we can even comprehend and that eternal damnation is a human construct. I believe that the Bible was written by humans under the guidance of God and that it was never meant to be a factual historical record. It is a book about how to live your life according to God, and is meant to guide us through this world. I believe in evolution, I have studied Evolutionary Theory and the more I learn and observe, the more I see God's hand in it.

I have been blessed in my life, especially recently. I cannot count the many ways God has blessed me. My beautiful and wonderful wife is my #1 blessing, my wonderful children, my happiness, and my family's happiness are some of the blessings. I cannot have been this lucky, and I surely didn't achieve all this with my wits. There is a God and for reasons unknown to me, he has seen fit to reward me for something. though I know not what or why, I think him every single day.

Maybe I'm the Prodigal Son? I don't know by am grateful.

Anyway fwiw, that's my religious journey.

Spirituality comes down to ethics, how we treat other living beings, especially those of our own species, the members of our community. Are we humane, responsive to their needs, do we show mercy and compassion, do we just care about ourselves? Are we nihilistic reductionists, reducing life to a meaningless accident, hence justifying our lack of empathy and care for others and ourselves? How do we treat each other is the most important factor in determining our spiritual state and frequency of alignment with the ultimate Source of all things, a.k.a. God.

Religions are all man made, what really matters is the divine, cosmic law. How do you perceive and align your thoughts and behavior to it? That determines your state of being, before the ultimate, supreme Source-Mind, and all higher beings (holy angels/holy spirits).

 

[SweetSue92]

Nobody needs an organized church to have faith, show genuine gratitude, believe that there's something out there bigger than you, and to understand that we're not all merely some cosmic coincidence.

it's a good start, for sure.

 

[Oddball]

I didn't become an atheist from CotG, I believed that the gods were aliens. I became an atheist because scientists showed me what a fool I had been and I swore never to be fooled by anything ever again.

 

[shockedcanadian]

Some of you might enjoy this.

I was raised Catholic. As a kid I went to catechism (catholic version of Bible school) on Saturdays and church on Sundays. I was an Alterboy as soon as I was old enough and up until i was about 13. In my teenage years (during the late 60s and early 70s) I drifted away from church and religion in general, something that wasn't unusual for those rebellious times, but I didn't consider myself an atheist at all.

Right around that time, a movie was made and released called "Chariots of the Gods". If you never saw it, it tried to prove that aliens had come to earth and were the cause of humans worshipping Gods. It claimed that things like the pyramids, the Nasca Lines, the Easter Island heads, Stonehenge and a host of other monuments are all made by aliens. the main gist of it was that we worship aliens that we call God. Well, I fell for it hook, line, and sinker (hey, I was like 16 years old).

I became absolutely convinced that the God and his son that I had been raised to worship were actually aliens. I remember that it seemed to explain everything. How "God" created man by altering the genetic makeup of apes (DNA = dust), the "burning bush" speaking to Moses, the "Virgin birth" of Jesus (artificial insemination), the basket of loaves and fishes that never emptied (teleporting), the raising of the dead (medicine or possibly an advanced method that we know nothing about), and the curing of leprosy. There are more but you get the picture. It seemed as if every miracle of the Bible could easily be explained by alien technology.

I was still, not technically an atheist.

Then, maybe 3-5 years later, I was home one Saturday morning flipping through channels when I came upon a show where scientists were going around the world debunking everything that was used in the movie as proof. I won't go into details for each one but just as an example, they showed that the Easter Island heads were made by ordinary islanders and they showed where they were made and even some of the half-finished heads still lying in the pits where they were created. They also showed how easy it would be to make the figures on the Nasca Plains in Peru. My whole belief system was shattered, and I was extremely embarrassed that I was taken in so easily. Right then and there i became a complete skeptic and vowed I would never be taken in by anything ever again.

At that point I was an Atheist.

I remained an atheist for many years, but as I grew older, got married and had children, life softened my stand. I witnessed things that ate away at my belief in pure chance and coincidence. I changed my stance to "Intelligent Design" where I believed in a higher power but didn't accept any one religion's dogma. However, I did attend Catholic Church with my wife and growing children. I believed that my children needed the basic religious upbringing and could decide for themselves what to believe when they were adults. gradually, I returned to God and Christianity, though I didn't and still don't, accept all of the dogma surrounding modern christianity.

Currently, I believe in God, though I do not know exactly who or what God is. I don't think we can ever know until we pass on from this world. I do not believe in hell. I believe that God knows a hell of a lot more than we can even comprehend and that eternal damnation is a human construct. I believe that the Bible was written by humans under the guidance of God and that it was never meant to be a factual historical record. It is a book about how to live your life according to God, and is meant to guide us through this world. I believe in evolution, I have studied Evolutionary Theory and the more I learn and observe, the more I see God's hand in it.

I have been blessed in my life, especially recently. I cannot count the many ways God has blessed me. My beautiful and wonderful wife is my #1 blessing, my wonderful children, my happiness, and my family's happiness are some of the blessings. I cannot have been this lucky, and I surely didn't achieve all this with my wits. There is a God and for reasons unknown to me, he has seen fit to reward me for something. though I know not what or why, I think him every single day.

Maybe I'm the Prodigal Son? I don't know by am grateful.

Anyway fwiw, that's my religious journey.

Yes, we all find a path if we are lucky. None of us will know the answer until the very end, the great mystery.

 

[Meriweather]

Maybe I'm the Prodigal Son? I don't know by am grateful.

Were you relying on the historical events of both Christianity and Chariots of the Gods to determine truth?

I, too, was raised Catholic and (like most teenagers) lived with some troubles. Jesus walking on water, turning water to wine, and raising Lazarus from the dead didn't interest me. So what. That was then, and this was now. What grabbed my attention were the Beatitudes and guides on living with and getting along with others. Walking on water wasn't of much use to me, but living with and getting along in difficult and unexpected situations often rescued me in ways I did not foresee or expect. Those, not changing water into wine, were my eye-openers.

 

[JoeB131]

Deism makes no sense to me because if God is indifferent to us that God may as well be dead to us.

The kicker is that human beings are not indifferent, so it would stand to reason that God's creation would reflect the same about that God.

Creation is a reflection of the Creator after all.

Actually, Deism makes more sense than most other religions. A God with a 14 billion-year plan for a universe can't get hung up on the details.

What doesn't make sense. A God who creates a universe and is then perfectly happy to be the tribal God of one small nation in the Levant until a variant creed of it expands across the world.

I didn't become an atheist from CotG, I believed that the gods were aliens. I became an atheist because scientists showed me what a fool I had been and I swore never to be fooled by anything ever again.

Um... that's kind of dumb.

First, the whole problem with Ancient Aliens' beliefs is that they are racist. Why, how could these non-white people in ancient times have built pyramids? They must have help from Aliens. Or Atlanteans! Not that humans are clever and for a while there, non-white people were more clever than white people living in their mudhuts.