TawnyNigga
I am brown.
1 week ago#1033426
To me, this world has always seemed like there's always something more lurking beyond what we can physically see. Yet, I had been distraught over how much suffering there was in this world. Why do some people suffer so much that they want to end their life? I wanted to learn more about what the spiritual world was hiding. By 14 years old I had already been on /x/ and wanted to astral project because I mistrusted this world so heavily and wanted to go back home, somewhere where I could experience pure happiness instead of being trapped in what I considered a terrifying world where there is no real safety because any sense of it could be usurped at any time by disaster and tragedy.
The fundamental question for me and religion is "Do I trust in something greater than myself?" For the longest time, the question wasn't even a question - it was just this all-pervasive sense of "No, there is nothing to trust in whether in this world or anything greater, hence I must escape it."
Escape is a curious word, yet it really is the basis of my former belief system. I really did want to escape my body because it felt limiting, gross, painful, aging, decaying, et.c. There was nothing worth fighting for because everything would decay and be destroyed unless I escaped it... somehow? That's what I thought at least.
Yet, the more I tried to desire to escape or recreate myself somehow, the more I lost my sense of joy and attachment to things I formerly loved. It just didn't matter to me anymore. I lived each day hollow and hedonistic with no legitimate goals day after day.
My knowledge of Christianity was rather limited, I did not even know heaven involved a resurrection of the body until someone mentioned it on a community I used to frequent. This piqued my interest because even if the body didn't feel like a rotting vessel and was perfected, it still seemed pointless and as if it limited me from some higher experience that could only be accessible as a incorporeal being. Why would I want to have a puny body rather than being one with everything, I wondered.
Something guided me towards reading the book of Revelation because I'd heard a lot about it as "the weirdest and most schizo book of The Bible" so that caught my interest. It was a lot of stuff I didn't understand about the end of the world and such, but what really interested me was it's description of the final resurrection and heaven. Something about this really clicked with me and thus I began my quest to learn more and why about people follow Christ and Christianity.
I knew that God originally created the physical world as Good but I couldn't feel it's goodness anymore and mistrusted it. My experiences with wanting to escape having a "stupid and limited" body led me to believe that there was a mind-body connection. And this is often lost, but even legitimate science has always supported the idea that there is a mind-body connection. Which led me to realize something crucial in my conversion and transformation. The body is where a person's sense of love, meaning, and experiencing come from. A mother connects with her baby in her womb and the baby experiences this template as it's sense of meaning. At extreme disconnection from the body, people lose their sense of being oriented to space and time.
The body is essentially what separates us from an angel. Yet, angels are meant to serve us despite being extremely intelligent incorporeal beings. In fact, humans are the most beloved creations by God. I believe this is why the adversary (Satan) wants to drag us down so badly. I think we have bodies bound by space and time so we can learn and grow as people and eventually experience greater satisfaction and true happiness after we are resurrected and experience the beatific vision.
The denomination I'm most interested in is Catholicism because of the Eucharist. It's literally His body and this is important because it's another thing that shows the importance of the body. We have an inseparable union between the body and soul and this is a good thing. I once saw someone compare a hypothetical heaven with and without a body. The heaven without a body would be like listening to a beautiful orchestra where you're listening through headphones but aren't actually there in the audience with everyone else. With a body, you'd be there with everyone else, seeing their joyous faces in creation forever and ever. Having more people instead of just being "one with everything" means that heaven would be increasingly complex in a good way where we'd build upon what had been created more and more.
Another thing that really made my prior belief system fall apart was it's ignorance of morality and ethics. If the body is an arbitrary afterthought at best, then why would something like rape be so bad for example? Most people know rape is evil because it's taking control away from the person being raped, or that it's betrayal, or that it's twisting something intimate and vulnerable. That makes sense to me, but I think rape is particularly evil because of all of this + it's twisting one's innermost sense of experiencing everything. It's part of why childhood sexual abuse is one of, if not the most evil thing someone can do to another. What I am saying is that if the body was an afterthought, rape would be no big deal. But this is not true, people who are sexually abused often experience years of horrible, horrible, feelings because their sense of everything was twisted into something terrifying.
You can particularly see the effects of being detached from the body in greater society. It leads to apathy and lack of empathy for others. I personally believe society nowadays is so careless with morality partially because people have forgotten how important the mind-body connection is. Without connecting to the body, evil things seemingly become no big deal. But this also rots our sense of goodness. This is my anecdotal experiences, but the people I know who are the most determined, who are the most generous and genuinely kind are connected to their bodies and able to help others effectively. They are often experiencing lots of suffering, but this is thankfully temporary.
I could go on and on about how the physical universe cannot be arbitrary and that everything matters, but I want to end it at this. God loves you and wants you to do good things and love others and everything. God wants you to be fully connected to your body so you can do His will and become the best version of yourself. God wants you to stop sinning and hurting your connection with Him and your body. God wants you to wake up. Everyone finds God in their own way but this is just my own personal anecdote.
TL;DR: I became a Christian when I realized that God created a beautiful physical world full of love and that this is a good thing. I realized that Satan and the fallen angels want to subvert this into having us be disconnected from ourselves and our purpose.
Amen and God bless.
The fundamental question for me and religion is "Do I trust in something greater than myself?" For the longest time, the question wasn't even a question - it was just this all-pervasive sense of "No, there is nothing to trust in whether in this world or anything greater, hence I must escape it."
Escape is a curious word, yet it really is the basis of my former belief system. I really did want to escape my body because it felt limiting, gross, painful, aging, decaying, et.c. There was nothing worth fighting for because everything would decay and be destroyed unless I escaped it... somehow? That's what I thought at least.
Yet, the more I tried to desire to escape or recreate myself somehow, the more I lost my sense of joy and attachment to things I formerly loved. It just didn't matter to me anymore. I lived each day hollow and hedonistic with no legitimate goals day after day.
My knowledge of Christianity was rather limited, I did not even know heaven involved a resurrection of the body until someone mentioned it on a community I used to frequent. This piqued my interest because even if the body didn't feel like a rotting vessel and was perfected, it still seemed pointless and as if it limited me from some higher experience that could only be accessible as a incorporeal being. Why would I want to have a puny body rather than being one with everything, I wondered.
Something guided me towards reading the book of Revelation because I'd heard a lot about it as "the weirdest and most schizo book of The Bible" so that caught my interest. It was a lot of stuff I didn't understand about the end of the world and such, but what really interested me was it's description of the final resurrection and heaven. Something about this really clicked with me and thus I began my quest to learn more and why about people follow Christ and Christianity.
I knew that God originally created the physical world as Good but I couldn't feel it's goodness anymore and mistrusted it. My experiences with wanting to escape having a "stupid and limited" body led me to believe that there was a mind-body connection. And this is often lost, but even legitimate science has always supported the idea that there is a mind-body connection. Which led me to realize something crucial in my conversion and transformation. The body is where a person's sense of love, meaning, and experiencing come from. A mother connects with her baby in her womb and the baby experiences this template as it's sense of meaning. At extreme disconnection from the body, people lose their sense of being oriented to space and time.
The body is essentially what separates us from an angel. Yet, angels are meant to serve us despite being extremely intelligent incorporeal beings. In fact, humans are the most beloved creations by God. I believe this is why the adversary (Satan) wants to drag us down so badly. I think we have bodies bound by space and time so we can learn and grow as people and eventually experience greater satisfaction and true happiness after we are resurrected and experience the beatific vision.
The denomination I'm most interested in is Catholicism because of the Eucharist. It's literally His body and this is important because it's another thing that shows the importance of the body. We have an inseparable union between the body and soul and this is a good thing. I once saw someone compare a hypothetical heaven with and without a body. The heaven without a body would be like listening to a beautiful orchestra where you're listening through headphones but aren't actually there in the audience with everyone else. With a body, you'd be there with everyone else, seeing their joyous faces in creation forever and ever. Having more people instead of just being "one with everything" means that heaven would be increasingly complex in a good way where we'd build upon what had been created more and more.
Another thing that really made my prior belief system fall apart was it's ignorance of morality and ethics. If the body is an arbitrary afterthought at best, then why would something like rape be so bad for example? Most people know rape is evil because it's taking control away from the person being raped, or that it's betrayal, or that it's twisting something intimate and vulnerable. That makes sense to me, but I think rape is particularly evil because of all of this + it's twisting one's innermost sense of experiencing everything. It's part of why childhood sexual abuse is one of, if not the most evil thing someone can do to another. What I am saying is that if the body was an afterthought, rape would be no big deal. But this is not true, people who are sexually abused often experience years of horrible, horrible, feelings because their sense of everything was twisted into something terrifying.
You can particularly see the effects of being detached from the body in greater society. It leads to apathy and lack of empathy for others. I personally believe society nowadays is so careless with morality partially because people have forgotten how important the mind-body connection is. Without connecting to the body, evil things seemingly become no big deal. But this also rots our sense of goodness. This is my anecdotal experiences, but the people I know who are the most determined, who are the most generous and genuinely kind are connected to their bodies and able to help others effectively. They are often experiencing lots of suffering, but this is thankfully temporary.
I could go on and on about how the physical universe cannot be arbitrary and that everything matters, but I want to end it at this. God loves you and wants you to do good things and love others and everything. God wants you to be fully connected to your body so you can do His will and become the best version of yourself. God wants you to stop sinning and hurting your connection with Him and your body. God wants you to wake up. Everyone finds God in their own way but this is just my own personal anecdote.
TL;DR: I became a Christian when I realized that God created a beautiful physical world full of love and that this is a good thing. I realized that Satan and the fallen angels want to subvert this into having us be disconnected from ourselves and our purpose.
Amen and God bless.
1 week ago#1033441
I read all of this, and I do care about this.
1 week ago#1033451
Basically.
Margarine_Man
I AM FULL OF HATE
1 week ago#1033465
GOD BLESS
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