theprocessofbelief

i believe there is no physical entity that is our spirit, but instead it is our inermost thoughts and ideas. our brain develops incredibly quickly all our lives to the point where we all have incredible personalities that are shaped by our experiences and our choices. i find this idea much more thrilling than the idea that we have a set spirit somewhere in our physical selves waiting to be set free because it means we are always open to development through our own choice. we choose the experiences we want to have and the things we let into our lives. i dont believe our personalties are predestined, but shaped nourished, threatened and repaired until we are our own individual independent selves, the person we want to be.

i would like to respond to what Hazard said. although the Bible does say that the earth was created in 6 days and is only 6000 years old, this is clearly not entirely acurate. there are two points to back this up, for a start scientific evidence proves that the man has been active in the world for much more than 6000 years. for a start the Egyptians had created a very successful civilisation for a good while by this point, not to mention all that happened before this, for example the dinosaurs. if the earth was only 6000 years old why have we found evidence of dinosaurs, and geological evidence that the earths age is to be measured in millions rather than thousands of years? why would God plant evidence to suggest this if it were not true? to decieve us? i do not believe my God is a deceitful God. he wants the whole world to know he exists, to trust in him, and so why would he convince the world of one thing when it is not true? surely the true explanation is that man at the time had no understanding of the world and used this story to explain the world around them. if we are to believe that the earth is only 6000 years old and took six days to create, do you also believe there are a finite number of places in heaven as the bible suggests, and that this quota has already been filled? do you believe Abraham was over 900 years old? no, these are numbers that either represent large periods of time of which humans were unsure of and created a large sounding number in its place. in the case of Abraham and Noah, their ages refer to obviously a different system of numbers that has been confused in calculation. to believe that the world is only 6000 years old is madness, God would not deceive us, and man could surely not know the extent of the earths age at the time the bible is written. how could they understand the word of God when they had so little understanding of the world. it is foolish not to update this knowledge, when we have the power to find more, to then rely on evidence that is thousands of years old and has been translated many, many times. therefore the sentence in the "beginning" is merely a way to explain the world when man had so little knowledge of the world around him. it was not the beginning of God, merely the beginning of God's understanding. TPB

as controversial as it is surely the act of homosexuality is not a sin? i have many homosexual friends who are just as confused about the idea of heterosexuality as i am of their outlook on life, it is something that is inherent to them. everyone i know who is genuinely gay and not just vying for attention has said that they were born that way and have known that as long as they have known love or understood sex. the way i see it God gave us sex to show our love and compassion for the one person in the world that we are meant to be with and if homosexuality on any level is done to express their pure and honest love for someone that God created then this is surely not a sin? is it right to deny 2 people love for each other if they are pure in their intentions? would you condemn someone to a life of lies and missery rather than let them pursue their own life? it has been proved that homosexuality occurs in animals too, therefore if it is a sin to do this, then can animals have free thought and choose to sin? if so does that not lead to the idea that all living things are animals including humans to some degree? the bible would disagree. it is clear to me that it is something that although we cannot understand and is in the minority it is not necessarily wrong, only different.

thanks everyone thats really cleared it up for me, i was worried that i was asking the wrong questions and going down a dangerous path, i'm glad that other people have these qualms. i suppose it is important to constantly challenge ones faith and never be afraid to question anything, if you cannot question and test what you believe and come out stronger because you are scared of the answer then what you believe is obviously weak and cannot be the word of the almighty. only through questioning and searching our deepest selves will we eventually realise what is right, if our faith stands up to the test and cannot be knocked down then it is true. if we are afraid to ask because of what we might find then there are obviously anomalies in it, and unless as a whole ones beliefs, whatever they may be, are true and strong entirely then they cannot be enlightenment. thank you my brothers and sisters in Christ's love. tpb.

hi i'm new to this site and am glad i have arrived here, i am in great need of some help with my faith. i have had a recent dilema, i have been praying rapturously for help in my upcoming exams but have had a moment of dark gloom and dispondency, wayward thoughts if you will. is it unrealsitic to expect help from almighty jesus in my exams when he does not appear to help those in iraq, the holocaust or any other recent ethnic cleansing, areas of famine, aids sufferers etc. surely if he were to help at all he would focus on these areas and not my trivial unimportant life. i'm quite at a loss, so please be honest with me, is this the devil inside of me? put me back on the righteuos path, tpb.