life changing moment

apologies for yet another spiritually inclined thread that has little to do with the global conspiracy, but maybe we can operate this one without people hurling scripture back and forth at each other!

I'm curious about whether anyone has had an experience that affected their belief system and had a lasting effect on them. I had one myself but I'll post it up in a bit.

arc, good question.

My major turning point was when, at the age of thirteen, I had the following conversation with my father:

me: Dad, why is it that all people not recognizing Jesus as their lord & savior are dammed to hell?

dad: Because that's what it says in the bible son.

me: But what about all of the people who never had the chance to hear about Jesus like the tribes in the Amazon rain forest?

dad: It's sad, but people who don't have the chance to accept Jesus are all dammed to hell...that's why we have missionary work stretching across the world. Our goal is to enlighten every person to Jesus and his teachings.

me: But if God is merciful and kind, why would he allow so many souls to be born into the world that were dammed to hell from birth?

dad: Son, that is the devil working in you. The devil will try to put these thoughts in your mind. What you need to do is pray very hard tonight about this sin of your thoughts and wake up in the morning knowing that you are saved.


From that moment, I was changed...for the better.

deleted

lol deleted, yet again I am thankful for my non-religious yet non-aethist upbringing!

My experience was a little different I will admit. As I've stated before I was left pretty much to my own devices as far as faith went - never baptised and given free rein to follow my own beliefs. Nothing has really changed there. However I did feel in my late teens that I was lacking an internal source of strength that I imagined religious types had.

At the same time I was experiencing a whole host of personal problems and eventually reached the only time in my life where I seriously felt like giving up completely. So I ran away for a night, holed myself up under a hedge and fed myself a load of '___'. Ok probably not exceptionally wild behaviour, but at that time it was for me. I basically spent the night battling with all my internal demons, fighting what could have ended up being a very very bad trip and putting my life in the hands of something I couldn't comprehend.

Eventually I managed to get home and spent the next couple of days experiencing a completely new sense of inner calm and strength, almost as if I had transcended everything. I've never been the same since that night - it didn't convert me to any religion or prove that there was a God, but it somehow connected me with something inside myself that has protected and guided me ever since.

My turning point, reading Nietzsche, what Nietzsche's writing has done for me is just to difficult to explain.

I'm quite young I must say, 16 actually, and we all know how a 14, 15 year old thinks and behaves, people at that age are really bothered with seeming extreme or rebellious, that had been my lifestyle for years, since my 14 I had been jumping from relligion to religion and from ways to think each one more extreme, Satanism, National Socialism, Paganism (in the violent way... like "kill the infidels and the enslavers"), but then someone told me about this brand new way of being extreme, through reading Nietzsche.

Now all this changes in my mind didn't change one thing, my denying of anything that would go against the way I thought in a time. I would turn down arguments based on biased opinions and even though I'd reckon they were right and I was wrong I'd like delete that from my mind and go on being sooooooo extreme.

But for the first time I read Nietzsche and about Nietzsche something must have changed because I was really prepared to open my mind to what this guy had to say, I only understood how important that would have been a later thou.

Basically what Nietzsche taught was intelectual honesty, that could be the first premise to all his thought, this changed me completely, I was amazed at the ambiguity and profoundness of Nietzsche's thought, what this ambiguity means is that he says that we must reach absolute freedom, but by accepting that we must reach absolute freedom we are renouncing to our freedom of not accepting to do so, the nihilism paradox is also common, you have to BELIEVE thal BELIEFS ARE WRONG. Just as you have to accept the TRUTH that THERE IS NO TRUTH.

The only way to do so, to be mentally prepared to do so is to be really intelectually honest with yourself and your way to view life and your way to realate with the ways life relates to you, kind of hard to explain with my half-decent english speaking skills but I hope you understand.

To conclude all this has deeply changed by value system, a brand new way of see life, and everything I have writen here for example has made me think about everything I believe in again, everytime I say something seriously I honestly think about what I am really saying and everything I see has a deep effect on me, this is intelectual honesty, one of the values I praise the most.

Also in Nietzsche I came to find lot's of brand new ways of thinking, brand new waysof seeing things, Antichristianism, Nihilism, the Overman, the Death of God and it's impliements in the Human race and in Human evolution.


Btw, deleted, know what? I was really really touched with your post.

subject..........life changing moment............


The story actually began a few years earlier. Four years ago, John Marler arrived at the St. Herman of Alaska monastery in Platina, California, weary of life. Though only nineteen, he had already been guitarist in two successful punk-rock bands, Sleep and Paxton Quiggly. Once he found faith in Christ and a home in Orthodoxy, the new monk wanted to bring the same hope to the punk subculture he had just escaped, a community of kids crippled by nihilism and despair.

The St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood (which sponsors the Platina abbey and several other monasteries) had already begun attracting some kids from the nearby town of Chico, and Mother Neonilla--previously a "serious punker" herself--encouraged Fr. John to reach out to them. The first idea called for fellow-monk Fr. Damascene Christensen, who had recently completed the book Not of this World: The Life and Teaching of Fr. Seraphim Rose, to write an article about Fr. Seraphim for publication in Maximum Rock and Roll. "But as I read over the magazine, I realized there was no way they'd publish something like this," Fr. Damascene recalls.

Next, they decided to try to place an ad, but the editor's response--"What the @#*% is a Brotherhood?"--tipped them off that this wasn't going to fly either. The monks were told, "We only run ads for music and 'zines." (For the uninitiated, a 'zine is a rough, homemade-looking magazine, scissored and pasted and photocopied, and offered cheap or free on the streets.)

cont.............

www.regenerator.com...

One thing that changed my life in the biggest way was reading the books of Carlos Castaneda.

sorry helen but I don't quite understand your post. Are you saying that it was this group that formed your spiritual beliefs?

sorry, my fault........


7 yrs ago driving .............strange happenings...............came across a book shop............went in and ..............................book i picked up ""orthodoxy and the religion of the future""fr seraphim Rose.........(orange book with StGeorge killing the "Beast" on the cover got my attention..........so i bought the book and.................testimonials of many other people s experiences in spiritual life led me to know ............................


The above is just another persons regognition of where life took him......................

From a young age i was into Ufos,seances(though never into dark forces or evil) ...........................im 35 now and ............................................

sorry if i mislead the topic........

no worries

I've found it interesting how at certain times in our lives, information or inspiration we need will appear almost as if 'by magic'. I've frequently wandered into a book shop on a whim and picked up something that has really changed how I think about life.

actually i don't think i've had one big event but several smaller events that have changed my perception on things

Mine actually came about a month ago. About three years ago I lost my little sister to cancer. She was only six years old. I was already having problems with the "concept" of god, and felt that he had abandoned me, even gave up. When I lost my sister that was the last straw. How could God let a little girl die? She hadn't even gotten to see the world. The last three years I was in a constant conflict with god. At first I just rejected it, and focused on other things, boiling up all this anger and resentment inside me. When I got to college (about 7 months ago,) i decided to start trying to search for my own answers. I was extremely frustrated becuase all I would read is how god would show himself to people, yet here I was, constantly searching but he would not show himself to me.

About a month ago I was talking to a friend online and religion came up. He was never a religious person, but when he started going out with this chick she kinda changed him. Even though she is very christian, they ended up sleeping together, and afterward, he felt that he had robbed her of something that was not hers. So he started going to bible study's, then one day while wakling around "god just showed himselft" to him. At this point I was pissed of because her I am, wanting to find a higher meaning, and all he had to do was sleep with someone to find it.

At this point I took a walk, and ended up going down some railroad tracks. Down the tracks i came unto some woods, and walked into them. I just kept going, becuase it felt like it was what i was supposed to do. Well I came unto a clearing, and looked up at the sky. the cold air chilled me, but then I suddenly felt alright. For that brief moment in my life, I felt that everything was alright. More like I knew everything would be fine. It has changed me, for the good I hope.

Ive told this to many people, but for the sake of (arc) ill post it agaain.


I grew up 18 strait years being dumb to everything, i cursed, i sinned, i had an
8th grade education, at the age of 18 i did not even (know) what the word christian meant.

i thought it was an orginization.

Im 21 now.

At 19 after i started of dreaming of this man in a white robe i had a major desire to give up all sins, not just some but
be perfected, do gods will to the fullest, in one case i had this dream about a line of people all in (white) robes, we were walking
behind christ himself in a hallway filled to our knees with blood..


after this dream i was frightened, and found out that in scripture it says blood will come up to the horses bridle, which i think means ill be killed for christ.


After this i read scripture for the first time, sins i saw in there i said to myself and vowed to stop sinning these sins, at one point i have not cursed in about
1 year and still wont.

One night i was watching a sports show, when all of a sudden i left the room for a (drink), when i came back
i swear to you that the channel changed to a religious channel. nobody was home or in my room for this to change
to this channel like this.

I watched and what it was was a topic on something i nver knew before. the end times special. after this i was awakened to what times
we were in and started reading apocolypse and videos on end times..


Since then ive been led to the catholic church through miracles which is a whole nother story in itself.

i have seen to cases of cancer cured through god without medication. im as serious as a heart attack when i say this stuff. i have had more dreams of christ, mary, judgement seat, muslims killing christians, hell, i had
a dream of visiting my friend i hell which was horrifying..



You guys will neverknow why i have this faith until the judgement seat. but im telling you i cannot reject the christ nomatter what
i hear or see on the internet, for before i had this net, maa did not reveal this to me, but literal god in heaven through miracles.


God bless, peace.


[Edited on 16-3-2003 by Truth]

dream ( P ) Pronunciation Key (drm)
n.

A series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.

A daydream; a reverie.

A state of abstraction; a trance.

A wild fancy or hope.

A condition or achievement that is longed for; an aspiration: a dream of owning their own business.
One that is exceptionally gratifying, excellent, or beautiful: Our new car runs like a dream.

Even it was a life-changing moment, it was a Dream.

[Edited on 16-3-2003 by CHAVEZ]

Don't knock the power of dreams on the mind. I've had some pretty potent ones myself. If Truth was inspired to change his life from a dream then that is his right - no one else experienced that dream or knows the exact effect it had on him

miracles in themselves can be deceiving...........


Iwas brought up babtized in the Greek Orthodox church...........and never did i question if there was a God..........just took it for granted................i can tell you that i did not know much Jesus Christ.........just went to church coz i had to.........i mean, it was good, the beautiful icons in the church ,depicting the Lord Jesus and Theotokos(mother of god)were so beautifull to look at but i did not know the history of why i was a christian.....
Dad ,was pretty strict.....no going out, well, not much at all.........
I was always fascinated by wierd things happening........only because they happened to me.........
I loved horror movies,ghosts ,strange occurances,ufos,seances,astrology,tarot cards,anything that was of the unexplained nature.........
i would read books on many of the above mentioned and so i basically lived for wanting more...............
I started to use a ouje board which i made myself..........
Things were great,i was not lonely or alone and knew if i needed to talk to someone i could..............
Many of the above sound pretty much ""safe"" if i could use that word.............
knowing now that it was not just apart of growing up thing ,i was going through, but a cunning and deceitful phenomenon that seemed to draw me to them ........(not wanting to go into great detail here)
people ""Today"" claim that these interests or beleifs or spitual connections or whatever you may call it.............are based on ""truth""and it so connects you with the ""other realm""eg.......oobe....out of body experience(and yes i did try that )
i'm talking too much,sorry...............
Never did "drugs" interest me or influence me in any way..............
School was always good(grew up in the 80s)but then i did not fit in with the rest coz (dad being strict i kept to myself)........
Seances ................did them at school and sorta got a few people interested in what i was doing................
Popularity was not me,i never needed the attention........though it felt good(satisfied me in a self gain way).............

sorry again .........

just thought id share that................

There is the question of why other religions would be damned to hell just because they never heard of the Christian religion. Whenever I have questioned this, I have gotten the same answer.." Everyone has a chance to hear about God..etc"

BUT... WHY would they believe in a religion opposite from what they have grown to know and beleive since childhood? This means that they should go to hell?? Because of their upbringing?? This is also what made me decide that the Christianity as we know it today is just ridiculous.

In the back of my mind I do beleive that there just may be a supreme force, but I beleive that if there is, it is found in the good of everyones different religions, not in just one single religion.

How insane. someone has to be so ignorant thaat they use my user name and try
and mock me.

i would expect nothing less considering the childishness on this website.

peace.

lol

I didnt see anything wrong until the real truth posted .

whoever "truth." is fooled me well.

it's ok Truth

been noted and reported.