the first thing i will ask from anyone who participates is not insult anyone's post... everyone has their own journey... and i would appreciate if EVERYONE would share their experience with the rest of us... let us know how you came to believe what you do now... feel free to ask questions but no insults or critisism (i hope i spelled that right) please... oh... and try not to insult any particular religion or belief system... i figured this would fit here because it has to do with our spiritual journey... i guess i'll go first...

i posted my experiences that happened when i was younger... they're in my blog...

well over the years... i strayed away from church and God... just lost interest... around 8th grade... i developed an obsession with the dark and even started getting into vampirism... which eventually led me to a die hard belief in aliens and ufos...

i would read every book i could get my hands on about aliens, ufos, and vampires... i watched every special that came on t.v.... and i feel that i was obsessed with it...
the light bothered me... i sat in the garage in the dark... i sat in my room in the dark as much as possible... i could almost feel the dark around me and i loved it...

one night i fell asleep with my t.v. on... i remember this vividly... '98... my freshman year...
i woke up at about 3:30 a.m... and i specifically remember looking at my clock to see how long it was until i had to get ready for school...

i remember hearing a high pitch type squeeling noise first... then a buzzing... then i remember my eyes closing and i felt like i was lifting off my bed... i remember my heart beating fast... and i remember feeling something behind me (i was on my side... floating)... now i can't say that i actually floated...it just felt that way... but i felt 3 presenses behind me... and i remember the first thing that popped into my head was that i was bing abducted...

then i heard a drill and i started shaking... it felt like someone was trying to drill into the back of my head... and a feeling of terror took over me... the only thing i could think to do was pray... when i started to pray... i felt like i dropped back down on my bed... and everything was over in a matter of maybe 30-45 seconds...

well... that' wasn't the case... it was now 4:00 a.m. and my t.v. and lights are now off... and i couldn't find the switch on my lamp... and i'm in a panic... at first i thought it was a dream... but that didn't make sense because i was wide awake and planned to stay up until the bus came for school...

i remember being scared to walk into the hallway to use the bathroom... and i had to go bad... but i just sat there... scared... i didn't shower that morning... i just got dressed and went to school...
the whole day... the experience was still on my mind... and i didn't want anything to do with aliens, ufos, vampires, or the dark... i was scared to go home that day because nobody was there when i would get out of school... i was even scared to tell anyone what happened...

so i started looking to the Bible for answers... because the alien theory didn't cut it for me at that point... it was the fact that it stopped when i started praying that made me nervous... so i started looking into lots of information about aliens and the Bible... this was before i had internet access at home... so i went to the library... i found a few books that talked about aliens being demons and fallen angels... and the more i read about some of the experiences... the more mine made sense...

i was shaken by that experience for weeks after that... i was afraid of the night and being home alone... so i got back close to God real quick...
even now... at 24... i can't sleep in the dark... i have to have my t.v. on or i can't sleep..
my girlfriend has a habit of flipping through channels with the digital cable... and when you do that... there is silence and the screen stays dark until you stop flipping...
i can be dead sleep... and she can push me... i won't wake up... but if she starts flipping the channels and the t.v. goes dark and silent... i immediately wake up...

even now that i'm grown... the experience is still vivid and bothers me when i think about it... sometimes my eyes water when i talk about it... but that's my story and how i came to believe in God like i do...

What you describe sounds like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis I've had this myself a few times when I was younger.

Anyways, after 49 years I think I can announce that I believe in Ohms law, the law of Gravity, etc, in other words, empirical data and the natural phenomenon they describe.

In moments of existential angst, I've looked at several religions/philosophies, but they always disappointed me in some way.

If I had to wed myself to any one of them, I would be a Taoist.

Well I'm basically a Non-theist boardering on a Satanist.

THe reason for this is that in the end I feel that the only real "Truth" is the self.

At the same time I have studied many religions, indeed everyone I can find time for and they all seem to be missing something, I have incorporated bits and peices of most but I feel that in the end that religion should be focused inwards, that the discovery of the self is the most important thing in this world.

it's possible that is what it is... but mine tends to stop when i pray... there have been times that i see things when it happens... and times i've let myself just "be" while i was in an immobile state... i can open my eyes and move my toes and fingers... but no full movement...

almost like being trapped inside my own body... which makes me wonder... if "i'm" traped in my body... am i experiencing a seperation of body and spirit?

maybe i shoudl look into that...

I'll keep this kinda short considering I'm planing on writing a autobiography and if you guys know teh whole story you won't buy the book...then I won't get my money.


My Dad and his side of the family are Christian so I was raised a Christian(my mom isn't religious and didn't care that I was raised as a Christian).

Even at the earliest of ages I just plain didn't 'get it', it never made much sense to me. But when your little you really don't have many options in choosing your religion because you don't know of any other...so everything that I didn't 'get" about the religion I tried to figure out a way to 'get it'...but I couldn't. For all the reasons Atheists today don't believe in God where more or less the same reasons I couldn't grasp the religion...but I still tried to.

Somewhere down the line I kind of became an Atheist and instead of focusing on reasons to believe in God and the Bible I focused on found reasons to not believe in them and exist without them. But that didn't work out any better.

At around the age of 15/16 I studied other religions and beliefs but they didn't take either.

At around the age of 17 is when I started to form my current day belief structure. The basics of my beliefs is to never assume and to use probability.

Ironically it was at this time that I finally 'got' the Christian religion...I discovered that I wasn't necessarily against the idea of the existence of God but the idea of me worshiping him.

I believe in equality and freedom in their most simple and complex forms. I believe that no entity, from human to plant,
is any greater then another. I don't believe in an absolute Good and Evil, I believe that these concepts are formed out of personal perspective and opinion. In my eye God is not 'all-good'...and even if he was I would not worship him, worship is devotion, devotion is surrendering your freedom and equality. I believe there is more beauty in nature and science then there is in God.
I was realized that I was never actually a Christian or an Atheist...I just didn't know anything else.

Maybe God exists, Maybe Zeus does, maybe neither do, maybe Buddhism is the way to go...either way it doesn't matter to me, their existence or not doesn't alter my beliefs.

As the sig says...I'm half believer, half skeptic I have all of their strengths and none of their weaknesses. I have the power to walk on both worlds.(hehe)

Quote Time!
"I'd rather burn in hell then change who I am just to get into heaven."-Cadetak
"I think that we are all part atheists, I just believe in one less God then you do. When you figure out why you don't believe in all the other gods you will discover why I don't believe in yours."-IDK

Thats Incredible Cade.

I would like to put that in my sig if you don't mind?

That sounds like something only the most enlightened of Yogi's would say

You can use that quote on one condition...you have to put it in your sig like this:
"I'd rather burn in hell then change who I am just to get into heaven."-Cadetak, The sexiest and smartest man the world has ever known.

Deal?

(I kid)

I was brought up by an atheist mother, Italian Catholic father (in name only), Christian grandfather (from Romany Gypsy background), unsure grandmother, and my Italian relatives are all Catholic (Italian grandmother was very devout). I was taught to decide for myself, and my mother supplied books on both religion and science in the hope that I would make a choice based on what suited me best. The first book I remember being given was the Bible.

I demonstrated a fascination in religious art and architecture, and from that was wrongly diagnosed as a Christian by my Religious Education teacher, and she began grooming me to follow her faith... took me to her church, etc. I switched courses the first chance I got... I was interested in the history of religion, that didn't make me a Christian, and I still to this day don't understand why she didn't see the difference.

Anyway, I believed in God, but not that Jesus was the son of God. It bothered me that Christian friends told me that I could only get to God through Christ, so I began attending the various meetings of Christian friends, because I did believe in God and wanted to be saved. Try as I might, I couldn't stop arguing against the concept that Jesus was the son of God... which resulted in me accepting that I was not a Christian, and most likely never would be one.

So, still having faith in God, I floated around in religious limbo for a while. A long while. Eventually I came across this forum, because I thought my home might be haunted, and discovered the religious section here. All the debates and opinions made me think more and more about my faith, and why I had it. I had always had faith in God, but I began to wonder why.

My beliefs and opinions have been all over the place since arriving here... one god, many gods, a male god, a female god, no gods at all. And so I stripped it all back to that one question... why do I have faith? And my answer was "I don't have it." However, when I look around me I see design in all things, and with design comes a designer... so it is reasonable to assume that everything was created by a creator or creators. I came to the conclusion, by the use of reason rather than faith, that a creator or creators exist.

I do not have faith. I simply reason that a creator being exists. I do not look to religious texts for my creator, or to miracles to reveal it's presence. I do not need proof because it is all around me.

That's where I'm at...

I was born into a predominantly Christian family in a predominantly Christian nation. I am therefore biased towards the Bible, my beliefs, state that the feelings I have towards my beliefs are personal evidence via a "spirit" titled the "Holy Ghost" of the validity of such beliefs, a bit circular I know, but hey religion isn't entirely logical in nature.

Now, given my irrational start, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you know, the "Mormons". I have family in nearly any religion you can name, from Catholic to Wicca to Taoist to Scientologist to non-denominational evangelical Christian, so my denominational belief is not based in external bias as much as my Christian belief.

The Bible states that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"(Hebrews 11:1). I hope the LDS Church's statements are true. I hope that man is the literal progeny of deity and thus is heir to such if he proves responsible and worthy of such. I hope that families that exist here on earth are capable of remaining tied to one another through eternity.

I believe that love is central to our purpose in mortality.

My experience with other Christian denominations leads me to believe few believe in a truly loving God, they claim those not of their faith and people who commit what can only be viewed as minor offenses from an eternal perspective will go to somewhere horrible for eternity. I believe such behavior would be evidence that God is a hypocrite. I dislike the majority of Christian's God. The LDS believe everyone goes to heaven save those that even upon gaining a full knowledge, no doubt whatsoever, of the divinity of Christ still fight against him, these are the only ones that enter an eternal "Hell". Everyone else continues to become more like God, dependant on their behaviors some progress at a slower rate than others, but all progress, and from an eternal perspective that's not a bad deal.

I have also had personal spiritual experiences within the LDS faith. My wife was told that she would die, I performed a priesthood blessing and she regained her health in a week. I was diagnosed with an incurable disease that would impact my options for my entire life, following a priesthood blessing the disease has not been located in my body, the Doctors are perplexed by the sudden dissapearance of such. And many more.

This is why I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The following post written a couple of years ago gives a fair, if brief, summation of my philosophy.

I haven't read all the posts, but thought i'd throw in my two cents worth, any how. I haven't yet come to a definitive conclusion after 55 years but i think most people are too pessimistic.
Both belief and science have given a lot to our world and they are not mutually exclusive. Evolutionary theory is part of a scientific system which has brought us to the most wonderful time of all to live in, except for tomorrow. (My grandmother was born before anaesthetics, electricity and penicillin were commonly available) I once asked her what she thought was the most significant change in her life time. She replied, electricity. Not just because of the physical changes it brought, but because for the first time, people were no longer divided by night and day, and no longer had to fear the night.

However, science does not provide all the answers. One day it might, to most of the scientific questions, but probably not to the meta physical/spiritual ones. This site illustrates the huge diversity in belief and percieved reality and, again, I think beliefs/faith is evolving down a path where tomorrow will be better than today. Sure, there are die hards and fanatics in every belief system , but most are moving the world to a better place. And whether you believe in a life after this one or not, don't we all want the same basics for humanity.
My life, which is based on science, logic and rationality is only enhanced/enriched, by my personal experiences with angels, ghosts, dimension portals and other interesting insights into the unexplained. I like to think that this experience can be true for humanity as a whole. The tragedy comes when people try to deny one side or the other of our existence, then become more and more fanatical in their denial.

Well when I was a young lad I went to a Baptist Church, but the time I spent there didn't really feel right. Like I didn't belong there. So I gave it up. In high school I was an "I hate your God" atheist. When I was a senior, I didn't have enough credit hours required so the admin stuck me in the library for an hour(man did I go through a lot of books). One day I stumbled across a survey of world religions text. I was just flipping through and came across the Islam entry, didn't really dig that so I kept flipping until I came across the Buddhism entry. I liked it a lot, it mirrored a lot of the conclusions I was drawing without any rigid framework. I kept it in the back of my mind but never actively pursued it.

When I entered college I was exposed to New Age and Neo-Paganism. I threw myself into that. Even fancied myself a "powerful sorcerer". I met a guy through a very good friend of mine who followed the shaman's way. Before I knew it I had been initiated myself. He was a bit of an eclectic fellow and I was a stoner bookworm so I spent a lot of time reading through his collection. The Upanishads, handwritten copies of the Tao and a collection of Koans in addition to Drawing Down the Moon, Black Elk Speaks and some other books that I don't remember.

Beltaine 1996 was the turning point. That was the night I took my first shamanic journey. We won't go into details about what that entailed, but over the course of that adventure I developed the understanding that I have now, just not the vocabulary to go with it. I continued along with shamanism for a while but I had pretty much completely converted to Zen. And so the Rev stands before you.

One of the funniest things I have ever heard in my travels was "For a Buddhist you reek of magic."

June 24, 1978 I was in a car wreck. I was coming home from a friend's wedding, going back to work, was driving around a corner and the right front tire had a blow out. The car ran off the corner to the right and I got it back on to the road and the tire buckled underneath and the car started rolling. On the first roll, it threw my door open and since I didn't have my seat belt on it threw me out just far enough to lodge me between the seat and the door and the car rolled over me. Well, I just threw that thing off me and . . . No . . . It has been a rough 29 years! I spent 6 months in a coma. I am 46 years old, I have been an Emergency Medical Technician (Technologist, Tech something), I have graduated from a police academy, I have an Associate Degree in Computer Science, a Batchelor's Degree in Business Administration. And you want to know what I believe? I believe in Y'all! Every one of ya!

My Grandfather was a Presbyterian Minister in Holland. My Father is a retired Major from the USMC and flew one of the helicopters that picked up John Glenn from the ocean and some of y'all may know who he was. My first cousin a couple of times removed was Secretary of State George C. Marshall. One other first cousin a few more times removed was Chief Justice John Marshall.

I have cousins that worked at Area 51. My Dad was in the Space Program.

I am Cherokee/Scottish/Irish/Dutch.

I believe everybody has been alive forever; passing from one life to the next. We don't remember the last life, but we build from it. We have the ability to absorb life, but our abilities are becoming limited. I do not believe in a hell like the Pope does, but I believe we create a life that is hot or cold or, as the bible says, lukewarm. We have had belief systems started before us and those have become our judge. I believe we are either in the middle or near the end of a cycle; and the end is getting here quicker than some of us want, but it is longer than some of us need. I believe in heaven and I believe in God the Supreme.

And I believe that each one of us is Jesus Christ.

Awesome Gregg.... Semper Fi !!!

If I were to telll you that, I'd have to write my own book. So, I shall refrain. Most of you know the the story anyway, or part of it. Look around my sig and such, it's all there for those that wish to see.

Left on an eleven year pilgrimage around the world. Got shot at twice, canoed for 9,000 kms in a canoe, lived with many Aboriginal peoples and learned from them, and eventually understood (for myself) that the greatest single thing I can do to increase my awareness is to help others and learn about myself.

To cut a very long story short...

When I was seven years old while on top of a hill overlooking a lagoon, I realized the simple perfection of this world, the total beauty of it all. It was my first profound encounter with pure logic.

As I got older, somehow I lost track of it, like losing paradise I suppose. As time moved on, things became unnecessarily complicated and beyond my control.

But, the funny thing about living is that it keeps on teaching me to regain that perfect balance, as in a more solid (not immature) inner child. When I accepted that everything's meant to be, things change, for me to basically regain it. It is not just a mind thing because I get results. Without concrete results, I might as well be asleep. People say: "This world is but a dream." Yes and no. While I'm here on Earth, it is 300% real. I am subject to its rules and regulations ... and rewards. While on Earth, I believe in an all-powerful, absolutely divine God, separate from my being. While on Earth, I am not god. In fact, I find it blasphemous to say "I am god." Basically, we have a lot more potatoes to eat to even utter the first word of that sentence.

In the end, I believe that I have to let go of my belief system, my imperfect truths, through the grace of (?). I do know for a fact that one's consciousness live on after death. And through our sincere desires, we incarnate to this world again and again. If many mystics and saints are right, then we are this Expansion, Truth, the "man behind the curtain," Nirvana -- IN THE END.

But for now, I'm in my Neverending Story. It's meant to be. So, just be -- but it's always easier said than 'done.'

I don't believe in a higher being, I don't know why I don't believe, I just found it to be silly. Thus why I got banned from Sunday school for saying I didn't think He (God) Exists. That was a decade ago now.

Hello greggK,

Could you please explain, or go into this more?

Is it because we've lived so many lifetimes that some are becoming worn-out, mentally, like a weary soul? Or, is it because some people are reaching the end of their collective cycle, and that their aims or tasks in this lifetime are so focused..., to an innocent bystander it seems "limited" in nature? Again, please go into details, if you wish.

Thank you for sharing your belief system.

Well for me, I have seen spirits or ghosts forever. When I told one older woman that, she told me I was touched by the Devil. I watched how righteous and arrogant some people were who were regular church goers. I found this so hypocritical. As I grew up, I read a bit on a lot of religions and huge amount of history. The bible to me is a biased male oriented book that looks down upon women. Women used to have to suffer the "Sins of Eve", which was absolutely horrendous. Women were burned at the stake or drowned for witchcraft because they questioned teachings. I have a friend who is incredibly religious and had no idea what Sodom and Gomorrah were, and why they were destroyed. If the religious works can be picked and chose as to what to believe, why believe in any of it?

My belief system is nature. And we all have to look after it a lot better or else there will be no furtherance of the human race.

From personal expieriances it sounds alot like what you were expeiriencing was an OBE or astral projection, which isnt a bad thing at all, actually its the opposite and your lucky to have expierienced it, during astral projecting there is usually a vibration or sounds before you lift your ethereal self out of your physical body and unless you actually felt the pain with the drill insident id say that you just took it as a bad expeirience and let it get the better of you. And just like any fear, the best way to get rid of it is to confront it, what you have to realize is that everything is just matter and that anything that would try and hurt you would have to have a reason. Imagination looks like the culprit here.

Well, as most people here know, I was raised by a mother who is an eastern mystic (she runs a yoga studio and lives on and off at an Ashram in India) my father is a non-practicing Catholic, my sister is a practicing Catholic--we blame the Jesuit University she went too haha--and my extended family is a mix of Episcopalians, Methodists, and agnostics. My paternal Grandmother was a Quaker.

My family is such a hodgepodge of beliefs, and they're ALL wonderful people.

Most of my time growing up until I was about 27, I gave no thought to religion, God, Jesus or much of anything spiritual. I live in a part of the USA that has the fewest church going people per capita in the whole nation. In all honesty, religion just wasn't something I had really been exposed to.

My former husband was a Luthern, and I did attend church with him on occasion, and I really did adore the pastor at his church, but to me, there just seemed to be something "off" in regards to what was being taught. I also have an adversion to being preached at, that probably does come from my eastern upbringing, question everything... I never felt like it was ok to question what was being taught at my husbands church, no matter how much I liked the pastor.

When I was in my late 20's, supremely happy with my life and accomplishments, I began to think that somehow, I knew that God was within me, and that I had a very strong Christian belief but what I knew of Christians seemed to exclude a lot of the people I really loved, namely my mother. At this point, I started to do a lot of research, visited a lot of churches and none of them resolved any of my concerns with Christianity. They didn't address the fact that God and the love of Christ was in my heart.

I started to talk to my mother about all this, and she suggested that I speak with my grandmother who is a Quaker. I did talk to grandma, and she set me up to attend a Quaker meeting my area. I did so and found it to be exactly what I'd been seeking for so long. It's silence, lifestyle, and belief that God is within us all was something I'd known to be true all my life. I've been a member of the RSOF for 13 years now and it completes me. Simple as that.