Why Religion Lost my Interest

I mention earlier in that in the past year that I have been turned off by religion. While that is not exactly true that it occurred in the last year. It has actually slowly been occurring over the last four years. While I was in college I lived around a group friends in the dorms for the year that was involved in my college different religion organizations.  For a very science based university there was probably over twenty different religion organization and most who were involved (at least to me came off as... well preachy . I never been a big fan of going out there and try to covert everyone to your way of thinking and most who were involved in the big two religious organizations on campus belong to the overly preachy slash lets recruit everyone to our side of thinking. And after living around them and hanging out with them I was highly turned off at even the thought of going to church. So during the course of my last four years of college I probably attended church less then fifty times and only when I was home for breaks.

Then last July I moved to the state of Oklahoma where my husband got a job worker as an engineer. The area we go relocated to happens to be fairly nice. If you do not mind living near a paper planet or having to drive 15 minutes to get your food.But if you want to go visit a church then all you have to do is go a block and then there is one.Or at least then there is a Baptist church.  Outside of the Baptist faith there are probably roughy five other faiths in the town that I been relocated to. Which is kinda of what you would expect plus the only way in this town to socialize (especially if you are new to the area ) is to attend the local church gatherings otherwise you are an outcast. Plus as soon as you start making friends with the locals you are bound to be asked to attend church with them.

So in the past year I have willing been stubborn at the idea of not attending church. And I usually dance around the idea or come up with some form of an excuse for not going. But I do not know if I want to do that any more. Part of me feel like that may it is time to get back into the groove of things but at the same time not. Which is in part why I want to get back into researching religions or really just finding a faith that I can believe in. One that doesn't make me feel pressure to be apart of or one that involved well spreading the word. I may not end up in this journey finding a religion that I can relate to or a may. I may at least come to the conclusion of rather I still believe in Jesus or even for that matter rather God really exist. So this blog will probably take on a different form then how it started four years ago because I won't just be talking about things related to the religious books that are out there but also things that are happening around me and what I see on the internet. 

Life in the last four years

So the last time I really sat down to write a post on this blogger was back in 2010. In the course of four years a fair amount of things have changed in my life and the world around me. Some great things and very few bad things. So at twenty-four I am kind a of making a return to this blog.

In the course of four years I have changed to a fair point. I got to visit Europe for a couple of days back in 2011 where I got to visit places like the Vatican City, London, Rome, Pairs, and other couple of places. That trip for me was pretty life changing ... or so it seemed at the time.

Then I got to graduate college after five years in 2013 in which after a lot of switching back 'n' forth with majors I ended up with two Bachelors by accident. So yea and now on to paying back students loans.

Other major news I got married to my college sweet heart and moved half way cross country to one of the bible belt states in the past year. Moving to an area where there is a church on every street corner does kind a of open your eyes to things about religion. Which in part made me want to return to this blog. Because in the course of the year I been out here I have actually been turned off of what made religion interesting to me several years ago when I first started writing.

So keep tune. I may or may not write in here often but I'll at least should have some interesting things to say.

Support for jesus

Support For Jesus

For: Christianity

Against: Judaism and Islam

(I am just looking at the big three: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam)

Proof: Bible and Science

Where to start? Well, I guess the bible would be the first place to look. In the Old Testment the Jews were promised that there would be a savior who would rescue them from their sins. In the New Testment, we told the story of our savior through four Gospels.

Summary of Jesus’s Life:

“Although born in Bethlehem, according to Matthew and Luke, Jesus was a Galilean from Nazareth, a village near Sepphoris, one of the two major cities of Galilee (Tiberias was the other). He was born to Joseph and Mary shortly before the death of Herod the Great (Matthew 2; Luke 1:5) in 4 BC. According to Matthew and Luke, however, Joseph was only his father legally. They report that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived and that she “was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18; cf. Luke 1:35). Joseph is said to have been a carpenter (Matthew 13:55), that is, a craftsman who worked with his hands, and, according to Mark 6:3, Jesus also became a carpenter.


Luke (2:41–52) states that as a child Jesus was precociously learned, but there is no other evidence of his childhood or early life. As a young adult, he went to be baptized by the prophet John the Baptist and shortly thereafter became an itinerant preacher and healer (Mark 1:2–28). In his mid-30s, Jesus had a short public career, lasting perhaps less than one year, during which he attracted considerable attention. Some time between AD 29 and 33—possibly AD 30—he went to observe Passover in Jerusalem, where his entrance, according to the Gospels, was triumphant and infused with eschatological significance. While there he was arrested, tried, and executed. His disciples became convinced that he still lived and had appeared to them. They converted others to belief in him, which eventually led to a new religion, Christianity.”

(http://www.history.com/topics/jesus-christ)

To be.....

Sorry

Hello, so the last time I written was back in July and now it April. So you probably wonder what happen. A lot has. College start up and took over life and not giving me a chance to think about religion or question it. Which has been good and kind of relaxing. Since it is Good Friday, I thought that it was about time to get back to were I was a year ago.

It was around this time last year that I started to really think about God and what religion is right and wrong. Truthfully probably none of them are wrong. Maybe how they approach things could be what are wrong. I do not know. As I get older I like to think about the whole religion thing. When I was in high school the group I hung with would never had question the religion that they were brought up in. In college, I have found religion is something worth avoiding. Two many of friends up here are Jesus Freaks (at Tech these are those that are members of Inter Varsity and Campus Crusades for Christ) and would start tossing bibles at you if you even mention that Jesus might not be who they claim him to be. And this blog is where I come to think about God and Jesus. The next two post are about Jesus or that my plan. I decided that I am going to provide both sides of the argument for and against Jesus.

Thanks for being willing to tolerate the long gap between postings. Once the spring semester is over I hope to maybe continue my search but I can’t make any promises. At least not now, because things have changed since last year where everything in my life was in a question. Things are not anymore, actually things are smooth now but I still plan on searching for a religion that I agree with.

Top 5 Results

So here are a bit of a summary of the quiz I took a week or so ago. A recap on what the quiz involved was answering 20 questions and rate them from high to low on the level of importance it hold to you. At the end of the quiz you get a result of the twenty religions that seem to best agree with your response to the questions with percentage next to it. So in this Blog I only going to talk about the top five results from the since they are the ones that best agree with my responses compare to the other religions.

The top one was Orthodox Judaism with 100 %. My initial thoughts without reading anything is: kind of shock since I was brought in the a Protestant religion and never actually meet someone who practice Judaism before college but at the same time I am a little bit curious about this since it is one of the oldest monotheistic religions of the world.

            Summary from beliefnet.com:

-       One God

-       No incations

-       God created life in 7 days, rested on the 7^th

-       Believes in the World to Come

-       Free will not original sin

-       Faith, prayer, and following divine commandment

Comments: I really like the fact that they believe in one God, which always comes off that Christianity, seem a bit contradictory when it comes to believing that Jesus is God as well. Also I really appearacte that they believe in free will since the fact that everyone is sin from birth without ever having made a decision to be sin just does not seem right.

            The second one is Sikhism with 99 %... wow only one percent different my initial thoughts: Nothing since I never heard of this religion before this quiz.

                        Summary from beliefnet.com

-       God is impersonal and formless Reveall and manifest himself throughout the universe

-       God existed in deep mediation of void of countless ages until deciding to create the universe

-       One soul is reborn until liberated

-       Free Will

-       God’s grace alone

Comments: I do not really know what to say besides that it seem strange. The only thing that seems to appeal to me is the Free Will part.

            The third is Islam with 96 %. Initial thoughts: Isn’t this the one when Muhammad is the actually Savior the bible spook of extend of Jesus and then isn’t there some other book as well? Also isn’t this the religion that see women as less value then a man?

                        Summary from beliefnet.com

                                                -One God

                                                - No incrations, Muhammad the last prophet

                                                - Created Earth in 6 days, days could be 1000 of years

                                                - We are free to choose to do good or evil

                                                - Obey Go’s law and Muhammad’s doctrine

                        Comments: Makes more sense then what came up as number two but I might be a little bit prejudice towards Islam with the fact that is see women as less then a man. What I do like is that we are free to choose good or evil as well as the one God belief and that there is no other incarnations.

            The fourth religion was Reform Judaism the percentage was 94%. Initial thoughts: They’re more then one type of Judaism?

                        Summary from beliefnet.com

                                                -Varies among congregations but generally one God

                                                - No incration. Moses is seen as the greatest prophet

                                                - Believe in Genesis to be understood symbolically

                                                - World to come and a messianic age

                                                - No original sin, Free Will

                        Comments: What’s the difference with the beliefs between Orthodox and Reform?  There seem to be none.

            The fifth was Baha’i Faith with 91%. Initial thought: Whatta?

                        Summary from beliefnet.com:

                                                - One personal God

                                                - Prophets if the main religion is seen as God

                                                - God created all from nothing

                                                - Resurrection is figment of the imagination

                                                - Free Will, and Satan is a symbol of our animal side

                                                - Salvation is the search truth from God’s incrations

                                    Comments: Okay this seem as if it is a religion that seem to mix in the different religions in order to make one super religion.

 

Well, that all five of the top responses in a nutshell. I think the next couple Blog I’ll probably just focus on the one main religion and try to go in depth with it by pointing out that there is off shots of the main religions. I think I’ll start out with Judaism and just go from there by the age of the religion. I feel like that I’ll probably going to focus mainly on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam since they are the world leading religions but also the ones that I am more incline to. Out of these three I’ll probably will focus on the one that I best agree with and look at their different branches more closely. 

steps to my hunt

Well, I guess I should probably explain how I going about my journey to find a religion that seems to best suit me. It actually rather simple versus visiting all the different churches or temples right away I decided that I was going to read up on the different type of religions first. When I got back in May I went straight to the library and checked out different books on different religions focusing mainly on the Western religion front. But also another thing I did was to take different quizzes on just to see what it had to say what religion seem to be a better match to my beliefs. One of the quizzes I took was on Facebook the results ended up being Judaism which I found to be slight interesting since prior to last fall I never someone who was Jewish. Also at this I do not really know much about Judaism for never really having to been exposed to it. Yet, there was this one quiz that I took off at http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx that seemed more reliable then any other quiz since it asked you twenty questions and also have you ranked them from strong feeling to weak feeling. Below I posted my result and well go over the top five religions that seem to better agree with my personal beliefs in another post.

1.	Orthodox Judaism (100%)
2.	Sikhism (99%)
3.	Islam (96%)
4.	Reform Judaism (94%)
5.	Baha'i Faith (91%)
6.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (84%)
7.	Seventh Day Adventist (84%)
8.	Liberal Quakers (83%)
9.	Orthodox Quaker (81%)
10.	Jainism (76%)
11.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (74%)
12.	Unitarian Universalism (73%)
13.	Hinduism (71%)
14.	Eastern Orthodox (66%)
15.	Roman Catholic (66%)
16.	Mahayana Buddhism (56%)
17.	Neo-Pagan (49%)
18.	Scientology (42%)
19.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (41%)
20.	Jehovah's Witness (41%)
21.	Theravada Buddhism (40%)
22.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (35%)
23.	New Thought (35%)
24.	New Age (33%)
25.	Taoism (23%)
26.	Secular Humanism (19%)
27.	Nontheist (5%)