Introductions - Who We Are, Why We're Here

John Olexa

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I received Jesus as my Lord and Savior 4 years ago (at the age of 50!). I attend a small Baptist Church which is right at the end of my street. I also help teach Jr Church.
 

Bespectacled Nerd

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*peers in shyly around corner*

Hi, I'm Specs. I'm a pagan. Normally I introduce myself as being "primarily Lokean/Rökkatru," but I guess "non-denominational" or "eclectic" is a better term, 'cause I also incorporate Hellenic (Greek) and Kemetic (Egyptian) practices and deities, and I'm studying Romuva (Lithuanian paganism).

I was raised pagan, but my mom's family is ethnically Jewish, so I was also raised sorta-Jewish, but the emphasis was always more on culture than religion. When it comes to paganism, my family as a whole is very eclectic. My mom's main goddesses are Kali, Diana, and Kwan Yin, and my sister's deities are Thor, Idunn, and Poseidon.

I'm part of a pagan organization at my school that does interfaith discussions every semester with a fundamental Christian group on campus, and we've been approached by our school's Muslim Student Association to start up something similar.
 

SLake

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"Who we are and why we're here."

AW, or life on earth - not exactly sure but it's to do with self-expression which clarifies stuff most of the time.

I've tried and investigated all sorts of religions, even pagans and formed opinions about what was offered by their 'representatives' if you will. I like the social aspects - interactions, contacts, discussions but ultimately none agree with my lifestyle. Similarly politics. Most of the very rich are nice - communication is easy but then as a clique they are surprisingly boring and predictable. I like the very poor who have little politics or religion. When they talk it's generally from the heart, if they haven't ulterior motives such as making a quick buck from me.

Personal expression, the individual matters to me. Tho probably I like the Jewish Rabbi approach to religion best - at least a US Rabbi with whom I communicated concerning his opinions on several Biblical questions: non-conclusive and diverse possibilities to my questions. Other than that, my dentist is a Muslim and a sweeter man I've seldom met. Purposely I didn't juxtapose the two, Rabbi and dentist, but politics, religions, even colours are to me a noise.

My enemies are extremists, not because I made it that way. Their choice. By enemies I mean those who would destroy me, physically and/or mentally because I don't say their words or look the way they want. Religious ones, even feminists. Racists too and I've met those who hate white Europeans, and yeah I guess like feminists I can't really blame them, but I can blame them because I am no signatory to their sufferings. How dare they presume of me? I didn't presume of them.

"Why are we here" AW or earth? To be human, there is nothing else except to die. Human to me is like animal, a slot in a position, an actor with a role. The nippy bit is most humans don't know what human means, unlike animals who apparently do and are at their best when left alone to do what their particular species does.

So I am a member of a species most of whom in quiet moments realise they're clueless and ultimately doomed, even the sciences mumbling quietly about an impending 'cull.' Many solutions, even ultimate solutions have failed. In my opinion every religion has failed. Not that the initiators didn't speak truth, I think they spoke truth, but the results failed - their messages were misunderstood and consequently the results I hear are 'noise.'
Instead, I meet individuals. Saintly people and wise, rich, poor, good and evil but without tags - striking women like Bodicea, dangerous men like Caesars, even saints and lesser beings. I've met their likes, probably most of us have or will.

The mediocrity of many malls is tedious but perhaps beyond history's shadows it's best this ongoing killing of the human character.

Gives writers lots of work inventing heros, eh :p
 

Serenity Bear

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I was raised as a Christian, attending Sunday School from the age of 4 and carried on being so until I was 13 years old. It was a massively bad year, and part of that was ceasing to be that religion.

Over the next few years I sort of grew my own thoughts on what I needed and felt about religion. Eventually in my mid 20s I found out what I believed was called Spiritualism.

I went to Spiritualist church (SNU) and the Arthur Findlay College regularly until I became to ill to travel and thus depended on the internet.


I truely believe my Spirit Guides help me every day, and certainly I do get inspired writing, and dreams from them. Just finding this place was pretty weird and when I did I got a confirmation straight away. One of my travel toys is called McAlister - hows that for a co-incidence, 'cause the first post you get is from Mac.

I loved to read the books by Anthony Borgia about the Spirit World, and what it was like there.

My writing has definitely come to the fore lately, with various things going on in my life. I've dabled in psychic art and was dreadful at it, and yes I'm pretty good at meditation, psychic stuff and beyond. I do hope my Spirit Guides will help me again to improve my writing, and have a blast writing everything down. I don't know about everyone else but I get a real kick out of writing.

For instance just today on a dog walk, I was thinking of mouse names and the thought came into my mind of Moustafa mouse. RFLOL!
 

ToDieUnsung

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I feel that I cannot function without the influence of God within me and so I consider myself a follower of the Gospels as opposed to a follower of religion. In my personal opinion, believing in the Gospels and believing in organized religion are two very different things. I am very much against the idea that we need to be good for God to love us; I embrace the idea that we are not good by God's standards but nonetheless God loves us anyway. I deeply follow God in my own life an favor the complete separation of religion and the state and I vehemently oppose the church trying to influence the state as well as the state trying to influence the church (and at the risk of being too political I would note that this makes me increasingly very much in favor of limited gov't and the prioritization of civil liberties and in favor of private competition).

Would love to know if there are any like minded writing fans and writers left here.
 

rwhegwood

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I am an Orthodox Christian, or at least trying to be. I grew up in a Southern Baptist home, became idealistically irritated at church at 15, changed to the Methodist Church around 17, and from there drifted into the Charismatic movement in it's early days (mid 70s). There I remained for the next 21 years when I had finally and formally burned out on it. This was an odd phase form me, for I still believed, but couldn't really make myself care day to day, and saw little attractive or fulfilling in what I had known. Around 1994 I started sniffing around liturgical churches, like Traditional Anglicanism, testing the waters to see if that more ancient expression of worship fit the bill. While investigation the Anglican communion, I stumbled upon the Orthodox Church, and began to read up on it's teachings and traditions. For me it was like light bulbs flashing on left and right...some many things I thought I knew reordered, or upended. It destroyed most of my former certainties, and showed me paths the places I thought had vanished ages ago. O blessed undoing and remaking. It's been 20 years since I was convinced of the Orthodox Christian faith, and I've never had the slightest occasion to reconsider since. It's not grown old. It's only grown deeper and vaster and more beautiful than I ever imagined.

Why am I here...mainly to connect with serious writers in order to improve my craft and to build a network of those who might be willing to beta read, critique, etc. in exchange for the same. If they are serious Christians who understand the impulse to faith, who value and understand the impact of traditional theology on one's life (and by extension, a character's life) so much the better. And if they can engage the practical and theological implications of proposed story conceits and discuss them intelligently, then even better yet.
 

WarAndBaseball

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Hi all, I believe religion is the way we've put words to the spiritual/mystical experience over time. As writers I'm sure we can all respect writing (both non-fiction and fiction) as a process of deep self-reflection. So, if we look at all religion from this lens, then it's our job to honor what has been written in the past for the sole purpose of finding our best selves today. For our best self is what will bring true joy and goodness to the world. The purpose is not to be slaves to the words, for the sake of the prescribed holiness of the words. This is actually idolatry and we don't honor the endlessness of words if we do that. That, unfortunately, can translate to exclusive, defensive behavior, hatred, belittling, and a missing of the sacredness of all things.

A small example is the biblical language of Christ 'ascending' to heaven or 'descending' to hell. If we are to be slaves to these words then we would translate them as literally 'going up' and 'coming down' to a God that is 'out there' and disconnected from us. A big man in the sky. This is where literal words can become an embarrassment to religion. And people start calling themselves 'atheists' because they can't believe in the literal words any more. I feel like both camps are missing out on the greater journey, and I've spent a large part of my adult life searching for a way to reconcile (aka put words to) the literary paradoxes of the religion I happened to be born into. I spent many years writing about it. But I ultimately found that, surprisingly enough, using a seemingly secular topic like baseball helps to break down the walls of different religious camps, softens the heart to listen, and in that place the conversation can start. To that end, I don't consider my work 'religious' more than I consider it 'human' or 'spiritual.'