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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have been irreligious most of my life and everything that is happening is pushing me towards exploring spirituality because I need something to hang on to. I was raised Catholic but that's not it for me. It's a cliche (UMC white lady) but I've been exploring/practicing Buddhism the last several years and it has helped.

In some ways we need religion more than ever.

Recently I've been thinking a lot about the movie (and book) Contact. It's about a scientist who makes receives a message from an alien species, and how the world reacts to this and then what happens when humanity attempts to make contact with them. It is about science and religion and philosophy, the search for meaning, and trying to figure out what the purpose of all this is.

There is a line from the movie I always think of, describing humanity as "tiny, and insignificant and... rare, and precious" when viewed from the perspective of the entire universe. I like this perspective. All of these problems we have now are, truthfully, very small an unimportant when viewed from a great distance and in the context of all of existence. Yet all that is good in humanity, all our connection and love and creativity and warmth, is extraordinary and precious when viewed from the same perspective. We are so much less important than we like to think we are, but we are also capable of something truly wonderful and special.

I don't know, I'm babbling. TL;DR: everything that is happening in the world has caused me to seek spiritual outlets and some kind of connection with a force bigger than myself.[/quote]

You can’t have it both ways.

If you are an atheist then nothing you wrote is true — there is no greater spiritual connection or warmth, or anything else out there.  Millions of years ago fishes ended up on the land, we have been evolving ever since, there is no greater spiritual force in the world, because all that happens when we die is we rot in the ground, and eventually the whole world is going to burn up.  Nothing we do matters here at all — it can’t be both unimportant and precious — if it’s unimportant, then it’s not precious at all.   It’s just unimportant.

And yet …

I am a Christian and I don’t believe any of that.  I don’t believe you do either, in your heart of hearts.

I strongly encourage you to look at the different world religions and decide what is true — what has factually happened.   You should also compare them by thinking how you actually live your life and what is most consistent with that.  Chances are highly likely that you live by Christian values in terms of how you treat other people.

Buddhism is a very interesting alternative to Christianity.   It believes that how we live in this life carries over to the next life through some sort of cosmic karma and that eventually once we do get it right we get out of the cycle and enter some nirvana state.   So at its core the focus is on performance and achievement — being “good” enough in this life according to some vague standard we don’t even understand.   That sounds like a lot of pressure to me.

Christianity is not based on our own moral achievement or performance — it is based on what Jesus has already done for us and the perfect record we get through him.  It’s a gift freely received, not achieved.   The cosmic karma was already decided on Cavarly.  It is finished.

If you grew up Catholic, you likely didn’t hear the true story of Christianity, sadly.  I was in the same boat but when I actually began to understand Christianity, it changed everything for me.   As part of your exploration, check out Tim Keller sometime.  [/quote]

PP has an eye towards conversion!  good luck ---- I guess.  I'm disposed to leave the previous poster alone and let them just think about becoming Christian, because I'm pretty sure they will change their mind and see all religion as the dupe that it is.[/quote]

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