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Why is it that when I was at Summerstar, a pagan festival held on the west coast, I felt a lot closer to God than I did on the plane home surrounded by fundamentalist baptists?

Why is it that at the Open Arms MCC church I refound God when in my traditional church I lost God?

What of you all? How do you feel when around Pagans and others who fall outside of traditional Christian orthodoxy?

I have a hard time when isolated among any group from any religion. Now, I like christians, muslems, Buhddists, and have absolutely not a problem with any of them, until they ask about my religion and I'm forced to explain about our God.


"You know existence, and how God is supposed to have created the earth and everything on it? How he was supposed to have created the heavens and the earth and all the angels?------- Our God is the parent of the one above that one."

Just a correction and not to start a fight, but how do you explain atheistic religions?



Not every pagan religion is about love, so I highly doubt it.

Atheism is the lack of belief in one true god, so some kinds of Buddhism are technically 'atheist'.

There probably are some kinds of demon-worshiping Pagan religions, although there are also the Pagans who, although they worship whatever gods/goddesses they have, many are generally very accepting. I have a few Pagan friends, and I've looked up a little about it.

That can be said about nearly every religion, I know some Mormans that would give you the shirt off there back but I also know some that I'd rather avoid on a regular basis. The truth is that love is so ingrained in us that we naturaly find it on almost any path we take. God so beautifuly ingrained it within us that our live is more about others than it is about ours that we can't feel right going about our lives any other way.

In my studies of other world religions and primal religions, I find so much truth about God, but usually expressed in a different way. So many times I'll find myself feeling more enlightened after reading Hindu scripture than I will after reading the Bible. I think part of this may be because it's new material to me, but this is largely why I became a religious pluralist. I believe God is found in most, if not all, major religions we see on earth. Just because I've chosen Christianity as my way of making a relationship with God, doesn't mean that the Muslim next door hasn't found his own relationship with the Almighty.

my stepdad is a Hindu, and very understanding of different religions. my mom is a Wiccan (and even a luff-bunny one at that) who grew up in an all-christian family, and she has a strong bias against christianity.

in their household, i was raised in an extremely religious-neutral environment. the vibe i got was that christian mythology was good, but that christians were bad, hypocritical, self-righteous.

i was, for the longest time, an atheist. i was under the impression that while it wasn't impossible, it didn't make sense for there to be a God or Gods. however, when i was about 17 i had my first direct experience with the Divine. it was all the proof i needed.

i was already a practitioner of Magic, Communing with Spirits, Astral Projecting. so, i looked first into Magic-based religions. Wicca and various Pagan religions were my first stop. i didn't quite connect with either. i looked into Shinto, Shamanism, Hinduism, and Doaism. much better connections, but still didn't feel solid. Paganism came back into the mix, but i was very ecclectic.

i ended up being convinced to go to a christian youth group. they were an interesting mix. mostly converts, or those who were not christian but convinced to join in, like me. i felt like there was a certain connection we all had.

turns out, that while each of us had our differences, we were able to share in the love of the variety. in fact, i almost converted to christianity twice.

however, i was deluding myself. and when i finaly came to my senses, i felt very brainwashed, and wanted to get out of there. so i turned back to Pagan groups. but i noticed there this incredibly hypocritical hatred of christians. sad

so, again, i find myself caught between two worlds, sympathetic to both sides but fully accepted by neither. sweatdrop

the way i see it, religion and personal bias both tend to get in the way of true Faith. but it matters more what the environment is when finding your personal connection to God.

^_^ it is definitely a prominent part of my upbringing.

actually, i'll be honest, i don't think Jesus was ever realy an Incarnation of the One. sweatdrop great Prophet, but realy just Human. Christianity wasn't meant to be about worshiping him as God. it was meant to be an evolution of the Jewish Faith, emulating him in God-Worship.

but that's just my take on it. sweatdrop