Thread: Are you a believer?

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I am an Atheist.

I'll say what I always say; believe whatever you like and we'll get along fine... just don't preach to me.

You wouldn't believe how many people tell me to look to God for guidance and to me, that just doesn't make sense and never has.

it is not the intention of this post to preach or to convert one to a perticular spiritual set of beliefes. it is just to state rather you believe there is supernatural forces in the world and I state my beliefe that I believe in the supernatural. I also have a set of religiouse beliefes and the two co-exist without conflict. I am not going to convince another that my beliefe is superior to anothers or that my set of values is better. I am just simple beliefe there is life after death.

Wow. You picked a heavy one indeed.
I am a VERY spiritual person, but I do not adhere to any religion as such. I have done the Christian practice and was very involved with the church. So many things went so very wrong and so many people got so very hurt. I humbly apologize to my Christian friends here, but my personal feeling is that the current church is not at all what the bible dictates, nor does it resemble the image given in the bible of what the early church was.
In itself, that is a topic of discussion that could easily go on ad nauseum. For many reasons, I don't belong to nor follow any church anymore...but I still very strongly believe in Christ and God. However, there are many many many things that have caused me to re-evaluate and re-adjust my own personal "image" of who and what God is. My old church friends essentially believe me to be "lost", and literally treat me like some sort of heretic. The odd thing is that my "fallen path" is and always has been guided. My quest for truth has brought me closer to Him than I could have ever dreamed possible. Consequently, my experiences have been equally as profound and earth-shattering. I have quite literally had "my world" torn down around me and rebuilt into a newer, clearer, truer reality....and this has happened many times.
I could go on and on, and many of you would think me to be a total fruitcake (if you don't already), which is fine, I'm not offended or bothered by that. I guess, in closing, I'd just like to say that I have learned to use one particular thing as a warning sign to help me along my way...fear. If what I am thinking, feeling, analyzing, investigating, pondering, etc. involves elements of fear, then it is not of the truth and it is not of love.
The God I have come to know does not invoke fear in any form. To the contrary, I am to learn that fear (like a large number of other things) is purely an illusion.
I'm not saying I'm perfect or even that I practice well what I learn...but I am learning, growing, evolving spiritually, and I do try to manifest what I learn. IMO, that is enough for now.

When I first saw the title of this thread, I was reticent to post. These kind of discussions have a tendency to "blow up" into raging inferno's quickly and dispropotionately, leaving a trail of carnage and destruction (on a biblical scale ) in their wake. But after seeing everybody's mature and non-judgemental input I thought I'd just add my two pennyworth.

I generally tend to distance myself from religion, and any discussions thereof.
It is my opinion that overall, religion has caused more far more pain, misery and suffering than it ever cured.

I suppose I am agnostic. both with regards to religion and the paranormal. I will normally try to seek a natural, scientifically based explaination for things, but am quite willing to acknowledge that there certain things and events that cannot be easily explained or discounted by current scientific thinking. Not that they never will...merely that we can't offer a plausible scientific argument just yet.

I acknowledge the existence of Christ as a historical fact, in the same way as I acknowledge the existence of the Prophet Mohammed. As to whether Christ was a divine being or not is open to conjecture. (I believe Jesus Christ never actually proclaimed his own divinty, and The Prophet Mohammed is not seen as a divine being by Islam).

To the best of my knowledge I've never been reborn, either spiritually or physically...I've never seen the Virgin Mary appear in a piece of toast, or Elvis in a fried egg...I've never seen a ghost or a UFO, a sea serpent or a bigfoot.
I have had one experience, many years ago, that I have not been able to explain away and that possibly...just possibly, could have been paranormal in nature, but I'm still not 100% convinced.

God and the paranormal...for me the jury's still out on both counts.