In Reply to: Re: the bible.. posted by porceleindoll on July 06, 2003 at 20:23:59:
I really understand you write, it rings a bell for me.
For me it isn't easy to be specific about my spiritual beliefs. And the Bible ...the only time I read Bible verses is when I read them here, or on the NDN Bible Search board.
But I believe in spiritual things, and I do read publications that have a lot of value to me, but these are things that a lot of Christians consider heresy or have labelled "new age", even if it was written long before the word "new age" was coined.
An example of something that interests me are holistic philosophies.
Also, this past year I've had a chance to attend workshops that deal with the personal discovery and development of listening to the "inner self or being". Part of this included workshops that had to do with confidence or self-esteem building, character development, etc.
This was in stark contrast to the Family experience that endured for so long. One of Berg's favorite control tactics was to teach that there was no hope for "self" and that self-improvement ethics were of the Devil.
So now I absolutely rejoice in finding out how wrong Berg was, because if anything, I now know that the "God" that I believe in has helped me to find myself, and "God" has been helping me to rebuild my post-Family life through that process of personal development: discovery, personality building, character improvement, etc.
I've made some really good friends too, people that I work with also attended the workshops and the courses. Getting to know people like this has been really liberating, having gotten out of that Family frame of mind where I was limited by the belief that we were "better" than anyone not in the Family.
The great big society of man, is full of good people that are surely members of God's true family, regardless their faith, or lack of it. For me my main goal in life now is to be a useful member of society, sounds mundane, but the world has not only lots of bad things happening in it, there are a lot of good things too. God's put me here in it, and I'm a part of it, and as far as I'm concerned the last thing God wants me to do is to think I'm somehow something special which elevates me away from the good the bad and the ugly ...thereby helping me to escape from it, escape from myself and from resposibility. The Family and every other cult like it is pure escapism. That's my 2 cents.