tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2042413869472011551.post1288656268017828164..comments2023-09-17T00:52:27.888+10:00Comments on Girl With a Satchel: Faith Talk: Aussies on faith (a work in progress)Erica Bartle (nee Holburn)http://www.blogger.com/profile/03115131016810116605noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2042413869472011551.post-68597207354006614492011-08-29T00:16:31.785+10:002011-08-29T00:16:31.785+10:00I have only felt happier once leaving the Baptist ...I have only felt happier once leaving the Baptist church I was involved in. I didn't like the way that I HAD to believe what the church told me. Apparently my uncle is going to hell because he's gay. Oh really? "If there is a hell; I'll see you there" is what the 16-year-old Nine Inch Nails listening teenager thought to herself!<br /><br />It drove me mental. The obsession with marriage, the anti-gay stance, the sceptical beliefs regarding climate change, the archaic ideas about women (submission, no authority permitted), the our-way-or-the-highway (ie. HELL), just became too ridiculous to even fully believe. <br /><br />Also I noticed that you refer to God as a "He", for me it's a reminder of how the church pushes you to think about God in the male form. I once asked at a bible study whether it was reasonable to refer to God as a He/She because God really isn't either. But of course this dissonance was not welcome. <br /><br />The literal teachings of the bible lead many of it's members to become disenchanted, it's not so much the congregants that made me deeply cynical about the place. I could see that they HAD to believe the church's stance on the bible. If you want to be considered a Christian, ya gotta believe people will go to hell. Lots of them. What if I don't believe that there really was an Adam and Eve and PERHAPS it's a story? Well, it wouldn't be accepted.<br /><br />Kudos to you for not judging though. I find it very hard to not judge most of the Christians that pop up on my facebook feed ranting about same-sex marriage and abortion and the like.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2042413869472011551.post-88899252379500492292011-08-25T09:24:19.266+10:002011-08-25T09:24:19.266+10:00Congrats on the Sunday Life piece, Erica!
While I ...Congrats on the Sunday Life piece, Erica!<br />While I don't agree with your stance on religion (I identify as agnostic), I must say I enjoyed your article, especially, like Sarah wrote above, the extended, GWAS version :)Scarlett Harris @ The Early Bird Catches the Wormhttp://earlybirdcatchestheworm.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2042413869472011551.post-86500719155818591582011-08-23T19:15:55.464+10:002011-08-23T19:15:55.464+10:00Hi,
It can be proven the unseen exists, currently...Hi,<br /><br />It can be proven the unseen exists, currently there has been a submission for peer review of the method. The question is how is the world going to respond when it is confirmed the unseen exists. Do each of us pray constantly or do we talk of the many entertainment things God has provided for us. God has always been there, and life has gone on, but now the world is on the verge of knowing life exists afer death. We each have to do much as we always have done. Governments have to make decisions, leaders have to make decisions only now those decisions will be made in the knowledge a God exists and there will be repercussions from not doing the right thing. At this point Ethics classes are needed more than ever to teach what is the correct thing to do so people stay in favour with God.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2042413869472011551.post-27812080233413225282011-08-22T11:55:00.383+10:002011-08-22T11:55:00.383+10:00Wow, Erica! The Lord works in mysterious ways, as ...Wow, Erica! The Lord works in mysterious ways, as I discovered twice this weekend. The first time was in the Homily/Sermon at Mass, where the priest was speaking of Simon Peter being given the keys to Heaven - I love it when Christ says "You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it". That passage is my ultimate comfort when I dismay about the lack of justice in the world (as are the Beatitudes, but that is another story)- however, this time, it was not that part but the one that followed it that really opened my eyes to why I don't just need God, but the Church - "Whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loose in Heaven". For some reason, that sentence answered something that had been plaguing me internally for a while and I teared up! The second thing happened on Sunday morning when I opened Sunday Life and saw your piece. I loved it, but recognised it as a more 'tamer' version of your faith writing. I remarked that I'd wished it was longer - there was so much more I could have read and lapped up. And alas, here I am, visiting GWAS and I get to read the original version in its entirety. Despite this, I still enjoyed reading the original, and was really glad for the way you described our current state. Cudos to you for acknoweldging error, like the sexual abuse instances in the Catholic Church, but also recognising that these are not the true representation. As a non-Catholic once told me, true priests don't become peadophiles, but peadophiles become priests. As these instances of my weekend show, sometimes the most limited number of words can provide the most understanding. "Preach the gospel always and if necessary use words", a quote by St Francis, epitomises this. Sometimes all the words in the world are not enough, sometimes, a small number of them can outdo the power of the most comprehensive theological doctrines. Thanks be to God for His nourishment, which this weekend proved to me comes at the starngest times, and in many many forms.Sarah Ayoub Christiehttp://www.sarahayoub.comnoreply@blogger.com