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Rank: Elder Joined: 11/5/2010 Posts: 2,459
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Angelica _ann wrote:Ngogoyo wrote:Obi 1 Kanobi wrote:My my..
We are a big grouping. I also suffer the same dilemma. Initially I used to get into arguments Humbuglar style and strongly denounce religion for all the hypocrisy it stands for. But after getting kids and a family, I have mellowed down and accepted its place in society.
I don't go to church but my wife takes the kids to church although she may skip one or two sometimes. The kids get a lot of religious education and dogma in school so to avoid confusing them, its best you take them to church because society demands it.
dont you feel a sense of 'losing out' when you don't accompany your children to church or pray with them?
I would recommend you read about other religions. - Islam is easy to get, its simply Christianity which has been radicalized (or stuck in the middle ages) and turned into a political system
- Hinduism is very interesting and in my opinion has done the most to explain origin, spirits, afterlife and the existence of a higher power.
- Budhism is all about self (have to confess I have not given it enough time)
Reading this convinced me that religion exists to explain death and afterlife. I am very sure people are suspicious of each other.  . Its comforting and at the same time worrtying that i am not alone in this. I will study Hinduism (of course for sport), Islam no. My wife would bring the whole church for prayers if she was to see the Koran in our house.
I fully agree with your sentiments. That is very true...... you can study any other religion for whatever reason but not Islam ~ Radicalization tingz. I would even report you to the local chief, OCS, Family wote and your employer. Also hold a night of vigil and prayer for you. Of course conjugal rights will go until you recover your senses, siwezi na Muslim  Told you they are dangerous, these followers of Christ.
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Rank: Member Joined: 5/27/2016 Posts: 274 Location: Pub
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I now understand why my dad used to force me to go to church and he never went to church, he even gave us offering. One day i asked him Dad why don't you go to church? He told me i hate "hypocrates". For me i go to church because of peace of mind, the hope i get, and the belief of a supreme being..that nomatter what i have something to believe in. Either way its all Vanity. However, i have really struggled with the mutara tara churches... zile za mamazetu. Damn, i always sleep and wonder what the hell i am doing in church. So i switched to an interesting one that can accommodate me eve if i oversleep on Saturday night.Some sundays i just stream it from my bed. And on a lighter note the only think i dont do is give offering.... i used to give offering until one day the Church bought the Senior Pastor & his assistant a white Prado. siku izi iyo kitambaa ya sadaka hunipita Vwaaaaaa.. I work so I can afford the amount of alcohol required to continue going to work
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Rank: Elder Joined: 7/1/2011 Posts: 8,804 Location: Nairobi
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radio wrote:@ngogoyo, how long have you had this struggle? Do you think it is a phase of life you can overcome over time?
Anyone who has been down this road of unbelief and changed later? Not going to church isn't 'unbelief'. I stopped going to church in my teens and faced a lot of doubt. Even now I wrestle with supreme being. But the doubt seems to be diminishing. 'God' is a bit cliché and anyway he died with Nietzsche, but supreme being still remains. It's like a revolution, We've gone back to the unnameable. Anyway, there are laws of tradition. These are the guides one can use. The challenge is to find them for yourself or something. If you're earnest in your doubt and you investigate these matters you'll be safe.Or rather, then you have nothing to lose. But there's also technique. How you can find the proper technique is another matter all together. But there's a holy spirit. It doesn't fail. How I can describe some things to you in a fresh language is something quite difficult at the moment. Hmm... trying times indeed.
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Rank: Member Joined: 4/26/2011 Posts: 759
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Ngogoyo wrote:My dilemma,
I can’t seem to get motivated to attend church nor listen to prayers or read bible.
Am a catholic by upbringing but I can’t ever recall even one time when I ever enjoyed being in the church or serving in the church. My parents brought me very well in the church and I have an obligation to do the same for my son and wife.
I was an altar boy way back and in high school I was an official in the CA but after high school I couldn’t stomach being hypocritical and just doing something to make others happy.
I stopped going to church and I only do if there is a burial or wedding and even in these times, I detest the readings and preaching so I look for all ways to escape them. I hate the hypocritical long prayers.
Am not like @Humbugler but I agree with most of his points on dislike for religion
My wife has a different sect by upbringing so I just allowed her to continue but I got to start going to church (catholic) and take her and son with me. How can I motivate myself?
I do appreciate the role of religion in bringing cohesion in the society, comforting people and giving a purpose to life but that’s where it ends for me. I have a problem believing in much of the principles like Jesus, Jews, Israel, contentious stories, the bible etc.
I do believe there is a higher power and for sure I came from somewhere!
There is a real problem in the current church set up and its money minded policies which they always try to mask. Elders/officials being holier than thou on Sunday but source of their wealth is evil, immoral etc.
I can’t understand with all these churches and mosques, where is there so much corruption, killing, theft etc in the society. I can’t manage to reconcile all that.
Ooh and they tell me judge not!!!
@masukuma how do you do it since I have read in the past something you posted on this forum in regard to this? Do you just pretend?
Let's get this right first and foremost, did anyone touch you inappropriately during your time as an altar boy? There seem to be underlying issue here and I want to make sure we're treating the right ailment. Thanks you Legendary Rollout 10k Drunkard
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Rank: Member Joined: 12/17/2011 Posts: 887
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You are dangerously close to liberation the moment you start questioning religion and gods.
I have never had any doubts about my atheism. Not even for one minute.
You guys all have doubts about religion and that right there speaks volumes. Something is definitely amiss somewhere.
I honestly feel sorry for religious people, they are depriving themselves of a lot of happiness with all that nonsense.
I have never been so sure of anything in my life like how sure I am about atheism. I am more sure of this than I am of tycho being clinically insane. And we all know that Tycho is a certified nutjob.
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 1/16/2007 Posts: 1,320
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Spirituality via religions has failed. It was never meant to be brokered by any class of individuals to the rest of society. 'God' and the spiritual realm is knowable by direct experience.
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Rank: Member Joined: 10/26/2011 Posts: 181 Location: Nairobi
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We have moved from the age where information used to be the purview of a few (e.g. clergy) to an era where information is readily available to anyone that seeks it. Religion is not exempt. Bible is totally online (including all versions). You can easily compare the gospels (vertically) and see the contradictions (e.g. differences in resurrection stories of Mark & Matthew) & forgeries (e.g. Mark 16: 9 - 20) and so on. I can go on. I have been a mellow catholic for the longest time, believing and unquestioning the dogma; attending mass as often as I could. Children have been through faith formation process (now I call it indoctrination), but even they have had questions when they grew older. Myself, I’ve always had some doubt in some of the claims (e.g. faith is all you need, the trinity, etc), but I tagged along just because everyone else did. Within the past few months, I have had a change of heart. Discouraged by many issues like child molestation in the RCC, politics of deceit, why, with all our God fearing nature, hunger and wars still persist; hatred prevails and even thrives among many bible thumping folks; the poor remain poor even though they are likely to be most fervent believers, racism remains prevalent, slavery happened, inquisitions happened - clearly the notion of just having faith and waiting for a supernatural being to sort things out has not worked and is not working. That is where I am at. This has led me on a quest to find out what really happened somewhere between 4 BC and 500 AD, perhaps even earlier and perhaps later and I am looking at all the historical evidence I can find. It does not look pretty! Once I review various books I am reading I will tell more. First time in history we can save the human race by laying in front of the TV and doing nothing. Let's not screw it up
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Rank: Elder Joined: 10/4/2006 Posts: 13,821 Location: Nairobi
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Ngogoyo wrote:
@masukuma how do you do it since I have read in the past something you posted on this forum in regard to this? Do you just pretend?
Ngai!! I think religion is an important cultural construct in our society. Whether we like that or not - it's there! When at home I pray with my kids, I take them to church and go to church as well, I find myself in 'groups' of sorts. I accepted it as such - an important part of our living as africans. I live with people who I really love and that believe intensely. Again, let's face it... it's not all bad - right? These days I operate on a supermarket model... I pick what I want and leave the nasty stuff behind! I don't part with cash to the levels they want... 10%... please!! But I know they need to operate... so i give offering. I think it's the new reality right? We need to find out just how to live in this new reality! All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!
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Rank: Elder Joined: 10/4/2006 Posts: 13,821 Location: Nairobi
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Apricot wrote:We have moved from the age where information used to be the purview of a few (e.g. clergy) to an era where information is readily available to anyone that seeks it. Religion is not exempt. Bible is totally online (including all versions). You can easily compare the gospels (vertically) and see the contradictions (e.g. differences in resurrection stories of Mark & Matthew) & forgeries (e.g. Mark 16: 9 - 20) and so on. I can go on.
I have been a mellow catholic for the longest time, believing and unquestioning the dogma; attending mass as often as I could. Children have been through faith formation process (now I call it indoctrination), but even they have had questions when they grew older. Myself, I’ve always had some doubt in some of the claims (e.g. faith is all you need, the trinity, etc), but I tagged along just because everyone else did.
Within the past few months, I have had a change of heart. Discouraged by many issues like child molestation in the RCC, politics of deceit, why, with all our God fearing nature, hunger and wars still persist; hatred prevails and even thrives among many bible thumping folks; the poor remain poor even though they are likely to be most fervent believers, racism remains prevalent, slavery happened, inquisitions happened - clearly the notion of just having faith and waiting for a supernatural being to sort things out has not worked and is not working.
That is where I am at. This has led me on a quest to find out what really happened somewhere between 4 BC and 500 AD, perhaps even earlier and perhaps later and I am looking at all the historical evidence I can find. It does not look pretty! Once I review various books I am reading I will tell more.
I can tell you what you will find at the end of that route... it's basically - THIS IS THE STORY WE WOULD LIKE TOLD AND WE ARE STICKING TO IT! but you will need to move past that! past all the injustices and people being willing to do things in the name of God and country they are unwilling to do in their names and get to now... the reality now! All Mushrooms are edible! Some Mushroom are only edible ONCE!
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Rank: Member Joined: 1/22/2015 Posts: 682
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@Ngogoyo as you can see, we are many non-believers around. I hope you can derive that sense of community from this thread . From my experience, if you're in the process of letting go of religion, you must be in a good place in your life, for religion tends to attract the downtrodden. The badness is, if you 'come out' as an atheist in Kenya, my friend it's worse than telling people you're gay. Some people will really wonder how they can trust a godless person. The best thing is to just kanyagia religious stories when around peers and loved ones. It's really easy to just sidestep the issue, especially if you don't live amongst fundamentalists. Trust me, most 'religious' people are only passively religious, they don't really care for following their religions rules word for word. Majority have never even read their holy book from cover to cover. I know I used to be that way back in the day.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 2/26/2012 Posts: 15,980
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Does it mean that if you dont believe in doctrine, you dont believe in God? "There are only two emotions in the market, hope & fear. The problem is you hope when you should fear & fear when you should hope: - Jesse Livermore
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Rank: Elder Joined: 6/20/2008 Posts: 6,275 Location: Kenya
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@ngogoyo, everyone goes through this stage in their lives. It's where you question things in your life and make rational decision.
Start from here: do not follow any religion except monotheism. What is monotheism? It is the religion the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) pbuh, he was neither a Jew not a Christian, and he used to worship none but God Almighty alone...
I'll post more later... Good Willing
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Rank: Elder Joined: 6/20/2008 Posts: 6,275 Location: Kenya
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A member of Wazua @dia made this comment: "as an adult, you and you only are responsible for your spiritual well being not your parents. After all, we will all appear before our maker alone, not with our spouses/kids/parents/friends etc."
And I like this comment.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 6/20/2008 Posts: 6,275 Location: Kenya
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@ngogoyo, read my story...
But first some introduction... You see, every child is born in a state Fitra. That means, every baby when born has recognition of God, a Creator imprinted in the soul, as a part of their nature. It's the parents who make that child a Jew or a Christian or a Polytheist or Atheist. Naturally, a child submits to physical laws of universe, the soul too submits naturally to fact that God is his Lord and Creator. But, the parents try to make him follow their own way (read religion) and child at that early age is not strong enough to resist or oppose the will of his parents - customs and upbringing.
Now when you reach adulthood,
- you need to use your mind,
- INVESTIGATE
- Why should you be blind to something that might have impact on your life?
- and come into your own conclusion
MY STORY NOW
It might surprise you when I tell you that I was born and raised in Catholic home (catholic parents) and came to Islam on my own! What happened? I used to be curious about believes of other religions. When I was the university, I studied them. And guess what I found alot of questionable things in the Church. The more I thought about the beliefs in church, the more I saw more and the more I questioned. Eventually I stopped going to church completely because whenever I questioned some things that were not making sense, I was told "Just belief"
When I researched Islam, I discovered that its teachings are making sense e.g. commandments of God including where God said: "I'm the Only God, there is no other" (which the church violated by bringin in trinity); In another place says "Do not draw, or mold, or carve or ... images of anything in heaven, air, water and earth" (which the church violated); another place says "Do not bow down to those things" (which the church violated)
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 1/16/2007 Posts: 1,320
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I see two types of people. Those who have temporarily settled on some form of absolute truth (Theory of Everything) and those who are still looking, weighing and asking questions. My story... Let me hopefully summarize. Went to church with folks in lower primary until i think class 5 when i joined my dad in not going anymore.. Always wondered why i could not be good 100% like the pastors told us to be at that time. In my pre teens and early teens came across some material at the back of some comic books about how to get powers like spiderman etc experimented with medidating to be able to move objects with my mind(didnt know what i was doing)..Ended up getting the most weird types of 'dreams' after that. Later came to learn that these were Out of Body experiences also known as astral projection in some quarters. Got 'saved' in high school for 1 term. Was prayed for etc went for CU but decided to drop it when closing day approached...lol coudnt imagine telling my boys back home that im saved. Came back the following term backslidden. Lived the textbook (Booze Clubbing Girls some weed)secular teen and post teen life until about 4th year campus Had an experience which i have come to see is given many names depending on the dominant culture... I called it salvation, some call it ego death etc. But i was literally born again, i became a new person at/after that experience... i was alone.. no church no pastor no stretching of hands to the TV no guru no imam no book i was reading nothing.... Just me on a Thursday morning during a power blackout. I came out of that experience with zero ego reference points..The usual mind chatter and judgements about everything was gone. And literally everything was brand new....everything was pristine. I think i saw the sun for the first time that day. So... Was later advised to go to church and get baptized as i was now born again (and from my experience i literally was running a new operating system). The old me and my old ways seemed like the story of someone else or a dream i had. My disappointment with church experiences started early... I had assumed everyone is there on the basis of a similar experience and we can all have wonderful fellowship. I was wrong. I questioned the method used in church of 'getting saved'. Repeating a prayer (which is not in the bible) then a pastor of whoever declares you saved. Among many other things.... Fast foreword to marriage and fatherhood.... I'am pretty much going through the motions described by others here so as not to rock the family boat too much on matters spiritual. I have since found out that my 'salvation' experience above is shared by others who do not attribute it to Christianity or Christ. I recently read the story of Eckhart Tolle (Yes that new age Eckhart Tolle) and i was shocked at the similarity of his experience and mine. I have also followed stories of folks who have tripped on psychedelics and other forms of altered states of consciousness... Same ego death thread in those experiences Let me back up a bit... There is a Quantum physics / Quantum mechanics experiment (The double slit experiment) which was a serious eye opener for me... and research down that road let me to looking into sacred geometry (which makes a lot of sense) Ok chronologically... My ego construct dies iam born again > Go to church Get baptized > Disagree with most stuff except the direct teachings of Jesus > Do some research > Quantum physics(big eye opener) > Psychology on the Ego Out of Body Experiences etc > Sacred Geometry > Alternative Story of human history (Very intriguing)..... All this is over a 15 year period. The curious thing about my research is that these seemingly disjointed pieces of the puzzle (Outside religious dogma) seem to agree with each other on different levels. And they explain my experiences in a way i can connect with.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 6/20/2008 Posts: 6,275 Location: Kenya
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@Mtu Biz that is an interesting story. I noted something though: you're still guilty of being one sided (ok let's call it two sided) i.e. your old folks church thing as evidenced by your kids going to church, and the nature part. If you want to be honest and whole-round, examine other religious books too. There are two major religions currently: Christianity and Islam. You need to read the Quran without prejudice, then that way you'll have three sides of the story.
Forget prejudices and do thorough research...
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 1/16/2007 Posts: 1,320
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@Alphdoti Belief systems have the same inherent character. Duality. We are right and they are wrong. I'm not interested in going from one to another. There exists information/knowledge out there about what/who we are and what this reality is about beyond the drama of duality. Iam integrating this information on my own terms at my own pace and making my own conclusions based on my own experiences. This path resonates with me.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 6/20/2008 Posts: 6,275 Location: Kenya
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Mtu Biz wrote:
@Alphdoti
Belief systems have the same inherent character.
Duality.
We are right and they are wrong.
I'm not interested in going from one to another.
There exists information/knowledge out there about what/who we are and what this reality is about beyond the drama of duality.
Iam integrating this information on my own terms at my own pace and making my own conclusions based on my own experiences.
This path resonates with me.
You have done nothing if you're still contend with a pre-conditioned mind. That is okay, my points above are not for those people. You are not ready to read widely, with open mind and open heart to give yourself opportunity, to put forward factual criticism etc I can see you have a conviction that you've done enough, but I see that it is like turning a glass upside down and trying to pour something into. Mine was ask you, to open your mind and open your heart for a moment if you dare. Set aside your pre-conditioning, set aside your prejudices, those that were given to you by your parents, by institutions, by your own set of faith or values, which you're still taking your kids to in fear of rocking the boat. Set that aside for a moment, and read, I promise you, no one is taking you hostage, no brainwashing but pure 100% research, covering 3 sides of the coin.
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Rank: Elder Joined: 7/23/2008 Posts: 3,017
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@Alphadoti With all due respect. Please don't ruin this thread with your Islamic teachings/perspectives. I respect your religion but please take it to the other numerous threads where you post numerically. Please!! Allow us this one thread for us who are searching or questioning with an open mind. "The purpose of bureaucracy is to compensate for incompetence and lack of discipline." James Collins
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Rank: Veteran Joined: 1/16/2007 Posts: 1,320
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@Alphdoti No thanks. Tukutane mbele... :)
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