this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
151 points (79.8% liked)
Asklemmy
43850 readers
1393 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It’s a strange story really. I was tripping balls and I started to think back on all the bad things I had done in my life up to that point. I felt this intense guilt and sense of despair and idk why but I tried praying for the first time since I was a little kid. I felt this instance relief and a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I tried praying a few times after that while sober and had the same feeling that I consider to come from a spiritual experience.
After that I started reading the Bible but I just considered myself a generic Christian. I didn’t go to any church or really have an idea of what the different denominations believed. I ended up reading more into the history of Christianity and from there came to the conclusion that the Catholic Church is a continuation of the church established by Jesus (not trying to pick a fight with any Protestants, I’m just explaining my personal spiritual journey).
As for your friend, maybe it’s a passing phase. I was super zealous when I first converted but chilled out over time. I have to ask, does he go to Latin mass? There’s this weird subset of Catholics who attend these masses that are kind of crazy. Like to the point they don’t believe there’s been a legitimate pope since the 60s or earlier
You felt relief without actively doing anything to right any of the wrongs you thought about. That sounds like repression. How is it moral to offload your wrongdoings of others onto a diety instead of attempting to make amends with the offended?
Assuming you’re asking in good faith, I’ll try to answer. Part of being a Christian (at least a good one) is repenting for your sins. It’s not just asking for forgiveness and forgetting about what you did, although I’ll admit some might see it that way. There has to be an actual will to do better and pay back your debt to those you’ve wronged
That's just being a good person. No god required.