Is there ever any need for anyone to convert?
IMO the “conversion experience” is sorely misunderstood … accepted by many as a religious experience … not so.
The best explanation I’ve heard was provided soon after my personal “conversion experience” more than 20 years ago … and it had nothing to do with religion or spirituality … at least nothing directly that I recognized as such.
Let me try to share what this individual said to me …
After I had shared some of my “weird experiences” … his first comment was … I’m surprised you’ve gotten as far as you have all alone.
He went on to provide a metaphor … he said it’s like walking through a doorway … what you left behind the doorway … your former world view … is no longer an option … there is no going back. What’s in front of you … IOW what the doorway you walked through will lead you to … is an upside down … inside out version of your former world view. It will likely take a long time for you to figure out what it is exactly … this new world view.
He was right about … "it will likely take a long time to figure out what exactly my new world view is all about. Until I’m clear … I’m only able to spew meaningless, confusing babble. So be it!
My soul and heart was touched by his noodly appendage. I am now cleansed and sanctified.
I shall now dowse myself in tomato pasta sauce as espoused by the most holy prophet Chef Boyardee.
“It’s important to spread the “Gospel of Love” everywhere you go … even using words if necessary”
St Francis of Assisi
I dont believe Christians understood Jesus’ teachings I believe they still don’t.
WOW! … we agree again … that’s twice now … we need to be careful about this 
More emerging thoughts …
Empirical evidence points to your conclusion:
-
The NT suggests there wasn’t even “unity” of belief among the 12 apostles.
-
Within virtually hours of his death a substantial split emerged … what is often referred to as Pauline Christianity (Saul of Taurus and the Gentiles) and the Jewish Christian converts.
-
The splits continued to emerge and grow … how many flavors of Christianity do we have today?
Seems logical and rational to suggest … if people truly understood his message there would be no need for such extensive fragmentation.
A lot of atheists are atheists because they feel religious belief is silly, naive and immature… and they attribute such characteristics to weakness and irresponsibility. And even if they find the propensity of a religious theory not to be incomensurably ridiculous, they still refuse to entertain the idea, at least publicly, and stop criticizing it.
Granted, spaghetti gods are a little farout in comparison to Aristotle or Spinoza or Newtons concept of god…which are far more realistic.
More ridiculous than these deistic concepts, but less ridiculous than a spaghetti god, are the polytheisms and the abrahamic gods of the world.
A line is crossed when the prime mover theory evolves out of its deistic form into an anthropomorphic form…making god an interested, third party.
That may be so … but conversion to me is more a transformation which has already taken place within the person though it doesn’t take place in an instant - it’s a process but by the time you’ve reached that door, you’ve already made the choice to walk through it. You kind of already know what is on the other side or why would you enter it. The changed you and what it entails NOW is on the other side. You just don’t know the future.
I think that a person’s new world view or religious/spiritual perception or perhaps it might be better to say “lack of it” has already become a part of that person.
When I made the “choice” to “be” agnostic where a god is concerned, I had already gone through the process for quite some time…I had allowed myself gradually a certain degree of personal freedom where the church was concerned - dogma and doctrine both had become absurd to me, and then gradually I came to realize, like a veil had been lifted, that I could never know of the existence of a god nor believe in a Judaic/Christian one. It wasn’t just my lack of faith, I might have grappled with that, it was just a choice to refuse to believe in something which I came to realize could never be proven.
Believe it or not, it was my earlier years here on ILP which contributed to all of that though I’ve always been a skeptic. I don’t have too much of a philosophical or scientific mind, but what I do have of that was the impetus that opened my mind to possibilities and questioned so-called certainties. It may sound stupid but I’m thankful for my agnosticism. It also works in other areas where being agnostic or a skeptic helps.
Sometimes there is a need to convert, when you come to realize that what you believe or how you’re living your life, doesn’t make sense anymore and doesn’t contribute to your well being. Trying to live what has become one’s lie, out of a sense of duty or beliefs gone stale, can be hazardous to one’s health - psychological and physical. A sense of personal freedom is important to one’s spirituality or let’s say human spirit and human growth.
Fini
I enthusiastically agree!
AD … did you read my “An egg is just an egg until it hatches” post?
When it’s time to hatch … the chick has only two choices:
-
Make an effort to break the shell and exit the shell into a new world.
-
Suffocate and die inside the shell.
For me … there is no right/wrong conversion experience … each one is tailored to the individual’s needs … aligned with the individual’s place on the individual’s spiritual journey.
This is exactly the experience I went through when I first delved into drugs… and yes, it took a while to make sense out of it all.
The inversion was like this: before drugs, I believed in the monotony of consciousness; now I believe in the diversity of consciousness.
^^ Without the glasses and the head gear, she might actually be quite hot.
