|
|
#121
September 16th, 2011, 12:29 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
__________________
RufWarrior's steps for the single guy wanting to recover, necessary for a fulfilling life and a healthy, sexual relationship with a really great woman Suggestions on Networking and Doing Well in Your Career 
|
|
#122
September 21st, 2011, 07:38 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
__________________
"Start meeting 5 a week and setting up coffee dates, and practice ending it with women you are no longer interested in meeting. This will be practice for bigger endings that will be to come"
|
|
#123
September 22nd, 2011, 07:05 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Like
Ruf
Only follow my words to a specific and pre designated conclusion is exactly what organized religion perpetrates there is no certain and definite path every individual should subscribe to Were not machine beings There seems to be some egocentric I am the way going on here All data can be corrupted and distorted to appear that which it is not Nothing is ever the way it seems It,s been made to appear that way It's good that Ruf has been a positive influence on others That kinda' doctrine freaks me out it's based on data. I'm a engineer by profession.
__________________
 No Matter Where You Go ~ No Matter What You Do ~ There You Are ~ Be The Best You Can Be ~?♥♥♥!✿⊱╮?! -! www.vhemt.org !Is Fractal Wisdom Linear ~ Where Are My Eagles ~ The Great Augustus Was Once Purported To Have Invocated ~ in vino veritas ~ www.fractalwisdom.com  ((< *;*>)) I Wish You'd Read A Little P etry Sometimes Your Ignorance Cramps My .......................................C nVersAtin
Last edited by ubermacht003; September 22nd, 2011 at 07:29 PM..
|
|
#124
October 10th, 2011, 08:09 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
As an atheist, I'm going to have to put my two cents in for this thread.
Christianity is designed, on the deepest theological level, to breed Nice Guys. It's all in the concept of Original Sin. Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, so humanity must spend the entirety of its existence making up for it. Sure, perhaps Jesus made up for it when he died on the cross, but that only means that humanity has to spend the rest of its existence thanking Jesus. In my opinion, people who have built a secure identity out of Christianity are either constantly struggling with cognitive dissonance or are ignorant of the theology. I understand that not all branches of Christianity are the same, so I may be overgeneralizing. As a matter of fact, I was never even a Christian. I used to be a heavily invested Conservative Jew. This provided my backbone, as I thought that since I was studying God's 613 commandments I was doing everything right and had no need to worry about others' opinions. Once I read up on the rationales for atheism at the age of 16, I lost my sense of cognitive dissonance...along with my backbone. I've been on the road to recovery ever since, but to this day I have never regretted becoming secular.
|
|
#125
December 31st, 2011, 12:58 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I'm used to describe myself as "Lutheran Catholic", have great respect for the faith and the traditional churches. I love Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox liturgy. I go to services to feel inspired and relax. I am suspicious about the anti-traditionalists.
I did not grow up with confession, but I agree with Dr. Glover that confession if administered humanely -- with the goal of correcting aim and try again, instead of penance, is probably one of the most powerful services the church gave to people. I have experienced it in some major moments, but not regularly. I think it's nostalgic idyll though, because I doubt that our hidden sexual compulsions would have not been addressed in most confession scenarios. I could be wrong. Clearly the religious teachings that I grew up with fosters Nice Guy attitude. I was very susceptible to that, but fortunately I didn't inherit too much of a weak victim attitude but was a leader in all the places where I went, in Church and in work, anywhere except in love (even there I'd say I did so-so.) I still can't quite fathom how one can make taking care of oneself a priority and subscribe to the full Christian teachings, where servitude and self-sacrifice are the central paragons of life. But, a lot about my recent awakening in my love-life -- which led me far away from the community with the church -- actually originated from working with the Bible. One year before my affair with which I blew my marriage out of the water and changed my life as I knew it, I was doing a Sunday school class about the Old Testament, and found that the original OT religion had very few sexual prohibitions (for men anyway) and paid very little to no attention at all to sexual prudery. Looking at the legends of the life of King David was particularly an eye opener.
|
|
#126
January 24th, 2012, 09:24 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
I went to Catholic school for first and second grade and I wanted to be a 'good boy', it seemed like the best bet for me. With regards to sexuality, nothing overt...nothing was really ever pressed on us at church, although we knew that premarital sex was a sin. The biggest thing that happened to me with regard to religion and sexuality was the first time I saw porn. I was about six months too young to know what was going on. I hadn't quite hit the stage in puberty where I discovered masturbation. I didn't know what it ejaculate was or what it meant to ejaculate. I didn't have any older brothers, and hadn't figured it out on my own. The guys I was with either were a little older and had figured that out, or had older brothers who told them what that was all about. When I saw adult nudity for possibly one of the first times ... it was a man masturbating and ejaculating on a woman's breasts. I didn't know what was going on. Was this guy milking himself? It freaked me out! I knew I could get in trouble for watching that and I wanted to leave the guy's house I was watching it at. I mentioned a whole bunch of reasons why I was freaked...someone could catch us, we shouldn't be watching the, and then I mentioned that it was a sin...and that did it...they all started making fun of me at that point, for having a religion or faith. I was never invited over to watch TV after that. How has faith empowered me? I'm still trying to figure out 'religion' as an adult. I know that I feel at home in the Church I grew up in. I don't really have any problem with 90-98% of the morals and ethics that they hold. Even if I don't practice it (premarital sex) I understand where they are coming from...why they hold the position that thye do. It's just that I'm not sure I'm a Christian. I believe in God, the 10 commandments, I think even an atheist can use the 10 commandments as a code to live by. I guess you could say, I might be more inclined to Judiaism, but I feel at home in a Catholic Church. A bit off topic I guess... the biggest way that my faith has empowered me ... I hit a low point in being depressed and hopeless. I did two things that stopped the slide. I confided to a friend, and I start to get in touch with my faith. I started to reconnect with what I believed. Is there a God? Yes...no other explanation is even remotely more plausible to explain how life sprung from thr primordial soup of post big-bang Earth. I also believe that man was created in God's image. Since that's the case...I can't harm or destroy myself, because it's not up to me to harm or destory that which was created in the image of God. That belief helped stop the slide, and got me to get up another day, and buy NMMNG. How could churches do a better job? Concentrate on the here and now, on this world, not on the after life. Don't talk about burning in hell for all eternity, talk about the hell on earth you create for yourself by distancing yourself from god. For Instance, 'impure thoughts', I used to think that it was silly that having 'impure thoughts' was a sin. It's hard to take a religious authority seriously when they are telling you that you can go to hell for thinking about what comes naturally, but isn't sexual fantasy, simply impure thoughts, and isn't that one of the things we have to break ourselves from? Or what about living together before marriage. Maybe not such bad advise to follow. Lots of good solid real life reasons not to do it, or at least not to rush into it. Try telling someone pressuring you to move in with them that you don't want to live with someone until you're married, or at least know that you are going to be...and see what happens. Regardless of whether you think doing that is a good idea or a bad idea, in today's society, the decision to not want to do it, or the belief that it might not be the best thing for a relationship actually is hurt and harmed by the fact that 'the church' refers to such behavior as living in sin and doesn't talk about practical real life reasons why it might not be a good idea.
|
|
#127
February 9th, 2012, 01:00 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I grew up in a Christian household. My father died when I was 9 years old, but before that we lived in a very sparse rural community, right down the road from a little church we attended nearly every Sunday.
Three things drove me to participate in the sermons and accept their lessons as correct and just: a) I wanted nothing more than for my parents to be proud of me, and they were adamant about the importance of God/church. I didn't want to disappoint them by denying what I recognized as a 'life script' they wanted for me. b) I looked at my parents as ideal people, and was eager to learn about the ways of the world and the road to success. As such, I was apt to defer to their wisdom and experience. c) The teachings of Christianity (as they were delivered to me as a child) sounded pretty OK; Be "good" (as defined by the church), and you get to live on forever in a magical realm next to the big guy that made everything. Definitely sounded better to me at the time than "We're just smart animals, life is chaotic, one day you'll die and rot in the ground" (actually, I think there are a lot of eloquent ways of seeing that scenario, but I digress). I can remember several experiences at that (my first) church alone that reinforced my already-budding Nice Guy Syndrome. Once, at a church pot-luck, an old man dropped his handkerchief while talking to my father. The man began to bend over to pick it up, but before he got far I was coming back up with it. I then proceeded to bask in the admiration and praise for being 'such a good boy', and not just from the man, but from his wife, the preacher, my father...Honestly I'd still do that today, but in the context of my childhood experiences at that church and elsewhere, it perpetuated a 'secret contract' (as the original poster refers to in NMMNG): 'do/be good' to 'get admiration/attention'. Another time, two of the teenagers from the church got caught making out in the alley between the church and it's small annex, where another pot-luck was underway. I remember how mortified both of them were when one of the younger kids got an adult from inside, and how their parents were visibly shameful. I think it was at that moment I got the impression that even being attracted to a woman and wanting to be intimate (if not sexual) with her is inherently immoral and shameful, and maybe even damning under the right circumstances. Some of these feelings did begin to fade a bit in high school and onward, but they've always been there. I initially resisted, but when I got to college and did some of my own research, I found that religion was just not going to work for me. Yet many of the things I learned as a religious child stuck with me. At the bottom of all of it, I still believed that the keys to happiness (perhaps even everlasting) were simply being good to other people, helping them meet their needs (even at the expense meeting my own), and generally 'doing good for goodness' sake'. What could be so bad about being a force for good, right? It wasn't until after I discovered NMMNG that I understood I'm never going to stop being a Nice Guy until I can begin caring for myself properly and meeting my own needs.
|
|
#128
April 3rd, 2012, 12:17 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Since that time I converted to Wicca. I feel freer, live freer and do things on my own terms. I am beholden to no god, eternal punishment and have the expectation of a good life in the great beyond (Summerland) before I return to learn more about life in the next incarnation. My take is exactly as you said. All the Jimmy Swaggarts of the world might be a little less "holier than thou" and a little more "mother Theressa" if they did. I think there is a lot of brainwashing from almost all organized religions in the world. Where there is guilt, shame, anger, pity and all that associated with a natural biological function. I mean how can ANY god create something then condemn it no matter its action? Especially if the god created it imperfect. That says a lot about this god and its motives to set up its creation for failure with eternal consequences. So getting away from that mentality is very freeing and my life is much happier as a result. And for any nay sayers about Wiccabeing a religion or a cult remember that even Christianity had its origins and was labeled thus by the Jews...no throwing rocks when your house is build on a glass foundation.
__________________
Smoke 'em if ya got 'em.
|
|
#129
April 18th, 2012, 02:52 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
|
|
#130
May 2nd, 2012, 09:21 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I recently read a really good book on Christianity written by a Presbyterian pastor Timothy Keller; it's called The Reason for God. In it, he discusses some of the major objections people have against Christianity (i.e. If there's a good, loving god, why is there so much evil, why would God send anyone to hell, etc.) and also talks about how faith can help you. I highly recommend checking this out whether you're agnostic, atheist or even a Christian looking to strengthen their faith.
|
|
#131
May 3rd, 2012, 09:34 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
I would *HIGHLY* recommend "The Book" and "In My Own Way" by Alan Watts.
Regardless of your religion or lack thereof, Watts' wisdom is readily applicable to any walk of faith or walk without faith. I'm not sure there are two books that have had a bigger impact on my life....
__________________
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. - Bill Cosby Try and fail, but don’t fail to try. – Stephen Kaggwa Remember today, for it is the beginning of always. Today marks the start of a brave new future filled with all your dreams can hold. Think truly to the future and make those dreams come true. – Unknown Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. – Les Brown
|
|
#132
May 9th, 2012, 09:08 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
black and white
First of all I'm a newbie on this forum and I'm a catholic. I turned 20 on monday and I'm still a virgin. Most of my friends are sexually active and obviously I'm feeling the pressure. But from a religious background I feel it is wrong to fornicate. I've even searched for passages on the bible on it. I would like to point out that there are reasons for the rules and commandments in the bible; to maintain order and all but sometimes it just cripples us. It makes everything so rigid. If its not black its definitely white and that kind of thing.
Back to pressure. Its so bad that I even considered hitting a prostitute but then again I checked the bible. Seriously don't know who to talk to about things like this. Is it ok to have sex and stuff like that. Because it doesn't make sense to me why we should all wait until marriage to have sex. Wake up everyday, go to work, lunch, come back for dinner and maybe go out and not make love with your girlfriend and wait until marriage. What if she dies, what if she cheats on you etc. I'm also distant from my dad..typical nice guy characteristic. I stay at home with my siblings. I've got a girlfriend and I've not formally introduced her to my dad. I'm planning on having The Talk with him soon about me being an adult, needing space, needing to go out to socialize, that I have a girlfriend and stuff like that. What do you think? Like I said in new at this forum so please shower the advice on me
|
|
#133
May 9th, 2012, 09:46 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Great to have you here on this board. Many people wish they found this book and material when they were your age. I found it at 28 and single. Most guys didn't find it until they were in their 40s, with a marriage going down. I have a plan for single guys, especially for guys in their early twenties. The plan consists of a lot of reading material that will address many of the questions you raised. I encourage you to look at my plan (in my signature) and of course read the No More Mr. Nice Guy book. Once you get into the plan and read things, I think it will become much clearer. I want to emphasize that most people wish they had found this when they were your age, so please don't delay. In my plan, I have a link to Belief10's thread, who is 27 now, and a Catholic. He started with thoughts like yours, and now's he's adjusted them to fit reality, along with his beliefs.
__________________
RufWarrior's steps for the single guy wanting to recover, necessary for a fulfilling life and a healthy, sexual relationship with a really great woman Suggestions on Networking and Doing Well in Your Career
|
|
#135
May 9th, 2012, 10:23 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
__________________
RufWarrior's steps for the single guy wanting to recover, necessary for a fulfilling life and a healthy, sexual relationship with a really great woman Suggestions on Networking and Doing Well in Your Career
|
 |
| Thread Tools | |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
Linear Mode
