How many people here are both isolated and alone and also have the Christian faith?

I had a very strong faith when I was younger, and felt very alone.  I believed that I had God with me, but I needed "someone with skin on."  There were issues with my home life, school was hard, but I felt it worst at church where people were supposed to be a spiritual family, and I used to sit around after ther service being completely left out.  This happened in a few difference churches.  I just didn't know how to join in.  There was even one where I tried to join in a group of people talking in a circle and they just closed the gap in front of me with their bodies so that I was left staring at their backs.  

There have been some Christians who have shown me that it's not all like this.  I went to a multicultural bible college and that was good because everyone there had different experiences, ways of doing things and talking.  People made an effort to include everyone, and my efforts to join in were noticed and accepted.  But that was very much an unusual experience.  

Generally I think I make a lot of Christians with traditional values uncomfortable.  I dress like a goth, I'm autistic and queer.  It makes it very hard to find a place where I'm accepted.  My faith has mutated over the years and I now find some expressions of faith very triggering.  

Thank you, Glitter.

My faith got stronger when I eliminated the middle men and petitioned God directly for guidance so I could be a part of the plan.

I'm quite unreligious past the basic insistance that I did indeed find enough evidence to convince me that we are living in a creation.

Life has knocked a lot of the arrogance out of me, such that I realise that there's no way I can actually understand the plan or have a meaningful discourse with God, any more than I can with a snail, but I'm bright enough to know that if there is a creator then there is a reason for why people get cancer, or die in war etc. and I'll get an explanation in due course, but for now my "job" is to try to believe in a creator and love my neighbour as myself. 

I'm sure I'm as much of a sinner in the eyes of God as you are, I possibly just have different less visually obvious quirks to account for.. 

It is clear across the board whichever religion you adopt (even satanism!) that God has a requirement that we believe in him as a creator and a provider. Perhaps it was a sin, but I insisted in being given adequate information directly to assess the matter for myself. That it took me so long, and I had to experience so much suffering along the way, is partly my fault directly and partly seems to be "the way it works". 

If Christians take against you because your are gothic queer and Autistic, is it the faith or them that has the problem. Read the gospel of Matthew when you have a bit of spare time, and consider how would Jesus have treated you if he met you? Would he have looked down on you for your gothic autistic Queerness??

Or would he have drawn your attention to more important matters perhaps, and it not even been an issue? 

Unlike many people I can't claim to know very much or speak on behalf of anyone, but I can keep trying to stick with the plan, as fast I discover the little bits I can understand, and which do make sense. 

God made me the way I am and I need to know WHY I am doing something, not just enough to know how to do it to a minimum standard.. It took me twenty years of asking all sorts of both secular and theological  questions to get to a position of functioning "faith" but it has delivered satisfaction in a way that thirty years of effort expended in the field of aviation and other so called high end, priviledged secular stuff, did not. 

I've learned that most of what we desire is actually useless to us when we get it. I didn't even realise how fortunate I was at the time, either. That's the nature of "godlessness" it seems. It's like trying to sail or glide* when you have no knowledge of the medium in which you propose to travel.  

Many people do not know this, but even a hang glider can be kept aloft with nothing other than knowledge of meteorology, and a suitable launch point.

You can sail across the atlantic with no engine, but you need to know a bit about the wind and water and how your boat works first..

Religion tries to be a "how to" manual for everyone, but just like learning how to glide or sail (metaphors for getting through life without an "engine", I guess!) you can teach yourself, or find someone who knows and learn from them, the main question is can we be bothered to learn these skills or are we happy to just keep our feet on the ground, and stay where we are, doing what we do?

And now I need to go practice riding the unicycle. It's way easier than believing in God and loving all of you as myself...

My faith was actually a focused interest of mine for many years, so much so that I spent 2 years at a live in college studying the bible in depth.  So I understand what you mean about Jesus himself- he was always hanging out with the outcasts.  Unfortunately much of my experience of church has not followed this example.  Having had a thorough exploration of many aspects of faith, I can no longer hold onto the teachings I grew up with, such as the idea of Hell and humans being inherently sinful.  I believe that if there is a god, then it is not possible for us to know them without our own experience and culture influencing how we view such a deity.  And nothing is more painful than praying for some kind of help when you are desperately suffering alone and then receiving none, and continuing to struggle on alone.

I'm glad that you've found a way to sail and that your faith brings you some kind of comfort, but I had to let my go and find other ways to live in love, service and radical acceptance.

My faith was actually a focused interest of mine for many years, so much so that I spent 2 years at a live in college studying the bible in depth.  So I understand what you mean about Jesus himself- he was always hanging out with the outcasts.  Unfortunately much of my experience of church has not followed this example.  Having had a thorough exploration of many aspects of faith, I can no longer hold onto the teachings I grew up with, such as the idea of Hell and humans being inherently sinful.  I believe that if there is a god, then it is not possible for us to know them without our own experience and culture influencing how we view such a deity.  And nothing is more painful than praying for some kind of help when you are desperately suffering alone and then receiving none, and continuing to struggle on alone.

I'm glad that you've found a way to sail and that your faith brings you some kind of comfort, but I had to let my go and find other ways to live in love, service and radical acceptance.

Im a believer.

However, n some instances, you're absolutely correct.

Most people seem to have cultural Stockholm Syndrome after having been intergenerationally held captive to whatever forces are n control. And that can be true in churches too.

A lot of church folk just seem to want the power to be a boring beige bland sterile lot serving the same planet killing genocidal system as anyone else, and pray to be held in ignorant bliss, deluding themselves that they're innocent! Fueling the beast, so to speak.

 It's like fresh water when I find individuals or groups who are not like that, who see it for what it all is, and strive to be different, apart from, and hot dependent on all that.

But, right now I'm just isolated.

I didn't say it was bad. I'm just pointing out that our comprehension is limited, and a lot of things that people take as "absolute truths" about their religion are actually ideas that have been influenced by society.  Hence I no longer subscribe to certain arbitrary values, like attending a church every week or praying for divine intervention. 

But other people are free to do whatever works for them and I will respect their right to do that as long as they respect the rights of others.

Glitter said:

I believe that if there is a god, then it is not possible for us to know them without our own experience and culture influencing how we view such a deity

Yes but is that bad? How would you explain quantum physics to a child? You’d start with their everyday experience. If god is talking to us everyday it only makes sense he’d reach out to us using things we understand.

Thank you.

O.K. Fair comment.

Thank you for accomodating my unwanted screeds with such grace.

It would be wonderful if you could respect my beliefs as I have stated them instead of trying to persuade me back into something that I have stated was hurtful.

As for prayer, I heard a lot of the same advice at the time. Honestly, you can't tell me anything about Christianity that I haven't heard and considered before. The problem is that when a child or young person hears this advice when their prayers are not being answered, then it tells them that either what they were asking for is wrong (is it wrong to want an end to physical pain or support for emotional pain?) Or that god has chosen for them to suffer alone, which is not only lacking in comfort but does a lot of damage to their sense of self esteem.  I cannot accept that I was so mishapen that I needed to go through all the abuse that I went through to make me a better person or to be put on a particular path.  It is much more powerful for me to say that what happened to me was wrong and that I, through my own choice, can draw strength from it to make sure that others do not go through the same thing.  People can be good or bad on their own merit, regardless of divine intervention.

I'm not saying any of this in an attempt to hurt anyone or undermine their faith, but as a word of caution because this kind of teaching/preaching can be very harmful and hurtful to some.

Sounds like you've got most of the love your neighbour bases covered, and you might well in your heart believe in a creator, but you've been et down by the "people part".

Just go round the "people part" AKA religion and the "church" and find God anyway you want to. Hell is pretty much where most of us are at already, sins bring their own rewards.

IF you want a relationship go direct.

When you pray, think hard about what you are asking for. At first it is all asking, and when you eventually figure out what the right things are to ask for you get them, (that's what I was told would happen and that was what did happen) unless there is a hidden reason why you should not. A lot of the bad things that happened to me, HAD to happen in order to make me able to do a couple of really brilliant things I've accomplished. there's no way at the time I could see any utility in my suffering, it looked like the work of a cruel and uncaring God, now I look back, it looks far more like "essential tempering" as one does to a blade...