Wanting to find Jesus but struggling.

[ALittleRoundCat]

I am dictating this, so apologies for any mistakes.

Also this is the religion/ philosophy section so if you do not believe in Jesus or anything that I am talking about please be respectful of the section and spirit this has been posted in and exercise your right to scroll onto the next post please.

I was raised a catholic, baptised as a baby, I went to catholic primary and high schools, but I never really felt a connection to it. In fact, I hate it being forced to go to church on a sunday and the whole going to hell thing used to scare me so much as a child.

As I got into my teenage years, I started to refuse to go to church, and in my teens, I dabbled in paganism and all sorts.

I always believed in something bigger but couldn't pin it down.

Anyway, I am now in my forties, and I really feel drawn back to Jesus. I can't explain it.I don't know why.But for about 2 or 3 years now, I just keep thinking about Jesus and living my life with him and wanting to trust him to help me change my life.

About a year ago I attended a funeral with Mass as at a Catholic church and again felt nothing. No emotion at being in church or being part of that service.

But on my own, at home I feel the urge to pray. I secretly listen to hymns and uplifting songs and cry with emotion.

My sister is a Born again Christian and keeps asking me to attend her church. I don't want to. I don't want to go to mass or meet people or anything like that, I have bad social anxiety and its just not somwthing that interests me.

But she said her friend can baptise me. That this feeling and calling is Jesus asking me to trust him and hand my life over to him and the only way to do that is through baptism.

I told her I wouldn't be attending church or anything but was really considering doing it.

I told my husband who is also baptised Catholic but is agnostic verging on athiest and he got really upset.

I was shocked. He said what am i selling my soul to? Who is this woman, what am I signing up for, what is the churches beliefs.

And then he said - what if you do this and then when we die, we aren't together because Catholicism is the real thing and you invalidated it by getting baptised again.

I cried my eyes out.

I have OCD and extreme anxiety. My whole life is me living in fear of making a decision that will bring harm to my family.

That is why I have been wanting to hand my life over to Jesus. So he can help me with this burden of negativity but my husband saying that just terrified me.

And it makes no sense as we baptised our eldest child purely to get him into a good school and his siblings followed on a sibling connection so didn't get baptised.

So if he was really worried about us not being together in heaven why didn't he baptise our subsequent kids?

I just feel so sick and lost.

I felt so sure that this would be good for me. Washing away all my guilt and lonliness but now i just feel confused and scared.

I told my sister what happened and shenis saying i have to get baptised that its jesus thats calling me to do it.

But again I feel like she is talking from the influence of her church. Another man made religion that had beliefs I don't adhere to.

This is why I felt such a disconnect from Catholicism, the fear and guilt of doing the wrong thing and there being punishment in the afterlife for it. I just want to live Jesus without all the red tape.

And now I don't know if getting baptised will save me or condemn me.

Has anyone been through similar?

@RedTagAlan I have seen you around, debating the existence, credibility and validity of Jesus Christ and Christianity. That's perfectly fine, but you came here stating that you wanted to know if OP read the bible and now you are, predictably, trying to debate Christians and plant doubt in the guise of amicable discussion.

Can you start a new thread for this? We're Christians. Jesus Christ and his message it not up for debate for us and the OP.

Happy to debate scripture etc in another thread where all are willing participants.

Islam is not Christianity. Allah is not Jesus Christ. They are not the same. Period.

I honestly don’t know why there are atheists on this thread. What would make you pull up a chair and start wittering on about something entirely different when the OP had a specific point?

Op I hope you’ve been reading the posts and some have brought you comfort

It is interesting to me that someone can intellectually identify as an atheist while still being deeply preoccupied with the question of God. I think there's a distinction between someone who occasionally says, "I don't believe in God, here's why," and someone who repeatedly seeks out Christians specifically to challenge their beliefs. The latter suggests that Christianity is particularly significant to them in some way - whether that's fascination, frustration, a desire for debate, personal history, attention seeking, unresolved questions or something more sinister.

From my personal perspective, I see the persistence of the questioning as an opportunity to discuss our difference in opinion, but the above posters are correct - this is not the thread for it. Only the poster in question really know whether their questioning comes from curiosity, insecurity, opposition, loneliness, or genuine uncertainty about God.

Anyway hope you are okay @ALittleRoundCat .

Where did anyone state that atheists are unwelcome on this thread?

This is the OP stating what she is looking for.

but those are the main cores of jesus either that or a university professor who studys books or the bibile, so with all due respect whats different from a machine brain thats read the books telling me the answers ?

Regurgitating what AI tells you is not knowledge, or learning, or insight, or analysis, or opinion of your own.

I spent 3 years doing a theology degree, recognise still I know virtually nothing and my beliefs are my own and I'm insulted by someone posting AI slop (on a number of topics)to try to appear impressive.

actually as i dont study the bible or any religious texts basically beacuse its all human written, i wanted instead to help the op, and using ai is no different than copying the same info off a website

That was a harsh answer from you. Why the fgs at the beginning of your post?

If you are referring to me, all I can say is please take the time to read my posts. I have not went into any of what you suggest, Indeed, you will see I did give the OP advice on finding their Jesus based on my experience. Based on reading the Bible.

The Bible seems key to me. given how Jesus come across differently from one person to the next. I even suggested verses for the OP to consider based on what they posted.

I stated I was atheist out of honesty. So I would not be accused of anything by other posters.

Believe it or not, even as an atheist, I do recognize that all people are different. And that religion can be a comfort to many people. And for anyone seeking a "road to Damascus moment", I would say reading the Bible is pretty important. It's how it happened to me. It was Matthew 5 that gave me that moment of understanding.

But the matter of reading the Bible was not really addressed. Instead, some posters just saw the word "atheist" and ignored the Bible reading part.

Getting baptised again won't invalidate your catholic baptism. The Catholic Church accepts baptism from other Christian denominations also eg if you are baptised as an Anglican you are not rebaptised when you convert to Catholicism.

Christ created the church. It follows from his teachings and for Catholics it is a duty. You don't have to experience deep, emotional insights when you attend mass - you just go. If you feel a greater connection through your own private prayer and reflection, I actually think that's pretty great. Prayer is where we have space to communicate with God. I think continue as you are, pray and seek Him.

Because it seemed sarcastic -

Atheist here. I don't agree with your reasoning that religious discussion is only for believers.
Can I just ask, how is your Bible knowledge?

Poster starts a thread, your the first response declaring you don’t believe in God, try to derail immediately then about then ask what her knowledge of the bible is?.

Your first post didn’t come across well at all. Intended or not.

I honestly don’t understand why you’re still here.

Maybe go start your own thread?

It is indeed "all human written". Think about that perhaps.

I have a thread about this very thing. Here:

Can something written/edited by AI be considered the inspired word of a God ? | Mumsnet

so a person types it onto a website and a machine copy and pastes it and adds text to it, its part of evolution

Looks like an interesting thread @RedTagAlan , will read, thanks.

I believe the Pope has forbidden his priests using it to compose their sermons. Let's face it, it does get a lot of stuff wrong and then there's the question of basic clergy laziness.

It makes a lot of errors, plus, it is not real.

ETA I know human beings make errors too, but most of us have the insight to go and check stuff, not believe it like it is some weird uncontextual AI err Gospel

so what your saying then is ai is no different than humans are, they forget things they make errors they invent fictional religions that are not real and so on

Hiw are yoi doing OP?

I thought if you when I we t to church today.

I heard the lovely singing from outside the church (I was late).

I added a bit. Sorry, I am flawed and human.

but how can we demand perfection from a machine when its creator is flawed ?

The Double Standard (The "Human Hypersurface")
We judge AI by an impossible standard that we never apply to humans.

• The Driver Example: If a human driver gets distracted and causes an accident, it is viewed as a tragic individual mistake. If a self-driving car makes an error, people demand the entire technology be banned. Statistically, if an AI is 90% safer than a human, society still fixates on the 10% failure rate because we expect machines to be flawless.
• The Expert Fallacy: Human doctors, lawyers, and accountants make catastrophic mistakes every day due to fatigue, emotion, or lack of sleep. AI does not suffer from fatigue, yet when it makes a unique mechanical error (a hallucination), it is judged more harshly than a human's systemic error.

I agree with the previous poster’s suggestion of exploring a Quaker meeting.

I apologise for derailing but @VeraPetrovnaGorky have you ever spent years of your life studying something? Do you really think glib statements churned out by a LLM that has scraped the Net for info is better than a professor who has devoted his/her life to study, or in fact anyone who has looked into a subject a bit and seen various opinions and ideas?

@ALittleRoundCat

It feels a bit like your thread is going g iff track! Please do come back and share your thoughts!

Did you find anywhere good to go today?