Groups

  • Ex-Christian Support
    Name:
    Ex-Christian Support
    Status: Owner
    Description: Leaving a belief system isn't easy. You may have been part of a Christian cult, a member of a controlling church, or you may have read the bible and found it to not be anything to be considered to be the infallible word of God. Did you find your critical thinking skills challenged and your logic and reasoning skills needed to be checked at the door and finally woke up one day and realized you no longer were a believer? This is an emotionally troubling time. You may feel you have been lied to...deceived. You may feel anger and hostility toward the Church, and sometimes its members, for being lied to. Come here and vent, rather than get in someones face and hurt their feelings. We will be discussing your path to enlightenment and how you abandoned the Christian faith and the spiritual path you are on now. Since we are all Ex-Christains, this isn't a place to turn shepherds back into sheep. No prostelytising allowed nor attempts to re-convert members of this group. Share your stories of joy in discovering your freedom from the chains of Christianity and how, hopefully, you have found God.
  • Interfaith Perspectives
    Name:
    Interfaith Perspectives
    Status: Member
    Description: This is an interfaith group who's members are from different spiritual paths and who share their perspectives on various religious topics. Proselytizers need not apply (our first rule) -- there is a difference between sharing your faith's perspective and trying to convince another participant to switch to your faith. At the same time, the emphasis is on discussing what you do believe and / or practice, not on what you don't believe, as we are not a debate group (we are not into wrong making, and this is our second rule.) Our third rule is to share page space in the discussion threads, to allow others to participate, the same way it is done with in-person group discussions.
  • God-o-Meter Politics
    Name:
    God-o-Meter Politics
    Status: Member
    Description: Did Mitt Romney's "Mormon speech" change minds? Is Barack Obama adopting George W. Bush's church-based organizing tactics? Will evangelicals sit the election out if Rudy Giuliani is the Republican nominee--or does Hillary Clinton's standing ovation at Saddleback mean she'll win more evangelicals than James Dobson would care to admit? God-o-Meter Politics is the place for discussion and debate about the role religion is playing in the 2008 presidential race, moderated by Beliefnet Politics Editor and God-o-Meter blogger Dan Gilgoff.
  • Being Ourself
    Name:
    Being Ourself
    Status: Member
    Description: This is a group for people who recognize in a profoundly personal way that we are all actually facets of one whole interacting with itself, or more accurately, Ourself. It is a place for peer discussion and exploration as we move through the challenges and insights we encounter while participating in the awakening of ourselves to our common fundamental identity, Ourself. As indivisible aspects of the single, infinitely diverse entity of everything/reality/creation we all have an opportunity and a responsibility to deepen humankind's awareness of Ourself, and to enrich our language with new terminology/ideas to more accurately portray that which truly is. We want to support each other as we discover wholeness while living in a society that defines everything (including God) as separate when in fact the creator and creation (including all people, animals, plants, minerals, and seen and unseen forces of spirit) are not in any actual way separate. So don't be shy... your vantage point of the whole is completely unique, and is just as valid and important as anybody elses. Enlightenment is the recognition of the wholeness, which by its very all-inclusive nature negates the validity of any kind of exclusive spiritual authority or guru. To allow ourselves to truly feel and be aware of ourselves as part of the great wholeness we need to stop putting others on a pedestal as a way of avoiding being accountable for shining our own light. Let's get the orchestra of the wholeness playing diversely, brilliantly, and powerfully enough to wake up humankind from the illusion of separateness. We can only accomplish this as a community of distinct voices and insights singing out in the harmony of the whole, and not by silencing our own special voice because we have decided some other "enlightened" teacher has a monopoly on authenticity! So sing out your insights, your questions... cry out your pains and frustrations... and love your neighbor as yourself because in truth they are; we are all precious dimensions of one whole. Let's respectfully, gently, and lovingly be Ourself together.