(03-25-2012, 12:31 PM)TheEternal Wrote: Just for the sake of this discussion I will mention this:
Ra discusses Free Will as being the "first distortion", or primal distortion. In that case, if we are to consider a universe that is completely without distortions, or illusions, could we then conclude that Free Will is actually only an illusion?
Yes it is an illusion. It is the first illusion (or distortion). In reality, there is only One. Many-ness is also the first distortion, since freewill automatically results in many-ness.
(03-25-2012, 12:39 PM)Ankh Wrote:(03-25-2012, 12:31 PM)Valtor Wrote: I was raised in the Catholic faith and my experience does not match with your statement. Unless we count the fact that we chose this before incarnation.
Sorry to hear that. That is why I said *mostly*, like for the most part, those adults attending church services are there because they want to. Children and perhaps other people may have been dragged there against their will, which is in that case, an abridgement.
From my personal experience, the great majority of people going to church went there because they had to. All your childhood your are not given a choice. You have to go as it was really not good for the parents' image if they did not go or did not go with all the family.
When you get married in the Christian faith, you have to promise to raise your children in this faith.
Also, lets not forget that if you do not follow properly you go to hell for all eternity.
You can certainly see that parents did not want their children or themselves to end up in hell. So they forced their children and they forced themselves to attend mass.
Now imagine being raised like this. Obviously once an adult yourself, you will continue to go there. Unless you understood the true message hidden behind the dogmas. The real message that Jesus came here to deliver. Love one another, do not judge, forgive all and forgive self, etc... Those who saw this could stop attending church if they wanted to, because they were not afraid of hell anymore. Or they could still attend while using proper discernment and getting what they needed from it.
Now that said, I should say was the great majority. Because nowadays, people are not attending church anymore and so those attending are either there by choice or they are older and still afraid of eternal hell.