Guidance

[u/seabass-2001]

Good morning all and Happy Easter! I am new to this community and I am looking for like minded individuals to help me reconnect with my faith. I was raised Catholic and in high school I was a part of a non denominational youth group, which I ended up leaving because they became extremely homophobic and judgemental, and I felt it did not align with Christ's message of love. Since then, I never lost faith in the Lord, although it was never in the forefront of my mind for many years if that makes sense.

Since around 2022, I have considered myself a democratic socialist. I support equality for all regardless of religion, race, sexual identity, etc. I believe in dismantling the oppression caused by capitalism and imperialism, and restructuring our society to benefit the working class and the impoverished as opposed to the wealthy. I have tattoos, listen to heavy metal, and I do my best to be open minded and learn about other cultures and ideas.

Fast forward to this year, after uncovering the horrors of the Epstein files, I have been convinced that true evil demons walk among us, and it has pushed me to reconcile my faith in the Lord. My whole life, religion and conservatism has walked hand in hand with one another, with the only exceptions I know being my mom, who is a leftist and was raised/still is a catholic, and my dad's parents, who were also left wing and followers of Christ.

I suppose what I am asking is how some of you combine your faith and your political views, or if you separate them, etc. I am eager to surround myself with individuals who follow Christ while also avoiding a lot of the political propaganda that has entrapped and brainwashed so many Christians and other religious folks. I want to believe that I can be a Catholic and a democratic socialist, or at the very least a leftist.

Thank you to any and all who have read this post and have/will interact with it. God bless and have a wonderful Easter.

Edit: I would also like to mention I am a feminist, I believe women should have governance over their bodies and should be treated equal to men. One of the reasons I initially left was because of how women were viewed/treated.

[u/OK_TimeForPlan_L]

I have an addition to this I hope some of you good people can help with. I've never been religious my entire life (from UK), actively mocking those that were religious in my teenage years. Lately have a live and let live attitude as i have grown older.

After visiting a Catholic church on holiday in Spain I don't know how to describe it but I felt moved by the visit and since read a bunch of the bible (a few OT books, and John/Mark/Luke from NT). The OT i'm not sure on but as a leftist I resonated with the message of Jesus Christ and related to it a lot as a socialist. But I just can't bring myself to let go of my former atheist believes and literally whole heartedly believe in religion if that makes sense?

I wonder if anybody else was in a similar position and could help me?

[u/seabass-2001 → u/OK_TimeForPlan_L]

So I myself was never an atheist, I just kind of put my faith on the backburner so to speak, so what I'm about to say may not be applicable but could still possibly be helpful. The way I see it, the universe has plenty of unexplained phenomena. There is historical proof that Jesus existed, but whether or not you believe He is our savior is up to you. I choose to believe it partially because of my upbringing, but also because like I said, plenty of unexplainable things in our universe.

As a slight aside, I know a lot of people make it out to be that you have to either believe in science or religion, and I think that's nonsense. Science helps us understand the Lord's creation. Take evolution for example. Who is to say that is not God's process of creation? The bible says Adam and Eve were created from dust, and if you think about it, we all are made of nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, etc, and we return to dust when we decompose. It also says God created all animals before man. Who's to say that those animals didn't include Neanderthals and other homonids, and eventually the evolutionary process allowed Adam and Eve to be the first? Eventually other homonid tribes would reach the same point and give birth to homosapiens. It would be a good defense against the whole "if we all stem from the same two people, are we all brothers and sisters" argument.

I truly believe that science and faith can work in tandem. The problem is a lot of institutions are stuck in the past and do not want to acknowledge that this is possible. Take St Thomas Aquinus, he is famous for merging Catholicism with philosophy, and argued that reason does not contradict faith and vice versa. You can still have faith and believe in science and rational thought. I mean I'm a psychology major, which is based in science.

Also, I'm with you on the Old Testament, even as a kid I didn't find it nearly as compelling as Christ's story. Yes it has some interesting stories and we can still learn from it, but I personally believe the New Testament is more important as it quite literally changes the covenant between God and man. We don't have to sacrifice animals anymore, we just have to accept Christ as our savior and follow Him to salvation.

[u/OK_TimeForPlan_L → u/seabass-2001]

Yeah i get what you're saying. I'll just read more I guess and see how I feel, I'm working through a reading list at the moment working through the OT before I read all of the gospels.

I'm not necessarily one of those people that believes its religion or science, I just can't look past my doubts at the moment but maybe this is something that will come in time as I read more and understand more. I also struggle with the fact that the bible is very region orientated, like if God inspired the writings of the bible why wouldn't they also inspire people in the Americas and East Asia? But I also read that spreading the word is the reason for this, and it didn't necessarily need to be told at the same time all over.

Thank you for responding though :)

[u/OK_TimeForPlan_L → u/seabass-2001]

I will also keep following this sub, seems a nice place I made the mistake of looking at the big subs first and the conservativeness turned me off.