I went to Google and typed in "Religious Forums" and Religiousforums.com came up as the first result. Fantastic! Just what I was looking for!
I signed up, said hi, and then forgot about it.
Fast-forward to 2018: I had written a book, a kind of mental ill-health autobiography, I don't stand by the things I wrote in that book but it does represent the state of mind I had back then. It was quite mad and rather un-self-aware. I made a post promoting it on RF and one of the admins took it down! But they weren't horrible about it and didn't parade me around in disgrace!
At about that time in my life I did not understand my true nature and I did not understand the true nature of Madaba. I didn't understand anything really! I had got it in my head that I was "the messiah". At the time I thought this was simply a synonym for Jesus Christ, but it isn't, although Christians claim Jesus to be "The Messiah" that term is also used by Jews. They think The Messiah will be some Jewish dude who will bring about world peace and make the Jewish diaspora return to Israel. But I thought it just meant "Jesus". I got confused because Christians call Jesus "The Messiah" but the term has a wider meaning that goes beyond Christians.
I thought that I was Jesus and that Madaba was God. Clearly this is not the case! But it made sense to me at the time, because the whole me and Madaba thing is unusual and does somewhat resemble Jesus and The Holy Spirit. Although I don't really believe in Jesus and I've gone beyond The Holy Spirit, intellectually. I kind of believe in a similar thing but I'm not into the Holy Trinity.
So I went into the Christian section and basically announced to the world that I was The Messiah. I have no idea what I expected to happen. The whole forum rejoicing at the return of Christ? Would it go viral? Would the whole world celebrate? Nope. I got some bloke write a nice message on my profile and a Rabbi said "Why did you post this in the Christian section?"
My announcement got plenty of attention and plenty of people responded to it. But not in the way I wanted! Over the course of a few hours - which can be a long time online - I was gradually convinced by the good people of RF that I was not Jesus
It was a very intense experience for me, I felt the heat of criticism yet everyone was civil and compassionate.
See - I was mad in that I believed in something silly and untrue - but I was not ignorant as I changed according to how people reacted to me! I had the intelligence required to see that I could not reasonably defend the notion that I was Jesus. So I dropped it.
And thus ended my Messiah Complex. It died on the pages of RF! In a spectacular fashion!
After I stopped believing I was Jesus and Madaba was God I moved on, to another falsehood. Which seemed appealing and sensible to me at the time, and Madaba encouraged me in this, perhaps to push me in the right direction. But if he was doing that he did not go in a straight line! - I decided that Madaba was "the superintendent superintelligence" of a simulated dimension of reality and that I was some kind of cyber/techno prophet, an "Agent of The Simulation". I believed that the world is a computer program, a simulation!
I created a whole mythos, a whole cosmology, a kind of pseudo-religion with me at the heart as the recipient of revelation from a higher power - The Simulation!
This stage lasted for ages but I eventually dropped it and became a Christian. Some of the people there said that it was sad that I'd stopped making my Simulation Theory posts and that they spiced up the forum!
Anyway, for the past few years I have identified as a Christian on RF but I have never subscribed to pre-existing creeds, I have always been an independent Christian, a free Christian. But I have stopped doing that now, I now call myself "Post-Christian" - influenced but not adhering to any creed or doctrine other than the understanding in my heart.
A good thing about RF is that it is very well moderated. The moderation team are all very nice, friendly and helpful. They do their job efficiently and well. It is superbly moderated and is done so in accordance to a set of public rules, all of which are very reasonable. If you come to RF to troll or spam then you won't last long.
There is a rule against preaching your own religion and trying to undermine the faith of others. And there is a rule against advertising and mentioning illegal activities. There are lots of rules and they are all sensible and reasonable.
The moderation team don't run RF. The rules do. I've seen how some other forums are run, and RF is superb in that respect.
They are easy to reach - there is a special forum called "Site Feedback" in which people can only see their own messages and the staff's replies to their own messages. An ordinary user cannot see anyone else's posts in that forum. I've used this a lot and the staff have been very nice and civil to me!
On RF there is a distinction between "debate" forums and "discuss" forums. You cannot debate in a discussion forum but you can discuss in a debate forum! That is something you need to be aware of if you plan on joining RF.
There is also a system of DIR forums - "Discuss Individual Religions". The DIRs are organized into categories of religion. For instance the "Abrahamic DIR" contains the Christians-only forum, the Jews-only forum, and the Moslems-only forum. To be able to post in a DIR forum you need to join it in your personal settings.
I have been on RF for about nine years now and in that time I have achieved "Veteran Member" status - the highest status, which you are awarded for reaching 10,000 posts. I am currently well on my way to hitting 11,000 posts. The highest post count anyone there has is over 250,000 which I think is mind-blowing and epic.
Would I recommend it? Absolutely. There are some lovely genuine people there and you can get a really good debate there, if that is what you are after. There are some very wise, knowledgeable and educated people there. And the atmosphere is generally pleasant although American politics have been divisive there and over the past year or so it has become a bit stale and not as good as it was before. It's seen better days! Although maybe it will somehow improve?
I'm not giving up on it, I'm going to stick around. And I would recommend it. I've learnt an awful lot by hanging around there and the people there have helped me through my madness - they helped me snap out of my Messiah complex and they helped me move beyond thinking reality is "The Simulation"
So yeah..... check it out!
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