Yeah, I've never heard of there being fish restrictions for rastas. Pork, yes, but not fish.

They started in Africa. They eat fish, but not over a foot long in length. Similar to kosher laws, they don't shelf fish, or scavengers.

only certain fish - they don't eat fish with has no scales or less than foot long

resin is a symptom of Babylon

From what I looked up earlier it sounds like the don't eat shellfish, but that's it. And not even all of them believe in adhering to that.

^ Probably because it gives them the runs.

Ah, Shabbat shalom everyone!

Yeah i'm no longer religious but still spiritual.

I don't go to church, I don't read/believe in the Bible.

I believe there is a god/higher power though.

I was raised Presbyterian but the reason all of the church going backfire was because I was forced to go to church. I also hated the members in the church because they were so evil imo. They were the most judgmental people I have ever met. I don't believe that going to church is mandatory. The only people that need to attend church are weak in their spirit/faith and need the help of others to lift them up.

I was born a Roman Catholic, raised as a Taoist/Buddhist but converted to a Charismatic

I don't think my churchmates were judgmental, only hypocritical

there's also too much American right-wing dogma seeping into Malaysian Protestant churches - anti-Islam, Creationism, which I don't quite like

I might be going back to my roots as a Catholic but I don't have high hopes for it

On top of being judgmental they were also hypocritical.

There are two different groups of church go'ers.

You have the one a day christians. They do so many things that are not christian-like during the week then come to church on sunday and try to act holier than thou. They chalk it up to being able to repent for their sins during the week. As soon as monday rolls around they are back to their old ways.

The second group of church go'ers are the ones that go to every possible event the church is having and end up going to church about five times during the week. They have to go to bible study on tuesday nights, Men's study on wednesday night, Youth study on friday night, Church Staff meeting on monday night and then regular mass and sunday school on sunday.

The second group I tend to find the most judgmental. When a new member comes to the church and tell their story about their past and how they want to welcome jesus into their life. The gossip begins and stays around for the end of time/members involvement in the church. I really hate how gossipy church members are.

^^in my church, even the youth pastor gossips

I was possibly lucky in that most of the people at my church were 'genuine' and sincere believers, and we didn't have too many of these sorts of people attending.

I fell into this group unfortunately. Between worship band (Tue nights and Saturday afternoons/evenings), a student lifegroup (Wednesday for the church group and Friday night for a university meeting), Thursday meetings at church and then the Sunday services (and I usually went to both morning and evening services too), I didn't do too much which wasn't church- or Christian-related.

Eh, I never got involved in this, and certainly not in my church where there was too much politics and striving for hierarchies and positions. It's the reason I quit the worship band (the main bandleaders spent too much time competing against each other and not actually doing anything musical)

there is nothing wrong with going to church that much as long as you weren't forced to do it. which by the sounds of it I think you were and that's why you attempted suicide yes?

Yeah , gossiping and church politics was one of the main factors that turned me away from going to church

Also as I read the bible, I remember a scripture saying to treat your body like a temple. Well if I treat my body like a temple then I should be able to worship and pray where ever my body is. I shouldn't have to go to some man made building to pray and worship God.

I was raised catholic, and got a cupcake everyday in Catholic School from a nun who later turned out to be a lesbian and left the church.

Nowadays I'm not much of anything. I enjoy the idea of being religious, as in that feeling of being connected to all the people who happen to be the same religion you are. But I could care less about the actual religion. I'd just enjoy the company. I also really liked it when we would go to church, and they had Dunkin' Donuts. I'd go to church for free Dunkin' Donuts.

I only started going to church regularly during university, where I was away from my parents and I wished to attend of my own free will.

I tried to commit suicide not because I was forced to attend church, because of more conservative elements in my church, to hide my bisexuality away, and indeed my own personal religiousity meant that there was a huge amount of internal conflict as well as external battles with others in my church group.

I also felt a lot of hostility because I was not content to simply accept what was being taught to me, to simply be spoonfed and recite answers by rote. I asked a lot of questions, did a lot of research and as a result, made a lot of people incresingly angry with me. I also became angry myself because many of my honest questions were being ignored or fluffed by my ministers, fellow worshipers and friends in that church.

In my case, my church lost a minister because of some supposed in-fighting between the two main ministers, and as a result a lot of gossip and taking sides happened, as well as a lot of huddling-in-corners type activity with a lot of whispering behind the scenes between our deacons/elders and yet no-one wanted to tell any of the ordinary everyday members what was happening.

There's also something in the Bible about God being omnipresent....and a part of God being within us.

EDIT: I know with regard to my sexuality, going from Christianity to Orthodox Judaism seems like a really weird step to take, but I feel that, unlike Christianity, the emphasis on the sexual relationship between man and woman being a GOOD thing means that I can at least for the most part be happy, unlike the Christian attitude which seems to see any sexual relation as something impure or shameful.

I'm sorry to hear that but it's great that you are still alive to post on MB and that you found the strength to carry on.


I experienced something like that in the church that my mother used to drag me to and to this day I still don't know what fully happened.


I don't know the views/thoughts on sexual orientation within Judaism but there are some Christian denominations that accept all orientations. Catholic is not one of them.

my suicide attempt was mostly due to me falling in love with one of the younger pastors (a girl) and she didn't want me - I was knee-deep in wallowing in rejection and prayed that she would see me for who I am, in the end, I heard a lot of Satanic voices in my head, and I headed to a nearby lake near my house to attempt drowning

so, uh, no thx

That sounds schizophrenic. Are you okay now? do you still hear voices from time to time?

I think I already mentioned in some of my posts that I AM schizophrenic. So being a fanatical Christian didn't help much.

I don't hear voices much - just paranoid delusions about being a secret cop like the KGB, having telepathic powers, gangsta houngans putting voodoo spells on me, people on the street all know about me and talk about me openly

if untreated, it'll escalate to the point where I think I'm the Second Coming, also the reincarnation of Buddha and Vishnu

if still untreated, I think I'm God and develop a second personality, where my conscious mind doesn't know what the other personality did (I threw away a lot of "Satanic" CDs unconsciously)

I'm under heavy meds - an anti-psychotic, an anti-depressant, a sedative, a mood stabiliser

good grief. I'm diagnosed with the same condition but I'm too paranoid to take pills so I'm not on any of them. I hear voices from time to time but I never listen to them so it doesn't get to the point where I would act on what they say. I use my mp3 player to drown out the voices when I go out in public so I always have my Zune with me! always!

you should take something atypical like me (Olanzapine), and not a zombiefying anti-psyche like Haliperidol or Modicate

it would help with the voices

I feel fine with it all the time, though my temper is a bit too mild for my liking

I'm changing meds to a periperitone jab soon

I have taken Olanzapine.

The way I feel about it, Either when I take the pills they give me they are just a placebo and they have no effect on me or they are trying to kill me because the pills have strange side effects not listed. I took some pill Abilify I think it was and I had heart palpitations and I hated it. Even though I think thats listed on the list of side effects. IDK i just flushed the rest of the pills down the toilet. I don't want to take pills because I feel like it's going to turn my brain to mush and kill my creativity. I rather deal with the voices and be creative than stop them and become a veggie.

Olanzapine doesn't affect my creativity nor my work - it does however make me a very chill person - like everything is totally cool - i mean, it's like the whole world could be collapsing around me but I feel fine

it does give me vertigo and sometimes panic attacks, like I'm about to die from cardiac arrest - but it's more from my work stress

I'm already a chill person and I try to not let much get to me. I'm too awesome for that. I need to work on arguing with petty people but I'm slowly getting there. Starting to take the high road more often. I have found other coping methods to deal with my panic attacks.

It's funny, music is probably the one thing that kept me going. No matter what was happening to me, I still had my two basses, an amp and I could still play it.

Writing songs allowed me to have some emotional overspill too...I could write my opinions, feelings and other 'negative' feelings/emotions into something of worth.

TBH it's probably better not to know...


It's heavily dependant on the shul you attend and what country you live in as much as anything. Many Jews, including Orthodoxy, are becoming more and more tolerant towards homosexuality.

I observe people on the streets threatening me with Hell, and I point and laugh... does that count?

(Not a statement against Christians but I find the whole evangelical megaphone thing ridiculous.)

The people who preach on the street like that make Christianity look tacky, in my opinion.

My old church had a better idea...it held a 'live' question and answer session on a main street in my city.People could come to the mike and ask anything they so chose to ask. Some of the questions asked were genuinely clever and the people answering enjoyed it greatly.

Yeah, but these guys are just being ****heads because Tampa is a sleazy town, and has a massive bar area sort of semi-famous for decadence(by America standards). So they just come out with megaphones and yell "YER GOIN TO HELL!!!" To every single passerby.

I'm not big on the threatening nature.

Damn. That's probably not as awesome as it sounds.
I used to know a guy who was schizophrenic. He almost never took his meds. Consequently, he thought he was the cause of 9/11, among other things. And he happened to be one of the best solo guitarists I've ever heard. He wrote amazing stuff, but he would end up burning all his music and notes when he wasn't on his meds because he was so paranoid that someone would break into his [grandmother's] house and steal his ideas and make millions of them.
I never really understood much about schizophrenia, and I've always wondered about the progression from the clear moments, to the un-medicated delusional ones. Is it gradual? What I mean is, what's the nature of the thought process that leads up to a total overtaking of a previously rational state? And does the previously rational state serve as a counter-balance or is it just regarded as a lie you believed?

Schizophrenia is the most interesting mental disorder to me, but I never get any chances to discuss it with anyone suffering from it.

I think the interesting part about Schizophrenia is that it is a bit random and affects different people in different ways. Il Duce will probably tell you his version but to me. I don't take meds anymore because I just hate meds in general. I don't even trust my psychiatrist anymore. She's basically a fucking pusher that's getting paid by the government to drug up people. I don't like the way I feel on meds so I come up with my own coping methods that work for me. I also feel like it zaps the hell out of my creativity when i'm on meds so I decided that meds are not for me. The pills I have taken in the past either they feel to me like they don't have any effect or I get some weird f-ed up side effect.

After all of that I just noticed I probably didn't answer your question but oh well.

he's actually quite similar to me, but I thought I could gave prevented 9/11, being secret police and it's a known fact the hijackers made a stop at Malaysia.

Conversely, in my episodes, I would write totally bizarre music, like a cover of Black Sabbath's NIB in Cantonese played on a single out of tune string and thought that was genius. I write better music when I'm sane. Again, conversely, I sometimes discard old lyrics and chords and think that megastars like Rage Against The Machine would requisition for them from the Malaysian government and improve on them.

It's something like drinking. The feeling comes in waves. The only way to stop the inset is to medicate heavily, like anti-psychotic jabs in high doses. Those thought processes are always lurking underneath, like Rilke's Panther, but I usually don't take them seriously or let them pass. In the relapses, however, my mind latches on them and refuses to let go. There is no rational state when that happens or any memory of it.

On the plus side, I never need to take LSD, going off the meds would be pretty hallucinatory by itself.

That sounds pretty cool. As long as it doesn't just degenerate into shouting matches.

by the sounds of it, they probably kept it pretty civil.

actually it worked incredibly well. Our speakers were specially chosen for their specialisms, including evolutionary science (taken by a biologist member of our church), politics (this was to cover issues such as war and international relations) taken by a professor of political science, Bible history (which is what I covered, covering any questions on Latin/Greek language issues), ethics (represented by a doctor, our main minister and a couple of other people trained in philosophy) and other issues which I now can't remember. The expertise of the speakers often meant people were a lot more respectful and the debate much 'higher' in tone when it was apparent that it wasn't just 'learn-by-rote' apologetics but people who actually knew what they were talking about.

Also, the stewards were strict in sending any troublemakers away before they caused trouble, and also censoring questions so that only sensible questions were addressed.

Why?

Why do I want to be Jewish you mean?

Pretty easy in my eyes. For me, the fundamental basis of Christianity, Jesus' supposed claim to be the Messiah and the son of HaShem, flies in the face of what is actually taught in the Old Testament (the book which Christians claim is the basis of their religion) as being requirements of the Messiah. The theology of the New Testament is flawed and the history is plainly wrong.

I also reject Islam for much the same reasons. It's based on the same theology.


I choose Judaism because I see in every aspect of the Jewish faith the mark and reminders of the Divine. According to Judaism, we are all created in the image of God, and through righteousness, charity and good works can see the World to Come.

Shabbat, which starts tonight (which means I'm not supposed to be on the laptop!!!), is meant as a reminder to humanity of what life was like in the Garden, and what it will be like in the World to Come, where there will be no need to work or toil. The Shabbat table is representative of the altar of the Temple, and the meal as a banquet fit to be presented to HaShem himself like a king's banqueting table.

Keeping kosher though is a bit of a tricky one- I believe that although we do not know the reasons for these laws on what we can eat, we also do not know the reward for keeping them, or the punishment for not keeping them. We should also uphold major or more difficult mitzvot as strictly as we uphold minor or more easy ones.


As to why I choose Orthodox Judaism specifically, and not say, Reform or Conservative Judaism, my belief is that Orthodoxy represents for me the most 'correct' form of Judaism.

go to bed - it's Saturday

^hey, you don't become observant overnight you know! One step at a time...

I generally agree with and respect a lot of what you're saying there, but as a Muslim I can tell you, while arguably all Abrahamic faiths are generally based on the same theology (and personally, I respect them all), in specific Islam is not based on that same theology of Christianity and the New Testament - in Islam, the new Testament is not considered to be one of the 4 Holy Books (Psalms, Torah, Old Testament and Qu'ran); The New Testament is considered a corruption. Jesus Christ, peace be upon him, is considered to be a prophet - not the Messiah or son of God. And Mary, peace be upon her, was impregnated not directly by God himself, but by Gabriel the Archangel.

Furthermore while no-one knows what the other-wordly rewards for keeping Kosher may be, (or Helal in my case) I do definitly believe that in this World/Life the reward is good health.

I'm quite interested in the whole Zion thing/place (not neccessarily Zionism though) I don't know much but from the 2 sentences I've read it's like, the root of reality or something right?

I must apologize, English isn't my first language. I also apologize if I'm coming across as an *******.