XPost: alt.atheism, alt.agnosticism, talk.philosophy.humanism   
   From: dalton.nfld@gmail.com   
      
   How did I renounce my confirmation, and my membership in   
   the Roman Catholic Church, quite a few years ago?   
      
   1. in  letter to the then priest of the church in which I   
   was confirmed,   
      
   2. in a letter to Pope John Paul II, which almost definitely   
   was not read by him but probably was read by somebody   
   at the Vatican,   
      
   3. out loud to the Christian God.   
      
   In addition I have funnelled many spells and rituals that have   
   hit me, including the four Catholic sacraments of baptism,   
   communion, confession, and confirmation, to be adjusted by   
   my Goddess (who many call God).  I think that after adjustment   
   those four no longer convey organizational bondage or a   
   requirement to worship, but do facilitate worship for those   
   who wish to do it, and may provide some protection.   
      
   And it could be that those four rituals did affect my   
   progress since then, though I currently consider myself   
   to be an individual neopagan, not a Christian.  However   
   my top deity is Goddess (the ruler of the region all/everything,   
   who many call God), I have Jesus as one of my minor deities,   
   and my essential messages have been influenced by the main   
   messages of Jesus.   
      
   For my recent and ongoing progress see alt.religion.druid and   
   also some recent threads on the moderated Christian newsgroup   
   uk.religion.christian (even though Newfoundland broke away   
   from UK rule on April Fool's Day, 1949).   
      
   --   
   David Dalton dalton@nfld.com https://www.nfld.com/~dalton (home page)   
   https://www.nfld.com/~dalton/dtales.html Salmon on the Thorns (mystic page)   
   "But once there was a darkness, deep and endless night   
   You gave me everything you had, oh you gave me light" (Sarah McLachlan)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)