Quote Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr View Post
If you are a Christian, how can you take your salvation too seriously!? It's all that matters, all else, as they say, is vanity.
If you follow God for the purposes of salvation then that is vanity.

Quote Originally Posted by Rhyfelwyr View Post
I didn't really understand the last half of that sentence, however I will say that Christians don't try to live a righteous life to get close to God, it comes as a natural progression from knowing God. Once you repent, you grow to hate iniquity bit by bit, one step at a time. We aren't doing it to torture ourselves because we think it will please God - that would be achieving salvation through works! God doesn't care in the least for anything we do, we can't do good by ourselves, but by the goodness that He works within us.
Say not the Catholics. In any case, some of the most moral and sensetive people I have known have been atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, and Jews. How can you do a single good deed with a heavy heart? Grudging charity is not charity at all. Life should be fun, I don't believe for a second that God wants us to be miserable, that path only leads to hating life.

The Bible teaches that life is the greatest of all God's gifts.

I did two things yesterday, I went to Church on my own and I had dinner with my family. I enjoyed both, I smiled I laughed, I had FUN. I think you over intellectualise your faith and you reject the emotional aspect of it. I'm not the sort of christian who sings happy clappy songs, sways side to side, and then collapses in an ecstatic fit on the floor but even I think your faith should be something you enjoy.

I'm not saying it's not hard for me sometimes, more often than I would like in fact, but at no time have I ever felt that God has wanted me to be miserable.