Polls: Religion & Spirituality

Higher love, as in... let's say your significant other ignores you, and tries to control you and doesn't care to get to know you, judges you a lot and treats you with hate BUT in your mind there is a "higher love" that cares about you, doesn't ignore you and pays attention to what you like and what you say, doesn't judge you and is kind about how to guide you/teach you the way of love...

I don't know... some times I feel like my religion is "crazy". I am a Christian. My mom/sister and other mean people at school used to say terrible things to me, and do terrible things to me. I used to go into this "la la land" where there is this God in heaven that cares for me and is loving towards me. He is kind to me, is patient with me and teaches me wisdom. It's all in my head though. But when reality hits, it's hard and painful. My mom hates me. She judges me every thing I do is wrong. I am ugly and worthless to her. Reality really hurts, so I go back to my "la la land" where this higher love loves me.

Is that crazy? I've been doing this with my husband as well. He ignores me, doesn't pay attention to me and gets angry at me for pointing that out (he doesn't know my favorite food or my favorite animal but I know his). He cares little for my feelings (but I care about his and what he wants). So I pretend it's ok that he treats me terrible and abuses me a lot, because I am loved by this higher love.

Is that crazy? But it keeps me from going insane. It keeps me from depression I guess. It keeps me from hating people, and it keeps me from divorce and doing hateful things to myself or God.

I would never, I’m Muslim that’s it. I’ll only ever marry a Muslim too as it’s a request from Allah and TBH interfaith marriages cause a lot of chaos. But I would never marry someone who just convert for me, because he does not believe and it won’t save him on judgement day if he is not genuine in believing in God.

As much as it may sound like it, this is not a religious question. I don't care if you've ever read it or anything, just curious if you've heard of it?

Backstory: I'm currently in the police academy (moved to GA from MI so had to go through theirs). Anyway, so as a part of this academy, we need to pick a class motto. Someone suggested "Here I am. Send me." The class loved it.

If you don't know, this is a quote from the old testament of the Bible. A lot of law enforcement uses it to say, "I'll go to defend" and a lot of military branches use it to volunteer to go to the front lines. It's not necessarily used in its Biblical sense.

So the lady who sits next to me in the classroom was grumbling the entire time that she didn't know what the quote was from so I told her, "It's a quote from the Bible."

She asked what that was and I specified, "the Christian religious text. The Christian Bible."

She said, "Well I'm Jewish. We don't call it that."

So... I'm over here just flabbergasted that this lady (55 y/o) who was born and raised in the heart of Bible Land, Georgia didn't recognize the name of the book. I don't care what religion you chose to follow/not follow but I (apparently stupidly) was under the illusion that most people would be able to say, "The Bible? Oh yeah, that's what Christians read," even if they've never read it themselves.

I figured most people would know that Christianity is a major world-wide religion and would know that Christians read the Bible. I'm not Jewish, but I know that Jewish people read the Torah. I'm not Muslim, but I know they read the Koran.

From what I understand, the big difference between the Torah and the Bible is the New Testament. This is a quote from the Old Testament, which, to my understanding, is included in the Jewish Torah.

I'm sure this makes y'all think I'm super close-minded and maybe I am, but I was just floored by this lady.

So I'm here to poll the masses. Are you aware of what the Bible is?

If you were/are religious, did/do you pray to saints (like the Catholics do)?

Im only curious about the percentages, so just answer yes or no, I don't want to observe theological arguments about whether it's right or not.

DEFINITIONS: Relative happiness gives us short term pleasure, while absolute happiness lasts forever since you know you are naturally in a happy state of mind no matter what happens. As you have the wisdom to discern what is on surface of a given situation and why it has appeared in your life.