I do not care in the slightest what you believe in. Your faith is justified by the same reasons mine is. I will never try to disprove your God or your beliefs as they are just as valid and significant as mine.
Unfortunately, people believe that having faith in their opinion allows that opinion more truth than it holds. Example. George Bush is the greatest thing to happen to the country. You can believe this with all the not-so-justified faith in the world. That doesn't mean it isn't a dumbass opinion.
The difference in beliefs is what you know about them. Give me a room of Christians and lets see how many of them think pagans were anything but sexual heathens, if they knew what a pagan was at all. Try to make someone believe the bible isn't infallible when it's the "inspired word of a God" that for whatever reason he allowed to get polluted by people who copied the text incorrectly and added things to back their ideals. Bring up the names Dionysus and Osyrus who laid claim to stories of a virgin birth, resurrection, miracles, and ascending to heaven long before the name Jesus was uttered. You are allowed the knowledge of evidence supported history to understand people just as quickly as you can assert something was divine. Is your version of God and a plan going to be justified denying the world of information?
Its important to know how our version of Christianity came to be. Its one thing to believe in the "original" inspired word of God. I can't argue against it, you can't factually argue any more for it. Unfortunately we do not have this original text. It is lost in the seas of time and may or may not be found. Since people love to pretend they know so many things about God I want to ask those people a question.
If the bible is the infallible inspired word of God and its meant to help guide people down the road to salvation why didn't God take any steps in the preservation of such important text?
A guess. He didn't inspire it. He didn't want to be associated with the Inquisition, Crusades, and Holocaust. He actually understands people cannot literally comprehend infinite love, infinite time, and infinite understanding and forgiveness by simply hearing and reading about them.
Again, INTERPRETATION: the mental representation of the meaning or significance of something. If that isn't simple enough then summed up….Your version of ANYTHING. For an interpretation to be right or wrong it can only be assumed. Taking historical evidence to back up the claim is smart, but it does not take away from the nature of interpretation. I find it coincidental that some passages of the bible, if not many, I can twist and "interpret" to fit in with my ideology without even having to think too hard about them. Anyone wonder why? Humans by nature will look at anything and automatically try to make it make sense to themselves. When your raised your entire life, being "taught" how to think and react, of course when you read something your going to "interpret it correctly" by the standards of the people who taught you how to look at it.
Here's the dangerous part. When you deny any doubt you feel about a passage you read. When you blame being thoughtful on the devil. I want to lay out a concept for you. Humans are not born inherently evil. Discuss.
Any "evil" is justified when the responsibility is projected onto something else. When people also don't recognize that it was actually them feeling actual love and performing actual good deeds they start to kill their self esteem and self worth. YOU. God's greatest creation doesn't want to think or believe your capable of good deeds without a greater motivation. Adam and Eve are a perfect example of this projected responsibility. They fuck up and now its your fault. When such a story comes from the "infallible learning device" no wonder its easy to believe your this evil incarnate that needs to be saved from the ever present and inevitable death. No one asks why God allowed a devil serpent into the garden in the first place.
Blanket statement: Everyone has gut feelings. Here's the thing. There is a difference, a discernible difference, in having gut instinctual feelings and being emotional.
I follow my gut instinct. I don't justify it by anything other than my actions. You can believe it is wrong or misguided and that will never allow me the liberty to change it. I can try to believe it is wrong or misguided and that will never allow me the liberty to change it. This is why I consider myself significant. This is why I think any expression of love is significant. I can't come to conclusions about myself until I get over my initial emotions about myself and what I'm presented with. When you get automatically defensive or angry whenever the subject of religion comes up, you may as well not speak.
It is perhaps a safe assumption that your reaction with "the truth" is not your expression of actual truth.
Blanket statement: People are entertained by the wrong, different, new, and taboo.
Any "good" person who laughs at someone getting hurt after falling down is the basic example of the claim. Of course, not everyone will agree with your position to laugh. Difference of opinion though does not discount the significance of the other peoples' perceptions. Let's take it a step further. People who get controlled by such character traits. With my view, people aren't inherently evil. No baby is born looking to kill someone or itself. Religion, particularly Christianity, provides a scapegoat. And it works both ways for people who want to think themselves selfish or self righteous. You can kill or be martyred in the name of God, and when someone is killed the killer was corrupted by the devil or it was God's plan. When you feel responsible for your hatred and actions you essentially guilt trip yourself into reform. The case doesn't always have to be that extreme. Staying in a bad "Christian" relationship for example…..ya never mind not even gonna start……..Side note. Mental disorders, which today is too broad a category to associate blame, are the exception to such an idea.
Another unfortunate: I think when you allow yourself to become exhausted by thinking about and hoping for that which you can't understand, perceive, and ultimately embrace it becomes a catalyst for sending you into a place of self destruction. Because once the promising potential is polluted, who can blame you?
Broken record effect: Taking it down and bringing it real personal. My gut feeling will always tell me more than what I put in these blogs. My gut feeling tells me that finding and making real connections with real people is the utmost important. My gut feeling cannot deny love and logic and the belief that they can coincide to be the most pure and telling of the nature from the God within. Acknowledging the immanent moment. If you can't use the God given brain to find real truth behind the reasons you say and think the things you do, to me, you lose, or at least hamper, your ability to perceive what "God" is telling you.
