Thursday, December 2, 2010

Bible study is essential part of the Christian experience. I have done it for many years and have come to many conclusions 'outside' of anyone's curricula. But I still believe God is who He says He is. What did you believe about the person of God/Jesus?

I believed that God was the Father of Jesus and the Creator of all things. I believed that God had a personal relationship with each and every part of his creation, and being omniscient and omnipresent, was able to commune regularly with each and every individual on the planet if he so chose simultaneously. I believed he was God, so he could do anything. However, without even questioning the logic of this, I often assumed he would be on my side of any issue, unless I was given evidence otherwise, which was also, often. So over time I observed that what I would want and what I would get were two different things. I'd desire to have my prayers fulfilled but they'd either be ignored or answered in the negative by events that occurred around me. So I became the butt of God's jokes, and I felt I was little more than a victim of his sick sense of humor.

I believed that Jesus died for the sins of all mankind and resided in a special place in my heart and was there for me whenever I needed a shoulder to lean on or an ear to bend. Prayer was like calling up your best friend on a cellphone. This was before there were things like cellphones. I wouldn't have to talk out loud. I could just think and he'd hear my thoughts. Listen to whatever my problem was and say he'd look into it. While God towards the end grew more and more vindictive, Jesus was always my arbiter. I saw these two as both the same guy and separate entities, and it wasn't until later, over time, that the sheer absurdity of that occurred to me. As for The Holy Spirit, after my dabbling in mystic stuff in my youth, I'd decided the Holy Spirit a gift that I returned like a pair of socks. Speaking in tongues can be really scary if you actually believe in it.

Many years later I realized how magic - all magic - doesn't exist. You can't pick and choose. You can't say well there's no such thing as unicorns but some ghosts might be real. You can't dismiss fairies but accept angels. If magic functioned in this universe, subatomic particles would be unnecessary. Everything would be made by mystic energy. Alchemy would have worked. It's all or nothing. Science or Magic. You can't have a reality in which both co-exist.

So when someone feels they've experienced magical events, there is ALWAYS a more rational explanation. I had to face the fact that every time I thought I was communing with ghosts or angels or "guides" or fighting demons on others' behalf, I was really talking to myself. That's sobering. It's a form of insanity, and it's disturbing to me now realizing just how many people walking around every day are as guilty of that as I was. We're talking billions of people worldwide who believe this stuff is real without any actual evidence. They believe because it's what they feel.

The other day I was at a restaurant and witnessed four people quietly hold hands and bow their heads and it made my skin crawl. I used to do that. It's very subtle, but when you see that there's literally nothing to that. That it's just people fooling themselves into believing something that's not real, that's sobering. Leaders of the free world talk to air & think they're communing with the creator of all things. People who operate heavy machinery from cars to airplanes honestly think a god is their copilot. It boggles the mind.

I used to believe all that too. Frankly I'm surprised mankind hasn't metaphorically driven itself off a cliff by now.

Ask me anything

No comments: