Hey everyone – I’m alive and well. Just needed a moment. Anyway, here’s something I’ve been thinking about recently.
You know the whole religious organization thing? I still haven’t found one church that I like. And what I’ve realized is that everyone seems to have an agenda. By the way, I’m talking about Christian churches… They really seem to lack authenticity. And they want to “convert” everyone to their denomination – not to Christianity but to a certain organization.
The God I know is not punitive. And yet, that’s what they teach, if not in word then by actions. Basically, if I don’t go to church or pay tithe then God is going to be angry and punish me. Uh – that’s a total lie. He may be sad – maybe. But not angry. He doesn’t punish me when I do wrong. Yes, there are consequences to every action but a lightning bolt is not going to be thrown from the sky and take me out. That’s utterly ridiculous. But it’s a lie we perpetrate to keep people in line.
Plus, the atheist and others have a point when they say that Christians just seem like a bunch of ignorant followers. It’s what the majority of us do. If we are part of a particular denomination then we are expected to follow everything they do. Not me. At this point I don’t want to be associated with any “Christian organization”.
Right now, I am trying to operate without fear and guilt. If I don’t spend time doing good things, etc… I am no longer “scared” of what will happen to me. It’s unfortunate that we teach such a humungous lie to others just because we can’t understand Someone who loves us unconditionally – regardless of what we do. He loves the embezzler just as much as He loves me. Not more, not less. The exact same. I can’t DO anything to make Him love me or to take that love away. It’s there.
Basically, a lot of people believe in God, but don’t know Him. And I think that there is a HUGE difference in those two words. Am I being arrogant to assume I’m one of them? Yup. Could I be wrong? Sure – but I doubt it ;o)!
5 comments:
kinda reminds me of myself and the way i view religion...
i got kicked out of my old church because they didn't feel that they could allow a member spinning hip hop at clubs on weekends. yep...
Go You! Enlightenment happens in baby steps, and I'd rather spend my life seeking knowledge than living in ignorance being spoon fed a watered down/manipulated form of religion. Don't get me started.
As you can see, I'm alive and well...just working like a biatch!
Dang, you came back with a vengeance. I really don't have any to say, we have discussed this before. To bad you don't have a good church down their, you should have moved to the VA
Anon from the VA
Hey RS, I've written about this before too - I think you've been exposed to the bad side of religion and I'm really sorry to hear it. There are plenty of religious people out there who don't operate on a basis of fear and guilt, but believe in a God that loves and are thankful for how lucky they are to know it and hope to show generosity of spirit to everyone. (I'm probably coming across as annoyingly smug writing this, but it's hard to express and I'm sorry if that's the case.) I think everyone has to experience God in their own way - but please don't be too hard on those of us who choose to experience religion in a traditional way. I definitely feel close to God in many situations, but the familiar ritual of church service, the tradition of serving others that the Catholic Church has in spite of its sordid past, and the comfort of belonging to a community of believers are really important to me. I know there are a great many people who use Christianity (and other organized religions) as a stick to beat those they see as less pure/enlightened/whatever, but that's definitely not all of us and those of us who aren't like that may in fact be the silent majority...
Thanks JJ - I've actually been exposed to both the good and bad side of religion. What I was trying to do is show that "spirituality" and "religion" don't go hand in hand. I don't want to be comfortable worshipping God. I feel like I should always be striving to be better. If not, it will be easy to become stagnant and stop growing. Does that make sense?
But you've raised a great point - my intention was not to be too hard more traditional followers, but rather to make everyone evaluate why they do what they do. With that said, because of where I am now, I am totally guilty of making judgement calls on people who I assume are where I was...lol...it's a huge issue that I'm dealing with now...so thanks for bringing that to my attention.
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