Wanted to send this to my "active" sister in hopes of awakening her, comments welcome. She thinks I am a heathen apostate...
LOSING MY RELIGION
Preface
The writer who takes the time to lay down his thoughts on paper; however, fatuous has more courage than any critic of the same. It is far easier to pretend your principled to conceal the overwhelming fear that all is not as it may be. I forgive you for the same.
Origins of Compassion
At times, I am reminded of humanities distressed state and uncertain future. Some event or moral situation will send me introspectively towards a need to validate humanities purpose and a need to rectify what is broken. I get grounded quickly, and I am reminded how powerless we really are. I’m not arguing the validity, grandeur, importance, and outcome of man’s technological advancements; however, very demonstrated is the corruptible heart of man, and mankind has and will prevent the good that may come from any technology advancements, and man will suppress it to a select elite few.
Therefore, my religious Christian background is stimulated, and logically I want conclude that according to the Bibles plot, and most Christians would agree that simply stated we have purpose, and we have a future supported by our Creator or God.
The more I read and increase my knowledge of the gospel, the more I question. I see man’s corruptible nature interceding and twisting the narrative with motivation to control humanity, his fingerprints are everywhere on these writings. The bible if full of circumstantial evidence, and hearsay or second person accounts; however, relatively little physical, or demonstrative evidence to support many of the claims made in the Bible. This is not a new argument, however a statement of the facts. Unfortunately, in our time, it requires faith, or a belief in the unknown to secure ones rational for their assertions on god and belief in the Bible as the literal words of god. Unfortunately, without any one of us actually seeing God, or his designate to corroborate the statement that all scriptures are the inspired word of God, this statement alone does not substantiate the allegation.
Why does any of this matter? Because I want the narrative to be true, I want to know that humanity has hope, above man’s own fallible means. I want to know that the intelligent being that created this universe, our earth, and all the living creatures on it, would not let violence, death, suffering, pain, and all the combined worlds’ atrocities to continue without interceding. I have little interest in the specific dogma of the world’s religions, but appeal to the logical intellect of causation at the highest level to grasp a purpose and future for mankind.
From the Bible we are to believe that this intelligent being, God, our Father, whom created us in their image, that instilled our parental, and maternal nurturing, and loving persona, that has ensured the survival of our offspring for millennia, would act any less for his human family. As parents, if we had two children and we had to choose which one would die to save the life of the other, who would you choose? Do you think God, our Father wants to lose any of his children? A Father who knows all the stars by name, a God that provides for the lessor animals? Do you really believe in your heart that he wants to lose any of his children, and that he would not go to great lengths to redeem them? Or do you foolishly believe that the Hebrew god, who murdered innocent children is the same creator? He put to death all the Egyptian first born sons, turned on Moses his faithful instrument, and would have put him to death for refusing to circumcise his son, or the Hebrew god who ordered Saul and the Israelites to slaughter the Amalekites. “…in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them — the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites — as the LORD your God has commanded you.” Were these not his children to? But we are going to just dismiss this, and make an excuse that he is god and can do anything he chooses with his creation, or perhaps we reason that these children would grow up as their parents, as enemies of the Lord and therefor god in all his wisdom was justified in taking their lives? I am sorry, I cannot concede to either as a rational explanation for a being that is so intelligent to have created the cosmos and all that is in it. This Hebrew god sounds more like a lesser god, a power hungry vengeful, and jealous god, and less of divine origin, or one capable of infallible righteousness and love. The latter explanation is fallacious as well. How can we argue that we have free will and that our lives are not pre-destined if we are condemned before we have a chance to live out our lives? If we are incapable of change, then why are we going through this agony to begin with?
http://www.wikiart.org/en/gustave-dore/the-deluge
We are reminded of this when we look at the work of Gustave Deor, The Deluge. Seeing the tiger clinging to this vestige of life on the last peaks of land holding its cub on high. The children hoisted by their parents to save their lives, whose agonizing last thoughts of despair matched the black of the starless night sky. The artist image captures an emotion of hopelessness and despair, and awakens our compassion for these lost souls. The souls that we would just relegate to collateral damage. If these actions seem incongruent with our reasoning as gods children, created in their image, than I argue that there must be another explanation.
One such explanation is realized when we examine the motive, means, and opportunity for seeding disinformation into Bible. If one non-truth or lie is woven into the truthful narrative, than the whole series becomes questionable and the seed of doubt is sowed. The master deceiver or god’s adversarial opponent would have great motive to perpetrate this disinformation campaign.
Regarding the religious orders that have volunteered to assume the responsibility of the messiah or mediator’s messages, I suggest they are complicit in the proliferation of ignorance, and reproach of self-reasoning in favor of dogmatic ritual and rules for the sake of the organization. To ignore or prioritize the gospels writings in an effort to forward a particular sect’s beliefs and agenda, are in my opinion, blasphemy of the highest degree. For example, we are all familiar with an ancient allegory in the New Testament. That there was a god who was sent in man’s form to our earth, commissioned by his father to atone for humanities fallen state and teach the hope of a new government, redemption and a chance for the dead to have this same. I think many know of this antidote and what happened. This man taught, and demonstrated how to manipulate the physical world and that the limitations of death could be overcome. He was doubted as Gods son, and blasphemer. It is a great love story complete with the antagonist, Satan, government officials, religious leaders, and regular people like you and I. Unfortunately, like all good protagonists, he must die an agonizing death at the end, but only to be risen as a God and king for his loyalty. He has promised to come again to finish what he started, and we anxiously wait for his return.
From the ancient manuscripts we all profess to know him, what he said, and what he did, and we have a belief that he will return as he promised. And we believe this, without much historical evidence that he ever existed other than the collection of manuscripts and letters, and later period historian’s writings that have survived documenting this myth. They have been translated, edited, and canonized by none other than a Roman official, Emperor Constantine, a Roman and thus tied to very authorities that carried out our protagonist’s death sentence. These words have been translated into English and various other languages, added interpretation and opinion into what we read and call the New Testament.
I amazes me that most men cannot even read or write the original languages that these were written in, and even if we could, only copies of copies exist to this day. However, we are willing to give our life for this belief, we are willing to kill for him, to convert the non-believers, we are willing to give up our families, we are willing to burn down the very things that make up our life for this belief. And we do this in his name, we are convicted, we are driven, and what we are that we cannot see, is selfish. We are willing to do anything in his name to save our own soul, and have a chance at what he promised. And a few hundred years after he departed this earth and broke the foundations of the hypocritical religious bodies of the day, we are right back doing the same things that he warned us not to do. But we justify it, we justify it because we ALL believe we have the truth. The sad truth is that the fabric of this belief is as delicate a snowflake. There it is, floating down, you put out your hand to examine it, and it melts before your eyes. Do you think you could even remember what it looked like, seconds after it melted, or accurately draw it out on paper? But yet, we are willing to die for this, not associate with our own family, and condemn and judge others on this melting fabric of truth.
However, even I as the skeptic, I would ascertain that we do not know him like we profess, or what he said, and did and wants. Yet the one commandment that he espoused when asked by his followers, “what is the greatest commandment, my lord” we ALL fail horribly at. You see, if we truly believe what he said, and lived our life accordingly, we would realize that we cannot earn this gift, and that creating human sects, and various divisive religions, and by paying more attention to the “law” of the rules of the religion, by breaking up families by disassociation, by thinking that saving a stranger at a door or on a street corner is more important than saving the lives of your family, by not forgiving those that hurt us, by believing that God only cares about a certain sect. I say you missed the point of his message. Jesus said “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
I single out not any particular religion or sect, they all will fail because man is at the helm. And the minute they profess they are inspired by God, and place themselves as a mediator between you and God, you better look hard at what they profess, because there can be only one mediator, and last I checked he has not returned.
Some may argue that by proselyting they are meeting this commandment in full. I may agree to some extent, but when the organization of these events and an order is put in place to amass like believers, the effort is perverted to sustain the organization and its particular mantra, and not the individuals of the truth. This is simply the psychology of organizational structures, it exists in the secular world as evidence of large corporate entity’s managing a culture, ethos and core values to direct a multitude of employees for the same cause. It is the same in religious organizations.
Yes, I have lost my religion, but not my spirituality or belief that the creator will rescue us, from us. This I know, not because of ancient manuscripts, but because I can see his love in all his creation and in his greatest creation, us. Whom was created in the image of the gods, meaning our persona is as theirs. It is that simple. So, the devil is in the details I am told, then why bother with them at all?