Spirituality @ MindSay 
god
Lately, I've spent a good deal of time thinking about God, faith, religion, and beliefs. My thoughts have mostly stemmed from my Philosophy 101 class in which we began hot and heavy with topic of God. But I suppose I should start at the beginning.
My parents met while attending Austin Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas, where they both studying to become Presbyterian ministers. Both of my grandfathers- their fathers, are now retired ministers. My maternal grandfather a Cumberland Presbyterian turned Methodist, my paternal grandfather a lawyer turned Presbyterian minister. All four of my grandparents, as well as both of my parents are deeply spiritual and religious people. They are all studied in theology. My mom was a practicing minister from before I was born until I was 14 or so, my dad is still currently a minister and will continue to be so until his retirement. While my mom's life has taken her in a different direction than ministry, she still attends church regularly. I suppose the simple version of this is, my family is pretty religious.
I, on the other hand, have never been very spiritual, and truthfully, it's not for lack of trying. I was brought up in the church, baptized as an infant as is custom in the Presbyterian faith. I attended church, Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, after school church programs, and summer church camps for many years. I was very active in my church's youth group while I was in middle and high school. I know what Presbyterians believe and I also understand how it differs from other Christian denominations. I was confirmed into the church when I was a young teenager.
My parents always encouraged me to be involved at church, but never forced anything on me, and I thank them for that. While I am confused about my beliefs, I'm not at all resentful that I was raised as a Christian. In fact, I think many Christian values and ideals are very good, although unfortunately often misinterpreted and taken to extremes. As far as Christianity goes, I think the Presbyterians have got it down. Maybe I’m biased though.
I guess what I'm getting at, is that although I have been religious for most of my life, I have never really felt spiritual. I'm not really sure how much sense that makes, but I don't think that the two are one in the same (although they do often go hand in hand). I know what it is that Christians and more specifically Presbyterians believe. The point I most identify with is this: Our salvation (justification) through Jesus is God's generous gift to us and not the result of our own accomplishments. This statement meant a lot to me while I was growing up in East Texas- smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt. I was constantly asked "Have you been saved?", and as a young child was confused about it. As I got older, I was taught to believe this- that I was "saved" by the grace of God alone, and not by being submersed in water and proclaiming for everyone to see just how damn much I loved Jesus.
Despite the comfort I felt learning that I was saved by the God's grace, I never really felt connected to God. I would pray, but I felt more like I was talking to myself than anything else. The only time I ever really felt spiritual at all, was at the summer camp I went to, Mo Ranch. Mo Ranch is a Presbyterian conference center in the Hill Country of Texas where all sorts of conferences, camps, and events are held. I attended several conferences while I was in middle school and high school, as well as taking trips with my family. Each time I would venture there in the summer to take a break from my every day life, I would feel connected to God in a way I never did anywhere else. I felt as if my prayers were actually being heard. I felt connected to others as my brothers and sisters in Christ. I felt at peace. But back at home, as much as I would long to feel the way I did at Mo Ranch, it just wasn't there for me, whatever "it" was.
As I started college last year at Schreiner, a Presbyterian affiliate school, I became active with campus ministry. I attended the weekly Presbyterian Bible study/discussion group, and sometimes went to the Wednesday Inter-Denominational worship service. As the year progressed and I was increasingly unhappy at Schreiner, I attended worship and Bible study less and less, until I stopped going all together my second semester. I wasn't getting anything out of either worship or Bible study. I felt knowledgeable theologically, but not at all spiritually connected. I even ventured to my beloved Mo Ranch, which is very near to Schreiner, in January to be a small group leader for high school students at a weekend conference. Yet even Mo did not have its usual effect on me.
At home this summer, I only attend church twice. Once when I first got home from school for the summer, and another time for Father's Day because my dad asked me to come. Both of those Sundays were social occasions more than anything else. And now that I am on my own again in a new town, at a new college, I have not tried to become involved with any religious group, or attend any church service.
And this, I suppose, brings me back to where I began this rant- Philosophy. The very first lecture in this class was on the question "Does God Exist?" In regards to this question, my professor explained, you are either a Causal Theist (you believe in God because everything must be caused by something else, and the universe and therefore the earth must've been caused by God), a Design Theist (you believe in God because the world fits together so perfectly, like a machine) or an Atheist (you don't believe in God because there are scientific and other explanations for things that used to be thought to be super natural or other worldly).
Philosophy intrigues and frustrated me (and humans in general) because there is never definitive proof of anything- only speculation and more questions. In reading about each of the points of view, I agreed with some aspects, but disagreed with others. There is always a counter to an argument. In the end, I feel I can only truly identify with a forth point of view, the Agnostic. The agnostic believes there really is no way to prove that there is or is not a God.
I know religion is not the same as philosophy, but I still feel it's all interconnected. Is there a God? Why do so many people believe that there is based on faith, an abstract concept of believing without seeing or knowing for sure?
In my philosophy class today, the lecture and discussion was based on the topic "Can God allow innocent suffering?" The Contradictor believes that if God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good (which is widely believed/accepted), he would not allow innocent people to suffer. The Reconciler believes that God allows suffering in order for people to build character, and that it's all part of a "bigger plan". Personally, I don't find the Reconciler's argument at all convincing. Innocent children starve to death, loved ones die of disease; natural disasters injure, kill, and demolish...so that people can build character? I don't think so. Furthermore, the arguments and points being made by the obviously run-of-the-mill Christians fell so flat against my ears; I couldn't bear to count myself among them.
And I realized really, that I'm not one of them. I'm not even a "Sunday Christian" anymore. I don't put on my nice clothes and my happy face and try to pray, hoping that I'll connect with some form God. I don't even pretend. I'm not sure what I believe regarding God, let alone about The Bible or Jesus. The Bible is a book. I hate it when people quote scripture at me, as if it’s law, as if these words are the absolute truth no matter what. So where does that leave me? I hardly believe I’m going to be sent to burn in the fires of hell- I’ve never really believed hell exists. Hell, I have always believed, is a fairytale meant to scare humans into being good. Is there an afterlife? I’m not sure, but I hope so. If there is a God, does he love me unconditionally as I have been taught, or did he merely create the universe and let nature take its course? And did God send his son in the form of Jesus to be the savior of the world?
I guess human kind will never know the answers to these questions, as much as they claim to “know” one way or the other. But I guess that won’t stop me, or any of us, from seeking out answers to base our beliefs on. I just hope that I can be content with life I’m living and the wonderful people that are apart of it. That, I think, is what’s most important.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn died last month. The world is diminished by his leaving.
I read Gulag Archipelago several years ago. Now I’m wondering if I should read some more works by this interesting man. Here’s an excerpt from an article by George Friedman of Stratfor. For a little background, Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union after he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Conservatives hailed him as an enemy of communism. Liberals hailed him as a champion of human rights.
“When he reached Vermont, the reality of who Solzhenitsyn was slowly sank in. Conservatives realized that while he certainly was an enemy of communism and despised Western liberals who made apologies for the Soviets, he also despised Western capitalism just as much. Liberals realized that Solzhenitsyn hated Soviet oppression, but that he also despised their obsession with individual rights, such as the right to unlimited free expression. Solzhenitsyn was nothing like anyone had thought, and he went from being the heroic intellectual to a tiresome crank in no time. Solzhenitsyn attacked the idea that the alternative to communism had to be secular, individualist humanism. He had a much different alternative in mind.
Solzhenitsyn saw the basic problem that humanity faced as being rooted in the French Enlightenment and modern science. Both identify the world with nature, and nature with matter. If humans are part of nature, they themselves are material. If humans are material, then what is the realm of God and of spirit? And if there is no room for God and spirituality, then what keeps humans from sinking into bestiality? For Solzhenitsyn, Stalin was impossible without Lenin's praise of materialism, and Lenin was impossible without the Enlightenment.
From Solzhenitsyn's point of view, Western capitalism and liberalism are in their own way as horrible as Stalinism. Adam Smith saw man as primarily pursuing economic ends. Economic man seeks to maximize his wealth. Solzhenitsyn tried to make the case that this is the most pointless life conceivable. He was not objecting to either property or wealth, but to the idea that the pursuit of wealth is the primary purpose of a human being, and that the purpose of society is to free humans to this end.
Solzhenitsyn made the case -- hardly unique to him -- that the pursuit of wealth as an end in itself left humans empty shells. He once noted Blaise Pascal's aphorism that humans are so endlessly busy so that they can forget that they are going to die -- the point being that we all die, and that how we die is determined by how we live. For Solzhenitsyn, the American pursuit of economic well being was a disease destroying the Western soul.
He viewed freedom of expression in the same way. For Americans, the right to express oneself transcends the content of the expression. That you speak matters more than what you say. To Solzhenitsyn, the same principle that turned humans into obsessive pursuers of wealth turned them into vapid purveyors of shallow ideas. Materialism led to individualism, and individualism led to a culture devoid of spirit. The freedom of the West, according to Solzhenitsyn, produced a horrifying culture of intellectual self-indulgence, licentiousness and spiritual poverty. In a contemporary context, the hedge fund coupled with The Daily Show constituted the bankruptcy of the West.
To have been present when he once addressed a Harvard commencement! On the one side, Harvard Law and Business School graduates -- the embodiment of economic man. On the other side, the School of Arts and Sciences, the embodiment of free expression. Both greeted their heroic resister, only to have him reveal himself to be religious, patriotic and totally contemptuous of the Vatican of self-esteem, Harvard.”
You gotta like this guy.
“Christianity”
Christianity
teaches that you have to be a Christian to go to Heaven. This requirement essentially condemns the vast majority of people to hell. Those who have given their life to God but do so without the help of Christ will fall short of receiving Gods grace and find themselves on the wrong side of the pearly gates. There is only one way to God and it is through Christ.
A common claim that Christians often make is that the choice is ours. We can choose to either accept Christ into our lives or reject Him entirely. If we fail to make a choice, we still have made a choice. The problem with this line of thinking is clear: Christ is not a fact and the truth could be almost anything. It makes more sense to put our faith in (something like) the fruits of our labor or the methods of science than religion is worth. It makes no sense to commit our lives to such superstitious beliefs (as these people do).
According to Le-way, everyone is wrong about God, including me. It’s not that I’m right. It’s that God’s not wrong. The important thing is that we be true to ourselves. If we’re not being true to ourselves, we’re not being true to God. Le-way doesn’t have to be true to be right and since no one knows what’s true, all that matters is what’s right. If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. We should stand for what’s right, even if it means facing the fires of hell and never getting to rejoice in our good deeds (of which, there are many). Forever isn’t worth forsaking ourselves in the name of some God that doesn’t live up to our expectations of what a God should be. God is good and the devil is bad. If you don’t understand this, then you don’t understand.
Another problem I have with the Christian dilemma is what they consider right from wrong or, in other words, a sin. A thing is right or wrong (and to the degree that it is right or wrong) for reasons that can be determined. A sin can usually be defined as an action or behavior that brings harm to ones self or another. There are exceptions to the rule which most often involve the greater good or the lesser of two evils. There are also what I call the lesser sins which are sins that do not necessarily bring about harm to anyone but are still apart from Gods will (or, in other words, not something we’ll be doing in Heaven). What makes something right or wrong is not what distinguishes it from other things but the fruit it bares. A sin is a sin is a sin for the mere reason that everything we do results from the same knowledge of good and evil that gives us the right to be a fool. It’s called original sin and is what separates us from God.
Christianity veers from this course and tries to define a sin in ways that do not agree with the way things really are. A prime example is homosexuality. According to Christianity homosexuality is an abomination. It is among the worst of sins when really it is anything but. Homosexuality is a lesser sin at worst. Gay people have sex for the exact same reasons straight people do (short of having children). They have sex with each other to express love, show affection, give and experience pleasure and so on. Their motives are absolutely no different than what two straight people share with each other. The only real difference is that it falls outside of societies norms and therefore earns ridicule (deserved or otherwise). We should be more concerned with unsafe and promiscuous sex than same sex behavior. It is wrong to hold such things against a person when they have nothing to do with us or anyone else for that matter. Homosexuality is no more a sin than a lot of other things people take for granted. It is certainly a forgivable offense.
As I see it the worlds religions are just a bunch of (different) ways to worship the same God. You don’t have to be a Christian or believe in the God of the Jews. You merely need to believe that God is perfect and put Him in control. It doesn’t matter what you call or do not call God because God is the God of everyone or He is the God of no one. He either is or He isn’t. God is like a mirror, the mirror never changes but everyone who looks at it sees a different face. There is more than one path to a spiritual awakening but they all lead to God. According to Le-way, there will be liberty and justice for all.
“The Divinity of Christ”
There is little doubt
that someone named Jesus of Nazareth walked the Earth some 2000 years ago, claimed to be the Son of God and die for our sins. Many of the worlds religions, at least, think of Him as a prophet. Among them are the Bah’ai Faith, Islam and numerous others. They all agree that He was a real person and a splendid teacher but not, necessarily, that He was who He claimed to be.
A few religions profess their particular prophet to be the last in a long line of prophets. In order for this to be the case, all the others would have to be wrong which seems unlikely, if not totally absurd (if you ask me). It’s far more probable that God has and will continue to send messengers (on His behalf) to share His way of life and unique perspective with the world. I propose to be one such individual.
Christianity teaches us that the divinity of Christ is without restraint. They claim we must either believe Jesus is the Son of God and that He literally died for our sins (so that all who believe in His name shall not die but have eternal life) or lose out on salvation entirely. To believe He was merely a man or a prophet is not good enough. The only way to God is through Christ. People of all other faiths will face the fires of hell for not accepting Christ as their lord and savior.
According to Le-way, the way to go to Heaven is to surrender The Knowledge of Good and Evil which can be accomplished in as many ways as there are to be sincere. You don’t have to be a Christian, Muslim or a Jew. You merely need to believe that God is perfect and be willing to surrender your life for His. Those who fail to do so will end up in Utopia (also called the Land of Oz or, sometimes, Purgatory) where they will experience Perfect On-going Justice, Actual Free-will and a Permanent 2nd Chance (to surrender The Knowledge of Good and Evil and go to Heaven).
Unfortunately, there is no way for any of us to substantiate either of these claims. No one knows for sure if Jesus truly was the Son of God or that Le-way isn’t just make believe. We must choose to either concede we are completely blind to the truth (and go on with our lives) or put our faith in what the truth should be (believing that God will make it that way). In either case, our beliefs do not determine what is or what isn’t and should never be allowed to take precedence over our ability to reason and approach things in the logical and systematic fashion that would clearly be Gods way (for God truly to be).
In order for me to recognize my own calling it becomes necessary (for me) to recognize that of others (as is the case with Jesus). I believe it’s entirely possible and completely realistic that Jesus was called to do what He did just as I have been called to do what I do. It’s not necessarily the case that history has correctly relayed the story of Jesus or serves His purposes any better than it shall mine (should it at all). The point is that Jesus may have achieved His objective without anyone ever, actually understanding what it was (so far as the vast majority of us are concerned anyway). I believe that Jesus could have died for our sins but that He would have done so unconditionally, asking nothing more than we give our lives to God regardless of what religion we belong to. According to Le-way, there will be liberty and justice for all.
“The Crack in the Liberty Bell”
May America bring us a miracle…
A paradigm shift that’s one of God‘s most wonderful gifts,
A promise in the form of justice,
And the end of times in a series of rhymes!
The truth is not a guessing game,
And no one knows Gods name
It doesn’t matter who is right
If no one’s willing to stand up and fight
To defend the truth for what it is
And hope God considers them one of His!
When all is said and done
Does it really matter what we call Gods Son
Or just that our lives were fun
Recently attended Dr Emotos world peace tour, he began to talk about scientists new breakthrough on discovering proof off the 5th dimension. Now anyone who studies Dr Emoto knows he has taken the flack for his insight into 5th dimension for the last 25 years or so.Nice to see he was just a bit ahead of his time... He went on to talk about the information that is stored in this dimension and how our great healers and leaders (christ, buddha, etc) of the past used this dimension to access information and bring it forward.
My belief is that meditation will offer a fast track to millions on the earth dipping into this new information....
heck,,, if you need proof,,, have a look at a rainbow picture of 10 years ago and go and look at a rainbow now... anyone notice we now see pink in the rainbow....didnt used to,,,
anyone with further thoughts or insight...
have the best day
Linda
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