Made you look. The very fact that you looked at this post is only going to prove my point about why Miley (and thus Madonna, Britney, etc, etc) did what she did.
We all know the old saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity right? Yet, every time someone does something to incite the people who hold everybody to a moral high road, how do they respond? They flood twitter, facebook, etc with their judgements, and insults. As soon as they do everybody else that didn't see it (Myself included) goes on youtube to watch it. Everyone searches it in google until she is the number one searched and youtubed name on the planet.
Thus giving her the publicity that she so wisely was going after. We live in a digital age. The more a name is searched and tweeted the more money that person makes.
So who's fault is it that Miley acted like this in front of our children setting a terrible example? Yours! All you gossiping judgmental people who love shock value. You all love to verbalize opinions about people. You love to build them up and tear them down. You eat this sensationalism up. You wouldn't know what to do with yourself if you didn't have someone to talk bad about. How do I know this? Cause I'm one of you.
But if we really want to stop the madness here is what I propose... When you see something happening that's an obvious publicity stunt, DON'T tweet about it. Leave it off your facebook page. Boycott googling her name. Refuse to feed the animal and he will go away. Stop clicking on all the garbage that comes after the fact.
Maybe instead of making our judgements as if she wasn't a human being with feelings, we should just say a little prayer for her, and go spend time with our own kids, so they don't end up having the same identity problems she does when they get older.
I feel sorry for Miley. She is judging her self worth based on how many tweets there are about her or how much money she can make off it. Eventually this will lead to extreme sadness. I pray that when she fades away and becomes less relevant some day that she will learn to find joy and happiness in things that are far greater than what she does now. That's what I'll be praying for. It's the same prayer I pray for myself every day, that one day I'll be able to say, "It is well with my soul" even in the midst of being completely alone!
At the end of the day stop blaming the media, entertainers, and businesses for their behaviors. They are a direct reflection of where we as a people place our attention and dollars. For every click a news website gets they get paid. For every viewer a news agency gets they get paid. For every new subscriber a cable company gets they get paid. Yet, we continue to reward news agencies for writing biased and sensationalism into every story (Stop reading it), we continue to tweet about shocking and sometimes insulting things (Stop You tubing it), we continue to subscribe to a cable company (Direc TV) that has hundreds of thousands of complaints filed against it for outright lying to their customers.
You choose what to click on. You choose how to spend your money. If the collective of America really wanted to read about and see good wholesome stories about people who are an example to our children and lift up the morals that we want to see in people, then that's what we would see in the world. But that's not what we want to see. Why do i know that? Because that's not what we see. Trust me, this is a business, and whatever makes them money is what they are going to do. It just doesn't pay anymore to be wholesome, and that's on us. So let's all turn that finger around and point it at ourselves...
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Worship
I was thinking today on my way to work, and the question that popped into my head was, Why don't I Worship God like I used to? Where has that zeal gone? How do I get that warm and fuzzy feeling back in my heart? Or do I even need to?
My initial response was the obvious one; I am mad at God. I truly am. I will openly admit to anyone who asks that I am mad at God. I watched a movie the other day. It wasn't a very good one overall, but it had one powerful scene that explains it much better than I ever could.
The Movie was called Joyful Noise. One of the characters was a teenage boy with Aspergers. He was crying on the couch, and his mom was trying to comfort him. She began to talk about God and his love for him and he pushed her away. "I hate God!" He screamed out as if he had been holding it inside for years and finally it all came out at once. "I hate God for making me this way! And if you loved me, then you would hate God too."
It got kind of cheesy after that, but the moment was powerful to me because it describes my anger towards God and everything related to him.Say all you want about how God made my son autistic for a reason, how he is perfect just the way he is, and how I wouldn't want him any other way. Bull Shit! Other people can lie to themselves all they want if it makes them feel better, but the truth is if God came to any of them and said, "I can take this burden from your son and make his brain work correctly again", then I don't know a parent who wouldn't take him up on it.
My son's brain isn't functioning correctly. He can't empathize. He can't understand the world around him. He gets angry sometimes. He gets obsessions to help pacify the frustration inside. He will probably never get married or have children, so it hurts me to hear him talk about it. He won't have many friends. Most people tolerate him, but some are mean to him. They don't understand him.
So, yes, I am mad! I don't understand why a loving God, who has the ability to cure him, wouldn't.
But as I thought about it more I came to a realization; It's OK to be mad at God. Just as a Father knows his teenage son is still learning the ropes and is just trying to understand himself and the world around him, God knows this too. He knows I am still too young to really understand in the scheme of eternity. And I believe he prefers I be honest with him and myself about my feelings because it's the only way I can grow and learn and become closer to him.
In my marriage I spent the first 10 years of it never really expressing any of my bad feelings towards my wife and only praising and talking about the good things. It almost destroyed my marriage. In order for you to have more than a shallow surface level relationship with God, you need to be able to have it out with him from time to time. You need to be able to be angry, to not understand him. It may take me a lifetime to get over it, and maybe I won't really understand it all until the afterlife. Maybe it takes me a thousand years. But honest sincere feelings are the only way I'll ever get over it, and in the end that will create an intimacy with God that far surpasses someone who has never expressed anger or disappointment with God. My anger towards God IS a form of Worship!
I also realized that just because I don't sing his praises at every turn, I still show my love for him in other ways. The very fact that I am writing this blog is a form of worship. Intellectual worship is very pleasing to God. I am trying to understand him, and bringing other people on that journey as well. I'm sure our spouses and parents and children and friends, would LOVE it if we tried to understand them better. To be honest, it would be much easier to sing songs and post happy scriptures on my facebook page. I may not have the zeal like a couple on it's honeymoon, but I do have commitment like an old couple.
I'm committed to all the things that make up God's character. Truth, Love, Grace! Still working on the Faith part, but I think those are the 4 things we should all be seeking more of in ourselves, and in doing so you are worshipping God more than any song ever will.
My initial response was the obvious one; I am mad at God. I truly am. I will openly admit to anyone who asks that I am mad at God. I watched a movie the other day. It wasn't a very good one overall, but it had one powerful scene that explains it much better than I ever could.
The Movie was called Joyful Noise. One of the characters was a teenage boy with Aspergers. He was crying on the couch, and his mom was trying to comfort him. She began to talk about God and his love for him and he pushed her away. "I hate God!" He screamed out as if he had been holding it inside for years and finally it all came out at once. "I hate God for making me this way! And if you loved me, then you would hate God too."
It got kind of cheesy after that, but the moment was powerful to me because it describes my anger towards God and everything related to him.Say all you want about how God made my son autistic for a reason, how he is perfect just the way he is, and how I wouldn't want him any other way. Bull Shit! Other people can lie to themselves all they want if it makes them feel better, but the truth is if God came to any of them and said, "I can take this burden from your son and make his brain work correctly again", then I don't know a parent who wouldn't take him up on it.
My son's brain isn't functioning correctly. He can't empathize. He can't understand the world around him. He gets angry sometimes. He gets obsessions to help pacify the frustration inside. He will probably never get married or have children, so it hurts me to hear him talk about it. He won't have many friends. Most people tolerate him, but some are mean to him. They don't understand him.
So, yes, I am mad! I don't understand why a loving God, who has the ability to cure him, wouldn't.
But as I thought about it more I came to a realization; It's OK to be mad at God. Just as a Father knows his teenage son is still learning the ropes and is just trying to understand himself and the world around him, God knows this too. He knows I am still too young to really understand in the scheme of eternity. And I believe he prefers I be honest with him and myself about my feelings because it's the only way I can grow and learn and become closer to him.
In my marriage I spent the first 10 years of it never really expressing any of my bad feelings towards my wife and only praising and talking about the good things. It almost destroyed my marriage. In order for you to have more than a shallow surface level relationship with God, you need to be able to have it out with him from time to time. You need to be able to be angry, to not understand him. It may take me a lifetime to get over it, and maybe I won't really understand it all until the afterlife. Maybe it takes me a thousand years. But honest sincere feelings are the only way I'll ever get over it, and in the end that will create an intimacy with God that far surpasses someone who has never expressed anger or disappointment with God. My anger towards God IS a form of Worship!
I also realized that just because I don't sing his praises at every turn, I still show my love for him in other ways. The very fact that I am writing this blog is a form of worship. Intellectual worship is very pleasing to God. I am trying to understand him, and bringing other people on that journey as well. I'm sure our spouses and parents and children and friends, would LOVE it if we tried to understand them better. To be honest, it would be much easier to sing songs and post happy scriptures on my facebook page. I may not have the zeal like a couple on it's honeymoon, but I do have commitment like an old couple.
I'm committed to all the things that make up God's character. Truth, Love, Grace! Still working on the Faith part, but I think those are the 4 things we should all be seeking more of in ourselves, and in doing so you are worshipping God more than any song ever will.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
What is sin?
I'm not a huge fan of the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelets. The concept is harmless enough. The idea is to always look at what you are about to do in life and think about how Jesus would have handled the situation. Only problem I see with it is that you are NOT Jesus. (You don't have his personality) You are not living in his time period. (Different cultural norms, etc) You are not perfect and don't have the faith or ability to do what he could do, and you don't have the same calling on your life that he does.
Is it a sin to lie? The answer is... it depends! Are you hiding Jews in your basement from the German soldiers during World War II? Would it be a sin to say there are no Jews in your house? This is an extreme example in order to prove a point, but let's break it down further. When your wife asks you if she looks pretty today and you look over and her acme makes you squirm a little, how should you respond? From one extreme to another, there are plenty of reasons lying I believe would actually be the righteous thing to do. What if a really attractive woman is having a conversation with you and she notices you are spacing out. "What were you thinking about?" "Uhhhhh, Ummmmm, nothing." I would think that's a perfectly acceptable LIE! This is one of those cases Jesus probably wouldn't have to lie. He probably wasn't thinking the same thing you were. Then again, maybe he would have. The Bible tells us that Jesus had all the same temptations we did.
I'll take it one step further. There are times you should take secrets to your grave!! My mom who has been divorced from my dad for almost a decade got a call from a woman she took in 30 years ago. My parents are divorced, my mom already knew plenty of stories about my dad's past, and this lady calls up out of nowhere to tell her that she had slept with my dad while she lived there and wanted to ask for forgiveness. In my opinion this was selfish and borderline sinful. The only person it helped was herself so she could get it off her chest. Why would she need to open up an old wound, when my mom wasn't even married to the guy any more? This act of "honesty" failed the love your neighbor smell test in my humble opinion.
So if it's not cut and dry, then what makes something a sin? As I have said in past blogs. All the laws and rules were made for us to better be able to do 2 things. Love God and love your neighbor. That's it. So what we need to do as look at those two things in more detail.
How do you love God? The biggest way to do it is by loving his creation, which also means his people. Many times we can kill 2 birds with one stone! God says specifically that whoever loves the least of his people loves him, and whoever doesn't, doesn't love him.
The Bible calls God your "Father" all the time. Sometimes it refers to him as your "Husband" What do we know about how God wants us to love our Husband and Fathers? Submission is one way. He tells us to submit to our parents and to our Husbands.
I happen to know a thing or two about submission. I dated a woman during my "dark ages" (You'll have to read previous posts to know what that means if you haven't) that was a VERY submissive woman. I'll get into more detail about that during my post about sex some time in the near future, but the important thing to note, is that through having someone who's every desire was to please me, I had never felt more loved. The word itself kind of gets a bad name, but to me it's a beautiful word and I believe every husband and wife should experience having their significant other submitting themselves completely to their desires.
God wants the same thing. He wants to feel you love him so much that you submit completely to HIS desires. And in turn his desire is for his creation to love each other, and love yourself, and be the best YOU that you can be. As I said in a previous post, God is most pleased with you when you find your pleasure in him. It's about a relationship. God has already done his part. He has made the ultimate sacrifice so we could spend eternity with him.
The more important question is how do we sin in this area? How do you NOT love God? Some examples of things that are unloving to God are very similar to how you would not love your husband or wife...
Are you neglecting to give him your undivided attention from time to time? Are you not talking to him enough? Are you ashamed of him when talking to others? Do you put other things in front of him in your life? Are you too prideful to admit that you need him in your life? Are you neglecting the needs of his children or passing judgement on them?
If you are not spending all your time and effort trying to find and invent new ways to show Him your love and appreciation, then you are sinning! God is so much greater, so much better than anything else going on in your life that to ever be spending time not focusing on loving admiration to him and his creation is sinning. Now do you see why we needed a saviour? I don't know about you, but I am terrible at this!
But in a more practical matter I think when deciding if something is a sin you just ask yourself, Is this showing love for God, and love for people? If it is then it's not a sin. If it isn't then it is a sin. I think that's a better barometer than WWJD.
I'll add another thing to the above list. If you are not being yourself, the person God created you to be, then you are sinning. I think MANY Christian people have an idea in their head about who God wants you to be and how he wants you to act, based on someone elses idea of what it means to love God based on his own personality and experiences. Quit trying to be that person. God didn't create you to be that person. God made you to be you! If God had wanted us all to act the same, then he would have made us all the same.
As a church it's time for us to stop judging individuality and start celebrating our differences. I think Christians would be a lot happier if they stopped trying to love God the way other people love God and started finding out what they Love, then loving God through those things. And often times we beat ourselves up when we don't meet up to someone else's standard of what it means to be a good Christian.
In particular in America it's a favorite pastime to compare yourself to other people. Compare your family to other families. This causes us to sin in many ways. We be someone we are not, which in the end leaves us feeling empty. We tell ourselves we are not good people because we don't measure up. And then we judge other people so we can feel better about ourselves. It's human nature. And I don't think it makes God happy, since it's not how he made us.
Is it a sin to lie? The answer is... it depends! Are you hiding Jews in your basement from the German soldiers during World War II? Would it be a sin to say there are no Jews in your house? This is an extreme example in order to prove a point, but let's break it down further. When your wife asks you if she looks pretty today and you look over and her acme makes you squirm a little, how should you respond? From one extreme to another, there are plenty of reasons lying I believe would actually be the righteous thing to do. What if a really attractive woman is having a conversation with you and she notices you are spacing out. "What were you thinking about?" "Uhhhhh, Ummmmm, nothing." I would think that's a perfectly acceptable LIE! This is one of those cases Jesus probably wouldn't have to lie. He probably wasn't thinking the same thing you were. Then again, maybe he would have. The Bible tells us that Jesus had all the same temptations we did.
I'll take it one step further. There are times you should take secrets to your grave!! My mom who has been divorced from my dad for almost a decade got a call from a woman she took in 30 years ago. My parents are divorced, my mom already knew plenty of stories about my dad's past, and this lady calls up out of nowhere to tell her that she had slept with my dad while she lived there and wanted to ask for forgiveness. In my opinion this was selfish and borderline sinful. The only person it helped was herself so she could get it off her chest. Why would she need to open up an old wound, when my mom wasn't even married to the guy any more? This act of "honesty" failed the love your neighbor smell test in my humble opinion.
So if it's not cut and dry, then what makes something a sin? As I have said in past blogs. All the laws and rules were made for us to better be able to do 2 things. Love God and love your neighbor. That's it. So what we need to do as look at those two things in more detail.
How do you love God? The biggest way to do it is by loving his creation, which also means his people. Many times we can kill 2 birds with one stone! God says specifically that whoever loves the least of his people loves him, and whoever doesn't, doesn't love him.
The Bible calls God your "Father" all the time. Sometimes it refers to him as your "Husband" What do we know about how God wants us to love our Husband and Fathers? Submission is one way. He tells us to submit to our parents and to our Husbands.
I happen to know a thing or two about submission. I dated a woman during my "dark ages" (You'll have to read previous posts to know what that means if you haven't) that was a VERY submissive woman. I'll get into more detail about that during my post about sex some time in the near future, but the important thing to note, is that through having someone who's every desire was to please me, I had never felt more loved. The word itself kind of gets a bad name, but to me it's a beautiful word and I believe every husband and wife should experience having their significant other submitting themselves completely to their desires.
God wants the same thing. He wants to feel you love him so much that you submit completely to HIS desires. And in turn his desire is for his creation to love each other, and love yourself, and be the best YOU that you can be. As I said in a previous post, God is most pleased with you when you find your pleasure in him. It's about a relationship. God has already done his part. He has made the ultimate sacrifice so we could spend eternity with him.
The more important question is how do we sin in this area? How do you NOT love God? Some examples of things that are unloving to God are very similar to how you would not love your husband or wife...
Are you neglecting to give him your undivided attention from time to time? Are you not talking to him enough? Are you ashamed of him when talking to others? Do you put other things in front of him in your life? Are you too prideful to admit that you need him in your life? Are you neglecting the needs of his children or passing judgement on them?
If you are not spending all your time and effort trying to find and invent new ways to show Him your love and appreciation, then you are sinning! God is so much greater, so much better than anything else going on in your life that to ever be spending time not focusing on loving admiration to him and his creation is sinning. Now do you see why we needed a saviour? I don't know about you, but I am terrible at this!
But in a more practical matter I think when deciding if something is a sin you just ask yourself, Is this showing love for God, and love for people? If it is then it's not a sin. If it isn't then it is a sin. I think that's a better barometer than WWJD.
I'll add another thing to the above list. If you are not being yourself, the person God created you to be, then you are sinning. I think MANY Christian people have an idea in their head about who God wants you to be and how he wants you to act, based on someone elses idea of what it means to love God based on his own personality and experiences. Quit trying to be that person. God didn't create you to be that person. God made you to be you! If God had wanted us all to act the same, then he would have made us all the same.
As a church it's time for us to stop judging individuality and start celebrating our differences. I think Christians would be a lot happier if they stopped trying to love God the way other people love God and started finding out what they Love, then loving God through those things. And often times we beat ourselves up when we don't meet up to someone else's standard of what it means to be a good Christian.
In particular in America it's a favorite pastime to compare yourself to other people. Compare your family to other families. This causes us to sin in many ways. We be someone we are not, which in the end leaves us feeling empty. We tell ourselves we are not good people because we don't measure up. And then we judge other people so we can feel better about ourselves. It's human nature. And I don't think it makes God happy, since it's not how he made us.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Is being Gay a sin?
Is being gay a sin? OK, this one will get some responses. The Bible is cut and dry about this one right? WRONG! Let me preface this with the statement that I'm not saying it's cut and dry that it's not a sin. I'm just saying it's more debatable than one would think. The Bible calls it an abomination! Yes, and the Bible calls eating Pork an abomination. Most Christians wouldn't consider that a sin. (Admittedly, a few still do) In the same book that calls it an abomination (originally, not when Paul, reiterates it in the New Testament) they also call many other things laws and such that we no longer practice today. Anal sex is considered a "sin". But I don't see anyone holding up signs saying that couples who practice anal sex are going to hell? Want some other less extreme ones? How about these...
a. Drinking Alcohol in Holy Places
b. Letting your hair become unkempt
c. Eating Fat
d. Eating Seafood without fins or scales
e. Going to church within 33 days of giving birth to a boy
f. Going to church within 66 days of giving birth to a girl
g. Marrying your wife's sister while your wife still lives (But polygamy was acceptable)
h. Mixing fabrics in clothing
i. crossbreading animals
j. Sleeping with another man's slave (But sleeping with your own was fine)
k. etc., etc, etc
http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2012/06/13/76-things-banned-in-leviticus-and-their-penalties.html
So obviously, that particular scripture is up for debate. You certainly would have a lot of explaining to do in order to say why some of these are no longer sins and that one still is. I've heard it said that some were "cleanliness" laws that no longer apply. Pork is much cleaner now, and it's FDA approved. If that is the case, then couldn't you argue that Gay sex is much cleaner now? We have condoms, so we can tamper the spreading of disease and if they are practicing monogamy, then it really isn't any more unclean than anal sex (Which doesn't appear to be considered a sin any longer) Believe it or not, many of the above things were punishable by death.
OK, so there is one more scripture that could be construed to mean that being gay is wrong written in the New Testament.
That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
While there are a few other similar verses, all written by Paul. This is where the "PERFECTION" of the Bible gets a little cloudy to me. Remember that Paul was the one running around murdering Christians, because he thought they were shameful too, until his conversion. Paul was a radical person, who had very strong opinions about things. In my opinion the things he is describing as "shameful" are more his opinion than anything. To him they were shameful. To him they were sinful, but remember, back then it was still extremely dangerous because we didn't have protection like we do now.
But at the end of the day, I don't believe in the perfection of the Bible. I believe it's the best thing we have, but we still need to measure everything we read against the greatest commandments according to Christ. In this instance I think Paul was misguided, and probably homophobic. There are other cases I believe he was sexist. But so was just about everyone else of the time period. So the things he says make sense for the time period. It's important to note though that those were not Jesus' words. They were the words of an imperfect human being who had obvious displays of incorrectly condemning people in the past.
How does the concept of being gay measure up to the greatest commandments? Well, that's debatable. Is it unloving to God or to your neighbor? I think we can throw the second one out pretty quickly. There is nothing about being gay that is unloving to other people. But is it unloving to God? You could argue that it goes against his creation. He made women for men and men for women, and you can't procreate with the same sex. Besides, God said to be fruitful and multiply. (I think this command no longer applies. I mean come on people. The world is suffering all over the place because of overpopulation. People are dying in famines, and the earth is near a tipping point) In this respect, Gay men and women are actually good for society because they can't reproduce. They are also starting to take on the role of adopting children who need families.
So, is going against God's natural use for something unloving to him? My son has autism. His brain doesn't work right. It's not how God intended him to be. The Bible teaches us that these things exist in the world because of sin. Otherwise disease and famine and brain abnormalities wouldn't exist. Science has proven that being gay is really not a choice, but something they are born with. Is it the normal way God intended? No, but neither is the way my son's brain works. Both are genetic. Both are not how God intended. So my question is this; Is it a sin, or is it a symptom of a sinful world?
Look at how many people are born these days with both male and female parts and the parents have to choose the sex, or even leave them how they are. Which is a sin for that person? Sex with a man or with a woman? Neither!
You want my opinion? My opinion is that God is most loved by you when you are being true to yourself. Trying to pretend to be something you are not is unloving to God and unloving to yourself. Whether that's being Gay, being a woman with amazing leadership abilities, being a man who likes to dance, etc, etc. Be yourself, the best you that you can be! Love other people, love God, and don't hold anything (including sex with men or women) above God as an idol.
The people who persecute and judge gay people on the other hand. That very quickly fails the greatest two commandments test!! Those are the sinners on par with the Pharisees of Jesus' time. Quit Hatin', start Lovin'
a. Drinking Alcohol in Holy Places
b. Letting your hair become unkempt
c. Eating Fat
d. Eating Seafood without fins or scales
e. Going to church within 33 days of giving birth to a boy
f. Going to church within 66 days of giving birth to a girl
g. Marrying your wife's sister while your wife still lives (But polygamy was acceptable)
h. Mixing fabrics in clothing
i. crossbreading animals
j. Sleeping with another man's slave (But sleeping with your own was fine)
k. etc., etc, etc
http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2012/06/13/76-things-banned-in-leviticus-and-their-penalties.html
So obviously, that particular scripture is up for debate. You certainly would have a lot of explaining to do in order to say why some of these are no longer sins and that one still is. I've heard it said that some were "cleanliness" laws that no longer apply. Pork is much cleaner now, and it's FDA approved. If that is the case, then couldn't you argue that Gay sex is much cleaner now? We have condoms, so we can tamper the spreading of disease and if they are practicing monogamy, then it really isn't any more unclean than anal sex (Which doesn't appear to be considered a sin any longer) Believe it or not, many of the above things were punishable by death.
OK, so there is one more scripture that could be construed to mean that being gay is wrong written in the New Testament.
That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved.
While there are a few other similar verses, all written by Paul. This is where the "PERFECTION" of the Bible gets a little cloudy to me. Remember that Paul was the one running around murdering Christians, because he thought they were shameful too, until his conversion. Paul was a radical person, who had very strong opinions about things. In my opinion the things he is describing as "shameful" are more his opinion than anything. To him they were shameful. To him they were sinful, but remember, back then it was still extremely dangerous because we didn't have protection like we do now.
But at the end of the day, I don't believe in the perfection of the Bible. I believe it's the best thing we have, but we still need to measure everything we read against the greatest commandments according to Christ. In this instance I think Paul was misguided, and probably homophobic. There are other cases I believe he was sexist. But so was just about everyone else of the time period. So the things he says make sense for the time period. It's important to note though that those were not Jesus' words. They were the words of an imperfect human being who had obvious displays of incorrectly condemning people in the past.
How does the concept of being gay measure up to the greatest commandments? Well, that's debatable. Is it unloving to God or to your neighbor? I think we can throw the second one out pretty quickly. There is nothing about being gay that is unloving to other people. But is it unloving to God? You could argue that it goes against his creation. He made women for men and men for women, and you can't procreate with the same sex. Besides, God said to be fruitful and multiply. (I think this command no longer applies. I mean come on people. The world is suffering all over the place because of overpopulation. People are dying in famines, and the earth is near a tipping point) In this respect, Gay men and women are actually good for society because they can't reproduce. They are also starting to take on the role of adopting children who need families.
So, is going against God's natural use for something unloving to him? My son has autism. His brain doesn't work right. It's not how God intended him to be. The Bible teaches us that these things exist in the world because of sin. Otherwise disease and famine and brain abnormalities wouldn't exist. Science has proven that being gay is really not a choice, but something they are born with. Is it the normal way God intended? No, but neither is the way my son's brain works. Both are genetic. Both are not how God intended. So my question is this; Is it a sin, or is it a symptom of a sinful world?
Look at how many people are born these days with both male and female parts and the parents have to choose the sex, or even leave them how they are. Which is a sin for that person? Sex with a man or with a woman? Neither!
You want my opinion? My opinion is that God is most loved by you when you are being true to yourself. Trying to pretend to be something you are not is unloving to God and unloving to yourself. Whether that's being Gay, being a woman with amazing leadership abilities, being a man who likes to dance, etc, etc. Be yourself, the best you that you can be! Love other people, love God, and don't hold anything (including sex with men or women) above God as an idol.
The people who persecute and judge gay people on the other hand. That very quickly fails the greatest two commandments test!! Those are the sinners on par with the Pharisees of Jesus' time. Quit Hatin', start Lovin'
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Church and State
Having grown up in what I would call a right wing, conservative Christian, borderline Pentecostal church I know a lot of the buzz words thrown around by them. Like many buzz words you hear for religious and political organizations they drive a point home, but usually distort the facts in order to do so.
The first one I'm going to touch on is this concept that our nation was built by Christians, and therefore meant to be a Christian nation. History lesson: Our nation was founded and built by Christians. This is accurate. But it doesn't tell the whole story. Our country was founded by Christians who were being persecuted in England for believing differently than the official Church of England. They felt they were not allowed to practice their religion in England so they made the terrible trek across the ocean and risked famine or being killed by Indians in order to be in a place where they could freely practice their religious beliefs without the government getting in the way. That's why the Bill of Rights is so adamant about the separation of church and state.
In my opinion this is a huge distinction, because many of my friends would love nothing more than to see a man put in power that will interpret scripture and make public policy and laws based on his interpretation of that scripture. That's exactly what the founding fathers ran away from when they came to the Americas to begin with. So doing so would take society backwards hundreds of years and do exactly what the founding fathers feared when they wrote the Bill of Rights.
This leads me to my next one. Throughout history any civilization that has taken God out of it's government has fallen. What? Where is their proof? The ancient Egyptian and Ancient Roman empires lasted for hundreds of years without God in them. As a matter of fact ancient Roman's did finally make Christianity it's official religion and didn't last much longer after that. Constantine "converted" to Christianity in 312 AD, and slowly began to work it into government norms, while admittedly still holding to some pagan rituals. By 410 AD a civilization that had been around for almost 1,000 years began to crumble after the fall of Rome.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/christianityromanempire_article_01.shtml
The Ancient Greeks lasted for centuries with make believe Gods. While it's true that religion can be used as a tool to hold people together in some form of unity, many times in history to the people's detriment, there is no basis for this assumption. It's purely a catch phrase to radicalize the Christian right.
The truth is many of the worst and most corrupt governments were the ones who were Christian owned and operated. Think for a second how corrupt you already think the government is. Think about how selfish most politicians are. We see it every day. Now allow them to wave the banner of religion in the government and it increases their power over the people. Suddenly, they no longer just control their life on earth, but now they control their eternal souls. This is a power much greater than a political office. Then watch as the corruption spreads like wildfire across our political landscape. Watch as wars are fought in the name of God. That's what history proves will happen in a society without separation of church and state.
The last thing I ever want is Obama wielding his religious sword and somehow deciding the best direction of our country based on his interpretation of scripture. Mind you I'm not saying I think every leader would be corrupt or every President would lead the country into disaster. But eventually one will, and it's more power than I believe God ever intended for people to have. At least not in a world full of selfish me first people.
Christ himself said "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's" He was talking about paying taxes, but his response was basically, "Whatever, I could care less about money, or the government. I came here to change the hearts of individuals."
When the Messiah came the expectation was that he would overthrow the Roman government and free the Jews. He did no such thing. He came to battle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. He came to free us from sin and death, and allow us to live and love one another. He could care less about the government. That was never even mentioned as a priority for him or the early church.
It's my opinion that the government's responsibility should be to allow people protections, and freedom from anyone ever telling them how to live their life. Governing morality is not even close to their job description. I wouldn't want to live in a government that does. What if they suddenly decided that eating pork was a sin and they banished it from the country? What if they started prosecuting people for having premarital sex?
This is one of those situations where I would say "What Would Jesus Do?" What would he do if the Romans allowed gay marriage? Nothing. I could just hear him now, "Whatever, that's Caesar's business. It has nothing to do with God, the church, or my people." When Christ came upon Mary Magdalene (A known prostitute of the time) did he say, "How dare the government allow this to happen!"? No, he took her by the hand and told her that her sins were forgiven, and that God loved her.
It's time for Christians to get back to what really matters and stop trying to change the government into something that if they ever got, they would probably regret. Do what Jesus did and changes the hearts of people. Show them the way to a greater love and forgiveness then they have ever known! Give to Obama what is Obama's. God's work will continue despite the government that exists at the time. The truth is most times where the gospel reached the largest number of people and the holy spirit took hold of the hearts of men were when the government tried to stop it.
The first one I'm going to touch on is this concept that our nation was built by Christians, and therefore meant to be a Christian nation. History lesson: Our nation was founded and built by Christians. This is accurate. But it doesn't tell the whole story. Our country was founded by Christians who were being persecuted in England for believing differently than the official Church of England. They felt they were not allowed to practice their religion in England so they made the terrible trek across the ocean and risked famine or being killed by Indians in order to be in a place where they could freely practice their religious beliefs without the government getting in the way. That's why the Bill of Rights is so adamant about the separation of church and state.
In my opinion this is a huge distinction, because many of my friends would love nothing more than to see a man put in power that will interpret scripture and make public policy and laws based on his interpretation of that scripture. That's exactly what the founding fathers ran away from when they came to the Americas to begin with. So doing so would take society backwards hundreds of years and do exactly what the founding fathers feared when they wrote the Bill of Rights.
This leads me to my next one. Throughout history any civilization that has taken God out of it's government has fallen. What? Where is their proof? The ancient Egyptian and Ancient Roman empires lasted for hundreds of years without God in them. As a matter of fact ancient Roman's did finally make Christianity it's official religion and didn't last much longer after that. Constantine "converted" to Christianity in 312 AD, and slowly began to work it into government norms, while admittedly still holding to some pagan rituals. By 410 AD a civilization that had been around for almost 1,000 years began to crumble after the fall of Rome.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/christianityromanempire_article_01.shtml
The Ancient Greeks lasted for centuries with make believe Gods. While it's true that religion can be used as a tool to hold people together in some form of unity, many times in history to the people's detriment, there is no basis for this assumption. It's purely a catch phrase to radicalize the Christian right.
The truth is many of the worst and most corrupt governments were the ones who were Christian owned and operated. Think for a second how corrupt you already think the government is. Think about how selfish most politicians are. We see it every day. Now allow them to wave the banner of religion in the government and it increases their power over the people. Suddenly, they no longer just control their life on earth, but now they control their eternal souls. This is a power much greater than a political office. Then watch as the corruption spreads like wildfire across our political landscape. Watch as wars are fought in the name of God. That's what history proves will happen in a society without separation of church and state.
The last thing I ever want is Obama wielding his religious sword and somehow deciding the best direction of our country based on his interpretation of scripture. Mind you I'm not saying I think every leader would be corrupt or every President would lead the country into disaster. But eventually one will, and it's more power than I believe God ever intended for people to have. At least not in a world full of selfish me first people.
Christ himself said "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's" He was talking about paying taxes, but his response was basically, "Whatever, I could care less about money, or the government. I came here to change the hearts of individuals."
When the Messiah came the expectation was that he would overthrow the Roman government and free the Jews. He did no such thing. He came to battle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers. He came to free us from sin and death, and allow us to live and love one another. He could care less about the government. That was never even mentioned as a priority for him or the early church.
It's my opinion that the government's responsibility should be to allow people protections, and freedom from anyone ever telling them how to live their life. Governing morality is not even close to their job description. I wouldn't want to live in a government that does. What if they suddenly decided that eating pork was a sin and they banished it from the country? What if they started prosecuting people for having premarital sex?
This is one of those situations where I would say "What Would Jesus Do?" What would he do if the Romans allowed gay marriage? Nothing. I could just hear him now, "Whatever, that's Caesar's business. It has nothing to do with God, the church, or my people." When Christ came upon Mary Magdalene (A known prostitute of the time) did he say, "How dare the government allow this to happen!"? No, he took her by the hand and told her that her sins were forgiven, and that God loved her.
It's time for Christians to get back to what really matters and stop trying to change the government into something that if they ever got, they would probably regret. Do what Jesus did and changes the hearts of people. Show them the way to a greater love and forgiveness then they have ever known! Give to Obama what is Obama's. God's work will continue despite the government that exists at the time. The truth is most times where the gospel reached the largest number of people and the holy spirit took hold of the hearts of men were when the government tried to stop it.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Love and Fear
In my humble opinion, there are many things that motivate our decisions, but most of them can be narrowed down to 2 basic catalysts, Love and Fear. We already talked about how our decisions are based on the amount of "pleasure centers" in the brain we can stimulate. If you are living in fear, then you take great pleasure in doing things that alleviate that fear.
For people who tend to "live in fear" as I call it, many of their decisions have more to do with fear than love. Are you making love to your man because you fear he will leave you if you don't or because you love him? A man can tell the difference. Men, are you getting her a nice Birthday present because you are afraid you will lose her or because you love her and nothing brings you greater joy than the smile on her face? She can tell the difference.
This isn't to say that every decision is purely one or the other. Many times it's a combination of the two, but which one do you tend to lean towards? When you discipline your children is it out of fear of what they might become, or love? One usually causes angry outbursts and visual frustration, while the other causes a calmer voice of reason. This is one I struggle with having an autistic some I desperately want to learn to live in our society. Sometimes this causes angry outbursts followed by guilt that I'm a terrible father.
Many times fear of our own safety or financial situation causes us to not help others as much as we could, or not volunteer as much. I think many Americans have a fear they will run out of energy or mental capacity if they try to do too much.
I believe God wants you to put your fears aside and learn to be motivated by love. That's why he asks us to lay our burdens on his shoulders. That's why he says perfect love drives out fear. What is perfect love? We all know no human has it. So therefore he is talking about himself. God drives out fear. I realize the Bible says that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but that simply means that realizing what God is capable and your place in the world only goes to show you how much his love and grace really mean to us. He could destroy us all with very little effort on his part yet, he chose to sacrifice his only son to save us. So in the end, that initial fear leads to greater love and understanding of who God is.
The general equation preached in most churches and I think rightfully so is to drive out fear you must put your hope and trust in God, and not in the world. And I would say not just in this life but in the next as well. I don't think God makes many promises for this world. As a matter of fact most of his promises for this world are that you will be persecuted and will suffer. His promises for this world are the fruits of the spirit. Things like Love, Faith, and Hope. Those are considered more valuable than the things of this world that are here today and gone tomorrow. I'll probably go into more detail about this subject in my chapter on Karma and all of the ways it's misinterpreted and misconstrued.
For now, the important thing is to make your decisions based on love. The only way to do this is by giving up your fears. Laying them before the Lord, only to replace them with Hope and Faith in a brighter future.
One way I like to do this is by playing a little game called "And then what?" The way it works is simple. Think about your fear. Are you afraid your business will fail. What would happen if your business failed? Would you have to get a real job? And then what? Maybe you have to file for Bankruptcy? And then what? You won't be able to get a loan? And then what? If you dig down to the bottom line, it really never is as bad as your fears make it out to be. Trust me, My business failed, and while it wasn't fun and made things difficult, I'm still here and if it weren't for a lot of other problems it wouldn't really have been all that bad.
So I have to rent my house now. At least when the AC breaks I just call up the landlord and let him fix it. And now I have to save up the money to pay for things. I can't use credit. That's probably more of a positive than a negative. My world didn't end. I didn't end up on the streets. My character has been built up, and my ability to empathise with others going through tough times. Most things in life we fear have similar results. And knowing God's promises for the afterlife, the only thing we really need to fear are well, you know the old saying...
For people who tend to "live in fear" as I call it, many of their decisions have more to do with fear than love. Are you making love to your man because you fear he will leave you if you don't or because you love him? A man can tell the difference. Men, are you getting her a nice Birthday present because you are afraid you will lose her or because you love her and nothing brings you greater joy than the smile on her face? She can tell the difference.
This isn't to say that every decision is purely one or the other. Many times it's a combination of the two, but which one do you tend to lean towards? When you discipline your children is it out of fear of what they might become, or love? One usually causes angry outbursts and visual frustration, while the other causes a calmer voice of reason. This is one I struggle with having an autistic some I desperately want to learn to live in our society. Sometimes this causes angry outbursts followed by guilt that I'm a terrible father.
Many times fear of our own safety or financial situation causes us to not help others as much as we could, or not volunteer as much. I think many Americans have a fear they will run out of energy or mental capacity if they try to do too much.
I believe God wants you to put your fears aside and learn to be motivated by love. That's why he asks us to lay our burdens on his shoulders. That's why he says perfect love drives out fear. What is perfect love? We all know no human has it. So therefore he is talking about himself. God drives out fear. I realize the Bible says that fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but that simply means that realizing what God is capable and your place in the world only goes to show you how much his love and grace really mean to us. He could destroy us all with very little effort on his part yet, he chose to sacrifice his only son to save us. So in the end, that initial fear leads to greater love and understanding of who God is.
The general equation preached in most churches and I think rightfully so is to drive out fear you must put your hope and trust in God, and not in the world. And I would say not just in this life but in the next as well. I don't think God makes many promises for this world. As a matter of fact most of his promises for this world are that you will be persecuted and will suffer. His promises for this world are the fruits of the spirit. Things like Love, Faith, and Hope. Those are considered more valuable than the things of this world that are here today and gone tomorrow. I'll probably go into more detail about this subject in my chapter on Karma and all of the ways it's misinterpreted and misconstrued.
For now, the important thing is to make your decisions based on love. The only way to do this is by giving up your fears. Laying them before the Lord, only to replace them with Hope and Faith in a brighter future.
One way I like to do this is by playing a little game called "And then what?" The way it works is simple. Think about your fear. Are you afraid your business will fail. What would happen if your business failed? Would you have to get a real job? And then what? Maybe you have to file for Bankruptcy? And then what? You won't be able to get a loan? And then what? If you dig down to the bottom line, it really never is as bad as your fears make it out to be. Trust me, My business failed, and while it wasn't fun and made things difficult, I'm still here and if it weren't for a lot of other problems it wouldn't really have been all that bad.
So I have to rent my house now. At least when the AC breaks I just call up the landlord and let him fix it. And now I have to save up the money to pay for things. I can't use credit. That's probably more of a positive than a negative. My world didn't end. I didn't end up on the streets. My character has been built up, and my ability to empathise with others going through tough times. Most things in life we fear have similar results. And knowing God's promises for the afterlife, the only thing we really need to fear are well, you know the old saying...
Who am I? (Part 2)
When I was a child and most of my young adult years, I rarely had to struggle for anything. My parents over time had done pretty well for themselves, and I had done pretty well too. I was the captain of the football team in college. I got good grades, and got a job for a hedge fund. Then I started a real estate company and it did very well during the good years. Then it seemed like this giant house of cards suddenly all came crashing down on top of me.
All in a span of a couple of years I went from being a millionaire to owing millions of dollars to creditors even though I had never missed a payment or had credit card debt. My dad got caught cheating on my mom with a girl that had been with my brother. As it turns out he had been cheating on her for most of their marriage. Later we found out he had been having sex with one of my adopted sisters since she was 13. One of my children was diagnosed with autism.
I had lost everything I had worked for and by this point had lost my religion too. My whole world had been turned upside down. I was never huge on money, and to be honest, having a lot of it just brings tons of extra responsibility. But my wife blamed me A LOT. So we fought A LOT! And suddenly bills started piling up for therapy and everything else for our autistic kid and all these services started popping up for him that we just couldn't afford. So now, us losing that money was really affecting the services he could get.
Many people think autism and think to themselves, "Must be tough to give up on dad's dreams of him becoming a football star" "Must be hard to have a socially awkward kid who won't have many friends" And yes, that will be difficult, but the bigger struggles come with all the other things associated with autism that cause a daily grind and spend every ounce of energy and thoughts inside you. It's the obsessions like grabbing everyone's arms around them and squeezing, kissing, licking, digging his chin into, etc, etc. For going on two years now!! It's like chinese water torture and there seems to be no end in sight. It's the ADHD, when he is so hyper that just to get him dressed in the morning was a 2 person job. I would pin him to the ground while my wife as quickly as she could would swap the clothes but he kept escaping and we would have to start all over again. It's him dropping his pants in the middle of a restaurant and us chasing him around when he is 6 years old and completely naked and insane. It's the stares from other parents asking us why we can't control our kid. It's the night after night of him waking us up at 2am jumping on our bed uncontrollably, keeping us up for hours over and over again.It's having to go pick him up from school and take him to a psychologist because he threatened to burn up a kid and put him in a trash can when he is 7. It's tantrums over things that aren't even in your control that seem so trivial, yet he can't deal with the frustration boiling up in his head so instead he throws chairs and screams and kicks the wall, then tries to burn the house down by tearing the electrical socket out of the wall.
That's now my life, and yet somehow through it all, I love him. Still I can't help but feel real anger at God for putting this burden on me on top of everything else I had to deal with. More importantly I am angry at him for allowing my child to have this struggle inside himself. To be born with no ability to understand the world around him.
And when the cards kept falling as I had said before, I eventually ended up cheating on my wife too. Then I had to deal with feelings like, "Am I my father?" Am I destined to follow the same path? For anyone who has had a terrible father or mother I'm sure you understand the feeling all too well.
During this time period I struggled, I got depressed which usually meant I was just numb. I would do things just to feel something again. Like cheat again, or go gambling. (Luckily I tended to win more than I lost or it could have been much worse). More importantly though, during this time I reinvented myself as a different person when I came out the other end. My belief system had changed a lot. I find things about myself to be proud of, like that I haven't given up on my marriage when many lessor men would have. I am there for my kids and would do anything for them, including working extra shifts to pay for my son's services, many times not getting home until after they were asleep. I helped people every chance I got, and I cared about people.
I still have some anger inside me, but I feel like I am coming out the other end of this fighting and that's one big reason I'm starting this blog. Because I want to find myself again, and maybe help other people to do the same. And on top of that, maybe help some other religious people peek outside the bubble they live in and think outside the box from time to time.
Who am I?
I think a huge part of every person's religious viewpoint is where they came from, the culmination of their experiences, and their personality. If you were born in Iraq and raised by a Muslim family, then there is a VERY high likelihood that you will end up being a Muslim. Much higher than if you were born in India to a Buddhist family. Unless of course you have a terrible experience within your family or environment that turns you off to the religion entirely and makes you think outside the box. Even then, many people don't change too far from what they were taught as children. Also, if you are more of a free spirit in personality, then you could tend to shift your beliefs over time a little more than someone else. I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out they could predict with 90% accuracy your religious beliefs based on your background and personality tests.
Of course this tells you a bit about my personality just thinking like that. I'm very much a math guy. I deal with statistical analysis in my head all the time. I see a story about how a guy had almost no chance to live and by some miracle he survived and beat cancer. Most people would call it a miracle. I would call it a statistical outlier from the standard deviation. And in that sentence alone, I realize I've outed myself as a complete nerd, and I understand if you never read another blog post of mine. ;)
I'm also a free spirit. One of my favorite classes in college was philosophy. I LOVED the movie The Matrix because it made me think outside the box. Not that I think we are all being controlled by computers, but it makes you think the world may not be everything we perceive with our senses. Rene Descartes actually formulated the same questions several hundred years ago. He was unsure if the world we perceived actually existed or if we even existed. That's when he formulated the famous response we know of today, "I think, therefore I am." When I was kid I used to wonder if I was just a giant science experiment and the rest of the world was in on it. Sort of like Jim Carey in The Truman Show, except I was a lab rat.
That's the cliff notes on my personality. Now here is my back story. I grew up in a very Christian home. My parents were former hippies, surfers, and part time drug dealers at one point. But they converted to Evangelical Christianity when I was a young child and that's how I was raised. As a child my mom tells me I talked a lot about heaven, so much so that at times it scared her. I read a lot when I was a kid. I read all seven of the Chronicles of Narnia books, and most of the Bible by the time I was 10.
I was an extremely shy kid, and as I started to like girls I was so shy that my hands would shake just to go up and talk to most of them, in particular if I liked them. This led to a lot of confusion as I entered middle school. I wanted girls to like me and didn't know how to approach them, so eventually I found other ways to get noticed.
In elementary school I was picked on a lot. So in middle school I became the defender of the little guy. I got in a lot of fights and was afraid of no one. I was generally feared or respected by everyone, and that's how I liked it. I once had an entire high school wrestling team threaten me, and I told them where to meet me after school and said I would be there alone. I showed up with a couple of knives and a pair of brass knuckles. No one ever showed up (lucky for me). I refer to these as my rebellious years. Those are the years I had begun to make my own path and discover things for myself, and being the free spirit I am, I ended up lucky to live through middle school.
By high school I had my own conversion experience. During a Spring break retreat I felt the Holy Spirit tugging at my heart so strongly that I could no longer resist and I devoted my life to Christ. I made a 180 degree turn and it wasn't long before I was preaching in front of youth groups and churches. It was a needed experience. I was going in the wrong direction way too quickly.
I found a Christian girlfriend not too long after that and we dated through most of high school. I attended an ultra conservative Christian college. I was a football player, which I suppose also plays into my upbringing. There is a certain mentality that only other great athletes can understand. To this day I struggle if I'm late to an event even though no one ever shows up on time. My girlfriend and I spent a year apart while she went to school in a different state. Half way through my freshman year I asked her to marry me and she transferred to my school so we could make it work. The rest of my college experience was as a married man who was also the star of the football team, and a semi good student. I graduated a semester early to save money, and started my career.
But I have to go back a little because it doesn't tell the whole story. My wife and I dated for 3 years before we got married. We waited until marriage before we had sex just like the Bible tells us to. I struggled a lot after my conversion because I was constantly tempted and many times gave into my own sinful thoughts in my head. Just like most teenage boys I masturbated. A LOT! And every time I did I felt shame and disgust. Why couldn't I stop myself from having these thoughts? God says no temptation is too great, and God doesn't lie, so how could this be?? These were my first struggles with religion as a religious person. And I know many young Christian boys have the same struggles.
When I got married I knew my wife had a bad past when it came to sex. I knew she had been abused by her mom's boyfriend, but I had no idea how deeply it would affect her and our relationship. I had this idea in my head that we had waited this long and now it was going to be on! The waiting was over and the fun was about to begin. I couldn't have been more wrong!
I would say on our honeymoon that lasted a week we maybe had sex 3 or 4 times? And most of the time it appeared forced and she seemed more like she was doing it for me and because she was supposed to now than because she wanted to. But I was steadfast. I wanted to give her time. We prayed together. I assumed if I gave her enough time, and loved on her, and doted on her, telling her every day how beautiful and wonderful she was then eventually she would believe it. Despite my best efforts our first year of marriage consisted of her being completely depressed and we may have had sex once a month after our honeymoon. Again, almost every time it was awkward and felt forced.
And of course through all of this I was steadfast in my support of her, but eventually I found myself giving into temptation again, fantasizing about being with other women. I really started beating myself up, and feeling like I was a terrible Christian, a terrible husband, and just a terrible person in general.
As our marriage progressed our sex life continued to struggle. I had been turned down more times than Steve Urkel on Family Matters. Eventually, I struggled to muster the energy to try any more. I began to think I must be terrible at this romance thing. I must be the worst sex partner ever if she never wanted it.
A couple of times she caught me watching porn on the computer's history, and she practically had mental breakdowns and made me swear I would never do it again. This only added to my shame. But the shame was slowly turning from within myself to anger towards my wife. How could she be so cruel as to deny me a healthy sex life with her, and yet deny me from resolving those urges on my own? To me this seemed like some sort of sick slavery. To this day I still resent women at times beyond what is rational. Because of this, you will find later that some of my beliefs on sex and relationships might sway a little too far on the side of what I call men's rights. (In direct reaction to the idea of woman's rights, which I feel has done way more good than bad, but as with anything has done some damage too)
I was mad at God too. I had done everything right. I waited until marriage and the one thing that was supposed to remain sacred and beautiful because of it turned out to be my achilles heal. Time and again I think to myself, if I had just not followed that principle, I never would have married her. I would have known we were completely incompatible in one of the most import areas of a relationship to me and turned and run. But by following what the church said, I had allowed myself to fall completely in love with a woman who would torment me for the rest of my life.
It wasn't until 10 years into my marriage that my wife finally admitted that she usually feels depressed after we have sex. While I did feel a little sorry for her given her past, this was 10 years into my marriage. I was angry. Why would she wait 10 years to tell me this? It was the one thing that was tearing me apart inside. She knew this and yet still refused to deal with it. To this day 5 years later, she has still done little to resolve it. She finally saw a counselor after she found out I had cheated on her, but that only lasted a few sessions.
Yup, that's what ended up happening. Eventually, especially after hearing that, I pretty much gave up and did the cowardly thing of cheating on my wife. Surprisingly, I didn't feel as much guilt as I thought I would. Instead, I almost felt a reawakening of myself. This caused me to dive into what I like to think of as my second rebellious stage. A second time to figure out who I was and what I really believed. As with many strong Christian believers, when we fall, we fall hard, because we have no safety net. I cheated a lot, with a lot of different women. Turns out over a decade of trying anything and everything to pleasure a wife who struggled to get turned on, made me a pretty good lover. I wasn't near as bad at this as I thought I was! And for once I was getting positive reinforcement from something that was so important to me.
So why didn't I just leave her? Well, by this time we had two children, and one of them had recently been diagnosed with having autism. Besides, I still loved her and always will. And somehow I still held out hope that she would change.
This all leads me to the next chapter of my life which I will go into further detail on Part 2...
Of course this tells you a bit about my personality just thinking like that. I'm very much a math guy. I deal with statistical analysis in my head all the time. I see a story about how a guy had almost no chance to live and by some miracle he survived and beat cancer. Most people would call it a miracle. I would call it a statistical outlier from the standard deviation. And in that sentence alone, I realize I've outed myself as a complete nerd, and I understand if you never read another blog post of mine. ;)
I'm also a free spirit. One of my favorite classes in college was philosophy. I LOVED the movie The Matrix because it made me think outside the box. Not that I think we are all being controlled by computers, but it makes you think the world may not be everything we perceive with our senses. Rene Descartes actually formulated the same questions several hundred years ago. He was unsure if the world we perceived actually existed or if we even existed. That's when he formulated the famous response we know of today, "I think, therefore I am." When I was kid I used to wonder if I was just a giant science experiment and the rest of the world was in on it. Sort of like Jim Carey in The Truman Show, except I was a lab rat.
That's the cliff notes on my personality. Now here is my back story. I grew up in a very Christian home. My parents were former hippies, surfers, and part time drug dealers at one point. But they converted to Evangelical Christianity when I was a young child and that's how I was raised. As a child my mom tells me I talked a lot about heaven, so much so that at times it scared her. I read a lot when I was a kid. I read all seven of the Chronicles of Narnia books, and most of the Bible by the time I was 10.
I was an extremely shy kid, and as I started to like girls I was so shy that my hands would shake just to go up and talk to most of them, in particular if I liked them. This led to a lot of confusion as I entered middle school. I wanted girls to like me and didn't know how to approach them, so eventually I found other ways to get noticed.
In elementary school I was picked on a lot. So in middle school I became the defender of the little guy. I got in a lot of fights and was afraid of no one. I was generally feared or respected by everyone, and that's how I liked it. I once had an entire high school wrestling team threaten me, and I told them where to meet me after school and said I would be there alone. I showed up with a couple of knives and a pair of brass knuckles. No one ever showed up (lucky for me). I refer to these as my rebellious years. Those are the years I had begun to make my own path and discover things for myself, and being the free spirit I am, I ended up lucky to live through middle school.
By high school I had my own conversion experience. During a Spring break retreat I felt the Holy Spirit tugging at my heart so strongly that I could no longer resist and I devoted my life to Christ. I made a 180 degree turn and it wasn't long before I was preaching in front of youth groups and churches. It was a needed experience. I was going in the wrong direction way too quickly.
I found a Christian girlfriend not too long after that and we dated through most of high school. I attended an ultra conservative Christian college. I was a football player, which I suppose also plays into my upbringing. There is a certain mentality that only other great athletes can understand. To this day I struggle if I'm late to an event even though no one ever shows up on time. My girlfriend and I spent a year apart while she went to school in a different state. Half way through my freshman year I asked her to marry me and she transferred to my school so we could make it work. The rest of my college experience was as a married man who was also the star of the football team, and a semi good student. I graduated a semester early to save money, and started my career.
But I have to go back a little because it doesn't tell the whole story. My wife and I dated for 3 years before we got married. We waited until marriage before we had sex just like the Bible tells us to. I struggled a lot after my conversion because I was constantly tempted and many times gave into my own sinful thoughts in my head. Just like most teenage boys I masturbated. A LOT! And every time I did I felt shame and disgust. Why couldn't I stop myself from having these thoughts? God says no temptation is too great, and God doesn't lie, so how could this be?? These were my first struggles with religion as a religious person. And I know many young Christian boys have the same struggles.
When I got married I knew my wife had a bad past when it came to sex. I knew she had been abused by her mom's boyfriend, but I had no idea how deeply it would affect her and our relationship. I had this idea in my head that we had waited this long and now it was going to be on! The waiting was over and the fun was about to begin. I couldn't have been more wrong!
I would say on our honeymoon that lasted a week we maybe had sex 3 or 4 times? And most of the time it appeared forced and she seemed more like she was doing it for me and because she was supposed to now than because she wanted to. But I was steadfast. I wanted to give her time. We prayed together. I assumed if I gave her enough time, and loved on her, and doted on her, telling her every day how beautiful and wonderful she was then eventually she would believe it. Despite my best efforts our first year of marriage consisted of her being completely depressed and we may have had sex once a month after our honeymoon. Again, almost every time it was awkward and felt forced.
And of course through all of this I was steadfast in my support of her, but eventually I found myself giving into temptation again, fantasizing about being with other women. I really started beating myself up, and feeling like I was a terrible Christian, a terrible husband, and just a terrible person in general.
As our marriage progressed our sex life continued to struggle. I had been turned down more times than Steve Urkel on Family Matters. Eventually, I struggled to muster the energy to try any more. I began to think I must be terrible at this romance thing. I must be the worst sex partner ever if she never wanted it.
A couple of times she caught me watching porn on the computer's history, and she practically had mental breakdowns and made me swear I would never do it again. This only added to my shame. But the shame was slowly turning from within myself to anger towards my wife. How could she be so cruel as to deny me a healthy sex life with her, and yet deny me from resolving those urges on my own? To me this seemed like some sort of sick slavery. To this day I still resent women at times beyond what is rational. Because of this, you will find later that some of my beliefs on sex and relationships might sway a little too far on the side of what I call men's rights. (In direct reaction to the idea of woman's rights, which I feel has done way more good than bad, but as with anything has done some damage too)
I was mad at God too. I had done everything right. I waited until marriage and the one thing that was supposed to remain sacred and beautiful because of it turned out to be my achilles heal. Time and again I think to myself, if I had just not followed that principle, I never would have married her. I would have known we were completely incompatible in one of the most import areas of a relationship to me and turned and run. But by following what the church said, I had allowed myself to fall completely in love with a woman who would torment me for the rest of my life.
It wasn't until 10 years into my marriage that my wife finally admitted that she usually feels depressed after we have sex. While I did feel a little sorry for her given her past, this was 10 years into my marriage. I was angry. Why would she wait 10 years to tell me this? It was the one thing that was tearing me apart inside. She knew this and yet still refused to deal with it. To this day 5 years later, she has still done little to resolve it. She finally saw a counselor after she found out I had cheated on her, but that only lasted a few sessions.
Yup, that's what ended up happening. Eventually, especially after hearing that, I pretty much gave up and did the cowardly thing of cheating on my wife. Surprisingly, I didn't feel as much guilt as I thought I would. Instead, I almost felt a reawakening of myself. This caused me to dive into what I like to think of as my second rebellious stage. A second time to figure out who I was and what I really believed. As with many strong Christian believers, when we fall, we fall hard, because we have no safety net. I cheated a lot, with a lot of different women. Turns out over a decade of trying anything and everything to pleasure a wife who struggled to get turned on, made me a pretty good lover. I wasn't near as bad at this as I thought I was! And for once I was getting positive reinforcement from something that was so important to me.
So why didn't I just leave her? Well, by this time we had two children, and one of them had recently been diagnosed with having autism. Besides, I still loved her and always will. And somehow I still held out hope that she would change.
This all leads me to the next chapter of my life which I will go into further detail on Part 2...
Egocentric Faith
My definition of Egocentric faith is simple. Anyone who believes that God has fully revealed himself correctly to you and somehow everyone else's version of who they think God is must be distorted because they don't have the relationship that you have with God.
I was once told by a Christian that he would pray for me to have a stronger relationship with Christ like he does, simply because I disagreed with his understanding of how the US military should be responding to Israel during these tumultuous times. Really? So my personal opinion on one matter being different from you makes my relationship with Christ somehow not as good as yours? It baffles my mind to think there are so many people in the world that are so convinced that they are right about everything and everybody else is wrong. It's something I just have no ability to wrap my head around.
Don't get me wrong, I see the need in some to believe that way. I just find it incredibly ignorant and egocentric.
This is why one of the cornerstones of my faith is that I could be wrong about everything. I like to think I am humble enough (At least in this area of my life) to know that I don't know everything, and when you study church history, you will find MANY people much closer to God who have been wrong about a LOT of things. And sometimes so wrong that some of their actions in my opinion resulted in murder, torture, sexism, racism, and slavery. If they could be so wrong, then how on earth could I possibly be so sure of my beliefs without being ignorant or egocentric?
So whatever I believe or say in this blog, please take with a grain of salt. As I am simply a guy trying to make sense of the most difficult questions in the universe. I hardly hold the magic key to eternal truth.
I was once told by a Christian that he would pray for me to have a stronger relationship with Christ like he does, simply because I disagreed with his understanding of how the US military should be responding to Israel during these tumultuous times. Really? So my personal opinion on one matter being different from you makes my relationship with Christ somehow not as good as yours? It baffles my mind to think there are so many people in the world that are so convinced that they are right about everything and everybody else is wrong. It's something I just have no ability to wrap my head around.
Don't get me wrong, I see the need in some to believe that way. I just find it incredibly ignorant and egocentric.
This is why one of the cornerstones of my faith is that I could be wrong about everything. I like to think I am humble enough (At least in this area of my life) to know that I don't know everything, and when you study church history, you will find MANY people much closer to God who have been wrong about a LOT of things. And sometimes so wrong that some of their actions in my opinion resulted in murder, torture, sexism, racism, and slavery. If they could be so wrong, then how on earth could I possibly be so sure of my beliefs without being ignorant or egocentric?
So whatever I believe or say in this blog, please take with a grain of salt. As I am simply a guy trying to make sense of the most difficult questions in the universe. I hardly hold the magic key to eternal truth.
Friday, August 16, 2013
World Religions
Going along with my common theme that we are all imperfect beings that just do the best we can with what we have, I find it impossible to believe that any religion is either entirely wrong or entirely right. Most of them have redeeming qualities and many of them actually come from a similar history. Few people, for instance, seem to know that Islam is simply a denominational split off from Christianity, in a similar way to Christianity being a split off from Judaism. Or the same way the Mormon church split off from Christianity.
All of these religions actually have the same God they serve. They just see things playing out differently. So to say Allah isn't real is to say God isn't real. Allah is every bit as real as your Christian God, the major difference is how you perceive him, as well as how you perceive the history of religion in general. Mohamed believed that the true chosen line from Abraham was through Ishmael rather than through Isaac, which is the heritage of the Jews. This is the bloodline that followed through until Mohamed.
There are many stories in even ancient religions that are no longer practiced that reference stories very similar to the Bible stories, which I believe only proves that they are intertwined. Surely it's very prideful to think that the only people God revealed any of himself to was the Jews before Christ came and the Christians after. Why couldn't he also revealed parts of himself to other people all over the world?
There are pieces of Godly wisdom to be taken out of many other religions, and I again, my biggest caution would be to continue to measure everything against the concept of Love and Grace, and the idea that all people are only searching for truth.
This is not to say that I believe there is no truth. I want to be sure to make that distinction. I do believe there is ONE truth. But I don't believe we will know exactly what it is while we are among the living. And we may indeed be seeking it for all eternity. Most importantly I am absolutely convinced that no denomination, religion, group of people, or individuals have it all right, and to believe otherwise is thinking very highly of yourself.
All of these religions actually have the same God they serve. They just see things playing out differently. So to say Allah isn't real is to say God isn't real. Allah is every bit as real as your Christian God, the major difference is how you perceive him, as well as how you perceive the history of religion in general. Mohamed believed that the true chosen line from Abraham was through Ishmael rather than through Isaac, which is the heritage of the Jews. This is the bloodline that followed through until Mohamed.
There are many stories in even ancient religions that are no longer practiced that reference stories very similar to the Bible stories, which I believe only proves that they are intertwined. Surely it's very prideful to think that the only people God revealed any of himself to was the Jews before Christ came and the Christians after. Why couldn't he also revealed parts of himself to other people all over the world?
There are pieces of Godly wisdom to be taken out of many other religions, and I again, my biggest caution would be to continue to measure everything against the concept of Love and Grace, and the idea that all people are only searching for truth.
This is not to say that I believe there is no truth. I want to be sure to make that distinction. I do believe there is ONE truth. But I don't believe we will know exactly what it is while we are among the living. And we may indeed be seeking it for all eternity. Most importantly I am absolutely convinced that no denomination, religion, group of people, or individuals have it all right, and to believe otherwise is thinking very highly of yourself.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
The Good Book
Most Christians have been taught to believe that the Bible is the perfect word of God and to believe otherwise is blasphemy, worthy of being booted from the church and sent to hell when you die. There is nothing in the Bible to support that claim. Nothing says you have to believe every word in the Bible is true in order to be saved.
So why does there seem to be this unwritten rule on the Bible? In my opinion it's because of fear, possibly a justified one. The common fear by church leaders over the past 1,500 or so years has been that if we don't have a measuring stick that is considered perfect, then we can pretty much believe anything. They know our hearts and our minds are weak and without something to measure our feelings and thoughts again, then that's how cults are started. We have a hard enough time all agreeing on what we believe when most of us do think the Bible is 100% accurate. Imagine if we no longer had those words to measure ourselves against.
Having said that, the perceived need to have a perfect measuring stick doesn't make the Bible any more or less accurate than it makes a random stick into a ruler. Many councils filled with many Catholic leaders of the early church came together and decided that certain books and writings were considered God breathed and perfect and others were simply good letters. The God breathed ones were put together into a book and called the Bible. The rest of pretty much rarely been read again.
Then 1,000 years later Martin Luther came along and challenged much of the Catholic beliefs of the time and broke off what we know now as the protestant religion that most non-Catholic denominations stem from today. As part of that he denounced a few of the books that were considered perfect by Catholics and put together his own Bible without them. He also began the idea that Bible's should be translated for commoners to be able to read it. Before that point it was widely considered bad form to do so, as commoners would misinterpret what it says to often and needed the guidance of the priests when doing so.
That's the cliff notes of the history. You will find out later that I am a very strong believer in the fact that we are all human and nothing we ever write or say is perfect. It all is filtered through our imperfect, immoral minds, and we all are just doing our best to define God on our own terms. With that being said, I find it impossible to believe that everything that was original verbally passed down from generation to generation and eventually written in books, which were then decided upon by a council could possibly ever be perfect. I think it's prideful to think otherwise. In a way it's no different than thinking humanity can build a building that can take you all the way to heaven. (See The Tower of Babylon)
So if you feel the Bible is not perfect, then how do you believe anything? What do you believe? In my opinion, believing in it's perfection has only a small bearing on your actual belief system. As long as you believe it was done by good intentioned people who did the best they could, then I think it's still a very valuable resource. I do believe most of what it says is very true. At least it rings true in my heart and life.
But I do think there are some things I have to filter out as more cultural of the time than actual wisdom for the ages. There are passages that wreak of cultural bias of the time, and others that have laws that even most Christians don't even follow anymore. In my humble opinion, most of the modern day church Cherry picks what laws they choose to follow and what ones they don't. Being Gay is still a sin, but eating Pork is not. (Depending on your denomination) Premarital Sex is still a sin but Anal sex is not. I could go on and on with this apparent Cherry picking, but I won't bore you. The church I think rightfully says that certain laws were "cleanliness" laws of the time that no longer apply today. Although we would certainly disagree about many things that were strictly cultural of the times and ones that should apply still today.
Since the Bible is no longer my measuring stick I tend to use a different measuring stick even when I read the Bible or any other religious book for that matter. I always measure it against LOVE. Is what I am reading in the Bible or the way I am interpreting it doesn't somehow correlate with the greatest commandments of loving God and loving my neighbor, then there is a disconnect. I also tend to try to put myself in the time period and take out pieces of what may have been useful advice for the time and throw out other things that no longer seem to apply or have even been proven to be wrong.
A good example of this is the role of women in the church. It was once thought to be a bad idea to have women in leadership roles. Maybe at the time it would have been a bad idea. Maybe in that culture they wouldn't have been taken seriously, or would not have been properly equipped with little real world practice to be leaders? Or maybe it was just flat out wrong? Whatever the case may be I think history has proven that many great women have been great leaders in the church, in big businesses, in their communities, and bring their own unique skill sets to the table that are very beneficial for us all.
At the end of the day I think the Bible is a fantastic book , full of knowledge about God, and ourselves. It should be read by everyone and taken to heart, but it should all be measured against common sense and your hearts to see what you really do believe deep down. And at the end of the day whether you believe in it's perfection or not, you are still filtering it through your own perspective and experiences and imperfections, so your beliefs will never be perfect and neither will mine. To believe otherwise is prideful.
Friday, August 9, 2013
The Pursuit of Pleasure
Science has proven that our decisions are primarily based on what stimulates the pleasure centers of our brain the most. Does this mean that we all go around doing whatever makes us the happiest at the time with no regard for future consequences? That we don't have the ability to reason? or self control? Not at all. Otherwise we would all be drugged up and oversexed crazy people!
People are fascinating creatures. For some of us, having self discipline brings us great pleasure. For others helping other people does. Some even derive great pleasure from pain (Masochists). Therefore pleasure in and of itself has gotten a bad name for itself. It's thought to be the reason for evil in the world. If someone is pursuing their own pleasure then they must be bathing themselves in lust and power.
This incorrect distinction has lead many churches across the world to teach their congregation to deny their desires. Stop seeking Pleasureful things! And start seeking God!! Nothing could be further from the truth.
John Piper's book Desiring God is a fantastic book for Christians to read. He introduced me to the general concept of Christian Hedonism. His essential finding was that God is most pleased with you when you find the most pleasure in him. Think of him as a father figure who loves his children very much. What would a good father want for their children? That they obey his every word? Or that they are happy? (Hopefully they are happy, because they heeded his warnings) More importantly, does he want them to love him as a sacrificial obligation or out of a pure joy?
The problem for Christians is not when they pursue their own pleasures too much. It's when they don't pursue them enough and they settle for stupid pleasures that have no lasting value. God has come to give us life and to have it more abundantly. He knows what we need to feel ultimate pleasure. He made us. LOVE is the ultimate pleasure.
Think about it. What brings you greater lasting joy? Cheap sex with a random stranger, or helping build a house for Habitat for Humanity? Which truly gives you greater pleasure? To some of you like myself, one seems worlds more tempting. It has all the feel of being able to hit every pleasure center in our brain. But then when it's over it leaves us feeling empty inside, craving the next hit like a drug.
God wants you to retrain your brain. He wants you to change the cravings from things of the flesh to the two greatest commandments. He wants you to crave LOVE (and not the superficial butterflies in your stomach, but true LOVE) Both giving and receiving. There are many times Hate, Indifference, Ignorance, etc all stimulate the pleasure sensors in our brain more in the moment, but God wants to retrain your brain to find greater joy in loving, and that is what we should all be pursuing. Like a father God wants you to have the greatest Happiness and pleasure you can find, and he just so happens to know exactly how to find it.
People are fascinating creatures. For some of us, having self discipline brings us great pleasure. For others helping other people does. Some even derive great pleasure from pain (Masochists). Therefore pleasure in and of itself has gotten a bad name for itself. It's thought to be the reason for evil in the world. If someone is pursuing their own pleasure then they must be bathing themselves in lust and power.
This incorrect distinction has lead many churches across the world to teach their congregation to deny their desires. Stop seeking Pleasureful things! And start seeking God!! Nothing could be further from the truth.
John Piper's book Desiring God is a fantastic book for Christians to read. He introduced me to the general concept of Christian Hedonism. His essential finding was that God is most pleased with you when you find the most pleasure in him. Think of him as a father figure who loves his children very much. What would a good father want for their children? That they obey his every word? Or that they are happy? (Hopefully they are happy, because they heeded his warnings) More importantly, does he want them to love him as a sacrificial obligation or out of a pure joy?
The problem for Christians is not when they pursue their own pleasures too much. It's when they don't pursue them enough and they settle for stupid pleasures that have no lasting value. God has come to give us life and to have it more abundantly. He knows what we need to feel ultimate pleasure. He made us. LOVE is the ultimate pleasure.
Think about it. What brings you greater lasting joy? Cheap sex with a random stranger, or helping build a house for Habitat for Humanity? Which truly gives you greater pleasure? To some of you like myself, one seems worlds more tempting. It has all the feel of being able to hit every pleasure center in our brain. But then when it's over it leaves us feeling empty inside, craving the next hit like a drug.
God wants you to retrain your brain. He wants you to change the cravings from things of the flesh to the two greatest commandments. He wants you to crave LOVE (and not the superficial butterflies in your stomach, but true LOVE) Both giving and receiving. There are many times Hate, Indifference, Ignorance, etc all stimulate the pleasure sensors in our brain more in the moment, but God wants to retrain your brain to find greater joy in loving, and that is what we should all be pursuing. Like a father God wants you to have the greatest Happiness and pleasure you can find, and he just so happens to know exactly how to find it.
The Greatest Commandment is to LOVE!
Christ did not come to slay the Roman empire and free the Jewish people the way they all expected the messiah to come. He brought a sword, but his sword was meant to pierce people's hearts. His sword was against the principalities and powers that stand in the way of God's desire for our lives.
What is God's desire? In an apparent effort to trick Jesus into giving an answer that would allow them to try him for heresy the Pharisees (Orthodox Jews) of that time asked him a simple question, "What is the greatest commandment?" They figured if he said any one was greater than the other then they would catch him being inconsistent in his stand. His response shocked the world and turned the religious establishments of the time upside down. "The greatest Commandment is to Love God, and the second is to love your neighbor. All the other rules and laws were made for this."
I could only imagine the jaws of the Pharisees dropping when they realized that what he was saying was indisputable. In two quick sentences he had turned everything they believed upside down. Love? That's it? That's what all this is for?
You see, the Pharisees had made a career out of using the laws to do the exact opposite. They held their noses over people because they obeyed all of God's laws, and felt themselves to be better than others. Then they walked around accusing others for all the sins they were committing in order to wield power over them. This is not unlike many christian churches have done on multiple occasions throughout it's history even after Christ.
Even today I think MANY Christians miss the point completely. All the pride and greed and lust running rampant through their churches and what do they focus on? Gay marriage. Really? So two people who LOVE each other deeply enough to want to commit their lives to each other and the church decides to go the path of hatred? And don't try to argue it isn't hatred, because there are many other sins going on right under their noses, yet they choose this "supposed" sin to latch onto. So much so that some churches would no longer allow boy scouts to hold meetings in their churches because they allow gays to be involved.
Does Christ want us to follow the laws? The answer to that is complicated. The laws were never meant to be set in stone. They were meant to be guidebooks to help us along the way so we could better love one another and receive the greatest amount of pleasure out of life.
Given this vantage point, I no longer measure right and wrong based on a rulebook. I don't wear a WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelet. I ask myself two simple questions. Does this stand in the way of my ability to love God? Is this in any way unloving towards my fellow man or woman, or to myself? That's it! I realize this would be considered quite controversial in the church. They want things to be much more complicated than that. They want you to see all these rules and guidelines and be overwhelmed by them so you will see your need for a savior.
Personally, I don't need a set of rules to let me know how selfish, prideful, etc I can be. I know I need the blood of Jesus to wipe away my sinful heart, and I know I need Christ in my life to help me work on changing those things in my heart.
What is God's desire? In an apparent effort to trick Jesus into giving an answer that would allow them to try him for heresy the Pharisees (Orthodox Jews) of that time asked him a simple question, "What is the greatest commandment?" They figured if he said any one was greater than the other then they would catch him being inconsistent in his stand. His response shocked the world and turned the religious establishments of the time upside down. "The greatest Commandment is to Love God, and the second is to love your neighbor. All the other rules and laws were made for this."
I could only imagine the jaws of the Pharisees dropping when they realized that what he was saying was indisputable. In two quick sentences he had turned everything they believed upside down. Love? That's it? That's what all this is for?
You see, the Pharisees had made a career out of using the laws to do the exact opposite. They held their noses over people because they obeyed all of God's laws, and felt themselves to be better than others. Then they walked around accusing others for all the sins they were committing in order to wield power over them. This is not unlike many christian churches have done on multiple occasions throughout it's history even after Christ.
Even today I think MANY Christians miss the point completely. All the pride and greed and lust running rampant through their churches and what do they focus on? Gay marriage. Really? So two people who LOVE each other deeply enough to want to commit their lives to each other and the church decides to go the path of hatred? And don't try to argue it isn't hatred, because there are many other sins going on right under their noses, yet they choose this "supposed" sin to latch onto. So much so that some churches would no longer allow boy scouts to hold meetings in their churches because they allow gays to be involved.
Does Christ want us to follow the laws? The answer to that is complicated. The laws were never meant to be set in stone. They were meant to be guidebooks to help us along the way so we could better love one another and receive the greatest amount of pleasure out of life.
Given this vantage point, I no longer measure right and wrong based on a rulebook. I don't wear a WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelet. I ask myself two simple questions. Does this stand in the way of my ability to love God? Is this in any way unloving towards my fellow man or woman, or to myself? That's it! I realize this would be considered quite controversial in the church. They want things to be much more complicated than that. They want you to see all these rules and guidelines and be overwhelmed by them so you will see your need for a savior.
Personally, I don't need a set of rules to let me know how selfish, prideful, etc I can be. I know I need the blood of Jesus to wipe away my sinful heart, and I know I need Christ in my life to help me work on changing those things in my heart.
Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior
As you can see in my previous posts, the existence of Hell is debatable to say the least. But if you are to believe the Bible to be anything other than complete BS, then you can't deny the fact that Christ is the Messiah sent to save us all from eternal damnation. There is far too much indisputable scripture in the Old Testament pointing to our need for a savior and predicting exactly how he would come and what he would do.
Christ himself was either a mad man or the savior. He can't possibly be seen as just a good guy or a prophet. He claimed over and over again to be God's son, and the messiah. So if you believe he is not the Messiah, then you have to believe he was insane. I choose to believe he was the messiah, and his sacrifice was made because God loved us and wanted to give us eternal life, but he couldn't do that without first having our sins paid for.
The story of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis is perhaps the greatest allegorical story to truly explain what Christ was doing. A sacrifice had to be made. Our sins could not go unpunished, and God chose to take the punishment himself instead of giving it to us. Darkness can not exist inside of light. Our sins had to be washed clean in order for us to enter the presence of God.
So then if there is no Hell, then what is Christ saving us from and who is he saving? This is certainly up for debate. In my humble opinion Christ is saving us from eternal death. We literally would cease to exist. You could also argue that our soul somehow would live on in a void apart from God. Maybe even a purgatory type of place where you go and wonder? Maybe you believe in Ghosts and our spirit roams the earth, or reincarnation. But one thing is clear. You can't enter God's presence or Heaven for that matter without the sacrifice Christ made.
Who did he make it for? I believe he made it for everyone. The Bible is pretty specific about that. The bigger question is whether everyone will be allowed to take advantage of that sacrifice. The Bible says there is a book of Life and either your name is in it or it isn't. It paints the image that either you accept God's grace and you can enter heaven or you don't. “too often, I am afraid, [heaven is] desired chiefly as an escape from Hell” – Reflections on the Psalms, chap. 4, par. 18 by CS Lewis.
In my opinion the ideas of both Heaven and Hell are simply that. A way God could use to describe two states of being. To be in Hell is to be stuck in your own self centerdness. Trapped in a world where only you matter and cut off from the love and Mercy of God and others. Apart from love, your mind goes to a very dark place. Because of how our mind works, always pursuing the highest pleasure, when Love and Humility are overrun by hatred and pride and we start making decisions based on that, we are essential in Hell. And only God can truly help us achieve Heaven, which is filled with nothing but Love and Humility. You can only enter the presence of God by recognizing your need for a savior and accepting Christ's forgiveness.
I don't believe there is a judgement day where you either believe or you don't and therefore go to one place or another. I believe all of life, both here and in the afterlife is a pursuit of these things. That we are always somehow reaching and striving for a higher "heaven" Always working to let go of ourselves and cling to God and others. I'll dive more into this when I discus how our minds work, and the constant pursuit of pleasure.
Christ himself was either a mad man or the savior. He can't possibly be seen as just a good guy or a prophet. He claimed over and over again to be God's son, and the messiah. So if you believe he is not the Messiah, then you have to believe he was insane. I choose to believe he was the messiah, and his sacrifice was made because God loved us and wanted to give us eternal life, but he couldn't do that without first having our sins paid for.
The story of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis is perhaps the greatest allegorical story to truly explain what Christ was doing. A sacrifice had to be made. Our sins could not go unpunished, and God chose to take the punishment himself instead of giving it to us. Darkness can not exist inside of light. Our sins had to be washed clean in order for us to enter the presence of God.
So then if there is no Hell, then what is Christ saving us from and who is he saving? This is certainly up for debate. In my humble opinion Christ is saving us from eternal death. We literally would cease to exist. You could also argue that our soul somehow would live on in a void apart from God. Maybe even a purgatory type of place where you go and wonder? Maybe you believe in Ghosts and our spirit roams the earth, or reincarnation. But one thing is clear. You can't enter God's presence or Heaven for that matter without the sacrifice Christ made.
Who did he make it for? I believe he made it for everyone. The Bible is pretty specific about that. The bigger question is whether everyone will be allowed to take advantage of that sacrifice. The Bible says there is a book of Life and either your name is in it or it isn't. It paints the image that either you accept God's grace and you can enter heaven or you don't. “too often, I am afraid, [heaven is] desired chiefly as an escape from Hell” – Reflections on the Psalms, chap. 4, par. 18 by CS Lewis.
In my opinion the ideas of both Heaven and Hell are simply that. A way God could use to describe two states of being. To be in Hell is to be stuck in your own self centerdness. Trapped in a world where only you matter and cut off from the love and Mercy of God and others. Apart from love, your mind goes to a very dark place. Because of how our mind works, always pursuing the highest pleasure, when Love and Humility are overrun by hatred and pride and we start making decisions based on that, we are essential in Hell. And only God can truly help us achieve Heaven, which is filled with nothing but Love and Humility. You can only enter the presence of God by recognizing your need for a savior and accepting Christ's forgiveness.
I don't believe there is a judgement day where you either believe or you don't and therefore go to one place or another. I believe all of life, both here and in the afterlife is a pursuit of these things. That we are always somehow reaching and striving for a higher "heaven" Always working to let go of ourselves and cling to God and others. I'll dive more into this when I discus how our minds work, and the constant pursuit of pleasure.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Hell does not exist
I realize this first one will probably ruffle some feathers, so I put it first on the list. I can just see people already telling me, but Sir, the Bible says we will all go to hell if we don't believe in Jesus? This is what the church is selling right now. They would have you believe it's a forgone conclusion as if to believe otherwise is somehow anti-christian and anti-god. Others will say, "Without the threat of hell, what will keep people from doing wrong?" As if we are children that need a form of punishment to be laid out in front of us to choose to do right.
What does the Bible and early Christian and church history actually teach us about Hell? Well early Christianity doesn't teach about it. As a matter of fact it wasn't until 300 years after the death of Christ that this concept of hell really came along. It wasn't until after great Christian Leaders of the time all got together and decided among other things that Hell is a place people go if they don't believe in Christ.
What does the Bible say? The word most often translated to "Hell" in the Bible is actually Gehenna. Gehenna was a well known location during the time Christ walked the earth. It could be found just outside Jerusalem. It was a place people brought their garbage to be burned and also a place that criminals and vagrants that had passed away would be sent to have their bodies burned. It was assumed they were not worthy of a proper funeral. It was shameful to be burnt up in the flames.
So what is Jesus saving us from? Death and shame would be my answer. And an eternity either void of a loving god or void of anything for that matter. If he is saving us from eternal death and damnation, then he is saving us from Shame and ceasing to exist. That's why it was so important that Christ had victory over death! In Revelations there is a fiery lake that the dragon is cast into along with the other Demons, but there are two things I notice about this story. First of all, it's an allegory. It is not meant to be taken literally. Secondly, it does NOT mention sinners being there. I think that's telling.
Near the end of Revelations the Bible actually says a few things that are very important to my argument. It says that God will create a new heaven and a new Earth. It makes no mention of Hell. If what the church preaches is true and we all die and go to Heaven or Hell, then who is the new Earth for? It also says that "Every knee will bow, Every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord." They would have you imagine that there will be people burning in hell for all eternity that will drop to their knees and praise Jesus? I can tell you right now, I'd be giving him the middle finger, but maybe that's just me?
My final argument for no Hell existing is more of an emotional thing from the heart than any hard facts. If indeed a God exists, and he allows people to go to Hell simply because they failed to have belief in him by the time they die, then that is NOT a God I will ever serve. That is NOT a loving God. Christians can sugarcoat it with all sorts of niceties, but at the end of the day, their general concept is flawed. God does not love his creation if he would allow eternal torture in a fiery pit just because you grew up in a Buddhist family and never accepted Christ as your savior.
I know I am not alone in my thoughts. There are a select few pastors who have spoken out against the existence of Hell, and usually at a great cost to them. Watch the video below to see one of them.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video?id=3356403
Rob Bell, the Pastor of a church in Michigan, in his book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, questioned the churches concept of Hell as well.
Bell denounces the idea that a loving God would banish somebody to eternal torment, for not believing in Jesus, especially those who come from non-Christian parts of the world. He starts out his promotional video sharing how at an art show somebody posted a note on a piece about Ghandi that read “Reality Check, Ghandi is in Hell.”
http://www.pluralistnation.com/content/religion/a-hellish-schism-pastor-rob-bell-controversy/
Keep in mind, these are all my opinions. I am simply seeking the truth as a humble and flawed human being. If some of it resonates with you, then at least you know you are not alone. If it doesn't, then hopefully it opened your eyes up to the fact that not everything you have been spoon fed is as simple as it's made out to be and it encourages you to look deeper into what you truly do believe. Please read on either way as something else might ring true for you even if this portion doesn't.
What does the Bible and early Christian and church history actually teach us about Hell? Well early Christianity doesn't teach about it. As a matter of fact it wasn't until 300 years after the death of Christ that this concept of hell really came along. It wasn't until after great Christian Leaders of the time all got together and decided among other things that Hell is a place people go if they don't believe in Christ.
What does the Bible say? The word most often translated to "Hell" in the Bible is actually Gehenna. Gehenna was a well known location during the time Christ walked the earth. It could be found just outside Jerusalem. It was a place people brought their garbage to be burned and also a place that criminals and vagrants that had passed away would be sent to have their bodies burned. It was assumed they were not worthy of a proper funeral. It was shameful to be burnt up in the flames.
So what is Jesus saving us from? Death and shame would be my answer. And an eternity either void of a loving god or void of anything for that matter. If he is saving us from eternal death and damnation, then he is saving us from Shame and ceasing to exist. That's why it was so important that Christ had victory over death! In Revelations there is a fiery lake that the dragon is cast into along with the other Demons, but there are two things I notice about this story. First of all, it's an allegory. It is not meant to be taken literally. Secondly, it does NOT mention sinners being there. I think that's telling.
Near the end of Revelations the Bible actually says a few things that are very important to my argument. It says that God will create a new heaven and a new Earth. It makes no mention of Hell. If what the church preaches is true and we all die and go to Heaven or Hell, then who is the new Earth for? It also says that "Every knee will bow, Every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord." They would have you imagine that there will be people burning in hell for all eternity that will drop to their knees and praise Jesus? I can tell you right now, I'd be giving him the middle finger, but maybe that's just me?
My final argument for no Hell existing is more of an emotional thing from the heart than any hard facts. If indeed a God exists, and he allows people to go to Hell simply because they failed to have belief in him by the time they die, then that is NOT a God I will ever serve. That is NOT a loving God. Christians can sugarcoat it with all sorts of niceties, but at the end of the day, their general concept is flawed. God does not love his creation if he would allow eternal torture in a fiery pit just because you grew up in a Buddhist family and never accepted Christ as your savior.
I know I am not alone in my thoughts. There are a select few pastors who have spoken out against the existence of Hell, and usually at a great cost to them. Watch the video below to see one of them.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video?id=3356403
Rob Bell, the Pastor of a church in Michigan, in his book Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, questioned the churches concept of Hell as well.
Bell denounces the idea that a loving God would banish somebody to eternal torment, for not believing in Jesus, especially those who come from non-Christian parts of the world. He starts out his promotional video sharing how at an art show somebody posted a note on a piece about Ghandi that read “Reality Check, Ghandi is in Hell.”
http://www.pluralistnation.com/content/religion/a-hellish-schism-pastor-rob-bell-controversy/
Keep in mind, these are all my opinions. I am simply seeking the truth as a humble and flawed human being. If some of it resonates with you, then at least you know you are not alone. If it doesn't, then hopefully it opened your eyes up to the fact that not everything you have been spoon fed is as simple as it's made out to be and it encourages you to look deeper into what you truly do believe. Please read on either way as something else might ring true for you even if this portion doesn't.
Cornerstones of my Faith
I think every belief system has certain things that are more negotiable and others that define it more concretely. Most Christian churches have very similar cornerstones, and for the good portion of my life I believed them too, as if there was no challenging it in my head. I will go into more detail in future blogs about these cornerstones, but for now I will simply list them out.
1. Hell does not exist, at least not in the way the church tries to describe it to us
2. Jesus Christ is the one and only savior from eternal damnation
3. ALL people make their decisions based on the Pursuit of Pleasure
4. The greatest Commandment is to love!
5. The Bible is not perfect, but it's currently the best book we have
6. Many religions have a common God
7. I could be wrong about everything!!
That last one is the most important one. In my opinion Blind Faith and what I like to call Prideful Faith are both a lessor faith than a well informed, well thought out faith that leaves tons of room for error. Because we are after all, human, and to believe otherwise is just ignorant.
1. Hell does not exist, at least not in the way the church tries to describe it to us
2. Jesus Christ is the one and only savior from eternal damnation
3. ALL people make their decisions based on the Pursuit of Pleasure
4. The greatest Commandment is to love!
5. The Bible is not perfect, but it's currently the best book we have
6. Many religions have a common God
7. I could be wrong about everything!!
That last one is the most important one. In my opinion Blind Faith and what I like to call Prideful Faith are both a lessor faith than a well informed, well thought out faith that leaves tons of room for error. Because we are after all, human, and to believe otherwise is just ignorant.
Blind Faith
I've never been one to take things at face value, or to follow with blind faith. It goes against everything I believe in. Only problem with having that belief is it makes it much more difficult to figure out what you really do believe. I have tried , but I can't just go to church and take what the pastor preaches as gospel. I have nothing against pastors at all. One of the greatest men I ever knew was a pastor. He passed away a few years ago from cancer, and even though I couldn't always agree with his teachings, there was no denying his sincere love for people.
I've had a difficult time finding a church or even group of people that would allow me to go on a spiritual journey with them. A place where people would understand that I am just seeking the same way everyone else is seeking. I want to know the truth, and I want to find a place I can openly discus my thoughts without feeling like I'm being ridiculed for thinking them. Have you ever thought that way before too? Like the church only wants people who will take everything they feed them and follow it with blind faith? Have you ever felt like you are alone while surrounded by a group of people who just don't see things the same way as you?
You are not alone! I'm right there with you. Some of my beliefs would turn the current Christian church upside down. I would be seen as a heretic for even thinking them. But it doesn't change the fact that I believe them, and want to find a place of like minded people to share them with and maybe go on a journey with together, as we all pursue truth. That's why I created this blog. This is a place for me to express my views as they stand today without feeling condemned or ridiculed.
Having said that, my number one rule is that anyone who comments, please be respectful of my thoughts and feelings and of others. We are all only seeking, and in my opinion that is better than blind followers or indifference, whether I agree with you or not.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)