Losing my religion

1. This is not an attack on religion.

2 This is not an argument to debate ultimate truth.

3. This is simply my own response to some friends and family who have asked me because I am no longer a biblical literalist what my beliefs are.

I would say that very few people I know care. I don't blame you. This is just my own way of venting on one hand and stating my answer to a question on the other. Also, my faith is very private to me. I don't try to justify it or ask a preacher or an expert what I should believe. I keep my own counsel with God or the ultimate ground of consciousness. 

I was at my cardiologist the other day and I have an issue with a-fib. He said "Well, I'm an expert" on heart valves (I didn't say he was modest but he is good.at what he does.) Anyway, he said that he wanted me to see an expert on a-fib. So, I now have an appointment with an expert. I hope he's a good one. But, the point is this.

I'm not an expert on the bible. But, sometimes new believers try to say that I don't understand scripture and haven't read "God's word," So, let me provide a little of my family background and my exposure to the bible and the faith. I was raised by my maternal grandmother as well as my mother. My grandmother was a devout Church of God of Prophecy Christian. I caught the Cherry Street Baptist Church bus in my youth every week. So, between my grandmother taking me to church and the bus when I was at my mother's house I had a full dose of church. My paternal grandmother was Southern Baptist and I was either being taken to a Holiness church or a baptist church my whole life. 

I was glad when they said unto me. Let us go into the house of the Lord....Walnut Park Baptist Church Vacation Bible School right before the minister led us inside the church.

I was baptised at 12 years old give or take at Cherry Street Baptist. I had grown up being taught that Jesus loves me and that God is kind of angry at mankind but Jesus is the only thing I need to cool the anger of the father. I memorized my first bible verses in my childhood. I read the bible in my youth and have since done it again and have read the Gospels a few times end to end. So, yeah to my friends and family who are new believers. I do know a little about what the bible says.

I prayed most all my life and I still do. Maybe not a theologically correct prayer. Or a scientific approach that would prove anything. But, I still pray. Because it settles me. It helps me gain perspective and makes a seemingly random senseless existence have hope beyond the few short years we have here. But, it's not a one size fits all and I don't really care to defend my own inner life to anyone else. 

So, finally to what my family and friends asked me about what I believe. Well, first off I "Believe absolutely nothing." Belief is not knowing. It's like believing in flying saucers or the primordial soup or neurons in a mass of matter giving rise to consciousness. It's like old mad men in the sky and past lives and life after death. It may or may not be true but there is no way to prove what any of it is. So, I don't believe. 

I do however have my experiences in life. My journey. Here's a quick antidote about experts.  I was reading a psychiatrist once who said he knew scientifically what dreams are. He also stated that he knew for sure the science had shown that dreams were nothing more that random events playing back from the day and had no deep meaning at all. Science had proven this. Well the thing is he wasn't an expert on dreams. He was reading material and translating from his field but had not actually experienced much of anything. Still, he was a scientist and much like preachers claiming to know the "word." he knew his science. 

The only thing was I knew he was full of crap. Not because the bible told me so or a new scientific theory told me so. But, because I had experienced dreams that were precognitive. Meaning that I had dreams about things that actually happened. Now that doesn't happen often. As a matter of fact sometimes I dream of something that doesn't really affect me at all. But, then again I also have some that absolutely affect me. 

I like to talk about one I had several years ago when we lived in Colorado. We had a friend who was a PHD in mathematics and extremely skeptical of all things paranormal. He devoured Scientific American magazine and to call him an agnostic and perhaps even an atheist at that time would be accurate. I think he later dabbled in Buddhism but I'm not sure. Anyway, I had this dream. In the dream I saw a football game and symbols and the next day I told Cindy about it. She was also skeptical but open minded and listened. I told her who would win the upcoming Super Bowl and how they would win it.  She asked me why I would even care and I said I didn't. But, sometimes it's like God cleans out my pipes by giving me information that doesn't concern me but allows me to know that I'm a spiritual being. That we all are. Anyway, the superbowl happened and it was what I said in the dream. Now, yeah I am a football fan. But, I didn't have a bet or a rooting interest in that game except for as a fan watching on TV.  She then went with me to see our friend. I told him about the dream and he was still skeptical. But, when Cindy who he really respected as a fellow intellectual, told him it was true  he had to admit something had happened. He wasn't convinced but he was open minded enough to say he would put it in his mental file to think about. 

My point to all this is that even though a learned "scientist" proved with his authority that dreams couldn't predict the future I knew that he was wrong. Not because science is wrong. It isn't wrong. But, because science like everything else is a tool that we use to get a measurement of something and allow us to work with this world. It's not a being unto itself. 

So, yeah when it comes to heart surgery I listen to the cardiologist. When I need glasses I listen to the opthamologist. When my car breaks down I go to the mechanic. But, when it comes  to the inside. My own being. My own sense of self I go to the one place that I have always been able to get clarity and peace. I go inside. I listen for the stillness and I ask for dreams and life to make sense of who I am. It works for me. 

The thing is if religion works for you then I don't have a problem with that.. My problem with you is if you try to judge me by your experience as if my own being were something you have access to and the right to judge. You don't. Now, finally I'm going to go over why I don't believe in religion. This next part is a little sarcastic at times. So, if you love me or like me or tolerate me and you don't really want to get mad at me then stop now. Just know that if you are an atheist or a born again Christian then you are more than likely the same thing to me. Two sides of the same coin. One size fits all. At least that's what it feels like when I hear Atheist or Christian explaining why I should believe or not believe the same things they do. Also, I have a past life memory from childhood and I have always felt that I had a tribe that I wasn't really a part of in this lifetime. Still, who knows? I could be wrong. I'm pretty sure that I don't have the whole picture.

Religion:

I once had a job where I worked at Popeyes Fried Chicken. I worked over a vat of hot grease. This grease was so hot that we had a pile of flour that we used when we would get a splatter of grease on us. It was so hot that we would grab that flour and immediately put it on the tiny spot of grease to absorb it and keep our skin from burning. So, one day I'm working over this hot vat of grease and thinking about my middle school years. There was a certain bully there. Back then teachers and others were not politically correct so you either punched your bully out or got punched out. Or suffered in silence. Nobody cared and nobody was going to make your bully have sensitivity training. Anyway, I thought about  how mean this kid was to me in school. Horrible. Made my young life a living hell. But, I thought about how hot this grease was. I thought as much as I despised that kid I wouldn't subject him to this grease. I wouldn't take the tip of his little finger and place it near that heat. That would be the cruelest thing  in the world to do to another creature. And thank God I wasn't that evil or vengeful.

Yet my Christian friends actually said that this god who loves us would cast us into fire hotter than that for eternity just because we don't recite John 3:16. And yet Jesus himself said God is love and love never fails. Letting someone burn for eternity in troment would mean that love fails. It would also mean that I have more love than a god who would let people be in torment for eternity. You can run to your preacher and listen to the crap about how a loving god told Israel to dash the children against the rocks. You can  make all the excuses you want to make but you can't honestly make it right. 

Folks the bible is a series of myths, truths, politics and legend. I have found great comfort in the scripture. But, it's not a single book. It's a series of writings that span 6000 years or more. The bible you have was given to you by Rome. I know that's not convenient but it's true. Your preacher who went to an evangelical seminary has little to no understanding of ancient Hebrew or Greek or Middle Eastern Culture. They are preaching on gay rights and abortion and loving the American flag from ignorance. and have no clue as to what was going on when the actual events that led to the writing's happened. So go ahead and judge yourself and attend your church. But, no I don't need to prove to you I'm going to heaven and I'm not afraid of your ignorance or your judgement. I wake up in my own skin everyday and I have reason to think that God whoever and whatever he/she is will love me no matter what. I don't know what happens when we die. But, reality is bigger than pits of fire and streets of gold. 

I do believe in good and evil. I don't think you can kill people and hurt people and march into heaven. But, I don't think you can recite John 3:16 on your deathbed and have it all go away either. I know that we will all meet our maker in our own selves and that Love never fails. In the end I know that love will reconcile all things unto itself. But, until then we are all on our own journey. God isn't a man that you can kick out of a building or a nation. God doesn't care anymore about the American flag that the Russian flag or any other national flag. 

One more reason that I don't think religion makes any sense. 

You have this sky god. He creates this being and puts him and her in the flesh. Takes all memory of heaven and spirit away from them. Gets mad at them for being what he created them to be. Then he turns to an archAngel named Lucifer Son of the Morning Star. The most perfect and intelligent and wisest of all the heavenly host. Then he gets mad at Lucifer for being power hungry and calls him Satan and throws him out of heaven right into the midst of these lowly creatures. So, then this sky god says to Satan. I created you perfect from the day you were made. You see those little naked apes called humans running around down there with you? I know you hate them. So here's the deal. If you can fool them into "sinning" then I will burn them up in a fire for ever and ever. Even though they don't know where they come from or who they really are. Now, here's another trick. I have a son who I dearly love. I love him more than you or any other creature or creation I've ever made. But, I'm so full of love for these humans that I'm going to send him down there and torture him. But, wait there's more. Since I detest human kind and I can't bare to look at them I will let you kill my beloved son in one of the worst ways imaginable and when I see his slaughtered body and smell his blood and if the humans recite the magic words then I will let them into heaven. If not then no matter how good and loving they are I will burn them forever and ever. 

Makes sense? Not hardly. So, if you want to follow old dietary laws from the old testament and put god in a box then go ahead. But, this is  part of why I don't play that.