The whole day I have been thinking about a conversation I had last night. Why do we believe that we are bad and sinful? Why do we keep telling ourselves that our true nature is to rebel against God? I have been hearing this from the start of my faith story. It’s been around for ages, this theology of humans being up to no good.
I just don’t buy it anymore.
What if the first words you heard as a kid about your relationship with God were positive, hopeful and validating? What if you never heard of hell, sin, the Law and punishment? What if your first understanding of your identity as a human being was that you were created by God, almost like God, loaded with godly possibilities and that this identity will never change?
Sounds like Good News to me.
4 comments:
I was thinking this very same thing a while ago – and I also want to challenge that view. Does God really want followers that grovel in their utter incompetence and unworthiness? I don’t want to buy it any more... I’m not saying that we should be arrogant, but we are more than servants. We are children of the most high God! Made in His image! I really do want to believe that God is happy with us when he sees how hard we try. I believe that it is good enough for Him – He’ll fill in the gaps to perfection.
Sparky, you say it like a poet! Love the last comment!: "He'll fill in the gaps to perfection."
I am not a believer at all. I spent the past two years or so challenging every religious person I know, while drinking in the literature of Richard Dawkins and others like him.
I know religion is a farcical system and that God (as a being) doesn't exist, but that we needed to invent him.
The holes in religion and in people's beliefs about their god appeared to me while I was still very young and in Sunday school.
I think that is why I don't feel guilty about being a non believer. It's not as if I went looking for trouble, I was dead set on becoming the best Christian in the world. It just didn't happen that way though. There are just too many concepts within Christianity that make no sense to me whatsoever.
That being said, I find this blog extremely interesting. It seems like you are arguing against religion, from a knowledgeable perspective and as somebody cutting away all the bullshit, and trying only to follow Jesus. Respect.
Jesus, if he existed, has the most abused legacy in human history. What you (and most of the people following this blog) are doing, is getting back to a simple way to honor a prophet of his stature.
I don't believe there is One truth for the whole of humanity, but I do believe there is a better way of living, better way of thinking and a better way of existing.
I believe Jesus and others like him have come very close to explaining these things to us, but as soon as their not around to guide their teachings, it becomes muddled in human thinking and ends badly.
I don't know what to call this thing that you guys are practicing, but it's definitely not religion and it's definitely closer to what Jesus meant, than anything else I've ever encountered.
Keep on doing it, and I'll keep on following it.
Beer we also have no idea what to call this! Sometimes we are slap bang in the middle of Religion, other times we are knocking the doors down and kicking the tables over."
The closest I can get to a definition is to quote the words from the Gospel Luke: "men and women of doubtful reputation, hanging around Jesus, listening intently...".
Thanx for a great comment and it will be an honour to keep on hearing from you.
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