Religion vs. God
Would you be surprised if I told you religion and God have very little to do with one another? Or that going to church does not make you Christian? What if I said you would be closer to the truth if you threw away everything you ever knew about "God" and "Jesus," and turned everything you have learned about religion upside down on its ass? This is the simple truth however.
As I tried to explain the powers of the universe to my twelve year old son, who claims already to be an atheist, I asked him what or who God was. He described a man with a white beard who lives up on a cloud with a magic staff, who controls people and grants wishes, or 'prayers.' In that case, I replied, I did not believe in the same god that he did not believe in. When I inquired into his beliefs about the universal field of energy in which we all share, he disclosed his belief about "The Force."
"'The Force,' you call it?...That's God!", I told him. He then asked me,"Why do you have to call it God?" My response was, "If you call that door a refrigerator and I call it a door, then how the heck are we gonna know what we're talking about? So it goes with "The Force," we just call it "God," or about it we would not be able to talk." ;-)
He laughed and seemed ok with this.
Mislabeling the unnameable. An oxymoron, and just the tip of the paradoxical iceberg that is "God." Unfortunate that most adults have the same problem as my son. Growing up with Christian picture bibles (ahem..graven images?), cartoons about Merlin the Magician and fantastical figure types like Santa Clause, it's no wonder that many rational minded adults reach a point in their spiritual quest when they just can't swallow the story they have been handed.
This is a good place to begin. Don't swallow it! Seek the truth and you shall find it. Blindly accepting what we do not understand, is where mass mind control starts. Don't take your pastor's word for what the word means. Don't believe what you hear about the Bible. As soon as a person speaks "God's Word," it is no longer God's Word. Another paradox? Wasn't it a person who wrote "God's Word" in the first place? Yes of course!
Too often, the Bible's words have been twisted and deformed to mesh with what we have been told to believe. I was married to a devout atheist for many years, in fact I was an atheist too all those years. Coming to Christ meant I had to answer for myself all those tough questions that atheists (that I) had been throwing at Christians. Like "How did Noah get all those animals in the ark?" *
If what has been presented about religion and "God," does not sit well with you as "truth," then it probably isn't! I would call you to take up the challenge and dive in a lot deeper, until you find the truth in the Word. "Cause you know, sometimes words have two meanings," to quote Led Zeppelin.
I urge you: Don't let your uneasiness cause you to dismiss God's word. The Bible did not say, 'Seek untruth and you will find it'. Rather seek the way in which the word actually agrees with the calm simple truth you already know. You may be shocked at the revelations that unfold before you, but be warned, you may have to toss out everything you thought you knew...
*Hint: Noah was instructed to carry, two by two, one male and one female of every KIND of land dwelling, air breathing animal. Of the 36+ Phylum which make up the entire animal kingdom, only some of 2 Phylum meet this criteria. Phylum Anthropoda (mostly spiders, scorpions, etc.) and Chordata (of which humans are included)...Consider this; the cougar, lion, cheetah, bobcat and housecat are all what? Feline. Two felines. The wolf, fox, collie and terrier are what? K9. Two K9. Horses, zebras, mules, gazzelles...etc. Noah only needed two of each Kind.
As I tried to explain the powers of the universe to my twelve year old son, who claims already to be an atheist, I asked him what or who God was. He described a man with a white beard who lives up on a cloud with a magic staff, who controls people and grants wishes, or 'prayers.' In that case, I replied, I did not believe in the same god that he did not believe in. When I inquired into his beliefs about the universal field of energy in which we all share, he disclosed his belief about "The Force."
"'The Force,' you call it?...That's God!", I told him. He then asked me,"Why do you have to call it God?" My response was, "If you call that door a refrigerator and I call it a door, then how the heck are we gonna know what we're talking about? So it goes with "The Force," we just call it "God," or about it we would not be able to talk." ;-)
He laughed and seemed ok with this.
Mislabeling the unnameable. An oxymoron, and just the tip of the paradoxical iceberg that is "God." Unfortunate that most adults have the same problem as my son. Growing up with Christian picture bibles (ahem..graven images?), cartoons about Merlin the Magician and fantastical figure types like Santa Clause, it's no wonder that many rational minded adults reach a point in their spiritual quest when they just can't swallow the story they have been handed.
This is a good place to begin. Don't swallow it! Seek the truth and you shall find it. Blindly accepting what we do not understand, is where mass mind control starts. Don't take your pastor's word for what the word means. Don't believe what you hear about the Bible. As soon as a person speaks "God's Word," it is no longer God's Word. Another paradox? Wasn't it a person who wrote "God's Word" in the first place? Yes of course!
Too often, the Bible's words have been twisted and deformed to mesh with what we have been told to believe. I was married to a devout atheist for many years, in fact I was an atheist too all those years. Coming to Christ meant I had to answer for myself all those tough questions that atheists (that I) had been throwing at Christians. Like "How did Noah get all those animals in the ark?" *
If what has been presented about religion and "God," does not sit well with you as "truth," then it probably isn't! I would call you to take up the challenge and dive in a lot deeper, until you find the truth in the Word. "Cause you know, sometimes words have two meanings," to quote Led Zeppelin.
I urge you: Don't let your uneasiness cause you to dismiss God's word. The Bible did not say, 'Seek untruth and you will find it'. Rather seek the way in which the word actually agrees with the calm simple truth you already know. You may be shocked at the revelations that unfold before you, but be warned, you may have to toss out everything you thought you knew...
*Hint: Noah was instructed to carry, two by two, one male and one female of every KIND of land dwelling, air breathing animal. Of the 36+ Phylum which make up the entire animal kingdom, only some of 2 Phylum meet this criteria. Phylum Anthropoda (mostly spiders, scorpions, etc.) and Chordata (of which humans are included)...Consider this; the cougar, lion, cheetah, bobcat and housecat are all what? Feline. Two felines. The wolf, fox, collie and terrier are what? K9. Two K9. Horses, zebras, mules, gazzelles...etc. Noah only needed two of each Kind.
