ok so the title is a little insulting. what can i say? i'm mischevious and at the same time, i'm so tired of the evangelical movement--a movement my brother is a part of.
i don't get it either. he's a smart man. a very smart man. incredibly intelligient. cautiously sceptical. contemplative. and yet he fell for the whole fire damnation mantra hook, line and sinker. of course, as he told me, it took a long time and he had a "really hard time" believing what he was being told. of course he did. his better wisdom told him he was being fed a line of shit.
what has me concerned is the stuff they are feeding my niece and nephew. according to their churches website, children are born as sinners. they lack the devine spark until they have accepted jesus christ. it doesn't matter how they live their lives. it doesn't matter how generous they are, how loving or how kind, or even how awful and violent for that matter. as long as they claim jesus died for their sins, THEN they are saved and are thus guaranteed a place in heaven. if they don't claim christ as their savior? god sends 'em into the lake of hell fire for eternal punishment.
typing that makes me shake my head and laugh. how can i not? if they believe in a god that loves unconditionally, how can they also believe in a god that would destroy that very soul he/she/it (ok, for the evangelicals, HE) created? how does this fall under the term unconditional love? unconditional love means you love WITHOUT CONDITION. no "i love you BUT". no "i love you but now i must destroy you." the two don't jive.
it really angers me, all of this religious mind control and brainwashing that goes on. it angers me that this man, this church leader, continued to feed my brother this shit until my brother finally got it. he got it allright. he got it out of fear of punishment. out of guilt. of course he would. our childhood was full of that sort of thing. i was the one who rebelled while he remained quiet and went with the flow. i listened to this church leader once. he was charismatic. he had an energy to him that commanded attention. an energy of authority. he even had me questioning my own belief system until i realized he was using fear to pursuade his followers. and fear isn't love. fear isn't god. i'll give this man this--he knows exactly what he's doing and he's very good at it.
people will do amazing things, things they otherwise wouldn't do, when they are conditioned under the principles of fear. we see this happen with cults, with which i liken the evangelical movement. my brother was searching for his own spiritual truth at the time and unfortunately, he met up with a man who taught a of a different sort of god. a god that was different than the loving, non-judgemental god he had learned about in his brief stints with other churches he had visited, in particular the lutheran church. he met up with a man who takes the bible literally (well, those sections that suit his agenda that is). he met a man who is obsessed with being respected, revered, likely worshipped. he met a man who hasn't a clue as to the real messages as taught by the man jesus. love in action.
when jesus said "i am the way" he didn't mean to worship him--he meant for us to model the example he lived. he knew how to live as one with the god within and he wanted to teach us just that. when jesus said "the kingdom of god is within" he meant it is in ALL of us. he meant that we are EACH a part of god just as he was. when jesus spoke of heaven and hell he was talking about states of being. when jesus spoke of turning our backs on god as a sure fire way of entering hell he meant when we turn away from our own devine spark, our own soul, that part of us that is god, we will experience our own state of hell. to thine ownself be true.
doesn't this make more sense? doesn't this feel more loving? it does to me. and i hope one day it will to my brother as well.
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3 comments:
nina,
when i read your blog, its like im reading my own mind! for quite some time now, i've had the inclination that if enough people tried to live their lives like jesus and didn't worry so much about (blindly) believing this or that about how he died and why...that the world would become a true paradise. i mean, start with feeding the poor. that's something jesus did all the time, right? iow, we can create heaven on earth as a matter of choice! its just a simple matter of reaching a critical mass of people who make that choice. yeah, real simple.
i will pray for your brother! :)
oh yeah, and another thought i've had is that it seems that we've had very different lives and circumstances but we hold a lot of ideas in common. the fact that different people can reach similar conclusions suggests a greater level of veracity than if a single group of constantly reminded and coddled, indeed, brainwashed people all think the same thing.
As you mentioned in the previous post, we are uniting and we must continue to do so, unite and organize!
what an interesting comment you make--that despite having different experiences and circumstances, two people can have very similar beliefs, can reach very similar conclusions.
i've read the works by a man named david icke. fascinating stuff--pretty out there. he claims to provide proof jesus is/was a myth--never existed. at first that kind of rocked my world, even though i don't consider myself a christian (probably due to my refusal to wear a label of any kind). this got me to thinking. why would that thought scare me so much? even though in my heart i believe he walked the earth, i came to the conclusion that it doesn't really matter much if he existed or not. the message is what matters. even if the whole thing was made up to present an idea, it is the message that contains the truth. or at the very least, some very wonderful ideas on how to create a peaceful world.
yes!
it doesn't matter one way or another, whether jesus was the real deal, whether he died and rose to heaven, or whether you believe something that will never be absolutely proven one way or another. what matters is how you live your life, the choices you make. of course this kind of thinking was deemed blasphemous from day one by the ruling elites. its in their best interest. we shouldn't expect anything less from them. if we want change we have to be it and never give up.
imo, the beauty of america is the fact that in a steady process of the struggle of the people vs. the ruling elite, the people have had a few victories. We've had reforms for workers rights before, we've had reforms in terms of slavery, we've had reforms in women's rights and civil rights, and (now in oregon) rights for homosexuals. at the moment we seem to be losing, but we have come a long way since monarchy. we have so much more in store! The possibilities are unimaginable if only we can organize and make better choices. wwjd? is not just a cliche, it is a choice you can make to use in your decision making process.
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