| RELIGION |
| I wanted to write a little something something in here on the topic of religion, and make a distinction. Other people who have similar sites as this seem to fall into one of two categories. Either hard core right wing - God will save me - Jesus be with me - mumble mumble - or are leftist atheists...and there doesn't seem to exist, in large part, any kind of middle ground. And I think that one of the things affected most - when in the confines of a depressive cycle is a meditation - long and hard on all the why's and why pain exists - if God is good then why (fill in the blank), etc. And then that's when the one of two viewpoints kicks in. People in times of reflective contemplation do seek answers and perhaps become more open to the idea that yes a God must exist, or -- no God exists, and religion is merely a conjured remedy for people's collective despair. I can see the appeal to both. I do believe that the world is at this point still mid-waist in a Post Modernist attitude of subjectivism and so forth, and perception and context rule the world currently. But I don't by any means think this appeal somehow translates into truth. I think it's a cold hard fact that one must recognize the existence of God. There are absolutes. There is a moral law underlying everything. If you want to get into semantics with me over why I believe what I believe lemme hear from you in email, but that's not really what I want to get at with this...what I really want to tackle is the situation people find themselves in when in a depressive entanglement. The weight of the world is very real and immediate, and many times people turn to someone 'religous' for advice or insight. And it varies greatly in what's received, and this is where my true, nagging interest in the issue lies. There are all kinds of 'religous' people in the world. Some good, some less than. And people in moral crisis or otherwise sometimes visit those that aren't necessarily the best for what is obviously being sought. But since there isn't any Consumer Reports for churches where you can flip to page 34 for advice and a pie chart on the old steeple and cross building up the road you're then left to wonder. And the inability to calculate beforehand who is true and good and who isn't is...unfortunate. People do prey on others, even within the church. Priests molest little children sometimes. TV evangelists swindle people out of millions. People do do wrong things. And then within popular media, religion is bannered under this blight that is characteristic of a small number of a larger, complicated whole. You say, that's exactly why I mistrust religon. I could then say, well if you take the rapists and all the caucasians in prison for whatever crime, do you then fear every white anywhere. The checkout girl at the supermarke? You say of course not, but it's not the same. The reason you hate religion you say is because these people supposedly adhere to a higher moral code, to a God that they preach of and then represent badly. This irony is what is so angering - the root of the mistrust. And this whole turn or burn, hellfire and damnation attitude. Why believe in someone who preaches a standard that they themselves do not adhere to absolutely? (this is narrow in that it's only considering the mainstram religon of Christianity prevalant in America)Therein though has to lie one's own ability to discriminate. Man is flawed. Man is imperfect. Man makes mistakes. God is perfect. The problems in religon is a context only existing on the earth. And by the same token, God does not need the confirmation of man to exist. The saying, I think therefore I am has no meaning in a being that creates the vessel allowing man to create the thought -- to switch gears and bring this back around -- if anyone is like me, I for a time left the church because I was so fed up with all of it's going ons. It turned me off to God. But in time I made the distinction. God exists, religon exists to carry a message, but so long as it's bound inside the world we live in it's going to be flawed, but the God it speaks of is all that is needed. I myself still have many problems with religon, and people that preach it, but I know God is real and this life is temporary. And that there is hope to be offered someone in a tailspin cycle of depression. God does care. Talk back to me. I know this is likely to cause some something. |