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Posted by Kris Krieger on December 19, 2007, 3:49 pm
[ snip ]
>
> One time I pushed him hard on a topic and he finally revealed
> something to me.
> He told me, while holding a bible,'If this book is wrong then
> everything I stand for, everything I have devoted my life to, will
> have been for nothing'.
> I asked, 'Isn't that a tremendous sacrifice considering there is no
> guaranteed outcome?'
> He said, 'No, not really, I would have led my life the way I had
> whether the bible is right or wrong anyway, so I have nothing to
> lose'. 'You on the otherhand have everything to lose by not believing
> in god, for if the bible IS correct then you will be forever lost'.
>
> I pondered that for a brief moment in my 13 year old life and then I
> told him, 'But I just don't believe it, can I be faulted for that?'
>
> As we looked at each other the look in each of our eyes at that moment
> in time was exactly the same but for different reasons.
>
> He couldn't understand why I couldn't believe in his god and I
> couldn't understand how he could.
THe thing is this: if it's true that
(1) God knows what's in out hearts even better than we ourselves know,
(2) God creates us, in some manner "directs" our conceoption,
development, and birth, and
(3) is capable of infinite love an dinfinite forgiveness,
then the logical conclusion is that, if you're basically good at heart,
you can be forgiven for what you've done that was wrong. I mean, they
yap about how even someone like Gacy could be forgiven, so it's at best
illogical, but more accurately nastily manipulative, to turn around and
claim that you "cannot" be forgiven, and will be eternally damned to
hell, because your rationality (which, remember, God supposedly gave you)
would lead you to reject religion.
That is just one of the very many discrepancies and/or outright
hypocrisies of religion.
I figured that one out back when I was 10 yrs old and they decided to
bundle me off to catechism. During one of these "lessons", the
indoctronatress told the class that "only Catholics can go to Heaven".
Well, up pops my hand, and I ask, "What about other Christians?" - "no,
they go to Purgatory." Popup again: "What about people in Russia and
CHina ((I remember the Berlin wall going up, so that's where that came
from)) who never hear about beign Catholic?" - "No, no, because everyone
has at least some ability to learn about Jesus." - popup again: "What
about people who were good, but lived and died for all those years befire
Jesus even lived?" - "No, no, they go to Purgatory".
At that early age, I suddenly realized that EITHER
(1) God was all-loving, and the Church was lying to us,
OR
(2) God is a stupid, vindictive asshole.
Since I couldn't see how God could be even stupider than I was, I
realized that option (1) was the fundamental truth. ANd ever since then,
I've been unable to take seriously people who jump up'n'down screaming
about how this person is going to hell and that person is going to hell,
because it was completely clear to me that they didn't know what they
were talking about. This became even more clear with additional
learning, experience, and thought.
Some religious people are actually evil, but II think the majority are
misguided, or misunderstanding. WHat I hate is when someone is basically
decent, yet *led into* hatred or worse, violent action, because some
"preacher" says it's condoned or even recommended. THat is in opposition
to what their supposed Guiding Light actually preached, which is most
revealing.
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