Losing Religion
This post is one of several in a series where I give you a glimpse into my spiritual journey and share with you my observations, experiences, insights and beliefs. My desire is that somehow helps you on your journey, or current situation.
Let us roll back the clock to when I was about 9 years of age. I was raised in a Baptist home, very Baptist. We went to church on Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening. I'll get back to that later. I remember a certain day when I told my parents “there is something different about you three (my mom, dad and older sister) I don't know what it is but I don't have it, and I want it.” At that point my parents explained that they had all accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior and that was the difference. Obviously I had been told all about salvation and all the Bible stories in my years of church attendance, but it was only at this time that it had any significance to me.
As I look back on this I believe I was truly having a spiritual awakening. In my environment that translated into the standard Southern Baptist understanding about salvation and living a life for Jesus. I will summarize the belief system in simple terms here:
- If you aren't saved you will have a fruitless life followed by eternal punishment in Hell
- The ONLY way to be saved is to say the magic prayer, and through that accepting salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
- After you say the magic prayer you are saved forever, but…
- You have to stop sinning, and sin is defined by the Southern Baptist interpretation of the Holy Bible.
- And one more thing, in addition to not doing any sinning you are required to go around and get as many other saved as possible. Just get them to say the magic prayer and you can move onto the next heathen sinner bound for an eternity in Hell, created by our Almighty, Perfect and Loving God.
I'm sure you can pick up on my derision in that last statement. This is one of several oxymorons that are revealed within the Holy Bible and the typical Christian belief system. These were nagging at me as I grew up, but were buried very deep. Plus, who was I to call to question the inerrant Word of the Lord God Almighty.
Now I will compress the next 20 years of my life into a few sentences. As a young child I was a sold-out born again follower of Jesus Christ. In my leather craft class I made a “One Way, Jesus” pendant complete with one finger pointing up. It was the index finger, not the middle finger, that came later. As a teen I continued in my beliefs but was more covert, I tried to look cool and act cool though I was far from either. I was a scrawny kid with no athletic ability and zero social skills, with chronic allergies so snot was a constant problem. Did I mention that half of my face was paralyzed due to the doctors's incompetence in using forceps at my birth? Thanks God. Regardless of all of that I followed my religion closely and avoided most sinning. I was never good at evangelizing, something inside me always steered me away. I was always happy to talk about spirituality to anyone who may ask, but few did. Then I went to college and learned the “value” of drinking alcohol and coincidentally began to figure out how to fit in with others my age, have fun and enjoy life. My thoughts moved away from pursuing Godly objectives and essentially focused on making something of myself, pursuit of a career and friendships, and heck, maybe even get a girlfriend. That continued through the first few years after I graduated and began work as an engineer. I did still go to churches off and on, trying to develop friendships in those circles, but I did not fit in there and I was not finding genuine people. I was finding posers.
I began a new spiritual journey. I read a lot of books about New Age, Kundalini, Psychology, etc. You notice I stated “read books,” yes this time period was several years prior to the time when internet access was the norm. I really am that old-and still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up! Getting back to the point, although I was looking at New Age and other religions I was still anchored by the Bible, but was starting to think that my Southern Baptist interpretation may need adjustment.
One thing I figured out was that having a big circle of friends and arranging events for everyone to get together in a non-pretentious, fun-loving, inclusive environment was very fulfilling. I suspected it at the time, and looking back on those times, I can confirm that it was beneficial to the people in the group, not just to me.
When I was 29 years of age I met a woman, fell in love, got married and started raising a family together. For the next 24 years I put all my effort into the following:
- Being the best husband I could be (I may have fallen a bit short)
- Being the best father I could be (I fell short)
- Building the best career that I could (To be determined)
- Learning the Bible, its Truths, and molding my life around meeting God's purpose for my life
The photograph of the Bible is my Bible which has traveled around the world with me since about 1996. You can see that it is worn from use. I can't calculate the number of hours I've held that Bible in my hands and scoured the text for truth. The other photograph is of my notebook, which traveled along with my Bible. I have taken many, many notes through the years, almost enough to write a “Bible” of my own. That is an intriguing thought.
This is getting long and even I'm getting bored.
The results of my 24 years of pursuits yielded the following results:
- My son had problems in school, problems with substance abuse, and went to jail for awhile.
- I started extending another finger upwards towards God
- I spent a lot of money with little return in production of Christian movies. I had a brief “two thumbs up” to God one time while looking at a stack of unsold movies, even though I was “sold-out” to God. Oh, I must make a correction, it wasn't my thumbs but in fact my middle fingers that were pointing upward towards the Almighty Creator. Some people may consider those to be lightning rods!
- My wife divorced me and I lost my family, ½ of all the resources I had accumulated throughout my whole life, and my dog. I got my dog back later. She is here behind me, snoring.
- I moved out of my house, which was paid for, and went back to renting after a brief period of living with my mom and dad.
As I was in my garage in late July, assembling furniture in my new rental home, with sweat pouring all over the place when I had a thought. I don't mean to imply that I rarely have a thought in my head, I am just saying that I had a pivotal thought okay? What if the rules that I have been following are not actually based upon the truth? And, therefore, the expected results did not occur because the “rules” or “belief system” I was following was just wrong?
I did not pursue this possibility seriously until later, shortly after the passing away of my father.
I did start digging in and realized that I was following “rules” that were not true. Here is one such “truth” from the Holy Bible that I can verify from direct personal experience in many cases, that it is not true:
From Proverbs 22:6 - “Train the young in the way they should go; even when old, they will not swerve from it.” That statement is simply false. I had one person try to explain this away when I brought it up, and they stated “we don't judge whether or not a person is saved, only God knows what is in their heart.” Okay, fine enough, but that verse is in no manner addressing salvation-it talks about how to live.
Here is another “truth” from the Holy Bible, it is from Matthew 17:20- He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Okay, how many people have prayed, and prayed and believed and believed for something selfless and good such as healing for another person, and that person was not healed? I can tell you this, based on at least one pastor I know, out of many, many years of praying over many, many people they can count the number of healings on one hand, and have a few fingers left over (including the middle finger). The verse states that only a tiny amount of faith is needed to accomplish huge miracles. I propose that an honest prayer demonstrates at least a “mustard seed” amount of faith. Having the faith to even ask is in fact, faith. But experience proves this statement in the Holy Bible to be false.
I don't want to end on a down note, though I must end. Here are a few things I will leave you with and expand upon in future posts.
My son is doing much better now and I am starting to suspect that his recent behavior could be connected to what I am learning about genuine “prayer.”
I am not an Atheist, I do still see sufficient evidence of a creator, The Source of all. My own life experience and the experiences of people who have died and come back to life support this belief.
I am no longer angry at “God.” I put the word God in quotes because the name has various definitions, in this case I am referring to the God of the Holy Bible. I will talk about “God” in another post.
I believe that we are each here for a purpose, and we are not just pawns in God's big fun game of life, but we in fact chose to be here and have this experience. This is just something I am beginning to understand, I don't have a lot to go on yet.
Thank you for reading. I hope to get part 2 of this series written soon. Between now and then I hope you can get out and enjoy life, and make life better for everyone!
PS: The last photo is of Sandy, reminding me to chill out and enjoy life. Wow, I need to trim her nails today!