Turmoil. My spiritual life is in turmoil. After being raised in the Catholic faith for my entire life, I have none of the faith that my family, friends, or acquaintances have. I have doubts about almost every aspect of the pile of dust in which my faith resides. Gone is the love for Christ that once danced in my heart. Gone is the innocence I had as a child. Gone is the time where faith made sense to me. Gone is the certainty of what would happen when I die. Gone is faith security. When did I lose my way?
I suppose that most of my questions begin at God. However, I'd like to warn whoever reads this that the blog is all over the place. Just as my faith is in turmoil, this writing will reproduce that. I wouldn't have it any other way though...So here it goes:
I don't deny that there is a higher power of some sort, but I'm not quick to believe that Christianity is the best or right one. Christians say that God works through the fallen to do his will and transfer his message. If this is true, how do we know which of the fallen are truly from God? We don't, and I think that is essential. In order to truly accept that some people have a divine message, we need to accept that there is truth in the other people who may have beliefs different from our own. This enlightenment within people has to be coming from somewhere, but where that is, of course I am not sure.
I feel as if I know that God exists, but I don't know how I know this. But he/she is not the God that I knew as a child, he/she is more loving and understanding than the "damn you to hell if you don't repent" God I grew up with.
Are we here for God, or is God here for us? How can we be involved in a relationship that we were born into, only to be taught about it by our peers who never get the full truth out. Do we truly know what faith is right when religion is in most cases, geographic? If I was born in the Middle East, wouldn't I be a devout Muslim? Or if I was born in a Native American tribe, would I be worshiping along with the ancient tradition?
I understand the concept of sin. Sin, as I understand it, is when I knowingly do poor moral actions. But how can the ultimate punishment be hell, if these morals are taught with many inconsistencies. Someone may believe that it is not morally sound to kill someone because it is stated within the Ten Commandments. However, others of the same religion may believe that it is morally sound if it is an eye for an eye, because the bible follows this commandment with a long explanation of the exception to the rule. Still others may believe that there is a right to kill if it is in the act of preserving the safety of less threatening individuals. So, what exactly is the right interpretation?
If it is one interpretation over another, then those that believe in the other interpretations would be flawed. They wouldn't believe in the truth that has been deemed as accurate by some, so they would be punished for acting in accordance with the beliefs that they were raised in. This is just one belief in religion that is collective with millions of other beliefs. So, if this one point is open to interpretation, then who holds the entire or even the majority of truth. Besides God himself, who has the right to judge what is right and what is wrong? Not a priest, a rabbi, a pastor, a pope, or any religious leader. Why can't we remember that we should not judge those who we do not agree with, but allow God to do the judging?
I understand that God has a plan for each of his children and we all have no clue what that may be. But, why is there all of this discord between and within the religions of the world? How can we say that some are correct and others do not believe in the right religion? Who is the true judge of what the right religion is? Is it the holy leaders, the history scholars, the theologians? Have all of the true judges been absent for more than a millennium? Shouldn't the only one to judge who is right and wrong, be the one who has the truth? That is, the divine?
According to the Christian teaching, Christ and God's love is unconditional. Nothing you can do can make them love you less. Following this example may be a goal that we share. I don't want to just like or love someone or see the good in someone when they are being pleasant to me. I want to see the good in them when their loyalties to me are nonexistent and they are cursing me out and stabbing me in the back. I just want to love. I want to be able to keep my peace of mind and always see the best in people without and restrictions on that love. I don't want my feelings for people to be dependent on how I perceive they are treating me. More often than not, my perceptions of how people are treating me, if negative, are far exaggerated from what was actually intended.
However, I feel that a lot of religions seek to control, to will their followers into following a set moral code. I really wish that people could just live and be nice to people, not because they are going to get in trouble or pay an ultimate consequence. But because it is the right thing to do, the right way to treat people. As you may be able to tell, I am having problems believing in many parts of any type of religion. I want to believe in faith as a whole, but I'm afraid I don't know how. I'm losing, but I haven't lost it all yet.
I want the readers to know, I say none of this attacking your belief system or any others personally. I just feel that I have so many questions, that I can't fathom abandoning all this rational reason, without some sort of explanation. I've reached for answers before, only to be let down. I'm not going to lie and say I'm not dead scared of what will happen once my time is up.
I will close with a question that may have started it all:
If we are supposed to live as God lives, wasn't he setting us up for failure because no one is perfect? I understand that people say you must get close, but how do you know when you are close enough?
