In a Box...

 Blogger's Note: Feel free to discuss or ask questions regarding the topics therein. Blessed be! (added 03/06/2015)

Day after day, so called 'non-Christians' are bombarded with opinions meant to be taken as fact. If a non-Christian ignores, rejects, denies, or disagrees with what the 'believer' says is truth, you're in denial or closed-off to the truth. How are we to know that this belief system is the correct one? This is may fit one person's point of view. How does one know for sure that Christianity, Mormonism, the two belief systems of Islam, the Wiccan beliefs, Hinduism, or Taoism is the correct path? How does one know?

Now, I know everyone has their own way of expressing themselves, but some people know only one way to describe themselves. Some of these people are Christians, Buddhists, Atheists, or Gnostics, but let me focus on thing at a time. Here are some examples of these ideas so concentrated upon one view that the direction is fogged

The first ones I want to talk about is 'going to heaven' and 'we who are saved.' Most anyone that is exposed to these phrases. Their mission overrides their purpose and in turn their reason is watered down to: if you're not within our circle, you're pretty much walking into hell...a place told as a realm of separation and agony from their god. So, the conservative or fundamentalist Christians are the only ones that will make it to the end that is at a time that is indefinite. Honestly this begins to be abrasive, but I tolerate it because many Christians are this way, many are not.

Next, "reflecting Jesus." What does that mean? Do any of the Christians really know what it means? Growing up in a conservative Christian home, this was spoon-fed to me on a constant basis-- I didn't know anything else, and felt that had to see it the way my grandparents. As many are and have been aware of this aspect. It has become so rampant that many have gotten to the point where they're so concerned with seeing that their opinion of what reflecting Jesus is tattooed in the person's brain, rather than the person themselves. The purpose behind this is just as valid as the next, but as you can see this is  only one of the many things that pushes people they are trying to reach, away.

Being pure, or retaining one's purity (from a Christian's point of view) usually connotes someone not participating or doing something sexual before they are married, or alcohol and/or drug consumption. For the purpose of the topic let us stick with the first mentioned: sexual intercourse (or any action related) before one is married. They discourage masturbation, foreplay, intercourse with either sex, living with someone you're not married to and being intimate with that other person, and so on. Now, whoever wrote down and established the idea that having sex or doing anything sexual before one was married, misunderstood what their god was saying. My approach was, and still is, if you are in love with that one person, and you're sure without a doubt that you're going to be with this person then there's nothing wrong with that. Who is to say that one can't be in a relationship with whoever they want?

Let me end this with this last paragraph. A common wall for people of other beliefs and Christians alike, run into is this: hearing theirs god's voice. In the church that I went to while growing up, this was (and probably still is) a huge taboo. For instance, let us say that Tom claims that he is hearing god and he then goes forth and relays this to someone in that church he trusts, but is told that his message from god is not in line with what the bible says and that Tom needs to pray to shoo away these ungodly thoughts. Tom is confused by this, he was told that god speaks to each individual and was excited for this occurance. Tom decides he disagrees with said trusted church-goer friend and church-goer friend tells Tom that if he doesn't agree with him, then he is either mislead and must admit that he has done wrong and apologize to god and the people in the church for assuming he knew what he (god) said to him (Tom). That's a way of putting God in a box. If the leadership of the church agree that it's something that seems too great, random, impossible, out-of-the-ordinary, too-hard-to-believe, and, in their opinion, not something their god would say....that's putting their own omnipotent god in a box.

Thanks for reading,

-Dave