Saturday 11 September 1999

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Loosening my religion

You can generally guess that I'm not feeling too well when you see me writing about religion. If it concerns other people, I am more likely to write about philosophy. Today I guess it's somewhere inbetween.

Disclaimer: While this is not missionary stuff, there will be mention of a God. If you have too much painful memories with that kind of things, you may try one of the other days in my diary.

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This may disturb the casual reader, but I am religious. I do not just believe that a God exists, I even believe that this God has spesific interest in my life and afterlife. It is a weird notion, I freely admit that. In fact, it is hard to explain how such an idea can be as universal as it is. You'd think that the people with religious genes would be out-competed hands down by the atheists, who would build weapon smithies while the religious built temples. And yet, religion is common wherever and whenever there are humans. It seems almost instinctive.

My religion has changed, though, over time. The first phase was when, as a child, I learned Christianity in school and in church where I went with my grandmother every third Sunday. My parents did not impress their detailed beliefs on me - in fact, I did not know their religion until I grew up. But I always assumed that I was a christian, and a pretty good one at that.

Then as a teen I met Smith's Friends, a pietist religious movement. They strive for perfection, to transcend their humanity and become godlike (ethically, not in terms of power) in this life. This was the first challenge of my faith. I studied the Bible myself and found that many tenets of modern Christianity are unfounded in the Bible.

The driving force in my religion was fear. Fear of death, and of eternal punishment. I still feel that my life is just too good for me, that I sooner or later will have to pay for all this happiness. But increasingly, I feel that the idea of a vengeful God is disgusting. How can I be judged by a God who is morally inferior to myself? I'm not a saint by any means, but even I would not torture lesser beings forever. Luckily for Christianity, the whole hell theology is pretty weakly founded.

Today, I think it is safe to say that I am a heretic. I still believe, but my beliefs do not agree completely with any church that I know of. And I no longer reckon myself as part of God's storm troopers. I strive to do unto others as I want them to do unto me. And at any one time, there is likely to be one person that I love like myself, give or take a little. (Anybody's guess who it is these days.) But I am not perfect like the Heavenly Father is perfect. In fact, though I am older than Jesus was on Calvary, nobody would mistake me for a heavenly father if they were half blind and half deaf.

One good thing I guess has come out of having high ideals and failing them: I find it easy to forgive small petty transgressions and failures of others. I feel in need of so much forgiveness that I don't have much time to harp on the dust motes in my brothers' eyes. I wonder, perhaps that was the meaning all along? God knows.

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We'll return to the usual entertainment of seeing me try to live without having a life. Dipping my toe in the ocean of human emotions, only to have it pinched by a nearby lobster. One of these days... Real soon now...
God willing.


Adrift in time?
Yesterday (Yes, I believe in yesterday.)
This month
Tomorrow (if any.)

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