I occasionally like to write these “What I’ve Learned” or “What I believe” posts, as I am continually learning, growing, healing, endeavoring to know more and more about myself and the world I inhabit… it helps for me to get it down somewhere as I have been deconstructing.
Was on a Facebook thread earlier where people were discussing their negative views about the bible… I usually don’t actively seek out participation in such things, what’s the point, people will believe what they will, but I decided to voice an opinion… that the bible is full of really bad stories (I pointed out only one in Genesis but there are oh so many) and that for me, I have seen the man behind the curtain, and there is no wizard there. That is a pretty succinct description of how I feel about religion or God or Christianity or the bible these days. (I assume you get the Wizard of Oz reference.)
It’s not that I am necessarily against faith or a Creator as concepts. It’s just that I cannot get on board with God as represented in the bible and Christianity. I can no longer, in good conscience, claim to believe in the truth and veracity of it. I believe all religion is man-made. The bible contains words of wisdom, psalms, some things that seem to be good and positive and life-affirming, but unfortunately, that’s all I have to say about it that is GOOD. It is, by and large, a work of fiction, and more it is designed to be utterly and absolutely worshipped and looked upon as absolute truth, indeed Christianity believes it to be holy in and of itself. I cannot go there. No more than I can go there with any other religious scroll from any other new or old religion.
I like the idea of faith, something greater than ourselves that lends us hope and foundational security and a way to just dump our problems onto another being to deal with… the idea that I do not need to save myself, that idea is tempting, but I have found it false. I DO need to save myself, encourage myself, believe in myself, not view me as a filthy broken sinner. I’m a human. Fallible. Capable of great good and even of evil. I believe we are born (or meant to be born) with a basic understanding of good and evil and a basic conscience (I believe this instead of the idea of Original Sin.) Just as there are birth defects of other kinds, some seem to be born without this conscience. Some seem to have it beaten out of them by life and circumstance. I believe only the most “defective” would actually choose evil (without negative, abusive environmental factors).
And making mistakes or bad decisions is not necessarily the same thing as being evil. People have to grow and learn and mature and often only accomplish this the hard way, by learning what NOT to do, discovering consequences, often with the best of intentions. That’s about as basic as it gets for me, when it comes to a belief system. I see so much toxicity out there connected to church, religion, faith and it makes me a bit crazy. All the horror, murder, and death connected to faith… it could fill an ocean. Wars fought, entire people groups wiped out, much as Hitler tried with the Jews, the Spanish Inquisition and many other horrors throughout history. All in the name of some god. Some bloodthirsty god. Nope not for me.
Humanity isn’t perfect, but we are all we’ve got. We have to evolve and get better. I sincerely hope we do.