What I believe Christianity is really about
Hi, I'm not so sure how to start so bear with me. I am posting this in the hopes that someone will read it and maybe think twice about who God is. I'm not trying to convery anyone here, that's not my place, although I certainly would be delighted to hear if this helped anyone. I guess I'll start by expanding on my previous sentence. It is not my place to convert you to Christianity. That power does not belong to anyone in this world. The choice someone makes to become a Christian is not a factor of people telling you to, it is a personal choice that person makes between themself and God. When they feel that they believe He is true, just like many of us believe that gravity is true, or that the air is true, or that love is true. When I say true I mean that these things exist in reality, they are real.
I believe that God wants nothing more than to be your own best friend. I know that is going to sound strange to a lot of you considering that God has so many rules, regulations, and restrictions out there if you want to be his friend. I believe that these restrictions were put in place so that you would not harm yourself or others. It's no wonder that many Christians call God, Father. He's like your dad telling you not to play with that fork in the electrical outlet, and not to do drugs. He gives us these boundaries to protect us from the things that can seriously harm us whether we realize they can (there is much documentation out there on the negative side affects of a lot of illegal drugs, like death, and still people take them because it brings them a temoporary happiness in their life) or not(a two year old playing with a fork by an electrical outlet usually doesn't realize that the socket can harm them if they stick the fork in).
That being said, I'm not saying that some parts of Christianity are not about fire and brimstone and hell. I really do believe in that, but that is not all that there is to Christianity. That is only the end result, Christianity is more about the way you live your life now. Now you as a person may be concerned about what happens to all those who don't believe according to what Christianity says. I know I'm scared, I read the book of Revelation the other week, because I thought it would be neat to know how the world is going to end. It scared the ...hell...out of me, literally. You are probably concerned about getting close to a God who literally damns all your friends to hell for simply not believing him. That right there is a big misconception. Because it isn't God that damns your friends, it's Satan. Some of you may be thinking (quite sarcastically) now "oh right, it's Satan, it's always satans fault. Sure." Some of you may be thinking "give the guy a break we all mess up, we all have our sadistic sides to us." Let me let you in on something. Satan doesn't pick sides. Satan is his own side. The very definition of the devil is a being that is pure evil. Just because some of you think you may be like him in your twisted little ways, you may think that since you are similar, you get to rule the afterlife together as one of the select few, or maybe even get a small reprieve, like slave owners used to give to those slaves that sucked up to them. Not happening. He's not that nice. The devil will not just kick you when you're down, he's so much worse than that...simply imagine the absolute worst and most painful things that can be done to a person,TO YOU!! (both physically and mentally, and most especially don't forget deceit and betrayal, those are his specialties)and multiply that thousandfold and you might be scratching the surface of what Satan will do to everyone he can for all eternity. No exceptions. None. Period. End of discussion.
And now that I've gone over a little schpiel on the devil's behavior, I think it's time I told you about the God that I believe in and trust my soul to. I apologize if you find it boring if you've heard it before, but I think this is necessary to understand what I am saying. God is two things: God is just (as in upholds justice), and God is love. We'll start with the first point. In the universe there are two forces constantly at war with eachother good, and evil. I know this sounds cliche, but do you know what, Christianity was the originator of that particular plot device, everyone else copied it, that's why it's cliche. Anyway sorry for the tangent, I'm trying not to come off as snobbish and know it all, am I succeeding...I didn't think so either. So what does define good and evil. Why do we have a sense of right and wrong. The answer is God. There is no other reason for us to have these emotions and feelings (for that matter where do emotions come from?). God has defined His existence as good and He upholds that, He lives to stand as the archetype and epitome of rightness (is that even a word??? oh well it's my journal entry so I say it works). He cannot stand evil, He abhors it and wishes to abolish it with all His might. However, now we come to His second trait. Love. He wishes to be with everyone, and for everyone to be with Him. He doesn't want any to fall into the fire and brimstone. He already loves everyone (and I mean everyone), he only wishes for us to love Him back. He would save us all but for His sense of justice and His respect for us. Allow me to explain: remember all of those rules and regulations up at the top I was talking about, there is not one person on this plane of existance, Christian or not, who can stick to those for their whole life. We're only human, we screw up. But there must be a penalty for the wrong done. That is what justice is, it punishes the guilty. Love is what hopes that we will learn from our mistakes. But God knows, that where He is there is only one punishment (eternal death and damnation) and that everything where He is, is eternal, because He is eternal. In the old days (i.e. BC) people would perform physical sacrifices of life and livelihood (the slaughtering of sheep was a common one, it was a life and it was also their currency back then). They were giving up things that tied them to this world to show that they believed that God would provide for them, and in doing this they were paying off their debt of a lifetime for each sin. In those days God was showing us that He is just. In the year zero AD, He showed us that He loves us.
Now because God is God, He can do this, I'm not sure how but He is in fact three people or parts and yet one entity. He sent down one part, the part we Christians call the Son to die. Now He loves the Son, and yes that is saying He loves Himself, but hey to some extent don't we all love ourselves (no matter how much we may deny it, we want to live, that's a form of love). Imagine a father, a dad, sending his only son, into a position where he would most surely die, no exceptions. Most fathers would never do that, they love their sons too much. Nonetheless, He did send His Son. Doing this did two things in my opinion, firstly, by sending the Eternal to become mortal and die, He has eternally paid of our eternal debt for all of our mistakes. Secondly it shows that to Him, we are just as important as He Himself. I'm sure you've all heard that one before, but just stop and think about it for a second and let is really sink in what it means. The same guy who sneezed you into existance with a couple of God sized boogers and a little belly button lint, values you just as much as his own life, rather than valueing you as we do our own boogers and belly button lint. On a side note I am not telling you to love your snot or the fuzzy stuff in your gut, unlike us, it really is inanimate and does not deserve a shrine in your bedroom, the world, or at least your parents and roommates will not thank you for such a mess.
Now of course for any of those last paragraphs to mean anything to you you'd have to believe me...certainly not a given. I'm just going to spend these last few sentences explaining why I believe. Note that this is just me saying something for your information. I do not intend for these same reasons to work for anyone else but me. You have to find your own path. Certainly if these work for you fine you can certainly walk this road as well, I can't stop you, what's more I wouldn't want to. I have but to look at nature to see the hand of someone at work, because there is no way that something this complex and intricately woven together, just happened to pop up in just the right order. As for why Christianity out of the whole grab bag of religions-certainly there are many agnostics out there who don't know which to pick or just don't like any of them-Whenever I think about God, my God, I get a sense of peace and love that I can find nowhere else.
I believe that God wants nothing more than to be your own best friend. I know that is going to sound strange to a lot of you considering that God has so many rules, regulations, and restrictions out there if you want to be his friend. I believe that these restrictions were put in place so that you would not harm yourself or others. It's no wonder that many Christians call God, Father. He's like your dad telling you not to play with that fork in the electrical outlet, and not to do drugs. He gives us these boundaries to protect us from the things that can seriously harm us whether we realize they can (there is much documentation out there on the negative side affects of a lot of illegal drugs, like death, and still people take them because it brings them a temoporary happiness in their life) or not(a two year old playing with a fork by an electrical outlet usually doesn't realize that the socket can harm them if they stick the fork in).
That being said, I'm not saying that some parts of Christianity are not about fire and brimstone and hell. I really do believe in that, but that is not all that there is to Christianity. That is only the end result, Christianity is more about the way you live your life now. Now you as a person may be concerned about what happens to all those who don't believe according to what Christianity says. I know I'm scared, I read the book of Revelation the other week, because I thought it would be neat to know how the world is going to end. It scared the ...hell...out of me, literally. You are probably concerned about getting close to a God who literally damns all your friends to hell for simply not believing him. That right there is a big misconception. Because it isn't God that damns your friends, it's Satan. Some of you may be thinking (quite sarcastically) now "oh right, it's Satan, it's always satans fault. Sure." Some of you may be thinking "give the guy a break we all mess up, we all have our sadistic sides to us." Let me let you in on something. Satan doesn't pick sides. Satan is his own side. The very definition of the devil is a being that is pure evil. Just because some of you think you may be like him in your twisted little ways, you may think that since you are similar, you get to rule the afterlife together as one of the select few, or maybe even get a small reprieve, like slave owners used to give to those slaves that sucked up to them. Not happening. He's not that nice. The devil will not just kick you when you're down, he's so much worse than that...simply imagine the absolute worst and most painful things that can be done to a person,TO YOU!! (both physically and mentally, and most especially don't forget deceit and betrayal, those are his specialties)and multiply that thousandfold and you might be scratching the surface of what Satan will do to everyone he can for all eternity. No exceptions. None. Period. End of discussion.
And now that I've gone over a little schpiel on the devil's behavior, I think it's time I told you about the God that I believe in and trust my soul to. I apologize if you find it boring if you've heard it before, but I think this is necessary to understand what I am saying. God is two things: God is just (as in upholds justice), and God is love. We'll start with the first point. In the universe there are two forces constantly at war with eachother good, and evil. I know this sounds cliche, but do you know what, Christianity was the originator of that particular plot device, everyone else copied it, that's why it's cliche. Anyway sorry for the tangent, I'm trying not to come off as snobbish and know it all, am I succeeding...I didn't think so either. So what does define good and evil. Why do we have a sense of right and wrong. The answer is God. There is no other reason for us to have these emotions and feelings (for that matter where do emotions come from?). God has defined His existence as good and He upholds that, He lives to stand as the archetype and epitome of rightness (is that even a word??? oh well it's my journal entry so I say it works). He cannot stand evil, He abhors it and wishes to abolish it with all His might. However, now we come to His second trait. Love. He wishes to be with everyone, and for everyone to be with Him. He doesn't want any to fall into the fire and brimstone. He already loves everyone (and I mean everyone), he only wishes for us to love Him back. He would save us all but for His sense of justice and His respect for us. Allow me to explain: remember all of those rules and regulations up at the top I was talking about, there is not one person on this plane of existance, Christian or not, who can stick to those for their whole life. We're only human, we screw up. But there must be a penalty for the wrong done. That is what justice is, it punishes the guilty. Love is what hopes that we will learn from our mistakes. But God knows, that where He is there is only one punishment (eternal death and damnation) and that everything where He is, is eternal, because He is eternal. In the old days (i.e. BC) people would perform physical sacrifices of life and livelihood (the slaughtering of sheep was a common one, it was a life and it was also their currency back then). They were giving up things that tied them to this world to show that they believed that God would provide for them, and in doing this they were paying off their debt of a lifetime for each sin. In those days God was showing us that He is just. In the year zero AD, He showed us that He loves us.
Now because God is God, He can do this, I'm not sure how but He is in fact three people or parts and yet one entity. He sent down one part, the part we Christians call the Son to die. Now He loves the Son, and yes that is saying He loves Himself, but hey to some extent don't we all love ourselves (no matter how much we may deny it, we want to live, that's a form of love). Imagine a father, a dad, sending his only son, into a position where he would most surely die, no exceptions. Most fathers would never do that, they love their sons too much. Nonetheless, He did send His Son. Doing this did two things in my opinion, firstly, by sending the Eternal to become mortal and die, He has eternally paid of our eternal debt for all of our mistakes. Secondly it shows that to Him, we are just as important as He Himself. I'm sure you've all heard that one before, but just stop and think about it for a second and let is really sink in what it means. The same guy who sneezed you into existance with a couple of God sized boogers and a little belly button lint, values you just as much as his own life, rather than valueing you as we do our own boogers and belly button lint. On a side note I am not telling you to love your snot or the fuzzy stuff in your gut, unlike us, it really is inanimate and does not deserve a shrine in your bedroom, the world, or at least your parents and roommates will not thank you for such a mess.
Now of course for any of those last paragraphs to mean anything to you you'd have to believe me...certainly not a given. I'm just going to spend these last few sentences explaining why I believe. Note that this is just me saying something for your information. I do not intend for these same reasons to work for anyone else but me. You have to find your own path. Certainly if these work for you fine you can certainly walk this road as well, I can't stop you, what's more I wouldn't want to. I have but to look at nature to see the hand of someone at work, because there is no way that something this complex and intricately woven together, just happened to pop up in just the right order. As for why Christianity out of the whole grab bag of religions-certainly there are many agnostics out there who don't know which to pick or just don't like any of them-Whenever I think about God, my God, I get a sense of peace and love that I can find nowhere else.