#NerdsUnite: A saint takes on god
<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Jordan. He was one of the first writers here on TNTML and he's a really rad mofo. I forget how we first started talking - but he lives allllllll the way over in Kansas and wants to talk to you about life from his side of the monitor in the keyword of nerd. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT JORDAN!! </editorsnote>
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @SaintPepsi
I once believed my God and I were like minded. In fact my God was the embodiment of what I believed. As I grew up, so did my God. He acquired new beliefs and new traditions. He reflected my own biases and annoyances with peoples and their practices. For instance, my God believed that bad drivers were going to Hell. Some beliefs were based around lessons I learned in the Bible; others were taught from the pulpit. Each pushed me to believe a little stronger in many assumed supernatural rulings. When I went through christian college to become a minister, my God took on a more detailed form. Through the impressions I developed as a young adult, He became ever clearer to me until, at last, my God was me. I believed in me and through me, my God became prevalent.
I began loving both myself and my fellow man. I can’t tell you when it happened, but I’m pretty sure it was when I decided to take God’s words as a guiding tool. I realized the God I was following was actually just me. The God I needed for guidance was the one from the scriptures on whom I had based my convictions and assumptions in the beginning.
Now I’ve taken a step back from church as everyone follows their own interpretations of God. I no longer seek to lead others in my own assumed beliefs of God’s teachings. It seems to me that everyone believes in their own personal god who is just a close copy of themselves. I have read many religious texts including a decent amount of the three big ones. After my studies, I can tell you truthfully that no one follows these scriptures to the letter. Nor do they want to. Worse still are the people that don’t do the research; they never try to understand what passages mean or tear sentences out, using them to illustrate why their opinions are scripturally sound. Taking a few sentences out of any passage or book is like removing a vital part of the body. Without the rest of the text, it simply won’t work the same or at all. This is called proof texting and people have been doing it for ages. For example: the tale of Lot for an argument against homosexuality, when that man offered his daughters up to the villagers to rape. The rest of that story paints a much different tale surrounding the actions of a father. How about parents or anyone for that matter talk about the reasons to stay celibate until marriage when Esther, one of the most revered women in the Bible, had sex before marriage and still saved her people in God’s good graces. You see, these lessons are easy to orchestrate only so long as you leave out the rest of the story.
We grace our friends and enemies alike with our own interpretations of all of our moral answers, demanding they, too, follow suit because “our God” is right and theirs is wrong. The religions that follow one god are so splintered that ever forming them back into one unified body is a fairytale. It ought to be told to children as a cautionary tale on why opinions destroy friendships. If we all just realized we were following ourselves instead of a god or whatever everyone believes in, we could realize that what we really believe is our own opinion. It’s never worth dying for, it’s not worth losing your closest friends and family over, and it certainly isn’t worth destroying your own life. Trust me when I say you are only cheating yourself when you act in the accordance of someone's assumed understanding on the divine. Do you know who knows what God is thinking? The easy answer is NO ONE! No matter what god you worship, how many you worship, or what he, she, or they are known for, the truth of the matter is that no one can know the will of God because we are not God.
No one can judge another person for crimes against their own personal faith when they have no idea how their God really feels about it. Does he even care at all about things so circumstantial. No, we as mortals can judge others based on our own morality. That’s fine it’s what we do anyway. It’s become instinctual to guide ones path in life based around the stereotypes we have formed about people and people groups. Seen more recently in the screams of politicians attempting to rally constituents around their moral code. The moral code they declare is biblical or sometimes scientific. While practicing back biting and slander so obvious it’s undeniable in it’s scope. Still they pick and choose which moralities we must follow and which we demand others to follow. You are all your own gods, which is obvious by how we live our lives. Using the big G in the sky as a reason for hate and malice is simply an excuse for your depraved behavior. The sooner you can admit that, the better life will be. It’s not your god that hates homosexuality, it’s you. It’s not your god that views Americans as infidels, It’s you. It’s not your god who tells you that you can’t eat meat on Friday, it’s you. It’s not your God that demands sacrifice in the form of abortion doctors, it’s you. Convincing yourself that it’s “God’s will,” is just another form of justification. If you have to justify anything in your life by turning to a higher power for deliverance, be prepared to look to the heavens for a long time. If you know from the very core of your being that there is no reason to hate, kill, or maim then no amount of clearance from the almighty can ever wipe your black hearts clean.
Your God knows exactly why he disagrees with all the same things you do. It’s because you look at your God in the mirror everyday. You may not always like what you see, but at least you know where your prayers are going. They are offered up only to be returned to sender because you can’t mail things to yourself and expect and answer from anyone else. Who listens to what you say by yourself in the dark? You do. The gods my friends, if they do exist... they aren’t there for your personal walk with them. They aren’t there to restore your hope in humanity, and they certainly aren’t going to rescue you from yourself. You are the one that holds the keys to your future. I don’t care what god you believe in. If it’s the one I follow or another one. I know why I follow my God, in fact I know very well why I believe in him. It’s not because my parents did, nor is it because I believe in a global think tank. I believe in my God because I feel spirituality is important and my God hold the answers I need to have hope in the eternal. Still I don’t assume anything about his judgment or upon whom he will bring his wrath or love. That’s all up to him and it is not my place to act in his stead. All I can do is follow the creed he has set up. So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you – Matt 7:12. The golden rule as it is called. Under this lifestyle choice all other rules and doctrines should fall into place. It makes sense to me. So long as you find your peace and happiness. So long as you can go to sleep at night knowing that the next day is a gift from something be it science or the supernatural. You only have one life to lead and the excuse of “God,” is as old as time itself. You don’t have a real excuse not to live. So live it to the fullest. Let the gods of history not hold you from your future. Let not the god of the present dictate your actions, let not the fear of damnation keep you from your walk to your dreams be they spiritual or carnal. If there are gods, they created us to live on this blue marble and our greatest tribute to all deities is to live our lives to the fullest. You can trust them with the after life... Your life is what’s important now.
#nerdsunite
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