Faithless

My friends, I feel that I have left a part of myself in my past, to be remembered fondly but to be a part of me no more. It is here that I shall attempt to articulate what that means, perhaps in what may be a surprising manner to some. As always, I write to respectfully cause cognitive dissonance in myself and others, so please take any harsh language in such a context, and please disagree with me or come to me personally if you are concerned.

To those close to me that did not see this coming: I'm sorry. I do not mean to cause you any sort of surprise or distress, and I want to talk about this if you are those things. Please accept that some things go better in writing than they do in spoken words for me, and that this could no longer stay inside, bottled up, without making me burst from the pressure. I must be who I am. I know you understand.

It is not often that I use media to make a point on this blog. I, in fact, try to avoid it whenever possible. It is precisely because of this trend that I beg your indulgence today. I will attempt to describe what I need to, but the visuals and music in this video make it much simpler.

If that doesn't load very well for you or you didn't feel like watching it, here is how I must describe things.

I was alone in the desert, left behind, and I was offered a reprieve from my loneliness. All I had to do was truly embrace the life of faith. The price for that was my hope, dreams, and intellect. I fought hard against this price for a very long time.

"Hope is truly found in this life," said I, "just look at the cool glass of water that's been poured for me! I shall never go thirsty for the hope of a bright future." And yet, what kind of a future was I offered? There was the promise that all things would be reconciled, that the ideal of a world without war would exist, but those of faith differ wildly on such things, and church history is replete with war, ostracization, and excommunication. How could these things possibly add up to the kind of Love that Bell wrote about in "Love Wins" or Manning wrote about in "The Ragamuffin Gospel"? That furious love, that unstoppable grace that even the traditional conception of hell could not stand against. And yet, I was told, hell does exist, enemies do exist, and the hope I was offered came with a price...us vs them. Or perhaps more eloquently...us trying to save them. Why then, have I never felt a need to save anyone? Why have I never met a "them"? All of the hope I found was found in people, and eventually in myself. The hope I was offered was nihilism wrapped up in theism.

I dreamed of being something special. In fact, I was told I would be so from a very young age. I was told I would change the world, that I would be one of the people that made faith sensical and rational and compassionate. Why does it need to be made these things if God's work was complete? The answer, of course, was that we are in process. "Dreams," I said, "are sourced from God, for from Him all good things come." So I kept looking up, kept looking outward, kept exploring. What I've found is a universe where life is not static, but dynamic. Love is not a binary, but a journey. Our race is not the center of the universe, but a part of it that we create the meaning of. More and more evidence mounts every day that life on this planet is expressed in many forms rather than species after their own kind, and that active respect is necessary for all of it if we as a race are to even survive. I was never taught this, and so it seems odd to even say. My dreams of being some kind of religious revolutionary began to seem extremely small compared to what the universe is and what humanity is in it. From this, I realized that I am special, and I am so because I choose to be who I am, every day.

My intellect, or perhaps my thoughts, have been what's guided me through so much in life. Every situation thoughtfully analyzed, every concept making sense, and every experience noted. "True philosophy," I said, "comes about naturally from the correct presuppositions and correct ways of thinking. If God is the source of this, then it is ordered in an understandable way, and it is how to understand the mind of God." So I continued to read, I continued to theorize and understand, and I have only begun to see the way logic runs in circles, presuppositions seem to come out of thin air and are deconstructed just as easily, and philosophies are like waves in the ocean. Why does one wave matter when you have the entirety of the ocean to see? Enjoy that wave, ride it or go through it, and move forward. You may be going through it while another person is riding it, but your positions will be switched around before you know it, when the next wave comes. It can't be taken so seriously that you can't play at points or enjoy yourself.

So it all began to feel wrong. If faith truly was a reprieve from loneliness, then why was I living like a reject in darkness, and why were my pursuits so adamantly rejected by most of those I spoke with? Even the "Christian philosophers" I spoke to seemed to disagree with and reject me when it was needed. The agenda began to become apparent to me, and I began to change as a result.

"Just go back to sleep," they said, as the rag was placed over my mouth. The abuse was real, as I was silenced in every way possible, and I felt that it was warranted. Truly, my mind was bent and my heart was twisted in such a real sense that I am still recovering from it. "I deserve this," said I, "for I have failed. I am human, and I just don't understand something." However, the haunting truth was that I really believed that they were the ones that were wrong, and that their religion was not representative of my own faith, despite the realization I would only come to later that what they represented was so connected to what I did that a true revolution was impossible. The presuppositions were too rigid. This is why those in religions that are out to cause real change are always referred to as "radical," meaning back to the roots, or "reforming," similarly meaning returning to the true nature of that religion.

Some say that a sufficiently disciplined mind can compartmentalize contradictory pieces of information. I believed, truly, that I was correct because I was called to be special by God, and that I was also worthless, useless, and alone. For some reason, these things went together into a martyrdom I can only describe as capture-bonding. This is more well-known as Stockholm Syndrome.

What happens when a person endures this for long enough? They break. They either become a complete shell of who they were, accepting the continual abuse of their soul placidly, or they develop a problem with the authority so casually invading their very person, and they decide they've had enough. My study of church history took this to a whole new level, as I realized that Christianity, the faith I was raised to believe in, came about from some incredibly violent historical circumstances, and that this abuse of people had been taking place since the very beginning. My study of the hero archetype of Jesus was the last piece of this puzzle, and it made the claim that the story of Christ was more important than the historical reality of his existence (or non-existence) make a lot of sense. If I may borrow from one of my favorite shows, "all of this has happened before, and it will all happen again." If the story of Christ was not unique, and the story of the church is a power struggle like many others, with the occasional idealistic and great figure emerging to make it about good things, then what is unique to the faith I was raised in, morally, historically, theologically, philosophically, politically, or in any other way?

It all comes down to a question: who do you trust?

Once again, we are back to people. The people I trust are of all different faiths, all different backgrounds, and they are all so uniquely human.

So the last great lie I was sold that I had to reject, "the smile when you tore me apart," was that I am, and am meant to be, alone. I am not meant to be alone. I do not know if God exists or if he does not, but every religious experience I have had so far I can soundly attribute to people. Whether that is authority, friendship, love, public experiences of "worship," or family, I can attribute the things that move my soul to people, and to people alone.

My friends, I must confess that I am tired of imposing loneliness on myself, and I refuse to do it anymore. I love people, and they frustrate me so much sometimes because I believe that we can be better. No one thing can cause this, but I wish to become better by listening, by being open with people, by learning, by arguing, by discussing and philosophizing and enjoying music and art and literature and absurdity and laughter and beauty. I wish to grieve with others, to be a conduit for comfort to the hurt and the downtrodden, and to be a voice of realism to those that feel they must continue to hurt themselves to be acceptable. It is so unnecessary.

I can no longer say I have faith in the supernatural God that I was raised to believe in. What does this make me? I have no idea at the moment, other than to say that I am still the same person I have always been. I am still a critical thinker, I am still absurd and awkward and hilarious, and I am still something of an idealist. I still respect the possibility of a god, but I also deeply respect agnosticism, pantheism, atheism, polytheism, monotheism, and those who don't want to bother with any definition or framework to represent their thoughts. This is because they represent something to the people who believe in them, and that fascinates me.

So faithless I may be, but that does not mean I am different or have lost my ideals. If a god does exist that I will meet one day, it is the person I am that he will see, and judge, if that is even what will happen. However, I choose to live like I have one life, and I wish to make it count in real ways.

On Sin, or True Dissonance

I don't even know what to write right now. This may make no sense, but I have some things to process.

How does a person deal with all intellectual structures around them falling out from under them? How do you deal with your reservoir of faith running totally dry? What do you do when all of the answers of spiritualists, mystics, religious figures, and those you've grown up listening to sound like nothing more than abuse? What do you do when you realize you've been psychologically abused for a good portion of your life?

You are worthless. You are a sinful, horrible monster. You are broken. You've missed the mark. Your best intentions are filthy rags. You don't know what you're doing. You're horrible. You suck. You must constantly repent, constantly be sorry, and constantly deny yourself any happiness. You need our answers. We know God, and the only way we can be sure you do is if you gain the same understanding that we deem spiritual. You better not be wrong, though your nature is to be wrong constantly. You must doubt yourself constantly, never have confidence, never be correct, always be self-deprecating. You are a fool, but you mustn't call your neighbor a fool. Your neighbor is anyone else. They must be allowed to run you over constantly, because you are worse than dirt. You deserve to be persecuted. You deserve death. You deserve eternal torment forever. You are worthless. Your sex drive makes you sinful. Your questions make you arrogant. Your humanity makes you useless. Your ideas make you heretical. Your creativity makes you threatening. Your compassion is empty, your grace hollow, your beauty pointless, your mind broken, your heart evil, your soul monstrous. God loves you anyway, because we say so. You should be grateful.

It hurts. Beyond any thoughts, any reason, any movement or investigation or research or experience, I must admit to the fact that I have been abused by those who claim to be in authority. I have never been sexually abused, and I've never been hit in my life. My family is wonderful, and I've had good friends for most periods of my life. But I have learned the mantra of self-hatred, and it is attached to growing up as a Christian. I learned in Christian school that when one is angry at the church, the first question one must ask is "who is it?"

There is no one person. It doesn't matter which theology, which church, which sect, which movement I deal with, this mantra is always a part of it. Even those centered on grace cling to the doctrine of sin. Whether it is phrased that we accept salvation so God does not allow or cause our eternal torture, or that we live in salvation to participate in who God is, and any other way to live is hell, Christians still speak of hell constantly, whenever salvation is spoken of. Because we are so free that we can choose whatever we want, even though God's way is the only real way to live.

The question is...who has articulated God's way correctly? Has the Roman Catholic Church? Has the Protestant Reformation? Has Islam? Has Judaism? Has the Orthodox Church? Has the Pentecostal Church? Has the liberal sections of Christianity? The UMC? The Baptists? The Anglicans? Are there actually multiple gods? Who is God? El? Allah? Jesus? Yahweh? Which way is the correct way?

"We shape our god, and our god shapes us." This is from the only man that has ever portrayed religion to me as anything but abusive. The movement itself, which has emerged from the Postmodern world's religious sentiments, is a complex form of psychology, rooted in the historic orthodox Christian faith. An acknowledgment and apology for the history of religion, and a willingness to be progressive, to move forward, to narrow one's focus to only who Jesus is, reinterpreting the ancient scriptures through that person. Incarnational, compassionate, and focused on a God that simply wants to reunite with humanity. In this framework, sin is us, however it actually happened, losing a relationship with our creator. His desire to reunite with us is what drives his actions. We were made to create as well, and we do it through relationships, art, science, philosophy, religion, history, literature, and culture.

The question is...how much of the historic, orthodox Christian faith is kept in this movement? It is ecumenical in focus, often including other religions. The notion is that God has been after humanity for a while, but we must choose Him as well. Religions are the byproduct of us sensing the spiritual world.

Ancient Christianity is not progressive in nature, and is concerned with continuing the traditions of the religion itself. Church history has been fraught with power struggles, war, death, movements and reformations, and all of the things that we've come to expect of humans through study of history and our nature. The thing is...if empirical science proves something wrong, then religion has no choice but to change it.

So, we are left with two questions. Firstly, given how little we know about the universe and existence, how can we be sure that our scientific conclusions are, in fact, correct? Secondly, how can a God, whose nature is unprovable, exist at all?

1. Science, by its' nature, is a method of progress. The more we study, the more we understand through research and observation, the better science becomes at portraying the universe. That said, the more we study science the more questions we have, and that is the beauty of it. Will we ever understand all of existence? I simply do not know. We constantly revise our picture of reality, and it could be uprooted at its' core by some discoveries. How can we be sure we are correct about anything? This is why philosophy is necessary. We are now progressing into Epistemology and questioning empirical sources.

2. God's every move avoids giving irrefutable proof of his existence. We are given the gift of faith, which is to say, the hope for things unseen. At some point, all of humanity has some sort of faith. Philosophically, these are more accurately termed to be presuppositions. For example, I have faith that what I am looking at and interacting with is, in fact, reality.

However, religious faith, particularly theistic faith, is entirely different. You see, the nature of Jesus is relational, by a matter of course. He is a proof of God's existence, God in flesh, but only if you believe the miracles reported by ancient sources, uncorrelated by any other historical sources outside of the Christian religion. What then? Is this merely an anti-faith bias I am spouting, or is it possible that historians had a religious agenda around the founding of Christianity? Does not every religion believe that it only exists because it is true? Is this not believed by any devout believer of any religion?

So there is a God, who is all powerful and all knowing and compassionate and loves humanity, but there is a marked lack of evidence of such things in our chaotic world. The answer, of course, comes from the fall. We are totally free, we are the ones destroying, and we are the ones that can create and come back to God. In this sense, God is a moral standard. All good things happen because of God, and all evil happens because of humanity, or if you wish, the devil.

We have once again circled around to sin, and its' meaning as us being evil, us being separated from God, and us being uncertain about everything, necessitating faith. The empirical gap presented by science and philosophy and human understanding of the universe is used as an epistemic wedge that drives us toward faith. In this sense, the conflict between science and religion is very true indeed.

So the real question is simple. Is religion worth trusting? At the end of the day, it always seems to come down to that. Religious claims can only be made in ignorance or by trusting in a historic source. Before a movement is a religion, it is simply a spiritual proposition. The problem is, things like hell and judgment cause humans to panic, and do what they can to avoid horrible things. The instinct of self preservation is at work.

I have severe problems trusting authority, and the simple reason is because I am entirely sick of being told, implicitly and explicitly, how horrible of a person I am. The religious would say this is self-centered and arrogant of me, but they must also acknowledge their own self-centered nature by attempting to avoid hell and judgment, and their own arrogance at claiming to know all of the answers.

Religion always boils down to what humanity is saying about the spiritual world. I have no doubt that the spiritual world exists, because of my own experiences with it. There is definitely something more to our existence than being animals that have evolved on a planet in one universe of millions that barely understand reality. However, I must also acknowledge that part of the reason I believe in spirituality and in the idea of God is because there are people I trust and admire that also do. I must also acknowledge that I am not the most objective person right now, and that I have trust issues, systemic of things I probably do not even understand about myself yet.

What I do know is that I love understanding psychology, religion, philosophy, and this thing called spirituality. I believe this is an art, and I will probably spend my life studying and creating in it. For me to do this, I must leave behind this notion that I am inadequate. It has been toxic to me for my entire life, and I am sick of it. Even if the notion of sin is true, I learned when I was very young that sin means I must berate myself, and it has always held me back.

I also know that I cannot sacrifice my intellectual honesty just because I am uncomfortable questioning something that has been part of my identity for a long time. No matter the consequences, I must move forward. I simply have no more faith left to give to this destructive culture I have grown up in. What does this make me? I have absolutely no idea, but it's pretty interesting.

Mystification

Sometimes, we have to stop and ask ourselves questions. When it comes to my situation, I've had to stop because life is intensely and in my face unfair, frustrating, and dangerous. I've realized I've been angry a lot because I thought I was owed something by life. I thought my prayers, my sincerity, my attempts to do the right thing, and my hard work would bring some kind of reward. Or, at the very least, I would stop struggling so much. The truth is, the more I've struggled, the more I've tried to make sense out of everything, the less I know and the less I feel I can do. In a real sense, I totally understand why people give up. I want to, almost every day.

What's damning about this is my ideals are probably the cause of most of these problems.

I grew up expecting to change the world, to be some kind of visionary and create something new that will change everything. A pretty egotistical way of living, I'd say. "Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

I've come to understand that progress only happens when humanity stops being idiotic and thinks for a second, or when a drastic example is put in front of them and forces them out of their apathy. On one hand, this is kind of how people function in our society. On the other hand, it is infuriatingly unfair when we look at people like Nikola Tesla. Someone who was legitimately a genius, but was screwed over by people constantly. This is a man who died alone after making huge contributions to the world, while businessmen and greedy men profited by stealing from him. He also did not care. If you don't know who Tesla is, that's exactly my point. Look him up.

I'm certainly no Tesla, and a lot of people are not. However, it's important to remember that we are owed nothing and indeed, we will be given nothing if we merely work our way forward in a straightforward way. That is a recipe for being stomped on, and I've had more than enough of that. I could descend into a bitchfest about a multitude of things at this point, but that would be pointless.

A better point is also a simple one. I have decided I know nothing. I have more of an education than over 90% of the world, and that's enough to know I have more questions than answers. I still don't know much about the nature of our existence, and I look to scientists and philosophers to understand that better. I've begun to look to practical examples to learn skills to survive in every day life, and I look to spirituality for self-improvement. In all of these areas, I have more questions than answers. Indeed, in the area of my own spirituality, I seem to have nothing but questions anymore.

If we evolved over billions of years from abiogenesis, if our universe is gigantic and we are microscopic and our universe is only one of many, then what significance does one person writing on one blog even have? Indeed, is this a waste of time, or is there something more to my existence than just another sentient life form on a remote planet complaining because he has to deal with other insignificant lifeforms in a mob that run him over every single day (and more ironically, is often part of that mob just to get even)? If there is a god that cares about us that much, where is he when there are millions of people less fortunate than I who die of hunger and thirst? Does he not care? Does he not care about me? Does he not care about the insane amount of people less fortunate than I? If I'm supposed to put myself aside (sick of hearing that shit whenever I have a problem by the way) and go help other people, then is that not just man helping his fellow man? Why is the significance of community about something other than people helping each other?

The big question, of course, is why are we "murdering each other over tribal god images," as Q so aptly put it? Given our advancing understanding of the universe, we are left with more and more disturbing implications and more questions, and the religion I've grown up interacting with has exactly one current public figure that even comes close to interacting with legitimate questions, and with helping those who are actually unfortunate, as opposed to a disillusioned college graduate with some minor emotional problems. That public figure is routinely reviled and harassed by the majority of his own religion. Let that sink in for a moment.

A religion, based on Jesus, who came and turned a persecuted religion that was looking for the messiah on its' head. He said that money and power are pointless, and that there are more important things to life. He was then killed by the predominant religious and political powers of the day. Two millenia later, we're left with a violent church history full of power struggle and bloodshed, and an institution that acts like any other does with money. When does the majority simply overpower the minority? When does the religion itself become illegitimate because the abuse is found to be the natural outcome of the theology itself? Can we really afford to continue to talk about how we live in a fallen world with sinful people, or should we simply accept who we are and get over ourselves and our power structures that will cause our own destruction?

These questions aren't about me, they're simply a product of a mind that can't seem to stop asking questions like these. I can't afford to continue doing business as usual and being the same person I always have been. Not anymore.

If there is one thing I've learned since I've graduated college, it's that those in power are going to abuse those not in power 99% of the time. Out of sight, out of mind. I'm the same way. I want to have so much money that I don't need to put effort into anything anymore. I want to have so much control that I don't have to deal with the uncertainty of life anymore. These are the actions of someone who is afraid, and I am done with it. Life is to be lived now, and all one can do is their best. The ideals I've grown up with no longer function for me, so it's time to start over again, as one knowing nothing.

Divergence: Transcending Bitterness, False Dichotomy, and Mystic Christianity

I've written so far about my religious experiences and some tentative conclusions from them. However, when speaking about religion, one cannot help but speak about everything else. It's the nature of the beast, and why I found it impossible to transcend calling myself religious without abandoning all of my beliefs. Though I've been willing to do that, I still think that what I have put my faith in is true, despite the absurdity surrounding it. We'll get to that later in this post.

So, let's start from the beginning. I've grown up inundated with conservative Evangelical Christianity. It's affected every part of my life, and I'm both damaged and wiser for that. Perhaps those things are one in the same. When I speak of conservative Evangelical Christianity, I speak of the Christianity that Nietzsche spoke against when he spoke of God being dead, and us having killed him. Through movement after movement, Christianity in the western world has fractured and created so many subgroups and become so fleshed out that it's fed back on itself. I haven't been to church beyond being obligated to go every once in a while for almost a decade now, despite my college's requirement that I attend in addition to the inundation of chapel every week (which I unashamedly say that I skirted around with every trick I could come up with). Christianity has become a system of indoctrination based around fear, but where could that fear come from? Why does the Roman Catholic Church feel the need to constantly announce its' stance on public issues? Why have Evangelicals tied themselves into multiple political movements (moral majority, pro-life, against legalizing gay marriage, pro-death penalty, pro-war). Why is it so confusing for someone to be called a politically liberal Christian in the south? Why do you get chain letters guilting you into forwarding them if you "love Jesus?"

Many will say that they aren't religious, they just love Jesus. I submit that this is impossible. When you even mention Jesus, you are making a religious claim. Even though he was arguably a historical figure, you're not just talking about that when say you "love Jesus." You're talking about the claim that he is divine, God in flesh, and that he is alive and well despite his historic death. You are claiming that you believe he resurrected from the dead and did the work of salvation (loaded term, by the way). Whether these claims are meant metaphorically or literally, you are still speaking using religious language. It is not escapable, and to say you aren't religious but then start teaching people about things from the Bible is even more of a contradiction, because the Bible, by nature, is a religious text.

Now, to get any further, we must do one of my favorite things.

Religion. A system of relating humanity to the spiritual world, sometimes through veneration of a religious figure(s). This can includes beliefs regarding metaphysics, morality, epistemology, history, and usually includes a metanarrative, or an explanation of all things by one single narrative structure.

Using this loose definition, we can conclude that the institutions created for the purpose of uniting or propagating religion are not religions themselves, but sometimes constitute new religions. Christianity is fascinating in this respect because of how many movements fall under its' wide umbrella. Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Latter Day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Protestants with their Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Adventists, Non-Denominationals, Emergents, general Evangelicals, and hundreds of other subdenominations, Anglicans, and many other religious movements all claim to be Christian, because they in some way attempt to align with the teachings of Christ. The implications of this for each of them, however, create many different religious institutions, effectively. When people say they hate religion, they usually mean they hate religious institutions or movements. Unfortunately, when you make a religious claim publicly you are either part of a movement or creating one of your own, even if it's a movement of one.

So, growing up with my particular background in extremely conservative Evangelical Christianity, going to college was a refreshing and at once infuriating experience. I was faced with another religious institution with obvious agendas, and a lot of people with beliefs different from my own. Even after abandoning the traditions I had been brought up with, I still held their weight in my past, and I still came from that perspective, even if I was becoming farther removed from it every day. This lead to some of the most marvelous dissonance I've ever experienced. I could not stop myself from learning more, engaging more people, and thinking more, even when the authorities were screaming at me to stop. The interesting thing about this was how few of those authorities actually came to me personally and told me they were concerned. I can think of maybe twice where this happened, and both times I asked them what they were concerned about and we talked about it. Then, suddenly, they became confused as to why I was so dangerous.

So, if even a few people actually approached me and we talked and they ended up not thinking I was horrible, then why did that not end it? I imagine there are two reasons for this. First impressions, as they say, are the most important. The first impression I left at that school entered the gossip loop there, and quite a few people seemed to avoid me after we hung out for a few days, and a few of them even told me that they'd heard I didn't believe in the Trinity or something like that. I would then explain that I'd had some questions about it and had denied it at one point, but that was years ago. Once again, they were confused. Secondly, I think the authorities at my college were more interested in power and control than they were with understanding what is true, even about one person. One person is, after all, insignificant from this perspective. If they get run over and unfairly treated, it isn't their problem, even if they caused it.

This is why I am still skeptical of anyone making claims. They are usually only interested in power and control in one form or another.

We now have this dissonance of the inescapability of religion in light of my particular beliefs and the intolerable nature of all religious movements I've experienced due to people, in a nutshell, being disinterested in the truth and being bastards as much as possible about religion. The question then became, why? Furthermore, can religion escape its' abuses when it institutionalizes like this? If not, what is the point?

I've come much closer to an answer regarding the first question, and more of a functional answer regarding the last two.

Christianity in the western world has long been about fear. Indulgences were sold by the Catholic Church to get people out of hell (including yourself), sermons like "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God" were spoken and written, Evangelicals consistently ask people if they know what will happen when they die, and those are just a few examples. Hell, despite being very vaguely spoken about in the Bible (and having a variety of translation problems besides), has been one of the focal points of western Christianity. My experience with western Christianity suggests that they will soon call it a fundamental of their faith. The problem is, most of the imagery and theology behind hell comes from Dante's Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost. The only concrete fleshing out of hell and eschatology (the study of the end of the age) is the book of Revelation, a book so steeped in political metaphor and vague narrative that it is at once prophetic and tells you almost nothing regarding the actual nature of things. Jesus spoke of hell using multiple metaphors, and the Old Testament refers merely to the grave. Yet somehow, a lot of Christianity has made this central. There was even a huge backlash from the recent book "Love Wins" by Rob Bell, which was about Hell and was strikingly similar and inspired by "The Great Divorce" by CS Lewis, a book that was recommended to me over and over when I was at college. The difference? Lewis wrote in pure metaphor, and Bell wrote in questions. Questions are what is threatening to this movement because the leaders of it are afraid of losing their power and of their own God.

Can religion escape its' abuses? Or, perhaps more appropriately, does the abuse of religious systems negate their use? For sure, to speak of Christianity or any religion regarding only the negatives is fallacy, for many positive things have happened in the name of Christianity and of many religions. People have been given hope, treated with respect, and accepted for who they are. However, for every one of these occurrences, there is at least one occurrence of the opposite happening because that person is of a different religion/race/sexual orientation/creed/preference than the group at large. Having been rejected myself, I naturally notice the abuses first. I am glad for this in hindsight, but I do understand that there are some that are going through that rejection that are still very angry, and there are some who've never experienced this and may take things for granted. However, the question here is: can Christianity escape its' abuses and still be a religious system not plagued with self-contradiction? Furthermore, when we're talking about something so vast and varied, is this question even helpful? If we cannot make an argument against organized religion itself, then we must speak to Christianity in all of its' forms. Evangelicalism? No, I feel that it cannot escape its' contradictions and abuses. However, given my feelings regarding religious presupposition and intuitive spirituality, I also cannot escape being a religious person. It would be absurd for me to say that I am not religious, but I believe in God and Christ and the movement of Christianity.

So, the choice is pretty simple, from where I'm standing. Do I embark on this journey all on my own, eschewing all traditions and structure and traditions, or do I continue my search for people that have questions and problems with authority and have tried to overcome misanthropy and bitterness to talk in a real sense about real things without being stepped on, power struggles, or the contradictory fear? Both are appealing. I hope one is possible.

Regardless of the path I take, I believe that for people, forgiveness is absolutely essential. This is because when we allow ourselves to become bitter over the abuses we undergo as a person, we will continually react to them. It is fine to be emotional, but it is another thing entirely to continually react to a thing without taking into account new experiences, learning about things, and learning how wrong we have been about some things as a result. It is one thing to reject Evangelicalism and say I do not believe in that vengeful, angry, abusive God. It is another thing entirely to be angry at people and allow that to become bitterness and simmer on it constantly. I effectively destroy myself, and they have accomplished their goal of polarizing me one way or the other. I affirm the false dichotomy while saying things like "I hate religion but love Jesus" and wildly emotionally reacting to all things Evangelical, usually while saying absurdly ignorant things. Can you tell I've done this before?

I've had to forgive my high school, my college, Evangelicalism, most of the fear-mongering and broken leaders I've interacted with, and Christianity itself just to be able to move on. This does not mean I've forgotten my past (as you've seen), it means I can make informed decisions and be willing to change my mind without needing to be afraid or angry or reactionary.

Religion itself is a problematic thing because of the institutions associated with it. But to be religious, you must interact with those institutions, even if you're rejected by all of them. My divergent path is hence a false dichotomy. There is no finding a religious institution that is balanced without finding oneself, and there is no finding oneself without interaction with others. Because religion is a historical, spiritual, social, and intuitive phenomenon, it is impossible to be religious without interacting with the religion you are associated with. Even if the reason you are associated with your religion is cultural or developmental, you must continue to actualize that reason, question it and be critical and grow, lest you simply accept a set of claims that come to mean nothing. May it never be.

Being spiritual is not enough for me. Being a liberal Christian taught me that what is important is not what happened, but what happens. Being conservative for all of the years before that taught me that I can have passion. Choosing to be a Mystic Christian, accepting of mystery and experiences beyond my normal perception, is teaching me intuition and its' value, as well as the limitations of language and logic and my own feelings. Though the dichotomy between finding a religious community and pursuing my own spirituality is false, it is still a tension because of the problems of perception, institution, and abuse. However, if there is one true apostolic church that I've been looking for, I will find it. My own way.

Thanks for reading so far. I have more to say, but that will come next week, and I think it will be less linear than ever.