i'm finally done with this semester :) one more left :) In a way i'm sad to see myself wanting to get out of college like this, because i always thought it would be the best times of my life.... i didn't think i'd be working all of the time. The fun times have been fun... there just haven�t been enough of them. these last 2 weeks were really rough. all i did was school work. i tried to write an entry in here earlier but had to go back and read through my journal to remember who i am. by the way, to those of you that like reading through your old diary entries, i've found that a fun way to do it is to have a computer program read them to you. I have a program called readplease (just type it in on a search engine if you want to download it, its free and legal). it reads them to me. i usually have soothing music playing in the background; its real nice. Its extremely helpful to me to read through my older entries. This program allows me to read through a lot while i'm doing house chores and such. i've even thought about making a CD of them for long car trips.
I�m worried about myself. I�m really struggling with apathy. I don�t feel like i have all that much good stuff to put in here because part of me just doesn�t care. or is tired. i�m real tired.
I�ve been trying to write something deep and meaningful in here but i think i�m too tired to do it, or just want to avoid it or something, so i�m just going to write about simple stuff thats on my mind.
i�m happy about going home for Christmas. time off to think and be a person rather than a full time student. looking forward to seeing my friends. I hope the skiing is good by the time i get home. its ok right now. (by the way i absolutely love to ski).
theres a girl that may like me...(but then again its very possible she's just really nice to people) she�s an extremely sweet, nice girl and attractive. She�s a different race though, hawaiian i think. i�ve kind of decided to not let that matter. finding that special someone is a big enough deal to where you should be willing to suffer some small inconveniences. (people looking down on you and stuff like that). so i�ll let things happen if they look like they�re going to..... actually... i�m afraid i�m too messed up for anything to happen. and if it did i don�t know if i�d be ready to handle it. so sad. but we�ll see.
i�m really depressed. i feel kind of bad for whining in here so much... but it is a journal.
If anyone is out there and has heard me talk about how I�m mad at God and think Christianity is sad and wants to know the reasons that i feel this way, here you go. I�m including my paper i�m writing on why I think Christianity isn�t happy.
Hopefully i�ll be able to write in here a good bit over Christmas break. it feels good to have classes over. Here�s the paper:
WHY I THINK CHRISTIANITY IS SAD
problem: i�m not happy with my views on life, specifically Christianity.
i will attempt to explain here why I don�t think my views of Christianity are happy ones. i would also like to say that i have faith that God is a good God and everything he does is good, and therefore my views of Christianity are wrong, Christianity is wrong, or my concepts of good are wrong, or some combination of these.
One reason I�m writing this is because in almost all the churches I go to they act like one of the main signs that you are saved is that you are completely joyful. They act like this is one of the main commands of God, to be happy. I just can�t seem to be happy when so many things make me sad. Paul stated in the beginning of Romans 9 that he is so sad he would sacrifice his own salvation if it meant he could save the Jews. Would he still be hooting and hollaring out of complete bliss at church services? maybe some would say so, it doesn�t make sense to me though. I�m aware some would say �rejoice in the Lord always�. I�m hoping its me thats wrong because I would love to be happy. I think my unhappiness is different than Paul�s. Paul is sad because people will be damned or lost (a little confused on this too.... do the unsaved just perish or do they suffer in Hell for an eternity?), but i am sad because of this and I am mad at God for the way he seems to have set things up.
Some of you may be asking, well if you aren�t happy about Christianity, why do you believe it? the answer is that regardless of what i want to believe, the evidence that i have obtained through living my life is in favor of Christianity. also, don�t get me wrong, I don�t think Christianity is totally horrible. I can think of a lot worse situations. But the problem is that I think i can think of better/happier ones. I would like for all of my religion to set well with me and until i get over these issues that make me sad, i have a hard time being happy about it all.
here goes:
I believe that the there is one God who is good, eternal, and created our world. The reason that I think there is only one God is because it makes sense logically to me in a way thats hard to describe. I can�t imagine the most fundamental stuff, the point behind it all, going back as many times as need by, could be anything other than unity. I also can�t imagine it being anything other than good. I guess most would say that this is just faith, and maybe it is, but for some reason my brain can�t seem to make anything else makes sense.
ok. we�re good so far. I don�t have a problem with any of this. thats one thing i have to be thankful about.
Now, for some reason, God decided to create the physical universe as well as creating us humans that have the unique ability to reason and ask questions such as, who is the Creator that made all of this possible? I believe that God made us in his own imagine in the fact that we are our own entities, who have our own freewill, outside of any complete cause and effect relationships. Now the problem with humanity is that we, by our very essense in being made in the image of God, think consciously or subconsciously that we are in fact gods ourselves. Now i�m not talking about just atheists here. I�m talking about us all. We acknowledge that there is a God who is above us, but we don�t acknowledge him for every essense of our being. we still take some credit for ourselves, and this is where pride comes in, which I believe is the sin from which all other sins are born and is the very act of walking away from God and the reason we need reunion to and forgiveness from God. If we truely acknowledged that we have no credit for ourselves and that the only well that we draw any kind of goodness from is from God and not ourselves (cause if we truely had our own well of goodness, i guess we might be gods) then we would have no problem with pride. i guess we could still be selfish though, just due to our animal instinct, but i think if we understood this we would be able to walk in such a correct light with God and with others that that wouldn�t be a problem.
why do we do this? why do we try to be our own god (take credit for our own goodness and other attributes, and just try to build ourselves up into something that we worship and want others to worship)? We want pride. We can�t stand humility. at first, anyway. It is in this process of trying to obtain pride that we walk away from God spiritually. We are not accepting being with him, we are now worshiping a different god, ourselves. I don�t believe you can worship two different gods, purely based on my definition of a god. A god is something from which he had something that was completely from his self, going back to all eternity. for our goodness to really be ours, it would have had to been in existance for an eternity, and since it was ours, we would have had to exist, for an eternity, and we would be a god. if you worship a god you are saying that this is the entity from which all things came; you can only hold this opinion for one thing. So in this process we become separated from God.
ok, now why I think this isn�t happy.
I cannot be happy (lacking all sadness) as long as there is one person suffering in Hell for an eternity. In fact, it makes me very sad. The road to Hell is wide and many travel it but the road to Heaven is narrow, and few travel it. (sorry i don�t know where that is in the Bible) That makes the sadness a lot worse. So, the majority of the people you come into contact with are going to Hell. Well thats something to be joyful about.... (i�m going to try and not be too sarcastic) ok, so this is sad. and i know the popular answer is this is the consequence of having free will and that you can be happy about the good that comes out of it. But this doesn�t do it for me. I know that it is a result of free will and us being made like we are but I�m still not happy with the whole setup. God makes us so that we are destined to sin and walk away from him. We must then realize that we are nothing but evil apart from God and become humble. Then the best thing we can do is accept God�s goodness, be happy in being united to him, and use his goodness to help others. Now this is a good thing but something still bothers me. what good is it for me to be a part of this? answer: I who would have been nothing if not created gets to be united (share in God�s goodness) with God but still have the sadness of so many people going to Hell. If God is perfect and complete goodness on his own then what does the world or God gain from bringing us into it? we are nothing but bad things. all we can do is share in God�s goodness. If the world was complete goodness then why bring badness into it without adding to the goodness. some may argue you can add to complete goodness, I see your point but think that you have defined God wrong if you think you can add to his goodness. (reading back through this i think maybe that this is the reason.... you can add to complete goodness)
Why would God do this? answer: he wanted to create something that he could love and that could love him and the only thing that could do this would be a being that had its own existance and therefore is subjected to free will and the problems it can cause.
why doesn�t God just give us the knowledge that he is God, we are not, and any attempts to change this situation will lead to disaster?
good question. well then we wouldn�t have a choice and it means more having a choice right? if we really knew that it was like this then we wouldn�t really have a choice now. who would chose Hell over Heaven, if he knew for sure that those were the choices? it seems to me that people go to Hell because they don�t feel their is enough evidence to support God or they just are so into being their own Gods that they are blinded from God. I think in either case they are ignorant of the true consequences. maybe somewhere along the way they chose to walk away from God instead of walking towards him and that choice of walking towards him is what is so important to God and to us. It still doesn�t seem to justify sending the majority of people to Hell. why couldn�t we just all be reincarnated until we decided to walk towards God? wouldn�t that be happier than the way it is told to us in the New Testament?
what all about all the unfairness in life? all of us are destined to walk away from God; what if some of us die as we are in that process of walking away from him? if God would have chosen to end all of our lives at that time we would all be in Hell. How is it fair for some to die during that time and others not?
also, some people grow up surrounded by bad things never hearing the Gospel never hearing anything other than bad things. are they as likely to come to these conclusions on their own?
sometimes it seems more like a power trip than anything else for God. He made us all so that we would try in vain to live without him and would then have to bow down to his overwhelming superiority.
what reasons do I have to love God?
because he first loved us? how so? placing us in a most difficult painful struggle where the odds are against us, the reward is to share in his goodness but the punishment is ultimate misery forever. If I didn�t exist I�m not sure I�d take that challenge.... if you didn�t exist then you wouldn�t have any sadness at all.
others would say he loved us by taking on our sins so that we could be reunited to him. that is a major love, I agree. But how terrible would it be if He didn�t do that? If he made us knowing, cause he is all knowing, that all we could ever do is walk away from him and offer us no forgiveness and no way back, how terrible would that be? He would have made creations without asking their permission, presumably, and putting them in a life filled with struggles and sadness, with some benefits of loving each other I do confess, and having them live for an eternity of misery. that would be about the worst thing anything could do to anything else. is there any that say this would be better than never existing? I certainly don�t think so. The New Testament also says that for Judas it would be better if he was never born, and all sins are equal right? so it would better that we were all never born, if God didn�t forgive us, but God made created us anyway. If i created a bunny inside a burning box and then after the bunny had suffered a little reached in and took the bunny out burning myself in the process, was it love for me to do this?? I guess so, for the bunnies that accepted my help because they would enjoy sharing in my goodness. what about the bunnies that refused my help?
I guess Hell is my main complaint about Christianity. I think I�m having trouble seeing the benefits of salvation and a reason to love God because I want pride so much and am mad for not being able to have it. God please help me with this.
These are the problems I have with how I believe Christianity. I differ somewhat from the actual Bible.
I would probably get burned or excommunicated hundreds of years ago for saying this but, I don�t think specific belief in Jesus as the Son of God and our Savior is necessary for our salvation. It just doesn�t make sense to me, but that doesn�t mean its not true. I think what it means to believe in Jesus is what�s really important. To know that you have sinned against God in many ways the worst being that you have tried to be your own god. and to then ask forgiveness and worship him as the creator of all things and to give your entire life to him, to doing what you think he wants done like helping the sick and bringing others to the good side and worshiping him. I know there are specific scriptures that address this and say I am wrong, you have to believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is your Lord and Savior. Also, how it is like Moses holding up the snake in the dessert, Jesus must also be lifted up and whoever believes God sent him to save him will be saved.
Believing this way seems a lot more fair to me, and makes a little more sense.
One of my main disagreements with the New Testament is in Romans 9 when Paul talks about predestination. He says that if God made the pharoes to be evil so that he could bring glory to his name by overcoming them then thats ok, because how can we tell the potter what kind of clay he can make. I don�t agree with predestination, it doesn�t make sense with accountability which is such a necessity of Christianity. Even if it were true I don�t see any good that would come from knowing it. I don�t disagree with God I just don�t believe this truly came from God. What reasons would we have to love God if this were true? how would he be a just God?
Also in Timothy I think, it says women are saved by childbirth. I must just misunderstand this one cause it seems ludicrous. how could anyone agree to put that in the Bible if they thought it meant what it said? I thought the whole point of Christianity was that we are saved by Jesus sacrifice on the cross? do woman need more saving than that? that passage seems so silly to me.
now on to how the Old Testament ties in with the New. I have many many problems with the Old Testament. Most of the things I read I either don�t get anything from or it seems to go against the view of God I got on my own and from the New Testament. It seems like the God of the old testament is a different God or their are inaccuracies in the Old Testament.
problems with Old Testament:
The whole idea of the Old Testament bothers me, how God chose a race and seemed to say to Hell with the rest of them. This doesn�t fit my idea of God, quite frankly it fits my idea of a made up God by a certain group of people that want to justify taking over and killing other people.
It states that God will punish your offspring for many generations if you do not do as God commands you. How is this fair to the children? In the New Testament they ask of a cripple which of his parents sinned, Jesus says neither. I guess some would say God punishes our children but not all unfortunate people are being punished. It still doesn�t seem to agree with my idea of a Just God.
What is with the animal sacrifices? this just doesn�t make sense to me.
through all of this some facts remain; I feel that God loves me and I do have some love for God even when I can�t justify it. I really did feel like I was in Hell, I understood that it was my own fault, it was the evil that I had created and every choice I could have choose the right road. Being surrounded by this evil was the worst thing I�ve ever encountered. I prayed to God like I�ve never asked or wanted anything else. It really was the most important thing, to the point that nothing else mattered in comparison. I really felt God forgive me and the evil went away and has never come back even through all the extreme doubting and depression i�ve been through, thanks be to God. I can not say how important that is to me. I understood that I had seperated myself from God through my pride, sin, and not acknowledging and worshiping him, and believed that i deserved Hell. Also I did pray directly to Jesus, I acknowledged him as the Son of God and how he took our sins upon himself as an atonement and for our forgiveness, and asked him to PLEASE forgive me. It didn�t happen right away. I actually had a moment or 2 where I thought he might not save me, because I had done an unforgivable sin or something. I was terrified and prayed really hard. I finally felt him forgive me and the evil went away and has never come back. I�m confused because I still struggle a lot, and want to die, and am mad at God, and still fall into sin (find my way out though, i�m not a slave to it like i felt i was before i was saved), still want pride, still have bad feelings towards others, but I�ve never felt separated from God. I feel closer some times than others, but never separated. To be separated would be to be surrounded by the evil. I really hate evil. It really does exist. I don�t even want to remember. but i do remember how real of a thing it was, and how it wasn�t just mine. When i had the dream and the surrounding of evil i described it was like I was surrounded by all the evil in the world. It was the worst feeling. i�m going to stop thinking about it and Thank God many times for saving me.
11:10 p.m. - 2002-12-11
Recent entries:
honesty was a luxury and now i think i'm broke - 2015-04-09
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ski trip - 2013-02-08
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