lari's Journal

Below is my comment on Fiddler's recent journal entry... I'm putting it here b/c I have a feeling I will want to think about it more later :)

I wrote to Fiddler: 

.....Wow...thought-provoking. Hmmm...I think Ive been somewhere similar....I find that I cant let things alone when they are both important to me and yet unreconciled....Its like a pressure I feel to reconcile it b/c "it" is important to me for whatever reason. And then i struggle to make sense of the contradictions too. My problem being that I believe both sides of the contradiction, but dont believe both can be true...(this is likely why I struggled so long over the rejection by my friend....she loves me? she rejected me? both are true?)

Musing.....With regard to god in particular, I have to admit that I couldn't survive spiritually on most of the conceptions of God that I've felt portrayed in the few Christian religions I've been exposed to. It's funny, I feel very deeply that, on the one hand, I dont believe in THAT vision of God (i.e., any God that is "human-like" enough that it would even make sense to call an asshole....I mean...you only call people names...or beings that you believe are making choices and puppeteering in some way....me? I dont believe in a god like that). On the other hand, I do believe that this "sense of a God" that has been present generation after generation and that I've felt too--Is "real" in some way (beyond my understanding). I mean, I've felt it...felt the "transcendent"...felt part of sthing bigger than me...felt awe...  I tend to name that experience "God" b/c I think it is probably the same experience that others who believe in God are having...even if others believe God has more human-like qualities than I do...what we have in common (and what I think I have in common with Jesus) is/are those experiences.

Still, I have faith that just b/c things are beyond my understanding doesnt mean they dont make sense. Maybe to me, God isnt so much a human like being so much as an entirely different thing. I dont know what God is. I've considered tho that God might be a state of being in which everything finally makes sense. Believing that things at some level can and will make sense if we keep working in that direction -- that is faith. And if God is that state of being...I seek God.

(Yes, I realize I could be rejected by Christians everywhere, and told that I'm not really Christian. But right now, based on my current limited understanding, I truly don't think I'm saying anything to contradict what Christ was trying to get across to us...As usual, I guess I'll just focus on whether Christ would think I was Christian :)  )

Thanks for bringing the topic up Brian...I love thinking about this stuff.... My childhood was sooooo torn apart by religious turmoil...I can't help but be interested in this topic.