I know I have a long history of telling people that religion by itself is a joke. I'm still standing by what I said if you go by my definition of religion, but for those of you that don't know that definition, I define religion as a ritual of any kind that is shallow, faithless, and mindless. In other words, religion without faith is just religion. Religion with faith is a way of life.
Religion with faith and belief is nice, but religion with empty faith and blind belief is the driving force behind the religious wars of our age. This is why I disagree that parents should indoctrinate their children in the religions they were brought up in. Yes, the child should be made aware of his/her parents' beliefs, but those beliefs should not be forced upon him/her. This is my first problem with religion. All the people who have been brought up a certain way are not allowed to decide for themselves what they truly believe because they are effectively brainwashed into accepting that there is no other way to live. We should be allowed to decide for ourselves.
My friend Josh and I went to a bookstore yesterday and he casually mentioned that there is a verse in 1 Timothy having to do with the status of women and how they might be saved. As he described it to me, I thought to myself about how it couldn't possibly be in the Bible, much less the New Testament, but then we looked it up and I was surprised to find that what he had said was true. The Apostle Paul says:
A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.
- 1 Timothy 2:11-15
Let me begin by saying that I disagree with these verses and that I don't believe women are subservient to men. Personally, I learn better from women and am better able to speak with them than men. I think that although the books of the Bible may be God-inspired, it wasn't as if each person doing the writing didn't add a bit of his own ethic. Also, there are portions of the Bible that have been entirely removed and even destroyed because they enraged the religious. For these reasons, I find that the Bible in its entirety is not infallible. Now, before the religious folks crucify me for what I just said, let me clearly specify what I'm saying and why I believe what I say. Please be aware that when I say "the religious", I mean those who practice blindly and sooner condemn than practice what Christ taught.
When I say that the Bible is not infallible the religious immediately throw John 1:1 at me. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." For me to say that the Bible is not infallible would make God imperfect and thus nonexistent because "the Word was God." Well, I believe that John 1:1 is completely true, but where I differ from the religious is my definition of "the Word." The Word is not the Holy Bible. The Bible didn't even exist as the book we know it be when John 1:1 was written. The Word is the message of salvation that Christ taught, not a book of contradictory teachings. Christ taught the message, but Christ was the message - the Word was God. Christ was and is a message from the Father. Christ is God. God is eternal. No, God is sempiternal, meaning having neither beginning nor end. The Word has always existed.
If you understand what I'm saying, refer back to 1 Timothy as written by the apostle Paul, an imperfect man. We don't know if Mary Magdalene ever had children, but if we base our beliefs on the words in 1 Timothy and assume she didn't give birth, she had to have gone to Hell. What about the women who cannot bear children? What about the women who are already in positions of authority over men? Does Joyce Meyer ring any bells? So, the first things most non-Christians think when they hear of Christianity are negative thoughts. This is because the Body of Christ (as we are called in the Bible) lives mostly outside the teachings and example of Jesus. The Body has become the religious. Consider how contradictory the Bible is before you judge the church that follows it. Jesus never says that believing in the Bible will grant us entry to Heaven. He says that the one who believes in him will live.
Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
- John 11:25-26
So, if the religious still want to shut me up I hope they remember that it was they who crucified Jesus, not the Jews. For those of us who are fed up with the rigid, fundamentalist, dogmatic approach to true Christianity, remember that the most important thing is following and believing in Christ, not blindly practicing the imperfect, misled religion we so often discredit him for.
If anyone is interested, I'm looking into Buddhist-Christianity. I can't say I'll follow it, but I'm looking into it.
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