Tuesday, March 17, 2009

I'm not that religious

Black Hole in space...
OK I am a person of faith, I will admit it. I will admit to praying too, often in fact. To me, it is inconceivable that anything could exist apart from a God who created it all. (It is the only reational soultion to the uncaused first cause delimma.) For me, God is Jesus Christ. He is the only one who bothered to actually come to earth, do miracles NO other being has ever done and rise from the dead…with eye witness accounts of it all. Yes, I am a believer but I am not going to get religious about it. I agree with whoever said “religion is the opiate for the masses”. No way do I want to get sucked into that black hole but I feel like I am getting sucked in further every day…and I want out! Today my life is being dominated by powerful religious institutions that want me to pledge my allegiance to them alone. They want to restrict, control, direct and approve every aspect of my life. They say they know everything that is good for me in every aspect of my life form what to eat, where I go, when I go, how I get there, even down to what I say and think! They want me to believe in their denomination (which honestly I cannot tell one from another)…and give them more money so they can study it and build bigger buildings to house what they think they know and study it more….sorry, I am just not that religious. These religious people want me to go to their fancy buildings with the latest and greatest of everything, pay them big money to listen. They promise with passion that if I support them, their work will change or even save lives all over the world. Sometimes I feel guilty not to give when I hear the plea…Usually I just change the channel or hang up! To do even part of what they ask of me, I must suspend rational thought and believe what they declare to be the truth, the entire truth and nothing but the truth… even though it is totally not provable and even contrary to some known evidence. I hope they are well meaning (although I have my doubts, I suspect there is more in it for them than for me) but I just am not that religious nor do I have their brand of faith that is based on their observations and interpretations. Take for instance the religious institution of science. It is one of the denominations in the broader religious spectrum called Universities. Google “Dark Matter”. Here is the first hit on the research engine Ask.com. “Dark matter is just what its name implies; it is matter (or mass) in the universe that we cannot see directly using any of our telescopes.” They don’t know what it is, they don’t agree on what it does, they don’t know how it works (some think they do) yet to listen to them speak with absolute authority! Some of these religious zealots have the audacity to tell me they know what the temperature is going to be in the future when they do not even agree on what it was in the past! They are way to religious for me. They can keep their opiate. It requires too much irrational faith for me. I will stick with my personal relationship with Jesus. He said he loves me and I believe him. As a matter of FACT we talked just this morning. He called just before 6 so I got up, made a cup of coffee and we talked for a while. He was laughing (not the ha-ha kind but the can you believe it kind) about the foolishness of some folks who think He does not exist but think black holes do. It really isn’t funny. I think he laughed to cover the tears in his eyes and the lump in his throat. At least that’s why I laughed.
HEB 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

2 comments:

Doni Brinkman said...

You never have been "that religious". :)

Shauna said...

Have you seen the video by Louie Giglio "Indescribable"? If not, it is worth finding it, it is awesome!! It shows scenes from space that are AMAZING and show how big our God is and how small we are. :)