Lover of Truth, and The Truth is I'm a loser. (Christian Blog)
Ever since a very early age, I was taught to be honest. Does that mean I'm always as honest as I should be? I don't go around telling lies, but their have been times where I would be silent, and even silence can be considered to be a lie.
Honestly I hate Christian positivity. Whenever I read it, and the positive scriptures they post, my stomach starts to turn. I feel like i'm not saved at all because I feel like I can't measure up.
I listen to the old Bible Experience mp3s at work. I have done this for years, and through that method, I've been able to get through the entire Bible multiple times, which wouldn't have been possible if I was just reading it off the page. I have a learning disability called (ADHD/ADD) and I have some eye problems. The muscles in my eyes don't work together like they should. It has been this way my entire 45 years of life. So, sometimes I have done eye exercises that can help some, and there are prisms in my glasses that help with this. But it does still seem to effect how long I am able to focus. When I do read a book, I first get myself all worked up, and then I force myself to read it. In doing so, my heart rate increases. And something just comes over me, and brute force my way through it. It is not an enjoyable experience, but I get the job done.
Going back the Bible thing. The way I listen to my Bible, is I start in Genesis, and then day by day I keep going. I think I listen for about hour a day. It depends. But the idea is to keep going until I'm in Revelation and once that is done then I repeat the process. It takes me about a year to complete it.
The goal is to allow the Holy Spirit, to use the words I'm listening to, to speak to my heart and mind. While I get the gist of things. Often times the old testament prophecies go over my head. Normally I don't worry about it because if I need to understand it, I'm counting on the Holy Spirit to help me with that. What I don't understand is how the positive minded Christians quote the book of Isaiah a lot. Whenever I listen to it, the gist I get is Judgment Judgment Judgment. I'm a strong believer in context. The context tells you the purpose of the passages.
Positive Christians seem to always isolate out the most positive passages, and verses. Whatever sounds encouraging that is what they hold onto. Somehow I don't feel like this is reality. The Bible has some nice stuff in it, but it also has some dark and strange stuff in it too. As a believer I want balance. I want to understand things for the way they are, and not the way I want them to be.
The blog hasn't gone the direction I wanted it to go.
I don't understand the Christian happiness that I see in my own life. I'm sure a lot of these people would say it depends on what you focus on. When I compare my life to theirs, what I see is, people who are working a job that they like, around people they like, and are married and have kids. They got a Church they are involved with, and they go on vacations. Where as I'm a lot different, I have a learning disability, that causes me to struggle in many areas, and I work a job that i don't like, and I'm not around people like myself. I don't got a Church. I'm not married and have kids. I don't go on vacations. I don't have friends. So when people act like it is all about your focus, I feel something inside of me tighten up. How did I get into this mess? I'm not going to explain my unfortunate history in this blog. But if you look around my profile you can find other posts where I share what happened to me., and what is happening to me. As far as I'm concerned, it all makes logical sense.
@tryingtosurvive2024 I am sorry to hear you have a low opinon of yourself. I think that your blog shows you are a person of honesty and integrity even though there are some elements of the Christian religion as it is practiced today that you find unbearable.
I like to apply religion to my life. In previous experiences with religions, some individuals would use quotations to whitewash over situations as if to make them go away. I do not find that helpful.
What attracts me most to religion is living ethically and treating others with kindness and compassion. I find that in most religions but in a modern secular society, sometimes that basic feature is overlooked.
What I try to do is to pick what works for me and makes sense rather than try to swallow the whole religious doctrine whole. This means I do not debate others because they are battling to defend the entire religion. I would rather keep an open mind and embody the principles that I can apply in my life and not judge myself because I see the religious experience different than others.
@soulsings The way I understand the Bible. In Christianity you can't pick and choose. You are either all in or all out.
I do AGREE with you about staying away from debates. That is one of the reasons why I don't like going to Christian forums. The main thing people do there is debate the differences in various Christian understandings. In person, one on one, I like talking about that stuff. But not on the internet where you are in a large group of people shooting opinions back and forth. I remember I was on one Christian form, where I got so many comments on my writings, that I couldn't read them all! On one hand it was nice to see that people were reading my stuff, yet on the other hand they were bringing a lot of strange biblical interpretations, that would require me to spend hours in study just to determine if it was anything good enough to consider. Also, there were people who would write me something that seemed KIND at first glance, but in the very next paragraph say something that was completely OFF the wall! So many times I couldn't believe what I was reading. After about month of being active on the site, I decided to leave it to save my MENTAL health!
One of the things I don't understand. Why is it on the internet people are NOT kind? It often feels like to me, when people get online and then they feel like they can LEAVE the kindness at the door. I FEEL the exact opposite. I feel that online we should be more kind to each other. We don't REALLY know each other. We just know what the person posts about, and then draw conclusions from that.
Thank you for your comment. 😊
@tryingtosurvive2024 I agree that kindness is a really wonderful thing - a way to bring us together and recognize that we are all basically the same once you pull off all the surface stuff. We all want to be happy and avoid sufferiing. Being kind helps us feel better and helps others get what they want, more happiness.
I had question and answer sessions with my assistant minister when in my teens. He framed it this way: If you do not believe then you have nothing. As a thinking reasonable person , I found that did not make sense. I think Jesus was an inspired teacher but the Bible has been adapted many times by religious and political people. Some of the original gospels are no longer contained in it like the Gospel of Thomas.
I guess that there is a great demand by many religious leaders to believe in what people say about Christianity. I am more inclined to interpret religious texts by reason and how it can apply to my life.
@soulsings Funny I was just reading a book that talked about some of this stuff. It says that the Gospel of Thomas never belonged in it, thus why it is not there.
The Bible is translated from two languages over to your speaking language. The chapter and verse numbers are not apart of scripture. The were added to help us locate passages and verses in the Bible. They are also useful for memorizing the Bible. However there is a side effect to having them in there. It also makes it easier for people to use the Bible out of context. In doing so, one can make the Bible say or agree with whatever you way you want it. This should not be done, because it is the wrong way to handle the Bible. The Bible makes the claim that it is the word of God. Thus, when you read it, you should keep it in context.
Lately I've been feeling frustrated. Not with you! But I've been frustrated with another Christian Church who has the audacity to preach the very thing I just told you in the above paragraph, and yet they got at least one verse. Not just one verse, but a part of one verse, that they use out of context to back up a very odd practice of getting into a group and learning to hear God's voice. Think about it, what person in the whole Bible ever had to learn how or train themselves how to hear God's voice??? It makes no sense. The creator of the Universe is harder to hear than your own flesh and blood family or friends, even the person you spoke to at the supermarket? Tell that to Abraham, and I bet He would laugh in your face. lol Abraham was not a perfect person. In fact none of the heroes of the faith were perfect people with perfect faith. And yet many Christian Churches will say if you can't hear God's voice then you must be doing something wrong. Again try telling that to the people in the Bible who could really did hear God!
You hear people all the time, say, God speaks in a still small voice. I looked it up online, and found out that there is only one small passage in the entire Bible that seems to use that as an example of how God speaks.
1 Kings 19:12-13 KJV
and after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
Learning this has challenged me on how God chooses to speak to me!
@tryingtosurvive2024 I hear your frustrations. Telling someone how to pray is a little presumptive. I think we all know how to pray. Putting pressure on people to pray in a certain way or making it seem invalid seems like it is not right. When I found groups like that, I stayed clear of them.
The direct quote of still small voice is singular but there are other quotes similar to it. See here https://www.jollynotes.com/bible-verses/10-bible-verses-about-the-still-small-voice/
To me prayer is about focusing on a question or spiritual passage and then contemplating and listeening to learn more. I learn more by listening then by reciting and speaking.
@soulsings I will need to print and take a closer look at your link. I'm confused, why did you bring up prayer?
@soulsings Ok, I'm not sure that I trust that link you gave me. The person who AI who wrote it, is combining different Bible translations together. They are clearly picking the versions of each verse that matches best the point they want to make.
Take Proverbs 3:6 for an example. Compare this to this
Proverbs 3:6, MSG Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track.
Proverbs 3:6 NIV
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.[a]
This means you got to go back to the Hebrew text to determine who translated it right. Something I can not do. I use the NIV exclusively because it is too hard for me to jump around from one version to the next.