Am I too inquisitive about many of the stories in the Christian Bible? Do theologians consider this sort of questioning the bible to be blaspheme? Well, you may be wondering what the hell am I talking about.
I am not one to swallow, hook-line&sinker, anything that I am told or things that I read about without some serious contemplation of the matter. I sometimes challenge my friends and relatives on various issues, attempting to use the Socratic method, a fabulous method of dialogue that I only wish I could master. I wish I could step back in time and have that great opportunity of entering into friendly dialogue with Socrates, an opportunity that I think many philosophers would love to have.
The religion that has had the greatest influence on me throughout my entire life is Christianity, which has greatly dominated this entire nation since its origin. Many stories in the bible do not even sound Godly, but to the contrary they sound completely Godless, even brutish and barbaric.
The bible says that God chose a virgin named Mary to give birth to his only begotten son. She was to marry Joseph, but God decided that the plans of Joseph and Mary was not as immediately important as His plan. I suppose God could not think of a more amazing plan of action to bring into existence his one and only begotten son.
I believe that, if God could carve the ten commandments out of stone, surely He could have carved a statue of Jesus, already a full grown man, out of some precious stone right before the very eyes of all of the holly leaders, and then breath life into this stone statue of Jesus? Would this be any less miraculous or believable than a virgin birth, or the creation of Adam from the dust of the earth,or creating Eve out the rib of Adam?
The story of the Immaculate Conception does not seem to be very immaculate to me in light of the fact that Mary was chosen to, and not asked to be the mother of the child Jesus to raise and love and then watch Him be brutally beaten and crucified by driving spikes through His hands and feet onto a wooden cross to hang suffering and mocked till he died.
In this story, Jesus was not just the only begotten son of God but He was also the child of Mary. I would think that Mary felt every bit as crucified as her precious son. I think that any mother would emotionally feel all of His pain and humiliation, and I believe that all of this would burdened her for the rest of her life. Also Mary, I suppose, was not worthy enough for the authors of the bible to tell the story of the rest of her life or how her life ended. The only way we remember her is as the virgin mother of Jesus. We know nothing more about her, and to me the story should have given Marys life more importance.
The virgin birth seems barbaric to me. At the very least, Mary was powerless, and Joseph had no say in the matter. This was Gods plan.
Did Mary and Joseph fathom raising Jesus up and loving him and then seeing him crucified before their very eyes? What kind of love is this, to put a mother through such an ordeal? Was Joseph not traumatized also, had Joseph not also grown to love Jesus?
Did this 'so called' immaculate conception make God and Mary husband and wife? Jesus said that if a man knew a woman (sexually) they became one, and Jesus said that 'whosoever God puts together, save fornication, let no man put asunder'.
So, when Joseph and Mary did get married were they living in adultery? Mary had child with God then she had children with Joseph.
Everything in the bible is taught through the context of FEARING this LOVING GOD, FEAR the LORD, FEAR the WRATH of GOD, OBEY GOD or you WILL BURN IN HELL. This is, in my opinion, completely the fabrications of men wanting to control the masses.
Why would a God want His children to be frightened into professing to love Him? Can people only learn to love as a result of great fear? Can people not learn to love as a result of being loved and cared for?
I believe that I believe in a great creator, a creator that I tend to call God, and thankfully I do not live in fear of this God.
I think that I love this creative power, not out of fear but out of looking at this fabulous planet that I am living on, this planet that has so very much to love and enjoy. This planet and everything in it must be a gift to all of us. Man has just not been able to learn how help one another to help this planet help us.
Religion has had a great impact, not only on me but the entire world. It has impacted me most of my life and still is but I am continually trying to dismantle the many high walls of ignorance that have made it difficult to enjoy the many pleasures that this life and planet offers to each one of us.
I shame the religions that continually play the fear of Hell and Damnation to enlist new members and keep the old members. If love is not enough to enlist and keep members then the church is not a holy place, in my opinion.
To me, there is nothing about fear nor the use of fear that is remotely close to being holy.
Finton
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