Q and A

Q: Do you get pleasure from your relationship with God?

A: Simplicity is what I’m going for. It’s the illusion of the need for complexity that leaves room for misuse. I enjoy my relationship with God very much. Pleasure is a strange word to use because it seems temporal, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t get pleasure from my relationship with God. My relationship consists of personal experience, it is very intimate. God is my buddy and my guide but he gave me freewill so I have to make my own choices. He is never bitter or jealous or vengeful. If I do something I know to be wrong I will pay for it, not by eternal damnation but through experience, the echo of the Golden Rule/Karma. Through experience we learn our lessons. Given the different degree of advantages and disadvantages people are born with, I have too much respect for God to believe that he expects everyone to get it right in a single lifetime. All those people that never hear the Gospel, are they going to hell for eternity? This is inconceivable to me. Everyone is on a path towards enlightenment, and if in this lifetime you are lucky enough to have context and love enough to move forwards, that is a divine blessing beyond comprehension. If not, if you do not live by love, then you will live another life in which you have the opportunity to burn off bad karma, most likely a life much less enjoyable than this one. It is not a personal God who is spiting you; he is a loving father that hopes you get it right, but understands all the cards stacked up against you because he created your fallible ego and this world of temptation. If I count my blessings and return the love I have received I believe God approves of me. If I find a way to love others and the world even more than I have been loved, well then that’s saintly. Sometimes bad things happen when I don’t know what I have done wrong, and in those cases I do not beat myself up and consider myself a “sinner”, I merely understand that bad things happen. Without Bad there would be no appreciation for the Good. This is why the Old Testament is helpful to me. It lays out a binary system of good and bad polar opposites, but once you have the Christ experience good and bad is more like common sense. Out of suffering comes closeness to God. It is during those times my faith grows the most because God gives you exactly what you can handle, and I am honored by His faith in me to weather the storm. Personally the only way I can justify having all the advantages I've been given in this life such as family, structure, financial means, a good head on my shoulders, is that I must have done something good in a past life. I'm ripe to learn lessons.
As I have taken the time to study religions I find that the confusion of the nature of God and the ambiguities in the Bible leaves people feeling alienated and they throw out the baby with the bathwater. I see priests molesting children, I see people killing themselves and others for “God,” I see politics using religion for personal gain, I see good hearted people being taken advantage of in the name of God, I see corruption of the simple and ultimate message of Christ- practice Unconditional Love. Keep it simple, exactly. I went down the road studying the Bible historically and the one conclusion I am sure of is that, though a holy tome for sure, it is made by humans and humans are fallible, like myself, but not like God. The Council of Nicea? Which books were to be included in the cannon were decided by humans with questionable motives. I admit it would be simpler to follow blindly, but that goes against my intuition, my honest intuition given to me by God.
I have also seen religion work for people. It seems to work for you, and when I go with Grandma to Sunday School I see how it can work for simple people, simply. Not everyone needs to dig so deep in this lifetime I suppose, but I have been exposed to too many legitimate sets of truth and seen too much of the dark side of organized religion to simply accept it all without question. Jesus was a rebel, wasn’t he? People pick and choose which parts of the Bible they want to follow, but there seems to be a much simpler way. Teach the Golden Rule, or Karma, and make people responsible for themselves. There are no victims in the world. Everything is set up perfectly for each of us to wake up from our own karmic debts. I’m sure you’re thinking reincarnation is just silly. Well historically it would not be a good idea for the people who are trying to motivate people through fear of eternal damnation to introduce the idea of reincarnation. If you could die and be reborn in China having never heard of the Gospel, that takes away the punch of that argument to follow them. Also, I can’t remember when I was 2 years old, and yet I’m sure I was two at one point. How arrogant of me to assume if I had lived past lives I would be able to remember them.
I enjoy God because he is like a friend to me. He is always there, and he always understands more than I do, and he works through grace and providence and I am thankful for that. I have no problem relating to people of other faiths who embody the qualities of God I worship, such as compassion, unconditional love, forgiveness, joy, humility and self realization. God is not someplace else; he is everywhere, immanent and transcendent. He is all knowing and all understanding and I trust that he knows in my heart my intentions are pure. I trust he knows the Bible is fallible too.
I’m not sure we disagree each other on that much, asides from reincarnation perhaps, we are just using different language to reach the same end within our self. I'm sure its cliché to say, but spirituality is the pure form of religion, and spirituality is experienced by few it seems. There is a level of truth the masses operate on, and there is a level of truth God and individuals one on one work on. I don’t mean to pick anybody’s religion apart which is why I rarely have these sorts of conversations. If it works it works, that’s what’s most important. Faith, believing in something higher, is like a sixth sense, a gift of creation. It is less important what exactly you believe as long as you believe. As long as that faith is one of unconditional love it is valid.
What do you think about those David Hawkins quotes I posted at the end, and what does the Galatians quote mean? Once you get “it” can’t you transcend it? Do we build on the past or are we anchored down by it?
Now I hate to generalize Christianity because I don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. In principal, Christianity, Christ especially, is a very direct route to God. Over time the truest, inner core of religious and spiritual truths are dissipated to the masses. Very few actually know what Christ said I feel like, unless he whispered in their ear himself. We are fallible in our reading of the Bible, it’s hard to relate too, but traits such as humility and compassion and love can supersede our misunderstandings. Many pretend to be Christians on the outside because it is useful and profitable, and they start the “GOD Channel” or they endorse their favorite candidate for kickbacks. People, smart, sensible, good people have a right to be weary.
I enjoy these conversations with you because you have an intellectual grip on the Bible as a whole like nobody else that’s been willing to talk to me. I respect that greatly. You have taken the time to make it make sense, and it does for you because you have a good heart. In many ways the Bible is a reflection of the person reading it. This is both a blessing and a danger, but true power has to ride that edge. When we talk it isn’t really about myself, I am strong in my faith. I hope that sounds humble, I mean to be humble. I’m not trying to convert you or “win” any of these discussions, that’s missing the point entirely. It is the masses I seem to be subconsciously concerned with. The understandably alienated souls who can’t get through all the baggage organized religion comes with due to it’s history and the overwhelming availability of different opinions open to people these days through things like the news and the internet. How can you make it simple for people to see God in their every waking moment and find purpose to their life, without trying to scare them with concepts such as sin? We need to make people ultimately responsible for themselves.

25At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

This seems very Zen to me. Is this a reference to literal children or to a state of mind that is pure? This is what I feel when I close my eyes and breathe deep while standing in the middle of the field, watching the leaves blow in the wind, musing on the awesomeness and beauty of nature. This is pleasurable to me too, and so in that sense my relationship with God is very pleasurable. Absolute Truth is not going to be either/or, it is going to be a new way to see both/and as part of the same whole. If God is omnipotent and omniscient then everything is God, not just the good stuff.