There’s
something I've noticed about people who make major life changes regarding their
religion. They do one of three things: Completely wipe clean the slate,
disregarding everything they've ever been taught and start from ground zero;
Others move to a similar belief with similar blinders they place over reality
that make as little sense as the one they came from; The last group is the one
who evaluates one thing at a time, and takes away as necessary. There may
technically be even more “groups” but for the sake of this discussion these are
the ones I want to focus on.
The
first group, the one that goes to ground zero, often leaves just for the sole
reason of being able to experience life. Understandable in many situations as
there is undoubtedly a lot of life to experience. What often happens though is
that they show no restraint, they make huge changes one right after the other
without thinking them through. This leads to bad life choices. I will not tell
you that you cannot go to ground zero and build yourself without bad decisions,
because with the right maturity you could. Those with the right maturity
probably didn’t make the before mentioned belief change just for the sake of experience
however. It’s important to always make your belief changes on the basis of what
you actually believe yourself, and in my opinion it’s a bad idea to do away
with everything you have been taught at once.
The
second group is one who really only changed the name of their belief. They
weren't happy with their previous belief system so they took one set of
blinders off, and put another one on. Often just as judgmental as the belief
they left in the first place. These people often think they are “free thinkers”
when in reality they have only exchanged one set of biases with another. These
to me are the height of hypocrisy. Sure, many of their biases they change are
for the best. Often times they treat women better, and other demographics. But
then they still rationalize the claim of sending others who don’t fit their
belief system to burn in an eternal fire. They exchange one hells punishment of
good people for another.
The third
group evaluates their beliefs one by one. They don’t cast away everything at
once, but rather after they have decided they do not believe what they were
taught they decide to think about the positives about what they believed. They keep
one works with their new paradigm and discards those that no longer apply. There
are many moral things we are taught growing up that really don’t have anything
to do with the religion, they are just good common sense. As you make your life
changes I challenge you to make them slow. I would like to see more people who
discard their belief system not lose control of their lives and do stupid
things right off the bat just because they can. One of the first things you
have to learn is to show restraint. Not because an all-powerful god will punish
you if you don’t, but because there are consequences to your actions.
I am
someone who left their belief system because it did not align with my
convictions. One of the primary things is I cannot believe in something that
allows for anyone to burn for 10 minutes as punishment, let along thousands of
years eternity. And yet I see people leave their religion because they decided
it wasn't right for it to be so judgmental, and they adopt one that still
allows for good people to go to hell. They spend a lot of energy trying to
convince others that they will go to hell for being gay, or not accepting Christ
as their lord. But seriously? Our human morality would not allow that type of
punishment, so why would a divine god’s morality allow for that type of
punishment? I don’t want to get too far off topic here, but I do think that you
should consider every part of what you believe. Don’t discard it until you have
evaluated it according to your own human convictions. You are not required to
believe something just because it’s in a book. You can still believe in a god
without believing that he is a ruthless dictator full of love. Books are
written by men, nothing is without human ideology in it. Consider for a moment
that maybe your god didn't write the bible, maybe man did. You can believe in a
god that does not require you to be judgmental toward others and think that if
they don’t receive a revelation they will go to hell. Discard those pieces that
you can’t really believe in your heart. For me, I will fully admit that I can
no more believe in a god who will let children die of malaria in Africa than
one that would send people to hell, but I want you to evaluate things with your
own convictions. If you wouldn't do it, a divine god wouldn't either. If you
wouldn’t let children die in the millions from disease, chances are a divine
god wouldn't either.
I get
asked a lot, what if you are wrong? What if God is real and you will go to hell
for your unbelief? Men have believed in gods for all of human history. Even much
of Judaism is stolen from a mixture of older religions. Which god then would I
choose to serve? There are thousands of gods that people believe in the world,
and I just happen to believe in one less than you. So I ask you, what if you’re
wrong and Allah is the one true god? What if he punishes you for eternity for
believing his prophet Jesus was God in flesh? Are you willing to take that chance?
Of course you are. For the same reason I’m willing to not believe.
I will
take a moment to say that I don’t think Christians or anybody else is evil. I
think that it works for a lot of people. I’m only telling you that you don't
have to believe the parts that don’t align with your morality. I don’t mean
morality as in “I feel like I should be able to do anything I want”, I mean you
can still support human rights that others in your belief system don’t agree
with. You don’t have to believe in hell as an actual place. You can be
accepting of those who don't agree with you. I can 100% respect that type of
Christian. One who doesn’t let a book tell him who’s a bad person, but one who
can judge for himself.
