My goodness but not only the computation of the date of Easter but the controversy on whether or not it should be celebrated at all is a complex issue in the religious world. The instructions of Jesus was “keep doing this in remembrance of me”, which was the symbolism of the bread and the wine. In the bible this is the only direction for any sort of celebration of Jesus himself. Everything else has been added on by others as the whim came to them. When one considers the trappings of the old Catholic church it really boggles the mind what people decided was important to commemorate their religion. Why on earth would anyone think it was necessary to get up in the middle of the night, toll the bells and sing hymns to Jesus and God? Does anyone today really think God would want that?
I was raised to believe in God and in Jesus. When I was still a teenager my father said that Jesus was the best man that ever lived but he wouldn’t commit to saying that he was the son of God so I naturally began to have doubts. In my mid twenties I had a real epiphany of doubt when I would see the sign displaying the number of fatalities on Calgary streets had increased over the weekend even after I had prayed and prayed to save Calgarian lives. Simple belief, the power of prayer wasn’t working. Of course that wasn’t the only reason why I had doubts but it was like the final straw. Up until that time I had said my prayers every night since I was a young child. Again, I had begun my prayers on my own, my parents had never encouraged us to say bedtime prayers.
So when I say I was raised to believe in God it was a very loose sort of theology in our house. I recall having a conversation with my father in my mid thirties and expressed the opinion that we were actually harming our children by giving them a fear of God and the Bible because our leaders clearly didn’t believe and broke all the rules, while those raised up in true belief were held back from doing “wrong”, but the wrong was simply what the leaders decided was wrong. (I`m not going into depth on this philosophy for this time!) I had a lot of anger and disappointment in religion whether organized or not.
Along came my forties and I again examined my beliefs and I decided once and for all (?!) that I would believe in God because clearly I did believe in Him when it was convenient. Simplified version of where that idea came from is that I found myself talking to Him all the time whether I was in the mood for believing or not. I studied the Bible for several years with Jehovah’s Witnesses but I never felt that I had 100% Faith. I just could not get there.
Today I feel that God is not real as conceived or conveyed by any religion. I do believe that there is a Power of Good. I also believe that there is Intelligence in the Universe. Is that combined into some sort of entity that we can call God? I don’t know. But when we call on this Power, and we can call it God, then I believe that on occasion it does seem to come there to help you. I really believe this because I’ve experienced it on a number of occasions. Is it coincidence? Perhaps. But it does give me some comfort and some faith.
How would I define myself? I would say that I am an optimistic agnostic. I am a doubter, like Thomas. But Jesus didn’t condemn him for doubting, he merely admonished him. I can live with that.
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