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largemaxa · 4 years

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The Spiritual Path to God

For those of us who believe that God is the pinnacle of being and the ultimate reality, surely an encounter with him would be regarded as supremely Good—perhaps as the one supreme Good towards which our entire lives trend. Perhaps the experience—the reality—of constantly dwelling in his nature would be the final aim of human life, if that could be done. But how are we to reach him or dwell in him? And are we even sure that "reaching" him is the best conception of what we need to do? There have been many proposals for man's attitude to God over the millenia, and they are not all in agreement that "reaching God" is the proper aim of human life. Even if we set aside those who claim that God does not even exist, there is also another persistent set of claims from the major world religions that argue that we are not supposed to pursue God directly at all, and our aim should rather be to live in accordance with guidelines—and within appropriate bounds—that he has set out for humans to follow.

In this essay we explore the option of growing closer to God by pursuing a "spiritual path" that is independent of outer institutions and structures. This proposal has a few components. We must accept that the entity called God exists. We also accept that our aim is to grow closer to Him—as opposed to us ignoring him and him ignoring us. And then there's the the method of doing this—via the spiritual path. This implies that there are other methods. What is the nature of this "spiritual" approach and what distinguishes it from the other approaches?

What's in a word?

By the 21st century, the word "spiritual" has become overlaid with so many different meanings that it is hard to tell what exactly it refers to. Does it refer to the search for meaning in human life in general? Is it a neutral-sounding code word for specific Eastern religious doctrines that are incompatible with Western religious doctrines and attempting to supplant them? Is it a meaningless term that can have no meaning because the realities it purports to describe don't exist? This vagueness can be offputting to those who value pragmatism and rigor. Though the word shows no sign of declining in usage now, those who value the word and what it means should at least attempt to take care of its usage. After all, we have seen a backlash against the word "religious", with a trend towards people using the qualification that they are "spiritual" but not "religious" because of the negative connotations from the rigidities and archaic qualities of religions, so it's not entirely out of the question that if negative associations to the word "spiritual" develop, the word may develop a similar disrepute among serious people.

I cannot claim to give a single watertight definition of "spiritual" or "spirituality" that will match the usage of all people—that would cover, say, all of the senses listed in the previous paragraph. After all, the nature of language is that words change their meanings over time in accordance with human usage. Instead I will make one attempt at tracing out a vision that I believe this concept corresponds to, and will also claim that this use has a certain justification and correctness, even if it cannot claim to be the absolute correct usage of the term for all time.

But even to make an initial definition as to precisely what I mean for this specific context is difficult: spirituality can have many different definitions because we can emphasize different things about it, just as when looking at a diamond from different angles we may see many different gleams, facets, and shapes even though we're looking at the same object. We could define spirituality in terms of the individual or in terms of God; in terms of actions, or in terms of a worldview; philosophically or from a historical perspective, contrasting it to other concrete choices one may be facing. We'll start with the idea of "spirit", which is the Divine essence which lies behind everything in the material world—in the case of man, that Divine essence which lies beyond the external manifestations of the body, mind, and emotions. Our initial definition of spirituality is that it is a way of living with the aim of contacting that Divine spiritual essence and bringing out its expressions in life. And the spiritual life, or the spiritual path, is the life path we walk when we live this way.

This definition may seem quite harmless—who could disagree with the aim of living life with an aim to express the inner spirit? But to better understand what exactly the spiritual approach is, it's most helpful to contrast it to two other possibilities of life, the religious life and the material life. By doing this, we'll gain more specificity in our definition of the spiritual life by adding both positive and negative parts to our defininition of spirituality. The idea of spirituality might be simple, but following it out to its full potential requires individual independence and an eventual departure from other recognized forms of life.

To a religious worldview, "spirituality" is vague and wishy-washy concept, denoting an overly permissive practice that would seek to avoid the rigors and sound structures of religious tradition. A second criticism might come from a pragmatic and/or secular perspective: to this way of thinking, "spirituality" would denote the pursuit of chimeras and invisible enigmas, a way of living that shies away from the demands and practicalities of real life. In other words, the religious would hold that the approach to God that the spiritual perspective advocates is not possible outside of its institutional structures, while the secular pragmatist would claim that the approach to God is not even possible at all because it contradicts what we know of normal life.

But if there really is a substantive method of approaching God in a more purely spiritual way—that is, if the spiritual path as an approach to God really exists—then it must turn out that these these criticisms have no real force.

The material life

By "the material life" we refer to all possibilities of human life that are not tuned to God or the spirit in any significant way. This would include, for example, the lives of those who are atheist, agnostic, or otherwise secular and don't profess any active belief in God, but it would also includes the broad swath of people who are formally religious but don't practice in any significant way. It could even include those who are concerned with the deeper meaning of human life, who seek a life of meaning and purpose and could be said to be engaged with with the "human spirit" in a broad sense, with more emphasis on "human" than "spirit"—for example, artists and philosophers who explore mental and emotional idealism but are not oriented towards pursuit of God or the Absolute.

In the mundane life, there are other objects and goals that are seen as more worthy of pursuit than God: career attainments, sensory pleasures, money, family life, glory of country, support of the community. Even pursuing high ideals like philanthropy and service to humanity, while not incompatible with the spiritual life, are not necessarily spiritual in themselves if they are done with a purely secular attitude. While it is true that all of these things are forms and expressions of God, the crucial difference between the material and the spiritual life is that in the material life these are viewed as ends in themselves and not as so many expressions of God through which to approach him. The spiritual life is actually made out of some of the same ingredients as the normal life: someone following the spiritual path still uses money, still engages with friends and family, still conducts work according various to ideas and human organizational structures, but the difference is just that the spiritual seeker only pursues those activities which bring one closer to God, and sees them as expressions of the spirit rather than ends in themselves.

In practice, one who pursues this mundane life will have some fixed point beyond which they refuse to see, a point past which they stop caring about seeking for the truth of God. It may be romantic love or one's family, it may be one's country, it may be artistic expression, or it may be the idealistic service of all humanity, but as long as there is any barrier at which one feels content, uninterested, or indifferent about continuing to seek for God, it is not yet the spiritual life. Once again, this does not mean that the spiritual seeker does not engage with these forms in the outer life: someone with the proper spiritual attitude could be living with their family, doing work that is of national service, and deeply involved with the community, and as long as she sees these as being tools and forms of the spirit, meeting the outer demand with the proper spiritual attitude.

One way to view this is in terms of consciousness and unconsciousness. We could say that people who pursue the material life are still themselves expressions of the spirit in things, but they have not grown not conscious of that fact yet, while those who pursue the spiritual life have reached the point where they are conscious of the spiritual nature of life and want to express and explore it fully. This should not be viewed as any sort of deficiency on the part of those who choose to live the material life—most spiritual philosophies would hold that they are living in the way that is correct for their level of spiritual maturity, and they may be drawn to the spiritual life later at the appropriate stage of spiritual growth (perhaps even in another human lifetime).

Another way to view the difference between the material life and the spiritual life is in terms of the gratification of the ego versus the search for God. The ego is a psychological construct evolved by evolution that causes each individual to view him or herself as the central and most important being in the universe. But the ego is capable of extending itself and incorporating larger forms as well, so that the individual transfers his or her egoic identification to other things: someone could be selfless in one's contribution to one's family or country but still be attached to the family or country as an extension of one's ego, in which case they are engaged with the mundane life as opposed to the spiritual pursuit of God. So long as there is any finite form or object in the universe that the individual identifies their ego with more than the enthusiasm to dissolve the ego into service and devotion to God, they are still living the material life.

The religious life

The religious life is another conception of life that we can contrast better understand the spiritual life. In some ways, the religious life is more similar to the spiritual life than the material life is—the important similarity being that the religious life, like the spiritual life, is directed towards God. One question important we must ask, then, is whether these are really two different things. The primary distinction is that in the religious life, one relates to God specifically through through the rituals, forms, and social institutions of an organized religious tradition. The major world religions—Christianity (in its Catholic and Protestant variants), Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism—each provide their own social and ritualistic structures for doing this. The details vary greatly, and are subject to extensive scholarly and lay commentary study, but some common features include regular worship services that draw the entire community together, an official institutional hierarchy distinguishing between clergy and laypeople, and a system of social norms for living that is suggested by the institution and enforced by the social community.

For our definition of spirituality,—the attempt to contact and bring out the inner spirit—we didn't specify that the relation to God must take place within an organized religious institution; but we also didn't specify that it must *not* take place within a tradition. So if these are two ways of relating to God, what is the difference between them? In fact, there is no absolute line between the two, and they are not strictly contradictory to each other. We could say in principle that the religious life is one form of the spiritual life. But it is possible to participate in the structures of an institution while paying little or no attention to the truly spiritual aspects—that is, the possibility of being religious without being spiritual, just as there is the possibility of being spiritual without being religious. One could say that it is possible to pursue a spiritual path either inside and outside a religious tradition, but the religious life isn't necessarily spiritual.

There is no absolute conflict between the spiritual and the religious conceptions of life. But the purpose of this section is ostensibly to attempt to understand the spiritual life by contrast to the religious life. Where, then, is the problem, contrast, or condtradiction? One seed of discord between the two approaches lies in the difference in their goals and purposes. Religions tend to be about organizing the religious life of a community, whereas the spiritual approach is about the relationship between the individual and God, without necessarily excluding the idea of community support. One possible result can that religions can devolve to the point where not much spirituality is involved at all, and adherents meet all of their outward obligations to maintain good social standing in a religious community, making a purely outward show of faith without having a real inner relation to God at all. Or it can lead to outward concerns and priorities overwhelming spiritual priorities; a common pattern is for the institution to become dependent on secular sources for funding and compromise its spiritual integrity. In Christianity, for example, we see the story of Jesus' anger at the moneychangers at the temple, or the later example of the Catholic Church's use of indulgences in the middle ages. Usually a religious reform movement arises within the religion itself whenever the inner spirit of a religion fails to meet the spiritual needs of its adherents; at that point it must either change its forms, ossify into a spiritless shell, or fail completely.

While the previous examples show some things that can go wrong with religious approach, they don't prove that the religious approach will always fail or that the spiritual approach will do any better. After all, if religions sometimes ossified to become too involved with money, they were also often restored to a more spiritual nature by powerful saints and prophets, to the spiritual benefits of many adherents. And of course, so many billions of people have in the past and present found refuge for their souls within these institutions. From a spiritual perspective, there is no reason why a particular set of rituals, spiritual doctrines, and religious community should be inherently in conflict with the spiritual impulse to seek God, especially since the professed goals of the religious approach is to seek God as well. Therefore, in principle, one could still satisfy the spiritual need while working within a religious institutional structures. But, of course, if there was no conflict between the spiritual impulse and religious structures, there would be no reason for any individual to seek out an independent spiritual path we are discussing here.

In practice, we find that the independent spiritual path meets a need that is not satisfied by religious institutions, as there are specific issues that individuals with a spiritual inclination may find when participating in currently existing religious institutions:

-Truth: Organized religious traditions may profess beliefs—and require them to be professed by adherents—that conflict with what intelligent and conscientious individuals know to be true about the world from perspectives and ways of knowing outside religion. One of the most prominent examples over the past several centuries has been science, with the most famous and influential individual conflict being Galileo's disagreement with the Catholic Church. But religious traditions continue to make claims that conflict with what cutting edge science says about the universe.

This is not to say that science is the highest standard for truth that we have as spiritual seekers. But there are more and less convincing ways for a religious tradition to reconcile its doctrines with those of science, and there are different preferences that one may have for evaluating the reconciliation. If the religious doctrine cannot square itself with the rest of what an individual knows about the world, it can't be an eventual fit. Science isn't the only way that religious doctrine can conflict with one's sense of truth; another possible issue could simply be belief in the religious claims that the religion is making, whether they are about ancient prophesies, supernatural miracles, or interpretations of historical events. Rationality is not the ultimate standard or arbiter in matters of the spirit, but at the same time, if the claims of a religion cause a strong and irreconcilable conflict in the rational mind, it is not likely that it can be a permanent spiritual solution for the soul.

-Ethics: Similarly, if a religion conflicts with what the ethical sense of an individual knows to be right, they may not find alignment with that religion. For example, if a tradition supports overt or tacit discrimination or different treatment against any group or class of people, or institutionally encourages regressive political policies that one does not agree with, that is something that will impair the ability to feel connected to it. The conflict may be about purely religious matters, as well, rather than political ones—for example, some religions profess the doctrine that only adherents of that tradition will receive the ultimate spiritual salvation. For any of these social, political, or religious matters, there will almost certainly be justifications that are given in terms of the religion's doctrines, but the individual has to evaluate whether they make sense in terms of the individual's own moral compass.

-Aesthetics/Heart: In some cases, the symbols, rituals, and forms used by a religious tradition may simply cease to fascinate and individual and thus may lose their ability to continue drawing them closer to God. Just as one may have a long and fulfilling marriage, fall out of love, and go on to find love again with a second marriage partner, so is it possible to cease being enraptured by the symbolic system laid out by a religious tradition while still loving God and go on to find another set of symbols that is more resonant. Within the framework and exclusionary claims of a given religion, of course, adherents don't have the freedom to make choices based on whether they are aesthetically fulfilled by the symbols, as from within the perspective of that tradition, there is simply no other choice available. But if you believe in the potential for individual spiritual freedom and you do not feel inspiration continuing, there is the option to make another choice.

-Restriction: An individual may chafe at the specific restrictions that are advised or required by a religious tradition. Religious adherents may be required to perform rituals according to institutionally prescribed schedules or undertake dietary restrictions that are not desired. There is also generally pressure to participate in social structures that may not be appealing, such as marriage by a certain age and/or restricted to a certain group, childrearing expectations, rigid gender roles, or restrictions on social circles. From within the perspective of the religion, this could be seen as a matter of discipline, of living a well-regulated life in the way that God prescribes. It's true that some form of discipline is necessary for any endeavor in life, including spirituality, but it needs to be appropriate for the person: the regimented schedule of an army recruit is suitable for those pursuing that profession, but would be inappropriate for someone seeking to be a novelist. The question is whether the discipline that is laid out by a particular religion is suitable to an individual's mind and nature.

-Spiritual options unavailable within religions: It could be that an individual sees the possibilities for spiritual fulfillment that are not readily accessible within a given religious tradition. All religious traditions have certain practices that are possible, while others are less advised and may even be viewed as heretical. One may find that spiritual development requires techniques that are not supported within the confines of their existing religious tradition. Someone who is embedded within Catholicism may not find that their community is supportive of several hours a day of contemplative meditation; someone who is involved with the American Buddhist tradition may realize that they don't want to do hours of meditation and want more tactile ritualistic methods but not find that their clergy is able to provide them. In both of those cases, the desire to pursue spiritual practices that are not supported by the organized religious tradition may lead to ways to practice outside tradition. Unfortunately, as with human relationships, it is difficult to go outside the institutional relationship to have spiritual needs met and still remain on good terms with the institution.

-Trust: One of the most crucial needs for an individual's spiritual framework is a basic trust in organization or religious tradition to be the caretaker of their spiritual development. In fact, all of the above factors could be viewed as relating to an aspect of this kind of trust. Any organized religion claims to be representing God on earth and doing his work. The question for the individual is whether they trust the institution in this capacity. Much can be forgiven intellectually, aesthetically, as to matters of discipline, even ethically if there is a trust that the institution really is representing God . This is similar to a child's relationship with their parents—it could really be that the institution knows better what it is that God asks, and if you trust them with your heart and soul then that is for the best.

This is why there is no sense in finding out if religions are absolutely true or absolutely false according to some given external scientific or philosophical standard: they are representing God for those who find that representation useful, regardless of whether others do. Do you trust the priest and hierarchy at a personal level as representatives of God—do you trust that God is speaking through them to you? Or is there another way that you find God speaking to you—another person, text, image, or experience? Do you trust the laypeople in the organized religious community is the community through which you want to serve and relate to God? By "trust" here I don't necessarily mean trust at the purely ethical level, as in whether the organization can be trusted to conduct themselves with ethical financial management and being free from lurid scandals. The trust here is deeper and more profound—whether the organization can be trusted to be your soul's intermediary to God. Does the organization feel like a way that God is speaking to you, or a way that God is speaking to anyone, or just another work of man?

Authority

The reasons listed above could be generalized to evaluate one's participation in any organization or activity, not just religion, as they are essentially about seeing whether the soul is aligned with a given possibility or not. But it can be harder to make dispassionate judgements and choices when dealing with the question of whether to participate in a religious organization in particular. One major reason for this is that for many people, religion serves as the foundational source of a worldview—the collection of fundamental beliefs about how the world works, what is right and wrong, how one should act, and so on. Further, religions claim that they have the legitimate authority to be the source of their worldviews; one of the ways to understand what a religion even is is as a worldview and an accompanying social structure. In contrast, the considerations above were discussed from a perspective that assumed the individual would have their own worldview separate from that of the religion that they could use to evaluate the suitability of the religion for their individual spiritual path.

This is not only an individual choice but also the result of a civilization-wide change in the perceived source of authority. In earlier eras, religion itself was the highest source of authority, and it was not possible for individuals to bring their own judgement to the issue of whether a religious doctrine and tradition should be followed. The authority was enforced by more rigid hierarchical social structures, and attempting to circumvent it could lead to the risk of social censure or even violent persecution. At the current juncture in history, though, we hold that each individual has the capability and the right to choose their views for themselves. This change happened over many centuries and has many causes, but one major identifiable turning point was the Enlightenment, a Western philosophical movement from the 18th century. The philosophers of the Enlightenment such as Rousseau and Voltaire stressed the importance of individual reason and liberty against the oppressive authority of the Church and monarchical government. They were largely successful, and these ideals are still held as having paramount importance in the world today.

However, the independent spiritual path existed before the Enlightenment and is not dependent on it; when people were strongly motivated to pursue it, they carved out their own structures like the institution of sanyassi (renunciation) in India, or the underground transmission of hermetic philosophy in Europe, even at the risk of persecution. Therefore the ability to choose one's worldview is not something that is granted by the invention of particular philosophical ideas but is a fundamental human capability. That doesn't mean that it is necessarily easy to change one's worldview— it generally is not. An individual who questions their worldview may go through an intermediate period of teetering between seeing a religion as the fundamental source of a worldview versus seeing a worldview outside of a religion and religion as a choice to participate in. Social bonds, pressures, and emotional attachments an complicate the question further. In the spiritual view, it is ultimately the individual soul that decide what sorts of structures it can best flourish within. And if the soul grows so that a given religious worldview is incompatible with it, they will transfer to a more independent spiritual path.

Religious life is a form of life where the individual relates to God through the rituals, social structure, institutional structure, and ideological worldview of a particular organized religion. The spiritual life is the individual's search to grow closer to God, the Divine, or the ultimate spritual reality in general. As we have noted, there is no conflict in principle. We could say that for many individuals, their spiritual life and the religious life coincide; or perhaps we could say that they are able to pursue the spiritual life through their involvement with the religious organization. But there is also an independent spiritual path that can be pursued outside of religious organizations. This becomes necessary when the individual's mind and temperament become incompatible with the structures of religion due to a combination of outside influence, personal evolution, and evolution of the world, and perhaps changes within organized religions themselves, but they still want to continue searching for God. The soul ultimately demands freedom in its search for God, which is why the notion of the independent spiritual path exists at all. But it is not only religious structures that the spiritual path might lead us past: in fact, the spiritual path demands potential freedom from all contrary influences as the soul submits to God.

Freedom as as essential characteristic of the spiritual path

There is one area where the independent spiritual life departs from both the mundane and religious conceptions of life, and this is the area of freedom: the spiritual life requires that we allow absolute freedom to the growing inner spirit. As the lives of saints and martyrs show us, the pursuit of God may lead us to contradict every secular authority, societal convention, and even religious authority itself. The religious life requires adherents to stay within the ideological and lifestyle boundaries set out by the religion; spirituality means that one may feel called to take up practices or live a life that does not fit within those boundaries.

The material life, on the other hand doesn't seem to offer any lack of freedom, especially in those countries where political freedom is valued. However, the sort of freedom offered by the mundane life is deceptive. The foundation is what is called "negative liberty" in political philosophy: the individual has the power to undertake consensual actions that do not break the laws of the state. But the freedom that the spirit demands is a higher standard: one must be free from societal expectations as well as from the demands of one's own lower nature. While the "negative liberty" of political freedom assures that there will not be limits on action from the state, the individual may still encounter subtantial sub-legal resistance from members of society. In practice, one who follows the spiritual life, choosing to follow God and the dictates of inner spirit, will find themselves in conflict with family members, employers, friends, relationship partners, and others who expect them to continue acting within accepted, conventional structures that do not accord with the callings of the inner spirit.

The spiritual life may require you to take actions that set you at odds with the social body in general, whether we conceive of this social body as the body of the religious community or the secular community at large. One may feel compelled to make changes to one's diet, personality and comportment in casual conversation, choice of career or hobbies, or social circles in ways that lead to criticism, interpersonal tension, or even ostracism from the religious organization or secular community. One example could be a set of parents who expect their child to go into the family profession of being a lawyer, inheriting their parents' business and political connections, while the child wants to pursue a career in the healing arts. It would require an act of strength in the child's spirit to follow that calling in the face of disapproval and possible withdrawal of material support from the parents.

But a the second issue is that spiritual freedom requires going beyond the desires of the lower nature as well. Spiritual freedom does not mean that we should be drawn to libertinism, rebellion or iconoclasm for its own sake: one who follows the whims of the lower nature to indulge in excess is no more essentially spiritual than the one who follows all the conventions of the normal world, never questioning their rightness. An important part of the spiritual life is accepting the restrictions of the world created by God and without chafing at them arbitrarily. The freedom demanded by the spirit is not the freedom to pursue the arbitrary whims and desires of the lower nature.

For example, one degenerate interpretation of secular freedom is the freedom to generate wealth and keep posession of arbitrary amounts of wealth. There is no contradiction with the idea of wealth in a spiritual worldview; wealth is a power of the Divine, especially if it is generated and used responsibly in accordance with an individual's nature and their highest vision for themselves and others. But if one's motivations for generating wealth are greed, envy, and the desire to impress others, it's better to give up those desires rather than continue to believe in this notion of "freedom"; the spirit may be able to find what it needs to survive within even seemingly slight conditions, such as a the pleasures of a modest but well-organized and decorated apartment where one has space to do one's private devotions.

There is a certain paradox to the nature of freedom: the spirit has the right to decline any circumstance if it finds it too restrictive; and yet the spirit must be able to find the freedom within any circumstance even if outer circumstances don't change. Spiritual freedom is not, say, the ability to wave one's wand after a natural disaster and declare that everything should go back to normal by fiat but rather to stay connected to the soul and see what the possibilities of the soul are even within difficult situations.

Direct Experience

But perhaps the most significant difference between the spiritual worldview and a nonspiritual worldview, whether materialist or religious, is the idea of direct spiritual experience: in the spiritual worldview, the experience of a higher spiritual reality is possible and open to all. That is, unlike the mundane life, the spiritual worldview sees that the experience of a higher spirituality is possible and desirable; and unlike the religious life, these higher and ultimate spiritual experiences are not just accessible to the chosen few prophets, priests, or renunciates—they are not restricted to those with a special chosen birth, institutional social position, or those who have waited through multiple rebirths before seeking the experience. This is not to downplay the large amount of effort and commitment nor the possibility of substantial individual differences that may occur in spiritual development. Still, in the spiritual worldview there is no insurmountable separation—neither a religious institution nor simply the impenetrable dullness of reality—standing between human life and the experience of the Divine. In fact, the very purpose of the spiritual life is to seek the fullest possible expression of this experience, rather than being counseled to pursue worldly aims as in the mundane life, or encouraged to follow a regulated life within the boundaries of human experience as in the religious life.

Therefore, the concept of "belief" has a much different role in the spiritual life as well. In the non-spiritual life, great emphasis is placed on what one "believes" about God and about the nature of the universe. These beliefs are mental ideas that individuals hold and debate but never directly experienc. In the spiritual life, since direct experience of the content of the beliefs is possible, belief is no longer a mere mental idea that one needs to hold on to tightly; rather, it changes into a matter of provisional guidance. Consider the relationship of a physics student to the laws of physics before and after their university study. Before the university, the student is not aware of the details of physical laws, but trusts that they work on account of the trustworthiness of the professors and the successful demonstrations of science. But they are able to learn the details of physics for themselves in university, and after the university, they know the details and therefore do not need to take them on "faith" any longer.

Similarly, in the spiritual life, we hold a "belief" about God or the nature of the universe fully expecting that one day we will come into contact with the reality that the belief professes; it is not about a mere idea that one is expected to entertain about faraway things. A spiritual person "believes" in God but expects to eventually experience God; this is different from a position in a theoretical discussion or debate about whether something imaginary does or does not exist. In the spiritual life we can accept guidance and teaching of those who have gone farther on the path, but ultimately we don't need to "take anything on faith" indefinitely, as everything can be experienced for oneself.

Spiritual practice

And because the aim of the spiritual path is to have direct experience of a higher spiritual reality, the idea of the spiritual path is inseparable from the fact that someone on the spiritual path must be actively working towards that potentiality. The actions that one takes to reach this goal are called one's "spiritual practice": just as a student of piano has a rigorous schedule of exercises and studies to work towards the goal of proficiency at piano, so does the spiritual seeker have practices that are used to work towards the spiritual goal. As we noted earlier, there are multiple ways to define spirituality depending on the aspect one focuses on—in our initial discussion we used the provisional definition that spirituality is about an individual's search for God or a higher spiritual reality. Taking another perspective, one can just as easily define spirituality as being about spiritual *practice*—perhaps we could even say that the spiritual path is essentially about the practice one does, as any spirituality that doesn't involve practice in some form can only be some sort of theoretical speculation. Spirituality is not a mere worldview but rather the act of spiritual practice along with the resulting spiritual knowledge that one holds that grows deeper with experience.

What, then, is this "spiritual practice"? Suppose God lived in another physical city on earth. Then spiritual practice would be a simple, straightforward matter of taking a physical journey to God. But we know that that is not the case; spiritual practice is not as simple as making a physical journey. It's more confusing because supposedly God is everywhere, surrounding us, making up the very matter that makes us up. Lucklily, there are many specific spiritual techniques that have been devised and passed down over the ages. In fact there are potentially *infinitely* many techniques for doing practice. More important than being wedded to any one specific practice, though, is to understand what spiritual pratice *is*; for if you understand what spiritual practice is, then any practice becomes possible, or any activity or all of life can be your practice.

One way of understanding spiritual practice is that it is the process of turning one's energies towards God. In a metaphysical spiritual conception, the human being has a certain amount of cosmic energy flowing through them, and a choice as to how to allocate this energy. No matter what our circumstances might be, there is always a choice of how to direct our energies, towards something lower or something higher, whether towards destruction, pessimism, and hatred or love, peacefulness, and constructive action. Even someone stuck in a locked cell with few apparent outward options is still animated by cosmic energy and can choose to work with the tools of intention, faith, contemplation and prayer as long as they are conscious.

Spiritual practice can be thought of as the act of directing these psychological energies towards God. In the normal, non-spiritual life, as we discussed, psychological energy are turned towards the normal activities of labor, leisure, reproduction, amusement, culture, and so on, but for the essential gratification of the ego rather than God. Spiritual disciplines take these energies and redirect them through concentration, prayer, spiritual service work, ritual, and so on. But even these tools can be seen as ways of training one's consciousness to have the correct spiritual attitude throughout all activities, no matter what we are doing—the attitude which results in all of one's life and energy being devoted to God.

And getting to this point, where one's psychological energies are fully devoted to God, is what ultimately removes the separation from God. So the spiritual path is not a physical journey but the journey of changing one's psychology so that it is capable of doing this. But this is not an trivial process: while man is a creation of God and made of the substance of God, in another practical sense, man is truly separated from God. We are separated from him by our mind and chaotic life-impulses, the dense and intricate structures that constitute our body and our consciousness. We undertake spiritual practice to remove this separation. The separation can be removed internally by going inside oneself to commune with one's God-nature. But separation doesn't need to only stop at inner states. We must be in contact with God in our outer lives as well, when we aren't absorbed in contemplation, prayer, or meditation; hence the importance of spiritual practices we can work with in our outer lives as well. The process of doing this progressively throughout our whole being while remaining outside of the limiting confines and influences of any fixed religious institution is the independent spiritual path.

#spirituality #philosophy

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edenrelente · 4 years

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Prayer in the Christian Life

"Pray without ceasing." 1 Thessalonians 5:17

What place should prayer have in a Christian's life? Should we pray little or much? There is a verse of Paul's which seems to answer all these questions. "Pray without ceasing." That means, pray always and everywhere. There is nothing we may not take to God in prayer—asking for His help. There is no hour of the day when we may not turn to God—and find Him ready to hear and bless us. The gates of prayer are never shut, by day or by night.

There is no place where we may not pray. God is as accessible to us on the street, in the desert, in the midst of a great storm at sea, or in the most debased spot of the earth—as He is in our own sacred closet of prayer, in a consecrated building, or at the Lord's table. "Pray without ceasing."

For one thing, prayer is part of the expression of the Christian's very life. One who does not pray—is not a Christian. He may be a moral man. A gentleman said the other day of a certain prominent business man, "He is the most moral and the least religious man I ever knew." He meant that the man is honest, honorable, just, generous, charitable, very careful and exact in all his relations to men—but that toward God he is utterly indifferent, never thinks of Him, never recognizes Him in any way, never prays. So far as he is concerned, there is no God. This man would not himself admit as much. He would say he believes in God. But practically, he is an agnostic or an atheist. He is utterly without true religion, which means knowing God, recognizing God as Father and Friend, living in personal relationship with God.

"Prayer is the Christian's vital breath—the Christian's native air!"

God is our Father and we are His children. We can easily think of the child of a good, noble, and loving father, who is entirely out of relations with that father. One was telling of a young man who has not spoken to his father for five years. He is estranged from him. The father is a most worthy man—the fault is not his. He has a heart of love—he loves his estranged son and longs to give him back his place of confidence and honor. But all these years the son has lived as if he had no father in the world.

God is our Father, with infinite love in His heart for us, ready and eager to help us and bless us in every way. We can cut ourselves off from Him if we will. Religion, faith, is putting ourselves in the children's place toward God. We do not then pray to make God willing to give good things to us—He is always willing to give. The Master said: "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?" Prayer then, is going to God, believing in His love for us, knowing that He wants to help us, and asking Him as children ask their parents for the things we need.

The true child always has the child's place in the home. He is not granted the privileges of a child only on certain days or at certain hours. To pray without ceasing—is to be always in happy relations of love with our Father.

If we always keep ourselves in the relation of children to God—loving, obedient, trustful, submissive to His will—we shall really pray without ceasing. Every act—will then be a prayer. Every word—will be a song of praise. All we do—will then be reverent worship.

Again, to pray without ceasing is to do everything with prayer. This does not mean that every piece of work we undertake, must be begun with a formal act of prayer—stopping, kneeling down, and offering a spoken petition. To pray without ceasing is—to have the heart always in converse with God. It is to live so near to God—that we can talk with Him wherever we go, ask Him questions—and get His answers, seek His help, His wisdom, His guidance—and obtain what we ask.

There is no habit that we should more sedulously form, than that of talking with God about everything we do. We are often told that we should begin every day with prayer. That is very needful and beautiful. The first face our eyes see in the morning—should be Christ's! His too should be the first voice we hear, and to Him our first words should be spoken! Ten minutes in the morning, yes, two minutes, spent really with Christ, will change all our day for us. A day without prayer—is a day of spiritual darkness and sadness.

We are exhorted elsewhere, too, to make all our requests known to God in prayer. We do not know what we miss—by leaving God out of so much of our life. We wonder often why we fail, why so little comes of our efforts, why we do not get along better with people, why we are not happy, why joy is so lacking in our experience, why we are so easily fretted and vexed and made discontented, why we fall so easily into surliness and bad temper. It is because we cease to pray!

"O what peace we often forfeit,

O what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer."

You say you haven't time to pray so much.

"Haven't time?" You have time for everything else—time for many things, perhaps, of questionable importance. Have you not time to look into God's face for a moment—before you begin a new piece of work, before you make a new investment, before you start on a business trip, before you go out to spend an evening, before you open a new book?

But really the habit of unceasing prayer—does not require time. It is but looking into God's face and saying, "Lord, help me in this." "Lord, bless me as I do this." The morning you forget to pray—is an unhappy morning for you.

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philippians 4:6

"Pray at all times and on every occasion." Ephesians 6:18

edenrelente

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pamphletstoinspire · 6 years

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CATHOLIC APOLOGETICS INFORMATION - Part 1

Introduction

"Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged . . . Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them." - Pope St. Pius X, Our Apostolic Mandate, August 25, 1910.

O Lord, who art called the Branch, the Orient, the Splendour of the eternal light, and the Sun of Justice, who art that Tree, of whom Thy beloved disciple speaks as the Tree of life, bearing twelve fruits, and its leaves for the healing of the nations, give Thy grace and blessing on all those various states and conditions in Thy Holy Church, which have sprung from Thee and live in Thy Life.

Give to all Bishops the gifts of knowledge, discernment, prudence, and love.

Give to all priests to be humble, tender, and pure;

Give to all pastors of Thy flock to be zealous, vigilant, and unworldly;

Give to all religious bodies to act up to their rule, to be simple and without guile, and to set their hearts upon invisible things and them only.

Grant to fathers of families to recollect that they will have hereafter to give account of the souls of their children; grant to all husbands to be tender and true; to all wives to be obedient and patient; grant to all children to be docile; to all young people to be chaste; to all the aged to be fervent in spirit; to all who are engaged in business, to be honest and unselfish;

And to all of us the necessary graces of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.

Bl. John Henry Newman

Twelve Meditations and Intercessions for Good Friday __________

CATHOLIC APOLOGETICS INFORMATION - Part 2

Be A Catholic Apologist Without Apology

By: Carl Olson

"I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry. I wish I could convey to you how deeply sorry I truly am."

The speaker was a poker-faced Karl Keating, founder and president of Catholic Answers, an apostolate dedicated to the defense of the Catholic Faith. Addressing a crowd of several hundred in central California, he stepped back and paused for a few moments, letting his introductory words settle in.

"There you have it," he said, moving to the microphone, "a demonstration of what so many people think a Catholic apologist does."

The well-received joke played on the fact that "apologetics" is not a common word in the vocabulary of many Catholics. When introduced to the term, more than a few people wonder if it means apologizing for something. As Keating noted, "Some people think that an apologist is someone who travels the country apologizing for being a Catholic."

The Meaning of Apologetics

"Apologetics" is derived from the Greek root word apologia. In ancient Greece it referred to a formal defense of a belief, an explanation or argument for one’s philosophy or religion. The word occurs several times in the New Testament, including sections of the Gospels, seeking to persuade unbelievers of the truth claims of the Church, especially the unique nature of the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Standing before a tribunal in Jerusalem, the imprisoned Paul states, "Brethren and fathers, hear my defense [apologia] which I now offer to you" (Acts 22:1). In his epistle to the Philippians the Apostle to the Gentiles states that one of his tasks was to make a "defense of the Gospel." Perhaps the best-known appearance of the word in the Bible is in Peter’s first epistle: "Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence" (1 Peter 3:15).

Catholic apologetics is the defense and explanation of the teachings, beliefs, and practices of the Catholic Church. Its goal is to remove objections, shed light on difficult or misunderstood matters, and ultimately help win minds and souls for Jesus Christ. Apologetics is the activity of helping people answer the question: "Why should I be Catholic?" It does so by engaging the mind to reach the heart.

Unfortunately, apologetics has a negative connotation for some Christians, including more than a few Catholics. For these people, Avery Cardinal Dulles notes in A History of Apologetics, "the apologist is regarded as an aggressive, opportunistic person who tries, by fair means or by foul, to argue people into joining the Church." As Cardinal Dulles notes, there have undoubtedly been some bad apologists for the Catholic Faith. Apologists can be unduly argumentative, contentious, mean-spirited, triumphalistic, and arrogant. They can offend unbelievers just as easily as they defend Christian beliefs.

The Dos and Don’ts of Apologetics

However, apologetics should not be dismissed because of misuse or misunderstandings. The value and place of apologetics is best judged by looking to the finest defenders of Catholicism: Paul and Peter, Justin Martyr, Eusebius, Augustine, Aquinas, de Sales, Pascal, Newman, Chesterton, and even Pope John Paul II. These men dealt with pagans, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, agnostics, and atheists, adapting their methods and styles according to their audience while never deviating from the truth.

Most importantly, they are saints first, apologists second. They are men of holiness and prayer. A consistent and vital life of prayer is imperative for the apologist, especially since he is often under attack, verbally, spiritually, and, on occasion, physically. Prayer leads to a deeper knowledge of God and truth. "The closer the apologists grows to God in prayer," writes apologist (and president of Ignatius Press) Mark Brumley in How Not To Share Your Faith, "the more intense his hatred of error and his desire that all men know the truth; the more intense his desire to use apologetics to help bring people to the truth."

Knowledge of the Faith is necessary, of course, since the Church’s teaching about Jesus Christ, or the Eucharist, or the communion of saints cannot be defended without knowing something of substance about them. There is much to comprehend about the Catholic Church and her teachings, but the most basic study materials should include the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, augmented by solid works of biblical and theological scholarship. The good news is that publishers such as Ignatius Press, Sophia Institute Press, Our Sunday Visitor and others have been publishing quality works of popular and scholarly apologetics for several decades. Classic texts by John Cardinal Newman, G.K. Chesterton, Ronald Knox, Frank Sheed, and other leading apologists of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century are in print and readily available. Contemporary authors Thomas Howard, Karl Keating, Peter Kreeft, Patrick Madrid, Mark Shea, Rev. Peter Stravinskas, and many others have produced an impressive array of books addressing modern challenges to the Catholic Faith, including fundamentalist Protestantism, secularism, feminism, and relativism.

All Catholics should have some basic knowledge of apologetics since they will all undoubtedly encounter questions and challenges about what they believe. When challenged to explain why and what they believe, Catholics should keep in mind what apologetics can and cannot do.

Apologetics should remove objections or false ideas about Catholicism. For example, when asked why Catholics worship Mary, the apologist should be able to explain that Catholics do not, in fact, worship Mary, but worship God alone, clarifying the nature of "worship" and the role of Mary in the life of her Son and in the Church. Much good can come of simply breaking down stereotypical ideas and misunderstandings that are far more prevalent in American culture than some Catholics appreciate.

Apologetics presents reasoned evidence for Catholic doctrine. Doctrines such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Real Presence of the Eucharist cannot be proven through logic or scientific method, but good arguments can be made that they are reasonable and not contrary to logic, even though they transcend the limits of human understanding. A good example of this are the evidences offered by Thomas Aquinas for the existence of God: they logically show that it is more reasonable to believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing Creator and Designer than to believe that the universe is the result of blind chance.

Apologetics should prepare the heart for conversion through an appeal to the intellect. Peter Kreeft writes in Fundamentals of the Faith, "Remember that the purpose of apologetics is not just to win the head but to win the heart through the head." The goal of apologetics is never to demonstrate the intelligence and wit of the apologist, but to invite others into a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ. In the case of apologists who deal with anti-Catholic Protestants, the goal is an invitation into the fullness of Christ’s Church. Even in the midst of conflict, focus on conversion; while addressing the head, aim for the heart.

Apologetics cannot demonstrate the truth of the Catholic Faith. There are limits to apologetics arguments, no matter how sound and good they are. The hypostatic union and transubstantiation cannot be proven in the way that the existence of gravity or the chemical makeup of water can be proven. Put another way, the apologist has to respect both the reach and the limits of argument and reason while bearing in mind the nature of faith, which is a gift from God.

Likewise, the apologist cannot force, by sheer reason, people to believe. Humans are not calculating machines who crisply process information and then make perfect, understandable decisions. Good apologetics respects the dignity and free will of each person, even when challenging persons to consider serious reasons to believe the claims made by the Catholic Church. Defending the Faith should not be about winning arguments, but presenting truth. As the old saying goes, "Win an argument, lose a convert."

The apologist does not win souls–that is the work of the Holy Spirit. The knowledge of an accomplished apologist can potentially tempt him to lose the humility necessary to clearly understand his work. That work is always dependent on God’s grace. Which is yet another reason that constant prayer and reflection are keys to healthy apologetic activities.

Telling Your Story

One of best apologetic methods is personal testimony. In a recent article in First Things magazine titled "The Rebirth of Apologetics" (May 2004), Cardinal Dulles writes, "The apologetics of personal testimony is particularly suited to the genius of Catholicism. In the act of Catholic faith, reliance on testimony goes out indivisibly to Christ and to the Church through which he continues his mission in the world. Such testimony invites us not only to individual conversion but to communion with the whole body of believers." This thought echoes the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which explains that the sacrament of confirmation gives Catholics "the special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross" (CCC 1303).

The new evangelization promoted and articulated by Pope John Paul II emphasizes the importance of ordinary Catholics sharing their testimonies of faith with others. Dry facts and logical arguments may leave many people cold, but few cannot resist the story of a soul transformed and made anew by God’s grace. In this way the exhortation of the first pope can be realized in the life of every Catholic: "Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence." No apologies necessary.

A Short History of Apologetics

The first apologists were the apostles, who defended the faith while evangelizing, preaching, and establishing the Church in Palestine and throughout the Roman Empire. The two most famous apologists of the second century were Justin Martyr (c. 100-c. 165), a former pagan philosopher, and Irenaeus (c. 130-c. 200), bishop of Lyons. Justin wrote defenses of Christianity for Roman readers, relying on his background and skill in philosophy and rhetoric. Irenaeus was one of the first great theologians of the Church and he used his skills to combat the various strains of gnosticism that threatened the Church in the late second century. His major work, Against Heresies, is a significant apologetic landmark.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is a Doctor of the Church and is, along with Thomas Aquinas, one of the most brilliant theologians and apologists of the Western Church. A convert from Manichaeism, the African bishop wrote apologetic works aimed at the Manichees, pagans, and the Donatists. His masterpiece, The City of God, is heavily apologetic in nature, defending the Church against attacks from pagans prior to the fall of Rome. Augustine’s Confessions is one of the most famous works of early medieval literature and an example of the power of personal testimony as it continues to touch lives many centuries after it was written.

The Angelic Doctor, Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), produced timeless works of scholastic apologetics, including the Summa Contra Gentiles, written to answer objections raised by Muslim theologians. Aquinas wrote that he set about the task "of making known, as far as my limited power will allow, the truth that the Catholic faith possesses, and of setting aside the errors that are opposed to it." Aquinas’s greatest work, the Summa Theologiae, carefully and thoroughly answered objections to the Faith, often articulating opposing arguments more cogently and persuasively than those who held them. Aquinas’s general approach to apologetics was to use the Old Testament in addressing Jews, the New Testament for Christian heretics, and natural reason for pagans and Muslims.

The sixteenth-century witnessed the dramatic upheaval of the Protestant Reformation, creating the need for apologetics oriented towards a host of different non-Catholic Christian communities and perspectives. In addition to many Jesuit apologists, the theologian and bishop Francis de Sales (1567-1622) stands out for his tireless efforts in France to win back Catholics who had embraced the teachings of John Calvin. As a young priest de Sales was responsible to winning back tens of thousands of such Catholics through writing pamphlets and handing them out door to door. Those pamphlets were subsequently published under the title The Catholic Controversy.

One of the most unique Catholic apologists was the French scientist and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-62). A child prodigy, Pascal underwent a dramatic conversion in his early thirties and dedicated the rest of his short life to defending the Catholic Faith against Enlightenment-era secularism and liberalism. He planned to write a thorough work of apologetics but died before completing it. The fragments and notes for that book were collected and published as Pensées. Full of insight into human nature and psychology, Pascal’s apologetic method was markedly different from the scholastic approach of Aquinas. "I can think of no Christian writer," T. S. Eliot wrote, "more to be commended than Pascal to those who doubt . . ." Essential to Pascal’s perspective was his conclusion that there exist three basic types of people: Those who seek God and find him, those who are seeking God but have not yet found him, and those who neither seek nor find.

The best-known Catholic apologist of the nineteenth-century was John Henry Newman (1801-90), an Anglican priest and scholar who eventually entered the Catholic Church after much study and personal anguish. Newman was a patristic scholar and a brilliant stylist; his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine is still considered to be a monumental work on early Church history, as is The Arians of the Fourth Century. But his greatest work of apologetics was his autobiographical Apologia pro vita sua, written in response to accusations that his conversion to Catholicism was a cynical and self-serving sham.

A blossoming of popular apologetics occurred in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-centuries, led by English lay men Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton, and Arnold Lunn and priests Ronald Knox and Martin D’Arcy. Chesterton (1874-1936), a former agnostic, is notable for his prodigious output, continued popularity, and recognizable style. Frank Sheed (1897-1982), a former lawyer, founded both the Catholic Evidence Guild and the publishing house Sheed & Ward and wrote numerous apologetics works, including the classic Theology and Sanity.

Fr. John Francis Noll (1875-1956) founded Our Sunday Visitor in 1912 in an effort to fight the socialist, anti-Catholic periodical The Menace. He soon published a number of popular apologetics and catechetical texts, including the famous Father Smith Instructs Jackson, and established OSV as a leading Catholic publisher in the United States. For several decades in the mid-1900s Bishop Fulton Sheen very effectively used television and printed media to defend and explain Catholicism, reaching numerous non-Catholics.

Apologetics were popular in the decades leading up to the Second Vatican Council, but the 1970s were a low point for both popular and scholarly defenses of the Faith. The 1980s saw a resurgence of popular apologetics, often called the "New Apologetics," led by priests Fr. Mitch Pacwa, Fr. Joseph Fessio,, Fr. Peter Stravinskas, and Fr. William Most, and lay men Karl Keating, Peter Kreeft, Scott Hahn, Patrick Madrid, and others. Publishers including Our Sunday Visitor, Ignatius Press, Emmaus Road, Sophia Institute Press, and Ascension Press have produced dozens of apologetics texts in recent years, some of them classic works from previous eras and others the works of contemporary writers.

In a recent interview with IgnatiusInsight.com, Karl Keating reflected on his twenty-plus years in apologetics: "For many years Catholic Answers was a one-man operation. Today there are dozens of apologetics groups, some regional and some national. So apologetics is much more widely done than a quarter century ago, and the stigma that used to be attached to apologetics has largely been overcome." No need to say, "I'm sorry"—apologetics are alive and well.

From: www.pamphletstoinspire.com

#catholic apologetics

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vialism · 6 years

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Are you/those close to you Christian? Reading your theories and reactions is my favorite thing. I just wonder how your religion/faith/indifference to both influences your analysis.

That’s an interesting question. I am basically agnostic, and with a few important exceptions, I’d say the majority of my social circle aren’t particularly religious people either. I was not raised in a specific faith, but I have had experiences and communities throughout my life that have made me a spiritual person to some extent. However, I have always felt that Tyler’s strong identification with Christianity has been somewhat of a degree of separation between me and him, if that makes sense. That’s fine with me, it doesn’t prevent me from enjoying the music, and I think it is part of what makes this potential breakdown of his strict religious viewpoints in Trench even more fascinating to me.

However, as soon as I read that article, it occurred to me that Tyler being so open about that is probably quite difficult for fans who are very faithful? I hope that in the end this turns out to be something really positive regardless of individual people’s faith. For me personally, I’ve always looked at faith -especially in the context of this music- as something very separate from a specific religious belief system. I think Tyler does a pretty good job about leaving his discussions of a higher power open enough for people to interpret it in whatever way they need to at any given moment.

#trench #tøp #Anonymous #for reference i have a lot of jewish heritage #but i do not identify with any particular faith or minority culture

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rssasworld · 2 years

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Irreligion in the United States refers to the extent of rejection or lack of religion in the United States of America. Between 8% and 15% of citizens polled in 2019 demonstrated objectively nonreligious attitudes and basically naturalistic worldviews, namely atheists or agnostics.[1][2][3] The number of self-identified atheists and agnostics was around 4% each, while many persons formally affiliated with a religion are likewise non-believing.[4][5][6]

The percentage of Americans without religious affiliation, often labeled as "Nones", is around 20-29% - with people who identify as "nothing in particular" accounting for the growing majority of this demographic and while both atheists and agnostics accounting for the relatively unchanged minority of this demographic.[7][8] "Nones" is an unclear category.[9] Researchers argue that most of the "Nones" should be considered "unchurched", rather than objectively nonreligious;[3][10][11][2] especially since most "Nones" may still hold some religious and spiritual beliefs.[10][12] For example, 72% of American "Nones" believe in God or a Higher Power.[13] The "None" response is more of an indicator for lacking affiliation than an active measure for irreligiosity, and a majority of the "Nones" can either be conventionally religious or "spiritual".[14][10]

Social scientists observe that nonreligious Americans are characterized by indifference.[15] Very few incorporate active irreligion as part of their identity, and only about 1-2% join groups promoting such values.[15]

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bimercenary · 6 years

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i was spiritually tagged by @quaxorascal bc i love talking about my D&D kids so here are my two favorites

BELASCO

WEALTH —

$ financial: // wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty ✪ class: // upper / middle-working / poor / slave / unsure ✚ medical: // fit / moderate / sickly / disadvantaged / disabled / not applicable ✔ education: // qualified / unqualified / studying / other ✖ criminal record: // yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes / no / has committed crimes, but has not been caught yet (idk if he actually has a criminal record anywhere so until it comes up this is the best answer)

FAMILY —

◒ children: // has one or more children / has no children / wants children / verse dependent / doesn’t want to have children / can’t have children ◑ relationship with family: // close with sibling(s) / not close with sibling(s) / has no sibling(s) / sibling(s) are deceased ◔ affiliation: // orphaned / adopted / disowned / raised by birth parent(s) / not applicable / kidnapped

TRAITS + TENDENCIES —

♦ extrovert // introvert // in between ♦ disorganized // organized // in between ♦ close-minded // open-minded // in between/contextual ♦ calm // anxious // in between ♦ disagreeable // agreeable // in between/contextual ♦ cautious // reckless // in between/contextual ♦ patient // impatient // in between ♦ outspoken // reserved // in between ♦ leader // follower // in between ♦ empathetic // indifferent // in between ♦ optimistic // pessimistic // in between // realistic ♦ traditional // modern // in between ♦ hardworking // lazy // in between ♦ cultured // uncultured // in between ♦ loyal // disloyal // in between ♦ faithful // unfaithful // in between (i’m taking this to mean faith as in religion)

BELIEFS —

★ faith: // monotheist / polytheist / atheist / agnostic / it’s complicated ☆ belief in ghosts or spirits: // yes / no / don’t know / don’t care ✮ belief in an afterlife: // yes / no / don’t know / don’t care ✯ belief in reincarnation: // yes / no / don’t know / don’t care ❃ belief in aliens: // yes / no / don’t know / don’t care ❀ philosophical: // yes / no / sometimes

SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION —

(this section is a little weird bc belasco is literally a bird person who experiences a yearly mating season and outside it he experiences no sexual urges, so the first two answers are flexible)

> sexuality: / heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual / demisexual / questioning ❥ sex: // sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favorable ♥ romance: // romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable ❣ sexually: // adventurous / experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious / inhibited ⚧ potential sexual partners: // male / female / other / none / all ⚧ potential romantic partners: // male / female / other / none / all

ABILITIES —

☠ combat skills: // excellent / good / moderate / poor / none ≡ literacy skills: // excellent / good / moderate / poor / none ✍ artistic skills: // excellent / good / moderate / poor / none ✂ technical skills: // excellent / good / moderate / poor / none

HABITS —

> drinking alcohol: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess > smoking: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess / ✿ other narcotics: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess / tried some > medicinal drugs: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess / when needed ☻ indulgent in food: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess $ splurge spending: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess ♣ gambling: // never / sometimes / frequently / to excess

YML

WEALTH —

$ financial: // wealthy / moderate / poor / in poverty ✪ class: // upper / middle-working / poor / slave / unsure ✚ medical: // fit / moderate / sickly? / disadvantaged / disabled? / not applicable ✔ education: // qualified / unqualified / studying / other ✖ criminal record: // yes, for major crimes / yes, for minor crimes / no / has committed crimes, but has not been caught yet

FAMILY —

TRAITS + TENDENCIES —

BELIEFS —

SEXUALITY & ROMANTIC INCLINATION —

> sexuality: / heterosexual / homosexual / bisexual / asexual / pansexual / demisexual / questioning ❥ sex: // sex repulsed / sex neutral / sex favorable ♥ romance: // romance repulsed / romance neutral / romance favorable ❣ sexually: // adventurous / experienced / naive / inexperienced / curious / inhibited ⚧ potential sexual partners: // male / female / other / none / all / unsure ⚧ potential romantic partners: // male / female / other / none / all / unsure

ABILITIES —

HABITS —

#nidoran plays d&d

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educationoffathers · 6 years

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I wanna know...about Vrtanes's belief system pls? Is he religious? Superstitious? Indifferent to the idea of higher powers? I WANNA KNOW.

Great question. The short and simple answer is that he’s agnostic. But since you know I can never keep my answers short and simple, here’s the long-winded answer:

Vrtanes is nominally Christian. Specifically, he was baptized into the Armenian Apostolic Church. Growing up in Western Armenia (at that time a part of the Ottoman Empire) the church was an integral part of community and family life for him, and played a significant role in his early education.

At the age of 17, he moved from rural Armenia to the metropolitan center of Constantinople, where he was a student at the Berberian School and later went on to study at the precursor to Istanbul University, the Darülfünûn. As he was introduced to modern literature, philosophy, and science, Vrtanes became less attached to the monotheistic traditions of the Armenian church and adopted a more agnostic view towards his own spirituality.

His faith in the existence of God has remained important to him, however. He believes that while he might not be able to comprehend the true nature of God, it is impossible that a world so full of beauty and diversity and promise could exist without it being the design of some higher power. But he does not believe that this higher power is necessarily the Christian God, or even a monotheistic God. He’s curious about all religions, and open-minded about all beliefs. He has read the Quran as well as the Torah, and some Hindu and Buddhist writings as well. He believes that all interpretations of God have their own merits and are worthy of respect.

Vrtanes does not believe that God (or whatever higher power might exist) intervenes in the world on behalf of specific individuals. He does not believe that his escape from the Armenian genocide was an “act of God” or that God protected or saved him. If that were true, then that would also mean that God allowed the deaths of his friends and family who did not escape. Such a God is not one that Vrtanes would want to worship or acknowledge. He prefers to believe that God has no part in human atrocity at all.

In his new life in New York, Vrtanes attends church semi-regularly, not because he identifies with Christian orthodoxy but because it is a place of community. His connections within the Armenian diaspora in New York are deeply important to him, and have helped him put down roots in his new home. His neighbors in Little Armenia and the members of his congregation are very much an adoptive family to him. So he goes to church and recites the prayers he learned as a child, and they welcome him there as someone who belongs, even if he doesn’t always relate to his faith in the same way as other Armenian-Americans.

Vrtanes is also drawn to the concept of spiritualism, which he first encountered only after his arrival in New York. The idea that a person’s spirit continues to exist after death and that the living can communicate with the dead is one that appeals to Vrtanes, who lost many beloved friends in the Armenian genocide, along with (to the best of his knowledge) his entire family.

He dabbled tentatively at first, afraid of being taken in for a fool by some opportunistic charlatan, but his experiences thus far have been comforting ones. Vrtanes isn’t sure how to explain or define these experiences. He doesn’t know if he actually believes that his loved ones can speak to him through a medium, but he knows that it’s the first time since he left his home that he’s felt any kind of peace, and that is not nothing.

The tl;dr about Vrtanes and his belief system is that he’s a man who feels very comfortable with uncertainty. He knows that he doesn’t know, and that’s okay with him. He doesn’t need to know what God actually is or whether there’s life after death. He has his share of questions, but he’s content in the knowledge that some questions don’t have an answer – at least not one that can be understood in a single lifetime.

#this rly helped me hammer out Vrtanes's general timeline so THANK U #eof asks #vrtanes aslanian #focsle

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thexerohour · 4 years

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Politically Agnostic is a Misnomer

ESSAY

October 23, 2020

by J. Slaughter

Someone recently asked me what I thought of the term “Politically Agnostic”. Initially, I thought to myself, “I think I addressed that in Episode 50 of The Xero Hour Podcast.

There’s a bunch of people like that, running around pretending to be neutral because they’re still at their default-liberal settings. I know of one guy like that in particular. He’s got an opinion on everything, but he likes to pretend that his opinions are neutral. He wants to make you believe that his thoughts are well balanced and non-biased. But here’s what he’s not telling you. He knows what opinions are most expedient to pronounce, but he doesn’t seem to believe those opinions. He knows how to coerce you into changing your opinions. He’s a grifter.

Most people are default-liberals (Center-Left), and the things that he says are just going to reinforce an acceptable liberal perspective, with a thin veneer of spirituality just to make it more palatable (and I have to say spirituality because Christianity isn’t a marketable term). Now my friend, he’s savvy to all that stuff. He’s a salesperson. He’s an entertainer and a presenter. But one thing he’s not is politically neutral. Everyone has a political standing. Everyone. Every. Single. Person. But, that’s something I’ll address later.

Right now, we need to look at this phrase, “Politically Agnostic”. Politically Agnostic is a marketing phrase, meaning, it’s made up. It’s not a real set of words that are meant to go together, so it’s not a phrase that people use. Politically Agnostic is something that was likely engineered to appeal to ‘spiritual’ people, or for use in SEO results.

I felt like my original assessment of the term politically agnostic was underdeveloped, and so I did a little bit of research just to see if my instincts were correct. I pulled up a few search results that date back quite a few years, but not much from recent times. After I read up on it a bit, I still feel like the phrase is something that was picked out of obscurity, because it would be good for marketing. However, the phrase should have a meaning. Words have meaning. And, with closer inspection, we can see that this is an odd combination of words indeed.

According to Merriam Webster (which has been recently exposed for changing the definitions of words arbitrarily, see “sexual preference”) the word agnostic means :

Definition of AGNOSTIC (noun)

1: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly: one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god

2: a person who is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something <political agnostics>

Here’s the thing I can’t wrap my head around. The second definition of agnostic is a person who is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something. People are always trying to sell us on this idea when it comes to politics. It’s as if they are somehow “above it all” by remaining uninvolved. But in this case, inaction is the action. Agnosticism is a choice. Not to be confused with Indifference which is “the lack of difference or distinction between two or more things”, or in other words “ignorance”. There is a BIG distinction to be made between one’s Agnosticism and one’s Indifference.

When people are too fearful or too foolish to make the necessary sacrifices to commit; or are unwilling to change their true values and beliefs, then it becomes expedient for them to try and take the third approach. One that says they’re just not going to engage, as if that’s a wiser decision. It’s much easier to dismiss a political issue entirely than to face the cognitive dissonance of forming an opinion that disagrees with your actions. Why take the risk of offending some of your friends by taking a hard stance on some political issue when you can just pretend that it doesn’t matter. I mean, isn’t that what Jesus did? Well, no. I don’t think the Bible teaches anything like that sort of thinking or ideology.

Jesus never claimed to be politically indifferent or agnostic. When he was pressed on political issues, he exposed the categorical differences between his positioning and the positions that they were trying to impose on him. There’s a big difference between favoring one concept to the expense of another, and just pretending that the other concept doesn’t exist entirely.

So, when they asked “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?” (an issue of affection and allegiance), Christ answered, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s.” In this, He highlighted the categorical difference between spiritual affection and political duty. When they tried to provoke Jesus to anger by reporting that Pilate had killed some of the Galileans during their sacrificial worship (and probably sacrificing those men as well), he responded

“Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”

This was neither agnosticism nor indifference. Christ was quite committed to the message that he preached and I think that we ought to follow suit. The Bible doesn’t espouse political indifference, but quite the contrary:

Romans 13:1 “Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities.

Therefore, the phrase agnostic reeks of ignorance and cowardice, in my opinion. If you’re ignorant then you should be willing to learn. You only refuse knowledge out of fear or foolishness. If you’re unwilling to learn, then we have to assume that you’re a either a fool or a coward. That covers both definitions of the word agnostic. Let’s move on to politics.

Definition of politics

1a: the art or science of government

b: the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy

c: the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government

2: political actions, practices, or policies

3a: political affairs or business

especially : competition between competing interest groups or individuals for power and leadership (as in a government)

b: political life especially as a principal activity or profession

c: political activities characterized by artful and often dishonest practices

4: the political opinions or sympathies of a person

Because neither I, nor most people that I know, are not directly involved with or employed in politics on a governmental level, including Church politics, we have to understand that the only definition that applies to us directly would be the fifth definition.

5a: the total complex of relations between people living in society

b: relations or conduct in a particular area of experience especially as seen or dealt with from a political point of view

This means that politics has more to do with relationships, personal experiences, and community. It’s how we deal with the issues that arise from within. Our political ideologies may be deeply factored into those relationships, and the ‘total complex of relations’, but at its root, it is the ideology that drives our actions. That’s why it’s important to understand where your thoughts come from, and where they lead.

Whether or not sexual predators should be allowed within a certain distance of a playground, or whether or not the government should allow churches to remain open during a Covid-19 pandemic, or whether or not an activist group should be able to compel a baker to participate in their festivities, against his religion, are all examples of politics. Not every conflict has to be adjudicated on a governmental level. This is why the Bible tells us to judge among ourselves, problems within the Church. But, I think it is the willingness among people to remain milquetoast about civil issues, that requires the government to intervene. Before the concept of MAGA, no one had an opinion about whether or not people should wear red hats (unless they really, really hated Limp Bizkit). Now, it’s a social issue. In many social conflicts, we ought to have thought out and set precedent, way before these things get to a governmental level.

The third and final part of this analysis is the perception of value that’s attached to the concept of Political Agnosticism. At its root, I think it’s probably closer to postmodernism. In the sense that things lose meaning or have no meaning at all. If something cannot be deemed important, then there’s no reason to form an opinion on it. I think this absolves one of his responsibility to engage in the world in a meaningful fashion. It absolves one all responsibility toward his brothers and sisters on a personal day-to-day level but elevates selfishness. Because we are born into families, and those families make up communities, I believe that man is meant to be a communal creature. Therefore politics is essential to our social makeup. You can’t have any hard perspectives or opinions on social matters without acknowledging that, the root of all social matters are, in nature, political.

What the left has done in today’s culture has been to change the meaning of politics to something that it doesn’t, while changing the meaning of the word social and applying the original meanings of politics and ethics. When words change in such a drastic and swift manner, they lose meaning. So on its face, political agnosticism is a word salad that truly has no real meaning. It would be better for one to be honest about their understanding, or lack thereof; to be honest about their interest, or lack thereof, without using this misnomer. You have an opinion, even if you don’t have all the facts. Just be honest.

As I said at the beginning of this essay, everyone has a political standing. It may simply be that you don’t know what that is or how to find out. It is very important and helpful to have a personal understanding of your thoughts and instincts on all matters social or political because they affect how you perceive and navigate the world. If you’re interested in finding out where you stand in general, try taking The Political Compass Test. You can find out where your own thoughts lie, and what major historical figures shared your point of view. You’ll even be able to print out a certificate of completion when you’re done (to share with all your friends). https://www.politicalcompass.org/

youtube

#politically agnostic #politics #agnostic #essay

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theresbloodinmymug · 5 years

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Day Nine— Spirituality:

Does your OC have a religion? What do they believe happens to people when they die? What superstitions do they have? Theo:

She was raised Catholic, being from a traditional Italian family. Over time tho, she’s become secretly more Agnostic, but it’s not really something that ever comes up unless pressed. And she really wouldn’t tell her family about it if she can help it. Her religion doesn’t come into play too often in her daily life, but she does believe loosely in some paranormal beliefs, especially more now since she’s discovered the reality of vampires. She’s very interested in what else is out there, what’s real and what’s fake, but it’s more of a side curiosity than anything serious.

Naomi:

In New Orleans, Voodoo and Haitan spirituality are woven into the very fabric of the city, and therefore, into the lives of all its residents. Even though she left it behind over a century ago, Naomi’s finding she can never fully escape her roots. The fact that the woman who turned her and Dwennon was also a voodoo fortune teller probably doesn’t help matters much either... During her life, Namoi was fairly indifferent to any sort of spirituality, though she always had a god-fearing respect of the Christian church, as most people from that era did. But after being turned, the magical elements of vampirism and its subsequent proof of supernatural beings sort of cemented her belief in them, since it was really impossible to deny their existence anymore. She’s almost made a complete 180 from the skeptic she was in life, and is incredibly wary now of breaking any superstitions she hasn’t had the time to fully research. She’s also thrown herself part-time into finding out more about their blood mother, tracking her down by following any rumors related to the myth of loogaroos and soucouyants. Along the way, she’s become sort of an amateur source on obscure paranormal phenomenon, cataloging anything useful away so that she and Dwennon never accidentally get screwed over like they did the first time...

Dwennon:

He was raised Southern Baptist, of course, and therefore is a cliche Atheist now. Like Naomi, his eyes were opened to the world of paranormal and supernatural beings once they were turned, so he definitely understands how real those beliefs have become, but still isn’t sold on many concepts of the afterlife. That being said, the Fae and pagan elements of a variety of religions sort of spoke to him, and he really enjoys the ancient Greek myths and figures as well. He will occasionally call on Orpheus and Pan and Canola and a variety of others before playing a live performance, or simply “seek the muses” with his own rituals. He definitely plays all of this up when he’s doing his usual tarot and psychic readings, leaning hard into the act for the scam. It’s hard to say how much of it is really an act at times, but he’ll usually laugh any accusations off with his usual trolling demeanor. Naomi has definitely caught him setting up altars before, though, and Theo knows how much he likes exploring local metaphysical shops with her, definitely chummy enough with their owners for it to be more than just “an occasional visit”. He might be a budding witch, but only time will tell if that sticks in the comic, idk. The boy is a pretentious enigma.

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ah17hh · 4 years

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Explicit Atheism is a religion. via /r/satanism

Explicit Atheism is a religion.

I wanted to come around and talk about faith and the hypocrisis of the convinced atheists.

In a subjective way I myself deeply believe in science first and, therefore, in the indifference of the universe stripped from any unmaterial aspect. It is the immediate rationnal logic after all, yes.

Objectively, ultimately, I know that I dont know and it is the only thing closer to the truth that we'll be able to say in any of our lifespan on the subject.

"Abstract theories with no basis in reality" means nothing that can be observed nor experienced on a physical level. It goes without saying that science cannot answer that. Itd then means there isnt an absolute answer at all that is even possible. It feels that saying " If I cant see it, its not there" is a bit limiting. Makes me think of object permanence for babies under 8 months old.

It might sound obvious and people that claim to be science-oriented would say that if you cannot recreate results with experience or observable data it has to mean the theories are, without a doubt, false. But is it so simple with concepts that would be theorically impossible to experience even if true? Is science even applicable? It is, but science would say it doesnt know and wouldnt try to bring any theories whatsoever.

Because the other way around is also very true; How is the answer that "obvious"? Absence of proof isnt proof of the absence, so might we qualify doubtless materialism as a form of faith also?

When we fall into metaphysics / the unobservable / the untangible, It's quite easy to fall into "faith". (i.e cheer beliefs stripped from any tangible proof)

If I can indulge with an easy analogy, let's imagine two blindfolded persons in front of a table, and asking them what color is the vase on top of said table.

Im sure one of them will say its obvious the vase is blue, because theres a 3000 years old book saying so.

Most probably one of them will say its obvious there is no table nor vase at all because they cant see.

Thing is, the debate is utterly uninteresting to observe. Theyre neither wrong or right and they wont ever have the feedback to know it, unless they remove the blindfold (death). There isnt, and will never have any possible, tangible, observable data.

For all we know, we could be in front of a wall. For all I think, if theres anything else than a cold, infinite, indifferent void on the other side, our arrogant monkey brains might not even be capable to put it into words if it has seen it. Even less theorise it by itself from nothing.

Explicit atheism, believing in the absolute absence of everything that you cannot see, would then fall into faith and, therefore, would qualify as a religion in itself. Making it, maybe, the most hypocritical of all religions.

It's not that we dont ask the right questions, or that we bring the wrong answers.

It's that we still have the arrogance (and time to waste) to bring answers (not theories) to questions that cannot be asked under the pretention of truth seeking, science, or honest philosophy.

Its the difference between a philosophical and religious approach on the subject. One might bring theories (or would underline the uselessness to do so), the other impose answers.

Being agnostic (evidently) I know there is a large spectrum of atheism and Id have to specify that without doubt, there is faith. So im probably only talking about explicit, hard atheism.

Now I dont want you to think my philosophy revolves around defending any deity. It is actually about not even asking that question and considering it empty, or useless.

Its also not about not carrying any beliefs. I myself like to think about eternal recurrence, fractal cosmology or other spiritual shenanigans, but as comforting theories rather that absolute truths. It brings little less comfort, sure, but is a whole lot more honest.

I know a lot of us are Atheists, mostly agnostic, and honestly never came across a satanist that claimed or preached anything metaphysical with zealous conviction. But who knows, convinced atheists are not all explicit.

It is, in my honest opinion, quite important to talk about doubt. Satanism is also about freedom of thought, and limiting ourselves to an answer (or even trying to bring one) feels a bit counterproductive.

I am not an expert on any of these subjects, nor a native english speaker for all that matters.

I can only wear the mantle of Philosopher and wanted to create discussion with all good intentions.

So what do you think? What is your view on the concepts of faith and doubt? What is their place in satanism? Is there any absolute truth to you?

Thanks for reading, be kind to one another and Hail Satan 🤘

Submitted April 17, 2020 at 07:45AM by TomKreutznaer via reddit https://ift.tt/2RMCLLv

#IFTTT #reddit

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thecelibateshoewhore · 5 years

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I'm Not Going to Church Because...

*This post was originally written two years, although it was never published. Certain elements have been updated to reflect more current events.*

“Little children (believers, dear ones), let us not love [merely in theory] with word or tongue [giving lip service to compassion], but in action and in truth [in practice and in sincerity, because practical acts of love are more than words]” (1 John 3:18 AMP).

Two years ago, the hashtag #ImNotGoingToChurchBecause was a trending topic on Twitter, with a number of people offering reasons for why attending church or believing in God is unnecessary. Ironically, this occurred the day after our current imbecile-in-chief took over the White House. Due to the sensitive nature of the topic, I’ve cropped the usernames from the screenshots below:

Normally, I wouldn’t pay attention to such a thing because arguing (or debating) with atheists, agnostics or apatheists over social media does nothing for the body of Christ. (True witnessing occurs face-to-face and must be accompanied by another believer who is praying while the other is speaking). I guess what surprised me is that this kind of talk gained enough momentum to become a trending topic because I thought this discussion was stale. I was also surprised that many of those who were tweeting had once believed in God or considered themselves Christians at some point. This sentiment also appeared on the heels of Kim Burrell’s infamous New Year’s Eve sermon about gays and Bishop and Eddie Long’s {abrupt} passing — the latter once being accused of sexual impropriety.

However, in light of more recent events — Vicki Yohe accusing Pastor David E. Taylor of being a cult leader and womanizer; Pastor John Gray purchasing a $200,000 Lamborghini for his wife, Aventer, after allegedly cheating and paying off the mistress(es); and Andrea Garrison accusing Bishop Victor Couzens of philandering and later blackmailing her with an unauthorized explicit video recording of herself (NYPD later issued a warrant for Couzens for aggravated harassment in November 2018) — the anti-Christian/anti-church movement has once again gathered enough ammunition and its supporters are in full attack mode. (Both Gray and Couzens also received backlash for participating in the infamous White House meeting with Donald Trump and several other black clergymen). While I don’t agree with the premise, I understand the frustration that many people are having with the church, especially the black church. Many opponents of Christianity or “organized religion” feel as though they’ve been oppressed by an institution that thrives on hypocrisy. That is, what is often preached isn’t necessarily followed by the preachers of the gospel.

I’m not here to make excuses. Some Christians and churches have forgotten the most important principle of our faith: to love God and love {His} people. I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t speak for every church because every {physical} church isn’t representative of the body of Christ. It disheartens me when anyone’s faith is incapacitated by the actions of a fellow believer. The Bible even warns us about allowing our fellow brethren to stumble or lose faith: “But you must be careful so that your freedom does not cause others with a weaker conscience to stumble” (1 Corinthians 8:9). Although this scripture applies to matters of indifference when it comes to eating or abstaining from meat that was sacrificed to idols, the point is very clear. As disciples of Christ, we are not to conduct ourselves in a manner that will cause others to lose or question their faith. Let me add that this is not an endorsement to turn a blind eye to any kind of sin. It’s harder for people like me to share the love of God when so many people have a blanket distrust of all Christians. For whatever reason.

These days, a lot of folks are suffering – both inside and outside of the church. Quite frankly, many of them are dead — spiritually, mentally, financially, etc. Their lives are not bearing any fruit. They are angry at God. They feel as though they’ve been let down by God. They question His validity or if He even exists. And it doesn’t help when members of the body of the Christ fail to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ by showing compassion to those who have questions and/or are struggling. (I’ve been guilty of this). There are those who recover from rock bottom only to forget what it felt like when they were at their lowest point. I’m not one to count anyone’s coins or sins, and no one is perfect, but several leaders in the body of Christ have taken on a carnal approach to living due to the fact that their popularity has made them celebrities in their own right.

I don’t proclaim to have all of the answers. I only want to do my part in sharing and interpreting the Word of God for His people. This post is not for the atheist, agnostic or apatheist. (But if you know one, feel free to share this anyway). This post is for the believers who are struggling with their faith. This post is for the believers who are questioning the validity or necessity of {attending} church. This post is for the believers who feel as though the church has wronged them in some way:

First, as with any decision that you make, your faith in God begins with YOU.

Is there hypocrisy within the church? Yes. Is there greed {propelled by prosperity preaching} within the church? Absolutely. Now, this is going to sound a bit harsh, but: what does any of this have to do with your salvation and personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Like a hospital, the church is for those who are sick and in need of {spiritual} healing. For me, it’s a place to disconnect from the world and allow my soul to be refreshed. I don’t know anyone who would outright refuse treatment or physician care from a hospital simply because malpractice exists. There are many who will claim to be of God. It’s up to us to determine their validity through what the Bible calls the “testing of the spirits” (1 John 4:1). If, at any time, you feel like your spirit is not properly nurtured at a particular place of worship, you are under no obligation to stay. I’m not talking about shallow differences, either. For some of you, one sermon convicting your personal beliefs, or the praise team not singing your favorite song, is enough for you to be done with church. LOL! I’m talking about real inconsistencies and blatant disregard for God and His word.

Second, fellowship – first with God and then with other believers – is the cornerstone of Christianity. If you’ve ever found yourself saying, “God knows my heart. I don’t need church to have a relationship with God,” consider yourself out of alignment. While church attendance isn’t required to believe in God, if you profess that you believe in and belong to Christ, you should have a desire to worship God and connect with others who share your faith. Although we no longer need a high priest in the temple to present our sacrifices and prayers to God, attending church is God’s will for His beloved. Hebrews 10:25 tells us that we shouldn’t stop meeting with one another, especially during the approach of end times. The examples set forth in Acts 2:42, 46 remind us of the devotion that early believers had to regularly meeting, teaching, fellowshipping and breaking bread with one another.

As a believer, you will never reach spiritual maturity unless you have a place to connect, serve and GROW with other like-minded believers. Your {spiritual} gifts have a place in ministry and in the church. In order for the body of Christ to function properly, all of its parts/members must be present. You never know what encouragement or assistance you can provide. You never know who hasn’t experienced deliverance or breakthrough because you’re the door that God assigned to restore them. Email me or share your thoughts below regarding the current landscape of the church.

I love you.

xo,

thecelibateshoewhore

“The Lord will lead you. He himself is with you. He will not fail you or leave you. Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid!” (Deuteronomy 31:8 ERV).

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