![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Religion and amusing myself
May. 9th, 2011 09:29 amBelow contains musings of a religious nature, mostly in regards to branches of Christianity, read at your own risk.
Every Wensday, between 10.30 and 11am I have a group of Jehova's witnesses who visit me, trying to convert me (at least, I think that's their mission, mostly they read the bible to me). They have been doing this for eight months off and on (I'm not always awake to greet them) and while I would normall ignore them, there's is one religious view point I could never get a 'handle' on, so I've been inviting them in, listening to what they have to say.
Only, they don't really say anything about what they believe, just read the bible. Yes, I know it's highly important to them (they belive it is the utter truth after all and live their lives by it), but I want to know more about them as a group...more about what they believe in beyond 'Jesus was a great man' and 'the world is doomed'...I mean, there has to be SOMETHING more, right?
It's slightly amusing, to see how feverant they are in trying to convert me...I've never given them any reason to hope (besides allowing them into my home for ten to fifteen minutes a week), and I've always been up front with them that I am Buddihst, I will not now nor ever change my faith (except when my agnostic side is perking up), that while I was Christian and believe in God and that Jesus existed (as a mortal man who had a powerful and inspirational message) I will not return to any fold of Christianity so long as I am morally apposed to all they stand for.
Not to mention I can't abide by a faith that doesn't allow questions, but that I keep to myself.
I sometimes wonder, as I listen to them, how they can believe so heavily in what they preach. How they can shape their lives around something that even they admit was written by mortal men for the times they were living in (yet 'inspired by God'). Maybe it's the part of me that needs evidence something is real before I can believe in it, unwilling to take faith on it's own value (and before you question that, I have FELT the divine blessing of God, gods, goddess, whatever it is out there. I have been brought to tears by that power and the love it welled inside me. That was my evidence, there is no mistaking that power).
But even with that moment, that feeling...I can't believe in things blindly, nor can I take a bunch of long dead men's words for gospel truth (that was corny). So I have to constantly question, and in eight months...I haven't got a single answer...not even to how they can live...so focused on the end. It's not about a happy, heavenly place with them....they're truly waiting...existing for the end of the world, and to me...that's too sad to even think about. I'm the kind of person that wouldn't mind living forever, even with all the pain, all the hurt, all the suffering. I couldn't imagine living life just to see the end of it.
Sometimes, I want to tell this too them, to see their reactions, but those weekly visits are one of the few things I have to look forward to in my pathetic, boring existance. No one ever wants to discuss religion with me because it's too personal, too close to most people. To me...it's just a study of life, of humanity. What we believe (or don't) and our reasons is what makes us...er, us. All humans believe in something, even if it's the absolute truth that there is nothing out there and I like to explore those believes, those reasons.
I just wish we could all be more open with each other about our beliefs, without our differences causing so much strife. So that we could all have those weekly meetings to look forward to, where we come to see each other as another person who simply believes (weither or not we agree with those beliefs).
(and my religion icon is missing, damnit).
Every Wensday, between 10.30 and 11am I have a group of Jehova's witnesses who visit me, trying to convert me (at least, I think that's their mission, mostly they read the bible to me). They have been doing this for eight months off and on (I'm not always awake to greet them) and while I would normall ignore them, there's is one religious view point I could never get a 'handle' on, so I've been inviting them in, listening to what they have to say.
Only, they don't really say anything about what they believe, just read the bible. Yes, I know it's highly important to them (they belive it is the utter truth after all and live their lives by it), but I want to know more about them as a group...more about what they believe in beyond 'Jesus was a great man' and 'the world is doomed'...I mean, there has to be SOMETHING more, right?
It's slightly amusing, to see how feverant they are in trying to convert me...I've never given them any reason to hope (besides allowing them into my home for ten to fifteen minutes a week), and I've always been up front with them that I am Buddihst, I will not now nor ever change my faith (except when my agnostic side is perking up), that while I was Christian and believe in God and that Jesus existed (as a mortal man who had a powerful and inspirational message) I will not return to any fold of Christianity so long as I am morally apposed to all they stand for.
Not to mention I can't abide by a faith that doesn't allow questions, but that I keep to myself.
I sometimes wonder, as I listen to them, how they can believe so heavily in what they preach. How they can shape their lives around something that even they admit was written by mortal men for the times they were living in (yet 'inspired by God'). Maybe it's the part of me that needs evidence something is real before I can believe in it, unwilling to take faith on it's own value (and before you question that, I have FELT the divine blessing of God, gods, goddess, whatever it is out there. I have been brought to tears by that power and the love it welled inside me. That was my evidence, there is no mistaking that power).
But even with that moment, that feeling...I can't believe in things blindly, nor can I take a bunch of long dead men's words for gospel truth (that was corny). So I have to constantly question, and in eight months...I haven't got a single answer...not even to how they can live...so focused on the end. It's not about a happy, heavenly place with them....they're truly waiting...existing for the end of the world, and to me...that's too sad to even think about. I'm the kind of person that wouldn't mind living forever, even with all the pain, all the hurt, all the suffering. I couldn't imagine living life just to see the end of it.
Sometimes, I want to tell this too them, to see their reactions, but those weekly visits are one of the few things I have to look forward to in my pathetic, boring existance. No one ever wants to discuss religion with me because it's too personal, too close to most people. To me...it's just a study of life, of humanity. What we believe (or don't) and our reasons is what makes us...er, us. All humans believe in something, even if it's the absolute truth that there is nothing out there and I like to explore those believes, those reasons.
I just wish we could all be more open with each other about our beliefs, without our differences causing so much strife. So that we could all have those weekly meetings to look forward to, where we come to see each other as another person who simply believes (weither or not we agree with those beliefs).
(and my religion icon is missing, damnit).
