This really isn't supposed to be a religious blog you know.

Often, I get so focused on thinking and ideas and reading and learning and studying and "looking into" and evaluating and pondering and ruminating and analyzing and reflecting and scrutinizing and living in my head and I forget to just

Feel.

Be Still, and Know that I am God. (Psalsms 46:10)

I have felt God. It's an amazing feeling. But I find that when I am seeking God the most, often I am actually pushing myself further away.

I have issues with Christianity, which, if you don't know now, you probably soon will.

Jesus was awesome, there's no doubt about that. But between the Inquisition, Catholic Priests (and the fact that Catholics fucked up the Bible hundreds of years ago), slavery, segregation, the KKK, the gay bashers, and the current presidential administration, I have a very difficult time aligning myself with anything "Christian."

Because Jesus wasn't like that. Jesus would never have wanted people killed in his name. At Gay Pride Day, he wouldn't be standing on the corner holding a sign that "AIDS is God's curse on fags." He would be walking among the crowd, hanging out, hugging those in need of hugs, and simply giving love wherever he went.

He certainly wouldn't have condoned cross burnings, and I don't believe he would have tolerated slavery.

Jesus was love. God is love.

God loves you. And me. And Charles Manson. And Hitler. And black people and Iraqis and terrorists and...sinners. And saints. We are all His creations. "I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty." --Albert Einstein

If I believe in the need for salvation at all, I believe that Jesus did it. He saved THE WORLD, not only those who read the Bible.
Now, I can buy that some of us may be unable to accept his grace. Some of us are so riddled with guilt that we are unable within ourselves to give it up to God.
But I don't think religion helps us to do that. In fact, I often think it hinders it.
I know it did for me.

I have a hard time believing that Jesus' crucifixtion was necessary. I am not worried about going to hell. I believe God is better than that. I don't believe He sent us all here and set us up to fail (because, you know, we're all sinners) and then punish us, but then sent Jesus as a whipping boy to "fix it".

Where is the sense in that?

I know, "sense" falls under the heading of "thinking" which isn't as important as "feeling." Rather than seeking logic in God, I should be seeking God. This is a problem I'm trying to work on. But I don't believe God is illogical either. And I certainly don't believe He is mean. Hell is not "justice" for anybody.

Oh yeah, and the "He" thing.

Is God a male? If He is, I believe He has a female counterpart. Blasphemy, you say? Not at all.
If God is a male, and there is no female, why did He see it necessary to create two genders? The answer: He wouldn't have.

So I think I'm rambling a lot more than I intended to, but these are some of my issues with "Christianity."

But I think for now, I'm going to go pray. Because really, that's where ALL the answers are.