rrgirl commented in But do they really mean it?:
I took the selections to be favorites, too but also selected to reinforce their respective agendas. not that it’s a bad thing to reach for a spiritual reference for guidance, but like the Westboro folks, there sure seems to be a biblical basis for just about any point of view. I like the 1Corinthians 13 verses, they are often read at weddings as the “Love Chapter.” I was taught that the word “love” could be translated as “charity.” doesn’t that put an interesting spin on the text?
my upbringing was mainstream Protestant with a wide streak of evangelism. it always bothered me to hear missionaries talk about the need to “save” the untold masses. what about the people who never got the message? I couldn’t blame them and they certainly didn’t deserve the eternal damnation that was supposed to be their fates…oh that’s just one of the logical fallacies that drove me away from the community of believers. at some point I accepted myself as faithless, and I’m OK with that.
Does God hear non-believers? I’m a not-sure-er, not a card-carrying non-believer. I’m simply not sure if God exists. I think about it off-and-on. I confess that my understanding of Christianity is pretty weak. I prefer to see God as all-loving, not a fire-and-brimstone/send a plague of locusts kind of guy. The Westboro people are clearly in the plague camp.
A couple of good things happened to me recently and I immediately said “Thank you, God” like maybe He had something to do with it. Maybe he did — who knows? Then I started to wonder if God heard me, since I don’t have both feet planted in His religion.
I think one can be “faithless” to Christianity and still be “faithful.” I mean, there are a lot of good people in the world who aren’t Christian. To me, “Christian” doesn’t automatically equal “good” — and neither does it automatically equal “bad,” as one of my radically atheistic friends believes. (His complete disdain for anything and everything spiritual has strained our friendship.) And “faithful” doesn’t have to mean adherence to a religion. One can be faithful to living a good life, being a good person, doing good works.
Sometimes it feels like life really isn’t that hard. but we make it hard. Maybe we think too much. Maybe God wanted to make it interesting for us by giving us free will.
I was taught that the word “love” could be translated as “charity.” doesn’t that put an interesting spin on the text?
Wow, it sure does.
