A few weeks ago I posted a rather irate post involving religion, finances, and other things all pointing to the fact that "they were fake". I'm posting a short blog to rectify what was said in my anger and what I mean in my more clear and quiet calm.
I've come to a point in my life where I don't trust most people for good reason. This is especially true with religious folks. I grew up in the church and my family left under persecution of "asking too many questions" when my Father was looking for more clarification on Biblical principles. After getting away from the church and having pretty much given my life over the pursuit of success in my own fashion involving drugs, chaotic living, and other personal abuses I came back to the church hoping to find a welcoming home that would forgive me my sins and let me start a new life. I found instead the same persecution I grew up with only more so as this time I was honestly scared for my life. All this because I chose to stand by a woman I felt was abused by her husband who also happened to be a pastor at the church I worked for.
After leaving the church (the truth is I was all but forced out) I tried to stay true to my teachings having gone through several training programs in order to understand my Bible better. I gave "God" 5 years of my life and instead of seeing any change for the better things only got worse. A woman I loved more than anything killed herself, finances never stabilized no matter how much I fought to find gainful employment, and my health which has been bad most my life only continued on the decline. Many of you who are Christians may be reading this and saying, "Well God never says he will make your life better." I had no other reason to become a Christian than that though. Before "God" I was suicidal, destructive, aimless, and without hope. After "God" things only got worse so why would I stick around for that? If there isn't personal benefit from experience then to me it seems asinine to continue on that path. Education was the final nail in the coffin as classes taken in history, anthropology, and science revealed that most of the teaching I had gotten my whole life was just silly superstition. That there is a logical reason for everything explained in the Bible that is explained mainly on the premise of miracle. I find very little to be in fact miraculous about life at all. We just are. This is it.
Now where is sit in life is this: there is no secret angle that is going to come down and express reason for us to do better at all. Our only hope in life is to find those things we love and do them to the best of our ability, while being certain we are taking care of our own needs. Life isn't anymore about creating a sense of false expectations and dreams but simply living for now. Finding that thing that gets you out of bed every morning, and reminding yourself this is why you do it. And you do it for you. Not a deity. Not because it can make you rich. Not because it might finally get you the girl or any of that nonsense. In some ways I think we are meant to be selfish and that is why I have a lot of walls that have come up over the years that don't allow me to open up and be free to express myself in public. Everyone all along was being selfish and I was attempting to operate on another level. Now I know I am in this for me. And that isn't a "Jack is jaded and look what a prick he is" statement. It is said in the most cold, sterile manner. No emotion involved in it. I'm in it for me.
This last year I had sex for the first time. Some of you may be shocked by that. I waited for a lot of reasons. Personal image issues, the churches lies they teach (we are adults and need to experience, experiment, and understand like adults do), and a lot of rejection. Hell...you want to know the extent of it...I had up to last year had one real girlfriend ever and only kissed her. Yeah...at 33 physical love was something I had yet to experience yet. So while to some this last year I looked like a shallow manwhore the truth is I was finally branching out in the quest to find me. And man did I find a lot out. What I like. What I don't. What sexuality means to me. That I'm not gay (though I could have told you all that before hand). But I had never allowed myself to experience one of the fundamental experiences in life based on a certain set of principles I didn't even believe in anymore. It opened doors I needed opened for a long time. Gave me greater understanding to create learned opinions on things I had only developed over years of scouring books, magazines, and sadly porn to learn. But one can never replace experience with book knowledge, and in a lot of other things I knew that. It was about time I learned it in this too.
I'm opening up because I guess what I want most is people to understand. Understand I know I'm not always emotionally stable, not always the most ready to jump into conversation (especially with certain women who I'll admit still scare me a bit), and not always ready to admit my faults because so many things in life are so raw. One simple act tore off bandages I had in all areas of my life. Taught me that now I know I can get laid there are some fundamental things broken in me that in a lot of ways were broken through religion, poor choices, and an attempt to hold onto what I used to see myself as: a kind hearted individual that was bound to get hurt because of his steadfast commitment to live a life this world is no longer able to foster.
So when you heard me a few weeks back know this: I passionately support each and every one of your right to believe what you want and in who you want. I respectfully ask that you don't send me religiously focused posts as I'm not interested and if I do decide to explore religion again it will be on my own volition and not because of anyone's attempts at fuzzy logic. My life goal is this simply put: while maintaining work enough to pay my bills I want to learn more and more about my two passions. Those passions and I say this totally unapologetically are making electronic music and growing pot (which I might add my growing is the closest I've ever had to a "god" experience in my life). All the while I want to seek to make myself a better person. Make better life choices and try to do what I've wanted to do all along and that is a person that promotes peace in others lives as well as my own. I have 34 years working against me and a lot of false beliefs but I know this path I've set myself on is the only righteous one I will ever find. And it will never be about "god", women, or money again. This is all about me.
One Love All!!!
Jack Goodman
Divine Being
8 comments:
The truth of religion is this... We turn from worldly ways to Christ because of the alternative... Gods wrath upon those who do not repent. We are responsible for our own actions. The devil didn't make us do anything, all he can do is lie to us. WE take hold of the lie and then WE sin. There are only two things we do... Love the lord our god and others. There are no special formulas but to obey.
Jack,
I posted this also last night and then it bombed out when I went to send it.... But I wanted to express my apologies as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ, and I don't mean where you attended as I don't represent them, but I mean on the larger scale, the whole church that He dies for. I am sorry for the things that did not occur for you that being...
1) Any prophetics words that were said over you and didn't come true, they were given by false prophecies.
2) Lack of proper discipleship in the word. Since what you were taught comes out of a Purpose Driven Dribble it is a weak gospel with a lack of truth in the word.
3) Any "deliverence ministry" teaching that there were no outcomes from. The teachings were based on a man-made-vain-imagination program using scripture out of context to meet their own theology. It was wrong. Delieverence only come by taking responsibility for our own sin. The devil can't make you do anything, he can only lie. We take hold of it and then sin.
4) Lack of real fellowship that brings lasting change.
All that to also say that we, ourselves are responsible for the choices we make, we are not puppets and Satan cannot force you or make you do things, but rather we make our own choices and we must live with the consequences, but also believing that out of repentence comes a maturity and growth that is from one glory to the next.
So Jack, I know who you are and I am sorry for the way you have been treated. I don't know the other side of the story as you say forced out of the church and why, but I am praying for you whether you want it or not because I care.
TH
I'm a firm believer in a personal relationship with God, and I haven't had many instances of true fellowship that happened within a church. But I do still read the Bible when inspired to do so... Mark 4:15 to Mark 4:20
New International Version (NIV)
15 Some people are like seed along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sown in them. 16 Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17 But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 18 Still others, like seed sown among thorns, hear the word; 19 but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful. 20 Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a crop—some thirty, some sixty, some a hundred times what was sown.”
Todd? And you use a few things in what you posted that have become like a cancer to me based on what I was taught. Not meant to offend and contradict but the word "obey" is certainly a hard one. I've obeyed most my life. Walked in line. Did all I was told and thought I should do. And it almost always fails. So "obey" doesn't work so well for me. "Fellowship" is another one of those words because I find the whole "true, authentic" relationship thing to be fake in the church. Thanks (if this is Todd really thanks) but at this point I am making a choice...and I think a lot of people would call that choice going to Hell. lol In all honestly all I've ever known of "god" and its creation is the wrath part. When I walk my own path and do what makes me happy regardless of rules or regs I tend to not feel wrath bearing down on me. Believe me...I still get people that tell me when I'm not on an angry tear about my faith that I deliver a story about Jesus and his nature better than most. My brother who is an atheist even told me if more people taught "god" like I explained him he would have a hard time not believing. But as far as the whole thing goes the people, the structure, and all of it are so broke I can't help but think it is all fake. A true loving and omniscient "god" would seem to me to have better things to do with his time then toy with people's free will in order to get them to obey. Thanks again though. I love getting responses and hearing what people have to share.
...and Lisa...know that verse well. I have hard times with that book as a whole though. I can spout most of it from memory but it is all just dead words to me.
Oh...and actually I've gotten crazy amounts of indepth teaching in the word. Pastor...and not just a two week thing...this is from a nearly 20 year process of Biblical teaching. I know my word. I just think it is all nice fairy tales.
I also have a firm belief in the need for fairy tales Mr. Goodman. lol I believe that fairy tales protect my soul just as much as the Bible does. Folk lore has always had a purpose in my life, since my grandmother told me trolls were by the creek to keep me out of it as a little girl. Folklore kept me safe. It's not the word as gospel that makes the Bible important, it's not the laws, it's how I perceive the words I'm reading at the moment in time that I am reading them and how that action causes a reaction within me and changes my timeline and how it will change in the future that is likely important. Like Butterfly wings setting ripples on water that travels across the ocean, the words and things and people and events that touch me create me and my world and my reality as I go. If God put that into motion, I find that interesting at the least. If some random act of chemicals and timing put that into action, I also find that beautiful and as miraculous as is possible. It may just be that all things are possible.
Yeah...again...like I said in my original post this is just something I'm not really entertaining. I've heard the "well what if you die tomorrow"'s and all that and honestly I just don't care. If "god" was real it would have intervened at some point to show me that very thing. All "success" (I use this word lightly as exactly as I told my roommate the other day I've never known a day of joy in my whole life) I have experienced I've done on my own, as my own choice, struggled to get what little I did, and in the end felt usually regret as I feel I've wasted a tremendous amount of time on "god" when I could have done this all myself in the first place. I'm content to remain single, avoid the trappings of religion, attempt to make people dance and sing in my future musical endeavors, and just plod along experience to experience till I'm worm food.
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