Complications
Apr. 17th, 2002 12:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msssI'm going to write about religion a little. So if you get hives at the thought, skip this.
I just had a long chat with Meg, who I haven't really seen (except for a brief 5 minute run-in) since she got back from India. It was all about the search for faith and how it worked for her. Most people just tell you to have faith and believe. Which is something I'm not at all cool with. I mean, I have a brain. It was obviously intended to think about things. So when someone tells me something, I tend to go "Why?" "How do you know that?" "Well, if God made the world and he's so great, then why did he do such a dodgy design job?" (Right now, my current issue is "How ethical is a God who knows perfectly well that 80% (or some other large number) of the souls generated by his universe are going to suffer in hell?" I mean, sure, he gave them a choice, but he knew what they were going to choose... and speaking as one of the souls in question, I don't really like the odds...) Anyway, what I got out of Meg was that it's not always as simple as all those sickeningly happy Christian "true life" story books where they kneel down, beg to be saved and get a wash of freedom spill over them, speak in tongues and start flying... okay, the last bit I made up. But you get the idea. It's not as easy as everyone in the church seems to make out. *much relief* I thought I was doing something wrong.
Second thing about this. I need to disentangle the issues of Will and my faith. It's great that he invited me to church. It's great that I don't have to worry about going to bed with him. It's not so good that we are semi-going out at this point. I mean, it's his church, his friends, etc. It's fairly clear (to anyone with eyes) that there's some sort of a relationship between us. (Well, I don't know what kind of relationship it is, but I know it's there!) There's a strange sort of pressure to behave suitably. And it drives me nuts, because while they're lovely and friendly and great people, I still have the slight tendency to run screaming when someone preaches at me. I'm still uncomfortable when I'm in a room where it seems to be obvious to everyone else how this all works.
I'm scared. I don't want to be a bible-basher. I don't want to be a person who has nothing but the church in my life. I don't want to be written off as a religious fanatic. But hell, Meg sure had a point. This is not an easy way out. The easy way out would be to ignore the emptiness and mask it with the many, many things I have filled my life with.
I just had a long chat with Meg, who I haven't really seen (except for a brief 5 minute run-in) since she got back from India. It was all about the search for faith and how it worked for her. Most people just tell you to have faith and believe. Which is something I'm not at all cool with. I mean, I have a brain. It was obviously intended to think about things. So when someone tells me something, I tend to go "Why?" "How do you know that?" "Well, if God made the world and he's so great, then why did he do such a dodgy design job?" (Right now, my current issue is "How ethical is a God who knows perfectly well that 80% (or some other large number) of the souls generated by his universe are going to suffer in hell?" I mean, sure, he gave them a choice, but he knew what they were going to choose... and speaking as one of the souls in question, I don't really like the odds...) Anyway, what I got out of Meg was that it's not always as simple as all those sickeningly happy Christian "true life" story books where they kneel down, beg to be saved and get a wash of freedom spill over them, speak in tongues and start flying... okay, the last bit I made up. But you get the idea. It's not as easy as everyone in the church seems to make out. *much relief* I thought I was doing something wrong.
Second thing about this. I need to disentangle the issues of Will and my faith. It's great that he invited me to church. It's great that I don't have to worry about going to bed with him. It's not so good that we are semi-going out at this point. I mean, it's his church, his friends, etc. It's fairly clear (to anyone with eyes) that there's some sort of a relationship between us. (Well, I don't know what kind of relationship it is, but I know it's there!) There's a strange sort of pressure to behave suitably. And it drives me nuts, because while they're lovely and friendly and great people, I still have the slight tendency to run screaming when someone preaches at me. I'm still uncomfortable when I'm in a room where it seems to be obvious to everyone else how this all works.
I'm scared. I don't want to be a bible-basher. I don't want to be a person who has nothing but the church in my life. I don't want to be written off as a religious fanatic. But hell, Meg sure had a point. This is not an easy way out. The easy way out would be to ignore the emptiness and mask it with the many, many things I have filled my life with.
