The Hard Sell
My father is back on his religious kick. The only time he comes on line to talk to me anymore is to ask me if I've viewed the links he sent me about some miracle or the Holy Eucharist or whether I'm wearing the amulet and saying the prayer that will make guaranteed changes in my life. I've never been one for adornments: jewelry, piercings, I didn't even wear a watch. Getting in the habit of wearing an amulet and saying a prayer could be done mechanically, but what is the point of prayer if you don't believe what you are praying about?
I made it through about half an hour of the Evangelical speaker video, before I had to turn it off. My guts were churning and I was losing focus, and I don't have time to wrestle with that at work. Out of a sense of familial loyalty, I will try to listen to it again in 15 minute bursts. Just so I can say that I've given it a chance. Religion is a seductive thing. Sometimes it can sound very reasonable, and you can find miraculous things that seem scientifically impossible (assuming they are true). At the end of the day it seems to boil down to faith, to surrendering your agency and putting things in God's hands. I poured out a lot of hate and self-loathing when I was younger into God's hands, and things did not turn out all right. It took years of therapy and a near-death experience to turn me around to having faith in Me. My life has been slowly getting better day by day, month by month, because I've been loving myself more and more. Jesus had nothing to do with it, though if I did have faith I could say that God spared my life so I could make that change.
There are clearly things that happen that cannot be explained. Perhaps they are tricks, perhaps they are God, perhaps they are phenomenon that we lack the science to explain just yet.
The whole exchange really unsettled me, but this is good practice for acting on how I feel, and not reacting. Practice makes perfect.
I made it through about half an hour of the Evangelical speaker video, before I had to turn it off. My guts were churning and I was losing focus, and I don't have time to wrestle with that at work. Out of a sense of familial loyalty, I will try to listen to it again in 15 minute bursts. Just so I can say that I've given it a chance. Religion is a seductive thing. Sometimes it can sound very reasonable, and you can find miraculous things that seem scientifically impossible (assuming they are true). At the end of the day it seems to boil down to faith, to surrendering your agency and putting things in God's hands. I poured out a lot of hate and self-loathing when I was younger into God's hands, and things did not turn out all right. It took years of therapy and a near-death experience to turn me around to having faith in Me. My life has been slowly getting better day by day, month by month, because I've been loving myself more and more. Jesus had nothing to do with it, though if I did have faith I could say that God spared my life so I could make that change.
There are clearly things that happen that cannot be explained. Perhaps they are tricks, perhaps they are God, perhaps they are phenomenon that we lack the science to explain just yet.
The whole exchange really unsettled me, but this is good practice for acting on how I feel, and not reacting. Practice makes perfect.