On my religious and spiritual journey - Part 3/3

When I started re-evaluating my concept of God and what his will was, I went back to basics. I remembered a scripture in the bible of when Jesus was explaining the purpose of what Mosaic law meant. The law given to Moses had hundreds of commandments of what the Jews had to do and not to and when, etc. The purpose of it all was to ensure that the Jews worshipped God in a certain manner and also that they be protected from harm. Then Jesus implied that after his death, Mosaic law was to be abolished and he said that the whole of God's will can be summarized in only two commandments (not the hundreds given to Moses): 1) Love only God as god, and 2) Love each other as God loves you. That was it.

I concluded that God's will had nothing to do with guilt, and guilt was not a virtue to God! Sure, the bible still has those commandments about how to practice his worship and no idolatry, no fornication, etc, but also it tells me that God does not ask of me any more than I can give and that He will be the only one to judge my sins, errors, behaviors etc. I am not God; I have no place trying to judge other's sins or punishing myself for my own. God who knows what is in my heart, my intentions, why I do the things I do, why I desire the things I do, I believe is the only person fit to pass judgement on me. And that is my "new" thinking. That is how I came to stop feeling depressed about having to make religious sacrifice and how I overcame my guilt for just being human. If I had to do it all over again, I don't think I'd pick a different faith, I'd hope I just merely came to this conclusion faster.

So what is my philosophy? As I’ve discussed previously, my personal values are my family, participating in and enjoying life while I am alive, and not making a world a worse place for anyone or anything. I believe in God, but I also believe in humanity. I believe human's greatest quality is our ability to think and reason for ourselves. I sometimes meet with a religious group whose ideology I mostly share and I call myself a Christian because I do believe in the Bible being a holy book and I aim to follow the guidance provided in it by Jesus Christ. I worship God because I am grateful to him for all I believe he has been responsible in my life. I follow the things the Bible says because I believe it is wise and its mandates are for my overall good. I’m not scared of God that he will punish me in any way because the God I believe in is understanding, merciful, forgiving, and not vengeful. I believe he is far too grand to be offended or hurt by the actions, words, or thoughts of one little person as I am. I understand also that my belief in God may be mythical, as real as he feels to me. So I hold nothing back from this life that I may experience it in an afterlife that I am not 100% guaranteed will actually happen. Once upon a time perhaps my faith was stronger, but for now this is the God and the rules and the values I believe in. This is the type of God I respect, and the type of God I want to emulate.

I love God. My God. I love the type of God that lets me love him and not at the exclusion of also loving myself.