[XMEN Ashaman DTM]

Wow... a lot of the things you say, Kal, are echoed in my own thoughts. I come to similar conclusions for very different reasons. And the fact is that I truly believe that there is a God.

What I see as one of the negatives to religion in general is the simple fact that too many people seem to think that saying a prayer for life to go their way, will work just fine. Take football games for example. Highschool football that is. I played when I went to highschool. I was decent and only did a couple of things to stand out. And I knew that I could do more, but the coach never let me try. I would go to the JV games instead of watching videos with most of the other varsity players because I loved to play so much. It was awesome to hear the bones of another person crunch as you hit them. Not that I'm into causing others pain, but it was an interesting test of will and physical strength to try and control the other person.

I remember making some incredible and awesome plays during JV games. And I would occasionally make a few during varsity games. We didn't have a varsity coach that liked to pass, even though he had six good receivers, and two decent quarterbacks (I was one of those receivers at tight end). I remember one play where we went with four recievers and I actually sprinted 75 yards downfield with the two wide recievers and the split end, and caught a pass. It was gorgeous. But because of a penalty flag at the line of scrimmage, we had to replay the down and the other team saw the pass coming.

The point is that no amount of prayer helped, no amount of confrontation with the coach would help, and no amount of trying to reason would help. Heck, if I wanted more ball time, I would have moved over to full back and received hand-off after hand-off. But I wanted to play where I was having fun.

And the kicker was when we had our second game of the year my senior year and one of the players called everyone to a kneel and started a prayer. It didn't help. Three of our players got hurt that night. One almost broke his neck. And we lost the game. Many of the players had put more faith into the prayer than into their playing ability it seemed.



The other thing was when I was attending church regularly. There was a woman that prayed religiously... to the point where she had to be praying all the time (every other minute or so). She would pray for things like a young couple being happy, one person's father to get well, for a woman in a car accident to come out okay. These were very heartfelt prayers! She literally prayed for everything to happen as God saw it, and she trusted God to make sure that she came out okay. Well... she didn't have a good success rate. She was at the point of putting everything on God, that she never helped herself. That is one of the BIGGEST shortfalls of religion in my mind; that people put so much of themselves into faith that they lose sight of things that they have to do. Things like putting in a job application, but not sending in your resume because "God will help them to understand that I am a good pick". Utterly stupid.


The other thing that seems to get me is just the fact that there is so much pain and suffering in the world. Yet, if you believe the Christian way, then you believe that EVERYONE is a sinner and thus everyone must pay some pennance. In many Christian minds, I would be a big-time sinner for living with my girlfriend. Just living with her. But I know that if she didn't live with me, she wouldn't be in California (too expensive). And if she didn't live in California, our relationship would be strained to the point that it wouldn't work out. She would have stayed in Washington, with a teaching job, and I would have stayed in California. Yeah, I could quit my job and go back to Washington, but I would be closing a huge door on my career and chances are that I would never be happy.


That's another thing, I'm not going to not enjoy my time here on earth, living a good life as a good person because someone decreed that I have to live in misery to show my faith in God. And I'm going to be proud when I work my ass off and accomplish something. I'm not going to shove it in your face and go "neener neener, I get paid more than you, I am smarter than you, and I have a better job than you". That's not me... but I am still proud that I am where I am and have what I have. I have a beautiful and kind girlfriend (that I will more than likely marry), I have a nice and safe place to live, I am well nourished, I have good friends, have family that cares about me, I am doing things using my knowledge in a way that makes me happy, and don't sweat the small stuff. I have a ton of debt, I miss my family, I miss my friends (even though I've made new ones), and I am still not exactly where I want to be career-wise. But I am happy.

Now, if my grandmother died, I would be extremely sad. And the phrase that "it's God's way", doesn't comfort me at all. Because if God wanted me to be happy and loved me as stated in the Bible, then why take people away or let pain and suffering loose on the world. If God were really God, then He could just step in and stop all of that. And saying that it's a test of MY faith, is rediculous... how does that speak to how God treats other people? "Oh I have to test Bob's faith in Me, so I'll go and take his parents away, even though they're good people (selfless, kind, caring, etc)." I can't believe that there is some grand plan, where good people are sacrificed to prove a point (or test a point).


And after all of this, I don't really care about any afterlife. I care about living my life being a good person here on earth. I think the question of whether or not there is an afterlife, is a moot point considering the fact that if you live well, do good things, and genuinely care, then the effects of your life on others will be remembered and you will help countless others. I'm not going to do good things, live as a good person, or do anything of the sort because there is the possibility that I'll go to hell if I don't. I do things the way I do them because I believe in being a good person and that it's the right thing to do.