Tag: religion

What if God Was One of Us?

I read Why So Many Gods? by Tim Baker and Kate Etue last week. I was initially pumped to read about things my small town education never presented to me, then read the first page in which they claim that Christianity is the one and only true religion.

So that put a damper on things, but honestly, the authors did a fine job of keeping their bias at bay except in a small reflection at the end of each chapter.

I learned about religions I’ve never heard of before (Bahá’i, sup?) and double checked the facts for some of the more prone to misinformation religions at the time of this writing (Taliban – which they actually gave the same info as Wiki).

I LEARNED A LOT HOLY SHIT. This was dope. I really enjoyed just flicking through some info I’d never really had in close comparison before. It’s interesting to see the variations and honestly how similar the beliefs are in what the end or main goal is. Would recommend this book if you can look past the weird moments where the authors express how Christianity is law over all the religions they’re teaching. They had some interesting contestants, for example, Magic the Gathering. Which many would be honored to have considered as a religion.

Reading about so many beliefs in such a condensed space kicks up a lot of thoughts on religion.

Some of them (Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, which this book classifies as a cults) have very specific guidelines and expectations. You have to ask if it’s manmade or someone truly believed that the Lord came to them to preach the truth.

And the reality is most of these religions (or cults or whatever you want to call them) are genuinely faith based. It’s hard to test someone’s faith if they truly, in their heart of hearts believe what they’ve seen/heard/felt.

Many of the religions think of the Christian God or the Christian Jesus as one person, or as two separate but equally insignificant people, or as guys who play a part but not the major role, etc. etc. Honestly, by the end of the book I was getting bored of hearing the slightest of variations between the religions. Y’all are talking about the same thing.

I love to not bring this up, because I love not arguing about things I genuinely have no stake in, but I believe it’s truth when a person is 100% behind their brand or faith. They genuinely believe what they believe, and it’s different than what other people genuinely believe. Everyone has their proof but that only matters if the proof is enough to convince the non-believers.

So is any of it real?

For those with a genuine faith, very much yes. For me and the others of us who don’t really care, I don’t really care.

Hannah Huth and I at a winter church camp, maybe 2007?

All things considered, I just like learning. I like being armed with information and this book provided that. Hella would recommend.

Ok, so last post I mentioned that my life is chaos on accident. Well, it turns out my lease is up a month before I thought it was. Of course my initial thought was “Son of bitch, I could’ve left for Europe a month early.” But since my ticket is non-refundable and I just accepted a job with NY Marathon through the first week of November, that’s a big “oh well.”

Now the thought is, “Son of bitch, I have to get rid of all my shit sooner than I thought and then homeless a month sooner than I anticipated.”

Whoopsie Chaos, is what I’ll be calling my life from now on.

So, I’m looking at starting my next and final job for New York Marathon, going to court because my previous, bratty employer doesn’t want to pay my unemployment, becoming homeless for a month, working the marathon, then floating through New York for two weeks before I leave the country for a year.

Needless to say, this week I’m going to practice something the sweet, sweet virginal Jac believed in.

April 11 [2005] 4:59am
“Smile a lot and don’t be grumpy.”

Which is kinda the exact opposite of me and my values. Also a lot of these reflection based projects are similar. That’s not lost on me. But it’s a great reminder every week to get out of my own ass.

It’ll do me some good to just stay positive, and keep my mind on the goal. I’m leaving for a year long travel in Europe in exactly one month and twenty days. That’s the goal.

So here’s to pretending I’m not one shoulder check away from killing someone.

Wish me luck and send me funny things to smile at this week.

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Not Entirely Positive

Ah, New York. My plane landed at 6:45am after I got a total of 15 minutes of sleep all night. It took three hours for me to get from Newark Airport to my house in Brooklyn and then I slept for two whole days.

This week I focused on avoiding negative thoughts. Any time I reminded myself of this project, I overpowered my goal of positive thinking with all the stressful things in my life. I’m unemployed, I’m unprepared for a massive trip I’m taking reeeeaallllyyy soon etc etc. It seems when you try to think about having positive thoughts all you think about is how you should be focusing on the things that bring negativity into your life.

I had a similar feeling when my Uncle John passed. I was so upset and it was wreaking havoc in my life, but I felt like I needed to be upset. I wanted to be upset because that meant I was thinking about him, and if I didn’t think about him he’d go away.

The reality is he was already gone, and my problems won’t be fixed by laboring over them in bed at 1am.

It has also shown me that I’m not entirely great at taking compliments. Somewhere inside of me I feel shame for the life I live. I’m nowhere, in that deep, dark thought. I have nothing and I am nothing. So when someone tells me they’re proud of me, or inspired by me, or excited for me, I make some weird comment on how things will probably blow up. (This article induced these reflections).

(Side bar – I came home to a letter from my first NY employer taking me to court because they don’t want to pay my unemployment… so.)

This is all to say that we’re in this beautifully annoying age of self care, where positivity is a weapon and it’s used to fight self doubt, societal pressure, used to pave the path for all the hard work we do to follow our dreams. It’s up against debt and financial woes, the ever-growing complications of intimate relationships and communication, the reality that dreams don’t pay bills but corporate jobs do and aging which actually hurts.

Sometimes it feels impossible to juggle the mere responsibility of being alive and participating in the US and also tell ourselves we’re okay and beautiful and capable of love.

However, when has a negative thought done anything other than fan the flames of your problems? Is it not the most uncomfortable feeling to be unhappy? I’ll admit I’m one of many people who feed off of depression at times, getting a creative fuel from it. But the nagging disappointment of one’s own life is not inspiring in the least and tends to feel more like pressure. It’s gross. It’s a gross feeling. Like when you’re too hot but can’t take off layers so you just have to stew in your sweat (it’s still really hot in NY so this is just an immediate feeling for me).

So I still believe in positive thinking. I don’t know that I truly believe that positive thinking will bring you all your fame and fortune (because I’ve been coasting off that belief forever, but it turns out believing you’ll succeed doesn’t actually do the hard work of succeeding) but it will certainly ease the discomfort.

Here‘s another cute article as a final thought on that.

This week will be a whirlwind. I’m getting all my doc appointments out of the way (is it a broken rib? Is it Tietze? Stay tuned, I’m getting an x-ray. My money is still on swollen organ). I was also brought on for New York Marathon and that gig starts next Monday. It goes from then until the week after the event (Nov. 3rd) which will leave me just a week or two out from Europe.

There’s a lot of prep to be done, but in the meantime I just finished a (bad) book and so this week’s project is one I’m actually pretty interested in.

Cost me $3 on Thriftbooks, the holy mecca of cheap reads

Tim Baker and Kate Etue wrote a book called Why So Many Gods? and it’s pretty much a 2000s rundown of a select bunch of religions. I’m pretty sure both authors are Christians, so we’ll see how this pans out. It’s actually really hard to find anything on Tim Baker, because as you can imagine, everyone and their dog is named Tim Baker (Tim Barker, for the latter…).

I’m curious to see how factual this information is and possibly learn a little about other religions. I’ve spoken a lot about my relationships with Christianity but I honestly know very little about other religions. Such is growing up white in America. Here’s to being accountable for the information we fill ourselves with (and here’s to filling myself with potentially biased information).

Well, wish me luck this week and give me deets on the religion you practice, one you’re interested in learning about, or your experience with religions. OR READ THE BOOK WITH ME. I’m so alone.

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