The Bible & Spirituality

The Bible is an enigma to me.  People think it’s a sacred text and hold it near and dear to their hearts.  I tried to read or rather listen to it once and I found myself disgusted.  Yes, I started with the Old Testament but the Old Testament has always been maintained as part of the Bible despite its objectionable content.  

Some people use the Bible’s words for manipulation and control.  Can you for example, imagine being a gay person and having devout religious people tell you that you are a sinner and that you are sinning against God.  “Love the sinner. Hate the sin” is the motto of some.  Horse shit.  If people don’t accept others, who are good and decent people, just for being who they are, they are not loving them or showing them love.  Or imagine being a person who has an illness or injury or was born with a disability that causes them to have physical differences and reading in the Old Testament that people with deformities should not be allowed to approach an altar to God because this would be an offense to God.  This is another example of the terrible things to be found in the Bible.  It doesn’t matter that this is part of the Old Testament in my opinion, because the Old Testament always has been and still is included in the Bible.  People argue about whether or not the Bible should be cherry picked.  From the little that I have read, I think this is unavoidable when people want to regard the Bible as a moral and holy text.  It needs to be cherry picked for its lessons about love and acceptance and empathy and not as a means of manipulating and controlling others.  I wish there was an edited for goodness version.  I would like to just read its best and most loving parts translated into an easy to understand version for modern people.  I do understand the idea and value of original holy scripture and its language, but I would still like to read a version that contained the best moral lessons and scriptures about love, acceptance and Christ like treatment of others in a language that I could easily understand.  I know that it wouldn’t really be the Bible then because people can’t just alter the Bible, but it would still be nice to be able to read just the best parts. 

Yes, I know that people could argue that my thoughts and opinions are very egocentric and uneducated.  I am quite capable of understanding this and the fact that my knowledge on religious matters is pretty much nonexistent.  I will leave Bible study and discernment (whatever this means) to others who are up for the job.  I am not religious and I don’t go to church.  I suppose it is possible that I could change my mind.  About attending church, I mean.  Life can be full of surprises.  I have seen that there are spiritualist churches, although there are none where I live.  Maybe that would be more up my alley.  Personally though, I have felt that committing oneself to the practice of a religion requires really accepting the religion and its teachings and not just parts of it.  This is why it is not right for me.  I couldn’t just believe the parts that I like and ignore the rest.  I told my mother once that I didn’t really believe in the God of Christianity.  She was like, “OMG what did I do wrong?”  My personal conviction is that we all have to find our own path of spirituality.  I respect the paths of others whether they are Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Pastafarian, or any other religion or Atheist, so long as they are not attempting to use manipulation and control and in so doing harm others.  If there is light to be found and people are seeking to find it, they will find their way on their own path.  My thoughts may be blasphemous to some.  I am not worried about missing out on anything or going to hell.  I am not bound to the beliefs and doctrines of a religion that I do not practice and there are many religions, and in my personal opinion, none should ever be considered to be the wrong religion by other religions.  I’m not trying to sound preachy.  I’m just trying to understand and find my own personal beliefs.

I have a few additional thoughts.  None of us are perfect and that is okay and who we are as humans.  We all need to be granted the grace to grow and learn and just do our best and be who we are and there is beauty in that.  I think in my own spiritual path, one of my first doctrines would just be, “Attempt to do no harm.”  Another would be, “Praise those who are putting forth their best efforts and remember that sometimes we don’t recognize the efforts of others. They may have their own personal issues to work on or cope with that we don’t understand.”  I also believe that we should be kind and forgiving to ourselves for our own imperfections and mistakes and just keep at it in our attempts to be decent and good human beings and to be helpful to others and to attempt to do them no harm.  Sometimes also our choices might seem to be a contradiction of our own words and beliefs, but we must also trust in and follow our own hearts and understand that it is all a part of our paths to greater awareness and understanding.  An example could be a situation in which having understanding of and standing up for the rights and voice of victims, takes priority over granting understanding and empathy to the perpetrators of their harm.

Sometimes I just start writing with a simple thought in mind and I don’t even know where my train of thought will lead me, until it chooses a destination.  

I don’t really know why I suddenly conceived of the idea of writing something about the Bible.