The Bible & Spirituality

The Bible is an enigma to me.  People think it’s the greatest thing 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.  Some people use the Bible’s words for manipulation and control.  And 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.”  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.  People argue about whether or not the Bible should be cherry picked.  From the little that I have read, I think this is unavoidable.  But it needs to be cherry picked for its’ lessons about love and acceptance 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, for a 21st Century mind, version.  

How totally egocentric I know.  Okay never mind.  I will leave Bible study and discernment (whatever this means) to others who are up for the job.  I’m not religious and I don’t go to church.  I suppose it is possible that I could change my mind.  Life can be full of surprises.  Personally though, I have had the feeling that church isn’t meant to be cherry picked so if I don’t believe in all of a religion’s doctrines then it isn’t for me because how can I just believe what 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 Atheist so long as they are not attempting to 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 think acceptance is the safest path to follow.  I’m not trying to sound preachy.  I’m just trying to find my own personal beliefs.

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 laws 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 things to work on that we don’t understand.”  One more would be, “Forgive ourselves for our own imperfections and mistakes and just keep at it with attempting to be a decent human being toward others, to do no harm and to be accepting of others.”  Sometimes our choices will seem to be a contradiction of our own best ideals and intentions, but it is all part of our learning process and what we feel we need to do.

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.