Part 3 - If Revelations is true, I'm going to poop myself

I thought that would be a good title. Really has little to do with this post. So I'll include a subtitle.

"That one time I found out I despised organized religion"

Let it be known that I didn't start worshiping Satan. And in actuality, my life didn't really change. I just stopped trying to claim a religion. I still had a sense of right and wrong. I still tried to be a good person. I was basically an agnostic. I wanted to find God, so I started looking. I was having a few drinks with an atheist friend of mine and, knowing I had come from a religious background, asked me, "So why do people call themselves Christians and then drink, smoke, cuss, and commit other sins and then say it's ok because God forgives them? In that case, what's the point? If you're just going to be forgiven, why even bother with trying to be good?" I was speechless. That was never covered in my Sunday school classes. I started to think hard on the question and realized that I grew up in what seemed to be a mess of contradictions. I was taught not to sin, but if I did I'm forgiven. I was also taught that every sin is equal, so was drinking a beer as bad as murder in God's eyes? Then I posed the whole "Is drinking a sin" question. I mean, Jesus drank. They partied at weddings and stuff. He even secretly turned water into wine before his time for miracles because they ran out. There are bible verses saying drunkenness is wrong, then there are others that say alcohol is good. More to come on this in the final blog.

So that question burned in my head for a while. I decided to start reading the bible. Unbiased. Just read it like I'm reading it for the first time. I fell in love with the literature. It is truly a beautifully written book. I started with Revelations because I wanted to figure out more about the end of the world. It's actually very fascinating. I don't know how anyone will be able to witness all of these things without losing control of their bladder and/or bowels. Then I started spot reading. I would look through the index for something interesting and read up on it. After not getting far with that, I just started picking books. One that fit my bill was Ecclesiastes. Here is probably the richest and wisest king of all time, saying the same things that I've been thinking. It was the only part about Christianity that made any logical sense to me. No matter how much money we have, how many friends we make, or how much junk we have, none of it matters when we die. It's all vanity. I love pessimism.

Onto the next big event that made me hate religion. A preacher came to campus and basically told everyone they were going to hell. He said that he no longer sins. Just sat there all day judging people on appearance alone. Calling girls sluts for wearing shorts. No grace. No love. Just the repeated use of the H E double hockey sticks word. I stood in the back for a while and just watched the scene. Gay people were making out in front of him. People were shouting at him. People were getting angry. It was a judge fest from both sides. Youth pastors were going up to the front saying this guy was wrong, then the preacher would tell the youth pastor he was going to hell. Is this the religion I'm supposed to associate myself with? Has he ever saved one person? Has anyone ever said, "Hey, that stuff you said about me being a hopeless sinning whore that is going to hell...it really hit home. I want Jesus." Around the same time there was a group of so called Christians that would protest at soldiers funerals. They would hold signs and celebrate the fact that another soldier was dead. So let me get this straight...the guy who fights for your freedom to do just this is a sinner? This same group wanted to protest the funeral of an Auburn student who was murdered. Because apparently if you go to a secular college, you are going to hell. This made me extremely angry and sad. How can people think like this? How can they worship the same god I do? There is no way that these people can be right, yet in their own hearts and mind, they are. I couldn't imagine God smiling on people like this. The biggest question going through my mind at that moment...how can I be part of a religion that fights within itself the way this one does? I haven't done my research on this, so correct me if I'm wrong. But is there any other religion out there that has so many different sects? The street that I live off of has at least 11 churches on them. Most of them are different. Who is right? Is anyone right? Technically...every religion is just a glorified guess.

So these events brought upon even more unanswered questions. If I love God, do I have to do that? Are these people even Christians? No one goes without sin. So how come this guy is up there saying he doesn't? Why am I going to hell for having a beer, but this guy is clear even though he is constantly judging people and claiming to be sinless, which is a sin in itself? I needed answers. I was done with being oblivious and just trusting that I was doing the right thing. I wanted something to back something else up. I wanted to know why one group of Christians say it's wrong to do this and another says it's wrong to do that. So began my quest to find some kind of truth in what seemed like a huge cluster of nonsense and stupidity. This is the last blog of asking questions without answering them. I went to the root of the problem, which I will explain in my next blog. I started at the base and started researching Catholics vs Protestants. I wanted to know why the Catholic church was so big, when the bible more accurately describes a Protestant setting. If you've never done this, or heard much about it...you're going to want to read this next post.