The Jesus Dilemma ~ What do you say to them?

First, I want to start off by saying that I respect ALL religions. I want to start off by saying that there is no one true right path. I want to start off by saying that each individual has the right to choose their spiritual path and the beliefs that they adhere to, and they deserve this right to be respected by the world community without coercion, ridicule, or prejudice.

I have nothing against Christianity or Jesus. I have dear family members who follow this spiritual path as well as individuals close to our family circle, and I would not think of interfering with their decision, or degrading their practices, beliefs, and dogmas. Among my own immediate family circle, we are a wide and diverse group. My seven children include, not only Christian practitioners, but Buddhists, agnostics, Wiccans, atheists, and more. Apparently this is something that makes us unique as a group of people that are close knit in spite of our varied and often conflicting spiritual beliefs.

It’s all good.

The ONLY thing that I find offensive about Christianity and the Jesus cult is the hard-core Christians who have a very obnoxious attitude of “My way or the highway”; their incessant domineering insistence that you must believe what they believe; and their often disrespectful attitude and response to people of other spiritual paths. Sometimes this is very over-bearing and “in your face”, and other times it’s very subtle with biting quips and off hand remarks.

How should non-Christians respond when confronted by disrespect regarding our spiritual paths, practices, and deities without being disrespectful to someone else's spirituality?

It’s a conundrum.

A brief note to Christians determined to convert non-Christians ~

• 1.  Just as grounded and passionate as you are about your Christian faith, we are just as grounded and passionate about our faith.

• 2. “But the Bible says…” — You are assuming that everyone in the world views the Bible as a divine work from the spirit world. Not so. I can’t speak for other non-Christians, but I view the Bible as a piece of literature written by men, from a male perspective, over the course of centuries, and modified much through various translations since then. (Although the original was bad enough.) There is nothing divine about it to me. As a matter of fact, as a woman I find it very insulting and reflective of the negative attitudes towards women that prevailed back in the day, and even survives to some degree in modern times.  What the Bible says does not impress me.

• 3. “You need God in your life…” — I’m assuming as in “god” you are referring to a super-natural entity of a high vibration. If this is the case, I call this entity “Goddess”, and She indeed enriches my life and life experiences through my connection with Her and the daily spiritual practices I use to connect with Her energy. I can only speak for myself when I say that I view divinity as a universal consciousness expressed around the world through a variety of pantheons, spiritual practices, mystical stories, and archetypes. However you personally connect with Divinity, it will be a unique and blessed experience. Just because your experience is different from my experience, it does not invalidate my experience, or the higher vibrational entity that I connect with on my spiritual journey.

• 4. “I’ll pray for you…” — Under certain circumstances, this can be a positive statement to hear. For instance, you’re facing a problem or a decision and close friends or family who are of the Christian faith want good things to happen for you. It’s like saying, I’m on your side, or I’ll add my energy for a positive outcome, or I’m concerned about you and I want to help. But when this comes from the lips of someone who is trying to convert you, someone who has pestered and preached to you about your spirituality, someone who has been at you to try and convince you that you are wrong in your beliefs… Then this statement can be chilling.

• All thoughts are energy, no matter who they come from or what they consist of. The energy that these people will be sending out into the universe will be very negative and conflicting with your soul and your connection to divinity. Personally, I view this as the ultimate insult.

• I like to respond without being negative or rude if at all possible. I usually say, “Well, while you’re praying for me, I’ll be casting a spell for you.” This generally brings about a very shocked reaction. Maybe they never considered that you would reciprocate in kind, or that this was even an option.

• 5. “It’s heaven or hell…” — Actually, this is inaccurate. The non-Christian has so many other options. First, I have to say that the idea of “hell” came from the Bible, the book that was written by controlling domineering males who wanted to intimidate and frighten people, which would make it so much easier to control people. So we can just let hell go all together.

• Other spiritualities have a variety of beliefs in what happens to us after death. I can only speak for myself. The following perceptions were typed out randomly, as they came to mind, in no specific order:  I believe in life after death; I also believe in reincarnation. I believe that it’s possible for some very enlightened gifted individuals to connect with the spirits of those who have passed and communicate with them. I believe in the Wiccan idea of “The Summerland”, the place newly departed souls go to find rejuvenation and peace. I believe that certain soul connections are so strong and indomitable that they reconnect through many life times. I believe that the soul is set free of the physical body at death. I believe we have spirit guides to help us through major transitions in life, which includes death.

The Jesus Dilemma ~ What do you say to them?

First, I want to start off by saying that I respect ALL religions.  I want to start off by saying that there is no one true right path.  I want to start off by saying that each individual has the right to choose their spiritual path and the beliefs that they adhere to, and they deserve this right to be respected by the world community without coercion, ridicule, or prejudice.

I have nothing against Christianity or Jesus.  I have dear family members who follow this spiritual path as well as individuals close to our family circle, and I would not think of interfering with their decision, or degrading their practices, beliefs, and dogmas.  Among my own immediate family circle, we are a wide and diverse group.  My seven children include, not only Christian practitioners, but Buddhists, agnostics, Wiccans, atheists, and more.  Apparently this is something that makes us unique as a group of people that are close knit in spite of our varied and often conflicting spiritual beliefs.

It's all good.

The ONLY thing that I find offensive about Christianity and the Jesus cult is the hard-core Christians who have a very obnoxious attitude of "My way or the highway"; their incessant domineering insistence that you must believe what they believe; and their often disrespectful attitude and response to people of other spiritual paths.  Sometimes this is very over-bearing and "in your face", and other times it's very subtle with biting quips and off hand remarks.

How should non-Christians respond when confronted by disrespect regarding our spiritual paths, practices, and deities without being disrespectful to someone elses' spirituality?

It's a conundrum.

A brief note to Christians determined to convert the non-Chrisitian ~

1.  Just as grounded and passionate as you are about your Christian faith, we are just as grounded and passionate about our faith.

2.  "But the Bible says..." -- You are assuming that everyone in the world views the Bible as a divine work from the spirit world.  Not so.  I can't speak for other non-Christians, but I view the Bible as a piece of literature written by men, from a male perspective, over the course of centuries, and modified much through various translations since then.  (Although the original was bad enough.)  There is nothing divine about it to me.  As a matter of fact, as a woman I find it very insulting and reflective of the negative attitudes towards women that prevailed back in the day, and even survives to some degree in modern times.

What the Bible says does not impress me.

3.  "You need God in your life..." -- I'm assuming as in "god" you are referring to a super-natural entity of a high vibration.  If this is the case, I call this entity "Goddess", and She indeed enriches my life and life experiences through my connection with Her and the daily spiritual practices I use to connect with Her energy.  I can only speak for myself when I say that I view divinity as a universal consciousness expressed around the world through a variety of pantheons, spiritual practices, mystical stories, and archetypes.  However you personally connect with "Divinity", it will be a unique and blessed experience.  Just because your experience is different from my experience, it does not invalidate my experience, or the higher vibrational entity that I connect with on my spiritual journey.

4.  "I'll pray for you..." -- Under certain circumstances, this can be a positive statement to hear.  For instance, you're facing a problem or a decision and close friends or family who are of the Christian faith want good things to happen for you.  It's like saying, I'm on your side, or I'll add my energy for a positive outcome, or I'm concerned about you and I want to help.  But when this comes from the lips of someone who is trying to convert you, someone who has pestered and preached to you about your spirituality, someone who has been at you to try and convince you that you are wrong in your beliefs... Then this statement can be chilling.

All thoughts are energy, no matter who they come from or what they consist of.  The energy that these people will be sending out into the universe will be very negative and conflicting with your soul and your connection to divinity.  Personally, I view this as the ultimate insult.

I like to respond without being negative or rude if at all possible.  I usually say, "Well, while you're praying for me, I'll be casting a spell for you."  This generally brings about a very shocked reaction.  Maybe they never considered that you would reciprocate in kind, or that this was even an option.

5.  "It's heaven or hell..." --  Actually, this is inaccurate.  The non-Christian has so many other options.  First, I have to say that the idea of "hell" came from the Bible, the book that was written by controlling domineering males who wanted to intimidate and frighten people, which would make it so much easier to control people.  So we can just let hell go all together.

Other spiritualities have a variety of beliefs in what happens to us after death.  I can only speak for myself.  The following perceptions were typed out randomly, as they came to mind, in no specific order:

I believe in life after death; I also believe in reincarnation.  I believe that it's possible for some very enlightened gifted individuals to connect with the spirits of those who have passed and communicate with them.  I believe in the Wiccan idea of  "The Summerland".  I believe that certain soul connections are so strong and indomitable that they reconnect through many life times.  I believe that the soul is set free of the physical body at death.  I believe we have spirit guides to help us through major transitions in life, which includes death.

The Moral Compass...it was spinning

The following excerpt is from a letter that I wrote to my then sister-in-law in December 1988.  We were both raised in the Catholic Church, products of Catholic parochial school, and she wanted to know what I believed.  We were sending a flurry of letters back and forth, feeling each other out, trying to get to know each other.  She was a very religious person.  At the time I wrote this, I had still not discovered the Goddess, but I was 'coloring outside the lines', so to speak.  The spiritual metamorphosis was in progress, but there was still a lot of thinking to wade through and episodes of discovery coming up:
____________________

Monday, December 12, 1988......

I believe that every human being carries the capability of both good and evil:  Some people say that God gave us a choice in this matter; but I often wonder how much "circumstance" influences this.

I believe there are very basic rules of right and wrong:  But should all the rules always be solid and completely unbendable?  Some of them, yes-- the Ten Commandments, or at least most of them-- thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal...etc.  Be good to people, don't hurt anyone.  This is such basic decency.  I don't know if the average person needs to belong to a conventional religious organization to know these things, or to believe them, or to obey them. 

But what about some of the other rules, the ones which simply can't be cut so black and white?  Fornication?  There is such an enormous difference between blazon promiscuity and giving yourself to one person out of love.  The first is so apparently wrong; how can the second be wrong too?  I don't feel they are the same thing, so should the same rule apply?

It is a dilemma.  It is confusing.  There are definite needs in our society for rules of humanity and decency; but where should all the lines be drawn?  It sounds so elementary sitting in catechism class at twelve years old.  Everything is made so simple-- right or wrong, black or white.  But life isn't like that.  Life comes in shades of gray.  You have to follow your heart in lots of places.

I believe in some sort of afterlife:  Sometimes I'm not sure if I'm altogether right on this assumption, but I go on believing it anyway.  Maybe this-- the hope of some sort of immortality is the basic reason for religion.  We have to believe in "life after death" or "resurrection" or "reincarnation", otherwise the finality of death would make life almost unbearable.

At one time, Gramma told me that she didn't believe in the afterlife.  She believed that when a person died, that was it.  Death was the ultimate end.  But during her final illness, faced with the reality of her own death, she grasped desperately at the hope of something (what?).  She began taking communion, confession, took her rosary to the hospital with her.  Her actions at that time were a kind of statement for everyone...faced with death, we clutch and grasp pathetically for life.

I don't believe you have to attend a formal church service to be a spiritual person:  I find myself less spiritual in church.  I have never cared for church services, yet I think of myself as a very spiritual person.

The summer D. and I met I went out to the farm one day.  He was busy mowing, so I decided to take a walk up the big hill, behind the farm.  It was a lovely day, sunny and warm, and a soft breeze.

I sat on the hilltop for a long time just thinking and looking at the scenery.  I thought of so many things, too many to remember it all now.  But one thing I shall never forget:  absentmindedly, I plucked a small green weed at my feet.  I held it up and looked at the root-- very long, but not straight.  It was curved and bulging in different directions for it's entire length, curving here and there, and then swinging back to follow it's original path.

I realized that the root had adapted itself to grow around all the small pebbles that had blocked its path at various points.

We do that too, all our lives, just like the root of that little green weed.  We must adapt ourselves to all the various changes and obstacles in life; but we must also keep on growing, adjusting our lives and swinging back to our original path, or a facsimile of it, seemingly unencumbered and unruffled by all the detours we had to make.

I sat on the hill that day and learned "adaptation".

Could I have learned a better lesson sitting in church?

 

God's churches and temples are not the buildings man has constructed of brick and stone and mortar.  God's churches and temples are green fields, flowered meadows, lonely hilltops, rippling streams, and blue skies.