Ah forgot about this thread.
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Originally Posted by spicoli
I don't feel the need to convince anyone of anything. Just like you said, I'm me. You CHOOSE not to commit to any one thing, and pick and CHOOSE what you like out of each, and discard what you don't? That, to me, doesn't make much sense, either.
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Why not? What doesn't make sense? When someone comes up to you and starts telling you about anything do you immediately believe 100% everything they say? And no, the process is quite different from picking and choosing what I like and discarding what I don't. It's about taking an idea, any one, Jesus being the son of God for instance, and putting that idea in every possible environment you can think of and see how it survives. You continue to rationally and logically attack that idea. If it holds up, you bring it along with you for a while and look for another opportunity to test it. If it doesn't, you adapt it, revise it, until it possibly has no resemblance of what it once was. THAT process makes sense to me.
When you were 2, were you Christian? Did you know Jesus was your savior? Did you even know who Jesus was? Prior to you being exposed to Christian related material, did you even have an awareness of it? I didn't. I had to learn about Christianity, what the Bible is and what it says, who wrote it, why it's seen as important, who Jesus was, etc. That all took time and effort to learn.
I went kind of backwards I suppose. Prior to Christianity I had looked into (in great depth mind you) MANY other things. Philosophy ranging from the modern to the ancient. I looked into Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Sufism, etc, etc, etc. Christianity was one of the more recent ones I've looked into in depth. It and Islam really.
In this sense, I see so many schools of thought attempting to define and describe a universal phenomenon. That is life, existence, our relationship and place within it. To think that any particular one has it right is ludicrous to me. To say that Christianity is the right one makes no sense when many of the fundamental concepts and principles contained in it is contained and touched on in SO many ways in SO many other schools of thought. The very subject, the relationship between humanity and life, is so vast and so complex, our own perspective so limited in it's view of it, that it takes an INCREDIBLE stretch of the mind to think that we can be so sure of something as to dismiss everything else.
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Originally Posted by spicoli
And I suppose I don't see my belief in Chrisitanity as a choice. It's just what I believe. It just doesn't feel like the 'choice' to believe, it's part of who I am inside. I guess it wasn't ever a choice for me, it just was, and I trusted it, and I still do.
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You are an instrument of experience. Life passes through you like breath through a flute. Christianity is but one note that has been chosen to be included in the melody that is you. That choice was made by the one who plays the instrument. It's carried only so long as it's played. You can really stop playing it whenever.
People's identification is a funny thing. It's tragic and beautiful in a sense. I should take the time more to show my respect for it. I don't want one to feel under attack for their beliefs. Beliefs can open up doors and give you great power. I just do not believe
that belief should suspend critical thinking and skepticism. It's about establishing a sort of "trinity" between the 3.