christianityor how much of it reflects myself but
yeah, whatever.
The light part is especially shoddy.
I didn't even like it at the time but
yeah, whatever.
To derive morality from religion, or any means other than personal investigation and experience, is in itself immoral. God or any higher being may deem good that which is good because it is good, but that which is good is not good because He deems it to be. Throughout history religion has often been the stumbling block of society. The worst of atrocities have been committed almost infallibly under His name and misfortune that could be easily rectified is repeatedly accepted as His will. Morality is an objective to be sought and owned by the individual. To accept another’s laws without regard to personal mentality is not morality. When one does not decide the legitimacy of one’s actions, accepting any decision deemed to be the will of God, then all that is good is mutable. Therefore all that is good is equally evil, and the pursuit of morality is futile.
History continues to repeat itself in regards to man’s foolish dependence on and deference to Divine guidance. Caste systems were (and are) condoned as the necessary framework of society according to His Plan. During the colonization of America, the guise of God’s name was used to justify the extermination of entire populations of Native Americans. His will is referenced to subject women to an inferior status. Slavery was supposedly condoned by His Word, as was the lower status of African Americans hundreds of years later and into the present. His followers twist his words to confine love between a man and a woman, illegitimating the responsible affections of good, honest people, seeking to criminalize love. The genocide of World War II was performed in his name, the suicide bombers of 9/11 martyred themselves for His Glory, and the bloody Palestinian Conflict persists with both sides claiming their Divine Right to the Holy Land. If History can teach us anything, even the most pious of Puritans must see that Divine Guidance has failed again and again in determining morality. With so many failures, to continue to surrender the quest for morality to the Divine is not only futile and immoral, it is unfathomably stupid.
When one looks to the Heavens to arbitrarily decide morality, one submits unquestioningly to His authority. Any decision is to be accepted and adhered to. But does this not undermine morality, abandoning its purpose altogether? If any option can be accepted as the moral one then, as there is nothing for it to oppose, morality ceases to exist. Just as one can never know joy until one has known sorrow, morality can not exist without the taint of sin, without the possibility of a bad decision. It is not right to simply adhere to laws. It is right to understand the laws and their purpose and adhere to them if, and only if, they be deemed just. If the laws are wrong, adhering to them can only be wrong.
On a more personal note, I am very active in my church. I attend service and Sunday School where I volunteer in class when, as usual, no one else will. I am not only a member of the Youth Group and Youth Choir but I am a representative on the Youth Council, and I attend every service activity and mission trip. Despite all this I am agnostic, unbeknownst to the congregation, many of my friends, and my parents. I am not on a so-called faith journey, seeking to find the truth. Agnosticism is my life-long philosophy. I believe that one can not be sure of any extreme, but that Truth is probably not encapsulated in any earthly religion. And yet I am an enthusiastic member of Main Street United Methodist Church. Perhaps you think this “false life” immoral, and I will not argue otherwise. I will impart that I have never proclaimed or attempted to purport faith. I have been referenced as an exemplary model of Christianity based solely on my disposition and expressions of moral beliefs. So many of the faith will assume a person of moral character is Christian, but some of the most admirable people I have had the privilege to meet are non-Christians. Contrastingly, some of the most despicable and immoral people I have met are believers. So why do so many surrender their selves to a higher being and attribute their goodness to Him? These God-fearing people appear blinded by the light, assuming it to be His work. Neglecting to investigate the light themselves, they never discern its true source: humanity.
