Faith, materialism/hedonism or insanity?

from pharmaboy - Monday, August 26, 2002
accessed 1429 times

Is it better to blindly believe in something, & be convinced of your beliefs(no matter now twisted), or to use your mind to the full, always be willing to question anything that others seem to swallow mindlessly? Is it worth while to trade blind belief for perpetual uncertainty?

Ok, people, beware! another one of my rants.. don't say i didn't warn you!

Unfortunately, I am currently staying in a Christian bible college boarding house. It reminds me so much of a combo...Anyways, when discussing religion or controversial topics with guys my age, I'm so surprised how convinced they are about Christianity, church, etc..but with no real logic to support any of it. Basically they believe what they were grown up to believe & flatly refuse to even consider that it might be wrong! I can easily punch holes in their entire system of belief(I am against any form of organized religion, but I do think god exists), but I feel guilty about even suggesting certain things to them. Why? At least they are seemingly content with life & Co. they love church, why should I make them feel the same inner turmoil I do? They are paranoid about sin & lust, but just let them go to church & they come back at peace, convinced of their own perfection.
Now, you may be thinking, "well, how nice, they're so happy & fulfilled". No way, they are the most sexually frustrated people I have met & most of them are full of personal issues. I don't envy them, but I consider my state of confusion no better than their's. Why confuse them? We know how disorienting it is to discover that everything you've been taught as a child is wrong, grandpa is not always right, TF is not the "chosen ones", it was traumatic initially to realize that, you actually refuse to at first, & kinda drift back & forth. Same with these church kids, they might get sick of it all & say, not go to church for a month, then guilt sets in & they go back, more convinced than ever that's the only thing to do.

1st example: A friend of mine here(mulatto) had a white girfriend, daughter of a pastor, who although racist, he would never admit it. This pastor made life for this friend of mine impossible, he had to move to another town, because the pastor was slandering him & tailoring sermons for him about lust & deceitfulness (“there are some people in this church who think they can deceive god, etc”. sound familiar?). He is very hurt by all this but still, he won’t break with his fucked up church, because he says god is just, it’s only few individuals like that: I think I’ve heard that as well somewhere? Oh, yes, one of those GNs, on past wrong-doing in the fam, it was just few sick people that took the mo letters to the extreme. How come there happened to be at least 2 of those kind of people in every home I’ve ever lived in? Back to this friend, once he was really pissed of about the whole thing & he asked me if I could get some weed. You know, he’s upset, so he wants to do something “naughty”, & he believes smoking weed is a sin. I have no conscience problems with my weed use, & we smoked a couple times together, then Sunday comes along. He feels guilty about what he did, & starts telling me I’m an addict, etc..Of course he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about, but no matter what proof I gave him, he refused to budge on his 11 commandment standpoint (11th: thou shalt not get high). I didn’t push any further, just kept quiet, more disgusted than ever with Christianity.

2nd example: A girl just arrived last week, staying here sponsored by the church: she was a crackhead just out of rehab, & had a kid with another junkie that she gave up for adoption. She grew up a Jehovas witness, & reminded me a lot about the many troubled ex-fam teens girls I’ve met(a bit naïve, extroverted, gives the impression of an “easy” chick, used to getting things free from nice people). Ok, so, how sweet the church is helping her get a life, all she has to do is work like a servant for the house parents & on Sundays at church, & get treated like shit by her supervisors, throw in some guilt, & I think I’ve seen this all before…She tells me how screwed the Jehovas witnesses were, & now she knows that the trinity is the truth. I’m thinking: WTF? How do you know that for certain? What difference do these useless theological doctrines make, if they’re both built on guilt & many rules extracted from far-fetched interpretations of the bible? I don’t want to destroy her faith, but just thinking of the religious trip she’s in makes me nauseous. We Rolled together (actually neither of us wanted the other to find out, until it was obvious!!) at a club Friday, & got into some deep discussions, but I didn’t want to destroy her faith. I asked her that night what she thought our reason for being alive & she said, don’t you want to raise a family & get a BMW convertible? Yes, all I think about is that Ducati Monster my uncle has....:-(

Ok, moral of this is: to find happiness, don’t think, don’t ever question what you’ve been taught, & always want what you’ve been taught you should want. Maybe if I bang my head on a wall hard enough & plenty of times, I’ll be dumb enough to swallow that, or I might develop a passion for luxury items & with a good credit record, I might be able to own my car, house & Rolex after only 20 years. Or maybe with yoga & inspirational self-improvement courses I might be able to convince myself that I want what everybody else does……..LOL