It's That Time of Year Again

I came into work today to find some of the Easter stuff out.  Christmas is over, Valentine's came and went, and now the next commercialized holiday on the docket is my personal favorite.  Yippee.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.  I've been having a lot of mixed feelings about God in general lately.  This has been going on for a while now.  Perhaps even for years.

This time, except for what I've said here, I haven't shared my thoughts or feelings on the matter.  I really don't like being preached to.  "Just a season.  You need to pray more."  I've heard it all.

I like studying every mythology but my own.  The thing about this, however, is that often I see connections and similarities between "theirs" and "ours."

"Something.  Happened."*  Over time, the stories changed and spread.  So now you have a bunch of world mythologies with similar stories.

What makes Christianity so special?  Because it says it is?

Because I can't just accept that.  It's Insurance Policy religion.  Christianity (and a lot of its denominations within) is one of the few to say it's the only way.  A lot of other religions don't care how you get there.

The Bible says don't know too much about the wickedness in the world.  Does that include other religions?  Is that so we don't see the similarities and begin this doubting I'm going through now?

I don't like that notion.  One of the historical eras we learned about, I don't remember which one, had a mindset that if God gave us a brain, the ability to reason, we should use it.

But then, wasn't that what got Eve?  The fruit was knowledge of good and evil.  Yeah, yeah, it was disobedience, but the fruit itself gives me pause.  He didn't want them to have knowledge.

Am I wrong to have questions?  Am I wrong to like learning, to like knowledge?  I think I'd rather a religion--better yet, a spirituality--that doesn't create a bunch of ignorant followers.

And we all know how Christians are at the bottom of the totem pole for intelligence.  Not all of them.  Plenty of great minds have been Christians or at least deists.  In the yesteryears.

You understand my confusion, don't you?  I don't know if there's anyone I can go to about it, because I'm always dismissed out of hand.  

I don't have a problem believing in God.  Perhaps I have a tough time believing in what the Bible says about God.

The Bible, inspired by God or not, was still written by people.  Fallible people.  But this book written by fallible people is still supposed to be infallible.

I've also read somewhere that God is bigger than the Bible.  Thank God.

I would like to think God's okay with someone who has questions, looks for answers, turns the idea over in her mind, and comes back to the mindset she had previously. Or comes to the answer she's looking for, whatever that might be.

But I've been wrong before.

I'm still looking forward to Easter.  I mean to get my chocolate bunnies and make my brother and godchildren their Easter baskets.  I'll probably have an Easter post, hopefully.  As I said last year, the show must go on.  It might not be the greatest, but it'll be honest.


*Why yes, I did take that from Stephen King's Revival.