"Ask, and ye shall be given," I intoned, handing it to him.
"Hey, pretty good, do you know any other Bible verses?"
"Just a second ... 'From he who hath not, even what he have shall be taken, while to him who has shall be given'." (I paraphrase.)
Thus launched the first conversation I've had in I don't know how long - years, likely - with a real-life, died-in-the-wool believing fundamentalist Christian, a man who takes his Bible so seriously he homeschools his kids (not that I've anything against homeschooling. Based on a reasoned critique of the public
It was an amusing conversation. He was thrown for a loop, it seemed, by my statements, questions, and responses; obviously not a practicing Christian of any sort, he expected me to be your usual godless heathen atheist, I think. For instance, I could tell he was expecting an eyeroll when he put forth that the world was of the devil; when I agreed with him unconditionally, he wasn't sure what to say next. When I suggested further that the devil, too, was ultimately of God, and should be seen as a part of God's plan ... well, he wasn't sure what to say to that.
We discussed the gnostic texts, and I explained to him my views on the origins of the Bible, both the pentateuch and the gospels. He of course took them as the literal view of god, and was perplexed - though not angered - when I suggested that Christ's original teachings were likely suppressed, and that furthermore much of the Bible, though ultimately based in historical fact, consisted of mythologized oral history recrystallized into written 'history' along lines intended to materially benefit a small priestly class, not to elevate the consciousness of the masses and thus bring them closer to God.
When he said, Jesus was the literal Son of God, born of a virgin, descended from heaven to save mankind, and that only by taking Jesus into our heart could we be saved ... again, I agreed, and pointed out that the Christ figure is unique in any era but not in history (being the Son of God he manifests wherever and whenever he is needed most), that the virgin birth could well be an allusion to a personal rebirth inside the Kingdom of Heaven (an internal state of consciousness in which one is in direct contact with the Absolute), and that accepting Jesus in our heart amounted to achieving inside ourselves what Jesus achieved inside himself (namely the Kingdom of Heaven.)
At one point, clearly perplexed, he remarked that I seemed to believe a bit of this and a bit of that (i'd been throwing some vedic ideas into the discussion), and how did I decide what was true? Obviously, for him, he took the Bible as being true and everything external to it as part of the Lie, which greatly simplifies things. So, I admitted to more or less following my own gut instinct, to which he replied, but how can you trust yourself? Of course, I don't, not entirely, and so I alluded to the Cassiopaeans, telling him that I participated in an online group whose main focus was holding up mirrors to one anothers' beliefs in order to detect falsehoods arising from wishful thinking or psychological shortcomings, a task no man can accomplish alone.
I'm sure he still thinks I'm a lost and damned soul, and the jury's still out on that one so I won't say he's wrong. I could as easily tell him to open his mind and question things, for when you're exploring the most important matter in life (which we both agreed this was), you want to proceed with care. Yet at the same time, God is a merciful type; to those who ask - sometimes even without knowing they're asking - he shows the way. Especially in this age, as the veil lifts, the way becomes increasingly clear. And though knowledge might hasten the journey, God doesn't care in the end what words or ideas one of his appendages uses to grow closer to him; in the end, it is only the growth that matters.
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