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Christianity No Longer Cuts it For Me.
June 14, 2007 at 8:46 pm by mahud
Thanks to Kay for linking to this post. if you want to cut to the chase, this is My view of Christianity and why it no longer works for me
In my original about page I crammed what I believed into these sentances:
All living things were created to exist in complete harmony with God in Eternity, but this relationship was threatened, and the inevitable destruction of Creation was circumvented through God’s own selfless sacrifice, and a reordered temporal universe sprang into existence. All life exists on these two levels of reality; both within time and beyond time.
Kay over at Songs of Unforgetting, asked me to explain where I was coming from with these beliefs, and asked me a few questions:
Wow. That is an intriguing few sentences. I’d love for you to explain your thinking a bit.
When you say “all living things were created to exist in complete harmony with God in Eternity …” What do you mean by that? Are you thinking of a “theosis” sort of state, or what?
When you say “this relationship was threatened …” Who or what threatened it?
And when you say “inevitable destruction of Creation…” Why was it inevitable and who or what could destroy it?
And when you say “circumvented through God’s own selfless sacrifice…” What do you have in mind?
Sorry for so many questions, but your words caused a bit of an epiphany and I’m curious as to whether we are thinking the same way.
kay
As I had never really put into words before why I believed to the stuff I did it was quite a challange, but It helped me to clarify it all in my mind. This was my response:
OK, here goes…
I believe that the universe exists at both an eternal level of reality (or heaven), where creation is in complete harmony with God, and a temporal (time-bound) level of reality, where we exist in an imbalanced relationship with God.
heaven exists outside the restraints of this time-bound reality, and everything that exists here and now, also exists in eternity, so when I die, rather than ‘go’ to heaven, my consciousness will become aware that heaven is where I already am.
I first began to think this way after contemplating a passage in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where he states that; “God raised up with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus (2:6).” To me this implied that the chosen were already there in heaven in Christ. I still believe this with the exception that I now believe in universal salvation.
Because eternity exists outside of time, we were also there before this universe came into existence, and that the beginning and the end of this temporal time-bound reality is completely transcended by eternity. So, in a way you could say that I believe in pre-existence, except there is no real before or after. Before and after are unified and transcended in heaven. How, exactly we ‘live, move, start, stop, etc’ in a reality that operates outside of time, is impossible to comprehend, but I guess that in some way, the rules of time, are something like ‘reflections’ of eternal rules.
I’ve been trying to think of what I mean by living in ‘harmony with god’ and I guess the simple way of putting it is that ‘living in harmony with God’ is to love God, yourself, and fellow beings with all your whole being. So, love is foundational to our existence and free will and with that in place we can live as we are meant to live.
When I say that this relationship was threatened in eternity I mean that we ’stopped’, to whatever degree, to love completely, and so stepped outside the sacred circle of a perfect heavenly relationship, which cuts us off from our life-source, which is found only in God. As a consequence God’s life-giving presence becomes a destructive presence with metaphorical bolts of lightning, peals of thunder, and earthquakes on an infinite scale. This is my perception of heaven and hell. Hell is not a place of torment, rather it is everlasting presence of God, beyond the boundaries of a harmonious relationship.
In Genesis, the garden of Eden is a mythical representation of our eternal harmonious relationship with God, and eating the forbidden fruit, again represents mythologically, us stepping outside the sacred circle of a perfect heavenly relationship. however, instead of eating of the fruit and becoming exposed to the destructive presence of God, something happened to counteract our destruction. I believe that the time-bound temporal came into existence, and it is through this second reality that our eternal relationship is simultaneously broken and restored.
At this point arises a paradox. To restore the union between God and creation, there needs to be a degree of connection between the two, but even the slightest imbalance in the relationship makes this impossible, not to mention that we should be annihilated. So, God enters into creation and places himself in our paradoxical position, by exposing himself to his own infinite presence. On the time-bound level he experiences death, but on an eternal level, is indestructible. It is also through God’s incarnate role within the time-bound creation, that the temporal creation came into existence.
In essence, the temporal universe came into existence and is continually sustained through god’s sacrifice at an eternal level outside the boundaries of time, while also occurring within time itself. Our death, becomes God’s death and God’s life becomes our life, both death and life are bound up in the destruction and creation of the universe, the beginning and end of all things, transcending into eternity. I first began thinking about God’s sacrifice as the event that created the universe after reading in Revelation that, Jesus was “the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world (13:8).”
Another way of putting it in Christian terms, is that although Jesus is “the light of the world”, whose entrance into the world gives life and light to all, that light, through Jesus, also existed at the beginning of time.
Putting it mythologically, rather than a whirling sword of fire (symbolic of God’s destructive presence) preventing access to the Tree of Life, streams of water flow from within the gates of eden permeating the whole of the cosmos, which is the life giving presence of God.
I began viewing the universe and our relationship with God in this way while I still believed the Bible was wholly the Word of God. As I began to study mythology, I again saw the same story of a cosmic re-creation and divine re-unity through the sacrifice of a god who dies and rises again. It’s seems to me that its a pretty old story, embedded in many different mythologies, and whether their is any truth to it all or not, It seems like God has revealed himself to me through it all. I guess I’ll have to wait until I die to discover if any of it is true.
My view of Christianity
Recently, however, I’ve been questioning my Christian beliefs, as well as the pagan aspects, I believe, helped formulate the Christian myth of Christ’s death and resurrection.
As a Spiritual Teacher, I think Jesus was a man of his time, who was of prime importance to the needs of the society and times in which he occupied, but in the global society of today, his message and teachings no longer have the same import. And the Church injunction to be Christ’s witnesses over the face of the earth, and create a Global Christianity, is no longer (if ever) acceptable, in our multi faith world. Other religions can be just as life transforming as Christianity.
It is my belief that early Christianity and Jesus himself taught sexual equality, but were unwilling to let go of the old patriarchal myths and traditions, that gave the Church its authority as a new expression of faith, rooted in the Old Testament. And so, even today, woman are treated as second class Christians, who are within Christian traditions accepting the Bible as God’s word.
Even the mythos of Christ has an inherent sexual inequality inherited by an pagan patriarchal view of reality (I hope to blog about this soon).
I do not regret my short time as a Christian. It has blessed me with so much. I’m a much more loving and caring person than I once was. I’ve been set free from a lot of crap, but now It’s definitely time for me to take a new path. I’m still in need of some self transformation, but Christianity no longer cuts it for me.
I’ve tried to understand Jesus is a more liberal and mythological way, and if Christianity is gonna survive, I think this is the way ahead. But personally I think that Jesus vision was a Jewish one, who believed the Mosaic religion of his forefathers to be the only way ahead for all mankind.
Filed Under
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- Weird Dreams and New Directions
- From Christianity to Paganism: An Interview (part 1)
- The Other Aphrodite
- Religion After Christianity?
- My Wasteland of a Reality
