This.

How to Share the Gospel with a Pagan

It's an article on Everything Under the Moon's forum entitled "How to Share the Gospel with a Pagan". While I may not be pagan (I'm more agnostic for the moment), I feel that the same statements could apply if you were to switch out "pagan" with any other religion/belief. Everything covered under this subject is for how to share the gospel with anyone.

Don't treat the other party as less than human.

Don't become defensive when you're confronted about the negatives about your religion.

Learn about the other person's beliefs before making assumptions about what they believe.

Don't tell people what they really believe.

Don't attack the other party.

And many other things. I just simplified what this piece of writing elegantly said. To get the entire message I would suggest reading the post.

Musings...

I've been thinking a lot about myself lately. What I believe in. What I want to get out of life. What makes me happy. I don't know the answer to any of these. I don't know what I'm doing with myself. I don't know what I hope to get out of this life if there is anything to get out of it.

Religion and spirituality has been confusing me for a while. I grew up in a Christian house but the religion, particularly the followers, make it less appealing. I've been speaking with two people about religion. One takes the stance that every word in the bible is truth and in order to be a true Christian along with believing in God and having faith in Him, you have to take everything in the bible as pure truth. The other only speaks of God's love...of course that's nice. I don't know what "love" really feels like. I'd rather be loved by someone that I can physically see and hear and touch. But the followers of Christianity don't make this religion appealing. They do exactly the opposite of what Jesus teaches and how am I supposed to believe that it is a religion of love when the followers of said religion spread so much hate? Sure they can be under a devilish or demonic influence, but they don't realize it. All they realize is that they "love" God and want to punish all those that "do not". How am I supposed to believe it is a religion of love with all that? So I've decided that as an "ultimatum" of sorts that I want that question answered by God by means of an animation I want to make. For those are questions that need to be answered.

Not only that but why would he create a girl who doesn't feel human? I guess it could be claimed that I have a "demonic" influence but I don't feel that my canine side is evil. For the most part I'm playful while I'm in my canine mindset. That or very jumpy or paranoid or angry and will growl to warn what ever non threatening entity around me that I'm not happy. Why would God want me to feel like something outside my species? Why is it even remotely necessary?

My weight's also something that bothers me. I wish I had that motivation to just want to lose weight. But I don't have it. I try. I have my mandatory exercise of walking to my classes and back which can take from 20-45 minutes depending on the building, but outside of that walking I don't do much. I keep thinking I can exercise and lose weight without any motivation. I did lose 3 pounds and that's great, but I think I could just as easily gain it all back because I just don't have the motivation to be doing weights, squats, crunches, lunges, reverse crunches and the like close to everyday. Not even my health is a good enough motivation. I don't care for myself. I don't care what happens to me at the moment. I never really care about what happens to me. People could tell me that I could get diabetes until they're blue in the face, but it doesn't phase me. I just watched the opening of the Biggest Loser where the woman passed out and wouldn't respond from walking a mile. I wanted to feel terrible and wanted to feel that I need to get my act together...but I just couldn't. I felt horrible that she was in such terrible shape, but I couldn't empathize with her and I couldn't find motivation with that...

I'm such a negative person and hold in so much negative emotions. I always want to talk to people about things that bother me, but I don't like letting myself feel vulnerable. I mean...I'd love to talk to people about so many personal matters...my feeling canine, my spirituality or lack there of...other personal matters, but I just can't do it. I can't let people know what I'm really like inside. I worry and worry about things that I probably have no reason to worry about but I just can't help it...

I'd be lying...

...if I said I didn't hold any ill feelings towards religion. When I say 'religion' I can only speak about Christianity because that's the religion I was brought up to 'believe'.

It's a feeling I tried my best to deny, but there's no denying it. If it seems unfair to have such ill feelings towards on religion, then it's true. It is unfair. However Christianity is the only religion I am familiar with, therefore th only religion I can speak about. Now it could be because I'm so cynical of things. I could be because of my pessimism. There are many different reasons why I've developed such strong cynical feelings towards religion so I guess I'll go through all of them.

Hypocrisy:

There is too much of this within the teaching of the church. The biggest of all being the teaching of love towards all men. However this changes meaning over time. The bible was used to justify racism, bigotry, sexism, and any and all types of prejudice (and still is being used to justify racism and sexism). How can one love everyone and claim that they love everyone when they themselves are hating certain groups of people?

The biggest group being discriminated against at this time would have to be gays and lesbians. Those who are homophobic claim that it is God's desire to have man and woman be together and that they are showing homosexuals love by 'telling' them that God hates them. A couple of problems with this idea...One, the bible states that God loves everyone. So for people to claim that God hates a group of people makes no sense. Two, judgement is a right reserved for God and God only. To make judgement on a person without knowing for sure what God is thinking is wrong and also a sin according to the bible.

Free Will:

This can be debated with me 'til the cows come home, but this is my take on the issue.

It is said that God is all seeing and all knowing. He knows what's going to happen to us in our past, present, and future. So the if I were to become very religious, the idea of free will would not make sense to me. How am I supposed to believe that the I had a choice in the decisions that I make if my life has been plotted out for me? Unless my life hasn't been plotted out for me which would mean that God isn't all knowing which according to the bible isn't true.

So the real question would be is it only free will because we don't know what's going to happen? If that's the case then yes, free will is plausible. But for many, they believe that God has plotted out a purpose for everyone. Even non Christians can believe that there is some Higher Power, energy, etc. that has plotted out lives out for us. So in a way we have free will, but it's limited only because we don't know what the future holds for us. But if out lives are plotted out in advance, we can't help what will happen to us. Our life circumstances are set already...set before we were born. Or at least that's what the bible teaches.

Marriage:

I personally can't see marriage as strictly a religious affair. One, because of the family I was raised in and two, because there's so many legal affairs that go along with marriage that it's not purely religious. How is it that an athiest man and woman can get married but a gay couple can not? If a person is an athiest they don't believe in God so they are not going to get married in a church. The church is not the only place for a couple to get married.

Then there's this idea that letting same sex couples get married will "ruin" traditional marriage. How? How is one couple getting married going to ruin your marriage? The concept of marriage has been changed believe it or not. There was a time where people of different races could not get married legally. Blacks were considered less than human and having a relationship with a black person was considered bestiality at a point in time. Now if a black and a white person get married very few people think much about it. It's not a foreign idea.

So why can't the concept of marriage be changed again?

Christians:

When I say this, I do mean actual people who follow Christian teachings. I learn about this religion from the words and actions of others. There's a lot of hypocrisy and contraditions spoken by some of them. Note I say some. Most of my friends are Christians and they are very rational minded people. When I speak of "Christians" I speak of those who yell out from street corners to repent for their sins or else they will burn in hell. Those who spend their lives pretending to show love by showing the hatred in their hearts. Those who preach love but show none. Those who close their hearts to new ideas and hold tight to old traditions for fear that God will smite them. Those who sin and continue to sin, but yell at other for sinning. That's what I mean when I speak of Christians.

I can't stand to see a person's spirit being torn to shreds by people who a so closed minded and cold hearted. By people who are hiding behind the guise of religion while just being a bigot.

(Again, when I speak of these things I'm not saying that all aspects of religion are bad. There are good parts like the parts that teach love and hope. And I'm not saying that all religious people are bad. Just those that use religion to hate on others or judge others.)

I have no real problems with people being religious. I have a problem when people do not accept the hypocrisy or the contradictions. Again, this is a subject I hope to go into further once I've really don't all the reseach I can do. For now these are just my opinions. If anyone reads this and feels sorry for me or feels hate towards me my question woule be 'Why?'. What about me do you pity? Why do you want to hate me for my opinion? And by doing so do you realize that to me you're just proving everything I just said?

And if I haven't said it enough, these are my feelings and opinions. Have a different one? Go ahead and say it in an adult manner. No personal attacks, no immature actions...just calmly state your opinion. You can do your best to persuade me to agree with you, but I highly doubt anyone would succeed.