Post by Brad Nelson on Jun 15, 2019 21:16:00 GMT -8
God can never live up to our expectations which might be the reason so many lose faith and then move either to atheism or substitute their faith for the pseudo-faith of “social justice.”
As one sage once advised me, to know God you have to first get rid of all the false ones. And we create all kinds of false gods who are usually extensions of our ego, a flattering thought, a way to raise ourselves up. Or God becomes but a lock we try to pick with the right combination of rituals and acts.
But still we suffer and face injustice which seems to make no sense if God is good and exists to help us. These conundrums have been there since the get-go and aren’t easily solved. But what can be clarified is the difference between faith and religion.
Religion can be all kinds of things, almost always bound up in our ego, our wishes and desires. “God” is our means of fulfillment of worldly stuff. And “God” can be a marvelous vehicle for prestige, for raising oneself up, for we all sense deep down that to dust we shall return, and that is a wounded pride we will not easily suffer.
But I think faith was best simply stated by Julian of Norwich. And that quote is:
There’s no formula to figure out. The is no “Me” who needs bolstering, an ego to be eternally flattered and enlarged. There’s only the idea that it will all work out and be alright. Lighten up. Get over yourself. You don’t need to be “special” in the way men define it. Walk that path and have faith that Julian’s mystical experience was a manifestation of a deep connection with a deep truth.
As one sage once advised me, to know God you have to first get rid of all the false ones. And we create all kinds of false gods who are usually extensions of our ego, a flattering thought, a way to raise ourselves up. Or God becomes but a lock we try to pick with the right combination of rituals and acts.
But still we suffer and face injustice which seems to make no sense if God is good and exists to help us. These conundrums have been there since the get-go and aren’t easily solved. But what can be clarified is the difference between faith and religion.
Religion can be all kinds of things, almost always bound up in our ego, our wishes and desires. “God” is our means of fulfillment of worldly stuff. And “God” can be a marvelous vehicle for prestige, for raising oneself up, for we all sense deep down that to dust we shall return, and that is a wounded pride we will not easily suffer.
But I think faith was best simply stated by Julian of Norwich. And that quote is:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”
There’s no formula to figure out. The is no “Me” who needs bolstering, an ego to be eternally flattered and enlarged. There’s only the idea that it will all work out and be alright. Lighten up. Get over yourself. You don’t need to be “special” in the way men define it. Walk that path and have faith that Julian’s mystical experience was a manifestation of a deep connection with a deep truth.