A Clean Slate

Wednesday, March 21, 2007
A good friend of mine posted a comment to my Lost Tomb of Jesus writing which sparked the following response. I decided to put my response on the front page of the blog so everyone understands not only my motives for that post but also understands why I am writing so much about religion. This friend of mine is a devote Christian, but more importantly, a very good human being. While I do not like to talk about religion in person, I enjoy writing about it. I find religion is not a good topic to converse with people because religious beliefs are tightly woven into their being and I don’t want to challenge their faith; it can be damaging to friendships. However, I will challenge MY beliefs, which is what I do on this blog.

Let me first give you a little background about me. I was raised Catholic. Many of my early years were spent in service to the Church as either as an altar boy, choir or doing the readings during mass. I was a staunch Republican for many years and used to believe Ronald Reagan was the greatest president of my lifetime. But I started questioning things about 2003. So I decided to wipe away all of my beliefs and learn new ideas. If these new things led me to where I was then that would be proof I was on the right path but if they led in another direction then I was prepared to follow the new course.

The reason for this new approach was I saw inaccuracies within our system of government; contradictions and hypocrisy within my religion. Prayer and going to Church left me with an empty feeling; I felt as though I was wasting my time doing both. I also felt that taking action was better than prayer because at least I was working on fixing a problem. I saw people believing in religions and government but not knowing why they believed, or even worse, believing in outright deceptions.

Since August, 2005 I have been on a mission to find the ultimate truth through the most intelligent minds of our time and their research. The only way to do this is to wipe the slate clean and relearn everything. This blog is the result of this research and the primary outlet for it. This is also why I selected the name "Neutrality" because I now consider myself a "true neutral". We must have balance in life, too much of a good thing is not a good thing. In the absence of evil within a society, portions of the good will then become evil (this is also known as chaos theory). So there is no such thing as a "good" society.

During this research, I have read selected works by Stephen Hawkins (very hard to read this guy), Carl Sagan, the Founding Fathers, and watched many documentaries about a host of topics. This research has proven one thing to me; we cannot give up our search for God just yet. The scientific discoveries of the past ten years are fascinating and deserve recognition.

I find it hard to believe most fundamentalists disregard the most brilliant minds of our generation because they uncover something which contradicts old traditions. I thought humanity was supposed to constantly be learning new things and adapting these new discoveries to life. Even animals use their intelligence and discovery to influence their behavior, but some people within our species do not practice good intellectual behavior. In their narrow minds, tradition is more important than truth.

This research has also been the root to uncovering many other false beliefs I had about government. I have also uncovered many negative traits within our society which our leadership has ignored. Even worse, I found most of the leaders of our nation to be corrupt and working on their own agenda instead of what is right for all of us.

There are many inaccuracies in the Bible but I am not a fundamentalist, so I can still give merit while accepting these inaccuracies. For example, do I believe the universe was created in seven days? No way and I find it hard to believe there are people who still do. But this does not tarnish Jesus’ image for me. I don’t cut the entire tree down because of a bad branch. I cut the bad branch and likewise will just disregard this bad text as an oversight by ignorant men.

I am not sure if the tomb of Jesus reportedly found by the Discovery Channel documentary is the actual tomb of Jesus but I believe it is possible. I believe just admitting this I have taken an incredible leap forward to possibly finding God. It is possible man created Christianity (he certainly had motive for this deception), so that means the true God might still be waiting for us to discover Him; at least this possibility exists. I cannot bury my head in the sand and ignore science, my intelligence, or other people’s intelligence just because these new ideas clash with unproven theories or writings of men over 2,000 years ago.

When I read the Old Testament, I see men of power struggling to control other people and using fear as a weapon to gain control. It’s obvious. So I struggle with my own intelligence telling me this versus my conservative upbringing. Every day I give less validity to the roots of my upbringing because those are not based on fact but on tradition. I am searching for the truth even though it might break many paradigms within my life. It is very difficult to start with a clean slate but this is what I must do in order to obtain my goal of ultimate truth.

I am not sure where this will lead me but I am willing to take the journey and follow the road in which the evidence leads regardless of the conflicts with old traditions. When I finally reach my destination, I’ll let you know, but until then, enjoy the ride.

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2 Comments:

Blogger sattvicwarrior said...

you SAY..
When I finally reach my destination, I’ll let you know,
I SAY..\]
YOU MIGHT WANT TO STOP LOOKING OUTSIDE OF YOURSELF, FOR PERHAPS THE ANSWER YOU SEEK IS TOTALLY INSIDE OF YOU . [ honest..i aint kiddin ya, but dont take my word for it. ] and when you DO find it. you cant share it. because its YOUR experience, and NO one elses. . others can only INTELLECTUALIZE IT. and thats NOT the same as EXPERIENCE!!!!!!
GREAT POST BY THE WAY. :)

3:05 PM  
Blogger hsdajr said...

Wow! Sattvicwarrior said EXACTLY what I wanted to say...

So I guess all I can do is say that "knowing about" something, as sattvicwarrior says, is not the same thing as experiencing. I can read about the Japanese culture, learn their rituals, their martial arts, but that is as close as I can get in terms of "knowing about". I would have to live in Japan for many years, to finally get a glimpse of the experience of BEING Japanese.

Every amount of Knowledge about Aortic Dissection would not have helped me while lying on the bathroom floor last month, but the Experience has changed me. It was that experience that put me to the test, gave me an opportunity to see what I was truly made of, and I ended up finding the power within me to get up and drive myself to the hospital.

I found greater Faith in myself, in God, and in Life, all the while reminding me of what's truly important in Life (Friends, Family, and how we treat ourselves and others). And I wouldn't trade this experience for anything!

Perhaps this is an example of what was meant by Christ when He said, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you".

I also wonder if "You shall Know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free" can only be Known through Experience as about to Logic.

I think (and have said so before) that your search is wonderful, but having done a lot of that through the 90's, I can to one inescapable conclusion (for me at least):

Knowledge will NOT help me become a more loving and compassionate being, only Living, and Choosing to BE Loving and Compassionate every moment of every day will do so, and that is Experiencing, NOT Knowing.

6:33 PM  

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