To rewind a little, I was on a mission to point out the church's hypocrisy so that I could get back to my usual Sunday morning. Laying around, leisurely cooking a big breakfast when it was about 1 pm and so on and so forth. Yet in my first experience in a long time, I had found some of what I searched for, and yet I found so many more questions.What was the deal with the truly happy people there? Instead of the 'holier than thou' minister, I had found a real man who spoke of heroin and cocaine addiction and had testified that it was Christ who had given him peace. I had met people who seemed genuinely interested in meeting me and instead of imposing some unattainable law they had just offered me their friendship. I was confused and irritated, I was convinced that there was something that they were hiding or it was a cult.
As I started to form my attack, I had it all planned, I would attack with science, I would attack with facts and figures and statistics. As I brushed up on my studying of evolution and how I was going to prove science over 'idiocy', I found an article on tomatoes in Japan. Now, it may not seem like much, but it delved into the subject of excessively oxygenating tomatoes and that they would not only grow so much more healthy, but to enormous size. As I pondered that, I was handed some DVD's by a man named Ken Ham, a scientist who inquires on the biblical with scientific hypothesis. As I repeatedly watched the DVD's I became fascinated with disproving his theories, and yet no matter where I went, it seemed that many of his theories had valid merit. It confounded and confused me more, and honestly, pissed me the frick off.
I looked in historical documents, to try and take it apart, and yet, I found myself arguing with the documents I found. This was beginning to shake everything I had once believed in, I was finding puzzle pieces that could not fit into my puzzle, at least what I thought the puzzle was. I looked in Greek history, Macedonian, Hebrew(holy crap do they keep an accurate account of everything), Roman, and so on and so forth, even reading some of Marco Polo's journeys for my own quest on dinosaurs. Yeah, well, that's how far out I was going. Yet, I came back to the same things, over and over again. I then studied how the bible as it is accepted today came out within the same generation that Christ himself lived. That even when there was the possibility that it was just some handed down chain of stories, that, ok, look at it this way. If you are an adult, and the children are reading a story that is all in all fallacies and lies, wouldn't there be something to contradict it, over and over again? Yet, even Jewish history has much of the stories in their books, as for Paul who was roman, there is document after document from the roman government since he was a citizen, that tell the same tales, and in that, each time the words are exactly the same, not one difference or deviation. Now I was getting furiously annoyed.
Then it happened, long story short, I found my truth, I found the missing piece of my puzzle, I gave my life to Christ. Long story short. In that, I found a whole new breed of Christians, people who didn't use the title as a shield, people who actually studied the teachings of Christ and practiced it. People who loved one another as He loved us. Real people, with real problems, real lives, and everything that goes with it. People who didn't pray to a perfectly adorned savior with blow dried flow back hair, perfectly trimmed beard, flowing white robe, with powder blue pageant sash perfectly in place. People who followed the teachings and principles of a man who came to earth, was hated by many, constantly chased by authorities, unwelcome in his home town, called every name in the book, hung with the lowest of the low, and spoke out against the government and those who perverted beliefs to outfit their own wants. My Jesus was an outlaw, He was hated, he was persecuted, on the run, and in time killed for His beliefs and willingness to stand up for them. He spoke of love, true love, unadulterated love, Agape, the true love of God. The bulk of those he reprimanded were not those downtrodden, they were the governing rulers and religious majority. He was crowned the King of the Jews and he suffered one of the most horrific deaths that the world ever knew. A death so horrible that a word came from it. The word excruciating, it's latin root excruciare, from cruciare, to crucify. Think about that the next time you use it.
Which brought me to my final arguement, what I used to call Zombie Savior, because even though I was believing in the teachings of Christ, I found it hard to believe that not only did He raise people from the dead that He Himself raised from the dead. (to be concluded).
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