Jenyar,
Jenyar said:
RosaMagika said:
This is something *you* say. Again -- I ask: Which God? In what way?
But that's exactly the question you don't want me to answer! You'll think I'm trying to convert you. But what could I possibly get out of converting someone I don't know, on the other side of the earth, to a Christianity that seems just as foreign to me? But I do know God - it's a relationship that I trust and I will gladly refer you to it. That's the best I can do.
Do you think that I don't know God?
Please elaborate on this one.
I half-dreamt this tonight: My belief is not tailored by Christian measurements, my God doesn't have a name. But that doesn't make my belief in God any less real or any less worth than your belief. There are more ways to know God, not just the Christian or Muslim etc. way.
All you can do is refer me to *your* way of relating to God. But your idea of relating to God is by no means the only one, neither is it the only real one.
Jenyar said:
I felt no need for a car; I felt no need for an internet connection; I felt no need for a cellphone either - now I don't know how I ever got along without them. They're mundane examples, but life works that way.
Oh, you know that this is not a proper argument.
I bet there's something else you're trying to say.
I think how "life works" is thus: We get/buy/receive something, either because we need it, or because it is fashionable, or because it is a part of the culture we are living in, or because we got it by a felicitious coincidence, ...
We establish a relationship with this thing or person: it can in some cases be addictive, forced on, or indeed a mere survival need, or a loving relationship -- it is this relationship that then binds us to something.
Some things, we learn to *love*. Some thigns become really special and important to us. That plush chimp I got for my B-day: it's just a plush chimp for you, but it means a lot to me.
Similar happens with God. We establish some sort of relationship with God.
Afterwards, most is a matter of what and how we invest into this relationship.
When you read the Bible, what were you looking for?
I was torn, manifold:
1. The excitement of something new.
2. Self-punishment and enjoying see people/characters in the Bible suffer. Job was my man. Yes, you know God is there, but he don't want you. Not really. Not now. I loved the Apocalypse. The end of everything.
3. Seek, and I shall find. It all seemed too simple. Too easy. Too Oprah. My idea of finding God was, and probably still is very Job-like. And indeed, I got a bad bad flu at around that time, I haven't slept for 42 hours due to headaches, general nausea and a stuffed nose, and several days before that I couldn't sleep either, as the flu was approaching. Meds didn't help. I was screaming because I was exhausted and I couldn't sleep. I was grinding my teeth and I ground away about 2 square milimeters of my first upper left front tooth. It took some to fix it. (Don't worry, I do not look like a monster.)
And what is worst, and most, in that more than a week of my sickness, my oh so loving friends didn't bother to call me or to see me, even though they knew I was sick. Later on, I set new standards of what I consider love.
Anyway, that flu was ended by some really really strong meds, and me finding a way to sleep but still being consciouos (I couldn't breath through my nose because it was stuffed, and my throat was sore -- I breathed once or twice, and then had to swallow to wet my throat. You can do that only if you are awake.)
4. I've then decided that the Bible is not the thing for me. At least not until some further notice.
