Heaven's blessings from Sidney!
Forgive me, readers, for I have sinned. It's been 10 days since my last post..
I just found out one of my best friends at work is a Catholic. You'd never know it to talk to her, or hang out with her, or know her in any way, shape or form. I like to call those people "hypocrites". Basically, they're saying, "Yeah, I believe in God and the bible and all that, but I'm just gonna do whatever I want. If there's really a heaven, and assuming I get the chance, I'll throw myself on the mercy of the court."
If I truly believed that the bible was the word of god, and I thought I would honestly spend eternity in Hell, I'd follow that sucker like a fat man following an ice cream truck - an ice cream truck covered in gravy!
I accidentally got tangled up in a religious discussion at the bar last week. Some guy (again, who CLAIMS to be a christian) got bent out of shape when I mocked religion and religious people. Of course, good christian that he was, he was on his second or third beer at the time, so that might have made him a little less open-minded than he might have been otherwise.
At any rate, I asked him the same question I always ask people when they tell me that they're christians: "How do you know that the bible is the word of god?" I actually know the answer to this question, but I like to watch them stumble about for a bit.
The answer, of course, is that the bible tells you it's the word of god, right in the first couple of pages. How can you argue with that? (Well, you can, if you understand the concept of circular reasoning, but I digress.) It further states that god wrote the bible and that god is infallible, therefore the bible is true (because god is infallible, etc).
Most people will argue that they know that the bible is true "in their heart". I use my prefrontal cortex, but if you can think with various body parts, I say go with it. Now that I think about it, I often do think with my penis, so it's probably along the same lines... anyway, where was I?
I imagine the following scenario: some guy walking down the street, stops and has an epiphany, "Hey, you know what? I think that the bible is the word of god! Holy crap, that just occured to me... I should go to church or something." Or, is it more likely that somebody told you about the bible. Then, you went to church, had a little emotional moment, and now you're convinced you are one with the universe.
Imagine what would have happened if you grew up in Saudi Arabia or Iraq. Do you honestly think there are millions of christians running around Baghdad asking, "Where can I get me one of them holy bibles! I know in my heart that it's the word of god!!"
But, I'm getting off the point. I'm not here to tell you why the bible isn't the word of god, I'm here to talk about the soul.
The soul is a tricky concept. As I understand it, the part of you that is "you" is your soul. It's the part that has to fight all the temptations of the flesh and whatnot. It's also some kind of conduit to god, right? Apparently, the soul is aware of the supernatural, but you aren't... Yet, "you" are your soul.
Ok, if "you" are your soul, and your soul is a spirit (for lack of a better word), how is that when you drink enough alcohol, your soul turns into kind of an asshole?
Also, clearly, not all souls are holy. For instance, Chuck Manson has an "evil" soul, whereas you obvious have a "good" soul. But, according to John 3:16, Chuck could find his way to heaven if he were to accept jesus and all that. Even with an evil soul! I guess your soul can be either good or evil, it all depends on your free will to accept christ. But, if I have an evil soul, why would I accept christ??? Man, this is confusing!
Some people believe that your conscience is your soul. That's why you can get drunk and act differently. Your soul is the "good" part of you that cries with baby jesus over all the shitty things you do every day. So, my question is this: which of you gets to go to heaven? The awareness part of you (the mind), or the holy part of you (the soul). Or, does your awareness get sucked into your soul for the trip to heaven? If that's the case, what happens to the guy who used to be your soul before "you" got sucked in???
Holy hell - my head is spinning. Or, maybe it's my SOUL that's spinning... ;-)
It's funny that whenever I debate religion with a christian, the person that I'm debating with will argue my logic. They'll use their mythology to dispute my arguments. In fact, the bar conversation that I mentioned earlier ended something like this:
me: "Ok, so how do you know that the bible is the word of god?"
genius: "Well, let me ask you this, how do you know that Homer wrote the Odyssey?"
me: *shaking head in confusion* "Um, what does that have to do with the bible?"
genius: "Well, how do you know that the Oddyssey was written by Homer?"
me: "I don't. In fact, for centuries, scholars have debated whether an individual named "Homer" ever actually existed."
genius: "Oh my god, you're so stupid. Your logic is so completely flawed, I can't even answer your question."
me: "Um, well, here's a link to a wikipedia article that might help:" http://nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer
genius: "Wow, you're dumb. Only an idiot would fail to realize that god is everything and everywhere."
me: "Boy, do I feel dumb."
I understand why this guy lashed out like that, however. Religious people can't debate religion because, to them, it's not an academic pursuit. It's a belief system. It would be like trying to debate pedophilia with a pedophile, or conservatism with a republican, or nascar with a redneck. These are deeply held beliefs and anyone who would challenge that, even for the sake of debate, is personally attacking them. Not to mention, it's damn difficult to defend religion from someone who considers magical, invisible people to be preposterous (at best) or laughable (at worst).
But, back to the soul. If the soul is a magical, invisible presence that controls your body, then how is it you have free will? Do "you" control you, or does your soul control you. Is it a constant struggle? Does your soul have will-power, and, if so, does it therefore give in to temptation?? Maybe you're a good person, but your soul is a week-willed bastard dragging you down to hell in the same way that one half of the titanic sucked the other half down to the bottom of the Atlantic.
I imagine the soul as a little cartoon person being carried around in a papoose, being strapped to someone and being forced to watch and hear horrible crimes being committed on a regular basis. Poor little soul.
Well, if that hasn't convinced your soul to drive your body over and buy my house, nothing will!
(I'm looking forward to some fantastic comments! But please try to address at least some of my points.)
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5 comments:
Dad, how dare you try to debate religion with a drunken Christian? And at a bar no less! If anything it will generally only give you a headache, and no answers. Also, how do you ever know if someone really wrote something and didn’t just steal the idea from someone else? You don’t. Besides, I thought God’s prophets all wrote parts of the Bible along with numerous others. So really, did God write any part of the Bible, or is the Bible just a bunch of stories about God and his sons, although his most famous son would be Jesus of course.
As for the soul, that is a difficult concept to try and understand. Maybe there really is no soul. But when you go to heaven, there has to be a part of you that goes, right? So if it is known that when you die, your body rots, then what part goes to heaven? I guess the only answer then would be the soul. But this again is just all speculation.
I suppose when we die, we will find out for once and all if there is a heaven and a hell, or we’ll just be nothing and then we won’t really know one way or another.
But here is a question. Do just humans go to heaven and hell, or do all of God’s creatures? Are there viruses and bacterium in heaven? They wouldn’t really have a reason to go to hell since, well they can’t read any language that the Bible is written in, can they? And do the evil dogs to go hell and the lovable ones to go heaven? Its all very confusing, and you would think that eventually heaven would get rather crowded.
Hello Again, So we are talking about the soul....hmm. I believe our souls are the essence of who we are as human beings. So Anthony are you telling us that you are a penis head? And you are driven by your "little" Anthony?
Stephanie, Reva and Tobi,
Aren't you suppose to be working?
Mmmmmmm, an ice cream truck covered in gravy.
-Fred
Hey now, I wrote my comment at night at home.
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