A Journey of Questions...

Allow me to preface this flow of thoughts to screen by clearly stating, I intend no offense or desire to entertain a heated debate regarding religion, however, discussion and reflection are welcomed if you so choose. I'll be the first to admit, I don't have the answers to any of life's mysteries nor am I a Biblical scholar, obviously *wink*, I am just like a lot of people I suppose... I know how I feel about my faith, I know what I do not believe and have a pretty solid grasp of what I do. Yet, it is difficult to be in a world such as ours- the horrors, the marvels, our advancements and our degradation and not stare up into the heavens and contemplate what do we really know for certain? We speculate upon historical accounts, we write what we deem to be insights, we share our near death experiences and deliberate on the possibility of life after death aka heaven... who is to say that anyone has it right? I ponder, do all paths really propel us along the same journey? Faith and spirituality is very personal, very deep and though we worship together in our like 'faiths', albeit, it is still very private. Inquiring of some one's perception of their God could either bring you a plethora of information, thoughts, and feelings or be met with guarded words and a polite brush off.

My thoughts have trailed along a very specific course for the past few years and my study of history books, encyclopedias, the Bible, etc.- was to quench my thirst for knowledge. I wanted to know where did all these religions come from.... is there a correct religion... a correct path that we should follow? I believe most would agree our differences and personal reflections have brought forth various concepts of God and thus, these independent thinkers had followers, blossoming what we know today as our religious atmosphere. Digging deeper though, beyond the obvious of the situation, which one is correct? I am sure we all would agree that man is imperfect, yet how do we take heart in what someone tells you is right or their profound truth? Is that not following man then in some sense and not God? Do all paths lead to the same God and do those journeys all lead to salvation? Again, I would suppose theories which would develop could vary based upon what religion you were discussing.

When I began my journey, with a focus towards Christianity, it truly amazed me when I read about the 20 some odd major religions we have worldwide. I thought it would be a much greater number, yet it's within those 20 different types of religion, where you gain the bulk of our denominations and sects we see today. So with only 20 major religions worldwide I considered how would these have spread, as the human race did not always inhabit the entire earth. Just like today, they had formal writing and typically scribes to pass on the knowledge, but considering what great distances there really were between people, does it not make more sense that most faith based information was passed down within the family unit? As in the past then, how much of our spirituality is simply an inherited component of our lives today? Are our choices made simply out of habit from our familial unit? Meaning, do we simply accept what is passed from one generation to the next, giving no real pause as to why we believe what we do? In my opinion, and speaking solely towards Christianity, how can one be affirmed by what is deemed to be truth if the Bible has been altered to fit the objectives of certain political and religious forces during the 1500s and additionally, the translations and errors from being translated many times from various languages? That is not to say I do not believe in the Bible, on the contrary, I do, but I think there are too many who speculate on things that are not fully known.... trinity, heaven, Armageddon, etc. and then pass it off to the masses as gospel. For who is to say what was left out from the Masoretic text to the Septuagint when the translations occurred which might actually shed light on any of these various topics. Additionally, some Bibles hold the additional passages from the Dead Sea scrolls and others do not.... religious 'leaders' made that determination for us all, yet if you believe the Bible to be inspired by God, were those books not important? I would think they are.

Like I said, I don't have all the answers, but I do know, you can open up any newspaper on any given day and see that our world is in utter turmoil and that man has begun a journey where, to be quite blunt, there is no return. Today, it seems the world as quickly as we are connecting it together, we are dividing it at a far more rapid pace. We discuss the breakdown of the family structure, our ethics and moral code being a catalyst to all of the social problems that exist, yet how often do we take note of what exactly are the ethics and morals we have lost causing the family structure to breakdown? Is it just flowery prose we use in society as an elixir to calm our fears and disappointment of what we see occurring around us everyday? You don't have to be spiritual to see it everywhere... loss of resources, people in fear for their safety, greed, love of one's fellow man waxing cold and religion becoming the hot button topic. Yes, history does repeat itself, and kingdoms and nations have always been at war over religion, so what is different now? Why should we take any particular note of today's circumstances? If you put aside concerns of missing text from our Bibles, and whether or not you believe the Bible to be truly inspired by God, there is one thing which is very clear and is difficult to explain away, in my humble opinion. There are prophecies about what we are seeing now, in our day, in our generation within the Bible and Jesus called these the signs of the last days (Matthew 24). I may not know anything else for certain, but I do believe this, we are living in a time of what others before us only read about and could imagine.