Thoughts.com Blogs - Religion vs God

KP and I have this ongoing talk about religion in that she does not see that organized religion, going to a church on Sunday or Saturday and listening to someone is what is best.

Recently someone that we both respect, a very loving and spirtual person posted a blog that KP feels could have been written by her if she had that gift of words, (these days through her chemo brain fog(her words)). She suggested I read it as I am a faithful attendee of church. so I did.

My feeling after talking with my love, and reading those words is mixed. I see the point that God needs to be someone you come to on your own and not through some third party. I met KP and fell in love with her on my own, no one told me what she was and "interpreted" her for me. She and I have a one on one relationship that does not filter through a third party, I get that.
And I see that point, that you need to have a personal relationship with God.  But then I see the other side:

People who believe that you fly planes into building because God told you to. People who believe that aliens from another planet threw evil forces into volcanos and they are now in us so we need to get "cleared" on clay tables with meters attached to us. People who think that God hates homosexuals to the degreee that it is Ok to harrass people at the funeral of dead servicemen.  People who think that when you die, if you do not believe their way, no matter how good you have been in your life, no matter how deep your compassion and good works and love and faith in what you felt was the right way and no matter all that...if you saved a bus full of children from certain death, never lied, never cheated, and was the best person you belived you could be based on your belief...that these people think that a person that was all you were not, this person lied, murdered, cheated, stole, raped, etc...as long as this 2nd person said a few words on his death bed and meant them..he and not the first person who lead the life that was honorable, that person gets into heaven or whatever you want to call the perfect afterlife.

I have been in enough late night bull sessions with people that I went to high school and college with that were about God and heaven and hell, and if God loves you how could he make hell, and all that to know that people get some wild ideas at times about all this even if they do not rise to what I referenced above.

I also know that every single thing I referenced above is a religion, and that religion has brought us the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition and people spending their retirement savings to but "prayer dish towels: from some late night jerk that says God told him to sell them and you need to send him 100$ for one so that you have cleaner holy dishes. I know all that.

All I am saying is that I think that religion, organized, show up at 9 AM on Sunday at this address, sit for an hour or two, religion....that that instution is what is needed to give you some guardrails. Maybe just as a kid, maybe later as you mature you can go sit in a quiet room and talk to God one on one...but as an adult is when you get that arrogance that you know what God wants even though in some cases it is you making God fit your life and not what you heard him say he wants.

Like I said before, I deal one on one with KP. I have a personal relationship with her. But I also can hear her, read her words about what I am doing as I do it.  She knows I have a bad habit of reading into her words at times. And people are always reading things into the Bible. The thing is that KP can tell me when I read the wrong thing into what she said. She can smack me in the head and say "You are not reading that correctly" or "You need to stop reading things into everything". The Bible is a work that is done. God does not have Yahoo IM to correct us if we misread it.

And listen, I am not say any one church is the answer. Jewish, Catholic, Luthern, Baptist..etc...who really knows who has the answer or if any of them do.   Most of us are the faith we grew up in. If my grandmother converted and not my grandfather I would be another faith I bet.
And yes, even the more "sane" faiths have crazy and sick and misguided people in them. I know someone that was told by a priest that going to an interfaith marriage was a sin ! That is crazy.

All I am saying is that while it is WONDERFUL and preferred if you are able to talk to God one on one, and I do that alot. The big guy and I have had a whole bunch of long talks about how unfair he is to a certain love of my life and that his "plan" in that area needs to maybe have the blueprints revised. But sometimes I think that we need to make sure that what we believe is really in the bounds. And I think that men of the faith can do that for us if we find the right ones.

I view them almost ...and maybe some will see this as offensive and some may not get the reference....sports radio hosts. I always feel I must not really know sports in that I can't name the backup shortstop on the 1972 Pittsburgh Pirates but this guy on the radio can. But he does sports for a living, priests and pastors and rabbis do God for a living. they read St Augstine and his proofs on why God exisits, I am too busy doing other things to read it again. So they are there to make sure I do not tink God is in a commet and put in sneakers and drink purple KoolAid.

So all I think I am saying in all this is that while everyone comes to God their way, and if you are enlightened enough to be able to do it on your own w/o any organized help I am envious. But I think most of us need an occasional stop at the spirtual gas station to ask directions or we may get lost...and to think I have two women telling me not to stop and ask directions and I am the man, that is a switch!