A World Religious View as a Christian

With various world beliefs out there, from atheist to Christian, to Eastern philosophy, to another religion of the East, Islam, et cetera; we must ask ourselves, What are we criticizing?

What do cause the stomach to churn and cause our interjections and objections?

It is usually the same things that upset us so much in interpersonal relationships. That the other person doesn't care about us. It is often the reason atheists are so ardent, in objection; and the cause of hurt to the atheist heart, that not only do they feel that God doesn't care, or even exist, if you don't mind, but that Christians display an intolerant, and often hateful, especially virulent to 'sinners' or 'deniers,' expression to those who will not accept their principles, which objections, to be honest, are ofttimes valid! Logic is, or seems to be, undeniable. And why would the Christian be so offended by an appeal to the truth, or logic? Or, for some, science for that matter? The important point for the atheist ... is that the Christian is unreasonable, believing in something, or a laundry list of things, because of tradition, or upbringing. The atheist is individualistic, future-oriented, reasonable, ... or else he often perceives himself to be, or desires to be. To the atheist, the Christian is unreasonable, ... and to top it off, not only can't explain his tenets, for many Christians, he may be unwilling to do so, and appear or be recalcitrant to our poor atheist, who is just in search for the truth. The Christian, strangely, or perhaps strangely, registers the same sentiments.

To the Christian and the Muslim, and even to often those of the Eastern philosophical persuasion, God is undeniable. But the atheist cannot fathom, through thought, reason, religious experience or bitterness, perhaps, the religious one's unbending adherence to his own religion or a conviction of one sort or another. Again, just as the atheist closes his mind to his personal conviction, against naysayers and incompatible ideas, so does the Christian and all else, even applying to outside religion, in other areas, as politics, gender ... The unaccepting mind is just closed, each party will say, or the heart is closed. The ideology one chooses comes from the heart. It is not that it does not comport with the asserter's mind at all, but that it is something the person believes to be right.

At this point, religion or belief, tenet ... it all fails to matter. Those who hold particular said belief, position, are the enemy, for many. The idea of being intellectually right or morally right falls by the wayside, for the adherent has chosen what makes sense to him, and the opponent to him or his is the adversary.

This is all too unfortunate. For, as an old saying goes, attaining to truth leads to unity, but attainment, or arrival, at truth leads to division. The idea is that as long as we have a common goal we're unified in that, and not on the basis of denomination, religious or otherwise.

Those who make themselves our enemies or adversaries, or we who do the same, on this basis, lack one thing: Education. We're so interested, many of us, in entrenching and solidifying our own position, that we cease to learn, for our unyielding ossification lets us not change our minds, in small way, or great, in tenet or totality, for we are right. For we are no longer Christians, atheists, Jews or Muslims, wise men, but propagandists, at least only and alone to ourselves.

I have seen the objections on the part of many of the East, who deject at and upon our immorality in the West, atheists who note an uncaring God, Christians who question how the atheist yet doubts even in an undefined God at all. The Christians on the Western side of the world seem to have little interest in the pure life of the East. The morality. The Eastern world has no interest, the philosophical Buddhists and esoterics, et cetera, in substitutionary atonement, of a christ who died as a substitute.

The sad fact of all this, ... is that whatever the truth is, and whatever is the appropriate philosophy, outlook, or religion, we apparently will never discover it, will we; unless on the off-chance we already have? For if the name and life of the Christian, is correct, then it will end there. The mind is closed to any thought not already rattling around in the brain, or open to the heart of the Christian, or expounded by their famous religious demagogues, or local assembly leaders. In the end we have abdicated our minds, our hearts, to the narrowness of the haranguing of our opinion-makers, and socially delineated constraints, rather than the fearful tenuous ship's plank -- or it is perceived, apparently, treated as such -- of open heart, open mind, ... genuinity.

As a Christian and for a Christian, and to convince those who are not, will I not have to open my heart and my ear? Keep throwing up walls, and renunciations, and whether Christian, or not, the world will not listen to you. And why should they? For you have painted them as the black sheep, often Christians, that in your mind they are. Shall they renounce their objections and thoughts, and beliefs, so that they fit your idea, when many Christians themselves are more interested in denominations than truth, love, or being called 'Christian'? Now what denomination? Is your mind big enough to grapple with their thoughts and understandings, or your heart wide enough to see their perspective and how it seems appropriate to them? Or do you array yourself with presorted answers? What if your favorite preacher, doctrine or pope is at stake? If your religion or belief is the issue then these things are or may be secondary. What if ... by laying down your defenses, you come to the truth? What if you come to be known as open-minded ... convincing ... reasonable? And if all else fails, at least you get an education yourself.