Learning something new

I’ve been attending the District Conventions and other assemblies for ages because I was born and brought up in the same religion. Even though people would immediately think that it’s boring I have always enjoyed them… actually the ones when guilt didn’t churn up my insides. So it was no surprise that I looked forward to this years one. The convention was truly a breath of fresh air. An escape. A journey. An experience. A treasure.

An escape

I’m sick of people who are selfish, who are arrogant, who have no respect for life, who smoke weed and drink till they are unconscious, who think swearing is cool and possess a  vocabulary filled with obscenities, who think living together before marriage is a good thing, who view porn because they can’t find anything better to do with their awful meaningless existence and many other people whom I meet everyday. I’m sad and at the same time glad that I’m not part of it. I was but not anymore. That is why the convention is my escape. Escape from this harmful world. Escape from the clutches of drug induced euphoria and sex-craving maniacs.

A journey

It’s wonderful being amongst people, who truly want to serve God, adhere to his principles and be completely governed by him. It has also being a self-examination, looking for ways I could improve, after all I’m imperfect too. As I sat there and listened to everything that was said I realized that everyone has trials and tribulations, so we should reach out and help one another. This definitely strengthens my resolve to serve my God and be amongst his people. So my journey begins.

An experience

The people are wonderful; I’m not saying that they’re devoid of imperfections. They are dressed modestly, in a manner that brings reverence to God instead of so called Christians who parade in their underwear at most churches. They don’t swear, instead they speak kindly and with respect. People work to time, they take their assignments seriously and put much effort into it and everything is orderly without brawls but with good camaraderie and enlightening conversations.

A treasure

A couple of years ago when I thought I knew best and followed my own path in life I found friends who have now abandoned me, a career that doesn’t bring lasting happiness and heartaches that weren’t necessary. Now that I am back and trying to work on my spirituality I realize what a treasure and safeguard my religion is so I’m going to make sure I follow God’s word to the best of my ability.

Why do people lack faith?

I’m like a little child. Curious. I ask questions, intelligent and stupid. I argue. I find out. I mediate on it. Then I believe.

I don’t simply take things at face value, I will dig deeper until I’m convinced. Unfortunately many people like to take the easy way out. They are quick to believe something they read, watch on TV or nod in agreement at someone’s opinion.

I’m not trying have a holier than thou attitude but hear me out and decide for yourself. Let me start with my basics, I was born into a religion much like most people. I was trained to believe the things my religion taught and what my parents believed. At one stage in my life when I turned a rebellious 17 I looked at other religions. My dad used to be a Catholic and his family are all strong Catholics with a mixture of hypocrisy that seems inherent in all of them, so I decided to start there. Later on I took an avid interest in Buddhism because my best friend was a Buddhist. Soon after I started going out with a Muslim I had many questions about his faith. Since I used to live in a Hindu community I can proudly say I know a little bit about them too. That was the last leg of my journey simply because none of them offered the answers to the questions I had. Instead I could answer most of the questions that had been puzzling them. That was when I reverted back to the religion I was born into and explored it further. I realized that the answers were all there its just that I was too interested with what others were doing and saying that I didn’t look into it myself. When I did, I found satisfaction and happiness.

There are a great number of things I love about my religion, we are trained to think, ask questions, mediate on what we learn and finally begin to believe it.

Once every four months we are given a topic that we need to develop a talk on. You could decide how exactly you want to deliver it, a setting to best make use of the topic of discussion. This time I’ve been asked to talk on the subject of why people lack faith? I was excited when I first got it because I didn’t really know the answer to that question though it’s amazing how often I used to question myself about why God permits wickedness. So I did some research and was quite astounded with what came up.  One reason why people lack faith is because they don’t lack accurate bible knowledge, which is true, how often we come across people who read the bible but how well do they know what they are reading? Second, people are disillusioned with religion. The hypocrisy is just simply overwhelming and that is enough to put you off religion completely. Many people including all of the Christian sects now know that Jesus wasn’t born on the 25th of December, yet why do they keep celebrating it? I know the answer to that one, its because it’s easier to follow age-old traditions than to follow the truth, right? Oh no wait another thought popped into my head maybe the church doesn’t want to admit they were wrong and the people don’t want to point fingers at the church so ta da celebrate Christmas, easy way out eh? Third, people don’t understand why God permits wickedness. Simple, Adam and Eve sinned. Who made them sin? Satan. So we are still suffering from the after effects and Satan rules the world. Oh and the story about God needing an angel that’s why we die, it’s a fairy tale so you can stop telling that to your children. Fourth, people live their lives according to what they believe is the right thing. If we honestly knew what the right path is, why do we keep falling into potholes?

My Nana the devout Catholic goes to church every Sunday, like a prayer (sorry couldn’t help that) and when something bad happens she has the same questions like most people who lose a loved one in death, or go through some horrible experience. One day I asked her quite respectfully whether she’s learned anything at all from her years spent kneeling at the pew. You’ll be glad to know I got an earful for that. Seriously Church is much like the Sri Lankan school system, it so hard to get a decent education.

My final words on this post. Life is too short to go through doing all the wrong things. Base your faith on facts and if you know you’re doing the wrong thing, stop and correct your ways. Also find/discover the answers to your questions, but be careful from where you find the answers.

You think God doesn’t see what you do?

There’s this man whom I dislike a lot and he keeps sending me random mails regarding useless stuff. Today he sent me a mail about a movie that’s premièring, somewhere called ‘ Corpus Christi ‘. The story apparently portrays Jesus and his disciples as homosexuals. So the mail was all about trying to ban this movie by signing it with your name at the bottom of the mail. A certain number of signatures will be enough to stop the movie from being screened. Basically it was a petition. 

I don’t like petitions and I seriously don’t think they work so I choose to ignore them. My problem with this particular mail was that it irritated me simply because I don’t understand why everyone gets worked up about something like this.  Don’t get me wrong I am a Christian and I’m completely against it but instead of signing a bloody viral petition I will NOT watch the movie neither will I promote it to someone else. I believe that God will deal with people who purposely misinterpret the bible and conjure story lines for entertainment. So better leave Armageddon to God.

Well I don’t remember a petition circulating when the Da Vinci Code was launched and that too promoted the idea that Jesus left behind a generation. Homosexuals or leaving behind a generation, I don’t know which is worse.

What’s more annoying about the whole thing is that the man who sent it lives an ungodly life and he thinks it’s shocking that people twist the bible. What a hypocrite!