Miriam wrote in part:
..."Carl may never stop wanting to make amends for having been an
Evangelical Christian in the past."
Sometimes, Miriam, I think that you have a Devilish sense of humor.
When I was young, I proudly exclaimed to one and all that I never
spent time or energy regretting my past activities...or lack thereof.
But I really do have some regrets. And I would undo some hurts that
my behavior caused others. And I would go back, if I could, and do
some of the things for which I did not have the courage to do. But my
many religious experiences, like my many political experiences, and my
many love affairs(many of them imagined), all contributed to who I am
today.
My past is just that, My Past! And I make no judgements on what or
how I behaved or thought. But there are things in my past that I do
not talk about, but which are just as much a part of who I am today,
but of which I would strike from my Life's Experiences. I still fight
my own Goblins and Bogymen, and would hang my head in shame if they
were exposed. And yet, as I say, they are also part of 83 plus years
of living and experiencing that has given me a grand trip through
life.
It's true that I become a bit rabid at times when on the subject of
religion. But religion is just one thread woven into our human
fabric.
But it is a thread that has strong influences on the entire fabric of
Life. After my days as a small child in Sunday School, learning about
Jesus, Santa Claus, the 3 Wise Men and a special woman who had God's
baby, and the tooth fairy, and the Easter Bunny, I left any doings
with religion until I married my first wife. I was 25, and she was
22. She was a Christian, and insisted that I should attend church
services every Sunday, morning and evening, and midweek Bible study.
I took this on in the same way I've taken on every new facet of my
life. I began to explore and to question. At some point I became
certain that most people in our congregation were only paying lip
service, and were not true Believers. So I decided to find out what
Belief was all about. I was baptized, and gave myself over to Jesus
Christ. I accepted the existence of God, and the Holy Spirit. I
attended a "full gospel" group, and spoke in tongues and had visions.
It was an interesting time, with some unexplained happenings. But I
never found God. I did find many honest Believers who said they had
met God, but I also met many phonies and Users. After nearly ten
years, I came to understand that God was a feeling. Those who gave
themselves over to that Feeling never questioned it, and believed it
would carry them to a higher place after their life on Earth. While I
totally respect those people who are "True Believers", I could not
resolve the many contradictions, let alone the many versions that
caused more strife in the world than it resolved. As I questioned
others, the answer was the same, although expressed in many different
ways. I must "trust". I was told that God moves in mysterious
ways...I won't go into all the events that led up to my leaving the
Christian Faith, but suffice it to say that I knew that I had to be
true to myself. I could not simply trust. And to try to sneak along
on someone else's trust, well that would never work.
But the entire experience was valuable. My wife and I separated, not
over religion, butt because she could not adjust to living with a
blind man. While I was in Rehab, learning to go forward with my life,
she was alone, seeing her dreams shattered, and no one was there to
lead her through to the other side. We did marriage counseling
through a Christian Counselor. Finally I moved out. Those were hard
times, leaving my daughter behind. But my wife and I did come to
resolve our personal hurt, and stayed friends until her death many
years later. Christianity worked for my first wife. As she aged she
developed Diabetes, cancer, and congestive heart failure, but her
Faith never wavered.
How you, Miriam, or Roger or Mostafa deal with your Faith has to be an
individual, very personal matter. And frankly, how I feel about it
should not matter to anyone else. But it is this willingness to trust
in some unknown Power, without question, that concerns me. Until we
can openly discuss and question why we behave the way we do, and how
our beliefs effect Life on Earth, we will continue to make the same
foolish mistakes over and over until we are no more.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/5/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I would like to make a neutral observation. The discussions regarding
religion that have taken place among Roger, Carl, and Mustafa, do not lead
to mutual understanding or resolution of issues. Rather, they appear to be
experienced by Mustafa as attacks upon a central tenet of his life, an
important part of his identity, and thus, he attacks back. While Roger sees
these discussions as rational debate, and Carl sees them as open discussion
of personal views, Mustafa does not. Mustafa is not going to stop believing
in his faith. Roger is not going to stop wanting to prove over and over
again that he is the more rational of the two and that his position is
correct. Carl may never stop wanting to make amends for having been an
Evangelical Christian in the past.
Miriam
