MySpace Response

I wrote the following response to a MySpace blog that my friend Shaun wrote.

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I hope I'm not the one that told you that one about Romans 1 :-) ... Doesn't even sound like reaching on that one, it sounds totally off. ,,, If I thought something like that point could be made I would say it would be better derived from

2 Corinthians 5:10 NIV For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

and/or

Matthew 12:35-37 NIV The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

But then again being judged for what you know or don't know isn't what I think the point would be. I don't even think trying to be the best human being you can be is the point. Rather, whatever the truth is should be the point. Let's say, if someone seeks whatever truth is, and they find out that there truly is no God, then they should live according to whatever ideal that they believe they should live for. Or let's say they find out God is a underwater basket weaver and that we were all created to be the best underwater basket weavers we could be; then he/she of course should pursue that.

But then again what if that person doesn't even look. Let's say they just simply wake up every morning and deal with life in the moment and never look to question or investigate anything. ... Then what's the point? Surely even without looking at any book at all; Bible, Koran, Apocrypha, Drums and Shadows, Tao-te Ching, etc. it seems silly/meaningless for the person to ignore that part of them that asks the questions "What else is there?" or "Am I here for more than what I've been living for so far?".

It's just seems like a useless waste of time to ignore those questions. To try to drown out those questions like I did once upon a time. In my early twenties I gave up because the ?s got too hard. And so I looked to simply "find myself". That quest led me through a trip that began with going back to cigarette smoking and drinking (I know how lame that sounds), to trying to find happiness through female companionship and other friends, to then trying to find fulfillment in "helping others" through nonprofit entrepreneurial endeavors. None of this ever filled that part of me that was so big not even the world could have filled it up; if I had kept on looking to "be everything I could be" or "become a better person".

One day when I was still an agnostic, "God just gave me faith". So I don't make the claim that most followers of these American sects of christianity seem to go after. I don't think that it's my job to burrow a faith into the unsuspecting nonbeliever like some flesh eating worm on a Leave-it-to-Beaver-Halmark-channel-Walton's-Mountain mission. I instead believe something that non-coincidently the scriptures not just so happingly also reflect; that faith is something that God gives. Ephesians 2:8-10 "... through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

And I believe that all you have to do is wait. I don't believe a single person that is honestly seeking what we all would define as "truth" is going to die before they find out what that is. You don't need a bible to find it, or any other book of antiquity or religion. All you have to do is not ignore that question mark that God placed inside of you before you were born. I believe that is a question mark that can only be filled by a God. There is just nothing else that is big enough to fill that question mark. And even after you come to know even the smallest piece of the insurmountable greatness of God, there is even more of him (or "it" if you prefer) to fill that big hole ya got there.

Ok, so I've gotten off on a tangent; I'm over thirty-five and probably just a decade or so away from adding to someone livelihood as their Alzheimer's patient :-) ... Take care. Mabait, ang Diyos!