I know this post is months old. I never know whether or not to respond to old posts, but I wanted to respond to this one, so I am. I'm not trying to convince anyone to agree with me, for the record. But these were my thoughts, and this is where they led me.
I was in a similar place for a long time. I kept thinking through things, and the things that I had been taught simply unravelled the more I actually thought about them. I did not believe in Hell, for one thing. Hell has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with humankind's strong desire to want everyone who has ever slighted them to be punished for it at some point while Heaven is the desire to be forgiven for our own sins. We want both.
But I can't believe in Hell, nor can I fathom why I would willingly serve a god who would deliberately and eternally punish people for whether or not they had been convinced that certain events happened just a couple of thousand years ago. It really gets tricky when you consider all the people that various denominations say are going to Hell or who are already there, and if you consider Calvinist theology, things become really problematical for some of us.
Now, once the concept of Hell is off the table, then what? Then I can serve God without regard to any potential afterlife destination. I'd argue that this is a more honest place to be. When I look at an issue like homosexuality, with my beliefs, I am free to look at the situation and determine whether or not I can condone the actions of others. Doesn't hurt anyone? Case closed--it's none of my business what other people do.
I don't buy into the idea of the New Testament as a rule book that lists out sins. Peter Enns has written some very interesting books discussing exactly what the Bible IS intended to be. And in any case, there are so many little places in the Bible where just the act of dividing an epistle into chapters and verses can change the meaning. Let me give an example from Romans, the end of chapter 1, which is commonly called the "clobber verses" because they are used to "clobber" people back into "correct" behavior:
Clear as day, right? God is opposed. Except look at the first verse of Romans 2, which is IMMEDIATELY after this--in the original epistle, there was no notation indicating that a brand new chapter was beginning:
Read one verse more, and suddenly, the emphasis is on JUDGING OTHERS, not on any of the supposed sins mentioned beforehand. Some people believe that the list was there in order to quote the kinds of things that people were saying so that Paul could then refute their arguments.
It's not as cut and dried as many people think. Or maybe it is, but not in the direction that they think it is.
At this point in my life, I say I'm a Christian Buddhist. I get that many people would no longer consider me a Christian, and maybe one day, I won't either. But in the end, I realized that I wasn't rejecting the Christ who taught the Golden Rule, who saved the adulterer from stoning, and who said that all of the Law and the Prophets depend on two commandments, loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:40). Rather, I was rejecting the scare tactics that actually make people LESS loving as they go about persecuting others--I've seen some truly scary teachings out there, all with plenty of Biblical "support."
I follow Buddha because I can see the evidence of how his teachings work from my own experience. And I follow Jesus out of love and hope. The following--how I live--looks the same regardless of whether I quote the Dhammapada or the New Testament to support my actions. But if it's not leading me to be a better person, then it's pointless anyway.
I was in a similar place for a long time. I kept thinking through things, and the things that I had been taught simply unravelled the more I actually thought about them. I did not believe in Hell, for one thing. Hell has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with humankind's strong desire to want everyone who has ever slighted them to be punished for it at some point while Heaven is the desire to be forgiven for our own sins. We want both.
But I can't believe in Hell, nor can I fathom why I would willingly serve a god who would deliberately and eternally punish people for whether or not they had been convinced that certain events happened just a couple of thousand years ago. It really gets tricky when you consider all the people that various denominations say are going to Hell or who are already there, and if you consider Calvinist theology, things become really problematical for some of us.
Now, once the concept of Hell is off the table, then what? Then I can serve God without regard to any potential afterlife destination. I'd argue that this is a more honest place to be. When I look at an issue like homosexuality, with my beliefs, I am free to look at the situation and determine whether or not I can condone the actions of others. Doesn't hurt anyone? Case closed--it's none of my business what other people do.
I don't buy into the idea of the New Testament as a rule book that lists out sins. Peter Enns has written some very interesting books discussing exactly what the Bible IS intended to be. And in any case, there are so many little places in the Bible where just the act of dividing an epistle into chapters and verses can change the meaning. Let me give an example from Romans, the end of chapter 1, which is commonly called the "clobber verses" because they are used to "clobber" people back into "correct" behavior:
Clear as day, right? God is opposed. Except look at the first verse of Romans 2, which is IMMEDIATELY after this--in the original epistle, there was no notation indicating that a brand new chapter was beginning:
Read one verse more, and suddenly, the emphasis is on JUDGING OTHERS, not on any of the supposed sins mentioned beforehand. Some people believe that the list was there in order to quote the kinds of things that people were saying so that Paul could then refute their arguments.
It's not as cut and dried as many people think. Or maybe it is, but not in the direction that they think it is.
At this point in my life, I say I'm a Christian Buddhist. I get that many people would no longer consider me a Christian, and maybe one day, I won't either. But in the end, I realized that I wasn't rejecting the Christ who taught the Golden Rule, who saved the adulterer from stoning, and who said that all of the Law and the Prophets depend on two commandments, loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:40). Rather, I was rejecting the scare tactics that actually make people LESS loving as they go about persecuting others--I've seen some truly scary teachings out there, all with plenty of Biblical "support."
I follow Buddha because I can see the evidence of how his teachings work from my own experience. And I follow Jesus out of love and hope. The following--how I live--looks the same regardless of whether I quote the Dhammapada or the New Testament to support my actions. But if it's not leading me to be a better person, then it's pointless anyway.
