I don’t really advertise it to the world, but I do believe in God. Doing so is a struggle though, and anyone that says otherwise is either really comfortable in their faith, or kidding themselves.

The question I always come back to is whether I really believe in God, or if the God I believe in is one that the humanist in me has fashioned. I’m aware of the probable irony in a religious humanist. Or rather, spiritual. That’s how I feel about it. I think I stopped being religious awhile ago. I don’t believe that a lot of the things in the bible literally happened. I think they’re just parables to be taken for their meaning.

Definitely not all of them though. I’m not one that has studied the bible extensively at all. But to take it blindly isn’t something I’m comfortable doing. I mean, it was written during a time less open-minded than now, and it was written by men. Women had no role in society and that was evident in some places in the bible. And homophobia/everythingophobia was probably ten times worse. The result is a book written by the very human beings that admit to being flawed because everyone’s a sinner, but revel in their God’s love and swear to it that the words they themselves penned are Absolute Truth. If you can admit to being flawed, can’t you admit that the bible may be as well? I should read it more thoroughly so I don’t sound like I’m speaking out my ass.

Society is different now. The themes that make the bible timeless are what should be embraced, not the outdated rules, regulations and conditions that scribes threw in there when they were writing for their God of Unconditional Love. Those stupid rules that people cling to in the face of the things they fear just because they were taught to fear those things, or those things are different. The themes like love, friendship, and being the best person you could be are what should be painted on silly picket signs and junk.

Jesus was a cool guy with horrible PR.

I mean, really. I feel like if people want to hate Jesus, at least realize that you’re hating the Jesus that man created. Not the Jesus that hung around with the very people that his scribes wanted to condemn.

I feel like after all I’ve written, it probably sounds like I’m close to becoming a non-believer. Sometimes I wonder about that, too. I become disillusioned. But then I think about the things that can’t be explained. Like the soul, and how mine feels when I’m standing on the mountains of Lebanon and I’m whole. And, I don’t know, I guess that’s what keeps me hanging on to believing that there’s someone floating around upstairs.

I kinda picture it like one long, hazy, smog filled day. And everyone wants to get to the sun, so they’re building all this machinery and stuff to try to get there. But all they’re doing is releasing their waste into the sky, and it’s making the Sun less and less visible, until it’s a dull blob farther in the distance. Some people give up and move somewhere with no smog so they can see the sun from a distance, but make their own warmth. And others refuse to give up trying to build some way to the sun, so they continue polluting everything around them until they’re feeling heat from the putrid waste they released into the air, instead of the sun that they’re slowly blurring out. They’re caught up in defending their right to pollute and knocking down somebody else’s because only their’s is the right way to get to the sun. And I feel like I’m one of those people who took a long walk through the smog until there was no one around but the mountains and the sun. And I can finally make it out. I can’t stare directly at it, but I see its light everywhere and I feel it warming everything. I feel warm.

I think people should figure out what makes them warm in life and revel in it without taking away somebody else’s warmth. That goes for believers and nonbelievers.

There’s so much more I can say. There’s a chance I won’t feel this way tomorrow, or the next day. It’s weird. I agree with the basic principles of humanism, but I also believe that if you’re one who chooses to look to the sky for comfort and guidance, someone is listening just above the stars.