Things have taken a turn for me. Maybe you’ve noticed in my last few posts. I’ve been more reserved and traditional. You can chalk it up the fact that I’ll be turning 32 in a couple of months. As I’m entering that period of age where people psychologically turn from being more liberal to more conservative until they hit their 60’s and the pattern begins to reverse.

Or you could say that I’m just expanding my understanding. Whatever you’d like to say.

But this is a movement that has been slowly progressing for the last year or so. I’m sure some of you remember my staunch atheist rants. If you don’t, browse back in time. The internet forgets nothing. Then you’ll notice that about a year ago things shifted for me and I opened myself to certain unexplained possibilities and henceforth proclaimed myself a deist. As such a word best fit my point of view. That hasn’t changed much. But I am now beginning to fully grasp the core values that I think all religions are trying to preach. Though sadly muffled in a blanket of laws and “thou shall nots.”

As I understand it, all religions are trying to teach us to ascend to a higher level of love and understanding. Our primitive nature is designed to keep us alive and keep us procreating. The real goal of religion is to teach us not to be selfish. All things in this world that are negative and can do us destruction are based on selfish motives. Greed, lust, depression, envy, jealousy, vanity, gluttony. These are all examples of selfish traits. Things that will ultimately hurt us if we let them go on too long. Examine all the negative things in your life and you begin to realize they all fit into one of those boxes, ultimately fitting into the single box of selfish behavior. Everything negative in your life is something that deals with “me, me, me.”

Human existence is a balance between the primitive and the exceptional. With the goal being to lean toward the exceptional as much as possible, without losing focus on the reality that is the primitive. Because after all you do have to do some things for yourself. This is only a semi-automatic world we live in.

Well I’m beginning to see that at the core, most religions are trying to teach us this, but it’s falling on deaf ears because of the “threats” and the “laws” that religions dictate. My ears have also been deaf to it. I don’t want to hear about a loving God that throws people in a pit of fire because they disobey.

Rather than saying “you’ll go to hell for that” isn’t it more effective to say “heaven doesn’t want you, because you’re not ready yet?”

Other thing that screws up Christianity as an example is the idea that all you need is faith in Jesus Christ and ask for his forgiveness and you’re good to go. No matter what you’ve done. I don’t buy it. Not one bit. Forgiveness is one thing. But if you don’t change your ways, I don’t see how blind faith and asking for forgiveness is good enough to equal a ticket to paradise.

I once asked if I could have threesomes in heaven. I wouldn’t want to go if I couldn’t. But in truth, if what I wanted were threesomes, I wouldn’t be ready for heaven. Because I’d still be seeking the primitive carnal joys of the flesh. That said, I’m not ready for heaven. God let me have a threesome first and then I’ll change my ways. See what I mean, I’m not ready yet. :)