Tags
Agnosticism, Atheism, Black Eyed Peas, Christianity, Church, Faith, Insiders, Non-Belief, Outsiders, Prayer, R.E.M., Religion, Religious, Society, World
That title reminds me of a song–song break while I take a few sips of cheap beer: The Black Eyed Peas don’t really have anything to do with this post, except the random brain synapse that went off after that title. While I try and figure out what I want my blog to look like, I will write what I hope to accomplish and share through this blog. Writing for me has always been a way of writing down the string of cobweb thoughts in my mind and articulating how I feel about certain things to help myself understand elements of my life. It is not always recreating history or molding the past memories to my way of wanting them to exist–many times it is just my way of understanding life.
This might be called a religious blog but in no way is that my intent. What the Unorthodox Outsider is about is me trying to break down the bridge between the people within modern Christianity and the religion itself (it’s precepts, rules, practices, etc). Over time I want to branch out and work within the context of other religions, but for now this is what I am most familiar with and know more about. I’ll tell more about myself later, but I want to explain why this interests me. I will do my best to avoid generic stereotypes and vague and ambiguous generalizations.
Why religion(s)? Countless songs, stories, books, movies have all been based on some precepts of religion. Yet, I can’t remember who said it, but they said those who are first to leave religion are sometimes those who are most religious. Religion interests us, challenges us, interferes in our lives, points out our problems, helps reconcile our problems sometimes and has always affected society both good and bad.
Many people, when you ask them about what they think about Christianity and more importantly Christians, they will respond with words like judgmental or hypocritical. This has always amused me because one has to be judgmental to make such a statement. Christians are sometimes put on a pedestal and expected to be perfect examples of moral superiority; this creates a problem when a outsider society, first places them on the pedestal and then points the finger and laughs when they fall off the pedestal. For Christians and other religious practicing people this is somewhat unfair. I want to give Christians the benefit of the doubt until I have reason not to. I am not defending anything or anyone, but I do want to focus on that point–provide a listening, thoughtful ear. Why should we care? Why should we not care? Why should the churches in America be like the churches in Europe–empty skeletons of what once was? I don’t currently consider myself a Christian, and I have many questions and challenges I need to address and try to figure out. Welcome to the journey.