Blockwell said:
Someone mentioned their problem with addiction and how God helped him in that regard. I too went through a six-year period back in the late 1980s where I suffered from cocaine addiction. I have always described my bottom in spiritual terms as that seems the most accurate way to describe it. I lived only for myself and hurt many people. When I decided to turn my life around, I was told that a higher power was necessary. Again I tried and tried for any kind of communication, feeling, anything, but I felt nothing. Finally I just gave up and decided they were wrong. I refused to give up on myself and envisioned the life I wanted to get me over this hurdle. It worked, as I have been clean for over 15 years.
Once my addiction was behind me, I did not stop there. I began to envision a life that was fulfilling in many ways. I wanted to become a better person, by doing more for others and listening to what the needs of others were. In a way it was a spiritual quest. I found the more I respected the needs of others, the more that came to me; both in terms of the material and the emotional.
Not to be glib, but when you 1) recognize and battle addiction, 2) do selfless acts for others, 3) take sincere interest in the hearts of others, and 4) realize a better life by doing those things, then you enjoy about 90% of what a Christian "feels" about God (though many Christians, admittedly, haven't gotten as far as you).
A Christian would argue that, at the most fundamental level, God gave us a perfect nature, one that is utterly selfless and "other centric" being also contrary to a self-interested, animal nature. If God proscribes it, then by living according to your benevolent nature, you should (in theory) live a materially better life. You should be happier, at the level of the soul, and it is
that spiritual happiness that the Christian God promises. In practice, that
is what happens!
So, I would say that you've tapped into your "true nature" without even realizing it, and that THAT is how you experience the Christian God.
So, given you already aknowledged the existance of a higher power (albeit impersonal), if you strip off all the extra stuff (some good, some unnecessary) that fallible Christians say about God (e.g. hell, heaven, salvation, etc), then it seems that even you are left with a God that is anything
but impersonal. That is, he created you with a purpose: to be good and to act benevolently.
Would you agree with any of this? If so, why did He give us this benevolent nature at all? What other god, if not the Christian flavor, has been claimed to do the same thing? If we indeed have this good-naturedness, what happens to us when we do not live according to it? If we continue to live against it in life? If an afterlife exists, what happens if that anti-nature continues in death?
I'm bringing these questions up not to be argumentative, but to show that the doctrines of heaven, hell, salvation etc are not unnecessary, but rather honest attempts at exploring the implications of our natures, of God and of that god's divine morality. Some are valid, others are not. But if you throw out the possibility of the Christian God based on the collective mass of what Christiandom has ever concocted, then you're committing the most blatant form of intellectually dishonesty.
Anyway, I'm also sincerely curious if you've got a working theory/picture/worldview of exactly what it is you believe, how the world works, or the participation of a divine being in that world (if any)? Do you subscribe to more of a Buddhist or Hindu philosophy... something more exotic, or perhaps something of your own invention?
Cheers,
