I sometimes tell people that I do not live by the highest "morals & values", what I mean by that is that I do not strive to live a "Christian" life. I have decided that I will no longer judge my morals & Values beneath others simply because I am not Christian. I think the way I live my life is just fine for me and my family. That does not mean that I don't sometimes reevaluate things I do or how I live and change them.
Here are somethings I do that I really don't feel badly about. I don't feel bad "gossiping" about people, so long as what I am saying is true. I don't feel badly when I think about wanting to smack-the-shit of of someone when they piss me off. I don't believe those things(or others I have not listed) make me a BAD person. I think they make me honest with myself and my feelings. It would make me a BAD person if I spread lies about people or did go around smacking all the people that pissed me off. Those are the values I strive to teach my children. That it is okay to get mad at people and not like people, but learn to coexist.
I believe in Karma, I know that when I do and say mean or questionable things about others that someone might be saying or doing the same to me and that is okay. What makes me feel comfortable with myself is the fact that I am not pretending to be something I am not. Being true to myself and my children is what I strive most to do.
I wonder how other people live knowing that what they teach and how they live are never in balance? Is it harder to talk-the-talk in hollowness, or to live open and honest with constant pressure to conform? I wish I knew.
That between 70-85% of Americans consider themselves Christian is a remarkable number to me. If asked, would those same 70-85% consider themselves living a Christian life? And if they answer "yes" how do they separate their affairs, lying, stealing and selfishness to themselves?
Another thing I wonder is, do people simply call themselves Christian in order to find solace? Why does God make it so difficult to "follow in Christ's steps"? Why is it so easy for people to justify away their actions or those of their leaders when those actions are so un-Christian?
4 comments:
First I must say that I can't expect you to live by the same standard I would myself seeing as you don't consider yourself Christian.
One thing I've been learning is not to get upset for not living the way I live because they simply aren't in the same place I am.
I'm not any better than anyone else and I don't pretend to be by any means, I have my faults like everyone else.
All I can really do is tell you my story and hope it clicks and make the choice on your own or that God speaks to you.
Being Christian isn't really about morals, not as a whole anyway because that is only one part of it.
I've seen non believers with High morals and Christians with low morals in being name only.
Yes God set a Moral standard to live our lives by but as I said it only works in part of a whole.
Karma in a Biblical standard is interesting because it does say whatever you reap you shall sow, so in that aspect it does work.
I find it interesting that you say you are true to yourself and there is nothing wrong with that.
I find it interesting because often times this is an excuse whether it be known or subconsciously of rationalizing people's behavior they don't want to change.
It's kind of a deceptive acceptance of their weakness' and I've been guilty of that myself.
There are some people who fight off much worse things.
Those who have truly destructive things in their life and choose to "Stay true" to themselves reap destruction.
People who have raped and murdered and robbed I can't help but feel that they felt they were being true to themselves in their mind.
Here's the weird thing, it's their nature that they're being true to, not themselves as a whole.
I've talked about Americans and Christianity and mainly there is a large chunk that are so in name only which is how they can dismiss their actions when they do things.
It's very sad, then there are some who let their temptation, Keeping no accountability to anyone which is what Gets them in trouble.
Truth is they can't separate the sin from what they associate themselves with but they like to think they can.
Some do go to church and become Christian so they can be at peace with any number of reasons but they're only fooling themselves instead of growing like they should.
I don't really think God made it hard to follow in Christ's steps, I think we make it harder than it should be.
We don't want to change, our hearts are hard, we don't listen, we don't take time for God.
That's just a few and I've been guilty of them all and up until not long ago I was very immature in my Christianity in a lot of ways.
My heart would chase after God but I didn't want to change certain things, I didn't listen to people and I didn't take as much time as I should have for God.
How can we expect God to fill us with anything when we're still holding onto things in our lives, it all builds up and then we're too full.
It's easy to justify our actions because Human nature doesn't want us to take responsibility for what we did, it's a lot easier to pass on blame to others.
We often times say "If so and so didn't make me angry I wouldn't have yelled."
Things like this are rationalizations that make us feel better about doing the wrong thing because then it's not completely our fault in our minds.
In all honesty if we were to think about it there were other choices we could make.
I used to pass blame a lot and I still have to catch myself and stop myself from doing that.
I have just been teaching myself that I don't always have to have the last word or prove that I'm right to people.
I have been trying to just set my ego aside and just walk away because in the End God will take care of it.
Also I realize that If I can't walk away that means I don't have enough faith that God can handle it.
I always thought I had a ton of faith until I realized that because I always had to fight tooth and nail to prove my point I wasn't putting any faith in God to change things instead of me.
All this time I had been putting my faith in myself instead of God where it belonged.
I feel God has been teaching me a lot in a short time.
I hope this Helps a little and let me know what you think.
God Bless.
Hi Jersey Girl
Have confidence in your own thoughts and ideas. There are plenty of people out here who have similar thoughts to you.
Belinda
1. I'm an atheist and I live more of a "Christian" life than most- as "Christendom" would define.
2. RE:
"I believe in Karma, I know that when I do and say mean or questionable things about others that someone might be saying or doing the same to me"..."Being true to myself and my children is what I strive most to do."
--Karma is a non-Christian belief. But thats ok, I get what you mean.
--"Being true to oneself is where the truth is found. Strive not for truth elsewhere.", The Anti-Mulder
(insert X-Files theme here)
slakk
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