By Still Unsure ~
Truth is important to people, I’m guessing it always has been. What the writers of the New Testament seemed to be focused on was getting the gospel out. The gospel was a “new covenant” (legal agreement) that God was making by sending Jesus.
That did not go over well with everyone who either liked, or just got used to the “old covenant.” You see, up until Jesus came around, the Jews had been taught that they had the only true covenant with God. His name was Yahweh…he liked rules and hated shellfish.
So the new covenant writers put a heavy emphasis on everything they wrote as being “the truth” about God too. Again, not cool for the “I am the Lord, I change not” to go ahead and start changing everything – beginning with his name, then on how to be “right” with him…then on the pork and shellfish thing.
So the truth was a huge issue. Still is - since people tend to base their beliefs on what’s true. To Christians, the once opposing covenants are now all one comprehensive “reveal” about the one true God. They’re taught that the Bible (both covenants) were inspired by God, so it’s basically like He wrote it himself, and therefore – free from all error.
Okay, making “what’s true” the core of what you believe in is good advice - really good advice. How you determine “what’s true” is where the wheels come off the clown-car of Christianity. Encouraging someone to pursue truth, as much as Christianity does, may be detrimental to their numbers.
The idea that the Bible is true because God said it is, works for some people. I guess it helps to add the: “oh, and if you don’t believe it - you get to be the pig at the eternal pig roast” - because there’s nothing like a little fear to persuade the nodding of someone’s head up and down.
But people tend to start reading more and asking questions to determine what the truth is, and that’s not good for a religion with a book that begins with a talking snake. (I’m sorry, it actually begins with the way the universe was made in under a week – but even they know that didn’t happen. So they invented bible math…where a day can equal just about any length of time you need it to.)
I guess once you start to really want to know what’s true, you discover how to test it for truth. Eventually that means you start considering things like evidence and facts; logic and reason…again, not good for a religion that has “child-like faith “as the model for believability.
Christians may want to reconsider their emphasis on this knowing the truth campaign they taut, and focus more on something that doesn’t jeopardize their income…I mean attendance. Proclaiming that they have the truth, but having to spend almost all their time inventing apologies for why it isn’t true in reality, is counter-productive.
But then that might explain why they need so many of their own private schools to teach those facts and reasoning skills they want you to use; you know…in your pursuit of the truth that they have. Let’s face it…if you can convince someone that creationism is “science”, then you’ve under-minded what real science is - problem solved.
Somehow, in my pursuit of the truth that Jesus “told us to seek” in the Bible, I found some astounding things that were not actually true - staring with the Bible being inerrant. Strange thing was, I was eager to accept that I just wasn’t “smart enough” to understand it initially, so I enrolled in Bible school to clear up my confusion.
It did!
To my dismay, the truth began to emerge with each semester. It wasn’t the result I hoped I would get…however, it was the truth. I also learned the art of pretending. (…I think I mastered it), I knew how to pretend “this wasn’t happening to me”, and how to pretend I didn’t build my life on a fairy tale…and that I was still a believer…
The truth has caused me a fairly large crisis. I’d go into detail about it, but then the veins in my head would explode and I’d start taking my bible apart with the lawn mower again. (…it’s amazing how durable and well glued those things are)
Instead, I’ll keep following what Jesus said about seeking truth – and let it free me from the delusions. So technically, that still makes me a Christ-follower. Okay I think it’s apparent…I’m going to need therapy at some point for this.
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