I've followed a long and convoluted personal path in my personal beliefs. Starting from a conservative Christian upbringing , I could never buy into the "believe and be saved" promise of Christianity. It's a nice thought - that "God" cares enough about us to take away "sin" and all that but any diligent research into the history of Christianity leads you along a very different path. It just didn't seem to happen that way. Jesus expected you to take responsibility for your life - to follow the law. No "Get out of Hell card" here. And too often, religion - any religion - can be twisted to provide justification for some pretty appalling behavior.
I - and most people I know - still believe that you ARE accountable for your actions (and lack of actions) in life. I also believe that "God" (however you wish to define that) is fair - in something of a mathematically discernable way.
But all evidence appears to show something quite the contrary. Life is most clearly NOT fair.
follow my musings below......
Basic premises
- You are accountable for your behavior over the course of your life, and there are very real consequences for being "good" or bad" in life.
- "God" is fair and all are held to the same standards.
BUT
The experience of "life" is NOT the same for all. It is indeed, VERY different for all. Some are born into affluence beyond imagining and live long lives free from want. Others have short lives where every moment is a struggle for mere survival. You cannot compare these existences. A Rockefeller scion and a child who dies at the age of three weeks in China may as well live on different planets.
So...... being an engineer and rather analytical, I came to a "scientific" solution. When you perform an experiment, you do so many, many times, with the various unplanned and unusual factors that might occur having but minor effects in the long term. This analogy is far less than perfect when thought about in depth but it provided a starting point.......
My personal conclusion became focused on reincarnation - you live many, many lives, under varied circumstances. A quote from a source now forgotten made emminent sense to me:
"If the Grand Canyon took millions of years to create, how can a soul achieve its potential in one life - no matter how long?"
As you examine the possibility of living many lives, your focus changes as well. "Heaven or Hell" - some end "goal" - becomes meaningless. The journey - the education received by living - is the purpose. I suppose the end result is something akin to the Buddhist enlightenment but really, does it matter what the "end" is? One could think that such "enlightened" souls exist to help teach others how to be "better" - think Christ, Buddha or whoever (or all of them were delusional) or an "enlightened" soul merges with the greater oneness of "God".... but being rather far from that point personally, it's not something I'm worried about..... I do rather like the "learn from the journey" part though..... it gives you reason to get the most you can from whatever or wherever life brings you (and I do get the feeling that at times "free will" is limited and you're following a script whose basics are already in place (a "lesson plan" with appropriate choices and options to follow).
Reading and thinking about this more and more brought me to the following "model":
- A soul lives many many lives.
- Each life serves a purpose - or purposes. Think of it as providing a lesson(s) to be learned.
3)There are consequences for all you do - positive and negative. All the bad you do must be offset (in this life or some other).
4)EVERYTHING has a purpose and a reason.
In this "model" the "original sin" you bear is your own from lives past. The "bad" that occurs is either "payback" or provides an opportunity to learn a lesson. Example: Commit suicide and you start out again next time a few steps behind, with more to deal with. You may start out with a physical handicap or in a lousy situation. But some of those that begin life in more difficult situations may have CHOSEN to do so - wanting a more "challenging" life. Someone who treats women horridly may have to experience that themselves. A rascist has the tables turned on them. There's a REASON for everything.
One story I read talked of a surgeon, a very good one who'd been a doctor for a few lives. He had a son born with an inoperable defect who died after a few weeks. Seems like a waste in the context of most religions. Yet there was a purpose. The son reminded the surgeon that - as good as he was - there were things he could NOT fix. The sould living such a short life helped teach that lesson, performing a mitzvah - a good work - for another.
My "model" does not assume some type of material "progress" - live a good life and the next will be "better". In fact I suspect that things work quite the opposite. The universe abhors extremes. If you live a very affluent life now, odds are next time around the life you lead will be a far cry from what you once had. You may need to be reminded that gluttony is a sin - or simply that having less allows you to focus on what is important. Wealth is not "good" or "bad" but an opportunity. What does one do with such a life? Share? Squander?........ If you HAVE a good life, don't think it is guaranteed "next time" as some believers in reincarnation would hold....... and if you have a "good life" don't think you have it BECAUSE you deserve it.... maybe it's a test. Maybe it's to offset a few really, really crappy lives.... a chance for a soul to "recover" or pause and think without scrambling for mere survival every second.
The point of my blatherings is this:
If you believe that there are real consequences to the life you lead, then you behave differently (and hopefully "better" - more ethically and morally).
Too many of those I know that are "born again" and convinced that they will be "saved" have consciously behaved badly - a perversion of "believe and be saved". They think that because they believe in Christ (and I have no doubt that they do) that they will be "saved" no matter what their behavior in life. Others justify their actions quoting scripture in convoluted ways.
I suspect that they would behave far differently if they KNEW that whatever they did to another would at some time or another be done to them.... that in one life or another they would have to make up for all they did wrong........... if you had to offset EVERY life you had a hand in taking unjustly....... that's one hell of a burden
One of the recurring comments I have read about conservative Christians is their willingness to "forgive"...... hence their toleration for the sins of their leaders and politicians (or at least those that claim to support their ideals). "Forgiving" is admirable but I think it is MORE admirable to take responsibility for your "sins" and work to offset them.
But then I suspect there are those that would be psychotic anti-social personalities no matter what....... My belief system says that - after recurring failures and inability to learn - such souls are simply destroyed. Even "God" has a limited amount of patience - and tolerance for the bad that such souls do to others.
Just some thoughts...... prompted by reports of how little thought some give to the conseqeuences of THEIR actions in life.