The way I see it, God exists. Period. The Big Bang is full of crap for the following (technically incorrectly labeled but still amusing) reason:
Bull crap the universe randomly, perfectly exploded into being.
But here begins the heresy: I also recognize that the Bible is flawed. I blame things getting lost in translation (because ancient Hebrew to modern English is such an easy thing to pull off), politics (King James: "Draft for me my own custom version of the Bible!" Monk: "Yes, my liege!" wink , and other such failures for the self-contradicting mess we have today. Dinosaurs have to fit into the timeline SOMEwhere, and the Bible fails to mention the pair of T-Rexes Moses fit into the Ark. There are no dinosaurs in the bible. You'd think that would be important (or maybe it was lost in amidst all the begetting that happened in Exodus?).
Furthermore, I kinda agree with Ghandi, who said "I like your Christ, but I'm not so fond of your Christians". Some extremists within the faith can be serious dicks. Whether it's offhandedly remarking about how gays are disgusting and that God doesn't love them while claiming to practice a religion that teaches tolerance and peace, or telling people with a smile that they're going to burn in the eternal fires of Damnation because they're Presbyterian instead of Catholic... I'm not too happy with them either. God is the only one allowed to judge whether someone goes to Hell or not. Period. End of discussion.
Speaking of gays being persecuted, let's get this out of the way: The Bible states that homosexual actions are a sin.
Not homosexuality itself.
It also states that we should hate the sin and love the sinner, so beating a man to death simply because he has a boyfriend is hypocritical, on two levels: First, let me reiterate that Christianity preaches tolerance and peace, and murdering somebody isn't tolerant or peaceful at all. Second, the first of the ten commandments is "Thou Shalt Not Kill", which means "Don't freaking kill people". Murdering somebody because God said they were doing something bad isn't just idiotic, it's hypocritical and completely violates one of the rules He set forth in the first place. Similarly, saying that God doesn't love homosexuals is equally retarded, because God is often referred to as a being of unending love and peace, whose grace is enough for all of mankind. Not, "all mankind, except for you guys over there".
Ask me about the theory of evolution. I will tell you that it is not an affront to Christianity, does not undermine God in anyway, and, in fact, God used evolution as part of His master plan to help his subjects "go forth and multiply". They can't very well go forth and multiply if they can't adapt to the environment, now can they?
Yet, people seem up in arms about EVOLUTION, EVOLUTION, claiming that believing in it and believing in God are mutually exclusive, when the two can go hand in hand perfectly without conflicting at all. Big Bang and intelligent design? THOSE are mutually exclusive (unless, of course, we claim that God Himself kicked off the Big Bang, which kinda makes sense but still fails to account for the lack of dinos in the Old Testament).
I'm not atheist, and I don't know that I really align to any of the major branches of the Christian faith. Organized religion, in my mind, isn't a wholly bad thing, but it's not entirely a good thing, either. Like-minded people gather together to talk about and hear about and learn about the God they believe in, which is great. But it presents two problems: First, the opinions of the preacher can become the truths of the congregation. And if the opinion of the preacher is that "God Hates Fags" (looking at you, Westboro Baptist), then the congregation could start to believe that God hates homosexuals, and take hateful action against them.
That's bad.
Second, they're not traveling outside their comfort zone. Debate can be a healthy exercise that nurtures understanding, but as of right now we have a lot of denominations pointing fingers at each other screaming "YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG" when they practice basically the same beliefs.
And that's dumb.
I'm a truth seeker, always have been, and the truth is that we don't know the truth. I believe that there is someone up there, surrounded by millions of smaller someones. I believe in God.
...Just not the same God everybody else seems to.
I believe that the Bible is a perfectly reasonable set of guidelines, that lost its own way somewhere down the path. If you look hard enough, you see what it was trying to say, as long as you don't take everything there as perfectly literal. Because things do get lost in translation, let's face facts: every version of the Bible, after the first, is an adulterated copy.
I believe that God is a loving and caring being who has a sense of humor. You're probably not going to Hell if you crack a joke in church, doubly so if it has something to do with Him. And since He loves all people, big, small, male, female, gay, straight, it's pretty pathetic to pass judgment on somebody for violating God's law, when He so generously sent his son to make sure we weren't all eternally screwed. To those who actually do this: Time for remedial lessons. Go reread the New Testament.
I believe that maybe the worse things that happen to us in our lives- the stupid, inane, unbelievable crap that causes us to lose belief- happens for a reason. A tragedy can bring together two people who wouldn't otherwise have looked at each other before it happened. He is looking out for us, despite appearances. The movie Evan Almighty (much as I dislike it) stated it wonderfully in a scene between Morgan Freeman and whoever the heck was playing the main character's wife: God tells her, essentially, that people keep asking for miracles and assistance, but it's easier for them to overcome future trials if He lends them the strength to overcome, instead of simply overcoming it for them. People don't grow when everything is done for them. They have to face challenges.
God doesn't just hand out miracles. He doesn't have to. All he has to do is give us a nudge at the appropriate time, and watches us perform the miracle on our own.
Sadly, I could be ostracized by saying any of this in public. Even though I'm actually saying "God exists", it's that "but..." that comes after that's doomed me.
In conclusion, I'm going to Hell no matter what I do, so I'm going to stick to my heresies and see where that takes me.
