The Intention That Drives This Article Series

This article series is not about religion itself or whether I think of it as good or bad for society. It is to help bring to light why “believers” and “non-believers” may never be able to agree to disagree. In my life-long quest to find the holy grail of knowledge, I have come across many people and many different perspectives. None of what I have found is a more sensitive topic as religion. Out of all my years of dealing with disagreement, I would like to offer a way for these two schools of thought to be able to lay down their rhetorical weapons.

In this writing I will be referring to two types of people. One being the “believers” — these will be people that believe in some type of organized religion (Christian, Muslim, Jewish…). The second being “non-believers” — people who have their own unique sets of ideology which may be Atheism, Agnostic, New Age or anything that is personal and not organized. As far as what I believe, well that is complicated, but I will give you a short run down.

I was born to a Church of Christ Father and an Agnostic Mother. Both parents were open-minded, good people, that did their best to not force me into any specific ideology. They let me decide which was the best for me. This is probably the best thing that anyone could do for another human being. My Mother was born into a family that did not like religion that much. When she was old enough her parents said, “There are churches galore around this neighborhood. I encourage you to go out there and experience them all.” And, that was it. After a couple of church services, my Mother just could not find a good fit.

Now, My Father did not get this open-minded treatment when it came to religion. When he grew up, he wasn’t allowed a chance to make up his own mind. The Church of Christ teachings were literally beaten into him. Remember the “NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!” part in Mommy Dearest. Well, that was my Dad on the other end of the wire hanger. Bottom line, he was not a fan of forcing ideological beliefs on anyone.




Now we come to me, and where I fit in to the mix. Well, I always believed that there was something larger out there, but the major religions did not satisfy my curiosity. I found them pretty illogical and did not like how they portrayed God. I stayed agnostic for quite a while. Then I got my hands on Conversations with God. All of a sudden everything that was in my head rattling around for years was finally organized and focused. I thought to myself, “This is what I have been trying to say. This is what I have believed without actually knowing it.” Now that I found words to what I believed, I could discuss ideas and philosophies.

There were two major points that made the book so attractive to me. One is, I liked how it removed all the negativity, condemnation and judgment from the human thought process that is so popular in today’s religion. That never seemed right to me. The other was, it agreed with my thought that God is not the jealous and vengeful God that the “believers” believe. I just could not fathom a God who was jealous. For me, being jealous meant he was an incomplete, insecure being. I processed this in two ways. If I perceive a jealous person as someone who is insecure and fearful, why would I want to believe in a God that represented the same.

The second is, if I want my parents to have unconditional love for me, why wouldn’t I want my God to be the same? Since he is the theoretical parent of us all, wouldn’t he be the greatest parent of all? The fact that most religions come with a God that is conditional in all that he loves, has always turned me off. There is a deeper level of belief that goes into the book that I should probably explain in a separate article, but now that you hopefully understand where I am coming from, I will now explain the contents of this series:

• Part One: The Obsession to Convert
• Part Two: Biblical Law vs Personal Law
• Part Three: Removal Accountability
• Part Four: Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Values
• Part Five: How Do We Improve?
• Part Six: My Hope For the Future

For me to achieve this large project, I have lined up a few people that represent each of the theological sides of this Holy War to interview. I will then take all that I learn from these people and compile their information and infuse it with what I have already outlined in this series. See you then.