God's Purpose And Wrong Paths

Julia, the lady for whom I wrote my first poetry book “Poems to Julia,” had a brother named Alex who was a priest. Alex told me that I had a brilliant mind, and that God wanted me to put it in His service. I am starting to think that what he wanted was right.

I had an amazing experience at the church today and really felt the presence of God. In fact I have had many experiences of spiritual nature all my life. My parents were engineers, and an attitude common to engineers is that they are the only sane and rational people in the world and that everyone else is lazy, crazy or stupid. This attitude comes across to me now as narcissistic. There have been many brilliant people through history who did not have their worldview, and it was not limited to junkies or lunatics. Engineers like to ascribe narcissism to artistic types; but I have found their attitude to be more narcissistic than that of the artists. There are very few artists who think that they are the only important people in the world or that they are the only sane and rational people in the world. There are many engineers who think just that.

So they – and any number of others - thought that my experiences were mental illness. It is mental illness if it only exists in your head. It is not mental illness if it corresponds with events outside of your head, and I have had many such experiences. Many people do not want to deal with implications of such experiences, so they look for ways to deny them. I however refuse to take that dishonest path.

I have looked for explanations in many places, and I found wrong ideas in most.

I was turned off the New Age because they believed that everything that happens to people is a reflection of what's in their consciousness. Don't tell that to 500,000 heroic Americans who died in the Second World War. This is an idea that excuses people from compassion and ethics. It is something that one might believe if he has lived all his life in a safe and wealthy country; and it leads people to take credit for conditions that were created by others while themselves acting like jerks.

Positive thinking causes more problems than it solves. You think positive, you fail to anticipate problems, you do foolish things. You cut down the rainforest, the rainforest is cut down regardless of how positive you are. You poison the oceans, the oceans are poisoned regardless of how positive you are. Many of these people blame the problems of the world on “negative thinkers.” Many of them actually cause more problems than do the people they demonize.

I was turned off of Buddhism because of their “law of attraction” - that like attracts like. Sometimes that is the case, sometimes that is not the case. The same person can attract both wonderful people and terrible people, sometimes within a very short period of time from one another, and I have done both all my life. This could not be the case if the like attracted like. There is also the idea that suffering is based in desire. No, it is not. Suffering can be based in any number of things. Desire does not cause hunger or illness. And happiness too can be based in many things as well.

Hinduism has created the caste system, where if you are born in the wrong family you will be treated like dirt all your life whatever you do. They believe that everything that happens to people is a result of their karma. This absolves them of the responsibility to better the lot of the people of the world, as well as to fight crime and other abuses. This idea would tell them that if I were to rape and kill them that would be their karma. No, it would not be their karma. It would be my own choice. And if they think that it is the other person's karma, they would blame the other person for what has been done to her. This, once again, is completely unethical.

Confucianism wants the son to do what the father did. This is very wrong. Where would we be if Thomas Jefferson, John Rockefeller or Isaac Newton did what their fathers did? It also deifies the social order. No human phenomenon deserves to be deified, otherwise we get such things as the cult of personality or the “divine right of kings.”

Witchcraft is dangerous and irresponsible. As someone who gets some very bad thoughts and very bad moods, I cannot run the risk of having these kinds of powers.

Islam promises boys in heaven and permits men to take women as sex slaves.

Judaism leads to Christianity. Psalm 110 says, “The LORD says to my lord: 'Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.'” Who is “my lord” except Jesus?

Whereas Christianity has everything. Ethics, compassion, purpose, power, you name it. The gospels – written by four different commentators – list the same stories. These people has absolutely no reason to lie. They were persecuted. They faced a very powerful and very cruel empire, that had an advanced knowledge of many subjects; and yet they ended up outlasting the Roman Empire. This means that it is not just “stupidity” or “brainwashing” or “opium for the masses” or anything of the sort. Something else must be going on here. There is nothing stupid about Jesus or Paul or Augustine. There have been many brilliant minds that strongly espoused Christianity, and many of them were far more intelligent - as well as much better people - than skeptics.

So the preacher was talking about how the body needs all its parts. What this means at the social level is that there is a need for everyone. C. S. Lewis wrote about how all Christians are part of the body of Christ.

Maybe God really does have a purpose for me, and I am waiting for Him to tell me what it is.