The Faithful

As humans, faith is a necessary component of what keeps us going. Faith and hope serve as twin engines that push us through the most difficult times. Hope that things will get better and faith that they can be better. Whether it is faith in the goodness of humanity, in a higher power, in oneself, or in something else entirely, faith serves as a foundational part of humanity and can be a huge part of what makes someone up. 

Like all good things though, it has been perverted. 

Faith has been pushed and pulled and forced into shapes it has no reason being in. It has been made into a torch, a bludgeon, and a ram. 

Faith has been made into a wall, barbed wire at the top, and either you are inside that wall, or  you are outside of it and there’s no door to invite you in. 

Faith and religion go hand in hand but one does not define the other. 

One can have faith and not religion just as one can have religion and not faith. 

We see this a lot these days. 

People proclaiming that their faith is being curtailed. 

That their religion is being hampered. 

Claims that people of one political side are indoctrinating innocent children. 

I say this as an atheist but god is bigger than the petty problems of humans. If there were to be a god, our squabbles, our vendettas, and our politics would be nothing to them. 

Just as blasphemy would be nothing. 

To me, god needs to be bigger because if they can be pulled to our level over such small things, such petty things, because they see all things and all times at once. They are the beginning and end and don’t have to be stood up for or protected from the slings and arrows of words. 

When faith and religion are properly paired they make someone who can see beyond the moment and to see the larger picture. 

They can see that we are all guests in someone else’s home. 

This is not our world, we are visiting it, and as such, we need to keep it safe. 

God has no time for war, for hate, and for discrimination, because all are their children, even if they don’t believe they are of the same family themselves. 

God’s arms are wide enough to embrace all. 

And if they aren’t, if god is angry, and wrathful, and dangerous then why bow to them at all if not in fear?

And a good I live in fear of is one I’d never want to love. 

Would you?

Truly?

Isn’t it the ideal that there is redemption, that god can see us not by just the things we do but the things we say and believe and all of it together and then grants us mercy?

No one is without sin, especially since sin can be both large AND small and some say they weigh the same in the end. 

Sin is sin. 

I may not choose to believe, but I have faith that humanity can be better than we are. 

That we can see past ourselves and to the future and our potential. 

That we can still take the reins and guide ourselves forward. 

Tht faith is waning though. 

We’d rather rant and rave about what other people are doing and thinking and believing. 

We’d rather worship guns and war and rage and not love and empathy. 

We believe that god wants us to hate. 

God wants us to smite. 

God wants us to war. 

We believe god is the ultimate parent, clucking their tongue at us and wagging their finger. 

Heaven is not a reward waiting for us after a long life but is a guillotine poised to fall if we fail to do what we think is wanted of us. 

We tell the world – GOD TOLD ME TO – with no proof. 

God would speak in ever burst of air, every beat of a bird’s wings, and ever blossom. They also speak in every flood, every fire, and every storm.
They are not wrathful but truthful – hard times will come, but you can survive them if you believe in yourself and by believing in yourself, you believe in me. 

Doesn’t that sound better than a god that tells you to hate, to kill, and to spite people who are different?

The utter audacity that someone thinks god would love THEM but not someone else is crazy to me. Delusional because, who dares to assume how god loves or that their love is exclusive?

If god is all things at once, can humans TRULY do something god didn’t foresee and accept. Even at our worst they’d accept us, the race of us, because we are flawed, and have to be, to learn and grow. 

I just wouldn’t want to give myself, my heart, and my faith to a god that told me to hurt people and that guns and hate were good. 

Not when Love is what moves this world and shakes humanity. 

God, truly help us if you are angry, because then there is no hope, and heaven truly would be hell. 

As an atheist, even though I don’t believe, I have faith that that isn’t the case. Instead, we are remaking this earthly paradise into hell, as a self-fulfilling prophecy, because we hate the idea of sharing god’s graces so very, very much. 

Heaven is only valuable if its gate is wide and walls high. 

Otherwise, it’s just another suburb. 

I have faith that most of us are better than that. 

…c…

I put a new book out called BLACK CAR, go get it on Amazon!