An Awesome God We Serve

Foreword: I started this blog about a month and a half prior to its posting. I had a bunch of chores come in between and general laziness. If the blog seems a bit disconnected, I do apologize. I thought about scraping the entire thing, but in the end my what-the-hell attitude got the best of me. It’s not like I have a journalistic reputation I must upkeep or anything. These are just private scribbles.

I didn’t write at all during the month of July. It would be a shame if I let another month go by without opening up Microsoft Word to punch the keyboard with my pointless rants.

I thought I moved on from being irritated by religion, but over the last few weeks, religion has managed to aggravate my already unstable mood*. This last weekend we had a guest pastor give a sermon. This sermon was of interest to me because sermons are usually in Korean at my church, but being that the guest pastor is a Caucasian pastor, he gave his sermon in English. I would fully understand what he was saying and I would be able to dissect it myself. At first I was excited for the sermon, but my excitement quickly changed to anger. His sermon was titled “An Awesome God We Serve” which I had nothing against. He would soon go on to describe how god (The Christian god in this situation) has made everything very simple for us, and that he is so awesome for creating such a simple life, world, and rules to live by. He went on the praise creationist and attempted to pick apart the theory of evolution. He claimed that the universe is simple and that it could only have come to be by a designer. How arrogant to believe that the cosmos is simple. It is light-years from simple. Life is not simple. If it were, we wouldn’t have so many problems. The pastor also claimed that the government should change all its complicated laws to 10 simple commandments, because life is that simple thanks to Yahweh. How difficult it would be to govern the most powerful nation on Earth with 10 simple rules that came to be thousands of years ago. People often make the mistake of applying old traditions that don’t apply to today. Then later, the pastor hacked down the 10 commandments to 2 to make it even simpler. It reminded me of a part of one of George Carlin’s acts where Mr. Carlin deconstructed the 10 commandments. The clip can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwNow966px4

Mr. Carlin also broke down the commandments down to 2 simple commandments

Maybe I’m still young and I have some revolt in me, but it troubles me that people are so comfortable living in these traditional ways, slipping into their neat cubicles without any thought. I am being pressured to actively date and potentially find a marriage partner. Although I have no issue with finding someone you love and trading promises of eternal loyalty, marriage seems like such an outdated practice that many of us don’t need in the 21st century. Marriage seems to be an old practice that had many benefits long ago, but might not make sense today. For example, people are often shocked when they see a couple who has been married for 30 years have a divorce. If the split is mutual, it shouldn’t come as such a shock. Humans did not have as long of a life expectancy back when marriage played a prominent role in society. People were not expected to be with someone for 50 years. Marriage, like religion, is a false security blanket we no longer need in the 21st century.

I will end this blog by saying that “The God Delusion” is not a good book to carry around in public. Unless you are looking for a discussion and having to defend a position.

*At this point in the blog, I go off on a wild tangent that I felt distracted from the main point of the blog. I didn’t want to waste the babbling I already jotted down, so I thought I would insert it as a footnote. After reading this footnote, you can thank me for taking this portion out.

My mood is unstable these days because I’m looking for a place I can call home. Some place where I feel like myself and I look forward to going to. This humble stack of lumber and nails that sits on the edge of Plymouth served me well when I was in junior high. I think I wasn’t always comfortable here in high school, but that’s because I was a high school student. Most normal high school students could have everything going for them, and they would still rebel and still would be discontent. College was a turning point in my life, and so I wouldn’t say I felt most comfortable at home then either. I think to an extent, I had a home in Korea my second time around. I hated how small my place was and that most of my rooms were community based, but I was able to situate myself the way I thought was best. Work was great because I felt appreciated and I did something that I felt was important. However, Korea is not a country I can feel fully comfortable in because of the language barrier. I am extremely strict on myself when it comes to communication, so to have a handicap is unbearable at times. I am doing some soul searching (it seems I’m always doing some sort of soul searching) trying to find my place in America. Right now, I’m jobless and I don’t have enough money to pursue anything. My parents consistently give me a difficult time and treat me like I’m 14. I understand I sound like I’m 14 by writing such a statement about the state of my relationship with my parents, but there is no other way to describe what’s going on. I’d like to get my own place, but I am too financially insecure to do anything like that. I don’t know what I want to do with my life to chase anything whole heartedly. I’m hoping something clicks into place soon.