Anything that happens in life, or questions about life that I can think of. Please feel free to comment on any of the topics I bring up. I enjoy reading other perspectives. Now stop reading the header you loser.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Predestined To Go To Hell?

I don't understand why my brain is this way, but I'm constantly thinking about the future. I have these really heavy and often depressing existential discussions with myself about my personal future and the future of the world. Obviously my own personal interest makes sense, and why I care so much about my neighbors and the world is another premise (But really, why wouldn't you?). Maybe because I was raised Christian (Seventh Day Adventists to be more specific), but religion always enters the discussion (Obviously if you follow me on Facebook, right?). Religion is a topic that brings me great entertainment. It gives me something to always talk about. It's a lot of fun to talk about and ponder in a serious setting and really easy to joke about in a light setting. Religion is also a topic that brings me great frustration and often makes me depressed. It makes very little objective sense and some of the evil that if produces breaks my heart. There is a sect of the Christian community that believes in predestination. This idea that their god has an infallible "Grand-Plan" or "Master-Plan". It is objectively impossible to believe in a grand-plan when the recipe also includes an omnipotent and all loving god because there is way too much suffering and pain in this world for that to pass any test of logic (or reason, I will add). However, I sometimes wonder what if Christians are right and there is a master-plan. I attend a Presbyterian Bible study class. I explained to others a couple of times recently that I don't attend churches and expect people to throw away their beliefs just for my visit. The members of my Bible study group know fully that I am agnostic and know that I don't believe in the idea of a master-plan. It would be incredibly stupid of me and rude if I went to a Presbyterian church and expected people to not believe in a master-plan just because I was there. Recently I started thinking that if predestination is true, I have been chosen by the Christian god to go the hell since the beginning. He knew from the get go that at the age of 21, I would start to question my faith and go on a spiritual journey, and that 2 years later with the help of the Bible (I consider the Bible the quickest way to become atheist), many discussions and sleepless nights, educators, and books, that I would become an atheist, then an anti-theist, and then that I would go through a state of apathy and then eventually settle on agnostic. If predestination is true, I was chosen by god to go the hell from the start. Maybe I really was predestined to be this way. I remember around 4th grade in Bible study class, we were discussing what heaven might be like. My youth group leader at the time told me that heaven would be happy and beautiful. Even at that young age that was too general for me. Really, what does happy and beautiful even mean in that context? That didn't help me assemble my image of heaven in the slightest. I asked him to specify and he went on to tell me everything is the cleanest of white, that everyone would have mansions and plenty to eat, and that the streets were paved with gold. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Well, even in the 4th grade that sounded like a waste of resources. I asked him what is the purpose of paving the streets with gold? It doesn't really give us any advantage, it's arrogant and again, a complete waste of gold. At that time, I was 110% a god fearing Christian boy. I knew that if I didn't do what the Bible told me, that I would go to hell. I prayed when I woke up, I prayed before breakfast, I prayed before lunch, I prayed before dinner, I gave quick prayers before snacks, I prayed when I was bored, I prayed when I was lonely, I prayed when I was worried, and I prayed before bed. And these weren't your scripted and recited prayers. Each prayer was genuine and original. How could such a dedicated, god fearing Christian boy question what heaven looked like? Fast forward to 7th grade. I was told in Bible study class that every man on this earth had one less rib than every woman on this earth because woman was created from the rib of man. I was a 7th grade boy carrying around with me an immense misunderstanding of the human body. They had raped my mind and ruined my view of the world. When I learned in my (secular and awful public school) health class that my understanding of the human body was incorrect I was embarrassed. Looking back as a grown man I am infuriated. Why would the church do that to a young boy? Why would they disadvantage and fuck a little boy so hard that his understanding of the world could be so off? So, I went back to church and I needed answers. So, what if I was born an atheist/agnostic? What if I am predestined to be this way? I can see instances where I have always questioned the church even as a little boy. Why would an all loving god sentence me to a life in hell from the very beginning?