I am an extrememly religious person; I have a very strong faith in God and Jesus Christ. I believe the story of the Virgin Birth, the Miracles of Jesus, and of the Resurrection.
Religion is the most important aspect of life, simply because it doesn't concern itself with life. It concerns itself with what comes after life, which is infinitely more important than what's happening now. After all, you'll only be here for maybe 70 or 80 years, maybe a little more if you're luck holds out....but you'll be dead forever.
The problem, I think, comes with the differences of opinion....religious dogma, church policies, the rituals of worship.... even how to live your life.
This came home to me one night a couple weeks ago, in a rather silly way.
We'd gone to the funeral home to pay respects to my wife's cousin, who recently passed away after a thankfully short bout with cancer.
After the service, we went out to get a bite at McDonald's with two of my wife's aunts. Both are very religious, but one is a "Nazarene Holy Roller", as I call her (something which annoys my wife to no end); as we talked I mentioned that we were going to redo the bathroom in a Simpson's decor; my wife had purchased all the stuff at KMart; Simpsons towel set, bath mat, ceramic toothbrush holder and cup set, shower curtain, etc.
Well, her aunt the Nazarene just hit the ceiling. "Homer Simpson is an idiot, and a vulgar idiot!" she preached...."when you become a Christian, your mind changes...you don't like those things anymore."
Okay.
Now....fast forward to last week.
I was chatting with my pastor, and mentioned that I had gone to elementary school with a woman in the congregation, and that we'd both been in Mrs. Simpson's homeroom class. "Oh yeah;" he said with a smile, "would that have been Bart's mom?"
We talked about "The Simpsons", then.
He said that he'd read, in one of his religion magazines, that "The Simpsons" is one of the most Christian religion-friendly shows on TV; they attend church, they pray regularly. The pastor, Reverend Lovejoy, while often portrayed as having the basic human weaknesses, is never denigrated or made fun of. He is shown as a respected and---more importantly--- respectable---religious leader. Many TV shows portray religious figures unfavorably as hypocrites or unreasonable zealots. But not "The Simpsons."
Now, how do you explain these widely-separated differences in views? Aunt Kathy says it's a sinful, vulgar show, while my pastor says that some experts find it to be extremely tolerant and even perhaps a proponent of, Christianity, which is very rare in the MSM.
This is the problem I have with organized religion; so many different perspectives on the same matters.
All these different denominations worshiping the same, single God. They all read the same Word, and they all get different messages; they all want to worship differently.
They all think they're doing it right and everyone else is doing it wrong....but that's not possible. They can't all be right. They CAN all be wrong. But who is right? Are any of us right?
All Christians worship the same God....but we don't all do it the same. Many think that everyone is going to Hell but them, because they're the only ones who worship the "right" way.
I don't see it like that....I was raised to believe that it doesn't matter so much WHERE or how you worhsip God, just as long as you worship.
I might make fun of Aunt Kathy the Nazarene for her rockin' and rollin'....but I'm not going to stand firm and tell her she's worshipping wrong, because I don't know if she's doing it wrong. Methodists, Baptists, Episcopalians, Catholics, Presbyterians, etc....who knows? All we can do is worship and hope we make it to Heaven....and leave each other alone.