With each year of schooling, I find myself questioning a lot of the things I think and do. I find myself morphing into a person that is not the same girl that first thought about college. I am not that cute-little-happy-go-lucky-girl that thought she ruled the world. I find myself looking in the mirror more frequently trying to understand life and "our" purpose. Why are we here? What in the world is the point of this little time we spend on earth? It has to be more than just something of a flute -AKA- The Big Bang. Then we as a society have to be more than just people that destroy the world around us? Aren't we? There has to be more. There just has to be!
Where do I find myself now? In the back row of Mr. Cioffi 300 Core Class wondering, is what we as Christians think about "our purpose" really true? Are we based on principles that come out of the bible or just blue prints of past theologians and philosophers ideas of the "way of life"? Are we really following the true meaning of loving God, our savior or someones idea of what they think it means to be Christian. I don't know anymore! I read my bible. I study the verses and I try my best to decipher what God is trying to tell me but I always find myself questioning the realness of my answers or thoughts. Could a God that made me in His image, make me also bad? I mean, I do sin. I do find moments in life where I don't really act "poster board Christian". Actually to be really real, I'm so Christina that I don't have a single Christian friend. When my life goes crazy, it's not my church that calls to see how things are going? It's not the small group leaders? Actually no one from the "church family" even gives a thought to their followers true needs. SO If I am a part of a "family" that supposedly loves one another like brothers, why is that we treat each others like strangers?
Then to even go deeper with my confusion lately, I find it hard to learn that a lot of the things that we the Christian believe is true. Come from guys that weren't Christians at all. Actually their idea of what God was, was nothing more than some Divine Being of Ultimate Good or the Unmoved Mover. Aristotle and Plato, two guys that were born about 500 years before Jesus. Two guys whose ideas still form huge debates in college class room. Two guys who went down in history as "true Philosophers" about life. The funny thing, neither of them really believed in God as God.
Plato, student of Socrates, believed that we the humans needing to over come the physical world around us. In doing this, one must become one with the "NESS" of everything. Yes, you read that right! If you wanted to understand a chair... You had to understand that the chair here on earth wasn't real. In fact, not only was it not real, but it was just a stepping stone for a person to make it to the eternal realm. Where the Ultimate Chair-Ness Form was waiting our revelation. NICE!?!?!? (totally sarcastic) Basically Plato believed that we all lived in a cave of wonder, which wasn't real at all. It was nothing more than shadows of the real-"ness" in the eternal. Now there are some interesting facts here, think about what Christians are told about the life here on earth. It's nothing more than the "short" life. It's the one where we come to value the creation that God created. In learning more about this world, we also learnt that we should not store our treasures here on earth but in heaven. Hmmmm... sounding familiar?!?!? Oh yeah, the best part... Plato believed that we came hard wired with everything we will ever learn here on earth. We just need things/physical world to stimulate those ideas out of us. This all worked till I asked Mr. Coiffi about our grades. I mean if this is true, we the students already know everything that is in our philosophy book and what my teacher is teaching us. Our grades are nothing to us... Our grades are really his grades. There grades that reflect his ability to stimulate that information out of us, the students because we're hard-wired with philosophy. Mr. Coiffi... just chuckled and made mention his interest to read my reading responses because they should be good (oops:)
Now Aristotle believed that some of what Plato believed was true; however, if someone wanted to learn about the chair here on earth. We don't need to go searching in the eternal realm for answers about the chair. We can just test the chair. This is where our Scientific Method of Process comes from. Aristotle basically just believed that God was real but He was more of a "Unmoved Mover". The Guy who started everything off. We the human just really wanted to find Eudaimonia -AKA- Ultimate Happiness. Now in this Ultimate Happiness, we also needed to realize that life is life, sometimes it will suck but if a person does the good for mankind and lives a GOOD life. Then they will find Eudaimonia. Hmmm... this sounds a lot like our Christian 10 commandments and Golden Rule.
So after these two guys come the Church Guys... the Theologians! (suppose to hear some heavenly "Aaaaaaaaa" sound) Imagine it! Give it a moment... Okay moving on! :)
St. Augustine... Here's a guy that believed that we are all fucked because of Sin. We - Humans want to do good but because our "Will" is tainted from Eve and Adam taking that bit of the apple, we can't do good. This guy was the biggest Pessimist that ever lived. The scary part... this guys ideas are the back bone of a lot of churches. Well, after this jolly guy come Thomas Aquinas.. a guy that didn't believe that we were bad. He also didn't believe that Sin made such a huge impact on our ways of life. Instead, Thomas believed that everyone had the ability to choose good because we were made in God's Image. God is Good, so we are Good.
Okay has anyone picked up on anything yet... I have... turns out that as we continue on ward in this crazy thing called life. More Theologians and Philosophers step up with thier ideas about life. In each one of those guy's idea start to depict the bible and/or God as nothing more than a Super Mall. A place where you can do your one stop shopping and get only what you want. If you don't like the Miracles... then ignore those. If you can't stand the singing... Don't sing. Hey, if you don't really want to do anything... It's okay because GOD is nothing more than a thought. It's crazy to watch our society crumbled in front of my eyes in just a maker of weeks as I go through this class. This class has really questioned a lot of my ways of thinking and yes, my ideas of what the church is teaching. The only thing that seem totally real right now, is my time with God. My time where I bring it to Him real. Where I cry, laugh and yes, even sometimes confuss my stupid "ness" (okay, I had too :) I'm really lucky that I do have my faith and know that God is Real.
Another funny thing I find ... Each guy starting with Plato... all used a Pre-them philosopher's idea -AKA- Blue Print of How to Live and just spiced it up a little. They all added their little flavor of ideas behind the meaning of life but none of them ever seemed to get it right because the philosopher in front them believed they had it right and these guys were wrong. So here is my question... Who really has it right? The Church believes with all their heart that they know it, but when you look into the history of the church. There is a lot of not-so-good things in our closet. We have murdered, killed and even in one point in the history... the priest were selling, "Get into Heaven Free Cards" (indulgence) for just the "Right Price!" All of a sudden my star purchase isn't looking all that bad :).
Now whose right, whose wrong? With all these questions, I find wise words of a pretty amazing woman echoing in my head... "You know... If I am wrong for being a Christian and there really isn't any real point to this life here on earth. Crap... I lived a good life. However, if I am right... I would hate to be that person who thought I was wrong because now they have to explain to God how He's not real! I think that would be harder than just trusting Him here on earth!" (Norma LeLacheur... I miss that lady!)
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