MY FRIENDS FRIEND WROTE THIS RECENTLY.

PLEASE VISIT THE FOLLOWING LINK BEFORE CONTINUING ON WITH THIS ENTRY: http://www.greglockwood.com/innerbattle/lyrics.html

BELOW IS MY COMMENT TO NOT ONLY HIS SONG BUT HIS POST THAT I HAVE NOT INCLUDED.

But ohh mann... I can totally relate. Not as in I've been there before, but as I'm going through it now, and I freakin' HATE it!!

In about a weeks time I'll be taking 40 days to somewhat 'refocus' myself and figure out this relationship that I think I have with God. I'm dreading it as, During this time I will be giving up on things that have been distracting me from the Lord. I am hoping my faith, etc will be restored but fearing what if it isn't.

I believe in God and His power, but then so does Satan.

Sometimes i wish I hadn't met the Lord. So i could live my life up for this world and myself first, and then find God and be saved eternally. i don't think i like this not knowing of experiances that comes with growing up Christian. blah.

1. Bee Happiee
2. Save as many as I can
3. Have me a familia
   
      

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Hi everybody! My friend posted this on another public site not connected to xanga at all. It was a few months ago, but still only recent. I would love to know what others have to say about this. Or if you have any advice on how to deal with them. Thanks.
Amyetta~!

"born into a catholic family. raised with morals values and all that. compared to kids raised with not-the-same-religion^TM i thought I had a better view on things, which was really just my way of rationalising why everything seemed to happen with me on the bottom of the proverbial pile.

that, and learning to self sooth instead of punch that other kid in the face because he got in line means i have a much nicer, smoother skin tecture then i otherwise could.

catholic primary, friend was cousin Luke until year 6, when idiocy decides to leave me and i realise, holy shit, you can make more then one friend. as in you can progress BEYOND just knowing someone.

catholic highschool, friends made in year 6 no where to be seen in my classes, NOR cousin - utter disaster and beginning to belief in Murphy's Law. Uncertain time, wondering why these supposed "friends" of mine were constantly pitting themsevles against each other, and using me as their whim decided it wanted to, Luke and Bradley turn out to be a very starting point for my highschool life - it was a brief example of the jerk I could've been, so am only too happy that I left them one day because I had realised that.

become friends with the others "standouts" aka weirdos, aka brainiacs, aka nerds, ALA Funny heads^TM and such like, pretty much the unCool group, making unCool Cool since the ... 8th grade?

Who cares. Go to church every weekend with the em and pee (m and p, ma and pa, mum and dad) and say my prayers every night like a good little boy.

Become friends with an american, agree to go overseas, make money and save it, tragedy occurs and plans are unalterably put on the back burner.

Also religious beliefs.

6 months or so later I get back into things, start work at Gloria Jeans and am in the workforce, go productive member of society me.

No more church or prayers, except at Xmas and easter because that'd just really upset mum and pa, and holidays aren't the time for undue emotional upset.

95 go overseas for World Youth Day, a great big catholic/christian organisation where "pilgrims" from all over the world converge on one place for mass mass (not a typo, a fucking huge mass) with the Pope. Ma and pa paid so I'm not about to say no.

most religious thing about overseas was my late night bottle of red wine that the others didn't want to share with me ("It's 10 oclock, we're going to bed now") along the lines of "Stop the shit and ask her that question." You know the question and you know the her - if you don't, ask me.

get back home and round about trips and plenty of thoughts and discussion with my mental peers I come to a conclusion about religion, on a whole, that i'm happy with.

When raising a child, having a religion is better then not having one, as it provides a community staying true to those morals and values as a basis of how to communicate with other people. Sure i could do this myself and with my brainy smart sexy and brunette wife (hello, I'm still looking for you!) but we're only parents, and we're only able to showcase niceties when child 1 through X are at home, where X is however many children I have.

SECOND! Once you reach a certain age, you're free to then make up your own mind on religion. Like catholic? Go ahead, stay it. Brother didn't. Don't like it? Think the Jews got it right? Seek them out. Got some crazy friends who believe in ghosts, spirits and talking to trees? Well don't call them crazy, that's insulting to your intelligence, saying they're your friends. And possibly to them. But do feel free to pick and choose whatever you think works best.

Or choose nothing. There ain't no god nor religion, we die and thats it (how boring).

Or choose UnNothing. There is a God, or God figure, or something above us that made shit happen, but it ain't the catholics God, it's like a large culmination of the human intelligence. All churchs are wrong.

Or satanism, if, you know, you were hit savagely as a child and decided to blame the church for it (13th Commandment, Thou Shalt Smacketh Thy Children)

I wound up believing in the idea of God, and Jesus (documentaries on Discovery channel all the time, they found the Jesus birth certificate, but that only proves he was born a man, not became the shiznit) but not quite so much the church.

"Do this and that or you wont get into heaven!" says the church.

"When you ask for forgiveness, you've already recieved it," God says in the bible.

Hang on?

"God loves you more then the birds and shit," says the bible.

"If you sin and don't repent, you're going to hell," says the church.

Pardon?

I don't actually we have a God that's a pushover, but he's not much of a prick either. Last thing I think he did? Nothing. What so ever. The bible says this, and the church backs it up, and the apostles and so on - mere mortal men - wrote it before that, so this is all a lot of who-har about this God figure who was "recorded" on paper by men, publicised by men and beleived in by men.

And it simply gives the wider population a convenient figure to accuse and blame for everything. You know, good old scapegoat.

Hell is actually a mistranslation of "hole", as in the passage from the bible "when you die and haven't done good, you'll go into a HOLE for all eternity and that's it." A hole in the ground, that is, grave.

Also "hell" as we traditionally know it was cooked up (no pun intended) in the medieval times as a way to scare people into joining the church. You want pitchforks fire demons and sodomy for all your afterlife, or cushy pillow-clouds, angels for friends and harps that sound as sweet as sundrops.

Thought so.

Now this is a very well and good and informative, and you're asking why the sudden frank openness about it all? I felt like it. I realised I hadn't put it down anywhere in black and white, and wanted to communicate as such.

I don't believe in the church, though I recognise the good it does for the community, while I do believe in this God fellow, who seems to have been given a lot of unfair rap and hasn't said a word himself. Because I still buy the God is existant thing, I guess I'm still a catholic"