Teachings outside the Bible? Part 1

This is something that troubles me quite a lot. I feel called to Christ. I can’t deny that this is where my experiences have been pointing me. This, I believe, means that I have to take everything in the Bible seriously. But I also cannot deny that my experiences have led me into territories far outside of conventional Christianity.

Being as honest as I possibly can, I find certain attitudes about religion and spirituality troublesome. Among them are the attitude that says that like from a smorgasbord, we can just pick and choose anything we like from different spiritual traditions, that we can do whatever we want without consequences and that discard anything that we don’t like. But I also find the view that everything that comes from religions outside of Christianity is the work of the Devil equally troublesome. Furthermore And the idea that sinners will suffer for an eternity, I find most troublesome of all ideas.

I noticed that I find lots of ideas troublesome. But at the end of the day, since I have no right to decide for anyone but myself and I’m no authority on truth, they are mainly troublesome as far as my personal relationship with them goes

Anyway, when it comes to the ideas about the Devil and hell, I have not found anyone giving a real argument as to why this would be necessary. All I see is other statements presented as arguments, such as that it has to be this way to motivate us not to sin, or that God also has to be a just God. I mean, why would we have to have punishment to motivate us to not do what’s best for us? Aren’t the inevitable negative consequences of sin, the ones that play out either in our inner or outer life right here and now, whether we are aware of it or not, enough of a punishment? And what kind of justice is there in eternal torment?

But there might be something here that I don’t understand. The more I struggle with the Bible, and spirituality and religion in general, the more I’m forced to confront the limitations of my own thinking. And if I’m wrong about the incompatibility between a good God and eternal punishment, I sincerely want to know about it so that I can change my beliefs. But I won’t take any sloppy argument, that often isn’t an argument at all, as proof that I am.

But I can not walk around in fear of every unsubstantiated claim that someone makes. If I sound a bit angry when I talk about unsubstantiated claims in this context, it is because I am. Even for someone with a fairly developed capacity for critical thinking, it is difficult to always apply this to all input that we are confronted with. Especially input that triggers fear. And on the other hand, if there is something to the claim presented to us, we might discard it altogether, if the person presenting the claim does a sloppy work with it. In this case, the claim, if I try to present it to the best of my ability, be: “There is one true religion, one true religious worldview and anything that comes from other religions, that cannot directly be found in this religion and religious world view will lead me away from the only right and true path.”

Having laid this groundwork, I will explore this more deeply in the next blog post on the topic.