Let's talk about SIN and SALVATION PART 2

Today it’s not so popular to talk about sin. For obvious reasons. People don’t like the burden that they feel that it places on their shoulders. They don’t like the thought of being judged. Yet, if we pay attention, can’t we see that reality judges us all the time? Some people get away with sinning, but I would say that most don’t. Some consequences are obvious: Thieves get caught. Liars get exposed. But often the fear of getting caught or exposed is a punishment in itself. And at least from my experience, sexual immorality drains us mentally and damages our relation to other people. But we seldom see such less obvious consequences. Many instead get angry. They think that religion wants to hinder them from enjoying life for no good reason. Actually I understand this. I think that people forcing religious morals on others has done more damage when it comes to this than anything else. 

I’ve gained a gained a clearer perspective on my own past and present sinfulness lately. One that does not excuse, but explains. And this is important. Explanations. Because when we can explain something we can understand it. We can find acceptance and forgive ourselves. We can start thinking constructively about our situation and look for the best ways of handling it. But before we have diagnosed the problem, we are in the dark. Everything seems chaotic, overwhelming and it seems impossible to get a handle on it.

In some strange way, I thought that all of what I was doing back in “the good old days” was somehow justifiable. I think that this is the case for most people, even though I believe that there are some truly evil people in the world as well. And yet, as I said in the first post, somehow I can’t get away from the feeling that we are somehow still responsible for our actions. Even though we can truly say that, at the time, we didn’t know any better. 

This is a moral problem that I think deserves to be taken seriously. Stated clearly, the problem is as follows: “Basically everyone seem to find justifications for their actions inside their heads. This means that everyone seem to believe that what they are doing is right, no matter how wrong it is. And yet, we seem to be morally responsible for our actions.”

In one sense, as I said in the beginning, moral responsibility hits us directly through the consequences of our actions and the characters that we develop through our choices. But there seems to be something that goes beyond this. Maybe it’s something like this: If God exists, which he does, and he seems to have woven some sort of moral into the fabric of reality, going against this moral might also impact our relationship with God somehow. 

Until I started thinking in the terms of moral responsibility, I was blind to all of my problems. Because I just let go and allowed my impulses to rule me, while thinking that I was making a free choice. 

The change in perspective came with my belief in God. And here is the thing that I find interesting. Before I started believing in God and consequently that there was such a thing as right and wrong, I was not aware that I wasn’t really making conscious choices at all. I thought that I was free when I followed my impulses. It was first when I started to resist my impulses that I realized that they were controlling me.

What I wonder about is where we should cut ourselves some slack and say that “we’re only human” or “I didn’t know any better at the time” and when we should be more harsh with ourselves. How guilty should we feel? Until we start taking faith seriously, we are in the grip of the ways of the world. The world tells us that a lot of things are okay that goes against our faith. And if we engage in everything that the world tells us is okay, and even many things that our cultures encourage, we are going to become corrupted. 

The Bible does say that the truth is written into our hearts. And while this may be true, we may go through our whole lives without learning to really listen. How much blame can be put on our shoulders, if we’ve been taught the wrong things our whole lives and never been given any real reasons to question our beliefs? 

Many questions come to mind when I ponder this. Are we allowed to factor in our own needs when we ponder God’s demands? Should we always stay on the safe side when it comes to issues that God, according to some people, may have a problem with? Obviously, if our choices may send us to hell, the most reasonable course of action would be to abstain from anything that may send us there. No matter how far fetched it seems. But what if this is not how God wants us to live our lives? Can we really have a loving relationship with God if we live this way? Is this what a good relationship with a parent would look like? You abstaining from most things that you enjoy out of fear of punishment, even if you yourself can’t find any good reason why?

The world is, for example, full of people that are saying that Christian rock is sinful music. I personally love bands like Skillet, Rebecca st. James, The Letter Black and Éowyn. And I feel that listening to them actually helps me become a better person. The lyrics are uplifting, encouraging and they have gotten me through many tough times.

But if I could actually get tortured for all eternity for listening to them, I might consider listening only to psalms and classical music that came before Beethoven. Because apparently many people at Beethoven’s time were worried what effect his music might have on people. So better not listen to Beethoven, just to be on the safe side. 

To me, this line of reasoning becomes silly. When someone can point to a Bible verse that tells me, in clear language, that I cannot listen to rock music, I’ll stop listening to Christian rock. 

I think that there is an argument to be made for viewing sin as something that corrupts. So if something does not seem to corrupt us, or cause corruption in general, I think chances are low that it actually is sin. And I have yet to find something that the Bible clearly warns against, that doesn’t corrupt us eventually. Ultimately, I believe that this is between us, our conscience and God. No other human can decide for us if something is a sin or not. If something is having a corrupting influence on us or not.

I would here like to offer a small warning from my own life. I used to live a life that was slowly numbing my emotions, while I was slowly becoming weak, cowardly and irresponsible. I lived without realizing this for many years. This is why sin can be so insidious. We don’t see how it affects us until we have an honest look at ourselves.

Consider the small example above, when you examine your own life and what effect your actions and lifestyle have on you and your character. Just because you manage to tell yourself and others that everything is okay it doesn’t mean that it is. And the consequences are there whether you believe in them or not. I believe that you have the absolute right to do whatever you please with your life. But life is full of traps that are allowed and encouraged by society. Traps that are often hard to spot when you don’t see yourself, your actions and their consequences clearly. Which you almost never do. And somewhere down the line you will have to reap what you sow. 

I do however believe that the more we take these questions seriously and the more honest we are with ourselves, the better our chances are. And ultimately, this really is between you, yourself and God. I don’t wish to tell anyone what is right or wrong, except when it comes to the really obvious, such as killing or stealing. I’m still figuring this out myself. 

Neither do I want to claim that I know the ultimate consequences of our actions. I do however want to encourage anyone reading this to take the question of right and wrong seriously. And to not be too hasty with the conclusions that this deliberation leads to. There is so much potential for wishful thinking here. I know. Because I’ve fooled myself countless times and had to deal with the consequences.

TO PART 1

Photos:

Thunder: Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Church: Souris on Unsplash

Let's talk about SIN and SALVATION PART 1

Some people say that we all do our best from where we’re at. Others say that we’re all sinners, deserving God’s judgment and that everyone that isn’t the right type of Christian will go to hell. 

These are of course two extremes, but people seem to lean quite heavily towards one of the two sides. I find both views to be too simple for such a complex problem as sin. And both are deeply problematic for many other, more or less obvious reasons.

In this post I want to call for an open conversation and some afterthought, without giving any definite answers. Because there are so many opinions on these difficult subjects and so little nuance. 

So let’s get into it.

The first view seems kind and forgiving on the surface. We already live with a lot of shame and guilt in today’s world, so if we can find a solid argument that leads to the conclusion that we are good just the way we are, this seems like a good thing. But it also seems to negate free will and moral responsibility. Taken to its extreme, this view also seems to imply that if I decide to live a life of lying, cheating, stealing and murder it’s not really my fault, because from where I am it’s the best that I can do.

Some are willing to live with these consequences. But I am not. I believe that free will and moral responsibility is what separates us from animals. I also know that no matter if we believe in free will or not, we live as if we have such a will. Our whole existence, from the individual to the whole global collective, relies on us being responsible for our own actions.

On the other hand, the second view seems incredibly harsh. And it seems to add an element of arbitrariness to something as important as the eternal destiny of our souls. To be clear, what we’re talking about here is the possibility of being tortured forever. If this is the truth, we have no other choice than to accept it and do our best to avoid such a fate. And I would not want to be someone that leads people astray with regards to this. Both for other people’s and my own sake. But our beliefs determine both what world we experience and how we perceive God. So I think that this question deserves some rather serious deliberation before we decide on what to believe. 

And now I haven’t even discussed the problem that is solved by the first view. Namely that we often don’t understand what we do when we do it, or that we may be engaged in something morally questionable. Or the corrupting influence that our culture today clearly has on us. 

I will elaborate on this in the second post. For now, it will suffice for me to say that I believe it to be irresponsible and cowardly to blame all our actions on society. But I also think that it’s too harsh to blame ourselves completely, when, as I said, we’re exposed to so much corruption on a daily basis.

The way out of judgment, according to the view that we are discussing, is to accept Jesus as our lord and savior. But who wouldn’t do that, if they understood that this is what is required to be saved? I guess that it’s possible to reject this offer out of pride. But no one in their right mind, knowing fully what they rejected, would make such a decision.

I believe that there has to be a middle way somewhere. I’ve been struggling with some mental issues throughout my life. Issues that I’ve gained a clearer perspective on the past few years. This means that I so well know how difficult self-control can be. 

It’s easier to see how helpless we are in the face of our own psyches when we’re struggling with minds that turn against us. But I believe that this is more or less true for all of us. Illness or not, we all seem to be a little bit sick. If we try to stand on our own and make ourselves the final authority of our lives, we will be victims of forces beyond our control. Forces in the world and inside ourselves. Our animal nature will persuade us of all kinds of things all on its own, while our thoughts provide us with the reasons that give us the illusion of choice. Then we have the world with its morals and temptations. This seems to be the foundation of sin. And seen in this light, sin does seem more like a failure than a free choice.

But there has to be some choice somewhere. As I said before, free will and moral responsibility seem to be woven into what it means to be human and without them we are reduced to thinking animals. So, where does this leave us? 

Let’s look at what I think that the second view gets right. Even if I have free will and am responsible for my actions, I seem unable to do this all on my own. 

I will present the line of reasoning that is soon to follow in a very condensed form here. It has almost twenty years of struggles, experiences and thinking back and forth behind it. A journey that it would take several books to describe. But this is where I’ve landed. 

My line of reasoning is as follows: The Bible expresses a truth about God and reality that cannot be found anywhere else but the Bible. If it is so, then the death and resurrection of Jesus and what it means for us must also be true. Because this is the absolute focal point of the Bible. It cannot be grasped with the intellect. I do think that there is a whole conversation to be had about the validity of the theology that has grown out of the churches since this event. But the Bible is clear about that everything in it points towards the death and resurrection of Jesus and what it means for us. So I cannot believe that the message of the Bible is inspired by God and then reject what Jesus’ death and resurrection means for us. And I cannot allow my petty, faulty, often arrogant intellect get in the way of this, just because it cannot be understood on an intellectual level.

The interesting thing is that the more I ponder this, the more I seem to get confirmations that it’s written into my heart. Just like the Bible says. It feels more and more real. 

So we seem to need Jesus for our salvation and atonement for our sins. We need to cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit so that we have a friend that is always with us and guides us. And we of course need to have the correct beliefs about God and cultivate our relationship with him. Because if we don’t know what we are aiming for, we are bound to miss the mark. Without this foundation everything else crumbles, both on an individual and collective level. We exist to love and worship God. All other gifts from God pale in comparison with this relationship.

Finally, we need a moral system to guide us. To me at least, the best system that I’ve found is the Bible. It shows us how to act in a dangerous world so that we don’t get swept away by the usual storms that surround us. And if a big storm comes, which it will, it gives us the best possible conditions to survive it. The Bible requires us to grow up and take responsibility. To abstain from things that are bad for us and do what’s good for us.

The proof is in the pudding. Societies that reject God always crumble sooner or later. It might look good for a while. Everyone seems free, happy etcetera. But left to their own, our animal natures soon takes over and it’s survival of the fittest from then on. The strongest, brightest and most ruthless win while the rest of the world suffers and falls apart. And if this continues long enough, there are no winners left at all.

I will end this post here. But I hope that you will come back and read my next post on Wednesday, where I try to tie this all together. 

TO PART 2

Photos:

Thunder: Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

Church: Souris on Unsplash

The importance of following Jesus

Do beliefs matter? Could we be condemned? Is there a literal devil? Or is the devil just a symbol for something within ourselves? Our ego?

I often find myself getting lost in speculations about this and that.

I believe that we get away from what’s important when we put too much emphasis on factual claims in the bible. Not that the factual claims are unimportant. If you take away certain beliefs, other things fall apart. And some things maybe need to fall apart, while others need to be preserved. I’m not going to go into detail about this here, but it could be worth considering.

The more I think of who Jesus was and what he taught, the more it strikes me how complete and timeless his teachings were. I’m not saying that the miraculous events in the Bible didn’t occur. As a matter of fact, I believe that some of them most likely did. I can even say this with some ease, as I know that the world is much more than what we can perceive with our five senses. But I don’t think that you need miracles or to believe in the whole narrative literally, to see Jesus as miraculous. We have become so accustomed to the many of the things that Jesus stood for, that we don’t even stop to reflect on how counter-intuitive they are to our animal natures. And they work. Not only do they work. They make our lives infinitely better. Because when we live according to our animal natures our lives will most likely suck. And the lives of those around us will suck too, if we have a significant impact on them. 

What I believe is that Jesus gave us an example of the ultimate potential that lies dormant within each and everyone of us. And I’m not alone in this belief. Thinkers such as C.S Lewis, Dallas Willard, Jordan Peterson and John Ortberg have said basically the same thing, with small variations. 

According to the Bible, we were all made in the image of God. But we are somehow fallen. I don’t believe that the fall from the Garden of Eden should be taken literally. I’m not ruling it out. But I don’t think that it’s what’s important. If you look at it a little closer it’s full of symbolism. What does, for example, nakedness symbolize? And no, I’m not talking about sex or shame around sexuality. I’m talking about vulnerability. When we’re naked, we’re exposed and vulnerable. 

Or take the idea that Adam walked with God before the fall. This means that we have the potential of living in- and feeling God’s presence. But as the Bible progresses, God becomes more and more distant. Less corporeal. 

And what does it mean that the knowledge of good and evil is what causes the fall to begin with? You can ponder that for a yourself, because I could go on like this forever and this is not really what this post is about. 

Coming back to the person Jesus, I believe that, together with everything else that he is, he is the perfect ideal. I would even go so far as to say that he is a perfect ideal that would be very difficult, if not impossible, for the human imagination to conjure up on its own. And as I said a few paragraphs ago, we have the potential within us to live like Jesus. There are no real physical or even psychological limitations. I even believe that what Jesus said about humans being able to perform miracles is accurate, because I know that lots of strange things happen inside us, that are not recognized by mainstream science.

But even if nothing limits us for real, each and everyone of us fall short of the ideal that Jesus represented. And yet, paradoxically, I believe that when all of the nonsense that we have turned into an identity over the years is removed, living like Jesus is really our natural state. When we completely stop functioning from the ego.

What do I truly believe in? What do I truly believe about Jesus?

I think that the broad question about what we truly believe, is quite an important one to ask oneself. Because otherwise, as with many other things that we don’t bring consciousness into, our beliefs risk running on auto-pilot. The idea here is that when it comes to lots of issues, there is simply no objective truth available. It doesn’t mean that there is no objective truth. But whether there is or not, we don’t have access to it. And when we don’t take time to make clear where we stand on different issues, it’s much easier to get swept away by what others believe. Or what we for one reason or another deem appropriate for the moment. Reasons that have nothing to do with our authentic selves, such as fears, cultural values or unconscious desires. 

Let’s get into one of the heaviest questions right away: What do I believe about religious truth? Well, I believe that the truth is to be found in the Bible. But probably not among the most common interpretations of the Bible. And I believe that some, perhaps many, important books were excluded from the Bible. Among those, I believe the Gospel of Thomas to probably be the most important one. 

I also believe that religion and spirituality is the most important, most fundamental aspect of human existence. And I believe that any religious faith that does not make someone hurt others is better than no religious faith at all. And I don’t believe that, just because I believe that one religious faith is the truest one, it makes all of the other faiths wrong and sinful. 

In some sense, I believe that the life and death of Jesus Christ constituted a shift for the whole of humanity. I’m not exactly sure what. I think that it’s pretty clear that his life gave us a perfect ideal to follow. But I also think that this ideal life, lived out fully, represented something more. I think that it may have something to do with that we are all connected on a deep level. There are serious theories about this within the realm of physics and I’ve had some personal experiences that seem to indicate that this might be true. 

This means that what one person does, has an effect on everyone. At the same time, I want to be clear that for me, this does not exclude Jesus as the only son of God. And somehow I feel that this is an important question. 

If the whole idea of Jesus being the son of God, who died on the cross to save us from our sins, is true, then blind faith, if this is something that we are truly capable of, would probably be the best response. In other words, if we don’t just delude ourselves into blind faith because we are afraid of the consequences of not having such a faith. Or worse, if we secretly gloat over the punishment that we believe awaits those that are not capable of such a faith. 

I know that I am not capable of such a faith. But since I believe that the question of the person of Jesus, and not just the example he sat, is important, this is something that I need to think about. But for now, this is as far as I come. I hope that it can offer some food for thought.

It's okay to have bad days

I have a tendency to feel that I’m back at square one when I don’t manage to keep my emotions in check. And I feel that all the work that I’ve done on myself has been for nothing. And it feels like the bad mood is going to go on forever. And because I let this feeling go unchallenged, I probably hold on to my bad mood much longer than I have to.

I think that this is something that needs to be talked about. Because I think that this is a huge stumbling block, as well as a cause of much suffering, for those of us that are committed to change. Because that is what we are, right? The spiritual awakening process necessarily entails confronting loads of baggage that we have inside ourselves. And when you look at most public figures that talk about this, you can easily get the impression that, while they certainly have som bumps in the road, they are more or less living their dreams and manifesting tons of abundance.

I’m not one of those people. I’ve accumulated so much baggage during my almost forty years, that I’m many days totally overwhelmed by it. What keeps me going is that I know what I’ve experienced and that I have my wife by my side. I mean, I’ve received actual proof that God exists and that the world is totally different from what my five senses tell me. How cool is that? And I’ve had my wife with me to confirm that I’m not just going crazy.

When I listen to many self-help gurus and and people in the Law of Attraction sphere (I’ve realized a while back that I’m not a big fan of the Law of Attraction by the way), I almost get the feeling that there is something wrong with me because I don’t manage to be happy, grateful and think happy thoughts all of the time.

But I can hardly be alone in feeling that, yes, I’m on a wonderful, magical journey. But it’s also one that entails a lot of struggles and sometimes downright misery and suffering. Problems that I cannot just see as challenges, face them head on with a smile and say “bring it on”. Problems that I would be happy to miss out on the opportunity for growth that they contain, if I just could be rid of them.

At the same time, I know that I’m the one that has created all of my problems and I know that I have no other option than to try and fix them to the best of my ability. The alternative is to throw away all of the wonderful things in my life because of my emotional and financial difficulties. And that is not really an option when it’s put in its proper perspective. Because somewhere, even in my darkest moments, I know that there is something so much bigger than the world with all its petty problems going on here.

Growing through our issues

We often tend to forget that when we deal with a problem, we don’t just solve the problem. We, as people, change as well. 

Basically, the more baggage we have, the more potential for growth we have. Which is good news for me. Provided that I don’t give up. Because just as we grow every time we deal with our problems, every encounter with a problem also provides us with a reason to do just that. To give up. 

Feelings of anger, hopelessness, fear or shame, tensions, bad posture, procrastination, lack of responsibility, overeating, selfishness, difficulty handling money, low self-esteem, addiction, judgment, pride, self-deceit, difficulty staying focused. These are all issues that I either have dealt with or still have in my life. And I have dealt with all of them to some degree.

And most of them have made want to give up and curse my unconscious past, where I either unknowingly created these issues for myself, or they arose due to the circumstances that I found myself in and my inability to cope with them at the time. 

But my refusal to just live with my limitations has also made me grow a lot. Today I know myself pretty well. I’ve become more confident, less judgmental and my ability to understand other people has grown because of it. And maybe the biggest thing is that it is quite a humbling experience to be confronted with all of the dirt one has in one’s life. Even though bursts of pride still flare up in me from time to time. And humility is most definitely one of the most important qualities to grow if one wants to get closer to God. Maybe the most important. 

Seeing all of these things inside me, has also made me understand the fallen state that we are all in. And seeing my ability to handle my difficulties grow, has also given me glimpses of what God intended us to be and what we need to do to start moving in that direction. It has also allowed me to understand many of the deep psychological truths in the Bible and to understand the concept of sin in a different way from most people. Not as something that makes us bad and deserving of condemnation, but as a statement of fact regarding our brokenness and unconsciousness, and their inevitable consequences for our characters and behaviors. In seeing this, I am also trying not to beat myself up too much, as self-acceptance is important and not always easy.

By the way, did you know that sin originally means “missing the mark”?

So, here's the deal

I feel that it’s time for an update.

So, here’s the deal:

I know that something huge is going on on the planet right now. Whatever spiritual awakening is, it’s happening. To lots of people. Undeniably. It’s not some wishful thinking or mass delusion. It’s not a question of “maybe, maybe not so let’s have a debate about it”. Having a debate about it would be like having a debate about whether the earth is flat. The connection with God on the inside is absolutely undeniable to me, even if it took a while for my ego to become convinced, and even if my ego sometimes still throws doubts in my way. Because it seems as if no matter what proof I experience in my life and together with my wife, my ego can still find ways of doubting. 

The “problem” is, for me, that for one reason or another, I’m led to Christianity. In the sense that the answers are to be found there. Not just in the sense that some answers are to be found there, but that THE answers are to be found there. This does not mean that all other religions are wrong and of the devil. I believe, for example, that the chakra system of Hinduism, the philosophy of letting go of attachment and resistance in Buddhism, or the natural flow of Taoism all have valuable things to teach us. 

So many crazy things have happened in my life. Things on the inside mostly. But also weird synchronicities and messages that come to me and my wife. So the crux of the matter, is that while this is undeniably happening, there is no way of proving to anyone else that it is. If we could, we could go out and show people the true nature of reality, we could overthrow the tyrants that rule the world by simply refusing to comply with them, and we could build utopia on earth. But for one reason or another, God has chosen to let things play out a different way.

Anyway, what I wish to do with the blog is to explore this openly. A few important questions to ask here are: “Why am I drawn to Christianity”, “what does this mean?”, “if Christianity is true, why is it true?” and “how come that most people that wake up don’t seem to be Christians?”

It seems though, as if many people that have woken up are using more and more biblical references and Christian terminology. And I do agree with those that say that “Christian” is a label. I even agree with those that say that it is a problematic label. I think that it seems a little strange that one’s whole eternal destiny would be contingent upon wether one adopted the label or not. 

On the other hand, I believe that this still is a valid label, for someone that, with all his or her human frailties and weaknesses, aspires to live like Jesus.

A widened perspective on the Bible?

What if you read the Bible for the first time, with no prior knowledge about it, except the vague notion that it contains some kind of important truth about the world? I want you to really think of what this question means. So I’ll say it again: What if you read the Bible for the first time, with no prior knowledge about it, except the vague notion that it contains some kind of important truth about the world, that means that it cannot be dismissed as mere fiction?

This would mean that you didn’t know about literal interpretations or that there are people that reject it completely. You would neither know what theologians have been saying since the beginning of Christianity, nor would you know the doctrines of the different churches. 

You would also not know about ideas that Christians often reject because they think that they are incompatible with biblical teachings. And you might look at some of the stories as attempts to describe events that they would have understood very differently if they would have occurred today. You might interpret some things that today are looked upon as literal as symbolical and vice versa. 

What if you looked at everything in it, that doesn’t have an absolutely self-evident interpretation, with an open mind, but seriously enough to not fall for the temptation to say “everything is relative so I’m free to do what I want”?  

There is something strange happening in the world. Part 2

So, what can we do? I believe that the only thing that we can do, is trust that God wants what’s best for us, and do our best to be our best, towards ourselves, each other and the world. I cannot believe in some final judgment where the saved go to heaven and sinners go to hell. There is no way for me to reconcile this with the idea of a good God. Not if God also is omnipotent. I don’t understand how an omnipotent, good god could make/let even the worst person in the history of mankind suffer forever. But I’m open to the possibility that there is something I don’t understand here.

What I do feel is important right now however, is that we do our best to be our best. Not because of some reward or punishment down the road, but because this is what God calls us to do. Because it is what is going to give us the best possible outcomes, and because there might be some hard lessons in store for us otherwise. 

I wish to interject that being our best, does not mean to be flawless. On the contrary, being our best often means to accept and embrace ourselves as flawed creatures fully. To allow ourselves to make mistakes and accept that we sometimes act against our own interests. Because this is part of being human.

So maybe, just maybe, this is not a time where God will let fire rain down on earth in a literal sense, where the saved will get to live in paradise, while sinners will face eternal suffering. Maybe this is rather the time where we really start seeing that living for our own selfish interests and instant gratifications will do nothing good for anyone. Maybe this is a time where we finally see our madness and confusion for what they are and choose to let go of them. 

And I don’t know. Maybe in the end it is as simple as letting go of fear and embracing love. But maybe things are a little more complicated than people make them as well. Maybe we don’t have to be afraid of anything. But maybe, when it comes to certain things that we need to let go of, we will find a few things that are rather difficult to do so with. Maybe things that we have made parts of our identity and that we are very defensive about. I know that this has been the case for me. And it took som pretty deep soul searching to see these things and how they affected my life and ultimately who I was as a person.

There is something strange happening in the world. Part 1

In New Age circles there is talk about “The Ascension Process”. In more biblical contexts, people are talking about “the apocalypse”, “armageddon” or “the end-times”. 

Personally, I find labels like this one problematic, since labels bring with them certain ideas and expectations, exclude others, brings some to the forefront and others to the back. 

A very common human trait seems to be that we want to know. And we don’t just want to know. We want to belong to the group that knows something that the others do not. This is of course one of the many ways that the ego tricks us and I don’t think that we can say “I don’t know” enough these days.

But I find it interesting to look at the ideas of the Ascension Process and The Apocalypse together. Because both of them have some merit. 

On the one hand, we have a huge amount of people reporting strange things happening with them, that seem to point to some magnificent revelation of us being much more than we seem, when we perceive the world through our physical bodies with our physical senses. I’m one of those people.

On the other hand, we have enough biblical end-times prophecies coming true that I believe it warrants at least enough concern, that we cannot just brush it off lightly. We of course have the verse from Matthew that says “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars.” We also have several places in the Bible, where it is talked about how people are going to be in the end-times. One usch place is Timothy 3:2-4: “People will be selfish, greedy, boastful, and conceited; they will be insulting, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, and irreligious; ³ they will be unkind, merciless, slanderers, violent, and fierce; they will hate the good; ⁴ they will be treacherous, reckless, and swollen with pride; they will love pleasure rather than God.”

I’m not saying this to condemn anyone. I don’t think people are this way because they are bad. And these are all traits that I myself wrestle with. And… I’m actually going to write something completely different here than I thought. I honestly don’t think that these traits are more prevalent today than in Jesus’ times. It’s just that we recognize them as something bad today and we actually have a bigger chance of catching a glimpse of who we really are today than in ancient times. So this could actually be a prophecy that is unequivocally positive throughout. People are as they’ve always been, but now they have a chance to see it and recognize it as something that doesn’t make either themselves or anyone else happy. 

I guess that I believe that we can’t just condemn everything that belong to the category of New Age as bad or evil, because I’ve seen how this stuff works and how it is helping me to become a better person. Besides, what has been crammed into this labe is everything from letting go of negative emotional energy, to tarot cards and astrology, to channeling and contact with spirit guides.  

What is sin?

The concept of sin comes from the greek word “hamartia”, which means “to err” or “miss the mark”. 

Now, I don’t claim to be an authority on sin (I do have a lot of first-hand experience of it though… ;)). So maybe I’m completely wrong here. But I do believe that this original meaning can tell us something that has gotten lost. And I’m not alone in this. Several teachers that go beyond traditional interpretations of the Bible have pointed this out.

Looking at the original meaning, sin seems to imply a failure to do something correctly, rather than an act of evil. And if we look at how life seems to function, I believe this way of looking at sin to be correct.

You see, from my own experience, I’ve come to believe that we always act from a place where we believe that our actions are “right”, in some sense. Even if we don’t believe that there are such things as right, wrong, good or evil, we still in a sense believe that what we do is right. Or, at least not wrong. Since we don’t believe in such a thing as right or wrong. 

Is it possible to downright do something that we know is wrong, without having some justification for our actions? Sure. But those that do it are a very small minority. And they become even fewer when you take away mentally disturbed people. 

So, the complete nihilist might feel somewhere in his or her heart that some actions are wrong. I used to be a nihilist and I can for sure say that I could feel that many of my actions were wrong. But because of my belief-system, I managed to shut my eyes to these feelings. This does not mean that I’m not responsible for my actions. It’s not an excuse. But it is an explanation. An explanation that I believe is sufficient for me not to be considered evil. Corrupt maybe. Nihilism is for sure a corrupt belief-system. Had I persevered in my nihilism, I might even have become so corrupt that I became completely deaf to my conscience. Fortunately, this is something that I will never know.

The more I analyze my actions and other people’s actions, the firmer I become in my belief that most of us are a pretty confused bunch. We don’t really understand why we do what we do, or how it affects us or other people. On top of that, we live in a very confusing world, where we are bombarded with different messages on how to think, feel and act, together with different types of appeals to our lower natures. And let’s not forget that the values (here in the West, that would be Christian values), for good and bad, that we’ve considered as facts for almost two millennia, are being questioned, with no new “truth” about right and wrong to replace them. 

So if you believe in the idea that God hates the sin but not the sinner, how could it make sense that God would judge the sinner? Isn’t sin, logically, a product of wrongful thinking that, logically, cannot be the fault of the sinner? Doesn’t the sinner engage in wrongful thinking because he or she is broken and confused and not because he or she wants to do bad things? 

There are rules, man! Part 2

So, to understand this properly, we can’t think in terms of immediate consequences. It’s not like I tell a lie and the next second someone walks up to me and punches me in the face.

Instead we need to primarily look at our inner lives. My lies might or might not be revealed. But I will surely be afraid of it. This fear will make me less happy and affect my other thoughts. Even if it’s not obvious, this will in the long run affect my character and my decisions. One small lie will have a small, hardly noticeable effect. A big one will have a big effect. Depending on how I look at the lie, I may or may not feel guilty. But I will be afraid of exposure. 

On top of that, I’ve also met a couple of habitual liars, that don’t seem to know whether they are lying or telling the truth sometimes.

People may also pick up on subtle cues that I lie. They may have a gut feeling that I cannot be trusted. And if the truth comes out, it may have huge social consequences.

But there may be more subtle ways that for example lying affect us. I use lying as an example here, because most of us lie at least now and then and it’s what I have given most thought to. It’s also what is closest to me, since I don’t cheat or steal. But I do occasionally lie, even though I try not to.

What I’m talking about, is that lying might affect how truthful we are with ourselves. Because we do talk to ourselves. And what is to say that we don’t create patterns where we distort reality when we talk to ourselves, if we distort reality when we talk to others,. The concept of “lying to ourselves” is after all well established. And it must by necessity take place on an unconscious level, which means that it’s beyond our awareness and conscious control.

Now, let’s take this one step further. If you’re reading this blog, you probably believe that there is a spiritual side to reality. If there is a spiritual side to reality, there might also be real, unseen forces at play in our day to day lives. I have, for example, discovered that when I’m dishonest about something, something often happens that thwarts my plans. And if I get what I want through dishonesty, it often ends up being something that I don’t want. 

One question that arises, is whether all rules are created equal. I would say no and refer to the Bible. The pharisees are, among other things, a warning against making the whole of life about rules. Most of the time, Jesus seems to agree on the following of the rules. But he is very much opposed to the attitude that the pharisees take towards following them. And on a few noteworthy occasions, he and his disciples break them. From the context of the rule-breaking that we get from the accounts of them, it is also not at all clear that these are the most clear-cut cases where rules should be broken. In one instance, for example, the disciples don’t wash their hands before a meal, when this is what the Tora prescribes.

Thinking of this, I can only come up with one logical explanation. Namely that rules generally are there for us to follow them, but that depending on how much discernment we have, if we are being truly honest with ourselves, we are allowed some flexibility. The harder it is for us to stay on track and “do the right thing”, the stricter we need to be with our adherence to the rules. This also seems to indicate that it isn’t always on the surface obvious which rules we need to follow and which ones we can break. 

I would for example say that in general, we need to follow the laws of the country we live in. But a strict adherence to laws that we believe to be bad for one reason or another, is not called for. We might decide to follow them anyway because we don’t deem it worth the risk to break them. But I don’t believe that we have a moral obligation to follow them and if I’m right about this, this also means that reality won’t necessarily smack us in the face if we break them.

So, if this is correct, societal law cannot be neatly fitted into spiritual law. Mostly it can though, so we should be careful about breaking it. And it might not even be worth breaking laws that we deem faulty, simply because of the risk of getting caught and the stress that it causes us. As with many other things, the freedom that we can allow ourselves, from the perspective of our own and other people’s good, is in direct proportion to the development of our own moral compass, our ability to be honest with ourselves and to assess a situation. And unless we are prepared to take these questions seriously and give them some thorough, soul searching thought, it’s best to just do what everyone else are doing, unless what they are doing is clearly harmful.