Top 10 Things I could do on Sundays instead of church
10. Watch NFL football with friends and family - Fellowship is important
9. Sleep in - No working on the Sabbath
8. Clean up the house - Cleanliness is next to holiness
7. Exercise - My body is God's temple
6. Prepare my lesson plans for the week - My students deserve my best
5. Take a walk in the woods - Take time to enjoy God's beauty
4. Treat a friend to breakfast - It's important and okay to show love to people who aren't Christians
3. Visit a nursing home - Don't forget about the widows and elderly (the least of these)
2. Work on my Master's Project - School is important
1. Spend time with family - Sundays are days to go golfing or fishing with loved ones. I love my family.
But I choose, instead of doing these things, to go to church.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
37: Nietzsche's Letter
I have been preparing myself for a look into Nietzsche, the great philosopher, for a while now. Upon learning of his background, I find that we have similar experiences. He, too, dropped out of seminary and turned to a life of intellectual thought. His most famous quote, "God is dead," may upset a lot of people, but I find it rather interesting. He was, after all, the son of a pastor, and to say such a thing must have had, in my mind, good validations and reasoning. But I will get to that later. Instead, I want to journey through some of his most influential works, one step at a time, to test my own faith and to open my understanding on philosophy.
In Nietzsche's letter to his sister, he says, "If we believed from childhood that all salvation issued from someone other than Jesus, is it not certain that we should have experienced the same blessings?" He goes on to say that if you want peace and pleasure of the soul, all you have to do is believe. If you want the truth, you will have to search yourself.
With his first statement, that we would receive the same blessings if we believed in a different faith, I have to believe it is true. Not because he's Nietzsche, but because it makes sense. All people from different religious, even non-religious, backgrounds receive blessings. To say that my blessings would increase because I turned to a different faith is ignorant. If this were the case, that you would receive, let's say, 100 blessings a year if you were a Christian, I would think people would catch on and want to be Christians instead of Hindus, who, let's say, only get 45 blessings a year. If we got a certain amount, or certain types of blessings, just based on our faith, I would have found the best one by now. Trust me. I'd be cashing in. And you might too.
This also makes me think, then, that if it doesn't matter what faith we have, and that blessings either happen or don't, what about heaven for all? This has been an idea I've had for a long time. What if God loved everyone so much that we all got in? I know that that goes against the Bible. It plainly states that we must accept Christ as our Savior and believe that He died on a cross for our sins. But what if? What if God, through His infinite love, decided that everyone gets in, no matter what you did on Earth, because He loves us just that much?
This idea gets a lot of Christians mad. It's understandable. "I'm busting my butt, sacrificing my life so that I can get into heaven. No way is THAT guy, the non-Christian, going to get in." But to me, this shows that Christians are only concerned with the reward, heaven, and not the relationship part. Paul says that our relationship with God is a marathon, and that we shouldn't be racing each other. Instead, we should be encouraging each other.
Well, Nietzche makes a great point, overall. I don't believe that if I were a Buddhist, or even a Mormon, that my life's blessings would be all that different. To take it a step further, I don't believe that if I were deemed a Baptist or Calvinist, that my life would be without its blessings. I suppose that faith and blessings work independently from faith. That we don't need faith to get blessings in life. I guess this is why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Life doesn't care where you go on Saturdays or Sundays to pray, or even if you go.
In Nietzsche's letter to his sister, he says, "If we believed from childhood that all salvation issued from someone other than Jesus, is it not certain that we should have experienced the same blessings?" He goes on to say that if you want peace and pleasure of the soul, all you have to do is believe. If you want the truth, you will have to search yourself.
With his first statement, that we would receive the same blessings if we believed in a different faith, I have to believe it is true. Not because he's Nietzsche, but because it makes sense. All people from different religious, even non-religious, backgrounds receive blessings. To say that my blessings would increase because I turned to a different faith is ignorant. If this were the case, that you would receive, let's say, 100 blessings a year if you were a Christian, I would think people would catch on and want to be Christians instead of Hindus, who, let's say, only get 45 blessings a year. If we got a certain amount, or certain types of blessings, just based on our faith, I would have found the best one by now. Trust me. I'd be cashing in. And you might too.
This also makes me think, then, that if it doesn't matter what faith we have, and that blessings either happen or don't, what about heaven for all? This has been an idea I've had for a long time. What if God loved everyone so much that we all got in? I know that that goes against the Bible. It plainly states that we must accept Christ as our Savior and believe that He died on a cross for our sins. But what if? What if God, through His infinite love, decided that everyone gets in, no matter what you did on Earth, because He loves us just that much?
This idea gets a lot of Christians mad. It's understandable. "I'm busting my butt, sacrificing my life so that I can get into heaven. No way is THAT guy, the non-Christian, going to get in." But to me, this shows that Christians are only concerned with the reward, heaven, and not the relationship part. Paul says that our relationship with God is a marathon, and that we shouldn't be racing each other. Instead, we should be encouraging each other.
Well, Nietzche makes a great point, overall. I don't believe that if I were a Buddhist, or even a Mormon, that my life's blessings would be all that different. To take it a step further, I don't believe that if I were deemed a Baptist or Calvinist, that my life would be without its blessings. I suppose that faith and blessings work independently from faith. That we don't need faith to get blessings in life. I guess this is why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Life doesn't care where you go on Saturdays or Sundays to pray, or even if you go.
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