Recently, I have been experiencing obsessive thoughts regarding Jesus Christ because I was with Christians for six straight days.
I like these particular Christians. Some of them have socialist leanings. When I like somebody, I tend to soak up their beliefs like a sponge. This can be detrimental to my health when the beliefs are unhealthy (e.g., modern civilization will collapse within the next hundred years, so why not smoke a spliff right now?). Thus, I prefer to be around people who have pleasant beliefs that do not lead to self-destructive behavior.
If the devil is a real entity, then I have a dynamic relationship with him. Without even getting to my naughty behavior, my depressed thoughts are of the devil. For instance, the belief that some people are worth more than me is a lie told by the devil. Another lie the devil tells me is that I will never, ever feel competent or capable, and that when I do feel competent and capable, the feeling of competence is a lie. How does one avoid believing the devil's lies? I have a hunch that the answer is ""prayer.""
If there is a devil, then he tells me an awful lot of lies, most of which I believe.
Doesn't this ""devil"" creature seem like a convenient foil for ""everything that disempowers me?"" I mean, why not make things simple and say that a fallen angel is responsible for my suffering instead of a series of unfortunate genetic and circumstantial accidents? Or, the fallen angel is responsible for the genetic and circumstantial ""accidents."" God would have allowed Satan to have this kind of power because of Eve and Adam and the apple. Which is really vindictive and thus must not be true…
The other day, I drank way too much. Then, while I was chowing down my second bag of chips, I suddenly and unexpectedly vomited. Then, I passed out without taking my antidepressants, which subsequently effed up my mood for the next day. It occurred to me that drinking is the equivalent of handing the devil the keys to my body (as if my body was a car).
Enough about the devil. Let's talk about Jesus. The other day, I read the Gospel of Mark, which happens to be the first Gospel I have ever read in its entirety. I chose that one because some boy told me that the Gospel of Mark highlights Jesus' role as a servant (as opposed to Jesus' role as a king, which I find less compelling). Most of what I gathered from the experience of reading said gospel was that Jesus heals a shit-ton of people. That's cool, I guess, except I wish someone would explain exactly how he did it so that we could harness his healing power and use it on everyone. I mean, yeah, praying is fine, but I want to be able to heal a lady of her excessive bleeding just by accidentally brushing her with my clothes.
I guess what I'm saying is that I want it to be easy.
One confusion I have regarding Jesus has to do with what he says just before he dies. He says, ""My God, why have you forsaken me?"" If Jesus is the Son of God/God himself, how could he ever have this kind of doubt? I mean, shouldn't he be happy to die, because he can go be God again? And that's another thing. While Jesus was alive, God was apparently still in heaven. But Jesus is God. So God just performed mitosis? But then why would he ask why God forsook him?
Granted, maybe the reason no one can figure out how the trinity works is because we aren't capable of understanding (seeing as we are not God). Also, some people believe that the Bible couldn't have been thought of merely by people because it is too complex for humans to have created.
I don't know about that.
Comments? Email Angelica at aengel2@wisc.edu.
