But I never could carry a tune to save my soul! I think we are exactly
the same. The connection to me is the manifestation of God. I do not
see "God" as an old man in the sky... I see him as the force that
brought all of what we see into being. My choice to personify him is
that this works for me and it keeps me from knowing that I am really
talking and praying to myself ;0)
The dogma of many so called Christian churches now seems to be as
follows:
We are sinful
One must be perfect to get into heaven
One can not gain perfection through good works
One can only gain salvation by being born again
(Then you need to give your money to the preacher who wants you to hate
gays... love guns... condemn any woman who chooses to abort a child...
etc.)
On one hand they will tell you that Christ came to overturn the old
testament ideas of sin and judgment. On the other hand they use the
issue of sin to hold power over the faithful.
However, this is not what Christ said in any way. His purpose was to
free us from these concepts. How can we be anything other than perfect
in God's eyes? Sin is our concept. We invented it.
Now, you guys seem to be working on ways to get beyond these old ideas
as well and I applaud you for that. I am not here to convert you. You
need no conversion as you are one with god despite your atheism. He
does not require your belief to exist... and he loves you just the same.
But you are infected with these God/Judgment/Sin memes. The fact that
you hate them does not mean you are not living under their rule.
America is a puritan nation. Cotton Mather still infects each of us
with his ideas. Anything that feels good is suspect... America has
some special calling in the world. We have the truth. All of these
ideas are still strong in our culture.