A Problem Within Christian Culture

     Few of us admit or even comprehend belonging to a particular culture. Individual cultures have a very broad set of boundaries and are kept alive solely upon the spirit and social acceptance within those around us. Belonging to a culture gives an individual a sense of belonging as well as an idea in how to live life.

A firmly established culture offers its members a sense of stability and foresight in the way things have happened, should happen, and will happen. If none of us belonged to any form of culture, humanity would simply be a huge melting pot of disorder and chaos, without a drive or destination. Therefore, I am not writing this blog to discriminate against the nature of cultures, rather to express the importance of observing the surrounding culture to which we individually belong.

Having grown up in a Christian culture, I have to admit that my foresight into reality was quite dim. This culture, while split into a diverse set of denominations, had a very strict outlook upon how my life should and should not be lived and attempted to convince me that there were only two kinds of cultures, those who believed in God and those who did not. Those who believed in God would have an everlasting life, and those who did not believe in God would parish. This outlook supported a subconscious belief that Christianity was the right way, while any counterculture was going the wrong way. Being an individual who always wanted to do the right thing, I naturally desired to follow the guidelines supporting my Christian belief system and had no reason to consider a way of life that was looked down upon by my peers. I belonged to the Christian culture and I believed it was the only way.

After experiencing the struggles and sufferings of life, witnessing less struggle and despair amongst my fellow Christian followers, I began asking myself different questions as to the legitimacy of this particular religious culture. I was discovering that while having faith in the unknown was more than enough for many within the Christian culture, there were many of us who wanted more answers and confirmation of this “unknown” with whom we placed our entire reason for existence. I slowly began to learn I was not content simply calling myself a Christian while also trying to convert individuals to my culture. When others would question the Christian culture to which I belonged, my spiritual muscle would simply stiffen and relentlessly defended its nature with circular reasoning, “God is who He says He is because He said He was.” It took me years to finally crack open the boundaries of the Christian culture to which I belonged and began my spiritual search alone.

Trying different avenues while struggling with crippling depression and anxiety, I made a huge step outside of my culture by trying marijuana to ease my psychological ailments. Quickly realizing that a substance ruthlessly attacked by my previous culture offered promising relief without side effects was the stepping stone to my search for the actual truth of my existence. I realized that if the Christian culture remained willfully ignorant about something as small as a medicinal herb, how many more truths had I been blinded to? Having been consistently discriminated against by the Christian culture for my smoking and drinking habits, I slowly began conforming to a more hippie-like culture where I was more readily accepted.

Living within a hippie culture treated me well for some time. I was finally given the opportunity to break free from my original dogmatic opinions and discover reasons for why I did or did not believe in the ideas from my past culture. Hippie culture gave me the freedom to develop new beliefs while remaining accepted by my peers. It allowed me to fully embrace and explore spiritualism from both drug induced experiences as well as non-religious activities. I would say the most spiritually powerful element within life I had learned from living within hippie culture was unconditional love. I learned that love for others could not be genuinely induced from drugs or religion, but had to come solely from the heart. It was at this time I learned that the Bible from my past Christian culture was not actually a book of rules, rather it was a delicately written document of guidelines to help us obtain and maintain this powerful spiritual force of love. I began to fall in love with the element of love and despise religions that took up their name higher than love itself. I realized that if I had stayed within the Christian culture, I would have died remaining subservient to an ideology instead of discovering the spiritual power of love.

Unfortunately, during this time of truth seeking, I developed a keen interest in drinking and drug use, particularly in conjunction with spiritual hobbies such as writing music and dance. While drugs belonging to the hallucinogenic and psychedelic category were highly beneficial in exploring unbiased spiritual ideas, alcohol and laughing gas offered effects of instant gratification without any psychological toil or paranoia. I slowly began developing a lifestyle of addiction towards euphoria and earned a stereotype as an addict.

As my addiction steadily grew worse, my relationships began to sour and those within the hippie culture soon began to push me away, in much the same way that Christians did when I began using marijuana. Slowly learning that I would not be accepted within the hippie culture, I learned that the only way to continue being loved and accepted would be to fake my identity and lie about my worsening habits. I knew I belonged to a stereotype of addiction as soon as I began hiding liquor bottles and gas cartridges around the house and in my car. Due to the desire to be accepted, I slowly began developing relationships with others who mutually had issues with addiction.

Now, having obtained a grip on these addictions after many trips to the ER and rehabilitations as well as finding the meaning to my own existence, I was left trying to decide where I belonged in the world. The only thing of importance to me was finding a group of individuals within the world who placed unconditional love above all things. Having attempted to rejoin the Christian culture, I have found that my past alcoholism and life experiences has placed me within a stereotyped section of Christianity. While I am accepted by individuals within the group, my stereotype requires special treatment and care… which is not true acceptance. Individuals within the Christian culture who developed a stereotype are not treated as brothers and sisters in Christ as much as they are treated like a project as someone who needs improvement. This invites bitterness in those of us who want to rejoin the Christian culture and tempts us to throw the religion away completely. 

But there is power in numbers and a new found truth within Christian culture will not be easily swayed. Here is what I have decided. To be Christlike is to obtain unconditional love for others. Love is not something that can be said or done, it simply “is”, but Christian culture does it’s best to define a spiritual lifestyle with words, rules, and identity. This has confused many of us in the search of obtaining unconditional love for others and we have found ourselves simply going through the motions and regurgitating religious information amidst questionable situations. But from what I have learned, I have decided not to simply “conform” to the words I was taught within Christian culture, rather I have chosen to conform to anything and everything that speaks unconditional love to all, regardless of culture. So instead of belonging to a particular subculture among millions of cultures within the world, I like to believe I belong to the culture of humanity, or a "love culture". This “culture” does not discriminate against race, sex, religion, or even past decisions, but is open and accepting towards all people and beliefs. If God truly exists, I believe this is the deepest root of purity He wanted us to tap into. We do not have to be accepted within a Christian culture or any culture for that matter to find where we truly belong. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all belonged together focused on loving all people unconditionally? It would certainly beat a global Christian culture with stereotypical conditions.

God and The Devil (Good and Evil)

       God and the Devil have been popular deities understood by the world in different forms as the ultimate higher powers of good and evil. God and the Devil have also been viewed as the spiritually dignified leaders of angels and demons. Even outside of Christian religions, satanic cults and religions also acknowledge and revere the existence of these deities as the authors of both good and evil. Humans of many diverse cultures are innately aware of distinct differences within our understandings of virtues and morality and have developed many different codes of conduct and religions to maintain the survival of mankind. As humans, we have the ability to not only understand the differences between that which is good and evil, but we each have the individual ability to choose which path of spiritual direction we will take. 

What Is The Difference Between Good And What Is Evil?

   Within American culture, good and evil is often defined by Christian belief systems. Outside of religious perspectives, we replace the words "good and evil" with the words "right and wrong" and organize human morality within the political laws of the land. Either way, humans acknowledge the difference between a right way of doing things and a wrong way of doing things, but why? Mankind has learned over the centuries that a culture without some form of spiritual structure result in self destruction through methods of crime, violence, and war. Having distinguished good and evil as separate entities has allowed mankind to avoid potential self-destruction and ill-will towards our fellow man, but what really is good and evil? How can we define it? 

From my personal opinion, things that pertain to being evil or wrong are simply the decisions or actions we take that are destructive to ourselves and/or others, while things that pertain to being good or right are simply decisions or actions we take that are beneficial to ourselves and/or others. 

All human needs revolve around a single human instinct we know as survival. As humans, we can choose to support our need to survive by means of promoting the quality of life towards ourselves and those around us (which is right and good) or by acting negligently towards the quality of life of ourselves and those around us (which is wrong or evil). It really is that simple. Upon reading and understanding the Bible as a whole and not just picking and choosing scriptures to support my own personal religious viewpoint, I realized that this is the single message it teaches and uses many great moral structures and guidelines to help humanity to attain this method of survival. The teachings in the Bible do in fact support survival not only for our individual selves but also for those around us. To love God and love others as we love ourselves is in fact the most important rule of the Bible, as quoted by Jesus in the New Testament in a couple of passages. (Mark 12:30-31, Luke 10:27, Mat 22:37-40)

Likewise, even pertaining to what is considered right and wrong in following the political laws of the land, these laws have been put in place to not only protect ourselves but also fellow citizens within our culture. For example, theft is considered to be a crime because it unjustly interferes with the quality of another fellow citizen. Hard work is not considered to be a crime because it justly benefits not only the individual but also the economy of our culture. So whether we are looking through a political or even a religious lens, "good and evil" and "right and wrong" are determined by how we support the overall quality of both our personal survival as well as the survival of others. The difference between good and evil are simply the man made intellectual distinctions that either support the survival of mankind or destroy it.

The Missing Links

   Having personally experienced drastically different lifestyles as both a devout Christian and a carefree hippy, I was able to gain some interesting perspectives on good and evil. Living on the Christian side of things, every decision you make is taken and compared to Biblical teachings. This allowed a strong sense of spiritual stability in that every questionable situation in life could be compared to strict Biblical guidelines to maintain a straight course of action. These Biblical guidelines and teachings helped me on a personal level to be at ease with the storms of life and supplied a firm foundation to stand on. 

Upon walking away from Biblical teachings for a time and exploring life on my own outside of religious doctrine as a hippy, I got to witness and see goodness in places I was once taught to be evil. I also began to see evil in places I was taught to be good. Most hippies and Christians alike are striving for the same goal to survive. Let me use drug use for example. In the perspective of a hippy, drugs are a method of maintaining survival and are not always an addictive habit. But because doing drugs is inherently considered by most religions to be a sinful act, I often found myself being excluded and judged for something I personally considered to simply be a form of survival not only for myself but also for those around me. Within healthy hippie communities, mild drugs are often shared and given in the same way food is in church potlucks. I am not defending the use of illegal drugs, but I had to notice the good will of sharing illegal substances was much more loving than judgement and exclusion by religious sects. This is not to say that all hippy related habits are healthy and beneficial to the survival of self and the community, but I did see much love in places other religious sects would define as bad or evil.

Talking To Our Self

   The whole idea of talking with one's self is more real than I ever imagined before my hippie days. As an individual who talks to himself frequently, I have discovered there are two methods of mentally conversing with one's self. There is a state of speaking to an imaginary or existing person much in the same way one may practice a speech. This state is based more on imagination and less on truth. There is also a state in which you can speak to your virtuously insecure self. This state is more or less a verbal argument between your conscience and lustful self. In states of deep intoxication and/or hallucination, the characteristics of lust and conscience hypnotically manifest into what seem to be distinct entities within one's self. Within the act of "letting go", these manifestations are free to roam and speak honestly without bias. 

God And The Devil

   My most common interactions with these "entities" were during the days of chronic addictions and drinking issues. Conversing with myself would often go as follows...

"I really want another drink."
"No, you don't need another drink, you already had two."
"I am free to do as I want."
"Yes, but you know you will regret it in the morning."
"The night is early, I'll be fine."
"Okay, well, sip it slow."

In hindsight, these very real intoxicated conversations with myself manifested into basically listening to my shoulder angel lose a battle with my shoulder demon. These are relatable to the subconscious thoughts we all have on a daily basis, but upon hearing them speak verbally to one another through my own mouth really gave clarity to who God and the Devil were to me on a personal level. 

Fatal Lust And Fatal Abstinence

   Upon being open to the idea that God and the Devil within could converse with one another, I began to wonder if they truly were enemies despite their polar opposites pertaining to virtue. While all of these conversations with self began to unfold, I began to realize that both the demon and the angel were trying to support my well being, the difference being one wanting pleasure in the moment while the other only sought out quality of life for my future self. One entity always wanted to have fun in the moment while the other wanted stability and survival for the future. Within the clenches of addiction, the shoulder demon will always win, while the shoulder angel will give in to appease the other.

But I had to wonder, does this always mean that choosing short term pleasure is evil or of the Devil? This can't be so, because even natural pleasurable urges like appetite and sex promote survival and the quality of life. This is when I began to ponder over the idea that perhaps God and the Devil might actually simply be friends arguing over how to balance human urges and appetites which can be distorted between fatal lust and fatal abstinence.

To Become Morally Balanced 

   I would like to suggest that a huge problem with religion is the far right leaning towards abstinence without first virtuously determining what will be beneficial towards both our self and the rest of the world. Religion will twist a nonintellectual mind into pointing fingers and to judge in accordance to law without viewing the entire situation, while a lawless lifestyle will land an individual into a meaningless mess of pleasure and self-satisfaction until chaos and lawlessness overtake him. This further drove me to ponder over the idea that what might be good and right for one individual can be absolutely fatal for another. Alcohol is a great example. While one individual may greatly benefit from drinking socially, others will fall into fatal alcoholism due to a lack of self control. Food is another great example. While one individual underweight may benefit from having a slice of cheese cake after a meal, for someone who cannot control their urges to consume might develop fatal health issues upon over eating.

All of this to say, I do not believe the war is between God and the Devil so much as I believe the real war lies between how we control how they interact with one another. Sometimes we should let the Devil win and give into healthy urges, while other times we should let God win and support healthy abstinence for our future self. We cannot simply say one thing is a sin and always a sin and we cannot always say one thing is right and always right. The real battle is to love others as ourself and to act justly to promote quality ridden survival for both ourselves and the rest of the world. This is what I call love.