You know.... I am puzzled by something.... I am perplexed.... I am contemplating....
I was going through some different blog sites today. We are free to exercise our First Amendment rights.... say what you want.... believe what you want, and I do appreciate reading the thoughts of other people. Blogs are good for that sort of thing.
However, why is it that more often than not, I see people taking another person's opinion as Gospel truth? WHY are we not studying for ourselves? I may have commentaries about different subjects, but is my story something to base your beliefs on, or is someone else's story something I should base MY beliefs on? How do you know the "story" is true? How do you know it hasn't been altered? You find the source, that's how!
There's a game that nearly everyone I know has played at one time or another. It's called Telephone. One person whispers a sentence into another's ear, and it gets passed down the line until the last person almost always has a completely different version than what was originally said. Very rarely do the two versions match up, with the exception of maybe a couple of words.
While this is a game most often played in youth groups or classrooms, is it not the same in life? Stories get altered, so we must be careful what we base our "truth" on when passing along tales. Every story told, or thing relayed to be fact, is subject to opinion and perspective, as well as communication gaps. We must learn to go back to the original source from which it came to find the truth for ourselves.
Now, don't get me wrong here, I do not claim to be the perfect eternal student who spends hours and hours buried in books, but I at least give it a few counts before I buy into something. My eyes do a short bobble, and I am immediately on alert when the words, "Hey, did you know that...." come out of someone's mouth. I am working diligently to make sure I don't believe something just because someone, somewhere said it was true. Does that make me skeptical? Maybe, but I'd rather be skeptical and than mindless.
Unfortunately, my diatribe comes from my own experience in the Christian world. Yes, I am a believer in God, and the overwhelming love He has for everyone on this earth, but I am not a dogmatic believer in denominations, nor am I prone to fall for religious opinions without studying them first. I want to know WHY I'm doing what I'm doing, or what's the point of doing it at all?
I had a very interesting conversation with an eleven-year old last year that revolved around something her Sunday school teacher was attempting to indoctrinate into the kids in her class. The student was very indignant, and rightly so, I suppose. Her teacher was talking about the wrongness of people with a certain style of dress, specifically, the "goth" style. For the sake of time, we will take the term, "goth" to mean just that, a style, rather than what Gothic really means, though you may consider studying it for yourself, as it's very fascinating.
When confronted with this teacher's (good-hearted) intentions to convince her students that wearing skulls and having tattoos is wrong, and that people who wear them are bad, the youngster attempted to ask questions that would upset religious mindsets world wide. "Why do you say it is wrong? Aside from modesty, isn't God more interested in our hearts than what we wear?" And then came the real controversy, "Why are you saying that tattoos are wrong? My other teacher has tattoos and she's a good Christian who loves Jesus."
Oh boy.
Like so many other Christians do, Ms. Teacher simply opened up her Bible to Leviticus 19:28 and read, "Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD." So, the story goes on and the young girl eventually ended up having an interesting discussion with her teacher, and later her parents and me.
The average person would take Ms. Teacher's quote of scripture, agree with it and pass it on as absolute truth. This is a problem. While I am not negating the truth of the Bible, I am rather disillusioned by the perspective and opinion of Ms. Teacher who has obviously not gone back to the origin, nor the context of said scripture to find its true meaning. She is believing something, but doesn't know why, or where it came from in the first place, and she's passing it along as fact.
I don't dare to venture down the path of theological debate, but seriously.... do we honestly think that there were people running around with inked-up needles, drawing hearts, roses and "I love Mom" on the various appendages of people in Old Testament times? Of course not. Read it - study it - find out for yourself what that scripture and context really mean. I bet you'll be surprised.
I heard a story (yes, a story) once, and I have no idea whether it's a true story or a creative illustration from someone's mind, but it has fantastic application to this post.
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There was a lady who was going to cook a ham one day. She took the ham out, cut the end of it off and put it in the pan. Her husband, curious enough to ask, quizzed her with, "Honey, why do you cut the end off of the ham?"
His wife simply stated, "I don't know, that was the way my mother always did it."
Dear hubby, still inquisitive, called the mother, and asked her, "My wife says you always cut the end off of a ham before you cook it, and I was just wondering why?"
The mother also stated, "I don't know, that was the way my mother always did it."
Still determined, he called Grandma. "Grandma, I've been told that you always cut the end off of a ham before you cook it, and I was just wondering, why?"
"Well," she replied, "I always had a small pan, and cutting the end off was the only way I could get it to fit."
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You may interpret this story however you wish, but the reality is, we must know why we are doing what we're doing, or there really is NO point in doing it! We should be ready to give an answer for what we believe in, and if we don't know the answer, we should not be mindless about it, but rather, challenge ourselves to study and find out what we truly believe and WHY we believe those things.
Of course, I could be just another babbling blogger with an opinion. *shrug*
