Attempts to convey spiritual message to Christian fundamentalist

This post is virtually meaningless as it is now assembled… it needs much work, or perhaps to be deleted.)

Dave is one of my many Christian fundamentalist friends. We have engaged in a fair amount of talk about religion and spirituality, and I did the best I could at the time to explain a few crucial reasons for the evolution of my beliefs. Admittedly, I was attempting to lead Dave away from the typical, dogmatic, literal interpretation of his chosen "revealed" religious text (the Protestant Bible). I figured I had about a 10% chance (tops) of positively influencing Dave, since my old beliefs are so similar to his current ones. But he would have none of it, and I should have realized that earlier than I did.

So it did not work out as I had hoped — and unfortunately, I lost my patience during the process, responding to Dave with overly harsh messages. Despite being in response to negative comments aimed at my own spirituality (most important in my life today), I nevertheless should have taken the high road (as any well-wisher would hope to do)… I should have resisted the urge to respond in kind.

But alas, I did not… In returning negativity with negativity, I have surely erased what little positive influence I may have cobbled together in our communications over the years.

I broke an important spiritual tenet: I became too personally attached to the results.

It can be rather heartbreaking and frustrating to spend time and effort compiling heartfelt emails and posts, only to have them go misunderstood, unread, or ignored… but it was my choice to do so; it was a risk I decided to take. As I presently see it, my biggest error was attachment, but I probably made numerous other errors as well; e.g., making assumptions, allowing the dreadful ego more wiggle room than I should’ve, misreading the actual level of open-mindedness and willingness, etc.

So, I apologized. What else could one do? Dave is where he is. And I am where I am. We are where we are.

Apparently, neither of us would dare to trade our own spiritual contentment for anything in the world. That’s wonderful, beautiful — and something I apparently failed to see! For now, Dave appears to be as satisfied with his spiritual development as I am of mine. I must accept this and move on.

Beating a dead horse

As I see it, the primary sticking points in our conversation about religious belief & spirituality that I have identified so far are:

1. The importance of intellect in spirituality and religious studies
2. Basic closed–mindedness & fundamentalism ("View x has to be right, no questioning allowed")
3. My apparent failure to be inspiring or even successful (in the modern, Western social paradigm, that is…
4. A crucial misunderstanding (based on faulty assumption) with regard to certain private medical facts
5. And others which will remain unspoken…

So many poor assumptions have been made by both parties, in fact, that this ongoing conversation has essentially been driven off the cliff… I guess we should leave it buried down there, for now.

Importance of intellect

Dave has repeatedly stated that this writer is blocked from spirituality by the intellect; that all spiritual activity is limited to the superficial and scholarly, and that there is no real connection to God. My flight from religious fundamentalism is predictably viewed as a tragedy, though the opposite is true.

I honestly do understand – in part, at least — why he believes this to be so, despite being in complete disagreement and perhaps even a just a hair offended by the comment. One applicable basic spiritual principle I must remember in the future comes from modern spiritual teacher Miguel Ruiz:

Do not take anything personally, ever.

True spiritual connections, this writer believes, can be accomplished regardless of what is commonly referred to as intellect or the Intelligence Quotient (IQ). Very low intellects, extremely high intellects, and all intellects in between are quite capable of deep spiritual experience and connection.

Part of Dave’s low opinion of intellect + spirituality stems from his own personal experiences. (The overwhelming importance of individual experience is a fact that applies to all humans, not just to Dave.)

Another facet of the intellect-dissing may be a slight tendency to focus on certain Bible passages to the exclusion of others, and/or interpreting scriptures literally; however, this is a fundamentalist standard. (One example that comes to mind: The exhortation of Jesus that we be like children… may be interpreted by some to mean that we are not to apply reasoning, intellect, logic, or critical thought to religion (this is often called fideism)… ignoring the other Bible verses that command believers to test everything that is said; another verse stating that we should reason together; another that states He who hates correction is stupid, etc.

Some religious fundamentalists are living contradictions, believing on one hand that our lives should absolutely be based upon the Bible — and on the other hand, never having even read the Bible in its entirety — and opting, instead, to obtain opinions from biased, non-objective resources (e.g., church officials) rather than conducting serious research on one’s own… Just a an observation that may be totally wrong. (I hope so!)

I’ve noticed that some religious fundamentalists have a tendency to see a lack of correct religious views as the root cause of various challenges and issues life unfailingly delivers.

This writer is certainly among those with great imperfections! I don’t claim to make correct choices anywhere near 100% of the time, despite the fact that my current life situation happens to be by choice. For example,

• I am fairly broke most of the time
• I am in my 40s yet currently reside in the basement of my parents’ house
• I have no car
• I am not formally employed
• I do not presently date
• I am overweight and bald
• (Probably more!!)

What’s that you say? "Have I been cursed?"

Much of the Western world would quickly label me as a total loser based on the above circumstances; after all, the most common modern social paradigm of success calls for money, independence, sex, career power, thinness, great looks, etc.

This makes me an easy target for those who believe differently.

The fact is, my choice to heavily engage in my favorite, most meaningful activities — perhaps when I should be earning money instead — is the main reason I’m not presently flush with cash at present. That’s a personal choice — and not one rooted in negativity, either.

Another way to state that predictable fundamentalist argument is:

apparently-negative life situations necessarily point to wrong religious beliefs.

Obviously, that’s a deeply flawed viewpoint on several levels.

1. If this were even remotely true, then it would be quite simple for anyone to quickly identify "the one true religion" (non-existent in reality) by identifying the richest, most beautiful, most independent people in the world & adopting their religious beliefs!
2. Such a viewpoint also bases opinion upon mere appearance: a flimsy, immature view most adults would hope to outgrow.
3. Lastly, such an opinion implies that correct religious beliefs somehow result in a perfect life: an inept notion that’s in deep contrast with the lives of so many famous Christians, from the apostles & Jesus onward through today.

In order to exert significantly more influence upon others in this modern Western society, I would need to change each my life circumstances to more closely fit today’s materialistic views of success. This actually gives me some of my best personal reasons and inspiration to do so – not to be a material success in itself, but to increase…

• the strength (or “juice”) behind my overall message
• the likelihood of living by example
• my self-esteem, health, strength, appearance, etc.
• the chances that everyday Americans might take me seriously

If a group of people were to suddenly inherit my present, non-Western-ideal life circumstances, then most materialistic, standard Western people would be deeply burdened and bothered by the opinions of others. While I am certainly not bulletproof – I am not completely immune to all those sticks and stones – I am now able to see rather clearly just how generally unimportant such opinions really are, particularly in comparison to the deeper ideas and more meaningful aspects of life I hold so dear.

According to one of my all-time favorite Christian prayers (The Prayer of St. Francis), we ought to make more of an effort to understand than to be understood. I have thus made ongoing attempts to understand the specific religious beliefs of Dave.

The quest to understand Dave’s religious beliefs has been a twisting, confusing one; he has lately become rather resistant to labels. For instance, he was not pleased to be lumped into any category (e.g., Methodist, inerrantist, a Neville Goddard fan, fundamentalist, a literal interpreter of the Bible, Christian mystic, etc.). But that has not stopped my efforts to attempt to understand his religious/spiritual beliefs as well as the critical thought (if any) that has brought him to these standards.

What does Dave believe? Here are a few things I’ve gathered from recent conversations and emails, which may or may not point to the religious beliefs of Dave:

• Jesus is God
• God is the great I AM
• He is I AM THAT I AM (he is God/we are all God?)
• Bible is true and should be taken literally as actual history, etc.
• God is imagination (per Neville Goddard)
• Satan — the devil — is a real entity; he/it was the talking snake in Genesis
• Noah’s ark and the global flood are actual, historical events
• Denominations make God cry
• An assortment of other standard Christian fundamentalist sound bites
• In general, that the beliefs of the New Thought movement (Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, etc.) would be correct only if they also included his tenets of Christian fundamentalism

No thanks.

Removed content
– writings I have spent dozens of hours carefully compiling largely for his benefit.
Until Dave begins to seek a bigger, more realistic picture — which Dave may or may not ever do — there is little that can be done.
Unfortunately, Dave (apparently) either:

• Doesn’t really make a concerted effort to understand the information, or
• Has convinced himself he is not intelligent enough to progress beyond the level of a child (insofar as spiritual understanding).

This post was written on Tuesday, April 3, 2012.