Whoa Claythrow, how long did it take you to type all that?

I was thinking again about what Russ said here earlier, and my response. It also made me think back to the reasons why I left Catholocism, it's a long time ago now.

Maybe the people who wrote the creation story in the Bible really did believe that was how the earth formed. Maybe Native Americans really believed their stories about the sky god and the corn god. There are many beautiful and poetic creation stories in existence, I made a study of them at one point. I suppose if you were a firm adherent of a religion, and science had not told you otherwise, you would probably believe the creation story you'd grown up learning. The problems for people obviously came when we started learning more about how the world really works.

So let's say you are a devout Christian who sees the creation story in the Bible as myth or analogy, not literally true. OK, many do that. Many also gloss over a lot of the Old Testament because of rules that are outdated, and a depiction of a wrathful rather than a forgiving God. Many also pick what they like out of the New Testament and say yes I believe this, or no I don't believe that. They still might call themselves devout Christians. My parents are like that.

It occurred to me at one point that if you pick what you want to take out of your religion, and ignore the things you don't like, isn't there something a little false or hypocritical here? In my personal opinion, many religions are anachronistic, they do not connect with people's needs in the modern world. Yes I'd say that what Jesus had to say was very relevant, but as far as a guide to how we live our lives now, the Judeo-Christian-Muslim religions were founded many years ago for societies that were very different. We need to take the wisdom from the old religions and find something new, for how we live our lives now. Maybe that means each of us needs to find our own path and that organised religion should be a thing of the past, I don't know, and I think there's going to be a large diversity of practises and beliefs for a long time. This is how I feel personally and I know many here would think this is blasphemous. You can blame Joseph Campbell if you like LOL. He was a great teacher for me. My first book by him was conveniently "lost" after my parents found out what I was reading.

I am uneasy about people who call themselves Christians, or members of any other faith, but pick and choose what they believe, though this is going to be a necessity to an extent unless you really do want to take it all literally. I couldn't live like that, and when my views differed enough from those of my religion I knew it was time to look elsewhere for spiritual guidance and inspiration. Maybe you could indeed say that science and evolution were partly to blame in my case, but I would not use the word "blame" in that sense. I feel enlightened and unfettered.