Faith

A risky endeavor 

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The perfect allegory for religion is to lay under a huge barren tree in winter, look up and observe the thousands of bare branches. A risky endeavor since most birds are not toilet trained, however with some degree of caution you can get a little insight into how religions have grown and branched out over the centuries.

Each tree has the potential to blossom and bear fruit, it can then provide shelter and food. However those same blossoms can block your view and the fruit can become bitter. If each tree were a single religion with its various sects and cults, then we must accept that it’s easy to get lost in the forest.

“The process of discovery involves traveling down many paths that lead to dead ends…”

Alright, enough with the silly metaphors. The point is that religion has become so diversified over the centuries that it’s difficult to find a place to belong. Those of us who prefer to choose a region rather than acceding to the one we are born to, have so many options, so many possibilities, that this writer has, so far, been unable to embrace any one faith.

That is not necessarily a bad thing, the search is fascinating and at times very rewarding. God Seeker Guy has been able to answer countless questions that have lingered for years simply by keeping an open mind and listening to what others have to say. True, he is unimpressed with what he has seen so far, but it’s the institutions he questions not the need for faith that most of us crave.

A search through his blog will unearth numerous contradiction of course, for that GSG does not apologize. The process of discovery involves traveling down many paths that lead to dead ends, that is the price we pay for discovering the truth, whatever that may be.

So pick a tree, any tree and see where it leads you.

GSG (God Seeker Guy)

The wisdom bot

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Wisdom is fast becoming obsolete. Through the ages wisdom of the older generation was valued by the community. History was passed along, language was preserved and numerous skills were conserved. After a long working life it was assumed the older members of the family new a thing or two about life and were respected by the community and family. While God Seeker Guy is perhaps a bit of a Luddite, he is not blind to the changes technology is bringing to our communities and families.

“The western world has become alarmingly accustomed to discarding anything that elicits boredom.”

Technology is eroding the contribution of the older generation. We won’t need to ask for advice or information from them, it will be stored in computer chips implanted in our brains at birth or offered to us by wisdom bots plugged in next to the toaster. The traditional role of grandparents will evaporate as kids grow up preferring to spend time with their iPads and smart phones when grandparents visit.

The Wisdom Bots and our lives. However, instant gratification is the sure path to loneliness since it takes many years and much compromise, understanding and sacrifice to establish long lasting relationships.

Elon Musk has said that if we don’t embrace artificial intelligence, we as a race will become obsolete. That notion does not bode well for the traditions the older generation has to offer the young.

The new gods of AI will demand total acquiescence and we will look back on the holy books as faulty, irrelevant curiosities. The omnipotent  will retreat, our thinking will be done for us by appliances and we will no longer be available to the gods as playthings.

GSG (God Seeker Guy)

 

Sarcastic seeker?

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God Seeker Guy has often been attacked for his negative posture on faith. “Everything you write is either sarcastic or a put down to those of us who have found faith.” observes a reader. Her comments are well taken and duly noted, however she appears to have missed the point of GSG’s writing.

GSG writes for himself, not for others, thus the lack of political correctness and sugar coating in his words. He does not mean to criticize the beliefs of anyone, though it may look that way at times. He is looking at the subject only from his own point of view, however confused that may be.

“Everything you write is either sarcastic or a put down to those of us who have found faith.”

He has great respect and admiration for those who have discovered the tranquillity of faith along with the solace and contentment it presumably brings. In fact knowing when we’re content is probably the secret to life. Recognizing happiness, peace and the genuine love of a good person is very difficult in a world that demands constant change and endless striving.

GSG understands that he is the outcast, he is the one with the “problem”. He respects others for getting on with life rather than squandering heartbeats demanding accountability from the unaccountable and endeavoring to conclude an impossible Sisyphean task.

He doesn’t fear condemnation, attack him, criticize him, challenge him, “dis-like” him, force him to defend his position. Perhaps in this way you will be the one to “save” him, who knows?

Sarcastic Searcher!wishes to join them, but cannot find the key to unlock the riddle others have solved.

GSG (God Seeker Guy)

Rummaging for God

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Another heartless weekend had descended upon him and he had only himself for company. Everyone else was busy or at least they wanted it to look busy. He was not one who often found himself lonely but often found himself alone. Unlike the endless pack of laptop rabble that filled the coffee shops in his neighborhood he had no need to look active or engaged.

“He spends much of his time seeking a god that has eluded him or a god that is afraid to face him.”

He has family and friends of course but he is solitary by nature. He gets little energy from people, he finds them exhausting for the most part. He is not anti-social by any means, he can hold a conversation with almost anyone, but given a choice he prefers his own company. He has never looked to others for solace or advice, even as a child he walked for hours on the mashes with his dog for company. Those walks with a good listener shaped  his way of dealing with the world.

He spends much of his time seeking a god that has eluded him or a god that is afraid to face him. Finding God is not important to him, the search is where the real value is to be found. Rummaging around looking for something will often turn up the unexpected. While looking for one thing we may find another. While looking for God we may find truth, who knows?

Struggling to find his place on the planet, he has sought his own path without influence from others. This of course is virtually impossible since we are impacted by others even without knowing it. The struggle to maintain individuality is so difficult in a world dominated by social media, television and acquaintances who want you to be more like them in order to validate their own existence.

This is a man who is ridiculed for saving the life of a spider but who has little concern for the future of humanity. He will give money to the derelict on the street without judgement but offers no comfort to those who ask for his prayers, they must go elsewhere.

This man —one of many among us—has imagination and courage and so refuses to be lead to the trough of religious mediocrity.

GSG (God Seeker Guy)

Fishing for faith

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One of the few things God Seeker Guy understands about the story of Christ is the fact that he was interested in fishing. Some his followers were of course fisherman, that makes them okay in GSG’s estimation.

Fishing, if done right, gives us time to think, time to slow down and consider our place in the universe. A trip up county to an isolated lake or river, surrounded by giant fir trees, fast flowing rivers and cool clean air offers a place to connect with our surroundings, a place to clear our heads. GSG is often accused of being spiritual despite his agonizing struggle with God. If he ever gets close to adopting a religion or embracing some kind of god , he will achieve it in the open where God can find him.

Churches over the past years have not been successful at gathering together those in need of focus for their life. A former post noted that “A four-day conference convened to examine the viability of the United Church in Canada didn’t have much to consider. If the Church has 3,400 congregations and a membership of 558,000, as reported, that works out to 164 God-fearing souls rushing to each congregation” obviously something is amiss.

“GSG is often accused of being spiritual despite his agonizing struggle with God. If he ever gets close to adopting a religion…”

It seems God if having difficulty being heard through the commotion and distractions of the city. It is said that God is everywhere but many are finding it a struggle to locate him, if he does indeed exist he needs to find a good social media consultant.

We are at a stage in human evolution when we’re absolutely obliged to question the absurd demand of attending a gathering in a half empty building. We are asked to listen to an out of touch ecclesiastical diehard attempting to protect a job no longer in demand by a new enlightened generation of YouTubers and bloggers. In fact many of GSG’s readers use their blogs as a platform to talk through their issues and feelings with numerous online parties. While such communication may be suspect, blogs—immediate and instantly available—may well become the church of the young, who knows?

It has been said that Christ had no church, he was the church. Many of us are now in the process of seeking out our own individual sanctuary. The future is going to be very different from the past in terms of how we connect with God, GSG will be on the river, listening and waiting, where will you be?

GSG (God Seeker Guy)

Impossible things!

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Faith is a wonderful thing in many of its forms, faith in yourself, faith in others and faith in the human condition. However blind faith in an unseen God, promoted by religious elites with a vested interest in maintaining their dwindling flocks, is perhaps no longer applicable in the information age.

The young in particular have thousands of years of informed thinking at their fingertips and they should be asking lots of questions about God, religion and the religious prognosticators. Sadly, more time is spent keeping up with the latest escapades of movie stars, pop stars and YouTube lunatics than is spent seeking out personal truth. To be fair, such a tragic waste time is not limited to the young.

You’re the smartest generation in the history of the planet, use your intelligence, use your powerful tools to find your own answers. Those who demand you follow a centuries old line of belief barley understand that Twitter, as you know it, is not the sound a sparrow makes in spring when it’s trying to mate.

“You’re the smartest generation in the history of the planet, use your intelligence, use your powerful tools to find your own answers.”

Get mad, demand accountability from those who ask you to believe in impossible things, impossible because you have access to the truth and refuse to live in a medieval world with medieval thinking handed to you by religious dinosaurs refusing to accept that their time has passed.

People are not animals, we have the ability to reason, that is what separates us from the beasts. Why then, do we follow religions blindly, almost by instinct like salmon swimming upstream to die because that is what they have done for millennia.

Generally we’re born with a faith, follow it and abandon it only when we stop breathing. In the mean time we live in abject fear of what comes after life because religions have determined what awaits us.

The universe is very big and we understand little of how it works, but we must know by now that the stories of heaven, hell and an ark filled with animal waste, are merely uninformed efforts to science.

GSG (God seeker Guy)

Like it or not!

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God Seeker Guy has read numerous sites of his readers and the common thread is to talk in depth about one’s personal  life. The object, it seems, is to elicit responses from others who actually begin to believe that they are part of your life. This seems to GSG a poor substitute for flesh and blood communication.

Turning to blogs and social media has some parallels to embracing organized religion and faith. Both offer comfort, both offer companionship and both are an illusion. Perhaps that isn’t such a bad thing, most of what we believe and think is erroneous.

“In our transient societies trust and genuine caring have been eroded by instant gratification, feelings of entitlement…”

The principle cause for the explosion of online relationships, and a valid one to be sure, is of course the huge problem of meeting people and establishing lasting relationships. In our transient societies trust and genuine caring have been eroded by instant gratification, feelings of entitlement and intolerance. Real relationships are hard work, they require, patience, time, compromise and understanding, all of which are in short supply in the average city.

Technology has made it too easy to talk to strangers, to reach out but not touch someone. Do followers get involved in your life because they care about you and your problems or because they desperately need someone to care about in order feel validated as human beings? Worse still are they living vicariously through someone who they perceive as having a more interesting life. Rather than curing loneliness blogs and social media platforms are actually pushing us further down the dark well of isolation.

We all need others for support, understanding and advise, but do we need five hundred people offering input or checking up on us? How many stay, how many return, is the search for interested parties endless?

GSG doesn’t want you to engage with him and offer your “support ” or to “reach out”  just to agree with him. On the contrary he is looking for challenges to his ideas so he can defend his position and so confirm his stance. He is searching for faith and you’re invited to watch or participate but he is more than prepared to handle the perils that may lay ahead in the form of rejection, denunciation and withdrawal of “likes” and “followers”

GSG (God Seeker Guy)