expressions

monday of this week i unintentionally unleashed the evil in me.  it was one of those mondays when my head isn't functioning in its normal mode and i sit idle for hours in the office doing nothing substantial. well, mondays are really difficult days. 

the thing was, a friend came in the office... we had a little chat about this and that.  now this friend is a devout member of a church and he speaks with conviction of his god, his religion, his bible, and other things that relate to them.  faithful yet not religious, i shrugged off whatever he was pointing out... to each his own, i thought, and it is just a matter of living in a fashion that would allow for peaceful coexistence that is important.

when 2 persons of different views of the world and of religion sit and while time away it is no wonder that discussion comes a bit heated.  at first i enjoyed the battle of wits, but when i was asked whether i believed in heaven and hell and that if i'd die at that minute would i be confident to face god when i did not believe in jesus christ as the truth, the way and the life, i felt like my beliefs were attacked.  for me, the concept of a supreme being is separate from the concept of the church.  it is this point that my friend was not ready to hear and he didn't let me go off the hook so easy.

to sum things up, the arguments we had last monday are presented in bullets.  

* there is a supreme being governing us all and that he/she rules our affairs.  my friend and i share the belief that a supreme being exists, but as to its power we have taken different paths.  for my friend, this supreme being is the all-knowing and all-powerful everliving god who assigns each one of us a place under the sun.  we are all predestined according to him and that we are all following the paths god has assigned for each one of us.  as for me, i believe that god is not as petty as the one described earlier, for why would he give us the faculty to think and the ability to act in accordance to our judgements when everything has been actually planned already.  and besides, to say that god has plans for everyone would open another argument that this god is good and wicked, depending on how a person views him, and that is subject to how the person is placed under the sun. 

** on god's goodness.  my friend thinks he/she is always good, that he/she only thinks of what is best for everyone...i just could not relate it to why there are some who live on streets and eat nothing but the left overs of others.   this discussion is related to the next episode.

*** i don't want to be judgmental...being open-minded is a struggle...it is deliberate...so when my friend said that many people would be wallowing in hell because they do not believe in god, i kind of lost my balance...i don't think people who do not know god, and consequently do not believe i nthe same religion as his, will be punished for their ignorance.  geez, i always have this belief that people who believe in allah, in buddha, or even in the anitos, have somehow been empowered by the gods they serve, that it is our idea of gods as divine helpers that frees us from anxiety and liberates us from our fear of the unknown.  i do not, and can not, accept that god, whoever he is, would punish people for not knowing him.

the discussion was long...it was tiring....at the end it felt like he was criticizing me for not having the same belief as his...i pity him...i could not blame him...he's been protected from life's harsh realities all his life, his comfort zone too thick that the world's mess could not penetrate. thinking about it, i pity the kids in the mountains of diwata who never knew god, for then they could not be saved according to my friend.i knew children who haven't gone to school, who at an early age have started carrying guns and were educated in the doctrine of war, they can't go to heaven either...