The Nones

I guess if you read my blog you know I am passionate about faith and spirituality absent religion. As I always disclaim I am not against religion it just hasn't been for me the last few years. Recently I have been keeping with the trend of "The Nones". They are a group of people, me included that have a deep faith without religious affiliation. In the last few years it is astounding how many people have left organized religion to gain their spiritual freedom. What I find fascinating and it will be the topic of this blog is what many on the religious side think about "The Nones".

I enjoy engaging in friendly debate and conversation about this growing group called "The Nones". Once I opened my heart, soul, and mind in away that invited God to come alive in me I realized how much I had confined my creator. I was raised, as many of you were, to believe that God cleverly imposed his will on us in ways that were, well weird in hind sight. I have had people tell me that Ebola was God's way of purifying sin, or that tornado's, hurricanes, earth quakes were God's wake up call to us. Even better though, and I love this one, some of the current world leaders are The Anti Christ, or 666 and God is sending us warning signs that if our minds were in tune we would recognize. Heck just today I read where we have some strange blood moon or something lunar happening that is the sign of the end times. It is almost funny to listen to how ridiculous some of these claims are. What is worse is this, making statements like that reduce the magnificence of God. I mean come on, if God were truly Omni potent and Omni Present would he or she have to be subtle in what he wants? If God wanted us to have and hear a message why wouldn't it be loud and clear and not just for a chosen few. 

I am sure the above paragraph will be met with biblical verses but that too is a weak defense beings that it took literally hundreds of years before we even had a book called The Bible. Even more fascinating is how many times it has been translated, altered, modified, etc. If The Bible was in fact written by God as a life manual for his people there is NO doubt in my mind that a creator of infinite power would not leave it open to interpretation. Think about that before you get defensive. You see modern religion has set up God in a unique way but to The Nones they have reduced him to some text book character with little to no power.

The God I love and believe in, loves all people. Even though the world was set in motion by the creator he left it to us to grow and develop it with free will. That is why there are so many areas of the world that are in extreme poverty. If God was in control of our lives we would not see that, but then again why would there be a need for us. I believe that we choose our path in life and we become the products of those decisions we make. We can't box in or confine the God that created us. We can't explain away things so insanely as "in God's time, or it's God's will". It isn't God's will that people in America live high on the hog, yet complain about EVERYTHING, while people around the world have nothing and complain about little. God desires that everyone live happy lives, that I am sure of, but for that to happen we have to understand the basic tenets of humanity. 

We were created with love to love. When love is present hate cannot exist. We, especially in Western civilization love to get on our high horse and preach about politics or how bad the world is, instead we, The Nones, focus on how great the world really is and what we can do to make it better. We are not in the end times, Christ is not coming soon. Do I know that too be a fact? Absolutely not, but I am also not concerned with it either. I do not mean that in a cynical way I mean that in a loving way. I am focused on making the world around me better not worse. I can't make it better if I spend my preaching about how bad things are because that in and of itself is an outright lie. We live in a much better world than any time in history but that news doesn't sell does it? Thank God for The Nones. We can spend our time loving, promoting peace, helping make the world a better place. Let me disclaim here that most religious people love God and truly desire to be part of wonderful world. I just think that sometimes we allow religion to direct our faith and spiritual development so much so that we lose what was in us from birth. You see love is a product of who we are anything outside of love is learned behavior. 

Love is in the air my friends and I am happy to say I love everyone. I have no enemies to my knowledge. I have forgiven everyone that I feel as though trespassed me, and I pray (yes I pray) that the people I have trespassed have forgiven me. I will do my part to lift everyone up and respect them in what ever facet of spiritual life they are in. I respect all people and religions because all people were created from the same higher power that I was.

One last thing and this is important. The world is filled with many religions. All are seeking the love of God and all hope to be able to spend eternity in Heaven. We strive for the same thing yet in each group exist some radical extremist that give the rest a bad name. Yes Christians have been known to be very brutal themselves. Collectively we believe 90% in the same thing yet we build wall's, hate, and vast divides on the 10%. The goal, I think, is for us to say "I tried to warn them". Instead of warning them why not believe that everyone we meet has something wonderful to teach us. We are all creatures of the same loving God. I would hate to believe that God created some that had no chance, while giving favor to others. 

I say let's all simply love one another. I still believe we are in the midst of a love renaissance like the world has never seen. Regardless love will win and The Nones choose the side of love. I wonder in ten years how many more will join The Nones? Honestly I hope the trend stops and churches start promoting the love The Bible teaches, not the end times prophecy that it doesn't teach. With the love renaissance I bet in years to come the churches will once again be filled with amazing love and be a part of the peace that I truly believe is coming. 

God bless

Dale