As I started to write in my previous post, Christianity does not give you any clear path to self-development and harmony and inner peace.
The entire world, your body and your mind is proclaimed as sinful, and even though Jesus has “redeemed” all from the sin, you have still to repent, fight against your “dirty” thoughts and desires, and try to be clean, or good, righteous, in order to get to the paradise. The idea is wrong from the beginning. You are born into a physical word, you have a physical body, that gets tired, sick, painful, heavy or weak. All these states influence your mind in respective way. Furthermore, many different situations emerge in our life; scary, hopeless, humiliating, conflicting, joyful, loving, optimistic and millions more. You live in a complex, unpredictable environment that influence your body and mind in multiple ways. And on top of that, church says that you are sinful, and you have to fight with your sinful situation and maybe you will be accepted to the paradise, since God loves you. Really?
“You are supposed to be a sheep and obey your shepherd who is actually a confused sheep too, always reading one and the same book and trying to follow confusing and contradictory guidelines of his organization.”
Furthermore, Christianity has prepared another trap for you. It puts all the focus and responsibility to the external. You are born here because such is Gods will. Everything that happens in your life is either Gods will or Gods punishment or devils work. You pray to God that he (or she, both terms are equally unapplicable here) would help you, change an unfavourable situation into your favour, influence your boss’ or wife’s mind, protect you from the bad, cure you from the disease and so on, you name it.
You are just a passive observer of your life, regretting your “sins” and hoping for good afterlife. You do not take any responsibility for your life, your actions and consequences. You are supposed to be a sheep and obey your shepherd who is actually a confused sheep as well, always reading one and the same book and trying to follow confusing and contradictory guidelines of his organization.
Sometimes it happens that you commit sin. Then you just confess it, or in some Christian denominations, there is no need to confess at all. And that’s all, you have cured the sin. There is no inner work supposed to be done (except to find some courage to tell the sin to your priest), no understanding of reasons of that “sin” and no analysis how to make the situation better.
All these do not imply inner work, self-reflection, self-analysis, finding the root of the “sins”, roots of your behaviour. Performance of rites and attendance of a special building once a week, saying special words does not change anything. It does not lead anywhere if you do not understand the purpose of it, the mechanism behind it and cannot apply directly to your life. Amount of rites, venerated symbols (such as statues and icons) do not give you any benefit. You are not getting any better because of amount of icons, or number of visits to your church, or to “holy” places.
Further, I would say that any dogmatic tradition, any religion encages your mind. You are not supposed to deviate from established “truths”, you should not question or doubt what is being said in your church (actually, it is valid for any organization, club or corporation). If you start to analyze the system, principles, traditions, you will notice huge number of contradictions, misconceptions, and apparent fairy tales. But it is not allowed to bring it up to the surface, because you will be considered as a betrayer, as one offending God (I wonder, how it works. What you should do to “offend” God and what would be his reaction).
You can be still a believer, a good Christian, even if you stop belong to any particular organization, like Catholic, Lutheran or Orthodox Church. If you are really looking for enlightenment, Gods kingdom (which actually is inside of you) you have to get out of the Church. Take a break, free your mind from any type of frame put around you by the tradition and the religion. Try to see everything as it actually is, as an independent observer from the outside. Do not be afraid. You are not offending God. Your intention to find the truth is much more valuable that dogmas and deserves all respect.
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