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Not willing to accept, not willing to give up
24 December, 2005 :: 8:24 p.m.

I don't know why I can't accept the Bible as anything but a collection of stories, but I can't. That being said, I was watching the discovery channel a few hours ago since, even if I don't believe the Bible is the word of God, shows and writings about religion still fascinate me. Anyway, I have no idea what the show was, but it was about Noah and whether the story was plausible and all of that...

I don't know how anyone else was taught about religion, but I know that between what my parents told me and what we were told at Sunday school and all that, it was always told to us as fact. These things really happened. Accept it. I don't remember my exact age, but I know I was still somewhere in the single digits of age and the Noah story was one of the ones that just never struck me right. I remember all the paintings and making our own little arks and all of that and the idea of Noah and his family floating around with all these animals waiting for land to reappear...it just never seemed remotely plausible.

So of course I fully expected to like this program as I started watching and they started getting into the science of why it's basically impossible for the entire earth to be covered in water, what the repercussions would be if such a thing somehow happened anyway...and I started feeling this weird feeling in the left side of my brain and I had to get up and walk away. I don't know how to describe the feeling other than at first it felt like someone was there, then fear, then just a really creeped out feeling... And I realize that while I don't accept the Bible, while I'm not Christian, I don't want anyone to completely take the possibility of believing away from me. I usually say that I believe in a God, just not the God of any organized religion when I talk about religion with people...and I honestly believe it's true or was true for me...now I'm not sure whether I really believe it or whether I just want to be able to believe. Maybe that's my problem with the Bible...it's a rigid set of rules and stories that you're supposed to accept. You aren't supposed to go through picking out what you like and discarding what you don't like. And honestly, it's all written by men and men, no matter how well intentioned, have agendas and prejudices and those are going to come through.

I don't believe being gay is a choice; I believe you are born gay (for the most part...I mean there are some who were possibly abused early on or who are confused about who they are, but not the majority of gay people). If, as most people believe, the Bible says being gay is a sin (people argue over translation and interpretation, but I'm not a student of the Bible so I'm not here to make my own argument), well that's one of those things that I believe is a prejudice of man, not the word of God. I don't accept a God who creates a person a certain way and then says being that way is wrong.

That's just one problem that I have with the Bible, God, most people who call themselves Christians...but I don't feel like getting into the rest. I'm just saying that I can't accept that set of beliefs...and yet I can't accept not believing in something either.

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