Alan McDougall Writes on Religion -----------------------------


My position on religion as a young boy was atheistic and my philosophy was live for today because tomorrow you die. Death to me was  the simply the extinction of my consciousness, into eternal nothing.

This did not frighten me because of course I was young and thought I still had an eternity before me to live and I was going to squeeze every drop of fun out of life before that day.

I used to tell my friends I will live this way until the moment just before I die, and then only then make amends with God if he exists!

As a youth, I had absolutely no interest in religion and I was put off to the extreme by the silly exclusive cult my parents  were brainwashed by namely the “Two by Two’s that had held them both in abject a fear of going to hell.

This cult is so exclusive that unless one joined them and stuck completely to the beliefs, you  were sure to end up, in what they said was “A lost Eternity”, which was really a nice way of saying hell. I think that at the most worldwide, there might have been as little as a few thousand of these sad people.

If their teaching were/are true, then God’s workmanship, when he created humanity, was very inept indeed and it means that out of the 7 .5 billion people presently living on planet earth, nearly all are rejects, to be sent to the scrap-heap of hell.

However, according to these exclusive cults, God does not take the blame for his own mistakes or shoddy work that he did when he made a man out of the dust of the earth.

No! he allocates all the blame for his shabby work on every human he ever so badly created, except, of course, the few exclusive cult members.

If God exists he must be infinitely intelligent and the scenario just mentioned would not take such an illogical step with his own creation. Of course, I admit that God is most likely infinite in all aspect of his being and would be sovereign and able to anything he wanted to do with his creation, without asking my permission!

The likes of “Two by Two’s as well as every other ridiculous exclusive cult or exclusive religion, are in their opinion all going go to heaven watch to from there in eternal happiness, while the huge majority or some 99.99999% of the rest of humanity are sent to burn in hell, day and night, forever and forever.

And to make this even more ridiculous, what about all the humans that have lived since human culture began, estimated by some as many as 60 billion souls?

I have thought along life's pathways that at times I had found the absolute truth about God and religion and with my nature of absolute commitment to what I believe as true and accepted and embraced this belief in the most radical, absolute, extreme  way, bordering on unhealthy obsession and fixation.

In my opinion, it was this extreme religious intolerance that was the trigger that unsettled me mentally from the age of 38, leading to a 30 year battle with manic-depression.

It was then to my horror, I found out happenings in the church life that I simply could not reconcile in my mind. In the little church where I was an active member at the time, the pastor or minister Pastor Rodney Burger was caught stealing from the congregation.

In addition, I found out to my deep distress that many of the preacher and preachers that I had also trusted implicitly, as men of God and of impeccable honour and revealers of the absolute truth, where in reality nothing more than lying, dishonest, hypocritical, cheats, frauds and thieves, living lives of luxury at the expense of church their church members.

Whom they charmed and persuaded by preaching hell and brimstone and death, or informing these gullible people that if they gave an amount to the church, God would reimburse them a hundred fold more back later, which in my opinion never happened.

Using God as some sort of a slot machine, put in a penny, and get back a pound?Unable to reconcile what was to me, impossible to reconcile, revelation, led to me going into long cycles of non-stop rapid thinking.

The way my mind works is when I accept something as true and noble, I embrace it completely, absolutely to the point of obsession and accept it without question and can't be moved from my position.

In fact, I become so radical and obsessed about it that I try to convince everyone I meet to come know this absolute truth that I now know is absolute truth.

To illustrate my dissolution with  exclusive religion, a case in point was Jimmy Swaggart, a hell and brimstone preacher, who screamed and shouted from the pulpit against all sins, especially sexual sins and evil, he was caught red-handed at a brothel trying to secure the favours of a prostitute for the night.

Swaggart, by the way, is rolling in money

A few days later in front of his congregation, he wept and wept asking to say over and over again “

"I have sinned I have sinned”

He pleaded with  God and his congregation to forgive him, and I think many of them did.  However, this sad story did not end there, a week or so after his  desperate plea for forgiveness, a police officer pulled over a car for a suspected traffic violation, who do you suppose he found inside the car?

No less than Jimmy Swaggart and a prostitute in both in a very in indecent and compromising situation on the back seat of his car. Jimmy got off with a warning from the law, but this hypocrite did not learn from his mistakes or from the very words he had preached and screamed about for over 30 years.

Twice this hypocrite was caught doing the same act of degradation resulting finally in most of his patient faithful congregation, not forgiving him and leaving his church, extremely disappointed like I was. However, unbelievably, some of his congregation overlooked all his discretion and remained his followers.

This was a person who I had admired as a man of God, who preached ethics and morality and now I found out he was nothing but a secret sexual pervert.

After that I could never listen, his preaching or to his music and felt his Christian calling was removed from him by God. Of course, he was/is not the only hypocrite preacher out there.

Many of them are puffed up with pride at their supposed wisdom, became extremely wealthy, residing in  huge mansions their own airplanes and travelled the world first class to spout their nonsense to the world at large.

I will no longer attend any church, or embrace any religious belief that I consider irrational or exclusive, but I accept that Jesus was/is who he said he was and that there is indeed a God in which I can put my trust.

I am no longer obsessed with anything and quietly say my prayers, at night, like I did as a little boy, go to sleep and trust

“if I die before I wake I trust the Lord, my Soul, to take"
Alan McDougal

Alan, thanks for posting.  I can relate to most of what you said.  I rarely attend church but after 1796 said that the Lord's prayer is far more meaningful than most people realize, I did some research and found that he's right.  So now I say it before going to sleep but not by unthinking rote as I once did.

The greatest and by far the hardest challenge, at least for me, is to live according to the Golden Rule.  I fall far short of that, even for one day. 

R

rondele wrote on Mar 20^th, 2016 at 2:02pm:

Alan, thanks for posting.  I can relate to most of what you said.  I rarely attend church but after 1796 said that the Lord's prayer is far more meaningful than most people realize, I did some research and found that he's right.  So now I say it before going to sleep but not by unthinking rote as I once did. The greatest and by far the hardest challenge, at least for me, is to live according to the Golden Rule.  I fall far short of that, even for one day.  R

It is impossible to please God by trying to adhere to some impossible 'Golden Rule"

Remember our imperfections are infinitely remote from the perfection of that of the infinite perfection of Almighty God.

It is said the righteousness of man, is like filthy rags to God

God is light and within him is no darkness, whatever.

We are all full of darkness and darkness can never enter the light

However, there is a way to enter into the light and love of Almighty God

This is how

The Golden Rule was done on your behalf, in a perfect and complete way by the only complete and perfect Being ever to walk on the surface of planet earth.

Namely, the Lord Jesus he did it for you,( if you can accept that) And it is he, who will become your defence advocate, before God, obtaining unearned pardon for you, from the 'Great Judge of Heaven, who will declare you not guilty and make you free from the consequences of an imperfect human life.

And thus, remove the darkness from your soul so that your light can merge and blaze with perfect Holy Light of Almighty God
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1796 is absolutely right, within it, the Lords Prayer contains all the necessary daily praises and requests a human could make to God

I also say the Lords Prayer each and every night before going to sleep. I think and mean each word and phrase of the prayer, knowing that within this most beautiful of all prayers, is the one correct and all encompassing communication between man and Almighty God 

I do not get down on my knees I just say the prayer in my mind and direct it to the Most High.