The election for the new Pope is set to start next Tuesday. This will be the third Papal selection that I can remember, and all i can think of is "Are you sure you want to do that?" The last guy just quit maybe you should try out being Pope free for a bit, see how you like it. It's bad enough to have so many politicians trying to run your secular life but to hand over your relationship with the Almighty and subject yourself to the whims of some old guy who believes himself to be infallible seems to be, well, a fallacy..
Of course the entire concept of organized religion has made little sense to me. To have layers of ranks and bureaucracy between you and your personal God- well only humans could screw up something so simple as how you commune with the creator. That's why I've always been an admirer of George Fox, founder of the Quaker movement (but not Quaker oats) His revolutionary concept was to have no authorities in the church at all. No Preacher or Pastors, no Deacons, no Bishops or Cardinals, and definitely no Pope. The idea being that there was no one better qualified to define what form your relationship with God should take or be, than you yourself. That each of us is able to commune with God in our own way and in our own time, that we are all capable of hearing the voice of God in the still quiet moments of reflection. To that end Quaker worship consists of no sermons only quiet meditation. However anyone is welcome to stand and say something if they feel compelled to, or have reached some sort of an epiphany.
although this has begun to change in some communities with the addition of sermons, to which I say what's the point of being a Quaker in the first place if you're going to do things like every other church?
The Quaker philosophy makes much more sense to me than the hierarchies of a regimented "organized" religion. Why anyone would turn to another human being for answers about God, who is capable of speaking for himself to any one of us at any time loses me completely. What can a Steven Furtick or Pope John Paul whatever tell me that God itself could not? Sure someone can go to college, study the Bible or other religious books all their lives and be experts in the scriptures. But truth be told, I haven't much faith in the bible either. There are some great and profound things in those ancient pages but a lot of it seems to me to be just some people trying to tell other people how they should live, a kind of "God told me to tell you..." type of thing to get people who ordinarily wouldn't- to listen to them. Even more of it containing stories that simply defy belief from the very beginning. And some clearly written by a people who at the time had no concept of the nature of the Earth, the solar system or of space.
Does it make sense that God would say, after interacting with us for centuries, "I'm going away now- but I'm going to pick out thousands of people to speak for me while I'm gone. Most of these people will be social misfits and outcasts- people to whom you normally wouldn't give the time of day to. But now they will have dominion over you and how you live. Also, (and here is the good part) I'm not going to stop any other nut who may claim to speak for me but doesn't and is only trying to con you for their own personal gain. Now it will be up to you to figure out which one is which- but be careful- if you chose wrong you will have to burn in hell forever simply because you loved me (or thought you were loving me) the wrong way."
I have often wondered about this, Can you sincerely love a God out of a fear of the consequence of the most painful and horrifying punishment man could imagine without it breeding even a hint of resentment? Are you a better person if you do right and sacrifice only because you are afraid of the alternative, rather than the belief that it is simply the right thing to do? Why would an intelligent, omnipotent God want your worship or love under such duress in the first place? Why wouldn't he want your love simply because it's what you wanted to do? Why want to be worshiped at all for that matter? To tell the truth, I've never been all that clear on what worshiping something even involved or meant. Why punish those who didn't love you when you could teach them instead? If the goal is to become better people, wouldn't learning a better way work more effectively than torment? Why not just let those who don't love you go their own way, without repercussions? Maybe separating yourself from God and the rest of humanity through negative behavior is its own punishment.
Maybe I'm nowhere near smart enough to begin to understand any of this but I assume we all have a conscience for a reason.
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