Originally Posted by
Cubile75 
How so, Jim?
Oh, if you ask him, he'll give you the whole story of how we are miserable sinners and how God sent his son to die for us and how that is only one and true way, but that's about as far as he can get. He can tell me why I am going to a place of wailing and gnashing of teeth and lakes fire to spend my eternity, but other than the fact that he says that he is "saved," he can't really tell me why he believes that. It's called shallow, emotional, superstition.
To me, it (God if you will) has to be a little more than an imaginary friend or an abstract idea. It has to be a little bigger than my Little Buddy HP that's over there or out there or that I'll meet in the future and who goes to bat for me and bails me out of a jam now and then. In other words, it's not an idea, it is an experience, a direct experience that I can only experience right here, right now.
He hasn't taken the time to explore of even investigate what he believes, the how and why of the doctrine so to speak. He just believes it because the preacher and the Bible tells him to. He is no different than the A.A. lemmings who can recite the steps off the wall, but can't really tell you what taking The Third Step means. Everybody just blindly throws slogans and clinches around without knowing what they mean. Stuff like 90 in 90 that came to us from N.A. via the treatment centers, everyone just assumes has always been "A.A." I should stop here, this is coming dangerously close to a rant.
I'm not quite sure how this is connected to all of this, but this came to me: Some years back, a guy I sponsor approached me and asked me about what I thought about him going to a Native American sweat lodge. I asked him if he knew anything about it, did he know that it was a ceremony of prayer and cleansing? I told him to go sit with an elder and learn about it before went and did it. I asked him how he would feel if I came to his church (Catholic) and took communion, even though I don't buy the doctrine.
The spiritual life isn't parlor tricks and you don't approach something sacred in a frivolous manner.