“What is it about spirituality that doesn’t resonate with our core value of being rational? What makes it so difficult for us to maintain our level-headed (and slightly jaded) mindset while being spiritual at the same time?”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“...no matter how liberal a church may seem, Christian dogma still revolves around an ancient, paternalistic image of God the Father, who quite frankly isn’t much more believable than the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“Is our rational and self-reliant generation really supposed to accept the idea that God the Almighty not only created the universe but, interestingly enough, also has a stake in our lives?”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“The idea of a personal God who protects us, loves us, and then punishes us by not allowing us into Heaven, but instead casts us into Hell for eternity if we haven’t met his standards of living, is so outlandish that it can only be taught to children who don’t know any better—which, by the way, is how it’s done. If a person hasn’t been introduced to this mythical idea about God in early childhood, he or she becomes increasingly hard to preach to.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“It cannot be denied that as institutions, churches do good work. They operate schools and hospitals. Their charity outreaches, which take care of the homeless, sick, and hungry, have real impacts on communities. And while there are certainly hellfire-and-brimstone preachers around, there is counterweight in Presbyterian and Methodist ministers, who are grounded in a modicum of rationality, using Biblical stories as fables to teach psychological and ethical principles.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“And yet there is something there. People of faith share a camaraderie that is hard to reproduce in other social circumstances, and they often display a cheerful, albeit oddly naïve, attitude.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“The irony of having had such a secular upbringing is that I now live in Texas. Oh, the irony. Here in Texas, it is not only acceptable to go to church and have the mythic belief structure of an eleven-year-old—no, we are considered the odd ones out because we don’t go to church... at least that was how it seemed to us in the beginning.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“For a number of people, church attendance seems to be primarily a social affair, the act of meeting other people outside of the pressures of work. For others it is pure business/politics. I get it. It’s important to have access to a community like the one a church provides.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“Obviously, not everyone in Texas attends church for purely social or nostalgic reasons. There are still plenty of people here who feel the need to advertise their allegiance to God by telling me that they are good Christians, by continuously posting prayer pictures of Jesus on Facebook, or by telling me that no matter how ethically I live, I will surely go to Hell if I don’t accept Jesus Christ into my heart.”
Source: More Likely to Quote Star Wars than the Bible: Generation X and Our Frustrating Search for Rational Spirituality
“In a world full of sharks ready to bite off your limbs the moment you let your guard down, even a glimpse of softness can be dangerous”
Source: My Dark Divine