A few thoughts

Hello there. I am new here and to introduce my self, let me share a few thoughts with you.

The demonstration of sincerity to God seams to be the objective of organized religion. Not just during the sacred times and in the sacred spaces of the various great religions is this attempt to show God something evident, but throughout the lives of the faithful there are rituals by which one shows sincerity to the divine being or higher power or whatever one may call it. Normally this all takes the form of trying to live cleanly and perfectly as well as fallowing the rites and traditions of whatever religion one fallows. For some this is a vary real concern. Indeed, for some it is a matter of salvation or damnation. Such great power do they put in their own ability to convince the divine being of their true commitment that a failure on their part can not be pardoned as they see it. At least, not by them. The real problem comes when they start applying their own logic to God. For them, salvation becomes wrapped up entirely in human effort and striving, and for what?

What is the real purpose of showing God you are serious? If we start from the assumption that it is to guaranty God’s favor on us and to influence him to grant us salvation, than what kind of God do we worship? To approach it from a logical perspective and fallow the train of reasoning, we must ultimately come to the conclusion that the God we worship is, in fact extremely selfish and self centered, even more so that most humans. Even in a human relationship, both parties normally try to contribute and show sincerity to each other. In the relationship that is cast by those who adhere to the idea that we must strive to win God’s favor by showing him how sincere we are, it is, in a way, rather one sided. It puts the ability to obtain salvation by way of influencing God through our works and thus the responsibility to do so firmly in our human hands. Do more and God will accept you. Try harder and He will receive you. Put on a better show of you sincerity and he will bless you. When looking upon this conceptual frame work, I can not help but notice how similar it is to another religious tradition that is much older and much more historically wide spread that the modern “great” religions. Animism and Spirit worship. Witch craft and attempts to please the spirits so that they won’t hurt you. Fear and the striving to serve it. Is that not what this whole concept of doing more and trying harder to please God really is? It is truly nothing more than a glorified form of building a spirit house or sacrificing an animal to please an angry god, only the angry god has been replaced with the idea of God him self. Does anyone actually love those oppressive spirits or angry gods? No. But they are sincere to them.

When sincerity is built on this framework, it is nothing more that a sick attempt at manipulating the divine into doing something for you. But the real problem with it is that it casts the whole relationship as being a one way effort and thus distorts the actual reality. The real question people need to ask is not how important it is to show sincerity to God but what if it is God who has been trying to show us how sincere to us He is and how dedicated he has been all this time? Have we just not been paying attention? What if it is not a matter of us going up and banging on the door to heaven to get him to notice us? What if it is He who comes down and bangs on the door to our hearts and minds as He patiently waits for us to accept or reject him. What if it is him who has been fallowing us this whole time, pleading, maybe even begging for us to notice how sincere he is? The religious leaders can not tell you the answers to these questions. Only God can. You will have to ask him your self. If you find the answer to be a resounding yes, will this not cause you to stop and see that reality is better than you could have ever imagined? Will not the only response you can give be to return His holy commitment and sincerity with your own?