I assume that, because of my teachers, I feel the way I do today. Don't get me wrong, I am, in no way, putting them down. I believe that they did the very best that they could, they tried to teach me what they knew, it just wasn't enough for me, they didn't have all the answers that I needed.
I have nothing against the bible, I believe that it was written for all of the right reasons, and it's authors actually wrote what was meant to be a guideline for all of us to live by, and to learn from. I do believe that God chose these people to write the bible for this purpose. But when it comes down to mere mortal beings, is where I begin to lose my faith in what the bible now says. The bible has been translated many times, by many different people. These people translated it as to the best of their knowledge, I assume, but who's to say that their translations were right? Anyone who knows anything about the difference between two languages, knows that in some instances, many instances, a single word in one language may have several different meanings in another, and sometimes a translation ends up being actually the opposite of what the original meaning was. I've often wondered just how many times the bible has actually been written in another language. Maybe I'm wrong, but the odds are that somewhere along the line, completly innocent mistakes were made, and we will never even know, at least not in this life, or in this world.
This brings me to another belief of mine, one that has been heavily disputed. I am a staunch believer in reincarnation. I was brought up to believe (in the church, and from my mother), that we are born; we live out our lifetimes being faithful to God;, living by the word of the bible; and then when our time is up, we die, After which, we are sent before God to receive His summation on whether we have lived up to His standards, and learn His final decision as to where we will be sent, Heaven or Hell, to spend Eternity.
I'm sorry, but I simply cannot accept this, for many different reasons. One reason being, what would be the point? Did God just put us here as an experiment, to see if we would do what He expected of us? If this were so, why does He allow us to continue? We're obviously not getting any better at it, all you have to do is to look at a newspaper, or listen to the 6:00 news to see what mankind is doing to one another. To me, it seems as if this were the case, He would have stopped the experiment long before now.
Another reason is that I believe that God is a caring, loving God, and if we just existed for one lifetime, why are there so many children suffering in this world. Why is there so much hatred and violence. Would He put a child on this earth for only a few years, weeks, or even a few minutes, just to discard this life for no reason? As I said, I can't accept this, to me (and again, I realize many people feel differently), this would be as if admiting that He made a mistake, maybe there was something wrong with this child, it was a defect, so he recalled it. To my way of thinking, my God is omnipotent, He doesn't make mistakes, and He doesn't do things without a good reason.
I believe that God created us and put us here to learn, and I believe that most of all we are here to learn to Love, to love ourselves, and each other. We're here to learn all that we can about perfection and to strive for it even though it seems an impossibility. As humans, we will never achieve this, although we must try. I believe we are here to become as loving and as understanding as is humanly possible.
This cannot be achieved on one lifetime, there are too many lessons to learn. I believe that once our lifetime here is over, we are allowed to see what it is that we didn't accomplish, and we are given the opportunity to return, to try and overcome our faults, so that we can try again, to be as perfect as we can. For some, this may take many lifetimes, since human beings have many faults to overcome. Some learn their lessons quicker than others. We're each different from each other, no two are alike. I believe that everyone, no matter how deep it is buried within them, wants to be better, and wants to be a better human being.