Questioning Your Religious Beliefs? Let me Convince You!!!

1. Icons-

   Icons are like, as said by my friend, a window into another world. When we don't remember either:

   1. Who we're praying to/about

   2. Who we're asking to pray about/be prayed about

   3. What we're praying about

      I think icons should be like a reminder. To punch us, hit us, bring us back to life, attack us back into consciousness, let us know to focus...

2. Ritual. If you think an Orthodox service is too ritualistic, I have a couple of arguments with that:

   1. What's your problem with ritual, anyway, lol? There's a reason for it all anyway, even if in the "worst case," it is just a human being like, "Yeah we shall just do this three times, why not? It makes sense- for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit..."

   2. Ritual is tied to tradition, and logic...

3. Logic: If you think logically, a religion, if it claims to be the true religion, the "truth," it should be ritualistic, traditional, and non-changing because...why and how would the truth be changing? How would the truth even be changing, if it's supposed to be the truth, how is that supposed to work/be correct?

4. "Evil." Then why, do evil things happen?

   1. How would you know good things if you couldn't distinguish between good and evil?

   2. If there were just "good," how would anyone be good? Again, how could a person or a thing be good, or a person know what good is, if they don't first know what bad is?

   3. Everyone happens for a reason, including evil things. And all things eventually lead to good. There is nothing bad that happens for not a jusitified reason. I guess you could say that the quote, "The ends justify the means" works in this scenario, though I think that quote can definitely be used for evil, can be taken out of context, for other contexts, in a way that's not good. But it works in this case.

   4. My dad also explained to me, not sure if this is some proven agreed-upon theological theory, or just his idea, but I think either way it's just as trustworthy and true, that every evil happens for a good reason, even if we will never ever be able to understand it. I think maybe that should be part of our goal as humanity, to try to understand? Not that we ever will be able to...But it is one of my personal goals at least. One has to think very big big picture. And so if someone dies young, perhaps that is just because if they were to continue living, they would have done something terrible, or set off a horrible chain of events...or somehow or other done something horrible, like if they were offered the opportunity/chance to become religious, and they refused, somehow that would've been even worser for their soul and salvation than simply dying. It all takes a lot of understanding and humility (that a certain human may not be capable of, for who knows what reason...) which brings me to my next point...

5. Saints-

   It takes humility to understand that saints are not people we worship but they're people we consider role models that we can learn after. We can study their lives and learn and hope to be more like them. They're in between God and they're in between people. Because they're not God, they're just people like us, but also people who managed to become someone not nearly everyone can become. But there's a certain reverence we pay to each and every person...not just saints...

6. And therefore it's important to treat each person as they are God...not as if they are a God (they are not the God), but with the same level of respect. Because each person is created in the image of God and can appear as God at one point or another...and you never know...plus there is that one quote that's like, and forgive me if I butcher this "You bring pain to another, you bring pain to me..." and on the other hand, "You love another, (is like) you loving me..." Someday I will find that actual quote.

7. Another interesting thing I will end with: say a religion ends up being the true faith, and you were not born into it. It's a lot easier to follow a religion when you are born into it, not sure how many millions billions of people would agree, but I know that many either would, and would also be direct evidence of such a thing, but if you're not born into it, it's a lot harder to find out about it. I definitely don't think, nor does the Orthodox Church say that a person is condemned just by not having the same opportunities...

   1. Weird analogy, but if you are a college student/high school student/have been one, you probably have been through the college application process, and know this simple fact: how colleges don't hold against you necessarily if your high school did not offer many APs, therefore you couldn't have and didn't have the chance to take very many...and yet, on the flipside, if your high school did offer many APs...it will then took bad on you if you didn't take them...The same exact can be said when it comes to religion.