Hello! I’m Mason J. Muir and I play football here at Bucknell. I’m from a place that seems to be where most people are from and that place is Greenwich, CT. I was raised catholic but upon attending CCD (catholic school I had to attend every Wednesday for half the year until 9th grade) I actually became a lot less religious. I have never read the bible in a room by myself but I am decently familiar with it from school and church.
In The Gospel of Luke it gets kind of confusing with the random references to things I’m not familiar with like “the house of jacob” (71) and why Zacharias was concerned with Mary having a child. The use of the word “and” is also overkill making the reading become slightly mundane and boring. In my opinion it’s hard to believe that the entity God is the reason for Mary to become pregnant. Science has proven that it is possible for virgin people to become pregnant without a partner. So the first chapter of Luke is discredited in terms of human entity forms like God creating her pregnancy. However, I do understand the power of prayer (manifestation) and how positive energy truly does shape ones reality. So from that perspective I do believe that praying and believing angels put a baby in Mary’s stomach helped her become pregnant. Even though there were never these winged flying humans or multi-eyed flying beings that physically threw a baby into her womb. The over personification of positive thinking/manifestation/positive energy leads to some confusion for me throughout this text.
This account of the bible also has a misunderstanding of the christian god- at least from what I have been taught- in terms of god fearing. I’m specifically relating to the idea that Luke (or whoever changed Lukes words) thinks it should be believed that“ his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation”(72). People started loving the idea of christianity because it meant they would be forgiven for their mistakes. Their old god would set fire to villages, start plagues, and produce famines if someone did something wrong. But with this new christian god people realized that if they repent for their sins god/jesus will forgive them. God no longer had to be feared, but that does not mean he did not still request respect. Personally I think that the idea of God is the personification of positive energy. Similar to the way the law of attraction works. So although I personally, and in the most inoffensive way possible, think the bible is completely outlandish: I do think it holds some truths. Taking away all these characters like angels, the devil ( I guess he’s technically an angel too), god, Jesus, and saints there can be lessons to be found.