 | Charlie Traffas has been involved in marketing, media, publishing and insurance for more than 40 years. In addition to being a fully-licensed life, health, property and casualty agent, he is also President and Owner of Chart Marketing, Inc. (CMI). CMI operates and markets several different products and services that help B2B and B2C businesses throughout the country create customers...profitably. You may contact Charlie by phone at (316) 721-9200, by e-mail at ctraffas@chartmarketing.com, or you may visit at www.chartmarketing.com. |
Religion
2004-09-01 11:07:00
Something is missing... but we don’t want to be pressured
: My husband and I are in are mid 30s. We have two children. Neither of us have ever been baptized nor the children. We feel like something is missing from our lives but we're not sure.We feel no matter who we talk to, he or she will proclaim that his or her religion or church is the best one for us. We read the Q & A Times each month and we would very much like to read your comments on our situation.
ANSWER: You have presented a delicate problem, difficult to answer because "no matter whom we talk to, he or she will proclaim that his or her religion or church is the best one." Freethinkers and members of community churches ("everybody welcome") will advise you to pick & choose whatever you wish to believe and discard the rest of religion, or make-up your own religion, or allege that one religion is as good as another: even they may contradict one another, etc. This world offers many religions, and it is difficult to ascertain which is true and which is false. The absence of religion in your family is truly a loss, as you perceive. The word religion is from the Latin word "religare," which means: binding to something. In ordinary usage the word religion refers to a creed or code or group, which binds people to God. But with so many creeds and beliefs and groups competing for your attention, how can a person find his/her way to God? In your search for God, you are seeking truth and goodness and beauty and wisdom and justice and all the virtues in their eminent degree. That is one definition of God. Being Truth, God cannot teach falsehood or contradict himself. From the beginning of the human race, persons have sought God in various things and evolved different philosophies about the Supreme Being. Since it is impossible in your short lifetime to examine all those forms of religion, I suggest that you accept that many good & sincere people before you have pursued the search you have undertaken. Accordingly, study the teachings and lives of the great religious figures in history. Then consider which of these has truly represented God and God's Will for the universe He created. I assume you accept that this world did not evolve out of nothing, without a intelligent Creator; otherwise there is no explanation for the order of things in the universe. Christians and Jews accept the Bible as a compendium of God's word. Muslims replace the Bible with their Koran. Study the history of the world! Which religion has had the greatest influence for good in this world? Which religion has produced so many Saints, friends of God, who practiced the virtues in heroic degree? Which religion will bring you closer to God, with whom you hope to be happy forever in heaven?Jesus taught the necessity of Baptism: "Unless a person is reborn of water and the Holy Spirit, he/she cannot enter the kingdom of heaven" (John 3:5). But Baptism is only the initiation to the Christian way-of-life, which is intended to guide a person securely through this world to God. If you read the lives of the saints, you will learn that they lived their Baptism, conformed their lives to God's Will, as did Jesus, no matter how difficult that might be. And they were happy persons: very happy, already in this life! And they are happy now and forever in heaven. You want to be happy? The true religion will help you to be happy both in this life and after death.
