Whatever our religious or spiritual background, we are all seeking to live this life with as much grace, purpose and integrity as we can muster. The real world often confronts us with religious, spiritual and ethical questions that we feel ill-equipped to answer. But don't worry, help has arrived! Ask Pastor Paul: Spiritual Advice for the Real World is the new weekly advice column for your dilemmas of the mind, body and spirit.
Ask Pastor Paul first ran a decade ago and became an Internet phenomenon with thousands of questions coming from people of all faiths and no faith. My hope is that Ask Pastor Paul will again offer practical and sensitive spiritual advice while sparking conversation on real world spiritual issues involving relationships, families, sexuality, mortality, conversion, religious practice, social justice, ultimate meaning and anything else that comes to mind. No topic is off limits!
In my work as a chaplain at Columbia and Princeton Universities, as an ordained minister, and now religion editor, I have developed a respectful pastoral approach to the questions of belief faced by people of all religious backgrounds. Hopefully Ask Pastor Paul will also provide reliable information about different religious traditions and help us to see the common humanity in practitioners of all faiths.
I look forward to hearing from you! Have a spiritual question, ethical dilemma, or religious curiosity? Don't be shy! People of all backgrounds, ages and creeds are encouraged to submit questions to askpastorpaul@huffingtonpost.com.
To give you the format, here are two columns from Ask Pastor Paul that were compiled in a book called "Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths."
Dear Pastor Paul,
My boyfriend recently broke up with me because he said God told him he had to. He told me he loves me too much and it's sinful because his mind is always on me instead of God. It's against the First commandment, he says, because his love makes me his idol. I grew up Buddhist and it baffles me that he could make such a decision. Can you help me understand where he is coming from?
Dear Friend,
The First Commandment in the Hebrew Bible (also referenced by Jesus) requires that we love God with all our heart. If your former boyfriend was so obsessed with you that he forgot to love God, then he's right - he is not mature enough to be dating. A real boyfriend is capable of loving you, his family, his friends his neighbor and God all at the same time. I suggest you practice the Buddhist principle of nonattachment and try to be compassionate towards him while letting him go.
By the way, when people tell you they are doing something unpleasant because God told them to do it -- watch out.
Dear Pastor Paul,
I have a little problem. I do not believe in a traditional God. I'm not a pure atheist, but just don't believe in judgment and all that. Anyway, my grandmother is a devout Catholic and cannot be persuaded in any way to go against "The Good Book." My question is this: should I share with my grandmother my religious feelings, or keep them to myself?
Dear Friend,
You should talk about your beliefs with your grandmother, especially if you have a good relationship with her in other areas. Don't start with confrontation and stay away from the Bible if that is the trouble spot. Instead, ask her about her own spiritual and religious journey. Try questions like: When has God been most present in your life?; How would you describe God?; and, What did your mother and grandmother teach you about God? You may never agree with your grandmother, but you will find out wonderful things about her life.
Once you have opened up a more personal interaction you can tell her about some of your experiences, thoughts and doubts. Hopefully she will appreciate how fortunate she is to have an honest and intimate conversation with her granddaughter.
Follow Paul Brandeis Raushenbush on Twitter: www.twitter.com/raushenbush
If anyone wants to find Scriptural or Spiritual answers the best way to do that is to get a recorded copy of the whole Bible on CD collection or DVD or MP3CD from ChristianBook.Com and listen to it all as many times as you can. Eventually almost any question you think of that has an answer related to anything in the Bible will trigger a memory recall about what the Scriptures had to say on the subject, if your memory is working fairly well, and this may be a way to build incredible brain power by creating many more brain nerve connections with which to do "thinking tasks".
It's not just you. I made a similar comment several hours ago, but it hasn't been posted yet. I guess some folks are tired of hearing. Which is understandable. Who would enjoy constantly hearing that their entire worldview is absurd? Only a few people, I'm fairly sure.
Gaiman and Pratchett, Good Omens
Many of my fellow Christians seem fearful that people might discover that there is both more and less to God than their doctrines and dogma portray.
Samuel Clemens- Letters from the Earth
Whether they were 24 hour days or 1 million year days, a day was of specific length. That is, if the first day was 77 years, than the fifth day better also be 77 years,
The universe is 13.7 billion years old. That means a day is about 2 billion years old.
The Earth is 4.54 billion years old.
So by that calculation, it was created on the fifth day.
Yet another Bible fail!
I hear people around me speaking out against the abortion of a zygote and the same folks are very much for capital punishment. What would Jesus say?
LORD Almighty: Jesus it is time for you to go back!
Jesus: Hell, No! I won't go!
LA: What do you mean you won't go?
J: Let me ask you a question? Wasn’t what I called the Second Great Commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" and did I make that up?
LA: No! The same thing was said millennia before you were born!
J. Thank you LORD! Has humanity learned this simple and common sense lesson during these thousands of years since it was first brought up? Do they need for somebody, anybody, to go and remind them again?
LA: No, you are right. They are no longer children and should stand on their own feet – Billions of them!
Figures.
The only way to bring society into the present would be to give each and every human the opportunity to chose as educated adults their spiritual paths...not indoctrinating from birth.