Bless me Jesus!

(I'm "testing the water" with this article - still tossing around the deeper implications and refining. It's almost part of my "theory of everything" lol, although any sane person knows that may never happen)

I was reading an article about Usain Bolt and his deep christian faith. It reminded me of so many other celebrity christians who give all the credit to Jesus for their achievements and praise God for his blessings when they achieve a victory in their chosen field.

I'm not discrediting Usain's faith as such, or any other christian who believes the same way. But I'm looking at the mechanics, as it were, of this faith and blessings business.

Every religious belief system has some aspect of this idea built into it - the idea that God "blesses" us we we give him thanks/praise, and that we should thank him when good things happen. Its a mentality of gratefulness, thankfulness and joy in what we have or achieve. Its waking every day to thoughts of gratitude etc, whether they be directed to the christian god or any other god. All the self help movements, "new age" philosophies, eastern religions etc, embrace the same idea in some form.

Why? Because it works!

It really does work! When we look for the positive, and live with that underlying "attitude of gratitude" (sorry for the platitude), we invariably live life better, fuller, more joyfully, and with more peace. It's just how we are wired.

So lets just put this fair and square where it belongs. It's nothing to do with God. He's not blessing us and answering prayers, he's not guiding us, or looking for our praises, or asking for our obedience in return for a better life. When we adopt an eastern philosophy or new age methodology, it's not the spirit or energy or vibrations or whatever, it's just the simple, practical way our brains are wired. Sure, maybe there is something about energy and consciousness and some deep god thing, but there zero proof for that - it's all just good ideas based on a few hints and theories - nothing more. And to say otherwise is simply proclaiming your beliefs as a religious dogma, rather than one possible way of applying universal principles.

Yeah, say it - I'm a party pooper - a killjoy! I'm on a mission to take the wind out of your most precious beliefs in the hope that we can see spirituality for what it is, remove all the vestiges of religious dogma, and work together in a way that makes us all better, loving people.