I grew up Catholic. I’m not really one now. A divorce or two and a subsequent crisis of faith took care of that.<\/p>\n
That’s not to say I’m not spiritual. I am, in fact, more spiritual than when I went to organized church. My faith is very strong, and it’s defined in terms that cross the spectrum of religions. I am, in effect, a religious mutt.<\/p>\n
Even if I had stayed in the church I don’t think I could ever reconcile one of the great conflicts of faith.<\/p>\n
As any Catholic knows, we’re supposed to feel guilty. We aren’t worthy of God’s love and we are forever on the precipice of eternal damnation because of our propensity to sin. And if sinning weren’t bad enough, the Catholics gave us two different types of sin to keep track of – Venial and Mortal.<\/p>\n
Venial sins are a lot like misdemeanors in the court system. They won’t send you to jail (Hell) in and of themselves. You can go to confession and the priest will absolve you of your sins with a couple of Hail Marys (not the football kind) and Our Fathers.<\/p>\n
Mortal ones are much more serious, like felonies. You can go to jail for an eternity for a moral sin, which basically is breaking on of the 10 Commandments. It is a sin against God — and unforgivable. It’s actually more complex than this, but so is the way you can get a felony, so we’ll just keep in simple.<\/p>\n
As you know, the 10 Commandments cover everything from Thou Shalt Not Murder to Honor Thy Father and Mother. And therein lies the problem.<\/p>\n
I was considering these commandments just this morning. Yes, that sort of thing occurs to me on a Sunday morning before I get a cup of coffee. While I am thinking about them and the prospect of eternal damnation, I realized that there has to be some wiggle room here.<\/p>\n
Go with me for a moment on this. I can’t really believe that God sent these commandments down and they are all equal. For example, having a spat with your parents or wishing you could sleep with the married lady down the street but never act on it can’t have an equal weight to, say, Thou Shalt Not Murder.<\/p>\n
That’s a biggy to me. I’ve managed not to take another life in my almost 53 years on this planet. Well, that’s if we count human life. If we count the ants I used to roast with a magnifying glass when I was a kid, then I’ve killed. I also blew up slugs with firecrackers and I’ve summarily and unapologetically took more than my fair share of spiders out of this world. If Thou Shalt Not Murder applies to all of God’s creatures and not just to humans, I’m already screwed and headed for eternal damnation.<\/p>\n
I’ve also coveted a few neighbor’s wives. At least I think I have. I don’t really know what coveting is, but I’m sure I must have done some coveting at some point in my life. I still may be doing it now, since I don’t exactly know what it is.<\/p>\n
Thou Shalt Not Steal. Guilty. I took an employment test once at Pay n Save in Seattle. They asked this question: “Have you ever stolen anything?” I answered ‘Yes’, of course. I figured somewhere along the way that I must have stolen a pencil or something from someone. It’s pretty hard to be 25 and have not stolen anything, even from a brother or sister.<\/p>\n
I didn’t get the job. I was obviously too honest, but Thou Shalt Not Lie was not a commandment, so I did get any brownie points for that one.<\/p>\n
And so in lies my conflict. Is Honor Thy Father and Mother really equal to killing someone? If I use the Lord’s name in vain, is it really as important as not sleeping with my neighbor’s wife? I just don’t see it as all being equal. Certainly, if I was to covet my neighbor’s donkey, even if he really loves that donkey, is it on a par with Thou Shalt Not Have Other Gods Before Thee. That seems like a biggy, too. In fact, I think’s it’s #1 on the 10 Commandments hit parade.<\/p>\n
Which leads me to the next question. Why are they numbered? In our modern world, ranking them gives them a descending order of importance. That alone means #1 is more important than say, #4, where you’re not supposed to work on a Sunday.<\/p>\n
Oops, I just realized that I broke that one too with the writing of this article. Damn, damn and double damn…<\/p>\n
I wonder if I get partial credit for not breaking 3 out of 10.<\/p>\n
Bound for eternal damnation, but still living it up on the Treasure Coast,<\/p>\n
— Robb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I grew up Catholic. I’m not really one now. A divorce or two and a subsequent crisis of faith took care of that. That’s not to say I’m not spiritual. I am, in fact, more spiritual than when I went to organized church. My faith is very strong, and it’s defined in terms that cross […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-lessons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/robzerrvations.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}