Ever since I was a little child, I was made to believe in God and although it didn’t cause any pleasure for me, I was kind of forced by my relatives to attend several Religious ceremonies which are not among the classical ones (Wedding, Baptism, Funeral, etc). It is needless to say that at the same time I was taught in school that attending those ceremonies without any pleasure what-so-ever is not seen well by God. As you can see, a paradox resulted in my mind as information came from two different sides, both being trustworthy.

One part said that it is important to attend the ceremonies no matter of my attitude towards them and the other part said that the important thing is the Belief in God and not necesarily attending the ceremonies held for Him. Although I was pretty young, I was really stressed of this discrepancy in ideas coming from two Orthodox sources. I guess that that was the first thing that got me to ask my self a few questions and (re)discover some paradoxes like: If God gave us Freedom of Will then why don’t I get to choose whether or not I want to be baptised as an Orthodox? (No, I don’t have an answer)

My other concerns were based on ideas taken from the Bible. The Holy Book contains a number of ideas that contradict each other and although I asked several priests throughout my childhood, all of them gave some unsatisfying, ambiguous answers. My usual questions were about the Original Sin and about the Great Flood (I hope I translated this one right so you would understand what I am talking about).
Regarding the Original Sin, I always wondered how the Snake(the Devil) got into Eden(Heaven). We have been told that Heaven only contains the Good and nothing Bad can get there inside but the Snake was there while the Archangels were guarding the gates. Answers like “The Snake jumped the fence” are not satisfying to me.
About the Great Flood, I keep on wondering why God would cause such a great amount of Pain and Suffering for the human species if he is as Good as the Bible says.

Furthermore, my biggest question regarding God is the following: We are told that WE choose our destiny. Good or bad. Ying or Yang. But, we were also told that God knows everything that was, is and will be. If that is true, it means that our destinies are already written resulting in an absence of a power of will that we were taught about.

Alright, so, leaving those unanswered questions behind, I had begun to lose faith in God some time ago. I realized that if God really exists then he would think I am an asshole since I only pray in the moments of sadness and when I need Him, therefore there was no point in praying as long as I wouldn’t receive any help.

The desperate situation I was in December got me to rethink my attitude towards God and from a non-believer, I became a semi-believer. I believed in God but I thought the Bible speaks crappy stuff. I have kept praying as I was taught (the Orthodox manner) but actually, the “Force” I was praying to had few things in common with the Orthodox God that I was used to pray to. I can’t really explain it, but I have stopped seing God as that guy with a long, white beard who sits on his cloud and watches over the world. My opinion of God was formed by itself: that Force we can’t explain, the unseen Good that takes care of us and who actually wants that all of our destinies will be better. I have started seing God as a big, shining light.

I can’t really recall the occasion but we somehow got into a discussion about Religion at school (here, in Aarhus Technical College). It was a normal discussion and I presented my point of view but I admitted that I have no idea where exactly I would fit. Then, one of my Polish classmates told me that my beliefs are very similar to the Agnostic ones. I googled some stuff and I didn’t think I resemble too much to the Agnostic views. From what I found out, the agnosticism is too much alike with the Atheism but as far as I believe in God, I can’t be an Agnostic or an Atheist. While browsing through wikipedia and looking for more information, I stumbled upon Fideism and I realised that so far, it is the belief that mostly resembles to the one I attended by myself. The idea of Fideism I agree with the most is Kirkegaard’s “Truth is subjectivity“: “God’s existence cannot be certainly known, and that the decision to accept faith is neither founded on, nor needs, rational justification“. What can I say more? Honestly, I had a shock when I first read that statement since it was like I had managed to clear my full-dirty-crappy mind and come up with the exact thought that came to my head, thought which I had no power to put in words.

If you got this far with the reading and I hope you did, now I can only hope that if the real God is the Orthodox one, then he wouldn’t create yet another paradox and punish me at the possible Final Judgment for believing in Him but not believing in the Bible. As far as I am concerned, the truth about Religious Beliefs is somewhere in the middle. I have read some stuff about Buddhism, Islamism and the Protestants and there are aspects in each religion that I agree with. I can just assume that God really exists and hope that the world isn’t coming to an end soon.

I would really like to hear your arguments or counter-arguments for my post as I would be more than happy to engage in a conversation with anyone, no matter of sex, ethnicity or nationality.

Just a side note, I don’t want you to think that I blame the Orthodox religion and I praise the  other ones . I am just pointing out the strange facts about the religion I am most familiar with.