Public faces versus private faces

This will be brief. I just deleted a post that should have been written at Live Journal where it could have been private instead of public.

For the public, we often hide our private faces and our private lives.  That is one reason that people should never think that they know anyone anywhere well at all. Most people show the public one side of themselves while hiding the other sides to themselves somewhere at home.  A few people may come to know a person intimately but for the most part, few people ever allow people to know aspects of their lives that they want kept hidden and private.

The Catholic church has a neat way of training its parishioners to absolve themselves of their sins through the use of a confessional at which they may or may not unload all their little faults and grievances to a family priest.  I do not believe for one minute that merely saying a litany of guilts and so called sins is going to make the hurt or harm of them go away just because you happen to be silly enough to tell a priest that you suddenly backhanded your nearest partner when he said something wrong to you.

Yeah, like 3 hail mary's is going to absolve and be sorrow enough for that.  What a thing to teach people.

But unfortunately, that is one of the many lessons that the Church inflicts upon its unthinking and sheeplike churchgoer.  Honestly, I wonder at myself that I actually let myself become Catholic and do a few of these silly absurd things in the past.  It just shows how much we can be really a mystery to ourselves at time.  I cannot imagine allowing that kind of thinking influence and affect me as it did, so all I can say is Yikes!  What was I thinking?

Now, I do believe in the Christian faith in some of its tenets, but certainly not all of them.

I was always confused as to why so many variety of beliefs about one God.  Why are there arguments about faith at all?  If faith is so simple, why is it so complex?  And in the end, do I believe any of it at all?

So my public face said that I am a believer while my private face said that I myself know more about the faith of Jesus than the church does so why should I submit to people who know less about it than I do.

I still tend to think that way because I do know more than many but not nearly as much as others do about its history.  But essentially, the truth of the faith is what happens now more than what happened yesterday.

So because I know that church does not always like the knowledge that I have accumulated, I just avoid sharing it with those who think that they are holier than thou, and I stay to myself, believing in what I have learned and found.

I believe many times that I am closer to Jesus than many who pray daily, who sing loudly, and who think that that is what is most acceptable to God. 

So while there are many church going people who continue to pray, to sing hymns, who praise the Lord, they should learn that others may believe but do not want to be amongst those who would criticize and ridicule the new knowledge that one has come to acquire.

So I will let this rest while some of my friends continue to practice their faith their way as I will practice my faith my way.  So be it.