Hello,
I'm McTele, you can call me Rich, Richie, Richard, no preference. It's a bit sad that no one has posted an introduction here for over six years, so here goes.
I'm an IT manager for a small company in Kansas. My religious upbrininging was fortunately more agnostic then Christian. I had no faith. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to believe. Nothing seemed to make sense. There appeared to be too many contradictions and unanswered questions. I've dabbled in and studied multiple religions. Besides the fact that they are all crap, they do seem to have somethings in common. They provide no resolution, no real insights, no fully quantifiable truths. Everything is a mystery, or you are in error, or a sinner, or your faith is weak, or you are not obtaining oneness, or achieving nothingness, blah blah blah blah blah. Deceiving through circular reasoning and flawed logic, along with basic phycological manipulation techniques, all under the pretext of setting you on the path for truth. That's also known as bovine excrement!
I guess I have to credit the Christians for one thing. They lead me to my personal religion that dominated my life for far too many years. My favorite little Choter would say I'm a loser! I don't feel like a loser, I'm not destitute, I have a good job, for over 30 years. I've had a rough life, but who hasn't. My problems are 99.9% my fault. I made the bad choices, hung out with the wrong crowd in my youth, spoke when I should have listened, and read garbage I shouldn’t have read. I've made so many bad discissions, and yet, I somehow always landed back on my feet, kicked off the dust and started again. Maybe I'm fortunate I didn't have the icky sweet disingenuous Christian upbring and fellowship, or maybe this path is what made me, me.
So how in the world did a loser like me windup here? I've rolled that over in my mind dozens of times. I think Yada may be correct in that Yah finds a way to introduce himself, and let the chips fall where they may. One thing about us losers, although we are a gullible lot, we are also a curious and inquisitive bunch. (
If they lied about this, then what else did they lie about? And then down the rabbit hole we go!)
By the winter of 2018 I had grown tired of the loser radio broadcasts, loser websites, loser books. I don't know why, I just couldn't stand to hear or read the same crap over and over again. Fear-porn had lost its luster, the ridiculous assumptions that never provide a real solution. My gung-ho workaholic ambition has faded after my wife passed in 2015. So, my weekends and evenings were spent reading, listing to music, watch a game or two, and listening relaxation audio files, and noodle on my guitar. I stopped watching television years ago and use it for an occasional movie or sports and quick glimpses at the news. I had become a loser! Dissatisfied with where I was going, which was alone and nowhere.
In the spring of 2019, my brother-in-law was diagnosed with stage four cancer. While the family was hopeful for a recovery, praying, prayer groups, you know, the usual platitudes, however I was a bit blunt. He looked like crap, sevier weight loss and plenty of doctor dispensed false hope. But he had good insurance, and that mandated they generate as much revenue as possible. So rather then join the woe is me crowd I took the time to get to know him. You would think after being married to his sister for 25 years I would know the guy. I really didn't. So, I spent my off time with him and his two best friends, as a goffer, companion, anything that needed to be done, we made sure it got done. In some ways it gave me purpose all the while knowing it was for just a short time.
Then one evening in August I decided to listen to one of my old fear-porn broadcasts. I don’t know why. By this time, every time I turned on Jeff Rense I would last about ten minutes and turn it off in frustration. But there was this guy on the show, "Yada", telling me that God hates religion, politics, the military, patriotism. What? Then he goes on to tell me Paul is the plague of death! Wait? I know this guy! I've been to that site before. So off I go to the Questioning Paul site. I remember reading the first page a few years ago. It never resonated at the time, other then reenforcing the notion that religion is bovine excrement.
After that I went to the web sites, followed all the links, found the audio archives of the show. Every available hour, drive time, evenings, early mornings I spent listening to the archives from 2014 on. I purchased almost all the books and zipped through Written in Stone and then started on the what I think Yada may consider to be the condensed version of his work. I dove into An Introduction To God head first! With an arrogant zeal, I foolishly thought I would re-hone my speed-reading skills. Come on, it's 807 pages with a 9-point font! That's a lot of information to absorb. The speed reading lasted about ten pages and quickly turned into a methodical and meticulous journey. I have never read so slow. I would read a few pages and then find myself just mulling over the information, over and over in my head. This is not how I normally read.
As the fall of 2019 drew near and my brother-in-law's time was close, it was very difficult grappling with what I was learning and the situation I was observing. The understanding of the three possible destinations of a soul, my brother-in-law's Christian upbringing. I wasn't confident, and in a position, to properly share what I knew so I mostly kept silent rather than mistakenly convey a wrong message. Dave passed on October 4th. Five days later my dad passed also. I missed Dave's funeral but made it to Texas in time to spend the last four hours with my dad.
So now I've been through my first Mow’ed Miqra’. Alone, a bit lonely, but somehow a very comforting feeling through this. I have so much more to learn and understand. With all the turmoil in the world today I continually find myself saying, Trust and Rely, Trust and Rely in Yahowah.
I'm not sure I'll be a big poster on this site. I'm the IT guy that does not participate in the social side of the web. You won't find me on FB, no Tweets, no Linked-in ….my loser upbringing warned me about those traps' years ago.
If you've made it through all this verbal diarrhea, Thanks! For me to post anything at this level is not in my nature.
Rich
Edited by user Friday, December 4, 2020 7:54:12 PM(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified