My dreams fascinate me & explain so much..

[Proper-Gander]

I'm sitting in a car I've never seen before.
My mother is at the wheel, I'm in the passenger seat.
She's blind. Her eyelids seem glued together and somehow I know that her sockets are empty. It concerns me slightly.
There is a man sitting in the back seat.
He speaks to himself but neither of us can hear him.
My mother is singing loudly as she drives. I'm more concerned by what she's singing than her blind driving.
The man looks a bit dirty, though only I the observer can see him. My dream self remains unaware of his presence.
Slowly, I become my dream self, and I can hear what he's saying.
He's mocking my mother. Scoffing and calling her a fool.
At first I'm shocked and feel slightly threatened by his presence. Then I immediately agree with him. She is a fool.
The man suddenly takes on an ethereal presence. Nothing about his appearance changes, but I perceive him differently.
He's suddenly more clean-cut. His clothes seem nicer.
He's strong. Very strong.
And he knows.
Suddenly I'm 12 years old. My mother seems much younger as well. I'm beginning to have trouble recognizing her. Then I realize that it's been this way since the beginning.
The man is whispering in my ear now.
Get out of the car. You know she's a fool. Don't let her kill you. You're worth more than she is.
The last statement makes me angry. I turn to hit him, but as soon as I turn to face him I can see him smiling, and I realize that I agree with him.
My mother starts rambling. Religious dribble I've never heard fall from her lips she now repeats over and over. Passionately. Angrily. With so much fear that her hands shake.
Suddenly, I can not recognize her anymore. She's a stranger. Sitting next to me, screaming and spitting and crying.
Devil. Devil. Make it go away. Stop. I can't see it.
Then she's talking to me. Begging me. There's something akin to hope in her closed-eyed visage.
Do something. I love you. Do something. Don't leave me.
I'm almost too numb to feel. Before I can say anything, she's talking again. Reassuring herself.
I don't need to see. We're fine. We'll get there and everyone will be happy. Happy together. We can do it. You're with me. We're okay if we're together.
I know she's going to reach for my hand and I wish I could leave. Then I'm gone. Somewhere outside of the car, where I can not see myself or anywhere else.
I'm no longer in that place I once knew, but I no longer understand what is - only what I thought there was.
Somehow I know the man is still in her backseat.

 

[Proper-Gander]

Apparently an undead savior, at that.

Here's what's going on - and I'll make this short rather than long and unenjoyable to read.

I "came out" to my father as Non-Christian yesterday. In a letter, of sorts. I may have mentioned something about being non-religious and taken a firm defense for non-Theists.

He took it surprisingly well....at first. One of his first questions was "so, you don't believe that there is a god?" He also went on to say that I shouldn't judge a religion by its practitioners because, in his opinion, Christians are the worst hypocrites in the world. I told him that I thought that was true, only because they are human and fall short of the "fruits of the spirit" that they try to hold themselves to (as well as their morals, etc). Therefor they can not always practice what they preach.

Eventually, the conversation got around to my father saying that Christianity is the one true religion because Jesus is the only person to have risen from the dead and that the proof of this is the fact that his body can not be found. :sarcastic

My automatic retort was "How are we supposed to find the body of a man who lived almost two thousand years ago anyway?"

Then he brought up Buddha, because I'd said that I first started doubting things because I didn't see how one religion was any "truer" than another. He assured me that the Buddha did, in fact, die and stay dead. Even if his body can not be found...
(I know nothing of the matter, myself...but I do know that this is not a good example of logic.)

He ended our conversation by asking me if I would read a book. He went in the other room and came back with The Case For Faith by Lee Strobel, a supposed ex-Atheist who came to faith in Christ through science. (What a concept, right?)

The problem is that I've read this book before...when I was first wanting questioning everything about 5 years ago. If anything, it caused me to further question everything that I was taught in church. From what I remember, it has no actual scientific evidence of anything Christianity-related - just conjecture.

So...my plan so far? Read the book, write down examples of the instances where they fail to answer a question with anything scientific, and definitely write down ALL the instances where the Bible is pointed to for proof.

Then, maybe, I'll research some "evidence" of other religions.

Maybe Jesus did live. Maybe at one point, people thought he was dead and there was a dramatic rumor about him dying that eventually evolved - only for them to later find out that he was in hiding the whole time. There is no way that I can accept a religious text as fact just because it has supposed different accounts of the same story. I've learned about too many other religions with different accounts of gods and prophets and leaders. They obviously can't all be true. Not if we're going to include Christianity...because Christianity says that all other religions are false.

Isn't it a common-held belief that you can't prove faith (ANY faith) with science?
When it comes down to it, I've always been told that you just have to believe. Am I going to have to put up with conversion attempts until I move out? Even possibly an intervention lead by my uncle (a Methodist minister)??

 

[Gjallarhorn]

It gets easier when you learn to laugh. I've put up with Christian conversion craziness. It gets better when you can find the situation (or, any situation for that matter) hilarious even in the midst of it.

 

[Proper-Gander]

Oh, I definitely did. There were at least three different times during the conversation when I thought laughter was going to burst out of me without my permitting it. >_>

However, I'm trying to take this seriously in respect for his beliefs. At least until he starts to harass me about it....

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Taking beliefs seriously when not backed by evidence is just like taking the rambling stories of toddlers at face value. They're cute, but at no point should they be considered seriously.

Also, the whole "Buddha died, and therefore isn't worth following" is hilarious, considering how much of our society and beliefs are governed by the words of dead men and women, including the Christian Council of Nicaea.

 

[Proper-Gander]

It's probably my upbringing still having an effect on me, but I think that someone's beliefs shouldn't need to be backed by evidence in order for someone who cares about the person to respect them. I don't agree with them, and I still think they're silly - but they're his personal beliefs and if he wants to share them, then I'll hear him out.....for a while.

It's amazing what some people don't know (or realize) about their own religion, isn't it?

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Well, to be fair, if they had proof, it wouldn't be a belief anymore. It would be a theory or fact.

Yeah, some of my Christian friends never knew about the Rapture or the Council or even the Nephilim of Genesis.

It's weird when you know more about their religion than they do.