If I want to change a situation, I may need to first, change myself. To do this effectively, I need to change my perceptions.
- Stephen Covey
As a child, I thought I understood what religion was about. Having gone to Catholic Schools and growing up in a Christian family I knew the stories I had heard/read/seen through various mediums from the Bible. I often became entangled in arguments over topics such as:
- Did Jesus/Mohammed/Buddha et al really exist?
- Did Jesus really perform the miracles He has been credited with?
- Are the Gospels true versions of the events they recount?
...This list could keep going. But all these questions miss the bigger picture. It doesn't matter if Jesus managed to feed half a ballion people with just 35 fish or 50 fish . What matters is that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all saw it as such and recorded the event...each with their own "spin" on it. Sure they may have been biased, but since the telling of the story was similar across the board, the miracle added to the growing mound of evidence re-enforcing His claim to divinity. Had there been another four Gospels in which Jesus fed only 4,000 was not born of the immaculate conception, no doubt history would have played out quite differently. As is turned out, the general consensus amongst the "martyrs" was that He did. It is now up to us to interpret these witness accounts and take out of them what we will.
For myself...the largest paradigm shift came in realising the "Deeper Mysteries" of Christianity, as they have been referred to in relation to early Christians. I personally don't believe that Jesus existed as the Son of God...but I still consider myself Christian. that's because I can finally put aside the petty analysing about superfluous details and focus on the real underlying message Christianity teaches: Compassion, Social Justice, Forgiveness...and treating your neighbour as you would like to be treated.