Religion killed God. FML.

So I'm really starting to think that religion as a whole has secularized our conception of God until it's just pretty much null and void.
You know that ridiculous, cuddly image of God that I'm having such issues with?
Yep. It comes from that. We've so distorted God based on what we want him to be, completely ignoring the all powerful, fear inspiring aspects of God. I want the God of Blake, the God of Milton, the God of Job, the God of Ezekiel, the God of Isaac, a God worth wondering about, worth being overwhelmed by, a God I CANNOT understand.

I've started to think that maybe the best way to connect with God is through reading thought provoking spiritual literature, thinking, and talking, through nature, through relationships with others, through love, through lust, through just BEING ALIVE, rather than sitting in a room listening to people who think they understand God regurgitate a lot of rather useless over-interpreted and de-contextualized statements about God and the Bible.

At any rate, I'm pretty sure most modern Protestant interpretation is a whole lot of bullshit over all. Or at least, in my experience.

Also, the next person who tells me men should be in charge of women based on Biblical precedent is in for a talking to. The women of the Bible are smarter, stronger, more ingenious, and more devout than most of their male counterparts. And the letters of Paul don't count for jack shit as far as I'm concerned. (Especially since he probably didn't write all of the things we ascribe to him!) Though I do like the part in Galatians about how in Christ there is no differentiation between male or female, slave or free. That part was good. But that's another post for another day.

And I still want to be a religion major in spite of all of my current issues with contemporary organized religion...FML.

I'm thinking I just want to reject the modern protestant church and do my own studying, learning, loving, lusting, talking, singing, dancing, etc.

You know that song by the Fray, "You Found Me"? It's like that. I want to find God where he is, not where other people claim he is. I want to find WHO or WHAT he is, rather than what people have decided he is. So I'm going to find God on the corner of 1st and Amistad, or on the Green, or on my hall, or at least I'm damn sure going to try. Sure, I'm pretty certain you can have God moments or connect with God in a church, but the tide seems to have turned within the organized church in a way that renders God oddly overly familiar, oddly overly positive, and well, all too reasonable.

Anyways, that was my rant for the day! Can you tell I was just reading the Marriage of Heaven and Hell? :)