Picture Perfect

That's right, folks! I am now connecting to the internet via a stable, good, internet connection! YEAHHH!!

Orange broadband finally sorted themselves out, after TWO MONTHS.

In other news (that gap was just for Helen) I got a phone call from a friend who I've tried keeping in touch with, but was always unavailable - a really nice guy - who is currently thousands of miles away from me. The point is, he was wishing me a happy New Year - the Jewish New Year starts this eve and effectively ends Saturday night, so I won't really be around much. It is said that the New Year is the time of judgment, where God decides whether or not the next year will be a good one for us, based on our past (mis)deeds. I'd place it as the second biggest event in the Jewish calendar, second only to next week, the Day of Repentance.

What a miserable day the latter is! I dread that day every single year and when I rejoice at the end of it, it's never because I feel repented, but because I know there are now 364 days until I have to do it over again. What happens on this day is, we spend an entire day praying and fasting, from sunrise to sunset. Many people are of the opinion that it is a happy day, as it is when sins are forgiven. I, however, am not. The bible calls this a "day of affliction" and I enjoy reminding everyone of that fact.

The old, famous, question goes - if this is the day of repentance, why on earth don’t we have it before the Day of Judgment? Why do we repent after we've already been judged? Good question. Unfortunately, I never remember the old, famous answer, but this year asked my dad why it was. He said, essentially, it was because we're, uhh, storing credit for the next year. Well, guess what? I don't want to store credit, the price is far too high.

There is another answer, and I believe this one to be the old one; it just came to me. Though judgment is decided on the New Year, it's not until the end of the day of repentance (some say later) that it is actually "sealed" - i.e. unchangeably decided.

Why then do people pray the rest of the year and what hope do they have of changing anything, if it's all been decided?
I suppose because though the judgment mayn't change, the way in which it is carried out is...as the parable goes, a king who threatened, in his anger, to have a large rock thrown at his son if he crossed him one more time, cannot simply back down (why not?) from his promise if the son was naughty again. So the King keeps his promise, but has the stone chipped into little, tiny bits and throws those harmless bits at him instead.

I don't know where all this leaves me. As most of you know, I have a little trouble with the ol' faith these days (actually, I’ve had trouble with it since I was 17, but didn't want to say anything until I was in an absolute position of knowledge to do so - basically, until someone couldn't accuse me of being ignorant about Judaism, the scriptures, spirituality, or anything else. "If only you'd read the bible, you'd believe" - "If only you'd have studied xyz in depth, you'd believe" - "if only you'd accept Jesus, you'd believe" - "if only you'd..." it doesn't apply to me. Been there, done that, looked at it all in depth, dedicated an entire year of my life to the study of various things [very interesting and a great intellectual challenge; ironically, disbelieving me was one of the few to actually finish the book we were reading. Ok, so, the book we were reading was in an ancient dialect of Aramaic, completely incomprehensible without the myriads of commentaries and is probably the equivalent to a fair few thousand pages of a modern law textbook, factoring in said commentaries... but we all had the same start, didn't we?], and rejected (most of) it.

But there's a little tiny niggle. What if I’m wrong? What if, despite all this, there is a God who shall smite me down (I can't help but think of Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty raising his arms to the heavens and yelling "Smite me, oh Mighty Smiter!" and then Morgan Freeman, playing God, reading his file saying "recently though, a few things you've said do have me concerned....'smite me, oh mighty smiter'...?")?

What of the evidence I do have? It's a tiny thread, and faith shouldn't depend on it, but can I just disregard that? Evidence is evidence, and it does suggest there is much truth in the bible. "Inconclusive evidence" doesn't strike me as a good defense when standing in front of God. But then, if there's no God to stand in front of, I've nothing to worry about, do I? And so the circle of doubt goes, around and around.

As I told someone recently (yes, it was you. Yes, I mean you. Stop thinking "he doesn't mean me" because I do. Think about it! Ok, ok. I don't mean you. Sorry. I was being mean...but anyway....you know who you are!)  stepping out in a moment of uncertainness is a bad, bad idea...disbelief is not, contrary to what people seem to think, a wishy-washy idea of closing your eyes and deciding you don't believe anymore, it's a definite, educated choice. People tell me "it's easy to not believe, people who don't believe just want an easier life" and I go mad with them. I challenge them if there is not one honest person out there who doesn't believe in God because they honestly, intellectually, don't believe there could possibly be a God?

No, it isn't easy. It's full of uncertainty. Ok, it so happens once you've made your certain choice to not believe, it gets very easy from there...but it's a major life style change, at least for me. It's like I’m falling and there's no one to catch me at the bottom... if there was someone to catch me, to run away from my life here with, it wouldn't be so bad. But that person doesn't exist for me and it's therefore an impossible choice for me to make.

Just to pre-empt people, faith is subjective. And yes ant, I still say you have faith based on faith - though you say you know you have your God given faith from God because it led you to Him, from a Muslim's perspective, that faith is misplaced and therefore couldn't possibly be from God. But you have faith it is from God, and so you believe it is - just as he would have faith your belief isn't from God. And you're not allowed to say "you've twisted my statement" or any derivative thereof, for that's how I honestly believe you explained it to me the last time. At 1:30am. On MSN. You may, however, explain it again, or argue with my idea here.