Authenticity

We hide well….we do it all the time; here, at work, at home and at church. No one really knows who we are. We cary hidden traits, character flaws and even hidden sins; some even unknown to us…but we hide them, inside ourselves and try to portrait an image…and image of us, incomplete ,inaccurate, deceitful. And we go on our mary way allowing the world to just see enough of us so as to not be rejected, rather accepted socially and within our group. But who we really are, that “Dark Passenger” we don’t dare show, for we might after all, end up rejected by the group,the church, friends,family and society as a whole. We open up to the emergent world every morning with one agenda in our being, hide very well the real us to the world. We are in fact inauthentic human beings, lying through both sides of our mouth and often times, in a contradicting ways!

 What does it mean to be authentic? It is a hard questions nowadays since definitions are of no concern to todays ways of thinking. No one seems to care about virtue, good neighboring, altruistic compassion or even introspection into the self. Most are concerned about acceptance, assimilation, comfort and popularity. So it is obvious that we have to start by rejecting “all of the above” to find real authenticity in our beings. If when you reject “all of the above” and find yourself void, then you must realize you are an empty self! Don’t get discourage that is the first step towards authenticity, recognizing you are just an image of behaviors and not a reason for them! “Who am I,really”?, “What have I learned in this outward thrown into the world”? Have I used knowledge to understand what is the real or to just exist without really living?

Once you get a sense of authentic self worth you have to make a hard choice; Do you conform to the world or do you try to make sense of it? Here lies most of the difficulty in exercising authenticity; in that it may oppose the ways of others, their thinking, their reasons for what they do what they do. You may find out quick enough you are described as  crazy, different, geek, intolerant, odd, maladjusted, strange, weird! It is a high price to pay for being yourself, but one that is required if you want to be really authentic. After all you have been given free will and you shoul have the courage to use it if you want to be an authentic human being. Conforming, compromising, following the crown, group or belief system in order to be accepted is not the road for if what you follow is not real, you are just a reflection from an empty self, inauthenticity is your way of life and at the end of it, you will have regret, for not being who you really were.

Great part of authenticity is being sincere with what you believe and how you see the world around you, a sense that “this is not the way is supposed to be” comes to all authentic thinkers throughout human history. The reformers, founders of social and religious paradigms and philosophers, all saw clearly that things were not the way they ought to be. That is why they make such impacting contributions to our human history and that is why we have the knowledge about the world in science and technology we do today. Pioneers of human thinking, different,strange,weird… in comparison to their social environment.

Since authenticity and popular mores are usually diametrically opposed, here are some of my beliefs that I can’t betray if I am to be authentic. Clarification is needed here for without proper training in thought in whatever discipline you engage your mind, authenticity may be in fact, conclude erroneous reality. What this means is that without the frame of reference from epistemology,logic,metaphysics ,ethics and aesthetics you could well end up authentically wrong.

Having said that here it goes:

1- I am a dichotomist (we are two things; body and soul/spirit)

2- I am a trinitarian (believe in the Trinity-the love argument)

3- I am a Cristian (believe Christ is God-the infinite/justice argument)

4- Believe in God (from cosmological an ontological arguments)

5- Believe the image of God in us is our consciousness

6- The Word of God is both the Bible and Science/Philosophy (Special/General Revelations)

7-  Soul = mind, heart,consciousness

8-  Both Heaven and Hell are in our universe (for why would Satan be thrown into ours?)

9-  God’s providence is directly proportional to human development ( exceptions = miracles)

10-Hell is not a chamber of horrors and torture, rather simply an existence devoid of God in it!

11-Cristians sitting in churches, are learning very little about reality.

12-Churches are more concerned with membership than with truth

13-Inspiration in music, discernment and introspection in ones beliefs are practically non-existent!

14-Not enough Apologetics and Philosophical Theology is taught in Christian circles.

15-Active ignorance (the willful act of not learning) is an epidemic in our churches.

16-Spiritual envy (teaching so that nothing is learned) is rampant within our leaders and “celebrities”.

For these and other more “strange” beliefs I am being told I don’t fit in any church…Well another high price to pay for being authentic….I surely don’t “conform” to anything, but there is a difference; I neither “make them up”, rather “come to” conclude in them after arduous study ad research, in my case six years so far, and authentically happy in that it won’t end any time soon, this research is a reality for the rest of my life!

Blessings!

Tio Papo