Abrahamic religions and the Force

Greetings.
For those of you who don't know my name is Jorge.
I'm 19 and a senior in high school; grew up Catholic but left the church due to what I felt was their rejection of my abilities.
Let's just say I've had a bad experience with 2 of the Abrahamic faiths--Christianity and Islam because I see both of these faiths as exclusionary in 2 senses;
first the heaven and hell concept which I don't buy into mainly because every faith group says essentially if you're not with us you're condemned (which is actually the first thing that made me realize that I simply did not agree with that since I was Christian and my best friend was a Muslim and she's one of the nicest people you'll ever met and someone who is more religious then I've seen many Christians),
and 2 I felt like they were rejecting me because I had basic differences with both faiths; while I was part of the church I spoke to Muslims and got the sense that my Force abilities would not be welcomed there either.
However, I registered on here and have seen several apprentices who are members of the Abrahamic community so I was wondering, how do you consider yourself both a Jedi and a member of the Abrahamic community?
I'm just asking because I know several people on here with empathy and so on and those abilities are usually either misunderstood or completely rejected by theologians in the Abrahamic sphere.
And of course I know people have their own interpretation of the bible, or the Quran or Torah but I was wondering how people learned to accept the existence of both the Force and a deity?

Thanks, and I'm sorry I know my post is rather long.

Jorge

The answer you seek is within your own journey, perhaps this is why you are here...
May be the answer is found in the IP.

"In the beginning, God spoke the word. And The Word was The Force?" I dunno. Try reading the bible like a Jedi, and you might see some pretty cool stuff.

Dear Jorge,

First of all, Welcome to the Order!

I am almost 44 years old and probably one of the most religiously confused people you will meet! 90% of my family is Irish Catholic, I was raised going to a Baptist church until about 10 years old then my parents just quit going to church for some reason and I adopted the belief that you do not need a church building to believe because god is everywhere. In 2001, I went to a pentecostal church in Alexandria,Louisiana and was baptized there because to my knowledge I had never been baptized. I have gone to many different churches and so far have only found one church that was in Aiken,South Carolina "Aiken Oasis" with the pastor being Ray Popham leading the church. It was the one church that was a church building that I believed to be like home. I have been to other churches but never had the same experience with church or religion. The one thing that steered me away from the christian religion is when my son Aiden was born because his mother and I were not married, they refused to Bless Aiden unless we were married and had been part of the church for 2 years and baptisted in the church. I do believe in god, but I highly doubt God would turn his back on getting a newly born child being blessed. That is one of the reasons why I joined the order, I had already lived my life like a jedi but never really made the connection. I also never really felt comfortable or sure if the church was making it's own rules and saying that it was "God's word" or was it really. I think religion to a point has become a lot like looking things up on the Internet, there is so much bogus crap that has posted and altered to fit other peoples opinions or political beliefs that it hard to tell what is truly god's word and what is made up to fit the church. Jediism has been the most honest, sincere, religion that I have run across ever and I have never regreted joining the order and becoming jedi completely instead of trying to hide how I was because I thought people would look at me like I was 30 cards shy of a full deck. Personally, I believe that we need to find our own truth of what we believe to be true and stick with it. Read the Bible, The Book of Mormon, The Quran, or whatever book that helps you learn about that religion and when you have read all of them take each one and make it a special part of you. A belief in religion does not mean that you only learn one side of it and that means that it is the only version you listen to. Knowledge is power, and the broader spectrum of religion you learn, the more knowledgable and open-minded you will be to the ever-changing world around you.

Sidewalker, you have a great way of looking at things as far as looking at the bible as a jedi, I might have to try that.

A lot of the potential answers to this question depend greatly on how you choose to define "The Force", and whether you designate Jediism as a religion or a philosophy. While TOTJO is a religious organization, there is a philosophy associated with this religion. Much like the way the West handles much of Buddhism, you can take the philosophy without the religion, but you can't take the religion without the philosophy.

I personally can see the Force as being the Holy Spirit, the Divine essence which guides all beings and gives them life. That's the reason by the way why I actually liked the "old" version of the Simple Oath better where it had the promise of "allegiance to the Force AND ITS WILL" because it implied the Force as having some sort of "personality" in the sense in which the Holy Spirit is regarded as a "person" (I use this term in its original philosophical meaning of "persona") in Christianity. I wonder why it was changed?

Ve-Lo-Zi wrote: I personally can see the Force as being the Holy Spirit, the Divine essence which guides all beings and gives them life. That's the reason by the way why I actually liked the "old" version of the Simple Oath better where it had the promise of "allegiance to the Force AND ITS WILL" because it implied the Force as having some sort of "personality" in the sense in which the Holy Spirit is regarded as a "person" (I use this term in its original philosophical meaning of "persona") in Christianity. I wonder why it was changed?

I'm glad it was changed. I only decided to return and continue the IP when I found out that sort of wording had been removed.

Jediism is a very open ended and inclusive religion - you can put just about whatever spin you want on it. That's what makes it so awesome!

Ve-Lo-Zi wrote: I personally can see the Force as being the Holy Spirit, the Divine essence which guides all beings and gives them life. That's the reason by the way why I actually liked the "old" version of the Simple Oath better where it had the promise of "allegiance to the Force AND ITS WILL" because it implied the Force as having some sort of "personality" in the sense in which the Holy Spirit is regarded as a "person" (I use this term in its original philosophical meaning of "persona") in Christianity. I wonder why it was changed?

It was changed because there are many here who do not believe the Force has a will, and so, they did not feel comfortable taking the oath while it included a very critical ideal in it that set their personal beliefs about the Force apart from others'. Removing the verbal assumption of a will allowed it to be more open and friendly for both those who don't believe it has a will and those who do.

bard wrote: Jediism is a very open ended and inclusive religion - you can put just about whatever spin you want on it. That's what makes it so awesome!

I would actually contend that this is what makes it more of a philosophy than a "true" religion, but that's a very unpopular opinion around these parts.

The word religion can either be a restrictive thing or an expansive thing. For some, the word is limiting in their minds. Those are probably the people who do not like "Jedi" as a religion as it implies that people are closing themselves off and labeling themselves.

If the word "religion" is expansive for you, if it opens you up from a darker place, then those are the people who like the word religion associated with Jedi. As always, there is a lot of gray area in between, and that's where most lie.

I agree with Steamboat that Jedi is probably "technically" a functional philosophy. It is living, breathing, being challenged, and used... However, it is how many of us would view an "ideal" religion, or what religion could stand to be.

Maybe this is why we labeled it a religion in the first place. Isn't this also why many NRMs take the "religion" name on as well? They fancy themselves the NEW religion. They think their version of religion is right.

*shrugs* In the end, all this defining is only so helpful. And, really only to the intellectual mind.

Connor Lidell wrote: And, really only to the intellectual mind.

Okay, I dig what you said in all that, I'm totally on board with most of it, it's just this bit that's sorta miffing me a little bit. It's really semantics, but I'd like to address it for a second.

To single out "The intellectual mind", you imply that there's the "Unintellectual mind", the "inferior", the "lesser". I really don't like that at all, personally, especially when you sort of imply that you're the "Intellectual mind" in this equation. Not only does that lack humility, but it's sort of insulting to those who don't bother with philosophy, and all that (Which is totally a valid way to go about life! Philosophy and religion isn't for everybody. It doesn't make someone intellectual or otherwise.)

Again, I could totally be misinterpreting you, or just nitpicking ridiculously, but I really wanted to address that. I've been getting a bit of a "Holier-than-thou" vibe from some people around here recently (not you!) and it seems a bit antithetical to what the Order is all about. Just my two cents, sorry for derailing the topic!

I can't explain myself better than this.

From Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now.

When someone goes to the doctor and says, "I hear a voice in my head," he or she will most
likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears
a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that
you don't realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues.
You have probably come across "mad" people in the street incessantly talking or
muttering to themselves. Well, that's not much different from what you and all other "normal"
people do, except that you don't do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges,
compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the
situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or
rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong
and negative outcomes; this is called worry. Sometimes this soundtrack is accompanied by
visual images or "mental movies."
Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the
past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all
your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and
judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not
uncommon for the voice to be a person's own worst enemy. Many people live with a
tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital
energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease.
The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true
liberation. You can take the first step right now. Start listening to the voice in your head as
often as you can. Pay particular attention to any repetitive thought patterns, those old
gramophone records that have been playing in your head perhaps for many years. This is
what I mean by "watching the thinker," which is another way of saying: listen to the voice in
your head, be there as the witnessing presence.
When you listen to that voice, listen to it impartially. That is to say, do not judge. Do not
judge or condemn what you hear, for doing so would mean that the same voice has come in
again through the back door. You'll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to
it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It
arises from beyond the mind.

The intellectual mind, as I seem to have called it, is nothing more than a limited thing. The "unintellectual mind" as you have coined it, is what is known as the eternity. It is non-judgment. Judgment comes from comparison to the past.

It has its uses, but you should not be used by it.