My company has a good environment. The people are nice, there's a good work/personal stuff balance, and there's even a bible studies session for an hour every week(if time permits that is).

Now here comes the cognitive dissonance I'm facing now.

See, I would call myself a Deist. A Deist is not an Atheist. He believes in a God, albeit an impersonal one. What does that mean? - It means (according to my own beliefs) that God created everything as it is now. The laws of science applies to our humanly lives. What we know now is as real as it is, in this world of ours. I do not believe that if I pray to God, he will help me on a personal level. What I do believe is that He has given us the gift of life as humans and the ability to make the best of it, to carry out his intentions for us (which I hope is for the longer survival of humankind).

I do believe that when a christian prays, it does bring positive help to his/her life. My rationale is that God has given him/her the ability to have faith in him through that religion and thereby helping himself. Rationale. We all rationalise what we want our lives to be. Rationale is not Logic. It can be, but it is not absolutely always. Most importantly, it always seems logical to us on a personal level.

In bible studies, I go in with an open mind. But there lies a problem in that because the pastor preaches to the majority of whom are christians inside, he is teaching, well, christianity. I do not believe in the religion, yet.

I give you an example. In last week's session, the pastor mentioned that Jesus was the only way to heaven. To put things in perspective, if I truly went into bible studies with an open mind, I would not like it if I am told to have absolute faith in a belief because the pastor tells me so. I really want to find out more about christianity, but because I want to believe, I have to be fair to other religions and ask myself, "why not other religions?". An objective mind will always look at both sides of the coin. A subjective mind will have an inner inclination subconsiously and it will be easier to convince(depending on it's biaseness).

As such, I practise selective hearing when I'm in bible studies. When I hear something that deals with absolute faith, I just tell myself, "ok, this is for the christians." But if it is an open discussion, I'll perk up. For example, someone asked today how do christians hear God. Nobody could give a convincing answer. Thank god for that. I felt that their spiritual credibility had gone up because, yes, they are just humans and to fully understand God might be out of our grasp in our lives.

On to the issue of going to Heaven. Which is more important if there were 2 choices. Making more people's lives better with an objective mind, or, evangalising so that those who believe go to Heaven.

Therein lies the dilemna. Should one be shrewd but law abiding so that he can earn more money to help the less fortunate in the future, or should he be all nice and satisfied with an average income but volunteering at a charity to help a few.