Struggling with Conversion

[Caleb Murdock]

Unless the content of my comments indicate I did in fact not get it, my suggestions is only an indication you posted in Mild critique, not that the writing was not clear the first time around.
I might have gone over the top, it was done in the spirit of well-meaning though.

All the best to you and good luck with the poem!

Edit* I think your writing style is clear, my comments was a token of appreciation.

I'm sorry if what I said sounded in any way offensive -- it wasn't intended to be.  Both you and Koleman want me to cut the line "Although I knew it must be Wrong", which seems to me to be a necessary segue.  Also, a large number of crits to the meaning of a poem suggest that the cirtic isn't getting the flow of the meaning.  Your comments were definitely appreciated, but it does seem that I have done something wrong in explaining my feelings in the poem.

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Thanks for the reply, Caleb.  Think, though, people will read the father=God concept; that's why I commented on capitalization, because your lack of capitalization on 'father' creates distance between the bible's treatment and the the poem's conception of God.  I meant this as a complement, not as a critique.

Think, too, the new testament isn't a book of fear (why do you think it is?), excluding revelations perhaps, whereas the old testament is (in many ways) founded on the fear of a jealous god, so to the the line contrast (whether you intended or not) juxtaposes Christ (NT), and angry god (OT), and death (a topic of all religions). (just my reading)

On men meaning everyone, is this semantically accurate? maybe 70 years ago...  universal 'he' is falling out of favor (in writing especially) these days; i haven't seen a text use it that was published recently, (but I haven't read everything).

Looking forward to further clarification.

I'm glad you came back with further comments.

I don't know which part of the world you are in (I could probably find out if I looked at your profile), but here in the U.S. evangelicals are very influential, and they focus a great deal on the old testament, which is definitely filled with a lot of judgementalism and fear-mongering.  I recently read that the new testament can be read to supercede the old testament, but that is not a universal view.  I'm not a Christian, by the way.  One of the reasons I'm even thinking about all this is that my best friend from childhood is an evangelical minister, and he is famous for asserting that the entire Bible is the literal word of God, and that the six-day creation in Genesis must be taken literally with no nod to science.  He criticizes other theologians who interpret the 6-day creation symbolically.  For example, some of them interpret "day" to mean an age or era, not just 24 hours.

Anyway, because so many evangelicals say that the Bible must be taken as a whole, and because the old testament is so judgemental, I've come to see the entire Bible as a "book of fear".

Now, let me say that this poem is, to a certain extent, a bit of propaganda.  My own religious views are pantheistic (i.e., I believe that God = the universe, that we exist within God, and that God's conscience occupies everything, including all things and individuals). This poem is an attempt to push that idea within the context of a conversion crisis.  Basically I'm trying to say:  "I am tempted to convert but cannot because the idea that God is separate from us is not consistent with how I feel about God."  That's the message of the poem (in case it's not obvious).

Yes, the universal "he" or male figure who represents all of humanity is still with us, though to a much lesser degree.  To remove the sexism, that line would have to become "Not in people, though; no, not in them", which adds a syllable and removes that off-rhyme between "men" and "them".  But I'll make that change.  I should add, however, that the Bible is quite sexist, so using the word "men" is consistent with the subject of the poem.

Thank you again for your additional comments.