Something to think about
"When it comes to faith, everybody has it. People often tell me they could never have faith, that it is just too hard. The idea that some people have faith and others don't is a popular one. But it is not a true one. What often happens is that people with specific beliefs about God end up backed up in a corner, defending their faith against the calm, cool rationality of others. As if they have faith and beliefs and others don't.
But that is not true. Let's take an example: Some people believe we were made by a creator who has plans and purposes for his creation, while others believe there is no greater meaning to life, no grand design, and we exist not because of some divine intention but because of random chance. This is not a discussion between people of faith and people who don't have faith. Both perspectives are faith perspectives, built on systems of belief. The person who says we are here by chance and there is no greater meaning has just as many beliefs as the person who says there's a creator. Maybe even more." --Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis
Discuss.
(Perhaps "not believing in God" would be better described as "believing in no God"?)
posted by Jingle Bella at 5:56 pm
8 Insightful insults:
Okay, I guess it was my comment that inspired this. *pokes tongue* I take your point, I do have beliefs, most of which are blind.
However, as I added on the end, it's not believing blindly that's the problem, it's doing it in the way the Christianity demands - which is that feel 100% assurance that you are right.
Yes, I believe there is a higher power, but I don't feel certain about it. I don't believe so strongly that it becomes almost knowledge. In fact I think I'm probably wrong, because I usually am, but hey, I'm going to believe it anyway.
(Mark is probably having a fit as he's reading this now - exactly all the things he's reacting against!)
I doubt I could ever believe there was as much purpose to it all as Christianity states, anyway. I certainly couldn't believe that everything that still goes on is still with purpose, and that God is still actively picking and choosing who survives this tsunami and who doesn't. Who miraculously recovers from Ebola and who croaks.
I don't think faith is too hard as such, but then again I'm a narcissist with a hero complex, so I don't think anything is too hard. *grins* But I don't see how God can intervene and save one family from tragedy, and then let the next ones go. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Boing!
"However, as I added on the end, it's not believing blindly that's the problem, it's doing it in the way the Christianity demands - which is that feel 100% assurance that you are right."
LOVING my own grammar/syntax here. Allow me to correct myself.
"However, as I added on the end, it's not believing blindly that's the problem, it's doing it in the way that Christianity demands - which is with a personal assurance that you are 100% right in what you believe."
That's a bit better.
aedwy
I don't think that Christianity requires a 100% assurance that what you believe is right. I think you need to be sure that God is right, which is a subtly different thing.
No Christian I know would claim to understand the Christian faith 100%, the honest ones will freely admit that they've probably got something a bit wrong. We're all works in progress. I don't believe that my current beliefs are 100% right, I do believe that they're close to being right, I do believe that they're right in the most important aspects of the faith (e.g. Christ has died, Christ has risen, was born of a virgin, by His death paid for our sins ...).
And Christians doubt. They really do. We even get told in sermons that it's okay to doubt. The thing is, when you're unsure, to perhaps try and grapple with it - maybe seek out wise friends who know what they're talking about and will pray with you, maybe pray more about it yourself, see if you can find any Bible verses about it, talk to your pastor or housegroup leader - or, in some cases, you just have to wait it out. Eventually there is light at the end of the tunnel, and most of the time it's not an oncoming train.
"why is this happening? How could God allow this? why is everything crumbling around me? Does God really care?" are all sorts of questions that I've been told are very normal for Christians who find themselves in tough circumstances. That doesn't make you a bad Christian. It does mean it can be a real effort to try and keep holding onto the hope you believe in (or by this stage maybe it's "the hope you think you might believe in, or at least you used to") and trying to trust God is sometimes very hard.
It's not the bad stuff that would make me doubt God as such - I'm quite accepting of the idea that sometimes life just sucks (in comparison to how it can be when things are good) and that often situations that upset me are partly my own doing anyway.
What makes me doubt the existence of a God who is making decisions and influencing is the randomness of it. Why does the driver in a car crash walk away unharmed but the passenger emerge paralysed from the chest downwards? Why does the British tourist survive the tsunami but the indigenous(sp?) people die? Why save some and let others go?
If God saves in compassion why does he not always save? Or why ever? Maybe there is a plan, maybe there is some bigger reason, but meanwhile people's lives are devastated - lives that he gave them. It just doesn't scan for me.
Heh. Stuff.
Stuff indeed. I agree with you that the stuff you're talking about can't be logically argued around - because the world's not fair, we certainly can't see reasons for suffering - at the moment millions of people are at risk in East Africa because of a drought that's been going on for at least 2 years ... where's the hope in that?
The quotation in Carol’s post expresses the widespread fallacy that faith is religion. Faith is not the same as religion; religion is not the same as faith—religion is a form of faith, and one which the world would be better off without, for reasons which I keep trying to explain...
Regarding the second point in Carol’s post, I think I see where you’re going with that: There can be subtle differences in meaning between similar phrases. I reckon that one of the least accurate phrases for describing an agnostic would be, “Not believing in God,” since it could imply that there is a being called God, which one simply believes does not exist. One of the more accurate phrases would be, “Believing in no gods,” because it lacks that possibly-implied existence.
The former phrase reminds me of the many “atheists” (mainly American ones) who are only atheists because they reject Christianity specifically, rather than the general idea of gods. Such atheists seem to “practice atheism” either by suppressing their Christian beliefs, or believing in a vague pseudo-religion of anti Christian-ness. These are the unfortunate atheists who believe that it is somehow inherently wrong to read religious texts.
People sometimes look at me strangely when I tell them that, “I don’t believe in any gods.” I suspect it is because the word “gods” is plural and does not have a capital G. Some people are so used to the name “God” that they find variations unsettling. They believe that because I don’t believe in their one, single, only god, I must be either an atheist or belong to a polytheistic religion. Fortunately, we don’t seem to have any of those people on this blog!
Interestingly my Oxford dictionary defines atheism as the “belief that no God exists,” and an agnostic as a “person who believes that existence of God is not provable.” These definitions have the same potential implications that I disagree with. It just goes to show that even the dictionary people get it wrong sometimes. Maybe they’re religious... 87P
So... how about an entry on opinions on this new book of Judas? Obviously we probably haven't read it yet, but just thoughts on the suggestion that it could exist / that Judas isn't evil.
Coming from anyone, of course. If no one else wants to write an entry on it I will! But not until I have a working computer.
Wow guys, I guess that'd be down to me then. And Tree is kind of working now so I suppose there's nothing to stop me... I'm busy this Sunday but next week maybe, certainly next weekend.
*makes note in diary*
Blinky
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