Faithful Misrepresentation

As a Christian, I had one fantastic miracle story in my repertoire; I had seen God multiply food. I was in Africa at the time with about 50 other college students doing AIDS work/mission work for a month in the summer and one morning I was in charge of oatmeal. Beacause there were so many of us, we were organized into teams to divide up the daily chores and this was my team's morning for breakfast. There had barely been enough food for all of us and each morning we had been served a tiny scoop of oatmeal meant to last most of the day. I was dreading the job of distributing less than enough food to my friends. As the first person came through the line, I thought, "to hell with it" and gave each person as much as they wanted. I kept scooping and scooping until suddenly I realized that everyone was sitting down with their breakfast and I had one scoop left over.

Pretty fantastic, isn't it? I was so thrilled I told everyone about how God had provided for his children when they needed it most. Except... that's not exactly what happened. Everything I said was true, but there were a few other factors I didn't include. I never told anyone that even though I barely had 3 cups of oatmeal in my pot, two other of my friends were serving cream of wheat and students would choose which one they wanted. Also, I really did have one scoop left over, but it was because the last guy in line said he really didn't feel like oatmeal. So what appears to be a re-enactment of the feeding of the 5,000 is really my lack of attention to detail.

Before you judge me too harshly, I need to clarify that I never intentionally misrepresented the facts of what happened. In that moment, I was completely convinced that I had seen a miracle. I knew God had done something and if I told the whole story, that would just confuse people about whether or not there really was a miracle. Thinking back on this, it makes me wonder if many miracle stories are like this; faithful followers who saw something they truly believed to be the work of God and who leave out what they perceive as insignificant details. I'd like to believe that most Christians, instead of being con-artists, are genuinely mistaken.

Maybe Hope...

I think humans have an enormous capability for creating beauty, hope and wonder. Yes, we can be self absorbed, tripping over ourselves to push our way to the top, but sometimes there is something wonderful the emerges out of our unique humanity. We have the ability to see the world around us for what it could be, and are filled with compassion and desire to make it that way. For this reason, I have chosen not to hate religion. While some will take their religious documents and create dogmas and persecution, others will see life.

I just read a journal entry from a friend a have who is returning from India. She spent the last six months learning about human trafficking and has dedicated her life to find a way to make a difference... somehow. I was touched by her genuine love for the girls and women she met and how she passionately wants to love others for exactly who they are and without agenda. The standard she holds herself to is loving others the way Jesus loved.

Do I believe that the Bible is the word of God? No, I can't say that I do. Do I believe that Jesus really did and said all those things attributed to him, or even that all those things are good? No, probably not. What gives me hope, though, is my friend's ability to create the most beautiful compassionate selfless person from an ancient book and dedicate herself to becoming as close to that as she can. I will always support this type of religion; one that pledges to love all persons no matter their social standing, ethnicity or even beliefs. If this is the direction religion is going, count me in.

The Case for Faith: Hell

As promised earlier, I will continue my review of the claims in Lee Strobel's Case for Faith. I decided not to follow them in order because honestly some of these claims just aren't that compelling. I would like to address the issue of hell, mostly because that particular theology is what triggered my growing doubt in the Christian god. I grew up with the standard view of hell ( or at least what I thought was standard); those who don't choose to accept Jesus will be cast into the lake of fire for eternity. While this idea bothered me some, I was able to hold a suspension of disbelief about the justice of this teaching because I was told that God didn't send people there, but they chose it. It wasn't God's fault that people didn't want to be with him; he was just giving them what they wanted. It was easy to imagine that those hard-hearted wicked people were choosing to live apart from God, and just getting what they deserved since I didn't have to deal with the reality of someone I loved being sentenced there. When I realized that the majority of people who were "going to hell" weren't evil and wiked and openly rejecting a God they had full knowledge of, but rather good, kind people just doing their best, the whole idea flew right out the window.

In Strobel's book, his interviewee makes different claims about hell, which are becoming more popular given the blatant injustice of the typical theology. J.P. Moreland clearly feels that fire and brimstone teachings about hell are no longer en vouge; he writes off all passages about fire and torture as "figurative" and then devises his own ideas about what hell must be like. "The punishment of hell is separation from God, bringing shame, anguish and regret.... The pain that's suffered will be due to the sorrow from the final, ultimate, unending banishment from God, his kingdom, and the good life for which we were created in the first place." He makes it clear that while there will be no official torturing of souls, "Hell is the worst possible situation that could ever happen to a person". So, even though he eliminated the fire, this is still an awful, eternal, tortuous place to exist. While this view is still cruel and unjust, if he had stuck to it, at least there is some support from scripture to back his claims. However, he continues, "You have to understand that people's character is not formed by decisions all at once, but by thousands of little choices each day without even knowing about it. Each day we're preparing ourselves for either being with God and his people and valuing the things he values, or choosing not to engage with those things.... If people do not fall passionately in love with him, then to force them to have to be around him forever--doing the kinds of things that people who love him would want to do--would be utterly uncomfortable." At this point, Moreland has just stepped all over his argument. He wants to communicate that hell is a terrible place to be, because if it isn't, Christianity might lose a portion of their followers who are believing solely on Pascal's Wager. However, if hell is a terrible place, then it is cruel of God to send people there for all eternity, so Moreland attempts to argue that people choose to be there and wouldn't really want to be around God anyway. I think the problems with the argument are self evident, but what is interesting is that scripture is pretty clear about what hell will be like; no sugar coating there.

This is a summary from religioustolerance.org of a few passages about hell:

Matthew 13:42: "And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Matt 25:41: "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." This passage relates to Jesus' judgment of all the world.
Mark 9:43-48: And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched." The reference to fire is repeated three more times in the passage for emphasis.
Luke 16:24: "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." This is a plea described as coming from an inhabitant of Hell.
Revelation 20:13-15: "...hell delivered up the dead which were in them...And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."
Revelation 21:8: "But the fearful, and unbelieving ... shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone." Brimstone is sulphur. In order for sulphur to form a lake, it must be molten. Thus, its temperature must be at or below 444.6 °C or 832 °F

In spite of the flames, Hell is totally dark:
Matthew 8:12: "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness..."
Matthew 22:13: "...take him away, and cast him into outer darkness."
Matthew 25:30: "And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness..."
Torturing prisoners with sulphur:
Revelation 14:10: "...and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb." The "Lamb" here refers to Jesus. It is not clear whether Jesus and the angels are present as torturers or merely as observers.
Worms -- apparently flesh-eating:
Mark 9:44-48: "Where their worm dieth not..." The immortal worm is repeated three times in this passage for emphasis. One point of interest is that the author of Mark refers to "their worm" not to "the worms." That seems to imply that each prisoner has his own worm.
Extreme thirst:
Luke 16:23-26: "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame."
Prisoner's reaction to the torment:
Matthew 8:12: "...there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 13:42: "... there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 13:50: " there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
Matthew 25:30: "... there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth"

Thats quite a lot of metaphor....

Heaven

I spent this weekend with my husband at the beach and it was fantastic. We walked through a secluded beach, watching tiny crabs scatter through the salt marsh, climbing over fallen palmetto trees and sitting in the warm sun watching sail boats pass by. We worked in the garden, planting a beautiful yellow jessamine and a few lillies and sat on the back porch with fresh caught shrimp. I was so happy.

And then, as it always does, Sunday night rolled around and I had to kiss my husband goodbye and make the long drive back to school in the dark. In these moments of incredible joy, I am struck with an inescapable piercing sadness. I desperately wanted to cling to that weekend, to stay in that place of timeless peace and love but I realized that no matter how beautiful my experiences are, they will always come to an end. Every moment, every relationship, every home and comfort will blossom and eventually die. At the end of everything, there is pain and death, and then nothing. It broke my heart.

This weekend, I fully understood the psychological need for heaven. I need to know that even though my moments of beauty and joy pass so quickly in this life, there is another life coming when happiness is not hovered over by the lurking cloud of ending. Otherwise, the greater the joy in the moment, the greater the pain experienced when it is over. While I have certainly heard the argument that without pain and suffering, we would not know joy and happiness, I have to disagree. For example, my husband and I have been living apart for years because he is in the military and I am finishing a degree. Some of our friends have told us this is a blessing in disguise because absence makes the heart grow fonder and we appreciate each other more. What is interesting to me is I have found quite the opposite. The more time we are able to spend together, the better our relationship becomes. I also have heard the argument that it is because our lives have an ending that they are meaningful; each day is ripe with purpose because we will only have it once. Yet, instead of bringing me comfort, this thought only stabs me. My life is counting down to nothingness and no matter how much purpose and love I experience in my few years alive, it will all come to a crashing end, leaving my loved ones in anguish with my passing.

As much as I want to though, I can't accept the Christian teaching, or really discern anything about the existence of a god. Is this necessary for an afterlife? Do we have this deep desire for nothing? Is there something I just cannot see?

Palm Sunday

I went to church again this week with my husband and given that it was Palm Sunday, I expected to hear a sermon about how the Jewish people welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem at the beginning of the week and somehow managed to turn against him five days later; a cautionary tale about how our hearts can quickly turn against God. However, I guess our church doesn't do a Good Friday service because the sermon was centered around Jesus' painful death. The basic message was 'do you trust God in difficult circumstances?' and that Jesus had to die on the cross to pay for our sins. It was so interesting to me that this message, which really outlined the tenets of the Christian faith, made no sense to me anymore.

First, the very idea that Jesus' death is a demonstration of God's love and justice seems ludicrous. We are told that we are sinners from birth, that no matter how good you think you are, you have a deep, evil, sin-nature which eternally can separate you from God. (This is also used in the argument for the justice of having a hell, but I'll save that for another post) We are born sinful and there is nothing we can do about, and therefore all of us deserve the punishment of death. This theology creates the necessity of Jesus. Can't ever remember lying or cheating? Never committed murder or adultery? Doesn't matter; you're still just as bad as everyone else and without Jesus, you're going to die. Now, if we are born this way and can do nothing about our condition, who's fault is that? Didn't God create me? Didn't he give me this sin nature? One could argue that it's Adam and Eve's fault; that they introduced sin into the world and now we are all born this way, but if one man can doom us all without our consent, why doesn't Jesus save us all? Why must we choose Jesus but had no choice in Adam?

Second, Christians are faced with an interesting dilemma regarding sin nature and babies. I don't know of any Christian who believes that if a baby or young child dies, they will go to hell, and rightfully so. Who would tell a grieving parent that through no fault of their lost child, he or she will be suffering for all of eternity? While there is little scripture to support this, Christians recognize the cruelty and injustice of that position and since God is good, he clearly can't send babies to hell. If he can forgive their original sin without them accepting Jesus, why can't God do that for the rest of us? Also, if the next life is the only thing that really matters, and dying as a child or baby is a guarantee into heaven, why are Christians so worked up about abortion? All those babies now have a ticket to heaven whereas if they were allowed to live, they may have chosen otherwise.

Getting back to the role of Jesus, I feel that most Christians tend to flow back and forth on exactly who He was for the sake of any particular argument. Was Jesus the son of God, an offspring produced by God who is separate, or is he God who has come down to earth? When reading the accounts of what Jesus did and said, it would make much more sense if we all believed that he was a literal son of God who had privileged communication with Him. If they were the same person, why did Jesus always ask permission from the Father, and talk about how he was in his father's will? Some Christians will say either that was the human part of him (because apparently he is 100% human and 100% God, which makes no sense) that talked to the Father or it was God modeling for us how we should act. But then why, when Jesus was about to die, did he cry out "God why have you forsaken me?" Can God forsake himself? Jesus seemed to be unsure of the future or what was happening to him at the time. Was that the human side of him just taking over? Did he pretend to be in anguish for our benefit, so we would know its alright to cry out "why?" to God in distress?

The Case for Faith

Until recently, I was involved in a small group Bible study at my church. I have a few close friends who have been asking me why I haven't been showing up, but I can't imagine I'd be a good addition to the group anymore. I haven't yet "come out" as a non-believer to most of my church friends and I know if I go to this small group, I'll say something that reveals my lack of belief. I did find out, however, that they are reading Lee Strobel's Case for Faith. I had read the book several years ago and certainly wouldn't mind getting into lively discussion about it, but church small group isn't exactly the best place. I thought maybe I would find a summary of some of Strobel's main arguments and post my thoughts here.

Chapter 1- The Problem of Evil

Strobel interviews Dr. Peter Kreef, who replies with a few key arguments. One, "How can a mere finite human be sure that infinite wisdom would not tolerate certain short-range evils in order for more long-range goods that we couldn’t foresee?” He argues that since God claims to be all knowing and all powerful, he allows us to go through painful experiences because we learn from them and grow, or because He needed to accomplish something and pain was required in order for that task to be accomplished (as in Jesus' painful death for our absolvement). There are two main points in this argument I would like to address; God allows evil in order for us to grow and learn from painful experiences, and He allows evil in order to accomplish some greater good that we cannot yet see. Kreef uses the example of teaching his daughter to thread a needle; she stuck herself and experienced pain several times before getting right, but if Kreef had stepped in and prevented the pain, his daughter would not have learned. While I understand this argument for small struggles we have in our lives, I can't imagine this logic holds up for truly evil or terrible circumstances. For example, thousands of children in Africa starve to death because of drought each year; a problem which could be significantly mitigated if God would just send rain. Is God allowing this evil in order that the mothers can learn from the painful experience and trust God more? I would bet anything that a mother who has lost a child would gladly give up any character development she gained from the experience so that her child could live.

Secondly, Kreef argues that maybe God allows evil temporarily in order to accomplish something good that we cannot conceive yet. This argument is a bit of a cop-out because we can never know for sure all future outcomes of a given event. It is possible that every evil thing does somehow lead to something good, but that requires an enormous amount of trust or assumption with very little evidence. If I am expected to just believe that all the evil is part of a greater plan for good, then there should be plenty of examples either in scripture or in our everyday lives. When I look at the history of the Israelites, there certainly is plenty of evil, both committed by God's chosen people and to them. First, when God is trying to establish a nation with this people group, he commands them basically to wipe out everyone around them so they won't be influenced by their sinful ways. The entire scenario screams injustice to me, especially since we all are supposed to be born with a sin nature and God admits he chose his people through no merit of their own. So, in the grand scope of things, genocide is committed, a temporary evil in which we should later see the greater good that came out of that evil. However, throughout the Israelites' history they mostly encounter war and enslavement. Should we all be saying "Good thing God wiped out all those people groups or the Israel wouldn't be the established nation it is today."
Kreef also makes the argument that evil isn't really God's fault; its ours. He gave us the choice to sin, and therefore evil is caused by humans and God can't or won't do anything about it. First, I disagree with the assumption that if there was no evil, we would be robots with no choice and no free will. Were Adam and Eve robots while in the garden? They were allowed to live in paradise, tended to the garden and walked with God each evening. They had things to do, relationships to enjoy and things to hope for in the future (the next meeting with God, perhaps development of the garden they tended to etc.) It appears that they had the choice to engage with God (he didn't force them) but He was readily available to them if they were interested, which they were. Kreef also touches on the fact that having difficulty in life gives us something to do and that if there were no problems, we would be bored. This begs the question 'what does he expect heaven to be like?' If it is possible to exist in communication with God without sin and evil in heaven, why is that not possible on earth? A topic perhaps for another post is why did God cause all of us to be born with a sin nature? Why does Adam and Eve's action doom the rest of us? The argument that evil is caused by our sin also doesn't cover things like natural disasters. Why did God allow the earthquake in Haiti? Did hundreds of thousands of people die so that we could all go down to help and improve our character? Did God wipe out all those people because it was necessary in order to accomplish something else? If God is all powerful, why does he need to kill in order to do good?I have heard the argument that even natural disasters are apart of sin; that Adam's sin caused the world to be "broken" and set on a course that allows natural disasters, even though that wasn't God original design. That also sounds like God's fault to me. Why did Adam's sin have to be so catastrophic? God created the world and created the laws that govern it, so couldn't he have said, "It's alright Adam. I forgive you" instead of dooming the planet?

The Problem of Right and Wrong

When first investigating the arguments for atheism versus Christianity, one point that was particularly sticky for me and for both sides of the argument was the problem of morality; if we are just chemical reactions, why do we so strongly believe in the idea of right and wrong? I had always thought that God answered this question. He gave us our morals by creating the universe we live in and by giving us eternal souls. I thought that we experienced compasssion and anguish, loved and fought for justice because God's character was reflecting in us. But once I stepped away from this faith and held it in my hands instead of drowning within it, I realized that having God does not truly satisfy our desire for truth or justice (right or wrong). For example, if the only reason I am doing a kind act for a stranger is because I think God wants me to, am I really good? Or, what if God commands me to kill my children? Since God dictates what's right and wrong, is infanticide now good? I think we already have a preconcieved idea of what is good, beautiful or loving and we want God to be the ultimate incarnation of that idea. We want to love God because he is good, not because he created good. If we are only minions doing the bidding of a master, how can we claim to be moral at all? Additionally, if God created my sense of morality, shouldn't I whole heartedly agree with all of his actions and commands? I may not want to live up to his standards, but if he created my sense of justice, his actions should never violate that. Yet, all over the Bible, God does things that I strongly disagree with including commanding Abraham to kill his child. I have often been told that I God's ways are not my ways and that I just don't see the big picture yet, but there are plently of stories in the Bible that chronicle a person's entire life. Even though Job recieved all of his herds, house and had more children, I don't think what God did to him was just.

However, I don't think this lets atheists or naturalists off the hook either. From what I've read, it's my impression that the scientific position on why we have morals is that they evolved because humans had a higher survival rate in groups. Those who were born with genetic mutations for co-operation and mutual understanding were able to form communities and survive at a higher rate until the entire race was bred with morals. Which is fine, until I begin to question why I should follow them in the first place. Using the same example as above, if I were to propose killing children, what argument is there for not doing this terrible act? If the only reason not to commit a crime like this is because I would decrease the chance of propogating the species or because years of genetic selection has given me chemical reactions to feel negatively about it, then who cares? Its a terribly depressing realization that all my passions, loves and sense of justice have no bearing on truth, but instead of merely chemical reactions that I may choose to ignore. If this is true, then there is no such thing as right, true, good, or evil, but only what we as a species have collectively defined. I have a deep desire to do what is right and good because it truly is good. Is there nothing beyond our biology?

Something Personal

As a new de-convert from Christianity, I haven't really come out of the closet to many people yet. My parents are very devout and I know that the notion of their daughter burning in hell for all eternity would cause them more pain than I want to think about, so I haven't told them. I also haven't said much to people at church because for the past year or so I've been teaching sunday school for the 5th and 6th grade girls. I would hate for those parents to think that I was misleading their children or filling their heads with lies, so I've just quietly resigned my post when I could no longer believe what I was teaching. Needless to say, my conversations about why I no longer believe have been few and far between. However, there have been a few people who noticed when I was upset, and as I am a terrible liar, the truth came out and I had a few discussions.

The first people I told anything to was a couple in the church whom I had gotten to know and trust. The wife wanted to tell me about her experiences, that she was so convinced that God and Jesus were true and the Bible really was the word of God because she had an overwhelming feeling that they were true and she was so filled with peace and joy she knew it had to be God. She told me about a few people she had known who had been healed of different things and after that there was really no discussion. I didn't want to stomp all over her story and clearly she gained peace and joy from her relationship with God, so I let that one go. My discussion with the husband was a little more interesting. He debated me on several points and we were able to discuss some philosophical issues. I finally came out and said that I just didn't believe the Bible was anything more than the work of man; that it defied logic to assume this was the perfect word of God and what was funny was that he couldn't really disagree. I would make a comment, he would throw a possible explanation (one that months ago may have satisfied me) and I would poke a giant hole in the possibility. What amazed me most was that at the end of the discussion, he conceded most of my points. The final statement was something along the lines of "Well I can't really argue with you, but I still have my faith..." Twice more since that discussion I have had the same response from my friends. Why is this?

I've come to realize that there probably is literally nothing you could say to a strong believer that would cause them to look objectively at their faith and acknowledge the possibility that they could be wrong. Even the weakest apologetic arguments are passed along because as long as there is some answer, it will do. I can't pass judgment on anyone who feels this way because I have been there. Becoming a Christian completely defines who you are. It affects every aspect of your life in ways you didn't even realize until you start to shake it off. The process of questioning everything I knew about the world was crushing and terribly lonely. I know exactly why no one wants to question their beliefs; the cost of letting them go is too high. So why did I finally begin this stumbling journey towards what I hope is the truth?

Something personal. I could put all those questions and injustices of my faith aside as long as they didn't stare me in the face, but when it finally came time for me to watch someone I loved pass away and grapple with the idea that God would allow them to suffer for all eternity, the doors of objectivity swung wide open. I imagine it will be the same when I finally have to confront the people in my life I am hiding this from; we will have a discussion and most likely we won't understand each other. Even if I can dismantle every crumbling foundation and knock out the old boarded windows of Christianity, they will just be put back on their shaky hinges. I don't suppose anyone will be willing to let go of what they believe until they encounter something personal.

Forgiveness and Salvation

Last week, I heard a sermon about the unforgivable sin and thought you all might like to hear about it. I am still semi-regularly attending church with my husband who has patiently listened to all my questioning these past few months yet still remains firm in his faith. We go to church together about every other week, and I have to admit that the sermons are becoming more difficult to listen to.

The passage my pastor was speaking on was Matthew 12:31-32, "31And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
Since context is always the scapegoat when trying to find meaning in text like this, lets look at context. Earlier in the passage, Jesus had just cast out a demon from a man who could not speak or see. When the crowds were amazed that the blind and mute man was talking and had his vision restored, they began to wonder if this man was the Messiah they had been looking for. The Pharisees became jealous and whispered amongst themselves that he really must be a demon.

Even in context, this passage is incredibly unclear. What exactly is the definition of blaspheming the Holy Spirit? Why can we blaspheme Jesus and the Father but not the Spirit? Shouldn't they be one and the same? What is even more pressing in my mind is not whether there is an unforgivable sin, but whether or not we need to have all our sins forgiven before we are allowed to enter heaven. This is one issue that every Protestant/Evangelical church I have attended seemed to be very clear on; the only way to heaven is for Jesus to forgive your sins. He'll forgive all of them, but you can't go in without forgiveness. Upon further examination, I'm not sure that's what the Bible teaches.

"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" Acts 16:31
"For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." Romans 10:10
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—" Eph 2:8

These passages are often used by Christians to demonstrate that we are saved by grace and not works, but what is interesting is they say nothing about forgiveness. If all we need to do to be saved is believe in Jesus, is it really a requirement that we be forgiven too? There certainly are passages that could be used for either side of the argument, but what is interesting is that the other side is never discussed; the point of view that God's forgiveness is very conditional, but even if we don't get it, we could get into heaven anyway.
Luke 6:37 "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven."
John 20:22-23 "22And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."
Matt 6:15 "But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins."
1 Cor 3:12-15 "12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames."

Evidence for God

When I was a Christian, one of the things that bothered me about faith was that God could be reduced to a matter of perspective. For most Christians, it seemed that life just happened as it would and God was given credit for all the good things and the bad things were just happening "in his time." For example, if I have a sick friend and I pray to God to heal him, one of two things will happen; my friend will recover or he won't. If he recovers, either immediately or within nearly any time frame, it must have been God healing him, but if he does not recover, then it was just God's will. I was always frustrated that knowing the God of the universe seemed to changed so little. Shouldn't everything be different because we know God?

I'm sure this outlook on life is comforting to the believer, but does nothing to demonstrate the existence of God. This is an exerpt from deconversion.com called Salvaging Santa. It's a clever piece of satire demonstrating that most of the apologetic proofs are God would be just as effective to prove the existence of Santa Claus. It is interesting to see all my old Christian arguments in a new context:

Place Santa out of the reach of science.
Some point to what they consider the absurdity of a voluminous man descending a narrow chimney and other mysterious aspects of Santa. Here are a few ways to deal with this form of persecution.

-Announce that Santa’s magic is far above human understanding. Santa, in his infinite magic, can fatten flukes at will, create chimneys where there are none, and leave everything intact as if he had never descended from the roof at all. Ask the secularists how they even dare with their puny minds to question the magic of our Santa.

-Call problematic parts of the Santa story figurative. Suggest that the notion of “descending the chimney” is a metaphor of Santa’s intent. He actually may come through a window. What matters is that the presents are there in the morning. In doing this, never submit a standard for discerning between literal and figurative elements of the Santa story. That will make it convenient for you to choose which is which as aplogetics needs arise.

-Remind non-believers that, if the Santa story could be tested and confirmed, we couldn’t employ the faith that feeds the magic. Accuse them of not listening to the clear voice of Santa that each of us carries deep in our hearts if we only listen with open minds.

-Affirm the magic. Point out all the cases in which reindeer dung was found on roof tops. Suggest that any father who would simply throw dung on his roof in an attempt to create the illusion of a rangiferine landing would have to be either a lunatic or liar. The only sensible inference is that Santa’s sleigh had indeed visited your house.

-Belittle science and its tools. Point out that science is often wrong and is therefore not an appropriate method to assess the magic of Santa. Claim that statistics are a silly invention, and strongly affirm the idea that anything can be “proven” through statistics. The stronger you affirm this, the more true it will become. In this way, reports that suggest poorer (not misbehaving) children receive fewer presents can be dismissed. If secularists suggest this is not logical, claim that Santa logic is not the same as secular logic, but don’t bother explaining how.

-Suggest that science and magic fall into two non-overlapping domains. Declare that scientific methodology cannot assess the wonderment of magic. When asked about specific claims of Santaism that seem to fall within the reach of science, offer evasive permutations of the particular doctrine to make it impotent and thus unassailable. Fudging a bit on exegesis is forgivable if the net result is an increase in believers.

-Disparage the notion of belief based on “evidence”. This is becoming one of the most troubling issues that has already led to the apostasy of thousands. You’ll hear secularists claim that the degree of confidence in an idea should match the degree of the evidence. Where is the magic in that? Evidence only goes so far and is largely linear. How can belief be linear? Choose a side! Unless we go beyond the evidence with faith, we would be left saying “I don’t yet know” on many questions, a wholly unacceptable option.

2. Exercise the right to arbitrarily define true Santaism.
You’ll often hear accusations that Santanists do not behave any better than non-believers. Here you’ll want to point out the fallacy in this accusation by simply explaining that those who don’t act like Santanists are not real Santaists. This will prevent your opponent from citing anecdotes, and require him to lean on statistics that require a substantial sample that you can then simply dismiss as not representative of Santaism. If your opponent then demands positive evidence for superior behavior among Santaist, simply offer a few anecdotes as proof.

3. Appeal to what people already know in their hearts.
There are times when you may simply ignore the anti-santa arguments. Every person knows deep in his heart that Santa is real. Presuppositional affirmations are the way to go. This is economical in that it minimizes potential cognitive dissonance that may creep in through cracks in your counter-arguments, and eliminates the expenditure of contemplation that distracts from faith in Santa, and may even lead to doubting.

4. Emphasize emotions.
Fortunately, Christmas is replete with salient sensations that easily form a sense of identity, of belonging, and also address dozens of other emotional needs. We know through a feeling of certainty that emotions are a legitimate validator of what is true, so regardless of the apparent power of the secularist’s arguments, this emotional validation is what will vanquish the doubts that have destroyed the magic in so many young lives. And perhaps the greatest argument you can make is to ask weak believers if they would want to live in a world that had no magic. Ask them if they want to grow up to become merely scientists restricted by the parameters of materialism. Emphasize the rigor and critical thought required by those who have abandoned magic and have endeared themselves to rational thought. Above all, emphasize the personal relationship believers have with Santa. Have them make psychological investments by writing Santa letters for years, then remind them of this and of all other psychological investments at any point in which their faith is weak. Remind them that Santa’s apparent silence is simply a test of their faith or an indication that their requests are selfish. And always return to the assurance that emotions are a legitimate way to confirm the truth of their faith.

A First Look at Love

Because this blog is not solely about losing faith, but also the experience of love, this will be my first of many posts about love and its relationship to religion.

Through all my years of being heavily involved in church, one of the most prominent cliches is that 'God is love.' I had always been taught that not only does God love, but its what he is. His entire being is e essence of love and when we know God, we know love. Under that heading it was easy for me to get past the difficult parts of the Bible, because if God really was love, all those killings must have been for some reason I wouldn't understand until I got to heaven. Now that I am looking at Christianity from the outside, I wonder what the Biblical evidence for the statement 'God is love' really is. I went to an online Bible and search for the keywords 'God is love' thinking I would come up with dozens of responses, but interestingly, I only had two hits, both in the book of 1 John. (4:8 and 4:16) I thought it was strange that this teaching does not appear until the very end of the Bible and in a book that very few Christians study, so I tried again, this time on another search engine. Still the same. Certainly there are passages that discuss how much God loves his people or examples of his love, but why do so many Christians believe that God is love if it is only briefly mentioned in 1 John?

My hypothesis is that the human experience of love is so transcendental that we feel the need to worship it. Love is the one experience that makes me take a second look at whether we are only just chemical reactions or if there is some other force within or around us that causes us to feel this way. Love is something that represents what is truly good and for most people, what makes life worth living. I understand the need the make love something true, something more real than just chemical reactions. We feel the same way about morality; I don't follow my internal morals because they are inherited or learned social behaviors, but because I feel my actions are truly right or wrong. Emotionally, I don't think we will ever accept that these behaviors are mere chemicals, and so to explain it, we put a head and legs on it, and call it God. Now, this "God" is the source of all love and all morality, a being to explain our deep longing for truth.

Does this prove the existence of God? What if these other worldly experiences could be explained scientifically? I have been reading quite a few papers lately about oxytocin, the chemical released in our brains during sex, childbirth and stimulates a woman to release milk for breastfeeding. More research has been done to examine oxytocin's role in social behaviors, specifically long term partnerships and trust. Experiments were initially done on rodents that exhibit long term mating behaviors and the researchers found that oxytocin was directly involved in the strength of partnership behaviors. When rodents species not known for long term mating were given oxytocin, they remained with their partners much longer than placebo, and when those rodents who usually did mate for life had the genes for oxytocin knocked out, they suddenly were only interested in 'one-night stands.' This also applies to humans; oxytocin has been shown to increase trust and social behaviors in addition to its established sexual role. A nice summary of the research can be found http://www.oxytocin.org/oxytoc/love-science.html .

So now what? Is love only a series of oxytocin and dopamine release or do our desires for truth and love beyond ourselves prove the existence of some external source?

Why Evangelize?

In reading another blog about converstion between athiesm and catholicism (http://www.conversiondiary.com/) and learned this little tidbit from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation."

Basically, it is the opinion of the catholic church that if you have never heard about Jesus or even God, it's not your fault and you can still go to heaven. If you are a sincere and good person, that's good enough for God. Initially, I was relieved to read something like that. The idea that God could send someone to eternal punishment for something they were completely ignorant of had always struck me as globally unfair, but this bit of theology raises an interesting question: why evangelize? If everyone who is ignorant of God and a relatively good person will go to heaven, why risk telling them the truth? Then they might decide they don't agree with what you've said, but since they now have information, they will be held responsible for it. Why not just let everyone die in their ignorance and end up in heaven? The only argument I can think of is that those in ignorance will miss out on knowing God in this lifetime and doing his work, but that doesn't seem to be much of a problem in light of eternity. If a person can just make it into heaven, they have millions of years to foster a relationship with God, do his work and most likely have relationships with others around them. If its true that "You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes." (James 4:14b), then just a few years of knowing God on earth hardly seem worth the risk.

Angry Atheists

When I first began this journey of dwindling faith towards the realm of atheism, I starting with a lot of reading. The first book I picked up was Dan Barker's Godless. I was moved by his story of completely leaving the world of religion and felt for the first time that maybe I didn't have to believe in this anymore. Naturally, the first thing I did when I got home from the bookstore (seeing as I was too cheap to actually buy the book) was google him. I found dozens of book titles and interviews, and when reading through the text of his discussion with Christians, he came across as sort of an ass. I had the same experience when listening to Christopher Hitchens debate a Christian and Jew; he was definitely an ass. The more atheist blogs I visit and comment conversations I eavesdrop on, it seems that there are plenty of angry athiests out there; people who are enraged or at least highly irritated by religious people and have no qualms about calling them idiots or speaking about them with condescention. I vowed to myself that I would never become one of these angry athiests; that I would always respect Christians because not so long ago I was one.

This week I had my eyes opened as to why a great number of athiests may be angry with Christians. I posted a comment on a christian blog that was discussing what to tell your friends when they say they have been searching for God and cannot find him. Most of the readers responding with either 'try harder' or 'just wait', and I felt the need to enter the discussion. I empathized with those who have searched and never found and I wondered why God would be this way if he loves us so much. In return, I was told that I must be ignoring God, that I am being selfish and self centered for desiring so much and that the work Jesus did on the cross should be enough for me if I would just quit putting demands on God. There are Christians out there who would not respond this way, and I hope I run into more of them in this journey. However, if this is the response that atheists are getting from trying to dialouge with Christians, I am beginning to understand why they are angry.

Supernaturalists are naturalists

In all the time I've spent researching whether or not I believed in God, one of the authors I always had referred to was C.S.Lewis and his book Miracles. His main discussion in that book is the difference between naturalists (people who believe that the universe we experience with our senses and logic is all there is) and supernaturalists (people who believe that there could be something outside of the universe that created it).

The more I look, I am finding that most supernaturalists are closer to being naturalists than they realize. For example, one argument for the existance of God is that we all have a sense of morality and justice, which must have been put there by a creator. It is the belief of the supernaturalist that all of our inclinations towards morality are a reflection of the thoughts of God, and He decided before our creation what was just and put in our hearts those ideas. If this were the case, I would expect that every act of God or action He approves of or commands would agree with my sense of justice and morality. If God gave me my ethics, I should wholeheartedly agree with His. However, I am hard pressed to find anyone who strongly agrees with the actions of God while establishing the nation of Isreal. He commanded killing of women and children and occasionally ordered genocide of 'evil' people groups. If our sense of justice or morality comes from God, why do his actions violate that? We should not need apologists to try to make sense of this issue, but we should find ourselves resonating in agreement with every one of God's actions. Yet, we don't.

If God truly is the origin of everything, including natural and spiritual laws, then He should be bound by no law except those he chooses to follow. Why is it that the wages of sin are death? God appears to be subject to a spiritual law he cannot overcome; he has no choice but to die for his people. If he created everything, why not create a world where forgiveness does not require death, but comes freely?

I believe that most people follow God not because they are convinced he created 'good' but because he is good. If God's commandments about love and justice are just whims of a creator, then nothing is truly good at all, but merely an opinion. In that case, God is subject to the laws of right and wrong just as we are, some deeper meaning of justice that is even greater than God.

Is God Good?

Knowing the answer to this question is the crux for all belief in god; positive or negative. Most Christians who have struggled with their faith are only able to overlook certain contradictions or problems with their beliefs because they strongly hold to the fact that God is good. Whatever question they cannot answer or confusing passage of scripture they encounter, if God is good, then no matter how the situation appears, faith remains intact. For example, I long struggled with the passages in the New Testament from Paul stating women's place in the church; that women were the weaker sex and they are not even allowed to speak at church but must ask their husbands at home. On the surface, this doesn't sound like God loves women as much as he loves men, but under the basic assumption that God is good, I always found a way around the evidence. Christian apologists state that these were just cultural norms to help unruly Greek women get along in church with more orderly Jewish women. It is possible to make excuse for any of God's actions by saying that we don't understand his ways and even though it seems the opposite, God is good.
The moment of my grandpa's death finally poked a hole in this philosophy. It is not good if God condemns a man who spent his life caring for others to eternal death just because he did not say the sinner's prayer. I had always been taught that God doesn't send people to hell, but they choose it. They reject God and refuse to follow him, so they get what they asked for. I was able to compartmentalize that thought because I never had to consider the ramifications of someone I loved going to hell. My grandpa was not a case of someone actively denying God, but someone who had a difficult time accepting that there was only one way to heaven. God states that we all deserve to die and none of us can measure up to his standards, yet some of us accept what we have been taught about God and some of us don't. Does that really merit eternal punishment?
I think that as humans, we have a longing to be intimately known and loved for exactly who we are. We desire to be cared for and know that our lives have a purpose. Doesn't it make more sense that we designed God to have these characteristics (loving father, best friend, even lover) and then use our theory to twist the evidence?

Is the Bible the Perfect Word of God?

I have great difficulty accepting things without good reason and more and more, Christianity was asking me to defy logical understanding in order to accept things on faith. I have heard the argument (and had used it more than once myself) that science is also fraught with leaps of faith, and any scientist cannot discredit religion when they themselves accept things on faith on a daily basis. While this is absolutely true, there is quite a difference between the leaps of faith asked of a scientist and those asked of a Christian. For example, the basis of nearly all research is founded on proving statistical significance, meaning we can say with 95% certainty that the treatment has caused an effect and the difference demonstrated there was not random chance. It is impossible to prove without the shadow of a doubt that whatever effect you are testing occurring precisely because of your intervention and that it will behave exactly that way each time you intervene, but we must make that assumption in order to proceed through scientific method. Therefore, scientists are constantly making leaps of faith. However, this faith is based on logical conclusions and usually mountains of evidence; if twenty times in a row, when I exercise my heart rate increases, I will have faith that on the twenty first time the same change will occur.
Asking me to take the leap of faith that the Bible is the infallible inerrant word of God was an entirely different matter. It defies logic to presume that a collection of documents whom scholars cannot agree on authors or dates written, which have been translated into dozens of different languages and passed through treacherous Dark Ages in which the controlling and often abusive Catholic Church employed the only people who could read and write somehow made it thousands of years without a single mistake. That in all the different translations into English, each one completely presents God’s intended message.
I do understand the need for the infallibility of the Bible, the need to completely accept everything we have been handed, because without it, what do we have? I had hoped that maybe I could come to a place where mistranslations and forgeries were just a part of reading the Bible and I could just try to get the intended message without any real harm to my relationship with God, however that is no better than before. How do I know which parts are truly representative of what God was trying to say and what stories are true? I would be tempted just to write off anything disturbing or disagreeable as a mistranslation and create my version of the Bible to my liking. (I have a sneaking suspicion this is already the unconscious practice of many Christians). What if the true meaning is exactly the uncomfortable parts and some edited in the nice words to help us swallow a difficult message a little easier? Accepting God’s word as only partially true was an even more difficult proposition than throwing it out completely. I could only see two options; either the Bible, through some miracle not described within its contents, was the perfect word of God, or it was purely and totally a human product, another reference to the ancient world for historians and philosophers to pour over.
When I was little, my dad used to ask me, “What do you think would happen if an irresistible force met an immoveable object?” Granted, I was only ten at the time and had to ask him what an irresistible force and an immovable object were, but I always remembered that strange question and struggled until I found an answer. After much thought and many years of growing up, I finally said to him, “The two cannot co-exist. If there is such thing as an immovable object, then there is no such thing as an irresistible force.” And yet, here I am struggling with those two things at this very moment; the immoveable object o f the existence of God, and this new irresistible force of reason telling me the God I believed in for so long has too many holes to make sense anymore.

Free Will and Knowing God

Most Christians struggle with the idea of predestination, especially when it comes to the “unsaved”. My particular quarrel with this is that either God is in control or we have free will. It cannot be both ways. For example, if God is control of circumstances, then he gives some people an easy time with faith, brought up in a loving home or taught scripture from an early age. It would be easy for someone like that to trust God, because their circumstances how made faith easy. However, someone brought up where religion is equated with hate and bigotry will have a much harder time. I have heard the argument that even someone who is brought up in this rougher situation still has a choice and if they don’t choose God, that means their hearts are bitter and hardened. But doesn’t God have the ability to soften a heart? When Moses was negotiating his people’s escape, God admits he hardened pharaohs heart. If God has the ability to harden, shouldn’t he be able to soften? In fact, isn’t this what we tell ourselves when we evangelize; that it is not anything we say or do really that wins people over, but God revealing himself to a person and we ask God to soften their hearts to his message. That would mean that God is really in control of whether we accept him or not. If that is true, then why isn’t everyone a Christian? Why wouldn’t God augment their circumstances in order that they would see him or soften their hearts so they would hear him? If he truly loves the whole world, why not give the whole world an equal chance to know him?

History

My grandpa died this year. I wasn't angry that he left; he had been defeating cancer for the past five years and he was nearly ninety. He was the kind of man you could count on. Anytime his family needed a new shelf built, a basketball hoop, someone to pick the kids up from school, he was there. He treated us to ice cream cones, and more than once bailed my parents out financially. He took care of the ladies down the street and planted flowers for his neighbors who were too old to do it for themselves. He was selfless and kind and in love with my grandma until the day he died. I was angry, not because he had cancer, but because the God that I had committed my life to said in his word that my grandpa deserved eternal torment in hell. This was the first time that I was faced with the uncertainty of a loved one's eternal life. My grandpa died with love for his family and friends, but none of us were really sure about his faith. He had been a semi-regular church go-er, but had some difficult experiences with religion in the past that kept him from really trusting it again. The moment that he died, my security in the character of God began to crack. What made my grandpa so different than me that God would allow me eternal life, but not extend the same mercy to my grandpa? In scripture, He makes it very clear that none of us deserve his love and mercy, so why do only some of us recieve it?
Everyone who calls themselves a Christian has certain areas that sit unsettled, sticking points about their faith they hope no unbeliever asks them to explain. For some, it's predestination, for others, its the stories of God's ruthlessness in the Old Testament. I always had a list of questions/problems that didn't sit well with me, but the pros of my beliefs always seemed to outweigh the cons, and because I was so sure that God was real and most importantly that God was good, I allowed myself not to think of these difficulties.
With this deep crack in my faith, allowing me to ask questions I never had before I began to examine all the basic assumptions of my faith. How do I know God? How do I know the Bible is accurate? Is there even a God?
Each post hereafter will be some piece of an answer to these questions. I want to know if there is a god and the ramifications of that answer. If yes, how do know anything about him? If no, what does that mean for the purpose and meaning of my life?

Welcome

Welcome to Love and Losing Faith.
This journey began as a search for answers from God, a painful process of crying out to blank walls and silence. The further I dug with questions about the basic tenets of my Christian faith, I began to find that everything I believed may not be as it seemed. For too long I was unable to look at my beliefs objectively, holding them so close they became a part of me, but now that I am finally ready to shake my foundations, I have found nothing to press against. Reading and researching aren't enough for me anymore; I want to debate with others who have considered these same questions. So, my purpose in this blog is to present my findings, ask questions I cannot answer, and listen closely to your thoughts. I am eager for discussion about the validity of the Bible, our purpose on earth and the inescapable need for humans to love and be loved.