Wednesday, December 19, 2012
As promised
If you have not read the last post, please do so before reading this one!
I thought that it would be unfair to only give my reasons for believing in God, so here are the reasons that I doubt.
1. The Judeo-Christian God is not evident to all peoples. Only a few civilizations knew Him from the outset.
This doesn't really frustrate me, though. It is in the nature of Christianity to evangelize, and I think I would rather have to evangelize to people who do not know than to be surrounded by believers and have a perfect understanding all of the time. The fact that not everyone knows God gives those who do some directive. We are so dependent upon one another for survival. It follows, then, that knowledge and belief of God among us is dependent upon ourselves for its propagation.
2. Christians do bad things.
Well, it is in the nature of man to be sinful and selfish sometimes. We aren't strong enough to overcome temptation without God, and we do not allow God to direct our actions at all times. Religious institutions are human institutions, and no one ever said that they are perfect. All we can do is try our hardest.
3. God requires effort.
This is not really a problem for me, though, for the same reason as the first-- I do not want a life that requires no effort. The greatest fountain of goodness requires belief and acting as God wills through that belief to other people. If life were easy, frankly, it would be boring.
4. Christians disagree amongst themselves.
This is most tragic. The conflicts between groups of Christians truly draw us away from the real problems of this world. I don't know if I would necessarily label my opinion as "ecumenical," but I do think that Christians should put aside their differences to make right the wrongs of this world and to love one another. You know, be Christ to others.
The lists I have posted are by no means comprehensive. There remains so much more to be said! I am anxious to grow in my relationship with God so that I can continue to write about him. I love you so much, and I hope you are doing well. May God bless you and keep you all the days of your life.
Starting out in the middle...
I have always been a Christian. I love it, every second of it. I love it because I know that someone was watching out for me, was taking care of me. Nearly all of my prayers have been answered, even if it was not in the way I had planned. It gives me parameters for my personal moral philosophy, and it gives my life meaning and reason, a rational path to follow. God is the best thing that ever happened to me, and for twenty years I have known it without question.
That being said, in the past few months, difficulties caused my faith to waver. I had gone from attending church every day, praying fervently, and always serving others to a hollow shell of that-- someone who doubted God more often than not but also acted more selfishly because of it. My mind and my heart were not in my prayers like I had them before. While this period was incredibly tough, I learned a lot from it, and I have decided to start anew and pick up my walking stick as a Christian Wayfarer once again. I do not know the foreign place I am in, but with God I will be led through with no problem that I can't handle.
I am going to start out with some of the many reasons that I believe God is real.
1. First and foremost, I am a biologist, and most if not all of my reasoning is based on the scientific method and trial-by-error calculations. Very important to me is the link between mind and reason. Why on earth is God conceivable to us? Where in the evolutionary spectrum did homo erectus or whatever preceded us make the leap from instinctive, selfish, animalistic ambition to rational, selfless, what-we-call -"human" life? Evolution (which I do believe in-- Christianity does not automatically debunk it, or any other scientific conclusion, for that matter...more on that later) alone does not explain why we would love someone so much as to give our lives for them, nor why we would be driven by pity or guilt to make right a wrong.
2. I feel like I am about to beat a dead horse, but everything had to come from somewhere. There are thinkers who feel that we do not necessarily have to believe in causes, but how are we to believe in the world around us if the causal proposition is irrelevant? The idea that there is a first cause is more plausible to me than the idea that there is not.
3. I believe in sin. That is a really important conclusion for anyone of any religion to make. I believe that there are things that are objectively wrong. To think that humanity created moral boundaries is sort of unfathomable, don't you think? In the earliest recordings of law and moral codes, there are many principles that are common to each, like murder and theft, though the groups of people who wrote them had no contact for hundreds of years, if not thousands.
4. Why the Judeo-Christian God? It is not because He is the one I have always known. I chose Him (really, He chose me) because of what He did for us. He, the same predicable being as His son, in His mercy sacrificed His son for us. Why did He do this? It is not an act of selfishness, but an act of love. The world did not deserve Christ. I know I certainly do not deserve to be saved, to see His face after my life has finished. In my life, I would much rather promote a loving God who would do this for us than tear Him down. I want others to have this hope that I have, hope that there is something out there for us that is not a selfish life in which we strive to be materially successful.
I am going to list my reasons for doubting God next, but this is a really long post. I love you, and I hope your week is going well. May God bless you all the days of your life.
That being said, in the past few months, difficulties caused my faith to waver. I had gone from attending church every day, praying fervently, and always serving others to a hollow shell of that-- someone who doubted God more often than not but also acted more selfishly because of it. My mind and my heart were not in my prayers like I had them before. While this period was incredibly tough, I learned a lot from it, and I have decided to start anew and pick up my walking stick as a Christian Wayfarer once again. I do not know the foreign place I am in, but with God I will be led through with no problem that I can't handle.
I am going to start out with some of the many reasons that I believe God is real.
1. First and foremost, I am a biologist, and most if not all of my reasoning is based on the scientific method and trial-by-error calculations. Very important to me is the link between mind and reason. Why on earth is God conceivable to us? Where in the evolutionary spectrum did homo erectus or whatever preceded us make the leap from instinctive, selfish, animalistic ambition to rational, selfless, what-we-call -"human" life? Evolution (which I do believe in-- Christianity does not automatically debunk it, or any other scientific conclusion, for that matter...more on that later) alone does not explain why we would love someone so much as to give our lives for them, nor why we would be driven by pity or guilt to make right a wrong.
2. I feel like I am about to beat a dead horse, but everything had to come from somewhere. There are thinkers who feel that we do not necessarily have to believe in causes, but how are we to believe in the world around us if the causal proposition is irrelevant? The idea that there is a first cause is more plausible to me than the idea that there is not.
3. I believe in sin. That is a really important conclusion for anyone of any religion to make. I believe that there are things that are objectively wrong. To think that humanity created moral boundaries is sort of unfathomable, don't you think? In the earliest recordings of law and moral codes, there are many principles that are common to each, like murder and theft, though the groups of people who wrote them had no contact for hundreds of years, if not thousands.
4. Why the Judeo-Christian God? It is not because He is the one I have always known. I chose Him (really, He chose me) because of what He did for us. He, the same predicable being as His son, in His mercy sacrificed His son for us. Why did He do this? It is not an act of selfishness, but an act of love. The world did not deserve Christ. I know I certainly do not deserve to be saved, to see His face after my life has finished. In my life, I would much rather promote a loving God who would do this for us than tear Him down. I want others to have this hope that I have, hope that there is something out there for us that is not a selfish life in which we strive to be materially successful.
I am going to list my reasons for doubting God next, but this is a really long post. I love you, and I hope your week is going well. May God bless you all the days of your life.
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