Do you know how big the universe is?
It's huge. Consequently, shouldn't we not assume that humans are the center of everything? Isn't it selfish to claim that God (or whatever omniscient entity of extreme intelligence supposedly designed our universe) communicates solely with us, because humans are special and that this entity feels an emotion, love (which is strictly a human emotion might I add)? It's also selfish of us to claim that the creator of our universe is human (otherwise, why would he feel love? And why would there be Jesus, a human?). Do you know what's out there? What if there is another place, in another world, in another solar system, in another galaxy, in another universe, in another [word that means a group of universes] in which there is something that is beyond human? Something that completely evades the classification of either alive or dead? What if there is a third concept besides life and death? I mean, we've already sort of imagined it with zombies and walking skeletons, the so called "undead." If there is such a thing as a dead thing that is alive, for example Jesus or zombies, we have never seen it (you and I have never seen it. Others have claimed to see it thousands of years ago, doesn't mean it's true). But we may not be capable of seeing it. There could be senses we don't even know exist. Not the ability to see heat, not the ability to smell things better, no... I mean an entirely different sense altogether that our minds cannot understand due to lack of exposure to it or lack of our own senses to be able to perceive it. Could that be God? Could there be more than one God? It's a claim just as equally likely and impossible to prove.
It is to my limited understanding that God is intangible. AKA: Unable to be sensed. Therefore, saying that you can feel God is illogical. Someone once told me (when prompted with the question of how you know there is God), "I can feel Him in my heart." What? How come I can't do that? Actually, you know at one time I thought I had. But I have since dismissed it and filed it away as a case of psychological confusion; one of those things where if a person can make himself or herself believe it's true, then just maybe it really is true. I can believe the same thing about dragons. Anglo-Saxons used to write about dragons. Does that mean they were being literal? What about the disciples? And what's this I hear about the story of Jesus not being original? Why then, is his story "true" and none other is? Is it possible that there could have existed some tradition in the days of Christ that involved taking drugs? I'm not closed to that idea... several cultures are into that kind of stuff. Take the Tucano tribe from Colombia and their age old tradition of collecting and consuming yaje once a month. To them, this plant was a gift from their god and it was planted there for them, to be consumed by men to induce a hallucinogenic high during which their god was to be worshiped. I'm not joking!
If there was no threat that you would be denied access to heaven after you die, would you still believe? Many people say they would. Really? I consider my life pretty okay, and I don't force myself to go to church or read the Bible or pray... In my own opinion, it's quite a fine way to go about things. Maybe my style isn't for everyone. And maybe I would do these things more often if I had a reason, a concrete, undeniably sound reason to put myself through it. Thanks to all the explained above, I will be waiting my whole life until something happens to me where I actually believe that Christianity is the one and only religion, and all other religions can just suck it. I'm waiting for someone to get at me with something, something logical that makes sense, to make me feel like I am dead wrong. And I might as well tell you now, the following counterarguments have simply not been enough:
"I can't imagine our world not having been designed or intentionally created by something extremely intelligent, otherwise there would be no cause for the universe, and for there to be no cause for the universe is logically impossible." I can believe that. However, that does not even come close to touching upon all the other stuff that believing in Christianity entails. Not even close.
"Human beings have souls. Why? Because they say that our all of our cells die after a certain period of time, and from the time we are born to the time we are adults we are physically and biologically not the same person, we are not the same being that we had once been at one time. We have changed -- all parts of us. Yet how can we grasp that we are still the same person? You are still you, are you not? With the same memories, same personality traits? We must have something else inside of us that isn't explained scientifically." Again, not arguing with that. We may as well have a soul that carries our memories and our feelings throughout our life. Well, emotions are just chemicals. But perhaps we do have an "essence." Or it could be the transfer of information from one dying cell to the new one, to the regenerating one. I'm not a scientist, so I don't understand how that works. It could still be a possibility, and honestly, it sounds more likely to me. Either way, does that explain how Christianity is the right religion to follow? Not really, it just explains that you may or may not believe in a soul.
"There is biblical evidence." There is evidence of everything from the pre-cambrian time period to early plate tectonics to dinosaurs to microbial evolution to human evolution to early civilization to everything before Christ, too. Was that "already here" when the world was formed? Now why would an all loving God trick his creations that he supposedly cares so much for? No, it's not false, but it's not likely either and I would like to think you know that. I'm thinking about the millions of studies that have been done to show how things evolve and adapt, how landforms change from things like natural geologic disasters and how long it takes for layers of sediment to erode and form and move and mold. Add a little mathematics in there. Also add the fossil records. Which one seems likely to you?
"The Bible is not meant to be interpretted literally." Is it not? How do you know that? What was meant by these authors anyway? They couldn't have meant it as literature, could they? It's a religion! Can you really just interpret it any way you want? If you can, then great, I'm down for believing in certain aspects of it. Christianity has some great morals, I must say. A little too many gender roles, but you know... that can slide, I guess. Just imagine what the world would be like if we could follow them to a T. Which, by the way, most people do not --Christian, or non Christian.
"Just open your heart and believe in the Lord Jesus as your Savior." Hello? ...Hello? Hi. Yeah... I still have questions.
If God is listening to this right now, I wonder what he's thinking. If he's sitting there lamenting because I'm choosing to refute the likelihood of his existence, well whose fault is that? Looks to me like he should have been a little more straightforward about himself. Oh, I can hear it now... "He's right in front of you." According to me and my senses, no the [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] he is not. And if he is, give me a reason to believe he is. Give me a legitimate reason.
This is not an attempt to make fun. I admit I add a little bit of sarcasm to some parts simply because it is tough for me to accept those particular parts as being likely or true. I hope you can sympathize. I try as hard as I can to be accepting, I really do. But I am not convinced. And I WANT you to convince me... whoever you are, I would love to be a part of your community, a part of all the fun things you guys do, and the great things that you do for hurt and helpless people is really wonderful and humanitarian. Those things I could imagine doing and would love to do, but the rest of your cause I simply do not get. I do not understand how the story of Jesus is the ONLY true explanation of the world, and I don't understand how you choose to believe it over other things. Do you ever wonder how many people who go to your youth groups or your college groups are out there livin' it up, having sex, going to parties, doing drugs, not reading the Bible, and just taking advantage of all your fun get togethers? Okay, people are not perfect. That's awesome, and it's true. But you don't even know who's going to hell and who's not anyway. It's commonly known that what you do in this life reflects what will happen to you in the next life, but according to the Bible, our entire culture is damned to go to hell! I am probably going! You might even be going! Then all the sudden... hey.... I don't see all that hope and love I was so excited about when I first joined this religion.... Could it be a control thing? A "scare you into it" type of deal, maybe to get their hands on our donations and money? "YOU ARE ALL GOING TO HELL." Every year, there is always that guy in the free speech area holding up that sign. Yes, Christians... you ARE defending that guy.... Please, I don't want to discuss that whole other issue of power and control, dating back to who knows when. Organized religion... is it your loving friend? Or a hindrance to your life?
Like many of the debates I've had before on this subject, it usually turns into me still feeling unconvinced and the convincer feeling as though there is no way to get through to me. Maybe that's the way it will always be. I'm asking someone to attempt to convince me again. If no one steps up and succeeds, then I will never be allowed to marry a Christian. I could just cheat and get baptized and then become fallen a week later. That's not genuine though. If I don't believe, I'm not saved, just lost. I'm not like the rest. I'm just a black sheep... So, I will always ask to be convinced. I'm waiting for the day... however, I will not ask God, because I feel stupid for asking questions to something I'm not quite sure is there. Wouldn't you, though? Wouldn't you feel dumb asking your dog if he knew where you put your sunglasses when you came home? Wouldn't you feel like an idiot trying to have a serious conversation with the weather? Maybe these are the wrong analogies I'm using here. I sure feel just as dumb though.
Faith is just hard to explain. And only reason it's hard is because it doesn't make sense. It's hard to explain why you believe in something so incredibly unbelievable. If I believed, I would have a hard time telling people about it, simply because I am connected to SO many people who think just the way I do now. Questioning, being skeptical, pointing out all the things that are wrong with it. Basically, doing all the things the Bible tells us NOT to do. Do NOT question us, do NOT have your own thoughts, just follow us and believe and you will be saved. How nice that sounds. But don't tell me I'm weak for not being able to endure the scrutiny and ridicule against my unbelieving peers. If you do, also tell me that if you lost your faith and you were connected to a very believing community that you wouldn't have a tough time telling them all that you've changed and you really think they're all a bunch of crazy people. I think you might go try to see someone in private about this matter. It's the same thing trying to tell your atheist friends you are now Christian. You get a lot of "What the [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]??"'s and "You need help"s.
So... in light of all that... I just want to know how others justify their faith. What do you do with your questions? Do you ever try to answer them, or do you just ignore them and pretend like the answers are within the religion, which is... funnily enough, the very thing in question?
****
Further comments on this blog:
- "if god was a piece of rhubarb pie, would you eat him? more to the point: if jesus was a bowling ball and all the pins were apostles and the alley was all of eternity and god was the gaptoothed tweaker way in the back spraying disinfectant on the shoes, would you take a dump on the pool table and burn the whole joint down? what if god was one of us? j."
- "Bravo. Summed up perfectly. Science has already shown us where we come from. i don't understand why this is still up for debate. We know matter cannot be created or destroyed and that we, as well as every single atom making up our planet, originally came from matter that came from exploding stars. A star is essentially a matter factory, itself created of matter from somewhere else. When the star grows old and explodes it throws it's matter and all the elements it has created within itself through fusion, throughout the universe where these elements slowly coalesce into planets and other stars. And the process begins again. The Earth, and every thing on it, is composed of elements that were blown out of various stars around the universe. That includes us. And when our sun supernovas the process will begin again. There is most likely life on another planet. All it takes is the right circumstances for it to happen. It may even exist right in our own galaxy but since our level of technology doesn't allow light speed travel we'll never know. There is no invisible man watching us. If there is then it's his own fault for giving us a brain capable of reason and then not proving to us he's actually there. There may even be more than one universe which makes that term inappropriate. We'd actually be living in a multiverse."
- "i'm going to hell just by reading this...thanks;p jk no one will ever convince you god is real because religion is a test of faith and nothing else. i guess you'll just find out when you die. religion makes me feel like [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] so i gave up on it. i tried believing in god after what i considered a near death experience but it just made me feel silly. humans just want to knw knw knw...[wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] it. it will drive you mad. just let it go."
****
Please comment if you have thoughts.
It's huge. Consequently, shouldn't we not assume that humans are the center of everything? Isn't it selfish to claim that God (or whatever omniscient entity of extreme intelligence supposedly designed our universe) communicates solely with us, because humans are special and that this entity feels an emotion, love (which is strictly a human emotion might I add)? It's also selfish of us to claim that the creator of our universe is human (otherwise, why would he feel love? And why would there be Jesus, a human?). Do you know what's out there? What if there is another place, in another world, in another solar system, in another galaxy, in another universe, in another [word that means a group of universes] in which there is something that is beyond human? Something that completely evades the classification of either alive or dead? What if there is a third concept besides life and death? I mean, we've already sort of imagined it with zombies and walking skeletons, the so called "undead." If there is such a thing as a dead thing that is alive, for example Jesus or zombies, we have never seen it (you and I have never seen it. Others have claimed to see it thousands of years ago, doesn't mean it's true). But we may not be capable of seeing it. There could be senses we don't even know exist. Not the ability to see heat, not the ability to smell things better, no... I mean an entirely different sense altogether that our minds cannot understand due to lack of exposure to it or lack of our own senses to be able to perceive it. Could that be God? Could there be more than one God? It's a claim just as equally likely and impossible to prove.
It is to my limited understanding that God is intangible. AKA: Unable to be sensed. Therefore, saying that you can feel God is illogical. Someone once told me (when prompted with the question of how you know there is God), "I can feel Him in my heart." What? How come I can't do that? Actually, you know at one time I thought I had. But I have since dismissed it and filed it away as a case of psychological confusion; one of those things where if a person can make himself or herself believe it's true, then just maybe it really is true. I can believe the same thing about dragons. Anglo-Saxons used to write about dragons. Does that mean they were being literal? What about the disciples? And what's this I hear about the story of Jesus not being original? Why then, is his story "true" and none other is? Is it possible that there could have existed some tradition in the days of Christ that involved taking drugs? I'm not closed to that idea... several cultures are into that kind of stuff. Take the Tucano tribe from Colombia and their age old tradition of collecting and consuming yaje once a month. To them, this plant was a gift from their god and it was planted there for them, to be consumed by men to induce a hallucinogenic high during which their god was to be worshiped. I'm not joking!
If there was no threat that you would be denied access to heaven after you die, would you still believe? Many people say they would. Really? I consider my life pretty okay, and I don't force myself to go to church or read the Bible or pray... In my own opinion, it's quite a fine way to go about things. Maybe my style isn't for everyone. And maybe I would do these things more often if I had a reason, a concrete, undeniably sound reason to put myself through it. Thanks to all the explained above, I will be waiting my whole life until something happens to me where I actually believe that Christianity is the one and only religion, and all other religions can just suck it. I'm waiting for someone to get at me with something, something logical that makes sense, to make me feel like I am dead wrong. And I might as well tell you now, the following counterarguments have simply not been enough:
"I can't imagine our world not having been designed or intentionally created by something extremely intelligent, otherwise there would be no cause for the universe, and for there to be no cause for the universe is logically impossible." I can believe that. However, that does not even come close to touching upon all the other stuff that believing in Christianity entails. Not even close.
"Human beings have souls. Why? Because they say that our all of our cells die after a certain period of time, and from the time we are born to the time we are adults we are physically and biologically not the same person, we are not the same being that we had once been at one time. We have changed -- all parts of us. Yet how can we grasp that we are still the same person? You are still you, are you not? With the same memories, same personality traits? We must have something else inside of us that isn't explained scientifically." Again, not arguing with that. We may as well have a soul that carries our memories and our feelings throughout our life. Well, emotions are just chemicals. But perhaps we do have an "essence." Or it could be the transfer of information from one dying cell to the new one, to the regenerating one. I'm not a scientist, so I don't understand how that works. It could still be a possibility, and honestly, it sounds more likely to me. Either way, does that explain how Christianity is the right religion to follow? Not really, it just explains that you may or may not believe in a soul.
"There is biblical evidence." There is evidence of everything from the pre-cambrian time period to early plate tectonics to dinosaurs to microbial evolution to human evolution to early civilization to everything before Christ, too. Was that "already here" when the world was formed? Now why would an all loving God trick his creations that he supposedly cares so much for? No, it's not false, but it's not likely either and I would like to think you know that. I'm thinking about the millions of studies that have been done to show how things evolve and adapt, how landforms change from things like natural geologic disasters and how long it takes for layers of sediment to erode and form and move and mold. Add a little mathematics in there. Also add the fossil records. Which one seems likely to you?
"The Bible is not meant to be interpretted literally." Is it not? How do you know that? What was meant by these authors anyway? They couldn't have meant it as literature, could they? It's a religion! Can you really just interpret it any way you want? If you can, then great, I'm down for believing in certain aspects of it. Christianity has some great morals, I must say. A little too many gender roles, but you know... that can slide, I guess. Just imagine what the world would be like if we could follow them to a T. Which, by the way, most people do not --Christian, or non Christian.
"Just open your heart and believe in the Lord Jesus as your Savior." Hello? ...Hello? Hi. Yeah... I still have questions.
If God is listening to this right now, I wonder what he's thinking. If he's sitting there lamenting because I'm choosing to refute the likelihood of his existence, well whose fault is that? Looks to me like he should have been a little more straightforward about himself. Oh, I can hear it now... "He's right in front of you." According to me and my senses, no the [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] he is not. And if he is, give me a reason to believe he is. Give me a legitimate reason.
This is not an attempt to make fun. I admit I add a little bit of sarcasm to some parts simply because it is tough for me to accept those particular parts as being likely or true. I hope you can sympathize. I try as hard as I can to be accepting, I really do. But I am not convinced. And I WANT you to convince me... whoever you are, I would love to be a part of your community, a part of all the fun things you guys do, and the great things that you do for hurt and helpless people is really wonderful and humanitarian. Those things I could imagine doing and would love to do, but the rest of your cause I simply do not get. I do not understand how the story of Jesus is the ONLY true explanation of the world, and I don't understand how you choose to believe it over other things. Do you ever wonder how many people who go to your youth groups or your college groups are out there livin' it up, having sex, going to parties, doing drugs, not reading the Bible, and just taking advantage of all your fun get togethers? Okay, people are not perfect. That's awesome, and it's true. But you don't even know who's going to hell and who's not anyway. It's commonly known that what you do in this life reflects what will happen to you in the next life, but according to the Bible, our entire culture is damned to go to hell! I am probably going! You might even be going! Then all the sudden... hey.... I don't see all that hope and love I was so excited about when I first joined this religion.... Could it be a control thing? A "scare you into it" type of deal, maybe to get their hands on our donations and money? "YOU ARE ALL GOING TO HELL." Every year, there is always that guy in the free speech area holding up that sign. Yes, Christians... you ARE defending that guy.... Please, I don't want to discuss that whole other issue of power and control, dating back to who knows when. Organized religion... is it your loving friend? Or a hindrance to your life?
Like many of the debates I've had before on this subject, it usually turns into me still feeling unconvinced and the convincer feeling as though there is no way to get through to me. Maybe that's the way it will always be. I'm asking someone to attempt to convince me again. If no one steps up and succeeds, then I will never be allowed to marry a Christian. I could just cheat and get baptized and then become fallen a week later. That's not genuine though. If I don't believe, I'm not saved, just lost. I'm not like the rest. I'm just a black sheep... So, I will always ask to be convinced. I'm waiting for the day... however, I will not ask God, because I feel stupid for asking questions to something I'm not quite sure is there. Wouldn't you, though? Wouldn't you feel dumb asking your dog if he knew where you put your sunglasses when you came home? Wouldn't you feel like an idiot trying to have a serious conversation with the weather? Maybe these are the wrong analogies I'm using here. I sure feel just as dumb though.
Faith is just hard to explain. And only reason it's hard is because it doesn't make sense. It's hard to explain why you believe in something so incredibly unbelievable. If I believed, I would have a hard time telling people about it, simply because I am connected to SO many people who think just the way I do now. Questioning, being skeptical, pointing out all the things that are wrong with it. Basically, doing all the things the Bible tells us NOT to do. Do NOT question us, do NOT have your own thoughts, just follow us and believe and you will be saved. How nice that sounds. But don't tell me I'm weak for not being able to endure the scrutiny and ridicule against my unbelieving peers. If you do, also tell me that if you lost your faith and you were connected to a very believing community that you wouldn't have a tough time telling them all that you've changed and you really think they're all a bunch of crazy people. I think you might go try to see someone in private about this matter. It's the same thing trying to tell your atheist friends you are now Christian. You get a lot of "What the [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]??"'s and "You need help"s.
So... in light of all that... I just want to know how others justify their faith. What do you do with your questions? Do you ever try to answer them, or do you just ignore them and pretend like the answers are within the religion, which is... funnily enough, the very thing in question?
****
Further comments on this blog:
- "if god was a piece of rhubarb pie, would you eat him? more to the point: if jesus was a bowling ball and all the pins were apostles and the alley was all of eternity and god was the gaptoothed tweaker way in the back spraying disinfectant on the shoes, would you take a dump on the pool table and burn the whole joint down? what if god was one of us? j."
- "Bravo. Summed up perfectly. Science has already shown us where we come from. i don't understand why this is still up for debate. We know matter cannot be created or destroyed and that we, as well as every single atom making up our planet, originally came from matter that came from exploding stars. A star is essentially a matter factory, itself created of matter from somewhere else. When the star grows old and explodes it throws it's matter and all the elements it has created within itself through fusion, throughout the universe where these elements slowly coalesce into planets and other stars. And the process begins again. The Earth, and every thing on it, is composed of elements that were blown out of various stars around the universe. That includes us. And when our sun supernovas the process will begin again. There is most likely life on another planet. All it takes is the right circumstances for it to happen. It may even exist right in our own galaxy but since our level of technology doesn't allow light speed travel we'll never know. There is no invisible man watching us. If there is then it's his own fault for giving us a brain capable of reason and then not proving to us he's actually there. There may even be more than one universe which makes that term inappropriate. We'd actually be living in a multiverse."
- "i'm going to hell just by reading this...thanks;p jk no one will ever convince you god is real because religion is a test of faith and nothing else. i guess you'll just find out when you die. religion makes me feel like [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] so i gave up on it. i tried believing in god after what i considered a near death experience but it just made me feel silly. humans just want to knw knw knw...[wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth] it. it will drive you mad. just let it go."
****
Please comment if you have thoughts.
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