Letters to the Editor
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Paint By Number Beliefs
Its amazing how compartmentalized Evangelicals are. From this article you can really see that these "believers" don't have a faith of their own. They have a dogma they've assumed was correct; but as soon as real life shows its face their hopes are dashed and then they translate that as "losing their faith". They have a "Jesus-Lite" mentality based on a Pick & Choose Bible that is designed to fit a philosophy that even Jesus wouldn't recognized if he happened to stumble upon it. St. Paul warned of a "falling away" from the faith and this is a classic example. When you believe something that hasn't been tested on a personal level you suddenly feel "lost" when it is challenged by real experience. The problem for these psuedo-believers is that they can't step outside the box and truly question the core issues of what they have been taught and what they can truly believe. They're not any different from other churches they criticize that have such a hold on people that they feel it is a sin to question any ecclesiastical authority. They think that if they just live within the lines the whole picture will emerge and then they'll see Jesus. What they don't realize is that you have to step back from the image before you can truly see it.
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'As someone else already pointed out, Christianity lost whatever power it had to be an agent of positive change in the world at the Council of Nicea.'
And this is the thing ...
Religion's killer app ought to be that the world's a better place because there are rival groups of altruists, outdoing each other at being nice and generous, each committed to a life of self-improvement and celebration of all creation.
But it's not that, not even a little bit. It's laughable to even suggest that's what it is.
Because 'faith' got in the way. Dawkins might bang on a bit, but he's basically right about this. Religion's about 'faith', now, and 'faith' is basically a denial of reality, champions people who remove themselves from the real world. And the more extreme or stupid or reality-defying the thing you believe, the more 'faith' you must have.
Religion should be about more than wanting to belong. It plainly isn't.
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The Gospel According to John Marks
In this thoughtful interview, John Marks alludes to the basis for his unbelief:
"At every turn, I find enormous questions about our right to believe in a God that has so unevenly distributed the good things in life. I'm not sure I want to believe in belief."
Yet he nowhere even mentions what is so obvious: By and large, *people* unevenly distribute the good things in life. This was particularly obvious in the Balkan incident he cited as so decisive for him.
It seems to me that at least one important reason Marks can't believe in God is because--incredibly given such abundant evidence--he seems unable to believe in sin.
Bob Morrison
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The Real Truth...
"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." ~ Vladimir Nabokov
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You can let out that "bated breath" now.
There is one line in the article that I wholly agree with.
"There is no god" (or God; if you insist).
Belief in the divinity and inerrancy of Jesus (Or Allah or Buddha or Zeus or Apollo or Zoraster or any other such figure) has as much basis in fact ("Fact" being defined as "Knowledge or information based on real and observable evidence or events") as a religion based upon "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" or one based on the notion that "The universe was created 85 years ago by a omnipotent pan-dimensional gerbil named 'Bob', and that any evidence to the contrary is simply planted there by 'Bob' to test mans faith".
All of those above theories have an equal amount of evidence in their favor, which is to say "None at all". It's fine to have absolute faith ("Faith" being defined as "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence") in anything you like, but that doesn't make it true or even rational. In fact, if you publicly professed to an equal amount of faith in "Bob" as people do in "Jesus", and expected the IRS to recognize your faith as being equally valid for tax purposes, I imagine you'd get laughed out of court, despite the fact that you have as much evidence for your mythology as Christians have for theirs.
My personal position is that you as human being are free to believe anything you like, no matter how much or little there is to back up your belief. But it should end there.. Just because you believe it doesn't make it true. As long as people are willing to accept that their personal beliefs are just that ("Personal beliefs", without any further significance), I'm fine with it.
It seems that one of the big arguments in favor of religion is that without it, we would have no moral code.
Bull.
I don't need religion to know that it is "Bad" to steal.
I don't need religion to know that it is "Bad" to kill people.
I don't need religion to know that it is "Good" to treat people as you'd want to be treated by them.
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On 'Fomer Born-Again...'
There are no 'former' born-again Christians. There are people who get excited about Christianity, then realize they don't want salvation, and turn from it. But salvation is not something people get, lose, retrieve... It's a one-time offer, and either someone sticks with it, or they were never saved.
Peace,
XY
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Central question
But when you get to this central question -- Do you believe that Jesus Christ redeemed you for all time and do you live as if that's true?
This question is almost impossible to answer.
Way back in history Jews had human sacrifice, but, the Bible tells us, God told Abraham that human sacrifice was over the top and that he would be quite happy to take a ram instead as full payment for all sins committed to date.
Up to the time of Jesus, the Jews sacrificed animals to keep God sweet. Clearly at the time of Jesus the sacrifices were not doing the trick and the Roman occupation of the promised land showed no signs going away in spite of prayer and sacrifices on an industrial scale.
The time was ripe for a new religion.
Sacrificing animals was expensive if you were poor, so St. Paul, the founder of the new Christian sect had the whizz-bang marketing idea of announcing that the death of Jesus was the ultimate final sacrifice and that if you joined Christianity, there would be no more sacrificing.
Just state your pledge that Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, and you were in the club. Good deal. The end of the world was probably next week anyway.
...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Now, the problem is that for the modern-day American public-school educated citizen to get his or her head around the idea that God is an entity that require placating via sacrifices (human, animal, or symbolic) may be an idea that just does not mean very much. We just are not a very bribe-oriented society--we believe we have rights.
"O.K. Sire, You created us and made us live in these unintelligently designed bodies with numerous faulty components and no health insurance. We are YOUR problem. We have issues and if you do not address them, there are plenty of other Gods out there who want our business. Mammon, for one!"
And if you did believe the question above, exactly how would you live as if it was true? Would you dedicate your life to self-sacrifice for others, or would you interpret your duty to God and man in some other way.
If people like Jim Bakker or Jimmy Swaggart believed this, how did it not influence their behavior, or is the truth that they never did believe it?
I am ripe for conversion as I am getting up in years and need to plan for my future, but the question needs to be restated in terms that a concrete thinker like me can understand, because I am no good with abstract theories.