Letters to the Editor
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thoughtful until the end
this article bothers me. I find it interesting and thoughtful until the end. her description of her life, her talks with the nun, and her interaction with her daughter are moving.
but then as so often happens with any views on religion, in come the pat answers at the end.
she goes to church and the preacher advocates belief. is this really surprising in a church? granted she doesn't like it and but a sermon expressing doubt probably would have been upsetting and offensive to many.
so she leaves. then she presents her conflict with the church as if resolved and says a few things about there being great joy in life as well as suffering. unlike the rest of her article these observations strike me as cliches. pat answers.
personally I stopped attending church many years ago. I feel for the author b/c I have trouble leaving Christianity behind as well. However, the Christian faith for better or worse has simple answers to life. They are not *easy* answers but they are simple. Believe. Do not challenge.
A simple answer is not trivial. many people overcomplicate life enormously. but it is then difficult to stay in the faith without holding the orthodox view.
I am making no judgement on Christianity. just that I so often see this pattern in popular writings that the views of the author are moving and reflective until it's time for the pat answers which will keep the author tied to the faith.
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Re: "Great Disappointment"
Dear Darcey:
Thank you for your honest and thoughtful reflection.
I agree with you that sacredness is more important than certainty.
Have you finished writing "Great Disappointment", a novel about 19th century Millerite movement?
I am eagerly waiting for it.
(Editor, can you deliver this mail to her, please?)
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The Perfect Liberal Theodicy
God is whatever you say it is, you are free to worship a reflection of your own emotions and ego. God has no role in evil in the world because you say so. Doubt is faith.
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Nice article and letters
I enjoyed Ms. Steinke providing us a window into her soul. I suspect her struggle is as much about the depression she mentioned as about objective doubt. Having not experienced clinical depression, I feel that her description of how she feels gave me a little insight into what other depressed people I know are going through.
I also appreciated most of the letters. We still get the same tired arguments for and against atheism that seem to follow every religion article, but these were both more thoughtful and civil than usual. Thanks to everyone who contributed.
I count myself among the "insane" believers. The doubts I have are mostly of the intellectual honesty sort: I could well be wrong about everything I believe, but I am certainly not worried about it. Like Mr. Collins, coming from an atheist/agnostic background, I had no prior belief to try to fit my experience to. Nor did I end up here because my life is a mess.
As for suffering, if we are to become like Christ, suffering must be an essential part of the Christian experience. And apart from a minority of Christians living in the wealthier parts of the world, it is. I see it firsthand daily, living in an impoverished country where Christians are persecuted.
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Randall Cameron, what country do you live in?
"I see it firsthand daily, living in an impoverished country where Christians are persecuted." and, you're very welcome ("Thanks to everyone who contributed" - though i don't know if i was included specifically or it was just a general civility.)
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Why struggle?
It is amazing to me that today's modern American society is so infused with this glorification of faith. The lengths that people go to keep their foundering faiths alive is remarkable. It is seen as an admirable and noble struggle, an honorable quest, to maintain one's own beliefs regardless of their validity.
The child in this story is busy trying to understand the world, understanding that there is fact and there is fiction, and our society is doing the best to muddle the two until nothing clear remains. The conservative pushes their child to believe what they believe. The liberal pushes their child just to believe in something. But why?
I recently watched The Polar Express, a masterfully animated movie where a child is taken on an adventure to the North Pole in an effort to get him to still believe in Santa. The irony of this is that the child was right before this whole lesson. The moral of the movie?
"One thing about trains... Doesn't matter where they are going. But what matters is deciding to get on."
From personal life experience, let me tell you -- life's a lot easier when you pick your trains based on where they're going. And you'll struggle a lot less in life if you value your beliefs in the 43,190 minutes in a month that you don't believe, rather than the 10 minutes where you do.
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Belief is not a choice
Can you imagine yourself just deciding one day "I think I'm going to start believing in Zeus"? You don't DECIDE to believe. Belief is something that happens automatically when you have sufficient evidence to think that something is real. Anything beyond that, I would call fanciful dreaming. I don't choose to be an atheist any more than I choose to 'believe' that 2+2=4. I simply have not been shown evidence for it. I can't speak for anyone else. Maybe all those people who claim that Jesus has spoken to them are right, for all I know. But then I'd have to ask, why would a just God who supposedly loves everyone only talk to certain people (not to mention only certain cultures)?
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It used to be Good Friday was just for the Catholics
Now it's a big deal for all the Protestants too. I predict that in response to the obvious war on Jesus and the 84% of Americans who are his army, we'll see Good Friday as the next Federal Holiday.
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two picked nits
PaulE: if you are going to carry results to five places, don't make months thiry days (god abominates rounding errors). achilleselbow: 2+2=4 not by proof, but by definition. to a believer, me+world=god (otherwise the sum would have no "meaning")