Hope vs. Prayer.

Been wanting to write about this for awhile. Hope vs. Prayer. What's the difference, really? I do think hope is better, because if whatever you're hoping for doesn't come to pass, then at least you can move on, or try to, without all the questioning. When you pray, you're praying to someone, someone who can, if he so chooses, grant you your request. Hope is just hope. If what you want to happen doesn't happen there is no 'Someone' to ask why not. You can ask yourself or your friends a rhetorical 'why,' but it's just that- rhetorical. You're not really expecting any answers. But when you pray for something- something really big and non-selfish say, and it never happens, you're constantly wondering and asking and guessing as to why not. Especially when others around you seem to be getting 'smaller' things they asked for. Just what is the point of praying, anyway? The bible clearly tells us to. Jesus clearly told us to. But why? Seems like God's just going to do what God wants, never mind what we want or how in line with his will what we're asking seems to be. If we ask for something that we are 100% sure is in line with his will and that we are 100% sure he would want, and it doesn't happen, then we're left thinking that, well, maybe we were just wrong about that thing; maybe we were being selfish all along in asking for it (you'd think god would be a little better at communicating things to us- 'no, you're being selfish here, or asking the wrong way, or whatever. Here's what you need to be asking for...' etc.). Or he didn't answer with a 'yes' because he's got other, super secret reasons, reasons that he'll one day reveal to us when we're with him in heaven, because right now we're just not ready to know them. Well, why can't he help us be ready to know them then, so we don't have to wait until then? Well, he's got his own super secret reasons for that too, and we'll just have to wait for that as well, right?
I remember reading a quote somewhere that God answers prayer in one of three ways- yes, no, and wait. I don't remember where I read it, but it was attributed to Christianity.com (though I'm sure many others have repeated it). Ok, so let's think about that- yes, no, and wait. I guess those are really the only three ways he could answer prayer; the answer is either going to be yes or no, and if it's yes, it's either going to come shortly after the prayer is offered or it's going to take a really long, unknown amount of time. And if it never happens, then the answer was no, right? Seems pretty simple, I guess. The tricky part is- how do you know- really know- who it is that's answering your prayers? I mean, if it's yes, no or wait, I could just as easily pray to the 100 year-old tree in my back yard, or to my dead ancestors, or the flying spaghetti monster, right? The answer is going to be the same- yes or no or wait. Now, while it may seem just blatantly obvious to you that of course it matters who you pray to, because my dead ancestors are just that- dead, and the tree is just a tree and the FSM doesn't really exist, it's not so obvious to those who don't believe. It goes back to what I said in a previous post- just who is this 'God' guy anyway? By definition we can't detect him with any of our physical senses, or any other way, for that matter, except 'through faith.' I know, I know: gravity- we can't smell, taste, touch, hear, or see it, right? No, we can't, but neither do we have to take it on faith, because we can detect it through science. We see it indirectly; we see it's effects on things- things fall to earth, earth rotates around the sun, etc. Gravity is a (very basic and very well understood) part of the known physical universe. By definition, God is not a part of our physical universe (even though he's said to inhabit it). He's 'outside' of time and space, as they say (whatever that's supposed to mean). And he's not at all well understood. I hardly need to provide any examples of that; it's practically part of Christian doctrine- 'my ways are above your ways,' he knows everything, we know (comparatively) nothing, etc. Believers everywhere freely admit that they know very little about God's ways. Of course, it's usually in the context of 'he's so infinite and amazing, it'll take us all eternity to understand him.' Sort of like an ant trying to understand algebra or something. But still, you'd think Almighty God could make himself a little more understandable to his puny, ignorant creation. With all the arguing and disagreements among different branches of Christianity (not to mention those who don't identify as Christians, but who still believe in God) why can't God just step in and act as referee? Straighten everyone out. But it's not just the different branches of Christianity who disagree with each other, with each group saying the other aren't 'true' Christians- Christians in the same group don't need to travel very far to find other like-minded Christians that they disagree with on something 'big.' I've heard some Christians say that they're for the death penalty because of their faith in God, while others have said that they're against it because of their faith in God. Seems like a pretty big issue to me, one that God might want to show up and straighten everyone out on, just so they're all on the same page about it. But anyway, I'm getting off track here. Back to prayer. I suppose there can be more than just 'yes, no, or wait' as an answer, because after all, what if it's not a yes-no question? What if it's more along the lines of 'Where should I go to college?' or something like that? I remember many years ago, when Janelle S. was looking at colleges, trying to decide where it was that God wanted her to go to. She narrowed her choices down to two- ENC, and some other one- I can't remember the name, but I think it was in Pennsylvania. So she prayed about it. She told me that since she'd applied at about the same time, she was praying that God would let her know by whichever one she heard back from first being the one she was supposed to go to. Sure, now it seems like maybe not the best way to figure out what school God wants you to go to, but really, how else was she supposed to decide? 'Yes, no, wait' doesn't apply here. And she can't really expect the school to send her a letter saying 'God told us he wants you to come here and not go to that 'other' school.' So it seems like a perfectly reasonable way for a believer to figure out what God wants for her. He does send 'signs' after all, doesn't he? The thing is, if you were a graduating high school senior involved in the Nazarene church pretty much anywhere in New England who was heading off to college in the Fall, it was pretty much a given that you were going to ENC. You just did. Everyone did, right? And everyone wanted to. And why not? This was long before Facebook and Myspace; hell, this was way before even email became mainstream, so going to ENC was how you stayed in close contact with all your friends, acquaintances and loved ones, everyone you'd gone to camp with and quizzed with for the last several years. And Janelle wanted to go to ENC. Probably expected she'd hear from them first, being that MA was much closer to Maine than PA. But she heard from the other school first. I remember the look on her face, too. It was sort of a surprised letdown. She really wanted to go to ENC and thought for sure God wanted her too as well, but now it appeared that he wanted her to go to the other school, much further away from friends and family, which would be difficult to deal with. Obviously, in the end she ended up going to ENC. I can't remember what the process was for her changing her mind, and her reasons for it, but somehow she managed to decide that no, it was really God's will that she go to ENC instead. Imagine if she'd gotten the letter from them first all along, as she probably expected she would. Obviously that would have been a clear sign from God that she was supposed to go there! Obviously! But she didn't get that letter, so she had to look for other 'confirmation' that that's where God really wanted her to go to college. I'm not passing judgment on her in any way- everyone does stuff like that in one way or another, believers and non-believers alike. We look for, and find, patterns and meaning and signs where there are none, and in the absence of a literal road map for life, straight from God's printing press, believers need to find confirmation somewhere.
So since God's preferred method of answering prayer is never a direct, spoken answer straight to our ears, but is often vague and made through 'indirect' means, what then (again) is the point of praying (besides the fact that we're told to)? If the 'yes, no, or wait' template could just as easily be applied to prayers made to anyone or anything (real or made up) in the universe, why even bother? Seriously. I recall hearing awhile back some preacher or other talking about how prayer isn't so much about asking for stuff, as it is about just communicating with God, and how it's supposed to be transformative- meaning that we should pray simply because it brings us closer to God. Well maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't, but if that's the main purpose of prayer, why does the bible tell us specifically to ask for things? Like I mentioned in one of the beginning posts, that verse in Matthew or wherever, where Jesus got really specific and said whatever you ask for in his name, you shall receive. Enter all the name-it-claim-it folks telling you all you need to do is just ask for money and healing and whatever, followed by the apologists who have to parse what Jesus really meant from what he actually said (even though he's said to 'say what he means and mean what he says').

Thank goodness for all the apologists to come along and explain the gospel for me because if I had to think for myself, I just might get it 'wrong.'

***

Years ago, shortly after I fully left my old faith, I had this bumper sticker that read, 'Nothing fails like prayer.' I wasn't trying to be confrontational or offensive with it, it just really struck a chord with me. It rang true. Still does, actually. Because when you're told to ask for things, and you do ask for them, and they never come to pass, that sounds like a failure to me. 'Maybe the answer was just no,' you say? Maybe. Or maybe the answer just fell squarely in line with the laws of probability. Come up with any scenario you like: 1000 Christians with a gravely ill child, whom modern medicine may or may not be able to save. They all pray fervently for their kids, and some make it, and some don't. Well, maybe God decided to 'take home' the ones who didn't make it; who are we to judge what he does, right? Well, if he were to actually communicate with us, the way he expects us all to do with him, and offer up some sort of reasoning as to why he chose the ones that he did to either live or 'come home,' then maybe I could say 'Fair enough,' and go along with that. But the communication never, ever happens, does it? It's always one-way. One way you could look at situations like that would be to say that 'Well, that's just how God works, and he's got his reasons, etc., etc.' And many people do look at it like that. I've heard some believers, when pressed with similar troubling scenarios (usually taken from the headlines of the evening news) and asked, 'Why would God allow this/ do this/etc., say something along the lines of 'I don't know, but I plan on asking him when I see him (face to face, in heaven). On the surface, I really appreciate the apparent honesty- a believer is actually genuinely troubled by the way God 'chooses to work' in a particular situation and has plans to take it up with him in heaven. But then I think, what in the world makes anyone think that God is going to explain everything in heaven? He's gone this long without a single word of explanation in any form, so why does everyone think he's just going to open up and explain everything after we're all dead? What could possibly give anyone that idea? Just think about how long humanity has been inhabiting this planet- anywhere from 6,000 years (if you're a young-earther) to (last I checked) around 200,000 years. And think about all the brutal, shocking things that have happened to innocent people throughout all that time; things that make even believers ask 'Why, God, why?' A thousand years may be just a day to God, but to us, it's a thousand years, one single day at a time, and if you happened to have been born a black person in Africa or a Jew in Europe during the wrong period in time, then you had many, many days of asking God why, with no answers forthcoming (unless they were from other people, trying to explain why God does things the way he does). But I'm supposed to believe that he's just going to open up and explain everything at the end of time, once all the believers are in heaven and the unbelievers are in hell? No. I do not buy it. Not for one. lousy. second.

Ok, getting away from the yes/no/wait aspect of it, there's the other part of it that I wanted to talk about. Years ago I used to live in the same building as this one guy; we were part of the same church/fellowship and would often run into each other in the hall. Now this guy, I'll call him Mark, he had some sort of physical handicap- a degenerative disease, I guess. I never asked him or anyone else what it was, and noone ever told me so I have no idea what it was called, or his history with it, but basically he was almost completely paralyzed (someone told me that at one point in his life he had been able to at least walk). He could move his head and hands a little, so that if you helped set him up just right he could use a keyboard, feed himself, and brush his teeth, things like that. But other than that, he was pretty much dependent on others for just about everything. Nicest guy in the world, too. Never heard him say a bad word about anyone, and he was almost always cheerful. Not bitter like a lot of us might be. He was, however, sexually frustrated. Noone ever came out and said that, of course, especially him, but it was the truth. Nearly every time I would pass him in the hall, or see him at church, or generally just cross paths with him (which was quite frequently) he'd almost always ask me to lay hands on his head and pray for him because he was dealing with impure thoughts about women or some such thing. Almost every single time. And it's not like he would single me out as the one to pray for him (because my prayers were stronger than other peoples') I'd often see lots of different guys laying hands on his head and praying for him. It got to the point where I actually started going out of my way to avoid running into him, as awful as that sounds to say. It's too bad really, because like I said- nicest guy in the world. And even though noone said it, everyone understood his plight- he didn't have the options that any other able-bodied person would have for dealing with his situation. That's gotta be tough to deal with. Sure, everyone else thought that if they 'gave in' to their 'sexual thoughts' that that would be bad, and they'd have to pray and ask forgiveness for it, and so they would, and everything would be fine- until the next time, when they were again overwhelmed by their raging hormones. Mark didn't even have that option. He didn't have any option to deal with it, other than just keep hitting up his friends for prayers. Many, many times per day. Every single day. Surely- surely - that would be a prayer request that God would honor, no? I mean, of all things to ask for, and since he's so against any actions, any thoughts about sex or anything sex-related, you'd think he'd answer Mark's prayers and 'help him to do better.' But he, apparently, never did. Some might argue that he couldn't actually 'make' Mark not think about sex anymore because that would somehow violate his 'free will.' Bullshit. Mark clearly did not want to think about sex anymore because he believed it was wrong and God didn't want him to since he wasn't married. He was asking for help to not think about sex anymore. But help never came, for some reason. Believers can try and dress it up any way they like, say that God has his own secret reasons, or say that he is helping (just imagine how much worse Mark would have been without God's help) or pull the old 'free will' trick, but the fact of the matter is that Mark prayed countless times per day (and others did the same for him) and yet there was no noticeable difference for him. He was still battling the same old battle. Nothing ever changed. That's pretty depressing, when you stop to think about it. I mean, it's gotta be hard enough just being in his situation, but then when you're constantly so torn up over some thoughts- not actions, not things he did or even said, just some lousy thoughts- and you pray and pray and pray and pray, and nothing ever changes, even in the slightest little bit- you really gotta wonder what the hell God is doing while Mark is suffering (and yes, I call that suffering). So now, you take a believer who's observing this situation as objectively as possible, someone who's trying their damnedest to know/do what's right, know the 'truth' about life and all that, and they look at Mark and his situation and see all the prayers go (apparently) unheeded- what exactly are they supposed to think about all this? Obviously many (most, even) find some way to rationalize it all away and say that God really is listening and really does care and all that, but some might look at it and start to doubt God's everlasting love and best intentions for us. Some might even conclude: 'If that isn't a case of failed prayer, I don't know what is.' And of course, those people will likely be ridiculed and vilified (in a godly way, of course) by the true believers, because as we all know, prayer doesn't fail. God doesn't fail. It's our limited human understanding and knowledge of God that fails (which I guess is why we're supposed to pray in the first place, right?)

No doubt some believer or apologist will read all this and conclude that I just hate God/want to sin/was burned by a 'fake' Christian/etc., etc., etc. (absolutely anything except that maybe what they believe/I used to believe just doesn't stand up to a little scrutiny and critical thinking). The far more simple truth of the matter should be pretty obvious to anyone with a little intellectual honesty: Hope vs. Prayer- what's the difference?

Just a thought...

So God (and Jesus) is 'everywhere,' right? I mean, he's available 24/7 so anyone, anywhere in the world who wishes to speak to him can do so at any time, right? That's what they say. And he wants a 'relationship' with us, right? Wants us to talk to him, to pray? So why is it that when people pray, they tend to close their eyes and bow their heads? Sure, sometimes they'll look upwards ('towards heaven,' I suppose, even though heaven isn't 'up') but generally it's eyes closed, heads bowed. Ever wonder why that is? Some might argue that bowing the head shows humility, and closing ones eyes frees one from outside visual distractions. Here's what I think: If you're in a group of two or more and you bow your head and close your eyes and start 'talking to God,' it's called prayer. But if you don't close your eyes and don't bow your head, and you start 'talking to God,' it'll look like something else altogether- like you're a child talking to his imaginary friend. Same if you're by yourself in a public place and you start praying out loud (eyes open, head not bowed) - is it 'prayer,' or is it just you talking to an imaginary friend? Seems like an odd way to have a 'relationship' with someone. I mean, if Jesus came to earth as a human to bridge the gap between us and God, if he's God in human form so that we can really know who God is (like I mentioned in the previous post) what the hell kind of relationship is it that we can't just talk to him like we talk to each other? Imagine being in a prayer group where everyone kept their heads up and eyes open- I think the main thing distracting anyone would be just how much it looks like they're just talking to an imaginary being.

Just a thought.

Just who is this 'God' guy, anyway?

Have you ever really asked yourself that? Ever really thought about it? Just who God is? What does it mean when you say 'God?' To whom are you referring? I asked my brother that one time, and he started with all the usual stuff- 'He's the creator of the universe...' etc. etc. But I'm not talking about what he supposedly did. I mean, when you close your eyes and pray to God, who do you think of? What do you see? When you tell others about 'him,' who is the 'he' that you're referring to? Since he's A. invisible, B. intangible, i.e. doesn't have a physical body, C. no longer speaks to us in a human voice, D. no longer manifests himself in clear, obvious ways, like he's said to do in the bible, many times over, and so on... So he has all these 'attributes,' and things he's done and continues to do- created everything, is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-that. And we humans can (and should) - supposedly - have a relationship with him. Ok, so who is he really, then? Think about it, I could tell someone about you guys- someone who's never met you before, doesn't know anything at all about you, never even seen a photo; I could say, 'This is Chuck, I've known him for x years, this is where he lives, what he does, what he's done, etc.' I could attempt to draw a sketch, so they could get some idea of what you look like. Admittedly, my drawing skills are not very good, but even so, I could go so far as to hire a sketch artist and have them draw you based on my description, so that the person I'm describing you to could picture somebody based on the description. True, they would actually have to meet you in order to say they know you, but still, they could get a decent idea of who you are. Even in the case of someone that none of us has ever met, or will meet, such as George Washington, we can still get an idea of who he was, based on stuff he wrote, and stuff that was written about him, but most of all on the fact that he was a human being, just like us, and anyone who's spent a certain amount of time on this planet and has seen enough things in life generally knows what people are like. Not so with 'God.' And I know exactly what the counter-argument is: 'Jesus was God in human form, so we can know what God is like, through Jesus!' Wrong. Flat-out wrong, and on so many levels it's hard to know where to start. I'm told by Christians, and used to tell others the same thing when I was a Christian, that you can have a relationship with Jesus, yes you can. A relationship? The kind where he never talks to me, or anyone else? Even modern Christians would look with a great deal of skepticism on someone who claimed Jesus actually spoke to him in an audible voice. Much more so if they claimed that he told them something ridiculous like, 'I want you to give up everything and be a homeless bum, so you can better witness to homeless people.' Or especially if he said to do something psychotic, like, 'Kill your firstborn child.' Although I don't know why that would be so outrageous, since Jesus is supposedly God incarnate, and God himself told Abraham to kill Isaac. The fact that he changed his mind at the last second is irrelevant; he still told him to kill his son, and Abraham had the knife lifted and was ready to go.
(On a side note, since we're on the subject of the Trinity, I remember one time in church listening to K talk about the Trinity, and how so many people have tried to 'figure it out' (how can he be 'one god, in three persons,' and all that, etc.) and he mentioned a quote that he'd heard before: 'It's been said that if you try to understand the Trinity, you'll lose your mind. If you try to deny the trinity, you'll lose your soul.' In other words- 'Just believe what we tell you to believe. Don't try to make sense of it, don't try to refute it. Or else.' Am I wrong? Because I really don't think I am.)
Getting back to the relationship with Jesus... So he never talks to us, at least not in an audible voice. Ok, so he speaks to our 'heart,' then? What if he tells me something different than what he tells you? What if he tells me that he wants me to move to Hawaii and be a surfer and drink fu-fu drinks with little umbrellas in them? I already know the answer to that- 'He doesn't work that way.' Of course he doesn't. Because whenever he tells someone something that greatly differs from the general 'accepted' idea of how he works, then he just doesn't work that way. It's all so convenient. It makes it so easy to put everyone in a box, or label them as the kind of person 'who thinks they are, but ain't.' It also drastically cheapens the idea of what a 'relationship with Jesus' means in the first place. I can have a relationship with him, but only if it fits with a particular set of beliefs and practices? And if it doesn't, then I'm just plain wrong, or 'deceived.' Or a deceiver. That's a good one. The idea that I really 'know the truth,' but I have some sort of hidden, evil agenda, so I 'deny the truth' and try to lie to others too. I'm just another puppet of the devil, I guess. But anyway, back to this relationship idea, and what I was saying before about how we can get an idea of who some people are even if we've never met them before, and never can meet them. I still maintain that we can't get to 'know' God based on Jesus and the idea that he 'was God' in person. What do we know about Jesus, anyway? Not as much as some people would like to think we do. He himself (allegedly) never wrote any books. Noone ever sketched out any pictures of him. Much of his life before the last few years is almost completely unknown, and what was written about him was written long after his death. But never mind all that, let's just say that everything in the bible that's written about him is 100% accurate (why not, right? Since mortal men didn't write it anyway- God did, so they say). Even with all that, we still can't get a 100% clear picture of who God is just based on that. You know why? Because Jesus is like a cloud, or a Rorschach test- different people look at it and see different things. People look at Jesus and see what they think they should see. There was a line from that DeGarmo & Key song, Radical, 'He's got hair down his back.' Of course he did; because they were Jesus rockers with long hair themselves. Then when the Christian metal scene started out in California and the kids who used to like that kind of music started getting flak from the older generations in their churches for listening to that kind of music, well, wouldn't you know it, that's exactly the kind of music they figured Jesus would listen to these days if he were around now instead of 2000 years ago. You go into a Lutheran church in northern Maine or Minnesota and you're likely to see one of those old-school painting of Jesus on the wall where he's very pail and white with medium-length locks, not too long, not too short. In southern churches he's more dark-skinned. I've been told that in China, he's more Asian-looking, and so on. And the Christians who are fed up with the hypocrisy they see love to quote the verses where Jesus is telling off the Pharisees, or overturning the money table- 'cause Jesus was a badass, just like them! People look at Jesus and see who they want to see. With so many people having so many different ideas about who he is, why couldn't he make things a little more objective? It's like I said in a previous post, why couldn't he have come in say, the 20th century instead of when he did? Then we could at least have photos of him, put a name to the face. Instead, we're left to close our eyes and see- nothing. We're allowed 'no other gods before him,' yet I have to ask- before who? It doesn't do any good to say things like, 'the one who created everything.' That still doesn't tell us anything about who that 'one' is. The Flying Spaghetti Monster claims to be that one, and he has the added bonus of having an actual image that we can picture in our minds. So could I picture in my mind the FSM and say, 'I don't know if that's what God looks like, but I'm going to worship the God who created everything and picture the FSM'? How do we know that God doesn't look like the FSM? Without any kind of idea of what to go on, we're totally left to our imagination, so I don't see why not. How can it be blasphemy, if we're still worshiping the 'one true god?' If I close my eyes and pray to 'the god who created me and everyone and everything, whoever you are,' but picture something specific, is that ok? Can I even ask that question, or am I in danger of going to hell for it? And why do I have to ask other people? Why can't I just go to God himself and ask him directly? And why can't I expect an answer when I do?

Here's a thought- how about we just forget the whole idea of groveling before an invisible, practically unknowable deity who hides himself from us in many ways, and go on living our lives until he sees fit to make himself known in a way that's plain and objective and obvious to everyone?

Coincidence?

"I don't believe in luck or coincidence."

-- Steve Camp


I don't remember exactly what song that's from, but I used to listen to a lot of Steve Camp's music in my late teens and I can still hear that line playing in my head. I can also recall sitting in church and, on more than a couple of occasions, hearing pastor so-and-so yelling about how there's absolutely no such thing as luck or coincidence. Nope, absolutely not.
I can kind of buy the part about luck- I don't actually believe that 'good' luck is some sort of good fortune that some people inherently have, and 'bad' luck is some sort of misfortune that other people just inherently have; it's all coincidence, really. If I happened to find a $50 bill on the ground one day, then I might say it was my lucky day, but it was really just coincidence that I was the one who happened to find it, and not someone else. It's so easy to find myriad examples of coincidence in everyday life that it's kind of hard to understand why so many Christians flat-out do not believe in it. It's kind of an issue for me here because it doesn't seem to be just a few believers here and there who deny it; in my experience, I find that it's very pervasive in Christian thought. (I didn't just 'happen' to find that $50 right when I needed it to pay for some unexpected expense- God blessed me!) I think it's because they think that it takes away from God being 'in control' of things. It makes him seem even more 'hands off' than he already appears to be. If things 'just happen' by luck or coincidence, then God isn't exactly out there watching over us, intervening when he deems necessary. And then from there, it's only a small step to, 'Well, maybe he doesn't even exist.'
Well, for the coincidence-deniers, I have a few examples of things that appear to me to be one hell of a set of coincidences.

Have you ever noticed that it always seems like the way things just happen to be is always the way that God just happens to work? Or, the way things are in the real world is just how God 'chose to do it?' For instance, the Bible was written thousands of years ago, in Middle Eastern countries- a time and place where women had few, if any, rights at all. God 'just happened' to choose that place in time and geography to inspire men (of course, men) to write his word for all of humanity for all time? And also considering when and where it was written, doesn't it seem like a really big coincidence that God, even though 'he' is supposed to be genderless, 'just happens' to want us to refer to him as being male? Father, Son, Holy Spirit? Why not Father, Mother, Holy Spirit? Why not just Holy Spirit 1, 2, and 3 (or even just the Great Triune Holy Spirit, since 1, 2, and 3 seem a little impersonal)? Considering the anti-female environment of the time, seems like it would've been a great way to show off his power if he'd have included a female element to his persona- 'Dare you challenge my God status? I'll show you...!' and then proceed to call down fire upon their heads or some such similar display of his God-status. (Considering all the people that he killed/had killed in the old testament, it's not like anyone can say he would've been above doing that sort of thing.) I just think that since he wanted us to refer to him with a gender, it would have added to his stature to have included the female gender as well, since of course people would have challenged him on it and then he could really show off his/her/its power and shut all the naysayers up. But, funny how he chose not to do it that way. Funny how he only chose men to be his prophets, and forbid women to teach or have authority over men. Funny how it was the woman who sinned first and led the man to sin too. Funny how it's women who get to bear the pain of childbirth, and not men. So God designed women to be the ones to give birth (though it supposedly would've been pain-free, had Adam and Eve not sinned) and not men? Women who have to go through monthly periods and hormonal changes, and not men? And funny how it was the Son who was the only one who could save humanity, and who himself only chose men to be his disciples. Doesn't this all seem like a bunch of crazy coincidences to you? It does to me. Some might mention the book of Esther, and say she held a place of esteem in God's eyes. Hell, she got an entire book of the Bible named after her. Mary, mother of Jesus; she was well-thought of, as were plenty of other women in the Bible. And the fact that Satan is not a female. (I guess he's technically genderless, having been an angel and all, but in common culture is generally thought of as male.) As for Esther and Jesus' mom and all the other women that modern Christians point to to show that the Bible isn't misogynistic, so what? Taken as a whole (in context, you might say) the Bible is clearly male-centric. As you would expect it to be, considering when and where it was written. As for Satan not being explicitly female, to me that's just a good example of the Bible having been written in a dynamic process, over time- which is to say, a group of guys didn't just get together one day and make up a story and then another group of guys put it together and called it the Bible. Just because us nonbelievers don't accept the Bible as being 'true' doesn't mean we think it's 'just a made-up story' (though I've heard that misconception before). So, looking at the Bible and its history as a whole, I see a whole lot of 'coincidences' in the way God 'chose' to do things. Believers tell me he wants me to believe in him, and the 'evidence' is overwhelming if only I'd consider it with an open heart, but the way God 'chose' to do things sure makes it easy to think that the Bible was just a product of its time and place. Why couldn't he have done it some other way? Some other way that was far more compelling and believable?
Daniel over at Unreasonable Faith had a post awhile back entitled 'How would you reveal yourself?' It wasn't a post, per se, but just a question to his readers- supposing you were an all-knowing, all-powerful (all-that...) deity, and you wanted to reveal yourself to your human creations so that they could know you and choose whether or not to worship you- how would you go about doing it? Never mind the 'Well you're not God, so it doesn't matter,' and 'God is God so whatever way he chose to do it was the Right way,' b.s.- it's a legitimate question, one that should be considered if believers want unbelievers to consider the merits of their faith. Funny how the god of the Bible chose to reveal himself- speaking first thousands of years ago to tribal people- paper hadn't even been invented, for crying out loud! They were writing on papyrus and who knows what else? The ten commandments? Stone tablets! Was that really the best way to go about revealing himself to his creation? I suppose it had to have been, since he's perfect and wouldn't have done something less than perfect. (Or would he?) Fast-forward to the new testament- the old law has to go, it's time for a change; it's time for grace to come in the form of Jesus (which makes me wonder- why was the law even there in the first place? If it was working, why change it; if it wasn't, why bother with it to begin with?). So Jesus comes in, does his work, then charges his disciples and followers with spreading the gospel. I remember in the early days of my faith, long before the internet came around with it's e-mail and instant messages and whatnot, a common question was what about those people who live in far-off lands who haven't heard the gospel? Are they going to hell for not being given a fair shake? After all, if they've never heard of Jesus, how can they be blamed for not believing in him? Then the preacher would point to that verse (in Romans, I think) about how noone was without excuse because all you had to do was look around and you could see Creation, so you just *knew* that there was a Creator (and somehow you were also supposed to know that his name was Yahweh, as opposed to Allah, or whatever). But that brings up a couple of interesting questions- if everyone is without excuse and already 'knows' that there is a creator (called God, named Yahweh) then what's the point of sending out missionaries to lands near and far, preaching the gospel everywhere? That's a whole lot of resources that could be put to other, better use. So why did he did tell us to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations and peoples? And if the ultimate goal is to preach the gospel to all nations and peoples and bring everyone in the world (or at least as many as humanly possible) to a saving knowledge of Jesus, why send Jesus to earth to die for everyone's sins and start the Christian church 2000 or so years ago? The printing press hadn't been invented (and wouldn't be for quite some time) so it's not like you could just go around handing out Bibles to everyone in town. Mass transportation? Sure, a herd of camels. Or you could put a few dozen people on a ship and go to sea for a few weeks before reaching a far-off land. It just seems like if you're an all-knowing deity and you have a fallen race of people, and you want them to have a 'relationship' with you- it seems to me like there would be a better way of going about reaching that goal than the one laid out in Christianity and history. Maybe send Jesus in the year 2000 instead, when the internet is humming along nicely, and air travel is taken for granted? Why not? It's only a couple thousand years later. And since a thousand years are like a day with God, no big deal, right? Could it be, could it just possibly be, because 2000 years ago when Jesus was around doing his thing, people were a lot less knowledgeable about how the natural world worked, and also a lot less skeptical? So when you said that someone walked on water or rose from the dead, it didn't seem totally far-fetched because after all, people could be possessed by demons- something that we don't see any real cases of today, by the way. (Imagine if the illusionist David Copperfield were to go back to that time and perform some of his tricks. He'd be thought of as divine for sure. Or at least having a lot of 'supernatural' powers.) In the old and new testaments God routinely manifested himself in dramatic, unmistakable ways, performing obvious miracles even before the eyes of nonbelievers- but not today. Suppose Jesus never lived at that time and instead showed up in the 21st century and started doing his thing? What then? It'd be a lot harder to pull off, considering some of the things that the world's greatest magicians can do, but on the other hand, if you can just say the word and restore someone's sight- if you're God in human flesh, in other words, then it shouldn't be a problem. And why restore just one person's sight? Why not cure blindness in everyone? Why not heal amputees? Now that's a tough one- somebody survives, say, an 'incurable' deadly brain tumor that absolutely noone realistically expected him to, and everyone thanks God for saving him. But no amputee has ever had their missing limb 'supernaturally' restored. What's so hard about that? Salamanders can do it like it's business as usual. Does God like salamanders more than us? Only relatively recently has medical science been able to do something like that, and even then it's not a 'new limb', it's an artificial, man-made one. How many decades of diligent medical research by thousands of people, and how many millions of dollars have been spent to be able to arrive at that technology? If God would have just built in the ability in us like he did with salamanders, humanity could have saved countless hours of study and millions of dollars- time and money that could have been put to other uses.
Imagine if only Jesus had shown up in the 21st century instead- we do have a whole lot of gullible people nowadays, but we also have a lot of naturally-minded scientists and skeptics, people who want actual, testable proof of stuff before they accept it as true. Jesus could step in and heal some blind people and walk on water and shut up all the skeptics. Turn them into believers, even. Instead, God chose to manifest himself in human flesh 2000 years ago and work 'through' ordinary men who had to write his words on papyrus manuscripts. A quick google search turned up a page over on the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry mentioning 'a fragment of the gospel of John that dates back to around 29 years from the original writing.' A fragment? Again, why not just show up in modern times and write on easily copied paper, or post on the internet for millions (billions, even) to see, and not have to worry about piecing it together thousands of years later from fragments nearly lost to history? Or why not just send him at the beginning? If Jesus coming in to save all of humanity was God's plan all along, why bother with the Law in the first place? Clearly it wasn't working, which is why he had to send Jesus and do away with it. I know, I know, he didn't do it that way, so the way that he did do it must have been the best way because his wisdom is infinite and that's the way he chose to do it; if the way that I mentioned was the best way then he would have chosen that way, etc. etc.
Step back for a minute and look at the bigger picture; look at all the things I've just mentioned, take a minute and think about it for yourself and see what you can come up with as well. Doesn't it seem just a little bit odd the way that he 'chose to do things?' Commanded that the gospel be spread far and wide, yet he starts his church at a point in time when animals are the predominant mode of land transportation. Radio and television? So far off in the future that if you were to describe them to someone in that day, they'd think you were bonkers. Maybe even demon-possessed. Yet they can reach far more people and far easier than the way things were two thousand years ago. And speaking of things being more primitive back when Jesus was around, take it a little further and go back to the garden of Eden- why create a race of people so primitive, with absolutely no knowledge of science or physics or anything of the sort? Knowing that they're going to sin and then have to deal with diseases and such, why not just create them fully advanced, with all the science and medical knowledge and technology we have today? I mean, he was nice enough to equip our bodies with an immune system so we could fight off diseases and such once we got kicked out of the garden, why not go whole hog and give us an advanced knowledge of medicine like we have today- the kind that lets us build robotic limbs that can feel. But not only did he choose not to do anything like that, but he didn't even bother to tell us about that immune system, a little bit of knowledge that would have been handy to know sooner rather than later so we could've started working on making vaccines and saving lives. But getting back to my point, if he'd have created us, say, 20 years ago or so, all fully advanced and whatnot, then, instead of having to piece the Bible together from ancient texts, scattered about and buried in clay jars and such, it could be written electronically and printed and distributed on a massive scale. And we could also trace back human history to the very beginning so much more easily! We could say, 'Sure, God created humanity just a couple decades ago! In fact, let's walk over to where the garden of Eden is right now and look at the angels with the flaming swords, preventing us from getting in.' Would sure make things much easier to believe, wouldn't it? But, the way he chose to do it instead coincides nicely with something you'd expect to see if there there is no supernatural intervention in the world, making it very easy to believe just that. Yet I constantly hear from believers that they 'don't have enough faith to be an atheist;' that it's just so obvious that the way things are laid out in the Bible and taught by Christianity is the way things really are, and anything that contradicts it is just plain wrong (or worse, a flat-out lie). Well it's not obvious to everyone. Do you really think that out of the entire time-line of humanity, out of everyone who has ever not believed, that every single one of those nonbelievers really 'knew the truth,' but chose to ignore it? That not one of the millions of nonbelievers (or people who believed in a different god or faith) over the years had actual intellectual and logical reasons for not believing? Because that's what the Christianity I used to be a part of says, and what the Christianity that I'm still surrounded by now says.

Some might say to me, ''Who are you to judge God? Who are you to tell him what he can and cannot do, should and should not do, what's good or bad. He's God, so if he does something and calls it good, then it's good, no matter what 'we' think or if we like it.' I've heard those arguments before. To those people, I say, 'Who are you to tell me what God wants for my life, what he says and doesn't say, likes and doesn't like, is like and is not like, and then tell me that it's not you saying it, but him 'saying it through you?' Throughout history 'God's people' have had a reputation for getting it wrong (and never admitting to it when they know they're wrong) so how do they know they've got it right this time? It goes back to what I said before- I can think for myself and decide for myself- 'they' don't get to decide for me. In fact, I wish 'they' would just shut their pie-holes and let God speak for himself.

Creationistic Hoo-Ha

Daniel Florien over at Unreasonable Faith recently wrote a post entitled 'Creationism In the Jaws of the Lion' (very much worth reading; it's not a very long post) and it echoes exactly something that I was planning on talking about here at some point anyway, so I might as well do it now, while it's fresh in my mind. I've mentioned a couple of times that, when I was still a believer, I was having questions that I wasn't getting any satisfactory answers for. This is one of those questions. And it's not a bogus question, either, some abstract thought experiment to 'prove' that God doesn't exist (Do [insert made-up word/nonexistent entity here] exist? No? Then that's proof that there's no God, because if there was a God, then such and such would exist!) It's not like that at all. Awhile ago I mentioned that at one point towards the end of my faith, I decided to read the Bible from start to finish as if I'd never read it in my life, as objectively as possible. It's amazing, absolutely amazing, the kind of perspective you gain when you do something like that. No preconceived notions about anything, no making excuses for difficult problems that arise. And one of those problems that I had was that I used to think (had always been taught...) that life was 'designed' (and by only one Designer, of course); I remember going on a hike up Katahdin one time with a group of guys from church, and was talking with one of them on the way up and I said how it just seemed so obvious to me- there's design, there must be a designer. I mentioned how every single animal has some sort of defense mechanism against predators; even if it's insignificant, they still have one (looking back, I don't see how that's any sort of evidence for the existence of a deity- so animals have a defense mechanism for avoiding being eaten- so what? All that really proves is that they don't want to be eaten by predators). Well, putting aside the fact that probably not every single animal has one (I don't want to make definitive claims here and say that no, not every single animal has one- sheep come to mind; if you consider the cold to be a predator, then I guess they do, but that wool doesn't really do much to protect against wolves and coyotes) there's still the problem of death by 'design' and the struggle for survival. If we're to take Genesis literally, as mainstream fundamentalist Christianity teaches, then there was no death anywhere in the world until after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. None. Everything was 'designed' to live forever, and supposedly would have if only the First Couple had just listened to God and not ate the fruit. But if nothing died, what would the carnivores have eaten? As Daniel points out, 'If lions were designed, they were designed to be killing machines.' I actually read somewhere that Answers in Genesis and their creation museum teach that some dinosaurs that we know to be carnivorous, were actually vegetarian (before the Fall)! Really! (I think they said that animals like the T-rex used their strong teeth and claws to crack coconuts.) So before the fall, there were no carnivores? Everyone and everything that eats ate plants and veggies? What about sharks? Squid? Barracudas? All vegetarian? Well, I guess if you take Genesis literally they'd have to have been. Granted, God did say he gave us all the seed-bearing plants as food, and as I recall, Genesis doesn't mention that food being for sea creatures, only 'every living thing that walks on the ground.' So maybe the sea creatures could be carnivores, but not the land animals. But still- the Creationist camp (Intelligent Design, as they prefer these days) teaches that death entered the world through Adam's sin- before that, no death. But then there's this problem: plants are living things too. Not in the way that people and animals are, but living nonetheless. And plants die, so which is it? Well, I guess we'll have to 'clarify' the no-death teaching to mean death of sentient beings, or humans and animals, as we know them. Plants don't count, since God did say he gave them to us as food (even though the bible also says 'death entered the world through one man...'). But what counts as 'sentient?' The bible doesn't exactly clarify such things. Are mosquitoes sentient? Bacteria? Who knows?
Ok, let's set aside the whole idea about plants dying, and fish being exempt from the 'no death' rule- let's just talk about land animals. They weren't supposed to die, but according to the ID'ers, it appears God designed them to eat other animals, and in turn, be eaten by other animals. Take a field mouse and an eagle, for example. The eagle has eyes that are 'designed' to be able to see the mouse hiding in the field up to a mile away. But the mouse has fur that generally matches the color of it's environment, to better hide from predators and not get eaten. Lots of other animals have their own unique 'designs' for catching prey/avoiding predators, from color-changing octopuses to the cheetahs that can run 70 mph to the owls that can see so well at night to the razor sharp teeth and powerful jaws of the great white shark that can cut a seal in half with one bite. So even though death supposedly wasn't part of God's original 'plan,' he outfitted all the animals with the tools they'd need to catch food/avoid getting eaten- so after Adam's Fall, they could fight for their lives, literally. Yet it's not a perfect system, as the mouse sometimes gets away, and sometimes gets eaten. Seems God wanted life to struggle for its survival. All of this, and so much more, makes so much more sense in the light of unguided natural evolution. Yet, can you be a Christian and accept evolution? Not with the Christianity I was part of, which is why I mentioned earlier that it wouldn't even matter if I did come back to some sort of faith- I'd be labeled as one of those who 'think they are [Christians] but are not.' I do know of some Christians who can reconcile evolution with their faith; not sure how many of the ones I know personally do because it's never come up in conversation, but I've come across many others through their writings online who do- one example being the author of The First Morning blog over there in the links section. These are people who have the same faith in Christ as the folks I used to count myself among, yet they also accept the findings of modern biology, and other sciences. Yet, according to those in the ID community, there can be no reconciliation- those people are simply 'deceived.' And folks like myself, who don't believe at all, are part of a vast, Left-wing conspiracy to suppress the truth, because we hate God. See, we promote evolution, not because a multitude of science supports it, but because we know that 'according to the Bible,' you can't believe in both God and evolution together, and we want to eradicate God from society completely. So we've infiltrated many branches of science- not just biology, but paleontology, geology, physics, and astronomy. We've infiltrated them worldwide, and over many generations, not just passing down our teachings to the next generation, but completely brainwashing them to believe whatever we say. And of course, we control all major universities and science publications, filtering out as many God-believing teachers and professors and their research papers as we can. Why? Because we hate God. (That's what Ben Stein, Ken Ham, Phillip Johnson, and others would have you believe.) You'd think the fact that there are those people who do believe in God, and even identify as Christians, would kind of shoot that idea down completely- they don't hate God, they worship him. So see? We can all just get along and work together to continue teaching and promoting science- us atheists without saying, 'God did it,' and the Christians saying the opposite. Oh but wait, I almost forgot- those Christians who believe in evolution have been 'deceived.' Probably because they just accepted what the atheistic college professors taught them without question. Well here's a question- if someone who identifies as a Christian who accepts evolution- and there are many- who reads the Bible and sincerely prays for God's guidance, fellowships, goes to church, 'seeks truth' in everything, and does all the other things that 'real' Christians do- if someone like that can be 'deceived...' then how is it that they are the one who is 'being deceived,' and never the other way around? You have two camps of people who are the same in every way, except one accepts evolution, and the other does not, so naturally the ones that do are just plain wrong. It's inconceivable that it could be the other way around.

Getting back to the idea of 'design...' Creationists would have us believe that we're 'designed'- and that it's blatantly obvious. It used to seem obvious to me. Our bodies seem to work just right to do the things we need and want to do, so they must have been 'designed' by a 'Designer,' right? And when they don't work 'right' it's because we live in a fallen world and those are just the effects of sin, the decay that started after Adam and Eve decided to disobey God. At first glance, it seems so obvious. But then when you start to think about it a little more critically, it doesn't seem so obvious at all. What would things have to be like for us to think that we weren't designed? Suppose all humans were normally born with just one eye, with no eyelid or protective cover, on the tops of our heads, so that we had to 'look down' in order to see ahead of us. Suppose that we had only one ear, but without the 'ear' part that channels the sound into our heads- just a hole somewhere in our heads for hearing purposes? Suppose also that we had two arms, like we do now, but only one hand, and that hand had only two fingers (and no thumb)? And the arms were straight, with no elbows to bend? Suppose also that we had no nose to smell with or breath through, but only our one mouth. And suppose that one of our knees bent in the opposite direction that they do now, so that walking would be so different from what we know it as today that you really couldn't even consider it 'walking?' As long as we humans could have adapted well enough to survive as a species (and we probably could have) then you could still say, 'Oh wow, look at the wonderful, amazing design, there must have been a Designer!' It absolutely does not matter what our bodies, as a species in general, are like- we could all have no skeletons, like jellyfish, but as long as we could adapt to survive as a species you could point to that and say, 'designed!' But we do have skeletons (internal, as opposed to external like other species) and we do have two eyes, in the front of our heads, and knees that bend in such a way as to facilitate walking and running, and all that. So don't you ever wonder why God designed us in the way that he did, and not some 'other' way? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? The way he chose was the best way for us, of course. If it wasn't, he would have done it in some other way. Right? I mention all this, because for me, and for a lot of other people, it's not so damn obvious. Seems like he could have done things different, and better. The reason we have things like birth defects and failing eyesight is because of 'the fall?' Eagles have some pretty amazing eyesight; 'the fall' doesn't seem to have affected their eyes all that much. Surely God could have designed us in the same way so that we too could see so well. Maybe also given us excellent night vision like cats and owls have. And instead of protecting our most sensitive organs inside of a skeleton made of bone, which can break relatively easily, surely he could have given us a skeleton made of steel, which can withstand much more force than bone. Or maybe originally, before the fall, our bones weren't breakable. Maybe the fact that bones break is simply a result of the decay that entered the world through sin. Another thing that seems not very well thought out to me is the fact that our trachea and esophagus are so close together; and since we take in food and air/oxygen through the same hole(s) in our head, our nose and mouth, and since we can't breathe and swallow at the same time, it's actually very easy to choke to death. If I was going to design a living being, I'd make it so that they can breathe and swallow at the same time, so that if some food or foreign object got stuck in their throat, they'd at least have a couple of days to try and remove the blockage before they died of thirst. Hell, I'd make it so they could eat and drink and breathe all through different parts that didn't conflict with each other; that way if they got something stuck in their throat, they could survive for a very long time before suffering any ill effects. But, I'm not God, and since he's supposedly perfect and has infinite wisdom, I guess his way was best after all, right? But since choking is such a real threat for all humans, and presumably has been ever since the fall, the least he could have done was given one of his prophets divine instructions for performing the Heimlich maneuver, instead of leaving humanity to wait until the mid-1970's when Henry Heimlich first published his article outlining the procedure. Surely many thousands of lives could have been saved over the years had people just known about the move.
Can I even say any of this? I mean, basically I'm calling into question God's wisdom, saying I could have thought of something better- me, a lowly human being with (very) finite wisdom, thinking I could have built a better mousetrap. Is that blasphemy? Am I losing brownie points with every question I raise, edging myself even closer to the pit of hell than I already am? I certainly don't think so. I think anyone and everyone should be able to ask any questions they want of God, without being afraid that they've crossed some line, without being afraid that, 'Oh now you've gone and done it, you asked the 'wrong' question and done made him mad.' And I think we all deserve honest answers to those questions, answers directly from God. Not from people, claiming to speak on his behalf, saying, 'Well, that's just how he chose to do it, and since he's all-knowing, all-powerful, infinitely loving, etc., etc., etc., it must have been the 'right' way, so you have no right to question, doubt, or say otherwise.' That is not an answer. That's just saying that 'however things happen to be, that's how God chooses to work.' Which seems like an awfully big coincidence to me (not to mention a major-league cop-out). And since most Christians I know emphatically do not believe in coincidence, that last saying is what I'll be talking about in my next post.

Those damn Bereans...

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17:11 NIV)

Not the most often quoted verse I've heard, but I did hear it quite a bit. It was usually in the context of, 'Don't believe something just because that's what you were always taught. Do your own research to find out for yourself if something's true.'
Yeah, great, be like the Bereans; they're so damn respectable because they do their own research and read the bible for themselves and think for themselves and don't believe something just because Paul said it was so... Well in my experience, that's a respectable position to take only if you come to the right conclusion. The right conclusion, of course, being that the main tenets of Christianity are true, and in a literal sense. If you come to just about any other conclusion, no matter how honest and careful, and 'in pursuit of the truth' your research is, you're just plain wrong. And not only are you wrong, but your motives are probably suspect too: you hate God, you 'don't want to answer to anyone but yourself,' you want to live a sinful life, you want to 'believe what you want to believe,' etc, etc... It's absolutely unthinkable (unpossible, even) that maybe you simply looked at all the available evidence for and against Christianity, you looked with an open mind and 'an open heart,' and came to the logical conclusion that the 'for' evidence just wasn't strong enough to warrant belief. That there are too many other, better explanations.
Or (possibly even worse) you read the bible, go to church, maybe teach Sunday School... you call yourself a Christian, but you take a far less literal interpretation of the bible, like Bishop Spong, like a lot of (most?) Unitarians, or other 'liberal' branches of faith. You do all that because you're like those noble Bereans who thought for themselves, but because you didn't come to the 'right' conclusion, you get no respect for thinking for yourself. I guess I can kind of understand that, though- it's hard enough to really respect someone when you strongly disagree with them, but then throw into the mix the 'us vs. them' and 'we must battle because we're in a spiritual war' mindset of fundamentalism and it's pretty much a lost cause.
But this really isn't about the whole 'liberal vs. conservative' Christian thing (well, kind of it is, because I just think it's so ironic and stupid to argue about faith- something that, by definition, can't be proven- 'my faith is the one true faith, not yours!' If you could prove it, it wouldn't be faith, would it? And, if you have faith, you don't need evidence; if you have evidence, you don't need faith). It's about me, going from mainstream fundamentalist* to atheist, due to being like those noble Bereans and thinking for myself.
I can remember more than a couple of occasions being in church and listening to pastor so-and-so rail against the people who, when you ask them why it is that they believe the things they believe, they say, 'Well, that's just what I was always taught,' or, 'That's just what I've always believed.' And pastor so-and-so would rant and rave and yell about what a stupid position that was to take- you should never believe something just because 'that's what you were always taught.' And he'd be right- you shouldn't. But I think he needs to take it a step further and say that you should also learn how to think critically. Churches tend to not do that very often (I think it's because if you learn to think critically, as well as think for yourself, you might just end up disagreeing with them).

Here's what I find ironic- I was 'always taught' that the bible is the inspired, infallible, authoritative Word of God. I was 'always taught' that there is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Father, Son (Jesus) and Holy Spirit. I was 'always taught' that Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a perfect and sinless life, performed miracles, died as an atonement for the sin of humanity, was resurrected and went back to heaven to be with God, and that we can have a personal relationship with him. I was 'always taught' that the creation account in Genesis should be taken literally-that Adam and Eve were the literal first two humans and that all life today was present, more or less in the same form, at the beginning. Death came afterwards, as a result of Adam disobeying God, the flood (and Noah's ark) was a literal event, etc., etc. That's what I was 'always taught,' and that's what I had always believed. I didn't necessarily believe it because that's what I was taught (except maybe at first, when I was much younger); I did do my own research- read the bible, studied apologetics, etc. but then after awhile, after I started having more and more difficult questions and was not getting any satisfactory answers, I managed to also learn how to think critically, and think for myself. Sort of like those Bereans. (I can hear the argument now, because I've made it myself- 'What's all this crap about thinking for yourself? I think for myself and I happen to believe all that stuff you no longer believe. All of us already do 'think for ourselves.' Well, sure, all of us do 'think for ourselves' to a point- some people think the rapture will be pre-trib, others post-, and still others mid-. Sure, everyone thinks for themselves, and mainstream fundamentalism doesn't have any problem with that at all until you start to disagree with some 'established' idea, and have solid reasons for doing so, i.e. I don't believe there's going to be a rapture because, based on logic, evidence, and critical thought, I can honestly no longer believe in such things.) Yet I don't hear anyone mentioning Acts 17:11 when talking about people like myself. Not once has anyone ever said to me that even though they disagree with me 100%, they still respect the fact that I came to my own conclusions about the bible/god/jesus/etc.

A lot of people who are critical of atheists/atheism like to say that we just 'don't like God' or what the idea of God means for our lives. My problem isn't so much with God, as with what people say about him. Lots and lots of statements are made, many specific, some broad and vague. Some people, after doing all kinds of research and study and investigating, can reach some sort of agreement with those statements. I can't. And it doesn't involve any ulterior motives of any kind. I studied, prayed, researched, examined, asked questions, prayed some more, studied some more, and all of that. I was a Berean, you might say. I just happened to come to a different conclusion. Obviously lots of people disagree with it. They strongly believe that I'm 'wrong.' And I respect their right to believe that, but it is my honest conclusion, for my life.

They don't get to think for me. They don't get to decide for me.





*Mainstream fundamentalist- some might say that's an oxymoron, that fundies are in the minority, and therefore not mainstream. Well, the specific church that I attended for many years was very mainstream- a 'mega-church' even (though this local church was relatively small compared to 'sister' churches in places like California. But around the time I left, they were doing 3 Sunday services, with, I believe, a total membership of around 1000 people, and (I've been told) an annual budget of around $1 million). This particular church (the whole branch, not just that local church) identifies strongly with Answers in Genesis, the ministry that started the Creation Museum. (Tell me that's not fundamentalist.) So... mainstream fundamentalist. In any case, I'm not here to argue semantics.

Still here...

Just been busy. I have no idea who, if anyone, reads this. And I'm not supposed to care, since, like I said in the intro, it's just a letter to some friends/online journal, but since I do post comments on other blogs occasionally and leave this URL as a link, I figure other people might stop by once in awhile. So, just thought I'd let you know, it's far from being over. I have a whole lot of stuff that I want to get written down here still. If the topic interests you at all, do the RSS thing, or check back once in awhile. I'm hoping to get a little busier with it in the next few weeks or so.