Personal and Religious: Not Your Average Christian

“...because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet believe.” John 20:29

“Faith is the denial of observation so that belief can be preserved.” - Tim Minchin

I may be the only Christian you ever meet who doesn't want to go to heaven. This post has been 2 weeks in the writing, but really it's been about 14 years in the making.

 

1 – My Problem with God

I was baptized when I was 13 for the remission of my sins, because the Bible told me to. The Bible told me if I wasn't a Christian I was going to hell. The problem is, it also says if I am a Christian, I'm going to heaven.
 

My problem with God starts with that fact – there's no third option. God created the heavens and the earth, created hell (or maybe just put Lucifer there and it formed in reaction. I'm not sure), created sheol, but didn't create an option for His faithful servants who don't want to live forever. He sent Jesus to die for our sins, and gave us a gift of grace that would allow us to get into heaven and avoid hell, but the gift has very limited options and strings attached.

I don't wish to come off as blasphemous. God is God and I can't change what God's going to do. It's His right. But I don't like it. I can't change what I like and what I want. God has to do that for me.

I might be able to rationalize it a little better, and take some comfort in working diligently for the Lord in exchange for a reward I don't want if I at least knew why God's plan is the way it is a little better. But one personality trait God exhibits all the way through the Bible is that He's very secretive. From the Book of Genesis when He gave Adam and Eve the tools of self awareness and told them not to use them to the Book of Revelation where He showed John a great mystery and told him not to write it down, God is always depicted as being very protective not only of His will but also knowledge of His will. In the book of Job, after Job spends an entire chapter praising and beseeching God once his torment is over, God blasts him for the next four chapters for daring to ask Him why he had to suffer. Jesus, even after he performs miracles, tells his followers not to mention them to anybody.

Kee-ripes, God. You put us here, gave us very little information, filled us with curiosity, and scold us for trying to sate it. I'm not questioning Your judgment, but it's really hard to live with. I have to “deny myself, taking up my cross daily (Mt 16:24)” “without looking back (Lk 9:62)” based on “no sign but the sign of Jonah (Mt 12:39)” and do the “good works ordained beforehand (Eph 2:10)” in such a way that people “see the light of the Father (Mt 5:6)” in order to “teach the Gospel to all creatures (Mk 16:16)”. What comfort do I have, Lord? This is the “easy yoke and light burden (Mt 11:30)” Jesus put before me? I'd almost rather have the damnation I've earned (Rom 6:23) than accept a gift that bleak. Almost.

I keep trying to live a good life, a life according to the Word, and hope and pray that one day God will change my heart. But as I said at the beginning, I've been a Christian for 14 years, from age 13. That's now more than half my life and it hasn't happened yet. I'm running out of hope.

2 – My Problem with Atheism

“Well if you feel that way about it, why don't you just join the atheists?” you might wonder. The trouble is, as attractive as their ideas are, I'm not an atheist. I can't just stop believing in God and Christianity and more than I can stop being six-foot-six with brown eyes and graying brown hair. I can choose what I believe, to an extent. I can change my opinions based on evidence. I can choose what I'm going to follow and what I'm going to do with my faith, but I don't choose to have faith. Faith is a need, like hunger, thirst, or shelter. It's a touch more complicated than the basic body needs, on the same plane as fears and sexuality. My problem with atheism is that it largely says the need doesn't or shouldn't exist.

I should make it clear that I'm not talking about a blind faith here. I have read the Bible and made my own decisions about it. If you'll look back at the two quotations I put at the start of this post, there's a difference in believing in things unseen and refusing to believe in things that are seen. If you can't believe in things unseen, you can't really be an empiricist either. I've never been to a dinosaur excavation but I believe they existed. I've never set a match to hydrogen but I still know it would explode. You have to accept that things have happened that you haven't seen. Otherwise the world ceases to exist while you're asleep.

I have two big problems with atheists, even though I like their skeptical and rational approach to the world. One is that because they don't feel the need of faith, they don't really understand that it isn't something you can just turn off. The second is that they're bullies about it.

I don't blame them completely for being angry and aggressive in their approach. That is partially our fault. If you ever watch a debate on the issue, the atheists always get riled up about the horrible things Christians (particularly Catholics) and other religious groups have done throughout history, and they're not wrong. But if you've see how nasty those debates get, you know that it's not really about casting down the “lies” of religion and freeing the minds of mankind. It's about getting even with the religious authorities for all the crap they've done over the millennia. Most activist atheists don't just want religious people to stop being religious; they want us punished for everything our spiritual forefathers did wrong in God's name. And if they hadn't done such great evils in the name of such great goodness, the atheists wouldn't be nearly as popular in their attacks.

The problem there is that they're either missing or ignoring the thing I said a few paragraphs back. Faith is a need. Religion fills that need. Pointing to all the horrific inhumanity done in the name of religion is proof that we don't need to do any of that horrific inhumanity anymore. The Spanish Inquisition provides an excellent argument against the Spanish Inquisition. The sale of indulgences illustrates just how wrong the sale of indulgences was. Showing the awful stuff done wrong in the name of religion and saying it proves there shouldn't be any religion is like showing all the stuff people have done in pursuit of money and saying it proves there shouldn't be any money. But there will always be money just like there will always be religion, because they fill a basic need in a way nothing else does.

Even if they had a valid point, though, they're not doing a very good job of practicing what they preach when it comes to proving it.

 

 

 

 

That is a picture taken from Atheist Resource on Facebook. If you go to their page and scroll through their other pictures, you'll find at least one example of a logical fallacy in each one.

What you find in their arguments is what happened in the Intelligence Squared debate I mentioned the other day. John Onaiyekan, the Catholic Archbishop from Nigeria stood up and talked about all the great things he's witnessed as a Catholic priest, and all the wonderful things his Church has done in his life and the lives of people he knows. Christopher Hitchens took the stand next and listed item after item of all the terrible things the Catholic Church has done throughout history. Then Anne Widdecombe took her turn and began striking back against everything Hitchins had said. Finally Stephen Fry took to the podium and continued pointing out horrible things the Church had done and is still doing.

If you watch the debate, you get a real sense of how atheists usually make their points. What you don't see a lot of is good firm debate on the merits and demerits of the Catholic Church and whether it's a net force for good in the world (which was the topic). What you see is one guy who believes the Catholic Church is great and three angry people hurling accusations and insults at each other.

Atheists nearly always spread their message by talking about everything done wrong in the name of religion, with cleverly worded insults all the way. I already said, using the bad done wrong in the name of religion as an argument against religion doesn't hold up because it's a bad argument, and mocking and insulting your opponent, however cleverly you may do so, is not evidence of correctness or intellectual superiority. It just proves you know better insults.

On the subject of the great mass of human atrocity that has been done by people with religious authority, I should say that we know power corrupts. If we want to prevent that from continuing, we should limit the power of people, and keep watch on those with authority to make sure they don't abuse it. We shouldn't dismantle the institutions and hand control over to the atheists. Why?

 

(Not the product of any religion)

Atheists don't have as long a history as religious people of doing terrible things, but it's because they don't have as long a history period. But they're poised to do just as much if not more if they get the control they want. Taking away faith and a spiritual conscience and replacing it with a humanist conscience ensure that your adherents are going to do what's best for the greatest number, not what's morally, objectively right. Historically, sometimes what produced the greatest good for the greatest number was inhumanly terrible to the rest. Taking religion and God out of morality won't stop people from doing awful things. It will take away any internal motivation to avoid those things if the reward is great enough.

3 – My problem with other Christians

I am a true fundamentalist. I believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. I don't believe in a literal interpretation of what someone else told me about the Bible. There is a long list of stuff we have to stop doing if we're ever going to be taken seriously again. Again, looking back at the two quotes I used to introduce this post, we are called to believe in things unseen. That doesn't mean we have to keep coming up with stupid arguments against things that have been seen. It also doesn't mean we have to keep coming up with stupid arguments in support of things that just aren't right.

My complaints here are almost to numerous to list. I'm going to give each one and an explanation and then try to discuss them all.

 

Evolution. It happened. It happens. There is proof.
The Big Bang. See evolution.
Demonic possession. It doesn't happen. It did, but not anymore.
Divine Retribution. It doesn't happen, particularly not in the form of natural disasters.
Speaking in tongues. It doesn't mean what you think it means.
The Rapture. It isn't going to happen the way you think it is.
Homosexuality. I agree it's a sin. That doesn't give anyone the excuse to hurt them.
Acceptance. No more “well if we can't pick on them anymore, who are we going to pick on now?”
Science is not evil. It's not man-made. It's as true as anything else.
Ignorance does not justify making stuff up.

I'm going to talk in the last section of this post about reconciliation and how religion and science are currently holding both halves of the creation puzzle in their hands and can't fit them together. For the trickier issues, hang on and be prepared for me to tell you stuff may never have heard before.

First of all, demonic possession was something that only happened when Jesus was on earth. There are no scriptural records of it before, and there are only a few briefly after. The Bible does not always go in chronological order. If you want proof of that read in the Revelation (If you're still calling it the Book of Revelations then you've never looked that closely at the title and you probably don't know the rest very well either) where John's description of the Rapture comes before his description of the birth of Christ. This is important because Lucifer was kicked out of heaven at the same time Jesus came to earth (and possibly is the star that led the Magi to Bethlehem). Lucifer and all his angels were wandering the earth when Jesus was on it. Lucifer tried one last time to tempt Jesus, and then never appeared again. If you read further into the Revelation you get an idea why. There were still some other demons on the planet for a while until they were driven out by one source or another. On the Day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit came on the Apostles and they received a measure of Godly power. They could speak in tongues (more on that in a sec), cast out demons, know things they hadn't seen, and a few other such divine powers. Why? Because they needed those things to establish the church, protect themselves, and carry out the Great Commission.

They were not given the authority to transmit these gifts any further.

Read the New Testament. The other disciples traveling with them could not cast out demons unless they had an Apostle present. Paul was given the same gifts by Jesus in Damascus, but he was unable to pass them on to Timothy. That's why he kept having to write letters to people while he was in prison.

Once their missions on earth were completed, the Apostles (except John) were all martyred and their powers went with them. John had to stay alive with his divine authority because he had one more prophecy to write. There are no demons in the world today. If there were, no mortal has the ability to cast them out. That all went away about 2000 years ago.

Speaking in tongues is not the same as speaking gibberish. It's a very perverse interpretation of the miracle. The miracle was that when the Apostles spoke, people could understand them. In Acts, the people marveled that though they were all Galileans each man heard them speak as though in his native language. The miracle was that they could speak so everyone of every tongue could understand, not so they could babble nonsense in public. If you've seen people doing that, they're under something akin to mass hysteria – they're doing it because they believe that's what they're supposed to do so strongly that their brain makes it happen. It's not a miracle, it's an insult to the miracle. The same goes for people who seem to be demon-possessed.

What about the Rapture? We don't know what will happen, how it will happen, or when. If anyone tells you otherwise, they're either lying or wrong. How do I know? Because Jesus said so. “Watch therefore and wait, for ye know not the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh (Mt 25:13).” We don't know what will happen or how because of the misinterpretations of the prophecies leading up to the birth of Christ, apart from anything else. From the birth of Isaac to the birth of Jesus, when God tells people what will happen, He always keeps His word and the people never expect it. Besides that, as I said way back at the beginning, God guards the secrets of His will very closely. When Jesus says “no one will see it coming” I have no trouble believing it. One thing God's really good at is taking us by surprise, and there's a whole Bible full of stories of men trying and failing miserably to predict how and when God's plans would come to fruition.

Why would people tell you that if they don't know? Because, like I said way back at the beginning, we're full of curiosity. A lot of times religious leaders have either made up an answer or found what they think might be the answer because their followers expected them to have it. That has caused doctrinal problems from the time of the Apostles on down, and many of the aforementioned atrocities committed in the name of God were done because people either wanted to know something or worse, were sure they already did. We have to accept that when it comes to God, we may never know the answer. He won't tell us until He's ready. If you try to fill in the blanks with your own answer, look what happened to Saul, Nebuchadnezzar, the Pharisees, Judas, etc. It never works.

There is no scriptural evidence for modern divine retribution. Only three people were so struck after Jesus' Ascension – Ananaias, Sephira, and Herod. Ananaias and Sephira committed the first sin in the church, lying to the Apostles and the Holy Spirit and were struck dead by the Spirit because Peter said so. Herod was the only one struck dead without an Apostle present, and he died suddenly of a parasitic infection, rather than just falling down dead like the other two. Jesus said he was going to prepare a place for us in heaven. He's not sitting up there with God using sinners for target practice with natural disasters. Those things just happen. God makes the sun rise on the good and the evil, sends rain on the just and the unjust (Mt 5:45). Reading some supernatural meaning into those things is in fact a violation of the scriptures against divination, not receipt of some divine message.

This leads to that all-important question both atheists and Christians ask – Why does God let bad things happen? Why did God let Hurricane Katrina level New Orleans? Why did God let an earthquake wreck the Fukushima reactor in Japan? A better question might be who builds a major city below sea level next to a giant lake and builds a nuclear reactor on a fault line? God's warnings were in place well in advance. Well, what about the other stuff? Why is there so much poverty, hunger, war, and disease in the world? What's God's plan for that?

It's us. It's the church. Fixing all the suffering in the world is our job. It's a job carried out by those man-made forces of agriculture, medicine, diplomacy, and economics. Those are really powerful, world-changing forces. We can either use them as good stewards, helping each other and giving God the glory, or we can use them selfishly for personal gain. Look at the world and its history and see which does better, and which is more prevalent. God told us what to do and how to do it. He isn't going to do it for us. Waiting for God to fix all the world's problems is like sitting in your car and waiting for it to drive you to work.

Those things aren't currently in the hands of Christians because Christians have rejected them. We turned our backs on learning how to carry out our assignments so we could tear the Bible apart looking for whatever secret messages God was really trying to send us. That's why we have to accept knowledge, no matter the source. We need to stop looking for writing on the walls and read what's in the textbooks. If you do see anything written on a wall, you can bet your soul it was a mortal who wrote it.

We also have to stop persecuting people out of habit. I'm not sure why, but ever since the Civil Rights movement really took off, Christians as a group have tried to figure out who's left for us to scapegoat. Currently it's the gays. Stop! God did not make anything bad happen to any nation because it had gay people in it. God isn't punishing Israel for being full of Jews (their neighbors are punishing them for being bad neighbors but that's another post), He isn't punishing Africa for being full of black people, He isn't punishing Europe for being full of liberal atheists, and He isn't punishing America for failing to stop any of this. Bad stuff is happening in the world because we're all too busy trying to figure out who God hates instead of being the vessels of God's love we're supposed to be. It's our fault there is still suffering in the world because we haven't fixed it yet, and it's our fault there's still hate in the world because we haven't stopped that yet too.

 

4 – Looking for the Reconciliation

A team of people won the Nobel Prize in physics in 2011 for determining that the universe is not only expanding, but its rate of expansion is accelerating. It's been over a year, and I have yet to hear anyone else realize what this means for the oldest, bitterest fight between religion and science.

Why is this so significant? Because the expansion of the universe is what causes the progression of time. I cannot overstate this – Proof that the universe's expansion is accelerating is proof that time itself is getting faster. Proof that time is getting faster is proof that time has gotten faster.

Why does that matter? Because it proves that what we think of as a day isn't the same as what a day was right after the birth of the universe!

“In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth, and the Earth was lifeless and without form, and darkness covered the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said “Let their be light, and their was light, and God saw the light” Genesis 1:1-3

 

A day as we see it today is not the same as a day at the dawn of the universe. Everything the smartest people in the world have asked about his subject for 120 years is answered right there.

“I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. (Mt 13:35)”

Why has no one found this before? Because no one's looking for it. Religious people and scientific people are dismissing each other. They have two things that don't agree and each immediately assumes the other is wrong. Neither side looks for how the two conflicting ideas might exist together.

This is the answer we must try to find in the world. The Bible tells us what our mission is. Science tells us how to do it. Science tells us what we might do later. The Bible tells us what our choice should be. Ignoring either side because you don't like what they have to say doesn't help anything. It just holds everyone back.