Babe, read your post and talked to you about how i felt. If what you wrote were truly musings of a learner as you claim and you really want to know the answers to things you said and asked in your post, then listen ans listen good. The first part is just copied and pasted from your blog. Afterward is a systematic breakdown of my academic-based reply. This is based on the Bible, my own upbringing, and the council of others who think like me and are better educated. I love you and I want you to at least have a fair chance at understanding what I believe. You said you were talking about religion in general, but from what I saw most of it was based on Christianity.
"I wrote about my love for the philosophy of choice a while ago. It was on facebook but I deleted it for whatever reason. Anyway, I feel choice beats religion in every way. Why? Because it is our choices that help us realize who and what we really are. If we stop taking things for granted and stop trying to believe in false entities and actually look at ourselves for once, then there might be a revelation of sorts. Who knows.
That’s why I don’t follow religion. When you’re part of a religion, you have to believe in something. But that’s it. You have to believe it with all of your heart and everything will be fine. If you keep to whatever entity you worship, your life will be filled with gold and such. There’s no question, no research. You can’t choose to believe one thing and not another because if you do, you are bashed upon. You are told that you are a terrible person and you will burn when you die. …Really? So, if someone who lived a bountiful life, who married the person of their dreams, built a loving family, had an amazing job, did not smoke, drink, do drugs. If someone lived like that and did not believe as the entity did, then they will burn? …Why? How can that be? How is that possible?
Truthfully, that’s a terrible thing to say to someone who has worked their tail off to live a peaceful life and all you have to say to them is “you will burn because you don’t believe in god!” What has god done to let me believe in him? “He created the earth and the universe.” How do you know that? Did you see him do it? “Jesus is our savior!!” Savior of what? How does anyone know that if you praise Jesus Christ that you will live in Heaven when you die? How is it that this ‘God’ is the great, all-mighty and everyone down here are terrible people. People who have worked hard and survived just to stay alive? How can an entity that built this world and created the people in it say that we are bad? That we are forsaken?
It’s just…i hate the idea of someone watching me. Criticizing me for everything that I do. Telling me that I will burn if I don’t praise the lord. The idea that there is someone above us, just watching and laughing at us is stupid. It pisses me off in a way. That you would bash something you created. So what if they don’t believe in you. How that does change anything?!
…Sorry. I got a little carried away. It’s just how I feel is all. Doesn’t really amount to anything. Just another guy rambling. I bet I’ll push some buttons a little, I guess. I apologize."
The very first thing that I want to say is that Christianity is based on choice. That is the entire premise of the Bible. God gave Adam and Eve (the first two people) the choice to do bad things. He, in a sense, had to. If He didn't do that, we would all be a whole bunch of happy robots. We as Christians today choose to follow Jesus because we realize that we have done bad things, and will continue to do bad things. We need His help. Here is the tricky part. Once we decide to be Christians, we aren't then obligated to do anything different in our lives, but if we really are Christians, those things that exemplify Christianity normally show through. It's like being part of a family or having a girlfriend. You don't have to love me and kiss me, but because you CHOSE to be in a relationship with me, you want to hold me and kiss me and do nice things for me. It's not a requirement. It's something you do automatically based on your choice.
The second thing I wanted to point out is a common misconception. We believe in God because we believe in Him based on faith and science and love. It has nothing to do with our lives being perfect or happy or plentiful. Most of the time, it is the complete opposite. People criticize us and hurt us and refuse us jobs or friendships based on our faith. On the other hand, we do feel that we live better lives, because of the fact that we have different perspectives. We do our best not to get caught up in things that inherently make our lives frustrating, like cheating and lying. The thing that confuses people the most about Christianity, in my opinion, is that we do have a choice in what we do. Some of us curse or sleep around or lie, but that is a deeper issue that I can't explain fully to you right now, except to say that we are not bound by strict rules "or else".
I also wanted to say that you claimed that there is no research or thought involved. We just take stuff for granted and skip merrily on our way. That is not true at all. While our research does conflict with non-religious scientists and such, it does not mean we are wrong. What it means is that because we come from different perspectives, both our groups use evidence to prove a point instead of the other way around. Science is meant to learn things that we didn't know. To take information and test it and THEN come up with the facts, not try to change and mold the information to prove a preconceived notion.
One of the biggest issues that you posted about was the very common concept that as humans, we are "all basically good" and that if we do our best and work really hard, then we deserve to go to heaven. If you look at it in that perspective, then yes, we do. As Christians, we have a slightly different lens to look though. Think about it this way, in the garden of eve, everything was perfect. Humans were made to live forever in bounty and peace. There was not hell, no sin, no judgement, no death. We screwed up the perfect (with a little help from a jealous angel). We screwed up our chance to live in a perfect world. Yes, it does seem unfair that after that one screw-up that everything sucks now. That of course is a human way to look at things. Think of it from God's perspective. He is perfect, made a perfect place and gave humans only ONE easy rule to follow. "Don't eat from that specific tree" there were tons of trees and plants to choose from, but we decided to listen to a serpent a disobey. See, God is perfect and has to be around perfect. That's why he made the garden perfect, so He could be there with us. Once we started to do things that weren't perfect, WE banished God from our lives. We basically (with our actions) said that God doesn't know what He's talking about, we can do it better. After that, all of us are now flawed. Because we are flawed, we can't be with God, because God needs to be with perfection. So, because he loves us, he made the ultimate sacrifice. He saved us from our own sin (badness). EVERYONE does bad things. Even people who seem to be the pinnacle of good, like Mother Teresa and Billy Graham. They have done bad things too. They need some one to save them from the bad things they do as well.
As for some of the questions you asked, I am going to go over them as quickly and simply as possible, because most of the answers would be obvious if you had a religious background.
What has god done to let me believe in him? “He created the earth and the universe.”How do you know that? Did you see him do it?
Actually, if you take it from a scientific standpoint and look at the world with an open mind, there is a whole bunch of evidence pointing to some sort of maker or creator. I am going to compare to Evolution because it is the most predominate theory out there. First off, if they could really get evidence of evolution that made any sense, it would be a scientific law. A theory is only part of the process. second, all of the theory of evolution is based on the findings of Charles Darwin when he visited the Galapagos islands and studied MICROevolution in finches. The difference between micro and macro is that micro deals with changes inside a species. This includes dogs with long fur or breeding two dogs to make a new type of dog. That is correct. Over time, it can lead to bigger changes, like all eagles having curved beaks. However, no matter the changes within a species or breed, MACROevolution will never occur. However much you might like the idea, if you breed a lion and an eagle, you will never get a griffon. If you do it will most likely die and will never be able to give birth. even common mixed breeding always produces sterile offspring. A mule is a breeding between a donkey and horse. seeing as they are so similar, you'd think that they would go together, but mules are always sterile. So the continuation of that evolutionary path stops at the first generation. You can, however find evidence of creation. the fact that creatures re so complicated, the reoccurring themes in skeletal structure and pattern, the non-physical aspects of humanity. If there were no creator, how can we solve problems or make jokes or love? There is no explanation for that in science. Another, less scientific "proof" is that if you look at every single tribe or group of people throughout history and geographical regions, they all have deity and religion. They all know that something is out there. They all also have their version of the story of the flood. if the Bible was a silly book of fantasy and stories and lessons, how is it that every culture and people-group know about the world wide flood?
(yes, that is the short version)
“Jesus is our savior!!” Savior of what?
Saviour of our souls! He gave up all His power, respect and life in heaven, came down as a baby in a disgusting manger in spring and lived a life hated my even his family so that He could pay for all the bad things- past and present and future-that everyone has ever done. Then, He rose from the dead and is in heaven waiting to say to God the father that we are acceptable into Heaven as perfect beings.
How does anyone know that if you praise Jesus Christ that you will live in Heaven when you die?
As I explained earlier, we don't praise Jesus so that we can go to heaven; we praise Him because He made it available for us.Of course no scientist can quantify heaven and say, "Yep, Heaven is real" Part of it is having faith(believing in something that no one can prove)
How is it that this ‘God’ is the great, all-mighty and everyone down here are terrible people.
I understand your position on this, but you(and every human on this earth) are biased. of course we think that we should go to heaven. No one actively says, "I want to be in torment for all eternity!"
The very definition of God is that of a perfect and all powerful amazing being. He is not a creature that people made up. He made US up. He invented us. For example, if you drew a picture, it came out just like you wanted and you just loved this thing....would you then say that this thing you made, was equal to you? Would you go buy a plane ticket for it? or invite it to your party? Of course not! that's silly! That is the same with God and us. He made us to serve Him and make Him happy. We can never be like Him because of the nature of the law of things created. As for being terrible people, that is just bad reasoning. You are starting the argument in a negative light. We are flawed, yes. We cannot be with God without paying our debt(which Jesus did) because He is perfect.
People who have worked hard and survived just to stay alive? How can an entity that built this world and created the people in it say that we are bad? That we are forsaken?
I think I have sufficiently explained this, but let me repeat myself, God made us, and because of one mistake thousands of years ago, we are flawed. By the nature of a prefect and all powerful entity, we are separated from Him until our debt is paid. He didn't want that, so Jesus came to earth and paid the "fee" for us. It is simply for us to now accept the payment. Let's take a situation you might understand better. Your dad went to the mall and for whatever reason got kicked out ( I am not arguing for or against anything or anyone here, just trying to use an example). He is forsaken from the mall because of a supposed mistake. The rest of his life could be impeccable, but now he can no longer go to the mall. Let's say what he did was so bad that even his kids and everyone in his family can go anymore. The mall might say that if he paid them one billion dollars, then the debt would be relieved and you could enter. This is exactly what happened in the bible. Adam and Eve broke a rule and were no longer accepted in perfect places, neither are there children. There is a huge debt to be paid in order to be let back in that they can't pay. Now let's go back to your dad. Say a majorly rich guy hears about your story on the news, goes to the courthouse and drops off an envelope with a check for one billion dollars, but on one condition, that you have to open it. Once you accept the payment, you are free of your burden. In the Bible, our burden is Sin. the payment is your soul. Jesus paid it off by dying for us. Once we accept that we do bad things and believe that Jesus is God and that we need Him, we are free forever of the debt of sin and can freely go to heaven.
That is what I had to say. While it all pretty much came from the Bible, I don't know the verses right now. I am going to insert them later for you, if you want to look them up. :)
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