So, the question is – what started my road towards doubt? What was done or said that made me start to think that Christianity was not the truth that it claims to be and nothing more than a way for the elite to control the people?
One of the important realizations that we are supposed to come to as part of salvation is that we are a sinner. That is, by nature we are evil. A human left to his own devices will do evil things. I cannot accept that. Yes, there are bad people in the world. But I don’t believe that every person is inherently evil. (more…)
Sometimes it really helps to look at religion from the outside.
Last Sunday I was sitting in a pew sort of listening to the pastor when I heard possibly one of the dumbest things I've heard in a while. The basic premise was that God will help you through any problem. As people we naturally don't want to face our problems. To that end we find ways to avoid the hurt so we use drugs, alcohol, internet pornography, etc to not have to feel pain (his list, not mine). But what we should be doing is "coming to God" and have God help us with our pain.
There were many amens and praise Jesus's coming from the pews when he said this. Apparently most of the 500 or so sitting there missed the absurdity of this idea. What struck me is that "coming to God" is just another way of ignoring the pain. Yes, you might feel that God is taking the pain away from you by having trust in him to do so. But it's the same as the liquor bottle taking your pain away from you.
His message was that having God help you deal with pain was actually dealing with the issue whereas using chemicals or false relationships was simply masking the pain. I got the impression that feeling sorrow wasn't acceptable under this idea. Instead of grieving for a lost love one you should feel comforted by God. Instead of worrying about being able to pay your mortgage this month, know that God will provide. To me this seems to be ignoring the problem rather than dealing with it. Besides, how do we know that God doesn't want us to grieve? to be successful? to come to our own conclusions?
Leading up to Easter, the 4 gospels have been getting a lot of interest. Even more so with the publishing of the Gospel of Judas. Last Sunday we had a quick discussion about how 4 differing gospels all fit in with a "perfect" book, ignoring the fact that you cannot have 4 different perfections.
And let me go ahead and state my point for the first argument that always comes back at this disagreement. It is not like a car wreck with differing opinions from the witnesses. We are talking about the defining event of Christianity, not some random event that the apostles didn't see coming. They were expecting it.
What I don't understand is the logic that says there are 4 different views, contrasting that they are, and yet all are the perfect account of what happened. Assuming that I believe the resurrection actually took place, the truth probably lays somewhere in a mix of all 4. But why? If we were given this book to tell us how God wants us to live then why wouldn't the 4 versions explain exactly what we needed to know?
I think what bothers me most is that these 4 accounts are what defines a Christian as a Christian. And yet the best answer is "meh, it's like a car wreck". I would think that a "true" Christian (and you can use whatever definition of that you would like) would be willing and able to come up with unwavering arguments against these doubts. But comparing it to a car wreck or a bank robbery is the best they can do.
I would imagine if you're reading this you're wondering why I bothered to create yet another blog. Well, here's my story…
Over the past few months I have begun doubting the existence of God – that is, the Christian God – that I was raised to believe in. It was never to the point of fundamentalism, and I was always allowed to come to my own conclusions. Then I joined a fairly fundamental church and was baptised. As I'm now on my third church since that point I have seen a lot of absurdities that have led me to doubt Christianity. While it's difficult to talk with family about, I've found that writing is a release for me. I've been writing my thoughts down over the past few weeks hoping to come to a conclusion one way or the other. I decided to start a blog hoping that someone out there will read my questions and have some sort of answer.
With that, I'm looking for answers from either side of the fence. As I write this I'm not quite ready to disassociate from Christianity completely, nor am I willing to admit to being absolutely certain there is a god. Agnosticism is probably the closest adjective for my state of belief at this point. And I don't know which way it will go from here. I could go atheist, I could go back to Christianity, I could go to Buddhism; I just don't know.
