The Bible and irrational fears

I learned a new word today.  Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia – it's the fear of the number 666.  Look over at Wikipedia.  Apparently some people are so scared of the number 666 that they also are afraid of the fraction 2/3 because its decimal representation is .666 (repeating).  Ronad Reagan had the address changed of the house he moved in to after his presidency from 666 to 668.  

Why free will is a myth

Free will is a myth, as is most of the Christian faith.

The idea of free will is that God gave us the gift to make our own decisions. Of course accepting the gift of Jesus's sacrifice is supposed to be the ultimate use of this free will.

But free will cannot exist within the idea that all happens within God's plan. If God has planned out existence from the beginning through the end than free will has no effect. For everything to be planned, than all the decisions you make with your free will would have to be predetermined and therefore not really your choice.

For example, Bob has the option to either kill Chris or not. It is within the idea of free will that Bob can make this decision. But God put Chris on this earth for a very specific reason which has not yet been fulfilled. If Bob decides not to kill Chris it is within God's will, but if he decides to kill Chris than it is breaking God's will. If God's will can be broken by a simple human than God is not as powerful as He has led us to believe. If Bob decides to let Chris live and stays within God's will than God may be considered the powerful being written about but in that case Chris really didn't have the free will that he imagined.

Suicide as a sin

This stems from a discussion over at Christian Forums on whether someone who commits suicide can go to Heaven. Since I've labeled myself as agnostic on those forums, and this particular board didn't allow posting by anyone non-Christian, I wasn't allowed to post my question. So I'm posting it here since I can write pretty much whatever I want, and with the hope that someone with a good answer will read it.

In many places, and in many conversations, I've heard that committing suicide makes one ineligible for Heaven. The general reasons are "Thou shall not kill / murder" and "It's not God's will".

Thou shall not kill
By committing suicide you're killing yourself, therefore breaking one of the 10 commandments. So killing yourself is a sin. But "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God". (My apologies if that's a little off, I'm going off memory) From what I've learned there is only one unforgivable sin, and that's not believing in God.

Why would this murder be considered worse than any other sin short of denying God? Personally, I think it's less damaging than killing someone else. In either case there are going to be hurt family and friends, although the family of suicide victims are often left with feelings of "why". I've never had a family member either commit suicide nor be murdered, so my position is obviously a little naive.

It's not God's will
How do you know? How can you be sure that the suicide victim didn't pray and have God tell them that they've done everything they're supposed to do on this planet and it's time to come home? Maybe suicide was God's way of keeping another person from feeling the guilt of killing this person.

If there is a Heaven, which I'm doubting at this point, I believe suicide victims are as likely to be there as any other group of people. If someone can be forgiven for murdering another, why can't a suicide victim be forgiven for killing themself?

God as an actual father

Just a real quick random thought for today.

Looking at the Christian God through the Old and New Testaments almost seems like a real father.

Before he has a kid he's selfish and will do whatever he needs to get his way, even if that includes killing others or punishing them in some other way – almost like a little kid taking away his toy because his friend doesn't agree with what he said.

Then Jesus is born and God has to grow up. He matures out of his selfish, pre-parent state into a loving parent.

How often do you see this in real life? Think of the people you went to school with. How many of them could you see as good parents? Now, think of the ones that have had children. Are they the same irresponsible teenager you grew up with or are they a mature parent?

I think it’s fundamentalism that I don’t like

I'm just about to the point where I'm ready to say the Christian version of God is false, although there is still that nagging in the back of my mind that Hell might be real and do I really want to take that chance. But that'll pass.

What I've come to realized though is that it's not the Christianity of Christianity that I dislike. It's being told what I have to believe. Check that. It's being threatened with Hell to force be into believing. Were I being threatened by the Islamic version of Hell, which I've heard makes the Christian version seem warm and fuzzy, I would probably be having problems with that.

Turns out I'm the type that has never really done well being told what to do. If you explain to me why I'm supposed to do something, I'm ok with that. "Quit banging on the wall" – I'll have a problem with. "Quit banging on the wall, it's annoying" – a little better. "Quit banging on the wall, you may punch a hole through it" – your best bet. But "Quit banging on the wall or I'll beat the crap out of you" will cause me to bang on the wall even more. And that's exactly what Christianity does, or at least how they try to convert.

But it goes the other way as well. There are fundamentalist atheists. These are the ones that pick fights (figuratively) with Christians. These are the ones that like to tell Christians how stupid they are.

I guess my current view is that whatever someone wants to believe is ok. If believing in God gets you through the day, then believe away. If you cannot see the logic and choose not to believe, that's fine too. What I have a problem with is when people are belittled because of their beliefs. Referring to Christians as x-tians or Jesus as Jeebus (Homer Simpson not withstanding) as a way to make fun of Christians' faith isn't ok. Neither is telling an atheist they don't believe because they're too ignorant to see God work around them.

So, at the end of this long rambling post I think it's people who are so set in their own ways that they cannot accept that others have opposing views that bother me. The truth is we'll never know which religion is right until we die. And if atheism turns out correct, then we'll never know.

Christian web forums – not getting any help

As part of my doubting of Christianity I've spent a lot of time reading. And a lot of that time has been on internet forums reading (and posting) questions. Because I'm still not quite to a point where I'm ready to walk away from Christianity I decided that posting on both a Christian and atheist / agnostic forum was the only way to get a fair opinion from both sides.

What I've come to realize is that I can almost predict what the answer will be on a Christian forum to any questions of doubt. They're the same as if I asked a Christian friend. Although that shouldn't surprise me, I was hoping that with around 1,500 people online on this one particular forum at any one time I'd get better answers than one-on-one conversations.

This Christian forum has a section devoted to non-Christians who are having problems. It's called their "Outreach" section. I would assume since Christians are commanded to try and convert, via the Great Commission, this would be a popular place. Not so. Yes, I've gotten replies. And they were generally good. But when I reply back they are ignored. I've also posted questions as follow ups to others concerns and have yet to get any answers to those. It almost seems they will spew back the standard Christian party lines, but anything deeper will get swept under the carpet.

In comparison the atheist / agnostic forum I post on always has answers. While many are typical for the genre, "the Bible is fiction" type responses, many are in depth and show that the person is actually interested in helping. These have become actual discussions rather than simple opportunities to preach.

It's odd, don't you think, that the non-Christian forum members are showing a more "Christian" attitude towards helping others.   

Is it ok to question faith deeply?

I've written several posts to forums around the internet asking for help in my doubts. And to keep opinions as balanced as possible, I've posted to both Christian and atheist / agnostic forums. One thing I've noticed is that the answers from the Christian forums tend to imply that it's ok to question God, but only in a superficial way.

Why is this? Why is it ok to question God, but only superficially? Your world view is possibly the most important opinion that you have. And, yes I said opinion intentionally since none of us really know why we're here or what happens after we die. Shouldn't this be something you delve into?

Keeping the idea that you shouldn't investigate deeply takes many forms. I've been told that it's ok to question God, but to keep faith. I've been told it's ok to "poke and prod", which implies a shallow investigation. I've been told to not make rash decisions.

My thought is that looking deeply at Christianity will often result in someone leaving the faith, and that is not a good thing for people who are Christians. I think most people, a few Christians included, will agree that if you look deeply into any belief system you will find faults. Unfortunately for those of faith, only one mainstream world view gives us the option to say "I don't know", and that's agnostic. All other beliefs, atheism included, do not give us permission to say "I don't know" which I believe is really the right answer.

People are not inherently evil

I think I've mentioned this in a previous posting, but just in case… I trace back my doubting of Christianity to a pastor telling the congregation that all people are inherently evil. Me = evil. You = evil. A 2-year-old child = evil. I just cannot accept that fact.

Now, I do believe that we are inherently selfish. But that's a survival mechanism. If we, and all animals for that matter, weren't selfish we wouldn't survive. It is important to life that we fight for our basic needs, else we will die.

Evil is related to selfishness, but only in how we respond and control our selfishness. Once we have enough to have our basic needs taken care of our selfish nature needn't continue. Once survival isn't threatened we can now begin to share with others. This is when we begin to give to charity, and to be fair many Christians do give of themselves. It can be taken too far, however. Take the single mother of 3 that is having trouble just being able to feed her children, but guilt causes her to still tithe to her church. Now we are looking to the selfishness of the church.

…and He rested on the seventh day. – Why?

Why did God need to rest on the seventh day? Why would the creator of everything need a break? Was he sleepy?

And while on the topic, why did it take 6 days for creation? If God is all-powerful couldn't He have just snapped his fingers, so to speak, and had everything created like it was?

Religion and self-fulfilling prophecies

What I'm coming to realize is that religion is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Before going too much further, let's get settled on a working definition, and since Webster isn't handy here's my explanation.

A self-fulfilling prophecy is when you inadvertently aim the outcome based on what you believe the outcome will be. Think of a classroom. The teacher has an opinion of all the students in the class. That opinion will often affect the outcome of the students. For example, if one student often acts up the teacher will make assumptions of that student. The teacher will subconsciously treat that student in a way to make the act up. The prophecy was fulfilled.

If you question God under the assumption that He exists and Christianity is true then everything you see will fulfill that belief. Say you pray to God to help you when you are short on money. Later walking down the street you find a $20 bill. You believe your prayer came true because of your presumption that God will answer your prayers.

If an atheist finds the $20 before you do then they will chalk it up to either luck or coincidence. The atheist bases his understanding of finding the money on his world view.

Same situation. Two people find a $20 bill walking down the street. But one believes that God placed the $20 for him to find and the other is feeling lucky. The only difference is their thoughts before they found the money.

We could extend this line of thought a little farther. Any person, regardless of religion or lack of, will base what they believe caused an outcome based on their world view. An Islamic person would believe Allah placed the $20 on the ground with the same faith that a Christian believed that God placed it. Both will know that their view is absolutely the truth, where the truth is really that the money fell out of a pocket of a waiter as he was running late to his job.