A follow-up to my last post on skepticism

Did I really mean everything that I typed in my last post about this? Yes and no.

I have done a lot of thinking over the last several months. The truth is, I never really feel like I know who I am or where I stand.

I feel deep down inside of myself that for probably many reasons that I would still adhere to many of the tenets of faith as laid out by Christianity....or at least what I understand to be Christianity. I really want to believe in the authenticity, veracity, trustworthiness, etc...of the Bible. I really want to believe that I am right about everything that I believe too. So what is my major hang-up?

My biggest hang-up is that I, along with everyone else, believe that I am right. So how do we know who is right? Even in my "Christian walk" I have gone from believing one thing so very certainly to believing something else just as certainly. Here are some simple examples-

Creation- I used to believe that the Genesis creation account was literal. I truly believed that the only acceptable interpretation of it was the way I saw it. The current view that I would hold if I took myself seriously is that the Genesis accounts are allegorical in nature and that there is no historical or scientific data to back it.

The Bible- As a "younger" Christian I believed firmly that the Bible was written directly by the hand of God and therefore was completely perfect in every way; historically, spiritually, grammatically....and that it was only to be taken at face value. Since then I have come to believe/understand that these are not the cases. I don't believe that God wrote it directly, but that rather it is a work of men who had been moved to write various things in a similar way that perhaps writers and artists have been "inspired" to do their work.

Eschatology- As a younger Christian I believed that closer to the dawning of the end of time that all of the Church would be raptured up into heaven and then the world would experience all hell breaking loose on earth. That there would be 3 1/2 years of peace followed by 3 1/2 years of what would be called "The Great Tribulation." This person would come as a great world leader and deceive everyone into following them into a 1-world-government. Then all of the rest of what was written in the book of Revelation would have its literal fulfillment here on earth. Then the more I studied I came to the other conclusion that the "Tribulation" that Jesus talked about already happened with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. That there was no future anti-Christ; and that the book of Revelation and the apocalyptic writings of the prophets were simply allegorical for overriding spiritual realities.

Retribution- I used to believe in a literal Hell where people who "rejected" Christ went to burn forever and ever. Then the more that I studied, the more convinced I became that the Bible taught more of an annihilation perspective on Hell. That people didn't burn forever, but were tormented for a time and then evaporated into nothingness.

These are just some things....but the point is that there are so many different view out there. All of these different views come from the study of one source; The Bible.

Steve, I understand and respect your position that it is hard to trust and rely on any human as we are all full of our own ego and agenda....and yet while I agree with that, there also seems to be irony in that we cannot survive without each other. How do we learn anything? Usually from another physical source. If it is not a physical source, but rather a spiritual source then with all of the variety how is one to know which path is right?

Are there nuggets of truth in each variety? Do Baptists have something that the Catholics don't and vice-versa? Do the Hindus see something that the Muslims don't? Do the Muslims see something that the Buddhists don't? Could they all be interrelated? Could they all be part of a mosaic that can't truly be seen from inside itself? Or could each group be just as inventive as the next? Could they all be completely full of crap?

These are the issues that I wrestle with.

"Wise counsel" usually leads me to do something about a particular situation or thought process. The advice is usually connected to some type of cause and effect. "If I do this, then that will happen." And then if the prescription is not followed then it is decided by others that the person isn't trying hard enough.

There are just lines of certain reason that don't always follow. As Christians we often fault skeptics and lunatics for believing things that aren't true. We tell them that "you can believe that as much as you want but it doesn't mean that it will make it come true." The same thing could be true of us too.

For example- I, unfortunately, listen to a certain broadcast over the Internet hosted by a Reformed Baptist who often has call in debates/discussions with atheists. His biggest argument against other religions is based on rational consistency as it relates to internal critiques. He says that pretty much any other religion than Christianity can be broken down to be found as false by performing an internal critique. The only problem is that anyone on the inside of a particular system has been conditioned to defend or uphold their system as being capable of standing up to the internal critique...it is just that you first have to lay hold of certain presuppositions. The issue with this Reformed Baptist is that he fails to see that to anyone outside of his franchise of Christianity, his views cannot stand the test of internal critique without faults being found. Perfection is in the eye of the subscriber.

The thing that I do like about the ideas brought forth in What the #$%@! do we know is that we are forced to be confronted with ideas that are outside of our normal realm of thinking. Our ideas of God are challenged by certain things in science...not necessarily negated, but challenged in our ideas.

On the other hand, I fear that the movie might provoke the thought that people are really in more control than what reality shows. Our own "will" can only go so far. There are limitations to the realities that we try and create...and whatever capacity of brain power that we are functioning at right now- that's probably as good as we'll ever be, unless we get struck by lightening or something else to open things up a bit.

Travis, I have not read your piece on the Shamans. I would be curious though. I think that I may have seen it briefly posted on your MySpace blog but I didn't really read it. {was in a hurry} Let me know if you can repost it or send it to me through email.... But in any case to your comments; I know that this is a new path, but I don't know what that path is and whether I should be wearing boots, sneakers, sandals, or going barefoot. And perhaps it will just bring me full circle back to my beginning. I have found that many times in my life I head down paths like this only to come back to where I started more deeply rooted than before.

Jason, I apologize that I haven't gotten in touch with you. I am deeply surprised that I've had time to even work on this post at all....[it's been written over several days as I've had spare moments]. I apologize if any of this comes as a shock or disappointment. I guess all I can admit to is my frail humanity that is subject to all sorts of things. And this is in no way intended to try and make others question their faith the way I am. My goal is not to try and plant doubt in any mind but rather just explore my own.

Concerning my reference to Robert Ingersoll; while he does have some valid points I really part ways with him when he chooses to refer to people of faith as "weak minded" or "uneducated." I think that is a bit ignorant on his part. Although, keep in mind though that he did not claim to be an atheist. I think that many people have misunderstandings about the difference between atheists and agnostics.

I believe in a God. I don't believe that all is left to chance. I don't believe that there are multiple spirits out there competing. What I don't know though is what God is truly about. Everyone seems to find Him/Her in their own right....and do they not have that right? Are they right? How can we be so right?

For now, my head hurts and I'm tired.

Heartwarming

Our friends from across the pond have started a new project known as the "Complaints Choir."

I'm sure that your heart will sing along with those who finally understand you.

Check them out today!

New Application Of Reluctance

I don't even know how long it has been since I have blogged. I didn't check out my site before coming on here to write this but I'm sure that it has been several months.

I've called myself a Reluctant Disciple. I've said that I am a follower of Jesus but am reluctant to call myself a Christian. I now know that I am probably done calling myself a Christian for good.

I think that my journey down this path started sometime last winter. I had been struggling with depression [which I think is probably a more permanent thing for me now] when I started noticing many of my thoughts shifting. I don't think that it had anything to do with the medication that I was on, although I'm sure that some of you reading this might argue otherwise... I started having more questions and doubts about many of the things that I held dear. Many of my pillar beliefs didn't seem to be such a strong support any longer. It became easier to question many of my core beliefs. Now I feel a little more comfortable with the ability to ask, but due to a lack of answers I still feel a certain tension in the uncertainty.

So what has been shaken for me? I'll do a non-exhaustive list and explain each briefly. By the way, this is by no means an attempt to try and refute Christianity or speak bad of those who adhere strictly to its tennets....so apologists should hold their fingers.

1. I have noticed an unwavering truth that no two people are alike and yet still some fall into certain matched classes.

Thank God for diversity. Life would be so boring without it. A room full of people like me would certainly have me wanting to jump out the window; even if it was still ground floor. Given the diversity of thoughts and persuasions there are many people who are still not persuaded by the logic behind Christianity. Certainly there might be many similarities among the moral nuances within groups but those can still exist outside of getting into any sorts of doctrine.

Various personalities are pulled toward differing things. It seems that there are just as many people who have become as passionate about their gardening as others have become their religion. There are others who are incredibly intelligent who exhert as little effort as those who are just natually not intelligent. People are who they are and even when they try to force themselves to be something that they are not naturally then they can only survive for so long before they snap back to what they are.

While one man regards his every breath as a providencial gift from God, another may pass years without even the passing thought of God's existence. This same God, who we are supposed to be images or reflections of, seems to have made for himself [or any other reason] a people or species of thinkers who are as diverse as snowflakes. Nevertheless there are minds that can be persuaded by certain facts or thoughts. Even by fantacy. They can have their minds changed in either moments of time or through trial and error. Then there are others yet that regardless or fact or impression would not so much as joke about changing core beliefs. The way that they see it is the only way that there is.

The basis of this observation makes it very difficult for me to believe so arbitrarily in such a concrete form of what we have come to understand to be "God."

2. Following statement 1 leads to the diversity of interpretation of life, literature, culture, history...etc.

Given the complicated nature of the human mind and socialogical compounds it is no surprise to find such diversity of thought. Perspective is everything. The nature of a person coupled with how they were nurtured in their upbringing. There are so many factors that go into what makes us up as individuals.

Other considerations of interpretation can include leadership. I have heard it said that "History is written only by those who have won wars." Do some reading of history from different authors from different countries and you may very well find very different sets of information. Even from a religious standpoint, history can only be interpreted after the happening of events; and even then it can only be speculation.

3. The diversity of religions and how they are all so alike.

I believe that it is in man to try and explain our origin. I believe that it is in man to want to be a part of something that is larger than himself...unless he thinks that he's as big as it gets. For thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years, civilizations have worshipped something; the Sun, Moon, Stars, Zeus, Zoaster, God, Jehovah, Allah, Isis, Osiris, Ra, Satan, Jesus, Mohammed, Mithra, Frogs, Nature...the list goes on and on. Each god that has been worshipped has blessed its followers, according to them.

Many people have chronicled the similarities, but most recently I read one of Robert Ingersoll's discourses in how similar the Judeo/Christian stories were to that of primitive and ancient stories of other people. I am not going to get into all of those here. You can read more about them here.

4. The disagreements among its own.

I probably listen to too much religious broadcasting; in fact, I know that I do. Right now, there are 3 major camps that have the loudest voices- The Reformers, The Evangelicals, and The Emergent. When I sit and do comparisons between just these 3 (and I'm excluding most of all of the other variations at this point due to space) it truly seems as though they are all talking about 3 different gods. Each group has the same source, namely the Bible, but the interpretation of that source is so different that they become separated from one another quickly. Also, according to each, the others are wrong.

The disconnect occurs in me to think that the assumed commonality between them all, being the Holy Spirit, would be either a.) far enough removed that they are free enough to come to their own conclusions b.) lucid enough to lead them to believe in such diversity of explanation c.) tolerant enough to allow such opposition d.) misleading enough to actually produce such discord

Then pulling back the sites a bit you can then see the lines that divide Christianity into Conservatism, Liberalism, Orthodoxy, Neo-whatever...

What seems so hard for me to believe or accept is that the same God who in times past supposedly spoke in such black and white ways as to avoid the confusion through prophets and kings would now today be silent apart from a book, the Bible, which is now the source for so much confusion.

5. The Bible itself

So many events recorded in the Bible have no direct historical backing to them. It makes the case for their credibility that much more difficult when the origional manuscripts no longer exist either. Conflicting sources have Moses leading the Israelites either through the Red Sea which would have been at least 100 feet deep, or through the Reed Sea which would have only been about 3 inches deep.

Apart from the Bible there is no historical record in Egyptian history of them ever having Hebrew slaves as Genesis and Exodus would lead us to believe. While Noah's flood was most likely only local to his geographical region, many other civilizations also have very similar "Flood" stories involving different characters.

The History books of the Bible weren't actually written down until several centuries after the events took place. The tales were passed down through oral tradition. The books of the Prophets strike me as especially fascinating when I think about either the a.) necessity for God to speak slowly so that the Prophet could write everything down b.) a scribe for the prophet to write everything down as it happened c.) an after the fact recounting of what all went down d.) necessity for future generations to believe the accounts and messages without having been there. Each of them makes the viability of the prophets difficult for me to take too seriously.

The Gospels were written by men at least 20-40 years after Christ's return to heaven. Assuming that the disciples were at least 15 when they were called by Christ then they would have been 38-58 years old when they wrote them (and that is a conservative dating) Most likely they were not written until 40-60 years after Christ, which would have put the authors attributed to them in their graves before they were written...but assuming that they are younger in age, the copies that are still around to compare show that there were differing versions in circulation; which means that the liklihood of them being altered or added to was high.

The majority of the Epistles were written by Saul of Tarsus, who had no direct correspondance with Jesus. His teaching also takes great liberties in interpreting them when compared to the original Old Testament texts that he so often cites. Jesus himself also caused quite an uproar within Judaism in his day with what seemed like such radical re-interpretations of the ancient texts.

The religious structures that Jesus and Paul sought to control evolved to quickly and freely to keep a handle on.

The Bible itself has been a work in progress. The Old Testament as we now have it was not fully canonized until about the time of Christ, and the New Testament was not canonized until 300-400 years after Christ. Even then, canons varied from one part of the known world to another. The Egyptian canon was slightly different than the African or early European.

Today many canonize the interpretations of teachers of the Bible over the Bible itself. There is no apparent canon rule other than subjective reason.


6. The Evolution of Judaism and Christianity

Whenever you sit down to do a historical analysis of how each have evolved it is clear that neither of the two seem very static. Either the God of each has changed or their perceptions of him has changed...thus changing the nature of worship, belief and life. Each generation introduces something new about God or revelation. Each new introduction turns the table just a bit more.

Religious leaders, Politicians, Kings, Rebels...they all play roles in how the system will play out in their own time. At this time in the grand scheme our only assumption can be healthy skepticism.

In the time of Christ it was often believed that someone who exhibited outrageous or uninvited behaviour was said to have a demon. Today science has found many conditions that can manifest naturally in the brain through chemical imbalances, traumas, birth defects, etc.

So many issues. Yet as engrained with Christianity as I am, reluctantly I now must confess to be a theistic agnostic. I still believe in a God....I just don't really know it.