Just a quick update. I’ve wanted to write for a while because I have a lot of questions spinning around in my head. The problems are — I have no time to think, and the thoughts are so large and complex that I cannot hold them together for a long enough time to write them down.
Tag: god
Please don’t take this the wrong way.
I am not an atheist! I say this because I am about to link to an article that makes a few excellent points about common Christian arguments. Before I give you the link I want to stress that I am not saying that I am an atheist, or that there are no reasonable arguments for Christianity — only that some don’t hold up to scrutiny, and you must know what won’t be convincing to me if you use it as an argument.
Testimony
A quick intro to where I currently stand on spiritual matters. Read this before my other posts.
I was born and raised in a Christian home. My father was a pastor so I know a measure of the bible, and some theology too. I’m not an expert, but I know what the bible says and I studied it for years as a part of my daily life.
Being a Christian was a part of who I was. I felt there was no other way I could be. I had never officially had that repentant ‘moment’ that other people say they had — that day that they say they turned their life over to God — as I always felt I was God’s child right from the moment I was born. Of course there were times when it seemed hard to follow, or I rebelled, but never for long, and I always returned to God. In those times, I never truly doubted I would return, and I always accepted that it was my sin and my choice that had led me off the ‘path’.
My Faith and My Religion
I have lot of concerned and loving people in my life who have come to my site hoping to get an insight into my life and how I am handling the pressures of an ill wife, and the gradual erosion of my faith. It is an easier thing to be able to say “check out my website”, than to speak about things face to face, partly because when I do I find it difficult to explain what I mean when I say that I need proof of God’s existence.
It’s also easier to respond to the gist of a series of comments in one post than to answer each one, because the irrational part of my brain wants to argue with everyone, and say I am right and you are wrong and start something akin to a Christian/atheist debate, where neither gives ground and each argument makes the other side more convinced they are right.
Instead, I wanted to clarify a bit what I’ve said in earlier posts about my faith, and why I feel I need proof of God’s existence.
Games and the Meaning of the Universe
Ever heard of a Game called Whizz Ball? There was a game that I played on my Commodore 64 that was frickin’ awesome called Wizball — the game I am talking about isn’t that game. This game is kind of like that old ‘Mouse Trap’ game where you build a complicated mechanism to get a ball from a starting point to an end goal. But this is a ‘kids’ game that has been commandeered by a lot of much older people who have used the game’s inbuilt level editor to make a whole bunch of extra levels. Levels that they subsequently label ‘very hard’. That is to say, levels for kids are few and far between. When I started, I picked out a few easy and medium levels, and found the ones I tried to be fairly simple — a matter of finding pieces that fit the holes on the game board. A few of the harder levels got me thinking beyond this simple matching game. I found I had to start at the end point and kind of work backwards towards the beginning, working out which piece would take my ball to the previous piece I laid.
Faith v Religion
This is the station that my train-of-thought has taken me. Join me here and I will fill you in on where I’ve been:
Firstly, I read a short story by science fiction author Harry Harrison. Some of the best science fiction will provoke discussion, and this story certainly provoked me to discussion (with myself). In ‘The Streets of Ashkelon’, an alien race (of the noble savage type) is visited by a Priest and a Trader (just a regular guy). The end result of the story is that in trying to understand what the Priest is teaching, the natives sin — spoiling their natural ‘purity’.
Now the argument of the aliens is that belief in God needs proof. Proof He exists, that He cares, that He is watching. And the priest gives the regular arguments that tend to be given by fictional characters in these situations. That “creation is proof” but that “belief needs no proof — if you have faith”. These arguments are not the point of this post. Better and smarter people whom I admire have argued both sides for longer than I have lived.
What got me thinking though was the insistence of the aliens that they needed proof. For many years I didn’t think I needed proof, for much the same simple reasons that the Priest gave. And for years I had the conflicting idea that I had the proof I needed anyway if anyone should ask — creation. The reason that this idea conflicts is that the proof was really for me. I never felt comfortable with blind faith — although the idea that anything but blind faith produces a sort of logical loop never occurred to me. That is, the two statements cancel each other out: by saying that ‘Creation is proof’, but that ‘Faith shouldn’t need proof’ you are fudging things a little.
Sleepless Nights
Just when I start to think that maybe we’ll cope, and things couldn’t get any worse then they were before, turns out I’m wrong.
