A friend of a friend named Andrew posted a very interesting list on his blog a few days ago. I left a comment on his blog, but now I have decided that since that comment was so long I will just post it here. So here is Andrew's list:
"I believe the following:
1. The existence of God cannot be proven or dis proven.
2. If heaven does exist, it should allow the good in regardless of belief.
3. Your life should be dedicated to being a good person, not praising God.
4. Whether Jesus is or is not the son of God is not important, his teachings are universal.
5. If God truly is almighty he would not need you to give him thanks. Remember that Jesus had skeptics but he didn't cast them as damned.
6. IF heaven is disproved you should still dedicate your life to being a good person.
7. Starting wars, genocide, and hurting innocent lives are evil deeds. God, if he/she is proven to exist should never give just cause to any of them.
8. Religion has caused more deaths then it has saved (number 7), although anything could happen. Many murders may have been avoided because the potential murderer has religious beliefs against killing.
9. Religion should not but can act as a moral compass.
10. Religion should not be irrational or have rules.
11. The history of a religion is not important. The only thing that matters is the lessons it teach to make you a better person."
2. What if, in God's eyes, someone is not good because they refuse to believe in him? They may do good works, and may not be inherently "bad" in the way our culture defines the word, but by denying his existence a person commits a very big sin in God's eyes.
3 and 5. God may not need our thanks and praise, but don't you think we could at least give him that much? He has done so much for us, and the least we can do is thank him. That does not mean we thank him and then go murder someone, however... :)
4 and 6 are true, though the Bible does say that Jesus IS the son of God, so I believe it.
In number 8 you kind of contradict yourself, though you make two good points. God did not intend these things to happen, but humans are humans and they are selfish. Still, this world is only temporary.
9. Why should religion not have rules? Aren't rules what religion is essentially about? I think religion is about having convictions, personal and/or divine, of some degree or another. Atheism has rules--you can't believe in God. Otherwise you cannot be an Atheist because that would really be missing the whole point.
10. Being a better person is good, but you can do that without religion, and often people who call themselves religious are not very good people.
On another note, I find that people, usually agnostics/atheists, tend to classify people who believe in a higher authority as "religious", and I see that they obviously are not fully aware of what they are talking about. The term "religion" is really referring to something you practice dutifully, etc. Buddhism and Islam are religions. Catholicism is a religion. Christianity is more of a belief. Judaism can be one or the other, depending on what kind of Jew you are. The kind of Christianity/Judaism that I think is best is the kind that people had in the Bible and what Martin Luther addressed in the 95 Theses, and that is man having a personal relationship with God. Sure, there are things God requires you to and to not do, but it is not so much something you do ritualistically as it is something you do because you love your creator and therefore wish to keep his commandments.
26 comments:
Some of my thoughts...
2. Everyone is a sinner...even if they are going to heaven because they are saved. So everyone falls short of God's idea of "good".
3. Isn't doing good deeds a way of praising God?
4. Jesus taught that he was the son of God. So either his teachings are right and good, and he is the son of God, or they are wrong and he is a liar...which goes against all his other teachings. (I have been reading a lot of C.S. Lewis lately :P)
Those are very good points! I agree with all of them, and I think it is totally awesome that you are reading C.S. Lewis. He is very cool. :)
Good thing Andrew and I are agnostic so we can look at both sides and understand why we are on the fence about this! Religion is not falsifiable, it can not be proven or dis proven because anybody and say or write anything and as long as a person believes and some chance coincidences happen, then those people will believe. I'm not going to say what you believe is wrong and tell you this is how it is. Just what I see in comparison to what you see.
But do you believe some higher power does exist? I mean, the "Big Bang" theory is really quite ridiculous. This world is too complex to have been a random explosion. It may be that you don't believe in my God or Buddha or Zeus specifically, but I think that to believe that we were all an accident and that, for all you care, you are the god of your own universe, is pretty crazy.
I do believe in the big bang theory because big bangs happen in the universe all the time! I also believe aren't the only living things in the universe (things as in animals, plants, etc.), but whether its another intelligent life or slime mold is for us to find out.
This is going to be a long comment, so I shall apologize in advance; sorry Jessica.
@Anyone: Who defines right and wrong? If God defines right and wrong, perhaps he has defined not believing in Him as wrong.
Also. All religions' belief systems are falsifiable, because you merely need to find something that contradicts the system. However, none of them are provable, because the scientific method does not allow direct proof.
@Chris: What do you mean by big bangs happen in the universe all the time? I think you may have some terms wrong. I also think that you may be misusing the word agnostic.
@Jessica: Just suppose for a second that there was a Big Bang. Where would it come from? If it came from there would it be random?
If there were no big bang, where would the background microwave radiation come from? The universe is expanding; where would we be if we ran it backwards?
What I mean by big bangs happen all the time is the supernovas. I know the universe did not exist by a supernova and it was something more complex, but that is what I mean.
Religious beliefs are not falsifiable unless we had the ability to time travel back to the Roman times to see if Jesus actually did rise from the dead.
And I do know what agnostic is. I don't deny that there might be something beyond this life and that if there is a heaven, I will accept Him.
You know what I like to do? Put out fires with gasoline. It doesn't really work, but whoa what fun.
1. You can't believe without God revealing himself to you.
2. God reveals himself to everyone and shows him truth. I can give you the scripture versus for that if you like. The question is: what you're going to do when he gets around to you?
3. There's probably a few ex-agnostics in the crowd. I know for certain there's at least one. Don't know any believers that became agnostic.
4. Josephus, a non believing historian, records the event of the resurrection.
5. Most of the disciples died because they refused to recant His resurrection. There aren't many that will die for a lie.
6. There will never be proof simply because faith is required. Where there's proof, there's no need for faith and with no faith, it's impossible to please God. I can give scripture for that too. Simply put, faith is believing God when he gets around to you.
7. Answers In Genesis has some good info explaining the red shift in light of creation not to mention bunches of black holes in the big bang theory.
Sorry Jessica, 'nother long comment...
@Chris: A nova (catchall term for an exploding star) and the big bang are as different as chalk and cheese. The Big Bang model is where space-time itself expands rapidly from a point-like state. A nova is a whole lot of matter blowing itself through space-time. So Big-Bangs are not happening all the time (except in some speculative metaphysical multiverse theories).
Many belief systems make some testable assertions. We can't disprove directly that Jesus rose from the dead, or that Mohammad had an epiphany near Mecca, etc., but there are implications of belief system which can be testable.
So are you an atheist for want of a better explanation, or someone who is undecided which way to go?
I found a specific link at Answers In Genesis regarding red shift and big bang. click here
Not an atheist. And I know about the different theories about how the universe started out (whether its the big bang theory or the proto planet theory, etc.)
Going back to the atheist thing, I do sometimes say I am an agnostic with atheist leanings, but just because of what I have seen and what has been used to be deem as "the greater good." What my friend put down I fully identify with. I have nothing against religion, beliefs, whatever (as opposed to atheists who rebel against anything like that). For me, I don't know what to believe, I wasn't raised with going to Church every Sunday and whatnot, but I don't want to believe that there isn't anything out there spiritually because I know there might be a time when I will be at the lowest point of my life and will result for help in the praying sense.
To answer Christopher, I do know a person who was fully into her Christian beliefs, went to church every Sunday, know her stuff in the Bible, was looking for a local church and a Christian club to belong to when in university and ended up becoming an atheist. When I talked to her about it, it was because she prayed and did other things (not sure what, she didn't tell me) to/for God to rescue her best friend from the clutches of death, but he ended up dying (not sure how he died, so don't ask). She put all of her faith on the line for him and she ended up with nothing in return and her faith lost. You might not know anybody that has lost their faith, but someday you might fine that person and I hope you are willing to understand their side without thumping into a Bible for an answer (no offense).
No offense taken. And I didn't mean I don't know people who practice Christianity who became agnostic or atheist. I said I don't know any Christians who have done it. There is a big difference between the religion of Christianity and being a Christian. The word itself is the clue. It means "little Christ" and was suppose to be a jab. A joke if you will. Basically it boils down to someone saying "there goes a guy with a little christ inside him." A Christian has a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ and has Him living inside of him. He could no more become an atheist or agnostic than a sparrow become a bat. Your friend could not possibly have had that relationship and then deny He exists no more than I could tell you that I don't believe I have a wife anymore. I might get mad at her, but I couldn't change my mind about her existing. Not without some very serious self deception, anyway.
I believe in Mrs. Hargett! :P
And that would mean that I did not become a true Christian till a little over two years ago. Christianity meant nothing much to me other than it was "what you do." And thanks for the link, Mr. Hargett. I will check it out.
(By the way everyone, I do not mind long comments. They are much more satisfactory than short comments, besides the fact that I always leave long comments.)
"I don't want to believe that there isn't anything out there spiritually because I know there might be a time when I will be at the lowest point of my life and will result for help in the praying sense" --Chris
This sounds like another blog entry I did, but I have to ask again...why wait till you think you can use a God or belief system to your advantage? It seems very selfish to me. I wouldn't want a child whom I had carried, given birth to, and raised to up and leave me on his 18th birthday, lives his life disgracing me, and only come crying back to me with his tail between his legs when he is at the "lowest point" in his life begging for me to help him out.
I can believe the "little Christ" thing, but not it the full sense. I have high morals myself (but morals is another subject) and wish the best out of anybody. I think I honestly take my outlook on people from To Kill A Mockingbird than from the teachings of Christ (though the quote goes hand-in-hand) which is "you should never judge a person until you understand things from his point of view." I know that there is good in the world, but I don't need to follow verses in the Bible to know that. I do consider Jesus as a type of philosopher as philosophers use the bare essentials to teach the masses: their head, and use it well.
Jess- not exactly what I mean, what I meant is like the usual self-disaster story. Either down on your dumps or something else where you question how you got into that decision and narrow it down.
Actually, I said "believers" not Christians. The terms are synonymous in my mind. Sorry. I do feel for your friend, though. I hope I didn't sound callous.
King David prayed and fasted for days for his infant boy. Arguably as innocent as a human can get. The boy died. He didn't become an atheist or agnostic.
God isn't a robot who serves us. He does love us, which is big mystery. And He made a way for us to be made right with no work on our part, if we let Him.
"Good" by definition should not be as unclear as everyone think it is. A good person is honest, caring, giving...etc. If you go to church but don't believe in the above, you are practicing a religious ritual but not the religious belief. One part I forgot to include is being added to my blog.
All quotes NIV:
Galatians 1:10 - "Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God [Yahweh]? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ [Messiah]."
James 2:17 - "...faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." 2:19 - "You believe there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that - and shudder." (KJV - "tremble.") (italics mine). 2:26: "As the body without the spirit [aka faith] is dead, so faith without deeds is also dead."
Galatians 5:22, 23 - "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Those are the fundamentals, and I will tell you straight up that I have seen some atheists follow them better than some Christians, which is very sad.
@Andrew: Why are those things good? Why is stealing wrong? How do you know that murder isn't virtuous? Who sets the standard?
@Jessica: This is off topic, but were you at the Lighthouse Band concert? (This question is prompted by you changing your profile picture.)
@ Jos also off-topic: No, I was not. I had been planning on it, but my mom wanted me to come on home after the swim meet. I plan to come to the next one, though!
@Jessica, again off topic: Okay, I thought I saw you there... nvm then.
Chris,
I know I'm a tad late getting into this, and I apologize. But I do have something to say about one of your comments. You were talking about a friend of yours who, based off of her best friend not being healed, became an atheist. I actually have to disagree with what Mr. H said. I personally, through many talks with my granddad, dad, family pastor, and other elders that I greatly respect, believe that you can chose to walk away from it all. I take a arminian stance on things (and please, can we not debate calvinism vs. arminian?) in that I believe we have free will, and we can chose to leave it all behind.
Personally, I know a few months ago, I went through a couple weeks where I did question God. My granddad passed away from cancer at 70 (in perfect health otherwise), and I was very angry and bitter towards God. I wanted to know why, if He has the power to heal, why didn't He. But then I stopped to think about it, and I realized that because of his saving Grace I will be seeing my granddad again. It still baffles me why He can have the power to heal and chooses not to. But I do have full trust in Him.
I was reading Christy the other day, and I found a quote that Ms. Alice said. "Those who have never rebelled against God or in some point in their lives shaken their fists in the face of heaven, have never encountered God at all." While I don't entirely agree that they couldn't have encountered God at all, I do feel like rebelling against our human lot and realizing that we don't understand, but coming out of all of it still trusting God, is a great thing indeed.
I have one small thing to say: You can chose to leave God, but God will never leave you. Once you have the holy spirit inside of you it does not just up and leave when you decide to decide things for yourself without God's help.
"1. Perhaps the existence of God could be proven simply because of all the miracles that happen everyday that could not happen otherwise."
This is interesting. I went through a small group Bible Study recently called, "The Truth Project," which inspired me to start a blog of my own. In that series, lesson five I think, Del Tackett discusses the evidence for, at a minimum, an intelligent design based exclusively on the miracles we see every day.
For instance: hummingbirds, cellular biology, the laws of physics, etc. If any of these things didn't work EXACTLY as they do, then the world would cease to function. That the laws of nature are laws rather than subjective ideas open to opnionated interpretation is nothing short of a miracle. Imagine if the nitrogen or water cycles did not work in the same, identical fashion all the time. What would happen?
The point is that the world is too precisely designed to have come together by chance. It is silly to imagine that even our own bodies work as they do by random chance.
Now, that's not evidence that God, as you and I believe, was the one who planned it, but it certainly gets you half of the way there.
Unfortunately, that argument isn't as valid anymore. With the advent of M-Theory (aka string theory, with the aforementioned multiverse), it is posited that there are an infinite number of universes with different laws of physics. The implication is that we observe a universe tailored for us because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here. The anthropic principle strikes again.
What I do like is the observation: why do things behave according to such nice, elegant, consistent laws? And why do we think we can figure them out?
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