Faith and Proof

Many Christians spend their entire life bashing everyone.  They hate members of other religions, they hate atheists, they hate agnostics.  Is there anyone that they DO like?  They even hate other Christians that do not belong to their denomination.  Why is this?  Well, the reasons are too numerous to list here, and I will write a post in the future that covers this in detail, but the overall reason is that their preacher tells them to.  The preacher wants money, and he will not get money if you leave for another church.  This is the basis for all of the hate that so many Christians have for everyone.  If you do not do exactly what they do you are wrong and going to Hell.  It doesn't matter that the other denomination's preachers are saying the same thing to their congregations.  All they know is that they are supposed to hate everyone that does not give money to THEIR preacher.

If Christians are this intolerant of their own brothers and sisters, how do you think they feel about people that do not worship the way they do?  What about those who do not worship at all?  They are taught that those who do not worship as they do are going to Hell, and also that it is their job to get these people into Heaven.  If these people totally reject what is being said Christians are taught to hate them even more as they have rejected the true word of God, and worshiping God is the only purpose that we have on this Earth.  This sets the stage for massive problems between Christians and those who have actually done a little bit of research and soul searching when it comes to matters of theism.

Atheists are always saying that they need proof if they are to believe in God, and the fact that there is no proof is why they do not believe.  They also lambaste theists for the fact that they believe without having proof.  They say that theists are stupid because they are willing to have faith in something that they cannot prove.

This argument completely misses the point of faith.  Faith means exactly what they are arguing against.  Faith means that you have no proof, but you believe anyway.  They have no proof that evolution is true yet they continue to have faith that it is.  I personally believe in evolution, but I do not do so because of proof.  I do so because to me the arguments for it are better than the arguments against.  What this means is that I must have faith that these better arguments are actually true.

I'm not very knowledgeable about Bible verses, but I'm pretty sure it says somewhere in there that God will not show Himself.  This would defeat the purpose of "faith."  There is no point in having faith in God if He shows himself to you, and faith is one of the key tenets of  most any religion.

Christians are always talking bad about atheists, and more importantly for this post, agnostics.  They say that there is no difference between these two groups, but obviously there is.  For those of you less versed in theological views, the quick version is that atheists do not believe in any god and feel that science can answer all questions (whether there is a current answer or not), and agnostics feel that there is no way to tell if any god exists or not until we die.  Basically, theists are optimists, atheists are pessimists, and agnostics are realists.

All of this leads to the point that I want to make: Christians are, according to the Bible, agnostics.  If God does not give you proof that he exists, you (obviously) do not know if he exists or not.  Faith means exactly that - believing without proof.  If you admit that you have faith in God, then you are admitting that you have no proof. Agnostics also believe that there is no proof of God.  Agnostics are free to believe in God or not because they are not atheists.  This means that if you have faith you are a Christian - an agnostic who chooses to believe.  An agnostic that does not believe is a non-Christian agnostic.

The difference between you and me is that I admit that I am an agnostic.  I admit that there is no way to know whether God or any other supreme being exists, but I choose to believe that He does (God, not Cthulhu or any other deities).  I know that there is a 50% chance that when I die I will go to Heaven/ Hell, and I also know that there is a 50% chance that there will be nothing and I will cease to exist in any way, shape, or form.

I know that this makes many people think that I am no better than an atheist (which I hate having to say because most that I've met are great people).  But what this actually means is that I have done more thorough research into this topic than you have.  It doesn't mean that I am a horrible person; it means that I know more than you do about theology and can admit that the preacher is not the end-all, be-all of Christian thought.  In fact, the majority of them know absolutely nothing about the real story of Christianity (Google "History of the New Testament" for a little introduction to what I'm talking about).  They only know what their preacher told them, which was told to them by an even older preacher, and so on.  There is so much more to it, and you will only discover this if you are willing to do a little bit of self-study that does not involve the Bible or a course developed by a preacher who just wanted to sell you something.

Remember, Christians are almost atheists; true atheists just go one god further.  And agnostics only acknowledge both of these without necessarily picking a side.

Christianity, Bernie Madoff Style

Have you ever noticed that Christianity is a lot like a Ponzi scheme?

Jesus went out and got 12 people.  These 12 people went out and got their own people.  Of these people, the best of the best started their own regional "offices," and these offices trained their own people that went out into the world and did it all again.  This continued on throughout the ages, and now your priest/ preacher is doing the same thing to you and your family.  And this will continue into the future indefinitely.

The reason that I call it a Ponzi scheme and not multi-level marketing is that what exchanges hands only goes up. The people at the top get everything and the people at the bottom only get to give everything to the people at the top, not knowing if this is an MLM or Ponzi scheme until the end.

Sure, they tell you that you will get into heaven when you die (assuming that you have given the people at the top enough of your time and money), but how do you know that you are involved with the right church?  What if your preacher taught that you had to go to his church every week or you would go to Hell, but come to find out that the church down the road was right when they taught predetermination?  If you weren't picked before hand, it wouldn't matter what you did or how many times you went to church, you would be screwed. The people running the scheme tell you everything you want to hear, as well. They tell you that you will be rich, there's no risk, and whatever else they have to tell you to get you involved and loving every minute of it.

With a Ponzi scheme you don't know that it failed until the end.  Once everything is said and done, and the guys at the top have spent all the money, you realize that you got screwed.  Christianity (and most other religions, as well) work the same way.  You won't know if it worked out like you thought until its all over.  When you die you will 1.) go to Heaven, 2.) go to Hell, 3.) nothing.  By this time the guys at the top have spent all of your money and they have moved on to the next sucker convert.  With the Ponzi scheme, it may work out good for you or it may not.  Of course, you don't know its a Ponzi scheme until it doesn't work, which is the same with Christianity.

If you want to be a part of a Ponzi scheme you can.  There are many, many people out there willing to screw you out of your money.  But remember, not everything is what it seems, and not everyone is looking out for your best interests.  It is up to you to do the research and find out for your own.  And your own brand of Christianity is no exception.

Methuselah and the Ancient Ones

Did you know that the oldest person ever lived for 969 years?  Sure, his name was Methuselah, and he was the grandfather of Noah (yeah, THAT Noah).  The average age of the 9 Patriarchs leading up to Noah was 912, which means that everyone back then supposedly lived for a really, really long time.

The argument that I have heard most is that since man originally had everlasting life, his life span was much longer at the beginning and slowly dwindled down to the 80-100 years that we have today.  There is also the argument of the water vapor canopy that surrounded the Earth blocking out much of the harmful radiation of the Sun, thus allowing us to live longer.

But, according to Genesis 6:3:

3 And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”

So according to the Bible itself, Man can only live for up to 120 years.  Why the discrepancy?

If you use months instead of years, Methuselah lived 80 years and 8 months (969/12=80.75).  80 years old in those days was ancient.  They didn't have the health care system that we do, so the average life span was probably in the mid 30s to early 40s (based on life spans in much of modern day Africa).

There are numerous ways to determine his age, and the above is using the Gregorian Calender in use today by the Western world (aka Christianity).  Lunar months would make him 78 1/2, but would have made his father, Enoch, 5 years old when Methuselah was born.  But regardless of how you determine it, the age comes out to what we know of today as the average life span for a healthy human being.

Fundamentalist Christians and the American Left

Why is it that Fundamentalist/ Evangelical Christians feel that they are on the Right side of the political spectrum?  They want to be able to tell others how to live their life through political regulation.  That doesn’t sound like the Right to me.

The Left side of the political spectrum is larger, more powerful government that tells people how to live their lives, and the Right is a smaller, less intrusive government that leaves people to their own devices.  How can you say that gays can’t get married or that a woman can’t have an abortion* and still say that you are on the Right?

I know why you feel that you must do this.  I grew up in a Catholic household, in a majority Catholic city, in a majority Catholic state, and attended a Catholic school for 9 years.  Believe me, I have heard all of the arguments before - “It says it right here in the Bible,” “They are sinning and we must save their souls,” “They don’t know about the Word of God, and it is up to us to teach it to them,” etc, etc, etc.

But, all of these arguments just prove my point.  You are using your beliefs to rule someone else’s life.  Our Constitution guarantees people in our country certain freedoms, one of which is the pursuit of happiness**.  This means that people are allowed to live how ever they want, as long as they are not impinging on the rights of others.  When you use government regulations to force someone to live how you want them to instead of how they want to, you are impinging on their rights.

If all of this preaching actually did any good, you wouldn’t have to do it.  The entire world would have become Christian 500 years ago when the Europeans started trying to spread it around the world.  In fact many, many atheists say that the reason that the are atheists is that they were tired of people pushing their beliefs down his throat (don’t believe me?  Go to www.atheistforums.com.  There are many, many posts that say exactly that).  Did you know that preaching in public is actually a sin? ***

You will just have to live with the fact that not everyone will live the way that you want them to.  This is the United States of America, and people have the Constitutional right to live how ever they want to, as long as they are not negatively affecting others.  How will gays getting married negatively affect you?  There is no right to not be offended, and that is the only “problem” that this will cause you.

You must get over the fact that people will do things that you don’t like.  You live a life that they find reprehensible, and you feel the same about them.  If people were supposed to all be the same, we wouldn’t need laws, we wouldn’t have countries, and we wouldn’t have different religions.  This is the way that the world works.  Get used to it.

People are always going to see things differently.  This is how God made us.  I think even Fundamentalists can appreciate that.


* -  I believe that abortion is an abomination, but who am I to tell someone how they can and can’t live?  It is not up to me to get someone else into Heaven.  I have my own family to worry about.  God gave us all free will, and the woman is a grown up who can make her own decisions.  She is the one that will have to deal with the consequences of her actions, here on Earth and after she dies.

** -  This phrase is actually in the Declaration of Independence, but the idea is carried over into the Constitution and is one of the reasons that it was drawn up in the first place.
   -  6/15/2010 Edit - I have recently found out an interesting story concerning this phrase.  It was originally supposed to be the word property, but the Founders knew that the Southerners would use this as a justification for owning slaves (they were considered property).  Once changed to pursuit of happiness, slavery was no longer condoned in the Constitution.  The only reason that it was not outlawed was that the Southern Delegation threatened to start their own country (and not join the U.S.), and there was no way for the Colonies to win the war with England without them.

*** -  Mathew 6:5-8 - these are Jesus’ own words, and they come directly before He teaches the Lord’s Prayer.

⁵And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. ⁶But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. ⁷And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. ⁸Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

How Each Side Views the Other

How Christians View Atheism

The belief that there was nothing and nothing happened to nothing and then nothing magically exploded for no reason, creating everything and then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself for no reason what so ever into self replicating bits which then turned into dinosaurs.

How Atheists View Christianity

The belief that some cosmic Jewish zombie can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in all of humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat fruit from a magical tree.

Answers to Questions Asked By a Reader

This post was originally supposed to be a response to a comment left on the post entitled, "Mathematical Reason to Believe in God."  But, seeing as how I do not know how to shut up (or, quit typing in this case), I decided to make it a full post.

If you have anything at all to say to this, please feel free to leave a comment here or on the original post.

____________________


Randall,

Thanks for the comment.  I appreciate that you have stated your beliefs in an informed manner, but without the condescending tone that usually accompanies comments in this type of discussion.  I frequent a number of different atheistic and agnostic websites, and have seen many times the vitriolic hatred that some people have for anything that resembles Christianity (and vice versa).

Here is my response to your comment:


1.) How do you know that there is only one God?  Or, for that matter, any gods?

I consider myself to be as much of a Deist as you can be and still consider yourself a Christian.  I believe that a Higher Intelligence exists, regardless of whether or not it is the Christian god.  I do understand that there may be numerous gods, and I understand that there may be no gods.  I also DO believe in Evolution.  I will never believe in Creationism, as there is no proof for it.  The Creation story was written as it was because the people of the time did not understand science, and needed some way to explain the world around them.  The idea of a 6,000 year old Earth became famous during the late 17th and early 18th Centuries, when Sir Isaac Newton set out to determine the age of the Earth using the genealogies listed in the Old Testament (this was also done by many others before and after Newton).


2.) How do you know which religion to choose?  What about how to choose the specific sect of that religion?

I do not think that God, if he exists, cares if you are Catholic, Baptist, Jewish, Islamic, or you have ever even heard of God.  He made us the way that we are, and so understands that we are inherently afraid of that which is different than we are (hence racism, sexism, gay bashing, and many other problems that plague the human race).  This protected our ancestors from being eaten by lions or killed by a different tribe.  

As long as you live a good life, full of the things that are considered right in any culture (helping those in need, respect for your fellow man, taking care of your family, etc), you will be rewarded.  Even the Catholic Church admits that God will probably not send the indigenous tribesmen of the Amazon to Hell, seeing that many of them have no idea what civilization is, let alone have been exposed to Christianity.  So, this means that it does not matter what religion you follow, as long as you do what is right.

3.) If God is all knowing, won't he be upset that you choose to believe in him for selfish reasons?

Why else would you believe in God (or gods) if not to get into Heaven?  The whole idea is to benefit yourself in the long run, and God set it up like that on purpose.  Why would he punish us for doing what it is in our nature to do (as stated earlier)?  Everything that anyone does, regardless of what they say and what you think, is done for selfish reasons.  Why do people donate to charities?  Selfishness; it makes them feel good about themselves (I didn't make this up - it is a fact of psychology).

4.) Your argument assumes that people can choose to believe in something, regardless of what the evidence or lack of evidence shows.   Mark Twain said, "Faith is believing what you know ain't so." That quote is funny because reasonable people can't do that.

as far as evidence is concerned, I do not believe in most of the aspects of "Christianity" that the fundamentalists and evangelicals do.  They have no proof for the fact that the Earth is 6,000 years old, and we have tons of evidence for an age of 4.6 billion years.  My father is a geologist, so I grew up to have a great love of geology, geological history, and paleontology.  I will argue along side any atheist, any day of the week, against the fire and brimstone Christians on this and numerous other topics.

But, there is no proof that God does not exist, just that he doesn't exist in the manner described by the backwoods, ignorant preachers.  As soon as certain questions are answered, I will stop believing in God.  Among these answers that I seek is this: What started the Big Bang?  Besides geology, I also love astrophysics and astronomy (even if I only have an elementary understanding of each!).  I understand, and am starting to believe in, the Multiverse Theory, so know that the matter that comprises our solar system may have come through a worm hole or black hole from another universe.  But there had to be something, somehow, that got everything started in another universe.  Before the Big Bang (whatever Universe the original was in), there was nothing, not even space itself.  So, if there was nothing, how did something just magically appear?  Nothing can appear in a vacuum without something else putting it there in the first place, and nothing can appear out of nothing.

there is strong evidence that life sprang into existence (I use that term loosely) at the thermal vents at mid-oceanic ridges.  There is also evidence that life DOES NOT need water to survive, or even to come into existence.  But how?  A group of proteins just all of a sudden decided to become a living organism that can replicate on its own?  the Australian cyanobacteria and stromatolites are the oldest known creatures, and are thought to be the original life on Earth.  How did they begin?  You mean to tell me that amino acids just magically decided to start eating and having sex?  well, the first lifeforms were asexual, but I think you get the point.

If you can show me evidence to the contrary for any of the above, I will stop using them as a reason to say that a higher intelligence exists.  But until that time, I will do what all good scientists must do, and continue to believe that it is at least possible until all doubt has been removed.


*  I would love to provide links for everything in this article, but some topics came out of books that I have lying around the house (textbooks, books bought at Borders, etc).  If you would like to know what information came from what book, please leave a comment, and I will get that information to you as soon as possible.
Edit - 2/11/2014 - Awe, Borders.  I miss you.  Frowny face.

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