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Is God Real?

Although I have considered myself an atheist for most of my life, in the past few years I have come to trust in God. As a child, I was taught that if I didn’t believe in Jesus’s atonement for mankind’s sin (consisting of His death and resurrection) then I would go to hell - a place of eternal torment.  I was also taught that God is a loving, just, and merciful God.  But what is just, loving, or merciful about sending people to hell to suffer torments forever?  And why should people go to hell depending on their beliefs about the divinity of Christ?  I could also not understand why this wonderful God would allow His creatures to suffer in horrible ways right here on earth.

I still don’t believe that God will send you to hell if you don’t believe in Christ’s atoning death and resurrection.  I don’t believe in hell at all.  I still don’t understand why a loving, omnipotent, omniscient God allows horrible suffering, despite the many books I have read about free will and willful ignorance.  But I don’t experience God as being omnipotent or omniscient.  What has changed is that I now have faith that there is a “dimension of reality that is much deeper and more real than anything that could be grasped by science or reason”  (John Haught, “God and the New Atheism”).   I believe in a God of perfect love.  I can bring my concerns, fears, and anxieties to God and thus unburden myself.

Of course, the question comes up,  “How do you know that what you believe to be God is real and not just wishful thinking?”  The best way I can answer that is to use the example of solipsism (a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing). How can I really know that I’m not just dreaming up everything I consider to be real?  But yet I do know that there is a reality apart from myself.  It’s this same kind of innate knowing that grounds my belief in a God of perfect love.

Why doesn’t everyone experience the reality of God?  Why do I now experience the reality of God, but did not experience the reality of God earlier in my life? These questions undermine my postulate of innate knowledge of the reality of God.  But I still don’t believe in the God that I used to not believe in.  I still don’t believe that the Bible is inerrant.  On the other hand, during my atheistic phase I would never have claimed that the underlying Spirit of Life is perfect love.

I freely admit I cannot give good reasons or evidence for my present belief. Maybe the best I can do is to say that I choose to believe in a God of perfect love. I do know that I am interested in the sincere views of others concerning the reality of God.  John Haught writes, “As distinct from those who allow themselves to be gradually transformed by a dialogical encounter with the views of others, extremists fear that open conversation will lead at best to a softening of the hard mound of certainty on which they believe they stand.”  Let the dialogue continue.

-Kmit

Posted 12 November 2008 † Kmik § § I Believe ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , ,

Losing God

The trend is clear.

Survey after survey tells us that there is a steady decline in the belief in God. About half of young people today claim to be secularists. They do so, in large part, because popular culture tells them there is no other logical choice.

Everyday experiences teach them there can be no all-loving and all-powerful God.

When they look out into the world they see only the greed, cruelty, war, and disasters. They see cheaters, liars, and the self-centered having all the fun, taking the lion’s share of wealth and power—living the good life.

“Do unto others” means taking what you want from them and casting the remains aside, they decide, watching the ambitious climbing mankind’s ladders of wealth and power. Money buys love and respect, they note.

Love and compassion means feel-good rites and physical self-pleasuring through sex, drugs, and thrills. That must be truth because that’s how normal life is portrayed on TV shows and commercials. That’s what our buddies tell us. Anyway, I can see it’s all true, they say. Look for yourself!

Honesty and integrity means exercising your right to be and do whatever you want for as long as you can get away with it, they conclude from living in a society that readily permits disruptive and deceitful behavior. A society that lets wealth and fame buy freedom from justice. A society that idolizes power and physical superiority at any cost. Just don’t get caught. We have to maintain proper appearances, you know.

Self-responsibility means filling your days doing nothing or doing whatever is necessary so you can enjoy your own piece of the pie. As long as it doesn’t hurt me, they exclaim, then it’s okay. It’s not my responsibility that somebody else must clean up my mess, restore the destruction of life and property I leave in my wake. I’m the most important person in my life! I deserve respect and freedom to do what I want! And it’s YOUR responsibility to make sure I get it!

Are these the values used to shape the pliable, emerging character of our youth by TV, movies, music, parent, and society? Is this the legacy that we are cultivating for our children? A world free from responsibility? A feel-good world? A world where the highest crime is getting caught?

Traditional religious institutions don’t help much either. Fundamentalists proclaim their own solution to remedy the loss of the hearts and minds of our youth to the lure of ephemeral pleasures broadcast by our culture and society. They circle their wagons and cry ever more loudly the saving grace of God:

“Believe MY dogma and be saved!” they shout.

Problem is, much of the dogma of truth that they proclaim is unbelievable against the backdrop of modern science and reality. Instead of pulling our youth to God, fundamentalists are pushing them away.

Is there no other choice? Would an all-powerful do-anything God give us such limited options? Would God create a world filled with so many challenges and credible reasons to doubt just to confuse our choices and test our resolve? Test our gullibility, some would say. Are we losing God? Is He drowning in a sea of humankind’s corruption and greed? Is humanity doomed?

Posted 10 November 2008 † Christopher § Faith ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Create a Moment that Changes the World

God isn’t about church or rituals or how often you read scripture. God is about doing – about how you live your life every moment.

And God doesn’t care if you call your spiritual beliefs Christianity, Islam, Baha’i Faith, or even secular humanism as long as you strive to fill your moments with goodness and beauty.

Moments such as these change the world.

Plant one in your future.

Craft a small thought or deed of kindness. Do it now while the idea is still warm. You may, for example, plan to pass a caring smile or greeting to a stranger or someone you don’t think you like very much. Or you may plan to pick up a piece of litter from your neighborhood or the local park as you pass through. Or you may turn an angry reaction to someone’s comment into an opportunity to understand a broader perspective that spans the great diversity of life and culture.

Act from your heart, not your mind. It is an act that springs from God’s love. Share it with the power of that love.

Each act of kindness, however inconsequential it may seem, is a seed. Some will grow into mighty trees bearing many new seeds of kindness. Perhaps your one seed will spread into a forest of goodness and beauty, a forest that thrives long after you have passed into the beyond.

This is how we best worship God, by sharing the love He freely gives us. Share God’s love by planting your seeds of kindness. Create a new moment that will grow to change the world.

Posted 23 October 2008 † Christopher § Living God's Way ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

The Heart of Christianity

Re-discover Jesus in a postmodern world of religious uncertainty.

Marcus Borg is one of my favorite authors and I think The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith best presents his views.

Borg leaves no doubt as to his grounding in Christianity. However, he approaches belief in a way that focuses on the compassion and teachings of Jesus rather than adhering to the literal, factual precepts of Christian dogma and ritual.

Borg leads us from an “earlier paradigm” of Christianity that many find unacceptable and unbelievable in our postmodern world into a more credible, inclusive, and pluralistic understanding of God through the “more-than-literal”, metaphorical understandings of the Bible and Jesus.

If you feel uncomfortable with some of the demands of your faith or you are ready to step beyond orthodoxy and dogma, than The Heart of Christianity is, in my mind, an excellent place to begin your journey! Borg brings biblical scholarship and an easy to understand, respectful writing style together to lead us into his concept of an “emerging paradigm” of personal transformation into a faith focused on the love and justice at “The Heart of Christianity.”

Posted 16 October 2008 † Christopher § Books Worth Reading ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Honest to God!

Many people will tell you that we are overly accepting of dishonesty in our society. Dishonesty we call it. That somehow sounds softer than deceit and lies. We don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings! Just because they lied to us to get elected or to sell us something that doesn’t work or to escape responsibility for something they did is no reason to call them liars!

Well, to be blunt, why are we so tolerant of liars?

Is it maybe, just perhaps, because we see a little of ourselves in them? In fact, aren’t they really us?

One of our biggest challenges is to step back from ourselves and examine the reality of our lives. It takes courage to pull the bright wrappers from our egos and poke into who really lurks behind. It can be a rather shocking experience.

I saw a great illustration of this in the news recently. In a survey of obese people, more than three-quarters claimed they have healthy eating habits. About 40 percent claimed to do vigorous exercise at least three times a week.

Really!

Now, being way-fat is not the root of the problem. Denying that way-fat is unhealthy and debilitating or that their behaviors contribute to obesity is. Burying our challenges behind ego-barriers and doing nothing accomplishes nothing.

Reality is, we all suffer some degree of self-deceit that masks intellectual honesty. Self-deceit spills out into how we deal with others. Personal dishonesty inevitably leads to lying to others and accepting the same deceits from them. You reap what you sow.

To act honestly, you must be honest.

Rooting out your own dishonesty, however, is not something you accomplish in an instant. There is no big switch you flip to instantly become intellectually honest. Dishonesty is deceptive. It finds clever ways to hide deep within your psyche despite your best efforts to expose it.

Honesty is something you must practice. It begins with anchoring your beliefs in goodness and value, things we label God. When you anchor your beliefs in God, you develop an affinity for His goodness and that goodness begins to pull you from the perils of deceit. Your goodness promotes honesty both within yourself and within others. Honesty leads to a growing desire to cultivate knowledge and truth in your everyday thought and deed. It opens your eyes and mind to the follies of humankind—the foolish and costly behaviors that cripple our society.

Posted 03 October 2008 † Christopher § Morality ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

The World’s Religions

The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions by Huston Smith explores the origins and inspirations of the many faces of faith in our diverse world. This is one of my favorite reads. Originally published in 1958, it is still a strong favorite of those interested in the historical and spiritual origins of the world’s great traditional religions.

Do NOT buy this book if you want:

  • a thorough, detailed account of the historical origins of the world’s major religions
  • a balanced, erudite chronicling of historical fact and modern scholarship
  • a book of comparative religion: pros and cons, facts and fantasies
  • an encyclopedic treatise of religious creeds, dogma, and ritual for reference and study

DO buy this book if you want:

  • a sense of how cultural beliefs and historical factors inspired different populations to find and define god
  • a visual image of the struggles of ancient societies reaching for meaning and value in an often hostile and unforgiving world
  • a broad knowledge of the spiritual wisdoms and beauty found within major religions
  • a feel for how beliefs evolve and change along with the spread and maturation of civilizations
  • a starting point to developed a deeper empathy with the spiritual traditions and beliefs of others

The World’s Religions is less a history book as it is Smith’s story of the spiritual journeys of humankind that led to the great traditional religions of past and present. There is no other book that I know of that gives you a better introduction to humanity’s spiritual diversity and growth across the ages. The book is well flavored with Smith’s perspectives, but they rarely interfere with the magnitude of the story.

Posted 22 September 2008 † Christopher § Books Worth Reading ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,