Godless Mom in the Bible Belt

The very questions you raise are the ones that lead me away from a Bibical version of God. I suppose that if I were to believe in a God, it would be as a Deist.

But, if there was a Deist God, then I would not want to worship or admire such a being. How could such a god create all of this and then let it all go to hell?

You and I have been friends for a long time, and yet there is so much about you that I never knew. You have so eloquently guided us through your journey to Atheism. I hope you won't mind my sharing a few thoughts as they include you. And I too have been searching for answers to many of the same questions but have been unable to give up on the idea of some sort of Higher Power to guide me.

You and I experienced religious discrimination and exclusion from the Mormon society in school together. In fact I would venture to say that we became friends partly because of it.
Oddly enough, I probably attended more church services with your family than with my own. This was because your family was so kind as to open their doors to my family during a long period of "divorce" aftermath. I do not believe that kindness of that nature comes only from Religious teachings, but I do believe it is taught in some cases. I also believe that some people are just born with an innate "kindness" or "compassion" for others, while others are born without.
I definetely reject organized religion. I remember reading "A Distant Mirror" in seventh grade, and it was pretty clear to me that the combination of religion and power can lead to devastating results. Nevermind the Patriarchal nature of most religions. And whatever happened to tending the garden we live in.
Still I want to believe that there is some common strand that binds all living creatures together.
Maybe it is simply that we are all stardust. Or maybe there is a "Force" that runs through all living things, only stronger in some.
I never organize my thoughts very well. It is probably time to take a writing class. But just a few more quick and light thoughts.
You and I shared our passion for "The Empire Strikes Back" one summer, years ago. I will never forget taking the bus to the "Centre" theatre every day for about two weeks, sitting in the same seats, and memorizing the dialogue and music.
I saw "Revenge of the Sith" last night with my father, stepmother and (2) step brothers. We loved it. I think the adults more than the kids.
Having recently lost many material items (stolen), I have been looking for quotes on "letting go" from any religious teachers or poets. All I needed was to hear the Prophet "Yoda" tell me to let them go.
So for now as I stumble through life, new answers come everyday as do new questions.
Today I will think on this....
"Look for the answer inside your question" --Rumi
Thanks -
Searching in the Berkshires, NY.

I recently came across this blog and being godless myself, I was intrigued by the name: Godless Mom in the Bible Belt. Awesome! I am almost 50 years old and became an atheist in the last 3 years. Your statement that you realized one day that there was no-one to pray to is almost exactly what happened to me. I was at lunch with friends and we were talking about religion and I just up and announced "I'm an atheist." I think I was just as surprised as everyone else at the table. The most immediate things I felt, after my surprise, was how right my statement felt and still feels; and that the amorphous guilt I've carried around my entire life from my early religious programming, well, that went away. I could never figure out what I was supposed to be guilty about but guilty I was and would remain. Funny thing, when the guilt went away, the knot of anger in my belly went away as well. I know religion brings a lot of people comfort but it never has for me. It felt more like getting hit upside the head with a 2 x 4. And it felt so good when it stopped. Heh.

Very good questions and provocative thoughts!

And you have reminded me:
I must start my post on the penis chronicles!


Thanks for taking us on a ride with you on your spiritual journey.

It all comes down to your perspective and upon what you wish to base your view of God.

How could an omnipotent, benevolent God that supposedly loves all of His creation allow such pain and suffering? Free will.

You have to remember, life wasn't meant to be like this. Humans chose this path. The world in which we live is a result of our choices.

But just like our ancestors that made the initial decision to rebel against God, modern humanity doesn't want to hear that "they are responsible".

We don't want to take responsibility for our actions. We don't want to grow and mature. We want to blame everyone and everything else.

Well, look at the results. The world in which we live is a result of selfishness, plain and simple.

Again, it's all based on how you want to believe in God.

Do I have proof? Other than the Bible? No. But that's part of what faith is. It's not necessarily supposed to make sense.

Faith is acceptance in spite of irrefutable proof.

Faith can also be a learned behavior. Just like applying the brakes in your car. It doesn't mean that you know how the pedal actually triggers the braking mechanism, but when you push the pedal, you expect and put a large amount of faith in the belief that the car will stop. Otherwise, no one would drive.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic.

Do you punish your child? (I don't know if you have children, so this may just end up being a rhetorical question.)

Why do you punish them? Is it because you hate them? No. Any loving parent will tell you that they punish their child, because they want them to realize that there are consequences for their actions, but even beyond that cause and effect relationship, a parent is not only trying to instill in their child the realization of that correlation, but also they're trying to protect them from future actions which might have much more serious/dire consequences.

So we're forced to live in this world which is a direct result of the action of a past generation, with the hope and intention that we learn and grow so that we are ready for a time when there won't be any weeping.

But again, I don't expect you to believe any of this, because this is all dependent upon your view of God.

And I chose to post anonymously, because I don't want to get flamed . . . besides, I doubt I'll be able to find your site again anyway.

Good day to you.

Anonymous, thank you for your comment. I'm sorry you feel that your thoughts as posted here might cause you to be flamed. I assure you that all thoughts are welcome here, this is a public forum and no one thought is any more valid than any other. You and your comments are welcome here and I do hope you find your way back.

You and I view things very differently, nothing wrong with that. So, let me weigh in on some of the points you made.

You said, "You have to remember, life wasn't meant to be like this. Humans chose this path. The world in which we live is a result of our choices."

I don't personally think that life was "meant" to be like anything. It is what it is, we are where we are. Of course the choices made have influenced society but where we are now isn't an indication of bad choices humanity has made along the way any more than it is an indication of good choices. We are simply a life form on this planet, for better or for worse.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be saying that all the ills of today's world are a direct result of Eve taking the forbidden fruit.

You stated "Again, it's all based on how you want to believe in God."

Well, I personally do not believe in a god, Christian or otherwise. Therefore I do not agree that the ills of today are based on some percieved sin committed by an ancient mythological woman. I don't mean any disrespect to your views, I just want you to understand where I'm coming from on this.

Yes, I do have a wonderful little girl and like any parent I occassionally have to reprimand her when her behavior is outside the limits set by myself, my husband and the society in which we live. And you are correct, she learns from discipline.

However, I feel that there is a huge difference between a consequence laid upon a specific individual for specific misbehaviors and the arbitrary manslaughter which takes place every time there is an "Act of God."

Am I correct in understanding your point that cases like the tsunami last December which killed thousands of people (many of them innocent children)was God punishing humanity as a whole for it's various sins over the course of centuries? This is supposed to make us learn? What exactly are we supposed to learn from such a lesson? That God is cruel and capricious in his administration of justice?

Even if God exists I would never worship a being who feels that it is acceptable to take an innocent life because of the sins of others. I don't beat my dog when my daughter scribbles on the wall with crayon, that would be cruel and illogical and would only serve to harm my relationship with the dog and my daughter.

You said, "Faith is acceptance in spite of irrefutable proof."

And

"Faith can also be a learned behavior."

I agree, faith is acceptance in spite of irrefutable proof. I'm just not wired that way, my mind does not make leaps of blind trust when there is no logical proof or tangible evidence.

And yes, faith can be learned. Just as it can be un-learned. Logical, critical thinking can also be fostered and developed and superstitious thinking can be put aside.

I have chosen the path of critical thinking, you have chosen the path of faith. Both valid choices, and evidence of the great diversity of humanity.

Thank you again for your thoughtful comment.

No, I most certainly did not mean that the tsunami was an "act of God" meant to punish people.

Personally, while I do believe that God has, and still is, engaging humanity, I also believe that the vast majority of human calamities/tragedies that befall society and individuals are a direct and indirect result of our own actions and the actions of others.

As for "Acts of God", or natural disasters, those are going to happen because we live in a natural and (I believe) fallen environment.

We live in a universe of entropy.

Again, it all comes down to what preconceived notions you bring to the table regarding God and the nature/origins of the human condition.

Again, as I look at it, we are the ones that introduced pain and suffering into the world, not God.

Why then are we punished for someone else's mistakes? Because we are descendants of the original trangressors and much like a debtors prison of old, the wronged (in this case God) must receive just compensation for the wrong committed towards Him; even if that means taking in the other family members, so to speak.

Harsh?

To our modern take on things, absolutely it's harsh. But what's just?

We live in a universe of cause and effect. If you push a ball it will, more than likely, move. And societies are based around the same concept - if you commit a crime, then you will suffer the consequences for your actions. But do the consequences for the crime stop with the original transgressor? No. Others are affected. It's all cause and effect. Actions on the part of one person can affect the mindset of someone else, which may change their perception about something, which in turn affects a decision they make with someone else and so on and so forth.

It's the butterfly effect.

So if a God did create the universe with all of its known and unknown natural laws, couldn't one assume that He would work through those very same laws in His interactions with humanity? For Him not to do so, would create a dichotomy between what we see in our natural environment and His "personality".

In other words, having an ordered environment that, appears, to be self-sustaining (to a point) indicates that there is an orderly Creator. A real world example could be scientists and their experiments. They create something based upon facts, figures, charts and data. They don't just throw parts into a bag, jumble it all up and hope that "it" comes out fully functional.

The point of all this being that if God were like that, then wouldn't our world/universe we a reflection of the chaos that was inherent in Him?

Anyway . . . I'm digressing.

So while He certainly wouldn't be limited or constrained by the same laws that He created, wouldn't breaking a law be contradictory to who He really is, since in essence, the physical world and it's varied laws/structure/organization is simply a pale reflection of His inherent organization?

Again, you have to "come to the table" with some belief in order to really grasp the full implications of that statement, but seeing what I've written, within that specific context, answers your questions.

At least . . . it does for me.

Especially since part of His nature is free will.

Despite being omnipotent, He would rather let us fail, make mistakes, learn from them, fail again and then, hopefully, some where along the way, find Him; rather than forcibly tell us how to live our lives.

What do children do whose parents force them to live a lifestyle contrary to who they are? They rebel.

So what is a parent to do? You don't just let them have free reign, because then you'd end up with little terrors on your hands. Instead, you constrain them in as much as you let them know that there are consequences to their actions.

Also, you said that you had chosen critical thinking, while I had chosen the path of faith. A true statement, but I would suggest that I've interspersed critical thinking along with my faith to create a more cohesive and holistic hermeneutic.

Again, we're not going to see eye to eye, but I just wanted to weigh in with "the other side" of the discussion since no one else seemed willing too.

Thanks again for letting me add my thoughts.

(Seems I lucked out and remembered the phrase "godless mom" - that's how I found your site again.)

Anonymous:

You seem to be saying that God created a universe of natural laws that, to us, seems to be consistent and measurable and further that his interactions with people happen through these laws. This is because it would be inconsistent for him to create such a universe and then subvert those laws when he cooses to. This is actually the most interesting position I've heard regarding the question of why God can be all powerful and the embodiment of good and yet appear to either allow or be unable to prevent bad things from happening to good people.

So if a God did create the universe with all of its known and unknown natural laws, couldn't one assume that He would work through those very same laws in His interactions with humanity? For Him not to do so, would create a dichotomy between what we see in our natural environment and His "personality".

Ok. But if this is the case, how do you couch your belief in the bible with these self-imposed constraints? Does the parting of the red sea conform to natural laws? Why would his son and envoy to humanity be capable of breaking the physical laws of his father? If Jesus could spontaneously heal and walk on water, what sort of example is that to a humanity who cannot do the same?

If we are expected to live in God's world, a world of entropy and randomness, shouldn't his avatar and paragon of humanity also be constrained to live within those laws? Wouldn't his example to humanity be more powerful if he lacked the power to subvert those laws whenever he felt like it?

You indicated that the Tsunami and other natural disasters weren't meant as a punishment. So it seems to follow that you believe that the Tsunami was merely a random result of the natural world that God created. He created the earth with all its magma chambers, moving plates, weather and diseases and sometimes those will snuff out human life, seemingly at random. If you park your car on an incline without turning the wheels to the curb and setting the parking brake and it runs over someone, you are at least guilty of neglegence. You could have been more careful. Your action (or inaction) resulted in someone's death. You are responsible because, had you been more careful, you could have prevented the loss of life. Regardless of how you look at it, if God created the world with all of its natural laws, he put humainty, intentionally or through neglegence, in harm's way. Deaths that result are his responsibility regardless of whether or not you believe them to be intentional.

This is true, unless what you are saying when you state:

Again, as I look at it, we are the ones that introduced pain and suffering into the world, not God.

is that natural disasters are somehow a result of human action. I assume you don't believe that Lex Luthor fired a missile at the fault that created the Tsunami, so if you are saying that people brought about that disaster you have to be saying that God made it happen as a result of something people did that displeased him. We are back to punishment.

I think you put the difference between those with faith and those without well in your example of having faith in your brakes. You said that people have faith that their brakes would stop their car, or no one would drive. Personally, I don't have "faith" in my brakes. I know how they work, and given that, I know they can fail. I try to buy cars that have a good safety record, ones with brakes that fail less frequently than others. In other words, I use critical thinking in my car buying choices. When I get in my car I make a cost-benefit analysis of the risk I am assuming that I might be in a serious accident. I choose between taking that risk and not going to work and providing for my family. If I am unwilling to assume any risk in my daily life, I wont have much of a life. THAT is free will. The will to make informed choices and to assume the associated risks.

You and I agree that people these days don't want to take responsibility for their actions. There was a person in Houston a few weeks ago who ran a red light and was killed by a train. His family wants to sue. It was a freak accident, he wasn't being stupid or reckless, he just made a mistake and he died. His family is unwilling to accept that and they want some to "pay" for his death even though it was his fault.

You seem to be saying that putting your faith in God is like putting your faith in the brakes in your car. So I can put my faith in God and things can still go badly for me? Based on that, why would I do it? I really don't see any evidence that putting faith in God really benefits people but I do see where making informed choices does. If I put faith in someone's stock recommendations and I lose money, who do I blame? If I do my own research and fail, I can blame myself and hopefully learn from the experience. If I put my faith in God and something horrible happens to me, how do I learn from that? If I put my faith in myself and make choices knowing that there are certain inherent risks in everything, I can learn from my mistakes, blame myself for my bad choices and accept that sometimes, shit just goes awry. At least in that world view I have some reason to get up off the canvass and try again when I get knocked down. If I make the choices God wants me to make and I still get knocked down, where do I turn? And really, is that free will?

Lastly, a few things you said bear some clarification. First:

Again, it all comes down to what preconceived notions you bring to the table regarding God and the nature/origins of the human condition.

My notions of God and the human condition are not preconceived. They were when I was a kid, but now they are made up of experience, reflection and education. I don't think preconceived notions of anything are healthy.

Also:

We live in a universe of entropy.

and

In other words, having an ordered environment that, appears, to be self-sustaining (to a point) indicates that there is an orderly Creator.

Two problems with this. First of all, which is it? The definition of an entropic universe is one in which order moves to chaos, a closed system which is in steady decline. The Universe is not self-sustaining, it is running down, it's just not happening on a scale that we notice day-to-day.

Second, the argument that the nature of the universe proves a creator of a similar nature is fallacious in the extreme. This is a post hoc ergo propter hoc statement and in a world of natural laws, created by God or not, it doesn't work.

At any rate, I find your comments to be very thoughtful and I always appreciate discourse that doesn't descend into personal attacks and emotion. People on both sides and in between who are able to engage in such are rare, I hope to hear more of you thoughts.

Gosh, these are never easy discussions are they? ;)

I "couch" my beliefs in the Bible, because I believe that most, if not all of the miracles, can be explained through natural means. In other words, God using and working through and with the natural environment to serve His purposes.

You might want to check out this site. A bit lengthy, but interesting nonetheless.

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1978/JASA12-78Basinger.html

As for Christ's ability to heal and our seemingly inability to recreate His actions. What about the cancer patient that's been given four months to live, but is in full remission at month six and for no scientifically explainable reason?

We hear about cases like that on the news all the time. A person is told that their son or daughter will never live a full and happy life, but lo and behold, 20 years later, not only are they happy and healthy, but they have a family of their own.

Modern humanities concept of "miracle" is the grandiose and the awe-inspiring, but miracles happen everyday, we just tend to be too narrow-minded to notice them. (And that is not intended to be a slight on you, but rather an obversation of all humanity.)

If we are expected to live in God's world, a world of entropy and randomness, shouldn't his avatar and paragon of humanity also be constrained to live within those laws? Wouldn't his example to humanity be more powerful if he lacked the power to subvert those laws whenever he felt like it?

Actually, wouldn't His example to humanity be more powerful if He had the power, but limited Himself?

Christ was constrained by the laws of this world, in as much as He constrained Himself. He even allowed Himself to be killed. Something that He didn't have to do.

As for the miracles, again, I would suggest that perhaps we haven't discovered all there is to know about modern medicine and the human condition.

Regardless of how you look at it, if God created the world with all of its natural laws, he put humainty, intentionally or through neglegence, in harm's way. Deaths that result are his responsibility regardless of whether or not you believe them to be intentional.

No. God created the natural order. The original design was perfect. We were perfect. Everything was . . . well . . . perfect. Then we, through our actions and disobedience, threw a "wrench" into the works. As a result, the balance and the perfection were corrupted.

Going back to our entropy definition - think of the perfect world/universe like a self-sustaining clock.

It's perfectly oiled, has jewel movements, it is perfection to the infinite degree.

Then introduce a foreign element to that clock, be it dust, dirt, sand, or what-have-you and slowly, the disruption of that original foreign object will grow and begin to affect more and more attributes of the clock until, eventually, the clock will stop functioning altogether.

Now, where the world in which we live differs from the metaphor of the clock is that we were given free choice. Quickly oing back to the clock example, one could suggest, "Well why not create a perfectly sealed apparatus so that foreign objects can't get in?

Well, that works for our clock example, since by our definitions of cogniscience and awareness, nothing in the clock is alive.

We, however, are. So to create a wholly sealed environment free of "alternatives", or in our case free will, is to dictate and control our lives. That was not the original intent of the universe. While we were always supposed to have a choice, we were (ideally) supposed to want to live in accordance with God's will and within the laws that He created.

Unfortunately, I would suggest that it was our selfish desires to want more, to know more, to believe that we needed more that led to the introduction of the "dust/dirt" into our world.

So, to get back to your original statement, yes, God did create all the minutia of our world. However, when He created it, it was perfect and it was our introduction of sin that initiated the slow and steady decline of our world and the multitude of calamities that befall us.

As for the "brakes" analogy, I agree with you up to a point. I understand that you assess the brakes of the particular car you're going to buy and you know, going into the deal, that there is the potential that they could fail you at any given moment. But do you do that everytime that you get into your car? Do you assess the potential for brake failure everytime you apply your brakes? Maybe you do, but I would bet that you don't. In which case, you're putting a measured amount of faith in your brakes.

In other words, having an ordered environment that, appears, to be self-sustaining (to a point) indicates that there is an orderly Creator.

Two problems with this. First of all, which is it?

Well . . . we live in a universe of entropy, yes. We also live in a natural environment that replentishes itself according to natural, rhythmic cycles/season. I believe that's all I was trying to indicate.

Second, the argument that the nature of the universe proves a creator of a similar nature is fallacious in the extreme. This is a post hoc ergo propter hoc statement and in a world of natural laws, created by God or not, it doesn't work.

So would you attribute the natural universe to coincidence then? Isn't that erroneous; especially when viewed alongside the scientific method?

To summarize, go back to that first paragraph in your last comment. You hit the nail on the head, except I wouldn't say that He's "unable" to intervene, just unable in the sense that He's unable to do anything goes against His very nature.

It borders on circular reasoning, I know, but it's like that "age old question" - if God can do anything, can He create a rock that He can't move? Well . . . it's an illogical question to begin with.

The real question should be, "How does creating such a rock fit in with His nature and would creating such a rock be reflective of His personality?" Again, my view lets me assert that God is not a God of contradictions, so He would not create a rock that was too large for Him to move.

blah . . .

Good discussion. ;)

Also, I hope you're not miffed that I'm not revealing who I am. I learned long ago that such discussions can get heated and tend to devolve into mudslinging.

So for the time being, I'll remain anonymous until such point that I feel comfortable using my real name.

Thanks for understanding.

anonymous:

As for Christ's ability to heal and our seemingly inability to recreate His actions. What about the cancer patient that's been given four months to live, but is in full remission at month six and for no scientifically explainable reason?

This is a bit of a dodge in my opinion. There are plenty of potential explainations for someone to go into remission after six months that don't fit Christ suddenly healing a leper or someone who can't walk. Regardless of the claims of faith healers, none of them has ever been able to prove that they can spontaneously fix a damaged spine, blind eyes, deaf ears, etc. James Randi has had a sizable reward on the table for anyone who could prove they could to this and no one has managed to claim it.

The claims of the bible are that Jesus put his hands on someone and completely removed major afflications. I just don't see how you compare this to cancer leaving someone's body over a six month period.

Actually, wouldn't His example to humanity be more powerful if He had the power, but limited Himself?

Well, yes, but I still don't believe that he did according to the bible.

Christ was constrained by the laws of this world, in as much as He constrained Himself. He even allowed Himself to be killed. Something that He didn't have to do.

I respectfully disagree with you here. Christ was murdered due to a conspiracy that included his own people. History is full of similar examples, who, by the way, also had followers who told very tall tales about their seemingly supernatural abilities. It was said that Plato never wore shoes, even in the snow and was never cold. He tried to teach people a better way and was murdered for it. Same with Jesus, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, etc. When someone possesses so much charisma and such a compelling message, followers often begin to believe they have powers beyond the norm. This happens as well with faith healers and guys like David Koresh.

In fact, it's pretty easy to see how a story like Koresh's could morph into the mythological aspects of Jesus' life. The story was written by his followers, people who were likely blind to his failings and only saw the good things he did.

Followers of charismatic religious leaders to this day will give away everything they have, including their bodies and even die for their messiah. Believing him capable of performing miracles is hardly a reach.

At any rate, my point is, if he really could spontaneously heal people, he was doing something no one believed possible, you can't compare it to modern medicine, people died of the flu back then. If he was walking on water, he was not constraining himself as you say. If he wasn't capable of miracles or if they were just imagined by his followers, well then, maybe he was just a really great guy around whom a lot of tall tales have arisen.

No. God created the natural order. The original design was perfect. We were perfect. Everything was . . . well . . . perfect. Then we, through our actions and disobedience, threw a "wrench" into the works. As a result, the balance and the perfection were corrupted.

I'm still not sure I understand this whole explaination. Are you saying that human beings are responsible for volcanos, hurricaines, tornados, tsunamis, etc because they ate from the tree of knowledge? I'm not trying to be sarcastic. It seems as if you are saying the world was a perfectly oiled machine and human beings were responsible for introducing entropy. I'm not sure how to respond to that, but I certainly don't buy it.

So would you attribute the natural universe to coincidence then? Isn't that erroneous; especially when viewed alongside the scientific method?

Yes I would and I don't see how it is erroneous. All I was pointing out in your case is that claiming that just because one thing follows another means that it was caused by the other is a logical fallacy. I don't pretend to understand the nature of the universe, however, saying that an ordered universe proves an ordered creator does not hold up to any reasonable application of logic.

I find all the explainations of God to be really interesting. The current Intelligent Design movement would make me laugh if it weren't so dangerous. This "scientific" explaination of the universe says that things are too complex to have happened by accident so they must have been designed by a creator. Well, someone who could create a universe is certainly too complicated to have happened by accident, so who designed him/her/it? You can regress that infinitely and you still haven't explained anything.

For me, this whole argument boils down to this: if there is a god, he is either standing by and allowing a lot of pain to exist in the world, or he is powerless to do anything about it. In either case, what's the point of me putting my faith in him? If he created the world and stepped away to watch dispassionately, fine. But if he isn't interacting in our lives, what's the point of praying and going to church if he is disengaged? If he created the world and is still active in it yet selectively allows things like Rwanda, Darfour and the Tsunami to happen, then I'm not interested in him and his existence and expectations are paradoxical, smug and petty.

All the time I hear things like Star Jones saying that God spared her life because she was in Sri Lanka a week befor the Tsunami. So what she is saying is that he held off the killing of 150,000 people so she could enjoy her honeymoon. I hear all the time about people who were suppsed to be in the World Trade Center on 9/11 but who weren't because of some unforseen circumstance. So God just saved them for some reason and let others die? What about the people who WEREN'T supposed to be there but were? And doesn't Jesus preach humility? How humble is it to believe that God singled your fat ass out of 150,000 people to save? Shouldn't she just accept that it wasn't her time, not that he went out of his way to make sure The View didn't have to find another irritating babbermouth?

I don't mean this as an insult, but in all of these discussions, what I see is people on the side of God fitting the facts to their religion. If a love of God is so wonderful and fulfilling, why are so many of his subjects such evil motherfuckers? All of these explainations seem to be a way to wedge the natural universe and our changing understanding of it into a biblical interpretation. If the bible was the perfect word of god, why should it's meanings have to be reinterpreted and re-explained everytime science or philosophy takes a step forward? Why is it always one step behind?

Do you believe it endorses slavery? Do you believe it endorses the torture and murder of non-christians? It has been used for all of these by the majority of its followers, yet now those interpretations are gone. Now it's being used to persecute gay people. In 100 years when homosexuality is accepted by 99% of the population, that justification will be gone. Did the bible change?

I know you'll say that God isn't responsible for the misuse of his message, but if his message is so powerful, shouldn't we see at least as much good done in it's name as bad? Shouldn't he have given a message that is ahead of barbarism in society, not an easy justification for it? I just don't see it.

Sorry to rant, but I've yet to have anyone provide me with a good explaination for these things. I guess it's as you said originally, faith isn't supposed to make sense. It certainly doesn't make sense to me.

As always, thanks for the response, it's a great debate.

This will be my last comment. The "tone" is taking a definite shift for the worse, in my opinion.

Again, medicine changes every day. Science has shown that there are minerals and "healing properties" in specific types of clay and mud. And really, I know you'll think this sounds absurd, but . . . who says we can't walk on water?

200 years ago no one would have believed that we would have sent a man to the moon. Again . . . maybe we just don't know everything that there is to know.

As for Christ being murdered by His own people . . . well . . . yeah. I never contested that point. I simply said that He allowed Himself to be killed. Which is true. He could have stopped it. He asked if there was another way to achieve the same result and there was not. He willingly sacrificed Himself.

And yes, I suppose that I am saying that human beings introduced entropy.

And you keep wanting to question God's motivations, responsibility and/or perhaps His apathy with regards to events like the tsunami.

And my question is, "Where does our responsibility come into play?" If God came in and saved us each and everytime something bad was going to happen, what would we learn? We'd learn that there are no consequences for anything.

Again, do we raise our children in bubbles, completely isolating them from the world? No. Why? Because they need to learn about cause and effect.

As far as the tsunami goes, were the people that lived there forced to live there? Were the families that vacationed there forced to vacation there? What about our brake analogy? Aren't most people that live in coastal areas aware of the dangers of living there?

I mean c'mon! Aren't they responsible for their own actions here?

And yes, wouldn't a universe brought about by sheer coincidence fly in the face of the scientific method which is based upon facts, figures and finding a logical, rational reason for why something works. Coincidence is chance. Does science support "chance" as a valid explanation? Or is "chance" used as an alternative means of saying, "We have no idea"? Well . . . I believe I do have an idea and mine is not left up to "chance" or the accidental interaction of a few atoms, countless millenia ago.

Also, how is it a logical fallacy? When you look at a car, don't you recognize the thought that went into creating it? How much more complex is the universe? And it, supposedly, just happened?

Um, no.

How can we, as creators ourselves, even hope to make a valid argument for such a statment as "everything in the universe was just a coincidence"?

As for the rest of your statements, I feel that I've answered them, in some form, in my previous comments. I've also answered them as well as I could in the limited format of a blog.

As for Christianity and all the pain it's caused . . .

Well . . . true Christianity has never claimed to have perfect followers. True Christians recognize that faith and being born again isn't a destination, it's a journey that lasts a lifetime. We're never going to be perfect - not in this life.

As for Christianities colorful history . . . it almost sounds like you want me to write an apologetic for sins committed under the guise of Christianity. Well . . . I can't, because I recognize that a lot of wrong as been committed in the name of Christ, but I also know a lot of good has been accomplished too.

I will say this though, it's easy to take things out of context. It's easy to misinterpret ideas when they're not taken within the context in which they were written.

At the time the Bible was written, slavery was a common practice and it was an unfortunate necessity. The passages pertaining to slavery in the New Testament are simply there to offer hope, guidance and reassurance to the Christian slave and wisdom to the Christian master.

At the time, the world was built on the backs of slaves. The world knew no other way. Over time, however, things changed, technology developed and, thank God, slavery was one of those things that was done away with.

No offense, but your pointed comments are a bit . . . shortsightedly subjective. It would be like saying the Visigoths were barbarians. Is it true? That depends on your perspective. From our point of view, yes, they were, but from their point of view they were the pinnacle of human achievement.

Similarly, in order to understand a text, one should be familiar with the context (i.e. society, world, social structure) in which it was written.

And getting back to Christ and whether or not He constrained Himself and how it pertains to humanities current ability to recreate His miracles . . . well . . . it took us how many centuries to recreate domes that the ancient Romans had perfected thousands of years earlier. And lets not forget cement. I seem to remember that took us a while to perfect too.

We can't even figure out the ingredients that were used in sealing Stradivarius violins.

All these secrets have been or were lost to us. Perhaps we'll discover them one day, just as we'll discover the secret of walking on water perhaps or instantly healing a man of leprosy.

And with that . . . I conclude my comments. By no means meant to be taken as exhaustive, but again, not exactly the best medium to carry on a lengthy discussion.

Thanks.

Just a few things in case you check back:

At the time, the world was built on the backs of slaves. The world knew no other way. Over time, however, things changed, technology developed and, thank God, slavery was one of those things that was done away with.

This Bible has been used to justify slavery as little as 100 years ago. It was used to justify it in this country through the civil war. I'm not talking about biblical times here, I'm talking about a time when much of the world had already reformed and realized that slavery was an evil. My point is that the bible has been used, throughout history, to justify things secular societies have already realized are wrong. Like the current practice of hating homosexuals based on biblical passages. Gay-hating Christians are way behind the rest of the world and their enlightenment in that area. I'm not saying you personally hate gay people, but it certainly seems to be the stance of the majority of Christians. It is certainly the stance of the majority of Christian leadership in this country.

As for Christianities colorful history . . . it almost sounds like you want me to write an apologetic for sins committed under the guise of Christianity. Well . . . I can't, because I recognize that a lot of wrong as been committed in the name of Christ, but I also know a lot of good has been accomplished too.

I certainly don't expect that, and I certainly don't know you well enough to know what kind of Christian you are. You're a thoughtful person and it wouldn't surprise me one bit to find out that you are disgusted by the evil that has been done in Christ's name. Still, I hear this argument all the time, lots of bad has been done and lots of good has been done. In that way, Christianity is no different than any other group or philosophy, it's all in how you use it. Yet I'm constantly hearing that Christians are better people, that Christ's way is love and it gives them a beacon of morality to follow. I've been told that I can't be a moral person without Christ. I simply use the evil that has been done to highlight the fact that the mere state of being a Christian has never proven to make anyone a better person than anyone else. Somehow though, it seems to me it should, or what's the point?

Also, how is it a logical fallacy? When you look at a car, don't you recognize the thought that went into creating it? How much more complex is the universe? And it, supposedly, just happened?

This is turning into a semantics argument. It's a logical fallacy to say that when X follows Y, X is caused by Y. You said an ordered universe indictated an ordered creator. This has no basis in logic.

Regardless of how you want to look at it, there had to be some coincidence somewhere. Did something as complicated as the universe just happen by coincidence, or did something as complicated as the creator of the universe just happen by coincidence?

Again, medicine changes every day. Science has shown that there are minerals and "healing properties" in specific types of clay and mud. And really, I know you'll think this sounds absurd, but . . . who says we can't walk on water?

You said it, not me. :)

Also, my point was, if Jesus was doing things that people in that day considered impossible, the effect is the same. In your original point, you postulated that God constrained himself to his own laws. My point was, if that is the case and he sent an envoy to try to teach people how to live, shouldn't that envoy be capable of living in the way he was supposed to be demonstrating? Shouldn't he be able to live a good life in the same context as those he was teaching. Performing miracles, whether we find out 2000 years later that they are not miracles after all or not, doesn't help them to live within their own means.

Sure, we may find out one day we can walk on water and spontaneously heal people, but how does that help those in Jesus' day? If you went to a sub-Amazonian tribe of primative people and taught them how to make a fire with a cigarette lighter, they would A. think you had supernatural powers, and B. still be screwed when you left if you took the lighter with you. What sort of example are you setting there? You're not teaching them anything because they don't have the tools to replicate your example. Instead you should teach them how to make a fire in a way and with resources they can understand, that's a more powerful example.

And you keep wanting to question God's motivations, responsibility and/or perhaps His apathy with regards to events like the tsunami.

And my question is, "Where does our responsibility come into play?" If God came in and saved us each and everytime something bad was going to happen, what would we learn? We'd learn that there are no consequences for anything.

Again, do we raise our children in bubbles, completely isolating them from the world? No. Why? Because they need to learn about cause and effect.

As far as the tsunami goes, were the people that lived there forced to live there? Were the families that vacationed there forced to vacation there? What about our brake analogy? Aren't most people that live in coastal areas aware of the dangers of living there?

Yes! You hit the nail on the head. They did accept the risk in many cases of being there. Although the dead ones probably aren't going to apply the lessons they learned. I'm not absolving people of responsibility for the choices they make. Quite the contrary, I believe it is very self affirming to feel that you are solely responsibile for the consequences of your actions and that is what I want to teach my child. I certainly don't intend to teach her that praying for something she wants or waiting for God to give it to her is going to get her anywhere.

I'm not questioning God's motives at all. If he exists, his motives are certainly beyond my understanding. I'm merely stating that his motives, as explained by Christianity, don't make sense to me at all and an empirical examination of cause and effect without a divine influence, does. Clearly I'm not here to change your mind nor would I want to. But for me, the Christian perspective is full of paradox and inconsistency, just as mine clearly looks to you.

Maybe we both need a debate class.

Last, I have to apologize for my tone. It was pointed out to me by others that I sounded harsh and angry and that's not what I intended. One of my vices is profanity and I have a tendancy to rant, both of which probably made me come across as angry and confrontational and after rereading what I wrote, it's apparent to me as well. As I said before, I enjoy these kind of discussions and apprciate them more when they are devoid of emotion and rancor, so I regret being the one to introduce those. Although it was unintentional.

I was also really tired and cranky, I had a rough week.

Hope to hear from you again.

I have really enjoyed reading this exchange. I love observing a good debate much more than I enjoy participating in one so it is always fun to plant the seed and watch what grows when two minds weigh over the complexities of an issue.

Obviously with this subject there can be very little common ground because, as it has been observed, there are different angles from which one comes to the table.

Thank you for your well thought out and intriguing comments. I hope that you might find other posts in my blog worthy of comment and will return often.