I’ve said dozens of times that when it comes to the actual spiritual foundation of human reality, my faith is largely a “hope so” situation. My search has led to many gates, all but one of which resisted my passage. The one door which has always been open is simple Christianity. We’re surrounded by many versions of Christianity, and sadly, we can’t actually track the accuracy of any of them, but we can see the beauty of the overall concept in the red letters
Whether it be truth or imagination, Christianity presents humanity with a sound foundation of love. I am personally, wholly responsible for huge departures from that path. My disagreement with Islam comes dangerously close to my opposition to the political ideology designed years ago to eliminate personal freedom, the demonicrat party. Sadly, I can find little in my soul to fuel understanding or acceptance of either, but my prejudice strays from the Biblical teachings of Jesus.
I was prompted to this recognition by virtue of prayer. While I suffer challenges, principally focus, I do make regular attempts to present my case to God. At some point I began asking God to spread Christianity. It was in retrospect, after making such a request, that it dawned on me that were such to happen, most everything else, in terms of requesting blessings, would no longer be apt content.
Were the world populated solely by Christians, faithful to their belief, the vast majority of life’s challenges would evaporate. The challenges left would be the real ones. Cures, recovery from disasters, Auntie Em to have a healthy baby. Fear would essentially be gone! Anyone who dies is going to a better place, and we’ll all be in that marvelous place together one day. No imaginary dream world gets better than that! And, if it’s real, well?
All of which leads to a bit of a mystery: If someone chooses not to believe in this essentially worry free ideology why would that person be so disturbed by those who do believe? I can see thinking it’s funny, or even absurd, but if someone, for example, believes in Santa Claus, so what?
I imagine myself to be rather intelligent. Probably much more intelligent than I actually am. In fostering that illusion I like to participate in cerebral social network groups, such as “Critical Thinking.” It seems always in those environs that most discussions gravitate towards some sort of deistic contemplation. This makes perfect sense since, like it or not, deism, Christianity particularly, tends to provide an answer to all the most difficult questions. Including those questions which actually don’t have an answer. For example the beginning of all. They teach a fantasy to our children in school which they refer to as “the big bang theory.” Admitting even in its title, what it actually is, “theory.” The fact that it’s easily disprovable is left out of the lesson. Statistically speaking alone, it is impossible! Or evolution. A science which not only makes sense but for which there is a ton of circumstantial evidence, but absolutely no proof. They love to speak of Darwin and the finches, which is held up as demonstrative of interspeciation (which it really isn’t). What we’re missing in the argument is that the finches have indeed adapted, but they’re still finches. What we need is scales becoming feathers. Fish becoming birds. Sadly for the theorists no such examples can be found. In all the time of known existence, evolution always runs into the same stumbling block, the “missing link.” There is no end to evidence of adaptation but Homo sapiens from Homo erectus (actually it isn’t even agreed upon that that was our closest ancestor), runs once again, into that same old irritating “missing link” problem.
All of which leaves us with only one potential answer, or a refusal to consider that answer, which is intelligent design. Most folks don’t have any problem with this, but it strikes me as rather interesting that atheists take it all so seriously. In defense of their “there is no God” foundation they reach a point at which it seems rather to be a religion than a scientific ideology. No matter how unlikely, no matter how plotted it may seem, there is NO WAY it was somehow directed by any form of intelligence! They believe their religion to be true, and they’re gonna convert you!
Indeed, but why? Are they afraid everyone’s going to start following Jesus’ advice and start loving one another? Oh My! Actually, I’m afraid there’s a much darker logic which comes from darkness itself. At a debate at the International Skeptics Society Conference at the California Institute of Technology in response to a question about their hatred of a fictional being, which to them should carry no more weight than Mary Poppins, the response boiled down to “It’s not that we hate so much the God of the Bible. It’s that we despise his followers.” This followed by the endless stream of stories about how they, or someone they know was treated by followers of God. And they do have a point. It tends to be observations of Christians who missed the essence of the message, which doesn’t make them evil, but does contribute to the development of negative opinion in the direction of religious intent. Following Christ’s example is what we’re about, but sadly, perfection in that endeavor is not a possibility. “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” Matthew 7:1-5.
Which at the end leaves us wherever it does. In my case doubt remains, but knowledge of a most humanitarian ideology goes well beyond that doubt. Faith is more than a choice, it’s an endeavor, but not an easy one. One I’ve yet to conquer. But, brothers and sisters, I do have hope!
~Bacon
ibaconi 