If two people tell you the same thing, should you listen?
I have had several people give me the same message in unrelated conversations in the last few weeks. Mostly, it is about their faith in a God. I used to believe, I did. I have come to the conclusion that there isn't one. And that realization has created a sadness deep, deep inside.
I kept seeing all the shit happening: Casey Anthony and other parents who kill their own begotten, children who kill their own parents, genocide, liars with power starving the children in their nation, the accepted rape of young girls in the name of virility, preachers who are a disgrace to humanity.
And my question to you is this: in the face of all this terribleness, how can people still believe in God? I would love to be convinced, my friends, just to rid myself of this sadness.
4 comments:
It's not uncommon for those who were blessed to thrive in a once-free country to become disillusioned with grittier realities. In our foolish American youth as a country, we inherited the hard-won liberty of free men who believed fiercely in a higher, more noble plane of reality and worked hard to bring an idea of Heaven to Earth. Such is our collective memory as a citizen of this privilege, that we imagine the world a better place than it is or ever has been.
Like kids that grow up in a good home with all of life's comforts, we have turned on our parentage in the face of an entire community around us that is hurting and in desperate need. We question everything and reject all the good we've received as somehow jaded and ill-gotten.
Having lived in another, less fortunate country, having grown up in a less-fortunate family situation, having been targeted by the worst of what depravity can wield, I can attest that the glorious and amazing thing about any speck of happiness in this life is that it is a true miracle; an unheard of thing before men set out to find their Maker, both individually and collectively.
Nasty, brutish and short really is the human default mode-- without a Something that pulls us higher into that supra-natural evolution we so desperately need to re-set our defaults.
Your question assumes its own answer and that is why you are sad. You have not yet begun to establish a stable premise from which to launch your thoughts and seeking. You have work to do. You haven't even set a hypothesis from which to discover unknown possibilities.
I fully trust, in every way, that if you set your wonderful and scientific mind to the true nature of logic and questioning, you will find your mind on an adventure of a lifetime. And an after-lifetime.
However, if you surround yourself with others who have answered their own questions before they ask them, you will begin to think that you've reached the end-all of your thinking. I would suggest new surroundings, new hard-thinking people who don't gloss over the hard questions with dogma or easy shots, parroted repetitions of seemingly sensible conclusions.
Find your own truth, or suffer from the second-hand, hand-me-down hearsay conclusions of lesser minds than your own.
Not preachin'. I'm throwin' down and calling you out to do the most important work of your life.
If you can't believe in God for now, then you can at least believe in the ability to be sad. You even speak of it as a state of reality, and yet it cannot be touched or proven in any way while it's definite reality suffocates your thinking and muddles your mood. If there is no God, why should you care that others suffer? Why should it make you sad?
I cannot convince, nor will I try. But I will posit that you have only now begun a walk of faith. If you've never questioned before, you are in a much healthier, if temporarily sadder, position now.
Sorry if it seems a bit hard-edged, but the mind is a delicate instrument and sadness is a blunt-force trauma; it's a thing that must be shaken off with fierce resolve. Don't get sad, get busy!
/drill sarge mode
Hmm, I don't think I personally believe in God the same way most people do. Or if the word "God" even fits. I don't look at "him" as a Puppet Master- like an old man in robes watching and judging and "allowing" things to happen, stopping others and throwing miracles around. I think you are just now doubtful of an image you have created your head and the stories you were told (ie the Bible.) Like being told there's no Santa all over again. What you or anyone belives is so personal. Just believe in yourself is my best advice.
.. have you seen the "Letting Go of God" special that has been on HBO recently?...... I'd be interested in seeing what you thought of it after you watched it....
Eric
Well, I have to tell ya..everybody goes through this mental gymnastics..."if there was a God whywould He allow x, y, z"
Well, I got to tell you...It's not God causing all the turmoil...it's man and his free will. Also, Satan has the run of the world and goads man to do naughty things and man in his egotistical ways...will choose evil.
Sorry, to bust your bubble but I believe there are plenty of things that happen; and we aren't meant to understand them. Working on your personal faith by reading the bible and getting with people that will help you to better understand God is the way to go. When you are at an ebb in your faith; you need to "ignore" the world and it's nastiness.
Good luck and God bless.
Steve
Post a Comment