07/26/15

Yesterday was Brian's last day in Manor de Tibet. Tomorrow is Ellen's last day. This ends the two years of the four of us living together and the four years of Brian and I living together. I have moved all of my stuff from my room up to Brian's room, thus making it officially my room.

Kepler-452b

"...religion will contort to accommodate a new reality...They will create contorted justifications to support this view, cite a few passages of the bible that could mean anything, and declare victory."
-Jeff Schweitzer

and the debate goes on. This is religion in my time. This is why the pews are becoming thinner and thinner. Someone shouts proverbially to the crowd in an article and the crowd shouts back in the comments. All of it exhausting, none of it productive.

Marriage equality is passed and the religious contort, evolution, and so on, and now possible life on a different planet...the religious contort. The crowd is already justifying angels as aliens...

All of it is so exhausting to me and all of it is affecting my beliefs. I'm certainly not an atheist because I will not put my faith in the arrogant pride of our day's smartest humans. History has proven that to be a sandy beach to build a house upon.

But I don't know if I am a theist, not only because archaeologists haven't found much to back up religious claims, but also I'm having a difficult time finding a theist role model. Someone today who isn't a hypocrite or doesn't look exactly like the rest of this culture's celebrities clawing for fame and power.

Everyone is looking to this reality for evidence and proof of the real reality and it makes me frustrated, grieved, and exasperated. I want to surrender out of fatigue.

But the curse of it all is my heart will not allow my brain to settle on a side out of apathy.

I refuse to be a theist simply because I hope that is the way existence works.
I refuse to be an atheist simply based on what humans have discovered thus far.

I'm certainly no agnostic because I do believe truth can be known.

One of these paths is correct there either is or isn't a God and life after death. Agnostics have found a way to build their house upon the fence...Not something I'm interested in doing.

The God I want to believe in, the God I want to put my faith in is not the god of the gaps. God is not the answer to questions we don't yet know so we put God there as a place holder until science has an answer and we justify and move God.

The God I want to believe in, the God I want to put my faith in is the God of truth. The God of a reality that when compared to this reality reveals we mortals are but shadows and dust, shadows and dust.

I don't want my God, my beliefs to constantly be questioned as the defendant. More and more when someone says they are a theist the only thing the other party has to ask them are questions of evidence and defense.

This is not what being a theist is about. The focus of the scriptures and of God's heart is that of love, justice, mercy, forgiveness, grace, generosity, hospitality, honesty, and so much more. To be a theist is to live a life of freedom and sacrifice.

That is what I read in the book. But what I see is debates, arguments, and the need to be right.

It makes me want to scream in proclamation:

God does not exist, I believe in God!

maybe that will be my statement of faith. Maybe that will be my belief. That is my religious affiliation.

God does not exist, I believe in God!

What do you think about that Jesus...or more importantly, how do you feel about that?





The Tree Ring - Tunnel View

07/12/15

The Christian message of salvation can best be summed up in terms of sharing, of solidarity and identification. The notion of sharing is a key alike to the doctrine of God in Trinity and to the doctrine of God made man. The doctrine of the Trinity affirms that, just as man is authentically personal only when he shares with others, so God is not a single person dwelling alone, but three parts who share each other's life in perfect love. The Incarnation equally is a doctrine of sharing or participation. Christ shares in what he is, in his divine life and glory. He became what we are, so as to make us what he is. St. Paul expresses this metaphorically in terms of wealth and poverty: "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich." Christ's riches are his eternal glory; Christ's poverty is his complete self-identification with our fallen human condition. In the words of an Orthodox Christmas hymn, "Sharing wholly in our poverty, thou hast made divine our earthly nature through thy union with it and participation in it." Christ shares in our death, and we share in his life; he "empties himself" and we are "exalted." God's descent makes possible man's ascent. St Maximus the Confessor writes: "Ineffably the infinite limits itself while the finite is expanded to the measure of the infinite."
...Christ's suffering and death have, then, an objective value: he has done for us something we should be altogether incapable of doing without him. At the same time, we should not say that Christ has suffered "instead of us," But rather that he has suffered on our behalf. The son of God suffered "unto death," not that we might be exempt from suffering, but that our suffering might be like his. Christ offers us, not a way round suffering, but a way through it; not substitution, but saving companionship.
-Bishop Kallistos Ware, "God as Man," The Orthodox Way

Dodging pain and surviving as long as possible isn't the goal of life. Comfort isn't living.

To live is to love and to love is to suffer, but to suffer among. To suffer with.

Solidarity.

To live is to love
to love is to be with

To experience with
To share in

Boundaries are a good thing
Limitations are a good thing

It is good that I will one day die.

mewithoutYou - Chapelcross Towns

07/09/15

I've been struggling with doubt for such a long time. I have suppressed it but I'm getting so tired of it. I feel torn and confused.

I have the head of an atheist but the heart of a Christian.

The older I get the harder and harder it is for me to keep the fire. To keep the faith.

Reasons I doubt:

It seems not only the scientific world but even the Christian world has accepted that the universe is millions of years old if not older. It seems that evolution has become fact. If these things are true then humans came from a single cell organism in which case we are no different than any other life on this planet and thus we have no souls. If we did have souls at what stage in evolution would our animal evolutionary grandparents developed the soul? Or when did God put it in that being?

Next we have the flood story which again there seems to be no evidence for, not to mention the difficult logistical hurdles of two of every animal on an ark.

Brian would tell me he doesn't believe any of the stories of the bible are true yet they hold within them truth.

During my trip to Egypt I learned from a very educated guide that there seems to be no documentation of any Israelite slaves and the ancient Egyptians were very good at documenting all of their history.

Next we have Sodom and Gomorrah some say it was destroyed because of homosexuality, some say it was destroyed because of a lack of hospitality... Our court system prevented same sex marriage bans nationwide. There are many loving and kind gay Christians, even pastors...

Fast forward to the birth of Jesus, there is no historical documentation of Herod ordering all children under 2 to be killed. There is difficulty lining up the timelines of the census with Jesus' birth.

The letters of Paul talk about Jesus returning in their lifetime.

Visiting Rome and seeing all of the things they have added and claimed and said with little to no evidence to back them up. They name the three kings when there is not even evidence there were only three. They claim to have the steps Jesus walked up to see Pilate. They claim the wine and bread actually become the blood and body... some of the things are almost blatantly made up.

I guess what I am trying to say is that it feels to me like science says something and Christianity bends and molds itself to fit within so as to not be proven false. Or it seems the church will invent things to calm the congregation's doubts and fears.

Watching Christians hold tightly towards the sin of homosexuality then quickly back pedal as the culture shifts has been difficult to watch. The same goes for the battle about teaching evolution vs intelligent design both of these have happened in my life time. I've followed both and it's been interesting watching the Christian leaders bend to the culture.

I guess it makes it hard for me to believe these things when it seems no one really truly believes them either. To listen to my seminary friends tell me Paul didn't write some of those letters, there are more books that were kept out of the bible, Maybe Solomon never existed, God didn't create the world in 7 days. No flood, no exodus... My brain wants truth and I'm tired of hearing the Christian defense of "well in the context... if you look at it this way...what they meant to say was...in the context of the time...it was written for these people in this circumstance..."

Even watching how happy my divorced friends are. Isn't divorce supposed to be bad yet here are people healthier and happier because of it...

Everyone has sex before marriage with multiple partners... sometimes they even have healthier marriages than those who wait.

Christianity feels more like an exhausting debate to argue people into agreeing with my beliefs to validate my religion.

Reasons I believe:

The things Jesus said are so true and so wise, how could an uneducated labor worker 2000 years ago be that wise? Why would the disciples be tortured and murdered defending something they knew was a hoax?

Why are humans so different from the rest of the living creatures? Why is Earth so unique and full of life? Other planets given the same amount of time should have spawned life that could exist under its own circumstances. Earth has life that can live under water, out of water, in darkness, in light, in heat, in cold, every inch of this planet life has found a way yet on all other places we can't seem to find any and life is so hard to sustain.

If there is no God, if we are just evolved animals then Hitler could be justified to rid the race of the inferior such as the mentally handicapped or the physically handicapped. Survival of the fittest.

I believe in hope.
I believe in love.

There must be something after this life... how can all of this simply end?

Where did this big bang come from? What if we are wrong about our science?

I hear countless stories and books about people being healed by God.

I believe the bible holds deep truths but how can it be simply written by men yet be so true?

Rest, peace, forgiveness, contentment, all of these things seem to be so true even to this day.

following what Jesus taught still seems to give the most life, meaning, and fulfillment to humans.

If there is a God then everything we do has such deep meaning. Then it matters to buy fair trade. It matters not to step on others to get what I want. It matters to free the slaves around the world. It matters to connect to the earth to care for it to tend it to love it to not see everything as resources but rather beauty and art. Everything has such worth.

So what do I do with all of this?
The head and the heart.
Faith and doubt.

How do I open the bible and start to pick and choose what to believe? Homosexuality is ok now so what they meant in the bible was...
Divorce is okay under circumstances so what they meant in the context was...
Women can teach and are actually becoming smarter than men so when Paul talks about women not teaching he was only referring to...
When Jesus cast out demons he was only healing mental illnesses...
The creation story is merely a love poem...
Jesus didn't mean an eternal hell he meant the trash pile outside of town...
The whale didn't really swallow Jonah but the heart of the parable is...

What is left of this bible? What are we doing? Then I look at the church and I see something so one dimensional. Sing first, then communion, then teaching, then pray and go home... punch in, punch out rate the preaching based on how entertaining it was...

I find it hard to pray. I find it hard to find value in prayer when I doubt God exists. I find it hard to worship. It's hard to see what church has become. If God's will should be done then why should I pray for my will? His is better than mine.

God I want to believe. I long to be a Christian! I want You to be here, to listen to the cries of the suffering. To see the widows and orphans and love them so deeply. I want to know you protect the homeless in their tents. I want You to give life to my friends and enemies after death.

How do I get back on track? How do I know You are real. How do I know what to believe?

God forgive me for my struggle. Forgive me for my doubt. How do I believe? Lord help me believe.

I don't want a convincing new Christian movie
I don't want another powerful worship song
I don't want some convincing sermon
I don't want a prophetic word
I just want You. I just want to know that You are here, That You are truth.

Help me.

twenty one pilots: Doubt