In my last post, discussion turned to the question of whether or not we need God. One of my regular contributors, William, posted the following comment, and I felt it deserved its own post:
I am just having problems understanding whether humans “need” a god.
Do humans “need” a father? it may be beneficial if it’s a good father, but we can see many who get along fine who have not had a father, so “need” is the wrong term.
And what if that father is never around, left before you were born, and only left a letter to you explaining (not always in the easiest or most direct of terms) how he expects you to behave and promises that he’ll take care of you and promises to severely punish you for disobedience or for leaving him?
is that a good father? is that a father we need? isn’t it laughable that such a father could even begin to threaten the child for “leaving him” (since the father clearly left the child) not to mention how absurd it is to think that such a father actually does anything to really take care of the child?
I’m having a hard time understanding how we’re ingrained to “need” such a father, or why we’d even call such a father good?
Finding Truth 
Nan & kc-
I’m glad you have both found that happiness and peace 🙂
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Thanks Josh !
I hope you experience the same.
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Thank you Nan for your comments !
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“It is in giving that we receive, it is in loving that we are loved, it is in forgiving that we are forgiven and ultimately it is in death that we live.” John Shelby Spong
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Nate,
You found THIS to be depressing??:
“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.” – Dostoevsky
There is great hope and peace in the utter reversal of everything that has ever been wrong with the world. This is what Jesus started: the great reversal. I bet for those who have really suffered something (rape, the death of a child, a terrorist attack…) this would be good news! We live in a MESS, but it’s hard to see that sitting in America, I grant you.
I heard a comedian today talking about how in America we have it so great that we have to invent problems to complain about. He contrasted a guy at the ATM complaining about having to choose English by pushing a button to a community in the Sudan where the day’s woe was that the government was chopping off heads. This world is screwed … even if we stopped all the horrors today, what do you do with the millennia of sorrow up to now?? (It’s irritating to me that my computer is saying I’m misspelling millennia.)
The greatest hope we have is that someday, someHOW God is going to make everything right. I know that is not in my power, although I can do what I am able each day to make my world a better place. Too little too late to say the least.
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kc-
Excellent quote.
JudahFirst-
I agree wholeheartedly with what you wrote. If this was the Facebook I’d give you a huge Like on that one 🙂
And, I appreciate so much that you felt what I wrote was beautiful. Thanks 🙂
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(((Josh))) Look me up on FB if you get the chance: Cindy Ameen Welch. Make sure you ID yourself if you friend request me. I never accept people I am not familiar with. Oh, and please don’t tell Tim what a heretic I’ve become! hehe
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Yes, I did find it depressing. Look, who wouldn’t want an end to suffering? But that’s the only part of it I agreed with. I think the kind of outlook that was described in Josh’s comment — not just this quote, but the whole thing — displays this negative view of humanity that’s been beaten into us by Christianity. We’re taught that we’re awful creatures in need of redemption, when most of us are actually trying to be pretty decent people. There’s nothing wrong with being human, but Christianity needs us to think there is so we’ll want what it’s peddling. It’s almost like a pusher, in that way.
The other part I found depressing was this:
This seems to make a virtue out of credulity. 1 Peter 3:15 says a Christian should be able to give a defense for the hope within them. That does not mean they should talk about how unbelievable it all is, yet for some reason they’re unsure of, they somehow maintain belief. It seems to me that it would be frightening to live that way.
I know why I believe what I believe. When I was a Christian, I knew why I was a Christian. To carry on any other way does not seem noble to me, it seems ignorant. I don’t mean that with any offense — I like Josh very much, and I believe he’s sincere. I’ve just found through the course of this discussion that we’re more different than I first imagined.
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Yes, I definitely am not about believing everything even if I can’t understand it. But there are TONS of things I’ve come to be okay with saying “I don’t know” about. I don’t think anyone has the ability to figure out all the answers, be they atheist or Christian. For me Christopher Hitchens was no more convincing than Josh’s defense of penal substitutionary atonement (sorry, Josh, just as example). Actually, Hitchens was less so just because of the obvious arrogance he exudes. I can’t stand arrogance, in the church or out of it. Everyone I know puts their pants on one leg at a time, and NO ONE has a corner on Truth.
But one need never darken the door of a church to be aware of the utter evil in the world around us. From the Sadam Husseins of the world to the Ted Bundys, this place reeks. Did you ever consider that the one thing you will NEVER have to teach your child is to lie? That one’s inborn. The Bible didn’t tell me that, experience raising 3 kids did.
I don’t proclaim the evil of the world in order to make people feel guilty or peddle any version of Christianity – I don’t have to. Evil proclaims itself and it permeates our world. What I’m peddling is hope. The idea of trying to overcome the evil of the whole of humanity on my own in my very (relatively) short lifetime is the most daunting thing I can think of! But the hope that God can and will make this mess right – now that is something I find worth exploring – staking my life on, even. In my 49+ years so far, I have not found anything else worth doing that.
So, if in some small way, I can participate in reversing this mess into something amazing, then that is what I want to do. I peddle hope and it’s a WAY better message than anything I’ve heard from any other quarter, be it another religion or an anti-religion.
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I could be taking that last comment of yours a little wrong, Nate. But, it seems you’re taking just the one comment I wrote and siphoning it off from all others. I think I have – at least I’ve tried – to give reasons why I believe what I believe. This comment was meant to address, primarily, the mysteries of a being beyond my comprehension. You have made clear that you require detailed explanations at every level of revelation. I’ve decided I can take the evidence that is there, add it to the faith I have in things I cannot explain, yet also seem to make good sense to me, and come up with a complete picture. That post you reference was detailing only one piece of that puzzle. Apologies if that makes my communication seem misleading. I’m just trying to address the questions as they come.
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No worries Judah. I know at least some of what I believe is probably wrong (agreed none of us has all the answers), and I know that I contradict myself as I try to rethink, restate and clarify what I believe. Sometimes I modify the way I think about something in between comments (GASP!). I know that’s poor form, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. 🙂
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JudahFirst
Nothing wrong having the Hope for things to get better . Yes this World is somewhat of a mess. As long as we indoctrinate children with Exclusive Religions that teach their way is the “Only Way” , we will have people willing to fly planes into buildings and march at Military Funerals proclaiming “God hates Fags” Indoctrinating Children with “Love” will not solve every problem but what a Heck of a start ! Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
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Sorry Josh, you’re right that your comment was really talking about something more specific, and I took it too general.
To be clear, I still think that if we claim God wants everyone to believe in him, but then can’t explain why he doesn’t make it clearer, that’s a problem. And I still think it should make one question their premise very heavily.
JudahFirst, I agree that world has its problems. But we can work to make those things better as individuals. If God’s going to set them right, he hasn’t done a great job so far, or you wouldn’t have had such a long list to work from. It would be nice to think that there’s an afterlife where everything’s perfect, I just see no reason to think that’s so. Hope it’s so? Sure, I guess. But no reason to think it is.
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Nate – I hear you. I don’t know why it seems so clear to some and not others.
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264 comments. You know you’ve got a good blog, and some good discussion, when you’re pushing 300 comments in one thread, Nate 🙂
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@JudahFirst – I really like what you’ve said here in your first paragraph, especially the part about “there are TONS of things I’ve come to be okay with saying “I don’t know” about. I don’t think anyone has the ability to figure out all the answers, be they atheist or Christian, or Bahai or Buddhist, etc.” (I added a little to it 😉 ). And I’m also turned off by arrogance no matter what the person believes.
As far as the utter evil in the world goes, I see a lot of bad stuff in the world too, but for all the Saddam Hussein’s and Ted Bundy’s, we also have the JudahFirst’s, Nate’s, William’s, Unklee’s, Josh’s, KC’s, Nan’s etc. (not purposely missing any names!) I think I see the world a little more through a Yin-Yang type of philosophy. In fact whenever I hear someone say that the Christian or Muslim worldviews are the best explanation of the state of our world I always think that the more eastern philosophies and religions actually describe things a bit closer to the way things look.
You are right that I have never had to teach my kids to lie, but I’ve also never taught them to speak truth and they do that as well. They’ve always done both.
@Nate: I agree with you as well that we should work together as humans to try and make the world’s problems better. I wouldn’t stop anyone from praying too of they think that helps, but it should never stop us from giving the effort on our own as well.
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HI William. If you are not making the assumption about the Bible that I referred to, then my comment isn’t directed at you. I didn’t actually include you in it. My comment was directed at Nate, and anyone else who takes a view somewhat like: “If God wrote the Bible then it ought to be …..”, especially if the thing it “ought” to be is inerrant. There are reasons to believe the Bible and to disbelieve it, or to believe parts and not others, but I don’t think our expectations of what it ought to be are a very good guide to anything except us, unless we can offer a good reason supporting our expectations.
No I don’t now, because i have decided I believe it is inspired by God, if we understand “inspired” correctly. But I don’t suggest you or Nate or any other unbeliever starts there, because you couldn’t do that honestly. So I suggest you start taking it just as a secular historian would take it – a document written by people at the time, to be analysed by normal historical methods. If that is done, you can’t make much of the Old Testament but you can certainly make a lot of the New. I think that the NT, simply as a normal document of its times, provides enough reason to believe in Jesus. And if you get to that point, then you may start to think differently about the Bible as a whole.
Hope that makes clear what I think. Thanks for the questions.
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Nate, I am certainly not in any position to make a judgment about you, so this comment is just my ideas of what may be true, so we understand each other. I hope that’s OK. There are two suggestions I want to make:
1. The character of Jesus and him being the son of God (or not) are two separate facts about him. I think if I didn’t believe he was truly the son of God, I would still believe he was one of the greatest persons who ever lived, and more worthy of being followed than any person I have ever heard of. if you don’t think of him like that, it wouldn’t make much difference if you could believe in him in some way, because you still wouldn’t want to follow him.
Put it another way, you can believe in Jesus without following him, and you can follow Jesus without believing he is/was the son of God. If you don’t want to follow him, then believing in him is pointless. I’m feeling you fall into this category. And that is not (IMO) a right response.
2. I think this is even clearer in an ex-christian. Let me give an example. Suppose I am married to a woman I love deeply and then I find she has been cheating on me and has no intention of stopping. If I didn’t love here, I wouldn’t care all that much, but because I love her deeply, I am devastated. I might quit the marriage, but it would be obvious I remain devastated because I really did love her.
Now when I observe (from an internet distance, I admit, so I may be dead wrong) you and many other ex-christians, I don’t see any devastation, generally only relief to be out of there. Granted the way most churches are, I can understand some of that, but surely the relief would be mixed with a real sense of loss – you really did love that guy, and were following him because of it, and not the bubble has been pricked. You can’t believe in him any more, but it’s like a bereavement.
So it seems to me that you (and many others) were genuinely believing in the christianity that you were taught, but it seems not to have had a strong connection to Jesus. I am not a very demonstrative christian, but if I had to give up belief now I would be different to what I see.
None of that is to be critical – I repeat how much I respect and appreciate you – but it is making me at least question if you have responded to the light you have been given – which was the question I originally raised. I hope that isn’t hurtful.
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Great comments, Howie. I’m probably pretty close to what you are saying as well. I don’t believe that everything or everyone is evil and everyone is a mixture. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite teachers right now is quite Eastern in his thinking: Anthony De Mello. Check him out on youtube if you want to hear some great stuff! He is not focused on Christianity but on people.
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JudahFirst – Focused on people sounds very good to me! I will check that out.
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Hi Uncle E – hope you don’t mind me replying to your talk with Nate. I realize your suggestions are put as things that _may_ be true, so I’ll give a lot of leeway here. I think Jesus was another human like you and I, and everything written about him is written by people I’ve never met (and not to harp too much on a common thread – but there seems to be agreement that the gospel writers were anonymous). That is how I view him. As someone who a lot of people wrote about – some of what they wrote may have been things he actually said and some not. There are some things they wrote that sound positive and there are some things they wrote that don’t sound so positive. Other people that have been written about in time have similar characteristics.
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Howie, I think you’ve made sound points and i find myself in agreement.
JudahFirst, i guess I’d like to echo Howie’s remarks on the sinfulness within the world. For every individual participating in a terrorist attack or mass shooting, there are many more individuals who risk their lives to help others, who rush into the fray to see how they may help. I am comforted that those people represent the word I live in. And I see people helping others, I haven’t seen god do it.
I think we’ll always have good and bad. And Although I am no longer a christian, I think back on Romans 8:28 often, although I now exclude the “for those who love the Lord” part – actually i guess I just exclude “the Lord” part. If we don’t give up and if we keep pressing forward, keep loving our fellow man, things do work out.
Sure people die and building crumble, over a long enough timeline, nothing can prevent that.
Unklee, I agree with Howie here as well, in that I can agree that Jesus was a real man that people followed. But just as Howie pointed out, there were many people in history who were followed by others and who were written about, yet we do not believe any miraculous tales regarding them… That is how I also take jesus, and I find that to be very compatible with I take the rest of history.
And what if nate followed the good moral principles that jesus is reported as teaching, but nate follows them out of his own desire to be good, rather than because jesus said to? As much as the bible speaks about humility, etc, does jesus really care more about people giving him credit and recognition than he cares about people living morally?
And this is really going back to the original post, the bible says certain things about god. what he did, what he does, et cetera. If we take those things and lay them side by side, we find problems, contradictions and errors ranging from science, to history, to archaeology, to some just plain ole internal inconsistency. These are the reasons I dont see my position or nate’s as being the result of assumptions. The bible itself is pointing out its own flaws. the bible itself says that god is not the author of confusion, that god is perfect, that god wants everyone to heed his words, his plan, and that god is not a respecter of persons – yet within the bible we see confusion (as is demonstrably portrayed in all the varieties of Christians), we see that not everyone has a fare shake at even seeing the bible much less believing it, and the list goes on and on. Those arent assumptions, those are just the facts.
To me, it is an assumption to say that all those problems really arent problems, and since we’d be incapable of understanding everything about a god anyways, all of these problems are just some of those things we cant understand. You may as well be saying that the bible and the koran are both right at the same time, that they only appear to be in contention to those who want to see them in contention, but to those who recognize as them both as the inspired writings of god, then they are. It doesnt have to make sense, because I have faith in god and because we cant understand all of his ways. Anyone who disagrees is making assumptions about what books god would inspire and what they’d look like. anyone who disagrees is putting conditions on god.
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And Unklee, i nearly forgot. You made what I thought was a great point about ex-christians and their lack of feeling loss and how that may be an indication of what true love they ever had for christ. It is a good point and you may be on to something there, but even when i was a christian I always wondered withing myself if i would ever be worthy because I was always unsure if i really love jesus and god more than my loved ones I interacted with here on earth. I mean, I actually interact with them.
With jesus and god, there was no real interaction. I read about them and I believed in them. I prayed to them and thought i was blessed by them, but that we never any more real interaction than there is between a boy dropping fish food into a tank for his goldfish.
When i discovered that the bible wasnt from god, i felt foolish, more than I did a sense of loss. I even felt a little betrayed and angry, but i dont recall so much feeling alone or melancholy. maybe I struggled with purpose, but i think I may have always struggled with that to some degree. Even as christian, if the next life was what really mattered, what am i doing here? – sort of thing. I guess I still think on biblical topics always and that may never change.
I’m curious to see nate’s take on it.
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William, I wish I had more time to participate in this whole discussion because if I did I’d be able to many times express that you have had many awesome points that fit right along with my own views. Your last paragraph starting with “To me, it is an assumption to say” I think hits it especially on the nail for me, and you express this often (and I think we should express it often because it is such an important point that seems to be forgotten or missed by a lot of people.) I’ll repeat it too – there are people of so many different religions and beliefs (and many of these differing beliefs contradict each other) who are so incredibly sure that their belief is the right one and they all use the same kinds of justifications for the problems within their beliefs. Justifications like “it doesn’t make sense because you are using human reasoning and not the correct reasoning of my own belief system”, or “just ignore those contradictions and see how many good points are written about in the other parts of my inspired books (pick your book)”, or “I know my god is real and my book says that you really know too so just admit it” (ok that may be a little off topic). These kinds of views do frustrate me, because when I come across difficulties in my own belief system then I claim that it is just something that I haven’t come to a good conclusion about yet – “I simply don’t know”. I don’t say “well that doesn’t make sense, but I know it to be true anyway”. I wouldn’t feel good about saying stuff like that.
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You know, after reading William and Howie’s recent comments, I can’t improve upon them at all. I found myself agreeing with everything they wrote. So unkleE, I’d have to say they’ve summed up my own thoughts perfectly.
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