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 
William, I do not feel that strong faith necessitates weak reason. I find God to be quite logical (I’m not saying that about the Scriptures per se or taken at face value). Let’s just say the universe is orderly and logical (a+b=c), and I believe God created order and logic. That we cannot understand Him is not so much His limitation as much as it is ours. Your assumption this entire conversation is that God COULD reveal Himself in an irrefutable way. What if that assumption is false because of the way WE are not the way HE is? Just sayin’. 🙂
What if one day you will enter a broader dimension in which you will be able to perceive Him? You may not be there just yet, tho. And if that is true, then don’t you think God knows that? The nonsensical Evangelical god who loves us if we have faith in him and punishes us if we don’t is simply not the God I believe exists but the one human beings invented out of their inability to perceive rightly. The God I ran into 30 years ago bears little resemblance to anything the church has interpreted to be god. But that’s just me.
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JudahFirst,
I believe in the same God you believe in. Very well put.
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If we’re discounting the Christian God, then you may be right about us not being able to understand him. But if we’re talking about a God that expects certain things from us or we’ll be punished, then he would be quite evil to hold us to such a standard yet create us with an inability to understand him.
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Judahfirst, I get you, I do. But I’m really just saying if we take god as a good and caring father, like the bible claims, and weigh that against what the bible says of god (all of it), and then compare it still to what we know good fathers actually do here on earth (I think this is fair since the bible makes the comparison) then I fail to see the reason or logic in that notion.
We’d have to ignore our reason and logic to look at everything the bible says god has done, and look at his current interaction with man today to still find him a good and loving father – to find him as anything other than a deadbeat dad.
“the wisdom of god is foolishness to man.”
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Nate and William, correct. 🙂 I’m with you, sort of.
The difference between us is that I believe that Jesus, as God in the flesh, lived, died, and rose again, and that the Scriptural passages which do not jive with a loving God who looks like Jesus are either the writer’s misinterpretation or an error in translation, or interpretation, or what have you. I certainly cannot make the contradicting Scriptures make any more sense than you can, but I have had enough encounters with what I consider to be the real God that I cannot walk away from my faith in Jesus. Again, that’s just me. 🙂
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P.S. to Nate:
What you said above is exactly what drove me out of the 4 walls we call church. Evangelical Christianity makes as much sense as demanding that a man with no legs walk on water. That version of Christianity I categorically reject, as my blog clearly attests.
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Thanks, KC. 🙂 Glad to make your acquaintance.
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JudahFirst,
I may have agreed with you too hastily. 🙂 I believe in God, but don’t see where I need a “Middleman” (Jesus) . When God has to have a “Middleman” , that’s were mankind becomes “Exclusive” and “Divisive”. I know that many use the Trinity to tie Jesus in. The Ancient Egyptians had the Trinity Concept with their Gods first. 🙂 We are on the same page with your other comments about Evangelical Christianity however.
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William- “does it not bother you at all that in order to have stronger faith, you must also have a weaker grasp of reason?”
I don’t believe this is true. I believe that if something supernatural exists it will, by definition, defy reason. The two are not mutually exclusive. There are good reasons to believe. But, there are also things that must be accepted, if you believe, that defy reason simply because they are beyond our comprehension.
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I understand where both of you are coming from, I think. For me, it’s hard to take anything from the Bible, which is why I stopped identifying as a Christian early on in my deconversion. But before becoming an atheist, I did spend some time as a deist. I definitely think there are some good reasons to believe in a God, even though I don’t currently share them.
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“But if we’re talking about a God that expects certain things from us or we’ll be punished, then he would be quite evil to hold us to such a standard yet create us with an inability to understand him.”
This description of god is one I would not believe in, either. This is not the way Jesus represents God. He has accomplished everything.
Additionally, I probably shouldn’t have used the word “understand”. I’m not claiming understanding. I’m claiming I don’t understand it all, and I am willing to accept that, if God exists, I will not be able to comprehend him.
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KC, I don’t see Jesus as a “Middleman”. I see God is the Trinity and Jesus is the human manifestation of that Trinity. He showed us the lengths God would go to in order to walk in relationship to us (NOT that God was angry and needed a sacrifice or anything like that). I see it this way: Jesus is the exact representation of God in human flesh so to reject Him is to reject God. This does not mean that to reject Jesus is to cause God to reject you. That is the Evangelical view, not mine.
Thanks for the comments and clarifications.
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LOL, Josh, maybe you don’t understand or comprehend him because it’s all rubbish and fairy tales.
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“LOL, Josh, maybe you don’t understand or comprehend him because it’s all rubbish and fairy tales.”
Could be. If it’s a fairy tale, it’s a pretty darn convincing one. I’ll take it over the other options.
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JudahFirst,
Where this becomes confusing is that Jesus himself says in John 5:24, “John 5:24
New International Version (NIV)
24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.”
Here Jesus simply says if I believe in “The One” who sent him (meaning God). He’s not asking me to believe in “Him” (Jesus) I do believe in “The One” who sent him. (God)
That’s why I say the Bible is all over the place. You can make an argument for just about anything. Thank you for your comments.
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“The Bible itself says that the miracles were performed to confirm the message.”
The question that I ask myself is, why do I want a sign?
I thought Matthew 11:20-24 is kind of confronting:
Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent.
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.
And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
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– Which kind of bothers me, since if I got what I asked for, and I did recieve a sign, would I then be judged more by God if I did not accept these signs.
Which brings me to the other questions I ask myself,
– What is actually the sate of my heart, why do I seek a sign?
– Is it simply that I don’t want certain things to be true even if they are?
This cuts both ways, but if this is so – is God being merciful for not showing me a sign, since He knows my heart?
Am I not ready to see a sign, since maybe showing me a sign would do more damage? If I was shown and then rejected that sign, wouldn’t I be in a worse position than before?
It’s like that Joan Osbourne song –
“If God had a face what would it look like
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like heaven and in Jesus and the saints and all the prophets”
Kind regards,
Ryan.
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Ryan,
I think that’s an important question that people should ask themselves. But I feel like I know you well enough to say that you don’t have to worry too much about that. You want to do what’s right — so if God exists and he gave you an unquestionable sign, you’d believe in him. I’ve very confident of that.
Take care,
Nate
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Plus, those passages also say that had miracles been performed in Tyre, Sidon and Sodom, they would have made the people in those towns believe. So the bible does say that miracles can and do and would have an impact on people…
that being said, all of this now looks like someone trying to sell their outrageous story without having to provide proof. It reminds me of the “miracle working” evangelists of our times who do some questionable “exorcism” or “healing” and then blast the people who dont believe it was real, and then when someone asks them to do a miracle to demonstrate that they are who they say they are, they respond with, “you shall not temp the Lord you God,” or “it wouldn’t work for you because you do not have faith…” The skeptic then smiles and takes those responses for what they are, excuses and diversions.
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“So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish. Since God in his wisdom saw to it that the world would never know him through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who believe. It is foolish to the Jews, who ask for signs from heaven. And it is foolish to the Greeks, who seek human wisdom. So when we preach that Christ was crucified, the Jews are offended and the Gentiles say it’s all nonsense.” 1 Corinthians 1:20-23
Demanding satisfying answers to every question is to miss the point of the good news. If you think you must know everything in order to trust something you will never do anything. Is there anyone you trust about whom you know everything and understand everything they do? If you can’t have this kind of knowledge even about other finite humans, how can you expect it of God?
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Christopher Hitchens says it best in this video. It is well worth watching.
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That passage in 1 Cor is primarily talking about the notion that the son of God would come and allow himself to be killed as a sacrifice for mankind. It went against the Jews’ notion of a powerful king that would reinstate the nation of Judah, and it went against the typical Greek notion of gods as well. It certainly went against the Greek philosophers’ movement. And while he makes a solid point, he’s not saying that the story of Jesus should be accepted without investigation.
I don’t know you personally, but there are many things you could tell me about yourself that I would readily believe: maybe you’re married, maybe you spent some time in the military, maybe you’re a wicked guitar player. But if you told me that you’re also a werewolf, I’d be quite skeptical. And I would need some really good evidence to persuade me to believe you. Or if you told me that you were born on January 1st and then later told me that you were born on June 15th, I’d know you were wrong about at least one of those. And it’s perfectly justifiable for me to feel that way.
If God wants us to believe things of that caliber without being able to understand or explain the associated problems, then he did a poor job of creating us. He should have made us much dumber.
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That may be what Paul was directly talking about, but the point he makes is made throughout the OT and NT.
If I said I was a werewolf in some contexts you may know exactly what I mean (losing control of myself, etc). I could also refer to two birthdays without contradiction: one the day I emerged from the womb, and the one I was baptized/adopted/recovered from a potentially fatal seizure as an infant. Your holding scripture to the literal level you do is unwarranted. I realize its just one opinion, but this is not how we analyze other speech or communication. People, if held to literal standards, make bizarre and contradictory statements all the time. I know you want God to communicate perfectly to Nate in 2013, but that communication would make no sense to Joe in 3075. You have to give more leniency and careful reading to the scripture as you would anything else.
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No, I think my point still stands. You agree that a person can’t have two birthdays, unless they’re using one of them figuratively. And more importantly, no one would be expected to understand that unless it was explained to them. You also seem to agree that it would be silly to believe someone’s a werewolf — unless they were speaking figuratively about their personality/behavior.
I’m not saying that the Bible shouldn’t use figurative language. I’m saying that if it’s doing so, it should explain that, just as you explained how you could have 2 “birthdays” and describe yourself as a werewolf.
Furthermore, if it’s impossible for God to communicate perfectly to people across great periods of time, why did he try to? He seemed to have a pretty good communication system going when he spoke to individual people directly. Why not go back to that? Was it too tiring?
By the way, do you think it’s impossible for God to communicate perfectly to people who are separated by such great periods of time in one writing?
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kc, that was an awesome video, by the way. Thanks for posting it!
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But Josh,
You’re asking US to do something most Christians and Churches won’t do…..which is to be lenient when it comes to the Bible. You can’t have it both ways.
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