laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (12/16/84)
I had a thought as I was reading a weeks worth of net.religion. One oft'repeated theme is ``I won't believe in your god/religion/system of philosophy/system of ethics until god/society/the mystic feelings I feel does X''. Maybe the opposite question deserves to be mentioned. What would it take before you consider that your religion is incorrect, flawed, or in some other way better *not* to believe? Given this audience, there are obviously lots of people who have come to this very conclusion. What about those who haven't? What about those who have but are convinced that *now* they have a handle on truth, whereas before they were mistaken (or worse)? Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) (12/18/84)
In article <4790@utzoo.UUCP> Laura Creighton writes: > >What would it take before you consider that your religion is >incorrect, flawed, or in some other way better *not* to believe? >Given this audience, there are obviously lots of people who have >come to this very conclusion. > I was raised a dedicated Christian in a fundamentalist church. At times there were certain inner feelings generated in some of the church services which were of a rather mystical quality. Later during college I began to really question what was going on, the general "Is there really a God?" type questions. These questions hit me very hard since my religion was much like a protective barrier between me and the world. However, I have a VERY strong drive to understand reality and search for truth. And deep down inside I knew that a lot of the things going on just didn't seem right. One example was all the petty little backbiting and squabbles that would go on constantly. If God was so great and powerful why is it that he could not correct the situtation. In fact, why didn't he even care enough to let the people know how improper they were acting? Why didn't he show them there was a much more loving way to live? Another problem I had was the fact that some of my belief system just didn't hold water when I contemplated what the various implications of it were. One example is a contradiction I just could not tolerate and still be honest with myself. Supposedly God was all mercifull e.t.c. yet people were going to burn in hell for ever and ever if they didn't repent e.t.c. (I have read with interest the debates here in net.religion on this and the only response from the christians is "thats just the way it is" and "who are we to tell an infinite God how to run his ship?" Its not strange that these are the VERY SAME arguments I used to make when I was in the church. The fact is that these are about the only ones you have recourse to.) Paul in the N.T. talks quite a bit about what love is. He said love does not take offense. Love doesn't demand. Love doesn't say "Well if you act this way *THEN* I'll love you back and be good to you." Love is UNCONDITIONAL or it is not the highest form of love at all. If I was to go out and murder someone, my mother would be horrified YET SHE WOULD STILL LOVE ME AND NEVER TURN ME AWAY! And yet, the standard christian belief has God only accepting people that only accept him and do such and such. The problem, of course, is that MY MOTHER HAS MORE LOVE THAN THAT KIND OF GOD! I refuse to follow any religion which claims that an all powerful infinitely merciful diety is less capable than my mother. (As an aside, I hit my father up with this last christmas and he said "but God said that anyone that doesn't turn to him must pay the price and He cannot go back on his word. God repented that he ever made man." To this all I can say is why would an omnipotent God do something that He knew he would not like the result of and why would God setup such a lousy system to begin with. All it takes is to look at how finely tuned the Universe is. Examine a tree or an insect and marvel at the almost infinite complexity and harmony. Then tell me that an infinite God can do no better than to cause everlasting punishment. The very universe indicates that whatever its cause it is certainly not supid. On the other hand science has its definite limits, although I think that eventually the secrets to conciousness itself will be uncovered by those working in quantum mechanics. I remember in High School trigonometry thinking that if only a computer had all the information on every atom in the universe than all things could be predicted. Now in my middle age I laugh to think that I had such naive beliefs. Science, however, tended to make one think that it had an absolute hold on truth. Yet science is incapable of even describing why we laugh. (Well ya see theres these bursts of forced air through the bronchial tubes and the facial muscles follow an upward curvature ...) Now I realize that much of what my religion said (or was trying to say) is true. Most all great religous teachers have had thier teachings perverted into a "follow this law or you won't get your reward". I guess its just human nature. I have to my own satisfaction an understanding of those earlier mystical feelings, and concepts which give me an understanding concerning almost anything I wish to philosophize about. I wish I could talk about these things but the answers (for me anyway) are so internal that I don't think I could ever put them into words. It took 15 years of searching and reading, studying other religions, other philosophys, but the big breakthrough was studying parapsychology with one of the few good (read non-bogus) scientist in that field today. The bottom line is that I could not be a Christian in the classical sense and keep my intellectual integrety and honesty. Dave Trissel {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax,gatech}!ut-sally!oakhill!davet