sorry, dear potential blog readers, for being so absent.
I was offered an internship two months ago which I – most stupidly – thought I was able to additionally cramp into my already tight schedule. This proved wrong and now I need all my energy to work, sleep, eat and lead life and have no energy at all left over for written reflections about life. I am not doing too well. I feel like I have crossed the thin line from being a Christian who is dealing with doubts to being a Confused Earthling who has lost his faith (and would like to regain it). For a long time it felt more like I was constantly “oscillating” between being able to believe and not being able to believe.
Here’s a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip I liked.
BTW, I am not claiming that I see all sides of the issue. But after intensly staring at my faith and intellectually circling aroud it for a year, I sometimes cannot help but wish (just like good old Calvin) to lose some perspective.
One of my good friends also asked me whether my problem possibly is that I take the diversity of opinions too seriously. He asked me whether my problem was that as soon as someone (Christian, Buddhist, Agnosticist, Hedonist, …) made a claim I give it some plausibility and take it into serious consideration – which seems like a sure recipe for being puzzled in the end.
BTW, I recently wrote about reading Blue Like Jazz. Here is a statement of one of the best images/points in the book (in the book it’s longer and better put into words). I also finished reading “Simply Christian” by Tom Wright. It’s a lovely book and it presents one of the most attractive versions of Christianity I can think of.
It is symptomatic, that at the end of the book, I wrote down for myself “But is it all true?” – i.e.: I like the faith he so beautifully talks about, but I’m not sure whether I trust this story to be reality.
It brought to my attention something he himself writes about: In some way the story of Israel, Jesus, the New World etc. is so peculiar, unique, extraordinary. Based on your natural faculties of judgement alone you could never have the feeling: This must be true. For this it is much too special. Our secular, “two-dimensional” human common sense tells us that a thousand other stories might be true just as well. If it ever does deeply convince us, it must make sense to us in another way. If it does capture our intellectual allegiance, it must be our spiritual eyes who cannot but embrace it. Wright himself compares it to being overtaken when watching a beautiful painting or hearing a symphony – you just cannot help but say “That’s it”. In fact, that goes well with how Wright begins the book (the book has three parts: first, reasons why there could in general be a God; second, the story of the Bible and Church; third, how the Christian life looks like). He begins the book by pointing out how we are so familiar with a voice calling us, so familiar with longings which point to something, so familiar with desires for justice, beauty, relationships and spirituality. This he takes to be our homesickness and awareness of God (That was very rough).
A large part of what convinced me of Christianity in Wright’s book is what convinced me in any apologetic writing: Not primarily the content of the book itself, but rather the fact that such a wise, smart, educated, sharp-minded (and in Wright’s case: cheerful and life affirming) person does manage to be a Christian.
OK, so much for today. I will quit my internship latest by the end of March and I hope to start to reflect and answer more systematically again.
Hi Wowy,
I read your post some time ago but, like you, have been too busy to post.
Great cartoon! So true.
Blue Like Jazz – Miller says “I began to sort of believe that if we can’t explain penguins and the way they procreate, but yet it does happen, then why can’t it be true that Jesus was the Son of God?”
Of course it can be true; the question is, IS it true? Or for me, given the evidence around (Bible / tradition / life experience of self and others), it is even likely to be true?
A friend of mine recently blogged: “Just Read: Why There Almost Certainly Is a God by Keith Ward – An intriguing, courteous and closely argued response to Dawkins by philosopher and theologian Keith Ward. Can you reason your way to belief in God? After reading this I think it may be possible, though such belief arrived at by such means must surely also lead to personal experience to be truly convincing. This is not a light hearted book (unlike Dawkins) but if you’re up for some mental gymnastics, this is worth a read.”
Might be worth a read…?
(BTW, he also posted: “Just Read: Simply Christian by Tom Wright – A fair stab at Christian apologetics. Too conservative for my personal taste but worth a read. “)
For my info: do you think Tom Wright is any better than CS Lewis? If so, I might give it a read.
“One of my good friends also asked me whether my problem possibly is that I take the diversity of opinions too seriously. He asked me whether my problem was that as soon as someone (Christian, Buddhist, Agnosticist, Hedonist, …) made a claim I give it some plausibility and take it into serious consideration – which seems like a sure recipe for being puzzled in the end.”
Surely this is just a basic requirement of respecting our fellow humans? Intelligent people like Tom Wight have accepted Christianity, but thousands of other people, who are more intelligent, compassionate, dedicated and spiritually balanced than you and me, have accepted other (or no) religions. Surely we can’t dismiss them without any thought? I call it “A billion Muslims can’t ALL be wrong.”
I’m sorry to hear that you now seem to be officially in mourning for your faith – sorry for what you have lost. Remember that you aren’t the first!
Good luck with seeing out the end of your internship. Peace!
Shock news! A positive post at deconversion.com! Check it out! You might like it.
http://de-conversion.com/2009/03/23/dear-god/
hey good to hear from you!!
and thanks for the link. That is a good post. I wish there more posts at that site (or more blogs in the internet) of people who do have very serious problems with faith or have left faith but
- who cannot at the same time simply stop addressing someone up in the heavens from time to time or
- who simply cannot stop hoping or
- who simply cannot stop adjusting some actions/thoughts to the possibility that God might be around…..
hope you are doing well!
Very soon, I’ll resurface after a time of completely overworking myself instead of focussing on the important stuff in life. looking forward to it, to spring, to blogging again,
best wishes,
wowy
Thanks for your lines!
YOU WROTE:
“Of course it can be true; the question is, IS it true? Or for me, given the evidence around (Bible / tradition / life experience of self and others), it is even likely to be true?”
Ah, so true. I wish more people would understand my drive to not only want to know whether it’s POSSIBLY be true but also whether it’s LIKELY to be true or at least MORE LIKELY than not (there are even many people who cannot understand being concerned with truth at all).
Though, I must also say that recently I have begun to think more often about the following question: Why isn’t it enough for Christianity to be SOMEWHAT likely? Or even: Why isn’t even enough for Christianity to be POSSIBLY true UNDER THE CONDITION that its alternatives are also just POSSIBLY true? (compare this to believing that a 6 comes up when rolling a dice: it is possible but unlikely – but so is believing that a 5 comes up, that a 4 comes up, etc.)
YOU WROTE:
“For my info: do you think Tom Wright is any better than CS Lewis? If so, I might give it a read.”
Hm… Tom Wright is definitely good and I liked him though I guess CS Lewis was more captivating for me. Tom Wright definitely comes across as a theologian, as a theological scholar. CS Lewis comes more across like a philosopher, like an imaginative thinker. Also, I think CS Lewis is more about MAKING A CASE FOR Christianity while Tom Wright is rather DESCRIBING Christianity (though, the first part of the book is about making a case. And also IN describing he is trying to paint a picture that convinces when seen as a whole – so, he, too, is involved in making a case).
In another comment you wrote that you could maybe accept the gospels but then you have “a huge problem with the overarching story of history leading up to Jesus”. One of Tom Wright’s big things in the book is portraying the WHOLE bible as ONE BIG story. That’s what the whole second part of the book is about. Disappointingly, he didn’t manage to convince me too much. Sometimes it seems a bit contrived, for example, when there is SO much weight on certain passages from Isaiah.
YOU WROTE:
“A billion Muslims can’t ALL be wrong.”
ah, slogans can convey so much and be so thought-provoking. That phrase captures a lot.
*************
Thanks a lot for your comments on my list of attempts of how one could come to terms with the bible!!! With so many of your comments I agree. The reason why I agree is that in many cases the thrust of your comment was to say that my attempts possibly have SOME merit but that they just don’t solve enough problems.
I particularly agree that the attitude towards war and violence in the Old Testament is one of the biggest obstacles. If I think back now at the years when I was a wholehearted Christian, then I realize that even then I didn’t believe in these (seemingly?) violence-affirming passages. I justified myself that in ANY worldview I choose there would be some incoherencies and implausibilities I have to buy. And the war god thing is just the specific inconsistency I have to live with if I opt for the Christian world view. It’s about the most implausible thing in the bible to my understanding.
When reading your comments, I realize that something that divides the two of us from many people who get along with the bible is that trust our own judgement much more and that we “think for ourselves” much more. When something doesn’t make sense to us in the bible we are suspicious of the bible rather than ourselves. This was especially apparent when you wrote about the issue of sparing the 5-year olds from slaughter. So many other people would just assume that there simply MUST be an answer SOMEWHERE to this problem (their pastor, their professor, or God might be in possession of the answer). You, however, don’t assume this from the outset and start looking for yourself.
Of course, there are also many people who think for themselves and want to find out themselves who DO get along with the bible. How I wish I’d belong to them!
And of course, for many people it is completely rational to assume that some of the problematic sides in the bible have an answer but that the answer is not accessible to them. If they have found the bible to be reliable in general or if they have found the people who taught them about the bible to be reliable, then it can make complete sense to assume that something implausible in the bible seems so because of one’s own misconceptions rather than because of the bible being unreliable.
But I myself, I don’t have this trust in the bible which would allow me to write off its difficult sides. In some way, it’s a vicious circle. Because I have little trust in the bible in the first place, I can’t gloss over difficult passages. Rather, those difficult passages substract from the trust I have in the bible. And once this trust has begun to crumble, it makes it more difficult to even gloss over the semi-difficult passages, which then additionally substract from the trust that’s left over, etc. etc.
YOU WROTE:
“When I said “Are you going to touch on the idea of the Bible as “God’s Holy Word”?” I meant considering what it means to describe the bible as “God’s Word” – which let’s face it, most Christians do.
Can we really believe that it’s a deliberate message sent by God to inspire and instruct humans throughout the ages, irrespective of whether or not that’s done via the medium of fallible human writers?”
Ah, that’s interesting. In general, I can’t see too much of a problem with considering the bible GOD’s word even though he communicates THROUGH human words.
What I find interesting is that one might consider the bible to be a book which truly and reliably talks ABOUT God without it being a book FROM God or without it being a book COMMISSIONED BY God.
(btw, here’s a link to a nice, short review of Keith Ward’s book: http://proginosko.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/why-there-almost-certainly-is-a-god/ )
You’ve got a trailing bracket in your link.
Will reply to your other stuff in due course. Good to see you back!
hi!
good to hear from you
don’t worry about replying… if you like to just read it, read it. if you like to reply, reply… hope you have good and nice spring days… and I hope you continue to have such interesting thoughts… i hope I’m not the only one profiting from them