Originally posted by Beastt
Steven Hawkings also believes in God. I find that one a bit of a quandry but, growing up in a society which believes in God and has dozens of common phrases which include, "God", "Heaven", "Hell" and other references to concepts taken from the Bible, I suppose it's not so puzzling. The doctrines are so inter-woven into everyday life that acceptance is almost automatic.
I too believed in God for most of my life. I was 33 years old when certain events in my life brought me to the brink of challenging God and everything religion brings to the table. I originally reacted out of anger and fully expected that there would be a price to pay as I forgave and re-accepted my former beliefs. Such was not the case. As I floundered between belief and non-belief I found that ever increasingly, the questions that had long plagued me and many others I've spoken to melted away under the blanket of logic. Things happen the way they do because they're not guided by some all-powerful force. I can speak only for myself but phrases like, "the Lord works in mysterious ways", "the Lord helps them that help themselves" and the ever-present, "it's not for us to try to understand the ways of the Lord" aren't needed anymore.
My belief is that the Bible and religion came out of a need to understand things for which man had no explanation. As mankind slowly puts the pieces of the scientific puzzle together, the Biblical explanations and beliefs begin to fall apart. There are those who attempt to merge the two by confirming Biblical references and stories with science but most of these fall short and make enormous leaps of faith in order to connect one side with the other. Still, there are those theories which may explain stories from the Bible. As and example, the Ark of the Covenant being a large electrical capacitor and Moses being a bit of a flim-flam man putting his knowledge of electricity, feeble as it was, into practice to fool his followers. I've seen an entire documentary based on this theory and I can say that I didn't see any vast holes in the theory.
This is a wonderful example of what I spoke of earlier. Even to those who believe, there are parts which don't make sense. Even to the extent that some portions must be left behind in order to accept other portions. To be honest, it is my belief that people who have looked deeply enough into religion to believe that God, (assuming he exists), knows what is in their head and their heart, and can judge them in accordance with his own laws and doesn't need the formalities of the church, its rituals, or even the attendence thereof in order to separate bad people from good. This is, in my opinion, where thinking starts and blind acceptance stops.
And this is fair enough - if it works for you.
I was raised as a Catholic and as I get older I have become more convinced that God and Christ do have some impact on things in this world (at least from my perspective).
However, I feel that it is very very dangerous for people to resort to quoting the Bible to enforce their view of life on others.
The Bible is a collection of stories/texts written by people thousands of years ago.
To rely on literal veracity of what is in those texts is, at best, shaky.
We do not know the context in which those texts were written, nor do we know what the writer had in mind when he was written them.
If you read the book of Genesis, it states that God recreated the world and all it's creatures and the Universe, in 7 days.
Our fundamentalist Christian friends would have us believe that the literal biblical interpretation compels us to accept that God created the Universe in this time frame.
We know that the Universe is 13 billion years old and counting.
We know that the earth is perhaps 1-1.5 millions years old.
So what do we accept as being truthful - the Bible or science ?
Of course, in this example Science is correct but if Science is correct, we're guilty of blasphomy because it contradicts the Bible !
But how can this be blasphomous when God gave Man the intelligence to create the Hubble telescope which took the photos of the Universe which tell us that the Universe is 13 billion years
old ?
Literal interpretations of the Bible are thus misleading.
Yes, Scripture states that we should spread the Word of God (Gospel) but we can do this by leading a good and humble life,
by creating a good example to others, donating money to charity.
We do not need to resort to writing on a website, damning people to eternal damnation !
This need for people to shout out about their faith to others,
in my opinion, has more to do with their inadequacies than it is
to spread the message of God.
God manifests himself in many ways, the Bible states "for in my house there are many mansions".
Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh are as worthy (or unworthy) as any of us
so-called Christians.