Thursday, April 9, 2009
Let me start this out by saying: I am agnostic.
What does that mean? Well, it means I'm skeptical about the existence of God. And it means that I reject the Christian religion that I was born into.
See, I don't really understand Christianity. There are a lot of questions that I have about it that no one's been able to answer to my satisfaction. And frankly, it reminds me of a cult. A mainstream cult, but a cult nonetheless.
Let's look at the facts. Oftentimes, Christians are encouraged not to ask questions – to accept the church's teachings as truth without any further verification. In fact, when I've asked my mom's pastor for some sort of backing, he quoted a bible verse to me – that says that the bible is true! Hrm... the bible is true because it says it is. Interesting.
Furthermore, what are Christianity's qualifications for getting into heaven? You don't have to be a good person – you just have to accept Jesus. In fact, it doesn't matter how good you are – Jesus is the “way the truth and the life” and no one reaches God unless they go through Jesus. Some part of me likes the sound of this. I mean, I agree that everyone is bad - “we've all sinned.” If salvation is based on how good of a person you are, where is the line drawn? How many good things do you have to do before the good cancels out the bad?
But basing salvation solely on belief in Jesus also disagrees with my gut. There are somewhere around 6.7 billion people in the world. 2.1 billion of them are Christians. That's 33%, and probably includes a lot of people who aren't actually “born again” Christians. So God is damning more than two thirds of the world. Doesn't sound like a loving God to me. Nor would a loving God threaten people with hellfire just to get them to “love” him in return.
I find the Christian portrayal of God rather disturbing and contradictory. If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, why did he allow Eve to take the fruit from the garden of Eden? The Bible says that God knew everything about us before we were even conceived, so saying it was Eve's free will is contradictory. Saying that Satan convinced her to do it is even more contradictory, because it gives Satan power equal or greater to God's. So the only option left is that God allowed evil to enter the world – and why would a loving, righteous God do that?
The more I examine Bible stories, the more I realize that they don't really portray what I learned in Bible school. Take Noah, for example: the story isn't really about all the cute animals coming to the ark one by one. The story, to me, is about God getting pissed off and killing a whole bunch of people because they wouldn't listen to him. And not just killing them; damning them to eternal torment. Sure, he gave us a rainbow and promised not to do it again. But it still gives me a not-so-good impression of our Holy Father.
Or how about Abraham and Isaac? Isaac was Abraham's long awaited only son, yet Abraham was willing to kill him if God so desired. Christianity teaches this as a positive story – God stopped Abraham before he did it. But that kind of religious fanaticism just scares me.
I could go on and on. But the bottom line is, I don't understand where Christians get the idea that God loves us. When I think about the old testament and the bible stories I learned as a child, I see a jealous, petty, angry, and vain God. A God who cares more about the advancement of his religion and his purpose than he does his followers. And I don't think a God like that is worthy of my worship.Even if I did believe in the Christian God, I wouldn't want to be associated with his followers. I know you can't judge a group by its most extreme members, and I apologize to my Christian friends for this whole section, but let's look at those extreme cases for a moment. Throughout history and currently, Christianity has been used to justify bigotry, racism, homophobia, war, and general ignorance and intolerance. In general, conservative Christians tend to believe that anyone who disagrees with them is wrong, sinful, against God, and going to hell. They believe in freedom of religion, as long as by that you mean the freedom to choose which sect of Christianity you want to belong to.
No. I don't want to be associated with a God or a group of people like that.
So what do I actually believe? Why do I call myself an agnostic rather than an atheist? Why not become a Buddhist if I hate Christianity so much?
When it comes right down to it, I don't think that anyone really has the answers. I think religion is humanity's attempt to explain the unexplainable – and that's fine, as far as it goes. But as soon as you start claiming to know what happens to us when we die, I'm going to call you a liar. No one knows, and no one can ever know.
As I said above, I don't think the Christians are right. I don't think the Buddhists or the Hindus or any other group of religious people are right, either. If I had to throw my lot in with a religious group, I'd go with the atheists, but they might be wrong too. Hell, maybe the Romans were the ones who had it right 2000 years ago. Who am I to say?
I believe in people. I believe that everyone is both good and evil. Even the evilest person in the world has some bit of good in him, and even the best has done something evil. We're all fucked up, and we've all made mistakes. We're human, it happens. Part of what defines us as people is how we react to our mistakes and our flaws.
I believe in good and evil, but not as perfect concepts. I think it's “good” to help people, and “evil” to harm them. So it's dumb to describe people with those words, because everyone has hurt someone, and everyone has helped someone. To me, morality should be based on the golden rule, and to an extent, the wiccan rede: “An it harm none, do what ye will.”
I guess, in a word, I'm a humanist.
As far as the existence of God: I'd like to believe that there is a God. I'd like to believe in a personal being who loves us and cares for us, who created the world with a good purpose in mind. But the evidence in the world around me seems to suggest that such a being does not exist; or if he does, that he is not omnipotent. I can't rectify a loving, personal, and all-powerful creator and the hell that exists in the world around me. But I haven't totally ruled out the possibility. To make a comparison an atheist friend of mine is fond of: I haven't completely given up believing in unicorns, even though I'm pretty certain they don't exist.
7 comments:
I enjoy the last line, haha. I enjoyed this entire post a lot. Will told me once I was "on the wrong team" meaning I should probably believe in a different religion.
So, I think the worst part of extreme Christians is that they only announce "the only way to heaven is through Jesus." I feel like i need to clarify that's just a first step. Yea, sure, we're all taught this, but there's soooo much more. You still have to be a good person. You can't accept this at age 10 and then live a terrible life of killing people and cheating etc and expect to still go to Heaven. Accepting Jesus is like, a continual thing. You do it all the time. You don't get "saved" once and then you're good for life. And when you screw up, you are taught to ask for forgiveness, and then to prove you deserved it by not doing the same mistake again.
The Bible stories are a little extreme. Why didn't they scare me as a little kid? Haha, I mean, seriously? Abraham almost killed his baby! A whale ate Jonah! Those totally should have scared me...but instead they made coloring books of them. Do other religions do this? lol, probably not.
Also, it's interesting you say you were taught to not ask questions. I was told Christianity is one of the only religions where questioning is acceptable, mostly because it proves to God you are paying attention. I was also taught that exploring other religions is acceptable, because, ideally, you would learn the rest were wrong and you'd come back to Christianity (ok, so that part makes me sound like a jerk, haha, but I'm just saying that is what was told to me. heh).
So this is a large comment. I'm not trying to be like KAT BRADLEY YOU NEED SAVED!! haha, not even a little bit. I just kind of dislike the people who ruin Christianity for the rest of us by giving everyone a terrible impression. You know, like that kid in the 6th grade who spit gum in a girl's hair, and then the rest of the class wasn't allowed to chew gum anymore. I'm a pretty strong believer in the idea that actions speak louder than words, so if I'm just a nice person who does nice things my whole life and asks for forgiveness when I do something wrong, I'll remain on Jesus's good side. If I shout at people and tell people that they're going to hell and they need to change everything they believe in and disrespect people, I might get closer to his bad side. Jesus doesn't care if I have stupid Christian bumper stickers or listen to bad christian rock or carry a Bible with me all the time or am involved in a million billion church groups--those things don't make anyone a better person, they're just annoying.
Once I was talking to this girl I worked with at camp, and I made a comment about how I wanted to go somewhere over the weekend with someone (who happened to be openly lesbian, though that fact was unrelated to how she needed help choosing a gift for someone else) to help her buy stuff. This girl's response was something along the lines of "it's not be going to hell" meaning she couldn't associate with this person because the "sin" might rub off on her (?) Haha, and that my friend, is the kind of person who gives the rest of us a bad name.
This was ridiculously long. I hope you enjoy, lol. I could have just wrote a new post myself, but this was more fun!
Wow Kat, you pretty much summed up my belief system pretty darned closely. Lets start a not-church together! lol, jk
But as for Patsy's comment (at least the portion on asking questions), I can't say I ever hear about Christianity encouraging asking questions. Basically every single experience of mine results in them saying "because GOD!" or some silliness.
Haha Patsy I love your response. I think you know this, but I'm in no way trying to say that all Christians are extremist and crazy. And I know you're not trying to convert me. I don't dislike Christians, as long as they're not crazy, and you are one of the most sensible Christians I know. Which is why I tend to agree with Will that you're on the wrong team.
The part about the coloring books made me laugh. And it's one of the things that drives me crazy, because it's all about indoctrination. If they give you coloring books about the stories, then maybe you won't ever stop to wonder what they're really saying, and just think about the cute animals on the ark.
I think Christianity does have a bad case of a few people making a bad name for everyone else. But what bothers me is that it's not always just individual people. The pope thinks that gay marriage is a sin. I've had to sit through sermons on how bad gay people are. The church, as an organization, agrees with and supports these beliefs, and that's part of why I don't want to be associated with the church.
Excellent post. This just made my day better. Not just because I completely agree with it, but it's actually really well written. Good points, Kat. :)
Thoughts:
>The Bible says that God knew everything about us before we were even conceived, so saying it was Eve's free will is contradictory.
I love this argument. The point could be made that NONE of us have free will, since our actions are predetermined in the mind of God. Along this same vein, God knew he was going to flood the world and then promise not to do it again. Wtf?
>Or how about Abraham and Isaac?
Oh man, that's not even the worst bit. Check out all of Numbers 31 sometime. One of my favs: "But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." (Nbrs 31:18) PEDO RAPE FO' THE LORD!
And then there are all the bits about slavery being A-OK. Golly gee, I could just go on and on about all this ridiculousness. Hahaha.
>When I think about the old testament and the bible stories I learned as a child, I see a jealous, petty, angry, and vain God
This line reminds me of one of my favourite Richard Dawkins quotes: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
lol
>Why do I call myself an agnostic rather than an atheist? [snip] When it comes right down to it, I don't think that anyone really has the answers.
Atheists don't claim to have all the answers. Well, some do. But this team has idiots too (Hello, Michael Newdow!). But anyway, technically, you are an atheist. An atheist is a person who does not believe that any gods exist, not only a person who believes no gods exist. See what I mean? Some atheists (me) hold the active belief that there are no gods, and others (you) don't.
I think the way I do because if the properties of something can be shown to contradict, then you can say it doesn't exist. Something can't be self-contradictory and exist. Example: invisible pink unicorns. Invisible and pink contradict, therefore that can't exist (nevermind the unicorn bit). And it can be shown that the properties given to God don't mesh. Ergo, no sky daddy.
>I believe in people ...
*claps* w00t!
>I guess, in a word, I'm a humanist.
YAY! Humanism FTW, baby!
*evidence-based high five*
;)
>To make a comparison an atheist friend of mine is fond of: I haven't completely given up believing in unicorns, even though I'm pretty certain they don't exist.
Oh, Beard. I'm touched. Also, my point with that example is that you can reasonably say something doesn't exist without being 100% certain. Every time I make that point - every single time - I mentally picture a graph of a "limit at infinity." And the y-axis is Probability of Existence. And there are points on the graph representing divinity, fairies, unicorns, leprechauns, etc etc. And they're so close to zero that it looks like they are zero with the naked eye, even though the numbers tell you otherwise. They're so close that you could reasonably say they are zero (assert that they do not exist) when in casual conversation. I mean unless you're in math class or working for NASA or something, not rounding down doesn't makes sense. Y'know?
Oh, it won't let me edit my comment. Boo.
The graph idea is applicable only to a general idea of god or deity - I'd place the Christian God squarely on zero. Does not exist. Because it's self-contradictory, and ergo CAN'T exist. Y'all can ask me sometime for more about that if you care. 'Cause I know you all do. lol :p
>And frankly, it reminds me of a cult. A mainstream cult, but a cult nonetheless.
Other than size, what's the difference between a cult and a religion? Christianity was a cult once upon a time.
>And it's one of the things that drives me crazy, because it's all about indoctrination.
Oh my, so much fucking WORD. YES. THIS is why I get so worked up about religious bunk. It is indoctrination, and that's despicable.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weak_and_strong_atheism
guess the technical term I was looking for was weak atheist, not agnostic. :-)
Wow, Kat, I just stumbled on this a bit ago since I only get back to check the blog every so often. The timing of reading this is excellent actually as I just had a conversation last night with two of my friends in Chicago about religion and bible study and how I was a 'non-practicing and Liberal Catholic, which means I'm Catholic by default and when my Grandmother asks if I still am".
From my experiences, especially in the Catholic church, I hardly remember a time when questioning my religion was allowed. I would sit in Sunday school, asking why I couldn't become a priest, why I would never be allowed to say Mass, why women disciples weren't mentioned prominently in classes, why we couldn't read diff Bible passages instead of the same one every three years in Church. I got taught really quickly to shut my mouth in class if I didn't want to get talked down to or be patronized; some teachers would just admit that they themselves didn't know the answers and you know how not knowing answers does not jive well with me.
My friend last night, Ali, was telling me that she was taking a Bible study class about the women in the Bible and their lives and learn about how cool some of them really were (didn't know about the woman who drove a spike through a guys' head, that was awesome). I didn't learn these stories and passages at Sunday school, we weren't taught anything beyond the Gospels and some 'selected' and 'meaningful' passages. I too remember the coloring books of the famous stories and my picture Bible as a kid; I actually used to be deathly afraid of God spying on me. I was always told "God is always watching over you" and I got so freaked out by the fact that a 'man' was watching me from above that I took to going to the bathroom with a towel over me; I was so creeped out and early on was one of those people that almost had to refer to God in a female type of pronoun because, if not, I thought that God was a perv. I know, weird but, eh.
I also had a problem, and still do really, with confessions in the Catholic Church. I have to tell my sins to my priest, who can then tell them to God. Yet, I'm allowed to pray directly to God. Why can't I confess to God on my own and skip the middle man? I would do my own penances, many of which were more strict than the ones given to me of "just be nicer to your family for this week". I also had a problem with one 'group confession' where, in order to get all of us to go through fast that night at school, we had to pick a sin from the list given to us, tell that to the priest up front, and then we all got a group penance to go out and be nicer to the rest of God's children. Is it just me or should confession and atoning for my sins not be like an ala carte menu? I refused to go to confession again and that was almost 10 years ago, haha.
Anyways your post is really thought out, is there a reason why it all came to a head and needed to be written down right now? We've talked about this type of thing before and you and I have always been about the questions and full of skepticism (playground talks and remembrances of high school oh yay). Just wondered why all of a sudden the hot button topic of religion crops up. Nice post, got me thinking and that's something I need to do more in life. ~KK
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