Ashleigh was kind enough to reply to my ramblings. To prevent the blog from becoming a single continuous
stream, I have moved the resulting conversation here as a separate post and I
have de. I hope Ashleigh does not mind
this?
Unknown9 February 2019 at 00:16
Hey there, I hope you're doing well this evening (or
morning, or afternoon haha)! I found your blog on a bunny trail from
nakedpastor.com. This is quite an interesting journey to be on (and honestly I
think we should all critically examine our faith or lack thereof). You raise a
lot of valid questions and concerns that I'm sure one who is so inclined could
go back and forth on with you, probably ending in a stalemate (because I'm sure
you've probably heard just about every argument in the book lol). Rather than
trying to parse your post and make an argument for why I believe whatever I
believe (which I am most likely woefully unqualified to do, haha), I would
issue you a challenge in the same spirit as the one you start and end your post
with: Challenge God directly. Literally, without subscribing to any variation
of God in particular, throw some variation of this into the universe: “God if
you’re real, reveal yourself to me, and tell/show me which God you are.”
I hope this doesn’t seem dismissive of all of the very real
issues you are pondering, because that is not my intention at all. Here is my thinking:
if all the bible passages you read and lifelong religious socialization you’ve
described could make you a “true convert”, then you wouldn’t have written this
post in the first place. Therefore, I can’t imagine that any argument that a
person representing any religion could present to you here would fare any
better (of course, I don't know you so I could be dead wrong lol). SOOOOOOOO, I
figure if there is a sentient, omnipotent, omnipresent “Creator God,” then
He/She/They/It is powerful enough to answer you. And if He/She/They/It is as in
love with you as “christians” are supposed to believe (I can’t speak for any
other religions because like you, I come from a christianized culture and so
have no authority on other belief systems), then He (all the other pronouns
were becoming laborious haha) should really want you to know Him, right? He
would be just itching to talk to you in some way, I’d imagine. If he is
infinite, your questions/concerns/contradictions wouldn’t phase Him in the
least.
Then, once you receive an answer (this may or may not be a
booming voice from heaven, haha), if God is found to be real, start GRILLING
him with all the stuff you mentioned in your post. Really let Him have it. Be
real about everything. See what he says/reveals. Side note, I have no idea how
or when such a God would speak to you or reveal Himself to you specifically, so
be on the lookout, I guess? :P
And if there is no God, well then, you have nothing to lose,
I suppose.
So this is my contribution to
your journey. I hope that this wasn’t weird or repellant (haha), and that you
continue down your spiritual path and end up precisely where you were meant to
be. If you want to have some discussions, feel free to reach out (or not, it’s
up to you bro :)).
Stone12 February 2019 at 08:25
Hello Unknown, whoever you are. Thanks for the reply. I like
your style of writing. It is so much less oppressive that all the 'believe or
else' stuff that I was brought up with. As you can probably tell, hellfire and
damnation featured heavily in my religious training.
The reason I set up this blog is because I was, and still am
spiritually inquisitive, although I have come to believe that when I die,
whatever spirit I possess either lives on in the memory of others, or dies with
me. I am open to be proved wrong in all this, and still dip into religious
texts from time to time. I still don't get it though! I presume too that if God
was going to talk to me he would have done it by now. I searched in earnest for
long enough.
You may be right then, I may well be a lost cause so far as
religion is concerned, I tend towards thinking that I have all the answers that
I need, but I think it is good to leave the door open. :-)
Stone
P.S. Sorry for taking 3 days to
post this. Your message ended up in the emails spam folder, and I did not
notice. I'll have to keep an eye on that!
ashguyot13 February 2019 at 23:28
Hello Stone!
Thank you for your reply to my reply, haha! My name is
Ashley : ). I am unfamiliar with blogger, so I wasn't sure how to make sure my
name was added before I submitted my post 😅 (I also tend toward
medium to heavy emoji use to make sure my tone is conveyed, so please bear with
me if I overdo it lol). I sent this message as an email, but I thought I'd post
it as a comment as well, just in case.
I tend to believe that a God that would create a sentient,
free-willed creature capable of love (and free to reject) like humans wouldn't
have created us to institute a religion, but to have a deep relationship. I
also think that fear based "hell and damnation"
"conversions" are unstable and ineffective, especially with the
wealth of knowledge we have available to us now. I hope my post didn't
discourage you from your path though! I firmly believe that because you're
seeking, the God that loves you will be found. Perhaps He (again,
"he" is just an easy shorthand pronoun) has spoken to you, but you
didn't realize it was him (there is probably a specific way he communicates
with you; maybe dreams, music, nature, books, images, thoughts, video games,
circumstances, etc). Or maybe he had to get you out from under what was an
oppressive religious system (as it seems from your post) and dust all that
debris off of you so you can encounter him from a pure place, unencumbered by
religious baggage and expectation(which a lot of people have to unload later in
life). It may still be a good exercise to just throw the question out there
again ("Are you there God? It's me, Stone" lol---10 points if you
recognize that reference 😄), now that you are
moving away from the religion of your childhood.
In any case, having an open door, heart, and mind to
whatever the truth may be is perfect! The spiritual journey is a continuum
designed to lead us to an intimate friendship with God, and it unfolds over a
lifetime, so there is still plenty of time for Him to talk to you (even if it
seems like He should've done it by now 😉).
Just so my own position is clear (in the interest of full
disclosure), I would fall under the "Christian" category, though I
have always emphasized developing a relationship with God over following
religious dictates (which are so easily used to abuse). I didn't grow up in a
church, nor was christianity forced on me by my family, so I suppose I've had
the luxury of an organically grown love for Jesus. I believe that God wants you
to know Him more than you want to know him, and he's actively seeking you out
(which can also be seen in the fact that you are still spiritually inquisitive
and open to the possibility of Him, and you put up a post inviting discussion
and the opportunity to convert you). I don't think it's necessary to beat you
over the head with fear-based arguments, because if God is real, His love is
more than sufficient to woo you.
AAAAAANYWAY I get real bold at 11pm, Haha, writing these
long messages when I should be sleeping 😁. I'm praying for you
bro (or sis, or other, haha). If you ever want to discuss anything at all, feel
free to reach out (no pressure, of course lol). If I never hear from you again,
I hope you will have a beautiful, fruitful life, and I hope to see you on the
other side some day! 😄 (hope that's not too
weird or hippy-dippy lol)
Best regards,
Ashley
Stone7 March 2019 at 02:49
Sorry, I had to Google the reference. It must be: Are You
There, God? It's Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume?
The score then stands at:
Google = 10 points
Stone = 0 points
;-)
ashguyot8 March 2019 at 11:28
Haha! I'll give you 5 points for that; it was an open book
test anyway ;).
As a side note, I apologize that
it is taking me so long to reply to your previous comment; life is preventing
me from sitting down and formulating the thoughtful answer you deserve, but I
haven't abandoned the conversation! I SHALL RETURN! Haha :D In the meantime, I
hope you had a wonderful trip!
Stone14 February 2019 at 08:07
Hi Ashley,
Firstly, you are right, when talking of God, assigning a
gender is important for we humans in our communication, but probably an
irrelevance when talking of an omnipotent being. He, him or any variation of
this is fine to get a point across.
You talk about God speaking to people, by which (and I hope
I'm not assuming too much here?), I assume you mean that person making sense of
the world around them. This has always been one of the key reasons for
religion, of whatever flavour. In that respect, when I was on my initial quest
many years ago I did have, (to use a word with good religious derivations),
something of an epiphany; a revelation.
I thought long and hard on the many, many questions that my
Bible reading had brought up, then had a flash of inspiration. Unfortunately,
this did not bring me to God, as I had naively expected, but in totally the
opposite direction! Don’t get me wrong, that does not mean that I am a Satan
worshiper or anything, because logic dictates that if you reject the existence
of a God, then his nemesis also disappears by the same logic. The world changes
from the polar view of light and dark, good and bad, opening up into all sorts
of shades and variations. In fact, I am a lot happier living with the belief I
have than I ever was with church imposed ones.
In that respect we are probably not so far apart in our
beliefs as you might expect. I am male, have been happily married for many
years (with the usual trials and tribulations along the way). We walk a lot,
and enjoy the coast and mountains near our home, the changing seasons, the bird
song and all the rest of the natural wonders that we are fortunate enough to
have on our doorstep. Possibly my only difference from you is that I do not
ascribe their existence to God. As I have said before though, I am far from the
smartest person who ever walked the planet, so do sometimes wonder if I have
missed some simple point, hence this blog. Remember that I was only 13 or 14
when I came to this belief, and knowing now just how thick and incompetent I
was at that age (I’m not much better now), I am sometimes amazed that I managed
to come to such a conclusion that has proved to be so resilient, hence my
periodic visits back to the religious front line.
There is a guy in work whom I am now happy to call a friend.
He attends a local creationist church (they are quite evangelical), and when he
discovered a real live atheist in his midst, he set out to convert me. Our
encounters were at first a little hostile, then deteriorated into some
exasperation, then at last came acceptance (one both our parts, even if we
still cannot comprehend the others viewpoint). He went through many of the
simpler arguments for God. Morality came up, the creation, etc. etc. He even
had his pastor involved at one point. I’m glad we got past this, because he is
one of the world’s good guys. His views on religion being from a strict
creationist viewpoint are somewhat narrow and a little simplistic though (in my
opinion), and he has never been able to explain much to me in terms other than
a fear of eternity.
I have all sorts of questions that I would like to ask you
Ashleigh but will limit this to one. Feel free to ignore it, or to tell me to
clear off if the need arises. I’m trying to understand the ‘why’ part of your
belief.
1) What does your belief give you that you found lacking
beforehand?
Thanks,
Stone
ashguyot19 February 2019 at 13:45
Hi Stone,
Please forgive my late reply to your comment! I hope you've
been well in the meantime, and enjoying the lovely nature you described above
(of which I am quite jealous--I've been feeling the deep need to escape the
city to the peace of the trees, haha)! This will be a 2-part response because
it's so long haha.
Working backwards through your comment, I will start by
answering your question. Before I do, I would like to mention that after our
last conversation, I did ask myself (and God, I suppose, haha) why do I believe
in God in general, and the christian concept of God specifically. I ask myself
these sorts of questions periodically; the why, and what if God doesn't exist
(or what if He was of the complete opposite character and earth was a
hell-scape :D). I don't have a radical conversion story like some, and I
haven't had the wild supernatural experiences that are so effective in bringing
people to faith in God (yet ;)). I think this ties into your question of what
belief has provided that was lacking before, and I also think it may be
partially why it can be hard for those of us who have generally pleasant,
productive lives and who are generally good people to see a personal need for
God or a reason for Him to exist at all. I was having a miniature existential
crisis as I was asking why I believe, when an answer came to me that I'm not
smart enough to have come up with myself (and therefore I believe that God
spoke/revealed it to me. It also lit upon my mind in a way that I am coming to
attribute to how God speaks to me personally, which was that of a "word
impression"; not a full sentence or clearly spoken words, but something of
a word concept with no images, which is not how my thinking works, haha. Sorry
if that sounds cuckoo, it's challenging for me to explain). What I understood
was that, at a very basic level, I believe in God because I have an honest
relationship with Him that has been cultivated (primarily by Him) since
childhood. Now before you dismiss me completely (:D), this is not so far
fetched. We know that there are billions of living people that exist on the
earth today; we see evidence of them, there are reliable equations that
calculate our numbers and estimate our growth as a species. But that can all be
very abstract in the day to day, as we go about our pleasantly productive
lives. But there was a time in your life that your spouse was just part of that
abstraction, who had no bearing on how you lived, thought, or viewed your life.
In a very real sense, your spouse didn't exist, you didn't believe in them,
they weren't real.
Until they were.
ashguyot19 February 2019 at 13:45
[con't]
Until you met them, and began to grow and deepen in your
relationship and understanding of them. If your encounter with them had been
nothing more than a passing glance on a crowded street of other people, they
quickly would've slipped back into non-existence and would have no further
impact on your life. Or perhaps, if they were particularly attractive, they
would stay in your mind's eye for awhile, maybe even form the basis for what
you are physically attracted to and what you seek out in the future. But still,
they would have no real meaning in your life, and you would continue to be
pleasantly productive, not feeling a lack or need for them. But because you and
your spouse (or even just your best friend) stopped and invested years of
committed time into getting to know each other, you know that they're real, and
you know their personality. You know them intimately. As the years add up in
your relationship, you can probably guess what they'd like or hate, you have a
general understanding of why they do the things they do, and you can probably
sniff out when someone is telling a lie about them or misrepresenting their
character. Of course you don't know every single thing about them, but you know
enough to spend life happily and grow together (you learn more each day).
Because you know them intimately, you can walk into the home you share with
them and see all the little evidences of their existence–the way they arranged
the pictures on the wall just so, the "Honey-do" list on the fridge,
their lingering scent–that a stranger wouldn't pick up on. And if someone tries
to tell you they don't exist just because they aren't physically present in the
house, you'd of course tell them they're wrong, maybe even try and show them
all the little proofs of your life with them. To the unacquainted stranger,
your spouse is nothing more than a concept, and unless they develop their own
relationship, they are only taking you at your word that they exist. (And you
could represent your spouse to them any way you want, for good or ill, and they
would have no personal experience to base their understanding of them on
besides that representation.)
So what does your (happy & thriving) relationship with
your spouse give you that you were lacking beforehand?
In a very similar way, what my belief gives that was lacking
beforehand is that relationship, with all of its ups and downs. It's been a
slow "getting to know/trust/love you." Of course, there are fantastic
promises attached to that relationship (love, peace, a hope and a future, an
eternity, as you've heard, among other things), but the real draw is the love
and acceptance and "settled-ness" in the heart.
Whew, that was really, really long. My apologies, haha! I'll
stop here for now, but I did want to drop a little nugget regarding creation: I
heard it said once, that the bible (and its account of creation) is God's
signature on creation, and science is the study for how He did it. So the
bible=who, science=how. I personally have a reeeeally hard time believing that
all the complexities of existence, from the vastness of universe down to the
neurons of a human brain, came out of absolute nothingness. That takes way more
faith to me than believing that an immeasurably vast intelligence at least got
the ball rolling (from "Let there be light" to the big bang is not
that far of a stretch, haha). And there is so much in the universe that we as a
species don't know (if I'm remembering correctly, we haven't even totally
explored the oceans on our own planet), that there is no possible way we can
totally rule out the existence of a creator God.
Anyway, I'd better stop there for real this time, or I'll
start writing a book haha. I'd be very interested in hearing your hard
questions (at least one by one, haha), because I think they'll help me as well
(and it also makes for interesting thinking ;D)
Best Regards,
Ashley
Stone20 February 2019 at 02:27
Hi Ashley,
Firstly may I say many thanks for continuing this
conversation. No apologies are necessary
for the long post, and I am simply glad to be able to tap into your experience.
There is, as you say, a lot of information in your posts, so
I too will need a little time to let this sink in and to formulate a response
that does not sound too ill conceived. My first reaction was that we are
entering philosophical territory here. There is that old question about how we
know things. "If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one around, does
it make a sound?" It initially sounds like a very stupid question, but its
implications are quite deep. I will reply shortly when I have had time to
consider.
Thanks once more,
Stone
Stone21 February 2019 at 08:25
Hello again Ashley,
Sorry, this one is long too, so I also will have to do two
posts!
Chapter 1.
It’s good to know that I am not the only person who likes to
question their beliefs from time to time. I think there are far too many people
out there who either blindly accept what they are told, or do not care to think
about such things, or who come to a belief and then stick rigidly to it like
the proverbial square peg in a round hole because they are afraid they may have
been wrong in the first place. On length, no problem. Detail is always going to
be better than a lack thereof.
This is a bit of an aside but …… A few years ago, a very
loud and very evangelistic preacher appeared in the city where I work. She was
audible for blocks from whatever vacant doorway she took over for her
ministrations. I passed her once and noticed a homeless person just a few
doorways down. Now he appeared to be in a pretty bad state from drugs or whatever,
and I would never give cash directly since that is likely to fuel rather than
cure such addictions. For the record, I do support a local homeless charity,
and have nothing but admiration for their staff and volunteers. They do a very
difficult and thankless job. She, like most of us ignored him, preferring to
harangue passers-by with their obvious sins. As I walked by she shouted a
comment at me. I replied with a reference; 1st John, 3:18. I had to repeat this
as she tried to correct me with the more commonly loved Christian quote from
John 3:16. She then proceeded to look it up whilst shouting ‘Hallelujah’ and
‘Praise Be’, as she leafed through looking for the verse. When she found it,
she read it in increasing puzzlement, but at least she was quiet for a while!
I’m afraid that I keep that and a few other references handy to make such
people think. It is amazing how many of them have little or no bible knowledge.
I’m going to quote you here Ashley , “was having a
miniature existential crisis as I was asking why I believe, when an answer came
to me that I'm not smart enough to have come up with myself (and therefore I
believe that God spoke/revealed it to me”. That could almost have been written
by me, except for the fact that my bible reading led me to disbelief. The
moment of clarity when it all made sense must have been very similar though.
OK, back to the tree in a forest question (Google tells me
that it was the Philosopher George Berkeley who devised this question BTW).
This is complex stuff, so bear with me if my descriptive powers fall short. The
real questions (in this context) are:-
1) Does the world only exist for humans to experience, i.e.
is it of our own making?
2) Since we experience things through our senses, can we
generalise from this to postulate that all the world behaves in the same way?
Stone21 February 2019 at 08:25
Chapter 2.
Now the next step. How do we know about God? Our 5 normal
senses are out on this one, so we are left with whatever teaching and wisdom we
have from others, and the kind of personal experience that you talk of. Your
analogy of a person’s existence or lack thereof before and after you personally
know them is a little flawed I think? It only works if you believe the tree
falling in the forest makes no sound. Yet, even though I cannot at this precise
moment see my wife or my home, I know that both exist because I can go to them
and see or touch or use any of my other senses to know that they exist. I can
therefore extrapolate from this direct experience that they exist outside of me
and have an existence all of their own. The same, unfortunately, is not true of
God. I cannot ever experience him directly through any of my senses, and would
have to presume that whatever I attribute to him is an actuality. This is a
belief, and is unlikely to ever be a provable fact unless anyone ever submits
the supposed miracles, talking in voices or other spiritual manifestations to
be proved by physical science. Now I am aware too that science has its
problems. It works on theories and models. Scientific theories are held until
our knowledge progresses far enough to modify or replace them, but they are
frequently far from perfect. We could argue science and its failings for just
as long as we could do the same for religion, but I am not a scientist so
cannot get too far into that one.
There was an interesting study published many years ago by a
professor from the States called Harold Garfinkel. He described a phenomena
that he has observed in the way people rationalise the things around them (from
memory he called it ‘The Documentary Method). To show this, he set up a mock
student counselling program where he told students that to prevent bias from
the councillor, they would not be able to see them, and could only get yes or
no answers to their questions. The order of the yes or no answers given was
randomly preconfigured so was totally unrelated to the student’s particular
problems. Despite this, in post counselling interviews, students reported that
the sessions were very helpful in helping them with their problems. In other
words, we humans rationalise external experiences to fit our pre-conceived
notions. In all probability, I do this too.
The problem with belief in God is that unless we strictly
follow the teachings of one of the world’s many religious texts, then we are to
a greater or lesser extent inventing the God that we believe in. For the
reasons given above this cannot be, because if he is real, then surely there
must be a commonality of belief and experience? This harks back to the point I
made in my opening piece that historically and fundamentally, all belief is
based on a Bible. The argument then returns to all the points made previously.
Which Bible? Who decides which bits are true and which are mere stories? Etc.
etc. I have never got past this impasse except through my current beliefs (some
would say a lack of belief).
I hope this makes some kind of sense?
Stone
P.S. I will be away from 23rd
Feb for a week, and may not get a chance to monitor the blog.
