Hostage to fear

[Randy Carson]

I'm 55, and I went to Georgia Tech, so I had a very technical education. But thank you...I think.  

Just out of curiosity, what denomination were you? I can't remember if I already asked that...sorry. I'm not sure what an anti-Calvinist is...seems like that would be just about everyone else! Were you Baptist or Presbyterian? It sounds like your experience was kinda "performance-based" - trying to please God - and not really based on knowing God's love and forgiveness. Or am I wrong?

Also, was the problem of suffering the first chink in your "armor" or the last straw for you?

In light of what you've revealed about yourself, please, take that as a compliment!  lol    I know, a low blow... meant as a lightly as possible, given your frailty in age!  JUST KIDDING!

In all seriousness, and to answer your questions;

I was raised in a non-denominational Church, and worked my way through the gamut of reformed theology.  I found my Church in Iraq and Kurdistan, a land and people that has half of my heart.  There I found Eastern Orthodox Catholicism.  It is a long story, and without arguing point by point, the specifics of faith, this ...or the Church had (has) my heart.  Here are a people, suffering for their faith, in real persecution.  Here are the writings preserved from the earliest Christian Church as homily to the scriptures.  Pleasing, working, impressing... all are antediluvian to the faith Christ taught.  And I found that authentic faith in Orthodox Catholicism.

Given what Orthodox Catholicism is, I cannot defend personally... but I can as a shadow of itself, if you're interested.  It's a really interesting faith.  Worth knowing wholly.

The problem of suffering was the beginning of my faith (I am strongly focused on the human condition as a whole... from childhood), and also the first thing that lead to my deconversion.

Thank you for being forthright.  You'll find no criticism here, as long as we meet as honest men.

ST-

I'm going to post a few thoughts on the Problem of Evil/Pain/Suffering, and we'll see where this goes.

Thought #1:

Would you agree that there is a big difference in intelligence between us and a bear?

Imagine a bear in a trap and a hunter who, out of sympathy, wants to free him. He tries to win the bear’s confidence, but he can’t do it, so he has to shoot the bear full of tranquilizers. The bear, however, thinks this is an attack and that the hunter is trying to kill him. He doesn’t realize this is being done out of compassion.

Then in order to get the bear out of the trap, the hunter has to push him farther into the trap in order to release the tension on the spring. If the bear were semiconscious at this point, he would be even more convinced that the hunter was his enemy who was out to cause him more suffering and pain. But the bear would be wrong. He reaches this incorrect conclusion because he is a bear and not a human being.

Now, can we be certain that this is not an analogy between us and God? Sometimes God sees our condition and has do the same to us in order to free us, but we can’t comprehend why He does this anymore than the bear can comprehend the motivations of the hunter. Just as the bear could have trusted the hunter, so we can trust God.

The Fine Tuning of Evidence

Scripture describes God as a hidden God. This means you have to make an effort of faith to find him, and there are clues you can follow. If that weren’t so, if there was something more or less than clues, we would not be free to make a choice about Him. If we had absolute proof instead of clues, then we could no more deny God than we could deny the sun. If we had no evidence at all, we could never get to faith. God gives us just enough evidence so that those who want Him can have while those that don’t want Him are not forced to do so. Those who want to follow the clues will.