If you were ever a theist...

[MTL]

Nice reasoning MTL!

It always shocks me how the message from religion is often to turn off the perfectly good brain God gave us, and just believe what we're told.

That's not the only message. Some of us believe faith is an experience.

Hm.  I definitely have a response to that.

Please know that I do not share this out of a desire to be harsh or antagonistic,
but I can't handle this with kid gloves.

I once had occasion to thrash this issue out with my grandparents.

It did not go well.

(The conversation initially arose out of my confronting them on their homophobia
and the distress I felt upon perceiving that if I were a lesbian, they'd stop talking to me,
but the conversation evolved into a larger discussion about the hypocrisy of Christianity
and Religion in general).

Anyway,

out of the many arguments bandied-about that evening,
the one I will cite is as follows:

I began to present an argument,

" Ok, Grampa, I acknowledge that you believe that God exists... "

but he cut me off and said,

" MTL, I don't just BELIEVE that God exists...I KNOW He exists! "

Now, he didn't even let me complete my sentence or the point I was going to make;
and, my irritation at this aside, it raised another point:

Asserting the difference between Belief and Knowledge is crucial.

First of all, it is my feeling that my grandfather was simply trying to demonstrate a deep and unshakable faith by asserting that it went beyond mere BELIEF and was actual KNOWLEDGE.

He meant well.  He's been told all his life that his Faith is the most important thing.

And I don't like to upset him...but, like many Christians, he didn't see the damage he was doing to the world,
with this philosophy.

First of all, I pointed out,
Christianity hinges upon Faith.

Faith is Belief without Knowledge.

If God gave everyone irrefutable PROOF of His existence,
it renders FAITH redundant.

And since Faith is REQUIRED to get into Heaven,
then doesn't God,
by giving you PROOF
...and thus rendering your FAITH redundant...
make it IMPOSSIBLE for you to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven???

The real test of Faith is to go your entire life without having Proof,
and even die without receiving that Proof;
...going to your grave...still Faithful.

So, maybe for the "elect few",
whose Faith is so absolute,
God makes the executive decision to reward them with PROOF,
whether that be my grandfather,
or a bunch of swaying, genuflecting Catholics who see Mary's likeness miraculously appear on the side of a church,
or whatever.

You know what?

I am prepared to accept that.

I don't know what your experiences have been; I am not you.

And it may be that you have genuinely had an experience that you are not able to provide proof of,
and that you are NOT crazy, either;
maybe your experience was as real as anything is capable of being.

So let me share MY experience, with you:

(Some of you may have read this story of mine, before, so I'll hide this bit)

---

I was going through an extremely tough time, in my life,
and one of the things I was struggling with, was my Faith in Jesus.

I had had a particularly horrific day, at the end of a horrific week, at the end of a horrific month, etc.

That evening, I dissolved into tears, and cried my heart out.

I flung myself on Jesus' mercy....I confessed I was struggling with my Faith,
I begged His forgiveness and guidance.

I cried myself to sleep.

I dreamt, my usual assorted dreams.

Near dawn, however, my dreams took a strange twist;

Instead of the rambling nonsense they usually were,
My dreams suddenly jolted into "real-time";
that is, I still slept, I still dreamed, but I dreamed that I was in my own bed, at dawn,
which, in reality, was actually the case;

and I dreamt that I was awakening to a horrible sensation in my chest,
a cutting, searing sensation; it felt both hot and cold at the same time;

I dreamt that I opened my eyes and saw light creeping in around the cracks of my window,
I saw my bedroom as it would appear at dawn,
and I dreamed that I raised my head slightly and looked down at my own chest.

I dreamed that a fissure appeared in my chest,
as if being cut from within,
and a bluish light emanated from this fissure.

Suddenly, a wisp of bluish, softly-luminous mist escaped upwards from the fissure,
toward the ceiling...and was gone in a split second,
leaving the hole in my chest empty and dark.

But in that second, in that mist, I had seen something:
the face of a man, looking expressionlessly, yet consciously, at me.

I knew in that second that it was Jesus...and I knew beyond all doubt that He was leaving me,
wordlessly, emotionlessly.


I woke with a start.

My room appeared exactly as it had in my dream...dim, with early light breaking around the window.

My hand flew to my chest, which, of course, was normal.

I sat up to consider the experience.


I had been struggling with my Faith.

I hadn't denied it...I admitted it and had begged Jesus' forgiveness and help.

I had taken a leap of Faith and flung myself on His mercy...

...and He had abandoned me.


Now,


This goes against everything we've been taught about Jesus.

I had Asked, Sought, Knocked.

I had summoned what Faith I could, to admit my weakness and wretchedness,
and begged for His mercy and guidance.

And He turned His back on me.


The Atheist in me says that this dream was almost certainly just my own subconscious,
telling me what I already knew:  This religion is hypocritical useless gobbledegook
and I do not need it and am better off without its illusions and lies;

But the Christian I was raised to be, was heartbroken:

Because I wanted to believe, you see.

I just couldn't.


But here's the real poser:

Why would Jesus,
if He DOES, in fact exist,
and IS, in fact, the Son of God,
and does love me, as He is said to,
...do such a thing?

OR, conversely, if this dream was the Devil's illusion,
or just my own subconscious wrestling with the distastefulness of Religion,

IF Jesus, again REALLY exists and REALLY is who He claims to be,
Why would He ALLOW either the Devil, or my own Subconscious,
to manufacture such a horrid dream?

He would know that such a dream would make it impossible for me to ever believe in Him, again.

---

So there you have it.  That is MY EXPERIENCE OF FAITH.

Draw from that what you will.