@Christians: which questions shake your faith?

[CarsonPalmer]

Every now and then I'll struggle with the idea of heaven, contrasted to the existence of hell; specifically the possibility of me being in heaven and close friend being in hell, because to me, that would actually be more hellish than me actually being in hell (if that made any sense at all).

It isn't really something I've ever been able to logically resolve, but I like being Catholic too much (both in terms of connection to my ancestors; half-Irish/half-Italians are destined to be Catholic, and in terms of a feeling of peace and happiness I get from Mass) to actually let my doubts keep me from being one. The way I figure it, if God is the way I believe He is, it will all work out somehow, and if he's not, it won't matter very much anyway.

[Lonestar]

Just curious if some of the resident Christians might be willing to offer up that kind of information. Now be honest: you've had doubts in your life, and maybe some of them were triggered by things you heard, or maybe even arguments you got into. So what particular triggers shook your faith?

Harry Potter.


No kidding, back in the late '90s when I was in HS I was a "Rah Rah Jesus" type of guy, and got hooked on the Left Behind series of books. I had also happened to be on the HS Speech&Debate team, which is where I was first exposed to The Onion, including the infamous Harry Potter article. I immediately saw the satire, and thought it was funny. I reposted it on the Left Behind forums...

...and everyone believed it was real. Started setting of warning bells on whether or not these were the people I wanted to associate with. Over the years this board and some coworkers have done a pretty good job of eroding the foundation, and at this point I'm largely a Christian because I'm a creature of habit. Ironically my Mother has called me an "apostate", and not wanting to deal with her berating me I simply ignored her phone calls and emails for a month. I've kept my apostate-ness closer to the chest when dealing with my Grandmother, but reading in between the lines while having conversations with my Grandfather it seems as if he keeps quiet in the interest of peace in the family as well.

Very surprising and gratifying on my part to hear a 80+ So. Baptist Deacon state that he "doesn't think it's the government's place to determine the marital status between consenting adults."

[Samuel]

Snip

I'm not going to justify my beliefs to you. Mike asked about what triggers that would shake a Christian's faith. I answered that I do not have one. There, my contribution whether anyone believes or not. You on the other hand trolled and I fucking took the bait. Not anymore. You just came into this thread to stir shit up and I'm not going to pay attention to it. In fact, I'm going to stick to KAC on the subject of religion
beliefs\faith and so on.

What? Rye was pissed you were completely missrepresenting the field of transfusions and your defense is he trolled?

The fact of the matter is you said something that was false and got caught. Not logical fallacy, but an actually false statement about how the world works that can be emperically disproven.

Every now and then I'll struggle with the idea of heaven, contrasted to the existence of hell; specifically the possibility of me being in heaven and close friend being in hell, because to me, that would actually be more hellish than me actually being in hell (if that made any sense at all).

It isn't really something I've ever been able to logically resolve, but I like being Catholic too much (both in terms of connection to my ancestors; half-Irish/half-Italians are destined to be Catholic, and in terms of a feeling of peace and happiness I get from Mass) to actually let my doubts keep me from being one. The way I figure it, if God is the way I believe He is, it will all work out somehow, and if he's not, it won't matter very much anyway.

Technically that is a doubt about the doctrine that nonbelievers go to hell. Since the Catholic Church adopted the good works POV, it isn't something you will probably have to worry about. The Catholics do occassionally dump out things that don't fell fit right, which is why they added in limbo and the like.

Lonestar, can you link to the article?

[Surlethe]

Okay, pile-up on Enigma stops right now before it gets started in earnest. If Enigma and Rye want to take a specific debate on blood transfusions to the Coliseum, that would be awesome (hint, hint), but if Enigma's decided not to answer any more questions and doesn't want to continue the debate with one person, anybody not named "Rye" or "Enigma" who thinks he can get +1 board status by jumping on the exchange between them is gravely mistaken.

[Darth Wong]

Snip

I'm not going to justify my beliefs to you. Mike asked about what triggers that would shake a Christian's faith. I answered that I do not have one. There, my contribution whether anyone believes or not.

And yet, when I asked you whether you'd ever had any doubts in your entire life, you carefully answered that you do not doubt your faith. That's not an answer, and you're a liar.

You on the other hand trolled and I fucking took the bait. Not anymore. You just came into this thread to stir shit up and I'm not going to pay attention to it. In fact, I'm going to stick to KAC on the subject of religion
beliefs\faith and so on.

It's not trolling; Rye just did a lousy job of explaining how it's relevant. To be specific, it's pretty clear that you do have a trigger to shake your faith: the possibility that you might have to someday choose between your faith and your child's life. That's why, when challenged on that point, you pretend that you will never have to make this choice, because nobody ever needs a blood transfusion.

Classic dodge, which means that you have not reconciled yourself to a decision in that dilemma. Instead, you have simply chosen to bury your head in the sand and pretend that there is no dilemma at all. That smells like a trigger to me, whether you admit it or not.

[Lord Revan]

While in practice it's starting to be questionble if I could called a christian anymore (I'm officially member of the church but that's more due lazyness from my part then any faith).

what caused my current stance? Well it's so simple that most people here would ask "that's it?!" from hearing it, but after reading the bible (not something I'd recomend though) and trying to reconciliate the teachings of the church, what it says in the bible and the actions of some christians (read:fundies) I ended with one huge "WTF?!" moment and quite franky started thinking there was no point in beliving in it anymore, granted I never was a fundie myself so that helped.

[Tiriol]

But he also said that "Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." which flies in the face of anything being fulfilled until Armageddon and his return and expulsion of all evil. "Well, he did fulfill everything except the parts which he didn't, but will do at some point in some undefined future" doesn't exactly define "fulfillment" to me.

How does that "fly in the face"? Without taking this too deep into theology or derailing the thread (since I'm not heavily acquainted with theology and since the thread has nothing to do with it per se), the point I was trying to make was that there is no reason to change any jots or tittles in the law of Moses or in the prophets' words; Jesus Christ, by his sacrifice on the cross on Golgata, told that the law and the prophets would be fulfilled in the double commandment of love; and he was the perfect sacrificial offering, so to speak, to the Lord (as you may recall, the law of Moses was pretty big on sacrifices and offerings) since he had no sin in him and was innocent. He carried the burden of the sins of the world with him and cleansed them with that sacrifice (remember, that in many cultures, offering of a sacrifice is meant to make amends to a deity after having sinned) and defeated death itself, the result of the original sin.

However, I have no wish to derail this thread further; there was enough ruckus about Enigma and I don't want to create another similar debacle. If you wish to discuss this in more detail, I'm happy to do so via PMs or in a new thread entirely.

[Darth Wong]

While in practice it's starting to be questionble if I could called a christian anymore (I'm officially member of the church but that's more due lazyness from my part then any faith).

what caused my current stance? Well it's so simple that most people here would ask "that's it?!" from hearing it, but after reading the bible (not something I'd recomend though) and trying to reconciliate the teachings of the church, what it says in the bible and the actions of some christians (read:fundies) I ended with one huge "WTF?!" moment and quite franky started thinking there was no point in beliving in it anymore, granted I never was a fundie myself so that helped.

I find that the common hypocrisy of Christians is only troubling to other Christians who are already wavering to begin with. The resolute Christian simply condemns his hypocrite brethren and declares that he would never act like that (never mind that he invariably has his own hypocrisies, which he of course does not see). Either that or he clings to the whole "Salvation By Grace" doctrine and declares that we are all unworthy disgusting scum anyway, so we should praise Christ for forgiving us.

I wonder if this is a more potent trigger when it's the leadership of one's particular church which acts this way, as opposed to the rank-and-file types.

[Redleader34]

Its two things for me, the question of memory after death, since apparently I may have a gene for memory loss, and I could not function if I lost my memories, and the question of the past, why did all these horrible things have t happen to live.

[Tahlan]

Just curious if some of the resident Christians might be willing to offer up that kind of information. Now be honest: you've had doubts in your life, and maybe some of them were triggered by things you heard, or maybe even arguments you got into. So what particular triggers shook your faith?

Feel free to ask other Christians you know about this. Of course, one of the big concerns with a question like this is that there's a lot of pressure on Christians never to admit that they've ever seriously doubted.

This is not a "direct" answer to Darth Wong's question, because for myself, it is not "questions" that have shaken my faith, but experiences. And by that I mean when circumstances and illness have conspired to deprive me of all hope, where hopelessness and suicidal depression were constant companions, that is when I most questioned my faith. Perhaps the question at the time was, and this would answer Darth Wong's query, where was God in all my pain?

[Tahlan]

Hmmm, I know atheists outnumber Christian on this board, but I know there's a lot more than one (barely) Christian around here. Perhaps the cultural resistance to Christians admitting their doubts will make this thread go nowhere. I certainly suspected that might happen when I posted it. Christians are conditioned not to publicly admit doubt.

I created this thread because I was curious what Christians would consider to be the most disturbing arguments against Christianity. The problem is that this requires them to admit that anything has ever made them doubt, and while former Christians have no problem coming clean about this, practicing Christians are conditioned to think they've failed in some way if they admit such doubt.

Regarding the issue of Christians not "doubting" and being "conditioned to think" this way, I disagree on two counts. First, the mature Christians I respect, people who are mature in their faith, have never denied not doubting or ever having doubts about their faith. All have admitted to at some time having their faith shaken and tested; they have admitted to having doubts.

Second, Christians are exhorted in Philippians 2:12 to "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling..." (NIV) which means to me that Christians are to question their faith and make sure their salvation, to actually question their faith.

Admittedly, I think it is those Christians who have not thought through their faith who are the most insecure and insincere about admitting to doubts; and perhaps these are the kinds of people Darth Wong makes reference to.

As a kid I was forced to attend the most fanatical, rabid, "give conservatism a bad name," and hypocritical kind of church one could imagine. It was the archetype of so many of the stereotypical "fundies" that are lampooned and ridiculed and berated on this board (which is not necessarily a bad thing). And getting to my point, in my experience it is those kinds of people who would emphatically deny ever having doubted their faith or ever having doubts about their faith, and who would certainly condemn anyone who did. But that is my personal experience. It is not meant as a condemnation or judgment of all people who claim never to have had doubts about their faith.

[Ariphaos]

I've found that everyone has their own set of crack questions. One woman was seriously disturbed by Lot offering up his daughters to be gangraped. Another had a hard time reconciling the idea of jealousy being flawed and God being jealous. The most amusing one was a girl who had a crisis of faith solely upon learning that other people had faith just as strongly as hers.

For me, it was the hypocrisy of my 'fellow Christians'. There was very little any atheist could have done to speed or slow my leaving the church. In the end, it was entirely a half-dozen people who claimed to be Christians that soured me on Christianity more than any simple set of words.

[Darth Wong]

Regarding the issue of Christians not "doubting" and being "conditioned to think" this way, I disagree on two counts. First, the mature Christians I respect, people who are mature in their faith, have never denied not doubting or ever having doubts about their faith. All have admitted to at some time having their faith shaken and tested; they have admitted to having doubts.

Good for them. Honesty is an excellent virtue for people of any faith. Unfortunately, this is highly contrary to my experience, and I've visited quite a few different types of churches, ranging from Pentecostal to Baptist, Mennonite, and even Jehovah's Witness.

Second, Christians are exhorted in Philippians 2:12 to "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling..." (NIV) which means to me that Christians are to question their faith and make sure their salvation, to actually question their faith.

Admittedly, I think it is those Christians who have not thought through their faith who are the most insecure and insincere about admitting to doubts; and perhaps these are the kinds of people Darth Wong makes reference to.

As a kid I was forced to attend the most fanatical, rabid, "give conservatism a bad name," and hypocritical kind of church one could imagine. It was the archetype of so many of the stereotypical "fundies" that are lampooned and ridiculed and berated on this board (which is not necessarily a bad thing). And getting to my point, in my experience it is those kinds of people who would emphatically deny ever having doubted their faith or ever having doubts about their faith, and who would certainly condemn anyone who did. But that is my personal experience. It is not meant as a condemnation or judgment of all people who claim never to have had doubts about their faith.

Perhaps that is why I have experienced so many Christians who so doggedly refuse to admit doubt. The kind of person who most strongly and publicly advertises his Christianity is also likely to be the kind of aggressive "doesn't know what introspection means" Christian that you're talking about. Christians whose faith is more private don't talk about it at all, and as a general rule, I don't bring up the issue of personal faith in conversation until the other person does.

[Dominus Iesus]

Perhaps that is why I have experienced so many Christians who so doggedly refuse to admit doubt. The kind of person who most strongly and publicly advertises his Christianity is also likely to be the kind of aggressive "doesn't know what introspection means" Christian that you're talking about. Christians whose faith is more private don't talk about it at all, and as a general rule, I don't bring up the issue of personal faith in conversation until the other person does.

People don't like to think that they are even a little bit different from their peers in any way. It could be religion, sports knowledge, or sexual experience that is the speciality of the week since it doesn't matter. It's all the same how the average guy becomes a perfect shining example of what his group's idea of a "perfect" one is. Truth is a very flexible thing when you got guys into the mode of "standing around the water cooler shooting the shit" mindset. Plus there is the need to be socially conformitive to the bare minimum of holier than thou is.

To answer the question of the thread, I do have an issue with some things that I read in the Bible and am apt to ask questions. I don't like how the Christian religion is being combined with Republican politics and a nuerotic fear of sexuality. I don't think that is even all of the problems one can have, let alone express. When you are in a circle of friends sometimes the pressure can make people conform without fully being commited to what they claim to believe. You find this in places where Christianity is a social thing and not a actual religion (as in some parts of the US). When you have Christianity in other countries it can sometimes not be so bad and sometimes worse than in America. It's a very large group of people who all profess a similar belief. The varying types of people are almost inevitable.

[Covenant]

People don't like to think that they are even a little bit different from their peers in any way. It could be religion, sports knowledge, or sexual experience that is the speciality of the week since it doesn't matter. It's all the same how the average guy becomes a perfect shining example of what his group's idea of a "perfect" one is. Truth is a very flexible thing when you got guys into the mode of "standing around the water cooler shooting the shit" mindset. Plus there is the need to be socially conformitive to the bare minimum of holier than thou is.

This isn't universal, and I find it a fairly strange notion to have. It's got nothing to do with this thread, but I'd certainly like people to realize that there's a good portion of your fellows who don't mind if they're not the same as everyone else, or perfect, or any of that. Conformity is a very weak rationale for behavior, so don't be a vicitm to such a nonsensical limitaiton. This sounds like a Highschooler's imperfect perspective, or someone from Salt Lake where there's no room for dissent without total social ostracism.

[Tahlan]

Perhaps that is why I have experienced so many Christians who so doggedly refuse to admit doubt. The kind of person who most strongly and publicly advertises his Christianity is also likely to be the kind of aggressive "doesn't know what introspection means" Christian that you're talking about. [emphasis added] Christians whose faith is more private don't talk about it at all, and as a general rule, I don't bring up the issue of personal faith in conversation until the other person does.

Sadly, what you say is oh so true. I have learned to run the other way when approached by a Christian who wears his/her Christianity on their sleeve. Trust me...in my experience they are the worst kind of people. Some would condemn me for saying that, but it's an unfortunate truth. It is this type of Christian (many of whom would be classified as "fundies") who in my experience are the most hypocritical, dogmatic, and unforgiving people I have ever met (and let me add dishonest to the list). They do more damage to the Christian faith, and alienate more people from Christianity, than any other factor I can think of.

[sketerpot]

When I was a Christian I always had trouble with the doctrine that all sins are equal in God's eyes. This was the official line that everybody in my church had to parrot, but it's an obviously idiotic position. Some of the conversations I had with people about it are hilarious in retrospect, because of how uncomfortable they were trying to doggedly maintain that saying "damn it" is every bit as bad as eating children alive.

That was seriously awkward.

[Justforfun000]

Interesting points and my take on them:

"My real faith-breaker was simple rationality: faith, in itself, is not rational. It's belief that is not based on evidence. To paraphrase the Bible itself, faith is certainty in things hoped for without any reason for such confidence. It is by definition unreasonable because there is no objective reason for confidence in faith-based beliefs."

What's completely hypocritical about this admonishion is that it's only insisted upon to those who missed the actual life and miracles of Christ, the parting of the Red Sea by Moses, etc. THESE people weren't told they had to have "faith". They had actual demonstrations of supernatural (or divine if you will) events. That's not really fair is it? Assuming for the moment that Christ truly healed cripples, raised people from the dead including himself, and even had his one of apostles thrust their hands into his wounds after he returned from the grave.

From the Holy book itself:

20:25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

20:26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: [then] came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace [be] unto you.

20:27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust [it] into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

20:28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

Well that's wonderful...for THOMAS! None of these people directly involved needed 'faith'..they had demonstrative PROOF that these prophets and the Christ were able to do things completely unexplainable and beyond natural law. Of course this was more than enough for them to become believers.

But what kind of fairness is that?? Why the fuck do these people get the whole thing proven beyond a shadow of the doubt, yet countless generations of people, especially those foreign in culture and religion, are admonished to simply take total hearsay as absolute truth to the exclusion of all other objective evidence that not only lacks support for these wild claims that would invalidate physics and biology for starters, but are thousands of years old with no further developments or miracles of any validated corroboration to this type of dogma?

If we all stand equal before God as it is claimed by church doctrine and the Lord is "no respector of persons", than why did they get such a special proof handed to them on a silver platter? Would they have become converts and professed their belief as fervently as they did if they were simply told to 'believe' everything because he said so? I highly doubt it!

So scripture suggests those who (like Thomas), reasonably want even a SHRED of evidence to support this claim are oh so wrong and in for a big, unpleasant surprise if they don't shut off their brain, toss their critical thinking capabilities out the window and just believe. How unfair can you be? It's crazy.

"There is no faith that is not blind, and I was no logner able to consider faith as valid support for conclusions, given that faith-based beliefs have a rather poor track record as far as accuracy is concerned. Having greater confidence in an assertion than any other made-up assertion without any correspondingly greater amount of objective evidence is simply not rational. Nothing makes you doubt your beliefs quite so much as realizing that your beliefs are completely irrational."

Amen.

""Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." "

Even though in context with his previous quote of saying he did come to do away with the prophets or the law, that in itself was kind of vague. Jesus already specifically contradicted a commandment from the old testament. It said originally that the Sabbath was holy and if you worked on it you would be put to death. That's pretty damn straightforward and judgemental with no wiggle room that I can see. Yet Jesus directly challenged this commandment. After the Pharisees criticized Jesus for allowing his disciples to pick some grain on the Sabbath day, Jesus said, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27)

Well if he was able to mitigate the understanding of the law to something FAR less absolute and inalterable, than it stands to reason that he professed to a greater understanding of the law and what ones were actually set in stone, or even possibly misunderstood...as in oh...let see...maybe scriptural errors in records?

So maybe his statements above only refer to the ACTUAL laws of impotance and if I remember correctly did he not say that the only two commandments of absolute importance were to "Love the Lord thy God with all your, heart, mind, body and soul and your neighbour as yourself"? Something like that...I read the entire Bible years ago and studied it a lot throughout the years when I was a believer.

So in the more moderate belief dogma espoused by Liberal Christians, his words above could have been much more specific in meaning then a blanket approval of the Entire Old Testament and every word it contained.

[TimothyC]

"What about those who never had the chance to know of Christ?" is the one thing that troubles me (that I am willing to admit to anyway).

[Darth Wong]

"What about those who never had the chance to know of Christ?" is the one thing that troubles me (that I am willing to admit to anyway).

How many Christians are willing to admit to themselves that if they had grown up in a different culture, they'd believe something completely different? Are most Christians sufficiently self-aware to realize that those little catch phrases they find so compelling (like "Jesus died for your sins") do not have the same effect on (for example) a Buddhist? Or do they honestly believe that they can just say those words and a lifelong Buddhist would suddenly say "Oh my, I see the light now, what you're saying makes so much sense! I can't believe no one ever told me about this before!"

I know the really hardline fundies believe that, but they're imbeciles. I just wonder how many "normal" Christians understand how culturally dependent their beliefs (and their opinions of the credibility of those beliefs) are.

[Tiriol]

"What about those who never had the chance to know of Christ?" is the one thing that troubles me (that I am willing to admit to anyway).

How many Christians are willing to admit to themselves that if they had grown up in a different culture, they'd believe something completely different? Are most Christians sufficiently self-aware to realize that those little catch phrases they find so compelling (like "Jesus died for your sins") do not have the same effect on (for example) a Buddhist? Or do they honestly believe that they can just say those words and a lifelong Buddhist would suddenly say "Oh my, I see the light now, what you're saying makes so much sense! I can't believe no one ever told me about this before!"

I know the really hardline fundies believe that, but they're imbeciles. I just wonder how many "normal" Christians understand how culturally dependent their beliefs (and their opinions of the credibility of those beliefs) are.

I think that it isn't that big a deal for moderate (European) Christians, at least those who give it any thought: I, for one, am quite secure in the knowledge that if I had been born in, say, a Chinese family, Christian doctrine would be considerably more alien (and dubious) than it is now. I think that's the reason why Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons do their door-to-door conversion and are willing to spend considerable time with their chosen wards: it's not easy to convert someone, even if they already have some inkling of your faith.

Then, of course, we have the fundamentalists and people who have never even thought about this (barring those who are just Christians out of habit)... Europe is not free of them, not by a long shot.

[18-Till-I-Die]

If by "faith" you mean, have i ever doubted that God exists, then no i have not.

I have, several times, doubted that Christianity or most if not all religions were 'real' (i.e, actually understood God's will) but i never actually stopped believing in God.

Though frankly my view of God is quite distant from most religious people, and possibly closer to a sort of polytheism (i'm not willing, nor able to justify to myself, ruling out the existence of multiple, mutually opposing Gods or pantheons of Gods) so yeah...

But if you mean have i ever doubted that God or pantheons thereof existed, then no i haven't. If by "faith" you mean, have i ever doubted Christianity, yes considerably. Somewhat more so when i was younger, though even now i tend to dismiss anything a lot of the traditional trappings of American religious belief because, frankly, it simply doesn't go with what Jesus outright said he believed. Jesus was, for example, big on charity and pacifism while modern religious Americans tend to fall into the Conservative camp...ya know, the one with the militarism and selfishnes...i mean "fiscal conservitism". Somehow i doubt if Christ came back today he'd appreciate being used as a marketing tool for the GOP, since his stance on...everything tends to clash with theirs.

[The Big I]

People don't like to think that they are even a little bit different from their peers in any way. It could be religion, sports knowledge, or sexual experience that is the speciality of the week since it doesn't matter. It's all the same how the average guy becomes a perfect shining example of what his group's idea of a "perfect" one is. Truth is a very flexible thing when you got guys into the mode of "standing around the water cooler shooting the shit" mindset. Plus there is the need to be socially conformitive to the bare minimum of holier than thou is.

This isn't universal, and I find it a fairly strange notion to have. It's got nothing to do with this thread, but I'd certainly like people to realize that there's a good portion of your fellows who don't mind if they're not the same as everyone else, or perfect, or any of that. Conformity is a very weak rationale for behavior, so don't be a vicitm to such a nonsensical limitaiton. This sounds like a Highschooler's imperfect perspective, or someone from Salt Lake where there's no room for dissent without total social ostracism.

Just to take this thread a bit off topic but really Covenant you've never come across the need to be socially conformitive amonst your mates/work mates? In my experience it's pretty universal everyone does it when they are around their mates/ workmates. Then again it may just be an Aussie thing.

[Darth Paxis]

Leviticus 18. Specifically the part about killing homosexuals.

Also, Asshole Christians who are blind to other's beliefs. I fully realize that other beliefs have merit and if I was raised somewhere else it I would believe something else. It's even worse when they try to disguise it, which I have seen many times.

As to whether my faith in God has been questioned, the answer is no.

[Surlethe]

I'm curious - why haven't you questioned your faith in God? Do you have any doubts at all? If you don't, why don't you? Are you incurious or used to blind belief?