Hmm just had a bit of wandering around monotheism and theism thingie.. After I put up my first post, I’ve had four interesting conversations with my friends, interestingly, two of them claim to be atheist and another two are my fellow church members so its 50-50 lol. To be honest I’m not a person with a very great memory so I might forget (maybe I already am) some of the things being argued. Nonetheless I’ll try my best to list few of them here.
1. If atheist and religious people are equal in belief (only differ in the object of belief), why bother to be a religious one?
2. Which God? There are monotheistic, polytheistic, pantheistic, deistic and so forth. Why one belief over another?
3. Science vs religion? Why don’t we think of God as merely another psychological byproduct of humans’ intellectual development?
4. Why such a loving God will permit terrible, monstrous disaster that brings forth horror to His beloved humans? Why God allows the nuclear war, tsunami, earthquakes, terrorist bombings, holocaust etc?
5. If God does exist, why Christianity? How can Christian say for sure that other religion is wrong, dare to declare such a strong statement as the only religion that possesses the truth?
6. Why Jesus Christ, a man born in about 2 millenia ago, as equal to God? Can’t He be similar to other prophets or highly respected leaders in other religions?
7. If God is so full of love, why is He so ruthless during the Old Testament? Why even create hell is the form of eternal punishment?
8. Even so, why God is so picky in the New Testament? Why does He distinguish only Israel? Why God permits slavery? Why the merciless wars between nations and the genocides?
You can see that we’ve shifted the topic from q1-4 which mainly dwells on issue around God’s existence toward q5-8 which casts stronger doubt on what sets Christianity apart from all other religions? At the bottom of everything, it comes to the only one and only question: Why Christian’s God?
Frankly, I can’t really provide any useful answer to all these questions since I’m perfectly aware that I am no God myself. It’s not possible for any human being to know everything on earth. The logic goes like this: If God’s the only perfection who’s knowledgeable of all the reasons and circumstances, then no matter how intense we try to understand His purposes and intentions, we won’t find the answer cause we’re no God! And it returns to the importance of belief, and our personal choice. Some decide to believe in His existence, some don’t. As simple as that.
Just for your information, we have 13 why-s during those 8 questions. Why is my favourite. With a single why, the world is progressing forward; we create more and use more all the while thinking we’re using less. In this digital era news are spreading around in a speed of sound and its all thanks to the findings and advancement of technology, a consequence of millions of people with why-s in the world. On this, I’m deeply indebted toward those who creates computer and internet cause otherwise I won’t be able to spend my time leisurely using internet (specially facebook and youtube) :P
Let’s dwell on the answers later. For the time being, enjoy the multitude of opinions we have here ~~ ;D
First, keep in mind that our brain size is only as big as a piece of pork bun, so it's impossible for us to fully understand God of the universe..
ReplyDeleteSecond, you are not the first one to ask those kind of questions... So the good thing is you can find a lot of resources to read.
1. Do you believe that men comprise of body, soul and spirit... and not just walking water balloons or somewhat a more intelligent kind of animal? If you do then automatically you're gonna prefer not to be an atheist.
2. God I believe is God above all. He can't deny His own omnipotence. Therefore multiple Gods are extremely unlikely.
3. Do you know that science is somewhat supernatural? To some extent, you just have to believe that science is true. I've posted a note about this stuff on fb a few weeks ago.
4. Now when God created the earth, it was all good. Do you know that our ancestors once lived without ever seeing rain? It was men and sin that have destroyed it. Many disasters are caused by men themselves.
The loving God you know is on the other hand a just God. He didn't create men to be His robots, so we are allowed to choose what to do with our lives. Yet I personally believe that God uses natural disaster to demonstrate His power to people. Often He does it to rebuke them.
5. I won't see Christian as a religion. Now at the centre of Christianity we have Christ as the head. He was the one that made such statement saying that He's the truth.
Religion can be defined as human's way to approach God. The cross which is the core teaching of Christianity is rather God's way to approach man. On both cases, they are trying to create relationship between the two. If I've got to choose, I'll definitely choose the second because no matter how good we are, we can't match God's perfect standard.
6. If I have to follow a man, I wouldn't want to follow a dead man. Christ resurrected, the others don't.
7-8. Hell is initially meant for the fallen angels. Human goes there because of their sins.
I feel that you need to learn that God is not just a loving God but a just and holy God. So He can't tolerate sins at all.