Prologue: "Faith moves no mountains but puts
mountains where there are none..." (Nietzsche, The Antichrist, aphorism
51)
This book, or rather, this website of a
book is about many things. Chiefly, it is about atheism, Christian faith, and
God. The purpose is to show how Christians make mistakes when they make claims
about faith, or what I call "faith claims." In other words, they try
to fill voids with faith. They answer problematic questions, or otherwise
blatant falsities with faith.
Suppose
someone asks a Christian for an explanation of this troublesome question: How
could God possibly hear and understand all of the people of the world when they
pray? The Christian would reply, "well, we must have faith that he does
hear us. (Afterall, God is supposed to be able to do
anything and everything.)" But, have you ever been in a crowded room where
everyone was talking at once? You couldn't understand what each individual
person was saying. And they were probably all speaking English. Faith argues
that God can pick out what every individual is saying at the same time, in
different languages, and be able to answer every single prayer. So, which of
these two arguments makes more sense: God hears and translates everyone at the
same time and answers them, or God can't hear prayers at all because they are
too jumbled with noise. The problem with this type of reliance on answering
troublesome questions with faith is that not only do Christians delude themselves
into a false sense of security, but this type of "bad faith" is
unfounded and unhealthy.
Chapter 1: Examples of Faith Claims
a. Using
Faith as a Connection Between Experience and God
In
truth, when it comes to religion, it is impossible to "know" that anything
is true. Rather, religious followers can only believe in God and have faith.
This is also true with atheism. We can't "know" either way, we can
only believe that there is no God. However, when someone asks a Christian,
"How do you 'know' that God hears you, or at least exists?" They
answer with faith, where as atheists would answer with solid evidence and
practical realism. In this since, what I mean is that while neither the atheist
nor the Christian can prove that they know the truth, this book will argue that
the belief that God does not exist is much more likely than the belief that he
does exist. There is more evidence and more solid truth for this probability
than there is for God's existence.
Some
Christians answer that they experience God through prayer or so-called
"miracles" or through everyday occurrences, such as a beautiful
sunset. However, this experience is subjective and non-philosophical. This is
true because I certainly don't experience God's presence in any of these things.
I haven't experienced an answered prayer (believe me I've tried), nor any
miracles, nor do I feel God's presence in beautiful things. People experience
different things when it comes to religion, and in order to believe that what
they experience is true, they must have faith that it is true, not just
empirical "evidence." (I put this in quotes because it is not really
evidence, but rather a leap of faith that causes these experiences to become
evidence of God.)
In
other words, what happens is that Christians tend to think that they can
experience God, when in reality they are experiencing their own faith. Their
use of experiencing God as evidence of his existence is really just using faith
to fill the gap between a beautiful experience, or a "miracle," and
God's existence. They use the experience as empirical evidence but they wrongly
attribute that to God. They jump to the conclusion that it was God. This is
what I call a leap of faith--when people have experiences that they attribute
to God and there is no necessary connection between the experiences and God.
Faith is what makes this connection. In order to prove that God exists
Christians have to rely on faith to make the necessary connection. Thus what
they really have proven when they say they "experience" God, is that
their faith in God exists, not that God himself exists.
Witness
this example. My girlfriend is a Christian who claims to have experienced God.
She said that she experienced his presence when she had to decide to either
stay in an abusive relationship with someone she loved or end the relationship.
She made the correct choice and ended the relationship because, she says, she
felt that it was God who pointed her in the right direction, or
"told" her which was the better choice. This was her experience of
God. But, truly, this was a leap of faith. She jumped to the conclusion that it
was God that helped her decide when there was no connection between her
decision and God at all. Rather, she made the decision, had faith that God
exists and is good, and this led her to the belief that it was God who led her
to her decision. She filled the gap between the decision and the seemingly
arbitrary choice she made, with her faith that God exists. She couldn't explain
her decision so she made the leap of faith that it was God who showed her what
she must choose.
Couldn't
it also be the case, and also the simple explanation, that she really didn't
want to be in this abusive relationship anymore no matter how much she loved
the person? Even though she couldn't explain her decision without the leap of
faith, isn't it possible that her innate value of self-preservation kicked in,
or that deep in her mind, she truly did want the relationship to be over, but
this thought was something she couldn't possibly accept?
b. God as a
Criminal Against Humanity
The interesting thing about Christian
faith is that it allows people to believe and have faith in a God that allows
bad things to happen. Take these examples: the Holocaust, or closer to American
Christians--violent serial killers, earthquakes, and plane crashes. Now, if I
had a friend who KNOWINGLY ALLOWED tremendously bad things to happen to me or
people I know, then this "friend" would no longer be my friend. And
so it is with God. We supposedly have a God who KNOWINGLY ALLOWS tremendously
bad things to happen, and yet this all powerful, all-knowing God does nothing
about it. He knows these things happen and willingly allows them to continue,
he is able to prevent them, and yet he doesn't use this great power for any use.
This supposed God is not my friend. If anyone had a friend that willingly
allowed these things to happen they would no longer associate with that
person.
This
is why it is a mystery to me why Christians should think that such a powerful
supposed God is so wonderful and loving. If someone on earth had allowed some
of the things that God has allowed, then that person on earth would be executed
for unspeakable crimes. For instance, God knowingly allowed the Holocaust and
Hitler to exist, he allows plane crashes, oil spills, rape, molestation, he
allowed Stalin and the KGB to exist, every mass murderer, every abusive person,
etc etc. If a person on earth knew about each of
these circumstances and had a chance to prevent them, they would be sent to the
gas chamber, or better yet the firing squad. This person would no longer exist
because of the crimes they had committed against humanity. And so it is with
God. His existence can only allow for the fact that he is at the same time a
terrible criminal against humanity.
c. Faith
Claims That Attempt to Answer Questions of Existence
Returning to the idea of faith filling
voids, we see that faith is used to answer questions that are otherwise too
scary to face or impossible to answer. Christians have a nasty habit of explaining
away things they can't understand with faith. Such questions include "Why
am I here?" or "How was the world created, and why?" Because
they can't explain or answer these questions, they make a faith claim. These
answers can't be answered by fact. The answers are either self-created,
("invented," to use Sartre's terminology) or answered by faith in
God.
Now
the problem with this is that Christians have to use faith claims to answer
existence questions, and that in doing so, they don't really answer the
questions at all. Nietzsche says that for Christians, there is "criterion
of truth that is called the proof of strength." Christians say that those
who believe and have faith are blessed, "faith makes blessed: hence it is
true. Here one might object first that it is precisely the making blessed which
is not proved but promised. Blessedness tied to the condition of faith: one
shall become blessed because one believes. But whether what the priest promises
the believer in fact occurs in a 'beyond' which is not subject to any test, how
is that proved? The alleged proof of strength is thus at bottom merely another
faith, namely, that the effect one expects from faith will not fail to
appear." (Nietzsche, The Antichrist, aphorism 50)
Q.
"Why are we here?" A. "Because I have faith that God created us
and that he will take me to heaven if I am a good Christian." But what if
faith doesn't make any sense, as in the Nietzsche example? What if faith is in
reality a lie to oneself to cover-up the fact that we are here by chance? Faith
is used so that humans don't have to ask themselves such "scary
questions." It is a safety blanket. To use Nietzsche's words, faith is a
"distorted and dishonest perspective to begin with." When Christians
use faith to answer "scary" questions, it amounts to the
"closing of one's eyes to oneself once and for all, lest one suffer the
sight of incurable falsehood." In fact faith "forbids the theologian
to respect reality at any point, or even let it get a word in...Faith means not
wanting to know what is true." Thus, with Nietzsche's help, we see how
faith is used as a dishonest security blanket. (ibid., aphorism 9,52)
Christians
can't see that the problem with faith claims is that when they are used, they
are used to fill voids, not strengthen belief. They dupe themselves into
believing that God exists. He exists because they have faith that he hears them
and interacts with them in their lives. But what about people who have waited
and waited and waited for God's answers, and have waited until they are so weak
and powerless that they have nothing left but their unanswered faith. Isn't
there a time when such a person has to stop waiting for God and say "I'm
tired of duping myself with faith. I am going to go it on my own and do something
without waiting for God's answer." Shouldn't that person pick themself up and do things without God's "help,"
or rather lack of help? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to say "I'm tired
of lying to myself, of deluding myself, now I must live!"?
Which
seems more obvious: God is testing me by not answering my prayer quickly and
obviously; "he works in mysterious ways," or that he doesn't answer
my prayer because he is not really there, and my faith is just a security
blanket.
Once
you let go of the security blanket of faith claims, you realize that the shroud
of naivity is gone. You no longer trust what people
say just because they say so, and this is a grand enlightenment indeed. One of
the problems with faith, is that it doesn't allow you to drop misplaced trust. Faith
begins because we learn about God from church, and we trust and believe
whatever we are told. We believe in God at first because we are told to
believe. We are told that he exists, and we believe everything we are told.
What fools we'd be if we applied this to everyday life, trusting and believing
anything anyone told us.
d. Why
Should Christians Have Faith in God?
Christians have faith in a God that
apparently "works in mysterious ways" and "tests" us by
usually not answering prayers quickly or directly. Any time God's existence
comes into question, or some impossible trait is attributed to God, they answer
the problem with faith. They lie to themselves time and time again because they
can't accept that he might not exist. This is called faith. They have a blind
faith that he protects them and the world. How can they lie time after time and
still believe? Because the alternative is too devastating for them to handle.
They will not accept the alternative. And so, the only thing they have left to
cling to is faith.
It
is said that faith can uphold one in bad times. However, what if one can uphold
one's self in bad times? Wouldn't that be a true from of strength and personal
power? This is partly Nietzsche's concept, and it certainly has its problems,
but we can water down Nietzsche's overman concept.
All we have to do is accept the alternative to faith, and then we will see that
the need for faith is no longer necessary. The alternative is that we can
accept this world for what it is and live with what we have. Once this is
accepted, we no longer need faith anymore, because we have the strongest form
of self-assurance: that we can do things on our own.
Now
this all sounds nice and cozy coming from some "arm-chair
philosopher." And yes, maybe this sort of self-reliance does not work for
some hopeless inner city person. On the other hand, we see several examples of
the poor rising up and taking command of their lives. O.J Simpson for instance,
while he may not be the best example! I can understand environmental detriments
to the ability for one to have self-reliance, and then they can only turn to
God for "salvation." Nonetheless, the physical ability to rely on
oneself is there, and there doesn't have to be a reliance on faith in God when
that reliance can be more beneficial when directed toward the self. The only
difference between faith in God and self-reliance is that people can't think
they can do something, so they turn to faith. However, if they can believe in
themselves, then they can get the same "power" that they would get
from relying on God. I argue that Christians would get the same result from
their prayers whether they prayed and relied on God to answer or whether they
relied on themselves to make the answer happen. In this last sense,
self-reliance can be even more powerful because it is something real, not
something they have to make up in the imagination.
Some
might argue that so-called self-reliance doesn't help situations that are
beyond our control that faith can help, such as healing for someone's injury.
But I argue that prayers for healing are just as arbitrary as hoping for french fries at lunch. Regardless of whether one prays or
not, the outcome will not be changed. What I mean is there is no difference
between praying for someone to be healed and not having it happen, and not
praying and not having it happen. Just as there is no difference between
praying and the healing occurring and not praying and the healing occurring
anyway. I think we can certainly hope for things, but in any sense, this will
not effect the outcome. The only thing that will effect it is human action. I
think Christians only become more disappointed when they pray hard and nothing
happens, than if an atheist doesn't pray and nothing happens. In the second
case, the atheist isn't expecting anything to happen anyway, and so when
nothing does, he isn't surprised or disappointed.
We
can turn to a story from Anthony Flew to illustrate this point:
"Two
explorers came upon a clearing in a jungle. In the clearing were growing many
flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, 'some gardener must tend this plot.'
The other disagrees, 'There is no gardener.' So they pitch their tents and set
a watch. No gardener is ever seen. 'But perhaps he is an invisible gardener.'
So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with
bloodhounds. But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a
shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The
bloodhounds never give cry. Yet still the believer is not convinced. 'But there
is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible to electric shocks, a gardener
who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look
after the garden which he loves.' At last the Skeptic despairs, 'But what
remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible,
intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or
even no gardener at all?' " (Flew "Theology and Falsification"
from Twenty Questions, pg 30)
So
we see with this story that the only difference between an invisible,
intangible, elusive gardener and an imaginary gardener is that we must have
faith in the invisible gardener. And it is the same with God and prayers. The
only difference between an invisible, intangible, elusive God that answers
prayers and an imaginary God is faith. And so, as has been mentioned before,
the only thing that is truly proven by such claims as those made by the
believing explorer is that faith in the gardener or faith in God exists, and
not the existence of the actual gardener or God.
At
this point, some Christians bring in so-called "scientific studies"
to show that faith actually helps to "heal" people. These are highly
questionable studies, and one wonders whether these people wouldn't be of more
use trying to find a cure for cancer or AIDS. First of all, we can assume that
the scientists doing such studies are in fact Christians, or they wouldn't be
doing the study in the first place. And even if they aren't it doesn't matter
as we shall see. Now it seems to me that the purpose for such a study, is to
prove something that these people ALREADY BELIEVE IN! My point here is this:
regardless of what data the "scientists" found, they would have
slanted it in such a way as to prove their hypothesis anyway. I do it all the
time in science class. When I know what the answer is supposed to be, and I
haven't come up with the right one in my experiments, I'll fudge the results
anyway, so it looks like I did it right. These studies are the same thing.
These scientists are already bias, and there is no way their study will be
published if it comes out that prayer and faith has no effect on the injured.
That would be too controversial. We already have examples of this type of
scientific dishonesty. For example, throughout history, "scientists"
tried to show how blacks are a scientifically inferior race. In these studies
they "proved" that blacks have smaller brain capacities and just
aren't as smart as white people. Where the scientists white? YES! Did they mess
around with their data and observations to get the conclusion they wanted? YES!
You see, no matter how much these types of scientists try to be honest, they
already have the answer in mind and no amount of empirical evidence to the
contrary is going to change that. They'll get the answers, and say, "Now
that can't be right" just as I do in science class, and change them so
that the answer is the one they want. They alter the observations to what they
want to be true. That is why scientific studies in faith or race, or any other
concept where emotions are involved, are not to be trusted.
e. Faith in
Miracles
One of the more interesting things
about faith is that it allows for the belief in God-inspired miracles. Three of
the most famous of these are divine conception, Jesus' feeding of the 5000 (a
personal favorite of mine) and Jesus' Resurrection. Divine conception will
really be dealt with in my chapter on Mary, but it deserves a few opening
comments and questions here. Why do we believe that Mary told the truth about
the angel coming to her? Why should we believe Mary at all? I've known a lot of
dishonest virgins. Innocence means nothing. Especially if it is a belief in
innocence. In fact, who is to say that Mary was even a virgin? At any rate,
these questions can only be answered with an appeal to the Bible that will be
closely looked at in chapter 6.
One
of my favorite passages in Matthew is that the number of those who ate at
feeding of the 5000, "was about five thousand men, BESIDES WOMEN AND
CHILDREN," as if women and children didn't eat that much! (from The New
International Version Matthew, 14:21) Jesus seemed to do this sort of thing a
lot as one chapter later we read the feeding of the 4000 (men). I think Jesus
was an economist. How is it that we have 5 loaves of bread and two fish at the
party of 5000+ and a whopping 12 baskets of bread left over, and yet 7 loaves
"and a few small fish" at the party of 4000+ and have only seven
baskets left over? We have more bread, presumably more fish, and yet fewer left
overs. Jesus must have realized after the first
feeding that he asked God for too much, and being the economist that he is,
asked God for less the second time.
Now,
the argument is, "well it's not an exact science type of thing." This
too is my argument. What if the number is an over estimate? What if it was only
500 and 400, or only 50 and 40? My argument is that I seriously doubt anyone
took a census while they were eating, and I don't think any of the gospel
writers had much of a right to say that "about 5000 men" and oh lets
say about "12 baskets," when they probably had no clue and had to
make numbers up. Anyway, the exactness of the account isn't what's important,
but the fact that we had a "miracle" where counting was involved in
"about" the year 30 A.D., and that the story is fuzzy doesn't
help.
Nonetheless,
it is clear that the simple argument is this: we don't know what Jesus had up
his sleeve. He could have had the bread buried or behind a tree, or a shed or,
or, or.....just as our great TV evangelists have today. The only thing we have
to rely on is the story the Bible gives us; the TV picture that the Bible gives
us. We don't know what's behind stage or hooked up to wires. The people there, and
for that matter the Gospel writers, simply used a faith claim. Jesus fed the
people with just a few loaves of bread and it was a miracle from God. But it's
faith that makes this connection, not empirical proof. As said, Jesus could
have deceived everyone there. The only connection between the occurrence of the
feeding and God's involvement is faith. Thus, if you believe in miracles,
you're not believing in the miracle itself, but rather you are believing in the
faith of those who experienced the miracle. In other words, you have faith in
other people's faith that they experienced a miracle that could only have been
linked to God with faith. This is a faith claim, and again, it only proves the
existence of faith, not that the miracle in fact happened.
The
same type of argument can be used against other similar "miracles,"
such as Jesus' Resurrection, divine intervention, and near-death
"experiences." Jesus rose on the third day after he died, according
to the Bible. But the only evidence that shows us this is that the tomb was
empty. Now I realize that he appeared to several people after the fact. But are
these two things really enough to show that Jesus was really resurrected? No
because it is another faith claim. What if these early Christians realized that
the only way to immortalize Jesus was to come up with such stories of his Resurection, as he had prophesied? They wanted the prophecy
to be true so badly that they invented things so that it would seem true. Afterall, it's difficult to believe in a son of God whose
prophecy did not come true. In the end, Christians of today can only have faith
that these early Christians were telling the truth, and that the Romans in fact
did not take Jesus' body out of the tomb, which they might have, as Mary
suspected. I'm not saying that I know either way, but I am saying that the only
way Christians "know" is by faith, which merely means that they have
once again proved faith, not Jesus' Resurrection. As Nietzsche would say,
"when we hear the old bells ringing out on a Sunday morning, we ask
ourselves, can it be possible? This is for a Jew, crucified 2000 years ago, who
said he was the son of God. The proof for such a claim is wanting."
(Human, All too Human, section 113)
The
movie Pulp Fiction offers us a good illustration of divine intervention. Two
gangster characters played by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta are nearly
both shot by a man with a "hand cannon" (a rather large gun). They
are standing in this room after killing two men who wronged their boss, and suddenly
a third man comes out from a concealed room and fires six shots at Jackson and
Travolta from an easy range with no obstacles. Not a single bullet hits the
pair, who proceed to shoot down the man. They turn around and see where the six
bullets hit the wall behind them. Jackson believes this to be divine
intervention: God stopped the bullets from hitting the gangsters. Thus, Jackson
now plans to quit the gangster life and follow the will of God. Travolta, on
the other hand, says, "things like that just happen," and that God
had nothing to do with stopping the bullets. The guy with the hand cannon just
missed them. What Travolta doesn't fully illustrate is that Jackson's new found
faith is founded on a faith claim. He experienced the bullets missing him, and
connected that to divine intervention. The only connection between the two was
Jackson's faith.
Let's
discuss one more miracle, that of near-death experiences. It is said that those
who come close to dying and then survive often "see a white light" or
they touch the hand of God, or some other such claim. Immediately we see these
people mistakenly attribute that light to God or heaven. What if that light is
the fire of hell, or just the lights of the hospital, etc etc?
Or better yet, a dream/mental picture? The only thing that connects the
experience of the light and God is faith. Some say, "well what about
studies that show that all these people have the same experiences?" Once
again, the appeal to science is made, and once again I have to argue that these
studies are questionable on the basis of the bias of the scientists doing the
study. (see "Why Should Christians have Faith..." above).
f. Bible
Stories
A major problem I've always had with
the Bible is that it is called "the word of God," and yet the word of
the most perfect being is so imperfect! Take this example from Mark 9:42:
"if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it
would be better for him to be THROWN INTO THE SEA WITH A LARGE MILLSTONE TIED
AROUND HIS NECK." So we are meant to drown our sinful enemies; Jesus, that
pacifist! What kind of "perfect" word is that? "If your hand
causes you to sin, CUT IT OFF. It is better for you to enter life maimed than
with two hands to go into hell, WHERE THE FIRE NEVER GOES OUT. And if your foot
causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life CRIPPLED than
to have two feet and be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin,
PLUCK IT OUT. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of god with one eye
than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell where the worm does not die, AND
THE FIRE IS NEVER QUENCHED." (Mark 9:43-48) The Bible condemns itself for
the destructive, self-depreciating, masochistic book that it is. What kind of a
God knowingly makes free humans that are not perfect and then tells us to
injure ourselves and kill others because of our imperfections? What love is
this? What perfect word of God is this? What kind of forgiveness is this? And
what about our prayers,..."LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION"? (all
Biblical quotes here and in the following paragraphs are from the NIV Bible)
The
problem with the Bible is that it gets things wrong right from the very
beginning. Genesis 1:3, God said "let there be light", and 2:2,
"by the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing." No,
God didn't say let there be light, we know that from astronomy the sun was
formed by supernova, and that it took much longer than seven days for the earth
to form. In all, scientists, and we're talking about Christian scientists too,
have found that the Bible's entire chronology is wrong and incorrect. One
wonders if that is not the only thing that is incorrect.
How
do Christians reconcile Darwin with Adam and Eve? For that matter, how do
Christians reconcile homosexuals with Adam and Eve? Darwin's evolution of
species has been backed up by the evidence of skeleton fossils of primitive
humans, and humans' evolution into what we are today. How is this reconciled
with Adam and Eve? The problem with the writers of Genesis is that they weren't
there at Creation, so how in the world would they know anything about it? It is
all merely an invention, a story, to answer the creation question. The argument
is that God told these writers what to write, but that is an obvious faith claim
that requires a massive leap of faith to believe that God talked to these
writers. There is no evidence for this at all. How can the word of God be
perfect if the very beginning was invented by humans? In fact, I argue that the
whole Bible is very likely a human invention; if one part of it can be invented
as a story, then so can the rest of it.
I
had considered reviewing several other Bible stories such as Noah's Ark, and
the parting of the Red Sea, but this seems unnecessary after this last point.
In the end, Noah's and Moses' stories are simply faith claims that connect the
event of the great flood to God, as well as connecting God to the Red Sea (it
was a dry season, and Moses may have simply led his people across a dried up
creek or river tributary to the Red Sea). In both events, God's intervention is
not proven, only the faith that he caused the events is proven.
g. Some
Final Examples of Faith Claims
I have two final examples of faith
claims to summarize this chapter. While the point may be getting repetitive, I
think these final examples will clear things up. My mother, devout Christian
that she is, believes she has seen many "concrete and definite" signs
of God. She gives one example as this: she was unsure whether or not to
contribute to a friend's church after this friend's help in a family crisis.
She read her Bible reading the next day on "thanks offerings." And
this is a sign of God. Again, this can only fall under the endless list of
faith claims. She had a decision to make, read a passage about it, and claimed
that it was God who helped her to decide. There is no link between the decision
and God except faith. It is the same example as that of my girlfriend and her
decision about her abusive relationship. Neither of these cases proves God's existence,
it only proves their faith. They are attributing things to God that they can't
KNOW to be true. Here is a simpler example, I just got bonked on the head, it
must have been God. This is no different from saying I made this decision, I
read this information, it must have been God's guidance that led me to that
decision. The premise (a tough decision) can only lead us to the conclusion (it
was God who led me to that decision) if we have faith. And since faith is an unproveable metaphysical concept, the link between the
premise and conclusion is severed, and all we have proven is that we have
faith.
The
final example has to do with a friend of mine who claims to have experienced
God while on a weekend religious retreat. It's interesting because all she did
was ramble on and on about a "transformation" that she believes
occurred. Here it is: she went to this retreat with her own set of beliefs and
left it feeling amazed because she found the real truth by praying to God and
he apparently revealed to her what "true love" was. And it's a real
shame too, because she thought she could project this true form of love onto
me. She realized the truth that she now had the power to forgive and that this
was really God's power. As a result of this, she believed that she could never
hate me or leave me behind. And she came to the realization that the body is a
sinful body that holds a beautiful soul. She claimed to be in touch with her
soul and God and that as a result, she would do no sinful things with her body,
meaning that she would abstain from sex (she was and is, I assume, still a
virgin) or drugs, etc etc, and the denial of all
earthly pleasures. She claimed that the next time I saw her, I would see
God.
The
only problems with these statements is that every single one of them is false!
She in fact has left me behind and I never speak to her or receive messages
from her. When I did meet her after this "transformation" I did not
see God in her soul or any such thing, and she never really did forgive me for
not believing. This so-called true love was never realized, as she thought it
might be, and I saw her first hand drink beer, in direct conflict with her
previous statement about abstaining from earthly pleasures. She claimed to have
felt so good after this experience, and yet it all collapsed within a matter of
days.
Even
if her new revelations had stood up, I would still argue that she didn't
experience God. These ideals that she set up were a direct result of a faith
claim, that she felt God. She had this self-revelation and immediately
attributed it to God, when there was no connection between the two. Again, it
was faith that linked the two. All this praying on retreat, all this new divine
insight was false, mainly because it was something she invented in her own
mind, and wrongly attributed to God. One can only sigh at such mistakes and
move on.
In
summary of this chapter, we have seen various examples of faith claims, and why
Christians take these leaps of faith. We must remember that linking an
experience or decision to God can only occur if faith is used as a connecting
tool. Christians can only use faith, not empirical evidence to prove God:
"God exists." Why? "Because I have faith that he does."
Faith does not answer the question, or any question fully. As Nietzsche says,
at the bottom of faith there can only be more faith. The answer to the
"why" question above, "because I have faith," only leads us
to "I have faith in God because I have faith that what the people in the
Bible say is true." In other words, "I have faith because I have
faith." If this sounds circular, that's because it is!
I
realize I asked the question "what if faith is in reality a lie to oneself
to cover-up the fact that we are here by CHANCE?" This was used to show an
alternative to the Christian point of view. In no way is it entirely my view.
We are not here by chance, but here by NECESSITY. Existence necessitates that
we are here. This point will be fully explored in chapters 4 and 7, "Why
are we Here?" and "Creation" respectively. The question may have
been better if it had been phrased this way: "What if creation and
existence are a necessary thing, that they are just a result of necessary
elements that formed the world?"
Attacks
on faith certainly leave an "empty pit" in one's stomach, and an
emptiness all around, simply because each person's own personal faith can only
be defined by that person. Perhaps if we turn to more definable things we will
see how my argument can fully be realized. Having said this, let us turn to
"The All Powerful Being" and chapter 2.
goto chapter 2