A journey in religion

by Andrew A ~

Since I was a kid religion has played a very prominent role in my life
and has ever since. When I was about 10 years old my mother and father
had me go to Sunday School in a Baptist Church. I went till I was in
high school then I sort of dropped it, my attendance waned and I
stopped going. In high school I adopted my dad's religion, he is from
the Church of God group, a break off from Armstrongism. I went there
until I was around 30 then I dropped that as well. The only reason I
went there, looking back at it, was because of my dad, and I wanted
somewhere to belong. I liked the idea of the one true Church and the
idea I thought I could prove it.

In my early 30s I became Catholic because I wanted to be part of the
one "true Church", the historical Church. I was there for essentially
less than 2 years. I wanted to go back but so many problems for me
occurred, the rigorous standards as well, not to mention I had
difficulties in overcoming certain "sins". I vacillated back and forth
for a few years but I couldn't stay with the doubts I had in my mind
and heart. I started seeing as well that many of the truth claims of
the church seemed to be able to be successfully challenged by other
Christians like the Reformed or the Orthodox. I never knew enough
history to know exactly if the historical counter claims were true. If
something is "so clear" then why can it be challenged with such ease?
The debates on these issues still rage on between different
communions, but we are told by all three major communions that the
evidence is so "clear" for their side.

In these recent years I also started critically thinking of science vs
faith issues. Why for example did the Bible seem to indicate that the
earth is less than 10,000 years old? Science has long since proved
that the earth is billions of years old, they know this through the
many different dating methods that they have today. I know Christians
will object with various scripture verses and other claims that
science is wrongly interpreting the evidence. This however seems to me
to just be arrogance of the foolish sort, how can a person who is not
a scientist even comment on science and the examination of the
material world? The only way to rightly challenge science is to
present your data in a peer review journal and let the examination of
the counter evidence begin. Religious people do NOT do this, rather
they only know how to pick holes in the evidence science presents.
Their arguments are based on ignorance and "god of the gaps"
argumentation. The major religions of the world never come up with
counter scientific theories , like I said they ONLY pick holes and use
arguments from ignorance.

There are many examples of the above, here is another example: Noah's
ark in the bible. We are told that Noah gathered all the animals and
put them on the Ark. If many creationists knew how many species there
are and the biological diversity we see in the world, they would
wonder just how they could take the account in a literal fashion. Did
Noah use snake muzzles to protect himself from the many varieties of
poisonous spiders? How did he get the deadly spiders on the Ark that
we have in the world like the Sydney Funnel Web Spider? What about
bacteria and parasites? How did the animals get redistributed all
around the world once the flood was over? Things like this puzzle me
and I have a million questions and yet you can't get consistent
answers from Christians in any communion. They all seem to contradict
one another.

One thing I have learned from my examination of these issues is that,
if you have the audacity to question anything there will always be
believers ready to pronounce you "hell worthy". The thousands of
Christian sects have a nice niche in hell for the groups that
contradict their beliefs. Seems very distasteful to me and I hope so
as well for any thinking rational person.

Questions from all different angles started "jabbing" me and they have
kept piling up for example "Why are there so many different religions
in the world? Why are people being condemned to hell for being located
in a country opposite to where the "true" religion was established?".
Why for example are Chinese who for the most part are Buddhists, who
go about their daily lives, die and then go to Hell because they had a
different religion? Christians will come up with answers like "God
decreed they would go to Hell", "God will save all people in time",
"They never had their first chance, they will have an opportunity
later". They will give their bible verses as to why they believe A, B,
C and the next Christian will just contradict them and call them a
heretic. Some Christians like using other Christians as punching bags
as well "they were never saved to begin with". No one can seem to
prove their position is infallibly the true one.

The Catholic church claims infallibility in matters of faith, doctrine
and morals and I believed that as well. It sounded so wonderful to be
infallibly sure, to have the infallible fuzzies. However when examined
the doctrine of infallibility also falls down. In order to come to the
place where the convert "to be" actually believes the Catholic church
is the one true Church, the convert must use private judgement. This
is the very thing Catholics object to in Protestants, who are told
they can't use Scripture alone as the only infallible rule of faith.
The Protestants are charged with using their own "private judgement"
to interpret Scripture. Ironic that the very claims of the Catholic
church, they appeal to Scripture in the various Catechisms. Catholics
appeal to Matthew 16:18-20 to prove the authority to bind and loose.
Should the Protestant be blamed when he reads the verses and sees that
there are different views in Church history? Should the Protestant be
blamed when he comes to a different conclusion? He sees that the
church appeals to different verses and decides to examine them in
context and uses principles of hermeneutics and exegesis, and comes to
a different conclusion using private judgement?

When I realized certainty in religion is more or less impossible to
achieve, I admit to loosening my grip on Scripture and the belief in
God. Interesting that the various religions have apologetics against
other religions for example: Judaism now has apologetic websites
against Christians and Muslims and so do Muslims against Jews and
Christians. They all have claims that they can't support. If they had
a million years to do so. Someone will ALWAYS come around to challenge
their truth claims. The debates still rage on to this very day.

Where am I NOW concerning God and the Bible? I have to admit I am not
sure. I am not even sure if you can know if a God truly exists, at
least with the current knowledge we have at present. I have tried to
believe a God exists and cares about us but examination of the world
around us seems to be screaming at us a different story. I guess I
would have to say that I am in the "half way house" philosophically.
Perhaps I can say I am an Agnostic. I am glad though for this journey
in life and at times finding things to believe in. However the journey
however has not been without its "scars" I have lost things in life
because of religion.

I have lost much precious time debating religion and trying to find
which one is the true religion. I have spent lots of money buying
books and listening to MP3s. Religion has brought me much mental
stress in my life as well...there are times I have felt like I was
going insane because of all the questions I had and couldn't solve. To
this day the religions have not solved them as well. I can only say at
this point in my life I am going to live as a rational thinker and as
a humanist. I still believe in the ideals of treating our neighbors as
we would like to be treated. No religion is needed for that.

I conclude my letter with this from Clarence Darrow:

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be
called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men
are sure — that is all that agnosticism means.

An agnostic is a doubter. The word is generally applied to those
who doubt the verity of accepted religious creeds of faiths. Everyone
is an agnostic as to the beliefs or creeds they do not accept.
Catholics are agnostic to the Protestant creeds, and the Protestants
are agnostic to the Catholic creed. Any one who thinks is an agnostic
about something, otherwise he must believe that he is possessed of all
knowledge. And the proper place for such a person is in the madhouse
or the home for the feeble-minded. In a popular way, in the western
world, an agnostic is one who doubts or disbelieves the main tenets of
the Christian faith.

I am an agnostic as to the question of God. I think that it is
impossible for the human mind to believe in an object or thing unless
it can form a mental picture of such object or thing. Since man ceased
to worship openly an anthropomorphic God and talked vaguely and not
intelligently about some force in the universe, higher than man, that
is responsible for the existence of man and the universe, he cannot be
said to believe in God. One cannot believe in a force excepting as a
force that pervades matter and is not an individual entity. To believe
in a thing, an image of the thing must be stamped on the mind. If one
is asked if he believes in such an animal as a camel, there
immediately arises in his mind an image of the camel. This image has
come from experience or knowledge of the animal gathered in some way
or other. No such image comes, or can come, with the idea of a God who
is described as a force.

To say that God made the universe gives us no explanation of the
beginnings of things. If we are told that God made the universe, the
question immediately arises: Who made God? Did he always exist, or was
there some power back of that? Did he create matter out of nothing, or
is his existence coextensive with matter? The problem is still there.
What is the origin of it all? If, on the other hand, one says that the
universe was not made by God, that it always existed, he has the same
difficulty to confront. To say that the universe was here last year,
or millions of years ago, does not explain its origin. This is still a
mystery. As to the question of the origin of things, man can only
wonder and doubt and guess.