ON MATTERS OF FAITH

eloquentsilences 9 Comments

 

The contentions

Recently I got in touch with a very close friend again after a long time! Time and choice had dealt our friendship a dirty blow and we had lost all manner of amity.
The biggest blow was his turn from the faith we both held so dear for a long long time.  We made our choices on the things that mattered to us and have since looked and behaved differently toward life as we know it.  He told me the reasons he got to that place and I listened. They are no different than those of the raging anti-religious intellects that  think faith and religion disreputable and should be walked away from. His reasoning was as  a result of somehow waking up from the devious dream that was faith.   

It got me thinking again…  what changed. How come we took two very different directions? How come it is the story of this world? Some reject the word of truth and others embrace it as Life.  The So-called evidence appears to be at a balance no one can seem to tip.   There seems to be as much evidence (today at least) that God exists, as there is that he doesn’t. Chance, choice and God appear to be merging at an intersection of life from the perspective of an innocent, objective on looker that knows not what to believe. But is searching for truth.

 

I have over and over again been at it with the bunter of the Christian turned atheist.  The debates about the so many seemingly evident inconsistencies in the bible, the immoral stance church leaders have taken, all in the name of God, the hypocrisy within the Church, the ever-growing number of people believing less in the scriptures and more in themselves,  the tedious religiosity that is more mind controlling than transforming…

Truth be told, like it or not, all these contentions are sound in their own right. 

I ask myself however, how many of these questions are queried in the name of objectivity when in fact they are piquantly asked in the spirit of rejection. 

to be continued… 

9 thoughts on “ON MATTERS OF FAITH”

  1. “I ask myself however, how many of these questions are queried in the name of objectivity when [in fact] they are [piquantly asked] in the [spirit of rejection].”

    I had no idea one of the fruit of the Spirit was the ability to read minds and establish as a matter of “fact” what people are thinking. Did this close friend tell you his story of the questioning and doubt? Did he one day just wake up and in a fit of pique or in the “spirit of rejection” decide to question everything he/she believed in?

    In my experience (for what it’s worth) turning away from the faith is a really long and difficult journey. It is a battle within oneself. The only difference between one who leaves the faith and one who stays isn’t the questions they ask or the doubts they face or the spirit in which they ask these questions. The difference is in the answers they choose to accept at the end of the day, after a long and bitter internal struggle.

    I doubt you really listened. But hey, maybe this friend is different from most of us. That’s also a possibility. We wouldn’t want to fall into the trap of stereotyping, now, would we?

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    • Wejuli,
      Thank you for your response. To be fair, this is only the first part of three. So maybe some of your questions will be answered at the end of it.
      But also, I do get how with this friend, my summery could have come off too rushed. I didn’t want to get into the details of it but you are right. He is different from many. It was in no way mind reading… It was a question.I asked myself how many are truly questioning. Matter of factly, i might not have written it, but this friend made me ask myself, how many, who go on this road, really do so out of genuine query or absolute rejection. He made me see the difference! Also, I contend that the questions asked and the spirit in which they are asked almost always affect the response to the answers. But that is up for debate.
      I most certainly wouldn’t want to fall in the trap, but for the sake of the blog, I would very much like to keep it as general as possible unless when absolutely necessary. Thank you for your candidness on the matter of listening. I’ll look into that some more.

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  2. I ask myself however, how many of these questions are queried in the name of objectivity when in fact they are piquantly asked in the spirit of rejection………………………..NICE ONE……………
    AND so true

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    • Hey Bloger Chic,
      The spirit of rejection is perhaps more explained in the second part. But for clarity’s sake, I will try and elucidate.
      Rejection is firstly not to be confused with rebellion, as some would probably feel I am intimating. It is more of a “sour graping” scenario. In the traditions of english folk lore, the fox couldn’t reach the grapes it so desired to eat and out of angst, he exclaimed “o well, they must be sour any way!” So, Just because prayers have not been answered , or because what one been taught is inconsistent with what they have experience, they throw out the baby with the wash, as it were.

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  4. For the Atheist to profoundly exist there has to be a God to NOT believe in! i find the ‘bunter’ redundant…
    Also I think that at the core of it (atheism) is a bold faced laziness and stinginess since atheism as a world view is more parsimonious than theism ie the Atheist leaves the ‘burden’ of proof of God’s existence to the theist and in a sense lives a lighter existence ‘unburdened’ by belief in some deity.

    I’d rather the atheist applied himself and instead of warding off belief in God, reeled in a myriad of disciples with his same predilection just like an old friend of mine who once hang on a tree has done..

    Thanks ‘eloquentsilences’ for posting, this light shall never Wane!

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    • Thank you Abaho! I had never really thought about it that way!It sure is one way to go about it! hehehe. The Atheist would not necessary agree with u basing on their ever so popular argument about how they don’t have to prove the non existence of anything, much less a god they think is a figment of the imagination attributed to a few lowly individuals a few millennia ago.
      Its all interesting i tell you. I agree with you however. If only there were some way they would apply themselves to show us the believers once and for all that we are wrong! but that aint never going to happen and the debates will never cease. Or will they?

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  5. on debates ceasing…. a verse from this age old song says it all

    ‘and Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
    The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
    The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
    Even so, it is well with my soul’

    Oh u better believe…the debates shall end, its only a matter of when!

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