Its ok to lack faith

The information in the following links has radically changed my perception of Christianity and I believe it needs to change the church as well if the church is going to survive its present decline. 

What “faith” actually is:

https://biblehub.com/greek/4102.htm

What “belief” actually is: 

https://biblehub.com/greek/4100.htm 

Long story short, “faith” is both the act of persuasion via divine revelation and the state of having been persuaded via divine revelation. Faith is a gift from God and cannot be obtained nor increased via any human efforts; this also means that the reception of faith or an increase in faith is not guaranteed even unto a receptive believer who invests in the faith they may have. 

Second, “belief” is to trust or have confidence in something or someone. It has nothing to do with absolute knowledge nor proclamations of absolute truth.

Hopefully, it is becoming clear at this point that the church largely misunderstands and misuses these words. Just think of all of the times you have heard or perhaps uttered the phrase, “you just need to have faith”. However, the true weight of this failure in understanding may not yet be clear. So allow me to explain how the church’s misunderstanding and misapplication of these words are leading to its demise. 

It is not uncommon, both within Christianity and outside of it, for “faith” to be understood as, “Belief without evidence” or for some Christians it may be more like “divinely inspired belief without need for further evidence even though some may be found”. 

While Christians can come close to a correct understanding of faith, the tendency is to couple faith with what it can achieve: justification, sanctification, glorification, giving direction, or inspiring belief. These are things faith can achieve. However, they’re not the substance of what faith is. 

I believe the distinction between faith and its uses is important because confusing faith with its potential uses can be incredibly damaging. 

For example, there is a tendency to couple faith with belief in a way that not only ignores the way Abraham and Sarah failed to believe God’s gift of faith when He told them they would have a child in their old age, it also flies in direct conflict with John 20:29, and worse, it disqualifies myself and those like me from Christianity. 

I have read the Bible, and have studied what the Bible claims about Jesus. However, I cannot know to what extent the Jesus in the Bible is authentic to God if there is one. This inability is made ever the more evident when we discover things like the story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman caught in adultery was not in the original manuscripts and is likely to have been added to the bible centuries later. (“To Cast the First Stone: The Transmission of a Gospel Story” (Princeton, 2018), by scholars Jennifer Knust and Tommy Wasserman)

Certainly, I can study and learn how the Bible is historically accurate and well preserved to an extent, but this tells me nothing of God’s endorsement of it. Such an endorsement would require a gift of faith God has chosen not to give me for some reason.

Certainly, I have experienced seemingly miraculous things in my life, but none of which have served to verify anything I once thought I knew about God. Additionally, the fact that a God may be at work in my privileged life while there are children in this world being sexually abused and starving to death, makes me hope for alternative ways to understand the seemingly miraculous things in my life.

Taking into account all of my life experiences I cannot say I have been given any faith. I cannot say I have encountered Jesus so far as I am aware. Additionally, God has never given me the faith/divine persuasion I would need to know the Bible is true or at all endorsed by Him.

If belief requires faith then God has forsaken me and those like me; there is no place in Christianity for the likes of me. 

However, in my studies, I have found that faith is not a necessary element of Christianity, and despite all of my uncertainty and lack of faith, I still choose to trust Jesus even if I cannot bring myself to fully trust the vessel containing His story. 

I am open and receptive to a relationship with Jesus and I trust that, if Jesus is God and desires a relationship with me, He will make of my receptiveness whatever relationship He desires.

So ultimately, I believe there is a place in Christianity for myself and those like me. Granted I have had Christians agree that there is a place for people like me because there has to be a place for everyone who is willing. The trouble is that the place most Christians have in mind is hidden away where leadership can try to convince me of things only God can. 

People like me are encouraged to keep quiet and out of sight until we conform to denominational rhetoric because my spiritual position is deemed dangerous and illegitimate and so is treated as such.

When you have spent your life passionately diving into scripture, apologetics, and theology such that what you learn humbles you to the point that it makes others who feel confident in their beliefs so uncomfortable that they deem you as a threat who might “corrupt” those who are “weaker in the faith”, it really feels like there is no place for people like me.

Biblically, if you appropriately understand and apply the words “belief” and “faith”, there is nothing dangerous nor wrong with my spiritual position. God may never choose to move me from where I am, and that would be ok. 

Therefore Christians commit a huge injustice when they treat my spiritual position as dangerous. When they won’t permit their youth or other congregation members to consider the possibility that they may be in this position too. When I’m told to keep quiet because the truths I have learned, the ones that bring me so much peace, hope, and life, might be damaging for others, though the only reason it could be damaging is that there is no place in the church for people like me to go to, so people like me end up leaving the church. Whereas if my place were just as celebrated and legitimized in the eyes of the church, people like myself would feel no need to leave. 

So when Christians will not permit their members to consider and hear my position, when Christians go around proclaiming to have absolute knowledge of the truth and expecting all other Christians to make this proclamation as well, people like me feel forced to either lie about their spiritual position or leave Christianity altogether.

There seems to be a widespread assumption that those who believe will always be gifted faith in this life. However, while it is promised that those who seek will find, it is not guaranteed that the finding will happen in this life. I suspect that this assumption is at the root of people’s impulse to alienate people like me until we have been gifted. 

I have been involved in several gatherings where we all prayed for religious revival. Though the expectation was that the world would change and that we would double down on our holiness as a people set apart.Read these words, internalize them, and let them change you. Only then will there be revival. 

• Faith is a gift from God that is given in varying amounts to very few people and required of no one. (See the Strong’s definition linked earlier.)

• Belief is purely a matter of trust/confidence, and if Mark 16:16 is legitimate, trusting Jesus and the baptism that Jesus provides given that trust, are the ONLY things required of us.
   

• A Christian does not need to proclaim that they are certain God exists.
   

• A Christian does not need to proclaim that they are certain the Bible is true and fully endorsed by God.
   

• A Christian does not need to proclaim that they are certain Jesus existed, was God, or was validly represented by the gospel stories.
  
  

• A Christian does not need to uphold the Bible as an authority on ethics or anything else. 

As for the things a Christian does not need to be certain of, all of these things can only truly be known via gifts of faith wherein God specifically brings these matters up and professes them as true. Thus it is out of each person’s control as to whether or not they will be able to authentically be certain of any of these things. 

Therefore, unless God truly chooses who is saved and who is not, certainty in these things is not required of anyone, and so proclamations of certainty towards these things should not be expected of anyone. 

A person who is uncertain of the above yet is open and receptive to a relationship with Jesus and trusts that He will make of their receptiveness whatever relationship He desires, is just as valid a Christian as anyone with gifts of faith. All Christians, children, teens, adults, newer Christians, and seasoned Christians, should be aware of these sorts of Christians and should be free to consider the possibility that they may be such a Christian.

I am a seasoned Christian. I invested heavily into my beliefs and it led me here. Such a humbling journey should never be seen as a regression. Such a journey should never be thought of as a bad thing. Instead, it should be celebrated and encouraged.

The hypothesis worth hoping for

Here are all of the final reasons we will be exploring in this post:

Reason 27: Religious people are often hypocrites (Polled 31 votes)

Reason 28: The religion was sexist (Polled 22 votes)

Reason 29: The religion was homophobic (Polled 21 votes)

Reason 30: The religion was bigoted (Polled 20 votes)

Reason 31: The religion called bad things good (Polled 17 votes)

Reason 32: God is evil (Polled 13 votes)

Reason 33: The religion called good people bad (Polled 12 votes)

Reason 34: Religious people are often terrible people (Polled 11 votes)

Reason 35: The religion called bad people good (Polled 10 votes)

Reason 36: The religion was ostracising (Polled 10 votes)

Reason 37: The claim that God killed loads of people (Polled 8 votes)

Reason 38: The claim that God killed children (Polled 5 votes) 

Reason 39: I was hurt by religion or someone in it (Polled 5 votes)

Reason 40: The religion was racist (Polled 5 votes)

Reason 41: The religion called good things bad (Polled 5 votes) 

Reason 42: The existence of evil (Polled 3 votes)

Reason 43: Bad things happening to good people (Polled 3 votes)

Reason 44: Good things happening to bad people (Polled 2 votes)

Reason 45: I asked for healing and was not given it (Polled 1 vote)

The below reasons were not voted for but I have heard them before:

Reason 46: I asked for money and was not given any (Polled 0 votes)

Reason 47: I asked for a miracle and was not given one (Polled 0 votes)

Reason 48: God did nothing but take my money (Polled 0 votes)

Reason 49: I suffered a tragedy (Poll 0 votes)

Reason 50: Nature is terrifying (Polled 0 votes)

In this post, I will be describing the interpretation of the Holy Bible’s overarching narrative that I find worth hoping for. 

In the beginning, a being with reality-bending power, God, brought order to a chaos ridden creation. In God’s creative works He made a world full of life and untapped potential. God created a special creature, humans, to bring out the potential of this world by serving and loving it, one another, and God Himself. God would in turn bring out humanity's potential by serving and loving them. 

Humans were of God’s likeness, though certain limitations made them incapable of being God themselves. Imperfect foresight, limited knowledge, and other limitations, though necessary for independent existence, made humans inept in their ability to distinguish good and bad in every situation. So one of the ways God would serve humanity would be through helping them know good from bad, not through static laws which are insufficient when good and bad can contextually fluctuate, but instead through a dynamic relationship with Him that can account for each unique situation.

God knew that creating humanity in the way He desired humanity to be, would lead to a human rebellion that would foster a cycle of choices resulting from and resulting in suffering and death that would ultimately consume and destroy humanity. Therefore God also had a plan for how he would respond to the human rebellion. 

So, with the power to heal any wound physical or mental, the power to reverse environmental damage, and even power over death, when humanity would come to rebel against God, rejecting His role in their relationship in favor of their system of laws, God would let them. Thus, either symbolically or literally, what God had called bad (the eating of the fruit) the humans would call good, and what God had called good (the nakedness of the humans) the humans would call bad. The humans would go on to do this more and more until the first life was claimed with many more to follow. 

Meanwhile, nature began to respond to the new circumstances brought about by the human rebellion. Other lifeforms would go on to evolve some pretty terrible things to combat terrible circumstances, fight fire with fire to survive.

Humanity suffered at the hand of their laws until there was only one family that desired a relationship with God; recognizing the suffering and death of their world as the product of the human rebellion. It is through this family that God would redeem humanity and bring out its potential. 

Naturally, there was the threat of the other rebels either killing or corrupting this family. God knew every possible future of every man, woman, and child; He knew every one of them would choose rebellion and the death it would naturally lead to (such knowledge would be unique to God). Therefore, to defend the family which had chosen a path that could lead to life, God granted the rest of humanity the death they had chosen, at least for the time being. 

This would not be the last time God would temporarily kill people. Many instances of God killing are hard to justify, especially with the limited knowledge I have as a human who is looking back through the lenses of records written by other humans of limited knowledge. 

As someone who does not consider the Bible to be immune to flaws, human agendas, corruption, misinterpretation, and such. I am left to wonder to what extent God’s killings might be His own verses killings that corrupt leaders wrongfully justified in God’s name. 

So given these four possibilities:

1) God might have chosen to kill for good reasons that I just don’t know due to limited knowledge.

2) Some of the killings might not have been condoned by God despite being attributed to Him by potentially corrupt humans looking to justify their murders.

3) Humanity's choices make death inevitable, and God intends to ultimately resurrect humanity, hence the deaths are only temporary. 

4) If God knows every possible future a person might have then, for Him, someone like Hitler would be the same person as a child or as an adult. So, in the eyes of some, God killing children is no different than God killing an adult. If someone was able to travel back in time to kill Hitler as a child, knowing that killing him is the only way to stop him from causing the suffering he did, would you consider them evil for doing so? Can you consider God evil for possibly having done something similar? 

You may now be wondering why God might not have killed Hitler. It would seem that God may have no intention to undermine the consequences of the human rebellion, the exception being in situations where humanity would otherwise snuff out any chance of redemption or other similar cases. Otherwise, He would have never equipped humanity with the freedom to choose in the first place. God does not intervene just to stop suffering or death (we are all going to suffer and die eventually anyway), those are matters He supposedly intends to address after they have reached their conclusion, possibly so that there is no doubt left in the minds of humanity as to where rebellion leads.

So I cannot label this understanding of God as definitely evil given the possibilities. 

Whereas if a human were to kill in similar ways, I could see a case being made for them being labeled evil considering their ineptitude in knowing the nuances of a situation and in knowing the redeemability of a person. 

Whether this hypothetical God deserves the label of evil or not is up to you. You can disagree with me and be valid in doing so, this is a subjective matter with no right or wrong opinion. 

Anyway, as He might have done in the beginning, God would supernaturally enable this family to repopulate the world, be it by adding genetic diversity to their offspring where there might have otherwise been a lack through inbreeding, or by creating more people (later in the story of Jesus, God would create matter to multiply bread and fish, so it is not like He stopped creating things after the seventh day of rest). Though this family desired God's guidance, they were still heavily influenced by the world of rebellion from which they came, they desired a relationship with God other than the one He desired to have with them. Namely, they desired a relationship of lawgiver and law abiders.

God did not want to force these humans to change; dismissing their corrupt ideas of good and bad, and replacing them with the relationship He desired. Not only would it undermine the nature of humanity to have a choice, but it would also likely only set them up to rebel once again, having learned nothing. So God began the long process of bettering the ethics of humanity by recognizing the bits of good in human ethics and pointing humanity towards something incrementally better, even if not fully good.

One of the primary issues with humanity was selfishness. So rather than do all of the work of redeeming humanity Himself, God selected a particular group of humanity to better until they were at a point where they would selflessly go out to the rest of humanity, as God's representatives, and offer them the chance to surrender, repent from rebellion, and be made better through God’s work bringing out their potential. 

Furthermore, throughout this process, God would permit humanity to define the form that God’s relationship with them would take. God would permit this to ensure His work in slowly bettering Humanity would continue. So, while God would rather have personal relationships with each of His people, His people elected to have laws work as an intermediary medium through which they would indirectly interact with God. God permitted this. Later the people would elect to be ruled through a human king as opposed to being ruled by God directly. God permitted this as well. 

While God was able to slowly better his selected group of humans with these arrangements, there came a point where this system grew ineffective. God’s people began to mold their relationship with God into a set of contractual laws and agreements. Furthermore, they began to be unable to distinguish the sort of relationship God desired to have with them from the sort of relationship they wanted to have with God. So they came to believe God was an authoritarian dictator of sorts, and the day was coming when He would gather up all of those who lived according to every one of His ridged laws and destroy everyone else through divine military conquest. 

God anticipated the rise of this warped and twisted understanding. So, from early on, God foreshadowed the arrival of a redeemer, the one who would define the true sort of relationship God desires to have with humanity and the sort of relationship God desires humanity to have with one another; a human who would not fall into rebellion as every other human does. 

The story of the redeemer bears striking similarities to that of a man named Guy Gabaldon, and I find it helpful to tell the stories in parallel to get a better understanding of Jesus’s mission. 

It was the tail end of World War Two and the allies were invading a small island off the coast of Japan known as the island of Saipan. The airstrips of this island would ultimately, albeit controversially, be used to bring an end to the war. 

For weeks, brutal fighting claimed many lives until it was clear that the allies were going to take the island. Many of the Japanese soldiers and civilians rejected the notion of surrender, and many of the allied forces rejected the notion of giving the offer. This was the result of misinformation spreading amongst both sides which painted the enemy as either ruthlessly psychotic or pest like. 

However, there was one man among the allied forces who knew better and desired mercy for the Japanese, a US marine named Guy Gabaldon.

Guy Gabaldon was a Hispanic American who, at a young age, was taken in and raised by a Japanese American family. As a result, he knew the humanity of the Japanese and could also speak Japanese like a native. He wanted the Japanese to have the opportunity of merciful surrender, and he was not afraid to risk his life to give them that opportunity. 

So Guy Gabaldon, at first against orders and later following orders, would set out at night, working his way into Japanese soldier and civilian camps to provide the opportunity of surrender. 

Doing this he convinced thousands of soldiers and civilians to surrender. By convincing the Japanese to surrender Guy Gabaldon saved their lives from the day of the final battle. The final battle would see all those who did not surrender wiped out in a suicidal charge against the allies. 

It took a man with a desire to show mercy, to risk his life for his enemies. 

It took a man not immediately recognizable as an American to avoid getting shot on sight due to misinformation about who he was and what his intentions were. 

It took an American uniform to convince the Japanese that he was an American despite not being what they expected an American to be like. 

It took an American to correct the misinformation about the Americans seeding the hope of life into those Japanese who accepted him. 

It took the support of American command to foster confidence in the truth of Guy Gabaldon’s message. 

For countless years humanity rebelled against God. Brutal fighting and wickedness claimed many lives. Much of humanity rejected the notion of surrender to God, and many of God’s chosen people rejected the notion of giving the offer. This was the result of misinformation spreading amongst both sides which painted the enemy as either ruthlessly psychotic or pest like. 

However, there was one man among God’s people who knew better and desired mercy for the rebels, a man named Jesus.

Jesus was a Jewish man born to humble circumstances among those of low social status and the rebels. As a result, He knew the humanity of the poor, downtrodden, and rebellious. He wanted the rebels to have the opportunity of merciful surrender, and He was not afraid to risk His life to give them that opportunity.

So Jesus, against the approval of the religious elders, but in the approval of God the Father, would set out among the poor, downtrodden, and rebellious to provide the opportunity of surrender. 

Doing this, He convinced many to surrender and equipped them to go out among the other rebels and do as He had done for them. By convincing the rebellious to surrender He saved their lives from the day of the final battle. The final battle will see all those who do not surrender, and those who cling stubbornly to their flawed ideas of what they think God should be like (rejecting God for what He truly is like), wiped out in a suicidal charge against God.

Unlike the story of Guy Gabaldon, the religious leaders who misrepresented God, had God’s true representative killed. However, as a final condemnation of the religious elders and condonation of Jesus, God rendered the religious leaders powerless by undoing the power of death they brandished, raising Jesus from the dead. 

It took a man with a desire to show mercy, to risk His life for His enemies. 

It took a man not immediately recognizable as God’s messiah to avoid getting rejected on sight due to misinformation about who He was and what His intentions were. 

It took several miraculous acts to convince people that Jesus was God despite not being like what they expected God to be like.

It took a man who was also God to correct the misinformation about God, seeding the hope of life into those rebels who surrendered to Him and accepted Him. 

It took the support of God the Father through the resurrection of Jesus, in the face of the religious leader’s having Jesus killed, to foster confidence in the truth of Jesus’s message. 

The day of the final battle has yet to come. Once it concludes the earth will be barren of all human life. 

Then, God will make the earth new; not a single scar from the human rebellion will remain. God will raise to life all of humanity. He will separate those who choose to remain in rebellion from those who choose to surrender and place each group in separate places. 

Those in rebellion will bring about a world of far greater suffering than ever before. Though this world will not touch the world of those who surrendered. 

Those who surrendered will bring forth the potential of creation and worship God through exploration, inventions, and the ways they use their authority to service creation. 

Scientific research will no longer be hindered by corporate greed nor will it come at the cost of the environment. It will flourish and bring life in ways we could never imagine now. 

Humanity will explore the stars and go on discovering the limitless wonders of God's creation for eternity.

So in the meantime, a portion of humanity has been tasked to be like Jesus, going out to all of the rebels as representatives of God, offering the opportunity to surrender to God and repent of rebellion; spreading the good news of God’s mercy for the rebellious and His plan to overcome the powers of death after it has consumed the world.

Another part of Jesus’s mission was to demonstrate the insufficiencies of the system of the law; such as when He healed on the Saboth. Then, once the insufficiencies of the law system were evident, He took action to fulfill, disrupt and dismantle the systems of the law. Then He extended the invitation for humanity to come back into the sort of relationship God has desired to have with us since the beginning; a relationship without the law and the governing intermediaries.

Thus a new age of ethics was ushered in. An age of ethics where we are no longer under the laws of the old testament. So instead of looking to the rulings of the old testament or making new laws from the teachings of the apostles, we are to pray and use the tools God has given us such as conscience, the input of others, and, most importantly, scientific discovery, to make loving moral judgments for each unique situation. 

Put more specifically, we are not meant to look to the laws when making moral judgments about how we handle matters of sexuality, gender identification, gender roles, or racial relations. We are meant to examine how our moral choices affect each unique relationship and make the best choices we can, using all of the relational and scientific information we have available.

As for those who surrender to God. It seems evident that those who surrender to God are not immune to suffering. After all, sometimes it takes getting hurt by someone to be made aware of their need to be helped, either by you or someone more qualified than you that you can point them to. Sometimes a rebel will not listen to anyone who has not suffered in the ways they have. So God’s people suffer. 

This also goes the other way. Sometimes a rebel will not listen to anyone who has not prospered as they have. So some of God’s people prosper. Or sometimes God’s people need funding to take the good news to others. So some of God’s people prosper so they can fund the others. 

Finally, those who surrender do not become perfect. It takes time for a person to become aware of and then shed off their destructive tendencies. Many remain secretly rebellious and cause suffering. So it is possible for God’s people, or people claiming to be God’s people, to contribute to the suffering of the world. To make judgments about the hypothetical God through the actions of such people is to be unfair towards the possible God in my opinion. Though this is yet another subjective matter and you can validly disagree upon.

As for why good things can happen to those who are rebellious. We are all rebellious to varying degrees, even those who have surrendered still tend to rebel while they work to shed off their rebellious tendencies. Regardless, all good things of material nature are temporary, and those who have it will suffer the loss of it.

Within the above context, I cannot personally label this hypothetical understanding of God as evil. However, I can recognize the validity in a differing opinion. If God exists and is evil, there is no hope to be found in hoping for His existence. So if you cannot find an understanding of God that is not evil in your opinion, I think you are fully justified in choosing atheism.

Furthermore, I recognize that there are many truly insufferable and even evil Christians out there; Christians who try to use God to justify things like racism, sexism, and violence or who try to use religion to glorify horrible people. I can understand how easily a good person can be misrepresented by their fans, or people posing as fans bent towards evil. 

Furthermore, within the context above, if there is a God, it would seem He is not one to force someone into compliance in most cases; perhaps He did in some special cases in the past, maybe he still does in some special cases. So I can understand that change takes time, and hurt people take time to heal. In the meantime, they may do bad or evil things. Though, I still cannot blame God for their behavior. 

However, I can recognize the validity in a differing opinion. If you cannot bring yourself to hope for a God whose people are of the like you would never want to associate with, I understand why you would validly choose atheism or agnosticism. Especially if you believe a person's followers are always a good reflection of the person themselves.

Back to the beginning: Introduction

Previous Post: The holey book

Questions for my readers: 

What are your thoughts about my summary of the overarching narrative of the Bible? 

What are your thoughts about my take on the claims of God's killings? 

What are your thoughts about my explanation for why those who surrender, or those who just claim to surrender, might still do bad, even horrible things? 

What are your thoughts about my explanation for why those who surrender, or those who just claim to surrender, might either suffer greatly or live in prosperity?

What are your thoughts about judging a God based on their followers?

The holey book

In this post we will be exploring the following reasons people give for being an atheist:

Reason 24: The religion was inconsistent with itself. (Polled 37 votes)

Reason 25: The scripture was flawed. (Polled 30 votes)

Reason 26: The religion was violent (Polled 5 votes) 

For a book that supposedly must be inerrant because God is invested in the preservation of its inspired truth, even if we accept the groundless claim of inerrancy, God could not have done a must worse job ensuring that the truth of His inspired text is preserved through the clarity of its message. The reality of the division of the church based on interpretive differences, the rampant supposed misinterpretation/misapplication of scripture, and the existence of such texts as “Jesus Interrupted”, by Bart D. Ehrman, detailing the lack of clarity or outright inconsistency of the Holy Bible, make it seem that at best God doesn’t care about the preserving the Holy Bible via clarity and at worst that God intended the Holy Bible to spark confusion, division, and weaponized authoritarianism. 

Additionally, for a text that is supposed to deliver a message of hope unto a world oppressed by suffering and death, God couldn’t have done a much worse job presenting Himself as clearly merciful and loving. The reality that anyone could read the Holy Bible and easily walk away with a conception of God as being drunk with blood, as evidenced by the book “Drunk with Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible”, by Steve Wells, or that they could walk away feeling justified in the slaughter of people via the crusades, or justified in driving and abusing others as slaves, makes it seem that at best the Bible is not inerrant or immune to the corruption of blood thirty rulers looking to justify their wars and at worst that God is a bloodthirsty abuser.  

The inerrancy of the Holy Bible is not something that can be known for certain nor is it something that can be proven, especially given the limited and faulty understanding of readers. 

Archeological findings can support the historical accuracy of the Holy Bible, but that is different from proving its inerrancy. After all, historically accurate fiction is a thing, so just because the details of Ney York City are spot on, it does not mean that Spiderman is any less a work of fiction. 

You can take the Holy Bible’s word for its inerrancy, but then you better be willing to believe any text’s claim to be God-breathed be it the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, or the Quran. All of which makes this claim to be God-breathed, all of which have followers that claim to know for certain their text is God-breathed and all of which do not agree with each other on what the will of God is.

Therefore, inerrancy is not something Christians believe because they can prove its inerrancy to the public, it is something they believe because they both think its inerrancy is essential to the value of Christianity as a religion and vital to defend against abuses of the religion.

From my position inerrancy is no more than a hypothesis, and it is one that I feel no need to hope for. After all, even if the Holy Bible should happen to be inerrant, my interpretation of it is not guaranteed to be, defeating the purpose. Perhaps intense study may yield an objectively correct way to interpret the Holy Bible. I am open to that possibility, however, until I get there I cannot claim that any particular way of interpreting it is objectively correct. In the meantime, while I study and explore with an open mind for correction, I am free to be wrong. 

Additionally, I am under no obligation to assume that any part of the Holy Bible is divinely inspired. Because the divine inspiration of the Holy Bible cannot be proven objectively I have no reason to treat the whole collection of books as being free from any kind of flaws, human agendas, or corruption.

Therefore, there is no reason I shouldn’t hope that certain parts truly represent the will of a hypothetical God while hoping that other parts are not true representations of a hypothetical God’s will, but are instead the attempts of corrupt people to use God as an excuse for their evil deeds.

This then leaves us with the question of if anything worth hoping for can be gleaned from the Holy Bible’s contents. In the next post, we will be examining the understanding I have of the overarching narrative of the Holy Bible which I find worth hopping for. 

Next Post: The hypothesis worth hoping for

Previous Post: Hide and seek losers go to Hell

Questions for my readers:

What are your thoughts about the Holy Bible’s lack of clarity coupled with reader limitations and flaws? Do you think these things undermine the claim for the inerrancy of the Holy Bible?

Do you agree with my claim that the Bible’s inerrancy cannot be proven? If not, what proof do you have? 

Does my rejection of the inerrancy claim seem valid to you? 

Hide and seek losers go to Hell

 In this post we will be exploring the following reasons people give for being an atheist:

Reason 8: Child abuse (Polled 21 votes)

Reason 9: Religion is not natural, it is learned (Polled 20 votes)

Reason 10: I was not allowed to think freely (Polled 15 votes)

Reason 11: If God existed He wouldn’t hide (Polled 9 votes)

Reason 12: The lack of intelligence was unbearable (Polled 8 votes)

Reason 13: The very idea of Hell is immoral (Polled 7 votes) 

Reason 14: I asked for a sign and was not given one (Polled 3 votes)

Reason 15: Extreme hide and seek, losers go to hell (Polled 3 votes)

Reason 16:  The division of the church (Polled 3 votes)

Reason 17: Too many gods (Polled 2 votes)

Reason 18: The religion turned smart people into idiots (Polled 2 votes) 

Reason 19: Your religion is based on where you were born (Polled 2 votes) 

Reason 20: The religion was based on fear (Polled 1 Vote)

Reason 21: Heaven sounds terrible (Polled 1 Vote)

Reasons that did not receive votes but I have heard them before: 

Reason 22: It was my parent’s/guardian's religion, not mine (Polled 0 votes)

Reason 23: God expects too much (Polled 0 votes) 

For a supposed being so invested in forming a relationship with humanity, God couldn’t seem to do worse to make that supposed reality evident. Reading documents that God supposedly produced, either directly or indirectly, one might be led to expect to witness overt acts of God on the regular, or at the very least some effort, on behalf of God, to form a relationship with each person. Especially if a relationship is essential to every person’s deliverance from a future ripe with eternal suffering. Otherwise, it seems at best that God doesn’t care and at worst that He wants us all to suffer eternally. 

Let’s say we can manage to get past the lack of effort on God’s side and assume that, for whatever reason, the burden of effort is meant to fall solely, or at least at first, on the shoulders of each individual. Well, I guess we better start searching for God then, but there are yet more issues. 

There are some 4,300 religions in the world (according to www.theregister.com ) and it would take over a lifetime to vet them all. 

Let’s say we can get past that and by the works of the Holy Spirit we are somehow led to Christianity. We are now faced with between 30k to 40k different denominations of Christianity (depending on the resource). Many of the denominations are divided because of interpretation differences that cause different denominations to worry for the salvation of the others. Meanwhile, most of the denominations claim to be led by the Holy Spirit and so claim they are right and the others are wrong. 

Let’s say somehow you manage to find a denomination that you feel is true to the essentials of Christianity. You are now likely faced with a God who is claimed to be infinite, thereby the nature of God is unfathomable to your limited human brain. Furthermore, God is claimed to be the essence of goodness, therefore your understanding of the nature of God will always be flawed to some extent because you are cursed by sin to not always be able to distinguish good from bad in every situation. 

Just by considering these things, it becomes evident that should correctness in an understanding of God be important in any way, such as being important to not being thrown into Hell, then we are all likely doomed regardless of what we do or do not believe. 

This raises two important questions that threaten the value of hoping for the existence of a benevolent God.

First, why would a benevolent God make it important for us to have specific information about it when it is nearly impossible for us to get said information? 

Second, why wouldn’t a benevolent God make its existence and nature abundantly clear to each person, especially if such information is so important? 

As for the first question, which lies at the root of several reasons people give for being an atheist, we need to consider another question first, namely, does the religion in question require correctness in one’s understanding of God? A strong argument can be made that correctness in an understanding of God is not necessary so far as Christianity is concerned. 

Christianity is based on a story wherein God comes unto humanity in the flesh, and the religious leaders cling so tightly to their limited and flawed ideas of who God ought to be that they do not recognize their own God and so have Him killed for blasphemy. Meanwhile the sinners and less religious are more than happy to let go of their ideas of who God ought to be and accept Him for who He is. God, in turn, blesses those who were humble enough to let go of their flawed understanding, the sinners and less religious, and condemns those who clung to their flawed understandings of God, the well educated religious leaders. 

If salvation were a matter of having a correct, or at least mostly correct, understanding of God, God would have blessed the religious leaders and condemned the others, but that is not what happens. What happened instead would seem to suggest that salvation must be a matter of having humility enough to acknowledge that your understanding is limited and flawed so that you can receive correction and have the opportunity to accept God for who He is. 

This is not universalism, for not everyone will accept God over the idol of their flawed understanding. Additionally, many may receive correction but reject God even still. However, it does open the door to salvation for all people; people with a completely wrong understanding of God, people with no understanding of God, people without sufficient information to even believe a God exists at all. All of these people have an opportunity to accept God for who He is via their humility. 

Therefore, being born in the right place, being born to the right family, being born with an innate belief in God’s existence, finding the correct religion, finding the correct denomination, or the reception of a clear sign of God’s existence, all are rendered unnecessary. Additionally, the forced indoctrination of children, restrictions on free-thinking, restrictions on skepticism, restrictions on doubt, or restriction on accepted scientific findings, these too are all unnecessary. 

Where salvation is a matter of having intellectual humility, there is the freedom to be wrong. Where there is the freedom to be wrong, there is no fear of damnation. Where there is no fear of damnation, people enter a relationship with God because they choose to, and not because they feel forced to against any desire for the contrary. 

Some would counter saying salvation is just a matter of accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, however, a complete and faultless understanding of Jesus is just as unachievable, especially if Jesus is God incarnate. Which understanding of Jesus do you have to accept? Does it count if someone’s concept of Jesus is not God? What if their concept of Jesus resembles Hitler?

Should salvation be a matter of accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior, it must be through humility enough to let go of limited and faulty understandings so that you can accept Jesus for who He is, just as in the story of the gospels.

As for the second question, apart from the lack of necessity for God to make His existence obvious for the present (as explained above), I speculate a few possible reasons for God's potential inactivity. 

First, God might have been so active in the past because He wanted to equip humanity to be able to partake in their redemption. 

Second, He might have been so active because He wanted to keep the humans who were willing to work with Him alive and willing. 

Jesus would have come to finish the job; to finish equipping humanity with everything we need to partake in our redemption. Furthermore, eventually the humans willing to work with God no longer faced threats of being completely wiped out. 

So once God no longer needed to equip humanity or prevent humanity from wiping out any hope of its redemption, His intervention was no longer as necessary.

Third, as mentioned before, by not making His existence clear to everyone, choosing to follow Him becomes more a matter of preference than a feeling of obligation. It would seem that God would rather us choose to follow Him out of our desire rather than a feeling of obligation (lest God just make His existence obvious to everyone). 

Fourth, the Bible focuses only on those moments in human history when God was supposedly active. So when we read the Bible, it feels like God is super active, but there are hundreds of years between many of the stories. 

Finally, there is my case. If there is a God, I’m not sure I am meant to know for certain. Otherwise, I would have never felt the need to go on this journey and write this document which may prove helpful to others as they struggle to make decisions about their beliefs. I think I may be as uncertain as I am for the likes of them. Perhaps others are in the same boat.

I am not afraid of not knowing. As I’ve said before, should there be a God, we are all doomed to die with flawed understandings of it. The God we will all meet after death, should there be a God at all, will be different from what anyone expects. 

Those who will not enter Heaven will likely see a God they do not recognize and believe Him to be some force of evil. They will mistake Heaven for Hell and so go looking for Heaven elsewhere in a world under the sole authority of humanity. That world will be Hell, and the suffering therein will be purely a product of humanities selfishness, lack of foresight, and well-intended atrocities, as God grants them their heart's true desire, a world without it, a being that could help humanity navigate these flaws and shortcomings, in it.

As for those who enter Heaven, they will bring forth the potential of creation and worship God through exploration, inventions, and the ways they use their authority to service creation. 

Scientific research will no longer be hindered by corporate greed nor will it come at the cost of the environment. It will flourish and bring life in ways we could never imagine now. 

Humanity will explore the endless wonders of the stars and go on discovering the limitless wonders of God's creation for eternity.

In the next post, we will be taking a look at the flaws and eyesores of the Holy Bible and the effects they have on the worth of hope for the existence of God.

Next Post: The holey book

Previous Post: The imaginary God

Questions for my readers:

What are your thoughts on the premise that humans are not equipped to acquire a complete understanding of God? 

What are your thoughts on the premise that, should God be the essence of all goodness, humans, in their limitations and corruption, are incapable of a faultless understanding of God?

What are your thoughts on the assertion, based on the previous premises, that correctness cannot be a factor in salvation lest humanity be doomed?

What are your thoughts on my suggestion that salvation may be more a matter of having humility enough to receive correction than a matter of believing the right things about God? 

What are your thoughts on the notion that salvation based on accepting Jesus as Lord and Saviour also requires a certain amount of correctness in understanding?

What are your thoughts about my speculations as to why God may be less active, or otherwise less evident, in our modern times?

What are your thoughts on my take on the nature of Hell?

What are your thoughts on my take on the nature of Heaven?