What’s wrong with faith? A local church attempted to summarize.
This message seems clearly based on the old Asian proverb, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.” I hope this isn’t intended to portray doubt, discouragement, and impossibility as evil. They surely are not. Besides, why would anyone wish to be senseless in following anything? Maybe this makes sense to the Christians, but I don’t get it… Yeah right, and Fuzzy Wuzzy was a woman.
Tags: christianity, church, pictures, religion, sign
5 February, 2008 at 12:28 am
Probably the pastor was trying to convey a message of “Faith in God should supersede all doubts and circumstances”; however, this is not such a great way of saying that, especially on a drive-by sign. Especially in the Church it is foolish to be ignorant, and this sign appears to take that approach over, “Faith in God…”.
Funny, none-the-less.
–Michael
crxo.wordpress.com
15 February, 2008 at 4:05 am
Nuh huh! Fuzzy Wuzzy was a BEAR! A BOY Bear! lol!
One thing I’ve found christians (as a group) are REALLY bad about – and have been since the religion was invented – is “borrowing” from other religions and claiming it as their own, as handed down from their god for their use (whatever happened to “Thou shalt not steal”?). They tend to get peevish when you point out that their patchwork-quilt of beliefs is lifted straight from a multitude of “pagan” beliefs and practices (not allowed to steal after all!). So to them, the best way to stop uncomfortable questions (about stolen goods) is to demand absolute faith, to proclaim people who ask questions as unbelievers who are going to burn for all eternity.
What I don’t understand is why ANYONE buys into that load of BS? Are that many people really that gullible? They don’t believe it when they get an email telling them that they’ve inherited $5,000,000 from a previously-unknown Nigerian relative (but my people all came from northern Europe?), and if they’d just forward $10,000 to “help clear up red tape”, the $5,000,000 will be sent right away – so why would they believe in something no one has ever seen, and they are not allowed to question? Foolishness.
15 February, 2008 at 6:57 am
mjdcrx, I don’t find “Faith in God should supersede all doubts and circumstances” to be any better. Either way, it is clear that religious ideas are more important than truth.
Amy Luthien, To If these people had been taught from childhood that a million-dollar inheritance awaited them, they might take it just as seriously. Indoctrination is a powerful part of religious adherence. In my opinion, it is the main reason religion persists. After that uncritical belief is instilled, faith can be encouraged to handle any doubts. By the time critical thought is available, if it ever fully forms, there is little desire for its application. Because of this, even the dumbest arguments are convincing to religious people, and signs like this don’t seem weird at all.
16 February, 2008 at 2:54 am
Oh, I think everyone can agree that is why religion is still around, and no religion is at all shy about their agendas towards indoctrinating children. They all make a huge push to get the kids in their doors from birth. That’s 99% of the battle won, if you can get them early. If they waited until people were adults, religion would’ve died out centuries ago and everyone knows it (even if they won’t admit it).
I view the questioning later-in-life angle a little bit differently from you though. By the time a religion-raised person grows up enough to think for themselves and to question things, they’ve had many years of being told to accept their particular religion’s beliefs all on faith and just don’t question it. It is not necessarily that there is no desire to question (though true, that is often the case), it just the thought hasn’t occurred that it should be questioned.
You learn as a child not to touch the stove when it’s hot or stick things in the electrical outlets; you don’t even think about questioning these things anymore, because you probably learned the hard way once, and that was enough. You also learn that sharks will eat you and and lightening will kill you. These things of course, most of us will never experience, but we know them to be true anyway, because we’ve been told it is so. Religion is just one step further than that, but it’s that step from tangible, into intangible. You’re taught about God – and hey, though you’ve never seen a shark, someone has and there are pictures, and you’re told that someone has seen this God-guy, so it must be true, there is a book and everything that says it is true! Trouble is, as you and I both know quite well, that no one has actually ever seen this God-guy. No one has sat down and had a conversation with him, there are no pictures, he is a veritable Loch Ness Monster. We’ve dredged the lake and come up with no sheep-eating dinosaurs.
We all know Nessie is a hoax, but there are still many who persist in believing there is a giant sea-creature living in that lake despite an overwhelming lack of evidence supporting it. They take it on faith, and with no small amount of hope, that such a fantastical creature is real. The very people who want Nessie to be true the most, are the ones who end up giving us the most evidence that there is no way possible for that creature to exist . . .
Questioning crops up when a person is given reason. In my case, I was raised in a religious-free atmosphere. We did not go to church, we did not discuss religion, it just never came up. My father flat out wouldn’t talk about it – he hated and resented religion (having been forced to go a lot as a child). My mother’s religious education was spotty at best – grandma liked to try on new churches the way some women like to try on new shoes – to her, church was an obligation you were required to attend periodically, and the main goal was to show up the other women by having a superior new hat.
I had a few friends who occasionally dragged (usually by trickery) me into going to church with them when I became a teenager – and I was frankly appalled that they were buying into the snake oil-esque solutions to life they were being handed. One memorable sermon a friend of mine had me suffer through, her pastor was preaching to a community of farmers in a small town. He told them (and I quote word for word, it’s seared into my brain) “the Devil has made you use fertilizers and pesticides that poison God’s Earth!” I couldn’t believe that people actually sat around nodding their heads in agreement when their pastor told them that! I was beyond livid. Here was a church full of adults, laying the blame for their actions on someone/thing else?? This made it alright and justifiable?!? My friend finally realized she’d made a mistake in trying to convert me that day, and I was all geared up and ready to take down her pastor in a very public manner – she whisked me out of there and never made the mistake of trying to convert me again. She did get an earful of my ire about it for the rest of the day however
But the point is, my friend had been taught not to question, while I had not been taught, to not question. So since I was free to question what was being said, I saw through the deceit, the shrugging off of personal responsibility, immediately. I went from never even considering the matter to actively realizing that this God-guy people nattered on about was a gigantic hoax, an invention of a minority of people to control the majority of people. The Mafia practices the same thing very effectively. They say, “Pay me hush money or I’ll break your legs!” and religions says “Believe in God, do as I say or you’ll suffer for all eternity!”
21 February, 2008 at 3:30 pm
I agree that the very idea of questioning doesn’t occur to many people. And if it does, suppression is encouraged by the faithful self and peers. I attribute all of this to indoctrination.
Regarding the lack of evidence for lake monsters, gods, and the riffraff with which they associate- I understand why some of the believers are certain they have it. I think they are mistaken in having a much-too-loose and unreliable standard for evidence. Misunderstanding probability or science, for example, can lead to someone making more of an event than should be. But to that person, it seems like good evidence, when it may be bad evidence or none at all. I sympathize with them up to and until the point when they refuse to revaluate it after being shown their mistakes. This resistance is what I see as one of the most negative effects of faith.
Your last bit hits on the key issue. Everyone should be encouraged to be curious, ask questions, and examine everything. There should be no sacred cows or off-limits topics. Those ideas which are good – those claims which are true about reality can withstand the scrutiny. This is offensive only to undeserved authority, and I say “take it down.”
30 May, 2008 at 6:56 pm
I was raised by a Pentecostal Mom and an alcoholic merchant marine Dad (who loved us dearly, fanatically)…
In early days, I preferred Dad’s lifepath- it was after more fun to be in atmosphere where yelping loudly, dancing wildly and loving passionately were encouraged.
Dear Mom prayed her heart out and eventually I said yes to her frequent invites to church..one of those happy places where they hug you and dance wildly , and yelped loudly…it made uncomfortable because I thought I loved God and could clearly understand that I was sadly mistaken.
I repeated the prayer that is said at most Christian gatherings: ” God, please forgive me of my sins. I accept the sacrifice of Jesus’s life on the cross as payment for them. I haven’t done a great job of decision making so I turn the rights for my life over to you and ask you to be my Lord now.”
Sounded good and definitely spelled out where I was…
What I was not expecting: The instant creation of another part of me that was apparently nonexistent or dead prior to that prayer. I mean, I had immediate awareness of the invisible world that is tissue thin close. I knew what my “spirit” was, and could clearly understand the difference between my spirit, soul and body. I realized that I had been 2/3 of a human before and now I was finally a full blown complete person the way God wanted. …
That was many years ago and through all the stupid crap that life has dished out, I’ve found one thing to be constant: a complete lovely addiction to God, to Jesus. Most of the time I like the church folk – somewhat. At least I know most of them understand the spiritual realm.
If you don’t beleive it, I’m sad for you and wonder how you became so cynical. I know some of us Christians are pretty nasty and narrow minded too. Sorry about that.
Don’t throw us all into the same box tho. Peopel come in different flavors, levels of wisdom and love for humankind.
The deal is – if what I believe based on personal experience is the truth, then it’s going to be heartbreaking to see unbelievers being tortuosly dragged into a never ending agony worse than anything imaginable.
You see, that’s why we sort of come off trying to cram Jesus down your throat. . . we simply found what we didn’t know we were searching for.