September 19, 2005
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Just answer this question, if you would. How can Christianity
bring you enjoyment without brainwashing you into thinking pain is
enjoyment? Why do you have to often do things you hate in order
to have joy? Why must you limit the enjoyment you can get out of
life by always being concerned with sin? How can this life
possibly be enjoyable or purposeful if the only reason for being here
is to prepare for the next life? Why do we even need faith?Sorry, that was five questions, but they are intertwined.
Comments (8)
I don’t think this life is only preparation for the next life. I don’t do things I hate in order to have joy. And I’m not always concerned with sin. I’m concerned with love. I don’t believe my Christian experience is pain. I’m also not delusioned into thinking I can avoid all pain.
Being a Christian brings me joy because I realize I am loved. I believe God loves and even likes me. That frees me to live in confidence. I try to live my life as a response to love — not out of neccesity, but because love motivates someone to be the best version of themselves and to share that love. Those who are always worried about sin are not living the way I believe the Christian life (and really just life in general) is intended. Love is freeing. It doesn’t paint everything with rose-colored glasses, but it does give strength in difficult times. It gives purpose to the here and now. I try to live my life in such a way that it doesn’t matter whether anything comes next — that I am living fully now. Fully investing myself in others, etc. I’m not always good at it, but it is what I strive for. . .
I had a response all planned in my head, but Jen beat me to it. Well said, Jen.
I don’t live my life based on a set of rules I must follow, it’s about growing closer to one who loves me. I think life would be pretty miserable if we had to do a bunch of things we hate. No, I’m free to do as I will, I think Jesus has just given me different priorities.
I hate to see people living lives filled with hopelessness because there’s something so much better. Now, I’m not ecstatically happy every day, but that’s just life. You know that look on someone’s face when they’re newly in love–that little smile that’s always on their lips? It doesn’t mean everything is going great in their lives, or that everything is perfect even in the relationship. It means that they’ve realized it doesn’t matter. They have something more important. That’s why I’m not depressed when things are tough. I have a friend who’s always there for me, and always will be.
Well said by both! The issue not addressed, faith. Lemme ask you this, how much faith does it require for you to sit in a chair?
If you answered not much, you’re wrong.
You have been taught from childhood to trust that the chairs you sit in are in good quality, and hopefully be able to notice or be told when they are not. With that, you were learning a lesson in faith. Faith that you can judge the quality of the chair you sit in, faith that you aren’t going to just fall through to the floor. And also faith in those who helped you realize that the chair can hold you up.
Faith is very important in life; without faith, one would constantly doubt the world around them and thus have no point or purpose for living. Imagine that you couldn’t trust whether or not the very chair you’re sitting in is safe. Then, if you can’t wrestle the idea of it being safe, what can you trust? Is the air you’re breathing safe? Will the floor somehow give way and make you fall through? Can you even trust the very bed you sleep in? Where could you go and what could you do without some measure of faith?
Faith in God is tough, it’s tough even for Christians to always be faithful to God. Sometimes we wonder if He will make things work out the right way or not. But doubt of God can be dependant on the person who is doubting; the person doubting may not have God’s will in their heart, even though God can and sometimes does fullfill our desires, our desires may not be what is best for us.
For instance, if I desire to be wealthy beyond all measure; God may not fullfill that desire because He know me, He knows I would be corrupted by it, that I would use it unwisely and thus be broke all over again.
Sometimes, when we don’t get what we want, it is for our benefit; something better always has the potential of coming along. God does not call us that we have our desires met 100%, sometimes He has something much better in store than what we desire. That is where faith steps in with God. We have to trust that our Father is watching out for our best interest. We may have no idea where we are going or how we can get there, but He has it planned out; He is not shocked by our deviances, He knew they would come and still chooses to love us.
I don’t know where I’d be in my life without the realization that even when I am at my worst, even when the rest of the world would turn away from me in hideous disgust, that God loves me; He loved me enough the ugly and disgusting sin in my life was nailed to the cross when His Son died for me.
That my friend, is true for you as well. You can have faith in the fact that God died for you, for your sin. He took the blame! God was going to carry out a sentence of death, and Jesus took the blame instead!
I know this is not all new to you, but you have to understand that these are the only things that matter. Faith and love are not easy; this life isn’t easy. It isn’t any easier for the unbeliever, the unbeliever still has the same problems! The only big difference is, they have no one to help them through until they believe in God. They have nothing to put their faith in, nothing! They are like the one who cannot trust the chair to hold them up.
some people type a lot…I suppose that means they care…or perhaps they know everything…I have no answers only experience…in my experience caring about life always makes me feel better about the short time I have here then being careless with life…that’s all I know…keep in touch man.
having faith in the chair being stable, is a calculated risk. Planning my life around something that I don’t even know exists, is quite another thing. If the chair breaks, I fall on my ass. It hurts for a few minutes maybe and then life goes on. If I torture myself for the rest of my life to please something that’s not there, that’s pretty fucking sad and stupid. All the time I wasted on worshiping something that wasn’t there, could’ve gone to me enjoying the time I had on this earth.
Okay, fair point about calculated risk on the chair; it was the best I could think of at the time. Although, I think you’re missing the point of Faith in God and believing in Him. It is not torture to live right. I mean, in the long run, God’s “Laws/rules” are no different than general morality. Do not kill, do not murder, do not commit adultry (morality does have a different point of veiw on this as it does not include sex outside of marriage,) do not steal.
Heck I don’t even remember them all, and I don’t need to. Because it isn’t about living up to rules; it’s realizing that someone loves you more than anything. It’s realizing that you can’t live wihout love, His love.
A lot of the misconception about Christianity in the “laws/rules” area is that we have to follow them to earn God’s love; the truth is that God loves us without the necessity of following any rules. He loved us enough that when we broke His “rules,” His Son died for us (took the blame for the broken “rules”.)
The “rules” you see in the Bible are just a Father’s way of letting His children know how to live a fuller life; He doesn’t want us to suffer or to feel tortured, we may not always be 100% happy but that is dependant on where we have our hearts. When we are concerned with the things of this world (sin, cars, girls, etc,) we cannot be truly happy because we are trying to fill a void with nothingness. Try digging a whole and fill up up with air. You may be able to see, touch and feel the things of this world but until you give your all to God, you can never be truly filled.
As for wasted time worshiping something that may not exist, are you truly willing to take the risk of passing up love, true love? It is hard to believe in something you cannot see, but don’t you also believe that there is one special person out there for you? How do you know that person exists? Do you have faith or trust in it? If you do, it’s no different than believing in God. How do you know you won’t spend the rest of your life searching for the right person to marry? Think of all of the time you could have been investing in soemthing else, since you don’t know if s/he truly exists.
If you don’t believe there is only one person you should marry, then why have relationships? What is the point? What exactly are you looking for, no one person could ever make you happy, right? How do you know you’ll be happy with 100, 1,000, or 1,000,000? Can they truly make you happy? Or is it that happiness resides somewhere else?
Maybe happiness is in the car you drive, or in the house you live in? Whatever you see in your life that makes you happy, how long does it last? Does it truly satisfy you, or do you keep searching when something you’ve desired has been fullfilled?
I believe in God because He truly fullfills me. I don’t have to keep searching. I might want a “better life” by getting a car that runs, a house that stands, and a woman who loves me; but there is no gaurantee that those things will last, cars break down, houses fall apart, and the woman I love could die.
God lasts forever, He will never leave me or forsake me, EVER! Now that I believe in His love, there is nothing I can do to be separated from His love, nothing! There is nothing anyone can do to cause that spearation, nothing in the earth, above the earth, or below the earth. Not even death can separate me from His love, because I will be with Him after death.
What in this life can you truly say that about? Nothing. Everything in this life will pass away. How can that make you happy? In my mind, you don’t place your hope or faith in God becuase you aren’t sure He exists, but you place your hopes in the fact that something in this life can. But I ask you, how can you truly believe in a happiness in this life when nothing is a gaurantee? Why is it so hard to accept the idea of a love beyond all measure, one that lasts forever?
Agian, I think the problem with some people is that they believe you have to follow His “rules.” But what if you never believe becuase you think He wants you to follow some list of rules? Are you really willing to risk being wrong there? Wouldn’t it be better to believe that God does exist and to be wrong than to never believe and be wrong?
What if you are never satisfied in this life by the things you desire? Wouldn’t that be as much of a waste of time as worshiping something that doesn’t exist? How much different is it for you to spend time trying to make yourself happy in life and never truly succeeding, than it is to spend time believing in something that could make you happy, even though it may not exist? Is it worth the risk?
Allow me to let you in on one more truth. Why is it that some Christians and most non-believers think we’re trying to please God? The truth is, you can never DO enough to please Him; He is already pleased with you, just the way you are. Maybe people who don’t believe in a god are that way because they believe that the God they have been introduced to needs to be pleased. What if God does exist? What if, like I said, you already please Him? Would you believe? What if the “rules” you have become to believe are so intregal to Christianity cannot please God, but are meant to please you?
And if God doesn’t exist, what have you wasted? If you didn’t find happiness in the things of God, can you truly find that happiness in those of the world? Either way it’s a gamble from that pint of view.
I can never truly be satisfied with knowing that I’m following something totally blindly, and not using my brain to reason things out. I can believe that god loves me, and that his son died for me(and that he is his own son). I could never be happy with myself though, because it means that I’m stupid. Believing that there’s an invisible man in the sky, with a list of 10 things he doesn’t want you to do. If you do these things, he sends you to a burning firey hell, but He loves you. This stuff about him sending himself to earth in the form of a man, and as his own son, and sacraficing himself to himself and telling himself to forgive the people for they know not what they do. Excuse me, but what the hell kind of sense does that make? I know I know, it’s not about making sense, it’s about having faith. Ummm yeaaa……..
wow, people type a lot. i would rather sit in person and chat about this. but seeing that youre in springfield and i am in st louis, that would be next to impossible. but about the climbing the mountain thing… it is ok to question the faith you have been raised with. but please do not be so adamantly against it, even spiteful to it, just because you are questioning yourself right now in life. dont worry, i have as many questions about anything in life as you do. i care for you, i dont want to see you falling on a downward spiral. damn that trent reznor!