Comments on: Brainwashed No Longer

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 24 May 2007 01:14:47 +0000

Mike, I think it bodes well that your wife’s father is an athiest. Since he probably still loves her mother despite it.

It’s a shame you have to find a new band. One of the things that bothers me about many Christians is how conditional their friendship and love are. Even if they don’t agree with you, they should be there for you through your “crisis of faith” evne if that is not how you think of it, but no, they are fearful that if they are around you that they might become infected, too. What kind of faith is that?

By: Helen

Helen — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:24:44 +0000

Mikefight, I hope you and your wife can work this out. If you both want to make the marriage work I think you’ll find a way. But it might take time for her to see you really are the same person.

By: beloved268

beloved268 — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 06:41:34 +0000

Of course, you’re still left with the question, “Why am I here?”

Answer: To recognize my oneness with the universe.

Riiiight. Too bad that’s a circular and evasive answer.

Next question: How did I get here? How did HERE get here? Evolution? Before that. Big Bang? Before that. Condensed microscopic particle? Before that…

By: heartyheretic

heartyheretic — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 23:36:56 +0000

Mikefight: Thank you for your story…I’m afraid it’s all too common, being asked to believe in the utterly unbelievable is a ridiculous thing for religion to ask. I’d like to share with you a definition of faith that speaks to me, one that allows me to aspire to follow Jesus without all the Xian baggage (incarnation, atonement, resurrection, ascension, etc.). It’s from Wilfred Cantwell Smith, and it goes like this: Faith, at it’s best, has taken the form of a quiet confidence and joy which allows one to feel at home in the universe. It sounds to me that you’re heading in the right direction.

By: beloved268

beloved268 — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 18:10:50 +0000

Sounds like you suffered at the hands of incompetent Christians, possibly inauthentic ones, if they couldn’t give you a better answer than “just have faith”. I’m a devout Christian and that’s the biggest load of BS I’ve ever heard. There’s nothing at all simplistic about faith. When Jesus said we must enter the Kingdom of God with faith “like a child”, he wasn’t saying that Heaven was for immature, ignorant fools. He was highlighting their innocence and trust. No, you cannot maintain a relationship with God, nor anyone else, without trust. But trust requires REASONS to trust, right? The reason we trust our parents as children is that they’ve earned our trust by being there for us, day in and day out, providing for our needs, nurturing us. Even if we see their flaws or experience their discipline, we trust them because we love them and we know they love us–because they’re there.

So, I can completely understand why you think the Christian faith is a load of crap. If you listen to Dawkins very long, you’ll build yourself a whole stinkin’ pile of reasons. HOWEVER, if you listen to people like C.S. Lewis, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, Alister McGrath, (the list could go on), then you have a whole pile of reasons to believe. But it takes initiative on OUR part to seek the truth on “the other side”. See, there’s an element of truth to the “faith” argument. First, you do have faith. The athiest has faith that there is no god. He has faith that nothing bad could possibly result from his lack of belief in and surrender to God. But the tricky thing–and this is no circular argument, just think about it for a second–is that a certain element of faith PRECEDES one’s seeking of God. If you don’t start with at least enough faith to assume that exploring the possibility of God is worthwhile, then you will never honestly (1) open your mind to the truth of it and (2) seek to learn the reasons why COMPETENT, authentic Christians believe what they do.

I can’t–and won’t try–to change your mind. All I can do is offer you this: if there’s an inkling of faith inside you that still wonders if God’s real and Jesus is the answer to life, then take that little bit of faith, go to the library and check out a book or two by some of the authors I mentioned above. Mere Christianity, by CS Lewis is a great one. More Than A Carpenter, by McDowell is very short (less than 100 pages), to the point, and easy to read. I’m sure you’ve heard of The Case for Faith and The Case for Christ by Strobel. If not, those are great reads as well. Also, you might want to look into some of the recent criticisms of Dawkins, especially with regard to “Delusion”. The book is the laughing stock of the intellectual community, including most athiests. If you want to be a good athiest, don’t look to Dawkins.

Grace.

By: hungertruth

hungertruth — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 07:55:08 +0000

Wow! I appreciate your intellectual honesty and courage to use your critical faculties against all admonitions to the contrary. Hopefully the church will learn from this and stop asking people to just have faith. Just continue to love your wife, be gracious and patient and she will see that you are the same trustworthy person she married. Someday she will appreciate that her husband has genuine integrity displayed by following what he thinks is true, popular or not. Keep studying, thinking and sharing your story.

By: tim

tim — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 03:17:33 +0000

mikefight,

Thanks for sharing your story. I hope things will start going better for you and your wife and kids. That must be a tough situation. Thanks for sharing with us about it.