I have no problem with people who claim to be agnostic. Lord knows I’ve been there and still find myself wondering at times. Still I consider myself a devout Christian who can recite the Apostle’s Creed with conviction.

Atheists, however, are another matter. I don’t dislike them I just can not fathom how anyone can say, “There is no God,” with any certainty. I don’t understand them and I can’t help but view their certainty of there being no god as a bit of arrogance.

I know it may seem hypocritical of me to view an atheists certainty of there being no god and not some believers certainty that there is but I don’t see it that way. To me I can understand someone taking even the flimsiest bit of evidence of a god and having it become a certainty but just because to another there is a lack of evidence can not lead to a certainty that there is no God.

Look at it this way, we really have no universal definition of what a supreme being might be. On top of that we really have no consensus that a god has to be a supreme being or that just any supreme being is a god. Since we really don’t know what a god or a supreme being might be how can we say it doesn’t exist?

To look at it another way we live in a complex universe. The more we find out about it the more we find that we don’t know. Some look at the universe as being boundless, without limits or as constantly expanding. We understand the basic laws of physics and how they work but when we go beyond the basics we continue to find things to be just a little more complex than what we fully understand. We get a grasp on that complexity and that opens up even more complexity.

The complexities are proving to be more and more enormous the more we look. So are we so arrogant then as to think that we are looking at something that the human mind is fully capable of completely understanding? I’m not saying that it is useless and that we should stop looking and theorizing but what I am saying is that I don’t expect us to ever be able to comprehend the laws of physics completely, at least not in our current form.

So where am I going with this? If we can’t fully understand our universe, and by that we I’m also including the physicist who is so intelligent he can comprehend 26 different dimensions in a theory that has merit throughout the scientific community, if we can’t come to an agreement on what a supreme being might be or what a god is, how can we be so arrogant as to make the bold statement that there is no Creator God? How can anyone possibly state with any confidence at all that it all just happened?

Now, with that said I can fully understand someone telling me they can’t believe in a Sky Wizard or some invisible Magic Man. I find those terms offensive to me but I can understand someone not being able to believe in the God of the Bible or the Koran or any of the pagan gods out there. I just can’t understand how anyone can say with any certainty that there is no God, period.

This past week I’ve been talking to some friends about God. One of my friends wanted to know how I rationalized other gods to my own. It’s fairly easy. I’m a monotheist. There is only one God so the other gods he’s speaking of must just be different names for my God. He wasn’t very satisfied with my answer. Other religions worship their God differently than I worship my God. They have different creation stories and such. How could they be my God by a different name.

I understand his confusion. He’s an atheist and doesn’t believe in any gods. I can appreciate that he doesn’t believe in a supernatural being and this leads to his confusion in my answer. He does believe that there are things more important than just living his life to the fullest so there is something bigger than him, something he must serve. While I believe in God as a supernatural being I also believe that your god is who you serve. Micah 6:8 tells us exactly what my God requires from me to serve Him. I must act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with my God. From what I’ve gathered from my Hindu friends, that’s what Brahman requires from them in order to reach Nirvana. Same God, different names, different rituals, different stories.

Still, I believe the important part isn’t the name of the god or the ritual or the stories. The important part is how you serve God. I believe we serve God by serving His creation and it only really counts is that our motivation for doing so is our love of God. Call God what you will, just love Him and serve Him and you are on the right path. To me, that’s all what believing in Christ is all about and everybody has to serve somebody.

There are some things I believe.

• I believe in the Big Bang theory in that the universe exploded into being from a singularity.
• I believe that all life on earth evolved into what it is now from a primordial soup over millions of years.
• I believe that all the universe and all that is in it came into being at the guidance of some kind of intelligence.
• I believe that intelligence is God.
• I believe that along with creating the universe God also created an ideal way of living.
• I believe that the most precious gift God gave us was free will.
• I believe that this ideal way of living is something that you and I can choose to live or we can choose our own way of living.
• I believe that it is God’s will that we choose His ideal way of living.
• I believe that we all are searching for God’s ideal way of living and that this search has manifested itself into all the major religions of the world.
• I believe that God works his Will through all of these religions.
• I believe that Jesus perfectly represented God’s ideal way of living.
• I believe that every religion has been perverted by people trying to use religion to control others.

These are some of the things I believe. I’ve tried to put these in essay form but I can’t. It seems a list is the only way I can express them. I have more to add to this list but it’s getting late. I’ll save those items for a later post.

My friend, Dan, found an article that he termed about the problem with Christian Identity from the perspective of those who aren’t. I read the article and I have to agree with it. When someone calls themself a Christian I have to take them at their word regardless of their deeds. It goes back to the old “judge not lest you be judged” directive which is more or less telling us that only God knows the condition of one’s soul.

The problem with this seems to be that Christians get a lot of bad publicity due to people claiming to be Christians in conjunction with unchristian-like acts. I say, “seems to be,” because I don’t really see this as a problem when you consider that as a Christian I should be concerned about loving God and seeking to do His will rather than worrying about my reputation as a Christian. If I consistantly love God and consistantly seek to do His will my reputation ought to take care of itself.

So, instead of worrying about what other people think of Christians let me share with you a poem that expresses my feelings much more succinctly than I ever could on what it means when I tell you I’m a Christian:

WHEN I SAY, “I AM A CHRISTIAN”

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I’m not shouting, “I’ve been saved!”
I’m whispering, “I get lost! That’s why I chose this way”

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I don’t speak with human pride
I’m confessing that I stumble-needing God to be my guide

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I’m not trying to be strong
I’m professing that I’m weak and pray for strength to carry on

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I’m not bragging of success
I’m admitting that I’ve failed and cannot ever pay the debt

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I don’t think I know it all
I submit to my confusion asking humbly to be taught

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I’m not claiming to be perfect
My flaws are far too visible but God believes I’m worth it

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I still feel the sting of pain
I have my share of heartache which is why I seek His name

When I say, “I am a Christian,” I do not wish to judge
I have no authority–I only know I’m loved

Copyright 1988 Carol Wimmer
Used with permission from the author.

Just a little side note, that poem has been circulated on the internet with attribution going to Maya Angelou. While the style is similar to some of Dr. Angelou’s work it isn’t her’s. It’s Carol Wimmer’s.

The Gospel of John, Chapter 1:

---

¹ In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
² He existed in the beginning with God.
³ God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.
⁴ The Word gave life to everything that was created,
and his life brought light to everyone.
⁵ The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.⁶ God sent a man, John the Baptist, ⁷ to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. ⁸ John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. ⁹ The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.¹⁰ He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. ¹¹ He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. ¹² But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. ¹³ They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.¹⁴ So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

---

I love the way the Gospel of John begins. Right up front he gets to the point, Jesus is God, but he also stresses another point in verse 14, Jesus is human.

I wrestled with this idea for a long time trying to understand if this meant there were two gods, God and Jesus, (and later three with the introduction of the Holy Spirit) or was Jesus like a different aspect of God. Trying to grasp the concept of The Holy Trinity has given lay people and theologians alike problems since the idea was proposed in the early Church.

It hasn’t been until recently that I think I’ve finally begun to understand this. John 1:1-2 finally gave me clue I needed when I discovered that the greek word that was translated to “the Word” was “λόγος” or “logos” which is a word that Socrates, Plato and Aristotle used to denote human reasoning. John, I believe, was using “logos” to mean “the mind of God” or “the Will of God”.

Jesus lived a perfect life we are told. Everything he did in his life he did for the glory of God. God was reflected in Jesus. In John 17:21 Jesus prays to God:

Just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me.

Jesus seems to be praying that His disciples could share, at least a little, in God’s Logos. He’s praying that they, too, could know the mind of God. This gives me great comfort. Learning and knowing God’s mind, knowing His will in my life means that this knowledge isn’t reserved just for some elite clergy.

Joe was a fervent believer in prayer. Every day, two or three times a day he would ask God to please let him win the lottery. Ten years went by and Joe did not win the lottery.

One day in his prayers he called out to God, saying, “Lord, I know you answer prayers I’ve seen it happen in many people’s lives. You have answered my prayers for other people but for ten years now I’ve been praying to win the lottery and I’ve not won a thing in all that time, I’ve not even received a sign.”

“Joe,” God answered back, “you have been a good and faithful servant and I would love to reward you with winning the lottery but you are going to have to at least buy a ticket.”

I am convinced that God does, indeed, answer prayers. I’m also convinced that to receive an answer to a prayer it has to be a legitimate prayer. in other words, it has to be a prayer prayed in the way that Jesus would pray, in search of God’s will.

I also believe that God requires us to help in answering some prayers, much like Joe needing to buy a lottery ticket in order to win the lottery. It is very easy to pray for the hungry to be feed but acting on the prayer to feed the hungry ourselves often doesn’t occur to us. By acting on our requests to God in this way we may see ourselves doing much more to feed the poor than we ever thought we could do before acting on this desire that we have prayed for.

Prayer often opens our eyes to solutions we can provide to those we pray for. If you are praying for a friend who is going through a rough time you are keeping that friend on your mind and by doing so God may give you an idea of how to comfort that friend. The key is to keep our minds open to what our prayers may require from us.

This weekend has been very busy and very hectic and it all revolved around Church activities. Saturday morning I was up and at my church around 7:45am where I met with and had breakfast and took communion with well over one hundred fellow members of my church. This was deemed “One Great Day of Service” where we split up into teams and did work around the church that needed done and work in the community. The community work included building a retaining wall for the local food bank, some project for the local pregnancy crisis center and yard work for a couple of senior citizens.

The work crew I found myself on was yardwork for one of the senior citizens. This poor man’s house was nearly taken over by kudzu. For those of you who may not be familiar with kudzu it is a vine that branches out and covers everything. It grows at a fantastic rate and was originally introduced into the south from Asia as a means to control erosion. We cut and pulled kudzu off of the house and managed to get a buffer zone between the kudzu and his house. This took about four hours with ten of us working.

We had a huge pile of kudzu along with some other weeds that were trimmed back and we were worried about what we would do with the trimmings. We looked up and saw that the local power utility had a crew trimming growth away from the power lines and they were hauling a chipper to cut up their waste. We asked and they gladly consented to chip and shred up the cuttings and yard waste we had.

Around 1:00pm we finished up and headed back to the church for lunch. The sandwiches and cookies were great but I really needed a massuese. My back was sore. I checked around to see if I was needed for anything else and when I found out I wasn’t I headed back home and took about a forty-five minute nap. After the nap I planted some shrubs I had bought last weekend, cleaned up and went back to the church to meet some people for another function which I can’t go into much here other than to say it involved communion and encouragement for some fellow churchmembers.

Yesterday morning I had to get up early enough to go over some material for my Sunday School class. I was taking my turn leading the class which is a discussion group. Our current series is John Ortberg’s “If You Want to Walk on Water You Have to Get Out of The Boat” which isn’t a bad series. After Sunday School I left the class for our prayer room. I had agreed to pray for the 10:55am service during the thirty minutes between Sunday School and the service. I then went to the service and listened to my pastor give a sermon on David and his affair with Bathsheba. What a parallel can be drawn between what David did wrong and current affairs.

After church I went home, had lunch and another nap and went back to Church for Disciple Bible Study. I’m taking the first class, Disciple I. This is another discussion group and it’s about an eight month course. I’m on week 6.

Now, I suppose you are wondering what brought this “What I did over my weekend” spiel. Well, everything I did this weekend I did it with people that I didn’t know a couple of years ago and everyone of the people I worked closely with this weekend would meet me in Salt Lake City with $10,000 in forty-eight hours, no questions asked, if I were to call them up unexpectedly and tell them I needed that of them. I would gladly do the same for any of them. Every person I had close contact with this weekend will sit and listen to my questions, my ideas and my thoughts on God, religion, philosophy, life and morality without judging me or telling me I am going to hell for any of my apostate thoughts or ideas. This is a community that loves me as I am, warts and all. This is a community that I wouldn’t have met and been received by had I not joined in corporate worship with them.

My friend, Dan, is responsible for this coming to mind to share with you. He always seems to have something to say that relates to something close to what I’m thinking about at the moment to inspire me to something. Sometimes I share that with you.

I recognize that Islam is made up of people and that some will be violent by nature and some will be peacful by nature and that both groups can find justification in their Koran for their violent or peaceful nature. It’s the same with my religion, Christianity. I also recognize that when outsiders point out certain things about one’s religion that isn’t so pretty that it’s real easy to get defensive.

Getting defensive is one thing. Getting violent is something else completely.

AN ITALIAN nun was killed by gunmen at a children’s hospital in Somalia yesterday in an apparent revenge attack for the Pope’s speech about Islam last week.

The Pope reads a passage from a 600 year old text that states that Islam is inherently violent and the response from some muslims is to prove the point? I’ve got to ask, what is everyone thinking? On top of this you also have Anjem Choudary over in London seeking the death penalty for the Pope and anyone else who insults Islam. What is all this suppose to make me think about Islam?

I need a new catagory, “Things I just don’t understand.”

* This post can also be found here in the forums.*

My friend Cat is a pagan. I don’t understand the draw to that religion but then that should be expected because I’ve found my religion and I’m very comfortable with the relationship it affords me to my God. I don’t understand the draw to Islam or Hinduism either. I’m sure none of the practitioners of any of those religions understand the draw Christianity hold over me.

What got me thinking about this is something Cat said the other day. She was lamenting as to how some people she knew were into paganism for the power it promises to bring the practitioner. Evidently there are spells or prayers in her religion that can be used to bring wealth and power and other things. She felt that instead of looking for what paganism can do for the believer the believer should be looking at what they can do to please their god. She then saw the parallel with Christians that are Christians just so that they can go to heaven when they die. Shouldn’t Christianity be practiced just to please God? Going to heaven is just icing on the cake.

While I can’t understand the draw of paganism for people I have to wonder if for many it wasn’t just because they didn’t like the hypocrits that they associated with Christianity. At least that seems to be the reason I’ve heard from many of the pagans I’ve been associated with. That’s also the reason given to me from many people I know who were brought up in a Christian culture but rejected Christianity for Islam, Buddhism and even Hinduism.

In all of our seeking, regardless of the name of the religion, what we are seeking is God. Being the monotheist that I am I have to look at all Gods actually being The One God so aren’t we all just seeking a relationship with God? Okay, some of us claim to be seeking humanity because there is no God but for a minute just drop the semantical argument we could get into over that and just work with me. We seek out God to serve God. Right? But some of us seek out God to be served by God. People are people. With all of us being seekers and we know that there are hypocrits among us seekers, why would any of us expect the followers of one religion to have any less than another?

Basically, what this boils down to to me is that if we want to go to heaven, if we want power, if we want wealth and we are looking to religion to supply that to us then we have to give up that want, whatever it is to attain it. If you want to be served you must first serve others without a desire to be served. If you want to attain wealth you have to give away all you have. If you want to get to heaven you must be willing to crawl through hell in service to your neighbor to get there. Yeah, people are people but Gods are Gods and Gods are there to be served.

Joh 3:1-6

1. Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
2. the same came unto him by night, and said to him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that thou doest, except God be with him.
3. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
5. Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God!
6. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

I was listening to Neal Boortz yesterday at lunch. He had a few less than complimentary things to say about born-again Christians. I actually have to agree with his sentiment but while he was using the term “born-again Christians” I don’t think that was really the group he was condemning.

See, most people think of born-again Christians as the holy rollers, the ones that have the fish on the back of their car and on their business cards. I don’t think you can tell a born-again Christian by what they say or by what is on the back of their car. You have to look at what they do and understand why they are doing it.

From what I’m understanding Jesus to be saying in the above is that to enter the Kingdom of God (I don’t think he’s referring to going to heaven when you die by this statement) you have to completely change your life. You have to become the type of person that loves God above all else. That love has to manifest itself in such a way that doing God’s Will is the number one priority in your life. This love, this change in priorities, will so affect your life that you are like a new person. I like the Literal Version’s way of putting it, generated from above.

A lot of people claim to be born again who aren’t. These people think they have been born again because they are going to church and sitting on church committees and sometimes even going on church missions but on finding out that a neighbor is a homosexual they begin treating that neighbor as a leper. People that go around labeling who is going to hell aren’t born again Christians.

How can you tell a born again Christian? You have to look at the way he or she lives their life. You have to look at their spirit. Are they living their life themself or are they living their life to the glory of God? Are they loving and supporting their neighbor even while condemning their actions or are they allowing their neighbors actions to cause them to condemn their neighbor?

Born-again Christians rarely address themselves as such, they just show it in their lives. This is the reason I rarely take exception to people condemning born-again Christians, they usually aren’t really talking about the real ones.

Yesterday I asked if you would live your life any differently if you were faced with absolute proof that there was no god. I was asking that from my perspective as a Christian. I know some of you, my readers, are atheists and some are agnostic and some are believers, just not in the Christian God. My reason behind asking that question was as a way to check the validity in what I believe in.

I think that question is a good one to ask one’s self regardless of one’s beliefs. Do I find my values valid based solely on my values or are my values valid only if my views on religion are correct? How could a valid religion ask one to subscribe to invalid values?

Okay, here’s yet another question for you. If you were faced with absolute proof that there was no God, no afterlife and (assuming you are a Christian) that Jesus was just a myth would you change anything about your life? Would you reject the current values you are living or would you continue following those values?

God or no god I don’t see how that in and of itself has any bearing on whether I continue to live my life serving others, caring for others and forgiving others. I also can’t see how living my life a certain way only to attain a certain place in an afterlife could actually assure me that place in the afterlife.

Just a thought I had. I’d be interested in yours.

Here’s a question for you. What does the following bible verse really mean?

Mat 10:14 And whoever will not receive you, nor will hear your words, having gone out of that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet.

I think it sets limits. I think it tells me I am to tell people about my religion but not try to force my religious values on other people. I’m to set an example but not make an example of other people. I think it shows a libertarian leaning to bible lessons.

For some reason when people point out natural phenomenon as explanations for miracles in the Bible it just reinforces my faith in those Bible stories. I think the reason is that, while I freely admit a belief that God can perform acts of magic, natural phenomenon occuring at the time it is needed is far more miraculous to me than someone pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

With this in mind it was a joy for me to read a natural explanation for Jesus’ walk on water.

It was a stormy night on the Sea of Galilee and the disciples were out in a boat, battling a contrary wind, when they saw Jesus approaching, as if a spirit. “And he went up to them into the ship; and the wind ceased,” it is written in Mark 6:51. “And they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered.”

Doron Nof also wondered, in a measured, scientific way. A professor of oceanography at Florida State University, he conducted an inquiry and found what might be a natural explanation: ice.

I am confident someone will come up with an explanation for water turning to wine.

My friend, Cat, notices a difference between the way men and women think about organization. She is a member of a pagan community that, from what I can tell, is a very attractive alternative to organized religion to many of its members. It seems, though, that the men want to organize the community while the women want it to remain in its current state. I can understand the dilemma.

While I could comment on the fact that the decision to organize or not to organize divides between men and women I’ll leave that to Cat to explore. I want to look more at the organized/unorganized aspect of religion. Too much of either can stifle a community.

When I lived in Chattanooga I belonged to a very large church that my family just got lost in. We quit attending because things were so organized that it was next to impossible to get engaged in the Church. We started attending a much smaller church, a church that would have fewer than a hundred in attendance each Sunday. Aside from an organized service each Sunday, and I’m using that term loosely even here the only way things got done in this church was by someone noticing it needed to be done and calling a couple of other members and doing it. Surprisingly a lot got done but a lot of efforts were often duplicated and the pastor often was unaware of what was being done.

The church I currently attend is a medium sized church. The one important thing that I believe our church has done is to institute small groups and it encourages its members and those just attending to get involved in at least one of them. The church itself is highly organized in that the pastoral staff is broken down into seperate areas of authority answering back to someone or some committee in what they are doing however many of the small groups act autonomously and are free to mobilize its member into doing things in the community without being burdened by getting permission and answering to a committee.

I’m sold on small groups. I think they are the way the church was meant to operate.