Garden of Daisies

Christianity and our culture

February 1st, 2008

There is something bizarre, to me, about people who claim to be rational, and open thinkers who beat against the Bible and the Christian faith as if it were some kind of punching bag through which they were supposed to be able to make themselves feel smarter.

The Bible is an extremely ancient collection of written works, parts of it respected for millennia, that cannot be easily dismissed. Are there parts of it which are contradictory, or ludicrous in the light of scientific discoveries? Yes. But if you are a secular rationalist then step back and accept it for what it is–a collection of myths and stories that helped, and continues to help, various peoples and cultures around the world through times of strife and trouble when things seemed to be going so wrong in the world that nothing could make life seem worth living.

Sure, you say. But your point is that people out there take it literally! They take it seriously! Every word, you scream, they believe! And I hear you. It stresses me out too. And I’ll admit that I don’t have an answer to that, but I do have a few things to say.

1. Attempting to repeatedly prove that the arguments behind their faith are hollow will never accomplish anything. Their faith is not filling a rational need in their life. It is filling a deep spiritual one, and to take that from them is simply to open them up to the painful experience of absurdity. Only through the experience of seeing the possibility of living and enjoying a compassionate, fulfilling life outside a Christian faith could their beliefs ever be changed–and you are not working toward that end by stirring bad blood with them.

2. As long as you spend so much of your breath attacking their beliefs you are still attached to, and controlled by the role the faith has played in your own life. To actively reject Christianity, so viscerally, or even so rationally (considering it’s not a rational faith) is to accept it as a tenant to be actively argued against. It is not. It is a faith. Ignore it, if it’s not what you want for yourself.

Entry Filed under: Spirituality/Religion, Thoughts on other things...