By Paul So ~ S ometimes (or many times) believers will often see a tension between faith and reason which goes way back since the inception of Christianity by Constantine (or much earlier). Usually you have those who are of extreme fideism (fideism is a theological stance that faith is either superior to reason or reason should not be applied in matters of faith) to those who are more rationalist. The Medieval theologians and the philosophers of the enlightenment relied very much on reason, while giving faith its place, in discussing about theological matters from the existence of God to the coherence of scripture. Philosophers such as Rene Descartes and Leibniz were devout believers of Christianity, but they were often criticized by their Christian contemporary because the contemporaries were suspicious of them for practicing their philosophy independently from theology and Aristotelian philosophy. During the late medieval ages, Martin Luther criticizes reason as a “a whore” and...

By Tes28 ~ L ong-time skeptic here and recently out of the doubting closet. It hit me Easter Day as I was searching "proof of God" that I wasn't going to find it, or believe it, for that matter. I've been a Christian for roughly five years, my husband and I becoming born-again believers after marrying in July 2007. We were baptized in the river July 2008 and over-enthusiasts of the worst kind. We weren't in everybody's face, but we were "in the know". Fast forward to 2009, when we excitedly decided to start a family. But each month passed with no positive line, and my heart ached with rejection by the season. Oh, did this girl pray. Then, in 2010, we got that plus sign! It was God's answer to our prayers! Unfortunately, shortly after it ended in a miscarriage and I was left in a pit so dark I turned zombie-like. God was just not there during this time. I began to wonder, was he ever? I could handle the infertility, the miscarriage, if I j...

By Meranda ~ I have visited this site a few times over the past several months, and have been intrigued, comforted and understood as I read the various posts. My only beef is that I wish I could talk face to face with this community! I have been wishing that I could flesh some of my thoughts out in a physical encounter not just a cyber one (lol). However, I do have my husband who is truly my best friend that is joining me on this journey and that is a tremendous comfort! Satan Is Real (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) My story will sound very familiar I'm sure. I was raised by a single mother with a mental illness, and raising children exasperated it, so I was made a ward of the state at 12 and lived in 7 different foster homes from the time I was 12 to 19. I only include that bit of my past to set the table for my absolute desire for a Father, unconditional love, purpose, someone who sticks closer than a brother, someone who would never leave or forsake me, etc. I fell head ov...

By Matthew ~ W hen I was young I was very inquisitive. I gravitated towards music, astronomy, and math. I always wanted to know how things worked, and I would spend hours taking apart toy trains, playing with Legos , and wondering how in the world a car worked. I wanted to be a mechanic or an astronaut. The world was ablaze with beauty and structure and I had to know how it all worked. I was also enthralled with the idea of heaven. My first memories are learning about Jesus coming back to take us back to heaven to live with him forever. I was told I would be able to fly and play with wild animals in heaven. Sometimes I would go outside and watch for Jesus, trying to spot the cloud that was carrying him back to this earth to save us. As I grew up and began to "understand" the whole process of salvation, I learned that one had to be saved in order to go to heaven. I realize now that I approached salvation with the same curiosity I approached astronomy and mechanics...

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~ C hristians widely portray their god as an all-powerful, all-wise, transcendent and perfect, spiritual being. I contend that modern theologians have reconfigured god from the Bible authors’ original crude conceptions of god as a rather fallible, uber-human with superpowers. By “uber-human,” I mean a being that is basically human in terms of psychology and emotions, yet possessed of greater intelligence and power. This is how modern humans have usually imagined comic book superheroes. That is, they are generally built on a basic human physical and psychological plan, but with accessory super powers, like Superman and Spiderman. Surely, the Bible authors thought god and man were very much alike, as attested by Genesis 9:6, “. . . for in the image of God made he man.” For evidence I offer the inclusion of anger in the Biblical conception of god, and the fact that Bible-god occasionally changes his mind about things. Obviously, a “perfect” spirit being...

By “Bored Again” ~ M y specialty is irreverent essays, two of which I’ve sent to this site (“ The Lord’s Prayer Laid Bare ” and “ Entrée to Eternity ”). But I’ve always enjoyed your exit testimonies and thought it time to pull mine together. I consider myself a “3-re” guy, having journeyed from religion to relationship to reality. I don’t expect to go through a 4th “re” (i.e. reincarnation), but if that happens, I’ll get back to you. By the way, my referring to my life as a “trinity” of phases is purely coincidental and not meant to suggest that I am “triune” in any sense of that illogical word. I use the pseudonym “Bored Again” because it applies to me on several levels. The obvious one is the homonymic reference to “born again” which I once proudly proclaimed myself to be. Also, the adjective “bored” has applied to me at times, but does not do justice to my mental state at the end of the first 2 stages of my life (try “exasperated”). Finally, as a verb, “bored” describes wh...

By Paul So ~ I didn’t believe in an afterlife even as a devout Christian because I was raised in an Adventist church that taught that there is no immediate afterlife, only a unconscious sleep after death but in the end of time there is a resurrection when we do become conscious again with new glorified bodies. I was told that the bible never explicitly said that there is an immortal soul that wholly pertains to our personal identity that survives after death. This does not mean that my former religious belief promotes materialism; on the contrary it believes that we are spiritual beings who simply go to “sleep” after we die. Our spirituality derives not only from our soul but simply being connected to God. I eventually ceaseed to be a Christian and an Adventist altogether since I became less convinced that God existed. But the idea of afterlife didn’t really bother me very much because I wasn’t raised in a religious tradition that believes in it. However, my upbringing is not th...

By Tania ~ “When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” Jacob Riis T wo images come to mind when I think about my current stance on all things about this God I can no longer believe in. One is an image of a man hammering away at a stone – I think of Jacob Riis's Stonecutter's Credo. I think of a stonecutter hammering away at that stone, waiting and waiting for it to crack, for something to happen, for all blows that seemingly do nothing at all to finally be enough to crack the stone. What we don't know is that in just one more blow with that stonecutting tool, the stone will give way. Maybe that's what our search is like – seemingly, nothing is happening. All is met with silence, the questions don't go away, there is a painful s...

By Peacefully Hiding ~ I t's easy to be a brash teen and rebel against everything, particularly deep abstract ideas, because as a teen we don't really understand everything so well. Again, abstract ideas are an easy target. Christianity is one of those ideas. It's easy to dismiss because it's actually very complex. It's woven into so much of our culture we often don't realize it. 3/4 time in music: a dedication to the trinity. Derivations of Gothic architecture: derivations of tributes, again, to the trinity. Many institutions and conventions are modeled on what we've inherited. When you really look around you you see God and Christianity is represented quite extensively, and this is sensible as Christianity has been the dominant religion of Western thought for hundreds of years. But to a teen Christianity is probably no more than an edict by their parents: go to church, dress nice, keep negative thoughts to yourself, CONTROL YOURSELF! When we are teenag...

By Brian Nelson ~ C urrently I am a college senior about to graduate this summer and go to graduate school for business/accounting in the fall and my story is somewhat uncharacteristic of what other fellow college students experience. I grew up with a christian mother and rebellious father who inspired my nominal faith. This all changed when I came to Tampa. As opposed to the "my faith was nominal until it fell apart in college", my "Christian" faith exploded when I came to Tampa. I devoted myself to the faith, from street proselytizing to leading bible studies and going on 12 week mission trips. Thankfully when I committed myself to the faith, I joined an overtly Pentecostal tongue, speaking, rolling on the floor church. This motivated me to read the bible because I thought the pastor was not teaching what Christians should be taught. Throughout my devotion I came to have doctrinal issues with the church because of my new found knowledge and left for a church...