On religion and man-made belief: “my last prayer”
I was reading an interesting anonymous post by someone from Australia this week titled So Here It Is, My Last prayer.
I’ve had the opportunity of being involved with different churches for most of my life, and the poster on this particular blog put forth some personal thoughts on faith, life and religion that struck a chord with me. Here’s what they had to say:
Dear God, For years, I struggled with a faith that was forced on me by people without a clear idea of what it was you were. When they finally let go of their own faith, I was able to shed all forms of religion and man-made belief. I could pursue a career that had been completely banned; read books and watch movies without condemnation. I’m still trying to eradicate the last shreds of that overpowering control from my life.
It took me a long time to stop blaming myself for everything that’s happened. It took me even longer to work up the courage to blame you instead. And now, it’s taking every ounce of me to just write this, to say that, while I never, ever want to be constricted by religion in my life once more, I want to stop hating you.
I want to be able to walk past a church and not shudder; hear someone thank god for their success without internally mocking them. I want to be the person everyone believes me to be: accepting of everyone, from every culture and religion. I don’t want to boil with hatred at the act of recieving a religious pamphlet on the street.
So here it is, my last prayer. Not that you change everything, not that you take away all the hurt that you’ve caused. But that I can move on with my life. Thank you.
I found this post particularly interesting because the sentiments shared are common with many, many people I have come across over the years. I had mixed feelings also because the post made me feel both happy and sad. I don’t like seeing people get hurt by the church, and I’m quite against being subjected to strange rules and regulations that are enforced nonsensically (because it’s the rule!), and certainly I’ve come across enough religious nutters to be able to empathise with you over how much of a turn off they are!
Your spirituality is very important when it comes to who you are as a person. Part of a person’s character and personal beliefs are often defined by their past exposure and experiences with churches and God. Some people who have had negative experiences with religion or back sliders tend to become quite anti God, like the poster above suggests (I want to be able to walk past a church and not shudder). Other people do some deeper soul searching and re-connect with God in their own way.
Personally I believe one of the keys to having an enriching spiritual life is to stand firm to your own beliefs and ‘religious views’, but couple that with a healthy degree of skepticism. After all, we all have been given free will. It’s not a smart move to give yourself over completely to any one man’s preaching or leadership because that person is still a person! They have the potential to remain firm to their convictions, they also have the potential to fall victim to temptation, immorality, sin. If that leader succumbs to such things, where will that leave you? Will you trash the church and become anti-God like many people do? Once you have a realisation that people are people regardless of their high titled position (eg. “Head leader district national christian co-ordinator extraordinaire”) then you’re really not as personally affected by other peoples failures, successes and ‘religious influence’.
Am I suggesting you become disconnected and not get involved with church? Nope. However, don’t be a rule follower simply because someone else says so. Don’t believe everything that someone is telling you without researching it yourself! Stay true to your own thoughts and faith – don’t become cynical with God just because other people have disappointed you.
This is really an intro post on this subject, because I think it’s a contentious issue and one that needs addressing further. One thing I would add, is that it’s really interesting to read some of the responses to the above poster (original post is here). Some people feel empathy, others get mad about God, others only know how handle responses by quoting scripture.
More on this later! Any thoughts?
JW’s: Would you like to know The Truth? How to be a skeptic Congratulations! Blatantly Honest Responses to ‘Giving Up on Life’ Stepping outside your comfort zone
September 20th, 2008 at 4:09 am
I have been studying apologetics for a little while now, and have used several Bible Verses in discussions with other individuals, as a way of telling these people why I a scientist with a Master’s degree in several disciplines actually believe the Bible. These verses include
Job 26:7 where the bible states the Earth Hangs on Nothing, which is completely contradictory to Greek, Roman, Hindu, etc etc mythology.
Leviticus 17:11
‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’
Job 36:27-29
For He draws up drops of water,
Which distill as rain from the mist,
Which the clouds drop down
And pour abundantly on man.
Indeed, can anyone understand the spreading of clouds,
The thunder from His canopy?
Ecclesiastes 1:7
All the rivers run into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full;
To the place from which the rivers come,
There they return again.
Psalm 8:
4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?
5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings [c]
and crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You made him ruler over the works of your hands;
you put everything under his feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the air,
and the fish of the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
This is the verse that inspired the father of oceanography Lieutenant Matthew Fontaine Maury, although some dispute this, his personal diary leaves no doubt about Mr. Maury’s inspiration source.
These are scientific assertions we understand today, like washing with running water, to prevent bacterial build up Leviticus 15:13
I encourage you to further investigate teh history to these “discoveries” about the water cycle, the blood stream in animals and us, and Ocean and air currents. There are more than this that I teach my high school Sunday School, and Youth Groups so they can learn why we as adults actually believe a book that has parts that are more than 3,000 years old.
God Bless you in your quest for answers
September 20th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Hi Steven,
Thanks for taking the time to post such a well constructed comment!
I was further intrigued at a function I went to last night, where the speaker was talking on religion and church experiences. His statement was in the form of a question: If we the church feel we have the right answers, and we are following the right path, then why have we got it so wrong? Why are so many hurt by the church?
We really need to think about this and maybe reconsider the way we practice ‘church’!
September 21st, 2008 at 3:40 am
I posted something related on my blog recently.
(http://blog.penitentman.com/2008/08/29/and-i-ask-this-in-christs-name)
I think it’s easy to get caught up in religious tradition and forget how we came up with those traditions to begin with. I’ve seen it in my own church, where we often replace the powerful God we worship with mindless acts that we do simply because we’ve always done them.
September 21st, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Hi Mike..
Thanks for your comment, I agree!
checking your blog out now…
September 26th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Hi. I grew up in a couple of churches that were ‘rule following’. My dad also happened to be the pastor! As a kid I was angry at people being fairly evil to my mum & dad and others, but claiming to belong to God. It’s interesting that like Jesus said of the Pharisees, people who set rules for others don’t follow them themselves, either because it’s too hard, or sometimes not convenient. Jesus said that His burden is easy & His yolk light, and He meant it.
These people never really made me angry at God, because I could see what God was like, to an extent, in my parent’s & grandparent’s lives. My problem with God was that I never quite trusted Him – I always had this idea that if I was comitted to God, the 1st thing He would do would be to take away anything fun & tell me to do something/lots of things I really didn’t want to do. I think that the confusion was because of the many people who spoke in God’s name but were just unpleasant people. It took a while to realise that it would be worth putting Jesus in charge, of everything. Since doing this at about age 19 (now 36), it’s been a slow process – how patient is God?! Not many friends would put up with disappointments/let downs/unfaithfulness for 17 years! But He is still there.
These days, while I still know I need to make every effort to stay close to Jesus, I can say honestly that I believe He means everything He says, not only that but He is able, willing & faithful to keep ALL the promises He makes. I’ve discovered in the last few years that God can cope with me being honest to Him, that He actually wants a relationship with me and that a life given over completely to Him is well worth it, is the safest place it can be, and is the most alive you can be. When I say that I’m happy to give everything to Him, I don’t mean a sort of monk’s existence. I mean a realisation that He owns everything anyway, and that normal everyday life, tasks, fun & relationships can be in His hands, and that’s the best place for them. He cares about these things quite a lot more(!) than I do, even when I’m at my best. I guarantee that the more time you spend open to God, getting to know Him, who He is, what He does, what He is like, the more you will trust Him. When Jesus tells us to do things in a way that’s opposite to the world’s thinking and that it will work, He means it. For example, He says ‘it’s more blessed to give than to receive’. I used to see this as a kind of order – like this isn’t going to be nice but you have to do it. BUT, the reality is that it IS more blessed to give than to receive. He was just speaking the truth – if you give you’ll be blessed, more than when you receive. Nothing wrong with receiving, but giving is better. Then you find out another truth, that you can’t give more than God. ‘Give and it will be given to you’. (I’m not just talking about Church collections). Sometimes this will seem foolish to many people, the world says ‘hang on to what you’ve got, look after number 1′. But this doesn’t work, ultimately. So, do whatever God wants, He never lets us down, He guarantees to act when we pray for His work. I think I’ve gone on for long enough & probably not quite to the point, but hopefully this is encourages people to find out more of God’s greatness.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Mike, I just read your blog, after I posted. I think I can help with the “in Christ’s name” thing. I only saw the amazing encouragement in these verses in the last couple of years, and since read one of AW Tozer’s books which explained it the same way (His books are really good, by the way).
The clue is in verses 10-12:
Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
Jesus is talking about doing His Father’s work, and that His disciples would do the same, and greater!
The best way I can explain it is to think about an ambassador or diplomat, going to a foreign country – he speaks in the name of his government. What does this mean? It means he says what the president/prime minister would say. He doesn’t bring out his own ideas, or his own agenda.
So, when we pray in Jesus’ name, it’s when we ask for the sort of things that Jesus prayed for, or we pray for the sort of work He did, or told us to do, or the sort of work that we see Him doing through His people now.
You are right to be sceptical, as many prayers are simply not answered, and just tagging on ‘in your name Lord’ isn’t a bit of good luck that makes a selfish prayer holy. Jesus said that if we pray in this way “I will do it”, so we should be careful not to dishonour Him by our prayers. This is what prompted me to search for what the real meaning of this passage is. The Message gives a good sense of the meaning of these verses:
Joh 14:13&14 From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do.
This doesn’t mean we can’t ask God for things that we feel are important, but we have to know that for some things, He may say no, or we may get no answer at all if our attitude is wrong. But how AMAZING is it that he GUARANTEES not just to answer, but to ACT UPON certain prayers.
As a last point though, this guarantee needs to be taken by faith, as some answers come quickly, and others come when we’re long gone – but a guarantee from Jesus is 100%
I’d ask that you read the verses again for yourself & pray about them because like someone said, it’s not so good to rely on people, God’s voice is always best, and it’s good to get confirmation from God for things.
October 21st, 2008 at 7:25 am
** monotheist religious ideologies are equivalently pernicious **
• worldly benefits prove nothing about otherworldly claims
The earliest xians certainly received benefits in the-here-and-now for their faith: physical and psychological comfort, especially a nurturing of class hatred.
Of course, xianity still has something to offer as it has for 2,000 years — but psychological comfort, decent burial of the dead, communal warmth, common action, pathways for employment, and opportunities for “martyrdom” are irrelevant to any hysterical claim made first by Paul or later writers of Jesus legends, whether accepted into xian orthodoxy or not.
Any member of any sect within islam, xianity, judaism, or zoroastrianism (the big-4 monotheisms) can cite his myths, cultic practices, and endlessly *circular* commentary to equal effect. Citing scripture in *defense* of itself is totally illogical.
What uplifts me, what comforts me, what I’m willing to die for . . . is no evidence whatsoever that any otherworldly belief is true or false. Such reasoning exemplifies ignoratio elenchi — lack of any logical connection between statements about anyone’s psychological state and any religious claim.
The monotheists’ magic texts are neither self-guaranteeing nor magical. They are propaganda.
• xian nihilism and its self-righteous inverted elitism arise simultaneously.
No single passage better demonstrates xian anti-rationalism than Paul’s words in 1Cor1:1-28 damning Greek philosophy.
His letter to a xian cell in Corinth, Greece contains Paul’s hateful fideistic response to the jews who threw him out of synagogues in Palestine and to the epicurean and stoic philosophers who hooted him off of the Areopagus in Athens.
20 . . . Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 . . . God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles . . . . 1Cor1:20-23 NIV with omissions.
In short, Paul created a god glorifying his nihilistic values and offering an inverted elitism to all who would believe in absurdities. Paul cheerfully calls himself, “a fool for Christ.”
27-But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28-He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are . . . 1Cor1:26-28 NIV
In a delightful line, an early philosophical critic, Celsus enquires, “…Who are we to believe a rabble of [jewish and xian] prophets, or the [Greek] philosophers?” (True Doctrine p.108) It’s a rhetorical question. Any fool can see that.
In his “On the genealogy of morals” (1886), Nietzsche cites Paul’s verses as the non plus ultra of xian resentment giving birth to values completely antithetical to those of Greco-Roman thought. It took 500 years of very lucky breaks and seized opportunities before imperial roman xianity finally destroyed every vestige of humanism for another 1,000 years.
A refusal to reason (Paul’s ‘foolishness’) must end in blind, arrogant fideism — any cult can get away with that — especially large, well-funded, world endangering ones, like xianity and islam.
• get beyond the subjective circle of personal anecdotes
I suggest that you take a look at the following works which provide evidence against any of the big-4 monotheisms, especially xianity:
Dodds, ER. Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety 1963
Wilkins, R. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them 1984
Celsus. On the True Doctrine, A Discourse Against the Christians (178 CE) trans. Hoffmann 1987
Barnstone, W. (ed.) The Other Bible, Ancient Alternative Scriptures 1984
Onfray, M. Atheist Manifesto. 2006
Also, for the self-righteous xian responders to this post. Do an inventory of your own apologetic stance against the monotheistic cousins of xianity. Why are islam’s metaphysical claims untrue and yours true? Then turn your arguments on your own views. You’ll refute yourselves.
bipolar2 ©2008
October 31st, 2008 at 8:06 am
In response to the above post, I am talking about what I have found to be true. I am not talking about what I have DECIDED should be true. So although as you say, I was giving personal anecdotes, this can’t possibly be dangerous, as all I am recomending is that people read what God says (OK, you may not believe it’s God speaking) and see if He’s speaking the truth. I am saying that in my experience, God is faithful & He keeps His promises. Also, I’ve seen it in others. Jesus changed my life, so naturally I believe He can do it for anyone.
So, personal annecdotes may be subjective, but that doesn’t prove they’re false. If something happens to me, I know it’s happened. I totally accept I can’t argue someone into believing it, but I can encourage them to find out for themself.
Self-righteous? Sorry if you got that idea, but what I see is that God is responsible for any of the good things that I do in life. I’ve discovered a tiny amount of what God is like, but enough to trust Him with everything. I haven’t decided what I think an ideal God should be like, just that what I’ve found God to be good.
I also didn’t mention Islam or any other religion, I could tell you what I think if you really want, but you are responding to something I didn’t discuss. I also didn’t talk about anything specifically metaphysical. I believe in miracles, but don’t need them as proof of anything.
I find it a bit odd that you use the bible to try to disprove itself. I see nothing hateful in the writings of Paul – if you are full of hate, the most natural thing is to fight. Paul didn’t. Also, why would hate the Jews? He spent a lot of effort before his experience of Jesus fighting against this new Christian ’sect’. He had no reason to hate, he’d done it all before.
OK, religion is often bad, is often twisted, is often used for human purposes & agendas. This is what people tend to do, we tend to decide what we think, and then choose a method of backing up our ideas, whether it’s religion, politics or whatever. But if everything got here by chance, there really cannot be any sense of rigtht and wrong, only of what you can get away with or not, or what’s sensible or not, and that varies from person to person. But I’ve seen lots of people changed by God. I’m not asking anyone to believe that just because I’m willing to die for Jesus it must all be true. I’m saying that Jesus is worth all that, but find out for youself. Test God out. Pray. If there’s nothing there to pray to, nothing can happen. If God is there, then you will discover Him.
To get to your 1st point last (sorry); “monotheist religious ideologies are equivalently pernicious” – I agree, religious ideologies, whether monotheist or otherwise are responsible for a lot of bad, although I don’t know about equally bad, that’s a bit of a generalisation. However, it may be seen as a cliche, but I don’t consider myself religious. God is a person, and for some reason He wanted to befriend someone like me, so I have a relationship with God. A bit one-sided, as He doesn’t let me down despite me letting Him down. I guess you kind of know you’re too late to change my mind, there’s no point telling someone that a person they know is anything other than what they have experienced.
I’m not going to type forever, this post is long enough I reckon, just take the ‘risk’ and ask God to show you what the stuff you’be quoted above is saying. This is not any judgement on your intelligence, as you sound quite academic, just that in my opinion, none of what you’ve attributed to Paul is accurate. When I read the bible, it changes my life for the better. I have no problem repecting those who dislike me, I have no problem forgiving people because I’ve been forgiven by God. I have a lot to learn, and God has a lot to teach me, but none of it is ever, ‘hate your enemies’ or ‘put ME first’ or ‘get even’ etc. Anyway, that really is enough, it’s 12.05a.m here…