"Why I Don't Believe"
I've heard an answer to that question on several occasions. Typically, the reason people give me is, on the surface, based on a rational view of facts. Yet, when I dig a little closer I find that at all times an "unbelievers" view is first based on certain key suppositions.
Here's a few:
1) There is no God. If there is a God, the Bible hasn't accurately recorded who he is.
2) A book as old as the Bible, can't have possibly been accurately preserved.
3) The Bible is full of contradictions
These positions that people often take sound as if they are born out of a vast weight of evidence, but at their core is simply a "leap of faith". In other words, I've heard, "A book that old can't possibly be accurately preserved." That is a supposition. The person who holds it to be true figures it has to be true because it feels true. Often no evidence or rational thought will convince them otherwise.
Frankly, the verdict on the Bible has been in for years. There is far too much evidence on the reliability of the Bible to report here. Challenges such as Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code" won't topple the authority and veracity of scripture any more than a mouse could nock over the Washington Monument.
It comes down to this: people believe what they want to believe. If some one wants to believe that the Bible is to old to be properly preserved and translated, then no amount of evidence will dissuade them. If some one wants to believe there is no God, that is what they will believe. You might give them a convincing rational for the existence of God and the veracity of the Bible, but their rejoinder may still be, "But there couldn't possibly be. . . "
An individual who is willing to take the time and effort to fully investigate the claims of Jesus Christ and the message of the Bible, will come face to face with the truth: Jesus is God in the flesh. He entered into history and paid for human sin so that we would not have to pay the price ourselves. Accepting Christ as God and savior, opens the door to have a relationship with Him, and to eternal life with Him.
At that point, regardless of the proofs, you'll still have to decide if you are willing to believe. Saddly, many will face the truth of Christ and say, "I just can't believe it."
So much for intellectual honesty.
Adam
Here's a few:
1) There is no God. If there is a God, the Bible hasn't accurately recorded who he is.
2) A book as old as the Bible, can't have possibly been accurately preserved.
3) The Bible is full of contradictions
These positions that people often take sound as if they are born out of a vast weight of evidence, but at their core is simply a "leap of faith". In other words, I've heard, "A book that old can't possibly be accurately preserved." That is a supposition. The person who holds it to be true figures it has to be true because it feels true. Often no evidence or rational thought will convince them otherwise.
Frankly, the verdict on the Bible has been in for years. There is far too much evidence on the reliability of the Bible to report here. Challenges such as Dan Brown's "DaVinci Code" won't topple the authority and veracity of scripture any more than a mouse could nock over the Washington Monument.
It comes down to this: people believe what they want to believe. If some one wants to believe that the Bible is to old to be properly preserved and translated, then no amount of evidence will dissuade them. If some one wants to believe there is no God, that is what they will believe. You might give them a convincing rational for the existence of God and the veracity of the Bible, but their rejoinder may still be, "But there couldn't possibly be. . . "
An individual who is willing to take the time and effort to fully investigate the claims of Jesus Christ and the message of the Bible, will come face to face with the truth: Jesus is God in the flesh. He entered into history and paid for human sin so that we would not have to pay the price ourselves. Accepting Christ as God and savior, opens the door to have a relationship with Him, and to eternal life with Him.
At that point, regardless of the proofs, you'll still have to decide if you are willing to believe. Saddly, many will face the truth of Christ and say, "I just can't believe it."
So much for intellectual honesty.
Adam
posted by Sojourn @ 4:32 AM
1 Comments:
At 5/09/2006 6:27 AM,
Anonymous said…
The problem with your position is that is comes from a viewpoint of already accepting the "Westernized" perspective of Christianity. I find myself occasionally wondering why the Christian God doesn't make his presense obvious to us, like he did throughout the Bible. We also have biblical stories of disciples of Christ denying him (like Peter), and these are people that actually walked with him. We have stories of the Israelites being led out of Egypt by God, and shortly afterward creating their own golden calf to worship.
My point is, there is plenty of evidence to support the common man rejecting God even when God made his presense physically known!!
My other point is that there is a scripture that mentions that if we had the faith of even a mustard seed, we could move mountains. Now that's a pretty small portion of faith, yet I know of nobody who has been moving mountains. So, although we may like to speak of our faith and the strength of it, we actually don't really have much to start with.
So, all that to get to the point where we are understanding that it is much harder to believe than not to. God has chosen to not make his presense undeniable to the masses, he has chosen to use inferior men to spread his message, and these same men continue to misrepresent the message.
Not to mention, most people like to have a "checklist" of what they need to do to get to heaven. There is an overwhelming desire to "do stuff" to get to heaven. Many of the other worldwide religions have a series of "works" that need to be accomplished, in order to gain their eternal reward. Christianity is purely a "grace" based faith, and there is NOTHING we can do other than believe. That makes most men uncomfortable, because they have no control over who gets in and who doesn't. You can become a christian as a child or on your death bed, and the eternal rewards aren't any different. That makes most folks upset, because it leaves no room for their own control.
So, people typically reject Christianity because of it's "simple" concept of "just believe". Not to mention, many of the church "leaders" are found to be either power-hungry control freaks, or simply ego maniacs. Not all of them, but certainly more church "leaders" are into "legalism" rather than compassion.
How's that for some comments?
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