God Crusade

To a degree, I feel as though I’m on one. I’ve talked about God in my diary before, yet I’ve never managed to get out everything I think on the subject. Undoubtedly this entry will be no exception, because there’s always something more I can think of to say.

The first thing I’m going to comment on is atheism. Atheism by dictionary definition, (and I just looked it up as to assure accuracy,) says "Someone who does not believe in God or deities."

This kind of atheist, the Type 1 atheist, if you will, I have no problem with. They’re the ones who are basically, "Okay, these people believe in this ‘God’ person, but you know what? I don’t." And while, to be honest, I pity those people to a degree, I don’t believe in forcing religion on anyone. I think that’s a good way to turn people off from whatever religion forever.1 (Just to clarify, I pity pretty much everyone who calls themselves as atheist to a degree because I believe that everyone needs something to believe in. Some kind of higher power to put faith in. To my personaly belief, a person just isn’t whole without something like that to believe in.)

The other kind of atheist, Type 2, though, the ones who are all, "No, there’s no God, it’s just a bedtime story, it’s just a delusion," and all that, are the ones who annoy me. First and foremost, because who do those people think they are to be arrogant enough to think that they can know for sure there is no God? Secondly, it annoys me because once again, a definition of a word is being twisted to meet peoples’ own ends. Thirdly, it gets to me because archaeologists, even atheist archaeologists, for instance, who keep trying to disprove the Bible keep getting their butts kicked with the historical accuracy within its pages.2 Now, that doesn’t necessarily prove the existence of God, but it certainly backs up the historical credibility of the Bible, and therefore at least lends credence to the possibility of the other things in it being true, as well.

The last time I wrote on religion, I had someone note me with the basic message of, "give me some shred of proof there might be a God, and I’ll listen." Needless to say, he’s the type 2 atheist. Now, the problem that I have with his statement there is simple. He’s already saying he’s an atheist who doesn’t believe God exists. By that standpoint, everything I could say would be approached from a view of, "Well, that’s nice, but God doesn’t exist, so it has no meaning for me." I mentioned how the Trade Towers had about one third the number of people than they normally would have inside the day they collapsed, and yes I admit, it’s perhaps a very odd coincidence at best, but he explained it away as, "The number of people in the towers fluctuated day to day." That may be true, but I find it a bit too coincidental that that day, there just happened to be so comparitively few people inside compared to what there could have been.

1. I think, and have thought, that people forcing religion down someone else’s throat was stupid. Yet I suppose there is a Type 3 atheist. The ones who refuse to believe because they’re spiting (sp? ie – spite-ing) someone else, or because they’ve simply had enough with the "religious" people around them. These are the people who lump "God" and "the people" into one group.

I hope that Almost a Sarah won’t get pissed at me and write an entry telling me off for my opinions, and if I offend her, I apologize now. It’s just that this is a perfect example of what I’m trying to get across. So, if I piss you off, please, just let me know without a flame entry, because I’m not writing this to offend you, insult you, or otherwise verbally maim you. I am not judging you, I’m not pretending to know what you’ve experienced, I’m not thinking that I know why you think/believe what you do. I’m just using your situation to illustrate an example, and I believe I’ve remained open-minded in the telling, so I just ask that you remain open-minded in the reading.

That said, Almost a Sarah has talked about being an atheist. Whether it’s just that she doesn’t believe in God, or doesn’t believe God even exists, I don’t know. But I do know that she seems to fit perfectly into category three, the ones who refuse to believe because it’s been forced on them too much, and in her case, by a "religious" person. I have these things in quotes because it denotes the fact that anyone with eyes should be able to see that they’re not truly religious in the way that God intended, they’re "religious" for their own selfish purposes, or to look good on Sunday morning, or because they want others to think they have something the others don’t.

Now, I admit, I have no idea how much research she’s done into the subject of religion with an open mind. If she’s researched with an open mind, saying, "Okay, this [messed up] person’s view can’t be what religion’s really about, let’s investigate," and still decided upon atheism, then at least it was an informed choice made with an open mind. I don’t agree with it, but that hardly matters. If she, once again, researched with an open mind and came to the conclusion that not only does she not believe in God, but that there is no God for her to believe in, again, at least she was well-informed before making the decision, though I would ask where her sense of arrogance comes from. However, if she went into the whole investigation with a closed mind, expecting to see the entire thing as some crock of sh*t, then it wasn’t worth the reseach because she was already far too influenced by the skewed view of religion of the people around her.

I think the worst blight on religions in general are the hypocritical idiots who have the "holier-than-thou" attitude. Where they use Bible verses and things to their own interpretations to act as selfish or superior as they want. I’ve run into my fair share of them and to be honest, they disgust me. In 2001, I went through a situation with the pastor of the church I used to attend. My ex and myself were going to talk to him about someone else who attended the church. (I was the reason the person and their family started attending it in the first place.) Anyway, long story short, we wanted to see if there was anything the pastor could do, any way he could help us, because the one we were trying to tell him about is an emotionally abusive, pyscho bitch of a mother. Her son was my best friend at the time, and we were trying to find any way to help him that we could. Well, that ‘man of God’ didn’t even listen to half of what we had to say. He labeled us as "angry teenagers" (of COURSE I was angry! It’s freakin’ ABUSE!!!!! Anyone with a HEART would be ANGRY!!!) and basically said that we didn’t know what went on behind closed doors. Then when my ex said that he wanted an apology from that sorry excuse for a mother for the threat she had issued to him the previous night, the pastor said he had no right to want/expect one, since what she’d said was said in anger, which, (to the pastor’s mind,) automatically meant that she didn’t mean it.

After that, I refused to attend the church anymore. I wasn’t going to sit there week after week and li

sten to that man preach about the lessons in the Bible, when he wouldn’t even listen to two people coming to him for help.

During that period, I struggled pretty heavily with my belief. After the whole experience, I wasn’t sure I believed in God. But then I realized that my qualm wasn’t with God, it was with one who claimed to be under him. And that’s what I’ve kept with since then. I believe in God; not the people who claim to be under him.

I think people need to stop looking at what the people around them believe and how those people perceive religion, using it to their own ends. Instead of changing religions or renouncing religion and God altogether, they should seperate ‘God’ from ‘the people.’  And the "religious" morons of the world should stop forcing their beliefs onto others who follow a different religion or belief system, or have no religion or belief system.  Something in the book I have that I will quote later about a different subject mentions that "change coming from the inside instead of being forced on people from the outside made sense to me because of my own experience."  He goes on to explain that he knew a man so racist, this guy didn’t like anyone who wasn’t white.  His racial slurs made the author cringe, and nothing anyone said could change his bigoted ways.  Then he became a follower of Jesus and began to change from the inside out.  The author states that, "If you met him today, you’d have to say that he genuinely accepts people of any race or ethnic background."

2. On to my next point. The historical accuracy of the Bible. I ran into someone at the mall where Rob works not too long ago. I was wearing these baggy green pants with chains on them from Hot Topic, my Dare to be Different white, green, and black shirt, some eye shadow, probably lipstick, and I think either my dangling guitar earrings or the star ones. Well, I was on my way to Spencer’s when this guy who was just getting off the escalator caught my eye. I admit, he was cute. Anyway, he comes up to me and starts talking about how he knows it’s weird to just start talking about religion to a stranger in the middle of the mall, but he part of such and such a church and wanted to know what I believed. The more I think on it, the more I think he simply saw what I was wearing and figured, "Here’s someone who needs to be saved!" and that’s why he talked to me. It was entertaining, though, because I don’t think he expected me to have opinions, let alone halfway well-informed ones.

Anyway, the upshot of the whole thing was at one point, he actually pulled ten dollars out of his wallet and though I tried to refuse it, he gave it to me and recommended I check out a book called "The Case For Christ." He said it didn’t matter what I actually used the money for, but he hoped I’d check out that book. So after Rob and I left the mall, we went to Barnes and Noble and I got the book.

From here on in during this segment, anything that is in quotes is either straight from the book, or I’m quoting a verse from the Bible.

The premise is that an atheist journalist was celebrating his graduation from college and his getting an internship with a paper with his best friend, who made a remark about his success being a gift from God. The atheist guy was stunned. He had no idea that his best friend was a believer and didn’t understand how "someone as intelligent as you–valedictorian, science whiz, and all that–that you actually believe that God exists?" He goes on to say, "I always thought you were beyond that!" He says that if you could freeze frame his attitude towards God then, it would be that intelligent people didn’t believe in Him. That "all it took was a quick look at the evidence to know that Christianity was nothing but superstition and wishful thinking."

But he’d never taken anything more than a quick look. Until then.

To get back to the main point, among other things that he looks at are the historical references in the Bible. The author was especially fascinated with one Sir William Ramsay of Oxford University in England. The man was an atheist and spent 25 years trying to disprove things written by Luke in the book of Acts. Yet all of Ramsay’s discoveries kept supporting Luke’s accounts.

For instance, “one prominent archaeologist carefully examined Luke’s references to 32 countries, 54 cities, and 9 islands, and didn’t find a single mistake.” For more specific evidence, here’s this: “In Luke 3:1, Luke refers to Lysanias as tetrarch (that‘s a kind of regional governing official) of Abilene in about A.D. 27. For years scholars pointed to this as evidence that Luke didn’t know what he was talking about, because everybody knew that Lysanias was not a tetrarch but rather the ruler of Chalcis half a century earlier. Then archaeologists found an inscription from A.D. 14 to 37 naming Lysanias as tetrarch in Abila near Damascus–just as Luke had written. It turns out there had been two government officials named Lysanias.”

Here is what Luke 3:1 says, if anyone is curious: “It was now the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, the Roman emperor. Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea; Herod Antipas was ruler over Galilee’ his brother Philip was ruler over Iturea and Traconitis; Lysanias was ruler over Abilene.”

Again, as I say, no, this does not prove the existence of God.  It does however, prove that historically, the Bible can generally be proven to contain facts, at least geologically/archaeologically speaking.  So, if that’s the case, who’s to say that the things concerning the miracles Jesus is written to have accomplished, or his death and ressurection can’t be true?

I found another quote I’d like to share with all of you who have kept with me till now throughout this entry.  Again, it’s from the book, from a theologian named Bill Craig who believes the case for ressurection is so strong, he was willing to debate an atheist from American Atheists, Inc.  In a quote to the author, he says, "What it really comes down to is whether the supernatural exists.  If it doesn’t, then the idea of a dead corpse coming back to life on its own after three days is a pretty lame proposition.  But if the supernatural does exist, then it’s possible that Jesus was rasied by supernatural power."  And he summarizes by saying, "As long as the existence of God is even possible, it’s possible he acted in history by raising Jesus from the dead."

Like I said, I’m not trying to convert anyone.  All I’m asking is for you to come away from this entry with a slightly more open mind.  If you’re an atheist, at least be willing to accept that God may exist, even if you still don’t believe in him.