At the end of the day, we all have faith in something. Even an atheist has a kind of faith; faith in the absence of any god. The question is where do we place our faith? For me the answer is clear. I place my faith in God and salvation through his son Jesus.
I am not a minister, scholar or expert in much of anything. I have not spent my life searching and comparing religions of the world. I am, as my user name indicates, just a regular guy. So why am I a Christian?
Christianity is simple and simple makes sense to me. Accept Jesus, surrender my life to his plan and I’m saved. This is not to say that I am not without struggle, disappointment or failure in this life. Rather, it is to say that salvation is mine if I place my faith and trust in Jesus. No complicated rules. No eternal revolving door of reincarnation in the hope of eventually getting life right to find salvation.
By placing my faith in Jesus and living my life according to his plan I am assured that I am doing the right thing. So how do I know what his plan is? I pray. I pray and ask him to make his plan clear to me. Which brings me to a point that became crystal clear to me when our youngest was old enough to start asking for things.
Because I pray for something does not mean I am going to receive what I’m asking for. As a parent would not give a child something that would hurt them, God isn’t going to give me something that isn’t good for me no matter how many times I ask for it. I’ve never met a parent that has said yes to every request from thier children and I imagine God is no different.
God wants me to succeed in my salvation. The path to eternal life as a Christian is simple. Why would a loving God who loves his people make salvation complicated? Why would he make salvation available to only those of a certain social rank or birthright? The answer is a loving God would not. Through Jesus salvation is available to anyone at anytime.
Christianity is consistent and consistency is important when planning for eternity. The Bible is it. There are no supplemental documents, no appendix, no updated version to reflect a changing political landscape. Salvation is achieved today in the same way it was with Jesus walked the earth; by faith in him.
Being a Christian is the cornerstone of my life. It has changed my view on virtually every aspect of my life and I can’t imagine being without my faith. I fall short; make no mistake, but I fall short knowing that Jesus does not and with him I am enough.
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Atheists don’t have faith in the absence of any god, that is a misunderstanding which I suspect will be very hard to explain.
Faith says “God exists” in spite of the lack of evidence. There is no need to have faith that God does not exist.
Comment by TW February 9, 2007 @ 4:30 pm[...] It is not just the offensive and idiotic theists who make these mistakes as well. Otherwise normal, decent followers of various religions can, sometimes, get confused over the matter. Take this example: At the end of the day, we all have faith in something. Even an atheist has a kind of faith; faith in the absence of any god. (The Sleepless Nights Reading File) [...]
Pingback by Why Dont You Blog? » Misunderstanding Atheism February 9, 2007 @ 4:53 pmTW
faith has nothing to do with a lack of evidence. there is plenty of “evidence” there is a God. the question is how you interpret that evidence.
i actually just posted a thing about “blind faith”. it is a common misunderstanding in our postmodern culture that faith is not based upon reason and evidence. this is far from the truth.
peter
Comment by PB and J February 9, 2007 @ 5:28 pmThere is no evidence for a god, and plenty of evidence against the existence of god, at least the personal god of Christianity. What people consider evidence for a god is usually just superstition and/or halucination.
Personally, I’m pretty sure there is no god, although I can’t prove it. But one thing is for sure, I don’t believe in religion! Even if there is in fact a god, it’s pretty obvious that Christianity, (or Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.) have absolutely nothing to do with god. They are pure human inventions, created to control people.
Comment by tga February 9, 2007 @ 6:24 pm“there is no evidence for a god, and plenty f evidence against the existence of a god, at least the personal god of Christianity. What people consider evidence for a god is usually just superstition and/or halucination.”
It would be nice if you people posting these types of comments would give us some of the evidence against there being a god.
If I told you there was no gold in china, you could disprove this easily by finding a single person in china with a gold filling, or wristwatch or something. If I said there is gold in china, to prove there wasn’t, you’d have to search every place and person in china to eliminate all possible place gold could be hiding.
The same is true of religion, if you say there is no God, I simply have to find some evidence that there is. If you say there is no God you have to exhaust every possible channel of evidence to prove this.
Atheism is a very shaky belief to have, and in my opinion requires more faith than that needed by virtually any other religion in the world.
If it is evolution you are talking of, again you are speaking of something with very little evidence to support it.
Comment by fredericthewise February 9, 2007 @ 7:04 pm-Evolutionists still have no mechanism for the spontaneous rise of genetic instructions in nature sufficient to give rise to life. If you think you have a mechanism then enter it for the origin of life prize, the prize is a million us dollars. Thats how desperate they are.
- how do you explain the complexity and obvious beauty of nature. how come we are obviously created with proper mathematical proportions (phi among others)
- even Francis Crick, one of the discoverers of DNA among others admitted that there was more evidence for a creation that for evolution, but he said wryly “I choose not to believe that” on chooses what to believe and at least someone will admit that.
- Physical science is not the only valid method of reasoning, consider our consciences, why do they exist? why do we feel bad doing some thing wrong? How do we know it is wrong. the fact we have feelings and emotions is strong evidence that we are not random creatures.
- I could ramble on for ages about this but then the post would be too long and you will never read it.
God bless you all, he is there, and if you read the bible wit an open mind, you may find out some real truths that may surprise, convict and challenge you.
“for God so love the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
for God did not come into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him, whoever believes in him is not condemned but whoever does not believe stands condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only son of God.” John 3:16-18
There is NO evidence for GOD, onl evidenc of human superstitions. If what you consider evidence really was valid evidence, then you must accept every other god invented by humans, because they all have similar “evidence”.
Comment by tga February 10, 2007 @ 7:22 amPlease, TGA, did you read my post.
Comment by fredericthewise February 10, 2007 @ 6:14 pm“a man ears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest” Paul Simon.
If you say there is no evidence than please read my post and rebut the comments I put forward, don’t just spout on about nothing.
on to you second point:
-Not all ‘gods’ require similar evidence, however the evidence you speak of is purely physical and I agree, much of the physical evidence is consistent with more than one religion, however real evidence for a specific ‘god’ if one particular religion can be found not just in nature by itself but in the accuracy with which that religion interprets nature and the human psyche. Evolution (which is a n irrational belief system, whatever you might say) does not explain the human conscience even if it did explain purely physical nature accurately (which it doesn’t).
Most religions cannot accurately explain the human psyche, they fail to understand that we cannot be good enough for God – by ourselves we are condemned to hell. Our consciences tell us that we must not lie, yet the best of us lie sometimes. Our consciences tell us that adultery is wrong, Jesus said that whoever looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. And who hasn’t done that?
If God made our consciences to be as sensitive as they are then obviously this is the level we must live up to. This is, frankly, impossible.
One religion, however, stands out from the others, it accepts the general depth we have sunk to, the scum we have become and offers the only real alternative to us ending up in hell, that of offering an innocent substitute for us. Christ came so that we may have life, and have it to the full, he rescued us from the hole too deep for us.
Please tga, look at the evidence, and at least consider Christ, find out more about him, open your heart and let him show you himself. he is real, he really is, and he is your only option to escape from the hole that we are all in together.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.