Many would say that my path is right for me and others are able to choose a different way. Personally, I don’t agree. Jesus is the only way in life!

I personally am not religious. I have a living relationship with God in which I talk to Him and He speaks to me. He guides me and never abandons me. He was there every night I was partying, calling me to Him with love. God is not a mere set of rules or a subject to theorize on. To me, He is a living Father in whom I can trust EVERYTHING with. He knows all about me and loves me enough to watch out for me (you tend to treasure people who have your six once you join the military).

As far as questioning and trying the Bible, DO IT! Because if you go before God and honestly ask Him to prove Himself to you, He will. I can’t remember the exact scripture, but God said something along the lines of “Try me, that I may prove myself to you.” I tried God. I turned my back on Him, and He proved Himself alright! I believe once a person has a true encounter with Jesus and His love, their whole perception changes. I have had a lot of non-believer friends who have come to experience Christ in their life, and they said their whole though process on God changed at that moment. Some of them didn’t get saved, but they were changed non-the-less.

I hope that I can show Christ Jesus to others though my actions rather than words though. I can debate this matter until I am blue in the face, but no one would believe unless they saw Christ living through me. I love each and every one of you and hope that you all come to know Christ for who he truly is. And if there is one good thing I can take from this post is the fact that we live in a FREE country! We can discuss this without fear of the government killing us. And I love being free!
-Jas

I never said I was scared of other people questioning their beliefs. In fact I have stated that faith and objectivity are a good mix. Such as my previous given points of there being a moral code for everyone, religious or non-religious.

Yes, I have questioned what I believe in. Yes I have wavered in and out of faith especially in my young adult years, when I was finally old enough to formulate my own decisions on my life.

In fact (and I think this could serve as a response to ChuckMo) the thing that solidified my faith in Christ was when I was in Iraq. To make a long story short, let’s just say there were two instances where me and soldiers I was traveling with should have by all means been killed or seriously injured in separate incidents, and we all walked away without a scratch. For me, that was the de facto physical evidence I needed (myself a skeptic when it comes to many spiritual things, still) that there is a God, and since then I haven’t wavered on my faith once.

I appreciate your thoughts and input Kevin.

What is the difference, then? If Christianity is real, as you claim it is, then these Christians that you’re so afraid of questioning their beliefs will realize, “hey, this really is true,” and their “faith” will be even stronger. From your point of view, what’s so bad with that? Then again, if they come to realize, “hey, this is a big hoax,” then what’s the problem? Perhaps they’re one step closer to the actual truth.

Have you ever questioned what you believe in? It seems like you haven’t. At least, it seems like you haven’t given it an honest chance that maybe, just maybe, what you’ve been believing in your whole life (I’m guessing since you were really young?) just might be wrong.

Overall, this is just horrible advice, and I’m not afraid to come out and say that. I would have never taken the time to post if you would have said things like, “The Bible is the Truth,” “Christianity is the only way,” etc. etc. But what you actually said is practically a crime. Cut off all objectivity? No sir. Objectivity is essential.

Stop believing whatever you want for no reasons and grow some objectivity.

The faith I was refering to was the faith that we will be able to solve the complex problems of the universe given enough time and evidence. Although there also is some faith in accepting theories and hypothesese that have yet to be proven or in particles that we can’t see, only observe and confirm based on their reactions with matter or energy. I can’t see an individual pairing of hydrogen but I know that it exists because it burns or because I can view it’s spectra.

Science is more maleable than religion, yes. There are cases though where scientific principles are debated and contested and it takes a definitive collection of results before the controversy can be put to rest. There are still several theories into the cause of global warming; is it solely a man-made problem or are there natural forces at work also at work?

Sybil-

Expanding on what Chuckmo said, why do you disagree specifically? Could you expand on your points? I’m sure we’ve all heard the rhetoric but what do you personally have to say that is new to the discussion? I’d like to hear your opinion on the discussion.

You have to be careful when you say “faith” in regard to science. I would argue that science doesn’t require faith at all in that it is completely based on observable, testable phenomena. Furthermore, it’s much more pliable than religion. If a scientist finds evidence that contradicts something humanity has believed for a long time (like the Earth actually being ROUND instead of flat), then the scientific community tests the evidence at hand and disregards the prior belief.

In religion, change is not that simple, as what constitutes divine truth is mostly subjective and disagreed upon within Christianity itself. And as this post shows, questioning is only allowable to a certain degree before it is frowned upon. If I suddenly claim gravity, one of the primary foundations of physics, is totally wrong, most scientists will tell me I’m wrong/insane. However, if I can provide explicit evidence that gravity is a sham, then the community of physicists will go along with me. This can’t happen in religion.

Sybil -

Thanks for joining the conversation, but can you elaborate on WHY you believe that? Just telling me what you believe does me little good unless you can explain why you subscribe to those beliefs.

Chris -

You nailed it. What separates religion from science is faith. Rationalists like Jeff and myself base our lifestyles on trial and error, logic and reason. If you can provide a sound argument on why we should deviate from this basis in regard to religion, then I’d be happy to pick up my cross.

I’ve also enjoyed this conversation. It can be difficult to find people to get into this sort of conversation, especially on the internet where anonymity tends to breed poor manners and bad attitudes.

I’ve had several political discussions like this. It’s all a matter of finding the right people to talk with.

For me it is unexplainable. I’m gonna revert to the Bible again — the writer of the book of Hebrews says that faith is the evidence of things hoped for, and the evidence of things unseen.

To me as just a normal human being, that verse makes no sense for the most part. I’ve heard it preached over and over and over, but the question races through my mind — “How can faith, something that is not tangible, be the evidence of something else that is not tangible?” It’s almost like trying to divide 0 into something in math, it doesn’t compute in our minds logically. In fact it is impossible.

That’s where I resign myself to stop trying to figure it out because I realize that a lot of the Bible was written in a way for us to simply believe its spiritual content (a lot of it is left up to human interpretation). But with that belief in the Word comes us praying and asking God for understanding in the Word.

For me, it’s defying human convention and trying my best to extend my belief in God beyond human reason. Personally it gives me something to shoot for, and it’s an extra motivator in helping people on this earth…and the end result is to make it to heaven.

I would like to thank all who are participating in this discussion, this is probably the best civil and thoughtful discussions I’ve had on a spiritual issue in quite some time. Everyone has done a superb job of stating their beliefs and respecting others. This is what discussion’s all about (now if only political discussions were this easy)!