Having a newborn in the house has taken much of my “free” time. However, with the late night or early morning feedings I have had an opportunity to watch more TV. The other day I watched the movie Evan Almighty, which is kind of the sequel to Bruce Almighty. The movie is about a guy named Evan (played by Steve Carrell) who has been visited by God (Morgan Freeman) and told to build an ark, just like in the story about Noah in the Bible. This movie has a lot of great quotes and scenes. One of my favorites is below. In this scene Evan’s wife, Joan (Lauren Graham), and kids think he’s gone crazy, so they’ve left him to stay with Joan’s parents. While on the road they stop at a diner to eat. They’re already on the road, and they’re stopping to eat at a diner. Here Joan meets God but doesn’t realize who she’s talking to. God encourages Joan and gives her some insight on life and prayer.
In my struggle with losing my Christian beliefs I wonder if in my prayers for faith, God chooses not to just give me faith, but gives me the opportunities to learn more so that I will have a reason to believe and to not just have a blind faith. Wouldn’t this actually be the BEST answer to my prayers? Unfortunately, my limited ability to see in the future makes this struggle hard and uncertain. But little clips like these gives me encouragement.
Morgan Freeman is the man! I liked Bruce Almighty, but haven’t seen Evan Almighty yet as I heard it wasn’t that good. I may have to check it out.
If only God had kind eyes, rightly timed words and interventions. Instead we sit with eyes closed or looking into the sky trying to muster a feeling. No relationship, no voice, just our own mind trying to pull something together for us.
Instead, deep restfulness and insight can be sought without looking for a deity in some interdimensional world.
Very true, Sabio.
Sabio,
On some days I totally agree with you. But other days I sometimes doubt my unbelief. The unanswered question sometimes are easier to fit in with a loving, incarnated deity. But as you said, it could just be my mind trying to make since of this world. But it could also be true that Christianity in some form maybe true. And it would be very foolish of me if I make a decision (either way) out of ignorance, laziness, or stubbornness. It would be foolish of me to just close my eyes and try to muster up feeling for something I wanted to believe in, and it would be just as foolish for me to close my eyes and not look into the history, theology, and science that those before struggled with. I also find it humerus that my new favorite show is Through the wormhole with Morgan Freeman, which had one episode which discussed if there is a creator. Interesting stuff.
You said “if I make a decision”. Does that mean you have the choice to believe or not believe in Christianity? Or is your belief/unbelief out of your control and determined by the way you see the world? Did you choose to believe in the beginning or did you just believe?
Jeff,
Belief is an odd thing. In my work, I believe in things that I have sufficient evidence to believe in. However, if I don’t think there is enough evidence, or if the evidence goes against a hypothesis/idea it is very hard, if not impossible, for me to “just believe”. That is where I find myself with Christianity. I don’t think there is evidence that points to something that is outside of natural explanations, so I can’t just believe that there is a supernatural God that sent His Son to die for my sins. Yeah, maybe my belief/unbelief is out of my control and determined by my naturalistic worldview. However, I would hope that if I was presented with evidence of the supernatural that I would change my worldview to allow for the supernatural/God.
I can’t remember if I choose to believe in the beginning. I was raised in a Christian home, so I can’t remember when the training lead to a personal belief. But I do recall believing and choosing to worship God.
Hey Mark,
I am not a scientist, so I do not fully understand or appreciate how you practice your discipline. However, I am a software engineer & algorithmic day trader with a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Hopkins (concentration in Artificial Intelligence). So, with that said, I find that many of my questions and doubts tend to be more “scientifically” minded and much more critical than I like (sometimes more so than I’m comfortable with). However, I am fascinated by science and how smart people (in general) can believe in the Christian God. I came to Christ through a horrific personal experience and (by no means) through serious investigation into “the facts” or “evidence”. I see this to be true for many, many believers (including some of the more intelligent scientists that I’ve found along the way).
Anyway. I’ve been on this strange quest to somehow reconcile my Christian belief with 21st century science and scientific findings. During this quest, I stumbled upon some pretty smart scientists (that also happen to be Christians) and I’m wondering what your take is on some of what they have to say. You can check these few tidbits out when you get a chance:
Dr. Ard Louis talking about science not being the “whole” story:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxywMT-MeQM&NR=1
Neat article by Dr. Allan Sandage (one of the world’s most famous astronomers):
http://www.leaderu.com/truth/1truth15.html
Neat places for professionals (and smart people—in general) (that happen to be Christians) to connect:
http://www.facultylinc.com/what-is-facultylinc/
http://www.meettheprof.com/
Jason
I find myself in that type of position. Sometimes at night I look at the blinds and say “God, if you could just raise those blinds. Then I’ll know your real”. Then I wonder why he won’t do just this one small thing to help me believe. In my walk when I felt that I had faith, miraculous things have happened. But they were not miracles. They could have been God, or they could have been a crazy coincidence. It seems like in many people’s lives God becomes known to them through events where very improbable things happen. These could have happened by mere coincidence. But to the people they happen to they are enough evidence for belief. I am afraid that God will try to show himself to me and this way and it will not be enough. Although I take heart knowing that if God does choose to bring me back in this way, it will be enough. I still wish he would just raise the blinds though.
Jeff,
Reading your post just made me laugh out loud. I can relate 100% and I love it!!!!! I find myself still on the believing side of the fence, but also living in some sort of weird/constant tension with my belief. Some days, I thrive on the tension and other days, I’m hating it…..
In regards to your strange “coincidences”, I’ve had many myself. They happened for quite some time after I became a believer. The “coincidences” continue to happen to this day, but very few and far between. If God just raised those darned blinds, I would believe for about 4.7 more years and then, I’d find myself involved in yet another darned web-based debate and go on doubting again.
Jason
Jason,
Your comments reminded me of a web site I visited once.
http://humanknowledge.net/Philosophy/Metaphysics/Theology/AtheistDeconversion.html
The gist of it is that there are all kinds of “smart people” who have left Christianity to become Atheists, but very few (I can only recall the site referencing one) “smart” Atheists who become Christians.
A very interesting read.
Oh yes, I’m very familiar with that web site. I’ve read it a couple times in recent months. I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to articulate my next stream of consciousness well, but here it goes….. What so irks me about these types of “deconstructions” about why a certain atheist became a believer is that they always seem to be searching for some sort of irrational/deluded/emotional weakness. The implied question always seems to be something like: “why did this smart/intelligent person do something so stupid”? It reminds me of the many discussions I had with my atheist friend over the course of the past 6 months. He would frequently refer to me as “irrational”, “deluded”, etc…. But, here I stand with an MS in Comp Sci from Hopkins (concentration in artificial intelligence) and dual major BS in both Comp Sci and Math. I’m not feeling too irrational/deluded in my beliefs and I certainly have the smarts to boot…..
When it comes to discussions about the above topics (such as the cosmological constant varying as much as 1 part in 10^120 and the entire universe would have ceased to exist), my friend can’t do anything but jump to multi-verse and oscillating universe theories, because the current state of affairs (in terms of evidence for single universe and insane tuning) is just too darned—-well tuned…… That’s all fine and good, but come on…..
So, back to the web site you mentioned. Every single one of us on this planet are irrational in one sense or another. I feel like there is nothing that one can say to the author of this Atheist De-conversion article, because the author seems to have already made up their mind. I feel that it’s utterly hopeless to even enter into a conversation.
Lastly, when one does things for emotional reasons (or the well being of others), despite the irrationality of certain actions, is this a bad thing? Seriously? Is it rational to jump in front of a loaded gun and take a bullet, so that my son or daughter can live? Should I choose to die so that my kids can live? Of course, it’s not rational… But, I think it’s (by far) the most noble thing to do…. What I’m talking about is love…. Is love rational? No! Is love bad? Hell no! In other words, just because a decision is not rational, it sure as hell doesn’t make it bad…… I think many irrational decisions that are made because of a sense in a greater good and love are by and large, much richer, more fulfilling and ultimately, much better decisions.
Am I making any sense at all here?
Jason
Jason,
We must be on the same wave link because you made since to me.
I’m puzzled by your commentary on the Atheist Deconversion site, I didn’t find a condescending tone at all. I especially enjoyed Brian’s link to Steve Lock’s Asymmetry of Conversion site where Steve tried to get the name’s of educated atheists who had converted to Christianity and couldn’t find any. He specified “educated” because he was seeking credible converts who could stand up to criticism from atheists. Just a difference in perspective I guess.
That being said, I completely agree with your comments about many atheists having a smug attitude towards believers. I don’t hang out on ex-christian.net for that very reason-too many angry atheists.
And I concur with your observations about irrationality. We are irrational beings. We appreciate beauty. We are inspired. A pure atheist would say that those things are simply because our brains are larger and more developed. I just can’t buy that. There just has to be more to it. I know that is an irrational statement of faith, but that’s where I am.
You mentioned that cosmological constant, but I get much closer to home. For example, I just watched March of the Penguins and I just can’t accept that penguins “chose” to live and evolve on the Antarctic. I don’t deny that evolution has taken and continues to take place, but for me, there had to be something/someone greater that made it all.
Hey Scott,
All I was saying about the de-conversion web site is that I still get that sense of anger/hatred/disgust when I read these types of pages. For example, when you read Steve Lock’s conversation with Dr. Anthony Garrett, you can see the hostility and aggressiveness. There just seems to be something more going on in these conversations than just casual chatter with an old friend. Anyway, that’s about it… By the way, I liked your comments about Penguins in the Antarctic.
Jason
Seriously, someone found “March of the Penguins” inspiring evidence for something greater than evolution? An intelligent designer? You gotta be joking.
Those penguins are fucked up. Lots of their eggs freeze solid before they can hatch, babies die every year, and so do the parents in the process of trying to hatch those eggs.
And that’s the best a benevolent creator can do, you think?
Unlike some of my fellow atheists, I understand that smart people can be Christians, or Orthodox Jews, or Muslims. However, I also say that you either 1) were raised in that religion and probably did not investigate it much or 2) were assimilated into it later in life for emotional reasons. Francis Collins is a perfect example.
The problem with religion is not simply that it’s irrational; it’s that it claims to be a TRUTH proposition about the universe that is clearly not supported by the evidence and is often destructive.
Annie,
When it comes to discussions/thoughts of God these days, I don’t look to individual lines of evidence, like Penguins, the Cosmos, the complexity of life, morality or whatever to say “see, God exists”. I’m thinking more and more that this is a huge mistake. To me, that’s simply looking around (at nature) with your 5 senses and saying “see, it’s super-natural”. That just makes no sense….. To me, I take the whole kit-and-kaboodle. The whole shooting match. Not just one or two things.
I have to re-iterate here, that I’m a software engineer, so I’m very often, relentlessly analytical. Throughout my career, I’ve been involved in several multi-year projects with literally millions of lines of source code (hundreds of developers) and (often times), gigantic, disparate systems running on tens (to hundreds of machines) that can be geographically dispersed around the globe. After a hellish amount of work, communication and collaboration, our project (hopefully) comes to life and (with fingers crossed), it works. Sure, there is usually a shit-ton of bugs and all kinds of other problems, but lo-and-behold “it works”! To me, this is an absolutely stunning and amazing feat. Not only do we have to rely on each other, but we are also relying on the (literally) millions of man-years of other efforts that went before us—we depend on the developers that wrote the device drivers for the mice and keyboards that we use each day, the bios developers, hard drive r&d, wireless protocols, telephone line reliability, dsl protocols, etc, etc, etc…. The list is friggin’ ENDLESS!!!!! But, at the end of the day, our project works. It actually does what we intended for it to do and thousands (sometimes hopefully millions) of end-users will depend upon and use what we’ve created. Perhaps some of them will even build something cooler and better, by standing on our shoulders… This is a beautiful thing…..
This story is analogous to how I see the world and the universe in which I live. I can sometimes look around myself and see “the matrix” (if you will)…. It’s almost as if it’s an insanely complex friggin’ computer program. But different….. It’s building blocks consist of things like atoms, molecules, time, quarks, leptons, bosons, stars, planets, galaxys, life, death, sentient beings, etc, etc, etc… And the AMAZING thing is—the damned thing works!!
For some UNKNOWN reason, it all works! This reality smells, feels, tastes, looks and sounds as real, “as real can be” and there is some eerie, deep sense that it works beautifully! This befuddles me beyond comprehension… How can all of this crazy shit that is damned near infinitely more complex than what I work on day to day somehow cohesively come together and deliver a stunning, unbelievable performance that seems to tick-tock on each and every day? Without ever seeming to miss a beat? Not a single “blue screen of death”! Not a single “core dump” or “null pointer exception”. Nothing!!!!! Somehow, this reality is (in a sense) seamless and perfect! The “big picture” has no bugs!!!!! No viruses!!!!!
This is the foundation on which my belief in God is built. I believe because its very difficult for me not to believe (at this point)…. You couldn’t throw ten billion software engineers for 200 million years and even come remotely close to delivering this kind of “user application” (that we call reality)! We can all argue until we are blue in the face about evolution, the origin of the universe, objective moral values, Jesus of Nazareth, Mohamed, Buddha, quantum mechanics, etc, etc, etc…. But when push comes to shove, so many of these arguments just turn into pissing matches, with pride and ego dominating the stage. They are not only useless, but damaging to the psyche.
With that said, I will continue living my life as someone who believes in God with all of my irrationality and rationality thrown into mix… With all of my emotions, love, hate, molecules, atoms, blood, muscle, snot and bacteria….. Why? Because I’m friggin’ human…..
Jason