Faith is absurd
Posted by: lettrist on: July 1, 2009
Numerous people have recently come out as Christians to me and wanted to tell me about their faith, and I feel I should write what my objections are to this idea of faith in the Christian religion.
This act, according to the majority of Protestant sects, is the one which determines your eternal standing in the universe, in short, determining whether you spend eternity in heaven or perish in hell. It is by faith alone and not works that people should be saved, they say, following Lutheran theology.
Perhaps no story in the Bible better captures this article of religion better than the story of the two thieves on the cross with dying Jesus. One thief rejects the spirituality of Jesus and is presumably eternally separated from God thereafter. The other thief ‘believes’ in the Jesus story and asks him to “remember me” in the afterlife. Presumably the latter thief is saved by grace. Whether or not the thieves could have eternal life rested on whether they held the proposition to be true or not, and accepted the consequences of that proposition. The only difference between them was, just that, a difference in faith, but enough to mean a world of separation for a jealous god.
Like the insane Descartes, I think we should call into doubt even these “simple things” about religion, ones that are too often just taken completely for granted. The idea of “faith” being the first. Unlike Descartes we cannot call on god to save us from skepticism and hot wax. Why is faith the defining moment in a Christian life? Why does it all rest on whether, as the Roman epistle is often quoted, you will say out loud and accept in your heart… that a very, very specific teaching about the universe is true? There is something inherently problematic about this idea. This is not even a stumbling block. This is a brick wall, and the idea that a simple belief-formation could be enough to persuade an omnipotent god one way or the other while your life dangles before a lake of fire in the absence of a declaration, is a beastly error.
I am in no hurry to reduce this argument to absurdity with formal logic and semantics. In order to get a methodological doubt off the ground, Christianity really provides the all the prerequisites. Faith itself is an absurdity, and not one that should rather justify the faith (as the over-pious fideists argue, “We believe because it is absurd,”) but an absurdity so outrageous that even pursuing it in the mind or relying on other justifications to overcome skepticism is futile.
I think it is also absurd to put forth the following argument: allegedly, god has knowledge of his own existence, his own acts, and any act of faith from a human would not change the way he perceives himself or the universe. For a god to ask a human to believe this or that proposition, to make a true or false judgment, to form a belief, and even a relationship with that belief, is of course, the ultimate act of self-denial.
Some things are absurd because they are so obvious, others are absurd because they are not at all obvious, and not even meaningful. It is not obvious why, and also absurd to think, that a god would put any effort into securing propositional attitudes from humans, millions of little votes of confidence.
Christian interlocutors further catch themselves up by explaining that the act of faith is possible only by an act of grace first. From “All things are sustained by the grace of god” it can be deduced that faith, too, is possible only by the grace of god. So who should you thank for not having faith? God. And when you can thank god for having faith, and simultaneously thank god for not having faith, this is called in Boolean logic an absurdity. Both propositions, P and not-P, cannot coexist and be true at the same time.
These are simple arguments I make, but this is why I think of Christianity as an ongoing research project, one that is constantly researching new ways to untie itself from absurdist nooses. Once god is omnipotent it begs the question of why anything a human could do would be worth any kind of reward, and the even more implausible scenario, a punishment. Faith being the most banal and most absurd thing to reward.
Sinfest comics, at sinfest.net
3 Responses to "Faith is absurd"
August 10, 2009 at 11:02 am
“Why were we born?” — an important challenge, but let’s not confuse this question of _value_ as a question of _knowledge_.
Be sceptical of people who try to answer this question for you.
November 25, 2009 at 9:44 pm
If faith is absurd, then one cannot believe in anything in this world that has a point of view on origins, meaning of life, the future or even one’s self.
To believe in God requires faith.
To believe in UFO’s requires faith.
To believe in science requires faith.
To believe in well nothing, requires faith.
Heck, you need faith to believe in governments, friends, family and one’s self.
A life without faith would be meaningless, futile and absurd, for it is faith that gives life its substance, that gives meaning, that gives direction and hope. A life without hope is a life not worth living because without hope there is nothing.
August 9, 2009 at 11:47 am
Why were we born? Do you know? How do you know?
When Jesus gives us the example of childlike faith he is telling us just ask dad and he will give you the keys to the car. It is that simple however if we do not approach the “father” with childlike faith the car stays parked and no keys are presented to us, in the same way we would not let a person who does not know how to drive get behind the wheel before they are ready.
Most people today are caught up in a god (out-there) that wants to punish you and wants you to some how burn forever if you do not see the 66 books that King James assembled their way? Who’s way? Mans way! God has nothing to do with the 1000’s of different interpretations of the 66 books. There are literally 1000’s of man made (ego/devil) interpretations of these 66 books that King James put together.
If we get our nose and ego’s out of this book for a moment and put our eyes back on “GOD” we will begin to see that the ego can deceive us. We can not be in the Kingdom that Jesus speaks about if we have division of any sort and Saul of Tarsus new that if you divide you conquer.
Example: Jesus tells us you do not need to work at a job to have food, clothes, a house. “God” has a plan and this thinking becomes obsolete when you know “god” and why you were born. Work is an idea put forth by man (in his ego) for the control of man. We have all been taught in error and we can only see this error if you stop doing and start “being” become a human “being” and No longer a human “doing.” And you too will see that Jesus is lighting the path to freedom from this world.
Why was Jesus killed? How do you know? Jesus was killed because his teachings freed all the slaves, captives and any one who was in bondage. Paul the self appointed apostle that I refer too as an “insider of the Roman government” who mislead people then and continues to mislead people 2000 years later told us to believe differently.
Who tells us slavery is OK? Jesus, NEVER!!! Paul ALWAYS!! Why? Paul is not who he claims to be; Remember he killed Stephen a true follower of Jesus. We would call Paul a betrayer or shyster of the people. He is a liar and a thief.
Read what is attributed to Paul or Saul of Tarsus and tell me is this a follower of Jesus the Christ: “Whoever is a slave must make the best of it, giving respect to his master so that outsiders don’t blame God and our teaching for his behavior. Slaves with Christian masters all the more so—their masters are really their beloved brothers!”
How can we love our enemies and own slaves? Paul was obviously NOT A SLAVE! With the teachings of Paul you remain a slave to your master, to the government and to the world! With Jesus you become FREE from this world. Saul is teaching a worldly control and follow message just as our leaders today do about war. It is not true we are in a religious war because of the devil within us all. Why do we always have to be right and EVERYONE else who does not believe like I do wrong? INSANE! You can not see or experience Jesus until you surrender the ego. This is only DONE by being what JESUS told us to be and that is LOVERS! NOT SLAVE OWNERS! Please do not leave a message here and try and rationalize Saul’s message he is a liar and a thief and you will only understand this when you are No Longer afraid “God” will send you To HELL FOREVER for questioning why you believe the way you do. In modern day vernacular we have been “brainwashed” conversion is another word for “brainwashing” the ego will not let you see this AND it can only be seen if YOU QUIET THE EGO!! Seek the father and the devil will flee.
I too never saw the difference between Saul and Jesus while I was in church listening and NOT THINKING for my self. Where did the Phariseesget there answers? The same place most people get there answers today, yea a book, Or today TV.
Jesus was telling us we can walk on water and Saul is telling us if someone OWNS us and makes us do what they want us to do it is OK. UNREAL!! Thank you God for Abraham Lincoln seeing that Saul was a lair and a false messenger. Many of the slave owners in America pointed to this very verse in the bible to say,” Hey Abe your wrong slavery is OK and it is OK that we own and control slaves (HUMAN BEINGS) Saul tells us so in the bible.”
Saul is a snake, he is a self appointed apostle, Not a follower of Jesus. I understand this may anger the ego to learn that Saul’s teachings were diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus. However the truth is the only way to be free. We have to remember who Saul was and what his mission was. It was to destroy the teachings of Jesus and he has done just that for most bible believing Christians.
Think about this…. there are people who go to church every week and have done so for many years of their lives and they love Jesus but if they do not believe as others want them to believe they are going to burn in hell as Saul said NO WAY. Are all Mormons going to hell? Are all Muslims going to hell? Are all Hindus going to hell? Are all Catholics going to hell? Are all J.W. going to hell. Are you doing to hell? Why are you Ok and they are NOT?
Because your interpretation is correct and there is NOT!
Saul never new Jesus. Why do most people follow Saul and not Jesus? This is a form of mind control in the same way most people believe the official 911 story or why we are in war in Iraq. It all goes back to the EGO or devil as Jesus called that part of us that is just not right but evil. If you feel that you have power over someone else or you are somehow smarter than someone else because you know a book better than they do it IS A LIE! We all have the same knowledge at our disposal. EinsteinDID NOT GET HIS INFO FROM A BOOK! Jesus was always telling the Pharisees YOU HAVE THE BOOK KNOWLEDGE but you do not know the “FATHER” to whom I speak about. The ego got in the way. Here was a 30 year old man who had located “God” the “Father” and wanted everyone to know and theydiscounted him because they would not do as he advised them to do. Jesus never said if you do not listen to me, the “Father” I speak of will send you to a hell to burn forever NO WAY. COM ON!! WAKE UP!! You have the answers to every question you ask if you ASK, you have not because you ask not; ASK THE FATHER YOUR QUESTIONS about life, get some answers do not take Saul’s word as the “Word of GOD” it is NOT!!
Lets look at hell for a moment. We do not even know why we were born. Where we came from, where we are going when we leave. We often judge and say that poor soul was not saved he is burning in hell. WHO TOLD YOU? The Father that Jesus speaks about; did THE FATHER TELL YOU? Of course not. God the Father is Love and love is the answer too all your life’s issues NOT RELIGION or your beliefs if they differ from some one elses beliefs. How did you come to believe that Jesus is telling the truth? How did you come to think Saul is tellling the truth? They both can not be right. Slavery is right or wrong? Not RIGHT AND WRONG!
We are eternal spiritual beings. We will not spend eternity in a virtual oven because we disappointed the creator of our souls HE MAKES NO MISTAKES not with you or some follower of the Sun in some remote part of this world. God loves us all and fear is of Man not of God your creator.
Lets all get back to being childlike and not know-it-alls and we too will have the peace and freedom that Jesus so desperately wanted us to know about.
Love and continued Light,
David