The Core Flaw In Christian Dogma

Great Debates
1

While there are many things about the Christian dogma that I find questionable, even ludicrous, there is one item which brings the whole Christian house of cards tumbling down.

According to every Christian I’ve ever heard or read, the core of being a Christian is faith. Does it all sound wacky? That’s ok, just have faith. Can’t make it jibe with science? No problem, just have faith. Don’t know how to embrace it? Just believe…have faith. Kinda like Nancy Reagan in reverse: Just Say Yes.

Well, I can’t. I cannot MAKE myself believe something I do not. I cannot force my brain and heart to accept and believe that which I do not accept and do not believe. It is not a matter of choice. I can no more have faith in Christ than I can have faith in fairies or leprechauns. Oh sure, I can SAY I believe. I can PRETEND to believe…but God would know I was posing, and that wouldn’t count.

Therefore, the whole thing is bullshit. If I can only be saved by belief, then, through no fault of my own, I am doomed. And if God is anything like his press, he would not be so unfair as to doom me for all eternity for something over which I have no control. Ergo, Christian dogma is hooey. (So is pretty much every organized dogmatic religion, but I’m only talking about Christianity at the moment.)
stoid

PS: Do not take this to mean that I deny the existence of any and all things supernatural, I do not. I am talking exclusively about the dogma of a particular religion.

2

Well, no, actually. You choose not to believe. You can also choose to believe–in anything.

Obviously one does not believe in that in which he does not believe. That kinda follows.

But if you leave the realms of “not believing” and enter the realms of “being open to persuasion,” then you can certainly choose to have faith.

3

I don’t understand. How does your unwillingness to believe constitute a fundamental flaw?

4

Besides, the core of being a Christian is not faith, but Love.

5

Obviously, Stoid, then, this post shows you REALLY haven’t studied Christian doctrine. Nor do you seem to understand it.

What you site are the beliefs of a select few.

6

If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that you CAN believe in things that can not be understood rationally, you just can’t believe in this one thing that can’t be explained rationally.

Or perhaps Andros is right and you have CHOSEN not to believe.

7

Wow Stoid, I guess all us Christians will have to bow down before your superior logic and renounce our faith… BAHAHAHAHAH!!!

<wiping tears>

Consider that for faith in the spiritual by definition transcends the physical. I can’t logically prove the existence of God and I don’t hold with the fundie notion that the things science doesn’t yet know form some kind of proof for God. I pray that you will eventually have a better understanding of what Christianity is.

8

Stoid, forgive me if I misinterpret what you say, but are you saying that if you or anyone else cannot understand something, therefore it must be false? That doesn’t wash. I don’t know what Stoid doesn’t know, but that doesn’t make “false” everything he doesn’t know.

Faith is what the Christian accepts because the limits of his humanity prevent him from fully understanding God.

9

**Stoid wrote:

According to every Christian I’ve ever heard or read, the core of being a Christian is faith. Does it all sound wacky? That’s ok, just have faith. Can’t make it jibe with science? No problem, just have faith. Don’t know how to embrace it? Just believe…have faith.**

Um… but don’t ALL religions say this, essentially? Why are you singling out Christianity for your diatribe?

10

Let’s go back a step, if we might.

The core event of Christianity is Jesus’ death and resurrection. (At least, that’s what we who attempt to follow Christ believe happened. OK if I let that be a blanket qualification for this post?) Whatever it was that Christ did for us in those fundamentally inseparable events (and I’ll be honest: I don’t understand it well enough to explain it - I only know that that’s the core of the mystery), though, doesn’t seem to be something we can interact with as consumers.

For whatever reason, to participate in this thing, it has to be a matter of personal encounter with Christ. In my experience, relationship is at the core of everything that God’s trying to do in us, with us, for us. Unless we are willing to interact with him in an honest way, leaving ourselves open and vulnerable to the influence of his heart on ours, then it’s nothing doing.

But that openness does seem to imply that we’ve already accepted that there is this God person who, while being God, is actually interested in our lives. If you want to call that faith - a word I’ve always had trouble with - I suppose it will do.

Once the beginnings of that relationship have taken place, though, I’m much more comfortable with a more tangible word - trust. We trust that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow; we trust our friends to still be our friends in our moments of depression and lostness. In like manner, I trust God to be there for me, even when I don’t feel him. I’ve known who he is; I know he’s not going to leave me hanging.

But it’s trust in a Person, not trust that because the Bible says Jonah got swallowed by the Leviathan, it really happened. That’s a different order of things, and whether it happened or not, God is still the God in whom I can place my trust.

I don’t know if that helps or not, Stoid, but it’s the best I can do right now.

11

Faith, by definition, transcends logic. I have never expected any religious dogma to make sense, and I am rarely disappointed.

Once again, I am ever so glad to be Unitarian Universalist - we just don’t care if you don’t make sense. :smiley:

Esprix

12

Not that I am aware of.

Well, from what I understand of what you are saying, you are essentially backing up my point. You say:

And that’s exactly it. I don’t really doubt that Jesus of Nazareth lived, preached, and died on the cross, only that it means anything special. And I have no faith at all that this is so. unlike what others who have responded to me are saying, it’s not about not understanding it. It’s not about choice. I have no choice. How does one choose to have faith in something? You do or you don’t. You can choose to BEHAVE in certain ways… I could choose to go to church, to pray, to sing hymns, to read the bible…I could take on all sorts of behaviors that look like I’m a Christian, but inside my head, nothing’s happening. Inside my heart, nothing’s happening. In my feelings and beliefs, where it counts, I think I’m behaving jsut as strangely and meaninglessly as a Christian might think an an African tribesman is behaving by dressing up in strange costumes, painting his face, and dancing. In my mind, they are no different, and I could no more “choose” to believe in the mystical significance of one than the other.

And no one has explained what it is I’m not understanding. If I’ve got it wrong, I’m open to enlightenment. Are we not saved through Christ’s grace, which we receive when we accept Him into our heart AS our lord and savior? Isn’t that the deal? Doesn’t the whole thing rest on that basic principle? And if I simply cannot believe it, by what means would you suggest I make myself believe it? And if you can think of no way to make myself believe that which I do not, then am I not doomed, per Christian dogma? And if I am doomed because I cannot make myself believe, doesn’t that strike anyone as just the tiniest bit unfair?

Belief is not within our control. I don’t believe in leprechauns. I don’t believe there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I don’t believe Samantha was a real witch. I cannot make myself believe these things…can you? On the other hand, I DO believe the sun will rise tomorrow. I DO believe that there is a universe far more vast than my ability to understand it. I DO believe that all living things are related, and have evolved from lower forms. I have no beliefs at all about where it all began, because like the infinite universe, it is beyond my ability to form opinions about. I cannot UN-believe any of these things simply by choosing to. Can you? And if you can, can you let me in on the secret, because I find that astounding.

I am not claiming an in-depth and thorough understanding of all aspects of Christian theology. Please clear it up for me if I’ve got it all wrong.

stoid

13

STOID-
No one is saying you are wrong to believe what you believe.
HOWEVER, you seem to be implying that those who DO believe are fools and idiots.

14

Maybe you just need a logical reason to believe stoid? I took a leap of faith because I decided logically that my life would be better with god than without. God then proved to me that he existed. Personally I am too logical to rely simply on faith, and I think most christans are too. They say faith because the proof is personal, not open to everyone.

15

Really? Where did I imply that? I don’t think I implied any such thing. However, you seem to have inferred it.

I have explained the flaws I see in the theology…it does not automatically follow that because someone else does believe in it, that I am casting aspersions on their intelligence for doing so. And if you think it does, I suggest you stay out of forums labeled “Great Debates” - it is the nature of same to find people disagreeing about all kinds of things, religion among them.

stoid

PS: You also said this:

I then went on to ask to have it explained to me where I was wrong in my understanding, and that I was willing to be educated. But instead of explaining it to me, you decided I must be attacking you personally. How do you arrive at that? If I’m wrong about what Christianity teaches, I’m ok with that. But neither you or anyone else has bothered to explain how I’m wrong. I’m listening.

16

I wasn’t attacking you, per se. Just the generalizations that all Christianity is based on faith, when it’s much much more than that.

I now see what you’re saying-how does someone convert, if they do not believe IN THEIR HEARTS, and that you cannot force one to believe. Am I correct here?

You got me on a crankier than usual day-I’m sick

17

If I understand you correctly, you’re saying that you CAN believe in things that can not be understood rationally, you just can’t believe in this one thing that can’t be explained rationally.

Or perhaps Andros is right and you have CHOSEN not to believe.

**
[/QUOTE]

No. What I’m saying is that I am not taking a position that anything and everything not proven and explained by science is impossible. In other words, I am not an atheist. I do not * specifically believe * in anything (well, that’s not completely true, but close. We’ll leave that off for now) particular, as far as supernatural things go. But there are things which I flatly reject as literally UNbelievable, and the story of Christ dying for our sins is at the top of the list for precisely the reason I give: I do not * believe* that a loving, benevolent God would set me and many others like me up to fail, by making a condition of our salvation something which is outside my control: believing in it. That strikes me as perverse, and distinctly UN-loving. (But then, traditional Biblical portrayals of God have always been incredibly UN-God-like…showing a god that is mean, angry, jealous, vain… none of which are attributes I would expect in a truly god-like, spiritually enlightened being.)

18

Precisely. If in order to be saved, I must believe in my heart that I will be… does it not seem rather cruel? How can I make my heart believe what it will not? I can do that no more easily than I can love someone I do not love, simply by deciding I will.

stoid

19

A loving and benevolent god lets you set yourself up to fail. God is not just loving. If you base your judgement of christanity on the words of other people you are setting yourself up to fail. Christan “tradition” has nothing to do with god.

20

Stoid:

You are suggesting that because you are incapable of faith in God, God if he exists has de facto denied you the possibility of salvation through no fault of your own, since he created you without faith.

A good point, but Christianity does have this covered.

The way it works is this. There are two possibilities:

  1. You are in denial. You deny the existence of God for your own reasons, and keep yourself closed to experiencing his glory. You do not allow yourself the possibility of faith. By this reasoning it’s your own fault. You choose not to hear Jesus knocking at your door (or else you think it’s the pizza guy and you decided not to answer because you didn’t want the Peperoni with cheese after all.)

  2. Like Saul, your time has not come yet. At some point down the road of life, Jesus or God will make contact with you in some form, you will encounter him personally, and you will either accept him or not. At such a time you will have an opportunity for faith, though you may be incapable of experiencing it now.

The common thread between these two ideas is that God gives everyone an opportunity, just not at your convenience.

In other words, your number at the celestial deli counter just hasn’t been called yet (or else you missed it.)

Not my ideas, you understand, but that’s more or less the answer they tell you in Catholic school.