Have any of you been religous as a youth, and as you grew found it more difficult to beleive in such a thing as heaven and hell, and come to see Jesus as a probable historical character bound to sprout from the harsh conditions of his day?

I asked a priest this recently and he said something to this effect, "when you are child it takes very little to fill your cup of faith, though as you age the cup becomes larger and distorted by envy and greed and it becomes harder to fill."

If you look at Pascal's wager (if you beleive and die to nothing than you've lost nothing, but if you don't beleive and die to a god you've lost everything) as a child I once though that way. But now as I grow older, I'm 21 I see just the opposite, if you live humbly for a god who either isn't concerned with you or is so far detatched from our context of the universe than you've lost everyting. A life half lived is a terrible thing. And for superstitous reasons at that.

But if you don' tread so deeply and consider some very basic things, I or even you may change your tune. For instance, what good is God without faith, if we had emprical data than there is no "game or Challenge" and also consider that you are by default the most complicated thing we know of in the universe, the universe which began at a size so infitessmially small you could place it on the head of a sewing needle many times over. What a blessed thing to be in such a harmonious state as we are now as humans, a truly humbling thought. Perhaps the vehicle of "man" is far greater than any eurpoean import.

Thoughts?

Being the same age as you, I have actually experienced a growing of my faith since entering college. I find that the way that this happens is that when you are a child (if your family is churchgoing) that you are generally made to go to church every Sunday and by the time you are a teenager, your faith may have stagnated. What has helped me is having a strong religious life community on campus with many strong Christians as friends. I can see where your argument can be relevant to many people our age and older as I think that this is true that your cup does grow. In order to fill this larger cup though, one must grow in their faith and get a hold of an adult faith instead of a childs'. While this may seem contradictory to Jesus' teaching, I do not mean to lose the faith of a child, but to compensate it with a more abundant faith.

I'm sure if I deliberately ran with a religous crowd and let the aura of the mass or whatever service sink in I might still be religous. But if god is omnipresent why can I only appreciate it in a house of worship. It seems like basic autosuggestion to have to attend church to better attend to god.

It's just rather difficult for me to be concerned with god when it seems the world, being so dynamic engulfs my entire consciousness. It's quite easy to drift away from the cold reality of our present state of being in a universe without documentable "origin."

So I suppose the point I'm dodging is how to become less greedy? I have very little and feel the urge to have much, and situated here in the greatest nation on earth my choices are limitless. Do you see where I'm coming from? And how do you deal with secular pressures? Rather how are you not greedy and envious of others?

Thoughts? Do you believe in temperance in all facets of life or will a merely recognizing God suffice, for you that is.

Maybe it's just because I was raised with a strong Jewish faith that the way Christianity and Islam respond to such questioning of belief seems so... alien to me. Just strange beyond words.


The idea that it's a *bad* idea to question and doubt and maybe even come to a conclusion different than your religion's orthodoxy, and hold your conclusion as 'better' than that orthodoxy... as opposed to naturally a good and healthy thing... It's like, "Whoa, where did THAT come from?"

Also, with Christianity and Islam, the idea that someone else can define your religious faith (by a fatwa or excommunication or whatnot), as opposed to you defining it for yourself -- it's just... mind-blowingly odd.


Perhaps such issues are why you're seeing the curious reactions among members of the Christian/Islamic faith as they grow into early adulthood.

quote:

But now as I grow older, I'm 21 I see just the opposite, if you live humbly for a god who either isn't concerned with you or is so far detatched from our context of the universe than you've lost everyting. A life half lived is a terrible thing. And for superstitous reasons at that.

I too was once in the same boat you are in. I went to church every Sunday, in high school, I was confirmed, and my family was religious as well. A few things never sat well with me though. Most notably, things like the above quote. I view man as heroic and rational, and I choose to treat it as such. The church does not. It views man as sinful and irrational.

The church filled me with guilt. "You are sinful. You are wrong. You are immoral. Now, lift your heart to the Lord." These are the things I was told, and when you take a step back and take a look, it is almost laughable. The church was built on the idea of selflessness, a phrase that has often been used as the gold standard of what is good. But what exactly is selflessness?

The complete lack of self-interest. So what is to be held as the highest of morality? Should I refrain from premarital sex? There's a start. Sounds good. But what else? Should I give up my interests? Possibly. Should I give up my possessions? How about my freedom? My morals? My beliefs? My life? To give up these things, we are told, is the pinnacle of goodness. I hate to draw the comparison, but this is as our fiercest dictators expect us to be. While the church's intensions may be good, as opposed to the dictator, the ends and means are quite similar. If indeed, there is a God, let's say, and he is all perfect, all good,all powerful, etc., would he really wish us to voluntarily enslave ourselves to him? I think that would be against the nature we have learned so much about.

And all this in the name of a being that has yet to be proven as existing. You must question the existence of God, and more importantly, if he does in fact exist, question the values others have told you to embrace in his name.

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one, he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."

-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787

There is another quote you may want to read, that sums up the invalid virtue of altruism (selflessness). It is as follows:

What is the morality of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to live for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value. Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice - which means: self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction - which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as the standard of the good.
-Howard Roark