Re: Agnosticism (nt)
Submitted by Spirit on June 4 2002 00:22:23
In reply to Re: Atheism (nt) submitted by Aschenbach on May 29 2002 19:52:36
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Agnosticism sounds a little more like what you are describing regarding your current belief system. Hi, Achenbach, I'm new here too -- though I have visited CBF from time to time. Was it that your posts strike an oddly familiar old chord somewhere inside -- déjà vue? Almost like I once knew you intimately somewhere along the way, over the years, and I now get a second chance to jump in the water to help a friend who might be floundering under an assumption that you have to make a life altering decision based upon a few failed conversations and a mind full of valid questions and only learned doubts as answers. I say learned doubts because most of us learn to doubt by listening to others. It would be hard to learn to doubt the relevance of the teachings of Jesus and his Father to people living today by first hand experience, I suspect. You say: In case this sounds like an overnight change, I spent about three months on the decision, talking to several experienced Christians about it. You know, I'v been searching for answers for almost thirty five years. And I got a late start -- at age 20. But this discussion reminds me of why I am still searching when I already know all of the right places to go to learn to doubt. It also reminds me of a passage in a book in my wife's bookcase. "As life nears it's end, it is the small things that we often focus upon, things that we had so often taken for granted: A smile, The touch of a hand. A kind word. A tiny flower. The warmth of the sun." And then the author asks: "When we think about such big things that are breathtaking, little things that stir our admiration, ingenious things that fascinate us, simple things belatedly appreciated -- to what do we attribute them? Just how can such things be explained? Where did they come from?" As I advance in years, one answer I am certain of is that the design of the things both simple and profound in creation -- and my ability to perceive and to take delight in what is created through my five good senses -- makes me feel I made a wise choice in not giving up my faith entirely after a few months of finding all the answers I needed to make the mistake of thinking the search wasn't worth the effort. I'm still searching in my own way to try to find how all of this faith of mine -- in an eternal designer and his scriptural insights -- as taught by his son and a few dozen wise prophets -- can be used to benefit today's youths. There are many fine parents who could be easily benefited. There are also many abusive parents who, although they love their children, just keep stumbling about in the darkness of parenthood using the same failed parenting methods that they learned, in turn, from their own parents. But there exists hope for these. Then sadly too, there are those youths whose parents couldn't care less about much of anything. Yet, I believe that the answers, as found at Micah 6:8, will work to the benefit of the battered and neglected children too -- even if they don't know that the men who wrote the principles involved where inspired by the same personage that created the heavens and all that which fills them. Micah wrote, in a nutshell that what it meant to love God was to " exercise judgment, love kindness, and be modest in walking with your God." Many youths, as well as adults, would lead far happier lives today if everyone applied these simple ethical principles in all of their dealings. I guess just finding ethical counsel of this caliber in the Holy Scriptures seems like a pretty worthwhile reason for me to continue to search -- as I pause to ponder the designer of all things simple and profound. Now, I speak of ethics as opposed to morality because I'll grant that there are as many differing opinions of what is and isn't moral as there are religionists in the world who want to argue morality as determined only by their various eschatological beliefs. I wonder, Achenbach, what are your thoughts in connection with the validity of any Bible principles that you once found beneficial for teaching ethical principles to a non religious world? Respectfully, -=Spirit=- |
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