Consciencebound

Archive for the ‘God’ Category

Here is an 8 part youtube video series of a debate on evolution and intelligent design. I was pleasantly surprised by the exchange for the most part even though it is dated. The debate was in 1997 and so there has been a lot of development in this discussion since that time but it was still good and it makes you think. This is a 5 on 4 debate with 9 relevant and highly educated and very well prepared speakers. On the ID side you have William F. Buckley Jr, William Demski, Michael Behe, Phillip Johnson and David Berlinksi and on the evolution side you have Ken Miller, Bary Lynn, Eugenie C. Scott and Michael Ruse. In my opinion, the star of the debate is clearly Ken Miller but there was still many good contributions to the discussion on both sides.

Does faith actually give us information that we cannot get with our senses? Can we gain knowledge by faith? Or is it an assumption that we make about what someone told us that God has said? Or is it something that we throw up like a white flag of surrender when we realize that we don’t have enough information but we still feel like we have to defend our belief?

In the Bible we are told:

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This is a story from back in 2004 which I did not see at the time. Someone just forwarded an article to me about it the other day. It is a story about a disgruntled Colorado man who seemed to experience some pretty unfair treatment in his small Colorado town of Granby. His frustration culminated in building a steel and concrete reinforced bull dozer and destroying 15 buildings and many cars and finally by taking his own life. A video montage of this even is below or you can read a story about it which includes a lot more details here and a discovery channel story on it here. What I would like to comment on is this man’s feeling that he was guided by God or some higher power.
I am not trying to single this man and his crazy actions out as a representative example of believers in any way. Although I can sympathize with his frustrations, his actions are hardly condoned especially because his clear intention was to also take a number of people’s lives. I also know that many believers will think that this man is crazy and that God was most certainly not guiding him to do this. What I do think that it illustrates however is the way that humans can be clearly deceived by their own circumstances and by their own beliefs to think that God is on their side and leading or speaking to them and feel that they have clear evidence for this. The man who did this, Marvin Heemeyer, made audio tapes of his plans and his thinking before the event so we have some insight into what he was thinking.

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Interesting discussion on morality from a youtube vlogger. Most memorable quote is at the very end of the video,

The problem is not that people don’t believe in objective morality, the problem is… that they do.

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When pondering the subject of morality, the subject of God’s actions and the questionable morality of those actions often comes up. When I refer to God’s actions, I would be referring to any religion which seems to make a claim to actually knowing what God’s actions are. In my case, Christianity is the closest to home and so that is where my questions are directed.

We are told by Christians that we derive our morality from God himself. We are told that without God there would be no morality and that God gives us moral directives which come from his nature. So a certain thing is not moral just because God says it, but rather it is moral because that is part of who God is and he can do no wrong.

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My friend Paul wrote this and I thought it was really good so I am re-posting it here.  It provoked a very long discussion on Facebook which has been quite good.  I hope you find it interesting…

I am writing from exile. I have been out of the Church now for over 4  years, because ultimately, my conscience led me here. As many of you know, I was once a Calvary Chapel Pastor and missionary, but it slowly stopped making sense. I do have reasons for this, but that is not what I am writing about now. I was taught to believe that people like me became this way because of a gross sin, or because they loved the world more than they loved God. I now know this to be a lie. I am really not much different morally than I was then, nor do I wish to pursue things that would harm myself or others. Ironically, to be quite honest, I think I’m a bit more moral than I was then. I am most definately way more honest.

I’m not writing to make a case for leaving Fundamental Evangelicalism, because I know that to be a waste of time. The real point of writing is to ask a question to those who prefer Dogma over their own conscience when they collide. My question is:

If Conscience brought you to believe a certain Dogma, what do you do when that same conscience tells you to leave it?

A friend of mine who is also no longer involved in Christendom uses the analogy of Martin Luther. Martin Luther, upon leaving the Catholic Church, gives conscience as one of the reasons for his “protest” against the Catholic Church. “For a man to deny his conscience is neither right nor sane…..here I stand I can do no other”. As a Protestant, I found that statement to be very moving. I still consider it to be moving. However, the Catholic Church found it to be heresy.

For whatever reason, the high value of following ones “heart” seems to be a commonly held belief. As Joseph Campell puts it, to “Follow your Bliss” seems to be the key to happiness and fulfillment. He goes as far as to say that Maslow’s theory of five human needs mean nothing to a man who lives his passion. Following our heart is obviously a foundation for happiness and true fulfillment. Read the rest of this entry »

This is an article by a guy who lost his Christian faith as a result of studying Islam. I can relate to his questions as I ran up against many of the same problems. When you are committed to a certain religious belief system (in my case it was Evangelical Christianity), you are not looking for ways to debunk it. You know it is true already and almost everything you see in the world is CONFIRMING evidence to you. You see answers to your prayers, you see and hear of miracles, you see how your worldview makes the most sense of the world compared to other worldviews. Sure, you know about other religions that have similar claims that yours does but you KNOW they are false. THOSE people are deceived but of course I know the one true God. And it seems so obvious too. Miracle stories in another religion sound like superstitious nonsense or wishful thinking, but they are anything but confirming evidence for this other religion. Miracle stories in My religion are solid evidence that it is true.

But then one day you look at things a little differently. You take a second look at your own beliefs from the perspective of someone who is OUTSIDE of your faith and it looks… well, different. This is what John Luftus calls the Outside Test for Faith and is a good exercise for anyone to do, even atheists.

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