I am angry about something. Now, I understand that my anger does not really mean anything in the grand scheme of things. Like I do not think my anger will cause a great social change or that everyone must change their beliefs to fit my own or anything like that. I just want to share some thoughts. I am tired of people telling me that faith in Jesus Christ is not logical. I get a lot of, "Oh…" with odd looks when I say I am a Christian. As if they are saying, "Oh, I did not realize I was better than you." Why is believing in Christianity or having faith considered beneath intelligence? Like Christianity is, "Kid stuff," and we some all grow out of the Bible stories and religion. I have debated many Atheists on this topic, and they all see faith as an, "Easy way out," belief system of just believing what I was told as a child. Or that I was not smart enough to understand the God is not real; as if Atheism is the top tier of intelligence and Faith of any kind is on a lower form of intelligence. I experienced this lot in my undergrad experience and during my first year of teaching Theology at Bonner & Prendie high school. Here was something I shared with my students they I will now share on the internet. I was an Atheist. As my confirmation to be a full member of the Catholic faith (I was twelve) the principal of my school said, "if none of one want to be Catholic, then there's the door." She pointed to a door I wanted to walk out of, but with all the eyes on me there was no way. So I stayed and got confirmed. As my confirmation saint I chose Thomas the apostle he is often known as Doubting Thomas (See I was not being that subtle on my doubts about my faith). Then a short years later I was Catholic again.
Here's why. I wanted my faith to be intellectual I did not want to be seen as having a lesser intelligence by being a Christian. Then I started studying. I did not trust the scriptures because I saw them as Religious propaganda to trick and brain wash the lesser intelligence people that fall for the stupid stories about some Middle Eastern Jewish Man. So I took emotion out of the situation and thought with logic. I started with Occam's Razor. This is the idea that, "Entities should not be multiplied without necessity." Meaning that just like the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. The easiest explanation is often the most correct. For example: if you walk into a room an there is broken glass next to a table the easiest explanation is that the glass fell off the table. Not that in the year of 2020 is the 800th anniversary of Master Wu Tang's death and his clan of ninjas that he secretly trained and they have been training and living from generations to generations waiting for the prophesy that one day would come. That on the 800th anniversary of Wu Tang's death a ninja will break into your home and push the glass off the table because it was a drinking glass falling off a table that killed Master Wu Tang.
No, no one would think that because it is ridiculous. Therefore, using Occam's Razor and applying it to Christ looks like this, the easiest thing to explain the man of Jesus is to accept he was the Messiah. As my favorite author C.S. Lewis makes this argument like this, Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. First if he was a liar than why would he die? If you wanted to start a religion and lie and say that you were the son of God would you give up when Rome got involved and wanted to killed you? What same person would not stop lying after the whipping, beating, and crucifixion? Why go through with all the pain if he knew he was lying and he could have stopped it at any point and admit that he was lying? Which begs the question, what if Jesus was a lunatic that exactly believed he was Christ? That explains why he went through with the pain and death if he was delusional. But that does not explain why he was such a good moral teaching and or the miracles. Jesus was a miracle worker how would he be able to do that and have supernatural powers if he was just crazy? Also, his teaching carry a lot of weight and make a lot of sense. I do not know a person who is completely out of their mind that is that consistent on message, and able to be that patient and helpful. Finally, using only logic of Occam's Razor we arrive that Jesus is Lord because that is the easiest explanation to make sense of the life of this man called Christ.
What is you think I am full of crap and just making stuff up? How about Pascal's wager? Which is philosopher that said it is better to believe in God than not believe in Him because if he is real great then you get eternal life by believing and following the teaching and if he is not real then, "Oh well" some shrugged shoulders and you waste a bit of time on earth. This wager is born completely out of self-preservation. Even in his selfish need to achieve eternal life Pascal wonders into the territory of why are we not all people of faith? Faith systems offer eternal life and happiness and Atheism offers nothing. So, why are we not all believing in something?
Now to my the Bible in propaganda claim as an Atheist. The writers of the Gospels and the Bible did not know each other and had nothing to gain by writing these stories down. I fact most of them died as martyrs. So then why write these books if even means you might die? The story you wrote has to be true. Why would anyone died for something they were making up to be propaganda?
To that point that people of faith are not open-minded (I hear this point a lot). I believe that that I man was born of a virgin, lived, died, rose again, and continues to live in the Mass…. How much more open can my mind get? You may think that this is an easy thing to accept. But it's not it's called a mystery for a reason. We do not have all the answers and we never claimed to have all the answers. I am just saying it is easier to believe in nothing than it is to believe in Christ. Because to be a Christian is a daily struggle to follow the faith and teaching and a struggle to understand the complexity of the Trinity. So I am not happy that I am challenged for not having an open mind when your thing is just rejecting anything. I have an open mind and that lead me to Atheism and then I realized that an Atheist life is not worthy living and I searched for meaning and I found it in Christ. If you find meaning in Allah, the Buddha, Yahweh, or whatever that is a much more open mind then someone with folded arms simply saying, "no."
Finally, as my rant is coming to an end. Science does not deal in certainty and neither does faith. They are called theories for a reason the Big Bang Theory is not a law it's a theory. Based on the evidence we are able to find and study we believe and we have FAITH that the science is correct and supports the Theory of the Big Bang. Everything is based on faith. I think I am right in being a Catholic but I could be wrong... But I could be right.
