From: hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Christians as human beings [WAS: Why I am an atheis/Christian...]
Date: 28 Aug 92 17:42:57 -0300
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <sbuckley.714986745@sfu.ca>, sbuckley@fraser.sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley) writes:
> hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:
>>
>> I find that Christians often don't seem to be real people
>>because they never talk in experiential terms. It's always "God did this,
>>God did that, God filled my soul..."  These are interpretations. But tell
>>me what you experienced, and let me try to see if I see the hand of the
>>Divine in it. Do you understand why this is important?
> 
>   well.  good question.  god in me is the conviction and the wisdom and 
> guidance in my heart that is the spirit [trinity v.3] while in prayer,
> listening to my minister's sermon or the words of a friend in
> conversation, reading the bible, reading another book, looking at
> canada geese flying past my apartment window, during these times
> and many others, something goes "ding" inside my heart. 

Could you elaborate on this "ding?" :)

> a phrase from
> my minister's mouth as he's speaking to almost 200 of us will answer
> something that's been in my mind that week or often that very moment.

This happens to me all the time, not with sermons, but rather with books
and poems etc.  Yet the insights often have nothing to do with Christianity,
and indeed may in fact undermine belief in Christianity. I don't think this
phenomenon has anything supernatural about it, really. 

> these "coincidences" happen up to a dozen times during an average sermon.
> this is the spirit in the heart perking up my ears at just the right point
> in the sermon or in conversation with a friend, or when i'm looking 
> through the bible for insight, i'll find something small somewhere that
> just happens to speak *exactly* to what i'm suffering over.  these
> coincidences are huge spiritual interventions in life that come from
> me turning to god for wisdom when i need it.

Maybe...although since the same phenomenon occurs to me in a non-christian
context I am a bit skeptical that this is God at work. :)  Seems to me like
ordinary intelligence and coincidence. We do not notice the thousand 
sentences we read that do not address the issue in our minds at the
moment - but the one that does strikes us as fortunate. If my brain
is wrestling with Christian problems, it is pretty likely that I will
hear things that relate to my problem in a sermon...

> 
>   christians often don't seem to speak like real people in conversation
> with non-believers for fear of persecution.  strange, but let me explain.
> i'm sitting with a group of people who are curious about my experience--
> a relatively rare event because most conversations i have with people
> revolve around them slamming me and my hideous, repulsive, intolerant
> beliefs.  so when i get at least semi-sincere queries, it's easy to
> couch my words in christian cliches and scripture because the words
> are eternal, from god and full of solace in an environment of interrogation
> that is rarely free of stress and tension.  it's like a kind of moat and
> castle wall to keep out those who could turn at any moment [often 
> friends] and take something personal i say in my words, experientially,
> and turn me into a hateful intolerant bigot.  we've all seen this happen
> no matter what our perspective.  so christians can sometimes couch their
> words in god's for protection.  but if yer close, really close, to a
> christian where there's trust and compassion in your relationship, ask
> them to be sincere and descriptive and they just might, if they feel
> they can trust you and not feel threatened.

This is extremely interesting, and it explains a lot. Thanks for the
look into another's mind. :)  It is a kind of self-reinforcing cycle, isn't
it?   If a Christian comes on saying "God told me this, God did that..."
it raises the hackles of every non-Christian in earshot. Here's why: 
it sounds like self-serving bullshit. And in a sense it is..because 
usually what they mean is "I had a feeling that this was really right, and
Christian doctrine tells me that when I get this feeling, it's God." 
This is just one example - no intention to offend. What irritates is that
usually the non-Christians have had exactly the same experience lots of
times, and never dreamed of thinking it was anything other than part of
normal life.  Christians often come across as intolerably smug. Not all - 
but often. Every time they find their car keys or figure out a problem
it's "God did this, God told me, I just followed God..."   See why this
might irritate?  There's nothing persecutory about it.

However, I can also see why a Christian might get defensive when 
challenged by people who are obviously hostile to their faith, and there are
lots of people like that around.  At that point, one doesn't want to 
say anything that could provide an opening for an attack. Safer to 
stick to basics, to doctrinal assertions. Understood. 

How easy it is to forget that Christians are just people like anyone else!
They would be more popular (dogmatic Christians, that is) if they would
acknowledge the limitations of their knowledge and faith. The "I'm certain!
I'm absolutely certain!! It's all been proved!!!" crap does NOT aid
the cause at all.  


>>This is indeed a remarkable statement, but paradoxically, it does not 
>>alienate this atheist.  Christianity seems to me to be a wreck from an
>>evidential point of view. The only thing that can salvage it is a faith
>>that "the Lord works in mysterious ways."   A note for Christians - 
>>come on like human beings! Not like people with a direct hot-line to heaven.com.
>>I think a rationally-based Christianity is possible only for the 
>>intellectually-challenged, but posts like Mr. Buckley's indicate that
>>Christians ARE human beings after all!
> 
>   thanks for the compliment.  it means a lot.  the lord works in mysterious
> ways, only in one context.  the normal ways that meaning is conveyed in
> our world [logical, linear thot, art] are what we see as normal and 
> intelligible.  but divine spiritual intervention often look like coincidences
> that happen to have god's fingerprints on them, fingerprints that are 
> recognizable if god's spirit is in us to help us see them. 
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  
Maybe! Here is an example of the annoying use of Christian cliche. 
What you mean is, these apparent coincidences no longer look random 
when interpreted according to Christian teaching.  Why not say that???
Just conclude by saying, "and I feel this teaching is true."  
This makes the whole thing a dialogue between human beings, not one 
human being and one prophet with a direct feed to heaven.edu. :)
 
> the wisdom
> i get from god is no longer mysterious because i now expect it in certain
> places, but in comparison to this world, it'll always be mysterious.
                               ^^^^^^^^^^
This is probably a hell of a habit to break! Why don't you just say
"non-Christian interpretaions of life?"   The kind of talk you use
here looks very supercilious. "This world..."  Come off it, guys!
We might listen to you more if you didn't put us down (and yourselves up) 
implicitly every time you open your mouths! 

>>This comment gives me some idea of HOW a person can be a Christian - it has
>>a ring of truth. Of course, it doesn't change things a lot for me, 
>>but it does make me see that Christianity is as valid an approach to life
>>as atheism. 
> 
>   and i hope for you a more valid approach.

Belief in God seems to me both beautiful, in a weird way, and valid. However,
the whole Pauline salvation/damnation business stinks to high heaven (you
might say :). It rots from a logical point of view, and it rots from 
the point of view of anyone who loves (for whatever paradoxical reason)
their fellow human beings.  Jesus has always been a magnetic figure for me,
and I love the gospels. I have never been able to reconcile my own
profound attraction for the gospels with my uncontrollable repugnance
for the Christian orthodoxy which I (now) know came into being long
after Jesus and his disciples passed from the earth.  I don't know what to 
do about this at all, I'm afraid. However this is my problem, not yours! :)

Cheers,
Sean Hartigan
hartigan@ac.dal.ca
In sunny Nova Scotia...in search of Deus Absconditus...


 
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