Last week, Michele posted questions to religious people about their beliefs. She specifically asked about beliefs on God intervening during disasters and about how we view the power of prayer.
download ArmikI chose not to comment on her post for several reasons. For one thing, my answers to those questions are more complicated and drawn out than what I feel comfortable putting in someone else's comments. I also didn't want to be drawn into a discussion that I felt sure would become insulting. While she was clear that her questions weren't meant to disparage anyone's beliefs and she wanted an open discussion, I didn't expect her commenters to feel the same.
It's amazing to me actually. I was raised in a place where someone who didn't believe in God or even wasn't Christian would be an outcast. That was wrong, but it's how it was. Now we've got this great medium where we can learn from each other if we're willing, and the opposite seems to be true. People are insulting to Christians and insinuate that only stupidity or naivete could be responsible for anyone really believing the 'superstitions' taught in the Bible. I don't have the energy to enter into that kind of discussion because that kind of person coming from either side of the arguement just frustrates me past my limit. I can't stand a person who feels the need to threaten someone who doesn't believe as they do or call them Godless or heathen, and a person who feels the need to insult a person who does have faith is no better. I think there are smart, wise people on both sides of this. I wish that it was easier to bring this discussion out without people becoming defensive and insulting.
I applaud Michele for asking people who believe differently than she does to explain to her why they do. It's not about changing anyone's mind, but we'll never understand each other until we can do that. It's really a shame that anyone took that post as a chance to deride others for the beliefs.
I am a Christian, but I can't prove to Michele or anyone else that I'm right. Accepting something without proof of it is the nature of belief.
I went through how I can believe in God and believe in his power even in the face of something like 9/11 in this post. I won't restate it all, but I will just say briefly that God not stopping the hijackers isn't proof that he isn't powerful or that he isn't good. God gave us free will and a consequence of that is that people have the ability to do evil. God doesn't want this, but for us to have the ability to choose good, we have to be able to choose evil. It's rejecting evil even though it's available to us that makes being good a choice. As far as why God doesn't stop things like 9/11, I don't have an answer to that. God's plan is certainly not within my power to understand. I wish he'd prevented the tragedy of 9/11 through a miracle, but he didn't. Whatever his reason was, the choice was his. Believing in God means accepting that everything won't be revealed to us. Sometimes we just have to live with what happens and trust that everything happens according to God's plan. We're not asked to understand, only to believe. I wish I had a better answer, but I don't.