em>Grace and Peace, all. I was originally planning for the second “BIG QUESTION” to be “Even if you establish that a higher being or creator could exist, why choose the God of Christianity?” But my study of other religous systems has become much more cumbersome than originally anticipated, and I’ll be unable to honestly answer that question for some time. Instead, I am going to jump to some ancillary “BIG QUESTIONS”, not relating directly to Christianity but SPIRITUALITY as a WHOLE.

So, here’s the Question, “So, you’re religious. What if you’re wrong?”

Well, here’s the thing. This is not a “Religious Question.”. This is a personhood question. I find it fascinating that this is often posed by the non-religious to the religious as if the relglious are the only ones who have anything to lose. Bottom line, we all have something to lose, here for certain, and possibly in the afterlife. None of us have 100% “testable evidence” of what happens to an individual’s “self” or “awareness of existence” following death. Just because we declare a person dead does not definitively affirm that the person’s “awareness”, their “self” so to speak, ceases to exist as well. The religious or non-religous are ALL gambling on some belief system. Yes, Atheism is a belief system, and those who adhere to it are doing so on faith, for they cannot definitely prove what happnes to a person’s soul, if one even exists, after death, just as the Christian cannot prove 100% that the soul lives, that is, if it even exists. So, that said, this is a question for all of us, not just the religious. I think all of us need to ask ourselves. “What if I’m wrong about my beliefs?” Well, for me, as a Christian, I have the following thoughts:

First, what if there is no soul and you die and that’s it. Well, if that’s the case, then I’ve not lost anything but those things I have rejected or sacrificed while on earth. Maybe that means I “wasted” time praying, but prayer kept me going, so I maybe I didn’t. Maybe I didn’t get to watch all the porn I wanted or experiement with drugs in the way I would have like, but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I “wasted” money by tithing to a church for a mythical religion, but maybe that money was used so someone else could eat. REGARDLESS, it won’t matter to me. If I’m dead, and that’s that, I’ll never know that I wasted anything. I would have died peacefully, believing I tried to live the best life I could within the boundaries I had chosen for myself. If death was it, however, and heaven is not real; and I wasted all these things, or missed it on this-or-that, well, I would never know about it. So, no big loss harm or foul to me.

Second, What if another religion turns out to be true? Well, as far as Islam or religions that are exlcusive from Christina faith and opposed to it, that’d be a problem for me. Damnation to be sure. Fire, maybe. Lots of Pain. For all “regenerative” religious systems, my life of attempting to do good to others and love them despite myself will warrant me good kharma and reward me with good life. For religions that speak of post-material life on an etheral plain, I will simply begin the journey with new understanding. Sure, I may or may not regret this or that choice I made in faith, but I’d have knowledge to move froward from that choice. If scientology is real, then we’re all in trouble…But all that to say, living in a “Christian” lifestyle, if other religions are true, then it could possibly warrant positive rewards, less in the instance of a relgiion that Christianity directly opposes. In those instances, I gambled wrongly, and I made the wrong choice, and I am paying for it. Well, that’s too bad.

I think that covers all the major, broad bases. If I’m wrong and there’s nothing after the consciousness of the mind and the beating of the heart, I’d never know about it, but I would have met that death with peace of mind, believing that I’d go to heaven. Overall, from looking on my life from the outside, Others may believe tha maybe I missed out on this experimental behavior or sin, and some may think that’s bad; but I wouldn’t know so what’s the big deal for me. If another relgiion is true, I could meet one of a thousand fates, but they can be summed up in two major types of ends. First, if a religion directly opposed to Christianity is true, then I would have failed, and I am damned. Second, A religion based in “kharma” or universal justice would look at my life and judge me according. Due to the sacrificial lifestyle demanded by Christianity, , to a point, based on my understanding of these types of systems. So, what if I, C.J. Stunkard, am wrong. Well, I’m fine with the odds that, in the end, I’ll be okay. My being WRONG is straight 50/50 chance. Either Christianity is true and I’m, going to heaven OR I’m wrong and I’m meeting another fate. Within the 50% of my being wrong, I’ve found 3 basic ends: (a) Nothing and I wouldn’t know (b) Universal justice, in which I am confident of the lifestyle I’ve chosen or (c) Damnation. Well, looking at the math, I only really have a 16.67% chance of having a definitive poor result in this scenario. Here’s the math.

Right or Wrong. 50% chance.
3 possible outcomes of wrong. Each 30% chance of 50% overall possibilities.
1 absolutely poor outcome of damnation. 16.67% chance overall of the 100%.

So, that’s that. “What if I’m wrong?” Well, I’m okay with that. Playing “the Odds”, I am pretty confident that I’ll come out, in the end, on top. NOW, this leads to something further which is also important: If there is nothing after life, and my Christian lifestyle doesn’t count for anything but what I doing here and now, are there still benefits to Christianity which Improve the overall quality of my life, so that even if I have the 16% damnation outcome, or one of the other non-Christian outcomes, I still had a BETTER LIFE than I would have without Christianity. Well, I am happy to say that from the way I’m looking at existence, Christainty does IMPROVE my life. Here’s a few of the reasons why,
1) Christianity and my belief in God gives my peace in turmoil, rest in uncertainty, and calm in desperation. Christianity allows for an understanding and hope in time of darkness and loss in that ALL things work together within God’s will and, ultimately, can result in his glory. It enables one to see blessing and possible posistive outcomes in the worst of circumstances and gives its believers a strong confidence in the chaos and insecurity of the world around him/her.
2) Christianity gives one a perspective from which to make choices, and it’s a very solid foundation for living. Should I make this choice? Well, I know it will hurt or anger God, so no, I shouldn’t (unless I am choosing to sin). Is this okay or acceptable? Well, it adheres to my Christian “moral code”, so yeah, I’m alright with that. It gives one a good gauge for making tough decisions. It’s much easier than riding the tide of popular social morals.
3) Christianity has led me to live a better life than I would have. What do I mean by “better”? Well, let me just say that if I knew that this was all there was, I would live this life for maximum pleasure. I wouldn’t be a good person, unless it was to suit my own ends. I’d become wholly Egoistic–acting in my best interest, for my best interest, at all times. That’s because I am not a good person by virtue. Sorry, if I am honest, really honest, than I want to do things for myself and my own purposes far more than I’d want to do things for anyone else. I’m not gonna become a pimp or a murderer, but I am gonna livefor the moment; for if i die tomorrow, that’s it. I understand that some have used Christianity as an excuse for evil. But, for me, in my honest assessment of myself–it’s only been an agent for positive change.

So, that’s my take on this question: “What if I’m wrong?” Well, there’s a 16% chance of definitive hell, a 16% chance that the universe will judge me based on my life choices (and I am confident in the choices I am making), and a 16% chance of not knowing I was wrong (so no harm). In the meantime, Christianity has given me bearings on my understanding this world and engaging it better than I would were I living for myself. I hope this answer is satisfactory. If not, post up a comment and tell what I might have missed. So, my question to you, dear readers and friends, “have you considered your fate? If you are wrong, what’s that mean for you, not just later, but now as well?”

Grace and Peace again, thanks for reading.

Song of the Post: “Runnin’” by Earth, Wind, and Fire from the album All ‘n’ All.

Thank you for coming back to the stage! May grace, peace, and all manner of success find you today.

As many of you know, I have been looking at questions that others have brought to me regarding their reason for not believing in God. This doesn’t make sense or that’s not possible, etc. Here’s another question that’s come to my attention.

4) The Bible has problems. It can’t be true because it is self-refuting and inaccurate. And C.J., don’t say that “contextually” everything makes sense, cause it doesn’t. This-and-that don’t match up. It’s obvious. God says this here, and he says that there. Furthermore, the Bible was put together by man. Man is fallible; hence the Bible cannot be perfect. Plus, what about this unenclosed Gospel or that book of the Apocrypha? Or the corruption of the church? How do you believe anything in the Bible at all?

Okay, this is a tough one; and I have really only been able to reconcile with a blanket belief.  Different scholars, many of whom have spent their LIFETIME studying the text of the Bible disagree on certain things. Men who claim to love God and live lives that reflect that have argued til they were red in the face over this proof for accuracy or the reason for fallibility.  These men are all more intelligent than I. They are better educated and more intelligent. Many of them also have a love for God that is deeper than my own.

The only way that I, in my own life, have been able to reconcile all this information to my faith is just to have faith. If God is who he says he is; if God has the capacities which I believe him to have; if God is who he claims to be, then he has all the capacities and power to form and maintain the Bible as he wants to have it, despite man’s intentions to do otherwise. This covers fallibility and corruption. If God can do all things, than certainly he can ensure that his Word is kept secure as he wants it kept.

Furthermore, as far as ANY innerBible contradictions, I accept that these exist within the Word in a way that does not contradict the Bible at its most basic purposes–to point to Christ and Communicate his love to the world. If two facts in the Old Testament contradict one another based on this finding or that finding, then I believe that such contentions, such obvious problems are NOT truly contradictory in terms of ultimate truth or purpose that are intended to be communicated by the Bible as a whole.  In fact, these supposed contradictions are most likely intended to seem as such in order to tell us something larger.

 I think one of these problems has been dates. “This date doesn’t match this date.”  or some such, I don’t remember. As far as dates are concerned, I have found that without fail, these contradictions are rectified by circumventing the mismatched dating problem and addressing the context problem.  One book was written at this time in this place, and based on the calendar used at that time, while the other book or text was completed based on this calendar or so on or so forth.  Some such explanation is usually available.

Regardless, as far as I’m concerned, any contradiction in this way, even if one of the two facts is completely and totally incorrect, that would not negate the other 99.99957% of the Bible. If I look at an encyclopedia from 1984 that says that someone did something in 1912 when in fact the event occurred in 1618, would I then throw away the rest of the encyclopedia?  Does one, even 10, even a 100 mistakes (not the Bible ahs that many) out of a book containing thousands upon thousands of proven facts nullifying the work completely?  Just something to think about.

FOLLOW UP: But you are an idiot, and your reasoning is self-refuting, because you say if “God is who he says he is” and you know who he is based on the Bible, you can’t use his being who he is to prove the validity of the Bible.

I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m just explaining how I personally have come to accept things that have required my faith to supplement my understanding in order to make sense of things beyond my personal knowledge and mental capacities.  If that is problematic, I’m sorry.

Grace, peace, and thanks to you all. May you find a person in need and bless them with your your generosity.

3)The Bible cannot be true because the story of Noah’s ark could not have happened based on what we know of the earth.

There are different schools of thought on this, but here is one to which I hold. How do we know the state of the world thousands of years ago?  How can we define or limit the phenomena that could or could not have occurred in a world so different than our own?  Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, deep sea tectonic shifts–any or all of these could have contributed to a singular anomaly or event which may or may not have flooded the world. It’s difficult to know exactly the nature of the flood itself as well as the state of the earth at the time of it’s occurrence. In fact, who’s to say the flood covered the whole of the globe. THE WORLD from an Old Testament perspective could have meant “the known world”, or “the world as far as the eye could see” or “the world as far as man had inhabited”. As far as the flood is concerned, there are too many unknowns about the science for me to accept an explanation that completely and utterly refutes the possibility of the flood in its various, possible interpretations from the Bible. So the lack of known science fails to threaten this story for me.

Furthermore, this question usually comes from those who refute creation theory and believe in the big bang or evolution, and to them, the response is much simpler. If one can “scientifically” accept that (a)the world began as a result of a 1-in-a-million chance of very particular events and occurrences happening perfectly, and (b) as a result, life evolved at an even lower possibility of success;  how can one say that no 1-in-a-sextillion cataclysmic event could have occurred in the history of the world. If our very existence is based on an infinitesimal chance of success, how likely is it that OTHER events with infinitesimal chance could have occurred in the history of the world and civilization.

Grace, Peace, and Thanks, my friends. Buy yourself a treat and enjoy it, for today is a good day for a treat.

Here’s another Question that’s come to my attention regarding MY FAITH and SCEINCE or REASON:

2) I cannot believe in a God who would destroy or let someone us destroy his creation.  If God loves so much, How can people go to Hell, and why doesn’t God save them?

I addressed this in a recent post HERE, but I’ll address this here also. Man has free will.  God doesn’t FORCE men to do anything. Men MAKE choices and choices have consequences. Because man has the ability to make choices, he is responsible for said choices.

Now, if God established a system of justice wherein repentance from sin is the only way to avoid death and eternal damnation, and people reject him out of free will, are they not condemning themselves through a lack of surrender? I think we need to look at this issue from the perspective that, the system has been established and man is already en route to damnation for his sin. Damnation is the given, the status quo. We need to proactively choose to escape said punishment.

Given this, one can look at our salvation as a “reward” for repentance. I said in the other post that the most basic system of human order is action leading to reward. If you eat Dinner, you get desert. If you work, you get paid. Well, it is sensible that the Lord’s system would work on the same principle. It’s not that you earn salvation, but acceptance of the truth and repentance is the action within the system that alters the status quo. If you repent, then you are saved. From this perspective, it’s not punishment as much as a lack of the reward and an alteration to the status quo on the path toward dmanation.  If the status quo of man is death as a result of rejection of God, then repentance is a change in said status that leads to the reward of communion with God. So, it’s not like God is tossing us into the fire. Like Lemmings, we’re headed there anyway. He has just enabled us to escape it.

However you look at it, it is the way it is; and if God is who he says he is, then he had THE RIGHT to set up this system as he saw fit. Too often, we approach the issues of God’s fairness, grace, or provision through a HUMAN LENS, but this is incorrect thinking. GOD came first. God is the creator, we are the created.  If a person created a computer with A.I., I believe we’d agree that person would have the right to unplug it. The actual creator (not parent but creator) has the rights over the created. In addition, the creator in this case is so above and greater in wisdom and understanding than the created, that if we hold that he is who he claims to be, then he would know what true justice is better than the creation ever could. Remember, we as a society view justice and fairness from a very specific and refined view of what that is. I think it’s arrogant of us to believe our developed understanding of justice, which is even different from that of other civilized cultures on earth, is BETTER or MORE FAIR than the creator’s.  If you believe that God is who he says he is, than his justice should be acceptable, regardless of our view of it. But again, even looking at the above explanation, God’s grace is MORE evident, in that he has appropriated any means at all to escape judgment.

And on another note, God is not bound by anything. In the end, if he says “You know what, I won’t send all of these people to hell. They are my creation and I will redeem them in spite of themselves, without their repentance.”  I see nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think every Christian would LOVE for that to happen because if we truly love Christ and love his GRACE, we would praise the Lord for showing that Grace beyond our understanding. Now, some of my Christian contemporaries might say this is impossible, and I could address that in a different article. All I am trying to say here is that because I accept who God is, and I use HIM as the starting point instead of myself, it becomes easy –sad, but easy– for me to accept the system of justice and repentance that he has developed. If God is at the center, and we are HIS creation, he has every right to judge us or do with us as he pleases.  He doesn’t owe us anything, but in Grace, he chooses to love us and save those who repent of their sin and seek relationship with him.

Grace, Peace, and thanks to each of you. May an unexpected blessing befall you and brighten your day.

I’m not smart.

I can’t grasp alot of metaphysical or philosophical concepts; and I have huge problems with mathematics and understanding chemistry and physics. I’m just not able to grasp it. I try, but I have not been able to do it. That being said, the following article may really upset alot of people. It may anger and frustrate them since it feels like I am “copping out”. That’s fine; and when they get their own blogs, they can blast me all they want–or they can just rip into me in the comment section. Whichever.

Okay.  Here’s the thing. I have been told that Faith and Reason collide.  Often. There are, apparently, irreconcilable contentions between fundamentalist, traditional faith systems (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism) and more modern, humanistic, evidence-based methods of reasoning and scientific study. These two ways of viewing the world are in constant battle, as faith relies on acceptance and belief of the unknown and reason is dependant on experiential knowledge and hard, proven fact. And what’s worse, the two schools of thought are usually very judgmental of one another, as they both believe the other is built on a false premise.

Many people have lost their faith due to science or reason. They cannot reconcile the unknown or certain “knowns” in their minds; and therefore, cannot accept things in their hearts.  Religion on a whole (and Christianity more specifically) has begun to have to defend itself against the scientific discoveries of our time–feeling the need to have an answer to every question that could arise. Some people are so immersed in one side, they dismiss the other altogether. “Religion cannot be real because of A, B, and C that WE KNOW from science.” “I don’t belief in such-and-such medicine because my faith forbids it.”  It’s a struggle, a conlfict, a war.

For me, as a Christian, this is specifically difficult because if I believe that God created the world and if the world contradicts the existence of God; then I am left with a self-refuting belief system that not only makes me look foolish but nullifies my entire outlook on existence itself. It’s a hard place to be.

But luckily for me, I am not smart. Many of the difficult questions that come to me about science and the irreconcilable discoveries of modern physics and biology have no affect on my faith, because I can’t understand the science to a point that it becomes a problem. Instead, I am just left to accept it.  Not Refute it, but accept it—in light of and in relation to my faith. Because here is what faith is: Faith is belief. It is not knowledge.  Faith is belief. It is a soul-based system of awareness, not an organized pattern of facts. The faith of a 4 year-old is no better or worse than that of a 40 year-old with a doctorate and a study Bible.  Faith is a level playing field–a playing field in which people of all backgrounds, cultures, creeds, and ages can be equal, or at least can start equal. Sadly, however, knowledge or supposed knowledge seems to kill faith. It seems to trump it. To break it.  When reason and faith collide on an issue one can’t fathom, science usually trumps by virtue that we in modern society see science and reason as BETTER or MORE RELIABLE than faith; and in reality, they are. Faith that I can fly conflicts with the science of Gravity, and no matter how I jump, I can not beat gravity with my faith that I can fly.

For me, and I would say for all Christians, however, faith can trump reason; or rather, faith can be reconciled to reason. I have yet to encounter an issue of  science or reason that has been irreconcilable if I am willing to surrender my lack of intelligence, my inability, my weakness to my faith and say, “So be it.” This next week and hopefully beyond as questions arise, I’ll be listing a few points of “reason vs. faith” that have been brought to me. These are questions or ideas people I know have been unable to rectify in their hearts and minds, and as such been unable to believe in Christ. The answers I give are based on my understanding of the world through the lens of faith in Jesus Christ, the Bible, and my understanding of God’s nature as a result of my life and study of the Bible.  You may feel my answers are inadequate. You might feel they’re cheap. Well, that’s fine, e-mail me at cstunkard@gmail.com or comment. Here’s the first question, More to come:

1) If one looks at Astronomy, one will see that light reflected from stars or supernovas that are billions of miles away travels to us at the speed of light over a given million+ years. This being said, earth or at least the universe, must have existed for million of years in order for that light to reach us. If it does not, then God has essentially lied to us, creating a universe that has the appearance of age without actual age.

Based on my reading and understanding of the Bible, which I hold to be the Word of God, this makes complete sense. The Lord created the world with an “apparent age” or “visible age”. For example, from what I can gather from the first chapters of the Bible, God created the chickens first, not the eggs.  He created Adam as a full-grown man with capacities for self-preservation and intellect with which he could commune with God. He created trees, not seeds in the earth.  In doing so, he created the appearance of age in the sky.  Stars, or this light from so far away, is a part of that.

But what if you can’t accept that. Well, that’s the beauty of the unknown in the Bible. We don’t know exactly how Creation took place; but by faith, we hold that God did it. One could believe that the planet is indeed millions of years old, and the Lord’s “days of creation” lasted a thousand years each, or were spread out, or occurred naturally through evolution through his original design of development. Again, as far as thip topic is concerned, I don’t know. I CAN’T KNOW. Neither the actual age of the earth nor the exact factual actions God took to create it are nor knowable at this point. And that’s okay.

As far as this being deceitful if the world is created with apparent age, I guess I see that being a skewed outlook on the whole issue. If God created the world, shouldn’t he be able to make it the way he wants.  Furthermore, in the Bible, doesn’t he explain this (if one reads a literal or even semi-literal interpretation).   I wouldn’t call it deceitful any more than a painter painting a picture in a current aged state as opposed to first drawing a seed, then a sprout, then a tree, etc. If God made it, he had the right to make it as he felt most beautiful and beneficial to his glory.