Warning - Long Rambling Follows
I apoligise in advance if this post is long, however, I was on a roll. Due to 1000 character limit in Haloscan, if you have a long comment/reply you would like to post, please email it to me (sidewinder@bluefrog.com) and I'll post it seperately. Enjoy.
I read an interesting article by an atheist who discussed raising her child without God. She was unashamed to say she didn’t believe in God and was teaching her child to believe in what she could see and/or prove. The writer was a scientist that had a belief system based on the scientific method. You have a hypothesis, gather data to prove the hypothesis, then adjust your hypothesis based on the data you observe. All well and good.
However, a couple of things struck me. First, I found it sad when the author’s child said something to the effect that she wasn’t “wasting her time praying in a church”. The child went on to say something to the effect that if someone was sick, then she wouldn’t pray for the person, she would get the person medicine. Of course, being a child, she missed the entire point of praying.
The other thing that struck me is that the author’s daughter had this fear of death and would start just screaming and crying. And you know what, the die hard atheist had absolutely no good answer for her daughter. Her belief system demands that once you die, that’s it, you’re only a memory. And I thought, “How terribly sad.”
Now, I’m not one to mock another’s belief system or go on about how the Catholic faith is the only path to eternal life. I’ve been called a closet secular humanist (you know who you are) but I think I’m just open minded enough to realize that I’m not smart enough to have the monopoly on the truth. However, the article got me to thinking. The atheist will only believe in what they can see or prove. Being a Christian, I really can’t prove there is a God. I can perhaps infer there is a God, however, these inferences can be interpreted in many different ways, including coincidence. However, they are some of the things that have led me to conclude, personally, that I’m placing my faith in the right place.
On creation, I do believe that God created the universe. Not in seven days as it states in Genesis, but that He formed all the “stuff” of the universe out of the emptiness and set the universe in motion to become what it is today. I won’t go into this too heavily as I’ve posted on the subject of creation versus evolution already. On a personal level, I’ve found that if I try to control my life, nothing goes right and I end up miserable. I’ve read Ayn Rand and her brand of objective self determination and am familiar with the individualist school of thought where you are the master of your own destiny. I’ve found when I simply let go of the need to control things, then suddenly success comes my way. I’ve stopped worrying about my career, personal direction, etc and simply pray to Jesus that He guide me and help me make the right choices as they come up.
I’ll give two specific examples, though I’m sure anyone could right them off as coincidence. First, at my last job, I saw the hand writing on the wall that once an account our company provided call center support for ended, that there probably wouldn’t be a need for three supervisors, of which I was one. For a while I made an active job search so I could get out while the getting was good. I had absolutely no luck. So I did the smart thing (for me anyway). I gave it over to Jesus and trusted Him to take care of me, one way or the other, and stopped worrying about it. Absolutely out of the blue (I’m not kidding here) I get a call from a recruiter whom I hadn’t spoken with in over 2 years. She asked me what I was doing in my current position. I told her I was a help desk supervisor. She then proceeded to describe a perfect position for me and asked if I was interested. Of course I was. I interviewed with the company a couple of times. After my last interview, I went into work and it was made official that a supervisor would be laid off at the end of the summer. The next day I got the job offer for the new position.
Second personal example: I’d been trying to cut a CD with my original band for over a year. The result was a couple of songs, mostly mine, and months of canceling recording sessions and getting nowhere. Creatively I was having trouble writing songs. While out rollerblading, it hits me. God didn’t want me to cut a CD with the band. I had been contemplating writing only “praise” music dedicated to God. I made the decision to cut a CD on my own and began writing music. I had 10 songs completed in about 2 months, my most creative period ever. The CD is coming along nicely and I’m very inspired on this project. Again, this doesn’t prove anything but it does it for me.
Lastly, it is a great comfort to know that for me, death isn’t the end. My children are not afraid of death because they know they are destined for Heaven. I take comfort and await seeing some of my friends and family that have died one day. Another quick story. An employee of mine died in a drunk driving accident. She was 30 and left behind a 10 year old. Very tragic. At the funeral, I looked up at the statue of Jesus above the alter. I had this vision of Jesus holding her and just knew she was at peace. I also knew I’d see her again.
Peace to all of you out there reading this.
I read an interesting article by an atheist who discussed raising her child without God. She was unashamed to say she didn’t believe in God and was teaching her child to believe in what she could see and/or prove. The writer was a scientist that had a belief system based on the scientific method. You have a hypothesis, gather data to prove the hypothesis, then adjust your hypothesis based on the data you observe. All well and good.
However, a couple of things struck me. First, I found it sad when the author’s child said something to the effect that she wasn’t “wasting her time praying in a church”. The child went on to say something to the effect that if someone was sick, then she wouldn’t pray for the person, she would get the person medicine. Of course, being a child, she missed the entire point of praying.
The other thing that struck me is that the author’s daughter had this fear of death and would start just screaming and crying. And you know what, the die hard atheist had absolutely no good answer for her daughter. Her belief system demands that once you die, that’s it, you’re only a memory. And I thought, “How terribly sad.”
Now, I’m not one to mock another’s belief system or go on about how the Catholic faith is the only path to eternal life. I’ve been called a closet secular humanist (you know who you are) but I think I’m just open minded enough to realize that I’m not smart enough to have the monopoly on the truth. However, the article got me to thinking. The atheist will only believe in what they can see or prove. Being a Christian, I really can’t prove there is a God. I can perhaps infer there is a God, however, these inferences can be interpreted in many different ways, including coincidence. However, they are some of the things that have led me to conclude, personally, that I’m placing my faith in the right place.
On creation, I do believe that God created the universe. Not in seven days as it states in Genesis, but that He formed all the “stuff” of the universe out of the emptiness and set the universe in motion to become what it is today. I won’t go into this too heavily as I’ve posted on the subject of creation versus evolution already. On a personal level, I’ve found that if I try to control my life, nothing goes right and I end up miserable. I’ve read Ayn Rand and her brand of objective self determination and am familiar with the individualist school of thought where you are the master of your own destiny. I’ve found when I simply let go of the need to control things, then suddenly success comes my way. I’ve stopped worrying about my career, personal direction, etc and simply pray to Jesus that He guide me and help me make the right choices as they come up.
I’ll give two specific examples, though I’m sure anyone could right them off as coincidence. First, at my last job, I saw the hand writing on the wall that once an account our company provided call center support for ended, that there probably wouldn’t be a need for three supervisors, of which I was one. For a while I made an active job search so I could get out while the getting was good. I had absolutely no luck. So I did the smart thing (for me anyway). I gave it over to Jesus and trusted Him to take care of me, one way or the other, and stopped worrying about it. Absolutely out of the blue (I’m not kidding here) I get a call from a recruiter whom I hadn’t spoken with in over 2 years. She asked me what I was doing in my current position. I told her I was a help desk supervisor. She then proceeded to describe a perfect position for me and asked if I was interested. Of course I was. I interviewed with the company a couple of times. After my last interview, I went into work and it was made official that a supervisor would be laid off at the end of the summer. The next day I got the job offer for the new position.
Second personal example: I’d been trying to cut a CD with my original band for over a year. The result was a couple of songs, mostly mine, and months of canceling recording sessions and getting nowhere. Creatively I was having trouble writing songs. While out rollerblading, it hits me. God didn’t want me to cut a CD with the band. I had been contemplating writing only “praise” music dedicated to God. I made the decision to cut a CD on my own and began writing music. I had 10 songs completed in about 2 months, my most creative period ever. The CD is coming along nicely and I’m very inspired on this project. Again, this doesn’t prove anything but it does it for me.
Lastly, it is a great comfort to know that for me, death isn’t the end. My children are not afraid of death because they know they are destined for Heaven. I take comfort and await seeing some of my friends and family that have died one day. Another quick story. An employee of mine died in a drunk driving accident. She was 30 and left behind a 10 year old. Very tragic. At the funeral, I looked up at the statue of Jesus above the alter. I had this vision of Jesus holding her and just knew she was at peace. I also knew I’d see her again.
Peace to all of you out there reading this.
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