A Leap of Faith July 24, 2007 Jill An LA Times reporter who used to cover the religion beat discusses how his work turned him away from Christianity. It’s a great piece, and it exposes the problems and hypocrisies of so many religious leaders and institutions. Thoughts?
I think it does a good job of describing what turns some people off to religion, but it doesn’t go far enough. The problems he cites are easy enough to brush off with the True Scotsman – no, REAL religious people aren’t like that. For his own enlightenment, he needs to go a step further beyond the personal face of religions and start to research the texts and traditions the religions are based on. That’s when the foundation really crumbles. I think Misquoting Jesus should be on every Christian’s reading list.
I take my faith seriously, which means — not at all paradoxically — that I am mistrustful of the institutional churches, knowing that while I need the company of my fellow Christians and their collective wisdom, all churches are inherently dysfunctional. What makes them dysfunctional is that they have people in them. His ending comments — that faith is a gift — are right on. For reasons I cannot explain, and through no particular merit of my own, I was given the gift of certainty that God loves me, God is real, God is working out His promises through imperfect people in an imperfect world all the time. Why some folks get to keep their faith in the face of betrayal and suffering, and others lose theirs, is still a mystery.
Very well done…mirrors a lot of my own experience. He starts to touch on one point I really wish religious people would realize, and that is that situations are what they are. Period. Regardless of God or Satan or your faith or lack thereof. People’s kids die whether or not they’re religious. People get in debt whether or not they’re religious. People prosper whether or not they’re religious. I hate that Christians are so quick to be like, “God did this for me because I did this for him!” or “You’re not doing well now because you’re not doing something for God!” But yeah, it is sick to keep God as a backer for bad things…the writer seems to be in the “despair” stage that a lot of people go through in working out faith/non-faith. Eventually, he’ll get to a point where he’ll realize that people have to have a justification for their behavior–and what better than an all-knowing, all-powerful being that you can’t talk to or question?–and he’ll figure out what it all means personally to him. It’s always a journey though…don’t let any of ’em fool you that they’ve “arrived”. The ones who’re real sure about things are the ones to look out for.
For his own enlightenment, he needs to go a step further beyond the personal face of religions and start to research the texts and traditions the religions are based on. That’s when the foundation really crumbles. I think Misquoting Jesus should be on every Christian’s reading list. That book looks really interesting. Might need to grab it. And really, it’s why I’m in my own spiritual ‘despair’ – I started reading a book about the inconsistancies in the Bible and misconceptions perpetuated by the church, and it’s dealt a similar blow. In the book, the writer wisely pointed out how few Christians actually sit down and research the religion, choosing instead to blindly leap into the ‘feel good’ feeling instead of knowing the actual history and authenticity. Which really got me, because that’s pretty much what happened in my case. And really, I didn’t decide to stop having belief. It just sort of vanished. So if I died and God demanded why I lost my faith, I could reasonably answer – “Well you tell ME. I don’t know why my faith went and vanished on me after reading a few chapters of a book. It’s not like I asked it to.”
It’s wrong to base all your spiritual foundation on other human beings, because people are flawed, bigoted, open to corruption, etc. If you’re looking at people to uphold your idea of absolute moral goodness, you’re going to end up being very disillusioned. The minute large amounts of money, influence, or political power becomes entwined in something, it becomes less about morality and truth and more about demagoguery.
I becaI became disillusioned with religion by observing churches, religious hypocrisy, etc., but that didn’t have much to do with me losing faith. I think that religion, especially organised religion, is a terrible thing (for all that it can serve a useful purpose for many people), but I don’t have too many problems with faith, per se. I can’t be absolutely certain that God doesn’t exist, but as I get older, I see God as less and less necessary. And I just can’t bring myself to believe anymore. me disillusioned with religion by observing churches, religious hypocrisy, etc., but that didn’t have much to do with me losing faith. I think that religion, especially organised religion, is a terrible thing (for all that it can serve a useful purpose for many people), but I don’t have too many problems with faith, per se. I can’t be absolutely certain that God doesn’t exist, but as I get older, I see God as less and less necessary. And I just can’t bring myself to believe anymore in something I have absolutely no evidence for, just because it makes me feel better.
I never understood that “faith is a gift” thing. I haven’t observed that people with faith seem to be happier, or more satisfied with their lives, than people without faith. What “gift” is there in faith? Unless, of course, we’re just starting from the position that faith is good/beneficial per se and therefore its mere presence (absent any other benefits) is a good thing. In which case I’ll dispute your axioms.
Urk. I feel stupid. Its “gift” as in something freely given by an outside agency as opposed to something earned or deserved, right? Not “gift” as in something of great value.
I was with the author until he stated that faith was a gift. IMO, the ability to believe in something without any evidence to back it up is not a gift. It’s a delusion.