Hello;
I am reaching out because as I grapple with how I feel about God, I find myself running up against what other Christians tell me.
I have the following beliefs.
- There is an enormous amount of suffering in this world that is not inherent to living as humans.
- Brutal self-criticism of one’s own belief system is never “too hard” or “too much” to any degree.
- Before we let a belief system tell us we don’t need to care about the suffering of others, we need to brutally examine it.
- A belief system that says “I will take you paradise if you believe in me. The amount that you care about and serve others is irrelevant to this” is going to get interpreted as not needing to care about the suffering around us.
- Christianity says we really don’t need to care about the suffering around us as much as we care about ourselves, because God loves us anyway.
- A belief can definitely be evaluated by what the majority of its followers do.
When I process those beliefs, I conclude that I need to brutally examine Christianity, and it falls apart. I am not sure how to reconcile that.
When I use the word “Brutal” I mean “Look at something fully, but through the most unfavorable lens possible.” I don’t mean “make things up”
Do others have an idea of how to approach this? What do you do to approach these issues?