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?
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- There is indeed an enormous amount of suffering in the world, and much of it could be prevented. However, some suffering is inevitable in the imperfect, broken, sin-sick world we live in.
- That sounds like you’re taking things a bit far. Examining one’s belief system is good, but you don’t need to just keep looking for more things to attack it with! Sometimes, the best way to alleviate suffering really is just to trust in faith, I’ve found.
- Agreed
- I don’t believe that’s what Christianity is all about. Yes, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”, but where so many, in my opinion, lose the thread is what Jesus meant by “believes in him”. Jesus spent his entire ministry, as evidenced by the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, advocating for exalting the humble, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and giving sight to the blind. That sure doesn’t sound like we don’t need to care about the suffering of others to me! If “I will take you to paradise if you believe in me” is in fact an accurate summation of the Bible, that’s meant to be a reassurance, not permission to ignore suffering.
- See above, and also see Mark 12: 30-31. No.
- Eh. We humans are flawed and make mistakes. Just because many Christians have lost sight of their neighbors’ suffering doesn’t mean that is what belief in Jesus is really supposed to look like.
I, too, have been pulling apart some of my beliefs and parts of Christianity and finding them lacking. For me, it’s all about the problem of evil. Sometimes I wonder if Buddhism would be the better religion for me. But then I listen to a great sermon, hear about the real good work being done by a mission team somewhere in the world, and/or read the book of Matthew or Ecclesiastes again and I’m right back into Christianity. Jesus is someone I can follow to the ends of the Earth even if I have questions about some things.