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Of course, the "do you believe" conversation will eventually be narrowed down to a basic discussion of belief; something the hard core atheist will say lacks evidence and the believer will defend with faith. Why is it then, that some of us have faith – which is inexplicable – whilst others refuse to believe anything that is not backed by logic?
When I set out to write an article about religions, I thought that by interviewing people on their beliefs I could prove that the core of all religions is the same, a bit like in Life of Pi.
Little did I know that to ask someone about their faith is to plunge into a world full of mysteries, a world which you can’t possibly understand unless you’re in that world too. So instead, I want to give you an outline of what three religious students (a Muslim, a Christian and a Jew) told me about their religions, why they believe, and especially how they can maintain these beliefs in a university environment.
Zeenath admitted that the reason she is religious is because she was born into the Muslim faith:
"Admittedly, I'm a Muslim through the joyful process of childhood indoctrination."
Marthe told a similar story:
"According to Jewish law, I am Jewish because my mother is and there is nothing I can do about that."
Admittedly, I'm a Muslim through the joyful process of childhood indoctrination.
Yet before you dismiss this, Zeenath explains:
"As I was growing up, I could have rebelled against it, and yet I didn't. I've had problems before with concepts like the headscarf and most recently, with God. But both of these have eventually been resolved with a positive outcome - I now have faith through my own personal journeys rather than just my mother's teachings."
Impressed? Laura, on the other hand, did not focus on her background but explained that she is Christian partly due to intellectual reasons:
"To my knowledge it fits perfectly into every academic field including the historical. The theological plane also fits in here: the Bible makes sense and is a complete explanation of humanity. It’s a satisfying picture of human behaviour and how humans relate to God."
However, she points out that much of her religion is simply based on faith, "having a living relationship and life in the freedom of forgiveness".
"My belief is not under question but there are times when living as a Christian can be challenging. This is true of many situations", said Laura.
“I find it really easy to follow my faith at university as I don't enjoy many of the things I'm not allowed to do anyway", Zeenath added.
Marthe explained that she lights a candle every Shabbat, and celebrates Pesach:
"Because I only do little things it is not a problem for me to maintain my religion in York. However, I know that people who are religious find things more difficult. If you keep kosher it's not always easy, because the nearest kosher shop is in Leeds and the same goes for attending synagogue."
So it is not always easy. Well, we could have guessed that, but it is important to point out that it is not the believing that is the challenge but how to follow the tradition that supports it.
Surprisingly, the girls answered this question very differently. Zeenath is lighthearted on the subject:
"People who don't see a point in religion are right; what I mean really is what’s the point unless you believe in the afterlife?!"
However, Laura argued:
"Usually people challenge me because they do not understand, so I try to explain and answer the questions they have honestly."
Whilst Marthe said:
"I don't have any patience with people who assume a superiority over others because of what they do or do not believe. For me, it's about faith and how anyone interprets that; it's up to them."
These answers struck me. Not because they affirmed these girls’ beliefs, but because they seemed so simple: if you don’t understand me then that’s OK, I’ll explain, and if you have no tolerance, then I’ll just let it go.
As Zeenath admitted:
"I see both sides of the argument perfectly well; sometimes I agree with the other side more than I should - I was never the most religiously motivated of people. I feel it's important to talk about it though, especially now that it's in the press so much.
"It affects everything in my life when you think about it. Even people who don't know me can form an opinion of me from a distance once they spot the headscarf. It affects what I eat, drink, wear, and do in my free time. The very structure of my day centres around my religion, because I have to stop what I'm doing five times a day in order to pray - that's the point of Islam, to be constantly remembering God."
Similarly Laura explained:
"My faith has a massive impact on every area of my life. I believe that my life is to glorify God and that this is ultimate joy! The gospel means God is with us and unconditionally loves us."
Marthe’s answer revealed that her faith is firm, and that, for her, religion is more than anything a tradition.
"One thing that does affect my life, which certainly is a Jewish thing, is family. Again, this is part of the religion, but it has come down to me as a traditional, cultural thing, rather than as a religious requirement."
So for Marthe religion centres around culture and customs, while Laura had pointed to faith itself, without focusing too much on tradition. On the other hand, Zeenath discussed how tradition was part of reaffirming her faith.
This article is not about coming to a conclusion about all religions. As the students gave their answers it became clear that, although all of us are at university and we heatedly fight over our point of view, we often do not really stop and listen to what each of these beliefs entail. We usually want to prove that our own point of view is the right one. So next time you have a kitchen debate on faith with fellow students, it’s a good idea to listen to what belief means to someone else.
But it is ignorance that you propound here; you are sure that you are right about the Bible, despite what others say to you, either directly or through different media, and thus refuse to try to understand the views of other people equally sure about their beliefs.
And what about dinosaurs and morally good homosexuals? Belief in the word of the Bible doesn't stop at creationism. Infact it is probably one of the least relevent ideas to modern life (unless you're planning school curriculums).
Surely questions of the faith of others, tolerance, homosexuality, abortion and dinosaurs have actual value to lives of believers and modern communities, and these are the grounds upon which we should launch a discussion instead of batting back and forth endlessly over whether the world and everything in it was made in six days or over millions of years of slow change.
Wow, as the comment at the top of the second page of comments that is remarkably off-topic. I doubt we're going to come to any conclusions here. If what I understand about the Bible is correct then you're not going to agree with any of my core beliefs about the faith of others, abortion, homosexuality and, most importantly, dinosaurs.
My feelings on this issue are very unlikely to be changed by the Bible, and I'm obviously not going to be able to change your views. Although we've come to the end of the line it has been interesting to understand how you see things. Thanks.
I'm going to write my essay now.
Ben
Ben:
Its a bit unfair to say I am propounding ignorance! Perhaps you are refering to my acknowledgement that my knowledge of other religious texts is limited, in which case I could say the same about your critisisms of the Bible. I never claimed to be an expert so lets keep it civil shall we.
The importance of the creation/evolution debate is indeed disputed, however I believe it to be foundational to the gospel. Without Adam, Eve & the original sin etc. the gospel falls apart and Jesus' mission to Earth was for nothing.
But you're right that the other issues you mention are also highly worthy of discussion and I'm happy to chat about them.
I get the feeling you think that dinosours conflict with the Bible, and that you'd like to discuss them?
You claimed to be nihilistic. Do your beliefs match closely those described on wikipedia? That page talks about morality not really being meaningful, so I'm curious what you think about stuff like murder, racism, and also truth, and the origin of life.
Cheers
James
Just to clarify, I didn’t mean to accuse you of saying that people of other faiths are inferior, I know you didn’t say that. Rather I took you as suggesting that other faiths (and not the people who follow them) are inferior, which does seem implied by your comments that the religious texts of other faiths have inconsistencies and that they do not lead to God (which seems to be the point of all the theistic faiths). As a side note I wonder if you believe whether the non-theistic faiths (such as Buddhism which aims at enlightenment and development rather than God) are incompatible with Christianity.
Also, I accept, as I myself said, that the fact that I was mildly offended was not relevant, what is more important is that I do not believe that your conclusion:
Other faiths cannot lead to God,
follows from your premise:
The Bible says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).
This is partly because I do not believe that the Bible is incontrovertible but also because I believe a more natural interpretation of the verse would be:
Jesus (his very existence) is the only way to God
rather than:
Belief in Jesus and the exclusive following of Christianity is the only way to God.
Certainly if you take this verse to imply (and I may be jumping the gun here) that thhere is an afterlife exclusively for Christians where they can be with God and nothing for anyone else, I believe that that is incompatible with the very concept of God as a benevolent entity. As you correctly say, nobody is superior or inferior to anyone else and a benevolent God would not discriminate between equal people in this way, much less abandon some of them to an inferior fate.
Dave:
Ah right, thanks for the clarification (and sorry for my previous misunderstanding).
To clarify, I do believe that the way to God is to repent and put your faith in Jesus, and no other way is sufficient.
Your sentence about an afterlife effectively only for Christians is in essence what I believe, however when put in that way it makes it a little misleading as if God is being unfair to non-christians. I'll do my best to explain (note that my use of the words 'you' & 'your' refers to mankind in general).
All humans are indeed equal in God's sight. He made them all in his image, and loves them all as his precious children. However we could never truly love him back without free will. Unless we have the choice not to love him, any love for him is meaningless as it would have been forced upon us.
Adam and Eve were tricked into disobeying God by satan, a fallen angel (one who had chosen not to love God, but whom God has allowed to continue to exist until the end). They had sinned and deserved death and separation from God. God removed his substaining force from creation so that it would decay as it does now. From then on all humans are doomed to die as we are all descended from Adam + Eve and have all, like Adam + Eve sinned against God. Therefore none of us actually deserve to remain in God's presence, christians and non-christians alike.
Thankfully for us God already had a backup plan ready. When the time came he sent his own son Jesus (both God and man) to earth. Because Jesus lived a sinless and perfect life he did not deserve what all other humans deserve. He did not deserve to die brutally, but he was killed brutally. He took a penalty he didn't deserve and was separated from God for three days. Of course being the son of God his death wasn't permanent and he came back to life. Jesus could then offer all mankind a lifeline: be truly sorry for your sin and trust in him, and his death will count as your death.
Christians are simply the ones who have taken up that lifeline. They aren't special. They are sinful like everybody else (although in general they will try to please God in what they do, but this is independent of being saved). The offer is open to everybody. Nobody else could offer this lifeline because nobody else could live a sinless life and then die without deserving it.
I think this satisfies your conditions:
I hope this clears up how I can believe in a heaven only for those who took the lifeline, as well as a God who is worthy of my gratitude, love, and worship.
Cheers
James
Thank you for your response James, it's very thoughtful. I particularly agree with the emphasis on free will. I suspect we're never going to reach full agreement but that's ok. I personally think that the most benevolent, just and reasonable thing would be to allow people to make a fully informed choice about Jesus, God etc. after death rather than a less informed one before.
Even if followers of other religions have been mistaken, it seems clear that none of them have made a choice that is actually morally wrong and the consequences seem very severe for mistakes.
A more fundamental problem seems to arise when consideration is given to people who do not, and could not, know anything of Jesus or Christianity. For example, infants who die at a very young age could not possibly comprehend the subject, even in the unlikely circumstances that it was spoken of to them.
Further, all of those who died before the life of Jesus. Not only did they not believe that Jesus had lived, been crucified and risen, but they were right not to; because it hadn't happened yet. Abraham, Moses and all the billions of people who lived before the last 2 milleniums didn't even have a chance to grab the metaphorical lifeline.
I don't expect you to necessarily have all the answers but these examples do seem to pose a challenge to the view that the afterlife is only for those who choose Jesus in this life.
P.S. Sorry to everyone else for carrying this conversation way off topic. I shall be quiet now.
James... do you seriously believe that an all powerful creator made everything in the space of six days and then put his feet up and had a pint on the seventh? Jesus was just someone who had advanced medical knowledge that prompted a Chinese whispers effect, ending in the story we know today. Also how can a book that you claim is so truthful have had several versions...all different. Surely the word of "God" doesn't need editing!
Finally, If everything was made together in the space of one week then how was there an era in which some animals (dinosaurs) lived without humans? Or are you going to tell me that dinosaurs were made on Tuesday, lasted two days and then man came along on Friday?
Springer's final thought...Darwin.
Anonymous #27:
"Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own mind"
I'll make this short and sweet:
Yes, and being all powerful it didn't have to even have taken that long.
Since you appear to be in ignorance about the Bible I shall ignore your tone and educate you. There is only one original Bible made up from various writings. I think by "versions" you are refering to translations. they are all translations of the original text, translated with great care from the original language. The chinese whispers effect is for a chain of people, this is more like one person whispering the same thing to many people. Not all translations are the same word for word, many translations are different languages and different styles due to being translated at a different times (obviously an older translation may not be as readable as a newer translation as English has changed a lot over time and doesn't include thees and thous anymore). This is the extent of the differences. Seriously, if you're going to make such claims, you really should get your facts right.
There wasn't an era that dinoaurs lived without humans, they lived alongside one another. Many commonly used dating methods are wildly innaccurate due to unreasonable assumptions about the past and objects of known age (e.g. a minor's hat and living trees) have been dated in the order of millions of years old, yet since they help the athiest palientologist to reinforce his beliefs they are clung onto.
Darwin: what about him, his theory is outdated and unscientific. Nobody has been able to extend natural/artifical selection beyond the limits of species and without producing useless things such as poodles (which you'll notice is still a dog), no mechanism is known that is able to increase the information in the genome (this is the one that stumped Dawkins), it doesn't explain the origin of life in the first place (hence why theres a million dollar prize for an actual workable naturalistic explaination of the origin of life), it is racist and teaches that white people are more evolved than black people (actually the term racist is racist since it implies we're different races in the first place), and it inspired more masacars than I care to mention, the most well known probably being the holocaust, an attempt to accelerate natural selection by Hitler to create the perfect race.
Now that we've got that out of the way, if you'd like a civil discussion I shall be happy to comply.
Regards
James
All interesting points Dave. You're right I don't have concrete answers to all your points, but again I'll answer as best I can.
I still feel that the beginning of your latest post is based on the assumption that we deserve to be saved. I'd disagree that anybody has made no morally wrong decisions in their life (except Jesus), we've all sinned. What are your beliefs about sin and our rightousness?
Why should God allow sinful people (who haven't put their faith in him and who haven't asked for forgiveness) into his kingdom? Our just punishment is death and separation from God. Back to the lifeline analogy, in sin we cannot be in God's presence, we effectively jumped off God's boat with the weight of sin tied to our neck. We can't just step back onto the boat with that weight. Luckily for us the penalty of this action does not usually take immediate effect, we still get the oportunity to splash about a bit before we sink and slowly run out of oxygen (grow old). Some are eaten by sharks (die prematurely), some are lured deeper by murmaids (satan + evil spirits). When Jesus dives in after us (without any weight tied onto him) and offers to take the weight of your sin and drown in your place, you only have a limited window of oportunity before its too late. Some people will refuse Jesus and swim in the other direction, some will simply close their eyes and hope for the best, prefering to hold onto their sin, and miss Jesus signalling them to let him take their sin. Some will grab onto other people and drag them down with them. Some have already have been freed from their sin and can swim around and tell others what Jesus is doing so that they will know to let Jesus take their sin.
I don't have a clear cut answer about infants who die. I don't believe God would abandon them. One possibility is similar to that of marriage. I'm sure I remember something about a wife's faith being enough to save her huspand (and vice versa), since they are joined in marriage and are one body in God's sight. Don't take my word on this (i haven't backed this up with scripture, I'd have to do some research), but perhaps a mother's faith is sufficient for her child.
We can be slightly more sure about the many people who lived in the 4000 years before christ.
Cheers
James
James, James, James. You can't have evolution one minute and not the next. If you are to claim that humans lived with dinosaurs then you have to accept evolution as an indisputable fact. The ape like mammal that lived with the dinosaurs was called Homo Erectus and was not like modern man in appearance... hence without the idea of evolution had nothing to do with modern man. After all, if Adam and Eve were created to spawn modern man then they must not have appeared for millions of years after dinosaurs as "DNA evidence indicates that modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago." 200,000 years is not, I believe, a time when dinosaurs roamed about.
Finally, if the bible is so reliable... why did Noah not have a T-Rex on his ark?
Anon, Anon, Anon, I never claimed to believe in evolution (where the hell did you get that impression!). Your argument is far from meaningful, in fact it is circular. You are saying that if man and dinosour walked at the same time, then assuming evolution happened the way you were taught, evolution must be true. You can't prove something by assuming it in the first place. That would be like me trying to convince you of the opposite by saying "if dinosours walked alongside man, then since the Bible says that this happened before the flood, the Bible must be true".
All your dates are based on old-age assumptions. As i mentioned before, the common dating methods in use by palientologists are unreliable.
One such disproof that dinosours lived so many years ago is multiple cases of actual red blood cells found in fossil bones from T-rexes, with traces of hemoglobin! These could not possibly be as old as you claim, it simply wouldn't last that long.
Your statement "hence without the idea of evolution had nothing to do with modern man" is incoherent at best. I get the impression you're not really sure what your point is. Perhaps you'd like to clarify? (perhaps you'd rather keep it muddy)
I'm not sure what "DNA evidence" you are referring to (and how on earth DNA evidence could ever indicate where they originated). I suspect you simply took that quote without actually looking any deeper. At any rate it clearly assumes evolution in the first place. You are right about one thing though, 200,000 years ago was not a time when dinosours roamed anywhere (or anything else for that matter).
Regarding the flood, what is it that makes you think that Noah didn't take a T-Rex on board? Remember that many reptiles continue to grow, and so the stereotype of them being large animals is only true of the old ones, The mean size of the animals on the ark would most likely have been about the size of a rat, with only about 11% of them larger than a sheep. That wouldn't have presented much of a problem for Noah. I'd warn you against basing any of your arguments about the Bible on cartoons you might remember from children's Bibles (the stereotypical image of a rounded boat with classical zoo animals poking their heads out of portholes isn't accurate - the ark measured 137x23x13.7 metres, thats a volume of 43,200m^3, about the equivalent volume of 522 standard railroad stockcars (each which can carry 240 sheep), and its design has since been shown to be extremely hard to capsize by upward currents (the fountains of the deep that the Bible mentions).
In conclusion I must again ask you to get your facts straight and stop copying and pasting bits of sentences in the hopes that the result might sound scientific.
The T-Rex comment was a joke! Seriously though... I actually admire your determination in the face of so many doubters. Lets hope that Man U show similar characteristics in the Champions League final next week.
#32: Heh, well it's actually a pretty common question 
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