Yet again, I found myself listening to Dr. Moore on Albert Mohler’s radio program. The discussion was on Charismatic Healings such as the recent influx of stories regarding Todd Bentley. One of the concerns with this situation was the claim, “You will be healed if you have enough faith.” It was mentioned how detrimental this could be, since the lack of healing would always be blamed on the victim…er…”healee” who could eventually question their spiritual health by feeling they did not have enough faith.
As a Conservative Protestant, the circles I traveled in did not believe in these healings. As a Christian, I thought Benny Hinn was a fake. The same people would find Bentley a fake. It wasn’t that the person did not have enough faith—it was that God wasn’t doing any of this flim-flammery. It was solely a human response to a human interaction.
We didn’t question the person’s faith—we questioned whether the god portrayed (healing by kicking people in the face) actually existed.
As I listened it struck me that the very people who recognized it was not the person’s lack of faith, but rather the lack of such a god existing, are often the same people who tell me it was my lack of faith which prevented me from finding their particular god.
Isn’t it much the same thing? If you believe a person can have the strongest of beliefs that there exists a god who heals with a “Pow!--couldn’t a person equally have the strongest of beliefs that other god(s) exist?
We realized the failure to heal was not based upon the person’s strength of beliefs; it came from no god showing up. Even as a theist, we saw that. In the same way—my loss of belief did not come from not having a similar strength of belief. It came from no god showing up.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Dagoods
ReplyDeleteI know you dont believe in a God, but did you ever leave room open for that of a creator or driving force for the Universe, that doesnt get directly involved with us here on earth? Like something that set everything up with a specific format and then lets us go out and try to figure it all out? You know, with consequence and benefit from our actions?
John T,
ReplyDeleteSure, I am open to such a notion. Which makes me about as remarkable as someone who is not, or someone who is ambivalent. In other words—so what?
Look, there are difficulties regarding a Creator which is placed on a supernatural plane. By virtue of it NOT being on the only plane I can observe, this makes it completely unverifiable. (As well as any claimed characteristic to be equally unverifiable.) We can’t know a thing about it—even if it exists.
Now, with a prime mover, we even place it one more step out of reach, by claiming if it did interact on the natural plane, it did so at a time which is unverifiable—at the initiation of the Big Bang. So we have an unverifiable being (Creator) on an unverifiable plane (Supernatural) performing something which is unverifiable (acting when it is unknowable to us—“prior” [and yes, I know that is the wrong term, but it is the best way I can describe it] to the Big Bang.)
Or let me try it this way. John T—are you open to the idea there is a principle on the 22nd Dimension which holds no entity from any other dimension may ever observe the 22nd Dimension?
Whether you are “open” to such a notion—it doesn’t make much of a difference does it?
I rejected the idea of a deistic God as being both useless and even more unknowable. Could it exist? Like the 22nd Dimension and the principles of the 22nd Dimension (what e’er they may be)—it could exist—but neither the proponents nor the opponents to such a notion could make any claim of any substance about it
Very good point in comment #2. The only god who's existence even matters is a god who demands us to be aware of him. No awareness demanded, no worries!
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, I'm open, but if a cosmic force were shown to be, it wouldn't change anything. After all, it's been around this whole time without me knowing it, and it will be around long after I'm gone.