Enlightenment or deception?
I came across this note I wrote a while back the other day. I'm not sure how long ago I wrote it, but I can imagine due to the content. Here it is:
It's hard letting go of the things I first learned. Rather, it's hard knowing what I should or should not let go of. There is comfort and familiarity with the first stuff, always doubt and suspicion of the new. Not even that excitement and wonder concerning the new stuff isn't present, because it is, but just a concern at best and fear at worst that whether giving up the first understanding for the new is really deception rather than enlightenment.
Frankly, there isn't much different in what I actually believe spiritually, except for the issue of homosexuality now and 15 years ago. [I suspect I will have to say 20 years ago very soon, but for now 15 is still good.] Then, there is also the way I approach the whole endeavor. I will say now, often, that I simply don't know.
Evolution or Creationism [or intelligent design]? Now, it doesn't matter to me because if either is true or false my faith in God is not affected. [My faith in the reliability of Scripture to speak to our lives by God's doing is not affected.] I am now free to employ good science and reason to the question rather than have to defend either because I am not wedded to either as a foundational issue in my life or worldview or cosmology. My faith (as a Christian or atheist) doesn't depend on the correctness of thought of an issue. Is that a good place to be or not?
I think it is! Science, good science, should do nothing but confirm God's universe, if we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind open to receive the truth of it. Religion, good religion, should do nothing short of explaining the honest significance of it all to a humanity created by a careful hand in God's own image. If, that is, we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and minds that are open to receive.
[This is perhaps the best defense of my change in belief of what Scripture actually says about homosexual people and the possibility of relationships. Science shows us that our previous assumptions were not and are not correct. Our understanding as we strive to understand God's will for His creation will be enlightened by good science to show us how things really are in His creation, then how we should be.]
It's hard letting go of the things I first learned. Rather, it's hard knowing what I should or should not let go of. There is comfort and familiarity with the first stuff, always doubt and suspicion of the new. Not even that excitement and wonder concerning the new stuff isn't present, because it is, but just a concern at best and fear at worst that whether giving up the first understanding for the new is really deception rather than enlightenment.
Frankly, there isn't much different in what I actually believe spiritually, except for the issue of homosexuality now and 15 years ago. [I suspect I will have to say 20 years ago very soon, but for now 15 is still good.] Then, there is also the way I approach the whole endeavor. I will say now, often, that I simply don't know.
Evolution or Creationism [or intelligent design]? Now, it doesn't matter to me because if either is true or false my faith in God is not affected. [My faith in the reliability of Scripture to speak to our lives by God's doing is not affected.] I am now free to employ good science and reason to the question rather than have to defend either because I am not wedded to either as a foundational issue in my life or worldview or cosmology. My faith (as a Christian or atheist) doesn't depend on the correctness of thought of an issue. Is that a good place to be or not?
I think it is! Science, good science, should do nothing but confirm God's universe, if we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a mind open to receive the truth of it. Religion, good religion, should do nothing short of explaining the honest significance of it all to a humanity created by a careful hand in God's own image. If, that is, we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and minds that are open to receive.
[This is perhaps the best defense of my change in belief of what Scripture actually says about homosexual people and the possibility of relationships. Science shows us that our previous assumptions were not and are not correct. Our understanding as we strive to understand God's will for His creation will be enlightened by good science to show us how things really are in His creation, then how we should be.]
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