one of my youth david has made a post on his myspace about shopping for books at the towns new B&N. when they were in the "christian" section a man got on their case for believing in god. if you can’t read his blog for one reason or another. a quote from it was something like, ‘too bad christianity is a load of crap. it’s nicely presented crap but it doesn’t mean god exists.’ he was bothered by it and one of his buddies, who is a cool kid i like a lot, but as i know is agnostic or atheist brought up the "contradiction" word for the christian faith.. so i got into rant mode.. for my better educated friends? anything i need to eat my words on or did i do okay for a non-academic to a teen audience response?

what i find funny is that if it is nicely presented, but it isn’t real and it is total crap & as jody mentions full of "contradictions" then i wonder what we are talking about? God? Science? the Economy? Patriotism? Politics? Faith? Global Warming? Atheism? Agnosticism? etc..

honestly, these argumentations seem to only have a magnifying glass on faith.. why? i don’t know, no one has ever told me they just shrug their shoulders..

eg. science has only been around since the 18th century (the scientific method as it is generally known, though some practice can date to middle ages), so in the idea of the world, it is a baby and has made many mistakes, contradicted it’s findings, and failed to deliver the goods in it’s aim to explain all things in a logical /explainable & repeatable manner. truth is they pull back on things all the time, contradicting oneself.

eg. economics obey certain "laws" but they are always conditional. if the economy operated under exact laws that never contradicted or moved on itself then we could tell everyone "this is how to ensure that all the economy will provide riches for everyone" (or provide stable living at the least) but no one is able to provide that because it is in-exact.

eg. agnosticism is contradicting of the self in many ways because you claim a diety or god, but you don’t know what that god is. so therefore you are in a position to contradict yourself on every whim of what that god looks like, acts like.. note: i say that lovingly for folks who claim agnosticism, i could claim that about once or twice a month, as well as atheism, for my faith falls on trying times..

so someone tell me why we always pick on those of the christian faith?..

is is cause we don’t do things we say we should do? is it that we hate when are told to love? is it that we care for ourselves when we are told to care for others? we got some old book that says some crazy stuff? things like that??? sure, we do that, but it is we as a people not God.

i cringe, and get really pissed off, at what some of my christian brothers and sisters say & do. i want to beat people who are a-holes in our church buildings and outside them & claim the same faith as i do then only remembering that i am supposed to love them too. i want to do all i can for the poor or marginalized get pissed at those that don’t share my same passion, but then i go and do very little or nothing at all for the cause i feel so "passionately" about. but this is me.. i am a person just trying to live my life

and in my life i have found, though i have given myself every chance, time and time again i have been unable to claim that their is no God or even that God is less significant than he is. this is my story.. and that book we claim is full of the same type of people living with the same struggles, contradictions, frailty, humility, care for the world, and desire to come to know this God they can’t get out of their soul.

so for people who want to impose those viewpoints, as christians will sometimes impose their own on others, i’d say "you need to earn the right to be heard" & a chance meeting in the bookstore is a bad way and only shows your brokeness and need to justify your own identity as a person.

you see david, all this to say. it hurt, and we as christians hurt others, because when you attack or disrepect a persons views on things like this you are attacking their identity as a person. and people have a natural need to defend their identity because in todays world more than any other.. it might be all they have. wars are fought over it & relationships are broken because of it. it is powerful.

ps: i have the same book on my shelf as my to be reads.. not sure when i’ll get there, but i am looking forward to reading it myself.