On several occasion I usually get some version of the two following Question and all these questions are really not about the existence of (any generic) God, but Why I don’t ultimately believe in the Christian God.:
- What is the ONE thing that makes you not believe that God does not exist?
- What is the ONE big issue for you when it comes to the existence of God?
For me there is no one thing convinces me that God does not exist. If there was really just one thing, I would probably still be a Christian. For one unresolved discrepancy was not enough for me to shake my faith back then. Really for me there were several reasons, many of them I blogged about, but many I did not. But when it came time for me to resign from my leadership position at the church and tell my wife and pastor that I was no longer a Christian; I had to give them a reason. So outlined for them the SIX MAJOR issues for why I am no longer a Christian and created a manifesto of some sort.
- Bible Difficulties and Contradictions
- Historical Discrepancies
- Unanswered Prayer
- The Character and Attributes of God
- Bible Atrocities and Morality
- Science
In addition when I sent this email to my loved ones, I also included a rebuttal in the email about the problems and biblical inconsistencies of believing out of Faith. There were many other things I did not talk about, but which I could of: Classical arguments against God, Failed Prophecy, Faith vs. Reason, problems with organized religion. Yet I felt these six were the biggest and most damning against the existence of God. (And in addition to that my manifesto was already long enough, there was no need to make it longer.) So go ahead and click on the link below if you would like to check it out.
Why I am No Longer a Christian -By M. Rodriguez
I never had any intention of ever putting this attachment on my blog because I was planning with the intention to further expound upon some of the topics in the unofficial manifesto in further detail. Putting them up in sections and series. However on the blog Sifting Reality, the Blogger JB asked a question to atheist,: “If you had to narrow it down to one (or two at most) thing, what is the most dubious, implausable, preposterious thing about theism?“
And when I listed my six reasons as to why, the response from some the commenter’s were that my listed answers were vague, unsatisfactory, and incomplete and that I need to elaborate. And I tried to elaborate a little more, but it is really hard to condense 24 pages of information into a comment box, when the 24 pages of information is already condensed enough with information its self.
Rodriguez,
I quite curious to understand your view about “Unanswered Prayer”. You, as an agnostic, you have about 50-50 believe about God.
So, for discussion purpose, let say there are God (on your view), how prayer and supplication suppose to be understand. Is it supplication must come in direct or indirect way
As Example, If one kid pray, “God, please I want Power Ranger toy”. So, if the prayer being answered, is it must come :
directly from heaven (like Santa maybe),
or come through parent,
or God giving a better present, a book for example,
or in form of different thing such happiness,
or God will sure give it but in different time, next year or in future or when the life at throat,
or it never being answered,
or you just have different view on this.
If prayer works for power ranger toys then it should work for important things.
Name one amputee that god has cured in answer to prayer?.
really for me when/if you read through that point. was that the problem with unanswered prayer is not that goes unanswered. But from the youth of our faith, christianity, (or for you islam), we are indoctrinated in that we can pray to God and ask for anything, but at the same time this indoctrinate their is this parallel indoctrination, that even though we can pray for anything, that does not mean we will get everything. And we become indoctrinated into that mindset, that even God hears our prayers, he will not always answer our prayers. And then indoctrination starts with why God does not answer your prayers….Just google unanswered prayers you will get the same tired responses as to why God has failed in answering prayers, and half of them is because something we may have done wrong…(secret sin, did not tithe, not enough faith, did not pray correctly) and the other half are the norm theological talking points on a sunday service (It was not his will, it was not in God timing, God answered, but you didn’t listen.) Really we have been indoctrinated from the suckle to expect God not to answer our prayers…And its time to hold those unanswered prayers accountable.
But as the dicussion, I point to an excerpt from the manifesto…So in familiarizing ourselves with these prayer scriptures, the new (young) believer believes that in prayer that God is capable of doing anything & everything. So in their prayers they too ask for anything & everything. In many cases, the new believer’s prayers are bold, forward, and straight to the point. Because they believe in an infinite God, who could do the impossible, thus so in prayer we ask for the impossible.
Then we realize in our time of prayer, too many times the impossible prayer request is never filled. Then we ask for the improbable, but that too falls short. Thus we realize that just because we can ask for anything & everything does not mean God will do anything or everything. In essence our prayer changes from the most miraculous and impossible things to basic things, like Lord keep me safe and bless my food. So in this indoctrination of prayer, we relearn how to pray, to keep ourselves from being setup with disappointment and doubt. No longer waiting with guaranteed assurance that our prayer will be answered with 100% expectation. But now praying for more abstract things….Guidance, Strength, Salvation, Wisdom, Forgiveness and a more loving spirit to be more like you Christ and heal our marriage. Because we know in our hearts if we ask for anything else, then we are just setting ourselves up for disappointment.
Really we don’t believe God answers prayers this is why we pray for frivolous things like a power rangers toy, a good parking spot, our bills payed, or a good day. because if we ask for anything more difficult than something done by human request, than we know deep down in our hearts that that prayer will never be answered.
Sorry, I missed out your attached pdf files. I will re-read again from there.
I have read your manifesto few times (on Unanswered prayer). I don’t go through other 5 manifesto because this one (unanswered prayer) rarely being discussed. I will read others later.
When I write my comment “directly from heaven (like Santa maybe)”, I don’t expect it was the understanding of Christian. Of course, others explanation to support it. Hemphh, I believe many Christian is literalist.. but that was not a real problem.
I go through the manifesto again, I found that, It not the the problem of “God answer the prayer or not”. The real problem are:
What is prayer itself? What is the purpose of prayer? Why we need prayer? Why we do this? And why we do that?
From my believe, prayer and supplication is 2 separate things.
As being indicate in Quran The purpose of prayer:
1) because God ask me to pray. It more like an order after you acknowledge Him. (11:114)
2) To comfort our soul, it more like a therapy to human mind (70:19-23 and 13:28)
If we pray to get something (materialistic), the purpose of acknowledging Him/comforting already void.
Back to supplication unanswered.
As non-literalist; the verse:
“Call on Me; I will answer your (Prayer) (40:60)
must be read in conjunction with
God does not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. (13:11)
and
But you will never find in the way of Allah any change, and you will never find in the way of Allah any alteration. (35:43)
So, if I want to find my key (as per you manifesto), I will pray and also must strive to look out for the key. If, I can not found it, I just let it go, and don’t burden my thought (positive thinking).
If I want to be success, I will pray, and at the same time, I must strive to achieve the goal. If I success, that God permit me. If I fail, there must be something wrong with it because (you will never find in the way of Allah any alteration) 35:43. This verse also show that law of physic will never change from the beginning.
In Islamic theology, the prayer without doing anything is stupidity and works without prayer is arrogant.
It was a tough philosophy.
Most Muslim are non-literalist, so I feel very awkward to called myself non-literalist… I sound that I the one only one who non-literalist…
I was still thinking what is the meaning of literalist in Christian ideology.
A literalist by my understanding is that they believe that it the bible/quo ran where written literally by god with each word chosen by god
Different idea, from my understanding,
All Muslim understand Quran is word of God, so there are no argument on that. The argument inside our religion is how to interpret the word to today life, or toward original context. So the meaning of “literalist” have different view.
1) Literalist is a people who have read the book and they understand the book literally (direct translation or just based on other supporting scripture).
2) Non-literalist is a person who also read the book and they understand the book and also with other supporting scripture and relate the understanding with nature’s law and other subject of life.
I thought in the muslim theology of the quoron, that arabic is the only inspired and inerrant version of the quoron, and anyother version is considered inherently errant and deeply flawed (by human translation)
Yes, Quran is only one book, the Arabic word. Sorry, in my language “translation” can also be refer as “interpretation” (direct translation).
Similar as any book in this world, it require to be understand. To understand that, you need to read it and critic and test the verses. In the way of testing and critic the book, the have come out with variety of understanding and some scholar have write a book through his understanding. We called it tafsir, http://hifzanshafiee.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/tafsir-quran/
For us, Quran is evolving word through interpretation. Even One “letters” are counted. So, when criticize letter by letter, word by word, verse by verse; human sure make a mistake. So we require many type of interpretation to understand the real meaning of Quran.
http://hifzanshafiee.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/tafsir-quran/
Human being educate in different way, some learn logic, some learn science, some through experience. So, everyone have their own way of thinking about the scripture itself (even it was a same book). We have theology called “All interpretation are not wrong, unless it was proven wrong”.
As Quran in 11:118 said-
And if your Lord had willed, He could have made mankind one community; but they will not cease to differ.
So what happen, many school of thought… In Sunni itself, 4 major school of thought is well known, Maliki, Hanafi, Shafii and Hambali. So, the idea of “finding the truth” is must be encourage and be supported. And to combine such big idea, we have a theology called “finding similarity, and managing the dispute”. So, openness and transparency is very important in our theology.
Hi, I really enjoyed reading your manifesto today and agreed with much of what you said. I have a big problem with prayer at a higher level. If God is all-knowing, all-loving, and all-powerful, he already knows what is best for me and is already at work doing it. In this context, prayer is downright dangerous. Say my prayer was somehow so effective, it was able to change God’s mind – hey it happened in the Old Testament, it could happen again! In this case, we would be going from the optimal state to some sub-optimal state. God was already at work doing the very best thing for me and for the universe, but my prayer somehow changed his mind, so it can no longer be the best thing. Really, the only intercessory prayer can be “Your will be done”, and since God’s will is going to be done regardless, no intercessory prayer is needed. Yet Jesus told us to pray and the rest of the New Testament says to “pray constantly” But how can we do something that is logically unnecessary and perhaps even harmful? More evidence that the people writing the Bible were misguided.
T.J,
A miracles can not be consider as foundation of prayer. In most scripture, there are a story miracles, example in Quran “Mary, mother of Jesus receiving a food in front of her praying mat every day” and many other stories.
Yes, there are miracles but it not the fundamental of prayer and supplication. Lesson learn from the stories is “There are nothing impossible in this life” and it doesn’t mean “I pray and I will get it”. We need to read in right context…
I believe that why it being called miracles is being called “miracles”…
In the term of “God changes His mind” or “prayer effectively”. In my theology, my answer is “We don’t know”. Actually we never know either the answer of our prayer because of “God’s will” or “Free will”. We can assume, but it doesn’t mean our answer is correct. So, work need to be done, because it was nature law. “You work hard, you gain something”.
you know what T. J. that is an excellent point
that is the Classical argument against prayer because god is all knowing so prayer is futile cause he already knows the outcome, however my part in unansered prayer was not about the doctrine of prayer in philosophy and its theological talking points and flaws. but it was about the INDOCTRINCATION of prayer, that we are tried with the mindset that God will fail us, and we already have the excuses as to why.
but of course you do make a good point. I just started work on a series post on the issue s of prayer and unanswered prayers and this is one of the points that I will be covering.
And hifzan, thanks for your enlightening comments. I know the Bible does not actually say “God helps those who help themselves”, but it sounds like the Koran has a verse very similar to Ben Franklin’s saying.
I don’t know who is Ben Franklin, but wiki said ” one of US’s founder”.
Yes, he was a man of many talents and played a big role in founding the US. In one of his books he wrote “God helps those who help themselves” Many people believe this is a BIble verse, but it is not and actually goes against many Christians’ theology. They would say God helps those who cannot help themselves.
You know the Qu’ran inside out and you don’t know who Ben Franklin is?
Oh dear, oh dear……
Well if they are not an american , I would not expect a person to be familiar with American history.
And if he was an American he probably still would not be familiar with American history, considering nearly a fourth of the population can’t name who the vice president is. And what happened last week when I asked my coworkers who: s Frederick Douglas. Nodody knew the answer not even the black coworkers.
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