Gunpowder, band-wagon and lot: Part 3

It has been said, and is also patently obvious, that children will usually follow their parents' religious inclinations. The church our hero's parents attended was Bible based fundamentalist so he grew up knowing all the stories and believing them to be true. Thus he assumed all manner of notions on top of which were balanced precariously those of the movement he had stumbled upon, not realising how few of these were his own convictions. O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?

But every so often he was brought up short when hearing some proposition or seeing an action that jarred or was evident nonsense. The reader will want examples but must understand that such can often be explained away so, at best, only loosely point to the core problem. 

Years previously he had remembered one of the leaders of the home church group he was then part of stating that the group was finally moving from "40 years going around the mountain" to entering the Promised Land. All hunky dory except nothing had changed - there was no such progression.  Or, in his present context, it seemed that folk too easily maintained that, as they were praying, "the Lord said..." whereas his experience differed - he only longed to hear God's voice. He found that apparent answers to prayer were often promoted whilst at the same time the more numerous failures were silently discarded. An example of confirmation bias. There was the much repeated "He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it" but should anyone dare to question its realisation this side of eternity "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation". And of the songs that he found himself gaily singing in church, although many were praise-worthy and the nonsense in some might be dismissed as "poetic license", a few were decidedly questionable.

There was his treatment of his parents. True, back then having given all his money to the Christian community in the North that he was then part of, and with no income, he was rarely in a position of being able to travel at all but, all the same, he could have written more often, could have cared more dearly, but rather I suppose he figured that he that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. It may well be true that your children will surpass you in that they'll learn much more than you'll ever know, but I implore you to forever honour your father and your mother.

And so began the impossible, Psyche-like task of sorting wheat from the tares. What indeed was the truth about Christianity? Recently there have been many public debates involving creationists, atheists, theists, evolutionists, big-bang physicists where each proponent has stuck firmly to their guns but often in a distasteful and bigoted way. How can love (a central theme in Christianity) be so distasteful?

The north wind doth blow,

And we shall have snow,

And what will the robin do then, Poor thing?

A few days ago Ali and I watched the film "Miracles from Heaven" which recounts the true story of a young daughter who had a near-death experience and was later cured of an incurable disease.  Undeniably things like this, though rare, do happen. Closer to home I could list my getting married at all, at all, the story of how a Thai baby became my adopted granddaughter, and the acquisition of the house we now live in as near miracles or, if to be explained by chance, one in a million. Two mature, educated adults can look at the same natural world around them and one will, with good reason, attribute it all to Darwinian evolution in which no god has a part, the other will be observing that the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse. One will claim divine creatio ex nihilo, the other that it all started with a singularity (what's that?) and brush off the question of "whatever preceded?" by claiming that such a question has no meaning. The truth is nobody knows for certain, but then there is an awful lot in that category. It seems that we humans are doomed to a finite and oh-so-restricted-an understanding of the world around us, just as a dog might adore his master but cannot attain to human thought or emotions.

But I do at least know for a certainty the turmoil that goes on in my inner being.  The turmoil that identifies with that man, remembered throughout all ages since, who retorted Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.

To set the record straight I will add that the members of the community I am presently part of are loving, sincere, trustworthy good people and our lifestyle is in many respects exemplary. I have no bones to pick on that score apart from my own.

(To be continued in Part 4)    (Go back to Part 2)