1: About Belief

I've written and rewritten this particular post several times. But I'm going to skip all the explanations, all the backstory, all the everything, and let my thoughts speak for themselves. If you want backstory, or to talk to me about this more, I'm at Aandail@gmail.com.

To begin, it starts with a bit of a kernel of thought. So many of us, especially here in America, live our lives as through our religion is *right* and everyone else is *wrong*. We live this way in order to have something firm to base our morals and beliefs on. We say "I may be wrong, but the Bible is right, and as long as I say what the Bible says, I can't be wrong then."

This is something that was recently said to me, and I understand where they are coming from.

My thought is, do we really know? We can't know for certain God exists. He doesn't work that way. Nor do other gods. People claim to "feel" God, but so do many. I would like to begin by postulating that there is no way that any of us can know for a FACT that their God exists. I'm not saying he/she isn't out there, just that you can't know. And most Christians will say that knowing would detract from that whole faith thing you're supposed to have.

Ok, so nobody knows for certain their religious view is absolutely 100% correct. They may believe with almighty fervor, but they don't KNOW.

If this is true, we all live in a perpetual state of belief, not knowledge. My view may not be correct, but I believe it is. Just as I might believe you're wrong, but I don't know if you are. The problem is, most of us don't think like that. We think that because we believe, we must be right, and if we're right, they're wrong, end of story. If we can believe we're wrong, then we're not believing hard enough.

When we do that, we're living inside a bubble, a bubble which non-believers not only can't penetrate, but don't want to.

You have to understand why someone says what they do, before you can offer the best possible answer to them. You have to empathize.

So if I say that we don't know whether there is any pluralism to God, or whether we are actually right, you should understand that it's not because I believe it is so. I just want to approach my faith as if it's what makes the most sense to me. And my faith might look odd to you, but if you looked at it too, you would see that it will make sense to you too, and yet I might see your faith oddly.

Let me put this another way. If I were a youth pastor, instead of telling them what they should believe and telling them to tell others, I would tell them what I believe and why, and that they should take what makes sense to them out of that. And when they meet their classmate who is a Muslim, instead of trying to convince them that Allah is a false god (cause I don't know, and neither do you!) and saying they will go to hell, I hope they will say "This is my God, this is what He does for me, and He loves you too."

Our youth shouldn't have words put into their mouths that they need only spit back out at whoever. They need to be empowered, to really think about and understand what it is they believe, so that they can evangelize with every breath they take.

Coming from a short lifetime of words and thoughts attempting to be shoved into my mouth, I know I always responded better when someone said, "This is what I think, what do YOU think?"

I've been on a tear recently talking to most of those who will listen. Some have said, "Good, I understand what you're trying to do, and it's commendable." Others have basically said, "No, I can't understand this, you're trying to undercut my belief." I'm not, but I understand why you think so.

I'm not sure of what I'm saying. I don't know. I'm trying to find out what makes the most sense to me. Maybe you all can help me find that. And maybe you'll find it for yourself. Come disagree with me, come refine, poke out my fallacies. This is the first post in a series about Christianity, stay tuned.

This is what I think, what do YOU think?