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Debate with LJ I had a long talk today at school with a friend that ranged across all the manner of philosophical and theological issues. He's a practicing Christian and the debate began when he tried to pinpoint what exactly I was; atheist, agnostic or a believer of some other faith. I was trying to put into words how I felt that I belonged in none of those categories at the moment. At the time, I feel that I truly belong in none of those categories because I honestly just don't know anymore. I don't believe in any god that I've heard or read about but I don't believe in no god either. That rules out any faith system or agnosticism. At the same time, I don't think that a god that created us would just...not care about us, and that somewhere far enough back, there must have been SOME sort of high power intervention to create life...or was there? Maybe not? But perhaps? I feel like I'm at the point where I'm beginning to reevaluate the whole question of faith and what I believe in so I had no clear answer to offer him. When no definite answers were forthcoming fromt hat angle, he tried to slice the loaf from the other end by asking me why it was that I didn't believe in the Christian idea of God. The talk then began, ranging from this example to that one, with metaphors and analogies piling up higher and higher until logical linchpins were pulled out by one or both of us from these arguments and they came crashing down like a house of cards. Oddly enough, at least a quarter of the time, I kept getting the impression that we were debating for the same end, just from different angles so that we didn't really recognize it as we went. There came a point when the debate almost broke out into an argument. He had posited the idea that God made humans in his image (as stated in the Bible) and furthermore, that he favored mankind above all of his other creations. My point of view on the subject is a little different...to say the least. I'm of the belief that what constitutes as intelligence and life stems from the same source...the only difference to that lying in the form that it inhabits so that an animal or a plant is no more or less alive than a human being. I told him that I thought it wouldn't be fair if God were to favor mankind over his other creations and to give us dominion of the plants and animals of the world. I will freely admit here, just between us that I think a large part of the reason I said that was simply to see how he'd defend against it. I was being argumentative just for the sake of it and I admit it. Anyway, this started us off on a tangent. A fairly...far off tangent actually haha. Wandered into consciousness/intelligence and if animals possessed it? Namely, dolphins. Why dolphins? I dunno...too much Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy recently I guess...but yeah, dolphins. My arguing that just because they don't show their intelligence in the conventional ways that we comprehend doesn't mean that they don't possess it at all and him of the belief that the fact that it couldn't be proved for certain that they HAD it meant that I had to accept the strong possibility that they did not. I did end up accepting his and he accepted mine...one of those agree to disagree things and then we went on with the original debate. I hit him with the analogy that struck a strong chord in him. I told him that I thought what God had done with mankind and the other creatures on the planet was sort of like an abusive father beating one of his children retarded and then showering favors on the other child. I was going along the lines of how it wasn't really fair of God to do something like that when he broke in, telling me that I was trying to humanize God too much and in doing so, would dilute the essence of what He really was. Thinking about it, I think that it's something that I can admit to wanting. I would like to believe in a God that I can understand and at least KIND of relate to...not some vague, undefinable and ineffable deity that's so far removed from humanity that I can never hope to understand even the smallest fraction of His presence. He spoke then of how Jesus was a very personal God and all of that stuff. I don't mean to sound dismissive of this concept but that in itself wasnt a new idea to me at all. It's one that's been expounded to me more than once before in the past. After that, he hit me with his own, personal view of the faith issue and we come to the reason why I write this now. He said to me that he truly believed that if I were to seek out Truth (faith) in earnest, that I would find it. Moreover, that if I were to earnestly seek out Truth, I could not miss it. So I told him that I'd already looked for it for several years. That I'd been looking for an answer since about the middle of high school. At some points, indifferently and at some points, halfheartedly, but a lot of my search HAS been in earnest and despite that, I've found nothing at all. "Keep looking." was what he told me then. I sprung on him then, one of the textbook definitions of insane behaviour; to repeat the same actons over and over again expecting different results. He mulled this over for a short while before giving me a simple shrug, a grin and: "Then be insane." I don't know why but that simple response struck a chord in me. It made both of us laugh at first, he almost seemed somewhat surprised at this own answer as well. It was the kind of simple and right-to-the-point answer that I'd heard come from Jen and Joyce more than once before in the past. It was the sort of answer that stripped a question down to it's very basics, ignored the hints of implied incredulity in the question itself and forces me to really look inside and ask myself, "well? What is wrong with that anyway?" Conversation after that is as follows: "So then say I keep looking and I don't find anything...what then?" "Keep looking." "And if I still haven't found it and I die?" "Then you can blame God face to face." "But if I dont find it before I die, won't I be in Hell after?" "Well...then you'll be in Hell...but at least you'll be right." We both cracked up over that one for a bit. Then: "But I truly believe that if you seek the Truth in earnest, you will find it." He truly believes that. I hope that someday, I will too. |