All posts in Doubt

Sunday Reflection: Waiting On A Promise (Repost from April, 2011)


(Last year during Lent, I taught on King David and the way his identity defined his life’s work. This is a reflection from that teaching. Below is a short audio excerpt from the sermon.)

I sincerely believe God makes promises. Those promises can be awfully confusing in light of our circumstances.

Just before the prophet Samuel anointed David King of Israel he had installed Saul as King of Israel. What this meant for David was that he had to wait. Having been given this promise of identity, David then had to live for a time under circumstances that did not at all reflect that promise. In fact, during that time of waiting David has to serve and obey the man who “stood in the way” of his promised destiny.

Maybe you were promised something. Or maybe there is something you have always known about yourself but your life’s circumstances have dictated something different. Do you trust the things you were promised or do your circumstances dictate your understanding of yourself?

I’m not referring to the the scenario in which someone of my build laments his “shoulda-been” days as an NFL linebacker. This can obviously be abused and misunderstood…

…but after a series of failed relationships, should you buy the idea that you’ll always have to settle for a man whose love and consideration are fleeting at best?

…or after years of toiling away at jobs that suck the life out of you, should you buy the idea that you’ll never have fulfilling work doing something you’re good at; work that adds beauty to the world?

…and then there is this general “promise” many of us have some strange inkling of that some “good” is to come of all this.

I sincerely believe God makes promises. Some of them are quite personal and some are general. I want those promises to shape my hopes and expectations for my life and the lives of those I love rather than bow to the circumstances I often find myself in which say “those good things cannot be.”

60 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 0

God With His Back Turned

Midway through Terrence Malick’s brilliant film “Tree of Life” is a sermon in which appears the phrase “He alone sees God, who sees when God turns His back as well as when He turns His face.”  The sermon takes place around a young boy’s drowning and the subsequent disappointment and frustration among the movies key characters.

I found that moment (and that line in particular) galvanizing as I prepared for the CMY(K) project.  At least part of what I wanted to communicate with the songs and letters is that I believe those who say God is ‘unfair’ or ‘absent’ are saying something as vital as those who say that God is ‘just’ or ‘faithful;’ That experiences and expressions of disappointment or abandonment are necessary elements of the good life, rather than defects that require treatment.  I’ve come to see dissonance and even disagreement as forms of relationship rather than as antithetical. This is not to suggest that such forms of relationship are preferable to harmony and agreement. Rather, harmony and agreement are enriched and more deeply meaningful if and when we can embrace the less enjoyable and comfortable aspects of relationship.

—

You can pick up all three CMY(K) ep’s at iTunes
You can find more about the CMY(K) project at http://cmykproject.info/
 You can dance if you want to. You can leave your friends behind here.

84 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 0

Thoughts On The Passing of Christopher Hitchens

“The order to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself’ is too extreme and too strenuous to be obeyed.”

This is one of the lines from Christopher Hitchens’ book “God Is Not Great.”  It’s not a small thought or some quippy, dismissive jab; Hitchens sincerely believed that the strain of christian moralism hurt people mentally and emotionally… and I agree with him.  For this reason and many others, I’m deeply thankful for the work of Christopher Hitchens.  

Reading Hitchens exposed for me the difference between playing a game against the practice squad in practice drills vs actually getting hit in the mouth by an opposing team; I had to mean what I said and know what I meant when I made crazy religious claims like “prayer works,” or that I was “born again” or even that “God is good.”  His work forced me to face my religious claims and practices from outside my tradition and honestly, critically evaluate what it is I believe wholeheartedly vs what I only claim to believe.  In doing so, he performed a service that very few within my tradition either can or will perform; to sincerely challenge the roots of faith without the safety net of cherishing that faith. 

-His challenge that religion does not make people more “moral” led me to see the difference between learning to live well and learning to “be good.” I recognized that I do not believe that religion makes people moral and furthermore that it should not be the goal of religion to do so.

-His challenges regarding the effectiveness of prayers for healing led me to far more critically receive such claims and more fully rejoice when I come to believe them true.  

-His challenge that religion gives license for all kinds of destructive acts led me to deeply re-evaluate the ways I justify aspects of my own behavior in light of my calling or vocation.  I’d not previously dealt with how serious a thing poorly practiced religion is and that it really does destroy lives.

When a pastor, speaker or chaplain presents a challenging question, those in attendance know that, in the end, the issue will be resolved; much in the same way a crisis is presented in an adventure film. We all know that somehow, Borne or Bond or Batman is going to make it out alive, get the girl and defeat the bad guy.  But with Hitchens, this was and is not the case; He believed firmly that religion was not only false but damaging.  Hitchens wasn’t asking questions in order to prepare the faithful for conversations they might have “out there in the world,” he was telling the Truth as he saw it and challenging those in opposition to either prove that it was not or change the way they thought and lived.  Such a confrontation and conversation has been priceless for my faith to be sincere and be fully lived.

I am better for having read, watched and listened to Christopher Hitchens.  I am clearer on the difference between believing in God with all the challenge, mystery and internal conflict that comes from such a belief and settling into a kind of faith that dismisses critique as blasphemy only. 

153 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 8

CMY(K): Heaven Knows (“M”, Track 1) Letter To A ‘Stuck’ Brother

Most of the songs that make up the CMY(K) project are written for and about friends, each of whom has or will receive letters about the songs. I’m posting a few of those letters here.  ”Heaven Knows″ is written for a young brother I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for years and seen wrestle with the authenticity of his faith.  This is the letter I wrote to him about the song:


Brother,
I wrote the song “Heaven Knows” for and about you.

You deeply desire to know and speak Truth. Your feet search for firm ground to stand on. You’d rather say nothing at all than echo the insane speculations of overconfident, arrogant and uninformed religion you remember from your past.  These things are honorable in you and worthy of celebration.  They are also evidence of a Divine work in you. The hard part of that work has been that it has meant years of restlessness and an inability at times to act with confidence.

You’ve engaged in many great conversations, read many insightful texts. Yet, more recently, the words of others have begun to fall short of your heart: you’ve not been moved and comforted by the same conversations and ideas you had been moved and comforted by previously.  I believe that this because it is your heart that needs to speak rather than be spoken to.  The time has come to act on what you do know rather than wait for further instruction, the next revelation or some deeper insight.

Until now, you have been full of words but few to none of them have been yours much less God’s. You have had little to no internal room for your own words because of the cacophony of voices swirling in you. Even the words you did speak were often arrangements of words you received from parents, your past or your former religion. But the time has come for you to speak your own words and to do so in confidence. You’ve come to know that the ground is there to stand upon and that the Truth is not as evasive as it once appeared.

You are not being asked to name anything. The time for conclusions and ‘naming’ has past (and another season like it is yet to come). For now, you are simply being asked to bear witness to what you have seen and let everything else be everything else. You are being asked to act according to what you know is True, regardless of the incompleteness of that knowledge.  Just as Phillip was bid by the Spirit of the Lord to “Go South” with no further explanation, you have your own “Go South” to obey.

So, I wanted to give you a way to see and remember that work begun in you is real and that it will be brought to completion; a way to see remember that your circumstances, present or past do not direct your path;  Your circumstances are not concrete; they are malleable.  The thing, moreso than any other that you are being asked to bear witness to, the thing that must direct your course of action henceforth is your identity in the Father, who calls you “son.”

Thomas Merton writes “God is not a ‘what,’ not a thing …there is no ‘what’ that can be called God. There is ‘no such thing’ as God because God is neither a ‘what’ or a ‘thing’ but pure ‘Who.’ He is the ‘Thou’ before whom our inmost ‘I’ springs into awareness. He is the I AM before whom, with our most personal and inalienable voice, we echo ‘I am.’”

You are not stuck. You are not paralyzed. Not anymore. You have come to a moment you do not recognize; one that you were not prepared for. It is a pure moment… a moment without further breakthrough… no more revelation.. no deeper enlightenment.. You know everything you need to know. This moment is not about deeper knowledge, it is about the choice to act on the knowledge you’ve been mercifully granted; that you are a son of God.

Justin

—–

You can pick up the EP at iTunes.
It is also available at my web store. 
For more on the whole CMY(K) project, visit the CMYK info page.

Heaven Knows

You have asked me to feed them
With my blood and my bones
But my body is burdened with concerns of my own

Heaven knows that I want to
I want to but I just can’t

You have asked me to follow
To believe and obey
But the very thought of it is what keeps me away

Heaven knows that I want to
I want to but I just can’t

“Do you want to get well?”
It always seemed like the strangest thing to ask a man

 

 

224 days ago /  Tagged: , , , , 9

CMY(K): 33 (“M”, Track 3) A Letter To My Dad

Many of the songs that make up the CMY(K) project are written for and about friends, each of whom has or will receive letters about the songs. I’m posting a few of those letters here.  ”33″ is written for my Dad, Jonathan Walter McRoberts, who ended his life on May 6, 1998.  This is the letter I wrote to him about the song:

You were thirty three years old when I was born. You were only fifty five when you decided the cards you had been dealt could not be played out and chose to end your life. I think of you often. You fool. I wish you were here.

Nine years after you left, on the morning I turned thirty three, I woke at 6:00am, put on a pair of your old running shoes and your favorite jogging shirt. I drove to the foot of Mt. Diablo, parked at the end of the Mitchell Canyon trail and ran up the valley where you and I most often ran together. Two miles into that valley is the place where your friends, along with Mom and I, scattered your ashes. I ran past that place and proceeded up the switch-backs, out of the valley toward Deer Flat. Deer Flat was as far as you and I ever ran together; It’s about four miles from the trailhead, every inch of it up-hill. I did not stop at Deer Flat this time. Though my lungs burned and my legs ached, I ran the entire 7 miles and over 1700 ft. of ascent to stand at the peak of the mountain. You never stood at the top of the mountain,save once when you came to pick me up the first time I peaked Diablo. That day I had done it in an act of youthful energy. But this time, on the morning of my thirty-third birthday, I did it to say something to myself and to you:

I am stronger than you were.

I know that now. I was afraid for many years that might not ever be true; You were a man of great strength during your short life. Yet, despite your strength you were broken down by the weight of the Market’s standard of success.  I have had that same yoke placed on me and had feared that I would not be strong enough to cast it off. I am. You fool. I wish you were here to see it.

So much has changed so fast since that New Year’s morning. Things have come about that I had not seen. I have a son now. His name is Asa Jonathan, his middle name is a tribute to you. His first name means “healer.”  His presence in my life is a daily reminder that the sickness your broken culture and fractured mother passed on to you ends with me.  Many times since his birth I’ve been struck by the realization that you didn’t see this day coming. He is your grandson. He will never know you. You fool. I wish you were here.

I don’t intend for this to sound harsh and I am not writing you out of anger or pride.  I’m supposed to have grace for you and I do. I always have and so did everyone in your life who mattered. I think that is perhaps the most tragic part of your foolish act: it didn’t matter to you that there was an abundance of grace available to you. You had judged yourself and had your verdict.  What you didn’t count on is that, in doing so, you judged me as well.  Just as you could not measure up to your own expectations, much less the expectations of your world, neither will I. None of us do, father.  But you were accepted by those of us who mattered regardless of your success and failure; you were always received in grace.  It is the knowledge that I am received in grace that saves me from your dark fate.  This grace is my strength and it will not fail. I will pass this grace on to my son and it will not fail him either. My hope is that Asa will grow in this grace and in the unbreakable strength it grants those who receive it; and that, just as is the case with you and me me, he will grow to be stronger than his father.

You can pick up the EP at iTunes.
It is also available at my web store. 
For more on the whole CMY(K) project, visit the CMYK info page.

33
At 33 I climbed the devil’s mountain in your clothes
And stood there choosing to believe what I had come to know
And reeling from the truth that I would heretofore live in
That some good thing must always die for some new good thing to begin

You were scattered at the devil’s feet; I was standing on his neck
So, I carried with me everything of yours that I had left
To say what broke you will not break me; I am stronger than you now
I am a father with no father but I will not let my grandson down.

 

 

 

227 days ago /  Tagged: , , 7
cmyksimpletrans

CMY(K): Diseases That Have Cures, A Letter to God

Father, I do not understand Your world and even less when I think of the world as “Yours.”   Calling it “Yours” causes a tension in me I’ve seldom found release from.  In the one hand, I hold the knowledge that You are Good; that You are the Root of all that is good in the world.  In the other hand, I hold the heavy weight of knowledge that, among any number of other atrocities, tens of thousands of children will die before the end of today due to things that could have been averted.  This second knowledge is one I share with far more of my friends than I do the first.  It is a knowledge so prevalent as to become innocuous at times. And that is what breaks me as I try to hold both things: that something so terrible as starvation can be so fundamentally true in a world governed by Someone so fundamentally Good.

You do not relieve this tension in me.
I have asked you to. But you do not.

I have also asked for some form of certainty or clarity, even if only for the purposes of explaining You and Your Mind to others but You offer nothing remotely like the kind of answer I’m asking for.  What I have from You is what You’ve always offered; an assurance of your Presence and the challenge to let that be sufficient. You say what you have always said “Do not be afraid, I am with you.”  You offer the knowledge that, in regards to those who truly suffer, You suffer with them; that You are the God of the Cross, Who stretched his good arms out to hold together the tattered edges of the world He made and loves. I am also aware that my own only truthful response to what I’ve seen is to do as You have done; to offer my presence, to do so sacrificially and to trust it is enough.

What I see is that there is so much wrong. What You tell me is that You are Good and that You are here.  Though it honestly tears me in half sometimes, I hold both things to be true.  I am fully aware that my comfort with Truth does not make it any more or less True.  Is it enough for me that you suffer with us?  There are days when it simply is not. Yet I’m learning that it is this way with Truth; that there are times when it is clear and bright and there are times when it is cold as a stone.

 

I wrote a letter to you, Lord
Not unlike the one You wrote to me
Not to explain myself or anything I think
Just to tell You what I see

Which brings us to where we are now
Where I don’t know how to begin
You won’t explain Yourself to satisfy my mind
And I simply won’t give in.

They say Your love is great
But maybe they should wait
Until it’s their child dying of diseases that have cures

They say You’re faithful like the sun
I watch it rise most every day
But if I stand here still and wait here long enough
The sun will also go away

All you’ll say is…

You’ll say Your love is great
With Your body broken, Your spirit faint
For a world turned over and laid to waste
While Your people treat each other like it’s some damned game
Cuz they’re all Your children aren’t they?
Yeah, they are all Your children anyway
Yeah, they are Your kids dying of diseases that have cures.

——-

You can pick up the EP at iTunes.
It is also available at my web store. 
For more on the whole CMY(K) project, read the artist statement.

231 days ago /  Tagged: , , , , , 8
cmyksimpletrans

CMY(K): David Dark Weighs In On “M”

Just as he did with “C”, Author and friend David Dark has offered a generous and insightful overview of “M.”

“Listening to “M,” the second installment of Justin McRoberts CMY(K), I’m amazed by the way a determinedly hopeful affirmation of the always-redeeming presence of God in every aspect of everyday existence can sit alongside a derisive skewering of the easy “Praise God” talk that abides–and even sustains–everyday, human injustice. With an ear for righteous indignation, dark humor, and all the ways we pull the wool over our own eyes, Justin documents his own ambivalence and offers a lyricization of Flannery O’Connor’s adage, ‘It’s harder to believe than not to.’ ”

You can get a free single from the EP at Noisetrade
You can pick up both “C” and “M” at iTunes

232 days ago /  Tagged: , , 1

CMY(K): Must Be Hell On You (“C”, Track 5), A Letter To A ‘Lost’ Friend

Several of the songs that make up the CMY(K) project are written for and about friends. I am posting the letters I’ve written to these friends letting them know about their song.  Below is the letter I wrote to a friend whose loss of faith came at the cost of our friendship to some degree. Not because we didn’t want to converse about our differences but because, after years of Christ being the foundation of our love for one another, we lacked the language with which to rebuild. I wrote the song “Must Be Hell On You” for this friend.  The song appears on the EP “C” and you can listen to it at the Vimeo player below.

—–

You may recall a conversation a while back during which I mentioned that part of my next project was written with you in mind. The attached song “Must Be Hell On You” was specifically written for you.  I’ve actually been sitting on it since early 2008.  I needed time to figure out what the song was about for me and the more I realized what I’d written, the more inappropriate it felt to simply drop it on an album without writing to you about it.  It’s not just a song for you or about you; it’s a way for me to reconcile.

 

I miss you in my life. I think you know that but you have never heard me say it.  I specifically miss the place you had in my life for many years.  I remember talking on the phone after reading the embarrassing letters Christians had written to Richard Dawkins.  I told you on the phone that you were one of the few friends in my life who helped me feel normal as a person of faith. You shared that I played the same role for you. That short list is much, much shorter without you on it.

I remember the way your dramatic life-change was, for years, the clearest evidence of God I knew. I know now what kind of pressure that placed on you.  I also know, only now, what an impact it has had on me that you no longer attribute that change to God. Only as time has passed and we’ve grown more distant have I noticed how much I lost when you, for lack of a better term, ‘lost your faith.’

I’ve never blamed you for “walking away.”  Actually, I’ve never thought of it as “walking away”. I know it wasn’t a matter of simple pride or your inability to deal with some tragedy. I know that, at some point, you simply realized that you no longer believed. It would have been easier for me (maybe even for you) if something had happened which we could sit down and work through.. but there was nothing like that. In fact, that was just it.. at some point there was nothing where all along you believed there was Something.  I have never really known what to do with that… I wish I didn’t feel like I ‘lost you’ when that happened, but in some way I did.

Up to this point this is only a confession. One you have been owed for a long time. But it’s not all of why I wrote the song.  As I started off saying, I wrote this song as a way of reconciling; reconciling thoughts and feelings within me but also, hopefully reconciling with you.

While I don’t propose to entirely empathize with you (you know that I’ve had my fair share of faith crises) I wanted you to know that I have some sense of what you have lost as well.  When your faith crisis ceased to be a crisis and became a verdict, you lost a community and you lost God.. at least what you thought was God for so many years.  And so… I wanted to honor you, as you are, with this song because you are my friends and I love you.

Here are a few things I’d like you to know about “It Must Be Hell On You”:

-I wrote the song from your perspective instead of mine.
-I crafted the verses from bits of conversation we’ve had.
-I tried to simply tell your story without making an allowance or excuse… because I don’t need you to “come around” in order to see Truth in your story and in you.


You can pick up the EP at iTunes.
It is also available at my web store.
For more on the whole CMY(K) project, visit the CMYK info page.

 

 

280 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 15
Weird_Dog_Fight

No, YOU Shut Up: What Is “Good”? (part 2)

This is the continuation of a conversation between myself and a friend who is an atheist/naturalist.  He and I agree on Batman and beer. We disagree on issues of religion and whether or not Chis Evans made a good Captain America. We’ll be trading questions and answers on our blogs regarding issues of atheism, naturalism and religion. Yesterday, I addressed a few side-issues in Lance’s post regarding “good.”

Now, to the main point… I originally asked “Can you describe the “good” religious faith is an obstacle to?”


You wrote… “good is what’s beneficial to us as a species”

I would agree. Yet, you have not accounted for why it would be good for humanity to survive. You assume we ought to.  In other words, at the root of your definition of “good” is an assumption about the basic value of human life; that it is worth preserving. This assumption is not arrived at by way of reason.  I would suggest that it is, in fact, the root from which reason grows and without which reason becomes every inch the terrifying tool religion or economics can be.  The brick mill owner who enslaves his workers has every reason to do so in light of the profits cheap labor helps him bring in. He does not offend reason by enslaving people.. his end is profit and cheap labor simply makes sense.  What is offended is a basic assumption of what people are worth or what people are for. People ought not be valued only for their utility. The life of a child ought not be compromised for the sake of profit. Reason does not tell me this; I assume it. And without that assumption, I can reason myself to just about anything.

You pointed out a handful of the atrocities humanity has perpetrated upon itself in your post.  All of these things are tragic for the very reason that they are a departure from basic value. In other words, if the Crusades were tragic or wrong (and I agree they were), it is because the freedom to choose is of value and was corrupted/compromised/broken.  Likewise, if Kamikaze piloting or the attaches on 9/11 are tragic or wrong, it is because human life is of value and was corrupted/compromised/broken.

If I do not make an assumption about the basic value of human life, then the only reasonable way to evaluate the goodness of Kamikaze piloting is whether or not it helps win a war. You are suggesting that, regardless of it’s strategic impact, something about using flying planes into populated areas is bad. Yet you’ve not given me a foundational reason to think so. You’ve assumed that life should be more important than that.

Alongside the travesties you cited, consider some even greater and more pervasive atrocities propagated by the species we ought to preserve…

…a species that compromises the quality of life of some for the simple or even sick pleasures of others (ex. cheap labor, indentured servitude and sex slavery.. est. 27million people worldwide).

…a species that allows half of it’s population to live in destitute poverty (est. 900mil. people without access to clean drinking water).

…a species that often takes the best of its fruits and uses them for the worst of it’s intentions (nuclear, chemical warfare).

…a species that largely disregards the well-being of the planet upon which it lives, even to the detriment of its own survival.

…a species that seemingly invents ways to hurt itself (smoking, fast food,.. Ke$ha).

What makes such a species worth preserving?

In an early episode of Battlestar Galactica (the greatest show in the history of television), one of the cylons asks a powerful question to the commander of the Galactica.  After years and years of war between cylons (created by humanity) and humanity, the cylon asks if humanity  has ever asked itself why it deserved to survive… poignantly, the commander does not have an answer.

Note that I am not at all pointing at a Divine Source for value; only that there seems to be something more basic than reason by which we come to understand, albeit incomplete, what “good” is.

Your example of helping a blind woman without having been told to contains the same assumption. You wrote… “Nobody and no deity needs to tell me that. I can figure it out for myself.” But you didn’t figure it out. “I should help blind women” is not a conclusion you came to after years of study and careful consideration of societal norms and/or cost-benefit analysis.  Something about passing up on that opportunity would offend the basic value you and I both stand on when we critique our world. We refer to the same basic value.. the same universal good.  It is when, for whatever “reason,” be it economic, religious or otherwise, one of us deviates from such that basic thing that we start to use see actions as “bad” or “wrong.”

—-
Question:  You wrote…“whatever is helpful for the greatest number of people is what’s good.” I honestly don’t understand this and could use an example of where or how you see this played out.  It sounds like the kind of thing that could spell trouble for minority groups like the elderly, who make up only about 8% of the earth’s population and take a great deal of money, time and energy to care for. Can you please elaborate?

282 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 2
5dbcb5f6ce40ae82cec2646cc256a093

No, YOU Shut Up: What Is “Good”?

This is the beginning of a conversation between myself and a friend of mine who is an atheist/naturalist.  He and I agree on Batman and beer. We disagree on issues of religion and whether or not Chis Evans made a good Captain America. We’ll be trading questions and answers on our blogs regarding issues of atheism, naturalism and religion, beginning with the question I posed to him:

You’ve stated that religious faith is bad for people. This implies some kind of good; a universal good, at that. Can you describe the “good” religious faith is an obstacle to?  Is it a universal good; can it be applied to all people?

You can read Lance’s full response here.  Below I respond to his response… 
—-

Lance,

There are too many points in your post to address in a single response.  Your critiques of faith particularly deserve some attention. We should plan on digging into some of them separately. For now, I am going to post one response today and one tomorrow. I will use this first post to touch on a few things I think need addressing and then tomorrow post a response regarding the original main point, which was establishing some description of what “good” religious faith keeps people from, thereby making it “bad for people,” as you stated in your intro.

Firstly, regarding the blanket/universal nature of my question: It stems from your statement that “religion is bad for people,” which is a universal statement. In fact, even your qualification that, for some people religion is only “as bad as a mosquito bite” while for others it is as bad as nuclear warfare still implies that it is always bad and does nothing to detract from the universal nature of your initial critique. I’m not forcing universality on you, just pointing it out in your own language.

Particular things I felt needed a response:

You wrote…“Reason will get us out of the messes that we’re in today – from global warming to figuring out how to get food to starving people.”

As I understand it, the issue with such things as hunger has never been the capacity or ability of humanity to deal with it’s brokenness, it has generally been a matter of care or will.  There has almost always been enough food in production to fill the stomachs of the earth’s in habitants.  Yet, providing that food for those who lack it is difficult… It would cost a great deal of time and money. The obstacle is the absence of a willingness to pay the price. “They” are not worth what it would cost “us.”

I’ll make it more personal: I could give more of my time, resources and money to/for the poor.  I could also greatly decrease my “carbon footprint” by never driving again and limiting my goings on to only a geography I can access by foot or bike. Yet, in either case, even though I know I would be maximizing my effectiveness by making such changes, I choose not to as a matter of convenience; I don’t want to… I don’t care enough… and reason cannot tell me why I should care.

You wrote…“While faith is not needed to do good, it is too easily used to justify bad.” / “faith gives people reason for doing bad things.”

I think you are talking about religious systems here rather than “faith” as an idea or a posture.  Regardless, what you are doing is paramount to blaming baseball as a sport for the poor performance of its teams. To say that people use something for ill purpose is to say something of people rather than the thing being used. We could (and should) quite as easily say the same about economics or political power.  For instance, countless young women and children are caught in slave-like jobs (if not outright slavery itself) because their cheap labor makes the way for cheap products to bring in enormous profits for the likes of WalMart or H&M.  Do we blame a general theories of economic or do we consider instead the motives and ill practices of those in the ranks of such companies?

Though I agree that evil behavior is far to often justified by religious sentiment, it seems that the propensity to do harm is prevalent well beyond religious boundaries.  In other words, we do “bad” things and then look for ways to justify our behavior. If it isn’t religion, it’s economics or something else. Again, this is more about something amiss in people than the tools we use to carry out our actions.

You wrote…  “…the problem with faith is that it actively encourages followers to not question.” // “Faith makes people stop asking questions.”

When faith if poorly executed, it does look like this. But you grossly oversimplify “faith” here.  I’d like to write a great deal more about this in future conversations but for the time being and for the sake of focus, I’ll point at a short and very simplified reflection on faith I wrote up a few months back  and hope to return to this topic later in this conversation.

Tomorrow I will return to our main point and answer the questions Lance posed in his blog:

Do YOU think that there’s a “universal good”? If so, how do you know what it is?

If there is one, then why is there so much disagreement as to what’s good and what isn’t – even amongst people of the same religion?

If it’s impossible to know for sure the mind of a being who decides what’s good and what isn’t, then how is that different from us having to figure it out the same as if there wasn’t such a being?

 

 

283 days ago /  Tagged: , , , 3
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