How Would You Respond to my Friend?

A troubled friend recently wrote these words. How would you respond to him?


I tend to espouse reason over belief. There is a two thousand year divide between the religious and the rational which has created so much misery. Life has become something to be endured, promising more adversity than joy.

The Bible espouses a tradition which evokes images that can be found alien and frightening: unyielding rules; a paradoxical mixture of mysticism and literal belief; the repression of women; the suppression of dissent, whether philosophical or scientific, and that's not even the Old Testament. . .

Comments

  1. Anonymous8:13 AM

    I would say he's had problems with church people

    ReplyDelete
  2. Life is what you make it; there is good everywhere, even amidst the bad. Seeing that goodness, responding to it, choosing to give and receive love, kindness, generosity--isn't that what Jesus teaches?

    I can find no reason to believe in God, other than something deep inside me desires to be connected to something much greater than I can perceive with my 5 senses. I choose to believe that God is love, and choose to live with that in mind.

    The Bible shows us a long history of human failure...and also a long history of the power of love (God/God within us?).

    Does belief exclude reason? Isn't curiosity a form of worship? Do all questions have answers? (Didn't Jesus often respond with simply another question?)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Are we talking about the same Bible? My Bible talks about love for your neighbor. Respecting and accepting one another. The good samaritan. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous6:19 PM

    I would say this friend needs the help of church people who practice what is in Pat's Bible.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lonnie5:25 AM

    Faith does not live in the brain but the heart. This was my friend until a year and a half ago. It took two years of acknowledging his negative observations about Christians and those two years included him watching my walk, then the door opened to lead him to Christ. The heart is the Holy Spirit's territory, and He'll lead if we're faithful.

    ReplyDelete

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