Wednesday, November 4, 1998
Question of God reaches all people
CHRISTIANITY: Religions lead faithful in many directions in
search for omnipotent entity
God must be entertained by all the strange goings on down here
on earth. One moment we fight wars in His name and the next minute
we declare Him a figment of some desperate person"s imagination.
(The pronoun "we" assumes that either I can make broad sweeping
generalizations about being human or the voice of Richard Nixon
indeed speaks through me.)
Who cares about God? Why do I bother speaking about an
omnipotent, seemingly distant being?
Enough people seem convinced that this omnipotent entity does in
fact exist. Just take a leisurely stroll along the beautiful,
tree-and-construction-fence-lined Bruin Walk. Perhaps some kind
soul will offer you a few minutes of their precious time to
enlighten you on Christianity and also give you a cool flyer.
Struggling with the existence of God, and with Christianity in
particular, never ceases with an agnostic like me. (An agnostic
tends to be an indecisive being who is not sure if there is a god,
but if a said person does believe in a god, then they don"t know
which way is the proper form of worship.)
One second, becoming a Christian seems like "the way" and the
next it seems like God is just away on an extended vacation and all
I can do is leave a message with his secretary. Maybe Buddha is
around to answer some questions.
Even though I often doubt that anyone is there to receive my
earnest prayers for a passing grade on a political science paper, I
still catch myself muttering a few words to the Man upstairs. (To
no avail of course. Maybe God"s secretary went on vacation as well.
Perhaps I should look into Hinduism while I wait.)
The years of stalking the works of various atheist-philosopher
types failed to alter this strange habit of mine. Sure, Friedrich
"God is dead" Nietzsche required much of my attention when I was
searching for meaning in God, but I found that Albert "The
Stranger" Camus deserves some credit. He once wrote in "The Myth of
Sisyphus" that "(t)he certainty of a God giving a meaning to life
far surpasses in attractiveness the ability to behave badly with
impunity."
I suppose having a purpose in life does have its advantages.
(Somewhat similar to having a purpose at UCLA. I still have yet to
find mine, which explains my five year stay here.) Ultimately, most
individuals eventually glean some semblance of meaning out of life,
and Christianity does offer a nice package in an ideal sense.
Camus does have a point in that behaving badly loses its appeal
once the threat of punishment is removed. What"s the point of being
bad? It would make for a very different world if we just let our
ids take over and we did whatever we pleased. (This would be a
great study on whether or not human beings are inherently good or
evil, but I would rather not find it out after years of social
control. The horror, the horror!)
Although I disavow any formal association with Christianity (due
in part to being labeled the devil by my dad when I was younger), I
still have quite a few Christian friends. I"ve also managed to
learn about the basic concepts of salvation and many interesting
Bible parables. (It seems very likely that if things don"t change
drastically in my life, I may be doing backstrokes in the Lake of
Fire.)
The influence of my Christian friends and my Christian
upbringing once reared its ugly head during a heated game of Taboo
with a group of my more secular friends last year. (Taboo is a game
in which you frantically try to clue your team in about one word on
a card without using a list of words normally associated with the
aforementioned word.) I drew the word "bridge" out of the deck of
cards and the only words that popped into my mind was "Jesus
Christ."
I blurted those words out like some mantra, praying that my team
would understand that Jesus was the bridge between God and mankind,
metaphorically speaking. Needless to say, my team didn"t get points
for that one.
While I have my Christian friends kindly showing me what it
means to be one of them, I have friends who are atheists, agnostics
and people who just don"t mind telling me that Christianity is a
sign of a weak mind.
Christianity proves to be such a convenient way to ignore life"s
woes.
Stereotypically, people seem to gravitate toward Christianity,
or any religion for that matter, during moments of great hardship.
I"ve watched a couple of family members reach for a faith when life
became quite harsh for them.
Philosophers such as Nietzsche or Existentialists like Camus
tend to treat religion as objectively as possible. Who cares about
this concept of faith? Where is the proof of God?
Perhaps religious beliefs, just like our thoughts, are all in
our minds. In this way, religion is much like philosophy, since
both have thoughts at their foundations. Yes, thoughts do serve as
the basis for philosophy as well as religion.
When one looks at a Christian (feel free to change Christian to
any other group), one cannot help but associate their actions with
their words. Often times, like with all human beings, things don"t
correlate. For example, you have the infamous line "hate the sin,
but love the sinner." Correct me if I"m wrong, but aren"t we all
sinners to some degree or another?
And yet, certain people who are so-called Christians single out
those in other minority communities are less than loving, indeed.
For example, an outspoken anti-gay Christian man attempted to
protest the funeral of Matthew Shepard a few weeks ago.
This past spring quarter, curiosity dragged me from various
Christian Bible studies to various fellowship meetings. As luck
would have it, the one fellowship meeting that I attended had a
speaker who was going to talk about hell.
But by the age of nine, I knew that even though I was going to
church, there was no way that I could fool any angels into letting
me into heaven. This happens when you steal your baby brother"s
stuffed teddy bear, "Mr. Beary", from him.
As with all human institutions represented by very human people,
Christians are likely to falter in following their faith. The
initial reason why I became agnostic stems from my observations of
the hypocrisy of Christians.
What brought me back to considering Christianity? I stumbled
across this strange historical figure named Martin Luther,
religious leader and rebel. He wrote about the concept of the
"church of all true believers." Regardless of what people claim to
be or what they do, those who have true faith in God belong to this
"church."
I"m not a part of the church, but I don"t deny that it is a
possibility. I still find myself in a religious vacuum, and I
choose to stay here.
After all the years of searching for Truth in life, I find that
I"m back to where I started. For now, I will learn how to do an
effective backstroke so that I"ll be able to do my laps around the
Lake of Fire.
Julianne Sohn
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