One of my Facebook friends posted a YouTube video by a comedian who argues that people who believe in God are idiots. I don't recommend watching it. I don't think it is very funny, and I don't think the audience really thought it was funny either.
It was the second time in as many days when I was confronted with the "dim-witted believer" stereotype.
Over the weekend, someone I've known a long time said he wanted to talk to me about my faith because he doesn't understand how someone so intelligent and seemingly not crazy could believe in God.
After telling him that my glasses just make me look smarter, I tried to explain that I've witnessed too much, experienced too much to not believe. I've read the Bible (almost all the way through now) and I believe it is the Word of God.
Of course, he then argued that the Bible was written by man, who God gave the same Free Will he gave you and me, and is therefore filtered through human lens. So how can you really believe all that?
To me, that question is packed with so many other questions and tangents that I didn't even want to get into, so I simply explained that, to me, what it takes to believe in God is really a matter of taking everything you think you know, everything have learned about the world and throw it away.
"Oh, so you have to suspend belief in order to believe?" he asked, laughing (not quite at me, I think).
"Well, yeah," I replied. If you think about it, that is what you have to do. Suspend belief in everything the world calls true.
If that makes me dumb or dim-witted or even mildly crazy, so be it. I simply do not believe the facts of modern life are indeed facts. I do not believe he who dies with the most toys wins. I don't believe you have to be right even when you are wrong or be the first to finish the race.
So how does an intelligent person believe in God? Take everything the world has told you about what is important or what is good or what you need, and forget it.
Forget about comparing yourself to other people. Forget about scheming to get ahead. Forget about worrying about the future. Forget about regretting the past. Forget about finding yourself or losing yourself or reinventing yourself.
Suspend belief in the world and start to believe in the Word. It really is a better way of life.
Great post Rebecca!! One of the things that got through to me at a women's conference I went to was when they pointed out how self centered we are taught to be now. It took me awhile to process it...but it is totally true. We are taught and conditioned to be completely selfish and self absorbed, to put our wants and 'needs' above all others. And what a mess that causes...b/c its not how we are meant to be. I did the One Year Chronological Bible, and it really helped me clarify things and see the truth that has been right there all along, but I've been taught to ignore it.
ReplyDeleteFar from being an idiot or being even just as smart as glasses make you look, I think you're quite intelligent and well informed. I would have to say that I too am a believer in the one true God and His Son.
ReplyDeleteI do not however believe that the bible is the un-tainted word of God. I believe that man has had too much influence on the Bible over the years and has leveraged it for his own agenda. It would not be the first or last time that mankind has improperly exercised the freewill that has been given to him/her only to perpetrate the greater irony of hiding behind God as the justification.
I would not debate belief in God, I only debate the idea that Man has not been selfish enough to wrap his own agenda in the cloak of God as a method to legitimize less than righteous ideals and behaviors.
I do give you credit for being provocative in your writing. I would never have posted here without your inspirational recount of our conversation. :)