An Agnostic friend recently told me, “If I was raised in the Church of Jack and the Beanstalk, I’d believe that just like anyone believes their religion from Childhood. What’s a REAL reason for me to convert to Christianity?” His point is right-dead on target.
The beliefs of Christianity are true, so why do parents and clergy raise children in Christianity with indoctrination methods that cultivate parroting without understanding? A ruler tells his people not to question a teaching when he KNOWS that his teaching is false. Why use “believe a lie” method to ostensibly rear young Christians in “truth”!?
This behavior raises scary quesitons.. Do the parents and pastors only claim to follow Jesus to mask their own doubt? Do the parents and pastors think that Jesus is a lie? Are they simply too lazy to give good answers to tough questions?
If people don’t have understanding, they can’t explain something in a way that makes sense. Then they will start to think that defending and explaining their beliefs are matters of memorizing arguments and proofs. A mechanic doesn’t need notes to talk about cars.. well.. an honest mechanic. The best way to eventually destroy someone’s belief is to give the wrong reasons for the right conclusion. The scary part is when Christian leaders excommunicate those who say so.
The modern West is obsessed with certification of things that can’t be certified. If there was a degree in “Being a Good Father” would you trust a dad who felt he needed that certification? Unnecessary certification often serves the purposes of lazy people thinking something is legit without having to figure it out for themselves, for incompetent people to get accolades without results, and for the certifiers to twist the arms of the organizations they certify into supporting other agendas.
Doctors and laywers need to be certified, as should theologians. Pastors should have degrees in Bible. A “business” degree, however, makes me doubt whether someone has actual success. Less dependence on accreditation may help us think more. When we forget to learn from daily living, life becomes an exercise of quoting other experts, to feel better than others, and we eventually take it as an insult if someone dares to suggest that we ourselves could ever improve. Besides, there’s no certification for “smelling” future changes in a market. American businesses and ministries have traded-in their sense of smell for a prosthetic “nose” degree for marke sense.
We were created for Life, not testing, not meditating on forgiveness or “moral obligations”.. and Life grows beyone certification. If we want more out of life, we must learn to recognize evidence that surpasses certification. Organized congregational ministries may be “wonderful” or they may be “terrible”, but God’s Church is “Invisible”. Getting this clear, not to hate, not to canonize, merely to distinguish, will free us to know Christ as He wants us to. When that happens, Agnostics may be interested because we will no longer depend on brainwashing fodder