1. Open can of worms. 2. Throw them all over the damned place.

I intended to keep my post on what I thought as a child in church light, and I think I succeeded. I collected a few thoughts that I remembered having, guessing they might be amusing. When I was finished, I thought they were, so I posted them. The end.

Except I’ve gotten a little good-natured static over identifying myself as an “agnostic Christian” in the comments. Being an agnostic Christian is actually as straightforward as this: I believe the existence of God cannot be proven, but I choose to believe in Him anyway. Being in the theological and philosophical company of a chap like Blaise Pascal isn’t a bad thing, folks.

Darwin’s Not Nuts, You Are
I started down this road at about age 13, when I became interested in the arguments for and against teaching creationism in the public school science classroom. It didn’t seem right to me to do so, and when I would talk to people at church about it, I noticed they injected faith into their arguments quickly. Well, faith isn’t science. When I said so, I usually got some variation of “maybe not traditionally, but it still belongs in the science classroom because it’s a fact.”

I am pleased to say I found this wanting, and started researching the issue. I read voraciously, and followed research threads as far as I could see they went, through other books, journal articles, and the like. Some months later I emerged with validation of my original leaning: it was wrong to teach that God made the universe in seven days in a science classroom. Whether I believed it was irrelevant; it wasn’t science.

I find teaching creationism as science as inappropriate as teaching about hauntings, ESP, or palm reading. Whatever its flavor, science is an attempt to understand the universe, and it is an inherently human construct that always simplifies to observation and deduction. If we can’t understand God in that framework, then He should be fired from the science classroom. Period.

As the years went on, I found myself applying scientific thinking to other aspects of my faith, and finally in college, I flirted with the idea of atheism for a couple of years. So why didn’t I stay down that road? To put it in an oversimplified way, I find it easier to accept “God has always been” than I do “the universe has always been.” (After all, you have to take at least one of those, do you not?)

So, while I loathe the notion of considering it science: I think the story of my religion, the Bible, is a pretty good one, despite my numerous disagreements with many who try to tell me what it says. But I think the story of your religion is a pretty good one too. Which segues nicely into…

“Whatever you are, be a good one.” – Abraham Lincoln
To a significant degree, we are all products of our environments. As small as the world has gotten for many of us, it remains inconceivably huge for millions. My God does not look unfavorably on these people. For example, I find absurd the notion that someone who grew up with a tribal religion, and never received any exposure of any kind to anything else, is displeasing God because he has failed to complete an altar call and ask Jesus into his heart.

So if I accept the notion that God doesn’t damn a bushman who lives his entire life 10 miles or less from where he was born and never has any contact with the “outside world,” it must follow that Christianity cannot carry any authority, implicit or otherwise, over any other religion. Indeed, I don’t believe that it does. Someone raised Hindu, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or whatever is just as “right” as I am. Acts committed in the name of a religion, on the other hand, are another thing entirely, which brings me to:

The Road I’m On
I’ve largely stopped casually self-identifying as a Christian. There is just too much potential for erroneous assumption. He’s a Christian, so he disapproves of homosexuality. (I don’t.) He’s a Christian, so he thinks non-Christians will burn eternally in a lake of fire. (I don’t.) He’s a Christian, so he thinks guys like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are all right. (I don’t.) You get the point.

Islam has a big PR problem right now, and understandably so. Heinous acts are committed daily in its name, and for complex reasons, the reasonable disciple of Islam does not have a large enough voice in the world. That notwithstanding, there is no more reason for me to think the pleasant person at the company downstairs who happens to practice Islam is going to go to the supermarket and blow herself up wearing an explosive belt than there is for her to think that I think the godhatesfags.com rallies are a neat idea because I’m a Christian.

Whatever the degree, the extremists get the press, and they shape far too much reality for too many people. So I don’t generally talk about God at all unless I have an interested audience and a few minutes to explain where I’m coming from.

When I consider all of the horror committed in His name over the past several thousand years, I have to think He thinks my approach is a good one.

You might also like:

• These “Christians”
  This article about Operation Christmas Child was on the front page of CNN.com this morning. It’s rea…
• All you need to know about Westboro Baptist Church
  I’m not in the habit of discussing the “Westboro Baptist Church.” However, a great many people are, …
• Agnostic, Christian, skeptic
  I’m as skeptical as a Christian comes. In fact, I’m sure many would claim I don’t qualify for the Ch…
• Church
  As much history as we have, and despite both of us growing up in practicing Christian homes, the ver…
• 246,926,195,409,564 people can’t be wrong
  I’ve not had much to say about Stephen Hawking’s proclaiming that God isn’t necessary for the univer…