Unanswered questions

Here are some questions about Christianity that I, with my limited mind, just can’t find any answers that make sense.

• If God really loves all people as His children, His creation, is it really loving thing to send them to eternal damnation, because we supposedly don’t do His will? Honestly, I can’t imagine this thing happening in human family.
• Why kill your own son so you can forgive other people their mistakes? (or, why go yourself and let yourself be killed so that you could forgive others?)
• Why aren’t there any extrabiblical records about miracles that are described in Bible? (3 hour darkness during day described in Matthew, in OT when day was made longer, feeding of 5000+ people etc). It can’t be just that maybe they didn’t notice or just didn’t write it down. There are many occasions in history when same events are recorded around the world (meteorites, for example, and this isn’t even very miraculous event).

John 14:13-14 says: “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” (NIV).

James 1:5-6a “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt“.

In one other place it says that whatever I ask according to Gods will, it will be done. I believe it is God’s will that I understand Bible and believe it. But what if I don’t get any answer? What if I get the answer that I don’t expect? I expect Bible and God to be true. But right now, for some unknown reason, I have ‘mind-block’.

P.S. Did you know that ‘kill-count’ in Bible comparing God vs. Satan is 2000000+ versus 10? Interesting, isn’t it?

Losing my religion

DANGER! Following text might cause you to think, read it at your own responsibility.

Little background. I’ve been a christian for about 5 years, I was converted in Oct 2001. These have been good years, sometimes challenging, sometimes frustrating, but still very good. Before I became christian I read all kinds of religious and metaphysical stuff that I could get my hands on and whatever stroke my fancy at the time, including yoga, eastern philosophy, astral projection and such stuff. When I became christian it was only for one reason – I believed Bible to be true Word of God, inerrant and absolute guide for living, changing my life, and Jesus to be my personal saviour who forgives my sins, because he died for then on cross. All in all, I trusted that Bible is true and God is good.

I did have some doubts at ’studying’ time, prior my baptism, but they were answered and I didn’t see the need to do more research on that. Mostly my doubts were kind of “I heard that someone said that…” and so on, not something specific.

Now I think I’ve come to some kind of turning point in my faith, I’m on the crossroad and I don’t know the answers anymore, life doesn’t seem that black-and-white like it was pictured to me and the beginning of my christian road.

Christians, including myself, picture God from Bible as all-loving, neverchanging, allknowing Supreme Being. And yes, there are many-many places that support that view. But what about God from Old Testament? From there I just can’t see that love… Why would God want to wipe out entire nations, including women and even infants and livestock? Because maybe these pagans turn israelites away from true God? How is that defined as good? Or how about when few guys look inside arc He kills everyone surrounding (50000 men)? Or when God ordered israelites to kill entire nation, who did something bad to them 450 years ago? Taking this analogy, then our little Estonia should right away nuke Germany, Sweden, Russia and more surrounding countries who have invaded us and killed our people. Not that I want to do that, I just use amplified analogy to get the point across.

Another dilemma. What about people who are not christians? Bible says very simply that whoever doesn’t meet the requirements to be saved goes to hell for eternity, additional to that, Christ says that “many try, but few actually do get saved”. So, according to that maybe 5% of whole population gets saved, where is love in that? To get eternal pain and punishment for non-eternal sins we’ve done here on Earth. Now counter-argument might be, that actually we don’t know who really gets saved, this is Gods decision, but then this is against Bible. Bible doesn’t leave such gray areas to speculate. My way or the highway, no other choice.

How about contradictions in the Bible? There are many places which contradict, which I just can’t logically explain away. If I do admit that there are errors in Bible, then what? How do I know what to trust and what not? If I know there are humanly errors, additions and removals in the Bible, how in the world can I trust it as inerrant Word of God?

Bible tells that I can understand it only when I have faith. It means I must have blind faith in a book that I know contains errors. It seems that faith begins where logic and reason ends…

Like in Old Testament people let God to give them signs to recognize that He was the True God. I’ve done same thing, I’ve requested a ’sign’, I’ll see what comes of it.

Actually there are many more thoughts circling in my mind, maybe I’ll write them down at some later date.

2nd rule of gold

Long time has passed, but here I am again. Vacation is over and lots of work is ahead. It’s interesting – I found out that I think about my financial freedom more when I’m at work; during vacation my motivation to think, dream and plan about my financial future was very-very low. Conclusion from that – vacation is the permanent ’status’ I want to achieve, freedom from worries about future, free from worries that I don’t use my time so effectively as I should (it’s incredible how much stress this can create – at evenings when I’m too tired to do something, I automatically start to think that I’m too lazy, I should be doing something… something… something useful… or something).

Ok, now that this is off my chest – 2nd rule of gold: “Control thy expenditures“.

This is logical follow-up to the first law. How else can I save at least 10% of my income, unless I control my expenses. I think this rule much more easier said than done, especially for me, because I’m quite an impulsive buyer by nature and it takes real self-control not to spend everything I earn. Unfortunately I must admit that I’ve been doing this until the beginning of this year, and not only spending what I earned, but I’ve spent much more than that. That is so easily accomplished by credit cards and loans. Now is the eating time for the soup I’ve cooked together for quite some time.

I believe people are different, but one way for me, and possibly for others too, to control my expenses is to make budget and think at least 3 days before buying something more expensive and non-mandatory. Something like new stereo, computer etc. Fact is, that the more you earn, the more you can spend too. It’s so easy to get a ‘better lifestyle’, when your salary increases, but you really don’t need that. You can just as easily solve your natural problems on 100$ toilet seat as on 1000$ seat. Of course the 1000$ seat is more comfortable, but do you really need it? Same thing goes with everything we use or consume – food, clothes, cars etc.