Comments for Maddie in Response to Her Blog Post (which had too many characters to post as a response on her page)

Sis,

I read this post, and as always I appreciate your willingness and ability to share your deep, personal beliefs about the world. Most people prefer to keep such thoughts to themselves, holding them close, and in doing so never exposing them to the light of day. This always keeps us safer, but generally creates incredible naivete, for our ideas are never tested against the ideas of others.

So, thank you for sharing. It is always welcome.

I do, however, have some comments (I always do, don't I?).

First, I wonder about your definition of humility. From the few lines you quoted, what stands out in my mind is the concept of absolute dependence, and this constant need you speak of, which apparently can never be removed. It would seem to me then that God's goal in creating humanity was to create a race of beings who can never be whole and can never be free from their utter, complete and groveling dependence on their creator. It would seem, by this definition, that God intended to create us so that we would be little more than pathetic beasts who would always come begging to God.

Does it not strike you that a kind and loving God would want to create a race of beings who can learn through God's teachings to be strong, powerful and independent? Creatures who, being made in God's image, might learn, through his guidance, to be like Him?

Also, while I agree that the concept of one's talents coming from God seems like a good and safe bet, upon further reflection this strikes me as rather silly. Talents and gifts are neutral, neither good nor bad. It is what we do with them that matters.

Hitler had incredible talent, formidable gifts. He was a brilliant thinker, a gifted strategist, an unequaled speaker and motivator of men, and a man who had an unerring understanding of the way in which to craft a national story for his people to take part in (namely Germany's rise from the ashes of WWI). All of these, by your definition, would be talents and gifts given to him directly from God, and by your definition we would be forced to imagine that because they came from God they are good.

I would offer that if God gives us anything it is opportunity, and to say that these possibilities come from God means that they are neither good nor evil, but only the opportunity for either.

Moving to your concept of weakness, I find this particularly troubling. First, your list of weaknesses is rather broad and, sadly, harshly judgemental.

While to cheat and steal are certainly unworthy, lying is often for the good of the world. If an overweight child approached you and asked you how she looked, would you tell her she was a fat, ugly pig, because you believe lying is a weakness and a sin?

To not pay tithing a weakness? So all who are poor are weak? Is that your definition? That to be too poor to pay your tithing is a weakness? Not only is such a definition cruel and damning, it is without any question directly counter to the teachings of Jesus. To be poor is not a weakness, nor a sin.

And, while I agree that we all have our weaknesses to overcome, and that in overcoming them we may become stronger or even better people, the argument that God instills us with weaknesses for our own good strikes me as far too close to the argument I hear from abusive parents: Well, Johnny, I only beat you because it will make you stronger. One day you'll understand that I kick the living hell out of you because I love you, and when you're older you'll appreciate what I did for you.

It's a crap argument coming from a parent, and quite frankly the only way it ever sounds even remotely decent is when we attribute it to God, because then we can always claim we don't know the mind of God. But to argue that God loves us and then to argue he afflicts us with weakness for our own good is a rather thin argument.

Especially, considering, that many so-called afflictions can not be overcome. From your short list above, would we consider compulsive liars, kleptomaniacs, or people suffering from bi-polar disorders to fall into the category of the weak God created so they may overcome their afflictions? Because each of these is caused by chemical imbalances in the brain, and they literally cannot be overcome. Did God give them these weaknesses so that he might watch their pathetic and impossible struggle? Is that the sign of a loving God?

I do agree with you that constant attention to scripture and prayer can help lead you to better decisions (although my reasons for believing this are no doubt vastly different from yours, as I would not attribute this to God). But I draw the line at believing that a life spent praying and reading scripture will necessarily lead to good living. It may point to a path, but traveling that path is something else entirely.

And I would also argue that truly reading scripture will raise far more questions than it answers. If you read your bible every day and you never question your faith, it is because you have turned off your brain.

Let me give you an example. When I was speaking with the missionaries who came to my apartment, one girl made the comment that God is always constant and never changes His mind. He is God because He does not change, according to her view.

Even a simple reading of scripture would put this idea squarely in doubt. Take the fabled Ten Commandments, which were written on the stone tablets Moses took down from the mountain, given to him by God. Most people are familiar with this story and actually believe that our Commandments come from these tablets.

But most people also don't read their scripture very carefully. Reading with your brain turned on would reveal that Moses smashed the original tablets, returned to the mountain, where God gave him a whole other set...with different commandments on it. God, it turns out, does change His mind. The first and second sets are vastly dissimilar (check this out in Exodus if you like). This says nothing, either, about the commandments we take from Deuteronomy, some of which are also different.

Daily reading of scripture should be a guide, but it should raise many, many questions and, yes, doubts. If it inspires nothing but blind faith in God, then the reader is a fool. And if it never once inspires doubt, then the reader is an idiot, which probably cannot be corrected. Because for all of your talk of knowing this and knowing that, the truth is that faith is separate from knowing. To say that you know something does not make it so.

To know is to be in the field of science. We know of gravity because we can test it and prove it. To have faith is to be in the realm of religion. We have faith in that which we cannot test and prove. This does not make one better or worse than the other, only different, because each addresses a separate and distinct portion of our existence.

The Mormon insistence that one knows that which cannot be known is, quite frankly, ridiculous. It is also self-defeating. If you knew then you would have no need for faith, and your belief in God would be absolutely no different from your belief in gravity. God is unique and special because we do not know.

Unless, of course, you are arguing that God really is just like gravity. A natural force, easily explained and just as quickly forgotten.

You keep saying that you know, and every time you do you accomplish two things: You lessen the importance of your faith, and you strengthen your self-righteous assertion that you are right while everyone else is wrong.

Neither, I think, are worthy goals.

If you trust your faith, then trust it wholly and completely. Give yourself to it, and understand that if God wanted you to know He would have given you proof. He did not, because He expected your faith, not your knowledge. If the stories in your scripture tell anything at all, it is certainly this. God's followers are different and distinct because they have faith and not because they have knowledge. If there was a way to absolutely know then everyone would believe in God, just as everyone believes in gravity, which would mean that there is no need for your prophets and your teachings. I need no prophet to watch an apple fall to the ground and deduce there is a force which pulls things earthward.

Further, to know would make every single act of faith absolutely meaningless. Take an act such as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego allowing themselves to be thrown into the fire. If they knew God existed and would protect them, then this act has no courage, has no purpose, has no meaning. It is because they have faith (distinct and different from knowledge) that this story has meaning.

Or Peter's fear of walking on the water, even as Jesus stands atop it. Peter himself was there, with Jesus in his presence, and he knew Jesus. But he was afraid, and lacked faith, and began to sink into the water instead of standing atop it. And what did Jesus say to Peter?

“O thou of little faith, why didst thou doubt?”

God does not ask for your knowledge. In fact, he purposely denies it. He asks for your faith.

To say otherwise is to deny God's purpose. The only reason, in fact, to say that one knows is to serve the purpose of man, for if a man feels that he knows then he may justify his actions in hating and judging other people (the Mormon church knows homosexuality is a sin, therefore they have no quarrel with funding Prop 8 with the goal of denying basic human rights to gay and lesbian couples...just as Southern plantation owners knew blacks were inferior and inhuman, thus justifying slavery).

Be strong in your faith, and always, always careful of what you think you know.