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This is something I mentioned in my blog the other day, but I thought it was a good discussion point:
I’ve heard many times about a person justifying what they believe by pointing to personal transformation or some other miraculous/unexplainable event. Indeed, it was at the core of my reasoning for a long time as well. What I’ve come to wonder though is if that is at the core of why they believe, what do they do with all the people of differing faiths that have also experienced personal transformation or miraculous/unexplainable events? Often, the response is that those other people are really experiencing the devil or it’s all fake or any excuse to downplay that it is not of the divine. Is that really reasonable, however?
Why is it so difficult for some to grasp the possibility that make the Divine (call it whatever you will) works inside AND outside your chosen faith tradition?
AnonymousWhy is it so difficult for some to grasp the possibility that make the Divine (call it whatever you will) works inside AND outside your chosen faith tradition?
Perhaps because of where they are in their spiritual journey? God can transform anyone /perform miracles & I don’t think He stops to think first “Gee, I wonder if this person is a Christian.” Maybe they don’t get that.
AnonymousShort answer – because if they aren’t the only ones who have a corner on spiritual truth, how are they going to keep manipulating people into attending THEIR church and getting those same people to give their money to THEIR church?
Maybe it has something to do with where we are on this journey we call Life and the different stages we go through.
http://outsidethegoldfishbowl.wordpress.com/stages-of-faith
As people have already hinted at, its because for most Christians, God only cares about Christianity and those who fall under the Bible. Everyone else is basically hell-bound unless they repent of their evil ways. It raises a valid hypocrisy though however, that people in Christianity will gain validity for their beliefs because people’s lives were transformed or because of the miracles done in its name when as you rightly said, other religions have exactly the same experiences. I know that historically however, Christianity has a lot more going for it then say Islam but the arrogance a lot of Christians demonstrate over other religions is incredible sometimes. You’d think we were still living in the Middle Ages.
David’s cartoon dealt with this today (not other faith traditions but the analogy works). Here it is: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nakedpastor/2013/06/atheists-shouldnt-trust-their-feelings/
I posted a story about an experience I had some time ago. I was at a Bible study and we got on the topic of near death experiences and it was interesting b/c not only have Christians has near death experiences, but so have non-Christians (not atheist but Buddhist, etc).
Now, the issue of whether NDEs are real or not is an issue that is legitimate to debate. But what happened is that many people in the group simply dismissed ALL experiences b/c they could not explain the peacefulness that a non-Christian was experiencing as they were dying….it was really arrogant.
AnonymousAgnosticBeliever – I have experienced that same arrogant attitude regarding NDE’ s among Christians. I used to be in that same category, but now I am a Universalist and I find reading books on NDE’ s fascinating! They really reinforce my Universalist viewpoint that in the end ALL people will be saved and no one will end up in hell -even athiests.
If you want to read an excellent NDE book read Dying to be Me by Anita Moorjani. I am reading it for the second time and I doubt this will be the last time I read this book. It just resonates so deeply with me on so many levels!
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