Distractions
Dec 5th, 2008 by Mark Lefers
I have found that I am often distracted from my doubt research. Granted I have a busy household (7 kids 9 and under), but the distractions that are most harmful come from within. My research focus has been on the resurrection of Jesus and the historical reliability of the New Testament. However, I am often distracted by discussions on evolution or politics. With regards to evolution, many of the Christian apologetics sites I visit go on record as being anti-evolution. This always frustrates me, because they can deny something that has so much evidence, yet believe in the supernatural which has little if any evidence. How can I take anything they say as truth? With regards to politics, I am just thankful that the presidential election is over. Go Obama!
Another large distraction for me is all the creeping questions that enter my brain. Like:
- if there was no Adam and Eve what happens to original sin?
- the problem of evil
- the God of the Old Testament
- miracles
- the Trinity
- how should one read the Bible
- what to do with all the confusing parts of the Bible
- Is homosexuality wrong?
- etc.
These questions start to multiply and start to crowd out the original question that I am struggling with: Is the Christian faith true?
The distractions not only confuse the issue, but they are time stealers. Instead of researching the resurrection, I am wasting my time commenting on a blog post about Intelligent Design. Instead of examining the historical reliability of the Gospels I’m discussing abortion. So instead of wasting the little time I have, I need to focus. I need to bundle up all these other questions and distractions and put them up on my “mental shelf of unanswered questions”.
Then after I have addressed the MAIN question, I can take these questions down, one by one and address them individually. I can take one question at a time and examine it, ponder it, research it, and try to come to a satisfying conclusion. I can’t expect to solve all these questions that others have pondered for thousands of years. I especially can’t expect to solve them at the same time. I can’t be that arrogant.
So my goal is to stay focused. The goal is to research the resurrection of Jesus, and keep these other questions on the shelf for now. We’ll see if I can last a week. . .
I liked this post. Although I have been a life long Christian, raised in a fundamentalist Baptist home, I concur with each of your questions. What are you reading to aid thinking about these. In regard to how to read the bible, have you read The Blue Parakeet, by Scot McKnight. McKnight also runs a great blog called Jesuscreed. N.T. Wright has written a recent book about the Resurrection that I have seen widely praise, but have not read.
Hello Ken,
I am focusing on the resurrection of Jesus. I figure that this is the most important question to address. Currently I am going through “The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus” by Habermas and Licona. I also have NT Wright’s 800+ page book, and have started going through that too. I don’t have McKnight’s book. Would you recomend it? I skim the Jesuscreed blog, and I have liked the posts that I have read. Thanks for the comment.
Hi Mark
You write that evolution is something with “so much evidence”. I am a Christian too and currently I’m undergoing another “doubting period”. But I must say that the evolution theory has lost all it’s influence on me. I may still doubt christianity, but I can’t deny that the world must have been made by an intelligent designer. The problem is that we are somehow brainwashed by those ideas of evolution. If you can get yourself into a neutral position evolution becomes an absurd thought. How could an eye have evolved? It is so complex. There is so much knowledge necessary to create something similar (like a camera), and the eye is still far superior. You can take anything in nature and start seeing it through a candid lens. Get rid of those silly evolution thoughts. I could go on and on taking anything to underline my point. How about the ear? How could evolution know that those movements in the air can be used to build an organ that can help creatures orient themselves, or even communicate? And more astonishing is how it got “implemented”. And I’m telling you: the more I keep trying to see it with an unprejudiced mind, the sillier I find evolution. But it takes some time to get out of the accustomed way of thinking.
Reto,
Thanks for the comment. I’ll try not to get too off topic with my response, but I felt that I needed to reply to your comment. Evolution is not a “silly idea”, and its purpose is not to brainwash people. Like any other topic, when non experts say that the consensus of the experts is wrong and that there is some conspiracy to hide the truth, one has to be skeptical of such claims. How different are those claims from alien abductions, Bigfoot sightings, holocaust denial, 9/11 conspiracies?
The evolution and mechanism of the mammalian eye is very complicated, and there are many gaps in our understanding. But that doesn’t lead to saying that there is no natural explanation. The pieces are coming together and a very nice framework for the evolution of the eye is known. For example see:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye
This doesn’t mean every gap is filled, but I think it is very dangerous to require a God’s supernatural act to fill these gaps; especially when naturalistic explanations have done such a great job.
Since you are doubting Christianity, I would advise staying away from the topic of evolution. It’s not a salvation issue, and truthfully most Christians in America are on the wrong side of this issue. Again, I don’t want to get too much into this, for fear of getting off topic of addressing doubt. However if evolution is a source of doubt, I’d be happy to recommend you some books by Christian scientists who believe evolution. I just want to stress again, beware of distractions and try to focus on your specific area causing your doubt.
Hi Mark
Thank you for your reply. I can assure you that for me evolution is not a source of doubt for me. I just tried to explain that I consider creation (of some sort) to be much more plausible than evolution. My own observations led me to that conclusion. I couldn’t believe evolution is true even if I became an atheist again. I thought sharing my view with you would probably help but it seems not so. Let’s forget the topic then.
What really caused me to doubt again in the last few days was something else. I started thinking that it is all just made up. That christians are just another bunch of fanatics who think they know the truth. It was sparkled mostly by meeting my nonbelieving parents and some thoughts about the cruelty of the OT. I must admit that this led me into quite a depression. It’s strange, but it seems impossible for me to go on with life in this state. I have nothing that keeps me going, nothing that interests me. I’m telling you: if Jesus is not real I don’t have any chance to survive. Before I met him, I tried a lot of stuff, but it all didn’t help. Nothing could get me out of the abyss. Thank God I became his follower. Now I have a good job, a good wife, a good appartement, a car and much more. Before that I was depressed, had no job, a shitty appartement and an ex-girlfriend who wouldn’t stop hurting me. In writing this comment I also realize that Jesus himself many times made it clear that the truth is hard to bear and not many will enter through the narrow gate. That he isn’t come to bring peace but a sword. Ok Jesus! Probably I should read the gospels a bit more and confront my doubts with what you have said….
Reto,
I’m concerned about your comment. I don’t know what you meant with words like “depression”, “impossible for me to go on with life”, and “I don’t have any chance to survive” but you may want to seek professional help. Depression is a real disease that needs to be treated. Doubt and depression feed off each other, and it will be hard to concur your doubt if you have depression that needs to be treated. Take care Reto.
Hi Mark
Nothing to worry about. I’m perfectly healthy. I was depressed for many years, so I know what I am talking about. And if it wasn’t for Christ I would still be depressed. You might have misunderstood what I was trying to tell. I’m a very philosophical kind of guy. Don’t get disturbed when I write in such a manner: that’s normal for me
Reto,
Thanks for putting my mind at ease. Glad you are doing better.
[...] kind of shied away from talking about evolution on this blog because it has often distracted me from my work on my doubt. However, there are some good reasons why I should do some post about [...]
Mark,
I like the strategy you put forth in this post–to stay focused on one main question while letting the other ones go to the back burner until later. Tackling doubt one question at a time seems like a more efficient, less overwhelming, and (as you said) more realistic way to find answers than scattering study in many directions at once. (However, I think general or off-topic study/thinking can help make progress toward answering the main question, since questions are often webbed together.) Since I am just starting out on my studies, I appreciate the advice to focus on one main question.
As I said in another post, my main question right now is the existence of God, so that is where I need to focus my studies–on different arguments for and against the existence of God–philosophy of religion stuff (which I love). Evolution is a big sub-question for me, so I will probably spend some time looking into that as well in attempt to answer the main question.
May we stay focused despite distractions as we search for truth.
P.S. WOW–you have 7 kids under age 9?! I applaud you! And I don’t know how you find any time at all to “stay focused” on study–but I wish you well in the effort!
Ashton,
I’m realizing I can also be somewhat scatter brained maybe even a bit ADHD, so the off-topic things are more distracting than helpful in most cases. I worked a bit on the existence of God, but it quickly got very philosophical, and I thought that it might even be unanswerable. Can we really investigate a supernatural God? So I decided to focus on the Christian claim of when God broke into this world, and figured that this would be the best place to look for real tangible evidence.
Regarding evolution, I don’t think it will lead you to God. I think only when you believe in God can you look back at evolution and see God’s handy work. Unfortunately it is a difficult subject and may take a significant amount of time to investigate it fully. A quick easy to read book I’d recommend is “Finding Darwin’s God” by Kenneth Miller. He’s a Christian who is a well respected scientist who was also a witness in the Dover case. He does a good job at presenting a case for evolution. If you have any questions feel free to ask me.