Well because I found it very interesting how very practical Christian beliefs can be. The concepts of sin, mercy, and grace fit so well within my view of relationships and the world. The Christian faith has the perfect mix and the right understanding of how things actually seem to work. I came away thinking that the Christian worldview is either true or just very well put together. Maybe over time Christianity has worked out the kinks that other religions stumbled on. Maybe Christianity has just encompassed more of human nature and contains more explanatory power than the other religions. Maybe it’s just the best one so far. But does that make it true? Maybe it’s like a scientific hypothesis. If a hypothesis can explain the data, has explanatory power, and can make predictions of future data, then the hypothesis holds some truth regarding reality. Similar if Christianity can explain reality, that lends it to holding some truth regarding reality.

Overall I’d say this weekend I made two steps forward.

Something that I’ve been trying to do is to think ahead of time of what criteria the evidence must meet in order for me to “step forward in faith”. This at first seems to be an impossible task. How does one qualify something so abstract?

Does one come up with some probability equation? How does one put probability values on the disciples’ response, the early church’s expansion, the resurrection? I would say this is impossible, and there would be far too many assumptions to make it meaningful at all. However, discussing probability is something worth discussing for maybe a future post.

These life reflective questions are probably why many Christians suppress their doubt and don’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it. There is a rational fear of open the Pandora’s box of doubt. Doubt can unravel your faith, and this can have drastic effects on ones life. Faith is tied to so many aspects of your life. It is tied to family and friends. Faith is tied to social and political affiliations. Faith is tied to one’s worldview and gives meaning and understanding to life. When faith is eroded by the acid that is doubt, things start falling apart. Friendships that were once based on a common faith become strained. Comfort that was once found in life’s trails is no longer there. Hope for new life is gone. Why would anyone want to jeapordise all this and let doubt creep in? We humans have a great talent of staying away from pain and chios. We mentally compartmentalize tragic events so that we can go on living. We try to find order when life is out of control. We suppress our feelings of doubt in our established framework, whether that’s religious, political, or social.

But what do you do when you find yourself in the position that I’m in where you have opened the box of doubt and can no longer close it back up? I really don’t know. I figure a good starting point is to try to find some answers. Like any difficult decision, it is best to have all the data in front of you, then weigh both sides, and then take the step forward in faith and choose.

But how can anyone really find definite answers to these ultimate questions? How can I arrogantly say that I will figure this out, when people over the last 2000 plus years are still struggling and fighting over these questions? But what is the alternative? Should I just forget about these questions and not waste my time to “figure it out”? If God is real and wants me to believe in Him, shouldn’t it be easier and more obvious? I don’t know. To give up seems a bit lazy. Ignoring the problem won’t make it go away. I feel that I have to thoroughly research the Christian faith if I can come to grips with either accepting it or rejecting it. I’m tired of just waffling in my doubt. I need to get my butt in gear and work on it.

So why am I doing this you may ask? Honestly, I’m doing it for me. In my search for truth and dealing with my doubt/agnosticism I wanted to keep track of my research. I found that I would quickly forget what I read or discovered. So having a place to write it down and organize it seemed like a good idea. In addition, my quest for truth about Christianity lead me to many biased sites that would be completely one-sided and put up straw men arguments. So one of the goals of this site is to put up the very best from both sides. This would help me (and possibly others) make the best and most well informed decision about faith and if there is a God.

I plan to blog about all sorts of things that I come across in my research. I plan to talk about the resurrection, historical reliability of the New Testament, evolution, problem of evil, and the like. I’ll start off by saying that I’m no expert in these fields, but I’ll try to put my best foot forward. So with this I end my very first post.