A newly-found friend and fellow Christian rebel, purchased an atheist on e-bay some time ago. The Atheist was selling his soul. For every $10 he would go to church one hour. (Check out the story at www.off-the-map.org)
This was quite controversial among Christians and Atheists alike.
As Christians we feel that Atheists are foolish, and we have Bible verses to prove our point. Yet many of the Atheists believe that we are captivated by a kind of despotic mind cult. Our thoughts are not free because we have been brainwashed by this cult of Christianity.
Could they be right? Could it be that the most common practices of Christian fellowship are based in creating people who all think exactly the same? I know far too many Christian leaders who are afraid to allow others in the church to have a say, to ask a question, or to get involved at anything more than a basic level, unless they have proved themselves to be robotic imitators of their leaders. Is this because we Christian leaders are afraid to be challenged, and so we silence free thinkers? or could it be that we have wrongly assumed that God's goal is make us think and act alike?
The second reason would be far more noble, even though it would show that we are foolish Christian leaders. The first option of being fearful would show how corrupt we are, and in need of defending our little despotisms.
I wonder how we can best help Christians become free thinkers. It seems to me that Christianity - the religion of liberty - ought to be able to find a way to free our minds.
Whadayathink?
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3 comments:
i think that, in order to really free our minds, you have to leave the church for a while. or at least change the setting. the mind bascially adapts to what comes into it, and if you're always fed the same stuff, then your view of the world becomes narrow. this happens regardless of who/what you are and where/when you live. it's a basic property of intelligent neural systems: we adapt and incorporate the information that flows into us.
i think that the american christian church doesn't really believe what Jesus says. "seek and you shall find. knock and the door will be opened for you." we take this to often mean prayer requests. but what about the pursuit of God? why is it that, most of the time, we're afraid to ask those questions? if God really is God, then our questions will be answered. but since we've narrowed our minds so much, we don't believe in a God that's really all that powerful (although we claim to), and thus we further the process of cornering ourselves. this is tragic on so many levels.
i think that you and i still have a chess game we need to finish. maybe i can come up there sometime, or you can some down here sometime. either way, i'd love to sit down and chat some more. i enjoy talking with you.
Chess - yess!
The basic property of intelligent neural systems theory does not appear to account for rebels, or reformers. By this view I should be a pre-tribulational, apostolic, revivalist Pentecostal. Unless of course, my travels/studies into other worldviews can be deemed sufficient enough to bypass the overloading of typical American evanglicalism bringing me into something other.
I've just always considered myself a renegade in need of something to reneg. If this is the case I am propelled into non-conventional thought by the conventional itself, and therefore my adaptions are defensive (hmmmm...or offensive perhaps) rather than incorporative in nature.
I guess that was a big whadayathink.
More important than I really am? How could I possibly think that! There is no one more important than me! ;-)
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