Doubts of religion

So I've been wanting to write up a post like this for a while for a long time, I just don't exactly know how to start it...

Essentially, what it all comes down to is questioning my own Christian beliefs.  Once you begin to question, you can either lose all faith or either strengthen your faith.

I definitely will never give up my faith, but these questions continue to linger on in my head, and this anthropology class isn't all that helpful, either.  It definitely makes me challenge my faith a lot.  I feel like I'm attending my anthropology class now just to test how strong I really am in Christianity and to see whether or not I falter.  But there's something I'd like to discuss with regards to anthropology.

Anthropology tries its best to view everything from the most objective and most relativistic views as possible.  Being 100% objective and relativistic isn't probable, but being close to it is possible.  Since there are some parts of our culture and upbringing that are forever insusceptible to change, nobody can ever be 100% objective and relativistic.

Some person in my anthropology textbook stated that just because you experience something profound during prayer doesn't mean God exists.  Communion plays a big part - allowing people who gather to indulge in their beliefs definitely make their faith in that belief stronger.  I can see where he's coming from - sometimes anything from any religion or the effects of some ritual is really all just in your head.

I'd just like to state first that I dislike letting things get to my head and seldom do let things get to my head.  I'm one of the very few people who don't believe in things like premenstrual emotional feelings and depression.  Definitely, the sort of 'temptation' to be overly 'PMS-y' and sad is there, but I refuse to act on it because I believe I have a choice in what I want to feel as a human being.

I find speaking in tongues and prophecy sort of iffy.  A friend told me that someone she knows is reading a book on 'how to speak in tongues'.  Like what on Earth?? You can't LEARN how to speak in tongues - it is a spiritual gift that God decides when he will give it to you.  You can't LEARN it.  That's just one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of.

Prophecy, in its simplest terms, is fortune-telling through the Holy Spirit - and part of me believes that is also a sort of spiritual gift but I can't say for sure.  Many people will pretend to speak prophecy and give very vague details of a person's life, which of course is very applicable to ANYONE - such as 'you are going through a conflict with someone close to you' - so of course it's going to work.

I'm not saying that speaking in tongues and speaking prophecy is bad and unholy - I'm just saying that many so-called Christians don't fully understand them and it really does get to their heads sometimes.  I'm not saying I fully understand them either - I'm still learning but those are things I'm not focusing my attention on right now.  That being said, there is such thing as speaking in tongues and speaking prophecy through the Holy Spirit, but I don't think it comes as easily as so many people think it does, by their own will.

I've had times where I just completely wanted to stop going to church.  God seemed so distant to me and irrelevant to my life and it felt like I was attending church just for people to drill in ideas I didn't understand hoping that I would understand it one day.

But I thought, you know, there has to be more in this life.  How can I not fool myself into Christianity and how do I not let these doctrines pretentiously get into my head?  How do I actually wholeheartedly and genuinely accept the Bible and accept God as a true Father, Savior, Redeemer, Friend, Messiah, etc... ?

Perhaps the number one thing that keeps me, personally, strong in this faith is the concept of forgiveness.  In this world that emphasizes war, vengeance, revenge, and bringing justice - forgiveness is seldom a choice at all.  You'd have to be an idiot to forgive a man for murdering your daughter.  You'd have to be an idiot to forgive the lady who tricked you, forced you to have sex with strangers, and physically abused you.  You'd have to be an idiot to forgive the person who molested you throughout your childhood.

And that's what Jesus was in today's terms - a maniac and an idiot.  He forgave those he loved who tortured him, who beat him, who betrayed him, and ultimately killed him.  He forgave the malicious tax keeper and the prostitute and treated everyone with love.  If I could be honest, if I were alive in Jesus' time, I wouldn't like this guy at first.  But God has been merciful and placed me in the time of the Second Covenant, so I'm very thankful for that.  I probably would eventually take a liking to Jesus if I were in his time, but it would just take quite a while...

There are things that I know I need to forgive because resentment will eat me from the inside out.  The fact that people in this day in this time, the 21st century, can forgive such atrocious wronging because of God makes me want to stay strong in this faith.  Love and forgiveness are two very important things I know I lack and no belief system or 'religion' emphasizes these two things more strongly than Christianity does.  Also, you can't fake love and forgiveness.  You can't pretend that you know how to love and you know how to forgive.  You can't foolishly allow fake feelings of love and forgiveness to get to your head.  When it's there, you'll ultimately be the one who knows it's there - and people will be able to tell, too.  If any part of the past makes your heart break a little bit just once, you know you haven't forgiven yet.

The second thing that keeps me strong in this faith is that there are things that science, logic, and reason can't explain. There are things in science that science can't even explain - like why does a wall stay still even though the individual molecules that compose the wall are constantly moving?  There are spiritual forces I have experienced - definitely not from my own imagination as I was fully sane and conscious when these things happened, yet there are no scientific explanations for those.  There may be 'ghosts' and 'demonic forces' - but if so, there must also be angels and the Holy Spirit.

Yes, communion allows people to grow in Christ and part of that may just come from being around people who have the same beliefs as you.  And that's what God intended in the first place - for people to stir up the same feelings from being around like-minded people.  That's why you have to be careful who you hang out with.  Granted, for me, I have tons of friends who are unbelievers, and that's okay.  My closest friends, however, are Christian like me.  And I really enjoy going to my Bible study group because we can share things literally on a spiritual level - something I can't do with unbelievers.

How do I tie back that quote from the anthropology textbook into this...

Yes, sometimes being in the presence of others will strengthen feelings of a belief even more.  Perhaps it's not some spiritual power or God that people may deem it to be.  Perhaps prayer itself won't solve your problems.  A lot of things are done by the power of one's own mind rather than something supernatural.

I don't really know how to respond to that except with: but perhaps sometimes it is some other-worldly and supernatural power.  It sometimes really is, and that ultimately is in-explainable.  You really need to experience it for yourself one day.