Vera, like myself, appreciates evolutionary biology but knows that this often puts her at odds with her faith tradition----which, in her case, is Seventh-Day Adventist. Two weekends ago, she went to a SDA-sponsored satellite seminar series at her local SDA church entitled 'Out of Thin Air' which I blogged about previously. I attended the first and third nights myself, and plan on blogging about it. But in the meantime, she has a series of posts and it's interesting to get the impressions of someone who has grown up in that milieu.
10/13/2007
OUT OF THIN AIR: A RETROSPECTIVE
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2 comments:
I am quite interested in reading a post about the SDA seminar.
I don't think I could handle listening to something like that and not start yelling at them.
One thing I do not understand is how people justify remaining in the faith they were brought up in when they disagree with some of it's central dogma?
Why not join a faith that aligns with your views?
I guess growing up in a household that let me make my own decisions blinds me to the power that it has .
Being of a skeptical bent pretty quickly led me to lack a belief in gods.
Most of my exposure to religion has been catholicism because of who my friends have been over the years.
I am constantly amazed at how many things they do that is in direct opposition to their central dogma.
Sex before marriage and the use of birth control being the main ones.
I have also seen people become Atheists when they examined their faith.
It is of course much easier to talk to my atheist friends about how they came to that decision.
It is almost impossible to bring this up with my theist friends without it becoming confrontational.
Sorry for the long post but I am very interested in your opinion and views on this.
Thanks for being so open about this sort of thing.
I appreciate you linking up Vera’s post. I read her story starting back in May and am fascinated by (and emphatic to) her journey. It is not an easy process searching for answers and questioning tacit beliefs assumed from years of hearing just one side of the story. But I believe God is not afraid of our questions. It’s not easy recognizing the tension inherent to living out a reasoned faith. I wish her the best in making her faith explicit.
Here’s something that has helped inspire me…
Our greatest truths are but half-truths. Think not to settle down forever in any truth, but use it as a tent in which to pass a summer’s night, but build no house for it or it will become your tomb. When you first become aware of its insufficiency, and descry some counter-truth looming up in the distance, then weep not, but rejoice: it is the voice of the Christ saying, “Take up your bed and walk.”
Quoted in Sharon Parks's The critical years: Young adults and the search for meaning, faith and commitment, pg. 71
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