It's amazed me the ratio of scientists/engineers i've met irl who are religious.
I live near a prestigious university, and the church I attend is loaded with scientists and engineers from that school. How do I know? They're pretty vocal about it.
West Lafayette churches are full of scientist and engineers as well; I wonder why we think knowledge automatically should lead to atheism, that is just an arrogant sentiment, that only people less literate could be believers. Another false common assumption.
Absolutely, and it's largely thanks to very outspoken
anti-theists like Richard Dawkins. The irony is that most of them are not even very good scientists.
Adding my voice to the thread: I believe in an intelligent Creator who made the universe and who is greater than the universe itself (otherwise He could not have created it). I also believe that the whole focal point of His creation is us humans. The entire universe is fine tuned to support us. I believe we have a "soul" which grants us conciousness and free will and is not emergent from neurobiology, but has a genuine "outside of the physical universe" spiritual component. I believe this is an aspect of being made "in God's image" and is what gives rise to conciousness, intelligent thought, reason and creativity (along with morality).
I believe that this spiritual aspect of ourselves can interact with the Creator, and right after creation in fact did.
I also believe that this concious free will led to disobedience (through deception and desire) and that this broke our intrinsic bond / communication. I believe the Creator took on the aspect and form of a human, even allowing the indignity of human birth and death, in order to restore this bond and
succeeded. I personally accepted and trusted the actions of the human aspect / form of the Creator and experienced my first direct interaction with the Creator which forever changed me. For the first time in my life I Knew something: that the Creator exists, has love for His created people, enjoys interaction with them and that what he did to restore the bond was successful.
Before that point I understood a lot of Biblical stuff, "knew" a lot of things
about God, tried to obey all the rules I was supposed to, etc, but after that point, I started to actually know God and interact with Him and suddenly had the Holy Spirit poking me in the conscience to let me know what He likes and what He doesn't. I don't always listen, though...
I agree with a lot of nubbinator's points, especially that
faith should be reasoned. In 1 Peter it says: "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the
reason for the hope that you have". You may know the reason, but be unable to express it in a way that makes sense (or only able to echo responses you've heard others giving that seem to be correct enough). It's worth working through your own faith to understand the reason well enough to express it when asked.
For me, faith - and particularly a relationship with God - is an intensely personal thing and I'm not all that comfortable with many larger prayer meetings, etc where you're sharing this very personal and intimate relationship with a bunch of other people. So I find a lot of church-related stuff to feel a bit odd or intrusive, even if I know the people well. I prefer smaller prayer meetings and discussions, but enjoy a good "preach" once in a while
I'd definitely describe myself more as a spiritual person than a religious one. I'm not big on traditions and ceremonies, although I appreciate the grandeur and respectful solemnity of some of them, but only when they're executed in the spirit of the thing rather than the letter, if you get my meaning. This is kind of a big thing with me, since I consider it part of the essence of what Jesus did, to bring us back to the spirit of doing God's will instead of the letter of the law of it and I see too many "Christians" following the letter without the spirit. God respects honesty more than show. I really don't like to see people using emotion to get support for their "message".
I grew up in a Christian home, going to Sunday School, etc. My dad was a sales representative for a plastics company, but also a lay preacher in the Church of England. I "believed" the Bible, in God and Jesus and what He did and it was all very valuable to know later when I had my "conversion experience" (although it wasn't a flash of light and the voice of God speaking directly like with Saul!), knowing a bunch of scripture is handy since the Holy Spirit can pop the verse up right from my memory instead of having to prompt me in more obscure ways.
So I'd call myself a Christian, but only to those who know what I mean by the term (that I believe God made everything, that Jesus is God and He died and was resurrected and thus succesfully became the sacrifice that restores our connection), since I can't tell what they think a Christian is, especially nowadays living in scandinavia. The word has a lot of associations that have nothing to do with the central meaning of being a Christian.
I hope this is not all considered too off-topic... If so, you can edit it down to: "Hi, I'm Oobly and I'm a Christian, too."
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