Why I Believe

_{William Murray

January 3, 2014

Intelligent Design}

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I love and thoroughly enjoy believing that I have free will; that I have a soul; that god exists, and that my existence will continue on in some sentient format forever; that I will be reunited with loved ones after death; I love the feeling of love, fulfillment, joy, and hope these beliefs instill in my life on a day to day basis. I love the amazing miracles I see every day that reassure me that the divine exists and is all around me.

I appreciate the patience these beliefs provide me; the profound sense of meaning and value for every kindness and good thing that I encounter and that I can muster for those I love; the stability and peace in my own mind it offers as I take care of a parent succumbing to alzheimers and endure my own challenges as an aging grandfather. Any ridicule or condescension directed at me for these views pale to insignificance against the hope and peace these beliefs offer to temper the agony and grief that can sometimes be very difficult to bear in my time here.

Without these beliefs I was a wreck of self-centered angst, anger and hopelessness, living in abject poverty without good motivation or consideration for others. I changed my beliefs, and my life completely changed. More importantly, I changed. There are a lot of people here at UD that helped me accomplish this, even if you didn’t know it at the time. I was looking for a way to believe in god again, and you offered exactly what I needed.

And the great thing is, even if god and the afterlife doesn’t exist, even if I’m a stupid, foolish idiot for believing, at least for the duration between now and non-existence I have had that joy, sense of love, hope and fulfillment, a profound sense of value and meaning, along with the other successes in my life that those beliefs have apparently wrought. And if there is nothing but nothingness awaiting me when I pass, there will not even be the opportunity for me to be disappointed or feel chagrined. I will just be gone, after living a wonderful life thanks to the beliefs – and the faith – that saved me.

Happy New Year!

Comments

Hi WJM, Thank you for posting such an honest and God honouring testimony. I too am grateful to God for saving me and for giving me this opportunity to live such a wonderful, meaningful life that I never knew was possible. I was very touched to read about your support for a parent with Alzheimer's as on the 8th Dec my own mother finally passed away after having suffered many years with this awful disease. I came to faith at the age of 38, having spent roughly 25 years of my life in and out of alcohol/drug addiction. I'm 46 now and just as in your testimony above, my life completely changed the moment I believed. I do not wish to start a debate about anything you have said, as I concur fully with almost everything, however I would like to give my opinion on 'free will', and why I think this to be greatly misinterpreted by many Christians today. When God put man on the earth He gave him instructions as to how he should live. Many people seem to think that Adam and Eve were only given one command (Do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), and that they were possessors of a God given gift called 'free will', which of course meant that they had the freedom to make whatever choices they decided upon. And while I wouldn't argue that they weren't given the responsibility to make certain choices, they certainly weren't free to choose whatever they so desired. We read in in Genesis that they weren't only not to eat from a certain tree but they were to 'tend the garden' 'go forth and multiply' 'subdue the earth and all that lives on it' etc. This was God's will, not man's. I don't believe we have such a thing as 'free will' because the bible teaches, in my view, very much the opposite, and it is this understating that makes me even more grateful to God for saving me, because at the end of he day He didn't have to. Scripture tells us time an time again that we do not choose God, but He chooses us. We are unable to even have faith in Him, He gives us faith. We cannot even believe in Him, He gives us faith to believe ... and so on. But the most amazing thing about this, again in my opinion, is that His Salvation is not for 'everyone', but only for the Elect, those whom He chose for salvation 'before even the foundations of the earth were laid'. My belief is that we serve either one of two masters. Scripture tells us we are either 'walking in obedience to God' or we are 'slaves to sin'. So where's our free will in that context? Yes we can make 'choices', but we do so within this construct - 'Who do we serve?'. As I was discussing with a friend the other night; I work for the Church of Scotland in a Care Home for the elderly. The moment I enter that building I have the freedom to make certain choices, but I do not have free will. For instance I can decide in what order to hand out medication, but I can't not hand it out. I can make a decision on what order I give an individual their meds, but I can't decide to give them a double dose, or none at all. And the reason for this is very obvious; there are certain policies and procedures that I must adhere to, or I may very well find myself in severe trouble. However, if I entered that building with complete 'free will', then surely if I deliberately chose to overdose someone nothing could be said about it? In my opinion Adam and Eve, and all of humanity thereafter, are bound by this same constraint - our will is not our own, we serve either of two masters. But this is not something that we should consider limiting our freedom, but something extremely liberating instead. And it should make us all extremely grateful to God for having chosen us to be partakers in His eternal plans. Happy new year to you, and to all at UD.PeterJ_{January 4, 2014
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The sad part is, you will go to hell. As your flesh burns and you cry for God, nothing of your "profound sense of meaning" will be of meaning to Satan. There's no hell. I'm just pointing out that in your hypothetical fantasies you're missing a crucial point.JWTruthInLove_{January 4, 2014
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