A Sceptics Guide To Faith

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A Word about 'God'. We often have vague ideas of Him as a gray haired patriarchal figure wearing white robes who seems to live somewhere in the sky. This actually proves to be a very accurate description. These ancient and powerful writings still profoundly affect our spiritual thinking today, whether we are Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, or agnostic.

They were composed in the Middle East over a period of about years, during what archaeologists refer to as the Iron Age, roughly BC to BC. Naturally these writings reflect their own times and circumstances. Monotheism, or the belief in one god rather than many, was largely the creation of these ancient Middle Eastern Jews. It grew out of their experiences as the nomadic 'Hebrews' who apparently wandered the deserts of the region for centuries before settling down into the lands of Judea and Israel. This Hebrew god had been a sky god like other nomadic peoples of the area worshipped.

Gods and goddesses normally belonged to particular city-states. Marduk was the patron god of Babylon and Inanna, the Sumerian moon goddess, inhabited the city of Ur in southern Mesopotamia for example. Having no particular 'place' to seat their god nomadic peoples had theirs living in the sky, where they were always available to them wherever they went. Our God of the Old Testament was originally one of these nomadic sky deities.

He still is to many. Dress Him up as a medieval artisan's idea of an ancient Jewish elder, add a blue sky and some puffy white clouds and our picture is complete.

A Skeptic’s Guide to Faith - Philip YanceyPhilip Yancey

This Biblical image and idea of God haunts many of us and sometimes stands in the way of our spiritual development. Finding these old fashioned notions of the Divine unacceptable we may stop searching altogether, not realizing that there are many alternative, and more up to date, beliefs to be explored. The ancient Jews did their best to understand the divine but, like everyone, their ideas could not exceed the limits imposed by their cultural and historical experiences.

They used what knowledge and beliefs were available to them in order to create a divinity they could accept and understand, as people do everywhere and in every time. For their time and place it worked just fine. We live in completely different circumstances and require a very different focal point than the one used in ancient Palestine.

But we are all searching for the same mysterious 'thing' that they were. They gave us their concept of it, which works out finally as 'God' in the English language 'God' in Hebrew scripture is referred to both as the deliberately unpronounceable 'JHWH' and 'Elohim' a word that paradoxically means 'gods' not 'God'.

We are free to call 'It' whatever we like and come to understand and accept 'It' in the full light of our own day if we so choose. The Bible is but the first word on the subject of 'God', not the last word by any means. To ask other readers questions about A Skeptic's Guide to Faith , please sign up.

Be the first to ask a question about A Skeptic's Guide to Faith. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. You should at the end of this book, longing not just for Rumors of another world, but wanting for His kingdom to come Quickly. This was a good book explaining about what is out there after death. IF you are a Yancey fan, this is really not one of his best writings, but it still leaves a sense of tranquility of the life that comes after death. Skip everything else if you want and read the chapter about sex.

In the tradition of C. Lewis, this author depicts the spiritual world and the physical world as separate, but parallel places or dimensions. The author suggests the majority of people fail to see the spiritual world because of other physical things they elevate above it. The author tells of an experiment in which an entomologist entices male butterflies with a painted cardboard replica of the female. The replica is larger and more enticing than the females of the species, so the excited males In the tradition of C. The replica is larger and more enticing than the females of the species, so the excited males mount the cardboard again and again; while nearby, the real, living female butterfly actively attempts to attract the male in vain.

The author suggests there are similar sorts of distractions for mankind. One such distraction cited by the author is pornography, which can similarly draw a partner away from the real relationship via the lure of paper images. Another example the author cites is communism, which attempts to elevate humanity instead of God, but which has the ultimate effect of reducing freedoms and subordinating citizens. The author explains that such idols often become addictions that eventually begin to control the devotee. Sports figures and rock stars are another idol the author advances.

The author informs us that Michael Jordan has earned more for his endorsements than twice the combined earnings of all U.

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Presidents for all their terms. Jordan easily earned more just endorsing Nike shoes than all the workers in Malaysia who ever worked to make the shoes. Most people seemingly cannot abstain from worshiping that which is false, while nearby, the real, living butterfly opens and closes her wings in vain. The author proclaims the way to combat this problem is by being more attentive, listening, thinking, and discerning about what is real. Such reflection can help us avoid the traps handed to us by advertising, propaganda, and the unspiritual world.

We must recognize the deception of pornography and pursue true, wholesome, loving relationships instead. We must see the merits of a politician instead of the showboat political party from which he heralds. We must choose a product, like tennis shoes, based upon comfort and quality, not the sports idol that commercializes it.

God has much more in mind for us than disembodied deceptions. The author cites George Orwell in explaining how these awful worldly deceptions destroy us: He was sucking jam on my plate, and I cut him in half. He paid no attention, merely went on with his meal, while a tiny stream of jam trickled out of his severed esophagus.

Only when he tried to fly away did he grasp the dreadful thing that had happened to him. It is the same with modern man. The thing that has been cut away is his soul. Presently we pave over fertile land for parking lots, we pump toxins into the sky and rivers, and we mindlessly cast untold species into extinction. We allow 24, children to die each day of preventable diseases and we abort , more. We allow other children to be brought up in families that are housed in cardboard shacks and under bridges. We manufacture weapons capable of exterminating most of humanity.

And in so doing, we destroy the very things that house our souls: This is worst than going into the Louvre or some other art museum and purposefully mutilating a masterpiece like the Mona Lisa. This is more like suicide or self-mutilation. Destroying the environment that nurtures us is just plain dumb! Destroying our bodies is even dumber!

A Sceptic's Guide To Faith

We wrongly approach life as a series of moments, scheduling our time, setting goals, and marching onward. Phone calls, encounters, or any unscheduled events are too often viewed as jarring interruptions. Think how different this is from the life of Jesus, who gave full attention to the person before him, whether it was a Roman officer or a nameless woman with a hemorrhage of blood. Jesus drew lasting spiritual lessons from the most ordinary things: We can better find the spiritual world when we give our attention to what God sends to us, instead of focusing exclusively on some schedule that we have devised for ourselves.

Our scheduling is of the physical world. Our scheduling keeps us thinking about what has happened and what is going to happen, instead of experiencing the present moment. We are so caught up in our plans that we become hardened against those things that come before us moment by moment. We should look carefully at every human relationship or potential relationship, including every encounter with a surly clerk, selfish neighbor, unruly co-worker, or demanding relative and think carefully about how God would have us react to such people.

We are social creatures, by nature. We were created to be social creatures. Expressions of intimacy and relationship move us towards the spiritual realm. But relationships involve mutual consent. We cannot interact with someone who is hurrying past us on a mission of self-accomplishment or abusing and exploiting us. As humans, we all desperately want to grow in personal intimacy with others.

The union of wholesome relationships, the process of bringing bodies and souls into unison, helps us to see what it means to have union with God. But lust can deceive us into an addictive self-gratification that becomes so controlling that it displaces true loving relationships with narcissism and deviate illusions. We must come to clearly understand that sex is not only a physical union; it is also a spiritual union: Casual sex trivializes this spiritual combination.

When sex is conducted with foreknowledge that the relationship is only temporary, it becomes a sacrilege that distorts the holy conception of love. Sex is intended for a relationship that is going to be lasting and permanent. The author quotes C. Lewis in illuminating this: Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want. He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. How much he cares about the woman as such may be gauged by his attitude to her five minutes after fruition. The humanity of the used person is discounted and discarded as something unworthy of a loving relationship; and the spiritual side of sex is degraded into something profane.

We cannot truly plant the interests of another in the center of our being until we toss our personal desires and lusts aside as triviality. It is a unity, a relationship that is so solid that what affects one partner, also affects the other. The author relates how other spiritual attributes can be diminished by the seven deadly sins: Instead of humility we are distracted by pride.

Instead of thankfulness, we become envious. Instead of peace, we engender anger. Instead of compassion, we depict greed.

A Skeptic’s Guide to Faith

Instead of work, we are beset by sloth. Instead of fasting, we are beset by gluttony. Just like the fake butterfly, these sins lure us away from the spiritual and diminish us. I love, I experience beauty and pain, my friends die, I weep, I live. And as I live I try to figure A Skeptic's Guide to Faith. What on earth are you missing? And as I live I try to figure out if there is a God, and what difference would that make.

This book comes out of my own search and is written on behalf of those who live outside of beliefthat borderlands region between belief and unbelief. For some people, religious faith seems to come easily, but for others it comes in a swirl of doubts and questions.

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