Where is Jesus now? The Faith Conundrum!
Christians believe that not only did Jesus exist, but that as the Son of God, he atoned for our sin, died on a cross, descended to hell to break the power of Satan, ascended to heaven to sit next to God (Yahweh) and is coming back again; firstly as the bride groom to collect his waiting, ready and expectant bride (wise Christians with oil in their lamps), get married in heaven (clouds) and then come back to earth as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords - with his new bride, defeat the anti-Christ and his evil hordes at the battle of Armageddon and subject all nations on earth to the authoritarian rule of Christ for ever.
However there is no evidence what so ever that these stories are real. They can only be entertained by faith. And where does that leave the faithful? This faith conundrum leaves believers in a quandary. A conundrum is a puzzle in which the pieces don't seem to fit and the solution defies logic. A quandary is a state of indecision when a choice must be made, but where the choice is not obvious.
When people find themselves in a quandary, they have a conundrum. And the conundrum of the faithful is that their main and most credible witness is currently AWOL (absent with out leave); where is Jesus today? How do we know he is the Son of God and therefore forms part of a Holy trinity? How do we know he is even alive and can come back again? Will he be a ghost or a real person?
John Loftus explains that “Faith can be described as a body of doctrine of course, but the word "doctrine" in the religious sense is "a codification of beliefs" best described in a creed. And a "creed" is a statement of faith shared by a religious community. There is no getting around these facts. A creed is a doctrinal statement of faith of a religious community. Faith is what all religious adherents accept and promote. Yet faith is an irrational leap over the probabilities. That's why exercising faith is hard, since it demands of believers to go against the odds. Faith is therefore an irrational leap over the probabilities”.
Christians struggle with it so much that they don't take risks of faith when they have to go against reason in a life and death situation. Faith is therefore unreasonable. A reasonable faith is therefore an oxymoron.
Faith is the ultimate equaliser because faith does not require any evidence; whatever you choose to believe by faith is true because you accept it as so. Faith is an assurance that what you believe is true because you believe it to be so. Faith believes in something without evidence whereby you accept whatever you are told as true.
It is belief -in- belief and faith -in -faith. Jesus is purported to have said "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."
This passage does not reflect how the Christians I know practice their faith, although, it does represent how most people think Christians believe faith works for them. In other words, most of us think Christians are praying to impact the outcome of their daily lives, when in reality, they are praying solely to impact the outcome of their after lives.
Look at this excerpt from The Nicene Creed that Catholics and Protestants agree upon: We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.
Yet all good professors of Church History will point out that this creed or any of the early Christian creeds were not formulated in prayer by pious monks or priests under the revelation of the Holy Ghost but were created to establish religious power by attacking heresy (a highly subjective term!).
What Christian’s believe today did not come by divine revelation, but simply by what was set in stone by bishops who opposed other bishops. Politics and Religion joined at the hip. The Faith Conundrum!
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