On my faith
Mar. 20th, 2008 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
professionalhenchmanThis post's inspired by my lovely wife's recent postings on the subject. Many of you probably know that we're Christians - if nothing else, our wedding made that clear to many of you, but for all the other things that I feel easily able to talk about and share with my friends, this is the one area that I find myself actively avoiding bringing up. In large part, this is in reaction to the statements made by the loudest members of our family in Christ, who I tend not to want to be associated with. I realize though that by not speaking up, I allow them to become the public face of Christians everywhere, and I'd really prefer that people realize that we're not all like the ones who keep making the news. So, here's where I stand on a few issues where I differ from the public perception of Christians. I could expand at some length on these, but I'll keep them short for the moment.
I am Christian and I am a scientist. I see no conflict between my faith and the scientific method, evolution, or any other parts of my chosen profession.
I am Christian and I see no objection to same-sex couples being married, nor to poly relationships, nor any other sort, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult. I truly do not comprehend why being homosexual or allowing same-sex marriage is such a big deal among some Christians - there's very little in the bible that can be construed as condemning homosexuality, and compared to many of the world's problems which we are much more clearly called to try and solve, it's a trivial matter. As for Poly, people these days seem to miss the parts in the old testament about the multiple wives of some of the major figures - where do they get this thing about Marriage only being between two people stuff? It's certainly not biblical as far as I've found.
I am Christian and I firmly believe in the separation of church and state and freedom of religion. Historically, having a state religion has resulted in far too much fighting about religion, and trying to force your beliefs upon someone else is a terrible tactic for convincing them that you have the correct answers. Moreover, I do not believe that any one religion has all the answers - I simply cannot reconcile the idea of an all-powerful etc. deity with the idea that we can fully understand such a being enough to know God's mind. I believe that a major reason for Jesus' incarnation on earth was to give us a figure we could relate to. Also to let God experience what it is like to be human - from my reading of the Bible, it seems pretty clear that God's been learning how to deal with us humans all along, and likely still is. One of the principles I really like in Methodism is the reasoning behind having committees for so many things - because each of us understands God differently, and so as a group sharing our understandings, we can together come closer to comprehending God than any one individual can. I think this holds true overall as a reason to welcome and interact with people of other faiths.
I am Christian and I am a scientist. I see no conflict between my faith and the scientific method, evolution, or any other parts of my chosen profession.
I am Christian and I see no objection to same-sex couples being married, nor to poly relationships, nor any other sort, as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult. I truly do not comprehend why being homosexual or allowing same-sex marriage is such a big deal among some Christians - there's very little in the bible that can be construed as condemning homosexuality, and compared to many of the world's problems which we are much more clearly called to try and solve, it's a trivial matter. As for Poly, people these days seem to miss the parts in the old testament about the multiple wives of some of the major figures - where do they get this thing about Marriage only being between two people stuff? It's certainly not biblical as far as I've found.
I am Christian and I firmly believe in the separation of church and state and freedom of religion. Historically, having a state religion has resulted in far too much fighting about religion, and trying to force your beliefs upon someone else is a terrible tactic for convincing them that you have the correct answers. Moreover, I do not believe that any one religion has all the answers - I simply cannot reconcile the idea of an all-powerful etc. deity with the idea that we can fully understand such a being enough to know God's mind. I believe that a major reason for Jesus' incarnation on earth was to give us a figure we could relate to. Also to let God experience what it is like to be human - from my reading of the Bible, it seems pretty clear that God's been learning how to deal with us humans all along, and likely still is. One of the principles I really like in Methodism is the reasoning behind having committees for so many things - because each of us understands God differently, and so as a group sharing our understandings, we can together come closer to comprehending God than any one individual can. I think this holds true overall as a reason to welcome and interact with people of other faiths.
