I get pretty het up because lately Christianity and God are really getting knocked, especially because of all the things that people do and say in God’s name. Annie Dillard said: “What a pity, that so hard on the heels of Christ come the Christians [the church]… Most of the time I want to defend Christians; people think that because we aspire to a greater moral code, we must automatically be perfect… But at other times I really want to side with those who decry Christianity- or the religion associated with it. My comfort is that Jesus chose to come as a servant, was glorified in the humble things of this world; if God had come as the perfect, the untouchable, what we so long for would be totally unattainable…

But anyway, taking the long view, Christianity has survived many knocks through the ages, and will outlive a lot of the people who now get on their soapboxes. Those who want to find God, find God. I just wish that those who don’t want to would stop trying to persuade those who want to that they are idiots. I have always been equally against Bible-bashers; seriously, all you have to do is offer the gospel, and allow the other person to make a choice. Similarly, seriously, please, I find it so irritating that people are publishing books that aim to PROVE that there is no God. It does make me really, really mad. Don’t you think that it takes just as much faith- if not more- to be an agnost, or an atheist? To believe in evolution? There is absolutely no evidence that God does not exist, nor that evolution happened; ask any scientist if they can prove either of those things. Ask them to show you how exactly monkeys became human, for instance. We know creation is changing, that people are changing; but does that prove evolution, or does that prove change?

That’s the real problem with faith. In fact, we all have faith; we choose for or against one or the other of the two alternatives. Christianity puts it in terms of God; in the old testament, the LORD says,

Deu 30:19 I call Heaven and earth to record today against you. I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, so that both you and your seed may live…

giving us a choice. That’s really what it boils down to. Choose the way you want to walk; do not presume to take followers with you. The writer of The God Delusion and books like it is just as much of a “false messiah” as those who have stood on their soap boxes through the ages, because he just wants to find followers for his doctrine. It would be so, so good if we all realized that the choice is ours to make, our faith is a personal journey, and people should be free to make the choice they want, and deal with whatever the consequences will be.