My brain hurts.

You dudes are very intelligent, knowledgeable, and worth learning from. But my brain hurts. My only point to all of the wonderfully written ideas here is you all seem to leave out the simplest point. Jesus came to save people. Be it whatever you want to call him – he dealt with people all the time infallibly (my big word to make me feel a part of the gang.) He didn’t establish rules, he didn’t worry about the bible or doctrine, and only quoted scripture when the discussion was pulled into it by others like the pharisees.

To me faith is simply living what you believe instinctually. The science of Sagan’s balance seems to draw away from your ablilty to feel the truth. I have found that if I feel like somethings wrong religiously or otherwise to trust that feeling and do my research. I know man was involved in interpreting the bible, and I believe that God is supreme. I know that 90% of the points in the bible that we argue don’t really matter ultimately.

I gotta ask to the science folk – Did you use Sagans balance or some other scientific method to determine if you loved your significant other? How about to determine if they love you? And to any faith or religious ones did you “recieve confirmation from God” or did you just know?

Science sometimes seems to strive to take away the humaness of us as does religion. I strive to reinsert that in faith or in science if you forget to actually live – like Jesus “lived” his life – then none of these arguments matter. What is life without living? What is knowledge without application? What is love without pain? And what is faith without constant testing?

Thank all of you being open to discussion and putting forth some really good points. I have learned some things here today and look forward to further education.

Thanks for tackling this topic. It’s challenging but very interesting. You guys approach your beliefs with an astounding mixture of enthusiasm and intelligence. As I listen, I’m amazed at how well you anticipate my next question and then proceed to answer it. It enabled you to cut straight to the heart of the issue. You can color me impressed… again. You did answer my questions beyond my expectations. This has prompted me to write quite a long response that I’m editing into a blog post for my site. It’s a bit too long for a comment. I’ll place the link in a future comment once I have it posted.

I’m glad you both appreciate my participation here. I’ve commented on other Christian sites that were superficially welcoming. I can tell yours is genuine. I certainly enjoy commenting. I am definitely learning a new perspective within Christianity. Consider me the loyal opposition.

I do have the technology to participate remotely and am able to meet up in person. Let me know if you’d like to arrange something. I’m actually in Charlotte, but with planning, it’s not too far of a road trip. I’ll warn you, though, that I’m much better at expressing myself in written format than when speaking (which is why I blog as opposed to podcast).