The writing below took me more than 5 hours to write it out and research on.
Most of my writings below were based from a workshop led by Adriel on apologetics at Ym camp 06.
Worldview
Continuing from my last entry, I brought up two tests to come out with my conclusion. Test one, is it logical? Test two, is it livable? And before I can come to a firm conclusion, I would like to evaluate some of the world’s major beliefs, mainly Atheism, Christianity, Buddhism, and answer some of the deepest of life’s questions, what is God? What is real? What is good? What is hope? What is our purpose?
These are some of my deep reflections which I feel is something interesting I can share from my point of view. And I personally feel is important that all of us should at least think about once in our life. Sometimes we need to question our own beliefs and faith and after studying some of these religions over the years, it gave me more reasons to why I’m following this Christian Faith. I hope to emphasize that in a Christian life it isn’t leading a blind faith but it’s more pragmatic than that.
Just a disclaimer first, as this is a sensitive issue, I do not wish to disrespect any other religion in my writing. I hope to write it as impartial as possible and not to be bias in my judgments. What I’m about to write about might be quite hard to comprehend, so will try my best to write in a way that one can understand.
Starting with Atheism, basically it means the non-existent of God. Many atheists are skeptical of all supernatural beings and cite a lack of empirical evidence for the existence of deities.
What is real? Atheist use a method called “empiricism “to “try it and see”. It’s a practical experience testing, where scientist can find anything that is empirical. This is an analogy of how this test might be flawed, imagine the observer has only been living in his room, and everyday for the next ten years in his life he sees a green apple that comes in the door, and the probability of it coming again gets higher each day, first of, we all know that there are red apples too and thus his observation is already limited to just that room. Since the observer has live in that room all his life, he would take it as only green apples exists. So as we all know in reality this is not true, but the observer is constraint to that in his test. So first this is a flaw in their philosophy.
The next question, what is good then? Who has actually said in the first place that donating money to charity is a good thing and that killing someone is a bad thing. Who has actually given than law to that in the first place? To answer that, a higher law is needed and that requires a Higher Law Giver. Absence of which that means no one can judge others. “If God does not exits, then everything is permitted” quoted from Fyodor Dostoyevsky. And then this would go back to the issue of morality, which can be defined as the learning process of distinguishing between virtues and vices. Imagine if you’re in a place where there’s no higher order, won’t that means that all morals don’t exits anymore which I feel will inevitable lead to chaos as well.
What is their hope? To them, humanism only has himself to rely on, his education and technology. “We are left alone, without excuse”, quoted from Jean Paul Sartre who is believes in Existentialism (a form of atheism) isn’t that a sad hope?
What is their purpose? “Life has no meaning the moment you lost the illusion of being eternal” also quoted from Jean Paul Sartre. Basically I can infer that there is no purpose in living then right.
Now comparing with Christianity, like shared on my previous entry, just thinking about the magnificent intricate complex life system, won’t one actually ponder that there might actually be a God of a higher order to be that Architect who created this magnificent world? And since God is good, morality stems from His being. And if talking about hope, salvation by Faith in Jesus Christ is our hope and it’s not be the works that we do. And our purpose is to fulfill His will for our life.
Next for Buddhism, their goal is Enlightenment which is Nirvana, the realization that all of reality is an illusion at which point the soul dissolves. What is real to them? You can say its nothing since reality is an illusion. And that suffering is caused by the unnecessary attachment to the illusion of reality. What is good to them? The Law of Karma is “the eight fold path” is good to them. What’s their hope? As long as they continue in ignorance, they are trapped in the Samsara which is the cycle of reincarnation. Their purpose is as reality is an illusion which they seek to liberate themselves from. Basically I feel that almost everything ends up as an illusion, and you can say that they have no ultimate purpose too, as it’s an illusion too. With all due respect, I really hope this doesn’t insult any Buddhist but that’s just a personal point of view I see.
So in conclusion, from all these religions I mention of evaluating and testing if it’s logical and livable to me. Not all will agree with me, but personally I feel that Christianity is one religion that gives me that hope and purpose in life and it fills any emptiness that one may have. So being pragmatic and open about the whole situation, there is so much more to it then just accepting the Faith and living it out.
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