In the grip of heretics - or, The Christian: Notes and essays on religion, faith and reason

WHAT IS THIS COLLECTION OF NOTES ABOUT? Boy grows up in a Christian home. Serious about religion as a teenager and as a young adult. Confronted with the historical development of his religious beliefs. Doubt in the "truths" he was raised with leads to a crisis of faith. WHO IS THE WRITER? Born on 29 June 1971 in Pretoria, in the Republic of South Africa. Went to South Korea in June 1996 to work as an English teacher. Worked in Johannesburg for six months in 1998. Departed for Kaohsiung, in southern Taiwan, in January 1999. QUOTES "Then, in my early twenties, the suspicion took root in my mind that this god had been made up by people, like the golden calf the Israelites had made while Moses was on the mountain. I became convinced that people created this God of Words over the course of centuries for the same reasons the people of ancient Israel made the golden calf ..." "After 45 minutes I walked out and ... I was disappointed. Disappointed in the so-called sermon that consisted mainly of a pseudo-science/history lecture to 'prove' that Christ had really died." "The fact is, we cannot function without faith - that tomorrow would for example be similar to last Tuesday in terms of work schedule and other activities, is faith. We can only believe that Napoleon or Julius Caesar or Aristotle ever existed; they cannot convince our senses of their past existence. We believe they existed, because we read about them or we read what they have written." "Even though many members of the community of believers don't seem to have the faintest idea about this, the Christian religion is in the grip of heretics. These believers recite word for word everything the heretics teach them Sunday after Sunday, sermon after sermon. More than that, many so-called Christians are doing their utmost to proclaim the heretic deviation of Christian doctrine as widely as their ability enables them." "Of course, many Hindus believe this to be nonsense: they can point to the personal experiences of millions of people that prove to them that Krishna really exists. Same with followers of any other religious tradition. The ability of any person with a firm intention and an established interest in a particular view to find evidence for something that they believe can never be underestimated." "So I am not saying the person who is referring to religious writings when looking for an answer to the question of what to do with their lives is primitive. After all, the authors of these texts were respected in their day as authoritative figures. I simply ask: Why not consider a second opinion, especially if the opinion is reasonable and perhaps relatively logical?" "The follower of Jesus as I think of him will also not attach much value to the identity label of 'Christian'. He will simply say you can call him what you want. All that matters to him is to love his fellow human being as he does himself." "If someone claims that water boils at a certain temperature, and someone else looks at him in disbelief and asks how he knows that, the one who has made the claim can simply put a pot of water on a hot plate, stick in a thermometer and - voila! - within minutes the claim will be proven as fact. If the other person argues that it was a fluke, they can do it again, or even better - the "non-believer" can perform the experiment himself, with exactly the same result."