To Believe or Not to Believe?

Just quickly I wanted to share this thought in class but I never got the chance to about the picture of the “Just Judges.” I figured the reason he hid the real copy in his cabinet that this means that even if the people judged the fake picture it would not mean anything to him because they were judging something fake. Now if the people were judging the real copy of the picture then it would mean something as if they were really judging Jean himself. I do not really agree with the whole authenticity and exclusivity thing that someone else had said. I do not think it had anything to do with him having the almighty authentic copy in his hands to do as he wanted with it, but he just did not want the wrong people to judge the real copy.

Now switching over to Kierkegaard!

“Suppose, however, that subjectivity is truth, and that subjectivity is the existing subjectivity, then, to put it this way, Christianity is paradox, paradox and passion fit one another exactly, and paradox exactly fits one whose situation is in the extremity of existence” (pg27).

We as humans cannot prove that God exists….We can merely only believe. If one is to be a Christian there needs to be a relationship with God himself. We cannot just try to grasp his existence but embrace it.

Being raised in a family that is predominantly Christian, I too have accepted the objective facts of my religion. Having gone to church every Sunday when I was very little, and pretty much up until I was 17, Christianity is all I have really known. But for some reason, to me, it just does not fit with me. I do not have the passion for it that my family has. I do believe that there is an all mighty entity out there that is watching over us, and I do believe in a heaven. I believe that if I do good things, and live by a good way, I will one day have the benefit of walking through the gates of heaven into an afterlife that no one can prove exists.

There are so many contradictory things that go against religion. Science and supernatural instances, like ghosts for instance. Evolution and science sway my feelings towards my religion. However I feel as if I do have faith, but maybe faith in the wrong thing.

“Faith is the objective uncertainty along with the repulsion of the absurd seized in the passion of inwardness, which is just inwardness potentiated to the highest degree”. (pg27). Only the true believer can have faith. So for this I am lost and a non believer :/

One of the most interesting quotes I read was, “It is easier to become a Christian when I am not a Christian than to become a Christian when I am one…”

That is truly absurd! I have a hard time wrapping my mind around what that could mean. Is it really easier for someone who knows nothing of Christianity to accept it before I can accept it myself? Is it because I have doubt of religion itself due to the objective facts that science has laid out on the table?

For those who were never seriously religious who have had a near to death experience was and meet this “God”, that they never really took for existed or fully believed in, they started to after the incident. For now they had the passion that is required for faith.

“What it is to be a Christian is not determined by the what of Christianity but by the how of the Christian.” ----if someone could clarify this for me a little further I would be appreciative of it.