Burn me! Burn me at the stakes! NOW!

Disclaimer: This is a posting that involves religious beliefs so please read only if you want to. This post reflects my personal views, thoughts and beliefs. It has not been endorse by any Church or religious organisation that I know of or am a member of. Thank you.

Ok. This one is a hard one. This one is one which might cause a lot of anger in some readers so please read it at your discretion. I am not here to offend anyone but this is something just a question that popped into me brain when i was doing some readings this afternoon. I do not claim to be an expert in any of the areas i am about to touch on but everything i say here is just thoughts which floated in and out of my head today.

The question: Can one be both a Christian and an atheist at the same time? (I am using Christianity because that is my faith but essentially i am asking "Can someone believe in the existence of a divine God and be an atheist at the same time?")

Atheism conveys the idea that there is no God. Christianity preaches one absolute God. So here then is the problem. What if someone wants to be both? Can he/she?

Lets take the stand that one can be both. This will ultimately disprove both statements at the same time. If you believe in the existence of God, you cannot say that there is no God. And vice versa.

But what if someone were to say, "I believe and follow the teachings of Jesus but I do not believe in God." Well, when i asking this question to a friend, her reply was "But do you believe in something greater then Jesus?" Which would then mean that Jesus is not God. And if we take the definition that Christianity means "Followers of Christ" then perhaps the question would hold true. But we know it is not. To be a follower of Christ is to believe in the Bible. And the Bible holds that God the Father, God the son (Jesus Christ) and God the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) is one and the same. The Holy Trinity.

So logically one cannot follow the teachings of Christ and not believe in God.

What if we took the stand that there is no God. Then everything that is happening in this world is due to the actions of Man. Therefore Man is evil. But by what standard do we measure Evil is there is no standard to measure Good? Unless we say that Man can be both good and evil at the same time? Then why can't we be a Christian or an atheist at the same time?

So if Man cannot be measured by Good and Evil if we do not have something to define Good. And the if we ask Christianity for an quote they would say "God is Good", so you cannot deny the existence of God if you go by the saying that Man is evil or Man is good by nature. We do not have anything to measure ourselves against. The argument destroys itself.

Alright, so if one were to take the stand that there is a God and God is in charge of our lives. By that stand, one can argue that if God is divine and all powerful and has the ability to intervene in everything that God is therefore both Good and Evil.

Man to this day commit evil acts upon themselves for no reason other then the desire to do so. But God isn't both Good and Evil. Remember "God is Good". But that also cannot be. Because of the evil in this world, God as divine influence, would mean that he is evil.
So we are caught in a paradox. And defenders of the Faith will bring out at this point the "Free will of Man"; God's greatest gift to Man (well, aside from His son Jesus but lets leave that out for the sake of argument). Evil exist because of the free will of Man. So does that end the argument?

Sorry my friends, it does not. To exercise the free will of Man to do evil, one has no choice but to admit that God is the one who has given Man free will. So it comes back to Him in the end. The creator is evil. But then one can say anyone exercising the free will of Man does not believe in God and is doing so by his own will. But like i said; you cannot argue that with asking the question where did free will come from in the first place. If it came from God, then God will have some part in the evil. If it came from Man then there is no God. This would be the logical conclusion. But the problem, it renders both sides of the question to be unattainable.

I do not deny the existence of God. In fact, I am a born again Christian myself. I believe in Jesus as my savior but I do not deny I have committed evil in my life. So how can that be? That I guess is where the question came from. A question between my faith and my actions. I think that to take either extremes one would end up with all those dilemmas I mentioned above. So this is where I say what I believe.

Essentially, this really lengthy post is about Beliefs and Actions (i do not use religion because I do not believe in religion. Religion is nothing but pure evil. I prefer the term beliefs). This is my stand, this is where I live my life with (At least at this moment in time). Paraphrasing the teachings of Aristotle - the virtues (or beliefs) of ones life is a mean or balance struck between two extremes, one excessive and the other deficient. I believe in God and I want to follow everything that I am taught to (this would be me being a Christian) but I do not and there are times I will act as thought there is no God and do what my desires drive me to do (this would be me behaving like an atheist). Does this mean i have found an answer to this question?

No. It does not. The question is a paradox. There is not right or wrong answer. There is only what you believe.

A good way of saying this would be from an essay written by Gerald J. Erion & Joseph A. Zeccardi, "Her happiness justifies her life of Aristotelian virtue and proves that people can live moral lives regardless of their religion convictions."

So before the knives get sharpen and the touches are lite, let me just close with this statement I have paraphrased from the above mentioned essay, "Indeed, I am much less concerned with being a good Christian than with being a good person." After all, isn't it through our lives that people will see Christ?

Soli Deo Gloria.

The essay by Gerald J. Erion & Joseph A. Zeccardi is titled "Marge's Moral Motivation" from the book "The Simpsons and Phliosophy."