My Story: Part 10

My Story: Index
Continued from part 9...

As I intensified my examination of the Bible, I would often watch debates on Youtube.  One of the things I often heard the non-believers say was that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."  In particular, I remember having heard this from Christopher Hitchens, and that he credited that maxim to the ideas of David Hume and Thomas Paine.  Hitchens spoke very highly of those men, and of Thomas Jefferson, too.  I was really interested in Jefferson at the time, so I became very interested in reading what Hitchens, Hume, Paine, and Jefferson had written on the topic of religion.

Other than the eloquence and wit with which Hitchens wrote, I wasn't much impressed by him.  However, I did glean several important things from him.  First of all, his propensity to quote other religious thinkers (most of whom I hadn't previously heard of) led me to discover the writings of those individuals, most noteworthy being On Miracles by David Hume and The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine.  Secondly, Hitchens taught me that if a Christian was able to prove that there was a God (hypothetically speaking, of course), they would still have all their work ahead of them to prove that that God was the Christian God (or Jewish, or Muslim, etc., in the case of a Jew or Muslim), and that the Bible was inspired by Him.

This latter idea was a significant one for me to realize because previously I had thought that my belief in God somehow lent credence to the literal truth of the Bible; that God's very existence was a reason to believe in the Bible. I learned, however, that this was not the case, for, as I learned Jefferson, Paine, and Hume believed, perhaps there is a God, yet He didn't inspire the Bible (or, not all of it, at least).  Basically, I learned that the existence of God doesn't mean the Bible is true. That's a rather simple idea, but one that I hadn't given much thought to.

This exercise in logic led me to study quite a bit more on the topic of logic.  I listened to many podcasts and an Oxford University course on the topic.  I learned just how important logic was to the pursuit of truth, and, unfortunately, how little prior knowledge I had on the subject.  I grew to really love logic and the practice of identifying logical fallacies.

One logical fallacy I learned about in particular was that of "shifting the burden of proof."  Interestingly enough, this fallacy was at the heart of why I believed in certain stories of the Bible, e.g. the Exodus.  I believed in the Exodus, in large part, because I didn't know how to disprove it.  In effect, I was essentially shifting the burden of proof away from myself, and placing it on the person who didn't believe the Exodus, attempting to force them to give me the reasons not to believe it.  However, according to the fallacy of "shifting the burden of proof," this was incorrect reasoning.  Instead, I, as a believer in the Exodus, should have had to give the reasons to believe it, not the other way around.  In short, one should only believe something because of the evidence for that thing, not because of not knowing any evidence against that thing  (for another example, see Russell's Teapot).

This and similar realizations brought to light the importance of evidence in determining truth.  I learned that evidence, and the proper interpretation of it, is really one of the main ways (if not the only way) to know the truth about anything whatsoever, let alone the truth about the Bible.  This idea is known within the field of epistemology as evidentialism.  I learned that evidentialism forms, in large part, the basis of science, history, and really all fields of scholarship relevant to my questions.

Inherent in the philosophy of evidentialism is that, when analyzing any given claim, agnosticism is the proper starting point.  In other words, one should start by saying "I don't know whether x is true," and then proceed to analyze the evidence, and follow wherever it leads.  As I applied these ideas to my belief in the Bible, I found myself often saying I didn't know what parts of it were true anymore.

This was mainly the case for the parts of the Bible that were miraculous.  The reason for this was because of the aforementioned maxim "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." (which, later on I learned was mathematically grounded in the laws of probability, viz. Bayes Theorem).  In a nut shell, this idea says that (unlike the evidence we need for natural events) we need lots of extremely good evidence to believe that in the ancient past a Supernatural Entity intervened in the physical world and performed deeds that went contrary to the known laws of nature.  Without such evidence, the miracle stories shouldn't be believed.  Natural, more common stories, on the other hand, can be justified by only a little evidence.  Therefore, of all the stories in the Bible, the miracle stories need the most evidence in order to justify believing in them.

As time went on, and my belief in the Bible started to dwindle, I began to indentify myself as a Deist.  I soon realized that my belief in God was even more foundational to my faith than what my belief in the Bible had used to be (that seems so obvious now, but at the time it was a somewhat new idea for me).  So, in order to be consistent, I started critically examining my belief in God, too.

I can remember listening to hours upon hours of mp3s of debates and audio books during my night-shift job at the shop.  The nature of my work allowed me to physically go on auto-pilot so that I could almost fully mentally engage in whatever information I was listening to.  I would really try to put myself in the shoes of both the believer and the non-believer.  It was both emotionally draining and yet deeply satisfying, and I just knew, deep down, that I had to do it.  It felt right to seek for truth in a challenging way.  It was a struggle, though, and many times I didn't know who to side with.

I became fairly familiar with the popular Christian apologists (William Lane Craig, Mike Licona, Gary Habermas, Dinesh D'Souza, Alvin Plantinga, Alister McGrath, etc.) and their arguments (Kalam Cosmological, Fine-Tuning, Ontological, Intelligent Design, Argument from Objective Morality, Minimal Facts Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus, etc. By the way- other than various reformulations of the Kuzari principle, I didn't encounter many rigorous, Jewish arguments.  I wrote about one such formulation of the Kuzari here).  I also became familiar with the popular Atheist/Agnostic debaters (Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Bart Ehrman, Robert Price, Dan Barker, Richard Carrier, John Loftus, etc).

All in all, I began to see faith differently.  Years ago I used to think faith was just knowledge that was spiritual in nature.  Now, however, I've learned to see faith as the belief in something despite the lack of evidence for it.

Some people, I also learned, are OK with having this type of faith- perhaps because it makes them happy, or gives their lives meaning.  I, on the other hand, try to believe in that which there's evidence for.  So, while my journey has led me to agnosticism, I continue to search for evidence, wondering if one day I'll find enough of it to justify having faith again.

My Story: Part 4

My Story: Index
Continued from part 3...

I arrived back at Friend Ships in the summer of 2006.

When I got there, I was expecting to set sail for Israel almost right away.  However, it turned out we had a bunch more work to do before we could leave.

I was part of the loading crew.  I worked in the warehouse making pallet-loads of cargo and marking them for proper storage on the ship.  We loaded several hundred pallets of clothing, medical supplies, toys, building material, and other stuff.

The ship was an old ammo ship from World War II.  It was a bit longer than a football field, and housed a crew of 40-50 people.  We repainted it before we left, and finally set sail in the fall of '06.

I shared a small room with 3 other guys.  It had 2 sets of bunk beds and a small sink.  The bathroom was down hall.  Two of my roomies worked in the engine room, and the other worked on the bridge.  I worked out on the deck crew.

We worked 7 days a week.  The deck crew ran an 8am-5pm shift.  The engine room and bridge crews, however, ran 3 rotating shifts, 24 hours a day.  There was the 12-4 shift, the 4-8 shift, and the 8-12 shift.  Whichever shift you had you worked both the AM and the PM hours, e.g. the 12-4 shift worked both 12am - 4am and 12pm - 4pm.  So, you'd have 4 hours on, 8 hours off, 4 hours on, 8 hours off. 24/7.

It took us over a month to get to Israel.  The ship was slow, the weather was bad, and... the ship was slow.  I remember being out at sea and seeing much bigger cargo ships sail past us at 3 times our speed.  I think our average speed was around 10 knots, which is a little faster than 10 miles per hour.  Sometimes you'd look out over the rails and wonder, "are we even moving?"  However, the constant knocking of the engine assured us that we were at least trying to move.

Life at sea was very simple.  It was methodical.  It was slow.  It gave you time to read, to sit, to talk, to play games, to watch movies.  I did a lot of reading and praying.  Actually, I don't think I've ever prayed more than that in my entire life.  The vast, ocean views inspired much prayer and reflection.  I really loved that part about sea life.

When we got to Israel, it was sometime near the Day of Atonement, i.e. Yom Kippur.  I must admit, though I prided myself on reading and knowing the Bible, I didn't know much about the Day of Atonement, nor any other Jewish holiday for that matter.  I knew they were explained in the Bible, but they were in the Old Testament.  At the time, I didn't care much for most of the Old Testament laws.

I had been to a Messianic Jewish Passover meal once or twice before, but other than that, I was pretty ignorant about Jewish practices.  So, when the crew was allowed to get off the ship and do some site-seeing during the time of the Feast of Booths, i.e. Sukkot, I didn't know what to expect.  I do remember thinking, however, that if only the Jews believed in Jesus, then they could put away the laws and practices of the Old Testament and get on God's program for today, the New Testament.  Oh, how zealous and naive I was.

We spent about 40 days in Israel.  We had encountered some delays, and for the most part, everyone loved the opportunity to be there and help.  We got to travel, make some Jewish friends, eat at several nice, kosher restaurants, and, of course, spend time in Jerusalem.  Actually,  one of my most memorable experiences in Israel happened in Jerusalem.  But that story requires a bit of setup...

At that point in my faith journey, I was extremely interested in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  I had wondered if I ever was baptized in the Holy Spirit.  Some Christians said that all Christians were baptized in the Holy Spirit when they first believed in Jesus and accepted Him into their hearts.  Other Christians said that not every Christian gets baptized in the Holy Spirit, but rather God gives it to those who ask and seek after it.  I found myself adopting the latter view.  So, I made it a top goal of mine to pray that God would baptize me in the Holy Spirit.  In the book of Acts, those who were baptized in the Holy Spirit spoke in tongues immediately afterward, as a kind of sign or proof that they indeed had received the baptism.  So, that's what I prayed for.  I can remember being down in the bowels of the ship somewhere, all by myself, and praying for the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Then, I would let my mouth go limp and hope that God would take over and cause me to speak in tongues.  At one point, I thought it may have started to happen to me, but then realized my mouth was moving due to the swaying of the ship.  Dangit!  So close!

One day, a group of us were walking around Jerusalem, just bumming around and hanging out.  Somebody decided to take a turn down a street that very few people were walking on.  This led us to some stairs, a few doorways, and eventually to a big room where some people were gathered.  We asked around and found out that we were in the traditional "upper room" from the book of Acts.  The "upper room" is the place where the disciples were gathered when, during the holiday of Pentecost, i.e. Shavuot, they were all baptized in the Holy Spirit!  Surely, I thought, God was telling me that I'd soon be baptized in the Holy Spirit.  I can remember being very excited about it.  It never happened to me, however.

Go to part 5...

My Story: Part 2

My Story: Index
Continued from Part 1...

Working for Friend Ships was a truly life-changing experience.

It allowed me to be around fellow believers all the time, which really led me to study and practice my faith intensely.  I remember putting in long days of volunteer work while listening to sermons on my mp3 player, and staying up late nights while reading the Bible, Christian books, websites, biographies, etc.  I especially loved the real-life stories of answered prayers, healings, and living by faith.

At that time, my prayer life was really taking off.  Especially after I read authors like E.M. Bounds, I would set aside large chunks of time to lose myself in prayer.  In those days it felt easy to get up early before work and get on my face before the Lord.  I would pray about my friends, my family, miracles, provisions, lost souls, everything!

My theological views were getting increasingly more charismatic.  I preferred going to Pentecostal churches where the worship got a little wild.  I wasn't that crazy of a worshipper, especially in public, but I liked the emphasis on prayer and the acceptance of praying in tongues.

I was young and naive at the time, and I thought praying in tongues was quite great.  I hardly prayed in tongues out loud, however.  When I did it, I was quiet, unless I was alone.   At times it felt really good, like I was able to express things that were deep inside of me, things inaccessible by real words.  It was occasionally a very emotional experience for me.  I can remember times of being alone while doing it and sincerely laughing or crying.  It was powerful, and, looking back, quite strange.

Toward the end of my first 6 months at Friend Ships, I learned about Heidi Baker, and her ministry called Iris Ministries.  This woman just knocked my socks off.  I was truly inspired by her life, and that of her husband.  They were super charismatic, and totally on fire for Jesus and mission work.  And they lived by faith, which was big for me.  Not only that, but they lived by faith in Africa, and where it was poor.   That really got my attention.  I was living by faith in the richest country in the world.  How hard could that be?  We have plenty here!  But Heidi and Rolland (her husband) Baker were living by faith in the poor regions of Africa.  Now that took a lot of faith!

I decided I needed to live more like the Bakers.  So, I left Friend Ships.  I wasn't really sure what I was going to do, but I knew it was going to be faith-centered, prayer driven, and aimed at the goal of spreading the love of Jesus to the world.

Go to Part 3...

Discussion on Miracles

There was an interesting article on miracles posted on the PleaseConvinceMe Blog.  Check out the comments for my thoughts.