Don't Need No Proof...

I had a conversation a couple days ago with my Mother. Over the past few years we’ve had an ongoing conversation/debate around the ideas of religion and faith in general. Being that she was the chief influence in my religious “raising”, she of course takes great interest in the current separation of my self from the institution of church. Unlike many children, I maintain a very open and honest relationship with my Mother, and in this posture I am able to have open lines of communication about what I am thinking, and what I am doing. This of course is not always received with open ears, but the acceptance of my thoughts is not my first priority; rather the ability for these thoughts to exist in the first place is where I put most of my energy. And in the case of this particular relationship, my thoughts are allowed their place, which is good and necessary for any ongoing conversation to have any impact on either participant.

This day our conversation revolved around the reliance of people in Christian circles who place more emphasis upon “proofs” rather than “beliefs”. This way of thinking amongst religious people seems to have come out of the “Jesus Movement” generation. In the midst of a world proving everything “scientifically”, religious people decided to try their hand at it themselves. Now the issue wasn’t that they believed that the Bible was the inspired Word of God, but rather that the Bible could be “proved” to be such. It wasn’t that they believed that God created the world from nothing, but that they could “prove” that was the case. With overheads and lectures in hand they came at the world of “science” with these proofs and thought they stood on level ground. I don’t which is worse, that these people thought their proofs would be seen as science, or that they thought level ground ever existed.

Science is about proving things, and as much as evolutionists would like us to believe it, this evolution is still a theory; it has not been proven. At least it has not been proven with the certainty of the known scientific laws, such as gravity and cause and effect. It’s a theory, and though these “proof” Christians would like as to think differently, so is the idea of creation, or “intelligent design” as it’s being called these days. So if both are theories, what’s my point? I guess it’s that “proof” just ain’t gonna get ya there; not if you’re talking about things of faith, belief in things that are unseen and thus hard to prove beyond a shadow of any certainty. If I could be accused of anything, as far as an agenda is concerned, it’s that I want the “proof” generation to remember what it was like when they believed without proof, when they believed because something proved itself without any help from the believer.