I'm a pretty happy person. It takes a lot to rile me up. Here are couple things that make me actually so angry that I'm willing to show that anger and even say something about it:
1) The adult bookstore by my house makes me furious. Mostly because they tore down some ugly building and started building this gorgeous place with flagstones and good landscaping and I thought, "finally, something to make our community more beautiful!" and wouldn't you know, it's a store designed to profit from the sin and weaknesses of others. Ohhh, I hate that building and all that it stands for and I pray that it will go out of business so it can stop assisting people in ruining their lives.
2) I get mad when people go against a member of my family. This rarely happens, but I seriously wanted to find the people who once pulled a gun on my brother (years ago) and chase them down and explain to them the value of life...with my fists. This is probably not the best reaction to have for many reasons, but my anger in this case makes me irrational.
3) I get mad when people think that my faith makes me stupid or that I must be stupid to have faith. There is a billboard up right now that states: "Faith does not have the answers, it impedes questions."
I get mad at this for two reasons, the first that people are advertising lies about my faith to encourage me to believe in their universalism (or atheism). I am assuming the next part, since I don't really know the beliefs of the creators of this billboard, but I assume they believe in relative truth. Many people believe that truth is relative with respect to each individual. Like I may believe that purple elephants created the world and you may believe that it was actually yellow turtles and that neither of us has a right to declare one to be true over the other. One is true for you and the other is true for me. No truth can be proven absolutely, so there is no absolute truth. This kind of relativistic tolerance is given to everyone as long as everyone subscribes to this relativistic tolerance. I can believe what I believe as long as I agree that my truth might not be the only truth. But that, in itself is a statement of truth. It is an axiom of living. People who believe their is no absolute truth, believe absolutely in a truth that there is no absolute truth. It's a paradox. Everyone believes in something, even people who believe in nothing, that's a belief. I get mad because these people are trying to convince me to stop believing in my truth and start believing in theirs, by declaring belief to be a stupid thing. It's simply illogical.
The second reason I get mad is that they say that faith impedes questions. I'm assuming they mean that my faith tells me or forces me to squelch my questions and just blindly follow what is put before me as truth. My faith says that I must turn off any inquisitive intellectual devices within me, and just believe. I am less mad about this and more eager to clarify.
I teach math, a subject which people are quite willing to express their frustrations with, loathing of, and general inability to understand. "I'm just not a math person" "I don't have a math gene" "I was never good at math". Math is not a mystery which only the smartest can unravel (well, some of the crazier stuff, yes, but not algebra). People just haven't seen it expressed in the best way for them to understand it. But because of possibly poor teaching, people assume that all math is too hard for them.
Faith is like this. There are people who are people of faith who say to people with questions, "You just have to believe, stop asking questions!" I'm sure there are plenty of people who have had questions about the hows, whats, whys, and even some I'm not sures about Christianity and have been told that questioning is wrong. So I see why the billboard may have said what it says, but please don't attribute all faith with the failings of some of its followers. Just as I ask you to not attribute your frustrations with mathematics to math itself, but in the way it was presented to you.
You see, God created us with intelligent, curious, inquisitive minds and asks us to use them. He created so many things with so many complex mysteries and presents them to us as a puzzle to be solved. But, just like any good teacher, God exposes us to the puzzle, asks us to question and guides us to the truth. I reward my students for asking good questions, and I reward them for answering these questions, but I don't say, "Sure, you can believe that," for any and every answer they give. I tell them they are wrong if they are wrong and to keep trying until they get it right. Sometimes I give them the answers, sometimes I give them the steps and guidelines they must follow to get to the right answer, and sometimes I let them discover the truth for themselves. God is like this with us. Some answers he just plain gives us, some he presents guidelines for, some we must discover on our own, and some we must accept as unknowable mysteries to be revealed later.
I am sorry for people who feel like faith is for blind, unquestioning followers. I am angry at people who think that I throw aside my logical or scientific brain when I approach scripture and faith. And I really want to tear down that billboard (although I believe in the freedom of speech, and I'm totally against vandalism...)but I hope that I live my life in such a way that people see that intelligence and faith do have a place together. That my creative, wise,logical, intelligent God welcomes my questions and fills me with the answers either in this world or the next.
So bring on your questions, God welcomes them. The answers I find only make my faith stronger.
