Yesterday I titled my message, “Faith not Fact.” Today I say, “Just because faith is not fact, it does not make it fiction.

Some may ask, “How in the world does this make any sense logically.”

It’s easy you see.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines faith a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty

(1) : fidelity to one's promises

(2) : sincerity of intentions

•\tacted in good faith

(1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God

(2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion

(1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof

•\tclinging to the faith that her missing son would one day return

(2) : complete trust

3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs

How can you make something a fact when it’s not direct evidence? How can you make something fictional, when situations occur daily that are not easily understood or explained by science and/or the medical field? How can you explain that of physicians polled believed religion and spirituality (including prayer) have a positive influence on health and recovery . Aren’t doctors some of the supposed “most intelligent” people on the planet? How then, do they overwhelming admit that prayer and other spiritual factors may have an influence on healing?

Yet the author of the video, “10 Questions Every Intelligent Christian Must Answer” seeks to poke fun at the intelligence of a Christian. He basically states that a Christian believes in an imaginary friend. I don’t know about you, but the last time I checked anyone who believes in an imaginary friend past the age of six is considered a little slow.

How can we be intelligent if we have an imaginary friend?

One way a person with low self-esteem attempts to hide his or her insecurities is by bashing others for what they stand for or what they enjoy doing. Rather than spending time enjoying your own hobbies and chasing after your own passions, these people waste precious time and energy trying to scrutinize the passions of others.

They tend to mask behind their own insecurity with statements about how intelligent they are and how much more they know. Yet, a wise person is never boastful because it contradicts everything about wisdom. Sometimes it’s wise to walk away but other times you have to stand up for what’s right.

The author of “10 Questions Every Intelligent Christian Must Answer” is not right, and despite some interesting points he brings up, he just does not get it. I’ll now try to make up a “lousy excuse for God’s behalf.”

Prayer and Healing

Prayer is considered one of the most powerful tools (and even weapons) in Christianity. One very popular example is about a young girl who was traveling alone through an alley where a victim was subject to rape just the day before. The rapist was waiting in the same alley again that day for his next victim. When the girl noticed the suspicious looking man, she instantly felt something was not right. She said a quick prayer, asking God to protect her. She continued walking and passed by the suspicious individual without harm. Weeks later the suspect was arrested and confessed to everything. The girl who walked by that day became a vital witness in the case. When asked why he didn’t attack this particular girl, the man responded, “Are you crazy? She had two men walking on each side of her.”

The guardian angel story is one of many miracles that cannot really be explained. It just happens and the parties involved are never the same again.

In the video, the author poses two questions about prayer and healing. Why does God not heal amputee legs and why does God not provide food for the millions that are hungry in Asia, Africa, etc?

Two great questions with no easy answer. In the Gospels, it does say that God will answer any prayer. Unfortunately, we do not know when the answer will come. It’s important to remember that God works on his time and not ours. If it was our time, everything would happen right away. We need to pray but we also must do our part to help. Are you donating money and other goods to those who need it over in Third World countries? Is the author of this video?

While God will answer prayers, we cannot just ask anything and assume it will magically appear. If that was the case, we would know God did exist and everyone would be a Christian. God is not a genie who grants you three wishes. He answers prayers in a very mysterious way. In today’s world we all want the quick fix, but God’s timetable is just not so. We have to look in the mirror before we point the finger at God. We also must trust completely in God and surrender everything to him before we can believe that anything will really happen.

I do not turn to another individual and demand that he instantly solves this issue for me. God is different yet if he solved everything instantly, the room for doubt would no longer exist.

God works in mysterious ways and you just have to accept it as truth if you really want to believe that he will eventually make a difference. Even non-believers in America without prayer must admit that they are not doing their part financially to support world poverty and hunger despite being in a privileged circumstance to actually have the ability to help.

God’s Demand on Death

The author cites Exodus 35:2, Deuteronomy 21:18-21, Leviticus 20:13, Deuteronomy 22:13-21, and other verses in the Old Testament as examples of an unloving God who was quick to put people to death based on the old law. It’s important to remember that the Old Testament and New Testament are highly different and each represent a different covenant.

As I stated last week, it’s important that we retain some of the old law such as the Ten Commandments. However, it’s obviously that not everything in the Old Testament is correct and or relevant to today’s society. The old law, which the four examples cited above fall under, was broken when Jesus Christ arrived on earth and died for our sins. His death on the cross represents the new covenant between God and man, one that broke the old covenant in the Old Testament.

Remember, back in the Old Testament only certain priests and certain prophets were filled with the Holy Spirit and only those individuals had direct communication with God. The law was established under Moses to keep “God’s people” under check as they left Egypt during Exodus.

The people in Exodus constantly complained and gripped in the desert despite just months earlier being freed from bondage in Egypt. They wanted instant answers much like the author of the video. God continued to show up and make known his presence. The people would flea in fear and then return to bitching as soon as God left.

If you have studied Exodus like I have, I think it’s quite clear that God is actually very loving and forgiving. God had plenty of opportunities to ditch this earth, starting with the original sin, yet he never left.

Yes, the four scriptures cited in the video talk about putting individuals to death, but they were all very serious offenses at the time. What’s to say it’s any different from a death penalty (which is even no longer considered politically correct) that punishes murderers?

Some may argue that killing someone for not honoring the Sabbath is very extreme yet they do not understand the importance of the Sabbath on Jewish culture. Others may say that killing disobedient teenagers is rash, yet couldn’t we afford to punish our rebellious teenagers just a little more in today’s culture. I’m not saying we kill them, but we’re way too soft on the young generation.

Homosexuality and fornication are two issues that each individual must decide whether or not is just. At the time these laws were written, they were nearly as serious as murder. You have to understand the time period and that they no longer apply today because of the new covenant.

In fact, when Jesus appeared, he said “the greatest commandment was to love God and the second was to love your neighbor.”

He preached love, mercy, and passive aggressive behavior rather than the person the author of the video makes him out to be.

The ultimate battle in today’s society is the warfare between science and the warfare of religion. Many religious individuals instantly neglect anything that is scientific and write it off without checking the facts. Individuals in science on the other hand are too focused on just the facts and often judge anyone who actually believes in a higher power.

An individual with a world that revolves around science is afraid to take risks. For them, everything is centered on what they know and what they can prove. If faith is the belief in something you cannot prove, how can you acknowledge God and religion?

One of the biggest bashes against the Bible include references to passages that go against scientific theory. Obviously God creating the world in six days completely goes against “The Big Bang Theory” and what science understands about earth’s creation. The great flood that also wiped out the entire earth is heavily discouraged in science. The video also cites Jonah living inside a whale for three days and Adam being created from a handful of dust.

Sure, Elijah was carried up into heaven in a “fiery chariot” into heaven too. How can you possibly prove that someone can enter heaven before dying? How can you prove that Jesus walked on water?

You cannot. Some of these circumstances in the Bible completely go against physics and basic scientific reasoning but does that make them fairy tales? Of course not. If you really believe in God and Jesus Christ as supernatural being, than you agree that they can make the impossible possible. I know I cannot walk on water, but I do not know the same about Jesus.

Could I alone live in a whale’s stomach for three days? No way. But what about under the supervision and power of God? You bet.

How does someone just one day decide to wake up after being induced for years in a coma? Is it mere chance or a divine power? Science cannot prove everything either.

A good friend of mine constantly states that one of his beefs with the Bible is the fact that it says “slaves, obey your masters.”

Like the author of this video, for my friend, this just does not make any sense.

What kind of rational person would warrant slavery?

This question that haunts every believer, but once again you have to consider the time period. At the time these passages were written, slavery was very common and accepted as “status quo.” Obviously a time arrived in society when the majority of the world tossed out slavery as taboo.

The video says that any intelligent person cannot support slavery, yet many of the forefathers of this great nation owned slaves. Abraham Lincoln, great of a man as he was, made slavery illegal in part because of peer pressure as much as doing what he knew was right. Are we saying all of our forefathers were dumb? If so, this nation was built on a lie.

Don’t get me wrong. I completely oppose slavery, but you have to consider the times. Abortion for example, is becoming more and more accepted in society. Yet a “radical” could argue that abortion is genocide in disguise. If we fast forward six hundred years and abortion is no longer legal, would people in that generation automatically write off our generation as dumb and ignorant? Despite all our technological advances, would we be haunted by one major misconception?