Losing one's religion

I was perusing the preface and introduction of Bart Erhman’s Book “God’s Problem” and there he says that the book pretty much raises the issues that led him to abandon his faith in God, leaving him a mere agnostic…
I must confess that I was a little sad. For me, he had been one of those rarities, a Christian with intellectual integrity, that showed that the two were not mutually exclusive…challenging to keep, yes, but not impossible. It require stamina and creativity, as well as humility, but Bart had done that. He presented in his books the arguments that in the hands of lesser minds would have had automatically led them to use them as atheistic arguments and yet they were being made by a…Christian.
Now, here I was reading, that had come to an end.
Sure, it came to an end on the most controversial question, which is the question about the righteous sufferer, but still what does that say? Am I right to believe that a person with intellectual integrity can believe in God? And that is important. He didn’t simply stopped being a Christian (frankly I don’t call myself a Christian anymore either), but stopped being a theist period. He is short of being an atheist, but at this point it seems that he has more reason to be an atheist than to be a theist.

I wonder if the collapse of his fate is perhaps more logical than the preservation of one’s faith knowing what he did know? Is a man, independent of organized religion and it’s tradition capable by himself to arrive at a belief in God, in a Creator? Is God a mere convention or something so palpable that requires no religion? And is the POE the cause for his agnosticism, or anyone else?

While formidable, the POE is merely challenge to pat conception and narrations about God. It is a warning against the excessive systematization of God that reduces God to an idea that has lost it’s impetus, it’s vitality, it’s connection to life. It challenges us to rethink the qualities of God, either dehumanizing God while retaining His strenght, or by debilitating Him for the sake of maintaining His humanity. But what I do not see it is as a clear path to atheism or agnosticism. Perhaps it is, once you have refused to evolve your beliefs.

I’ll have to read it further. Unfortunately I am already on another book, but I was curious to hear your thoughts on the matter.

When the emotional return is less than the emotional input to ones faith, then the faith is in jeopardy of loss.
It may not be the first time, as you stated, a person may evolve their faith and continue on.
However, every time this occurs is yet another tax upon the individual’s emotional integrity.
Think of it like economics, somewhat.

Every recession is a potential for a hard crash, but can be lifted by re-stimulating the economy in some manner.
However, the more frequent these recessions take place, the fewer resources are available to re-stimulate the economy.
If these recessions take place in high amplitudes (dramatic dips) and also at a frequency faster than the emotional fortitude has to rebuild, then an individual can end up in a faith-based double, triple, or more recession; one piled effectively on top of the other in close proximity.

Regardless of how logical of an argument to their mind could be made, they may quite easily run out of emotional energy to afford the re-stimulation.
At this point, faith will likely be lost.
“Burn out”, as some Christians in the West have called it.

Sometimes people are holding up a faith that simply doesn’t work for them.
Sometimes, societies are holding up economies that simply do not work for them.

And the reason for both of those actions can be that it is an incredible task to revamp your entire existential economic infrastructure in much the same manner as it is an incredible task to revamp an entire society’s economic infrastructure.
Especially if you have to do that by yourself, as many quite educated individuals would have to do.
And they would because they have already created a far more complex economy that collapsed than anyone around them is likely going to be able to offer.
Replacing an advanced and complicated arrangement of spiritually emotional economics with simplified emotional economics will likely be unattractive to most people.
That is unless they are in, “retirement”; a stage where questioning has taxed so heavily that care has left completely and the emotional gain of faith is desired without the complex task of the critical examination of it.

But if the individual hasn’t “retired”, then it will be unlikely that they will just up and select a new pre-made faith due to the above dichotomy of complexity compensation.

If they really want a faith, they would have to rebuild completely on their own, and some folks will simply not have enough emotional fortitude left to pull up the boot straps and give another go from zero after years and years of trying to rebuild a continually crumbling faith held previously.

What’s that question? If its what I think it is, then for me wisdom and suffering are two sides of the same coin. As a father I expect my children to suffer life’s trials and learn from them. Admittedly there comes a point when too much suffering fails to give lessons, and takes one away from the teachings, in fact I’d say that many lessons derive of ridiculous origins.

I did, though it’s a struggle, I put my everything into it and get very little back, in fact I sometimes think the outcome is nought but total destruction, that divinity abhors existence.
The only thing left is the vague notion that it will be alright in the end, even if that’s after life. Though that cannot be personal salvation if the self no longer exists - perhaps.

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Why is it that everyone questions God when confronted by innocent suffering? Scratch that, I know why. There are good reasons why. My real question is why other crises aren’t experienced instead. There are other live options before turning on God.

Let me put it this way: Suffering is tolerable when we think we deserve it. That’s justice. Suffering becomes intolerable when we are innocent, because we think that means God cannot be good or all powerful. What is intolerable is not the suffering per se but God. Faith in God is revoked when we are confronted by innocent suffering.

But aren’t there other responses to this problem? Or rather, other crises that may result? Why are we so quick to curse God when things get bad for us?

Shouldn’t we be wondering about our status as humankind instead? That God has revoked our being tselem Elohim?

Innocent suffering should not lead us to question God, but rather it should lead us to question ourselves, innocent though we may be. We should be wondering whether God has at last realized or accepted our true worth, and that far from being crown-able in glory and honour our proper place is the ash heap instead.

(Don’t get me wrong, I believe we are tselem Elohim and God would never revoke that statement. I just wonder why innocent suffering does not lead us to a crisis of faith in humankind, as it does in Job. I wonder how we can so easily pass over this live option and turn on God so quick when it is clear we are far from good.)

I wouldn’t say its human kinds fault nor gods, stuff happens and there doesn’t have to be anyone at fault. Unless we want a pointless puppeteer god we have to accept fate and causality.

What is the end result? At the end of our lives surely no matter what we are improved upon.
Surely wisdom lies in that finality rather than the means to it.

Yes, there are options. I don’t want to close down the possibilities. Just saying that these one-time theists who turn their backs on God because of innocent suffering are missing some serious possibilities for what they see, possibilities that don’t malign God. That is, one reason the innocent may suffer is because God has given up on humankind. Given the state of the world God would have good reason to do so, and the revocation of our being in God’s image would equally explain the removal of God’s protection and blessing from us.

I’m not sure what you mean here. Let me offer something equally obscure: Fear of God, that is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of humankind is the end.

I take it, then, that we wouldn’t be talking about one of them fancy Unconditionally Loving Gods?

Perhaps the emergent atheist ceases to see need to attempt to believe in Gods that can’t muster the positive aspects of those Gods they once childishly adored… Why bother attempting to believe in a God that has abandoned humanity? Now, granted, though, that would truly be a feat of Faith, if it were truly achieved. But what would be the purpose of such resolutely self-preservative Faith?

If we were to believe that God has tossed us into the trash then yes, we would also belive that God is not unconditionally loving. We could still have faith in God’s goodness or justice but not God’s unconditional love. But keep in mind I’m putting this forward as a possible explanation for innocent suffering, not because I believe it. More precisely, I think that this is what Job comes to think as a result of his treatment, not that God is unjust, but that God has revoked his near-God status as humankind. What Job struggles to stay true to is his being tselem Elohim.

Good question, but an even better one might be: “why keep living when God has abandoned humanity?” Our faith in God may be the only thing that keeps us going. That allows us, despite all evidence, to hold out that maybe we can be redeemed, that we aren’t garbage after all and can earn back our crown.

Hmm, well, as an emerged atheist I would have to answer, “Because I haven’t abandoned it.” I can understand people thinking that their faith in God is the only thing keeping them going, and even that, for they themselves, such might be true. But it simply isn’t true of me. So where does that leave us? Perhaps it’s better to travel light?

btw aly, I’ve very much appreciated your reflections on Job, and don’t in the least mean this as a slight. But by my less considered recogning: if, in fact I have a soul, and if my person were subjected to Job’s lot, it would be screaming bloody murder, awaiting in defiance the swipe of a divine forearm which would silence my cosmic skweak with the definity of a finitude fully contained.

Perhaps some credence ought be given to the modern ear’s naïve perception of that tale, insofar as it surely has expressed what any considerate modern theist would grant is yardage for the atheist to take without even a whistle…

Hello Jayson,
I get what you’re saying but I think that Bart was affected a lot by what he perceived around him, the tragedies and meaningless suffering taking place around him much more than to him alone. His faith was tasked by what happened to him but also to what happened all around the globe as well. But that said there were others ingredients, for everyone is in some way aware of the suffering of others across the globe, thanks to the media, and yet have not abandoned all hope in God. They may have abandoned hope in prayers, in the Christian patted version of God, but not in God as a reality. There is a bit of stiff-neckedness in him, a refusal to back down from the claims of orthodoxy. So he retains, even in the face of reality, that God in actuality (rather than in the perception of Biblical writers) has to be all-powerful, all-good, all-too-human. His ways must be our ways.
Those hebrews had, what Nietzsche would have called, “heroic faith” because belief in God was not determined by comprehensibility, that God is clearly revealed. Job asked the question, yet accepted the mystery as an answer that he might have had a God yet still. Ehrman however disagrees with Job fundamentally. He disagrees with the mentality of the believer, of hope in the face of hopelessness. He rather call a spade a spade and that to me is arrogant. For the Isrealite was never shy to face suffering as a detractor from the belief in God and yet never took the bait, never raised himself to the level of God that he could know that there was none period, or one morally bankrupt.

If everything was on earth as it was in heaven, would we still have faith?
No.

If there was no trial and tribulation, no test and God was there, visibly walking and talking amongst us, then I would not think that we would be talking about faith anymore than we have faith that Obama exist- we know he does. But it would be no credit to us to state the obvious. It is to our credit to see beyond our station, even in science (no one has seen a mouse emerge from a fly, but we believe in evolution), and yet this cannot be without faith.

Hello quetz,

— What’s that question? If its what I think it is, then for me wisdom and suffering are two sides of the same coin. As a father I expect my children to suffer life’s trials and learn from them. Admittedly there comes a point when too much suffering fails to give lessons, and takes one away from the teachings, in fact I’d say that many lessons derive of ridiculous origins.
O- There you go…You made the objection and the rebuttal in one swift move. I would only add some suffering kills, which leaves no-one the wiser.

— I did, though it’s a struggle, I put my everything into it and get very little back, in fact I sometimes think the outcome is nought but total destruction, that divinity abhors existence.
The only thing left is the vague notion that it will be alright in the end, even if that’s after life. Though that cannot be personal salvation if the self no longer exists - perhaps.
O- Have you ever gotten this Deistic idea that maybe there is a God but that he is so inhuman as to leave us in reality with a universe that might as well as well have no God? Because God is God, to Ehrman for example, to answer prayers. He is a divine Operator: “How may I direct your call”…there for nothing other than to fulfill our wishes. Ehrman does not want to admit a situation, which perhaps is real, that maybe there is a God but that It cares nothing much about humanity. But what if that is the case? Would we still be theists, or does theism implies this nanny-God. Perhaps such God requires no faith, for in such God there is no hope. But what if it is the case? Perhaps we are just emanations of Divine energy that live, transformed into matter, for a brief period before being annihilated, transformed once again into energy that is then reabsorbed into the totality that is “God”?

Aly,
As usual I find you well meaning but ill-informed in the intricacies of the problem. By the way, how is your school work going? I remember that it was probably along these lines…

— Let me put it this way: Suffering is tolerable when we think we deserve it. That’s justice. Suffering becomes intolerable when we are innocent, because we think that means God cannot be good or all powerful. What is intolerable is not the suffering per se but God. Faith in God is revoked when we are confronted by innocent suffering.
O- The problem is not stated as the problem of suffering, but the problem of the righteous suffering. If righteous, then they could not deserve their suffering. Another name given is the POE, the Problem Of Evil, but if the sufferer deserves it, then it is not evil but justice. Job’s friends offered this alternative interpretation to Job’s suffering, which we would have had to admit provided we did not know about the prelude in heaven.

— But aren’t there other responses to this problem? Or rather, other crises that may result? Why are we so quick to curse God when things get bad for us?
O- For Bart I don’t think it was about how bad it was for himself but how bad it was for million others. There are other responses to the POE. We are quick to blame God, I think, because we are also quick at praising God when good times roll.

— Shouldn’t we be wondering about our status as humankind instead? That God has revoked our being tselem Elohim?
O- I think that Ehrman was very mindful. That he took the realization that we are made in God’s image seriously, which is why he may have taken on the suffering of others upon himself. It is important to open up relationships with others, but can you stop at an image? That would be my question to Ehrman. I know that he is sympathetic to the starving woman and her starving child, but does he know them? Does he have a relationship with them? By what strenght do they pull themselves upright in the morning? Countless would have killed themselves rather than face another day of misery, so what is it? I don’t know, but I doubt that Ehrman does either and before I would walk out on God, I would have liked to know why did that woman refuse to walk out in existence itself. Ehrman learned of her weakness, but did he learn from her strenght?

Absolutely.

Isn’t it great that a book can produce such a viable and pious reading and yet, this reading, should we settle upon it, in fact keeps us from the truth?

I totally accept what you call the “credence” of the “modern ear’s naive perception of the tale”. I would call it the ‘fear of God’ reading, and it reveals an important truth, that fear of God is (the beginning of) wisdom.

What we expect, and indeed can read in the text, is that Job’s fear of God is on the line. This is what the satan wagers will happen, that Job will curse God. It is also somewhat evident in Job’s words, that Job is pissed off at God. It is abundantly clear in God’s response, i.e., that God “silences Job’s cosmic skweak”.

With this reading, Job’s fear of God is reaffirmed or recommitted at the end by God’s grandiose display and Job is humbled as dust and ashes.

The problem with this reading is, well, manifold. 1. God doesn’t come away looking so hot. More of a tyrant. But granted, there are ways out of this difficulty (for instance, we could assume that this was God’s only avenue given the wager with the satan, a shock and awe approach). 2. It becomes difficult to see how Job spoke true about God. Those who read the book this way typically apply God’s assessment only to Job’s final remarks, where he at last speaks true, as if his words all along contain no truth. 3. It tends to ignore Job’s steadfast faith or statements of faith in God throughout the text. Notably, in chap.28, the wisdom poem, where it is clearly stated that fear of God is wisdom. Whether Job is speaking this poem or not we get the impression that Job still knows this. If so we would expect God to deliver a wisdom beyond fear of God…

Anyways, I agree with you wholeheartedly. We must take this reading seriously because the book sets it up for us. My suggestion is that it is a trick or ploy. The book of Job as wisdom calls for us to discern what is really going on, between the lines so to speak (or even quite explicitly at times, such as in Job’s opening lament where he outright curses his humanity, or darkens humankind).

(“Who is this who darkens plans with words without knowledge?” What is it that Job has darkened with his speech? God, or humanity?.. I believe it is the day of his birth and human life in general that Job calls the darkness to consume. Job does not darken God with his words.)

You’re right, I have no idea about Ehrman in particular. But I have immersed myself in the intricacies of this problem. Let’s be fair, none of us can claim to have searched it out or to be “well-informed” on it. We’re all in this together, ill-informed human beings.

(And school work is alright thank you. Course work is complete but it’s hard to produce a thesis of acceptable quality when working full time and looking for a new job! So a little beleaguered at the moment.)

I know what you are saying. And I can agree that this is the logic of the friends. I would nuance it, but the jist is that Job did something to deserve it. That he is not as good as he thinks.

But I would also say that maybe you are failing to see the intricacy of the problem. We can be righteous and still deserve suffering. We can deserve it for reasons beyond ourselves, or things that we personally have done.

Best example I can provide is Sodom and Gomorrah. Would you spare them if ten were innocent? What about one? Or none? These last two questions are never asked yet we cannot help but wonder.

At the least, the fact that they are not asked or answered leaves room for the one innocent man to deserve suffering in light of his being the same make and model as the rest. This is the space that I’m trying to open. Job’s innocent suffering is not for something he did, but because God has given up on humankind. As Eliphaz says, humankind is born to trouble (versus being born in the image of God), and so God is starting over.

I could equally say that we are quick to praise ourselves when good times roll and to forget God! Who needs Her?

But has he ever considered the possibility of its revocation? That’s the question. If he took seriously its revocation the result would not be a loss of faith in God but, I would hope, a new vigour to show what humankind is really worth.

You seem to take our being tselem Elohim as irrevocable. This distinguishes us and is an interesting question to pursue. This aside though, I would stand behind your questions of Ehrman. The strength is what is noteworthy, not the suffering.

The problem is that there are countless explanations of that strength. Maybe they press on for their children’s sake. Maybe because of some irrational hope that things will get better. Maybe they believe in God and want to believe in humankind as well, just like Job. What did Nietzsche say, man can deal with any how so long as he has a why? I think this is part of what makes these questions so hard. The answers are so personal and yet we’re all confronted by the same problem. We want a one-size-fits-all answer but there isn’t one, because we all bring something different forward.

In fact, I would think that pursuing such an answer would distance us from the particular cases, like Job’s, where we see a specific problem and a specific consolation. Probably the only kind that will ever work.

Like you do you here, in the case of Job God too appeals to strength. God appeals to the strength of Behemoth and Leviathan to encourage Job’s own. God incites Job to stand up as a human being, proud and glorious no matter how wretched and weak he may appear.

Would that approach work in every case though? Certainly not. There are plenty out there who need no consoling about the status of humankind. Some people don’t even recognize the POE since God is out of their purview. How are we to console those who don’t even realize their need for consolation? Who pin innocent suffering on a mechanistic worldview and who don’t see that view as a problem? I digress. And maybe there are more answers in God’s words to Job than I want to admit!

By “travel light” you mean only with your faith in humankind? That is the spirit of humanism. But where was that spirit born? What gave it life? Where is it going and where has it taken us?

The secularists / humanists are always going to struggle with the question of origins and ends (let alone vocations). Human life did not give life to itself and while it can assign itself an end (and a vocation) it does so arbitrarily.

In fact, I would say there are two options, at least in terms of our origin (our assigned ends and vocations being quite diverse). There is an impartial, neutral, strike-down-the wicked-and-righteous-alike, mechanistic, heartless kind of origin, or a graced horizon to our existence, an original blessing and benediction and call to life.

Now personally, I don’t take my existence as an ambivalent happening but as a gift. But that’s just me. I can’t take the “travel light” route where all I have is my faith in humankind. That’s not enough.

(Although interestingly, ask yourself which way in fact leads to travelling light. With a life in grace we are called to live by grace, to travel as Jesus commands his disciples, carrying nothing, no provision or extra clothes, relying on the generosity of those we meet. With the other approach it is impossible to travel light because there is no grace to rely upon. Instead, there is a stoic taking care of yourself and providing your own needs, which means being well-stocked, prepared, and therefore heavy laden…)

I’d like to ask everyone if they think religion is beneficial to the seeker? Sometimes it seams like a relentless attack on the ego*, which can be damaging and indeed some areas of life require it*. I do think it is generally beneficial ~ morality etc.

alyoshka

I don’t know how to explain it but somehow the sum of all lives means something.

I take your point though I don’t fear god, nor would I want my children [and hence god his imho] to fear me. Respect, even admire, yes.
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Hi omar

Except from the overseer’s perspective, as like we can learn from history and many of life’s teachings are indeed posthumous.

Well I certainly don’t have the idea of a nanny god. A have been brought to ‘him’ [not sure if my god is the same as others] via ideas about ultimate reality like e.g. the divine infinite [caugant {Druidry}] and nirvana. Nirvana for me leaves a question concerning how we get from that to universe, which surely means creation. From creation we derive causality [because things take on their own course once they interact] and from that evolution. Then you get disease and cancers because microbiology is part of what made us.
My god comes from that ‘ultimate space’, so I don’t think of him so much as a god god - so to say. he wouldnt be inhuman to me, more extra human, just as we are more than animals.

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Hello Aly,
Wish you luck with everything of course. There is no malice when I criticise you. I do as I would a younger brother. I simply had to point out that the POE is a real problem to faith, as Ehrman found out, and it is a problem to reason (logic) as well.

— But I would also say that maybe you are failing to see the intricacy of the problem. We can be righteous and still deserve suffering. We can deserve it for reasons beyond ourselves, or things that we personally have done.
O- If we deserve suffering while being righteous then you have destroyed any logic in the assigment of suffering. Like rain, it fall upon the just as well as the unjust. What then is the meaning of being righteous? Your conclusion was reached by the writer of Ecclesiastes, who said that it is all meaningless and chasing after the wind to do this but not that. That is a fair response to evil. But note that the author does not a cause to our suffering. He merely says that no meaning can be attached to it. Thus we do not suffer because we are good or evil, but it is a blind force that has it’s time…like rain. It rains on the plot of the sinner not because he is good, nor does it fail to rain in the plot of the other because he is righteous. It simply rains for both ragrdless of who they choose to be.
I think that they both agree on the fact that the righteous suffer, but not that they deserve it.

— At the least, the fact that they are not asked or answered leaves room for the one innocent man to deserve suffering in light of his being the same make and model as the rest.
O- That is twisting the silence on record to suit your ways of thinking. “Same make and model”? Reminds me of the idea of God as a Potter. But listen to what the audience says to Paul about that: IF we are such and such make and model it is not our doing but the doing of the Maker and modeler. If we are fallible, then isn’t it the Maker’s fault and not the fault of the clay?

— This is the space that I’m trying to open. Job’s innocent suffering is not for something he did, but because God has given up on humankind. As Eliphaz says, humankind is born to trouble (versus being born in the image of God), and so God is starting over.
O- By torturing one innocent man? That mankind is up to no good only makes it easier to understand why the big deal God had with Satan over whether or not THIS one man was righteous and not just self-interested.

— But has he ever considered the possibility of its revocation? That’s the question. If he took seriously its revocation the result would not be a loss of faith in God but, I would hope, a new vigour to show what humankind is really worth.
O- So God has forsaken us? Is that your explanation to the POE? Interesting…It is in character with God to Hide His Face because He is disappointed in His creation, but in the case of Jopb this was clearly not the case as God was actually fond, and proud of Job.

No doubt about it. My point from the beginning was simply that there are countless crises of faith that could result from it, crises that we should confront and/or overcome prior to losing our faith in God.

Skipping over these live options and jumping straight to a rejection of God strikes me as, well, what did you say in the beginning? Lacking intellectual integrity? I am with you completely on that one.

Let’s look at this on two scales. One the larger scale set in Genesis 1 when humankind is made in the image of God and given dominion over the world, the other the smaller scale of individual lives living within this creational context or vocation.

Now, in the smaller scale of individual lives you are quite right. We would expect our righteousness to result in God’s protection and blessing. But this is precisely because of the creational context that we accept, namely, that we have been ‘hired’ as God’s representatives and workers here on earth. We quite rightly expect payment for the fruits of our labour.

But what if this larger scale is undermined? Or what if God revokes our status as tselem Elohim?

Can we still expect our rightful reward if we, by which I mean humankind as a whole, have been fired or let go?

It is not a matter of personally deserving to be so, but deserving it in virtue of a communal failure.

I don’t think I’m twisting the silence to suit my way of thinking. I think Abraham’s example makes it quite likely for Job to think that he is suffering because of a communal failure. Evidence? Dust and ashes. Where does this precise phrase appear? It appears first in Abraham’s defense of Sodom and Gomorrah. The only other place is in the book of Job. (Dust and ashes individually are used in many other places, but dust and ashes is a rare occurrence.)

This connection alone should cause us to link these two events. i.e., we must tie Abraham’s confrontation of God to Job’s, and relate the themes of the events together.

The question is, what is happening in Abraham’s confrontation? No doubt a lot. But one thing is certain: Abraham is above all trying to justify the wickedness of the many with the righteousness of a few. He is trying to save the many because of a few. (Is the righteous man culpable given the wickedness of the many, or can he save them all from the ash heap because of his example? That is the question.)

In linking these scenes together through the crucial phrase ‘dust and ashes’ we can expect that Job might conclude, due to his treatment or the POE, that the answer is that he does not justify the wickedness of the many. That Job is culpable.

That’s all I’m saying. Job may come to believe that God has revoked the creational context of his being tselem Elohim. Job may reconcile what is happening to him with the belief that he has been let go.

I’m not saying that he is let go (indeed, it is certain that is not, that as you note God loves Job and is very fond of him and faithful to him), I am only saying that this is what Job comes to think. He thinks that he is the one righteous man in Sodom who has to suffer because of the sins of the many, that he deserves this in virtue of the failure of his community. That beyond his own perfect example God has at last given up on humankind and revoked our common status (or employment) as tselem Elohim.

(As for the Pauline reference I don’t see how it is an issue for my thinking. Indeed, blaming God for our faults as the potter is another live option in confronting the POE. I don’t think the audience is right in its argument though. We are not flawed. We are free. There is a freedom required here in virtue of our being called to wisdom. Wisdom requires confrontation and dispute. It requires freedom and a potter who is not to blame for creating one in its own image, one who can be right and wrong and has to take such risks in the confrontation where wisdom is born.)

That God has forsaken him is Job’s answer to the POE. Job the man, not the book. But this is his answer only up until God convinces him otherwise. (God’s speeches in the book are a confirmation of Job’s being tselem Elohim. The two theophanies are a response to ashes and dust respectively, to our potential as humankind and Job’s fulfillment. That’s how God’s words find their sense, as does Job’s final statement in 42:6 “I am consoled about dust and ashes.”)

(There are many answers to the POE. I don’t want to exhaust the possible responses to it. Job’s in particular is what I’ve been trying to describe. It is one of those live options that must be confronted before we proceed to cursing God with any degree of intellectual integrity.)

I’m late to this party, but I’ve read the whole thread and I’m puzzled that there could be any question of losing one’s religion. Omar, you make the comment of becoming “a mere agnostic”. Why the dismissal? Just what is “mere” about arriving at the conclusion that no human construct has found a god. Yes, we’ve invented all sorts of them and laid on all manner of attributes, but no god has presented herself to us despite all the anecdotal tellings over the millenia.

I am not so foolish to declare the impossibility of a creator, but neither am I foolish enough to declare that there is a creator. Agnosticism isn’t “mere”, it is the only honest position that results from careful thought.

But to be fair, let’s assume a creator. Other than wishful thinking, what evidence would anyone suggests that such an entity would be perpetually involved with it’s creation? It seems to me that it is entirely plausible that a creator would provide the created with all the necessary materials, tools, and intelligence for viability and then leave us to our own devices. If one looks at the process patterns of all life forms, this seems to be the prevalent case. Trees grow without a god, wildebeest worship no god, and yet all living things come into being, mature, and return to the flow seemingly without the need of a watchful creator. Only humans speak of gods. Is our sentience really that special? Losing one’s religion seems like a step forward, not a loss at all.