Some remarks on the comments on my last post... I find it unbelievably insensitive that anyone would argue with someone who is grieving, or accuse them (or the person who died) of being responsible for the death due to lack of faith. It baffles me, it is cold and it seems less than human. Regardless of the changes in how I view Jesus, it's not something I would expect him to inspire. He blessed those who mourn, he didn't condemn them.

Trevor's comments hit home, especially this part:

"I too went through a time of questioning when my mom died, It wasn't about whether there was a God, I did that when she was diagnosed with cancer, it was more about who God is. I guess I'm still working through that but I will say this, we like to make Him who we want Him to be and when He doesn't fit that we point the blame the wrong way. Mom died. Maybe it was her time to go. Maybe God saw the bigger picture. Maybe he doesn't heal everyone. Maybe just maybe and I'm not saying for sure but maybe God just plain doesn't heal anyone. But any argument from scripture or that guy's thoughts doesn't change the fact that mom loved God so much and mom is dead. Sometimes things we experience don't always line up with things we believe.
But I still believe in God. I can't change that. I just have to keep figuring out why he works the way he does some times.

That's where I was at until October 2003, that's how I moved through bible college and the place from which I tried to construct a functional theology. Jane's death (and Kathleen's death, and my experiences with a manipulative church, etc.) didn't make me question God's existence, that was obvious to me and I didn't question it until much later. It made me question his intentions. It made me question which verses I could count on to be effective in the real world.

I get emails almost every week in response to my Faith Dissolved site, usually from Christians who want to help. These people often tell me that they can't see why I left, and that I didn't list any reasons, and have I ever thought that maybe things are more about having a relationship with God than understanding him? Somehow they miss the entries where I talk about having a relationship with God, where I talk about finding him beautiful or merciful or active. I suppose they just can't comprehend my going from that to atheism, so they assume that I couldn't have really been a Christian, obviously didn't really know God. Well, as bizarre as it is to say from an atheistic perspective... I did know God. I believed that I communicated with him and he with me. I don't know how to explain that except to tell a story.

My parents never taught us about Santa Claus, it just wasn't part of Christmas for us. I remember being at a friend's house when I was about seven years old, and having him tell me that he saw Rudolph fly across the sky on Christmas Eve. He was convinced, it wasn't a plane, he knows what planes look like, this was Rudolph. I, of course, knew that it couldn't have been, that it was preposterous, but he knew that it absolutely was. He knew that Santa was real because he had seen his reindeer. I knew that Jesus was real because I talked to him everyday.

I'm not meaning to belittle anyone's faith by drawing such a juvenile comparison, but the fact of the matter is that we often see and hear what we want to see. If you 'know' that a house is haunted, you're much more likely to see or hear weird stuff and think there's something creepy. If you have a huge crush on someone, you interpret the smallest signal as proof that you have a chance with them. I interpreted feelings as interaction, good circumstances as blessings, the faith of others as proof, my misunderstandings about modern evolutionary theory as further proof, and Scripture as irrefutable evidence. Now I interpret those things differently, and I don't see any further evidence for a god. I guess that's that.

In other news, Chris has put up pictures from our trip to Montreal last weekend, so here's the rundown:
- "Look, their metro entrances look like Paris!" If I ever let Chris go to Paris, I'll never get him back. :)
- My sister, Melissa, and I in the bed and breakfast: 1, 2
- Chris and I out drinking with Melissa and Joseph (friend of Chris's from online) at Brutopia
- Melissa at Brutopia
- Mandatory metro shots: 1, 2, 3
- funky hallway in the underground city
- really pretty complex in the underground city: 1, 2
- part of the Berlin Wall: east side, west side
- olympic stadium
- Biodome: tropical rainforest, parrots, capybara, different parrots, this fish has his eye on you, waterfall, reflective fish, upside-down fish, fish with weird head, alligators (1, 2), wood duck, porcupine in tree, lynx and mate, snotty penguins, penguin thinking about taking a swim
- horse and sleigh
- Nôtre Dame Basilica: outside, statue of a nun, altar from back of church (another shot), pulpit on stairs, pipe organ, chapel in back of the church, another outside shot

I got my marks from last semester:
Phonological Analysis: B+
Grammatical Analysis: A
Language, Power and Persuasion: A
Discourse Analysis: A+

Very exciting. :) Also, I had a meeting with the head of the department, who was my Discourse Analysis prof and is fairly well-known in the realm of discourse analysis, to talk about my ideas for grad school and a Master's thesis, and she was very encouraging and said that my ideas fit the Linguistics Master's degree very well and are well set up to become a PhD farther down the road. So that's also exciting. :)