Bible Study With a Blog

I had a conversation with a friend of mine, and the concept of "faith as a child" came up. Personally, I have some objections to this concept. I suppose I should state what I take this phrase to mean before I tear into it.

When I hear "faith as a child", I think of one of those tests VJ posted on her blog a while back. How do you put a giraffe in a refrigerator? Children answer this question correctly more frequently than adults. The answer is to open the refrigerator door, put in the giraffe, close the door. DUH!!!!

One major issue I have with this is what happens when you apply this type of faith to other people? Christianity teaches that salvation comes only through Christ. What about the poor soul that has the faith as a child in . Are they going to burn in hell? According to standard Christian doctrine they will. Funny how this kind of faith only helps you if you *happen* to have faith Jesus. One characteristic of this kind of faith is an type of tunnel vision. The child is only interested in putting the animal in the refrigerator and does not concern him/herself with details like the relative size of the typical giraffe/refrigerator. This comes from an ignorance of how the world operates. Another characteristic of children is that they are easily impressionable. This because of a combination of trust in others, and an inherent ignorance.

So, if we have a person with faith as a child, we have someone who is both easily influenced by those in positions of trust, and who simply doesn't know better. This is a recipe for keeping people sucked into a religion and keeping them stuck there. Good if you are a Christian, sucks for you if you aren't??? What the hell? Perhaps we should clarify. If you are not a Christian, DONT have faith as a child. If you are a Christian, it's OK because your are right anyways. It sounds like a shitty way going about things.

Counter Point:

One thing I have discovered is that God has not revealed enough of himself to adequately distinguish between the major religions. I have not been able to find God thorough reason, and I don't think this is possible. I look at is as a system of equations where you have more unknown variables than equations. This system is impossible to solve by mathematics. Yet, this is the position that God has placed us.


Conclusion:
I don't think that faith as a child is a good idea(as in tunnel vision), and I don't think that a faith based on reason is a good idea(eyes wide open). So, where is the compromise? I dunno.... Just working out that salvation in fear and trembling...


Because of my personality, I am likely to live on the side of faith by reason. It is reasonable that others will live on the side of faith as a child because of their personalities. It says in Romans that the righteous will live by faith, and that without faith it is impossible to please God. What kind of faith does he mean? Perhaps I am barking up the wrong tree here. Maybe it's not about what type of faith you are predisposed to. Then what would it be about? That my friend is the million dollar question.

Think outside the blog.