Theological Tuesday

~Bible Stories 31: The Centurion’s Faith (Matthew 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-10)
~Interview with Gary Allen Taylor about Focus on the Family’s Truth Project
~Which is more psychologically rewarding: atheism or Christianity?

Links on the Centurion's Faith:
Healing of the centurion's servant by Bible.org
Did Jesus speak with the centurion? by ApologeticsPress.org
Dr. Joan Crossley sermon by ThisIsChurch.com
Was the centurion with Jesus? by ComeReason.org
Who brought the centurion's request to Jesus? by CARM.org
Jesus and the centurion by CCMurrieta.com

Post-show thoughts on psychology of atheism and Christianity:
Areas where atheism is more satisfying
Independence
It’s a lot easier to live as an atheist
Selfishness
Autonomy
Pleasure
Intellectual difficulty
Praise of elites
Academic reinforcement
Fun
Feeling of superiority
Creativity
You get to set your own rules.
Your story doesn’t have to be mysterious, complex, and difficult.
There is no accountability for making mistakes.
You don’t have to follow the rules, but you can appeal to other people’s sense that they should follow them when they catch you.
You can’t be accused of hypocrisy.
You don’t have to reconcile difficult passages in the Bible or believe unpleasant things in the Bible.
There is no psychological pain of being told you are totally wrong and even worthless.
You won’t get fired for being an atheist.
You don’t have to give to the church.
You don’t have to go to church.
No one else can embarrass you because you only belong to yourselfism.
The Crusades
No necessity for forgiveness
No necessity for self-denial.
No requirement to be willing to die for your faith.
No requirement to do things that make no sense to you in obedience to God.

Areas where they seem about equal or there’s competition:
Social status
Worldview fitting society
Ease of finding compatible mate/friends

Areas where Christianity is more satisfying:
Security
Happiness
Guidance
Meaning
Answers
Justice
Praise of common people
Seeing an impact from your beliefs
Support of history
You can believe that humans are special.
You don’t have to believe in evolution.
Nazism and Communism over the years as the key examples of atheism.

Miscellaneous thoughts:
Being an atheist was the easiest thing I ever did. I didn’t want to believe. It would lose me the respect of other intellectuals. The experience of most Christians is that life was much easier before they became Christians, even though in some major areas, life is much simpler. I think this allegation is actually atheists projecting their own knowledge of their belief system onto Christians. If Christianity is a nice story made up to make us feel better, well, all I can say is that we’re very bad inventors indeed. I mean a good God to invent would look like Santa Claus, rather than the God of the Bible. Instead we come up with mystery, paradox, and the danger of everlasting torment.