Ok, so yeah.
Remember how last semester I worked with Sly? He was easy compared to Ryan and Josh. Ryan and Josh don't care about what Sly cared about— that is, "Why should I love and obey God?" No, Ryan and Josh want to know "Why should we believe or even think about following a God when science points the other direction, Christians seem close-minded and humorless, if there was a God he would be cruel and vindictive, and everything is 'relevant', anyways?" ... Yeah, that pill is a little harder to swallow. It's like trying to force a freaking boulder down your throat.
Today I was so upset because I think I lost the argument. Not the cause, per say, but my verbal inconsistencies came off in such a ludicrous manner that I only played the fool in the view of their world's stage. They don't want to hear John 3:16 (not that that's what I spouted off, though I mentioned it), or how God made us in His Image to love Him. No, they want to know what God looks like, where He's been for the past couple centuries, why He didn't make people believe in Him for the sake of forcing us to acknowledge Him (free will, anyone?), why Christians celebrate Christmas when it's a pagan holiday anyways and it's not even when Jesus was born.... half of their questions were so ignorant it made me want to scream— how do you reveal the light to someone who doesn't even know what light is? For example, Josh says, "If there was your Christian God, I wouldn't want to follow Him, because He throws innocent babies in hell if they weren't baptized before they died." WRONG WRONG WRONG! That isn't even true and yet I couldn't make him see otherwise, because he kept bringing it up as if it were a legitimate point. And Ryan is simply convinced that religion and morality and such is stupid and pointless because "everyone has their own interpretation of right and wrong." Whatever. I was so frustrated after that conversation and I'm still a little frustrated, as you can probably tell by the tone in which I'm writing this immature blog.
My personal testimony won't cut it here like it did with Sly; not to say that's a weak or immature approach, because it's quite valid and is one of the strongest argument for Christ, in my opinion ("I'm not who I was")— however, this requires a solid rhetoric and clear thinking, careful discernment and a lot of research. It also requires knowing Father so I can hear when to speak and what to say; I don't want this to turn into a battle of intelligence or of you-make-the-most-sense-so-you-must-be-right. Not only so, but this is challenging my faith, too, you know? Because not all of their questions are completely stupid— some of them are reasonable.
Something that my friend Erin pointed out to me at lunch (as I vented to her in the library) was that if they want to go about this in a scientific manner, to go with it. So I looked up the big bang theory and, interestingly enough, a lot of their evidence points to intelligent design. The thing is, neither of them could tell me a lot about any other theories (scientifically speaking), but only wanted me to defend my God, whom they weren't even going to listen to me speaking of with an open mind. Therefore, if they would like to be "realistic", we'll be realistic. [Oh dear, I feel an attitude... no bueno.]
Allow me to clarify: I love these two, even though they REALLY irk me. I kept my temper (ok so I slipped up once, but only once, honest) and I didn't interrupt them when they spoke. But I'm going to really have to work on this, because the topic really makes my blood boil, to be cliché. Hmm.... does that mean I'm trying to fight my own battle and win for the sake of my own pride? Hope not..... ugh, I'm messing this all up.
Father?
