Here is the second and final part of Dave Slusher’s January 31 podcast of Evil Genius Chronicles on why he doesn’t believe in God. In this section he spend some time reflecting on how his decision not to believe in a God was confirmed though the responses of Christians to his father’s suicide. Very powerful listening.
As I mention in the podcast I would be interested in your comments, either here or to me via email to:
For those of you who agree with Dave – post a story or statement on how you find meaning in life outside a religious tradition or spiritual belief.
For those of you who are Christians, how do you find meaning and a spiritual reality or hope, when faced with criticisms or situations similar to Dave’s?
The next podcast will be exploring The Ooze, the creation of Spencer Burke and a unique postmodern forum/community for spiritual searching.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
I have enjoyed listening to your podcasts and reading your website. I have been using a postmodern epistomology for 10+ years in my work as a professional therapist. Language is the tool of my craft. It’s nice to find your refreshing website in a seeming desert of evangelical christianity.
After I listened to this latest podcast I was watching The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers with my daughter. There is a scene where Gollum had recently reclaimed his original self, Smeagol. He seems to be happier and really free for the first time since the Ring had corrupted him and made him into Gollum. Frodo is forced to deceive Smeagol into the hands of the Men from Gondor. It is this deception that appears to push Smeagol back into the control of Gollum, not to return for the rest of the story. I know this sounds confusing to those not familiar with The Lord of the Rings, but I am trying to illustrate the fragile nature of humanity and the influence for good or ill people of Chirstian faith have. Most stories I have heard people give for their reasons for not believing in God are about people and how they acted or spoke and not about God.
Lon Marshall
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Thanks Tom for this intriguing podcast. I greatly enjoy your show and website. I am a Christian and wanted to respond to Dave’s comments.
I certainly agree with Dave when he mentions the behavior of other Christian. It is very discouraging and at many times angering to see Christians acting dishonest and living completely contrary to God’s Word. There is no excuse for this. It is also troubling to see good people dieing or finding good people in hurtful situations. These points have troubled me too. However, I realized when it all comes down to it this world we live in is not the world God originally intended to create. God’s world has been corrupted. Contrary to what Dave said, it is not God’s fault that this happened but our own. What God wanted from the beginning was a creature to love Him. But love must be a choice not forced. I wouldn’t care for a wife who was forced to love me but rather one who choose me on her own accord. This is the same with the relationship between God and man. Because some have chosen to not love God this world has gone haywire. Even those who are Christian and attempt to love God are far from perfect and will continue to sin. This world will persist to be this way till God restores it.
This is how I still find hope in hopeless situations; knowing that this world is not my home and simply a place I must pass through because man has utterly destroyed God’s original paradise.
I have to say that I found this podcast to be fascinating. I am a new listener. In fact, this two part series has been my my first venture into “Wired Jesus” land. I am a 34 year-old seminary student in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and it is interesting, that as I listened to Dave talk, I found myself relating to him more than I do to many of my Christian friends and colleagues. In a lot of ways he sounds like someone that I would hang out with… the one difference being that I do believe in God.
It is unfortunate that when someone dies, we as Christians often represent ourselves the worst. Earlier this summer one of my classmates drowned and then later that week a dear friend of my wife’s family died as well. My classmate was a young… newly engaged and full of life. My wife’s family friend was well into her eighties and had been struggling with sickness for some time. As we arrived home from the funeral of this woman (who incidentally had been a grandmother figure for my wife) we were approached by one of our neighbors… another seminary classmate. In the midst of our conversation (knowing where we had been) he said, “I don’t mean to sound crass, but when someone in their eighties dies… you expect it. When someone who is in their twenties (referring to our deceased classmate) dies it is a real tragedy.” I had to excuse myself from the conversation to keep from saying and doing things to him that I would regret later. If God is truly a God of mercy and grace and comfort and love, than maybe we need to stop trying to explain to people why God makes bad things happen (because God doesn’t), and start trusting in and communicating the assurance of God’s presence even in the midst of our suffering. As Christians there is hope in death, but it does not negate fully the loss we feel when someone close to us dies. Let’s stop pretending that it does.
“Evil Genius” Dave does not accurately depict all Christians in his essay, but he does do a marvelous job of illustrating to us how a good portion of the world views us as Christians. So what do we do with his picture of us? How do we reach out to a world that has this kind of image of God and Christians? I don’t have the answers, but I am certainly willing to be part of the conversation.
Hi Tom,
Your show about Dave Slusher’s podcast was great. Dave makes many good points, and I agree with many of his points. However, I have come to a different conclusion than he did. It is only from real spiritual searching, where we open our minds to any possibility, that we can find truth and see through the hypocrisy and lies of this world. From his podcast, I believe Dave is still spiritually searching, although the vocabulary he now uses is different from that which the church uses. Spirituality is not in our minds with knowledge and what we think, but comes from our hearts. Dave saw the hypocrisy and bad state the church is in today, and rightly walked away from it. What place does a Christian have with evil?
One good question Dave brought up, and you touched upon, is why God created or allowed evil. This is often the core starting place for a spiritual seeker, and the church should be able to answer this question better. Any religion that teaches its Supreme Being is corrupt has fundamental problems. That situation will lead to instability in this world. It is understandable that some people see this world as unstable. However, if there was no order in the universe, nothing could exist. God is perfect, so, in the beginning, there was just God and God was everything. I believe “nothing” or “emptiness” is our inability to see or comprehend something. Scientists say the universe is mostly empty, and has very little matter and energy. Is it? Or, is it that we can not see or detect that there is something in the empty space? Modern science has a theory about where we came from, but it is impossible to create something from nothing (classic big bang theory) or put an object into motion without an initial force (big bang theory again.) So what is left?
The only logical conclusion is that everything always was, and always will be – the universe is infinite, not finite. Furthermore, God is perfect. In its plain truth, that is what the Bible teaches. (Of course, the church does not teach that. They take the same view as science – that we started as nothing.) Everything was “created” by God “dividing.” What did God do with the darkness and light? He divided it. Even when Jesus came, he said he came to divide. He would divide son against father, mother against daughter, etc. The trinity is another division. The church teaches all three are the same, but really, I see it as a division. God is the great unknown being to humans, and then Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the knowable parts of God for humans – each with a different function. Then the Bible also teaches us that Christians are the body of Christ. That means Christians are God, or a part of God to be more accurate. In fact, the Bible even calls Christians “sons of God.” But, where does evil come into the picture?
According to the Bible, Satan is the most beautiful of all the angels. So, why then does the church always depict him as an ugly creature? It will only help hide his true identity. The fact of the matter is, Satan is instrumental in God’s divisional work. Satan is the destroyer. If you have a thing that is perfect, and you change it in any way, it is no longer perfect. The same is true about God. The part of God that started to divide (us and this world,) became full of corruption, chaos, and “evil.” It was by Satan’s hand, and God’s approval that it happened. When the potter forms his clay jar, he can only do so by throwing away scrap clay in the process of forming the jar.
At first, there were no variations in God; everything was perfect, non-changing, and thus boring. There was no free spirit, creativity, or individualism. There were no choices. Everything was robotic in fashion. There were no individual humans – everything was one, and moved in unison without thought. However, God allowed “evil” to break things apart. The good news the Bible teaches is that we will someday live as individuals without evil around us. People tend to think about themselves as done growing when they reach adulthood, but as Christians, we are supposed to continue growing spiritually. The Great Potter, Jesus, will continue His work in our lives until we die. It is important that we grow as Christians in this life, because we may not get a chance to continue growing in the next. But, where is Satan’s beauty?
Satan’s beauty is in change. When people see the autumn leaves give way to snow in the winter, and then new life spring up from the death to grow into summer beauty, they see Satan and God struggling. But, without Satan, would it still be beautiful? We would not be able to discern beauty without Satan. There would be nothing to compare beauty against.
Is what I wrote what I truly believe? I think a more accurately description is this is where I am on my spiritual journey. I have not heard a perfect explanation to date, but that one that makes the most sense to me.
Thank you for bringing Dave’s eye opening testimony to the attention of struggling pilgrims everywhere. Faith is at it’s most truthful and meaningful when it ‘slugs it out’ with opposing opinion not when it tries to exist in an unquestioning vacuum.
My wife & I stopped going to church some time ago exasperated at the tired mindsets, contradictory lifestyles and mind-numbing clamour that is ‘Modern Worship’. I disagree that Dave hasn’t painted an accurate picture of all Christians. In my experience, MOST Christians are happy living in a Christian ghetto while Liberals and those who challenge the Church on important issues of the day are viewed as cranks. Yet without regular Church-going my own faith and belief in God hasn’t suffered to the degree that conservative theologians might suggest. Top selling Christian authors like Rick Warren, John Ortberg et al, are partly to blame for reducing complex issues of spirituality into bite-sized ‘cheat-cards’ for a thriving self-help industry. It was the writings of people like this that initially sparked my interest in Christianity and was also the subsequent catalyst for leaving the Church. The more I talked with the people in the pews who read this stuff the more I realised how disconnected they were to real life- afraid to interact with the person sitting next to them let alone engage with secular society.
Ironically, Dave’s standpoint has re-ignited my own spiritual journey to the point that I would consider returning to church. I’m hopeful that if I do return I find it a better place for post-modern pilgrims to be but ‘La-la’ land not withstanding I’m bracing myself to be severly underwhelmed.
Wired Jesus rocks!