Doubt

I can't sleep. I don't know why, because I'm exhausted, but I just keep tossing and turning. I can't sleep. Therefore, I blog.

Doubt is a topic that's been on my mind in the past couple weeks. I was reading (before my failed attempts at finding slumber..) Life of Pi. So far it's been proven to be an interesting book, but one of the last passages I read tonight really stuck out at me.

It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap.
I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ play with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted to doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.

This brings up a couple of thoughts. One, do you think it is a sin to doubt God? Two, whatever your conclusion may be for the previous question, do you think Christ doubted, or was his cry something other than doubt?

One:
Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe." Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."


Jesus simply says, "Stop doubting and believe." He doesn't lecture, he doesn't forgive, it's simply a statement. However, he does go on to say "blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." aka anyone who is a Christ follower and did not live at the same time and place as Jesus and was able to see, talk to, listen to, touch Jesus. I also believe that doubt is a natural thing, a human tendency. We have been born with free wills, and I think part of our free will allows us to consider, think, debate, question, before we choose whether to follow God or not. That's what he wanted, after all, a choice to return his love, not an army of robots programmed to love him.


Two: I'm still unsure of what I think about this one. I would love to hear other opinions.

I'm going to try and go get some sleep again. T-minus six hours until the preschool bomb. Ka-boom.

If I jumped off a bridge at 37 mph, and it was a Monday, and I was wearing purple shoes...

I'm not a math person. Just putting that out there as a disclaimer. But even after struggling through algebra and all that glorious high school math, I think I can get math eventually. I just don't like it. I figure if I can balance a check book and calculate how much of a tip I need to leave for my waiter, then I'm good.

Then college throws a loop at me. I have to take Math 105 and 106 before I can be free of the academic math world forever. Here's the catch: Math 105/106 is Math for Elementary teachers. Sounds like counting plastic bears and learning shapes, right? WRONG.

You would never think triangles could be such complex shapes. You would never anticipate that when you stomp angrily down High street you end up silently cursing to yourself at the sidewalk and all the stupid rhombuses that make up the patterned cement you're walking on. Don't even get me started on rays and arcs and angles... Or how any of the special needs children, ages birth to 3 will ever be able to begin to comprehend the math I'm being forced to learn in order to (God willing) pass this class.

Still not convinced? Try this problem that was on my homework this week:
Ann and Kelly are standing on a river bank, wondering how wide the river is. Ann is wearing a baseball cap, so she comes up with the following idea; She lowers her cap until she sees the tip of the visor just at the opposite bank of the river. She then turns around 180 degrees, to face away from the river, being careful not to tilt her head or cap, and has Kelly walk to the spot where she can just see Kelly's shoes. By pacing off the distance between them, Ann and Kelly figure that Kelly was 50 feet away from Ann. If the ground around the river is level, what, if anything, can Ann and Kelly conclude about how wide the river is? Relate this to triangle congruence.

I'm very tempted to write on my homework:
Ann and Kelly obviously need to get a life. If the only thing they are really concerned about is how wide various rivers are, they can either get a hobby or look up the river's name on google and figure out its dimensions in addition to plenty of other completely useless information about rivers or whatever their hearts may desire. Also, why is Ann wearing a baseball cap? If it's summer, they should be jumping in the river, or doing something fun, other than pacing and thinking about idiot math. And then there's the biggest problem: after all that work, chances are, the river isn't going to be level. So Kelly and Ann should probably stop wondering and go get some ice cream.

I have a funny feeling it wouldn't earn me any points though.