The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo
One day, one of my good friends and I were discussing music and my friend wanted me to look up a fairly famous rapper named Hopsin. Apparently, he has seven songs titled “The Ill Mind of Hopsin” My friend wanted me to specifically look up the 7th song titled “seven”. A little background that my friend informed me was that Hopsin was once friends with a famous Christian rapper with the rap name Lacrae. He told me that Hopsin once found Christ and apparently was a follower of God. He told me that in his last song, he was leaving Christianity. So, as I listened to the song, I sunk in my chair and felt a very heavy burden upon my shoulders. Hopsin is very angry. He is confused and the entire song is what he wants to say to God. It is extremely vulgar and blasphemous. He begins to discuss how he became a Christian but afterwards, people began to think he was a sellout. After he made mistakes, he felt completely humiliated by the conviction he had on himself and others. As he began to talk about that, he says he needs proof or a sign that God actually exists. He blames God for all the bad things that came into his life, and he raps that the bible was just made up by humans. When he analyzes the bible, he finds the “flops” which makes the bible seem fake. The overall tone is very dark as he is just taking all his anger out on God. As I read the lyrics, he constantly raps about “what if”. It appears that he feels that if he follows God, he will miss the luxuries of earth, and that he will feel like life is wasted because the possibility that heaven is not real. He also believes that heaven and hell are just made up in our head. The final statement was the most hurtful to my heart when he says, “Do as you please, and I’ll just do me I’m a human, I’ll stay in my lane”. This statement pretty much summed up his abandonment of God. This song is very heavy and it is not for the light hearted. The song is not one you would want to listen in the car. The song is really a man’s personal anger and rage towards a God that he doesn’t even believe exists. I feel that Hopsin is a ticking time bomb and is only going to follow a very destructive path. He seems so angry to not only God, but with his own life and the choices he has made. With this being said, I do believe that Hopsin is very intelligent. He asked a lot of questions, and honestly could you really blame him? Now, before you rip me apart just hear me out. As a Christian, these questions are asked and have always popped in my head and it always scared me. Why would I think such thoughts and sometimes have doubt of the existence of God? Could you, the reader, truly say that doubt has never sunk into your mind about God? The only difference between Hopsin and my thoughts are that he has more or less, abandoned God. That is one promise that I will keep until I die. The main issue we can see from Hopsin is his lack of faith. What is faith? One definition is a strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof. Throughout Hopsin’s song, he constantly asks for some proof in God, and asks why God has allowed bad things in his life. Now let’s think about faith and facts. Facts are objective proofs of something, yet faith is more based on subjective experiences and beliefs. If we can break it down even further, fact and faith can be parallel with objective and subjective. Furthermore, it can be analyzed even deeper with fact and faith being parallel with object and subject. What constitutes an object, is the sole purpose of benefiting us, unlike a subject (in this case a person) having multiple reasons why they are a part of our lives. For example, let’s say I have a glass of water, and I’m thirsty. Do I have faith that the water will quench some or all of my thirst? No, because that is the purpose of water. I’m not going to have a personal relationship with this glass of water. Now, let’s say my good friend is supposed to meet me at library this afternoon. Do I have a hundred percent guarantee that my friend will meet me in the library this afternoon, like the water quenching my thirst? No, there are a million reasons why he wouldn’t be meeting me in the library. With that being said, we cannot prove or make it a fact that he will be in the library. I could have doubt that he won’t show up. Of course, he is one of my good friends and I have faith in him showing up. I know this might come across as confusing, but do you the reader see where I’m coming from in this? Take the water and its purpose, and compare the purpose of my friend. The water has one purpose, and my friend has a high amount of purposes in my life. Maybe with this being said, we can conclude that God is a subjective being, rather than an objective thing. I know we all know that, yet we sure do treat God like and object. How many times have you prayed to God only in your time of need? I have many of times. God is only there when I need him to help me past a test, not to get in trouble, or for something to go my way. Through that, I objectified God. That is something I am working on every day. Existential philosopher, Martin Buber, believed that we have “I and it” relationships (objective) and, “I and thou” relationships (subjective). It is possible to I and it people, and it is possible to I and it God. Buber believes that when you experience I and thou with people and God can really feel the meaning of existence; you can finally feel alive. We have faith in people, so why can’t we have faith in God? If we can look at scripture, we can view Proverb 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” It is okay to not to prove the existence of God. Imagine a world if God was seen. He walks among us and we can always see him with our physical eyes. Do you think people would be acting the way they are in our times? Would we have freedom of choice? We can debate this until we die, but I’m getting off topic and that is another blog for another time. I hope you can somewhat understand what I’m trying to explain with my logic for faith and why it is so important to have faith in your life. I hurt for Hopsin, but I have faith in him. Or rather, I have faith in God to change his heart. I believe that God can show him the path of righteousness. I don’t believe that you can have faith for someone if you do not unconditionally love them. I know this is a very dense and debatable topic and I would really love to hear your feedback.
~Jacob Gunter http://jacobgunter.blogspot.com/
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"I have faith; I don't need facts. I just want to believe."
ReplyDeleteIf the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits. - Dan Barker
Faith is often lauded as a positive quality, but it is, in fact, very intellectually lazy. Faith precludes scientific thinking and the natural wonder of discovery; it stops people from searching for answers to questions about the real world. Faith is little more than the glorification of willful ignorance.
"There's no evidence that God doesn't exist."
This argument is often offered as a last line of defense in religious debates, and the person posing it might feel very clever coming up with it. However, the premise of the argument is both flawed and ridiculous. The failure to disprove something does not constitute proof of its existence. The burden of proof is always on the person making a claim, especially in cases where the claims are unsupported or unfalsifiable. With no enduring evidence that a God exists, there is simply no reason to believe in a deity, even if it's not possible to irrefutably disprove his existence.
"It's safer to believe in God than be wrong and go to Hell."
This concept, called Pascal's Wager, does not actually support religious beliefs. Instead, it acts as a way to coerce belief out of unwilling participants. The logic goes something like this: if I believe in God and am wrong, then nothing bad will happen. But if I renounce God and am wrong, I will be punished in Hell. There are several problems with this line of reasoning:
-Religions are inconsistent. In order for Pascal's Wager to work, the believer would need some assurance that believing in God would, in fact, save him from punishment. When multiple religions exist with conflicting messages, however, this is impossible. What if you choose to believe in the wrong God and go to Hell anyway?
-A truly benevolent God would not punish his creations simply because they did not believe in him. God could just as easily reward his creations for being skeptical. Because there is no way to ascertain what a deity's motives might be, there's no way to know that Pascal's Wager would even work.
-If a person believes in God only out of fear of punishment, that belief would be thin and false. Surely an omniscient deity could see through that act and choose to reward only true believers.
Let me begin by saying thank you for your comment. You make some very good points on this topic. Unfortunately, I have so many questions I would like to ask you, but I rather not type every single question on here. I do not want to start an argument and I don't have a goal to prove you wrong. I admire your opinion on this topic and I am very glad that you are confident in expressing your opinion. Thank you also for backing up what you said as well. This is a very dense and controversial topic where people will stick to their own thoughts on the matter. I always want to have an open mind on these subjects and I want to hear opinions that disagree with mine. When I went to your blog page I notice you just created your account. Any chance you found my blog through facebook and is possibly one of my friends on faceboook? If you are at the University of West Georgia or in Carrollton I would love to meet and discuss more on this topic. Just send me a message of email.
DeleteWe have met through school and we're friends on Facebook, but I can't openly discuss this subject as I come from a religious family and I depend on their assistance for school. Your blog is interesting and I look forward to reading future entries.
DeleteWell if you ever wanted to talk I would keep your identity safe. Thank you for reading I will post soon
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