Martin Luther King Jr. once said: Faith is like taking the first step when you do not even see the entire stair case. The line falls like common sense within most of our churches, but may sound like a riddle outside them, and most of all, in a culture that is trained to believe in what is measurable, repeatable, and provable.
To most atheists and agnostics the confusion is not necessarily aggression. The day-to-day answer is the most frequent: why address somebody who is not there, why give money especially as a form of worship, why make difficult decisions when using a moral language that does not begin with what you like?
Such practices are likely to make some internal sense since they are attached to a narrative, concerning God, humanity, and hope, which believers believe exists. And with no such story of commonality, identical actions may appear as habit, performance or even avoidance.
1. Praying to one they cannot see
Christians perceive prayer as connection and not a method: words spoken to God over the trust that listening takes place even in the absence of what seems to be on command. When the same moment is interpreted by outsiders, it may be looked at as speaking to air since the listener cannot be sensuously checked. Also in the Christian circles; prayer also serves as a stabilizing exercise in times of uncertainty which shapes emotional strength and focus. Communion and dependence are interpreted to be the point even though this is not always the visible result.
2. Breaking the Bible as law
A great number of Christians interpret Scripture as a living word that teaches conscience, heals imagination and identifies what is good despite changes in culture. The Bible is often treated by nonbelievers as a book of an antique collection interesting, powerful, even beautiful, not necessarily authoritative. This loss of touch is acute when a Christian quotes a passage as definitive since the authority is the one that is in question. The weight of the Bible is not merely historical to the believers; it is covenantal.
3. The value of having make love intimacy in marriage
Christian doctrine tends to give make love a covenant connotation: a bodily vow to be equivalent to lifetime faithfulness. To a non-member of these consent and safety constructions, abstinence may appear to be unjustifiable deprivation or avoidance of sensuality. The practice is also taught in most churches as a form of training on how to be faithful and as a means of protecting the vulnerability of intimacy rather than as an abhorrence of desire. The implicit argument is that certain commodities thrive most within lasting marriages.
4. Giving money away as worship
Tithing may seem crazy by itself as just a matter of economics: why give a fixed amount of money to an organization without getting any quantifiable benefit? The practice is also not even among the church itself in a study done by The State of Generosity series, only 21 percent of Christians gave their set church giving at 10 percent or above. There is also the lack of awareness where 43 per cent of Christians say that they are aware of the meaning of tithe. In the case of Christians who do practice it, the rationale is theological, namely that resources are given when not yet earned, and that giving is a way of giving thanks as well as holding fast and financing shared ministry.
5. Prayer is a method of making big decisions
Career change, health decisions, relationships, and moves are occasionally conceptualized as discernment and not preference. Non-internally employed people can interpret this as handing over accountability to a mysterious power. Prayer has been defined in most churches as a means of aligning desires and seeking wisdom and usually with counsel, reflection and practical actions before taking a move. The peculiarity is the belief that direction is individual and that compliance can be more important than efficiency.
6. Applying the real moral category of sin
Sin language might be hard or old fashioned to individuals who view morality as a negotiation between culture and agreement. But in Christian theology sin is not a taboo catalogue, but a diagnosis of a diseased love, damage that cuts across both individuals and society. It states why we should forgive and why even self-improvement cannot cure everything. The category may seem to outsiders a form of unnecessary guilt, to believers it was a way of stating reality, that grace might be more than sentiment.
7. He sing worship songs together
Singing in a room full of adults to an invisible God may appear odd, even acting, especially to someone who is suspicious of emotional mismanagement. Christians tend to interpret congregational singing as shared prayer- truth with music so that it can be retained, passed on and taken into the week. Belonging and softening isolation are also achieved through group singing, providing the practice with a non-lyrical social seriousness. What might appear performance on the outside might be participation on the inside.
8. Blessing you and other religiously flavored words
Christian lingo can be interwoven with everyday speech to such an extent that one is unaware of the spiritual origins of the words. An example of one minor one is the sneeze reflex, where in the United States, “Bless you” can be traced back to “God bless you” because in the United States it is given out to mean exhortations of spiritual protection up to the present day where it is simply a display of etiquette; the phrase “God bless you” was used to start with. The external parties might be struck by sentences such as God willing or I will pray to you as a cliché or evading or as an in group lingo. To the believer, these words act as miniature prayers and indicators of concern, but fall flat out of context.
9. Hopeful grieving in eternal life
The funeral that is Christian may seem contradictory to the non believer, one can hear sorrow being said, but woven through with the assurance that death is not the last word. Where wishful thinking might be viewed, Christians perceive a promise which redefines endurance, legacy and even the meaning of suffering. Hope does not eliminate grief, but it changes its horizon. A different expectation can be set on the same tears.
Christian practices may seem arbitrary, when seen outside of the narrative that breathes life into them, as rituals held on by inertia. When the story is taken seriously, the habits start to appear like a way of living in reality: training to exercise trust, take limits, and love with the long perspective.
It does not bring an agreement to understand these practices. It involves concern with meaning what the believers believe they are performing when they pray, give, forgive, sing, and hope.
