To the editor: It's fascinating to read about former Seventh-day Adventist pastor Ryan Bell, who wants to challenge his faith by experiencing life without religious practices. ("Ex-Seventh-day Adventist pastor takes a yearlong timeout from God," Dec. 22)

It seems that many people want to cast the decision of whether to have faith as a proposition between a God who should take responsibility for all the unhappiness and suffering in the world and no God at all. I'm not sure that's a fair test for God to have to meet, and that may be what leads to a crisis of faith.

There's always a middle path that people with black-and-white views may see as unworthy of further contemplation. It is worthwhile to understand faith in less severe terms and just be open to the moments when you can see God working in your life.

I wish Bell all the best in his journey.

Bill La Valley, Cypress

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To the editor: I applaud Bell for his courage to explore the possibility that the God he believed in does not exist.

I submit another outcome of Ryan's yearlong experiment: agnosticism. Who can say for certain that an omnipotent, omniscient God exists? I have seen no evidence to support a definitive belief in one. On the other hand, who can say with certainty that such a being does not exist?

It seems to me that the only tenable position is to say we honestly cannot know.

Religious people often believe one can lead a moral life only under the guidance of belief in a deity. I submit that morality is within the individual. I tend to think no God exists, but I am 100% comfortable living a moral, productive and altruistic life while saying I just do not know.

Read the original here:
A relationship with God isn't all-or-nothing