Grace for the Non-believer

[deacon blues]

One thing about Grace that appeals to me is that it helps us understand reality. For believers, it's a reminder that we depend on God. For non-believers, it reminds us that that fortune, fate, luck, or whatever, is largely responsible for our achievements. The old saying: "There but for the grace of God, go you or me", can be helpful, when we get too full of ourselves. It reminds us to thank God, the Force, Fate, or Luck, that we live and breathe, live and-hopefully- love.

[crossmyheart]

Thank you for sharing your short sermon.

I teach law enforcement officers as part of my job. I use that phrase a lot. "There, but for the grace of God, go I." I constantly remind them that it could be themselves on the other end of those handcuffs because we have all made mistakes. In my line of work it is easy to fall into the holier-than-thou attitude.

As a non-believer I have adopted the humanist philosophy which makes the concept of grace so much more precious. To borrow a term, the rain falls on the just and the unjust, but so does grace.

[Anon70]

I talked to my dad more about my disbelief recently. He asked me what I do believe. Do I believe in God? In the Bible? In Christ? And I don't know. I quit praying. I quit believing in Mormonism and with that kind of went the Bible too.

I think I do believe in grace. Maybe not grace from God but definitely grace between people. I believe in compassion and kindness and love.

I liked this post and crossmyheart's comments too.

[Linked]

I agree, a dose of understanding that bad things can happen to anyone and we didn't and don't control most of why we are who we are and what happens to us is healthy. For me it is tied to an affable nihlism, where there is some peace in recognizing no one is in charge and nothing matters in the grand scheme of things.

[Raylan Givens]

For me Grace is giving to others when they haven't earned it. This fits whether I believe or don't believe in Big G.

Great new podcast this week from The Liturgists (Gungor and Science Mike) talking about what is an enemy and how do we treat the enemy.

[glass shelf]

Total nonbeliever, and I love the concept of grace. All of the times that I can think of where something wonderful happened to me that I didn't deserve, there was a person on the other end making it happen. I think of it as humans recognizing the humanity in others and giving them freedom to make mistakes while still being lovable. I think we also need to have grace for ourselves--we'll all mess up at some point, but it's okay. We patch it up the best we can, and we go forward from there.