a lesson from paul and silas

So paul and silas are in jail, right, and then they start to sing.

On the outside, we say, "wow, those were really strong men of God to sing in prison!"

But really, if you were in prison, even if you were like Billy Graham, would you feel like singing? I mean, when on an average day do you break out in song and dance anyway? (ok, sometimes I do nowadays, but that's beyond the point)

Maybe they started singing not because they were happy, but in order to make themselves happy, or more importantly, to focus themselves back on the reason they were in jail and take strength from those facts.

Hm? Conclusion?

We don't have to sing just when we're happy. Sing to because in point of cold fact, God is real and we need to be reminded of that every now and then.

(You might also sing as a coldly logical proclamation of Gods amazingness, like preaching.)

trusting the obvious

I was thinking over an argument that Atheists might have:

The world all around you is without God, he's not presently active, he's not in your face. Common sense logic would tell you that God doesn't exist. Why do you believe in something you can't see; it's very hard to prove!

But then I tried to extrapolate that idea. What is on the very surface of our perceptions? We don't see atoms, bio-mechanical organisms, Newtonian physics, and a boring scientific world. All around us we see a beautiful, Avatar-like world! We look at fauna and say, "Cool plant!" Common folk like Tennessee mountain people either grudgingly bear ultimate things like life and death, or take these perceptions as evidence of God. Why can't we be common folk? On the surface we humans are emotional, messed up people in need of a savior!

An Atheist might reply that 'we must see beyond our own illusions to the real world' or something like that, pointing to the scientifically describable world. However, all of that is unseen. No one has seen atoms. Apples drop, but we don't see F = Gm1m2/d^2 as they fall. But we can include the unseen, sure. God is unseen! And if they reject that for being 'non-physical', I would then resort to the unseen TSM (if you are unfamiliar with 'TSM', see 'Time, Space, Material, and Infinity' under the 'TSM' label).