I believe that at this point I may possibly have satisfied in my mind, at least in a temporary sense, the problem of evil as it relates to free will. Essentially, why would God create humans who could commit evil?
Unfortunately, I believe, I have come to rest on a point I adamantly rejected at the beginning: you can't have good without evil. I will also add - that sort of evil is really not so bad.
Let us think from the perspective of God. Though we can in no way grasp his thoughts, it may benefit us.
Why does God have to make people with free will?
God wants a people whom he can love and they can respond. More importantly, he wants people to glorify him. "Each of the four living creatures...day and night never stop saying 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty' who was, and is, and is to come." (Rev 4:8) To say 'God is holy' with meaning, one must be capable of saying 'God isn't holy'. He cannot simply make mechanical people. A rock 'responds' to you in a sense when you throw it. An evil genius can make a machine that assesses his capabilities and says "Your'e awesome!" But only a true God worthy of praise can get a human with free will to respond with joy to his love.
Let me come from the other side. Is it possible to get rid of evil while keeping free will?
Let us say that God, who has control over every aspect of the universe, were to stop your tongue every time you tried to lie. No sooner had you formed your mouth to the first syllable, you'd find yourself saying "God is holy." Well, that would get rid of lying wouldn't it? God could do this to every sin and we'd have a perfect world. But if God must stop outward sin, he must also stop inward sin. (See Matt 5:21-30 for the seriousness of inward sin.) He should have to control the very thought of lying, the false words as they ran through your head. Would free will survive? Perhaps. But even then, he should control even the intention to sin. To control sin, by the true meaning of sin, he should encroach so far on free will, in my estimation it should be completely destroyed.
Clarification - to be tempted, to have the thought of sinning, is not sin. Even to misinterpret the bible I would not think is sin. Jesus was tempted in every way just as we are, yet he did not sin. Sin is the intention to do something wrong or disobey God (roughly - that definition may need a lot of editing).
A minor point in this regard comes purely from C.S. Lewis (This post was sparked by a portion of Mere Christianity found in A Year with C.S. Lewis, titled "Voluntarily United" from Feb 21.) By creating man with an existence, it is unavoidable that he should have the choice to idolize himself. Even in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had to make the small choice to surrender themselves to God, even though they had no concept of evil.
Now, though this solution may be correct - in order to accomplish his purposes God had to create man with free will, and free will provides the opportunity for evil - we may still be bothered. I mean, evil is pretty nasty. Is getting a few more praises from us silly humans worth a whole broken universe that constantly defames his name? The point we miss here is that it's just us silly humans defaming him. A criminal cursing the policeman who arrests him does very little against the officers name. A broken chair in your house set in the corner and marked for repair or destruction is not so embarrassing as a broken chair which you knowingly leave at the table because you don't care if your house degrades or have not the money to repair it. Or we have only been treating the sinner until now. The pain or anger or suffering evil causes is even less a problem. A bullet in the head of a man sentenced to execution is rather a good thing than even a neutral one. In Romans 9 we learn that God is withholding justice for a time, abstaining from destroying the earth in order to have mercy on his people. What should he care if we start the process for him a little early? Even further, suffering sometimes brings good. Does not God bring us trials for the building up of our faith?
So all in all, I should say I am at least temporally satisfied with the problem of free will and evil. (Free will and Gods sovereignty is still a little sticky.) We may suggest better ways of doing it, but Gods method seems satisfactory to me (not that we should ever really question the plans of him who invented knowledge and reasoning, just try to understand).
Until next time.
11 December 2012
03 December 2012
humble and contrite - clean your mirror
"'Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?' declares the LORD. 'These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit, and who tremble at my word.'" Isaiah 66:2
Today I was reading a portion of Mere Christianity from A Year with C.S. Lewis. Lewis explains how God can only show himself to people to the extent that they can receive, "just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one".
Frankly became a little scared. Isn't our ability to see God dependent on how well we can see him? I mean, I figure being a 'clean mirror' meant being a good person, and being a good person is largely dependent on how much we see of God. If you're not already clean, God can't show himself to you as much and therefore you can't become clean as well - there's no escape - that stinks!
My next thought was of contradiction. This mentality seems to put the responsibility of becoming 'clean' on the person, not God. The only way to become clean is without God showing himself - through our own efforts. Once we get over the hump and God shows himself, it'll be easier. But... I always heard we are supposed to rely on God for sanctification. We, in and of ourselves, have no capability of making ourselves better, we need to rely on God. We don't sit there passively and bam - we're perfect - but relying on our own strength ultimately results in exhaustion and failure. So... how can C.S. Lewis's idea be right?
My third thought was a recollection of Isaiah 66:2 "These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit" and "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6). Humble and contrite. Mercy. What are these? These are not mans efforts, but neither do they really require a deep knowledge of God to express. It does not take a deep or even devoted knowledge of God to admit that man is limited and can do nothing by himself. This is believe is what is mean by a clean mirror, knowing that God is God and you aren't.
After all, what is humility? It is not belittling yourself, it is knowing your place. And the dust on a mirror has nothing to do with what it reflects, but with itself. As soon as you know who you are, you can accurately reflect other things, including God.
So, do you want to see God? Do you want his favor? Stand in his presence amazed, fall prostrate before the God of the universe and know that you are man (human). Then watch him lift your chin and show you wonder upon wonder.
Today I was reading a portion of Mere Christianity from A Year with C.S. Lewis. Lewis explains how God can only show himself to people to the extent that they can receive, "just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one".
Frankly became a little scared. Isn't our ability to see God dependent on how well we can see him? I mean, I figure being a 'clean mirror' meant being a good person, and being a good person is largely dependent on how much we see of God. If you're not already clean, God can't show himself to you as much and therefore you can't become clean as well - there's no escape - that stinks!
My next thought was of contradiction. This mentality seems to put the responsibility of becoming 'clean' on the person, not God. The only way to become clean is without God showing himself - through our own efforts. Once we get over the hump and God shows himself, it'll be easier. But... I always heard we are supposed to rely on God for sanctification. We, in and of ourselves, have no capability of making ourselves better, we need to rely on God. We don't sit there passively and bam - we're perfect - but relying on our own strength ultimately results in exhaustion and failure. So... how can C.S. Lewis's idea be right?
My third thought was a recollection of Isaiah 66:2 "These are the ones I look on with favor: those who are humble and contrite in spirit" and "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6). Humble and contrite. Mercy. What are these? These are not mans efforts, but neither do they really require a deep knowledge of God to express. It does not take a deep or even devoted knowledge of God to admit that man is limited and can do nothing by himself. This is believe is what is mean by a clean mirror, knowing that God is God and you aren't.
After all, what is humility? It is not belittling yourself, it is knowing your place. And the dust on a mirror has nothing to do with what it reflects, but with itself. As soon as you know who you are, you can accurately reflect other things, including God.
So, do you want to see God? Do you want his favor? Stand in his presence amazed, fall prostrate before the God of the universe and know that you are man (human). Then watch him lift your chin and show you wonder upon wonder.
01 December 2012
Is Believing in God Irrational? Ch6 - Transformed Lives
This post is inspired by Amy Orr-Ewing's book "Is Believing in God
Irrational?" Chapter 6. Most of it is her ideas, some are mine. Please see all the chapters in the post "Is
Believing in God Irrational?" for the full picture.
Ch6) Why are Christians so bad?
Many people object to the Christian faith based on the hypocrisy of Christians they know or hear of: Clergy that sexually abuse children, megachurch pastors that cheat on their wives, televangelists with private jets, Christian neighbors who shun them with elitist morality, and just people who claim they're Christian but act like everyone else. If God is supposed to transform lives, why don't we see that in Christians? The failure of some to follow Jesus's moral teaching might be evidence against the validity of the Christian faith, against God himself.
Unfortunately Amy bounces around a lot between different arguments of quite different types. I'll try to separate them here and make my own comments.
a) First of all, let me clarify two things:
i) The idea called into question here, what lies at stake, is whether or not God transforms lives. His existence, the actions of Jesus, the truth of the moral codes he taught, and other facts are not at stake. Transformed lives are simply another piece of evidence in favor of Christianity, and their lack only calls into question the claim that God transforms. It's like the wind: if someone claims it turns windmills and it doesn't seem to, that doesn't defeat wind, because we might feel it on our face too. However, if the bible claims that Christians should be transformed and they aren't, there's a lot more ground to question the rest of it, simply because if we lie in one place, we're probably wrong in another too (though other things like Gods existence can be independently verified).
ii) Doing good things is completely not the point. Jesus came to "seek and the save the lost" (Luke 19:10). And he said himself "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." (Matt 9:12). We Christians are sick, messed up people who need help. That's why we trust in Jesus instead of trying to make it our own way. Unfortunately many people (including myself from time to time) fall into the trap of thinking that we can earn our way into heaven by doing good things. Nope. If that were the case we're all doomed. 1 John 4:18 "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Following Jesus is not for perfect people. If you're perfect, you don't need him (but no one is). People aren't supposed to have their act together before they come to God, but hopefully start improving after.
b) Christians do not claim that they will be transformed into good people immediately or perfectly
i) First of all, let me say again that we begin as sinners needing a savior, and never stop needing Jesus - ever. Even when he brings us to heaven.
ii) Sanctification (become a better person) is a process. Philippians 1:6 "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." So, don't expect Christians to be perfect right away.You can't build a house by snapping your fingers.
iii) This process of sanctification is not easy, it's a struggle, and sometimes we backslide. Paul tells Timothy to "Fight the good fight of faith." So in a fight you win some and you lose some. Eventually you will win the war, but there are individual battles that you might lose. Even great leaders in the bible fell sometimes. David was said to be a man after Gods own heart, often looked to as a model of devotion. However even he fell to murdering Uriah in order to sleep with Uriah's wife Bathsheba.
iv) The 1 John 4 passage, saying we can never claim to be without sin, implies that we will not be without sin until Jesus comes back at least. So no matter what a Christian can never be perfect until Jesus comes back and we should never expect them to be without mistake.
c) Christians are not supposed to be perfect, yet most people (including me) still feel like there's something missing. God is supposed to transform us right? Doesn't somebody get it right? Why do we hear of so many catastrophic failures?
i) First of all, for the perfect example look to Christ himself. He's not with us on earth right now unfortunately, but look at the bible. His behavior was perfect. Gandhi said "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." (from the book). The goal of the Christian walk is to be like Christ. 2 Cor 3:18 "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
ii) So how should we look for transformation? First of all, look for effort. Is the person honestly trying to improve, to treat people with respect, to be a man or woman of integrity? Again, people backslide, but the point is they mainly fight to be like Christ. Now, any of you Christians reading this who are satisfied there, shame on you. We alone are not fighting this battle. Many non-believers also try to be good people. That's what all the self-help books, yoga, meditation techniques, etc are for. In fact, that's what all other religions are for. All other religions save Christianity have humans trying to reach, control, or appease God, not God coming down, humbling himself, and dying for humans. So we ought to see more change than simply effort. One easy way to quantify this might be looking at the long-run. I admit my lack of research here, but I'll bet most people who try self-help programs don't stick with it very long, moving on to something else or giving up on those sorts of things for a while. Christians, on the other hand, have the holy spirit inside of them. As long as they have approached the Gospel recognizing they need a savior and have accepted Christ for real, not just as a moral code to follow, relying on Gods help and not their own effort, they should stick with the fight until they die. Go see if that's true. (Unfortunately there are so many people who call themselves Christians and really don't believe at all).
iii) There are quite a few false people who call themselves Christians simply because their parents were, simply because that's what everyone is in America, right?, or simply, because that's what good people are.If that sounds like you let me say, you're missing so much. I'm not here to condemn you, I'm here to beg you, please, dig a little deeper and see what you find. The truth of the gospel transforms your life. Because God has died for you and now fights for you, because he holds your soul in the palm of his hand, you have nothing to fear, nothing to get ticked off about, everything to gain and nothing to lose, and you have him, the holy spirit living inside of you. These truths by Gods spirit, settled down into the soul of a Christian, are what makes them good, loving people, and allows them to give of themselves and serve others repeatedly without needing something in return. Woot Woot!
iv) On a different note, it may seem that many Christians make huge mistakes because those that do are televised and harped upon. Kind of sad, but true. Why do we hate every president we elect? Because we only see the things we disagree with. Why do we only hear of our troops dying in Afghanistan and not all the good they're doing? (FYI I'm against the war - for some reason I just don't tend to talk about politics in this blog). Because that's what people want to see on television. So yeah, some people mess up, but there are a bjillion pastors and individuals who don't make such spectacular mistakes (and quite a few who do but just aren't in public positions).
Ch6) Why are Christians so bad?
Many people object to the Christian faith based on the hypocrisy of Christians they know or hear of: Clergy that sexually abuse children, megachurch pastors that cheat on their wives, televangelists with private jets, Christian neighbors who shun them with elitist morality, and just people who claim they're Christian but act like everyone else. If God is supposed to transform lives, why don't we see that in Christians? The failure of some to follow Jesus's moral teaching might be evidence against the validity of the Christian faith, against God himself.
Unfortunately Amy bounces around a lot between different arguments of quite different types. I'll try to separate them here and make my own comments.
a) First of all, let me clarify two things:
i) The idea called into question here, what lies at stake, is whether or not God transforms lives. His existence, the actions of Jesus, the truth of the moral codes he taught, and other facts are not at stake. Transformed lives are simply another piece of evidence in favor of Christianity, and their lack only calls into question the claim that God transforms. It's like the wind: if someone claims it turns windmills and it doesn't seem to, that doesn't defeat wind, because we might feel it on our face too. However, if the bible claims that Christians should be transformed and they aren't, there's a lot more ground to question the rest of it, simply because if we lie in one place, we're probably wrong in another too (though other things like Gods existence can be independently verified).
ii) Doing good things is completely not the point. Jesus came to "seek and the save the lost" (Luke 19:10). And he said himself "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." (Matt 9:12). We Christians are sick, messed up people who need help. That's why we trust in Jesus instead of trying to make it our own way. Unfortunately many people (including myself from time to time) fall into the trap of thinking that we can earn our way into heaven by doing good things. Nope. If that were the case we're all doomed. 1 John 4:18 "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Following Jesus is not for perfect people. If you're perfect, you don't need him (but no one is). People aren't supposed to have their act together before they come to God, but hopefully start improving after.
b) Christians do not claim that they will be transformed into good people immediately or perfectly
i) First of all, let me say again that we begin as sinners needing a savior, and never stop needing Jesus - ever. Even when he brings us to heaven.
ii) Sanctification (become a better person) is a process. Philippians 1:6 "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." So, don't expect Christians to be perfect right away.You can't build a house by snapping your fingers.
iii) This process of sanctification is not easy, it's a struggle, and sometimes we backslide. Paul tells Timothy to "Fight the good fight of faith." So in a fight you win some and you lose some. Eventually you will win the war, but there are individual battles that you might lose. Even great leaders in the bible fell sometimes. David was said to be a man after Gods own heart, often looked to as a model of devotion. However even he fell to murdering Uriah in order to sleep with Uriah's wife Bathsheba.
iv) The 1 John 4 passage, saying we can never claim to be without sin, implies that we will not be without sin until Jesus comes back at least. So no matter what a Christian can never be perfect until Jesus comes back and we should never expect them to be without mistake.
c) Christians are not supposed to be perfect, yet most people (including me) still feel like there's something missing. God is supposed to transform us right? Doesn't somebody get it right? Why do we hear of so many catastrophic failures?
i) First of all, for the perfect example look to Christ himself. He's not with us on earth right now unfortunately, but look at the bible. His behavior was perfect. Gandhi said "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." (from the book). The goal of the Christian walk is to be like Christ. 2 Cor 3:18 "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
ii) So how should we look for transformation? First of all, look for effort. Is the person honestly trying to improve, to treat people with respect, to be a man or woman of integrity? Again, people backslide, but the point is they mainly fight to be like Christ. Now, any of you Christians reading this who are satisfied there, shame on you. We alone are not fighting this battle. Many non-believers also try to be good people. That's what all the self-help books, yoga, meditation techniques, etc are for. In fact, that's what all other religions are for. All other religions save Christianity have humans trying to reach, control, or appease God, not God coming down, humbling himself, and dying for humans. So we ought to see more change than simply effort. One easy way to quantify this might be looking at the long-run. I admit my lack of research here, but I'll bet most people who try self-help programs don't stick with it very long, moving on to something else or giving up on those sorts of things for a while. Christians, on the other hand, have the holy spirit inside of them. As long as they have approached the Gospel recognizing they need a savior and have accepted Christ for real, not just as a moral code to follow, relying on Gods help and not their own effort, they should stick with the fight until they die. Go see if that's true. (Unfortunately there are so many people who call themselves Christians and really don't believe at all).
iii) There are quite a few false people who call themselves Christians simply because their parents were, simply because that's what everyone is in America, right?, or simply, because that's what good people are.If that sounds like you let me say, you're missing so much. I'm not here to condemn you, I'm here to beg you, please, dig a little deeper and see what you find. The truth of the gospel transforms your life. Because God has died for you and now fights for you, because he holds your soul in the palm of his hand, you have nothing to fear, nothing to get ticked off about, everything to gain and nothing to lose, and you have him, the holy spirit living inside of you. These truths by Gods spirit, settled down into the soul of a Christian, are what makes them good, loving people, and allows them to give of themselves and serve others repeatedly without needing something in return. Woot Woot!
iv) On a different note, it may seem that many Christians make huge mistakes because those that do are televised and harped upon. Kind of sad, but true. Why do we hate every president we elect? Because we only see the things we disagree with. Why do we only hear of our troops dying in Afghanistan and not all the good they're doing? (FYI I'm against the war - for some reason I just don't tend to talk about politics in this blog). Because that's what people want to see on television. So yeah, some people mess up, but there are a bjillion pastors and individuals who don't make such spectacular mistakes (and quite a few who do but just aren't in public positions).
26 November 2012
is the universe infinite?
This will be short.
In my Time, Space, and Material arguments for the existence of God I pose a dichotomy between two different ways the world could be: either it's infinite or it's not. Either ways I suggest God must exist. However, I never came to a conclusion about which way the universe probably is. In fact, I really had no opinion at the time. However, I've been gradually leaning one way. Today, I found another piece of evidence to support my speculation.
Jeremiah 31:37 "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done, declares the Lord."
First of all, it's pretty clear that God is assuming that the heavens and earth cannot be measured. On the surface, this implies that they're infinite. However, he may just be saying that we humans can't measure the sky and earth. I mean, even now we can't, and if space is expanding at the speed of light we never will be able to. This is probably the case, but it's possible it implies the universe is infinite, so I lean in that direction.
Another point is that I think God wouldn't make things limited because then we might reach the end. Suppose space was only a couple hundred light years across. If we got to the edge we'd be confused, end up categorizing all of space, and just sit on our haunches waiting for the rest of time until God came back. Such a finish might point too strongly to God and make the choice of believing in him no longer very free. We'd just all assume it and not truly believe in him, or invent other Gods who made the universe (think ancient religious explanations of the sun and moon).
Anyway, I'm leaning towards an infinite universe.
This does NOT mean all the things listed under Futility of the Finite are true. If God made the universe he can make earth the only place that has human beings.
In my Time, Space, and Material arguments for the existence of God I pose a dichotomy between two different ways the world could be: either it's infinite or it's not. Either ways I suggest God must exist. However, I never came to a conclusion about which way the universe probably is. In fact, I really had no opinion at the time. However, I've been gradually leaning one way. Today, I found another piece of evidence to support my speculation.
Jeremiah 31:37 "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done, declares the Lord."
First of all, it's pretty clear that God is assuming that the heavens and earth cannot be measured. On the surface, this implies that they're infinite. However, he may just be saying that we humans can't measure the sky and earth. I mean, even now we can't, and if space is expanding at the speed of light we never will be able to. This is probably the case, but it's possible it implies the universe is infinite, so I lean in that direction.
Another point is that I think God wouldn't make things limited because then we might reach the end. Suppose space was only a couple hundred light years across. If we got to the edge we'd be confused, end up categorizing all of space, and just sit on our haunches waiting for the rest of time until God came back. Such a finish might point too strongly to God and make the choice of believing in him no longer very free. We'd just all assume it and not truly believe in him, or invent other Gods who made the universe (think ancient religious explanations of the sun and moon).
Anyway, I'm leaning towards an infinite universe.
This does NOT mean all the things listed under Futility of the Finite are true. If God made the universe he can make earth the only place that has human beings.
futility of the finite
This is something I came up with a long time ago, but I haven't been able to find, so I'll write it again.
In my arguments for the existence of God based on time, space, and material, I suggest that an spatially infinite universe has many bad implications . However, the implications are far too many to place in that post so I will enumerate them here.
No matter what goals you may have in life, an infinite universe makes them futile. (this assumes a non-deterministic philosophy, that people have choices)
In a spatially infinite universe, assuming that matter exists in some of it (space around us isn't totally empty), then there are civilizations and earths out there that are exactly like ours - exactly - down to every last particle. This is what happens when you work with non-mathematical things. Also, there are an infinite number of them. There are also earths that are slightly worse and slightly better than us.
Moral Excellence
There is someone out there with your name and your parents, house, children, job, and money that has made better choices, not hurt as many people, and deserves to live more than you do. There are also worse people. There is no such thing as perfection, accomplishing your goal. Someone exactly like you has already done better.
Advancement of Moral Civilization
Civilizations exist that began with our exact situation and are more moral than us, have not enslaved their populations, didn't have any wars, didn't mistreat women, and many other things. Eventually, assuming that civilizations continue to expand without dying out, that civilization will find ours and consume us. They may treat us well but all our efforts at advancement will have been for nothing, for we will be swept along by them. Likewise we may sweep along other lesser civilizations, but no matter how many we conquer, we will also be conquered.
Advancement of Science
Like morality, plenty of other places out there know way more than we do about science and will eventually find us and make all of our research irrelevant. We should sit here and do nothing.
Pleasure
If your main goal is to eat, drink, and be merry, you're missing out. You want to get as much happiness out of life as possible? There are an infinite number of people in your circumstances who have derived more pleasure out of life, sought pleasure with greater clarity and success, and had less negative side effects. Actually, there are people in your situation who have never felt pain, anger, sadness, loneliness, etc.
Being Content
Some may say that all of this is irrelevant. I'm content with what I have. I don't care about how successful other people are. Yes, sure. But other people are doing exactly what you're doing, pursuing contentment with their circumstances, with much greater success. They have completely eliminated annoyance at other people, greed for other peoples stuff, anger at their own situation, etc.
Anything Else: General Principle of Measurement
Whatever you have set out to do, or not to do, other people have been more successful. So successful in fact, that the little advancements you make are negligible in comparison to how far ahead they are, and the speed at which they are advancing.
Basically, if the universe is spatially infinite, all goals are meaningless. This actually applies to a time-infinite universe too. There has, at some point in time, been a person just like you doing what you're doing just now, who goes on to live such better life than you will, no matter what your strategy is, that it makes you look irrelevant in comparison.
In my arguments for the existence of God based on time, space, and material, I suggest that an spatially infinite universe has many bad implications . However, the implications are far too many to place in that post so I will enumerate them here.
No matter what goals you may have in life, an infinite universe makes them futile. (this assumes a non-deterministic philosophy, that people have choices)
In a spatially infinite universe, assuming that matter exists in some of it (space around us isn't totally empty), then there are civilizations and earths out there that are exactly like ours - exactly - down to every last particle. This is what happens when you work with non-mathematical things. Also, there are an infinite number of them. There are also earths that are slightly worse and slightly better than us.
Moral Excellence
There is someone out there with your name and your parents, house, children, job, and money that has made better choices, not hurt as many people, and deserves to live more than you do. There are also worse people. There is no such thing as perfection, accomplishing your goal. Someone exactly like you has already done better.
Advancement of Moral Civilization
Civilizations exist that began with our exact situation and are more moral than us, have not enslaved their populations, didn't have any wars, didn't mistreat women, and many other things. Eventually, assuming that civilizations continue to expand without dying out, that civilization will find ours and consume us. They may treat us well but all our efforts at advancement will have been for nothing, for we will be swept along by them. Likewise we may sweep along other lesser civilizations, but no matter how many we conquer, we will also be conquered.
Advancement of Science
Like morality, plenty of other places out there know way more than we do about science and will eventually find us and make all of our research irrelevant. We should sit here and do nothing.
Pleasure
If your main goal is to eat, drink, and be merry, you're missing out. You want to get as much happiness out of life as possible? There are an infinite number of people in your circumstances who have derived more pleasure out of life, sought pleasure with greater clarity and success, and had less negative side effects. Actually, there are people in your situation who have never felt pain, anger, sadness, loneliness, etc.
Being Content
Some may say that all of this is irrelevant. I'm content with what I have. I don't care about how successful other people are. Yes, sure. But other people are doing exactly what you're doing, pursuing contentment with their circumstances, with much greater success. They have completely eliminated annoyance at other people, greed for other peoples stuff, anger at their own situation, etc.
Anything Else: General Principle of Measurement
Whatever you have set out to do, or not to do, other people have been more successful. So successful in fact, that the little advancements you make are negligible in comparison to how far ahead they are, and the speed at which they are advancing.
Basically, if the universe is spatially infinite, all goals are meaningless. This actually applies to a time-infinite universe too. There has, at some point in time, been a person just like you doing what you're doing just now, who goes on to live such better life than you will, no matter what your strategy is, that it makes you look irrelevant in comparison.
16 November 2012
watch and pray
Matthew 26:41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Do you fully understand the implications of the gospel? Do most Christians you know? Are you truly familiar with the extent to which it should affect your life, the areas it should alter and how, what priorities change and how decisions should be made based on different criteria? For those of you feelers, have you tried to feel the full weight of the gospel, its impact, how it courses over everything like a rushing river?
My friends, even among Christians who go to church every Sunday, even among those who are reasonably motivated to love people for Jesus' sake - myself included even as I write this, we have not fully implemented the effects of the gospel - how the fact that we are children of God, in the world but not of the world, ought to completely alter our outlook, see it with new eyes.
Matthew 26:41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” You who read this - I charge you in all seriousness - never give into the lie that all is well, that things will be fine from here on out, that you can rest for a little while. NO! As soon as you believe this, the enemy has won. Do you not think satan would be delighted to hear that his enemies no longer fear him? With this confidence in mind he now works with glee, spreading death like the plague; his victims do not even realize they have been slain.
WAKE UP man (woman)! Grab your tunic and sword, the enemy is upon us! The first phrase of Matthew 26:41 instructs us to "watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation". Be vigilant. There is a war on. Your own mind is your enemy. Galatians 5:17 "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want."
Perhaps an example is in order. Over the last three weeks school has become increasingly difficult and my food supply is becoming irregular. In the beginning this was fine, but gradually I spent less time reading the bible, I became less excited to read the bible, and I started to play video games and do other brainless activities. I praise the Lord that he has still let me enjoy talking with other Christians, in particular two spiritual conversations I had today and yesterday. If it had not been for them, I would be wasting my time right now and might have been stuck in that state for a couple weeks. See, it crossed my mind, but I did not act on the fact that these stresses would cause me to lose sight of the gospel, of my mission here on earth. I let myself slip. And you can't just pick it up again. When you let yourself slip, you begin to care less, and you are no longer motivated to start again. It takes either an extremely strong will or outside intervention to set you back up on track again.
This is what I call vigilance. When you see something or think something - act on it. Do not let yourself fall, and make sure you have friends who will come find you and talk about spiritual stuff even when you don't feel like it so that when you do fall, because we all will I'm willing to bet, they'll catch you. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up."
Another technique: when you realize that you currently do not feel/think they way you are supposed to, if you realize you don't care as much as you should or don't intend to give your time and energy to Gods purposes in the immediate future, make yourself sit down and not get up until your mindset has changed. Proverbs 4:23 "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." and Romans 7:21-25 "So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
So...let's bring this back to the gospel. In the same way that we can easily fall away and lose sight of God, we can lose sight of the gospel and what we're supposed to do about it. Let me just say this: God is your life. Bam. Done. You are not allowed to value anything else, you cannot wish for something else, don't even try. God and his kingdom are going to be your food, your air, what you sleep on, until nothing else matters, until it's a part of you and you are truly a son or daughter of God. Be transformed. Do this before you do anything else, because everything else you do stems from this one thing "that you O God are strong, and that you. O Lord, are loving." (Psalm 62:11-12).
So how do you carry this out? Watch and pray. The three techniques I just talked about take care of watch pretty well. First watch out so that you don't stop caring about God and anticipate circumstances that might test you. Second make friends that will keep you on track when you fall and make sure they'll do their job. Third if you find yourself slipping, sit down and make it right, no matter how long it takes - it's a matter of survival.
Pray - there is no way you're going to do anything without God. As the verse says again, the spirit is willing but the body is weak - so depend on the spirit, Gods spirit. Pray continuously. If your heart doesn't fill with joy and peace when you pray (or at least the pain, confusion, apathy and misery you're feeling doesn't reduce significantly), you've got a long way to go. I mean, I have a long way to go I'm sure, but I've already seen how powerful prayer is. I mean - you're talking with the big man upstairs, stuff just happens when God touches you (just sayin). God is truth, the ultimate foundation of life, the source of energy and joy and thankfulness. He is a great stabilizing force, a rock amidst a sea of confusion, peace like a strong deep rich river. Never hesitate to pray and ask God to help clear your mind, to help you stay focused on God, to help you fall in love with him again. - God loves to give good gifts to his children - so ask away.
Now to nuts and bolts. What are the three most important things in life? God, telling people God is the most important, and staying alive so that you can tell people God is the most important.
Therefore I would split your waking hours into three parts:
1) 1/3 making sure you stay on track, learning more about God by reading the bible, talking with friends about questions, talking over emotional or mental or spiritual problems with friends, etc.
2) 1/3 building relationships with the people whom you see the most and bringing up God in the conversations (or not, and witness by being an example) but the ultimate goal is to make sure they understand the gospel and have a chance to accept or reject it. A second major element is probably teaching your children about God and doing helpful spiritual things for your Christian friends as mentioned in the first section. Besides those there is normal missions work, volunteering at humanitarian or civil organizations, working with your church, and in my case blogging about God stuff.
3) 1/3 having a job making money, eating, sleeping, having occasional recreation times.
Comments:
A) For people with families - building up your family counts for evangelism time - but don't you dare let family be the only thing you do - you're in danger of counting all the time you spend with your family (which is like pretty much all the time besides work) as evangelism. Not true - part of it is straight survival. Plus, it's really easy to blur the lines.
B) Lots of this has overlap. When you talk with Christian friends about God stuff you are bot encouraged yourself encouraging them. Much of the time spent with your family will be all three. When (not if) you have spiritual conversations with your spouse, topics will probably range between helping you, helping your spouse, and doing business.
C) Obviously I just made up these number, but furthermore many situations may call for much different proportions. Full time missionaries do little to support themselves in category 3), and shift their spare time to 2), while in response to this there are some people who do a little less evangelism and a little more money making in order to support missionaries. I will warn you though, if you feel like this is your calling, - I mean I don't like throwing out arbitrary number but you need to be giving a good...15-25% of your income to missions. There is a small business owner who is currently at....25%? and shooting for 50%. If you're gonna do it, go all in.
I think that's all I have for the moment. Until later - peace out folks.
Philippians 4:7 "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Do you fully understand the implications of the gospel? Do most Christians you know? Are you truly familiar with the extent to which it should affect your life, the areas it should alter and how, what priorities change and how decisions should be made based on different criteria? For those of you feelers, have you tried to feel the full weight of the gospel, its impact, how it courses over everything like a rushing river?
My friends, even among Christians who go to church every Sunday, even among those who are reasonably motivated to love people for Jesus' sake - myself included even as I write this, we have not fully implemented the effects of the gospel - how the fact that we are children of God, in the world but not of the world, ought to completely alter our outlook, see it with new eyes.
Matthew 26:41 “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” You who read this - I charge you in all seriousness - never give into the lie that all is well, that things will be fine from here on out, that you can rest for a little while. NO! As soon as you believe this, the enemy has won. Do you not think satan would be delighted to hear that his enemies no longer fear him? With this confidence in mind he now works with glee, spreading death like the plague; his victims do not even realize they have been slain.
WAKE UP man (woman)! Grab your tunic and sword, the enemy is upon us! The first phrase of Matthew 26:41 instructs us to "watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation". Be vigilant. There is a war on. Your own mind is your enemy. Galatians 5:17 "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want."
Perhaps an example is in order. Over the last three weeks school has become increasingly difficult and my food supply is becoming irregular. In the beginning this was fine, but gradually I spent less time reading the bible, I became less excited to read the bible, and I started to play video games and do other brainless activities. I praise the Lord that he has still let me enjoy talking with other Christians, in particular two spiritual conversations I had today and yesterday. If it had not been for them, I would be wasting my time right now and might have been stuck in that state for a couple weeks. See, it crossed my mind, but I did not act on the fact that these stresses would cause me to lose sight of the gospel, of my mission here on earth. I let myself slip. And you can't just pick it up again. When you let yourself slip, you begin to care less, and you are no longer motivated to start again. It takes either an extremely strong will or outside intervention to set you back up on track again.
This is what I call vigilance. When you see something or think something - act on it. Do not let yourself fall, and make sure you have friends who will come find you and talk about spiritual stuff even when you don't feel like it so that when you do fall, because we all will I'm willing to bet, they'll catch you. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 "Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up."
Another technique: when you realize that you currently do not feel/think they way you are supposed to, if you realize you don't care as much as you should or don't intend to give your time and energy to Gods purposes in the immediate future, make yourself sit down and not get up until your mindset has changed. Proverbs 4:23 "Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." and Romans 7:21-25 "So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
So...let's bring this back to the gospel. In the same way that we can easily fall away and lose sight of God, we can lose sight of the gospel and what we're supposed to do about it. Let me just say this: God is your life. Bam. Done. You are not allowed to value anything else, you cannot wish for something else, don't even try. God and his kingdom are going to be your food, your air, what you sleep on, until nothing else matters, until it's a part of you and you are truly a son or daughter of God. Be transformed. Do this before you do anything else, because everything else you do stems from this one thing "that you O God are strong, and that you. O Lord, are loving." (Psalm 62:11-12).
So how do you carry this out? Watch and pray. The three techniques I just talked about take care of watch pretty well. First watch out so that you don't stop caring about God and anticipate circumstances that might test you. Second make friends that will keep you on track when you fall and make sure they'll do their job. Third if you find yourself slipping, sit down and make it right, no matter how long it takes - it's a matter of survival.
Pray - there is no way you're going to do anything without God. As the verse says again, the spirit is willing but the body is weak - so depend on the spirit, Gods spirit. Pray continuously. If your heart doesn't fill with joy and peace when you pray (or at least the pain, confusion, apathy and misery you're feeling doesn't reduce significantly), you've got a long way to go. I mean, I have a long way to go I'm sure, but I've already seen how powerful prayer is. I mean - you're talking with the big man upstairs, stuff just happens when God touches you (just sayin). God is truth, the ultimate foundation of life, the source of energy and joy and thankfulness. He is a great stabilizing force, a rock amidst a sea of confusion, peace like a strong deep rich river. Never hesitate to pray and ask God to help clear your mind, to help you stay focused on God, to help you fall in love with him again. - God loves to give good gifts to his children - so ask away.
Now to nuts and bolts. What are the three most important things in life? God, telling people God is the most important, and staying alive so that you can tell people God is the most important.
Therefore I would split your waking hours into three parts:
1) 1/3 making sure you stay on track, learning more about God by reading the bible, talking with friends about questions, talking over emotional or mental or spiritual problems with friends, etc.
2) 1/3 building relationships with the people whom you see the most and bringing up God in the conversations (or not, and witness by being an example) but the ultimate goal is to make sure they understand the gospel and have a chance to accept or reject it. A second major element is probably teaching your children about God and doing helpful spiritual things for your Christian friends as mentioned in the first section. Besides those there is normal missions work, volunteering at humanitarian or civil organizations, working with your church, and in my case blogging about God stuff.
3) 1/3 having a job making money, eating, sleeping, having occasional recreation times.
Comments:
A) For people with families - building up your family counts for evangelism time - but don't you dare let family be the only thing you do - you're in danger of counting all the time you spend with your family (which is like pretty much all the time besides work) as evangelism. Not true - part of it is straight survival. Plus, it's really easy to blur the lines.
B) Lots of this has overlap. When you talk with Christian friends about God stuff you are bot encouraged yourself encouraging them. Much of the time spent with your family will be all three. When (not if) you have spiritual conversations with your spouse, topics will probably range between helping you, helping your spouse, and doing business.
C) Obviously I just made up these number, but furthermore many situations may call for much different proportions. Full time missionaries do little to support themselves in category 3), and shift their spare time to 2), while in response to this there are some people who do a little less evangelism and a little more money making in order to support missionaries. I will warn you though, if you feel like this is your calling, - I mean I don't like throwing out arbitrary number but you need to be giving a good...15-25% of your income to missions. There is a small business owner who is currently at....25%? and shooting for 50%. If you're gonna do it, go all in.
I think that's all I have for the moment. Until later - peace out folks.
Philippians 4:7 "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
11 October 2012
on Lennox vs. Dawkins 10/21/08
I fear I may never finish this, so I will post it as incomplete:
This is a commentary on the debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox at The Natural History Museum in Oxford on 21st October 2008. I used the youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0UIbd0eLxw&NR=1&feature=endscreen and will use time stamps on some of my comments.
I actually already commented on part of this debate in section (3) of my previous post "thoughts from 4 atheist talks". As a general comment, I must say that Dawkins proves quite adept and showed how some of my arguments were invalid (as far as we can tell).
6:45 Dawkins opens by saying that God's method of forgiving sin though crucifying Jesus was unnecessary and stupid. See my previous post "thoughts from 4 atheist talks" for a reply to this.
9:00 Lennox opens with a reference to the design argument. I don't think design argument are very useful in their pure form because they deal with possibility/probability and suggestion. However, Dawkins responds in way that brings about useful points which I will exploit, though Lennox does not.
10:50 Dawkins responds by asking for an explanation of how the creator "came into existence". I like the way he phrased that because it hints of time, of which God is independent. God doesn't "come into existence" if he always was, or saying without time, is the I AM.
11:20 He continues by saying that God is more complicated than the universe (which makes the universe preferable when we consider coming into existence), which he phrases as "a few physical constants". I have said before, people may see it different, but I see the universe as an uncountable number of individual particles, whereas God is a single, infinite being who creates the universe. Granted in a sense he is more complicated, as the human spirit is complicated, but he is one being, whereas the universe is many.
12:20 Lennox diverts the discussion a little and says that an minds developed according to natural selection do not find truth, only reproduction, such that accepting the concept of natural selection undermines the thinking that brought it forth. I think this argument might work if the correspondent definition of truth was used (The three definitions of truth are longstanding philosophical concepts), which poses truth as what actually exists. To this Dawkins could respond that correspondent truth is impossible to acquire given the limits of perception, and some counterarguments could be made. However, Dawkins uses the pragmatic definition of truth and handles the question quite well.
13:15 Dawkins responds by saying that natural selection tends to choose brains that deal with truth. He goes on to say, without labeling it, that he is using the pragmatic definition of truth, that truth is what works, an understanding of the universe that allows us to deal effectively in it.
15:30 Again Lennox diverts and says that the design of the natural selection system itself points to God. I think I can see why Dawkins didn't get this question at first and dismisses it quickly once he does. He takes the universe as a given, assumed, the starting point, and therefore takes the laws of science as simple results of the universe, with no designer. However, Lennox takes God as a given (based on arguments to support Gods existence, I'm sure), not the universe. So in a sense, if Lennox understands Dawkins position thoroughly, this is a fruitless question. Instead he should move to the choice of which to hold as absolute before everything else, the universe or God?
16:20 Here Dawkins responds in an effective but perhaps inaccurate way. He describes how the process of natural selection is blind, not designed. Really, the question was raised about the design of the process, not the nature of the process itself. Dawkins may have addressed the question properly when he said "what survives, survives" alluding to the idea that natural selection a natural function of the universe and does not really beg a designer.
[We have now moved into the part of the video that I commented on in my previous post]
17:45 Lennox sees that Dawkins may not have grasped his question and restates it.
18:30 Dawkins fails to understand the question correctly again (or so it seems).
18:50 Lennox states his question for the third time, clarifying that he sees God as an design agent in building the mechanisms of the universe, not that he put design into the mechanism itself.
19:45 Here Dawkins understands and responds that God as an agent is superfluous to the mechanisms of nature, demonstrating the emptiness of the question (from his perspective), if you'll remember, of who designed those mechanisms. He does well, I think, in honing down to the question Lennox really should have been asking: the universe or God (+ the universe)?
20:25 Lennox responds by honing down as well, saying that evolution doesn't deal with the origins of the universe. The universe that Dawkins assumes is so well made, it calls for a designer. Personally I might add in explanation that this universe that we are discovering is not a chance set of laws and mechanisms, chance would not have produced such a well-working universe. (Of course, now I bring in the issue of chance, and responses may be made to that)
20:55 There is some back and forth. Dawkins asks if Lennox is trying to move on from evolution. Here is a matter of form in debate (like Peter Pan would say 'bad form!' in fencing). It is fairly true that we are no longer dealing with evolution, and perhaps Lennox should have tried to attack the internal structure of evolution. But perhaps evolution inside itself is pretty good. If you take a lot of lies as assumptions, you can use proper reasoning to come up with a large body false ideas that are internally sound. But when you consider a concept, you ought to also consider its implications, who thought of it, its origins, etc. So Lennox is simply moving to its origins.
21:05 Lennox suggests that Dawkins holds, as a principle, that things move from simple to complex. This is a very philosophical, general observation that I find interesting because it deals with Occams razor and design. I don't have much to say on it yet, though.
21:15 Dawkins denies it, I think. He says we need an explanation when things go simple to complex, which is evolution.
21:25 Lennox dives into the origin of life. He says that life has a language (DNA, I think), and the only thing that can produce language is mind (implying God). I thinks he is sloshing around in definitions and categories too much, bending the boundaries of the categories.
22:00 Dawkins points out one of the jumps Lennox made, namely that DNA is not human language, so DNA could be produced by non-mind.
22:15 Lennox clarifies a little, saying that such a complex thing as DNA could only be produced by mind.
22:50 Dawkins says, basically, you don't believe it can work, so what? This begs Lennox to make a more specific attack on evolutionary processes.
23:00 Lennox now attacks the basic movement from simple to complex, saying that the theist view, of starting with something very complex, makes more sense. Dawkins asks where did God come from, and Lennox says he existed since eternity.
23:30 Dawkins says "Well then, in what sense is it an explanation?" This sparked a huge thought process for me. I apologize, I wrote it down somewhere but misplaced it so this is a recycled version. Basically, Dawkins will only accept an explanation (e.g. God) if it itself can be explained (where it came from). Well then this defeats all of science! Suppose that we are some years in the past and have only discovered atoms. We can't explain where atoms came from or what they're composed of, so...do we not accept atoms as an explanation? NO! That's silly. This argument could be turned on nearly every construct of ideas ever posed. To attack the atheists, where did the universe come from? Where did the material from the big bang come from? Etc, etc. In the end, you need to finish with something that does not require an explanation.
TO BE CONTINUED?
This is a commentary on the debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox at The Natural History Museum in Oxford on 21st October 2008. I used the youtube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0UIbd0eLxw&NR=1&feature=endscreen and will use time stamps on some of my comments.
I actually already commented on part of this debate in section (3) of my previous post "thoughts from 4 atheist talks". As a general comment, I must say that Dawkins proves quite adept and showed how some of my arguments were invalid (as far as we can tell).
6:45 Dawkins opens by saying that God's method of forgiving sin though crucifying Jesus was unnecessary and stupid. See my previous post "thoughts from 4 atheist talks" for a reply to this.
9:00 Lennox opens with a reference to the design argument. I don't think design argument are very useful in their pure form because they deal with possibility/probability and suggestion. However, Dawkins responds in way that brings about useful points which I will exploit, though Lennox does not.
10:50 Dawkins responds by asking for an explanation of how the creator "came into existence". I like the way he phrased that because it hints of time, of which God is independent. God doesn't "come into existence" if he always was, or saying without time, is the I AM.
11:20 He continues by saying that God is more complicated than the universe (which makes the universe preferable when we consider coming into existence), which he phrases as "a few physical constants". I have said before, people may see it different, but I see the universe as an uncountable number of individual particles, whereas God is a single, infinite being who creates the universe. Granted in a sense he is more complicated, as the human spirit is complicated, but he is one being, whereas the universe is many.
12:20 Lennox diverts the discussion a little and says that an minds developed according to natural selection do not find truth, only reproduction, such that accepting the concept of natural selection undermines the thinking that brought it forth. I think this argument might work if the correspondent definition of truth was used (The three definitions of truth are longstanding philosophical concepts), which poses truth as what actually exists. To this Dawkins could respond that correspondent truth is impossible to acquire given the limits of perception, and some counterarguments could be made. However, Dawkins uses the pragmatic definition of truth and handles the question quite well.
13:15 Dawkins responds by saying that natural selection tends to choose brains that deal with truth. He goes on to say, without labeling it, that he is using the pragmatic definition of truth, that truth is what works, an understanding of the universe that allows us to deal effectively in it.
15:30 Again Lennox diverts and says that the design of the natural selection system itself points to God. I think I can see why Dawkins didn't get this question at first and dismisses it quickly once he does. He takes the universe as a given, assumed, the starting point, and therefore takes the laws of science as simple results of the universe, with no designer. However, Lennox takes God as a given (based on arguments to support Gods existence, I'm sure), not the universe. So in a sense, if Lennox understands Dawkins position thoroughly, this is a fruitless question. Instead he should move to the choice of which to hold as absolute before everything else, the universe or God?
16:20 Here Dawkins responds in an effective but perhaps inaccurate way. He describes how the process of natural selection is blind, not designed. Really, the question was raised about the design of the process, not the nature of the process itself. Dawkins may have addressed the question properly when he said "what survives, survives" alluding to the idea that natural selection a natural function of the universe and does not really beg a designer.
[We have now moved into the part of the video that I commented on in my previous post]
17:45 Lennox sees that Dawkins may not have grasped his question and restates it.
18:30 Dawkins fails to understand the question correctly again (or so it seems).
18:50 Lennox states his question for the third time, clarifying that he sees God as an design agent in building the mechanisms of the universe, not that he put design into the mechanism itself.
19:45 Here Dawkins understands and responds that God as an agent is superfluous to the mechanisms of nature, demonstrating the emptiness of the question (from his perspective), if you'll remember, of who designed those mechanisms. He does well, I think, in honing down to the question Lennox really should have been asking: the universe or God (+ the universe)?
20:25 Lennox responds by honing down as well, saying that evolution doesn't deal with the origins of the universe. The universe that Dawkins assumes is so well made, it calls for a designer. Personally I might add in explanation that this universe that we are discovering is not a chance set of laws and mechanisms, chance would not have produced such a well-working universe. (Of course, now I bring in the issue of chance, and responses may be made to that)
20:55 There is some back and forth. Dawkins asks if Lennox is trying to move on from evolution. Here is a matter of form in debate (like Peter Pan would say 'bad form!' in fencing). It is fairly true that we are no longer dealing with evolution, and perhaps Lennox should have tried to attack the internal structure of evolution. But perhaps evolution inside itself is pretty good. If you take a lot of lies as assumptions, you can use proper reasoning to come up with a large body false ideas that are internally sound. But when you consider a concept, you ought to also consider its implications, who thought of it, its origins, etc. So Lennox is simply moving to its origins.
21:05 Lennox suggests that Dawkins holds, as a principle, that things move from simple to complex. This is a very philosophical, general observation that I find interesting because it deals with Occams razor and design. I don't have much to say on it yet, though.
21:15 Dawkins denies it, I think. He says we need an explanation when things go simple to complex, which is evolution.
21:25 Lennox dives into the origin of life. He says that life has a language (DNA, I think), and the only thing that can produce language is mind (implying God). I thinks he is sloshing around in definitions and categories too much, bending the boundaries of the categories.
22:00 Dawkins points out one of the jumps Lennox made, namely that DNA is not human language, so DNA could be produced by non-mind.
22:15 Lennox clarifies a little, saying that such a complex thing as DNA could only be produced by mind.
22:50 Dawkins says, basically, you don't believe it can work, so what? This begs Lennox to make a more specific attack on evolutionary processes.
23:00 Lennox now attacks the basic movement from simple to complex, saying that the theist view, of starting with something very complex, makes more sense. Dawkins asks where did God come from, and Lennox says he existed since eternity.
23:30 Dawkins says "Well then, in what sense is it an explanation?" This sparked a huge thought process for me. I apologize, I wrote it down somewhere but misplaced it so this is a recycled version. Basically, Dawkins will only accept an explanation (e.g. God) if it itself can be explained (where it came from). Well then this defeats all of science! Suppose that we are some years in the past and have only discovered atoms. We can't explain where atoms came from or what they're composed of, so...do we not accept atoms as an explanation? NO! That's silly. This argument could be turned on nearly every construct of ideas ever posed. To attack the atheists, where did the universe come from? Where did the material from the big bang come from? Etc, etc. In the end, you need to finish with something that does not require an explanation.
TO BE CONTINUED?
instinctive/manifest evangelism
I can't tell you how many times I have heard good sermons or sermonets wind up their content with what feels like a general call to "go out there and evangelize, be the church outside of these walls, in your work, with your extended family," etc, etc. The feelings I get are kind of an excitement, a near and present need to go evangelize. This is good, but it's missing something.
See, each time we hear this, we get fired up. But when we actually step outside the doors, what happens? We don't know what to do.
There is a disconnect between the simple "go out and love people" and actually doing it. When we actually hit specific situations, we freeze up or simply don't remember the urgency. It's not that we don't care, it's not even that we're treating it like a duty that must be accomplished. We can truly love these people, respect them, be under Gods will, and still be fumbling about. I think this is because we haven't explained how we are to be the evangelical church.
Well, there are hundred different responses to that question, a hundred different nuggets of wisdom put forth by many dozens of authors. Nearly all of them are true, because most of them deal with specific situations or different mindsets we are to have, different truths about the people we are speaking with, different truths about God, and they're all true. However, very few I have found deal with the general manner in which we speak.
Where do our thoughts come from? How do we make decisions? When do we speak or stay silent, love or bring truth, preach or live? We go out there and freeze because we know that we need to do something, but we have no framework for how to do it.
Here is the main points of this post:
We must focus on taking those many truths and ingraining them into our hearts and subconscious such that we naturally behave with regards to them, and therefore evangelize with the appropriate frequency and manner.
Here are several examples: If God truly is your greatest joy, that fact will come up naturally in conversation and be shown naturally through the way you act. If you truly believe in both the urgency of salvation but the respect for human will, you will naturally speak as much as you should and stop when you feel you are going too far. If you truly believe that God has you back, that you need worry about nothing, that no one can truly hurt you, then all the inappropriate anger, fear, self-justification, defense, and pushing beliefs unto others will die out. If you truly know that it is God and God alone who does work in peoples lives, we being only the instruments of his word (though very respectable and awesome instruments), then you will not be overzealous or resort to mean measures to convert people, leaving only the bold simple truth of the gospel for all to see.
Knowledge is valuable, to use knowledge is power.
Know the truth and the appropriate actions will naturally manifest themselves out of it. "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33. John 4:13-14 "Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
So, my friends, discipline your hearts and mind. Take and eat of the truth of the word, "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6:6-9.
May the peace and joy of God, utter delight in him, fill you up, guarding your hearts and minds as you are enclosed in the loving arms of our savior Jesus, making you bold because you are loved, to face all whom you may meet with undeserved love.
See, each time we hear this, we get fired up. But when we actually step outside the doors, what happens? We don't know what to do.
There is a disconnect between the simple "go out and love people" and actually doing it. When we actually hit specific situations, we freeze up or simply don't remember the urgency. It's not that we don't care, it's not even that we're treating it like a duty that must be accomplished. We can truly love these people, respect them, be under Gods will, and still be fumbling about. I think this is because we haven't explained how we are to be the evangelical church.
Well, there are hundred different responses to that question, a hundred different nuggets of wisdom put forth by many dozens of authors. Nearly all of them are true, because most of them deal with specific situations or different mindsets we are to have, different truths about the people we are speaking with, different truths about God, and they're all true. However, very few I have found deal with the general manner in which we speak.
Where do our thoughts come from? How do we make decisions? When do we speak or stay silent, love or bring truth, preach or live? We go out there and freeze because we know that we need to do something, but we have no framework for how to do it.
Here is the main points of this post:
We must focus on taking those many truths and ingraining them into our hearts and subconscious such that we naturally behave with regards to them, and therefore evangelize with the appropriate frequency and manner.
Here are several examples: If God truly is your greatest joy, that fact will come up naturally in conversation and be shown naturally through the way you act. If you truly believe in both the urgency of salvation but the respect for human will, you will naturally speak as much as you should and stop when you feel you are going too far. If you truly believe that God has you back, that you need worry about nothing, that no one can truly hurt you, then all the inappropriate anger, fear, self-justification, defense, and pushing beliefs unto others will die out. If you truly know that it is God and God alone who does work in peoples lives, we being only the instruments of his word (though very respectable and awesome instruments), then you will not be overzealous or resort to mean measures to convert people, leaving only the bold simple truth of the gospel for all to see.
Knowledge is valuable, to use knowledge is power.
Know the truth and the appropriate actions will naturally manifest themselves out of it. "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33. John 4:13-14 "Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
So, my friends, discipline your hearts and mind. Take and eat of the truth of the word, "These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." Deuteronomy 6:6-9.
May the peace and joy of God, utter delight in him, fill you up, guarding your hearts and minds as you are enclosed in the loving arms of our savior Jesus, making you bold because you are loved, to face all whom you may meet with undeserved love.
09 October 2012
divine tension - in evangelism
A term that has recently emerged in my church, theological literature, and in evangelical culture in general has been that of divine tension. This is a general concept to describe a variety of phenomena in Christian theology. In this post I will first describe divine tension, it's common examples, and fundamental structure, and then I will talk about a possible divine tension I have found in evangelism, as well as it's general origin.
Divine tension describes a dichotomy, two or more things that seem to be in opposition but yet are simultaneously true. The most famous example may be the dual nature of Jesus, being both God and man. The first is all powerful and all knowing, the second is not. How can this be? Many have struggled with the question and many sects have arisen that deny either one or the other, but the truth is that Jesus both claimed to be "Son of God" and "Son of man". Other examples include the trinity (see June 2010 Big Theory: Trinity and TSM), free will vs. predestination in salvation, and our work/sanctification/sonship vs. God is our only strength.
The principle here is that Jesus (and other concepts) are a more complicated concept than what we normally think. The two views of man and God are not in opposition, they simply require a bigger idea to encompass them. The circular end and the rectangular side view of a cylinder are not in opposition, they simply require an object of three rather than two dimensions to contain the two. This is how we must deal with all the concepts of divine tension.
Now, to address a divine tension in evangelism. On the one hand, unsaved people are going to hell, and this is a great tragedy. If you knew, really knew, that your friend, or even just an associate, could avoid being killed tomorrow in a plane crash by changing his flight, you would take significant measures to help him or her avoid this fate. You might even make yourself look silly, put your honor on the line, make financial and time sacrifices, and otherwise try to avoid the death. To illustrate from the less-viewed other side: suppose you knew the location of boundless buried treasure. Any who took from it, though unlimited their taking, could not deplete the store, and no amount of taking would lessen the value. Would you not dance for joy and tell all people you could? It would not hurt you if others found it. You would bring others great joy. You would laughingly but soberly implore others to go to this place. Likewise we should feel passionate and justified about preaching the gospel to people.
On the other hand, people are made in the image of God with free will. We have been designed to seek out truth and to acclaim it, to resonate with it. This is what we do when we glorify God, or Jesus, who is himself the Truth. Therefore we should respect the decisions of others. If homosexuals truly believe that their actions are justified, not in opposition to truth, we cannot berate them for their false beliefs. We can plead with them to reconsider and make sure that what they have found is true. Even then, we can only do this to a point, for all to quickly it becomes harassment. (I have accidentally done this with several people who graciously pointed out my error - you will not often find unbelievers with such tact). The main option at this point, beyond giving them time and letting God and circumstances do work, is to live normally with them, demonstrating the life change God has wrought within you, and hope that they see you are different, and are attracted to it.
This whole dichotomy in evangelism is a fairly direct corollary to God's sovereignty and free will. On the one hand, he does a lot of pushing, pleading, and asking for us to come to him. "All day long I have held out my hands to a wicked an obstinate people." Isaiah 65:2 and "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden." Romans 9:18 referencing Exodus 33:19. On the other, it is our decision to make. Any pleading in any of the scriptures to believe, any call to action, assumes power lies with the reader. Nowhere does the bible ask us to sit back and let God take us, for that would make useless the bible itself.
Likewise our part in the conversion of others is part pleading initiative, part respect for the mind of the individual. For when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden saying in effect, "No, we are going to follow what we say is true.", God did not plow them over and force them to believe him, that would be to strip them of their humanity. Rather he let them go astray, however much it pained him, and stood beside them pleading as a lover might.
And this is what we are to do for not-yet-Christians. Plead but respect. Love them not in the way you would love them, but truly "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Think from their perspective. Love others as God loved and loves you.
Divine tension describes a dichotomy, two or more things that seem to be in opposition but yet are simultaneously true. The most famous example may be the dual nature of Jesus, being both God and man. The first is all powerful and all knowing, the second is not. How can this be? Many have struggled with the question and many sects have arisen that deny either one or the other, but the truth is that Jesus both claimed to be "Son of God" and "Son of man". Other examples include the trinity (see June 2010 Big Theory: Trinity and TSM), free will vs. predestination in salvation, and our work/sanctification/sonship vs. God is our only strength.
The principle here is that Jesus (and other concepts) are a more complicated concept than what we normally think. The two views of man and God are not in opposition, they simply require a bigger idea to encompass them. The circular end and the rectangular side view of a cylinder are not in opposition, they simply require an object of three rather than two dimensions to contain the two. This is how we must deal with all the concepts of divine tension.
Now, to address a divine tension in evangelism. On the one hand, unsaved people are going to hell, and this is a great tragedy. If you knew, really knew, that your friend, or even just an associate, could avoid being killed tomorrow in a plane crash by changing his flight, you would take significant measures to help him or her avoid this fate. You might even make yourself look silly, put your honor on the line, make financial and time sacrifices, and otherwise try to avoid the death. To illustrate from the less-viewed other side: suppose you knew the location of boundless buried treasure. Any who took from it, though unlimited their taking, could not deplete the store, and no amount of taking would lessen the value. Would you not dance for joy and tell all people you could? It would not hurt you if others found it. You would bring others great joy. You would laughingly but soberly implore others to go to this place. Likewise we should feel passionate and justified about preaching the gospel to people.
On the other hand, people are made in the image of God with free will. We have been designed to seek out truth and to acclaim it, to resonate with it. This is what we do when we glorify God, or Jesus, who is himself the Truth. Therefore we should respect the decisions of others. If homosexuals truly believe that their actions are justified, not in opposition to truth, we cannot berate them for their false beliefs. We can plead with them to reconsider and make sure that what they have found is true. Even then, we can only do this to a point, for all to quickly it becomes harassment. (I have accidentally done this with several people who graciously pointed out my error - you will not often find unbelievers with such tact). The main option at this point, beyond giving them time and letting God and circumstances do work, is to live normally with them, demonstrating the life change God has wrought within you, and hope that they see you are different, and are attracted to it.
This whole dichotomy in evangelism is a fairly direct corollary to God's sovereignty and free will. On the one hand, he does a lot of pushing, pleading, and asking for us to come to him. "All day long I have held out my hands to a wicked an obstinate people." Isaiah 65:2 and "Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden." Romans 9:18 referencing Exodus 33:19. On the other, it is our decision to make. Any pleading in any of the scriptures to believe, any call to action, assumes power lies with the reader. Nowhere does the bible ask us to sit back and let God take us, for that would make useless the bible itself.
Likewise our part in the conversion of others is part pleading initiative, part respect for the mind of the individual. For when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden saying in effect, "No, we are going to follow what we say is true.", God did not plow them over and force them to believe him, that would be to strip them of their humanity. Rather he let them go astray, however much it pained him, and stood beside them pleading as a lover might.
And this is what we are to do for not-yet-Christians. Plead but respect. Love them not in the way you would love them, but truly "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Think from their perspective. Love others as God loved and loves you.
23 September 2012
Is Believing in God Irrational? Ch5 - Problem of Evil
This post is inspired by Amy Orr-Ewing's book "Is Believing in God
Irrational?" Chapter 5. Most of it is her ideas, some are mine. Please see all the chapters in the post "Is
Believing in God Irrational?" for the full picture if you'd like.
Ch5) If God existed, bad things would not happen to good people, or to anyone for that matter.
a) Existence of good and evil
i) Amy begins by saying that this defining of good and evil, the statement that bad things happen to people, presupposes a definition of good and evil, which come from God, and not elsewhere.
On the one hand, this argument is sound in the sense that we can say "You guys don't believe in good or evil, so why are you complaining about this problem?" On the other hand, on a true philosophical level, this is a semi-internal attack against the validity of belief in God. According to Christianity, there is good and evil, and (it is assumed) God should take the evil out of peoples lives.
ii) Orr-Ewing then makes another slightly misguided attach. I must say, by the way, that it is quite possible I am misinterpreting her intentions in many of these cases. I am fairly certain I am not, but it's possible. Anyway, to continue: She quotes Richard Dawkins in a paragraph where he says that the universe under Atheism is blind and pitiless. She attacks this by saying that atheists deny moral law but nevertheless use moral law when they speak. This is a false attack because Dawkins use of moral language says nothing about his belief in it. Dawkins must use moral language in order to explain that in a naturalistic universe, moral law does not exist.
iii) However, Amy does continue to say that moral language is naturally laid in people's minds, which is evidence for its truth - think of a conscience. This is valid - it may not be compulsory, but it is valid.
b) How other religions define and deal with good and evil.
i) Buddhism believes evil is illusory, that suffering is only a cause of desire. If you can control your desires (and desire nothing, I presume), you can transcend suffering. This does not exclude pain, physical pain, but pain is just physical. You don't have to be bothered by it if you have overcome suffering.
ii) Islam believes in the absolute, all-detail controlling will of Allah. This is much like extreme Calvinism, which tends to blot out free will. (But the balance between Gods sovereignty and our free will is for another time.) Because of this, Allah wills everything, including good and evil. So...they're really not that important.
iii) This is of my own design: Atheism. If atheism is to denounce things like the holocaust, it has to create some method of creating moral law. It will attempt something beyond God, of course, but it will make something. However, whatever it chooses will nonetheless be an unbased judgement. Say for instance, the survival and benefit (in the general meaning of the word) of the human race - this is good. But who is to say that we humans should pursue our own survival? Maybe it's a natural function of evolution, but who says we need to obey the laws of nature? I don't think we treat them very respectfully when we fly in airplanes, why with evolution?
c) Defense by free will, with definition for good and evil
All right, here we go.
First of all, the book explains that God wanted to make people with a capacity to love, people in his image, so he had to give them free will. If we didn't have it, we'd be no better than the rocks in the ground, and that isn't very interesting.
Second, Amy starts defining good and evil as light vs. dark, where evil is the absence of good. God doesn't make evil, it's just him not being there.
i) Here there is a small counter-argument (my own) that could be made: isn't God omnipresent (he's everywhere), then how can there be an absence of him somewhere? 1) When Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground and cursed man. Plants are no longer so proliferous, animals don't grow as huge, man has to work to get food, woman will be in pain during birth, etc. This is all done as a sign to us that yes, indeed, we choose to do wrong things and that messes up the world. If God didn't let the world go to waste a little, that would suggest to us that we still had it right. 2) By the nature of having free will, we have the choice to do and be non-God things, which creates evil.
ii) Here is another section of my other thought. Let us further define good and evil. It is already said that evil is the absence of good, but what is good? From a worldly perspective, it is pleasure, wealth, contentment, strong families, a stable economy, etc. But that is what we feel is good. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I would like to pose the idea that good is what points to God. He is the only source of life or anything that is good. Therefore pain and disaster can sometimes be good, so long as it helps people get closer to God. Let me give an illustration. I often pose God as a father and we as his sons. If a son is not following his dad, will his dad not punish him out of love, in order for him to learn and be the happiest in the long run? If a patient has a tumor, doesn't the doctor need to cut away the skin and painfully cut out the tumor in order to save the life of the patient? If a man is wicked all his life and runs into no pain, how can he know that he is doing wrong? In the same way, God allows what we see as evil in order to bring us to himself and give himself glory (which is not selfish, because he actually deserves it).
d)Now Amy treats Christians as they suffer:
i) Am I suffering because I sinned? Not neccessarily, Amy answers. Orr-Ewing lists some reasons, I will list more for suffering. 1) The world is just messed up as a sign that there is sin in the world. 2) You are being tested and refined by God. He is making you into a better Christian, take it just as you would painful athletic workouts. 3) You are being persecuted by the world because you believe. Rejoice in this, for your reward in heaven will be great. 4) Sinful people simply do mean things to people. 5) You have strayed really far from God and he is waking you back up. The book of Hosea explains this well. 6) It can be natural consequences of your own sin, like drinking and driving and having an accident. 7) When God cursed the world after the garden of Eden, he said that mans work would be tough. Doing Gods work might just be exhausting to our fallen, depreciating bodies.
ii) Why doesn't God intervene? Well, we just listed a ton of reasons why suffering is good and normal. Amy only adds the hope of heaven and the future conquest of Jesus.
Ch5) If God existed, bad things would not happen to good people, or to anyone for that matter.
a) Existence of good and evil
i) Amy begins by saying that this defining of good and evil, the statement that bad things happen to people, presupposes a definition of good and evil, which come from God, and not elsewhere.
On the one hand, this argument is sound in the sense that we can say "You guys don't believe in good or evil, so why are you complaining about this problem?" On the other hand, on a true philosophical level, this is a semi-internal attack against the validity of belief in God. According to Christianity, there is good and evil, and (it is assumed) God should take the evil out of peoples lives.
ii) Orr-Ewing then makes another slightly misguided attach. I must say, by the way, that it is quite possible I am misinterpreting her intentions in many of these cases. I am fairly certain I am not, but it's possible. Anyway, to continue: She quotes Richard Dawkins in a paragraph where he says that the universe under Atheism is blind and pitiless. She attacks this by saying that atheists deny moral law but nevertheless use moral law when they speak. This is a false attack because Dawkins use of moral language says nothing about his belief in it. Dawkins must use moral language in order to explain that in a naturalistic universe, moral law does not exist.
iii) However, Amy does continue to say that moral language is naturally laid in people's minds, which is evidence for its truth - think of a conscience. This is valid - it may not be compulsory, but it is valid.
b) How other religions define and deal with good and evil.
i) Buddhism believes evil is illusory, that suffering is only a cause of desire. If you can control your desires (and desire nothing, I presume), you can transcend suffering. This does not exclude pain, physical pain, but pain is just physical. You don't have to be bothered by it if you have overcome suffering.
ii) Islam believes in the absolute, all-detail controlling will of Allah. This is much like extreme Calvinism, which tends to blot out free will. (But the balance between Gods sovereignty and our free will is for another time.) Because of this, Allah wills everything, including good and evil. So...they're really not that important.
iii) This is of my own design: Atheism. If atheism is to denounce things like the holocaust, it has to create some method of creating moral law. It will attempt something beyond God, of course, but it will make something. However, whatever it chooses will nonetheless be an unbased judgement. Say for instance, the survival and benefit (in the general meaning of the word) of the human race - this is good. But who is to say that we humans should pursue our own survival? Maybe it's a natural function of evolution, but who says we need to obey the laws of nature? I don't think we treat them very respectfully when we fly in airplanes, why with evolution?
c) Defense by free will, with definition for good and evil
All right, here we go.
First of all, the book explains that God wanted to make people with a capacity to love, people in his image, so he had to give them free will. If we didn't have it, we'd be no better than the rocks in the ground, and that isn't very interesting.
Second, Amy starts defining good and evil as light vs. dark, where evil is the absence of good. God doesn't make evil, it's just him not being there.
i) Here there is a small counter-argument (my own) that could be made: isn't God omnipresent (he's everywhere), then how can there be an absence of him somewhere? 1) When Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground and cursed man. Plants are no longer so proliferous, animals don't grow as huge, man has to work to get food, woman will be in pain during birth, etc. This is all done as a sign to us that yes, indeed, we choose to do wrong things and that messes up the world. If God didn't let the world go to waste a little, that would suggest to us that we still had it right. 2) By the nature of having free will, we have the choice to do and be non-God things, which creates evil.
ii) Here is another section of my other thought. Let us further define good and evil. It is already said that evil is the absence of good, but what is good? From a worldly perspective, it is pleasure, wealth, contentment, strong families, a stable economy, etc. But that is what we feel is good. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I would like to pose the idea that good is what points to God. He is the only source of life or anything that is good. Therefore pain and disaster can sometimes be good, so long as it helps people get closer to God. Let me give an illustration. I often pose God as a father and we as his sons. If a son is not following his dad, will his dad not punish him out of love, in order for him to learn and be the happiest in the long run? If a patient has a tumor, doesn't the doctor need to cut away the skin and painfully cut out the tumor in order to save the life of the patient? If a man is wicked all his life and runs into no pain, how can he know that he is doing wrong? In the same way, God allows what we see as evil in order to bring us to himself and give himself glory (which is not selfish, because he actually deserves it).
d)Now Amy treats Christians as they suffer:
i) Am I suffering because I sinned? Not neccessarily, Amy answers. Orr-Ewing lists some reasons, I will list more for suffering. 1) The world is just messed up as a sign that there is sin in the world. 2) You are being tested and refined by God. He is making you into a better Christian, take it just as you would painful athletic workouts. 3) You are being persecuted by the world because you believe. Rejoice in this, for your reward in heaven will be great. 4) Sinful people simply do mean things to people. 5) You have strayed really far from God and he is waking you back up. The book of Hosea explains this well. 6) It can be natural consequences of your own sin, like drinking and driving and having an accident. 7) When God cursed the world after the garden of Eden, he said that mans work would be tough. Doing Gods work might just be exhausting to our fallen, depreciating bodies.
ii) Why doesn't God intervene? Well, we just listed a ton of reasons why suffering is good and normal. Amy only adds the hope of heaven and the future conquest of Jesus.
12 September 2012
Is Believing in God Irrational? Ch4 - Relative Truth
This post is inspired by Amy Orr-Ewing's book "Is Believing in God
Irrational?" Chapter 4. Please see all the chapters in the post "Is
Believing in God Irrational?" for the full picture if you'd like.
Ch4) Christians haven't tried out all the alternatives. They've never tried believing in something else. How can they then know the truth?
Here I think Orr-Ewing misses part of the question. She addresses six assumptions that often lie behind this question regarding relative truth (what's true or a good path for me might not be for you), which is a big issue, but does not mention its connection to the first chapter - what about the religions experiences of other faiths? This second aspect of the question could be phrase "If Christians have not legitimately tried out other religions for their experiential evidence , how do they know they are not false? I'll answer that question at the end of this chapter, but first we'll cover six assumptions:
a) Often the world puts religion in its own category, separate from the sciences or philosophy, something of cultural preference or self-help choice, so that people can pick and choose their own religions without reference to truth. Perhaps 'religion' can be defined that way, but not the way I've been using it in this post. Some who claim religion hope that it is seen as a scientific pursuit, on level with all the other sciences, subject to evidence and reason. This means that religion, like science, is also applicable to all people. The sky is blue and we argue that God loves you. You can argue back or ignore our questions, but do not dismiss it as something that should be left to the individual.
b) There is a philosophical school of thought called logical positivism whose main tenet states that if something can't be proved true, it isn't. People often state that God cannot be proved and so dismiss the matter, perhaps not even realizing the principle they are using. i) The principle does not withstand its own test. Because the tenet itself cannot be proved true, it isn't. ii) Morals, in general, cannot be proved and so, under this idea, must be done away with. Typically most supporters of positivism do not wish to discard morals. iii) I was slightly ashamed to see that Amy did not mention arguments for the existence of God. There are a number that are still being contested and may, in fact, prove God. In this way, setting aside the problems with the principle, God still withstands the test. iv) In what sense can anything be proved? (This may be brought up against arguments for God or anything else.) Science has never claimed to ultimately prove something in the correspondent sense, only in the pragmatic sense (which is quite limited). Under the correspondent definition, nothing is true by Logical Positivism.
c) Like with religion, there is another assumption about definitions. Tolerance, though perhaps defined well formally, is used politically as 'mind your own business' or 'have an open mind' or 'their way is equally right' or 'it doesn't really matter so don't make a fuss'. NO. If you wish, you may use the word that way. However, I see two possible definitions of tolerance, the commonly used one is not imperative, but the calmer one ought to be. Tolerance in the quieter sense is not treating anyone with special deference or negativity due to their culture, views, etc. Of course if someone believes in killing, it is commonsense not to hire them, but that springs from a concern for yourself, not a special hate of the other person.
d) A common implication during conversations is that ones religion is merely determined by birth. You were indoctrinated by your parents and cannot be changed, pity you. You need to learn to tolerate other upbringings. i) Ones upbringing has nothing to do with what is actually true. After all, you were indoctrinated by your school to believe 1+1=2. Oh, well I believe 1+1=3, who are you to discriminate against me, you were only brought up to believe that. ii) If beliefs, even restricting them to religious beliefs, are a product of your childhood, do atheistic homes have the same treatment?
What follows is an attack on relativism based on its implications, followed by a very fundamental (or eye-opening) assumption behind some parts of relativism. Then I will get into my defense of the original question "How can you know the truth if you haven't explored other options?"
e) The logical result of relative or personal religion is relative morality. If anyone can choose his or her own beliefs, without question from others, there is no basis for law, morals, good manners, and all kinds of things. Do you wish your children do not swear or use drugs? Then you are imposing your personal values, your religion, on them. Nothing in formal science says that one should not cheat at card games, get drunk every night, or even murder. Now many will reply that these things are commonsense and not related to religion. Commonsense based on what? How you feel? How your were brought up? We already discussed how relative and unimportant that is. Some others may claim that good manners are good for society. i) What if they aren't? What if killing someone is the survival of the fittest? We don't know, we're just in the moment. Only time will tell. We can arrest them, claiming that a fit society that punishes people who kill tends to survive, but we don't know. ii) Good for society? What do you mean by good? People are happier? Whoever said we should try to make people happy? Nothing innate in the way the world is made suggests that we should pursue our own happiness, promote the survival of our species, or get up tomorrow morning. Anything you strive for, anything you seek, think about what good reason you have for pursuing that thing. After all, you've devoted your life to it.
f) Look at these assumptions. Religion is a product of upbringing, your personal desires, in it's own category. This is a picture of man deciding what his own religion is, it is man pursuing and inventing God. Even for New Age thinkers, they are pursuing God to solve their own aches through an assortment of loosely valued ways. However, Christianity does not work this way. Christ is not about mans attempt to satisfy self, to reach God. "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." This is God reaching down to man to give us what he has planned for us, which is far better than what we want.
Now we get to the question:
g) How can Christians discredit other religions if they haven't explored their experiential evidence? A large foundation for Christian belief is on a personal experience with God; how can Christians be so arrogant as to disregard other experiences?
i) There is one point that Amy makes to defend this question. This is the observation that many people use this argument to discourage all religion, because since it would be impossible to explore all religions, religious truth is unattainable. This is a minor point that could be brought up during a discussion to see the reaction of the questioner, however, it has no philosophical weight. So what if religious truth is unreachable? If that's the way the world happens to be, we have to deal with it. We can't plead our innocence because such a possibility discourages all truth.
ii) A second idea that is not compulsory is that of terrible 'religions'. I define religion as a set of beliefs that drive actions, a set of values, desires, etc. Therefore, the idolization of the state and obsession to exterminate 'weaker' races, Nazi Facism, is a religion. If you disagree with my definition I still hope you see my point. If we have not given ourselves over the the thrill of being united under one all-controlling government, how do we know what it feels like, how do we know if it isn't the way? Obviously exploring such possibilities is both impractical and disagreeable.
iii) The one logical function that aids us here is that of truth exclusion. If you have found and tested that 1+1=2, then you do not need to test 1+1=5 or any other number. If somehow you can prove that all of the acceleration of an object can be accounted for by gravity, you do not need to search for others (well, there could be equal but opposite other forces that would change later due to position, but that's outside of the analogy). In the same way, if we have somehow proved that God exists, we know that no other religions are completely true because the idea of God logically excludes all others. We know "in the beginning God created" and major history afterward, so we can exclude all other creation stories, etc. In this way, it is legitimate to exclude other religions once you believe you have found the truth.
Now, of course other religions can claim the same principle. Buddhist monks may claim to have reached some level of enlightenment which proves (at least to them) that Buddhism is true. Please see Chapter 1 for this.
Ch4) Christians haven't tried out all the alternatives. They've never tried believing in something else. How can they then know the truth?
Here I think Orr-Ewing misses part of the question. She addresses six assumptions that often lie behind this question regarding relative truth (what's true or a good path for me might not be for you), which is a big issue, but does not mention its connection to the first chapter - what about the religions experiences of other faiths? This second aspect of the question could be phrase "If Christians have not legitimately tried out other religions for their experiential evidence , how do they know they are not false? I'll answer that question at the end of this chapter, but first we'll cover six assumptions:
a) Often the world puts religion in its own category, separate from the sciences or philosophy, something of cultural preference or self-help choice, so that people can pick and choose their own religions without reference to truth. Perhaps 'religion' can be defined that way, but not the way I've been using it in this post. Some who claim religion hope that it is seen as a scientific pursuit, on level with all the other sciences, subject to evidence and reason. This means that religion, like science, is also applicable to all people. The sky is blue and we argue that God loves you. You can argue back or ignore our questions, but do not dismiss it as something that should be left to the individual.
b) There is a philosophical school of thought called logical positivism whose main tenet states that if something can't be proved true, it isn't. People often state that God cannot be proved and so dismiss the matter, perhaps not even realizing the principle they are using. i) The principle does not withstand its own test. Because the tenet itself cannot be proved true, it isn't. ii) Morals, in general, cannot be proved and so, under this idea, must be done away with. Typically most supporters of positivism do not wish to discard morals. iii) I was slightly ashamed to see that Amy did not mention arguments for the existence of God. There are a number that are still being contested and may, in fact, prove God. In this way, setting aside the problems with the principle, God still withstands the test. iv) In what sense can anything be proved? (This may be brought up against arguments for God or anything else.) Science has never claimed to ultimately prove something in the correspondent sense, only in the pragmatic sense (which is quite limited). Under the correspondent definition, nothing is true by Logical Positivism.
c) Like with religion, there is another assumption about definitions. Tolerance, though perhaps defined well formally, is used politically as 'mind your own business' or 'have an open mind' or 'their way is equally right' or 'it doesn't really matter so don't make a fuss'. NO. If you wish, you may use the word that way. However, I see two possible definitions of tolerance, the commonly used one is not imperative, but the calmer one ought to be. Tolerance in the quieter sense is not treating anyone with special deference or negativity due to their culture, views, etc. Of course if someone believes in killing, it is commonsense not to hire them, but that springs from a concern for yourself, not a special hate of the other person.
d) A common implication during conversations is that ones religion is merely determined by birth. You were indoctrinated by your parents and cannot be changed, pity you. You need to learn to tolerate other upbringings. i) Ones upbringing has nothing to do with what is actually true. After all, you were indoctrinated by your school to believe 1+1=2. Oh, well I believe 1+1=3, who are you to discriminate against me, you were only brought up to believe that. ii) If beliefs, even restricting them to religious beliefs, are a product of your childhood, do atheistic homes have the same treatment?
What follows is an attack on relativism based on its implications, followed by a very fundamental (or eye-opening) assumption behind some parts of relativism. Then I will get into my defense of the original question "How can you know the truth if you haven't explored other options?"
e) The logical result of relative or personal religion is relative morality. If anyone can choose his or her own beliefs, without question from others, there is no basis for law, morals, good manners, and all kinds of things. Do you wish your children do not swear or use drugs? Then you are imposing your personal values, your religion, on them. Nothing in formal science says that one should not cheat at card games, get drunk every night, or even murder. Now many will reply that these things are commonsense and not related to religion. Commonsense based on what? How you feel? How your were brought up? We already discussed how relative and unimportant that is. Some others may claim that good manners are good for society. i) What if they aren't? What if killing someone is the survival of the fittest? We don't know, we're just in the moment. Only time will tell. We can arrest them, claiming that a fit society that punishes people who kill tends to survive, but we don't know. ii) Good for society? What do you mean by good? People are happier? Whoever said we should try to make people happy? Nothing innate in the way the world is made suggests that we should pursue our own happiness, promote the survival of our species, or get up tomorrow morning. Anything you strive for, anything you seek, think about what good reason you have for pursuing that thing. After all, you've devoted your life to it.
f) Look at these assumptions. Religion is a product of upbringing, your personal desires, in it's own category. This is a picture of man deciding what his own religion is, it is man pursuing and inventing God. Even for New Age thinkers, they are pursuing God to solve their own aches through an assortment of loosely valued ways. However, Christianity does not work this way. Christ is not about mans attempt to satisfy self, to reach God. "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." This is God reaching down to man to give us what he has planned for us, which is far better than what we want.
Now we get to the question:
g) How can Christians discredit other religions if they haven't explored their experiential evidence? A large foundation for Christian belief is on a personal experience with God; how can Christians be so arrogant as to disregard other experiences?
i) There is one point that Amy makes to defend this question. This is the observation that many people use this argument to discourage all religion, because since it would be impossible to explore all religions, religious truth is unattainable. This is a minor point that could be brought up during a discussion to see the reaction of the questioner, however, it has no philosophical weight. So what if religious truth is unreachable? If that's the way the world happens to be, we have to deal with it. We can't plead our innocence because such a possibility discourages all truth.
ii) A second idea that is not compulsory is that of terrible 'religions'. I define religion as a set of beliefs that drive actions, a set of values, desires, etc. Therefore, the idolization of the state and obsession to exterminate 'weaker' races, Nazi Facism, is a religion. If you disagree with my definition I still hope you see my point. If we have not given ourselves over the the thrill of being united under one all-controlling government, how do we know what it feels like, how do we know if it isn't the way? Obviously exploring such possibilities is both impractical and disagreeable.
iii) The one logical function that aids us here is that of truth exclusion. If you have found and tested that 1+1=2, then you do not need to test 1+1=5 or any other number. If somehow you can prove that all of the acceleration of an object can be accounted for by gravity, you do not need to search for others (well, there could be equal but opposite other forces that would change later due to position, but that's outside of the analogy). In the same way, if we have somehow proved that God exists, we know that no other religions are completely true because the idea of God logically excludes all others. We know "in the beginning God created" and major history afterward, so we can exclude all other creation stories, etc. In this way, it is legitimate to exclude other religions once you believe you have found the truth.
Now, of course other religions can claim the same principle. Buddhist monks may claim to have reached some level of enlightenment which proves (at least to them) that Buddhism is true. Please see Chapter 1 for this.
Is Believing in God Irrational? Ch3 Psychological Crutch
This post is inspired by Amy Orr-Ewing's book "Is Believing in God
Irrational?" Chapter 3. Please see all the chapters in the post "Is
Believing in God Irrational?" for the full picture if you'd like.
Ch3) Is religion a psychological crutch to make the person feel better?
Some claim that, in need of comfort and protection, weak people project a God to fill the vacant father figure role, one in the image of man. Again, this idea has no psychological evidence. However, I will present a few thoughts Amy gave that came to my mind as well:
a) I suppose this concept of God makes sense from both ends. From the atheist perspective, of course God fills all the roles that weak human beings want him to, providing everything they need for comfort. This suggests man created God to fill his own void. From the Christian side, it makes sense that if God created us to be in relationship with him, he would create a need in us for him, such that he satisfies all our desires in the same way that women 'need' men and visa versa (though this desire is only a shadow and a foretaste deposit of our actual relationship with God). In fact, this intense desire that refuses to be satisfied by things of this world may be in itself and evidence for God. Because the facts (that the idea of God satisfies our desires) match both perspectives, there is nothing to be said here. This observation should have no weight to either side.
b) It is simple to reverse this argument and say that atheists, or anyone who holds any position for that matter, has created their set of beliefs in order to avoid pain of some sort. Perhaps the atheist does not want to make the life changes that God would make necessary. Perhaps the atheist wants independence, a feeling of accomplishment without any help. Perhaps they have been scarred earlier by hateful religious people or had father, mothers, or friends who seriously let them down, and therefore the main images that reflect God. Whatever the belief, reasons can be suggested for creating a psychological crutch.
c) The same sort of arguments work for the nearly identical ideas that man invented God to fill the void of need and to create an orderly society (Ch2.d), that religion is only for the weak who can't realize that religion is just a reflection of our desires for society, a coping mechanism against the hard world, or a deluded escape from our failures.
Ch3) Is religion a psychological crutch to make the person feel better?
Some claim that, in need of comfort and protection, weak people project a God to fill the vacant father figure role, one in the image of man. Again, this idea has no psychological evidence. However, I will present a few thoughts Amy gave that came to my mind as well:
a) I suppose this concept of God makes sense from both ends. From the atheist perspective, of course God fills all the roles that weak human beings want him to, providing everything they need for comfort. This suggests man created God to fill his own void. From the Christian side, it makes sense that if God created us to be in relationship with him, he would create a need in us for him, such that he satisfies all our desires in the same way that women 'need' men and visa versa (though this desire is only a shadow and a foretaste deposit of our actual relationship with God). In fact, this intense desire that refuses to be satisfied by things of this world may be in itself and evidence for God. Because the facts (that the idea of God satisfies our desires) match both perspectives, there is nothing to be said here. This observation should have no weight to either side.
b) It is simple to reverse this argument and say that atheists, or anyone who holds any position for that matter, has created their set of beliefs in order to avoid pain of some sort. Perhaps the atheist does not want to make the life changes that God would make necessary. Perhaps the atheist wants independence, a feeling of accomplishment without any help. Perhaps they have been scarred earlier by hateful religious people or had father, mothers, or friends who seriously let them down, and therefore the main images that reflect God. Whatever the belief, reasons can be suggested for creating a psychological crutch.
c) The same sort of arguments work for the nearly identical ideas that man invented God to fill the void of need and to create an orderly society (Ch2.d), that religion is only for the weak who can't realize that religion is just a reflection of our desires for society, a coping mechanism against the hard world, or a deluded escape from our failures.
Is Believing in God Irrational? Ch2 Science and Evolution-produced Religion
This post is inspired by Amy Orr-Ewing's book "Is Believing in God
Irrational?" Chapter 2. Please see all the chapters in the post "Is
Believing in God Irrational?" for the full picture if you'd like.
Ch2) Is the concept of God delusional? Isn't it outdated by science, based on no evidence, and an evolutionary leftover?
a) Has science dispensed with God? Orr-Ewing dismisses the idea (if someone gave it without evidence) by mentioning Christian scientists. I agree.
b) With scientific explanations for the universe, is God unnecessary? Amy says that science does not have the ability to say anything about God and the matter should be left to other disciplines. Two things come to mind for me: i) First, I believe there are a number of scientific arguments for the existence of God which have not been adequately shut down by atheists. Some of these (TSM in particular) rely on the fact that we cannot explain the universe with science only, namely due to the limits of time, space, and matter complexity. ii) Second, even if the natural universe could be explained (confining natural to that which is usually observed by science), other disciplines with other types of evidence may take their place and perhaps prove or disprove the existence of God. Personally, I tend to categorize science as anything that can be observed in any way, so I would include the inductive evidence of changed lives, miracles, and the like. These, especially miracles, are a sure front in the face of atheistic science.
c) Amy cites Dawkins, who says that many Christians present no evidence in their arguments, which rules out proper discussion and ends in violence, whereas people do not go to war based on an absence of belief. She defends the inference to the Crusades by saying that the logical end of Christianity is peace, while Atheists have no basis for it (e.g. Stalin). Here Dawkins is referencing normal, nonviolent atheists while Orr-Ewing is finding violent ones. Here I place a categorical distinction and a claim that everyone believes something. When Dawkins makes his statement, he suggests that all atheists believe the same (all have an absence of belief) and therefore do not go to war. However, atheists are defined only by their absence of belief in God, not as believing nothing, leaving every other belief open. Stalin believed in Marxism and that everyone richer than the common people must be thrown down. Dawkins behaves like a normal American and I have not met him personally, so it is hard to determine what he believes.
Let me go back to the impossibility of believing nothing and support this claim a little more. Perhaps people have different definitions of belief. I define it as whatever is most important to you. Romans 10:10 says "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified." defining belief as a desire. Believed facts only support the desire. For Christians, we do not only academically believe in the existence of God, but more than that we know he is the most important, desirable person in the universe and so we pursue him at the cost of everything else. For Atheists, if it is not God, then perhaps it is comfort, power, leaving a legacy, knowledge, being seen as smart, family, money, affluence, etc. In Stalin's case it was the victory of the proleteriat.
d) i) Wasn't religion an evolutionary construct to help us form societies? ii) Is it now a disease that religious people indoctrinate their helpless children with?
Orr-Ewing handles this quite well by pointing out the lack of evidence or reasoning behind this idea. For me I see that in the first case, i) the evolutionary construct is merely a plausible explanation for how religion came to be. I accept that is a good explanation that does not seem to have obvious holes. To the mind of the Atheist, this is a good idea to have around, something that fits with the rest of their arguments. However, it does not disprove theism nor present any evidence that our evolutionary history (assuming we have one) did indeed involve the creation of religion. [I have a book that an atheist friend gave me on the subject which I hope to read soon. We shall see if it has evidence or just ideas]. Even supposing religion did evolve, it's evolution does not prove its falsity. In fact, scientists traditionally claim that evolved things tend to be helpful. [Dawkins in his Oct 2008 debate against Lennox used evolution to support the validity of the truth from our brains.] And again, even if they claim evolution did not find a true thing in this case, the fact that it evolved still does not rule it out. Perhaps it found the truth by chance?
ii) Again there is no evidence, no scientific studies on the brains of 'sick' religious people, to prove the malady. On the strain of indoctrination, is it not the same to tell your child something is true as to say it is not? I can see how this may be discouraged if religion was proved false, but again, even if it were proved false, do we not have the right of free speech and ownership of our children so long as we do not abuse them? After all, we tell our children that Santa exists, and would probably not take forceful action against a parent who taught that the sky was green. Though we would have every right handily put them down in books.
Ch2) Is the concept of God delusional? Isn't it outdated by science, based on no evidence, and an evolutionary leftover?
a) Has science dispensed with God? Orr-Ewing dismisses the idea (if someone gave it without evidence) by mentioning Christian scientists. I agree.
b) With scientific explanations for the universe, is God unnecessary? Amy says that science does not have the ability to say anything about God and the matter should be left to other disciplines. Two things come to mind for me: i) First, I believe there are a number of scientific arguments for the existence of God which have not been adequately shut down by atheists. Some of these (TSM in particular) rely on the fact that we cannot explain the universe with science only, namely due to the limits of time, space, and matter complexity. ii) Second, even if the natural universe could be explained (confining natural to that which is usually observed by science), other disciplines with other types of evidence may take their place and perhaps prove or disprove the existence of God. Personally, I tend to categorize science as anything that can be observed in any way, so I would include the inductive evidence of changed lives, miracles, and the like. These, especially miracles, are a sure front in the face of atheistic science.
c) Amy cites Dawkins, who says that many Christians present no evidence in their arguments, which rules out proper discussion and ends in violence, whereas people do not go to war based on an absence of belief. She defends the inference to the Crusades by saying that the logical end of Christianity is peace, while Atheists have no basis for it (e.g. Stalin). Here Dawkins is referencing normal, nonviolent atheists while Orr-Ewing is finding violent ones. Here I place a categorical distinction and a claim that everyone believes something. When Dawkins makes his statement, he suggests that all atheists believe the same (all have an absence of belief) and therefore do not go to war. However, atheists are defined only by their absence of belief in God, not as believing nothing, leaving every other belief open. Stalin believed in Marxism and that everyone richer than the common people must be thrown down. Dawkins behaves like a normal American and I have not met him personally, so it is hard to determine what he believes.
Let me go back to the impossibility of believing nothing and support this claim a little more. Perhaps people have different definitions of belief. I define it as whatever is most important to you. Romans 10:10 says "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified." defining belief as a desire. Believed facts only support the desire. For Christians, we do not only academically believe in the existence of God, but more than that we know he is the most important, desirable person in the universe and so we pursue him at the cost of everything else. For Atheists, if it is not God, then perhaps it is comfort, power, leaving a legacy, knowledge, being seen as smart, family, money, affluence, etc. In Stalin's case it was the victory of the proleteriat.
d) i) Wasn't religion an evolutionary construct to help us form societies? ii) Is it now a disease that religious people indoctrinate their helpless children with?
Orr-Ewing handles this quite well by pointing out the lack of evidence or reasoning behind this idea. For me I see that in the first case, i) the evolutionary construct is merely a plausible explanation for how religion came to be. I accept that is a good explanation that does not seem to have obvious holes. To the mind of the Atheist, this is a good idea to have around, something that fits with the rest of their arguments. However, it does not disprove theism nor present any evidence that our evolutionary history (assuming we have one) did indeed involve the creation of religion. [I have a book that an atheist friend gave me on the subject which I hope to read soon. We shall see if it has evidence or just ideas]. Even supposing religion did evolve, it's evolution does not prove its falsity. In fact, scientists traditionally claim that evolved things tend to be helpful. [Dawkins in his Oct 2008 debate against Lennox used evolution to support the validity of the truth from our brains.] And again, even if they claim evolution did not find a true thing in this case, the fact that it evolved still does not rule it out. Perhaps it found the truth by chance?
ii) Again there is no evidence, no scientific studies on the brains of 'sick' religious people, to prove the malady. On the strain of indoctrination, is it not the same to tell your child something is true as to say it is not? I can see how this may be discouraged if religion was proved false, but again, even if it were proved false, do we not have the right of free speech and ownership of our children so long as we do not abuse them? After all, we tell our children that Santa exists, and would probably not take forceful action against a parent who taught that the sky was green. Though we would have every right handily put them down in books.
Is Believing in God Irrational? Ch1 Other Religions Experiences
This post is inspired by Amy Orr-Ewing's book "Is Believing in God Irrational?" Chapter 1. Please see all the chapters in the post "Is Believing in God Irrational?" for the full picture if you'd like.
Ch1) What about the religious experiences of other faiths?
Amy defends this point by demonstrating that other religions, Buddhism and Islam in particular, do not claim a personal experience with a personal God. I might be led to believe that nearly all religions other than Christianity lack this point. However, I am not satisfied for two reasons: First, there may be existing religions (or we could invent a religion) that claims to have such an experience. Second, what if these other religions nonetheless claim to have some sort of experience that validates their faith, not necessarily a personal one with a personal God?
a) It is easy to invent religions and claim to have personal experiences. I think in the case of such claims, because it seems impossible to validate them scientifically (though I am open to suggestions), we must look at the results of the persons life. Do they actually live out (or try very hard to live out) what they believe? Does their life exhibit change that seems greater than would come from a fantasized psychological crutch, the effects of the religious institution, or a conscious deception? I would argue that Christianity alone exhibits this, though this point of evidence is of course quite debatable.
b) What we are dealing with here is my interpretation of the ontological argument. Is there evidence that we have been influenced by something greater than ourselves and the natural universe? One argument points to our concept of infinity, which has no reality in the universe, and so - assuming we cannot conceive of any concept we have not seen - suggests the touch of something infinite, namely God. The same argument may be applied personally from religious experiences. That heart tug we feel cannot be produced by psychological phenomena, from within ourselves, and so points to God. However, other religions may claim this argument as well.
First of all, I may ask if any do. I think there are a number of New Age type people who might volunteer for this, but for many main world religions, I don't know. Buddhism may claim a disappearing of desire, though that is rather an absence than a presence, and I would accept it as an effect of shutting down the brain partially, a common element of meditation many religions.
However, if some religions still claim experiences that seem to come from outside the natural world, then again I may have call in the test of that persons life again. Do they act as if they have been touched by something outside?
Ch1) What about the religious experiences of other faiths?
Amy defends this point by demonstrating that other religions, Buddhism and Islam in particular, do not claim a personal experience with a personal God. I might be led to believe that nearly all religions other than Christianity lack this point. However, I am not satisfied for two reasons: First, there may be existing religions (or we could invent a religion) that claims to have such an experience. Second, what if these other religions nonetheless claim to have some sort of experience that validates their faith, not necessarily a personal one with a personal God?
a) It is easy to invent religions and claim to have personal experiences. I think in the case of such claims, because it seems impossible to validate them scientifically (though I am open to suggestions), we must look at the results of the persons life. Do they actually live out (or try very hard to live out) what they believe? Does their life exhibit change that seems greater than would come from a fantasized psychological crutch, the effects of the religious institution, or a conscious deception? I would argue that Christianity alone exhibits this, though this point of evidence is of course quite debatable.
b) What we are dealing with here is my interpretation of the ontological argument. Is there evidence that we have been influenced by something greater than ourselves and the natural universe? One argument points to our concept of infinity, which has no reality in the universe, and so - assuming we cannot conceive of any concept we have not seen - suggests the touch of something infinite, namely God. The same argument may be applied personally from religious experiences. That heart tug we feel cannot be produced by psychological phenomena, from within ourselves, and so points to God. However, other religions may claim this argument as well.
First of all, I may ask if any do. I think there are a number of New Age type people who might volunteer for this, but for many main world religions, I don't know. Buddhism may claim a disappearing of desire, though that is rather an absence than a presence, and I would accept it as an effect of shutting down the brain partially, a common element of meditation many religions.
However, if some religions still claim experiences that seem to come from outside the natural world, then again I may have call in the test of that persons life again. Do they act as if they have been touched by something outside?
02 September 2012
Is Believing in God Irrational?
This post is sparked by questions and ideas raised in the Christian book "Is Believing in God Irrational?" by Amy Orr-Ewing. Some parts are largely her ideas, some mine, and some both. It will probably be edited and extended as I read more.
For your clarity in reading, I'll explain that in many of these arguments I show the question to be unfounded. Most of these questions/ideas against belief in God are presented by others with practically zero evidence or reason. It is possible that there are more counter-arguments and evidence to support these questions - I have considered a number of them - but Amy presents virtually none and in general, those who ask the questions have no evidence or reason. As such I have not spent a lot of time looking for counter arguments, only commenting on Orr-Ewing's book book.
Ch1) What about the religious experiences of other faiths?
Amy defends this point by demonstrating that other religions, Buddhism and Islam in particular, do not claim a personal experience with a personal God. I might be led to believe that nearly all religions other than Christianity lack this point. However, I am not satisfied for two reasons: First, there may be existing religions (or we could invent a religion) that claims to have such an experience. Second, what if these other religions nonetheless claim to have some sort of experience that validates their faith, not necessarily a personal one with a personal God?
a) It is easy to invent religions and claim to have personal experiences. I think in the case of such claims, because it seems impossible to validate them scientifically (though I am open to suggestions), we must look at the results of the persons life. Do they actually live out (or try very hard to live out) what they believe? Does their life exhibit change that seems greater than would come from a fantasized psychological crutch, the effects of the religious institution, or a conscious deception? I would argue that Christianity alone exhibits this, though this point of evidence is of course quite debatable.
b) What we are dealing with here is my interpretation of the ontological argument. Is there evidence that we have been influenced by something greater than ourselves and the natural universe? One argument points to our concept of infinity, which has no reality in the universe, and so - assuming we cannot conceive of any concept we have not seen - suggests the touch of something infinite, namely God. The same argument may be applied personally from religious experiences. That heart tug we feel cannot be produced by psychological phenomena, from within ourselves, and so points to God. However, other religions may claim this argument as well.
First of all, I may ask if any do. I think there are a number of New Age type people who might volunteer for this, but for many main world religions, I don't know. Buddhism may claim a disappearing of desire, though that is rather an absence than a presence, and I would accept it as an effect of shutting down the brain partially, a common element of meditation many religions.
However, if some religions still claim experiences that seem to come from outside the natural world, then again I may have call in the test of that persons life again. Do they act as if they have been touched by something outside?
Ch2) Is the concept of God delusional? Isn't it outdated by science, based on no evidence, and an evolutionary leftover?
a) Has science dispensed with God? Orr-Ewing dismisses the idea (if someone gave it without evidence) by mentioning Christian scientists. I agree.
b) With scientific explanations for the universe, is God unnecessary? Amy says that science does not have the ability to say anything about God and the matter should be left to other disciplines. Two things come to mind for me: i) First, I believe there are a number of scientific arguments for the existence of God which have not been adequately shut down by atheists. Some of these (TSM in particular) rely on the fact that we cannot explain the universe with science only, namely due to the limits of time, space, and matter complexity. ii) Second, even if the natural universe could be explained (confining natural to that which is usually observed by science), other disciplines with other types of evidence may take their place and perhaps prove or disprove the existence of God. Personally, I tend to categorize science as anything that can be observed in any way, so I would include the inductive evidence of changed lives, miracles, and the like. These, especially miracles, are a sure front in the face of atheistic science.
c) Amy cites Dawkins, who says that many Christians present no evidence in their arguments, which rules out proper discussion and ends in violence, whereas people do not go to war based on an absence of belief. She defends the inference to the Crusades by saying that the logical end of Christianity is peace, while Atheists have no basis for it (e.g. Stalin). Here Dawkins is referencing normal, nonviolent atheists while Orr-Ewing is finding violent ones. Here I place a categorical distinction and a claim that everyone believes something. When Dawkins makes his statement, he suggests that all atheists believe the same (all have an absence of belief) and therefore do not go to war. However, atheists are defined only by their absence of belief in God, not as believing nothing, leaving every other belief open. Stalin believed in Marxism and that everyone richer than the common people must be thrown down. Dawkins behaves like a normal American and I have not met him personally, so it is hard to determine what he believes.
Let me go back to the impossibility of believing nothing and support this claim a little more. Perhaps people have different definitions of belief. I define it as whatever is most important to you. Romans 10:10 says "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified." defining belief as a desire. Believed facts only support the desire. For Christians, we do not so much believe in the existence of God, but know he is the most important, desirable person in the universe and so we pursue him at the cost of everything else. For Atheists, if it is not God, then perhaps it is comfort, power, leaving a legacy, knowledge, being seen as smart, family, money, affluence, etc. In Stalin's case it was the victory of the proleteriat.
d) i) Wasn't religion an evolutionary construct to help us form societies? ii) Is it now a disease that religious people indoctrinate their helpless children with?
Orr-Ewing handles this quite well by pointing out the lack of evidence or reasoning behind this idea. For me I see that in the first case, i) the evolutionary construct is merely a plausible explanation for how religion came to be. I accept that is a good explanation that does not seem to have obvious holes. To the mind of the Atheist, this is a good idea to have around, something that fits with the rest of their arguments. However, it does not disprove theism nor present any evidence that our evolutionary history (assuming we have one) did indeed involve the creation of religion. [I have a book that an atheist friend gave me on the subject which I hope to read soon. We shall see if it has evidence or just ideas]. Even supposing religion did evolve, it's evolution does not prove its falsity. In fact, scientists traditionally claim that evolved things tend to be helpful. [Dawkins in his Oct 2008 debate against Lennox used evolution to support the validity of the truth from our brains.] And again, even if they claim evolution did not find a true thing in this case, the fact that it evolved still does not rule it out. Perhaps it found the truth by chance?
ii) Again there is no evidence, no scientific studies on the brains of 'sick' religious people, to prove the malady. On the strain of indoctrination, is it not the same to tell your child something is true as to say it is not? I can see how this may be discouraged if religion was proved false, but again, even if it were proved false, do we not have the right of free speech and ownership of our children so long as we do not abuse them? After all, we tell our children that Santa exists, and would probably not take forceful action against a parent who taught that the sky was green. Though we would have every right handily put them down in books.
Ch3) Is religion a psychological crutch to make the person feel better?
Some claim that, in need of comfort and protection, weak people project a God to fill the vacant father figure role, one in the image of man. Again, this idea has no psychological evidence. However, I will present a few thoughts Amy gave that came to my mind as well:
a) I suppose this concept of God makes sense from both ends. From the atheist perspective, of course God fills all the roles that weak human beings want him to, providing everything they need for comfort. This suggests man created God to fill his own void. From the Christian side, it makes sense that if God created us to be in relationship with him, he would create a need in us for him, such that he satisfies all our desires in the same way that women 'need' men and visa versa (though this desire is only a shadow and a foretaste deposit of our actual relationship with God). In fact, this intense desire that refuses to be satisfied by things of this world may be in itself and evidence for God. Because the facts (that the idea of God satisfies our desires) match both perspectives, there is nothing to be said here. This observation should have no weight to either side.
b) It is simple to reverse this argument and say that atheists, or anyone who holds any position for that matter, has created their set of beliefs in order to avoid pain of some sort. Perhaps the atheist does not want to make the life changes that God would make necessary. Perhaps the atheist wants independence, a feeling of accomplishment without any help. Perhaps they have been scarred earlier by hateful religious people or had father, mothers, or friends who seriously let them down, and therefore the main images that reflect God. Whatever the belief, reasons can be suggested for creating a psychological crutch.
c) The same sort of arguments work for the nearly identical ideas that man invented God to fill the void of need and to create an orderly society (Ch2.d), that religion is only for the weak who can't realize that religion is just a reflection of our desires for society, a coping mechanism against the hard world, or a deluded escape from our failures.
Ch4) Christians haven't tried out all the alternatives. They've never tried believing in something else. How can they then know the truth?
Here I think Orr-Ewing misses part of the question. She addresses six assumptions that often lie behind this question regarding relative truth (what's true or a good path for me might not be for you), which is a big issue, but does not mention its connection to the first chapter - what about the religions experiences of other faiths? This second aspect of the question could be phrase "If Christians have not legitimately tried out other religions for their experiential evidence , how do they know they are not false? I'll answer that question at the end of this chapter, but first we'll cover six assumptions:
a) Often the world puts religion in its own category, separate from the sciences or philosophy, something of cultural preference or self-help choice, so that people can pick and choose their own religions without reference to truth. Perhaps 'religion' can be defined that way, but not the way I've been using it in this post. Some who claim religion hope that it is seen as a scientific pursuit, on level with all the other sciences, subject to evidence and reason. This means that religion, like science, is also applicable to all people. The sky is blue and we argue that God loves you. You can argue back or ignore our questions, but do not dismiss it as something that should be left to the individual.
b) There is a philosophical school of thought called logical positivism whose main tenet states that if something can't be proved true, it isn't. People often state that God cannot be proved and so dismiss the matter, perhaps not even realizing the principle they are using. i) The principle does not withstand its own test. Because the tenet itself cannot be proved true, it isn't. ii) Morals, in general, cannot be proved and so, under this idea, must be done away with. Typically most supporters of positivism do not wish to discard morals. iii) I was slightly ashamed to see that Amy did not mention arguments for the existence of God. There are a number that are still being contested and may, in fact, prove God. In this way, setting aside the problems with the principle, God still withstands the test. iv) In what sense can anything be proved? (This may be brought up against arguments for God or anything else.) Science has never claimed to ultimately prove something in the correspondent sense, only in the pragmatic sense (which is quite limited). Under the correspondent definition, nothing is true by Logical Positivism.
c) Like with religion, there is another assumption about definitions. Tolerance, though perhaps defined well formally, is used politically as 'mind your own business' or 'have an open mind' or 'their way is equally right' or 'it doesn't really matter so don't make a fuss'. NO. If you wish, you may use the word that way. However, I see two possible definitions of tolerance, the commonly used one is not imperative, but the calmer one ought to be. Tolerance in the quieter sense is not treating anyone with special deference or negativity due to their culture, views, etc. Of course if someone believes in killing, it is commonsense not to hire them, but that springs from a concern for yourself, not a special hate of the other person.
d) A common implication during conversations is that ones religion is merely determined by birth. You were indoctrinated by your parents and cannot be changed, pity you. You need to learn to tolerate other upbringings. i) Ones upbringing has nothing to do with what is actually true. After all, you were indoctrinated by your school to believe 1+1=2. Oh, well I believe 1+1=3, who are you to discriminate against me, you were only brought up to believe that. ii) If beliefs, even restricting them to religious beliefs, are a product of your childhood, do atheistic homes have the same treatment?
What follows is an attack on relativism based on its implications, followed by a very fundamental (or eye-opening) assumption behind some parts of relativism. Then I will get into my defense of the original question "How can you know the truth if you haven't explored other options?"
e) The logical result of relative or personal religion is relative morality. If anyone can choose his or her own beliefs, without question from others, there is no basis for law, morals, good manners, and all kinds of things. Do you wish your children do not swear or use drugs? Then you are imposing your personal values, your religion, on them. Nothing in formal science says that one should not cheat at card games, get drunk every night, or even murder. Now many will reply that these things are commonsense and not related to religion. Commonsense based on what? How you feel? How your were brought up? We already discussed how relative and unimportant that is. Some others may claim that good manners are good for society. i) What if they aren't? What if killing someone is the survival of the fittest? We don't know, we're just in the moment. Only time will tell. We can arrest them, claiming that a fit society that punishes people who kill tends to survive, but we don't know. ii) Good for society? What do you mean by good? People are happier? Whoever said we should try to make people happy? Nothing innate in the way the world is made suggests that we should pursue our own happiness, promote the survival of our species, or get up tomorrow morning. Anything you strive for, anything you seek, think about what good reason you have for pursuing that thing. After all, you've devoted your life to it.
f) Look at these assumptions. Religion is a product of upbringing, your personal desires, in it's own category. This is a picture of man deciding what his own religion is, it is man pursuing and inventing God. Even for New Age thinkers, they are pursuing God to solve their own aches through an assortment of loosely valued ways. However, Christianity does not work this way. Christ is not about mans attempt to satisfy self, to reach God. "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." This is God reaching down to man to give us what he has planned for us, which is far better than what we want.
Now we get to the question:
g) How can Christians discredit other religions if they haven't explored their experiential evidence? A large foundation for Christian belief is on a personal experience with God; how can Christians be so arrogant as to disregard other experiences?
i) There is one point that Amy makes to defend this question. This is the observation that many people use this argument to discourage all religion, because since it would be impossible to explore all religions, religious truth is unattainable. This is a minor point that could be brought up during a discussion to see the reaction of the questioner, however, it has no philosophical weight. So what if religious truth is unreachable? If that's the way the world happens to be, we have to deal with it. We can't plead our innocence because such a possibility discourages all truth.
ii) A second idea that is not compulsory is that of terrible 'religions'. I define religion as a set of beliefs that drive actions, a set of values, desires, etc. Therefore, the idolization of the state and obsession to exterminate 'weaker' races, Nazi Facism, is a religion. If you disagree with my definition I still hope you see my point. If we have not given ourselves over the the thrill of being united under one all-controlling government, how do we know what it feels like, how do we know if it isn't the way? Obviously exploring such possibilities is both impractical and disagreeable.
iii) The one logical function that aids us here is that of truth exclusion. If you have found and tested that 1+1=2, then you do not need to test 1+1=5 or any other number. If somehow you can prove that all of the acceleration of an object can be accounted for by gravity, you do not need to search for others (well, there could be equal but opposite other forces that would change later due to position, but that's outside of the analogy). In the same way, if we have somehow proved that God exists, we know that no other religions are completely true because the idea of God logically excludes all others. We know "in the beginning God created" and major history afterward, so we can exclude all other creation stories, etc. In this way, it is legitimate to exclude other religions once you believe you have found the truth.
Now, of course other religions can claim the same principle. Buddhist monks may claim to have reached some level of enlightenment which proves (at least to them) that Buddhism is true. Please see Chapter 1 for this.
Ch5) If God existed, bad things would not happen to good people, or to anyone for that matter.
a) Existence of good and evil
i) Amy begins by saying that this defining of good and evil, the statement that bad things happen to people, presupposes a definition of good and evil, which come from God, and not elsewhere.
On the one hand, this argument is sound in the sense that we can say "You guys don't believe in good or evil, so why are you complaining about this problem?" On the other hand, on a true philosophical level, this is a semi-internal attack against the validity of belief in God. According to Christianity, there is good and evil, and (it is assumed) God should take the evil out of peoples lives.
ii) Orr-Ewing then makes another slightly misguided attach. I must say, by the way, that it is quite possible I am misinterpreting her intentions in many of these cases. I am fairly certain I am not, but it's possible. Anyway, to continue: She quotes Richard Dawkins in a paragraph where he says that the universe under Atheism is blind and pitiless. She attacks this by saying that atheists deny moral law but nevertheless use moral law when they speak. This is a false attack because Dawkins use of moral language says nothing about his belief in it. Dawkins must use moral language in order to explain that in a naturalistic universe, moral law does not exist.
iii) However, Amy does continue to say that moral language is naturally laid in people's minds, which is evidence for its truth - think of a conscience. This is valid - it may not be compulsory, but it is valid.
b) How other religions define and deal with good and evil.
i) Buddhism believes evil is illusory, that suffering is only a cause of desire. If you can control your desires (and desire nothing, I presume), you can transcend suffering. This does not exclude pain, physical pain, but pain is just physical. You don't have to be bothered by it if you have overcome suffering.
ii) Islam believes in the absolute, all-detail controlling will of Allah. This is much like extreme Calvinism, which tends to blot out free will. (But the balance between Gods sovereignty and our free will is for another time.) Because of this, Allah wills everything, including good and evil. So...they're really not that important.
iii) This is of my own design: Atheism. If atheism is to denounce things like the holocaust, it has to create some method of creating moral law. It will attempt something beyond God, of course, but it will make something. However, whatever it chooses will nonetheless be an unbased judgement. Say for instance, the survival and benefit (in the general meaning of the word) of the human race - this is good. But who is to say that we humans should pursue our own survival? Maybe it's a natural function of evolution, but who says we need to obey the laws of nature? I don't think we treat them very respectfully when we fly in airplanes, why with evolution?
c) Defense by free will, with definition for good and evil
All right, here we go.
First of all, the book explains that God wanted to make people with a capacity to love, people in his image, so he had to give them free will. If we didn't have it, we'd be no better than the rocks in the ground, and that isn't very interesting.
Second, Amy starts defining good and evil as light vs. dark, where evil is the absence of good. God doesn't make evil, it's just him not being there.
i) Here there is a small counter-argument (my own) that could be made: isn't God omnipresent (he's everywhere), then how can there be an absence of him somewhere? 1) When Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground and cursed man. Plants are no longer so proliferous, animals don't grow as huge, man has to work to get food, woman will be in pain during birth, etc. This is all done as a sign to us that yes, indeed, we choose to do wrong things and that messes up the world. If God didn't let the world go to waste a little, that would suggest to us that we still had it right. 2) By the nature of having free will, we have the choice to do and be non-God things, which creates evil.
ii) Here is another section of my other thought. Let us further define good and evil. It is already said that evil is the absence of good, but what is good? From a worldly perspective, it is pleasure, wealth, contentment, strong families, a stable economy, etc. But that is what we feel is good. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I would like to pose the idea that good is what points to God. He is the only source of life or anything that is good. Therefore pain and disaster can sometimes be good, so long as it helps people get closer to God. Let me give an illustration. I often pose God as a father and we as his sons. If a son is not following his dad, will his dad not punish him out of love, in order for him to learn and be the happiest in the long run? If a patient has a tumor, doesn't the doctor need to cut away the skin and painfully cut out the tumor in order to save the life of the patient? If a man is wicked all his life and runs into no pain, how can he know that he is doing wrong? In the same way, God allows what we see as evil in order to bring us to himself and give himself glory (which is not selfish, because he actually deserves it).
d)Now Amy treats Christians as they suffer:
i) Am I suffering because I sinned? Not neccessarily, Amy answers. Orr-Ewing lists some reasons, I will list more for suffering. 1) The world is just messed up as a sign that there is sin in the world. 2) You are being tested and refined by God. He is making you into a better Christian, take it just as you would painful athletic workouts. 3) You are being persecuted by the world because you believe. Rejoice in this, for your reward in heaven will be great. 4) Sinful people simply do mean things to people. 5) You have strayed really far from God and he is waking you back up. The book of Hosea explains this well. 6) It can be natural consequences of your own sin, like drinking and driving and having an accident. 7) When God cursed the world after the garden of Eden, he said that mans work would be tough. Doing Gods work might just be exhausting to our fallen, depreciating bodies.
ii) Why doesn't God intervene? Well, we just listed a ton of reasons why suffering is good and normal. Amy only adds the hope of heaven and the future conquest of Jesus.
Ch6) Why are Christians so bad?
Many people object to the Christian faith based on the hypocrisy of Christians they know or hear of: Clergy that sexually abuse children, megachurch pastors that cheat on their wives, televangelists with private jets, Christian neighbors who shun them with elitist morality, and just people who claim they're Christian but act like everyone else. If God is supposed to transform lives, why don't we see that in Christians? The failure of some to follow Jesus's moral teaching might be evidence against the validity of the Christian faith, against God himself.
Unfortunately Amy bounces around a lot between different arguments of quite different types. I'll try to separate them here and make my own comments.
a) First of all, let me clarify two things:
i) The idea called into question here, what lies at stake, is whether or not God transforms lives. His existence, the actions of Jesus, the truth of the moral codes he taught, and other facts are not at stake. Transformed lives are simply another piece of evidence in favor of Christianity, and their lack only calls into question the claim that God transforms. It's like the wind: if someone claims it turns windmills and it doesn't seem to, that doesn't defeat wind, because we might feel it on our face too. However, if the bible claims that Christians should be transformed and they aren't, there's a lot more ground to question the rest of it, simply because if we lie in one place, we're probably wrong in another too (though other things like Gods existence can be independently verified).
ii) Doing good things is completely not the point. Jesus came to "seek and the save the lost" (Luke 19:10). And he said himself "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." (Matt 9:12). We Christians are sick, messed up people who need help. That's why we trust in Jesus instead of trying to make it our own way. Unfortunately many people (including myself from time to time) fall into the trap of thinking that we can earn our way into heaven by doing good things. Nope. If that were the case we're all doomed. 1 John 4:18 "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Following Jesus is not for perfect people. If you're perfect, you don't need him (but no one is). People aren't supposed to have their act together before they come to God, but hopefully start improving after.
b) Christians do not claim that they will be transformed into good people immediately or perfectly
i) First of all, let me say again that we begin as sinners needing a savior, and never stop needing Jesus - ever. Even when he brings us to heaven.
ii) Sanctification (become a better person) is a process. Philippians 1:6 "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." So, don't expect Christians to be perfect right away.You can't build a house by snapping your fingers.
iii) This process of sanctification is not easy, it's a struggle, and sometimes we backslide. Paul tells Timothy to "Fight the good fight of faith." So in a fight you win some and you lose some. Eventually you will win the war, but there are individual battles that you might lose. Even great leaders in the bible fell sometimes. David was said to be a man after Gods own heart, often looked to as a model of devotion. However even he fell to murdering Uriah in order to sleep with Uriah's wife Bathsheba.
iv) The 1 John 4 passage, saying we can never claim to be without sin, implies that we will not be without sin until Jesus comes back at least. So no matter what a Christian can never be perfect until Jesus comes back and we should never expect them to be without mistake.
c) Christians are not supposed to be perfect, yet most people (including me) still feel like there's something missing. God is supposed to transform us right? Doesn't somebody get it right? Why do we hear of so many catastrophic failures?
i) First of all, for the perfect example look to Christ himself. He's not with us on earth right now unfortunately, but look at the bible. His behavior was perfect. Gandhi said "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." (from the book). The goal of the Christian walk is to be like Christ. 2 Cor 3:18 "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
ii) So how should we look for transformation? First of all, look for effort. Is the person honestly trying to improve, to treat people with respect, to be a man or woman of integrity? Again, people backslide, but the point is they mainly fight to be like Christ. Now, any of you Christians reading this who are satisfied there, shame on you. We alone are not fighting this battle. Many non-believers also try to be good people. That's what all the self-help books, yoga, meditation techniques, etc are for. In fact, that's what all other religions are for. All other religions save Christianity have humans trying to reach, control, or appease God, not God coming down, humbling himself, and dying for humans. So we ought to see more change than simply effort. One easy way to quantify this might be looking at the long-run. I admit my lack of research here, but I'll bet most people who try self-help programs don't stick with it very long, moving on to something else or giving up on those sorts of things for a while. Christians, on the other hand, have the holy spirit inside of them. As long as they have approached the Gospel recognizing they need a savior and have accepted Christ for real, not just as a moral code to follow, relying on Gods help and not their own effort, they should stick with the fight until they die. Go see if that's true. (Unfortunately there are so many people who call themselves Christians and really don't believe at all).
iii) There are quite a few false people who call themselves Christians simply because their parents were, simply because that's what everyone is in America, right?, or simply, because that's what good people are.If that sounds like you let me say, you're missing so much. I'm not here to condemn you, I'm here to beg you, please, dig a little deeper and see what you find. The truth of the gospel transforms your life. Because God has died for you and now fights for you, because he holds your soul in the palm of his hand, you have nothing to fear, nothing to get ticked off about, everything to gain and nothing to lose, and you have him, the holy spirit living inside of you. These truths by Gods spirit, settled down into the soul of a Christian, are what makes them good, loving people, and allows them to give of themselves and serve others repeatedly without needing something in return. Woot Woot!
iv) On a different note, it may seem that many Christians make huge mistakes because those that do are televised and harped upon. Kind of sad, but true. Why do we hate every president we elect? Because we only see the things we disagree with. Why do we only hear of our troops dying in Afghanistan and not all the good they're doing? (FYI I'm against the war - for some reason I just don't tend to talk about politics in this blog). Because that's what people want to see on television. So yeah, some people mess up, but there are a bjillion pastors and individuals who don't make such spectacular mistakes (and quite a few who do but just aren't in public positions).
TO BE CONTINUED...
why doesn't god just blast us with evidence?
atheism is a belief just like theism
For your clarity in reading, I'll explain that in many of these arguments I show the question to be unfounded. Most of these questions/ideas against belief in God are presented by others with practically zero evidence or reason. It is possible that there are more counter-arguments and evidence to support these questions - I have considered a number of them - but Amy presents virtually none and in general, those who ask the questions have no evidence or reason. As such I have not spent a lot of time looking for counter arguments, only commenting on Orr-Ewing's book book.
Ch1) What about the religious experiences of other faiths?
Amy defends this point by demonstrating that other religions, Buddhism and Islam in particular, do not claim a personal experience with a personal God. I might be led to believe that nearly all religions other than Christianity lack this point. However, I am not satisfied for two reasons: First, there may be existing religions (or we could invent a religion) that claims to have such an experience. Second, what if these other religions nonetheless claim to have some sort of experience that validates their faith, not necessarily a personal one with a personal God?
a) It is easy to invent religions and claim to have personal experiences. I think in the case of such claims, because it seems impossible to validate them scientifically (though I am open to suggestions), we must look at the results of the persons life. Do they actually live out (or try very hard to live out) what they believe? Does their life exhibit change that seems greater than would come from a fantasized psychological crutch, the effects of the religious institution, or a conscious deception? I would argue that Christianity alone exhibits this, though this point of evidence is of course quite debatable.
b) What we are dealing with here is my interpretation of the ontological argument. Is there evidence that we have been influenced by something greater than ourselves and the natural universe? One argument points to our concept of infinity, which has no reality in the universe, and so - assuming we cannot conceive of any concept we have not seen - suggests the touch of something infinite, namely God. The same argument may be applied personally from religious experiences. That heart tug we feel cannot be produced by psychological phenomena, from within ourselves, and so points to God. However, other religions may claim this argument as well.
First of all, I may ask if any do. I think there are a number of New Age type people who might volunteer for this, but for many main world religions, I don't know. Buddhism may claim a disappearing of desire, though that is rather an absence than a presence, and I would accept it as an effect of shutting down the brain partially, a common element of meditation many religions.
However, if some religions still claim experiences that seem to come from outside the natural world, then again I may have call in the test of that persons life again. Do they act as if they have been touched by something outside?
Ch2) Is the concept of God delusional? Isn't it outdated by science, based on no evidence, and an evolutionary leftover?
a) Has science dispensed with God? Orr-Ewing dismisses the idea (if someone gave it without evidence) by mentioning Christian scientists. I agree.
b) With scientific explanations for the universe, is God unnecessary? Amy says that science does not have the ability to say anything about God and the matter should be left to other disciplines. Two things come to mind for me: i) First, I believe there are a number of scientific arguments for the existence of God which have not been adequately shut down by atheists. Some of these (TSM in particular) rely on the fact that we cannot explain the universe with science only, namely due to the limits of time, space, and matter complexity. ii) Second, even if the natural universe could be explained (confining natural to that which is usually observed by science), other disciplines with other types of evidence may take their place and perhaps prove or disprove the existence of God. Personally, I tend to categorize science as anything that can be observed in any way, so I would include the inductive evidence of changed lives, miracles, and the like. These, especially miracles, are a sure front in the face of atheistic science.
c) Amy cites Dawkins, who says that many Christians present no evidence in their arguments, which rules out proper discussion and ends in violence, whereas people do not go to war based on an absence of belief. She defends the inference to the Crusades by saying that the logical end of Christianity is peace, while Atheists have no basis for it (e.g. Stalin). Here Dawkins is referencing normal, nonviolent atheists while Orr-Ewing is finding violent ones. Here I place a categorical distinction and a claim that everyone believes something. When Dawkins makes his statement, he suggests that all atheists believe the same (all have an absence of belief) and therefore do not go to war. However, atheists are defined only by their absence of belief in God, not as believing nothing, leaving every other belief open. Stalin believed in Marxism and that everyone richer than the common people must be thrown down. Dawkins behaves like a normal American and I have not met him personally, so it is hard to determine what he believes.
Let me go back to the impossibility of believing nothing and support this claim a little more. Perhaps people have different definitions of belief. I define it as whatever is most important to you. Romans 10:10 says "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified." defining belief as a desire. Believed facts only support the desire. For Christians, we do not so much believe in the existence of God, but know he is the most important, desirable person in the universe and so we pursue him at the cost of everything else. For Atheists, if it is not God, then perhaps it is comfort, power, leaving a legacy, knowledge, being seen as smart, family, money, affluence, etc. In Stalin's case it was the victory of the proleteriat.
d) i) Wasn't religion an evolutionary construct to help us form societies? ii) Is it now a disease that religious people indoctrinate their helpless children with?
Orr-Ewing handles this quite well by pointing out the lack of evidence or reasoning behind this idea. For me I see that in the first case, i) the evolutionary construct is merely a plausible explanation for how religion came to be. I accept that is a good explanation that does not seem to have obvious holes. To the mind of the Atheist, this is a good idea to have around, something that fits with the rest of their arguments. However, it does not disprove theism nor present any evidence that our evolutionary history (assuming we have one) did indeed involve the creation of religion. [I have a book that an atheist friend gave me on the subject which I hope to read soon. We shall see if it has evidence or just ideas]. Even supposing religion did evolve, it's evolution does not prove its falsity. In fact, scientists traditionally claim that evolved things tend to be helpful. [Dawkins in his Oct 2008 debate against Lennox used evolution to support the validity of the truth from our brains.] And again, even if they claim evolution did not find a true thing in this case, the fact that it evolved still does not rule it out. Perhaps it found the truth by chance?
ii) Again there is no evidence, no scientific studies on the brains of 'sick' religious people, to prove the malady. On the strain of indoctrination, is it not the same to tell your child something is true as to say it is not? I can see how this may be discouraged if religion was proved false, but again, even if it were proved false, do we not have the right of free speech and ownership of our children so long as we do not abuse them? After all, we tell our children that Santa exists, and would probably not take forceful action against a parent who taught that the sky was green. Though we would have every right handily put them down in books.
Ch3) Is religion a psychological crutch to make the person feel better?
Some claim that, in need of comfort and protection, weak people project a God to fill the vacant father figure role, one in the image of man. Again, this idea has no psychological evidence. However, I will present a few thoughts Amy gave that came to my mind as well:
a) I suppose this concept of God makes sense from both ends. From the atheist perspective, of course God fills all the roles that weak human beings want him to, providing everything they need for comfort. This suggests man created God to fill his own void. From the Christian side, it makes sense that if God created us to be in relationship with him, he would create a need in us for him, such that he satisfies all our desires in the same way that women 'need' men and visa versa (though this desire is only a shadow and a foretaste deposit of our actual relationship with God). In fact, this intense desire that refuses to be satisfied by things of this world may be in itself and evidence for God. Because the facts (that the idea of God satisfies our desires) match both perspectives, there is nothing to be said here. This observation should have no weight to either side.
b) It is simple to reverse this argument and say that atheists, or anyone who holds any position for that matter, has created their set of beliefs in order to avoid pain of some sort. Perhaps the atheist does not want to make the life changes that God would make necessary. Perhaps the atheist wants independence, a feeling of accomplishment without any help. Perhaps they have been scarred earlier by hateful religious people or had father, mothers, or friends who seriously let them down, and therefore the main images that reflect God. Whatever the belief, reasons can be suggested for creating a psychological crutch.
c) The same sort of arguments work for the nearly identical ideas that man invented God to fill the void of need and to create an orderly society (Ch2.d), that religion is only for the weak who can't realize that religion is just a reflection of our desires for society, a coping mechanism against the hard world, or a deluded escape from our failures.
Ch4) Christians haven't tried out all the alternatives. They've never tried believing in something else. How can they then know the truth?
Here I think Orr-Ewing misses part of the question. She addresses six assumptions that often lie behind this question regarding relative truth (what's true or a good path for me might not be for you), which is a big issue, but does not mention its connection to the first chapter - what about the religions experiences of other faiths? This second aspect of the question could be phrase "If Christians have not legitimately tried out other religions for their experiential evidence , how do they know they are not false? I'll answer that question at the end of this chapter, but first we'll cover six assumptions:
a) Often the world puts religion in its own category, separate from the sciences or philosophy, something of cultural preference or self-help choice, so that people can pick and choose their own religions without reference to truth. Perhaps 'religion' can be defined that way, but not the way I've been using it in this post. Some who claim religion hope that it is seen as a scientific pursuit, on level with all the other sciences, subject to evidence and reason. This means that religion, like science, is also applicable to all people. The sky is blue and we argue that God loves you. You can argue back or ignore our questions, but do not dismiss it as something that should be left to the individual.
b) There is a philosophical school of thought called logical positivism whose main tenet states that if something can't be proved true, it isn't. People often state that God cannot be proved and so dismiss the matter, perhaps not even realizing the principle they are using. i) The principle does not withstand its own test. Because the tenet itself cannot be proved true, it isn't. ii) Morals, in general, cannot be proved and so, under this idea, must be done away with. Typically most supporters of positivism do not wish to discard morals. iii) I was slightly ashamed to see that Amy did not mention arguments for the existence of God. There are a number that are still being contested and may, in fact, prove God. In this way, setting aside the problems with the principle, God still withstands the test. iv) In what sense can anything be proved? (This may be brought up against arguments for God or anything else.) Science has never claimed to ultimately prove something in the correspondent sense, only in the pragmatic sense (which is quite limited). Under the correspondent definition, nothing is true by Logical Positivism.
c) Like with religion, there is another assumption about definitions. Tolerance, though perhaps defined well formally, is used politically as 'mind your own business' or 'have an open mind' or 'their way is equally right' or 'it doesn't really matter so don't make a fuss'. NO. If you wish, you may use the word that way. However, I see two possible definitions of tolerance, the commonly used one is not imperative, but the calmer one ought to be. Tolerance in the quieter sense is not treating anyone with special deference or negativity due to their culture, views, etc. Of course if someone believes in killing, it is commonsense not to hire them, but that springs from a concern for yourself, not a special hate of the other person.
d) A common implication during conversations is that ones religion is merely determined by birth. You were indoctrinated by your parents and cannot be changed, pity you. You need to learn to tolerate other upbringings. i) Ones upbringing has nothing to do with what is actually true. After all, you were indoctrinated by your school to believe 1+1=2. Oh, well I believe 1+1=3, who are you to discriminate against me, you were only brought up to believe that. ii) If beliefs, even restricting them to religious beliefs, are a product of your childhood, do atheistic homes have the same treatment?
What follows is an attack on relativism based on its implications, followed by a very fundamental (or eye-opening) assumption behind some parts of relativism. Then I will get into my defense of the original question "How can you know the truth if you haven't explored other options?"
e) The logical result of relative or personal religion is relative morality. If anyone can choose his or her own beliefs, without question from others, there is no basis for law, morals, good manners, and all kinds of things. Do you wish your children do not swear or use drugs? Then you are imposing your personal values, your religion, on them. Nothing in formal science says that one should not cheat at card games, get drunk every night, or even murder. Now many will reply that these things are commonsense and not related to religion. Commonsense based on what? How you feel? How your were brought up? We already discussed how relative and unimportant that is. Some others may claim that good manners are good for society. i) What if they aren't? What if killing someone is the survival of the fittest? We don't know, we're just in the moment. Only time will tell. We can arrest them, claiming that a fit society that punishes people who kill tends to survive, but we don't know. ii) Good for society? What do you mean by good? People are happier? Whoever said we should try to make people happy? Nothing innate in the way the world is made suggests that we should pursue our own happiness, promote the survival of our species, or get up tomorrow morning. Anything you strive for, anything you seek, think about what good reason you have for pursuing that thing. After all, you've devoted your life to it.
f) Look at these assumptions. Religion is a product of upbringing, your personal desires, in it's own category. This is a picture of man deciding what his own religion is, it is man pursuing and inventing God. Even for New Age thinkers, they are pursuing God to solve their own aches through an assortment of loosely valued ways. However, Christianity does not work this way. Christ is not about mans attempt to satisfy self, to reach God. "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." This is God reaching down to man to give us what he has planned for us, which is far better than what we want.
Now we get to the question:
g) How can Christians discredit other religions if they haven't explored their experiential evidence? A large foundation for Christian belief is on a personal experience with God; how can Christians be so arrogant as to disregard other experiences?
i) There is one point that Amy makes to defend this question. This is the observation that many people use this argument to discourage all religion, because since it would be impossible to explore all religions, religious truth is unattainable. This is a minor point that could be brought up during a discussion to see the reaction of the questioner, however, it has no philosophical weight. So what if religious truth is unreachable? If that's the way the world happens to be, we have to deal with it. We can't plead our innocence because such a possibility discourages all truth.
ii) A second idea that is not compulsory is that of terrible 'religions'. I define religion as a set of beliefs that drive actions, a set of values, desires, etc. Therefore, the idolization of the state and obsession to exterminate 'weaker' races, Nazi Facism, is a religion. If you disagree with my definition I still hope you see my point. If we have not given ourselves over the the thrill of being united under one all-controlling government, how do we know what it feels like, how do we know if it isn't the way? Obviously exploring such possibilities is both impractical and disagreeable.
iii) The one logical function that aids us here is that of truth exclusion. If you have found and tested that 1+1=2, then you do not need to test 1+1=5 or any other number. If somehow you can prove that all of the acceleration of an object can be accounted for by gravity, you do not need to search for others (well, there could be equal but opposite other forces that would change later due to position, but that's outside of the analogy). In the same way, if we have somehow proved that God exists, we know that no other religions are completely true because the idea of God logically excludes all others. We know "in the beginning God created" and major history afterward, so we can exclude all other creation stories, etc. In this way, it is legitimate to exclude other religions once you believe you have found the truth.
Now, of course other religions can claim the same principle. Buddhist monks may claim to have reached some level of enlightenment which proves (at least to them) that Buddhism is true. Please see Chapter 1 for this.
Ch5) If God existed, bad things would not happen to good people, or to anyone for that matter.
a) Existence of good and evil
i) Amy begins by saying that this defining of good and evil, the statement that bad things happen to people, presupposes a definition of good and evil, which come from God, and not elsewhere.
On the one hand, this argument is sound in the sense that we can say "You guys don't believe in good or evil, so why are you complaining about this problem?" On the other hand, on a true philosophical level, this is a semi-internal attack against the validity of belief in God. According to Christianity, there is good and evil, and (it is assumed) God should take the evil out of peoples lives.
ii) Orr-Ewing then makes another slightly misguided attach. I must say, by the way, that it is quite possible I am misinterpreting her intentions in many of these cases. I am fairly certain I am not, but it's possible. Anyway, to continue: She quotes Richard Dawkins in a paragraph where he says that the universe under Atheism is blind and pitiless. She attacks this by saying that atheists deny moral law but nevertheless use moral law when they speak. This is a false attack because Dawkins use of moral language says nothing about his belief in it. Dawkins must use moral language in order to explain that in a naturalistic universe, moral law does not exist.
iii) However, Amy does continue to say that moral language is naturally laid in people's minds, which is evidence for its truth - think of a conscience. This is valid - it may not be compulsory, but it is valid.
b) How other religions define and deal with good and evil.
i) Buddhism believes evil is illusory, that suffering is only a cause of desire. If you can control your desires (and desire nothing, I presume), you can transcend suffering. This does not exclude pain, physical pain, but pain is just physical. You don't have to be bothered by it if you have overcome suffering.
ii) Islam believes in the absolute, all-detail controlling will of Allah. This is much like extreme Calvinism, which tends to blot out free will. (But the balance between Gods sovereignty and our free will is for another time.) Because of this, Allah wills everything, including good and evil. So...they're really not that important.
iii) This is of my own design: Atheism. If atheism is to denounce things like the holocaust, it has to create some method of creating moral law. It will attempt something beyond God, of course, but it will make something. However, whatever it chooses will nonetheless be an unbased judgement. Say for instance, the survival and benefit (in the general meaning of the word) of the human race - this is good. But who is to say that we humans should pursue our own survival? Maybe it's a natural function of evolution, but who says we need to obey the laws of nature? I don't think we treat them very respectfully when we fly in airplanes, why with evolution?
c) Defense by free will, with definition for good and evil
All right, here we go.
First of all, the book explains that God wanted to make people with a capacity to love, people in his image, so he had to give them free will. If we didn't have it, we'd be no better than the rocks in the ground, and that isn't very interesting.
Second, Amy starts defining good and evil as light vs. dark, where evil is the absence of good. God doesn't make evil, it's just him not being there.
i) Here there is a small counter-argument (my own) that could be made: isn't God omnipresent (he's everywhere), then how can there be an absence of him somewhere? 1) When Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground and cursed man. Plants are no longer so proliferous, animals don't grow as huge, man has to work to get food, woman will be in pain during birth, etc. This is all done as a sign to us that yes, indeed, we choose to do wrong things and that messes up the world. If God didn't let the world go to waste a little, that would suggest to us that we still had it right. 2) By the nature of having free will, we have the choice to do and be non-God things, which creates evil.
ii) Here is another section of my other thought. Let us further define good and evil. It is already said that evil is the absence of good, but what is good? From a worldly perspective, it is pleasure, wealth, contentment, strong families, a stable economy, etc. But that is what we feel is good. I don't claim to have all the answers, but I would like to pose the idea that good is what points to God. He is the only source of life or anything that is good. Therefore pain and disaster can sometimes be good, so long as it helps people get closer to God. Let me give an illustration. I often pose God as a father and we as his sons. If a son is not following his dad, will his dad not punish him out of love, in order for him to learn and be the happiest in the long run? If a patient has a tumor, doesn't the doctor need to cut away the skin and painfully cut out the tumor in order to save the life of the patient? If a man is wicked all his life and runs into no pain, how can he know that he is doing wrong? In the same way, God allows what we see as evil in order to bring us to himself and give himself glory (which is not selfish, because he actually deserves it).
d)Now Amy treats Christians as they suffer:
i) Am I suffering because I sinned? Not neccessarily, Amy answers. Orr-Ewing lists some reasons, I will list more for suffering. 1) The world is just messed up as a sign that there is sin in the world. 2) You are being tested and refined by God. He is making you into a better Christian, take it just as you would painful athletic workouts. 3) You are being persecuted by the world because you believe. Rejoice in this, for your reward in heaven will be great. 4) Sinful people simply do mean things to people. 5) You have strayed really far from God and he is waking you back up. The book of Hosea explains this well. 6) It can be natural consequences of your own sin, like drinking and driving and having an accident. 7) When God cursed the world after the garden of Eden, he said that mans work would be tough. Doing Gods work might just be exhausting to our fallen, depreciating bodies.
ii) Why doesn't God intervene? Well, we just listed a ton of reasons why suffering is good and normal. Amy only adds the hope of heaven and the future conquest of Jesus.
Ch6) Why are Christians so bad?
Many people object to the Christian faith based on the hypocrisy of Christians they know or hear of: Clergy that sexually abuse children, megachurch pastors that cheat on their wives, televangelists with private jets, Christian neighbors who shun them with elitist morality, and just people who claim they're Christian but act like everyone else. If God is supposed to transform lives, why don't we see that in Christians? The failure of some to follow Jesus's moral teaching might be evidence against the validity of the Christian faith, against God himself.
Unfortunately Amy bounces around a lot between different arguments of quite different types. I'll try to separate them here and make my own comments.
a) First of all, let me clarify two things:
i) The idea called into question here, what lies at stake, is whether or not God transforms lives. His existence, the actions of Jesus, the truth of the moral codes he taught, and other facts are not at stake. Transformed lives are simply another piece of evidence in favor of Christianity, and their lack only calls into question the claim that God transforms. It's like the wind: if someone claims it turns windmills and it doesn't seem to, that doesn't defeat wind, because we might feel it on our face too. However, if the bible claims that Christians should be transformed and they aren't, there's a lot more ground to question the rest of it, simply because if we lie in one place, we're probably wrong in another too (though other things like Gods existence can be independently verified).
ii) Doing good things is completely not the point. Jesus came to "seek and the save the lost" (Luke 19:10). And he said himself "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." (Matt 9:12). We Christians are sick, messed up people who need help. That's why we trust in Jesus instead of trying to make it our own way. Unfortunately many people (including myself from time to time) fall into the trap of thinking that we can earn our way into heaven by doing good things. Nope. If that were the case we're all doomed. 1 John 4:18 "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." Following Jesus is not for perfect people. If you're perfect, you don't need him (but no one is). People aren't supposed to have their act together before they come to God, but hopefully start improving after.
b) Christians do not claim that they will be transformed into good people immediately or perfectly
i) First of all, let me say again that we begin as sinners needing a savior, and never stop needing Jesus - ever. Even when he brings us to heaven.
ii) Sanctification (become a better person) is a process. Philippians 1:6 "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." So, don't expect Christians to be perfect right away.You can't build a house by snapping your fingers.
iii) This process of sanctification is not easy, it's a struggle, and sometimes we backslide. Paul tells Timothy to "Fight the good fight of faith." So in a fight you win some and you lose some. Eventually you will win the war, but there are individual battles that you might lose. Even great leaders in the bible fell sometimes. David was said to be a man after Gods own heart, often looked to as a model of devotion. However even he fell to murdering Uriah in order to sleep with Uriah's wife Bathsheba.
iv) The 1 John 4 passage, saying we can never claim to be without sin, implies that we will not be without sin until Jesus comes back at least. So no matter what a Christian can never be perfect until Jesus comes back and we should never expect them to be without mistake.
c) Christians are not supposed to be perfect, yet most people (including me) still feel like there's something missing. God is supposed to transform us right? Doesn't somebody get it right? Why do we hear of so many catastrophic failures?
i) First of all, for the perfect example look to Christ himself. He's not with us on earth right now unfortunately, but look at the bible. His behavior was perfect. Gandhi said "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." (from the book). The goal of the Christian walk is to be like Christ. 2 Cor 3:18 "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
ii) So how should we look for transformation? First of all, look for effort. Is the person honestly trying to improve, to treat people with respect, to be a man or woman of integrity? Again, people backslide, but the point is they mainly fight to be like Christ. Now, any of you Christians reading this who are satisfied there, shame on you. We alone are not fighting this battle. Many non-believers also try to be good people. That's what all the self-help books, yoga, meditation techniques, etc are for. In fact, that's what all other religions are for. All other religions save Christianity have humans trying to reach, control, or appease God, not God coming down, humbling himself, and dying for humans. So we ought to see more change than simply effort. One easy way to quantify this might be looking at the long-run. I admit my lack of research here, but I'll bet most people who try self-help programs don't stick with it very long, moving on to something else or giving up on those sorts of things for a while. Christians, on the other hand, have the holy spirit inside of them. As long as they have approached the Gospel recognizing they need a savior and have accepted Christ for real, not just as a moral code to follow, relying on Gods help and not their own effort, they should stick with the fight until they die. Go see if that's true. (Unfortunately there are so many people who call themselves Christians and really don't believe at all).
iii) There are quite a few false people who call themselves Christians simply because their parents were, simply because that's what everyone is in America, right?, or simply, because that's what good people are.If that sounds like you let me say, you're missing so much. I'm not here to condemn you, I'm here to beg you, please, dig a little deeper and see what you find. The truth of the gospel transforms your life. Because God has died for you and now fights for you, because he holds your soul in the palm of his hand, you have nothing to fear, nothing to get ticked off about, everything to gain and nothing to lose, and you have him, the holy spirit living inside of you. These truths by Gods spirit, settled down into the soul of a Christian, are what makes them good, loving people, and allows them to give of themselves and serve others repeatedly without needing something in return. Woot Woot!
iv) On a different note, it may seem that many Christians make huge mistakes because those that do are televised and harped upon. Kind of sad, but true. Why do we hate every president we elect? Because we only see the things we disagree with. Why do we only hear of our troops dying in Afghanistan and not all the good they're doing? (FYI I'm against the war - for some reason I just don't tend to talk about politics in this blog). Because that's what people want to see on television. So yeah, some people mess up, but there are a bjillion pastors and individuals who don't make such spectacular mistakes (and quite a few who do but just aren't in public positions).
TO BE CONTINUED...
why doesn't god just blast us with evidence?
atheism is a belief just like theism
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