Steve’s Space

Someone recently mentioned a description of church to me in part as “Oppressive Culture”. I haven’t yet had a chance to clarify that description with them, but it struck me as a very odd description, and I’m seeking to understand what was meant by it.

The only thing I can think of is the idea that’s common among the unchurched* of church being a place where we are told to behave, and if we don’t then hell awaits. I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the goals, actions and role of the Church. I can understand, however, where this idea comes from; we see it often in street preachers and tele-evangelists, we hear it when we think of Westboro Baptist Church* and, of course, we hear it from the unchurched. When we think of “Church History”, we also conjure images of crusades, witch hunts and inquisitions. so it’s not as if these ideas of “behave or suffer” are unfounded. It’s not indicative of the Church as a whole however – merely indicative of vocal minority groups (of which most Christians would not condone), or indicative of horribly mistakes made by the organised Church.

I’ve been an active church member for around 5.5 years now, and never have I been threatened to go to hell. Never have I been manipulated into doing anything that I didn’t want to, with the pain of excommunication or damnation. There has never been a “turn or burn” preached at my church, or any church I’ve attended. Indeed, I believe that kind of behavioural conditioning is completely unbiblical and anti-thetical to the Christian message.

I struggled with attempting to correct other people’s actions for a long time. I would say to coworkers “watch your language,” not because it was unprofessional, but because I don’t think it’s right. I would call people out on piracy and excessive drinking, because I somehow thought that “behaving better” was a goal congruent to Christ’s.

I’ve realised since that my ideas there were completely bass-ackwards (I think I’m far more tolerable/tolerant now!). Christ did not create His Church in order to make people good citizens, or helpful people. His goal was far more radical than that – to bring people unto Himself. You see, it’s rather unique as a religion – the idea that no matter how much we alter our behaviour, we cannot redeem ourselves. Everyone is in the same boat – whether they’re Mother Theresa or Stalin.

The problem with thinking altered behaviour is a goal is the receding horizon.

Let’s say an unchurched person wanders into a church that says don’t be bad, or you’ll be dining in hell. They start treating their kids with respect again instead of beating them. They stop holding up liquor stores, and get a job instead, because they know that stealing and beating will send them to hell. Is that enough? Are they good yet?

He returns to church, which says that even little bad things will send him to hell. This person stops gambling, stops lying to their coworkers and boss for gain because they know they’ll go to hell if they continue to do these things. Is that enough? Are they good yet?

The church now says that it’s not enough to simply be “not bad”, but they have to be good, or else hell awaits. They start giving to charity, they volunteer at homeless shelters. Is that enough? Are they good?

I’d say a church doing the above has probably done a good job at getting someone to behave correctly, but they’ve missed the point. The person is not obedient due to a moral sense, but because of fear of reprisal. Outwardly, it may look ok, but inwardly, it’s not.

That’s why the Church’s goal is not to condition behaviour. It doesn’t change a person’s heart, and it presents a legalistic view of morality. Jesus’ main beef against the church leaders of the time (Pharisees and Sadducees) was this legalism. No, Jesus said instead to believe in Him, and the rest will happen. Change the heart, and the body will follow. The reverse isn’t strictly true.

Which is precisely why you don’t see Churches today saying “Stop doing X or you’ll go to hell”. It’s futile. If X is gone, Y, Z, alpha, beta and epsilon will still remain, and the person won’t truly be changed. Plus, the commandments “Love the Lord your God” and “Love your neighbour” (which are the pillars of all the other commands) cannot be done out of fear, or even effort. We are ALL in the boat of not being “good enough”, and no behavioural conditioning will change that.

But in following Christ, asking forgiveness for our wrong doings (which is offered freely), and receiving His grace (again, offered freely), we can be free of the cycle of trying to be good enough. And with the love of Christ to guide and transform us, it will come naturally to “behave”. THAT is the goal of the Church. Turn to Christ. Then, being good will follow.

The simplest response to this is “Well, you’ve just moved the line from “Be good or burn” to “Follow Christ or burn”. How is that not oppressive? Well, the argument is then moved from morality to the truthfulness of Jesus as God, which is another story altogether.

I heard an atheist claim in a debate which was, in part, about the hope given in salvation. The claim was that atheists do not like the fact that the earth will be kaput in 5 billion years, but are under no illusions that it will remain forever, and it’s not a negative thing to be grounded in reality.

The same can be said for a Christian. We don’t like the idea that people don’t take the a gift of eternal life, freely offered, and thus have to face up to God’s other side – Justice and Holiness – and held to account for it all. But we’re under no illusions that this is the not case.

I made claims here that some will have scoffed at. Accept that under the Christian world view, these views are all internally consistent (with itself) and externally consistent (with reality). There’s no incongruency at all. At this point, the only beef you can have is with the truth of the claims of Jesus Christ. Saying “you will burn in hell if you don’t follow Jesus” is not immoral if it is true. Maybe it’s not sugar coated, tactful or politically correct – but it is the height of morality.

If anyone has any statements, questions or responses to this (or indeed, anything I’ve written), I would love to hear – either by comment, email, twitter, whatever. I’m putting my views and beliefs out there as a way for others to gain understanding of my point of view. I’m very interested in learning other’s point of view too, so please, let me know!

I think I’ll move away from these morality posts, and do a bit about evidence and rational reasons for believing. I believe following God is more rational than not, given the evidence (and lack of any real response to them – so often the response just comes back to morality).

Thanks for reading

1. I will use the term “unchurched” throughout this, as it’s the most neutral word I can think of to describe someone who has never been an active member of a Christian congregation.
2. Wow, I just noticed the wiki article for that ‘church’ says it’s a hate group. Not that I dispute that as such (I find their actions abhorrent), I would have thought that kind of description was against wiki’s NPOV pillar. Maybe not though, reading the wiki entry for “hate group”.

I think I need to clarify on the Old Testament laws, and their application today. This is by no means a complete look at OT laws, it’s just a slice of some of them that helps us find perspective. It will mainly focus on laws that we look at today and think “That’s bad”. There are a lot of other ones we may say “That’d odd” or “That’s pointless” to today, but I won’t be covering them here.

Matthew 19:1-12 contains a conversation between Pharisees and Jesus. It basically goes like this:

Pharisees: “So, like, is divorce ok for any/every reason?”
Jesus: “No”
Pharisees: “Then why does the Law of Moses say it’s ok?” (see: Deut 24:1-4)
Jesus: “That Law was given because of your hard hearts, but it was not this way from the beginning.”

Yes, I missed a lot, but this is the part that pertains to my point. Read the passage, the rest doesn’t change the scope. God has a view of marriage – it is not in His design for separation to occur in any circumstance*. However, God knew that the people of the time would not accept that law, so He gave them a more relaxed law, that he knew they could obey. Namely, divorce only if something “indecent” is found about her, and no remarrying if she’s remarried and divorced/widowed.

It’s very clear that the laws given in Deut regarding this are less strict than that given by Jesus. “Indecent” changed to “Marital Unfaithfulness”. Has God’s standard for marriage changed? No, but He believes our hearts are softer regarding this – so He gives us a more strict moral standard, one which holds up to even today’s standards*. Indeed, this is much more moral than today’s standards, which state, “get a divorce whenever you want, really. It’s cool.” (If you disagree here about what is more moral, it’s probably because of different views of what love and marriage are and entail, so don’t jump on it straight away.)

This can’t be the only Law that was given that catered for the people of the time, certainly not. Take the slavery laws – Deut 21 vs Ephesians 9. For the times these laws were given, slavery was pretty much the global civic. It happened. The sermon on the mount (Matt 5) is almost exclusively dedicated to redefining the laws in a more moral sense – ones that stand up to even our greater global morals today.

So the most that can be said about the apparent harshness of the laws in the OT is that it was given in a context where people had hard hearts, and wouldn’t accept laws that were stricter than those.

Even with the Jews’ hard hearts, the laws given were better than what else was around then. You cannot equate laws of 5000 years ago with laws of today without taking cultural maturity into consideration. The laws were good, for their time. Now, well that’s another kettle of fish.

Furthermore, the 10 commandments are in play. The laws given aren’t the focus, the commandments are. The first 2 commandments alone are all that is necessary for all the other commandments, all the Old Testament and New Testament laws. Think of the 10 Commandments as the “What” and the Law as the “How”. Others see the 10 Commandments as “God’s” law, and Moses’ law as the “State” law. Church / State separation perhaps?

When it comes to today, the laws still have to be interpreted via the 10 commandments, and must pass the “filter” of New Testament teachings – I say filter, because nothing is taken away*, only narrowed down and simplified. Remember, God’s Law hasn’t changed, but our ability to respond to them has.

While I say nothing is taken away, a lot of stuff is rendered irrelevant. “Masters, love your slaves” obliterates the relevance of “If your slave loses an eye because of you, they can go free”. Of course, if you’re respecting them, then they won’t lose an eye in the first place. “Don’t Murder” is supplanted by “Don’t be angry with anyone”. And both of these are covered by “Love your neighbours as you love yourselves”, and more so, “Love your enemies”.

Stop focussing on OT law. It’s much clearer in the New Testament, from the same source (God), and is more catered to the state of our hearts. The very laws that govern our society come from these roots, and there’s very-near parity between them. Saying God’s laws are immoral, while touting our society’s laws is a lesson in contradiction.

If someone has objections about the morality of the standards put forth by God to us today as explained in Bible, I would seriously question their motives. The standards put to us (and lived out by Jesus to show as possible) are far better than any other set of moral laws ever invented.

Footnotes

1. Yes, it says except for marital unfaithfulness, so I’ll grant that exception. But then, I don’t think unfaithfulness is in God’s design for marriage either, so it’s a moot point.
2. Though, admittedly, there is controversy over this too – what about an abusive partner, for example? That’s another argument which won’t be covered here, as it’s a bit off-topic.
3. Not strictly true – the ritualistic cleanliness / worship ones are taken away, for example, because that context for worship is gone.

Background

Before I get into it, I think I’ll shed some light on why I’m responding to this in particular. The following twitter ‘conversation’ happened today, between me and a follower of a work colleague. I’m xwipeoutx, and I’ve changed the other guy’s name to “Other Guy”, in case he wants anonymity (though his twitter is public, so I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter). Excuse my poor formatting… the style sheet on this blog only does so much.

Other guy: #Religous should not have these jobs.RT @BibleAlsoSays: Pharmacist refuses to issue pill because of her religion http://tinyurl.com/ykq5hbj
xwipeoutx: @[other guy] via [colleague]: Way to generalise. How about #thatperson shouldn’t have that job?
Other Guy: no! no religous person should have jobs like that if they don’t understand the basics about how the world works. #christianfools
xwipeoutx: no athiest person should have jobs like that if they don’t understand the basics about how the world works. #athiestfools
Other Guy: your stupid.B original @least loser bitch. How many children your religion has killed.Ill send u a news article that will tell u
xwipeoutx: Yeah, that’s not worth replying to. And they say we’re the intolerant ones.
Other Guy: you can’t. You need to have a base knowledge of reality. Something evolution has left out in you.

What followed was a long uhh ‘discussion’ between my work colleague and ‘other guy’ that didn’t end well, and then “Other Guy” followed saying something along the lines of “You will be hearing from me shortly.” I said I’d be happy to have a civilised conversation with him, and a few hours later, I got another tweet:

Other Guy: Its time so remind some atheist why we do this. Some are apologist. Like @[colleague]. #Atheist reads the bible http://bit.ly/a0akHj
xwipeoutx: Ooh, nice. Exodus. Read sermon on the mount? Jesus’ interpretation. Also, Eph 6:9.
Other Guy: how much do you enjoy cherry picking. Your doing it now.
xwipeoutx: I don’t actually have headphones, I’m at work, so I’m going from the descriptions of the video
xwipeoutx: But twitter is not long enough to explain this in detail, in any case. I’ll PM you my email if you’re truly interested
Other Guy: I see. Here’s another for when u have time http://bit.ly/9hcquU The Genealogy of Jesus
xwipeoutx: I’ll respond to them tonight, when I get home, probably via a blog post so it’s public.

I won’t have time to respond fully to the genealogy video tonight – and frankly, I couldn’t be bothered responding to it in depth at all, unless some more substance shows up. My quick response to that video is “…and?” Who’s idea was “Jesus’ sacred bloodline”? Who cares if Gentiles are in the mix? Did you see what happened AFTER David’s little midnight frolic? How does the usual response fail to take into account the exact thing the usual response is addressing? I don’t think Christians have anything to “apologise” for from the genealogy video…so on to the slavery one.

Response

First up, I now realise how off base my response about the Sermon on the Mount and Ephesians (well, that bit was slightly relevant). My excuse is I was going from the video summary, not the video itself, and even then, I only gleaned. I got out of it “slavery”, “eye for an eye” and “unborn children”, not realising 2 of these were describing omissions, content. Whoops! My apologies, I can see how my response seemed like cherry picking, I was responding to slavery and “eye for an eye” as quickly as I could.

My method of response will be simple. I’ll deal with the video in its time context, then deal with it in today’s context, and then I’ll deal with the over-arching topic of morality in the bible, and its applicability to proving/disproving God and God’s morality.

The video deals with these passages: Ex 21:1-6, 20-21, 26-27

Time Context

Ex 21:1-6. I don’t have a problem with any of these, I don’t really see why anyone would. As far as I know, Hebrews were the only one with a year of Jubilee – slaves can go free. Please correct me if I’m wrong on this. The parts regarding wives is solely to do with this, so if you think it unjust, keep that in mind – letting the slave’s wife leave as well is more graceful than anything else at the time.

The term for “Wife” used in this passage isn’t wife in the strict sense we know – we’d probably use something closer to “a woman” now. I’ll presume for this sake that the passage DOES mean wife as we know it, because that’s in the Other Guy’s favour, but keep it in mind

So, the wife leaving with him is graceful, no arguments there. But giving him a wife just to take it away? Well, that seems harsh. My take on it is that, in slavery, the master would only give the slave a ‘wife’ for the sole purpose of bearing sons (and, less so, daughters) – and since the ‘slave’ is property (let’s face it, back then, that’s what they were considered), is this really surprising? There was a lot of things unjust about slavery in the day*, this potentially being one of them. You can’t chalk that up to religion though – slavery was rampant almost everywhere. I’ll reiterate here that it was far LESS harsh than slave rights anywhere else. Besides, it doesn’t prohibit the master from sending them both (or all, in the case of a kid) away, if he so desires.

Next, if the slave really can’t bear to leave the wife given to him*, the law gives him an opportunity to come back – albeit, for a price – slave for life, by choice. This is on equal footing with other slave purchases, with the added benefit of it being a choice. A tough choice, but a choice nonetheless. The animation depicted the Awl pretty gruesomely, and that’s something I reject. I’d say it was through the earlobe, like a modern day piercing (with more crude equipment!) – a mark to say you’re a slave for life. Again, equivalent to what was going on at the time – there was always some form of branding for slaves. Seeing a pattern here?

The “daughter” section was conveniently cut off before the part addressing the caring and rights of said daughter. Please, atheist evangelists – if you’re going to quote the bible, don’t cherry pick. We probably know it better than you, and besides, it’s easy to check when chunks are missing*. The bit that was included – how is it any different to an arranged marriage? Remember, polygamy was in and widely practised then. Oh, right, the emotionally loaded animations that muddy the interpretation. Of course.

Now on to verses 20 and 21. In 20, the master being punished if the slave is killed; again, better than anything else at the time. In 21 (master not punished if the slave survives), it even rationalises it there – because it is his property. Property – that’s what slaves were considered at the time. No other culture had any punishments for this at all, yet the Hebrews did.

Finally, if the slave loses an eye or tooth, they are set free. It heartily discourages beating – if you accidentally knock a tooth out (I’m sure a slave’s tooth in 3000BC wasn’t exactly strong), you’ve lost a lot of money. If nothing else, this would limit whipping to the torso area. Better than the surrounding, religion-free regions.

So in summary, most of the rules here are far better than the (lack of?) rules for slaves in other cultures. At this stage, the Jews would be very aware of slavery practices – they’d only just escaped as slaves from Egypt 7 chapters earlier. In any case, if you were going to be a slave, being a slave for the Hebrew was the way to go. It’s temporary, and masters are encouraged to look after you. Find me another culture of the time that’s the same, and I’ll salute you.

Modern interpretation

Today, slavery is almost completely outlawed. Yes, there are areas where slavery is still practised, but I’m not sure that’s relevant to us, because there’s certainly not any that I come in to contact with. Why is slavery gone now? A chief driving force for it was Christian Abolishinists, at least for Europe. I don’t know about other countries. Who knows, were it not for these Christians, we may not even find slavery that abominable – it could still be a fact of life. I said “could be” – it is, of course, unknowable if that is the case or not.

But despite that, what’s the take on those Exodus passages today? The New Testament writings neither condone nor condemn slavery – but rather, put frameworks in place to ensure there’s nothing inhumane going on there. Ephesians 6:5-9. This is not contrary to the Exodus teachings. If indeed that law is still applicable, the teachings in Ephesians only serve to strengthen them, making them by FAR the most humane slavery the world has seen. You do know what era this stuff was being written, right? It was pretty much the height of the Roman empire. Why not have a look at their treatment of slaves? No deity set their rules. Christian-owned slaves (again, the greek is closer to servants) are treated more like household servants; cared for – not threatened. There’s not even any favouritism allowed! Find me a more humane slave system.

In Christianity, any New Testament interpretation generally trumps “Traditional” interpretations of the old testament – sermon on the mount, and Jesus’ dealings with Pharisees are excellent examples of this. The new light cast on the old laws gives them strength that holds up to the world’s even more refined moral views today. When interpreting Old Testament laws, we must read them in light of Jesus, his teachings and his character. To do anything less is simply lacking context, and I’d go as far as saying irresponsible

On Biblical Morality

So often, I see Atheists say “God did/allowed this bad thing in the bible. Therefore, God is bad.” I can’t believe how often this comes up, and it’s just ridiculous – I honestly can’t make any sense of it.

First, let it be known the Bible is being used here – atheists are using the bible as a basis for argument against God. In order to do this, the atheist cannot say “but the bible isn’t true”, or that throws his own argument out the window. He can’t even say “God isn’t real” for this argument, because the bible says He is, and, well, the whole argument is built around the assumption that the bible is true. Saying “no, I’m just these verses as an example, the rest isn’t true” is surely a fallacy. So don’t go all “oh my gosh, he’s placing such faith in the bible, doesn’t he know it’s just a book, not true and not relevant?” because that doesn’t make sense here. The book being true is an axiom of the argument put forth by the atheist.

In the bible, it says who God is. Loving. Powerful. Holy. Those 3 sum is up beautifully. Oh, and the bit about how He’s the creator*.

The difference in being between God and us is so insanely crazy, that it’s unimaginable. Read Job 40 and 41 for some scope on God’s power and knowledge, as described in the bible. Can you even begin to comprehend His ways? And even if you can, and fully, what right do you have to question that anyway? He’s the creator of everything, and the judge over everything! It’s like me writing a program on a computer, and then it saying to me that perhaps I shouldn’t have implemented something the way I did. It’s ridiculous! Humans, and our pride and self-inflated image of ourselves thing we know better for ourselves than God does.

Look, if the bible is used for an argument, all of it must be – Christians get called out on “cherry picking” all the time, well, it’s a 2 way street. In it, God is far far beyond our comprehension. It is not for us to decide what is moral and what isn’t, because it’s not our world – it’s His. What is left for us is seeing HOW something there is moral – a task made a lot easier, since Jesus’ revelations. When read in this light, it’s amazing how often biblical teaching lines up with modern day morals.

Footnotes

1. One wonders how civilisation would have fared without slavery at all. We’ll never know, but it’s possible that it was necessary for the time. I’m not condoning it, just wondering.
2. One also wonders how many of the slaves even liked the wife they were assigned? How many would come back? Remember, the wife/children here is for the benefit of the master, not the slave.
3. The obvious omissions that atheists leave out when they’re arguing these things is … odd. Do you think we won’t notice? Do you want to present a slanted view? Do you care about finding the truth, or are you just being a fundamentalist? This particular one couldn’t have been accidental – the slavery passages were picked out from the chapter, and the rest were summarized. So it had been read numerous times.
4. Ahh, bible creation, another argument. It’s not relevant here – the bible doesn’t mention HOW, just THAT he did. If it makes you feel better, assume that God has a noodly appendage, and created it with that.

The other day, Paula and I went to the youth bible study, which we’ve been helping to lead over the past couple of weeks. This week, our Pastor was there and the idea of the study was to hold some of the youth leaders to account – we basically went through 1 Tim 3, which defines some attributes that a leader must have, and talked about each point.

Now, it seems that some or more of the potential youth leaders haven’t particularly been living up to these ideals, but what I found most interesting was the Pastor’s struggle with telling the youth leaders that.

You see, he said that 2 verses had come to mind when doing this:

• 1 Pet 4:17: It is time for judgement to begin in the house of God [...]
• Matt 7:5: [...] First, take the plank from your own eye [...]

These aren’t particularly surprising – generally they’re at the forefront of most people’s mind when they feel moved to point out errors in people, especially the 2nd one. What was most surprising though was the conviction and emotion which the Pastor displayed when he was telling the kids. It was the most gracious, moving and heartfelt admonition I’ve ever seen, and probably ever will. He was quite distraught at the prospect of being a ‘judge’, because he knew that he wasn’t necessarily better.

It made me think, you know – whenever I’m pointing out sin in others (which isn’t very often, really), why do I it? Is it with pride or humility? Do I think I’m better than them? Do I even have a right at all to admonish anyone at all? When I’m being held to account, do I ever think “You’re no better yourself, you have no right to judge me”?

FINALLY found someone who’s not afraid to go on the offensive against Dawkins, and effectively. Quick summary:

• Dawkins constructs a lot of straw-men
• Dawkins evades questions on free will, saying it’s not important – when it’s tantamount to philosophy and morality
• Dawkins mentions attrocities commited by religious, while saying that atrocities commited by athiests FOR atheism is irrelevant

Yeah, I had a great laugh.

Clicky Linky Download (MP3)

So, I went to a public a little while back titled “The Bankruptcy of Atheism”, by Dr. Alister McGrath. The title was someone misleading, as he spent most of his time defending theism than he did pointing out why atheism is bankrupt. It was essentially an ‘interaction’ with Richard Dawkin’s book, “The God Delusion”

Probably over 500 people came to see the public lecture, which was too much for the room he was in, so a video feed was sent to a second room (where I was), and this room had all the aisles filled up, and people standing outside the door trying to listen in!

As a quick overview, he summarised “The God Delusion” in 5 points:

• Science naturally leads to Atheism
• Belief in God is irrational
• God is a virus of the mind
• Religion impoverishes view of the universe
• Religion is a bad thing

Over the course of the lecture, he systematically addressed each of these points. I’ll attempt to do the same, basically repeating what Dr Alister said.

Before getting into the topic, it’s a good idea to define a few terms (ok, one term). So for the purposes of the lecture, Dr. Alister used Dawkin’s definition of religion, which was essentially “The belief in a God”, but with obvious emphasis on the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam and Christianity).

Also, before getting in to anything, he mentioned briefly that Atheism has been around since forever, and there’s nothing new about. However, he stated that 1789-1989 was the “Golden Age” of Atheism, starting with the start of the French Revolution. Some event happened in 1989, which I can’t remember nor find in research, which perhaps symbolised the end of this Golden Age…it was fairly arbitrary though.

Oh, and a disclaimer. I haven’t yet read all of “The God Delusion”, and I had barely even started it at the time of the lecture. So I will only say what Dr Alister said about it, and may write some more analysis when I finish reading it.

Well, on to the first topic.

Science Naturally Leads to Atheism

Dawkins says quite plainly that science naturally leads to Atheism. This seems quite sound on the surface, as evolution and Darwinism quite neatly explains any problems with creation. He also states that science and religion are incompatible – that is, mutually exclusive

Dr Alister’s first point was to debunk the claim that science and religion are mutually exclusive, and talked about several devout Christian scientists, least of which is not the director of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins. He mentioned several others, but I didn’t write them down. I think anyone who studies any science, and believe in a deity can quite easily debunk the claim they’re incompatible. More on this in the “Religion impoverishes the view of the universe” section.

I think the crux of what Dawkins was getting at in this point was the science does not point to God, so there mustn’t be one. Dr Alister put forth that, if anything, science leads to agnotism. Essentially, the result of science is, and will always be “we don’t have enough evidence to comment either way”. The scientific method is essential incapable of deciding whether or not God exists. Which is why a survey done on a bunch of scientist people (sorry, no source, but I’m fairly sure they weren’t hand picked, and were all quite “prestigious”) showed a 50/50 split between theists and atheists among them.

Stephen Jay Gould is mentioned a few times by Dawkins, and is Atheist. Gould has written a few books on darwinism and evolution and stuff, however has made it clear that his atheism has nothing to do with science. In fact, he is completely against the notion that darwinism implies atheism.

Finally, Dr Alister mentioned stated, for the theist, science is simply modelling God’s creation.

Belief in God is irrational

[Faith is] blind trust in the absence of evidence even in the face of overwhelming counter evidence

Dawkins uses this definition of faith (or something similar) to put forth his point that belief in God is irrational. You can see clearly it’s quite a loaded definition, and very few (if any) theists would agree with this definition. So I have no idea who what exactly he’s trying to say – yes, if that was what faith is about, then I agree, it’s irrational. I would call that definition blind faith. Let’s see what theists (or rather, Christians) define faith as:

The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God’s will.

Note: This definition comes from dictionary.com, but I believe it lines up with what I say. You’ll notice a lot of other definitions on the same site say “despite inadequate evidence” and stuff, which is probably true. But it is NEVER true about contrary evidence, and nothing about blind trust. Indeed, I believe the trust has to come before the faith, just like people don’t trust traffic lights until they prove their worth.

Dr Alister used a better definition of faith, that I can’t find unfortunately, but when I saw it, I’m like “yep”. I wish I’d written it down . But I hope that clears up anything about blind faith vs faith, and the rationality of it. I don’t know a single Christian (or indeed, any theist) that has blind faith without sufficient evidence to back up that faith.

Dawkins states the belief in God is akin to belief in santa clause or the tooth fairy. To illustrate the fallacy of this argument, Alister asked how many people in the audience still believe in santa and the tooth fairy. He then took that further and asked how many people, before turning 18, didn’t believe in santa, but now do. Clearly, it’s a completely different kettle of fish.

Coming back to the study mentioned in the last heading, scientists are generally split on theism/atheism, so we can safely say it’s outside the realm of science to deduce God’s existence (or lack thereof). The next step is 1 of 2 possible courses of action – inference to best explanation, or empirical (best) fit. Simply put, the answer cannot come from science, so it must come from somewhere else. Where, though? Well, religion, philosophy and metaphysics

I can’t remember where this fits in, but he also mentioned around this time that science answers the ‘how’ questions, and cannot provide answers for ‘why’. Questions like “What is the meaning of life?” cannot be answered. Dawkins, and certainly other scientists, state that what science cannot explain, doesn’t matter. So, the meaning of life doesn’t matter… Just mull over that for a while.

God is a virus of the mind

This is fairly ludicrous, and it wasn’t talked about much. But the basic idea was that religion is a virus of the mind, much the same that the plague is a virus of the body. It spreads to other people.

Like I said, not much time spent, so here’s a quick list

• Real viruses are viewable – not so with religion. Dawkins is just hypothesizing
• Are all beliefs a virus of the mind? Or just some? What about the belief in no God?

Dr Alister said a bit about atheism being a ‘faith’ of sorts to, since no evidence points to a lack of God either. Which is where the last point in that list fits in. That’s all I have to say on that point.

Religion impoverishes view of the universe

Dawkins states that theists have a drab view of the universe, and backs it up with several examples of religious people accepting a mundane creator, and quoting Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”:

How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, , ‘this is better
than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said–grander, more subtle, more
elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed’? Instead, they say, ‘No, no, no! My god is a
little god, and I want him to stay that way.’

I can certainly sympathise with Carl Sagan – why do religions shy away from the
beauty and grandeur of what God created, being what the prophets said, and more!
I personally haven’t met anyone who is like the theist in Carl Sagan’s quote,
though I’m sure they exist. I think it’s more of a personal each person
thing than a God thing. But anyway, there’s 3 ways that a theist can enjoy nature:

Breathtaking moments: Those moments when you see an amazing sunset,
and it takes your breath away, and your heart misses a beat. Theists aren’t
immune to enjoying it like this, just as noone is – religion doesn’t stop that
appreciation (though it does stop the worship of a lovely sunset).

Mathematical Appreciation: Appreciation for the sheer mathematical
brilliance of how the world works. I can definitely relate to this, having
spent the greater part of this semester investigating fluid dynamics in only
a 2d system. It blows me away at how complicated it is, and only in 2d. This
isn’t contrary at all to religion. Indeed, James Clerk Maxwell is just one example of
someone wanting to find out more about a phenomenon explicitly BECAUSE of his beliefs

Evidence of Creator: This one is unique to theists. We can
appreciate nature stuff on a whole new level, and that is because it points
towards the Creator. Or rather, bears witness to the creator – by finding
out more about nature, more attributes of the creator are realised.

Religion is the root of all evil

The final point and, really, the trump card of Dawkins is that religion is a bad thing.
It’s the root of all evil, and only bad things come out of it. This is backed up
by numerous references of instances where religion has caused violence.

I’m not going to defend that (and nor did Dr. Alister) – Dawkins is absolutely right.
From crusades, to witch hunts, to the spanish inquisition, and much much more,
religion is the cause of a lot of pain in the world.

The question Alister posed was whether this is characteristic of religion, or if
it is of the fanatic? The answer is fairly obvious – while these bad things that
happened are a result of religion, it’s definitely not typical. Dawkins doesn’t
actually mention any good things that have come out of religion…such as, oh,
the abolishment of slave trading in the British empire, not to mention the
countless charities and…well, etc.

The problem with Dawkin’s statement here is that it can immediately be turned on
its head. Atheism is the root of all evil. And this can be backed up by just as
many examples of evil coming as a direct result of atheism. I wrote down
“Soviet Union, 20th Century” in my notes here. Unfortunately, my history sucks,
and so too does my google skills, seemingly.

However, it’s irrational to look at these ‘bad eggs’ and say “wow, atheism is the
root of evil’. That’s just stupid, really …That wouldn’t prove a point though,
would it? It’s much more sensible to say that beliefs inhibit both good and bad
things. A result of our human nature, perhaps?

But (Dawkins says) that religion provides transcendant motivation. What does this
mean? Simply that fanatics can go ‘God says to do this, and that trumps all’. There
is no authority higher than that of God. I would agree with this statement,
to a degree – I would add that it’s a bit rash of one to blow themselves up because
of it, especially since that would be an act that’s in direct conflics with, well,
a lot of teachings (being specific to Christians here, really).

Dawkins did not talk about Jesus much at all – probably because this blows his
whole argument of violence and religion out the window. Jesus one act that could
be considered violence is the temple/whip scene. There’s no evidence the whip
was used against anyone (which doesn’t mean that it wasn’t – just that we can’t
say whether it was or not), and he even sat down and made the whip before using it.
Hardly a rash decision.

Being that Jesus is God in the flesh, we can look at his violence free life and
see that violence is not God’s nature. (caution: This is me now, not Alister)
I can tell the atheists are screaming
“what about the Old Testament?” and, yes, He’s quite violent in that, but rightly
so. The (OT) dialogue was something like this:

God: Keep these commands, or these things will happen to you
People: Okie, sounds like a deal.
People go off and disagree
God: RARGH, I’M GOING TO KEEP MY END OF THE BARGAIN!
Fast forward a few thousand year
People: Look! God is EVIL!

(ok, back to the actual lecture now :p)

And just a quick thought provoker: If all traces of religion were to disappear
forever tomorrow, would that be the end of violence?

Moving on, Dawkins states that, in general, religion is a bad thing. It
has nothing but negative effects on many parts of people’s life, such as
self esteem, career progression, family life, etc. I don’t know how far he
gets into it, but the impression I get is that it has a negative impact on
ALL facets of life.

Alister first pointed out (and this is obvious) that pathalogical religions aren’t
the norm. That is, religions that have a purpose to ‘hurt’ themselves or
others.

But what about the effect that non-pathalogical religions have? A study was conducted
(again, sorry, no sources), which drew upon 100 other studies for its result.
The results were intriguing:

• 79 claimed that religion has a positive effect on people
• 20 claimed that religion has a mixed, or an uncertain effect on people
• 1 claimed that religion has a negative effect on people

Now, I’m not sure what exactly was being tested, but very very interesting
results. If Dawkins’ statement was true, these numbers would be inverted.

Conclusion

It was concluded that Dawkins, in this book, cherry picked many examples to
prove his point. I’m uncertain at the moment whether the same can be said
about the lecturer’s choice of examples – they were probably cherry picked
too. Hard to remove bias, I guess.

Also, there wasn’t much in the book on positiveness of atheism. Only negatives
of religion. It’s not exactly fair to downtrod other belief systems if the
same flaws exist in atheism, and even if they don’t, there’s plenty of merit
in religion which was nicely avoided.

Thirdly, it was stated that the majority of the book was criticised by atheists,
more so than by theists. So The God Delusion probably shouldn’t be taken
seriously as the ‘norm’ thinking of atheists. Atheists are probably more reasonable
thank Dawkins.

Finally, Alister shed some insight into Atheism. Although it has always been around,
it’s only recently that its flared up. The reason for this is that Atheism
gains popularity when it criticises unpopular beliefs. I suppose “The God Delusion”
is proof of this?

A prelude to this story: A few days ago I was thinking “y’know, I can’t wait for a JW to talk to me, it’ll be a good opportunity to spread the true gospel to someone (despite the brain washing)”. Now, onto the story

I was waiting for the train today, and a JW wanted to give me a copy of the “Awake” magazine for reading on the train. Conversation started off like:

JW: Would you like something to read on the train?
Me: What’s it about
JW: [reading the cover] How to live longer
Me: Oh, no thanks, I’ll be living eternally – I’ve found Jesus
JW: It might be an interesting read anyway
Me: How about you talk to me about it instead of giving me a book to read?

So he leans agains the rail thingy with me and we discussed Jesus. He asked me if I thought Jesus was God, and I replied yes, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, so he pulled out his bible (and I think it caught him off guard a bit when I pulled mine out too, ah the simple joys of having a small bible). He quoted colossians:

Colossians 1:15: The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation

Which he reasoned that since He was born, He must have had a creator who is God. I said that’s flawed reasoning, then said what I realised myself was also flawed reasoning (that it said “over all creation” not “of all creation” – yeah, it was odd…), and then went on to the more doctrinely sound reasoning that Jesus is the image of God, which means He is also God. Much in the same way that my physical appearence is the image of myself, and my soul is also myself – two parts of the one me. I think he misunderstood that and said that we’re different people (me and him…)

Now I was having a major mind blank, which was unfortunate timing, and with a quick prayer, a verse jumped into my head.

John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God

I asked him who or what the Word was, and he answered correctly, Jesus. I focused on the last part – the Word was God, he focused on the middle part – the Word was with God. I tried to point out that both can be happening at the same time, which I found obvious, but he couldn’t get his head around easily, and went somewhere else in the bible.

I can’t remember exactly where he went, but it was a part where either Jesus said the Father sent him, or Paul said the Father sent Jesus, and went on to say that if He was sent, someone else must have done the sending. I tried to explain a bit of the trinity to him, and said that although Jesus is not the Father, the father is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not Jesus, but they are all God. Much like the wikipedia picture. I wasn’t explaining well, unfortunately, and I had completely run dry on other Bible references to back myself up.

But anyway, in a short amount of time my train came, I asked if he was catching it and wanted to get on, and he said he’s not catching that train, and that was the end of that pretty much. I told him I’d be praying for him (which I have been)

Once the train started going, I got a whole lot of ideas of places I could have went, and kicked myself for not remembering them. The obvious one was Jesus claimed it a few times, most notably when He was about to be crucified. Also, I could have angled it “Who can forgive sins? God…*flick to OT*. Who did forgive sins? Jesus. *flick to NT*”.

But I didn’t think of any of these while I was talking to him, despite praying earnestly for some help there. So two questions:
1) How do you think of on-the-spot scriptural evidence for these kinds of debates? I usually remember the general theme, and google it
2) Why weren’t my prayers answered straight away? It seems they would have been more useful then, than when I was on the train on my own.

People in the car on the way to SNL today need not worry about reading any more But for those who are still with me…

I was reading the glossary in the back of my bible yesterday, and I came across “cornerstone”: Either the bottom corner of a building (a foundation stone) or the keystone of an archway (Mark 12:10). It can cause a person to stuble (1 Peter 2:8) or it can fall on someone (Matt 21:44).

For completeness:
1 Peter 2:8 – A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.”[a] They stumble because they disobey the message — which is also what they were destined for.
[a] Isaiah 8:14 – and he will be a sanctuary;
but for both houses of Israel he will be
a stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.
And for the people of Jerusalem he will be
a trap and a snare.
Matt 21:44 – He who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed.

So, that’s the bible verses out of the way =D It’s strange on how many people depict a cornerstone as a very positive thing – interpretting the cornerstone as the essential building block, something everyone can lean on – the solid rock that is Jesus.

But I’m looking at these verses, and it depicts the cornerstone as being very…well…wrathful. It really jumps out at me how much Jesus is the Judge and a physical embodiment of the Law. And like Paul points out several times in Romans (and there’s more, trust me :p I just had a search), it’s only because of the Law that we can be called sinners. If there was no definition of right, how can we be called wrong?

So there…next time you hear people singing about Jesus being our cornerstone: remember that by being our cornerstone, Jesus is pointing out to all of us that we fall short of His glory, and don’t hold to the law. But because of that, we will cling to him even harder, because we know how much we need Him.

That being put aside, I have a rant: Christians – don’t break the law when you drive! Moreso than any other, we need to be upright and faultless when being judged by the world. Read Romans 13 if you don’t believe me. Jim (from Student Life) said how a bunch of policeman would always wait at a particular road during Christian camps, and book them all for speeding. BE BLAMELESS! We’re told we should be persecuted, but not for driving. Only for our faith. Please drive to the law!

I came across this post on GodGab when I should have been working, and thought I would share it.

The pedant is disposed to be skeptical by reason of a lurking belief that it is the look-out of the Divinity to make Himself known to him. But the jeeva (soul) is a dissociable particle of the divine essence with the onus of choosing for himself from among the alternatives of serving, a neutral and a disobedient career, his own relationship to the Divinity. He cannot escape the privilege of exercising this responsibility except by conscious self-deception or by hyporcisy.

Translated into a language we can understand (sorry, but that is not english), it basically means that a pedant is someone who thinks it is up to God to prove Himself to us. However, our soul can choose 1 of 3 ways to act towards God – servitude, neutrality, or rejection/disobedience. To think otherwise is either hypocritical or self deceiving.

I think it also assumes that the soul exists…who knows. Stupid Existential English!

I just finished reading this book called “More than a Carpenter”, which is a little book that basically confirms Jesus. I’m not sure if it was related, but as soon as I finished it, I realised there was a lot of things that I plain didn’t like that a lot of people attribute to Christianity… I felt like writing a little book of my own about it – I figure a blog post is good enough.

“I’m not religious – I’m relational”
A lot of people say that when explaining their Christianity, I’ve heard it so often I could puke. They think that because Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus, it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.

google define:religion.

I’m sorry, but a religion is a system of beliefs. If you don’t have a religion, you don’t have a belief – you don’t believe in Jesus. Clearly, if you’re Christian, you’re religious. Deal with it.

Jesus called us to love, not like
I’ve also heard often that we can love people without necessarilly liking them… that line of thought is beyond comprehension. Let’s check it out here.

That link contains a basic essence of what love is about (I’m not sure if it’s comprehensive or not, somehow I doubt it). Try being all of them to someone you don’t like. Let’s see protect and completely and utterly trust someone that you just plain don’t like or get along with. Sorry, not gonna happen.

If Jesus has called us to love Him, which He has, then we obviously have to like Him. Same with our neighbours, we need to love them, because God told us too, which means we have to aspire to like them. Accept their annoyances, and personalities that may clash with yours. Love is not easily angered or self serving, so be selfless and put up with it.

It’s important to realise you don’t have to like what they do, though – for example, I abhor that I have friends and family that have sex before marriage, it’s disgusting, wrong, and I really really don’t like that. But I love and like them, which is why I try and correct that, in love.

Yes, I realise the irony that this bit is about what I don’t like… heheh

Buzzwords
’nuff said =P

Quirky, cute sayings about God
Sometimes I wonder if I’m following the same God as others.

“Jesus is my best friend” – really? What’s His favourite food? Does He like to go bowling?. No, I’m sorry, the relationship we have with Jesus is not one of best friend. It’s one of servitude on our part. It’s a Father/Son (or daughter) thing. I mean, let’s be serious, this is God. He created us, this earth, the entire universe – nothing we do cannot be done without His permission in doing it. Please, correct me if I’m wrong here.

“God, you’re so cute!” – I have actually heard people say this, or something similar, usually in response to some event attributed to God, like a nice divine appointment. I just think, “Really? God (again, creator of everything), who destroyed entire cities in justful wrath, is cute? God, who came in human form, to guide us all, and ultimately be tortured and killed in order to take our sins, is cute?” I know I’d be insulted. I have no idea whether God is or not – it’s just not something I would attribute to His character.

And so on…

Mission
Don’t get me wrong – I understand the importance of mission, but when I hear that a group of people spend $3000 each to go on mission for a couple of weeks, and they talk about shopping, culture and etc. more than they talk about their spiritual conversations, salvations and personal growth type testimonies, I begin to wonder.

It’s especially annoying when these people would be more effective at home, if they were focused on doing the same thing, commited to doing the same thing. A Japan trip recently saw 3 people turn to Christ, which is awesome. However, when I see something amazing like Schoolies (where there can never be enough helpers and support), having a dozen salvations in one night – at less than 10% of the cost, I begin to wonder.

This is an area of my own personal growth as well, but I honestly thing we need to treat our whole lives as mission, not just the weeks we go on mission. Look at the apostles in acts…wow…imagine if we were like that in our own communities.

Not to mention that God has placed us right where we are…what better place to sow?

Statistics
Now, to be hypocritical, since I quoted salvation numbers in the previous post, I hate that :p. It’s not a big thing that happens, but I know it does (and I think I worry about it too much as well). The fact is, David got in big trouble for doing a Census, for counting things, and relying on that strength instead of God’s. Numbers don’t matter – faith in God does.

Work
It’s often emphasised by missionaries that work as a missionary is God’s calling for most people – only a few have need for secular work, and we’d all serve God best through missionary type work.

A few things I see wrong with that:

• Who will financially support missionaies in the event that everyone is a missionary?
• What’s more effective: established relationships with non christians daily (secular work), or random talking to strangers and hoping that it becomes spiritual
• The 5 parts of a church defined in…ephesians I think? Preacher, Teacher, Evangelist, Apostle, Prophet. Only 1/5 of those is missionary work – apostle. Though I suppose that’s open for debate, they could all be considered missionary stuff…

Don’t get me wrong here – I think missionaries do an excellent, and necessary job, and it’s great that they’ve found their calling in it. Seriously, keep up the awesome work. But it’s not for everyone, and don’t try to say it is.

It’s Christian – it must be good!
Rap will never be good, even if it is Christian. Nor will pop music. Or country music. I don’t like the book ‘Wild at heart’ very much at all.

Just because it’s something Christian, doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it. Or be particularly interested in it. It’s a big field, I can’t like it all.

Also, closely related, is Christian obligations – like “outreach (like, planned 1hr/week type stuff) is something Christians should do” – nooo, it’s not, and just because it’s Christian, doesn’t mean I’m obligated to partake. Think of the repurcusions involved if everyone did everything that Christians can do? We’d be working 6000 hr days.

Blind Faith
I’m not sure if this is just me and something I need to work on, other people and something they need to work on, or difference of opinion that’s fairly trivial and doesn’t matter either way (Faith isn’t a big spiritual gift for me), but if I’m hoping that a traffic light will stay green so I don’t have to do a hill start, and that traffic light stays green, I don’t attribute that to God’s divine intervention.

I think this is just a faith thing – but I can’t attribute something that was caused by the timing of computers. The would have behaved as they did, regardless of your prayer. I don’t doubt that God could make those lights change. I just doubt that they’re in His will to change, and would wonder his motives for doing so.

So, that’s about it that I can think of now :p I hope you enjoyed the read and it helped in some way. Considering the extensiveness of Christianity, and the relative shortness of this list, be comforted that I love Christianity, and Jesus, very much! Not to mention all you guys and gals

May God bless you all.