Christianity – Page 84

The disloyalty card

One of the issues plaguing the local tourism industry in the time I’ve been working in Townsville has been convincing people that the best way to grow their individual operation is to grow the pie for their “competitor” at the same time.

It’s as true in coffee as it is in tourism… and it’s probably true in ministry too.

In tourism your goal is to develop first an appreciation of a destination and then compete for the attention of the people who holiday in the region.

In coffee your goal is to develop first an appreciation of great coffee (compared to the average coffee served in the average cafe/diner/McDonalds).

This “disloyalty card” that has been produced by the current World Barista champion is a sensational idea.

The coffee guys are onto something with their focus on cooperation rather than competition. Strong competition and an educated market is a great thing for everybody competing – it’s not great for those left behind with a shoddy product.

The ministry application is probably tangential – but important… obviously there’s a Biblical compulsion to stay with a particular body of Christ (local church) – it’s not a matter of continuous shopping around while you look for the church that best suits you.

Izaac wrote about Godcasting the other day – the act of downloading and listening to sermons from quality preachers.

He envisaged a day where we will be warned off listening to sermons from gifted men by preachers jealous for the admiration of their flocks (or perhaps, more charitably, sensitive to the possibility that listening to exceptional preaching will cause discontent).

I think we should be encouraging Christians to listen to, read, and consume as much great teaching as possible. Chances are that those Christians keen enough to seek out great teaching will be the ones who are keenest to serve their church – rather than critique. And the idea of learning everything from one flawed vessel is scary. I’ll be encouraging everybody who comes to any church I preach at to seek a second opinion on whether my teaching is faithful to scripture. That’s the model we encourage when we’re training preachers and teachers at college isn’t it? Who wants to go to an institution with one lecturer.

December 17, 2009

Does skepticism neccessitate atheism?

I am a skeptic. Proudly. I treat all truth claims with an element of distrust – and many with disdain. But I am also a Christian. And by definition a theist, and a believer in the supernatural. My skepticism extends to all other religious claims – and many claims made by subsets of Christianity. What the relationship is between Christian belief and belief in the realm of ghosts, spiritual warfare and other supernatural issues is a matter for another post. Maybe.

I think I might have previously linked to this Clive James piece on the value of skepticism – if not, I apologise. It’s mostly about climate change skepticism, though a little bit about golf ball chips (a phenomena that occurs if you have a golf course next to a potato farm).

Skepticism is great – but if you hold onto it counter to the evidence you’re not a skeptic – you’re an idiot.

The golf-ball crisp might look like a crisp, and in a moment of delusion it might taste like a crisp, and you might even swallow the whole thing, rather proud of the strength it took to chew. But if there is a weird aftertaste, it might be time to ask yourself if you have not put too much value on your own opinion. The other way of saying “What do I know?” is “What do I know?” .

Which rather tangentially brings me to the purpose of this rant. I read this article on the Friendly Atheist about the relationship between skepticism and atheism – obviously they’re linked… it’s not rocket science to suggest that most atheists are skeptics. It comes with the territory. But do all skeptics have to be atheists?

A series of posts around the atheist blogosphere suggested that the two are inextricably linked – that atheism is a logical by product of skepticism.

It started with a speech at a camp for skeptics…the speaker then had to defend his claim from some criticism…

But because I have yet to see good evidence — philosophical, scientific, or otherwise — to support religious claims, I live under the assumption there is not a god or gods above, making me an atheist. I am still open to evidence, just with rigorous philosophical and scientific standards. A perfect example to sum up the co-existence of these labels comes from what Jacob posted in the comments to his piece. “You ask if I am agnostic about Zeus. Yes. Fairies. Yes.” But, then, Jacob is also an aZeusist, and an afairist. That is, he lives without belief in Zeus or fairies.

The problem with all these assertions – and in fact every skeptical assertion – is that it is based on one’s personal standard of evidence. Which is a personal decision. And it should be. If you want to cover your eyes, block your ears and bury your head in the sand to avoid any “evidence” that may change your opinion on any matter – then that is your choice. And I will laugh at love you even if you are wrong.

So, in the post on the Friendly Atheist the writer made this rather bold claim…

I’ll use ’skepticism’ to mean the attitude that one should scale confidence in a belief to match the evidence, and ‘atheism’ to mean the lack of belief in a god. With these definitions, the two are clearly related.

Here’s another quote from that piece.

If a person is skeptical, we expect them to embrace atheism because that’s where the evidence leads.

Only when you set fairly narrow parameters for “evidence”… I think by “evidence” you mean that’s where an understanding of the world based on scientific naturalism leads.

For some of us scientific naturalism is a good starting point, but not an end point.

Since the principle of skepticism requires religion to be treated with scrutiny, how should the movement deal with the fact that scrutiny leads to atheism?

What this post is actually saying – and the root of the problem – is that these atheists, who are skeptics, have found the evidence wanting when it comes to the question of God – but not all skeptics have put the same faith in their particular evidential methodology.

Here’s how I think those quotes could have been more honestly framed – from a skeptical standpoint – I’ll bold my changes.

If a person is skeptical, I expect them to embrace atheism because that’s where I think the evidence leads them.

Since the principle of skepticism requires religion to be treated with scrutiny, how should I deal with my opinion that scrutiny leads to atheism?

Note the similarity to the quote from Clive James’ piece – what do I know? That’s the question that should be being asked in this case. Skepticism is a subjective philosophical position that requires convincing evidence – not some sort of objective standard.

For me, I am a skeptic when it comes to scientific naturalism’s ability to answer all of life’s questions, and I am convinced by the evidence of God’s word, my observations of human nature, and my experience as a believer.

December 17, 2009

Bulletin Bored

A while back I wrote about how church announcements can be really boring. Here’s one church’s attempt to alleviate the announcement induced slumber.

I can’t decide whether or not this is funny or stupid.

December 13, 2009

The problem with the liberals

You might be thinking, on the basis of the title, that I’m going to talk about politics. If you want to know what I think is currently wrong with the Liberal Party read here.

Today’s rant is about “liberal” Christians.

I don’t think there has been anything more harmful to evangelism than the watering down of the gospel. There are plenty of things atheists could say about what the Bible actually says that would be grounds for choosing to reject God. But nothing annoys me more in the dialogue than those weak kneed Christians who try to apologise for God’s behaviour. Especially when it comes to that archaic ban on gayness (which is a genetic trait so can’t be wrong) or those cultural ideas of marriage and family. Read any forum where gay rights are being discussed (and I’m not actually opposed to gay marriage necessarily) and you’ll see the type of people I’m talking about.

It is important to place the Bible in historical context and to understand what the text meant to the original readers. But these liberals need to go back to reading their Bibles. They’re kind of missing the point. Right from the nation of Israel to instructions for Christians the idea is that at some point God has to be counter cultural – or there’s no point? How are the people of God to be different if everything that’s natural is fair game? It just doesn’t make sense.

Liberal Christianity is less logical than atheism. Atheism functions on a type of rational and logical framework. Liberalism takes a bizarre mix of the supernatural element of Christianity and the emotional anything goes morality of Atheism and tries to blend them. It stinks.

We should expect sin to be natural. In fact, I’d go as far as to say we should have an inherent distrust for anything that seems natural to us, as humans, because human nature is sinful.

I can see where they come from, sometimes, we are called to love people. Loving the sinner but hating the sin can be pretty confusing. But to suggest that certain behaviour is ok for Christians just because it’s instinctive isn’t just a slippery slope. It’s a fireman’s pole. Straight down.

The fundamental assumption of Liberal belief – from what I can gather – is that somehow we, in the 21st century, are better qualified to understand the mind of God than those primitive disciples and their apostolic proclamations – and heaven help anyone who tries to base a worldview on the Old Testament.

Science, culture and psychology have helped us understand our sinfulness better – they do nothing to turn that which God calls sinful into something pure.

That is all.

December 11, 2009

Things that are of the Devil

Pokemon
Video Games
Bad Preaching

I believe that one of the three items in that list is actually a tool of the devil. This guy disagrees.

December 11, 2009

Imagine no no religion

I read this other article on the new new atheism. A suggestion that female atheists should take the lead for atheists in order to push a more moderate and tolerant atheism.

Here’s a quote…

I heard two very different arguments at this event. The first was the old line of the New Atheists: Religious people are stupid and religion is poison, so the only way forward is to educate the idiots and flush away the poison. The second was less controversial and less utopian: From this perspective, atheism is just another point of view, deserving of constitutional protection and a fair hearing. Its goal is not a world without religion but a world in which believers and nonbelievers coexist peaceably, and atheists are respected, or at least tolerated.

And here’s a bit of demographic analysis…

“Females predominate in the overwhelming majority of religious groups in the United States, so it makes sense that males would predominate here. But XY types also dominated the rostrum, which saw a parade of white men joining John Lennon in imagining no religion.”

Perhaps this means atheism is actually bad for the survival of the species – who will all these atheists breed with? Atheism is clearly a genetic weakness. No wonder they want to propagate their ideas with evangelistic fervour. Actually, PZ Myers, the guy who killed my blog, has a post about some “science” that suggests that atheism is an undesirable genetic mutation. Cop that atheists.

“However, there must be a deeper psychological reason than short-termist hedonism why so many intelligent people have chosen the maladaptive trait of Atheism. I have recently published a theory trying to explain the phenomenon of ‘Clever Sillies’. Clever Sillies are people whose professional and expert attainments may be at the highest level, while their psychological and social beliefs and behaviours are just silly – I was thinking in particular of the prevalent lunacies of Political Correctness among the ruling elites. In essence, I argue that the root of the problem is that high intelligence often brings with it a tendency to overuse intelligence – even when ‘instinct’ is a better guide to reality.”

The guy who wrote the paper being quoted by PZ has suggested that atheism is a delusion. In that post he spells out why atheism is maladaptive…

The word ‘maladaptive’ has a strict biological sense, and also a more diffuse social meaning. In strict biological terms a maladaptive trait or behaviour is one that reduces relative reproductive success. Basically, something is maladaptive if it reduced the number of viable offspring. By this strict definition Atheism is a highly maladaptive trait, since Atheistic beliefs are associated with choosing to have reduced numbers of children: less than the 2.1 children minimum needed to replace the parents and cover premature deaths.

Back to the point about “peaceful tolerance”… oddly enough, Dawkins (who has previously described faith as the equivalent of a harmful virus) trotted out a similar line in a letter to young atheists I read on the Friendly Atheist today.

Of course we must leave people in peace to practise religion if they so choose. But the rest of us must be left in peace to live our lives without it. The religious want more and more influence over government policy and, if they succeed, our society will be the poorer: less tolerant, less equal, less just, less educated, less rational.

It seems there’s a bit of a philosophical battle raging amongst the atheists – perhaps they’ll start their own denominations.

Here’s another quote, from another Friendly Atheist post, it comes from a media release one atheist organisation wrote to describe a campaign conducted by another atheist organisation.

Last year, the Wisconsin organization, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), displayed a sign in the capitol rotunda which read, “Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.” Seattle Atheists shares [many] opinions with the FFRF regarding the separation of church and state, and about the harm [that] can be done in the cause of religious belief. However, we feel that the message was needlessly provocative and inappropriate for the context of the capitol rotunda.

Pushing for tolerance is all well and good. The problem is pushing for tolerance where the two sides of the issue are binarily opposed. Atheists can harangue Christians for not being prepared to consider the other side of the debate all they like. But until both sides are able to operate holding confidence in personal beliefs in tension with the possibility that the other guys might be right we’re not going to get any closer to this peaceful coexistence.

I’m more and more convinced that’s the key. I’m pretty certain God is there, but I should afford atheists the right to live as though he’s not, and that should cut both ways. Atheists should be prepared to acknowledge that the other guys might be right – despite their interpretation of the evidence.

But so long as leading public atheists trot out talking tips like the one below it’s unlikely that we’ll see that sort of admission.

“To say that God or the spiritual realm exist outside our ordinary plane of existence, and can’t be understood by reason or evidence, makes no sense. If God or the spiritual realm exist and have an effect on this world, we should be able to observe that effect. If they don’t have any effect on this world, their existence is a moot point. “

You know what Christians call the ability to observe the effects God has on the world – we call it science.

December 8, 2009

Five idiotic lines atheists keep trotting out about the Bible

Sometimes I like to think that I could give up writing about, or talking about, atheism. But that would mean ignoring a bunch of interesting things on the Internet.

I’m drawn to some posts like a moth to a flame. Perhaps it’s because I like argument. Perhaps it’s because I like truth. Each of these points below is probably worthy of several individual posts. But I’m going to condense them for the sake of not boring people who are here for other reasons.

Every time I read an atheist blog I leave feeling frustrated. Mostly because they make the same spurious and generally misinformed claims they accuse Christians (and other theists) of making against them.

While I’m sure many of these claims are true in the experience of the people making them – that doesn’t mean they’re inherently true.

Here goes.

Reading the whole Bible will not necessitate the rejection of God
I read this one all the time. The latest instance was on this post Contrary to the popular belief held by atheists my life would be a lot easier if I wasn’t convinced God existed. It is in fact possible to read the Bible and gain a deeper appreciation of God. That’s why people go to Bible College and end up in Christian ministry.If an atheist wants to critique the Bible there’s plenty of more rational things they might say. It is possible that the God pictured in the Bible might look like a God you don’t want to worship – assuming you get stuck on the things that happen in the Old Testament. But the Bible does not contain contradictions that make “reasonable” people reject it.I suspect we all approach the Bible with a particular philosophical bias and this is likely to be confirmed.
The Bible was not put together by a bunch of power hungry men seeking to serve their own interests…
Nor was it consistently reinterpreted and retranslated over time in order to suit agendas. Any such translations have been weeded out and current translations used by major denominations are based on the interpretations of panels of experts in the original languages.If an atheist wants to realistically critique the men who framed the core doctrines of Christianity or picked the books in the Canon the worst that can be said about them was that they were deeply deluded and sort to present a consistent case for their beliefs. To suggest ulterior motives is a gross misrepresentation of any historical facts based entirely on prejudice.If, on the other hand, an atheist wants to make smug dismissals of the text based on their own assumptions that’s fine. But don’t expect your assertion to be accepted as convincing evidence by those of us who have read the Bible…

I agree that you don’t need to read the entire Bible to know that it is a cobbled together mishmash of myths, biased history, and poetry from an ancient nomadic people that didn’t know much about the universe.
Suggesting that the Bible should be understood in context is not “wiggling” on the Christian’s behalf.
Nor is it dishonest. It’s the way Christians, orthodox, Bible believing Christians, have been doing things since the early days. Believing that the Bible should be understood in its context is not a new idea. Nor is it “liberal”. In fact, it’s the way Jesus approached the Bible (when quoting the Old Testament).Disagreement over interpretation does not contradict anything the Bible says (in fact the Bible predicts it). Questions of textual interpretation are not simple and it’s likely that there will be some disagreement. If you pull random verses out of their context and present them (or a series of similarly plucked verses) as your proof text it is analogous to a Christian suggesting that Hitler’s eugenics program is the natural outworking of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution.

Christians will continue to claim that I’m taking it out of context, misinterpreting it, or just outright lying. I have seen this happen over and over again with Bible-savvy atheists who were in debates. These people are so made up in their mind that no amount of reason will work.
Christians shouldn’t keep pushing the Bible as though it’s evidence for God
Why not? If God exists (which Christians believe) then the Bible seems like a natural way for evidence to be provided across multiple generations. This sort of thinking misses the point of Christianity completely.
Every position atheists take on the Bible is a result of faith, bias and what they’ve been taught
This by itself does not invalidate their beliefs. That’s how we all come to conclusions and decisions. But to dismiss Christian interpretations of bits of the Bible on the basis of indoctrination while blithely dismissing the whole thing as a fairytale is to create false dichotomy. Just because someone has been “brainwashed” it doesn’t mean what they believe is wrong. And just because someone claims to come at something in an open minded fashion using their own rules of engagement doesn’t make their conclusions correct.

December 8, 2009

Recanting some more

Mumford and Sons caused me to recant my long held position on folk music – and it turns out they’ve undone another little piece of music snobbery.

Despite the liberal application of the “f” word in their current single – which probably turns off heaps of Christian listeners – it appears that the guys in the band are in fact Christians. And since their songs spend a fair bit of time dealing with Christian stuff I could begrudgingly define their music as Christian music. And we all know how I feel about that.

I looked it up online because I was pretty convinced based on some of the lyrics that the album Sigh No More is at the very least a musical documentation of someone’s dalliance with God, and Christian belief.

I’m intrigued by some of the lyrics from this album. Clearly they’re about a man struggling between the flesh and the spiritual. Here’s a post with a bit of an analysis of the lyrics, and here’s one from someone who couldn’t take all the Jesus talk…

Here are some of their lyrics.

Dust Bowl Dance
there will come a time when I will look in your eye
You will pray to the god that you’ve always denied
I’ll go out back and I’ll get my gun
I’ll say you haven’t met me, I am the only son.

White Blank pages
Can you lie next to her
And give her your heart, your heart
As well as your body
And can you lie next to her
And confess your love, your love
As well as your folly
And can you kneel before the king
And say I’m clean, I’m clean

Awake My Soul
In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
Where you invest your love, you invest your life

Awake my soul, awake my soul
Awake my soul
You were made to meet your maker

Roll Away Your Stone
You told me that I would find a hole
Within the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal
And all the while my character it steals

And here are some songs for your listening pleasure.

December 8, 2009

On atheism, Fox News and Christmas

If I was an atheist and I had to watch this on my news program I’d be really annoyed… Particularly because O’Reilly is fixated on the idea that Christmas is about the baby Jesus – it’s not, it’s about the birth of the Lord Jesus. He grew up and did some stuff. That’s why we care.

It’s in response to this ad from the Humanist society…

The ad has a clever tagline. It’s a shame they can only trot it out once a year. But sadly, that’s not really what humanism is. That’s what secular humanism is. John Calvin has been described as both a Renaissance humanist and a “Christian humanist“.

December 7, 2009

A Biblical world view

Here’s an infographic of the world if the Old Testament was read completely as a literal and scientific document with the spiritual realm housed in the physical.

From Flickr.

December 7, 2009

Venn Jesus

Mark Driscoll likes to criticise people’s “zen” Jesus – the hippy who runs around making pithy statements.

I wonder what he’d say about this Venn Jesus.

December 7, 2009

Vampires and Mormons

Here’s an interesting article suggesting that Twilight is basically an apologetic for Mormon theology.

“Twilight is essentially .an allegory of one gentile seeker’s coming to the fullness of Latter-day Saint faith and life. Bella, though, as Mrs. Meyer’s stand-in, is also a modern American woman who struggles with Edward’s patronizing misogyny and over-protectiveness. Her mind is the only one in the book not open to him, which serves both as an indication of her reverential reserve towards him as God or prophet and her resistance to being totally subject to him. Though devoted to and in love with him, she sounds notes throughout the series that reflect something like feminism.”

Here’s an example of Mormon theology appearing in one of the books.

“A core genealogical belief of Mormons is that Native Americans are the descendants of Abraham through the children of Lehi. But in several articles written in 2002 and 2003, LDS anthropologist Thomas W. Murphy has argued that DNA studies show “no intimate genetic link . . . between ancient Israelites and the indigenous peoples of the Americas—much less within the time frame suggested by the BoMor [Book of Mormon].”

Mrs. Meyer’s answer to this scientific challenge to her faith comes in the climax of Breaking Dawn. The Volturi have come to the Cullens’ Mountain Meadow for a showdown with the “vegetarians” and their allies, and it looks very bad for the latter. What saves them from the vampire-papists is an inversion of the genetics argument against the Book of Mormon revelation: The Cullens are saved by the ex machina appearance of a South American aborigine whose DNA proves that the Mormon vampires are telling the truth. Genetics isn’t the enemy; it’s the savior.”

I suspect Mormon evangelism would work better if they bit their prey and infected them with some sort of terrible disease.

I can’t understand how the religion gains traction anywhere but in the United States where I think it can be explained as a case of misplaced patriotism.

Anyway, here’s a little picture I drew of a Mormon missionary Twilight style. Anybody got a number for Blade?

December 6, 2009

On blogger envy

I have a confession. Whilst I encourage lots of friends to join me in the blogosphere, I also feel threatened when they do that with moderate, or better, success.

So while I commend Izaac’s UniChurch through Chairs series to you, and direct you to his first column on the Geneva Push website, I do so feeling sinfully envious.

But, I can also finally announce that I have a little column in the Eternity newspaper – and a link on its homepage.

That makes me feel moderately better. I do love how they have a disclaimer.

December 4, 2009

Has John Piper ruined Twitter?

John Piper ruined Twitter.

This blogger thinks so. He blames Piper for the rise in cringeworthy Christian status updates – particularly on Twitter.

I like the cut of his jib. Piper can get away with it. If you’re following Piper you expect to encounter the real, passionate man that he is. If you’re not that man (or woman) don’t pretend to be.

But then I lost all my normal “friends” on Twitter.

They all turned into little John Pipers. I used to see real tweets from people. Some would talk about their latest blog posts or posts they found interesting. Others would talk about their recent studies in Scripture or what books they were reading. Many of them were fun and humorous.

Now many of them are just pretentious and therefore obnoxious.

Once the nature and style of Piper’s 140 characters or less were released, people started to mimic him. Gone are the “fruitless” tweets about how their toddlers did something cute or about the interesting things that happen day-to-day. It has been replaced with numerous (and annoying) pithy statements and faux-holiness. How do I know these are “faux?” Because most of you changed over-night. While it takes a lifetime to be sanctified, it only took your Twitter accounts 24 hours.

Amen brother.

But I’ll balance this critique of all the wannabe Pipers with a critique from Piper that made me think a little… When Abraham Piper (John Piper’s son) asked what he should say to a room full of Christian bloggers his father replied:

Tell them that it takes relentless intentionality to keep a Christ-exalting blog from become a clever blog. The temptation to entertain is almost irresistible.

Now. I started this out as a clever blog – being a Christ-exalting blog hasn’t really been my “intention”. Maybe it should be. Though then it would lose its place as an outlet for my cleverness.

John Piper ruined my blog.

December 4, 2009

How to man hug

Man hugs are pretty awesome. I’ve just been thinking about the furore surrounding the Poe’s Law breach that occured with that Christian Side Hug rap video. It turns out the video was serious – but the origin of the concept was satire.

It used to be that in order for heterosexual males to demonstrate man to man affection they had to engage in play fighting or wrestling. This was a little too subtle. The key to a good, unambiguous piece of man to man affection is to send the right signals during the hug.

This is accomplished using the obligatory three taps, or firm pats, on the back of both parties to the hug. In a group hug – say the hug that comes when celebrating a goal in soccer – these pats are not necessary.

The three pats are said to be non verbal communication for “I’m not gay”… but they are in fact an act of manly testosterone fueled but properly directed aggression.

Here is the rule for hugging expressed in haiku.

Remember fellas
For a successful man hug
Just back slap three times

This easy Japanese poem is the key to more expressive man to man relationships.

That is all.

December 3, 2009