Christianity – Page 91

On science

I’m not sure where to go from here. I’m approaching 200 comments from atheists who are pretty angry at my list from the other day. I’ve got to say that if I knew I was going to get this sort of attention I would have at least proof read my list and fixed up a couple of grammatical errors. I probably would have made my position on science a little clearer too…

So let me do that here.

I think science is terrific. I think the scientific method is the best way to understand the way the world works. I think science is fascinating – much more than I did when I was studying physics and chemistry in high school. I am not, as many of my lovely commenters pointed out, a scientist.

I appreciate the benefits of science – like medicine and technology.

I love that we can understand the way the world works, and visit the moon.

I think it’s great that we have a picture of the amazing world that we live in thanks to science.

My point about science was not that it’s a bad thing – nor was it a comment on problems with the scientific method.

I was simply suggesting that the scientific method is open to abuse. By people with agendas. The same accusations atheists throw at “creation scientists” can be turned around and thrown at atheists who try to use science to attack religious belief.

Science is grand. Christians (and other theists) like science because it helps us to understand the world God has made.

Just because we understand things like gravity does not mean that there is no God causing gravity to occur. Some Christians distrust science. That’s not the point I was making – although I think the agenda behind science is worth looking at. Which was my point. When a rabid atheist conducts “science” they’re just as likely to come up with findings that support their position as a scientist working for big tobacco.

It’s interesting how many of the atheists hanging out at possibly the world’s most vindictive atheist blog have some background in church – and deep anger at Christianity – I can’t for a second believe that this anger isn’t motivating their scientific approach.

One commenter, either here or at the post on pharyngula, made the comment that the earth is a 1 in 1000000000 possibility, and made this comment as though that is proof that there is no God. Most theists would see the probability dramatically improving with God in the picture.

The theory that an infinite amount of time and space will eventually and inevitably produce life as we know it is odd, and unconvincing. Surely the same amount of time and space would also eventually create the specific God mentioned in the Bible – an omnipotent, omnipresent creator God.

I don’t want to go down the path of discussing the anthropic principle (the idea that conditions in the universe are just right for life which lends itself to the notion of a creator) – but I do wonder how atheists (and I’m hoping a few of you are still floating around) explain our existence in a way that doesn’t involve a sidestep (ie why are we asking “why” it’s the wrong question).

Also, I have said plenty of other stuff about atheism in the past that you newbies might like to read.

September 30, 2009

New beginnings

Right, well, I have a new host. Hightek Hosting were great – they just seemed not really to know how to handle WordPress.

PZ Myers’ rebuttal of my five tips for atheists got me 4,000 hits (so far) – and about 60 comments – feel free to join the fun. Here, or there.

September 28, 2009

PZ Myers killed my blog

So, Christians have been pretty guilty of wrongly accusing atheists of doing bad stuff before – but the prominent atheist PZ Meyers wrote a rebuttal to yesterday’s post, linked to it, and I was flooded with angry commenters.

I’m trying to keep up with moderating the comments (most of which seem to assume I’m an American writing for an American audience).

I’m getting there – but the traffic and comments were the straw that broke the camel’s back with regards to my webhosts, so I’m currently moving.

I’ll flick the switch soon. In the meantime – try to hold off on commenting because new comments and stuff won’t come through.

See you soon.

September 28, 2009

Five things that would make atheists seem nicer

I am trying really hard to cut down on generalising and bagging out “atheists” rather than specific people and streams of atheism.

They’re not all the same – and they aren’t all out to eat your babies. But atheists (general) keep giving me reason to think bad thoughts about them. Like the two who hijack this thread on Communicate Jesus.

Here are five tips for my atheist friends to help them seem nicer and more reasonable.

Stop being so smug.
Don’t assume every piece of Christian evangelism is directed at you – we want the undecideds, not the decided-uns.
Admit that the debate about God’s existence is complex – and that it can, depending on your presuppositions, be quite possible for intelligent and rational people to intelligently believe in an intervening deity who communicates through a book.
Admit that the scientific method – which by its nature relies on induction rather than deduction (starting with a hypothesis and testing it rather than observing facts and forming a hypothesis) – is as open to abuse as any religious belief, and is neither objective nor infallible.
Try to deal with the actual notions of God seriously believed in by millions of people rather than inventing strawmen (or spaghetti monsters) to dismiss the concepts of God – and deal with the Bible paying attention to context and the broader Christological narrative rather than quoting obscure Old Testament laws. By all means quote the laws when they are applied incorrectly by “Christians” – but understand how they’re meant to work before dealing with the Christians described in point 3.

September 27, 2009

Back

Holidays are almost over. We’re back in civilisation today. We had lunch with Andrew and Simone.

Which reminds me of the news of some import that is worthy of note.

Last Monday we had our interview regarding candidacy with the Presbyterian Church of Queensland – we passed. We’ll, if all goes according to plan, be studying at QTC and working at Clayfield (with Andrew and Simone) next year.

September 27, 2009

Focal point

Someone wise (I cant remember who) once told me that you can tell what a church’s priority or point of difference is by what they have literally occupying centre stage. For some it’s the drum kit, for others a baptismal pool, and for others the pulpit.

Ive started paying attention when visiting churches, its quite telling.

September 25, 2009

Rebranding God

The Jesus All About Life campaign is on in earnest – though it’s unlikely it’ll get much attention as far north as Townsville. Steve Kryger from Communicate Jesus had some insightful critiques of the campaign’s methodology. He copped a bit of flack for daring to stick his head up and say what anybody who thinks a bit about marketing (or works in the field) was already thinking.

My problem isn’t so much with the style of the campaign – I’ve got a problem with the substance.

I think we’re creating a generation of apathetic nominal Christians whose only knowledge of the Bible is John 3:16, and whose only knowledge of God is that he is loving. And all they have to do is “believe”.

I believe in lots of things that I don’t really care about, and if I use that understanding of the word and apply it to God, without reading the rest of the Bible then I can comfortably, and apathetically, rest assured that God and me are mates. And God is loving. So he’ll do right by me…

I don’t think there are many people stopping to think about what this loving God wants them to do with him past belief. And I don’t think “thank you Jesus for birds that look like they’re wearing pants” is the way to move people past that nominal point and into active Christian “belief” – that where thought is outworked, and where Jesus’ righteous place as Lord of our lives is realised.

Yes, God is loving. Yes, we do need to believe in him (as he actually is, not just that he is). But we need to move past that in our marketing campaigns – every marketing campaign needs a call to action. The call shouldn’t be “be thankful for…(whatever makes a nice postcard)” it should be something that enhances the understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

In our marketing at work part of what we’re aiming to do is “sell the sizzle, not the sausage” – which is what you do in a crowded marketplace like tourism where every customer already knows they’re looking for a holiday but haven’t necessarily chosen where. You can’t do this with Christianity. People need to better understand what goes in our sausage before we even try selling it.

UPDATE: Steve Kryger has posted some research that led the campaign in the direction it went in. It makes for interesting reading – basically the people behind the campaign found that people have negative thoughts about Christianity (particularly secular humanists) and they wanted to move away from “traditional” advertising…

“At a more fundamental level, non-Christians tend to reject the idea of ‘one truth’ as a divisive concept that is to blame for much of the conflict in the world today, and that clashes with the secular humanist ideal of taking personal responsibility for lifestyle choices and interpersonal values.”

I don’t get it. The gospel is no good because we can’t sell it?

I maintain my hypothesis that the gospel is less effective because we’ve spent so long selling it so badly. And pulling out the important bits in a bid to not be offensive (I guess reacting against the “turn or burn” fire and brimstone preachers of the previous generation) doesn’t seem to be a greatly effective strategy.

September 20, 2009

Pardon the interruption

This is the funniest Kanye joke yet…

Kanye and Genesis

Here’s another one… knock knock
Who’s there?
Interrupting Kanye
Interupting Ka…
Yo, doorman, I know you have to welcome me, and I’m going to let you finish, but Beyonce told the best knock knock joke of all time…

I made that one myself. Can you tell?

Speaking of which, I’m always on the look out for knock knock jokes – tell me your favourites in the comments.

September 18, 2009

Schaeffer on Fundamentalism

I haven’t watched this yet – but I read the transcript posted on the Friendly Atheist.

Frank Schaeffer is a little bit angry at some of the good parts of “fundamentalism” – and yes, there are good parts of seeing something as objective truth and fighting for it. He is a former “fundamentalist” and the son of Francis Schaeffer.

But when there’s a relatively large population of your country who are using the Bible to justify the belief that their president is the anti-Christ, while ignoring the other things the Bible has to say about governments (eg Romans 13), and the anti-Christ (1 John 2), someone needs to call it for what it is. Stupid shenanigans. And that’s what Schaeffer does.

“The mainstream not just media but culture doesn’t sufficiently take stock of the fact that within our culture we have a sub-culture, which is literally a fifth column of insanity, that is bred from birth through home-school, Christian school, evangelical college, whatever, to reject facts as a matter of faith.”

“Look, a village cannot reorganize village life to suit the village idiot. It’s as simple as that, and we have to understand: we have a village idiot in this country. It’s called fundamentalist Christianity.”

One of the problems I have with the way Christianity is viewed comes from the fact that atheists hold up the relative strawmen of the fundamentalist fringe, and the actions of the nominal Christians without actually engaging with what Christianity (through the Bible) teaches.

September 18, 2009

What’s in the box

This guy sounds nice, but he’s pretty silly.

The biggest problem with this whole argument is that Christians don’t believe God is out there needing to be defined, we believe he revealed himself to us by his presence, his son, and his word.

His whole argument against theism is fallacious.

His conclusion about how Christians should act is on the money though.

September 17, 2009

Two questions I want to ask God

I enjoy pointless theology. Questions about stuff that has no real bearing on things and that have no easy answers. These are my two questions about speculative theology (and both find their roots in Genesis but are unrelated to creation or science).

Who were the Nephilim?

If you’re like me this question has bothered you since you were a kid. At one point I resolved that the Nephilim must have been the origins of the Greco-Roman pantheons. But I’m not really sure.

The Nephilim (sons of God) also provide an interesting prospect regarding sex in the new creation… which Jesus seems to rule out when he’s answering the Pharisees who are trying to trip him up on marriage in the New Creation, he says we’ll be like the sons of God – who in Genesis 6 saw that the daughters of men were beautiful and they had children with them…

Some people think the Nephilim were just the last of the Neanderthals… which sounds like a Daniel Day-Lewis movie.

It seems everyone has a theory on these from the plausible (that they were just big headed overachievers whose arrogance led people astray) to the wacky (neanderthals or one of the many groups of people the Torah books not included in the canon teach about).

I don’t know. But it’s fun.

Who was/is Melchizedek

This is the other curly one – wherefore and whyfore comes this priestly king with his cameo – and it’s clearly significant because he’s a precursor to the kingly/priestly Jesus – and whofore is this king? Is he an incarnation of the pre-incarnate Christ? Is he just a God fearing king from a city with a similar name to Jerusalem – which does not yet exist. Is he a time travelling budy of Doc from Back to the Future? Share your opinions on these matters – or the questions you want to ask God, in the comments. Do it. You know you want to.

September 16, 2009

More on Church

Someone asked me the other day if I can pick the direction the comments in a post are going to go in. I said I thought so. I’ve decided I was wrong. Sometimes I write things, particularly about Christianity, that seem pretty cut and dry, and objectively clear in the Bible, and I get interesting comments that criticise me for making a claim the commenter disagrees with…

That’s fine. I like being disagreed with, I don’t have a monopoly on truth. But the Bible does. Or it claims to, you can take or leave that. If you take it, there’s no room for being wishy washy. The Bible says we’re saved to be part of the family/kingdom of God. You can’t do that alone. It’s not a family of one.

I might be getting the Bible wrong, but if I’m standing on the verses of the Bible that talk about what I’m talking about, and you’re disagreeing with what I’m saying, without looking at what the Bible says, then be prepared for me not to take the disagreement particularly seriously.

Let me be clear what I’m not saying – going to church does not make you a Christian, but if you’re a Christian you’ll go to church. In fact, if you’re a Christian, you’re already part of the “universal church”, the family of God – and you should love your Christian brothers and sisters and want to be with them in church… if you don’t, then questions need to be asked.

There’s a murky area where there are some situations where church is not possible – people in hospital, in permanent care, and who, like the thief on the cross die before having a chance to go to church… but really… there aren’t a whole lot of excuses to not be treating Christianity like a family thing… which means being part of a family. Not going it alone.

Christianity.net.au says something about this probably a little clearer…

“The Christian life was never meant to be lived solo, God has gifted each member of his church to serve one another, you can’t do that solo. It is near impossible to live a Christian life alone, it runs counter to everything God has done for us. However, some people can’t help but live alone. The thief on the cross could not join a church, he had no choice; but where we have a choice, we really should become a part of God’s church.

It’s like someone who gets married, but never moves in with their husband. It is true that you can be married without living together, and there may be extreme circumstances that you can think of where someone may get married and not live together (if someone is on their death bed for example). But a real marriage involves relationship. Becoming a Christian means being a part of God’s family. “

There’s an interesting and timely post on the matter at the internetmonk’s site about the old “Jesus – Yes, Church – No” mentality…

I’d love to see what arguments people could put forward that actually work against the idea I’m putting forward that aren’t pie in the sky hypotheticals. I’m not suggesting that church saves you, but if you’re a Christian there’s just no way I can see how you could reject gathering with God’s people.

September 10, 2009

Love languages

You know how there are five Greek words for love? This is a good thing. Because it allows for clarity when you’re using a language of love.

We’ve got one word in English, and it’s contextually defined. I love God. But I don’t love God like I love my wife. And I don’t love my wife like I love my lunch. This is part of the reason that Christian music is so culturally odd.

Am I the only one who gets uncomfortable when we use the analogy of a human relationship when talking about meeting God. I know the Bible does it. But it just sounds odd when people tell the media they hope this new Jesus advertising campaign is like the preliminary to a first date with Jesus.

But Dominic Steele, director of Christians in the Media, hopes it will have real resonance.

”They’re a first invitation to a conversation about having a date with God or potentially starting a relationship.”

I understand the rationale – it just makes me cringe a little. You don’t “date” your father – unless you’re Mark Driscoll’s kids. My response to this language is the same as my response to “daddy date”. Maybe this is a case of unhelpful definition creep when it comes to the word date. It seems to come with a whole lot of eros baggage when it may instead be either storge, agape or philia type love.

September 10, 2009

Evangelism and relationships

We’re doing Introducing God at church this term. We just did week seven tonight. We’ve got an odd mix of people where probably 75% of the regulars are Christians who are hoping their irregular non-Christian friends will turn up, or are just there in lieu of small groups.

I’ve been sitting with a couple of guys – one of whom is a new Christian from a very non-Christian background (the guy I’m cooking with), the other is his housemate who has grown up in a staunchly Christian home who is not a Christian. Tonight was good. We’re at the stage where a relationship exists and some pressure can be comfortably exerted.

Having a relationship with someone is pretty important if you’re going to understand where they’re coming from in order to offer an alternative or a critique on their life.

Mikey Lynch is an AFES worker in Tassie who has handed out tasks to his student leaders to make sure they have relationships with non-Christians. These relationships are important. And his challenges look fun.

The challenges are things like:

Catch up with an old school friend,

Be chatty to everyone you interact with,

Catch public transport and chat to the people you sit next to,

Go to the pub and talk to people at the bar,

Piggy back on someone else’ hobby.

September 9, 2009

Nine Christian blogs you should read

These are not necessarily my favourite blogs by Christians – but they are the ones that are most likely to cover interesting trends in evangelical Christianity (in the Australian sense of the word evangelical – which mostly means reformed)…

John Piper’s blog at Desiring God, his son Abraham Piper’s 22 words is another one of my favourites… his current post is a cracker.
Mark Driscoll’s blog at the Resurgence – lets face it, what Christian male under the age of 30 isn’t at least a little bit of a Mark Driscoll fanboy. He’s a Mac, and Piper is a PC.
Tim Challies blog – great link posts and book reviews.
Between Two Worlds – nice short summaries of the American Christian blogosphere.
Craig’s blog – the Australian equivalent of Between Two Worlds – nice short sharp summaries of important discussions and developments around the Australian scene.
The Internet Monk – trying to define him is difficult. Post reformed, post evangelical, partly Calvinist – usually interesting or thought provoking.
Church Marketing Sucks – a nice little site dedicated to improving the way churches communicate Jesus.
Communicate Jesus – an Australian equivalent to Church Marketing Sucks.
Stuff Christians Like – the Stuff Christians Write writer has his finger right on the pulse of Christian culture – warts and all.

A list of nine barely does my subscription list justice, there are heaps of notable omissions both from gospel ministers in Australia to collective blogs like Pyromaniacs or the SolaPanel – and a bunch of quality blogs by bible college students.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Design4Church – a most excellent blog about graphic design for churches at this point…

Any good ones I’m missing?

September 9, 2009