Interpolation Baby

Problem of Hell

Triskelion

I tend to think that hell is not a place people are sent. I think it is rather a state of being of one not redeemed. You cannot blame the doctor for dying if you reject his treatment. 

Yes I know it was God who created this world, this world that has the potential to fall and break and feel pain. But you know why he created it this way? Because he wanted you. He created this universe and a world that could fall and a people that have freedom to love or to hate so that he would end up with a being like you. 

You are the sum of your experiences. Your personality as shaped by the events of your life. It is the redeemers hope to perfect this being in you, to make the ultimate and completed you.

The oven is hot, but it is the only way the bread is baked.

"... to think of this bad man's perdition not as a sentence imposed on him but as the mere fact of being what he is. The characteristic of lost souls is 'their rejection of everything that is not simply themselves'. Our imaginary egoist has tried to turn everything he meets into a province or appendage of the self. The taste of the other, that is, the very capacity for enjoying good, is quenched in him except in so far as his body still draws him into some rudimentary contact with an outer world. Death removes this last contact. He has his wish--to lie wholly in the self and to make the best of what he finds there. And what he finds there is Hell."
~ C.S. Lewis

Testimony

Being a Christian that knows a great deal about science is a rather lonely place to be. You hear an idea that someone suggests is incredible PROOF that God exists or that God created the universe and you know it is essentially malarkey. Or you realize that some scientific endeavor will come along and put the debate to bed. You hold your tongue because you realize that "proving" God can be a pathway toward strengthening faith, but you feel isolated as they celebrate the revelation and you just sit and smile. You know that faith is not about proving that God exists. It is about realizing that you've been shown a better way, a way that is itself miraculous, a way that itself proves to you that there is a loving God.

Eventually the proof is disproved and ultimately falls into the pile of failed armchair apologetics that decorates the floor of so many modernist churches.

I believed the malarkey when I was a younger Christian. Then I had it pulled away from me slowly and painfully as I learned more about the universe. I hung on to it as hard as I could, because without it I was not a Christian. But the moment it was completely pulled away, it revealed something that cannot be pulled away, the better way, the way of Messiah. It is faith not belief. It cannot be pulled away as easily as simple assent. It is an anchor. God said to me then in my time of complete doubt the words that will never leave me. "Belief is an act of the mind, but hope is a cry of the heart. As long as you have hope it is enough."

Doubt no longer scares me. I always follow it through. Because I have faith that my sustainer will be there at the end. So far he has.

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see." ~ Hebrews 11:1

A Follower's Manifesto

There are two distinct themes in the bible. First, God demands justice. He demands that we follow his law, that we love our neighbor, that we love Him more than anything else. Second, God is merciful. He sent his own son to die and redeem the people of Earth not to condemn them. There is now no condemnation for those who abide. For years I saw a contradiction between these. This was one of the things that pushed me to postmodernism.

However, the more I grow in faith I realize that there is no contradiction. The paradox is a coefficient of my own human ignorance. God is just, but he is also merciful. Every letter of the law stands, but salvation comes through faith in Messiah's gift alone. It isn't about being good, but it is about being blameless. I am a wicked, but I am saved. I really like things this way. No body has it all figured out, though some do abide. It is an formula that leads the seeker to a place of faith and humility, of hope and awe.

The Bible is not a history book. Its not a science book. It is the living Word-- the Logos of God that he has hewn out of the very lifelines of His people.

In the end, the bickering, the hand-wringing, the denominations are superfluous. I am a follower of The Way, a disciple of Messiah. Whatever else is true of me, I want these to be.

Descent toward the Ritual

I've discovered recently that I am given to quirky little rituals.  They are harmless repeated patterns that exhibit themselves in sometimes helpful, sometimes silly ways.  I'm not compelled to do them, this is not OCD.  It is more like a subconscious formalization of my behavior.  I can't close a locked door without checking for my keys for example.  In that sense it is an adaptation that I've developed because of being burned once or twice by actually locking my keys in places.

But recently I became directly aware of the progression toward one particular ritual.  I was playing Solitaire on my PDA (I'm old tech., I know, but smart phones are lame; that's another story) and I realized that I could cheat by moving a card to a blank column even if it wasn't a king. It was a bug in the program that I could exploit. I did this and eventually beat my high score.  It was great, but after a while I felt like a cheater. I felt like my high score was a lie. It really was the tell tale heart. Well, after a great deal of internal struggle (over Solitaire nonetheless), I cleared my scores and started afresh, this time with the intent not to cheat.  But it didn't remain just an intent.  I got to the point where I would resist cheating even when I knew for instance that I could win without cheating but doing so would save time.  It had become a ritual.   It was a behavior that I developed so that I could feel good about my high scores.

I've wondered since if this is how some religious rituals start.  We get caught up with our holiness high scores and so we develop formalized behaviors, we develop rituals.

Communion started with a group of thirteen brothers in a dimly lit upper room huddled close to keep warm.  Now we deliver the communion in gold-colored trays in perfectly portioned crackers and grape juice with our eyes closed and our heads bowed.  It is a ritual.  Now I'm not criticizing our contemporary church practices.  Rituals aren't inherently bad.  My Solitaire ritual does insure beyond any doubt that I deserve that high score.  I am just warning against loosing the point of a thing when it becomes a ritual.  The point, I believe, of communion is to gather together with our Lord and enjoy the company.  It is about shedding conflicts and differences that might be between He and us and each other and asking forgiveness. It is about huddling together in a very, very cold world.  Communion is about community.

Depravity

I think I am good. I do noble things. I even sometimes sacrifice a little for others. But I am too aware of my darker self. I have no illusions of holiness. The knot of flesh that seeks to rule my life, it whines and writhes in the agony of selfish pity; a self inflicted torment; a spiritual black hole. It is clear to me now that my sin is not merely an ethical schism. It is a prison for my mind.

I keep myself with personal and social checks that waver only in times of intense emotion. Most of the time I seem good, but painted across my chest is the scarlet letter of my inner most being. I am a devil. My inner child screams, "I am good!" But in this context, I know I deserve hell.

All of this is dark, but it is not depressing. Because of this, the salvation given to me is that much more amazing; that much more precious. It is a white hot crack in the encasement of my mind; a fissure in the chains that bind my will.

Sanctus, peccator... nosce te ipsum. Renascere!

Without God

The truth that the atheist offers is a silly plaything; a meaningless amusement while one waits for nothingness. Without God, you are left with delusion or despair. Camus was absolutely right; without God, there is absolutely no difference between living and killing yourself. When the summit of life is pleasure; justice, peace, goodness, and freedom are just buzz words used to make life more bearable. Without purpose, without God, there is nothing.

Love to the Seeker

You have to understand, to a seeker, religion is like walking into a crowded room with everybody shouting "come here or you will die!" at the top of their lungs. Merely to maintain sanity, they must dismiss all of these claims as lunacy. For otherwise, which shouting voice is telling the truth? To whom should they go to avoid death? I prefer to stand and smile and when approached say, "I have found bread; come and eat." For the seeker is hungry, and I indeed have found bread.

Three Earths

Three Earths could fit in that storm system!

The Thirst-Quenching Fire

Death to the machine;

The great mechanical dragon must die.

Much has been lost; much permanently;

Already.

Sacred things are gone.

The machine has a will to make us all alike.

We were born to be different, to be unique,

To be beautiful.

In your mind already,

There is a cynicism deep in your heart.

It devourers your joy, and through you others.

Kill it now.

Something was lost,

Already the frame of the world creaks,

In anticipation of something that is to come.

A thirst-quenching fire.

Deosynthesis

A plant is only a good plant as long as it is exposed to the light of the sun. In darkness, it whithers. This is photosynthesis. No matter how much water and nutrition it gets, without this ability to change this life giving light into sugars, the plant eventually dies.

A church is only a part of the body as long as it is exposed to the love of the son. In darkness, it whithers. This is deosynthesis. NO matter how many people and how much money it gets, without this ability to receive the potent love of God, the church eventually dies.

Hang on a Second

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/14/132031645/christian-s-death-verdict-spurs-holy-row-in-pakistan

I know. My first reaction was anger, too. But then I realized (or maybe God told me, I don't know) that they don't need our anger. They already have too much of their own. And, as followers of the way, our anger doesn't change anything; it is our love that really changes things. Religion doesn't change anything either. Pakistan is a clear example that religion makes a poor government. They don't need our religion, anyway. They don't need our doctrine, they need our savior. The Way is not a religion, it is a person. It is Jesus.

Don't get me wrong. Fighting is necessary. There are regimes of terror that need to be toppled, but they are regimes of terror against their own populations. They enslave them in doctrine and fear of hell.

Absence of Innocence

Innocence isn't absence of sin; sin is absence of innocence. Adam and Eve gave up their innocence at the tree in Eden. Christ gave up His precious life to restore to us this same innocence; the innocence of children.

"When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.'"

Mark 10:14

Evolution is Fact

Even secular evolution is neither random or unguided. That would be foolishness. Evolution is a process guided by a mechanism of selection acting against diversification. The question is not whether the process is random or not, but rather who is doing the selection. Naturalists say nature; theists say God. I personally fail to see the distinction; it would seem that from our perspective God's direction would appear as natural. Also, the controversy has nothing to do with this mechanism; it is pretty well empirically established. The question is whether you can establish a link from all current species to a previous common ancestor. This is where I differ from the naturalist as I believe you cannot. I believe God wrote all the kinds of creatures individually using the same design patterns and the same base sequence. God was a programmer. Seeing these patterns the naturalist claim phylogeny where, I believe, none exists. Common design means common origin, but not common original form.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Waking Up

YOUR ARE NOT ALONE!

We are all trying to figure this mess out. Those of us that seem to have it all together often have the biggest messes. They've just figured out that it is so much easier to hide it than to face it. They just fool people, but they still feel it. They still know the pain and isolation that they offer others. We are all poor. Riches mean nothing. The man who dies with the most toys, dies with nothing. He dies with less; whatever he was given is taken away because he tried so hard to find something in the vacuum. We are all so wretched. There is nothing under the sun worth living for. No one has the answers, they all just shout into the vacuum; their voices coalescing into a cacophony of meaningless vibrations; chirping apes the lot.

But their is a light. Just one; it hides beneath the horizon because its intensity would melt your soul. But it is coming. It is the sovereign Lord Jesus Christ. The messiah of the Jews. He is coming not to judge us, but to free us. Don't be fooled, even His people don't really get it. They don't have the answers, they just have Jesus and a deepest knowledge that they have something of true value in Him. I have nothing to offer you, but that. That you are not alone, and that you, like I, desperately need a savior.

"We are all mere beggars telling other beggars where to find bread."

A Matter of Ice Cream

Herein I refer information in this NPR Health Blog entry.

Has anyone ever consider that water is not organic yet we need it, and formaldehyde is organic and it can kill us? We use buzzwords all over the place that really mean nothing. Natural means 'comes from nature'. Everything comes from nature. Except for a few heavy elements, everything we manufacture is just a recombination of something natural. Also, every single product on store has chemicals in it. I think most of us mean non-toxic, non-poisonous, non-dangerous products; that is at least reasonable. There are many of those that are manufactured. There are also many "natural" compounds that don't meat meet this qualification. The most dangerous chemicals, in fact, come from nature. The CSPI is suing a company, that is actually trying to be natural, over semantics!

Voting the Third Option

The reason that our governmental system is failing is that we do not vote with our own voices. We listen to agenda-driven pendants and spurious political ads before we listen to our own common sense. I mean we no longer vote for candidates. Rather, we vote so that candidates we don't like won't be elected. We vote against people completely ignoring the democratic third option. See this is exactly my point. I called it democratic, but I do not mean to say that I is in favor of the Democratic Party. I know that you assumed I did. This is how divisive we've become. The third option is the third (or forth, or fifth) option on the ballot. We don't see this as an option at all because we believe the Independent candidates could never be elected. This is a self-perpetuating fallacy. My belief is that a democracy works best if it is run by the people-- by there individual voices. Our divisiveness is drafted by our broken, idealistic two-party system. Not until our nation has more political parties will it function as it always should. How many parties? About a few hundred million of them.

If anything I am saying rings as truth, than please this November think about these criteria.

1) Ignore pendants and political advertisements. Mute them, change the channel, or, my favorite, watch and mock them. Come on, the really are quite ridiculous.

2) They cannot limit your vote. In fact, you are not even limited to what's on the ballot. It is your right to vote for whomever you want. The primaries are not apart of our electoral system and can (and in my opinion, should) be ignored.

3) Do not vote straight-ticket. I feel strongly that this option should be stricken from the ballot. It is a convenience but it skews our elections by not forcing people to elect for each available candidate. I personally believe they should remove the R's and D's from the ballot as well. We need to stop voting for parties, and start voting for people based on their own merits. An incomplete ballot is far better than a straight-ticket ballot.

4) At least hear-out the other side. Demonization of groups of people is the most rampant and fallacy in our country these days. Its been around forever. We can never have peace in our own boarders until we can put down our political aphorisms and listen to all accurate information we have available to us.

Now, it is important to note here that I'm not telling you not to vote for a Democrat or Republican. If those candidates honestly reflect your values most clearly than you should vote for them. I'm actually not truly an independent. I'm a non-partisan. I believe the parties are disastrous to our political system. They are divicisive, unnecessary and a sign of a people who don't really care about how there country is run.

Adopted

I am a Christian because there is no one alive that can match the teaching of Christ. It is by far the most inclusive of ways; get up take your cross and follow Him. Whether you have it all figured out or just are sick of all the paths you followed to dead ends. Nothing can parallel the way of the living sacrifice.

I am a Christian, but do not be mistaken. I am only adopted. Jews are God's chosen people they are his first children. They were chosen to bring forth God's word and His salvation to all peoples.

Random Images

Excerpt from "Mental Thistles"

Why does not the fool prefer virtue to vice?

When one is so vile the other so nice.

The answer we find, by the very same rule.

The fool prefers vice, just because he's a fool.

Citation:

Frank, Bellew, (1881). A Bad boy's first reader. Retrieved 22 December 2009 from G.W. Carleton & Co.: http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/ufdc/?b=UF00048476&v=00001