You Go Your Way, I"ll Go Mine

There are some who do not believe in God, or who do not believe in the God we believe in.  That may frustrate some of us, and we may try to force others to believe.  But to do so is fruitless.  We can't force someone to see what they do not see.  If we try to force, we will only cause greater conflict, and more resistance.

We should have the same attitude as Muhammade and say as he said, "You go your way and I'll go mine."

We can, of course, explain what we believe.  We can give our perspective on local history, for example.  Some may say "The Civil War was caused by many events" and leave it at that.  Others may say that God used the Civil War to end the atrocity of slavery.  This doesn't mean God caused the Civil War, but used it for His work.

Even so, Muhammad used the story of a local event about an elephant to speak of God's involvement in local history. That makes sense.

Also, Muhammad spoke of how God helps in his life.  "There are many evils around us", he said.  Evil human beings. Evil curses. Evil desires against us.  God is the light in the midst of the darkness, the refuge from the storm of evil.  Satan himself speaks evil to us and about us.  But God and God alone allows us to be protected.

"And so I seek God" says Muhammad.  You may seek other things.  Money, perhaps.  Science.  Power.  Force.  "But I," said Muhammad, "have my hope in God alone."

The 'T' in TULIP: Depravity

John Perry of Stanford University recently said, "Original sin is the most factual contribution of Christianity."  While this may or may not be true, certainly the idea of original sin is a concept that has caught the imagination of most Protestant believers.  The basic idea is that every person is born with evil already in their genetic code.  Some have more serious sins they are bound to do, but all have corruption in their bones.

The idea of total depravity is not just that sin exists in the soul of every person, but that every action that every person does is founded in base motives.  This means that even a good action is done with evil motivation.  In other words, a person who saves an infant from drowning may be doing it simply from the glory he or she might get from doing it and a mother sacrifices for her child because it is her progeny, her future existence on earth.

What the Bible actually says is that every person sins.  It doesn't actually describe how this is so.  It could be completely environmental-- that the fact we are raised in a sinful society that keeps sin going.  It could be because of how we are raised.  It could be that sinning is at first an accident that we find works. Personally, I lean toward the idea that our society connects with genetic factors which encourage us to act in evil ways, even when our thinking is right.  Have you ever seen someone speak all the right words about helping and hope and love but still do things that harm others?  This self-deception has to be learned, I think.

The total depravity concept is that we are born with self-deception.  It is in every person's basic nature.  This also means that no person can tell the truth.  For if we are all self-deceived, how can we possibly tell the truth to another?  How can we even tell any truth from a lie?  

Total depravity seems like an unnecessarily negative viewpoint of human nature.  Sure, all humans are sinful.  We all screw up and we all hurt others on purpose on occasion.  A few of us make a habit of it.  But is the main characteristic of humanity sin and evil?  Isn't it an equal part of humanity that we want to see our motives as good?  Are we such complete failures as a species?  Isn't it possible for us to improve?  It says in Scripture about humanity, "They can do anything they set their hands to" Genesis 6.  I agree that our track record is spotty at best, and that as a group we only can respond in the most Neanderthalian of ways.  But we intend to do good.  We may not know what the good is, but we try.  That's not total depravity.  Total stupidity, maybe.

BTW, The Human Centipede is shown simply because it was the most depraved movie I could think of. 

I Am Adam

There has been a discussion about the historicity of the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 2-3.  While I think that there is a case to be made for its occurrence in real life, I don't think we should fail to see that Adam's story is our story as well.  Every part of the story is a part of our lives, our experience:


Adam and the woman are all of humanity, including each individual.

Humanity is granted authority/responsibility over the created earth. But he is told not to make ethical decisions on his own (the tree of knowledge of good and evil), but to rely on his relationship with God.

Satan (the serpent, the power that judges humanity) convinces humanity to take authority on their own, because if they were to make their own ethical decisions, apart from God, then they would be all-powerful.

Humanity makes the decision to separate their idea of good and evil from God's. God abides by their decision and determines to separate himself from humanity. Humanity is now devoid of God's wisdom and must depend on their own wisdom.

However, humanity is also devoid of life. Because humanity is like a toddler with the power of a king, God doesn't allow humanity the opportunity for eternal life (the tree of life)-- humanity would just be too dangerous. Instead, God puts humanity under the power of Death who limits humanity through suffering and hardship and who shortens humanity's lifespan.

That's how I see it. Again, I don't have a problem with a historical read of the story, but we need to recognize ourselves in this story as well.

First posted on the Aletheia Forum:http://aletheia.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=science&thread=3350&page=2#ixzz1QOh5M0Io

Are We Not Allowed To Use Our Freewill?

Another comment from azsuperman:

Tough Questions for Christians- Freewill

AZ asks: "If we use our freewill, it can only be as robots. If we actually use it freely, we will burn in hell forever. Is this actually free?"

AZ has the same problem as many children-- he can only see the little that is not allowed rather than the huge variety that is.

Even if we follow the law, which is considered restrictive by many, it has 618 laws. Jesus whittled down all the laws to simply two-- Love God and love your neighbor. But we make thousands of choices a day. For every choice we have, there are many different options, only some of them are actually sin.

It actually reminds me of Adam and Eve. Many people consider them to have been tricked by God because the tree He didn't want them to eat was right in the middle of the garden, and thus tempting. That might be a possibility, but they are ignoring the opportunities they had. If the rivers are correct, the garden was literally millions of acres, filled with trees. So there were countless trees and God only asked them not to eat one.

This is the fact of freewill-- God gives us the right to rule the earth. And we've been doing that. Sometimes we've done alright. Other times we've done very poorly. But it is an optical illusion to think that all the choices we really have are sinful ones. There is the occasional moral dilemma, but most of the time we are just living life. And we have the choice to live it as we please.

Some may say, "But if we sin once, God will send us to hell eternally." That doesn't seem accurate with Scripture, but let's say that it's true. God also gave us the choice to escape hell eternally by being in His kingdom. All we have to do is follow Jesus and participate in the discipline of repenting of our sin. That's pretty simple, really.

One last item. AZ is comparing hell with death. It's not exactly the same. God gives us our freedom, almost without restriction, throughout our life. Yes, after our life there is a judgment, but this is not the same as saying, "Spend one dollar and I will kill you." God is not telling us not to "spend" our freewill-- He is restricting our choices slightly for the good of all. And God is not killing us the instant we use our freewill-- we have sixty to eighty years to act as we choose. And how we choose to act is the basis for our eternity.

Not like robots at all.

How Is Humanity Weak? 7

Humans are sinful

Sin is the destruction of relationship, disloyalty, the harm of the Other. Sin is disloyalty to God who created us, who loves us and provides all good things for us to meet our needs. We tend to think much more of ourselves than God. And even though our relationship with God is much less complex than our relationship to government or family, and much more central to our needs, we gravitate toward the latter relationships rather than the former.

Sin is harming other people, who were made in God’s image, because of our own fears and desires. It is acting out destruction against others because it is better for us. It is not acting for the benefit of others, even though it is in our power to do so, because of our own fears and drives. It is listening to that which oppress us rather than God’s Spirit who leads us to do what is good for all.

We do not sin because of Adam’s sin. Rather, each and every one of us enacts Adam’s sin ourselves. We believe in our independence more than we believe in our relationship with God. We rely more on our sense of fear and our sense of need rather than our more obvious factual knowledge of another’s need.

Why are we sinful? Because we are weak. Even our displays of strength—our technology, our ability to travel in space, our ability to fly around the earth in hours, our communication with each other no matter where we live, our growth of amazing amounts of food, our ability to control the atom, our ability to crush diseases—are paired directly with our weaknesses—the multiplication of diseases, the ability to destroy innocents at the push of a button, two billion people starving, a thriving porn industry and slavery associated with that, an epidemic of homelessness, diseases that ravage a continent although they can be stopped, millions of people drinking contaminated water. The internet is used to gossip and dishonor much more than uphold the good. Television is used to encourage fear instead of provide social benefit. Knowledge of the Bible is used to destroy people’s morality instead of building up people’s love of God and others.

But I can’t really blame anyone. I do the same things, although I try not to. I am weak. I am human. Lord, let me dive into You so Your love drowns my desires and fears. Let me come out a new creature of purity and new hope.

The Weakness of the "Gospel"

Are you ready to really be challenged? Watch these videos, if you dare:

Is This Forgiveness?


Is This God's Forgiveness?

So tell me, is this what God's forgiveness is like? Is this what the Bible teaches? If it is, is it really just? If it is not, in what way is it different?

Why Are We Stuck Sinning?

Why are we in the predicament of doing evil?

1. The Fall
Whether literally or symbolically, individually or collectively, there has been a rejection of God’s leadership—both His structural leadership and His ethical leadership. God gave humanity sovereignty over themselves and creation and they chose to reject God’s direct rule and law and guidance.

2. Human Nature
Human nature was created to respond to difficulties, injustices, inadequacies and poverty. It also has specific drives and needs—physical, social, sexual, emotional, etc. It was not intended to be in a context without God’s rule and guidance and so missteps—mostly unintended—are made because of a wrong reaction to a context of lostness.

3. Judgment
Due to rebellion, humanity—both individually and collectively—are under the judgment of spiritual forces. Sometimes this judgment is due to specific sin, sometimes due to general rebellion. But disasters, attacks, diseases, etc, come because of general disobedience.

4. Ethical Lapses
Selfishness, narrow-mindedness and misunderstanding cause humanity to do evil or to refuse to do good, thus creating a cycle of evil.