A lot of Christians who have seen the billboards have found them offensive enough that they felt a need to complain. Some have even accused the billboards of being hate speech and denigrating Christians. One Christian driver who saw the billboard went so far as to say “It is a despicable act to allow that sign…” I, for one, can’t see how that is possible since the billboards are not speaking to or about Christians or people of faith, they are merely offering support to those unbelievers who may be living in the area.

Skepchick: Critical Thinking at its Finest

Possibly Related

• September 20, 2005 — test everything, hold fast to what is good
• November 18, 2008 — is this true: “all these things will be given to you”
• November 16, 2008 — Obama: Bad News For the New Atheists and Other Fundamentalists
• November 16, 2008 — special comment from keith olbermann on prop 8 passing
• April 15, 2009 — Valerie Tarico: Ancient Sumerian Origins of the Easter Story

i did a big study on it in 2004, and abandoned the idea of hell once i actually got my mind around what the bible actually does and does not say about it.

as i recall from my studies, hell as a concept is virtually absent from the old testament, and there are three greek words used in the new testament that were translated as “hell” in the NIV (the evangelical’s translation of choice).

together these three words are used a grand total of fourteen (14) times in the new testament.

all but two of these uses are by jesus himself.

paul never mentions it.

“hell” as christians today think of it didn’t really come to be a common christian teaching until nearly 200 AD — no one in jesus audience would have ever thought that you went there forever simply for having the misfortune of being born.

“gehenna” is the most commonly used word for “hell” in the NT, and while it is never “defined” explicitly, what jesus probably meant when he used it what was everyone else at that time meant by it: a place, under the ground, where there was lots of fire, and where the sun got its heat and light from as it traveled under the ground on its trip back to the east, after it had set in the west.

if jesus believed (perhaps because he had some special knowledge from the Father) that hell was not an actual, physical, place which was literally under the ground, he didn’t seem to clue his listeners in, and they certainly would have thought this was what he meant when he used the word.

at the time, it was generally believed (jewish or not) that when a person died they went into the afterlife, or hades (hebrew: sheol), where they might face some sort of judgment.

jesus’ particularly jewish audience at the time were likely to believe that the pious would get to exchange their ticket to hell for a ticket to paradise, which meant they now had TWO tickets to paradise (every one was born with one of each) and could go there, immediately.

people who had committed adultry or had led their neighbors into wrongdoing had their one paradise ticket taken away and got another ticket to sheol handed to them: no escape.

a common phrase in jewish teaching was that it would have been better to not have been born than to be one of these people.

(christians familiar with their bibles will recognize that phrasing: jesus borrowed it.)

people who had themselves sinned, but had not lead other people to sin had to spend about only about one (1) year in gehenna, and then got to go up to paradise.

note: this is not a biblical teaching, as the bible doesn’t actually ever say anything on the subject. i’m just relaying what most people who happened to grow up the descendants of nomadic desert tribes in mesopotamia happen to believe on the subject.

so, that was the belief of MOST of the people who heard jesus say:

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”

this was RADICAL teaching on this subject.

but did he mean it, literally?

to the people who believed that gehenna was under their ground, and supplied the sun with fire, jesus said that if they are angry with their brother, they are going to go there.

surely he didn’t actually mean it, literally, right?

what about when he said: “And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.”

did he mean this literally?

so, then, in which of the three times where we have jesus quoted as talking about gehenna is he speaking literally?

if it isn’t those two, it must be this one:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. … You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”

other times the NIV says “hell” are:

2 Peter 2:4 — “For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;”

here, the word peter uses is “tartarus” — and is generally thought to be a big, dark, essentially bottomless hole.

James 3:6 — “And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell.”

the word used here is “gehenna”

Matthew 16:18 — “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

here, the word jesus uses is “hades”, rather than “gehenna”.

hades was believed in jesus’ time to be “the afterlife” — and did not necessarily imply someplace horrible, though it was believed to be rather gloomy, unless you happened to get to some sort of paradise.

so, there you have it: the entire new testament’s teaching on “hell” all summed up, with some history on what jesus’ contemporaries believed on the subject.

not one time does jesus ever mention being a christian.

not once does jesus lay out specific things one must believe in order to NOT go to hell.

not once does any other new testament writer.

the bible is more or less quiet on the entire matter of hell and who goes there or does not.

of course, this is NOT a view that is embraced 21st century evangelical christian culture, with its particular version of orthodoxy, where the text must be accepted as a whole: either all true or all a lie, right?

so, then, what about anyone who doesn’t poke out their own eyeball for enjoying checking out a hot chick?

anyway, when obama says:

“I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and prostelytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they’re going to hell…I find it hard that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell…I can’t imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity…That’s just not part of my religious make-up.”

…i think you’ll find its actually a very biblical view.

its almost certainly the one jesus himself held, if we are to go by what we know of history combined with his teachings on the subject.

Possibly Related

• April 15, 2009 — Valerie Tarico: Ancient Sumerian Origins of the Easter Story
• February 4, 2009 — reminds me of…. something…
• November 18, 2008 — is this true: “all these things will be given to you”
• November 16, 2008 — Obama: Bad News For the New Atheists and Other Fundamentalists
• August 19, 2008 — Obama Won At Saddleback, In the Eyes Of This Evangelical

First of all this suggests that Humans were the expected outcome of God’s creation and while it is easy to understand this flawed logic, after all, we are the outcome of God’s creation, this should not be confused with a forward looking goal. In fact, it is easy to argue that God’s Creation was set in motion to eventually result in a form of life which could gain spirituality and a soul and thus become aware of His existence. Furthermore, even if God had set in motion a Darwinian process, He could still have intervened, as I have explained above, without violating natural law. In other words, the process would still appear purely Darwinian and at the same time would be guided.

So contrary to the fallacious claims that ‘true Darwinists’ cannot be ‘true Christians’, it is self evident that such a position is not logically tenable.

What I find puzzling is why people are intent on rejecting the good science of Darwinism and evolutionary theory as somehow being incompatible with their faith. That shows both a disregard for science, which is a typical ID Creationist affliction, as well as a significant lack in faith.

Being a Theistic Evolutionist without contradiction

Nothing seems related, these are random:

Technorati Tags: crazy, ninja, realultimatepower, religion, scientology, tom, tomcruise

Nothing seems related, these are random:

Consider one more experimental example to prove the point: the ultimatum game. You are given $100 to split between yourself and your game partner. Whatever division of the money you propose, if your partner accepts it, you each get to keep your share. If, however, your partner rejects it, neither of you gets any money.

How much should you offer? Why not suggest a $90-$10 split? If your game partner is a rational, self-interested money-maximizer — the very embodiment of Homo economicus — he isn’t going to turn down a free 10 bucks, is he? He is. Research shows that proposals that offer much less than a $70-$30 split are usually rejected.

Why? Because they aren’t fair. Says who? Says the moral emotion of “reciprocal altruism,” which evolved over the Paleolithic eons to demand fairness on the part of our potential exchange partners. “I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine” only works if I know you will respond with something approaching parity. The moral sense of fairness is hard-wired into our brains and is an emotion shared by most people and primates tested for it, including people from non-Western cultures and those living close to how our Paleolithic ancestors lived.

the idea that most people react this way is something in our selves so deep that it is something we share with other primates.

when we share so much DNA with monkeys, apes, and lemurs, and yet so many people deny that we come from common ancestors, it just seems dishonest to me.

intellectually at best, and plain-old lyin’ at worst.

as i get further and further away, as the months tick by, from my old christian self, i have trouble even remembering how it is i ignored so much evidence for evolution and spent so much time researching “science” that “disproved” it.

how was i able to accept as fact then what is so clearly horse-pooey?

this article explains it, in some small sense.

Why people believe weird things about money – Los Angeles Times:

Possibly Related

• November 16, 2008 — special comment from keith olbermann on prop 8 passing
• November 10, 2005 — plankeye, followup
• May 2, 2005 — plankeye
• January 19, 2005 — dealing with “weaker brothers”
• January 16, 2005 — patriotism

Who really believes in the virgin birth?

A recent survey by the Barna Research Group, asked adults what they believed about the virgin birth of Jesus—Was this story literally true or not? Across all demographic spectrums most adults said they did believe in the truth of that biblical story. In fact, 3 out of 4 (75%) of all adults said they believe that Jesus was born to the virgin, Mary.

So

I have been intending to post something about this research myself, and John’s post gives me a good place to start. Both because his always well-written and well-thought-out posts are a very good summary of the Christian worldview (like there’s “a” christian worldview…) but also because he consistently (though never maliciously) misunderstands the agnostic/atheist outlook of the universe.
Now, I don’t begrudge him this. I myself totally misunderstood what the universe must look like to those who do not believe in god, before I came to not believe in god myself. It is one of those “walk a mile in their shoes” kinda things — until you really experience life from this side of the belief fence, you can only take mad stabs at what unbelief is really like.
And, as usual, John makes some gross simplifications about how an atheist or agnostic will or won’t think about the world.
I would like to clear up some of those misconceptions here, because I believe they are common ones.
Let us get started, shall we?

John goes on…

As one might expect, a large majority of those who do not profess religious faith or belief in God did not believe the story to be true.

Here we agree. I also think that we can expect a large majority of those who do not profess religious faith to believe in a virgin birth. In fact, I think we can be downright suprised that there are any, but then, human beings have an incredible capacity to holding conflicting beliefs. In another recent survey it was shown that twenty-five percent of Americans believe both that the Earth is around 10,000 years old and that evolution is true.
That warrents a repeat: they believed both to be true, at the same time.
No, really.
So we need not be all together surprised when we find that:

Only 15% of atheists/agnostics said they believe in the virgin birth as a literal story.

John then goes on to state:

But that is what is so particularly surprising, not so much because of the agnostic responses. One can understand a varying set of beliefs based on their “I’m not sure” agnostic perspective. But it was more specifically the responses of the atheists which caught my attention. Shouldn’t the percentage of atheists who believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ be?

Again, this surprises me as well, but do we have a breakdown of what percentage of atheists believe this versus the agnistics answering the question?
My conjecture is that few-to-none of the atheists expressed a positive belief in the virgin birth, while agnostics could have, and both are lumped together in the research.
*shrug*
Back to John:

I hesitate to conjecture too much about this,

…but I’m going to anyway:

but this inconsistency seems to indicate a desire to “have your cake and eat it too” as it were. I’ve talked about this in the past as it relates to morality in particular, that those who don’t believe in God (and who interpret the world through the lens of evolution) then want to embrace aspects of the world that are desirable, yet inconsistent, with their belief system (e.g. the notion of altruism—that noble idea that one sacrifices him/herself without expecting anything in return).

Here’s where John’s conjecturing has led him down the wrong path. He has picked up the ball on the 20 yard line and run the wrong way back towards his own endzone.
He shows a simplistic understanding of evolution in general and in survival of the fittest specifically, and this has brought him to the wrong conclusion.
Altruism is a great concept for a sentient species to develop, and it is one of the main attributes humans display that has helped us survive and adapt and, yes, evolve, to be the species we are today.
Without altruism, and the ability to sacrifice one’s self for others, we as individuals would be so selfish that we would consistently make decisions that are ultimately harmful to the species as a whole.
Self-sacrifice helps humans get a next generation born and raised. Of course, if we all sacrificed our very lives, the specieis would eventually die out. But there’s plenty of evidence that humanity is not in any danger of becoming too willing to die for one’s friends.

The inherently Christian idea of sacrificial love for others…

Sacrificial love for others is an older idea than Christianity is. It was co-opted, not created, by Christians.

…(as epitomized in the death of Christianity’s founder, Jesus)…

It was Paul of Tarsus that founded Christianity, not Jesus of Nazereth. It happened almost a full two generations after Jesus suposed ressurection, of which Paul states clearly he did not witness himself.
The organization that eventually became known as the Christian Church would be wholly unreckognizable to Jesus, whom John sets up as its founder.
Anyway, John’s still talking about sacrificial love for others….

..is certainly desirable and should be lauded in our society. And indeed it is, by Christians and non-religious people alike.

Agreed.

But I still haven’t been able to figure out in my own mind how one can embrace this noble idea of sacrifice for the welfare of others while holding to the theory of evolution for the explanation of the world—a worldview which is inherently built on the guiding principle of self-preservation above all else.

This last sentence of his is the major telling factor.
I know of no human being who believes in “self-preservation above all else”.
Every human being has an amazing drive to keep on living, just like every other living thing in the univsere that we have yet encountered.
But above all else?
Beleiving in evolution is like some magickal potion, in John’s view, that suddenly makes one selfish to the point of completely disregarding of life and other people’s right to it.
This view is clearly not squaring with reality, where athiests, agnostics, notional christians, Hindus, Muslims, and people of every kind of faith (or non-faith) exhibit laudable attributes every single day.
Morality is possible without belief in the Christian god, and to claim otherwise is to be unwilling to face the plain facts.

Nothing seems related, these are random:

The origin of the comic god goes like this: The arrogant Thor needs a lesson in humility, so his father Odin, the ruler of all gods, sends him to Earth in the form of a crippled mortal to teach him to be humble. When Thor finally learns his shits do stink, his mortal form dies off and he is allowed to become himself again.

This spiritual lesson serves to confirm two things: Being handicapped is God’s way of punishing you for religious transgressions, and to the son of God, Earth is essentially a giant time-out where instead of facing a corner for five minutes you live a short, challenging life rife with confusion and pain until you are eventually allowed to die.

from 5 Upcoming Comic Book Movies That Must Be Stopped

Nothing seems related, these are random:

Here’s how to understand the Creation Museum:

Imagine, if you will, a load of horseshit. And we’re not talking just your average load of horseshit; no, we’re talking colossal load of horsehit. An epic load of horseshit. The kind of load of horseshit that has accreted over decades and has developed its own sort of ecosystem, from the flyblown chunks at the perimeter, down into the heated and decomposing center, generating explosive levels of methane as bacteria feast merrily on vintage, liquified crap. This is a Herculean load of horseshit, friends, the likes of which has not been seen since the days of Augeas.

And you look at it and you say, “Wow, what a load of horseshit.”

Your Creation Museum Report

Nothing seems related, these are random:

i’ll quote him:

I am a practical atheist. Yes, I believe in God, but in practice, my life doesn’t always reflect that belief in God. As I asked the crowd this morning, what would be different about my life if I really took God at His Word? How would it affect my prayer life? My private life? My future? Do I really believe God is in control? That He is actively involved in the life of His creation? I say I do. The Bible says He is. But, I wonder why my daily life doesn’t always reflect what I profess to believe.

these were things i struggled with a lot in 2003 through 2005, leading up to my big decision.

i didn’t just think about it, though, i set about really finding out.

i set about really studying, and applying the bible to my life in a whole new way. i wrote, lots, about what i believed, hashing through ideas about evangelism, atonement, grace, emerging culture, hell, and lots of other subjects.

this led me to start reading the works of the church fathers, which led me to be interested in the early church, which led me to be interested in the culture behind the early church, and i ended up studying roman culture and the early church fit into it. i studied paul’s life, i studied basically everything i could get my hands on,

and, to be honest, i was uncomfortable with the things i was learning.

i ignored some what what i was learning, at first, but eventually couldn’t, and be honest with myself.

one of the hardest things to come to grips with was that the bible wasn’t perfect.

i had come to believe before that the bible was the inerrant word of god, reliable and trustworthy.

but i was learning that it was hobbled together by people with political agendas, stealing from older works (many of them not “christian” works, either).

and i was learning not to angrily stop reading the articles that pointed out drastic inconsistencies. inconsistencies that i had previously glossed over.

i was learning to recognize some of the awful awful things in there that i had candy-coated in order to believe this was a “good” book.

as i learned how the bible came to be as it is, i learned not to impose my own viewpoint on what it was, and eventually came to see it as a collection of writings from a wandering desert tribe barely out of the prehistoric age and a god-man myth built around those writings collected in order inspire a people to throw off an oppressive government.

and as i accepted this, i cam eto realize why i had always had such trouble reconciling my own lack of faith (in christian terms).

i came to realize that despite my giving myself over to god, why i was still not ever really “living for him”.

i came to realize why me and my christian peers were constantly struggling with things the holy spirit was supposed to be helping us overcome.

it was, simply, because there is no holy spirit that does any such thing.

Nothing seems related, these are random:

recently i was asked what i believe and why, and i realized that it’s evolved a lot over the last year and half, so another post on this subject is warranted.

i will try not to step on any toes in the process.

part of my personal growth over the last few months is realizing that when i discuss this stuff i can come off as very condescending, and this i very much wish not to do, since it’s not in my heart at all.

i do not believe in god

i no longer believe god exists. now, this does not mean that i can begin to explain what philosophers and physicits have struggled with for centuries regarding this universes’ origins (or lack thereof). of course i can not. but i’m perfectly willing to take a “wait and see” attitude towards the subject (even if it means we never do get to see).

having a stepson in my life has, perhaps counter-intuitively, led me to this conclusion rather firmly. as he asks questions i can’t answer, i can feel the drie to be able to provide the answers to him. when death comes up, it’d be awfully comforting to be able to reassure him that he’ll be happy and safe in heaven some day, and that god will protect us all from disaster.

of course, god does not protect us from disaster, nor from our own deaths of the deaths of those we love. so far, everyone single one of us who’s lived has died, and everyone who’s died had a mother and father, and lots of us who die have grieving children and grandchildren.

it would be nice to be able to tell my kid that there’s a good reason for all that pain.

prayer works

prayer works for those who believe in prayer.

surprised?

let me clarify: it works for thosse who believe in prayer, and that’s the extent of it. it does not work across space/time boundries on anyone else but the person doing the praying.

it now strikes me as odd that we humans tend to beleive that prayer can change the future, but not the past. if god can and deos respond to prayer, why not reach “back” and simply change the past?

and yet who among us that prays ever believes this is what god does?

the reason, of course, is that there is zero evidence that prayer does effect he past. it’s soooo much easier for our brains to pray for that which has not yet happened and believe that our prayers were answered.

i’m also, now, struck by the christian notion that god answers prayers in there ways, “yes”, “no”, and “wait”. how conveneintly easy to believe.

crap, there i sounded condescending again. sorry. i am frustrated with my own previous belief in such things, and looking in on it from the outside, i can scarcely see at all how i didn’t see through such mental tricks. it seems blindingly obvious now that god doesn’t answer with “wait” or “no” or “yes”, that these are the natural outcome of everything that is in question.

when one prays “dear god, please bring my dog back to life”, the answer is, always, “no”.

when one prays “dear god, please don’t allow my dog to die, even though he was hit by a car”… well either the dog’s going to die from her wounds, or not. and if she does not, it’s easy for the person who believes in god and in prayer to believe that his prayers had something to do with it.

i know i sure did.

but prayer is comforting, and centering. in fact, it’s a lot like meditaion in this. (imagine that)

when i long to be comforting to my son with big questions, i would also love to have such comfort myself, and yet none is forth coming.

those who believe in prayer do have such comfort, though, and it is something i am vaguely jealous of. but i can’t un-see what i’ve seen, and what i’ve seen has convinced me that the beneifts of prayer do not extend beyond the person doing the praying, and i also can achieve the same benefits through meditation and other centering techniques.

how i ought to behave

i no longer look to some power outside the universe to guide my thinking or morality.

it makes “right” and “wrong” an interesting mental exercise, but it doesn’t change life on the ground on earth much: i pretty much live like i’ve always lived. i love my family, i care for those around me, i don’t kick my dogs.

i don’t steal, and i teach my child that stealing is wrong.

i belive that generosity is better than selfishness and i believe compassion is better than noncaring.

it’s just that simple.

what i do believe

i am, if one must put a label on what i believe, a taoist.

i have posted taoist things before, and will likely do so again, but it’s not a faith so much as a set of principles that lead to a better, happier life.

so, what changed my mind?

what was it that made me question my faith in the first place? what was it that enabled me to honestly face my questions? what was it that allowed me to chase my questions down and accept what i saw as the truth?

that’s something that will have to wait for another post, but i’ll give you a hint: when you come to believe that god’s not going to burn you in hell, you start feelign a bit more free to ask him to back his promises up.

Nothing seems related, these are random:

i’m not done yet, but i’m a lot closer than i was when i started.

after thirty-two years on this rock, three of which i have been seriously, open-mindedly, truthfully searching for Truth (if there is such a thing) here’s what i have come up with as far as “what chris believes”:

god exists and created the universe(s)
of this i am fairly certain. i have studied enough physics to come to believe that someone made the rules, and makes sure that that which exists in the physical plane follows those rules.

this someone is “god”.

god is aware of my existence
i’m almost fully convinced of this. not 100%, but pushing eighty-eight maybe?

it seems unlikely to me that god is an non-person, a “thing”.

this does not mean i believe god is a super-human, or that god’s attributes are even approaching imaginability, but i do think it is very likely that what is possible to be known about god is made clear simply by watching the world around me and extrapolating.

having been doing this very carefully, i have come to believe that god does in fact know i exist.

god cares about me (and therefore, everyone else, too)
this one i’m less sure about. seventy-five percent or so.

it seems to me that god cares, because i care about god, and i care about people, and i think that reflects on (or reflects from) the person who created me.

this does not mean that god cares for me in the way i care for the people i love (but, admittedly, i don’t have kids, and i’m guessing that parent relationship comes closest to being analogous). rather, i think god cares for me and i have no idea what that really means.

in light of the above, i, then, also believe:

prayer works
since god exists, and cares about me (and others), prayers to god are heard and sometimes acted upon.

i have seen the evidence in my own life, and so have billions of people from all faiths that exist.

i ought to behave in a way that is god-pleasing
since i believe that i, and other humans, are god’s image-bearers, i believe it is important to behave in ways that seem like they would be pleasing to god.

there are thousands of years of religious thought put into deciding what exactly those sorts of behaviours are, but jesus seemed to hit the nail on the head: love god, love people.

when it comes to how one goes about loving god, and loving people, well, the jury is still very much out on that one, for me.

some people have gone to war over such minutiae, willing to kill to defend their (inherited, likely) ideas about these things.

as for me, i don’t claim to have a damn clue beyond this: i am pretty sure that it has nothing to do with how or what one eats, drinks, wears, or even believes.

rather, it seems, the idea is to be intentionally good to other people, as best as one can, and hope that god is pleased. this seems to fit in with what jesus taught, which pleases me, coming from a protestant background.

hey, speaking of jesus:

jesus’ teachings in the sermon on the mount are worthy of study in the attempt to work out what is god-pleasing
given my above statements, it is unlikely that i qualify as “a christian” anymore, at least to conservative evangelicals (who tend to claim, or at least believe, they’ve got the definition of “a christian” locked up), but i am still very much a fan (disciple?) of jesus and his teachings.

i spent eighteen months very seriously studying the sermon on the mount, and i still go back to it often for guidance on dealing with daily matters.

i suppose if a label must be applied to me, one could call me a “jesusist”.

what i do not believe
now, given the above, there are some things that are worth pointing out that i specifically do not, or no longer, believe in.

these would be things that i have abandoned in my quest for truth, as i find they are unworthy of believing in:

i do not believe hell exists
given my view of god, i believe the idea of eternally conscious torment for those to do not believe very specific things about the creator is, at the very least, extremely distasteful.

in fact, i believe the idea is evil. hell makes god into a monster, not a loving father. i think hell is a particularly nasty way to coerce people into falling into line, thought-wise, and it has had nasty consequences on religion and on how people behave.

if god hates, then i am one-hundred per-cent sure god hates that we humans invented the idea of hell.

i do not believe in the “authority of the bible”
i love the bible. i have memorized over half of the new testament. i am intimately familiar with lots of the old testament. i believe the bible (like all scripture) is useful for teaching, profitable for rebuking, and has lots of wisdom.

i do not believe the bible is “infallible”, “inerrant”, “authoritative”, nor “the word of god”.

as i’ve re-read the bible in the last three years (more than once) with an open mind, i have come to see it from an outsider’s perspective, and i now see it for what it is: a collection of myths, poetry, religious writings and “shared wisdom”.

i find it not at all internally self-consistent (which i had always been taught it was) nor particularly inspired, compared to some of the other religious texts i have bothered to study in the past few years.

it may well be “god-breathed” but, then, so is everyone who’s ever existed.

i do not believe the christian church is anywhere near what jesus had in mind
i think that many of the early “christians” got jesus message of love and peace all wrong, politicized it in order to throw off roman rule, and thus: jesus beautiful teachings ended up becoming romanized themselves.

i don’t think jesus had “an institution” in mind, and i think jesus would read the new testament the church has come up with and weep, saying, “no no no.. this is not at ALL what i meant.”

so, there we have it.

friends and family may wish to re-read the beginning, before freaking out.

go on, we have time…

done?, okay, so… now what?

how will i change in light of this?

guess what, you’ve already seen it.

the happier & healthier chris is a result of this thinking.

if you have seen a change in me, it is because of my beliefs about the above.

you will not see me go off the deep end and start murdering puppies, raping villages or pillaging women & children.

if my rejection of orthodox christianity was going to lead to such behavior, it would have done so already.

so, you’ll not see a change me, beyond the slow gradual one towards happiness that you’ve seen in the last six months.

don’t be scared: i’m not.

rejoice with me, cause i’m pretty sure i’m closer to “knowing” than i ever have been.

and, once again, i’ll say: friends and family may wish to re-read the beginning, before freaking out.

comments welcome, either below, or you can email chris at flickerbulb dawt com.

Possibly Related

• September 25, 2007 — one-half pint potato salad
• September 25, 2007 — DECORATION FOR DECORATION’S SAKE
• September 25, 2007 — 15 mini candy bars
• September 25, 2007 — two bowls microwave popcorn
• September 24, 2007 — No Impact Man: The No Impact Philosophy

So, but one of the questions I could raise that might be helpful for you and other people thinking about this, is to say, what is the problem with sin? What’s so bad about sin? Now, I can just imagine some people quoting—See, McLaren doesn’t think sin is a problem. I take sin really, seriously. But here’s the problem, If I were to make this sort of analogy or parable. When I had little children, if one of my little children—Let’s say my son Brett, was beating up on his little brother, Trevor. Now, Trevor is bigger. But back then—What was the problem? Was the problem that I don’t want my younger son to get hurt and I don’t want my older son to be a bully. I want my older son to be a good person. I want my younger son to be a good person. I want them to have a great relationship. Then the problem of sin is what it does to my family and what it does to my boys, you know. That’s the problem with sin.

But what we’ve created is, the problem of sin is that I am so angry at my son Brett for beating up his younger brother, I’m going to kill him. So now the problem we’ve got to solve is how to keep me from killing my son.

learn more

i highly recommend taking a half hour and listening to it.

really, do it.

Possibly Related

• May 15, 2006 — what is justice?
• September 21, 2005 — “good” news
• May 20, 2005 — it is a mystery
• March 17, 2005 — your job, should you choose to accept it
• January 15, 2005 — “once saved, always saved” ?

i will concede that we are indeed to “make judgement” — even about people and what they are up to.

but the context of the verse you pulled out shows the difference between what jesus was referring to in john 7 and what he is teaching about in the sermon on the mount:

14 About the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. 15 The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning, when he has never studied?” 16 So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. 17 If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. 18 The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood. 19 Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?” 20 The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who is seeking to kill you?” 21 Jesus answered them, “I did one deed, and you all marvel at it. 22 Moses gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. 23 If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision, so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? 24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

both of these passages speak to not judging —- and both infer that in order to make wise decisions about how to treat people one needs to be in a place of humility before god, and seeking the true good of the other person.

the original thought behind the plankeye post was a friend pointing out how those who claim to follow christ’s teachings are often those who are most guilty of being judgmental — and unfairly judgmental at that, often with yucky results in the life of those being judged.

i was obviously, in my first post on this topic, not saying that one is never to decide whether something is right or wrong.

clearly to follow christ is to believe there IS a right.

but judging and condemning people is the wrong way to go about getting them to change their behavior, while encouraging and asking is the right way.

in fact, to do so is to make a right judgement: to “hold back” on force-feeding your “pearls” of “rightness” to those who are not able to digest them, and instead love and encourage and simply ask them to consider a better way.

so, i stand by my statement:

judging IS the plank in our eye.

and i’ll say it again using a different word, by way of expounding:

condemning IS the plank in our eye.

romans 14:13:

Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.

condemnation and judging puts a HUGE stumbling block in the way of those who would otherwise be attracted to the kingdom.

we who claim to live in the kingdom behave in unattractive ways, in ways that make people feel rejected, not loved, and so they turn and attack us.

just like jesus says they will in the passage i quoted above.

but if we simply ask people, without condemnation, they are more apt to find our message acceptable.

Possibly Related

• May 2, 2005 — plankeye
• September 20, 2005 — test everything, hold fast to what is good
• January 19, 2005 — dealing with “weaker brothers”
• April 15, 2009 — Valerie Tarico: Ancient Sumerian Origins of the Easter Story
• February 4, 2009 — reminds me of…. something…

this thread is meant to be an answer to that request.

in the interest of keeping it clear for those who won’t read more than a few sentences, i’ll make my main point up top, and flesh it out below:

the verses i have in mind, mostly are:

“…test everything; hold fast what is good.” (1 thes 5)

“…always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you”. (1 peter 3)

“Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” (1 cor 3)

my main point is this: all that is truth is god’s truth, and we are instructed in scripture to seek it out and claim it as our own.

all too often, christians take an anti-intellectual attitude. we tend to discourage critical , questioning, or creative thinking. we do this, i think, in a misguided attempt at “guarding the truth” — but the end result is that the truth is actually supressed, or more likely, never actually encountered.

many of us who grew up in christian homes, and almost all of us who grew up in western society, have heard some version of the gospel all our lives. it is impossible to get through life without encountering a version or other of it. the problem with this is that fimiliarity breeds contempt: as people have become accustomed to what they have heard is “the gospel”, and rejected or accepted that gospel, they then go through their lives thinking they have done just that: accepted or rejected the gospel.

in fact, i submit that they have done no such thing.

as paul makes clear, if it is not the actual gospel, it is really no gospel at all.

and the pop-culture version of the gospel is not the actual gospel that jesus preached.

i’ll make that point again, because i believe it is vitally important: the story that most people in western culture have accepted or rejected is not the gospel, but something else — something crippled and distorted.

i am not questioning the “salvation” of millions of people who hold some christian faith now or in times past (romans makes clear that god judges all people based on what they know and what they do with what they know — i believe we can trust the father in heaven to do the right thing with each and every human soul). rather, i am talking about something else: living life with jesus as mentor, for the good of those around us and to the glory of the father.

jesus asked no less than for people to abandon all they held dear, turn their lives in a new direction, and pursue love and justice.

thousands crowded around him because he taught with an authority they had never encountered on a subject they had heard all their lives: the message of god’s love.

the message he preached was that the kingdom of god was available in a way it never had been before, and that anyone and everyone would do so may enter into it.

some rejoiced at this, some balked.

a few turned very bitter, and eventually killed him for it — because his message was threatening the status quo, where they were comfortabely in power.

but he proved that he was who he claimed to be — the perfect revelation of the father — by not staying dead, and he turned the world on its ear by sending his students out to teach others what they had learned about how to live life: by loving people.

as a couple of generations passed, and it became clear that the story of this incredible news should be preserved in writing, some of these students set out to do just hat — and others set out to write to the groups of people who had started meeting together to encourage each other in this new faith.

a few of those letters of encouragement were saved, and eventually gathered together as part of the scripture.

the three verses i qutoed above are from some of those letters.

in it, we have clues from some of the earliest believes — some of jesus’ first stuents — about how to live this life he instructed us in living.

so little of jesus message had to do with holding to this or that theory about theology, or subscribing to any one system of belief.

rather, jesus message was about doing. about loving your neighbor, and about taking care of the poor, and about taking care of the single most important thing god ever created: the people around you.

and all of the letters to the early churches were geared towards encouraging people to that effort, and against allowing the ideas of the culture to invade and infect that pure message.

they were encouraged to try out the ideas that came along, and compare them to what they knew to be true, and to allow the spirit of the one true god to help them discern.

they were instructed to be thinkers: to be ready to give answers about this faith to questioners.

they were reminded that even when they think they know that they still don’t know what god knows.

in light of all of this, as society changes it is still our duty as people who are trying to be students of jesus the christ to test all things.

to truly think through issues and not simply cling to the thinking we have always held, but to constantly evaluate our heads and our hearts and the ideas we find around us so that we can grow in our faith.

i post ideas that some may dissagree with (and i may disagree with) to further this effort.

i believe that we as christians must think critically about the ideas that the world around us holds, so that we may meet those ideas head on: embracing what is true, rejecting what is false, and always doing so with the help of the spirit of god.

i believe that too few of us bother doing that, because we have grown up in a culture that discourages it, and that it is one of my duties to encourage right behaviour.

some of the ideas i present are not in line with scripture. some are.

we who are jesus’ disciples are under instruction to test them all, and to cling to those that are.

ignoring these ideas won’t make them go away, though. the world around us, the one we are called to be in, holds these ideas, and if we are to be the salt and light in this world, we are obligated to reach them in a gentle, understanding way.

i believe that by thinking through tough issues, and by evaluating more sides that we might be comfortable with, we can grow as a body of beleivers — we can gain a higher understanding of the truth.

i trust the holy spirit in the believer’s life to help them discern that which is false from that which is true.

it must be evident that “truth” is a funny sort of thing, since many of us here claim to have it, yet disagree on so very many things.

so let us approach ideas humbly, and with open minds, as we are instructed to. let us reason together. let us think critically and creatively about this faith.

“test everything; hold fast what is good.”

Possibly Related

• May 2, 2005 — plankeye
• November 18, 2008 — is this true: “all these things will be given to you”
• November 10, 2005 — plankeye, followup
• April 15, 2009 — Valerie Tarico: Ancient Sumerian Origins of the Easter Story
• February 4, 2009 — reminds me of…. something…

what is the proper course of action for a follower of christ?

don’t assume you have, or don’t have, a gun, a bat, a tazer, or any other weapon: all of those choices that are made ahead of time play into your answer.

so?

the protection of one’s “belongings” are never worth violence.

we are warned, by jesus, against anger — let alone acting in anger against one who seeks to impose their will upon us.

we are instructed to treasure heavenly things (people, god, love) and not earthly things (dvds, tvs).

further, we are instructed to give to anyone who asks of us.

we are instructed to greet evil with kindness.

we are instructed to consider others as more important than ourselves.

i see no room in the scripture for “exceptions” to these instructions.

trying to improve one’s life through the accumulation of (let alone the violent protection of) “stuff” is antithetical to the very existence of one who follows christ.

if we are truly treasuring heavenly things, we will care more for the burglar than we will for our “things”.

it seems responsible, at first blush, to look out for our own safety.

but what is “safe”, really?

who holds our safety?

i can’t imagine the christ cowering in his bedroom, praying to god to help him stay alive.

rather, i imagine he’d call out, in some way that makes known that no harm is intended:

“hello there?

i have no plans to call the police. is there something you need?

i usually offer my guests something. can i get you a drink of water?”

we are told never to fear.

surely this isn’t just “pretty worlds”?

could jesus really mean to never, under any circumstances, fear anything, other than god?

i believe that is exactly what he means.

i think that jesus means, quite literally, that we are to greet a burglar in our home with kindness, not vengeful anger, or even the hope of retribution.

that if i am truly following christ, my thoughts will be on loving this person into the kingdom, somehow.

we are told explicitly to turn the other cheek.

are we to act out in a first-strike manner when our cheek has not even been struck?

we are simply instructed to turn our cheeks. this, i beleive, means to remain vulnerable to any and all attacks, not just physical, to our person, be they attacks on our ego, or on our our pride, or on our sensitive feelings, or, yes, even on our cheeks.

i don’t see room for exception to this, and, if you study the sermon on the mount as a whole, and look at “turning the other cheek” in its proper context, you’ll see that it is a major component of living a life in the kingdom.

we who follow jesus are, simply, to make it a habit of not meeting spite with spite, or sarcasm with sarcasm, or hate with hate, or force with force, but instead we are to treat all comers with love.

it is up to you whether you own a weapon, and it is up to you whether you think it is best to use that weapon against a human being.

my take is that the situations calling for violence against another human being (weapons or no) must be exceedingly rare.

i would think, perhaps, there’s been 1, ever. (when jesus himself drove people from the temple area)

like i said, i trust him with such acts, but never myself.

i do not believe i could ever be trusted to do it lovingly. i’m sure there’d always be some amount of selfishness driving my behavior.

of course, the idea of complete safety is absurd — if you are only considering what we can see.

but if you are living in the kingdom of god that jesus preached, the one where the father who created the universe and knows how many hairs are on your head, and who gives good gifts, and takes perfectly good care of the birds…

well, if you truly trust and serve such a god, and live in such a kingdom, then you can always walk unafraid.

for you are serving and laying up treasures where moth and rust do NOT destroy, and where thieves do NOT break in an steal.

fear god only. serve god only.

lord knows i could do better at this.

Possibly Related

• September 20, 2005 — test everything, hold fast to what is good
• May 2, 2005 — plankeye
• January 27, 2009 — interview with author of “misquoting jesus”
• November 10, 2005 — plankeye, followup
• March 12, 2005 — the law

This is the very reason I stopped attending my youth group. It was so unwelcoming.

And, there’s something else, too. It seems to me, that rejection from the church crowd holds a bigger emotional consequence than rejection from other crowds. These are, after all, the people with whom you are supposed to be sharing God, a very intimate experience. It’s like rejection from a lover, in a way. Not to mention the fact, that church crowds are so darn good at rejection, and doing it group-wide. I have found that many churches are like giant rumor mills. If you get rejected at all, you get rejected ALL THE WAY.

no disciple of jesus’ could agree that the above statement about “our people” is the way it should be.

rather, all would say it would be best not to be this way.

so, what is it that prevents us from being the grace-filled, friendly, welcoming crowd that jesus himself clearly was?

plankeye

Matthew 7:1:

Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

(most people stop quoting this little section there, but jesus didn’t stop there….)

“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.

i see a few things in there that, by and large, are missed, through lack of sheer studying, as far as i can tell.

first: judgment IS the plank in our own eye.

as soon as we stop trying to correct other people’s behavior, we are freed, by grace, to love them.

as soon as we stop trying to force them into doing what they can’t, they’ll stop feeling (and being!) judged.

as soon as we stop trying to “force feed” our “pearls of heavenly knowledge” to pigs…

you know that pigs can’t eat pearls, right?

…they’ll stop trying to bite us.

judgment is something that only ONLY only god can do.

but, we want people to change, right?

we want them to come to the place we are, where pearls are appreciated, and treasured, not rejected?

how do we do that, if not by judging?

Matthew 7:7:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

asking for things is the key to obtaining what you want, in the kingdom of god.

you ask the father for things, so ask his kids.

simply turning your attitude from “demanding/shoving” to “asking” will make all the difference.

of course, to get rid of this judging and contemptive attitude, really, you need to go back to the passages of the sermon on the mount that lead up to it — the things where jesus teaches us how to be of his mind:

in reverse order:

do not be anxious
lay up treasures in heaven
fasting
how to pray
giving to the needy
loving your enemies
retaliation
oaths
divorce
lust
anger

…in all these little passages are deep deep mysteries of kingdom life — and the one follows the other: he put them in order for a reason.

once you have “worked out your salvation” in this order, and have (all with christ’s help) managed to lose judging, you are then, spiritually able to move on to:

the golden rule

the golden rule simply can’t be “done” apart from living out the sermon on the mount’s teachings.

but, through the spirit, if you seek to obey christ’s teachings in the sermon on the mount, by the time you’re ready to give up judging, you’re nature has changed so much that you are more than ready and willing to start doing to people — really and truly — what you wish they would do to you.

i could talk for hours about this, but i must get going on my day’s work.

Possibly Related

• November 10, 2005 — plankeye, followup
• September 20, 2005 — test everything, hold fast to what is good
• January 19, 2005 — dealing with “weaker brothers”
• January 16, 2005 — patriotism
• November 2, 2004 — a thought on calvinism