Straight paths through crooked roads

Christianity is just a fairy tale to help people accept death: reason to rebel # 5

Syd, my father in law, laughed at death.  Rose, my mother in law, told me that when Syd purchased a cemetary lot, he laid down on the grass of that spot.  Laying on his back, he made arm and leg motions as though he was making a "snow angel" as children do laying in snow.  But, in reality, he was terrified of death. 

Syd was an athiest even though he had been raised in a conservative Jewish home and considered himself a Jew.  He laughed at the spiritual beliefs of Judaism.  We were leaving the Jewish cemetary where he had purchased the burial plots.  It was the occasion of the ceremony of the burial of Rose's mother.  There was a group of us walking together and a Rabbi was right behind Syd and me.  I noticed that there were twelve pictures in a mural on a wall.  I asked Syd, "What do those pictures stand for, the twelve tribes of Israel?"  Syd replied, "What am I, an Indian?"  We laughed, but the Rabbi behind us overheard this.  He asked me, "Where did you get this knowledge?"  (I did not have the heart to tell the Rabbi that I had learned about the twelve tribes of Israel in Sunday school.)

There are many like Syd who believe that any religion, Christianity included, is nothing but the imagination of people who are afraid to die.  After all, Syd was afraid to die but refused to acknowledge that fact.  Others as well, will make fun of Christians for believing a so called "fairy tale".

There is no truth in the aspect of Syd's belief that Christianity is a fairy tale.  Faith in Jesus Christ has been challenged by philosophers and scientists who are using science as the tool of their personal pbilosophy.  Nevertheless, Christianity has stood the test of the heaviest challenges that Satan could level against it.  All of hell cannot overcome the reality of one answered prayer.

It is a miracle that Rose, in her eighties, decided to accept Christ as her personal Savior, her Jewish Messiah.  Syd refused to accept Christ in obstinate resistance to the witness of the Gospel to him as he lay in his death bed. 

Syd died first.  Stefanie, my wife, could not bear to go into his room to identify his body as being Syd.  (This is required legally for the death certificate.)  So, I went in to see Syd's body and identify him.  There his body laid on the death bed.  He had an absolute look of fright.  It was as though the last thing he saw was the angel of death coming for him.  With one hand he had grasped the sheet to pull it up over his face.  His head was arched backward and his eyes wide open in absolute fear.  His other arm had the forearm straight upward with his hand open in the form of a claw as though he was in a final struggle.  His fear of death became a picture of it.  He went into a certain eternity that was no joke.

Rose dearly loved Syd.  Stefanie visited her about a week after we buried Syd in his cemetary lot.  Rose did not want to live without Syd.  However, her attitude toward death was now simply that it was a stepping stone into the next life.  Stefanie did her best to encourage her mother to continue to live.  As Stefanie sat on the edge of Rose's bed, Rose looked up into space and seemed to see a lovely spiritual image.  Rose reached out for it.   Stefanie took her mother's hand and told her, "No, mom, stay with us."  But, the next day Rose passed peacefully to her reward with her Messiah.

Which future would you choose?  We all make such a choice even by refusing to make one.  I choose to place my faith where Rose placed hers.  I hope you do as well.

People may have a difficult time believing the entire Bible is true: reason to rebel #4

There are in fact many accounts in the Bible that seem fantastic.  Nevertheless, this post is not about scientific evidence for and against the Bible.  It is more about reasons to believe and why that is, in fact, reasonable.  Emotion and logic are two key elements in this discussion.

As important as certainty about the Bible is for a basis for our faith, it comes down to the fact that we choose what we believe because we wish to believe it.  If we closely examine human nature, it will become evident that there are two elements in what we choose to believe:  emotion and logic. 

It is not hard for us to understand the difference between emotion and logic when we stop to think about it.  Problem is, we often don't stop to think about it.  Emotions are what cause us to do things.  Emotions motivate.  Logic is a way of thinking we use to shape our emotions into outcomes that make sense to us.  We like to think that we are more logical than emotional.  However, even those who seem to be the most logical among us must admit that many choices we make involve a fair amount of emotion.  If it were not so cars might come in only one color.

When we are looking at Biblical accounts we bring both our emotions and logic to them.  It may feel to our emotions that we are looking at reasonable or unreasonable accounts based upon our feelings toward God.  Our logic can then work to substantiate however it is that we feel.  The athiest and the Christian can look at the account of Adam and Eve and come to different conclusions based upon how they feel and use their logic to substantiate their outcome.

There are many arguments against the Bible that have been shaped by "scientific evidence" only to be disproven later.  There are many arguments for the Bible that defy "scientific evidence".  We can say logically that physical phenomona such as the sun standing still, the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, and fire falling from the sky to consume a sacrifice defy common experience.  However, we can also say that physical phenomona can be, and have been known to be changed dramatically by unseen forces that came as the result of prayer.  There was an immediate cause and effect.

Finally, we can choose to believe parts of the Bible.  But, how shall we logically say that we choose to believe only in part and say that our belief is substantial enough to be genuine.  If the Bible is the Word of God, then, logically, all of it is just that.  If the Bible is partly not the Word of God, then humans are making the decision as to which parts are and are not the Word of God.  It would logically seem, then, that perhaps what Bible is left, would be compromised in its strength to support the spiritual life of its readers.  Logically, it does not seem to me to be valid to disect the Bible. A decision to do so seems much more emotional than logical. 

Those who have difficulty in believing that the entire Bible is true are therefore pressed to make this decision.  I believe the entire Bible or I do not. 

Personally, I choose to take the faith given by God to me to place it in His hands.  I choose to accept the entire Bible not only because I have no way of personally disproving it, but because I wish to place my trust in the God of the Bible as my Lord and Savior.  I believe that God has given me a free will to choose Him and I do so.  Therefore, I choose to accept His word for my life because I believe that He hid His life in His word so that His word could reveal His life to me.

Tommy Smothers and the meaning of truth.

Tommy Smothers of the Smothers Brothers comedy team made a comment at the Emmy Awards on 9/21/08 that bears a great deal of thought.  His comment reveals the mind of Hollywood and his own personal philosophy.  He said, "Truth is what you get the other guy to believe."  Actually, Tommy is speaking a half truth as though it were the whole truth.  But, that is what Hollywood does to society.

The situation was that Tommy was getting an Emmy forty years after the year it was said that he had actually earned it for being the key writer of comedy on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1968.  So, after having said, "Thank you" in the customary fashion, and just as he was about to leave the stage, Tommy paused.  Before he could get himself to walk off-stage, Tommy seemed to speak from the heart as he said the following.  I am quoting to the best of my memory.  "There is one word that exists in every language and is translated the same way.  It is the word 'truth'.  Then, he went on to say, "Truth is what you get the other guy to believe."

This is so profound because this statement is the essence of what Hollywood does to society.  It gives deep understanding to the word "make-believe".  They attempt to make us believe all that they say is either true or reveals truth.  They attempt to motivate us to feel, to think, and to act as they do themselves.  This is in spite of the fact that because they are masters of creating anything that will get us to the box office or the music store, they lose track of integrity.  They become in their thinking whatever they need to make a buck.

Hollywood's effectiveness has created a responsive mass of people in society who respond without logic to the emotional drives sold in movies, videos, games, cd's, etc.  These shallow feelings lead to life changing decisions by young and old alike.  There in Hollywood love has been sold as affection but without genuine commitment, the principle of doing unto others before they do unto you has replaced doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Tommy's comment is half truth because there is a type of truth that is only in our own minds.  We also call it perception.  It is the basis upon which we think and act and create new actual truths by what we say and do.  The part of the truth his statement ignores is the objective truth that exists whether or not we perceive it.  There is truth that existed before you or I were born and will be true after we die. 

Wisdom lies in understanding the existence of both kinds of truth and doing our best to make them work together in unity.  The Scripture is our best guide in doing this.  The greatest truth is not a thing, it is a person.  It is God.  Jesus Christ said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes unto the Father but through me."

Tommy failed to get it.  He is left with his Emmy and his half-truth.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Reason #3 to rebel against the Christian faith.

Bad things do happen to good people and good answers are difficult.  "Bad" has two basic sources: people and nature.  People create offenses.  Nature creates catastrophes.  God gets blamed for both sources.  Pride or humility determine our personal conclusions.

People may be earnestly trying through good intentions to pressure others to do the right things.  These words or actions may be viewed as offenses by others because the people being pressed may feel that they are the objects of some tyranny.  Even though it is a person doing the pressing, because they may be speaking of God as being the authority by which they do these things, God may ultimately be blamed for what people do.  After all, God allowed this to happen.

People may be doing the opposite.  They may be doing obvious evil.  They may be causing murder, theft, adultery that breaks families apart; they may be causing wars, writing oppressive laws, making dishonest business deals, and so on.  But, because this is a world which God is credited with creating, God may be blamed, again, for allowing this to happen.

Pride is an attitude that lifts oneself in its own estimation in comparison to the worth of God.  If a person takes this attitude, then no explanation that respects God will be acceptible to that person. 

There is, however, an expanation as to why God would allow bad people to carry out evil, or good people to do things that have bad results.  God allows people to have free will.  God allowed Adam and Eve to fall from relationship with Him at the very beginning of human existence.  Ever since that time, humans have had the ability to receive natural strength even as they have committed the most horrible sins.  God has chosen to not overrule human free will.  In that way, the decisions and their results now fall on the heads of those who have chosen to do thus.  This fact is the basis of the judgement that will send evil people to hell.

"What a horrible thing!"  Someone may say this.  However, consider that God also provided the remedy for both evil deeds and evil results in Jesus Christ, His death on the cross, His resurrection from the grave, His authority for good at the right hand of God.

Humility would lead a person to accept the explanation of free will and God's grace.  Such humility before God would change a person's life and tend to lead them in a continuous growth in wisdom, compassion, and faithfulness with good results overcoming evil ones.

Nature provides both the provision for life and the catastrophes that cause deformities and death.  Nature is the source of both wonders and of suffering that are much harder to explain. 

The proud person exalts himself or herself against faith in God by saying that they have a superior way of thinking and believing (even though that explaination is shallow and easily discarded).  They claim that no loving God could ever allow such a thing.  Therefore, they choose to either be an agnostic, an athiest, or the creator of their own "designer" god. (idolatry)

The humble person is awestruck at the power of the Creator and seeks God's strength to endure the difficult and the unexplainable circumstances that come.  Even though the catasrophe may result in death, they reach by faith and place their hand into the hand of their Savior and the lover of their soul.

Our conclusions are the basic result, then, of our reactions to those things over which we may have no control.  We do not choose our parents, our original health, our earliest education, our childhood environment and many things that others may do to us. And, so on it goes. 

However, God has given us the same thing that He gave Adam and Eve:  free will.  With that free will we can choose pride or humility before God.  Pride will put us on our own.  Humility will bring us honor before both people and before God.  "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  Matthew 5:3.

Reasons to rebel against the Christian faith #2: Be the captain of my own soul.

There was a poem written in the 19th century, I think I know the author but hesitate to mention the name because I may not be correct.  The point he made was that he did not wish to bow to any god because he chose to be the "captain of his own soul, the master of his own fate".  The problem with this statement is that it is a half truth.  We do choose to act or to react to what or whom we will base our choices upon.  We cannot, however, necessarily control the outcome of our choices.  And, because we do make these choices we can be held accountable to some authority that can assign a consequence to us as a result of our choices.  These consequences may well be beyond our control.

There follows then, another problem with the idea that we might be our own master.  That is, we would isolate ourselves from the spiritual truth that comes from the Word of God while we would restrict ourselves to the physical evidence that this world offers.  We would then have to construct our view of life and the world and our view of our own mortality on the basis of our own self-imposed limitations.  There are plenty of agnostic and athiestic people who are actually afraid of considering any spiritually based information. 

If we were to attempt to think like this, we would have to explain life on the basis of physical information.  That would have to be our reference to validate our decisions in life.  That means that physical possessions, human relationships, human experiences are the limit to our personal wealth. That seems to be a great deal until we begin to consider eternity.  That seems to be a great deal until we run out of answers on how to survive emotionally in this present life. 

Wait a minute, why couldn't we accept that spiritual information that we choose to believe and forget the rest.  We can choose the parts of the Bible to accept or reject.  We could add some good ideas from other religions.  We could create the image of God we wish to worship.  What would be wrong with that?

Well, that sounds like what the ancient Greeks would do.  They would create their own gods not only with stone, precisous metals, and beautiful artistry but also attribute to them various atributes that they felt were desirable.  However, the Greeks themselves recognized the limitations of their gods.  They recorded how that these gods all had human flaws.  If our present day "designer" gods are created by we ourselves, then they are not truly gods at all.  They have no power except that which we wish to imagine.  We wind up worshipping ourselves. 

The fact is that choosing to be the master of our own fate, the captain of our own soul is an act of unwise pride that rebels against the reality of God.  We cannot truly control a genuine God.  Any true God would be beyond our control and we would be in God's control.  The choice to be our own master, our own captain of our own soul is a horrible mistake.  It is based on half-truth.  That choice cannot stand up in the face of a real God who controls our eternity.  That choice ignores the benefit of joining the kingdom of a God that loves us and has sacrificed Himself for our benefit. 

The wise choice is to reject selfish pride and to choose instead a position of humilty in the face of the truth of the true God.  The greatest amount of truth available to the human race points to the conclusion that the genuine God and Creator of the universe is Jehovah, that He has provided a Messiah in Jesus Christ, that Jehovah has sent the Holy Spirit to be our spiritual companion on this earth and in this mortal life.  The greatest evidence available to the human race points to the Bible as the authoritative voice of the true God to you and to me.

Jesus Christ said that He was the way, the truth, and the life and that no person could come to the true God the Father, except through him, that is, Jesus Christ.  Christ rejected all other religious ways to God the Father.  Christ said that the way was broad that led to destruction and many people were on that road.  Then, Christ said that the way to life was straight and was narrow, and relatively few people would find it.  Scripture says that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble person.  Again, Christ said that those who were poor in spirit (humble) were blessed because theirs is the kingdom of God. 

I choose to recognize that I am not nor can I ever truly be the captain of my own soul, the master of my own fate.  I choose instead to place my hand, my faith, my fate into the nail scarred hand of Jesus Christ my Savior, my Lord, and the lover of my soul.  How about you?  What is your choice?

Reason # 1 to rebel against the Christian faith: hypocrisy in Christians

I think it was Ghandi who said that there was only one genuine Christian and He had died on the cross. Ghandi was saying that those who claimed to be Christians were unable to live up to the example of Christ and were therefore false people.  The entire faith of Christianity was, in Ghandi's view, hypocrisy.  This is a common view of many who chose to reject becoming a Christian.

I would rather  believe Christ. In the Garden of Gethsemene, Christ said, "My prayer is not for them alone. (The apostles) I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one.  Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You.  May they also be in us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me." John 17: 20, 21.

Thus, certainly there are such people as Christians.  Beginning with the apostles and down through the ages the Holy Spirit has been born into the lives of people.  These people who choose to believe in Christ are, nevertheless, still human beings with carnal desires that are inborn in us all.  When a person chooses to place faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, they are given the gift of the holy Spirit to overcome this sinful nature. 

A struggle, as described in the seventh chapter of Romans, challenges the born again Christian.  Therefore, Christians do fail to be faithful from time to time.  The nature of God's forgiveness is NOT to EXCUSE but to ENABLE the Christian to OVERCOME.  The Christian is empowered by the Holy Spirit to GET UP OFF OF THEIR FAILURE, and to proceed on to the next victory over than sin.  Thus, the Christian life is to be a cycle of GROWTH.

While the Christian is in this pattern of growth, those who wish to be critical can correctly point out the failures of the Christian.  They can also accuse the Christian of hypocrisy.  This latter accusation is not true if the Christian is acting out of good faith to overcome their weaknesses.  The Christian is acknowledging that God's way is correct and is doing their best to walk in it.

Then again, there is the Christian who comes to love God and walk with Him but walk in error.  They may embrace not only the laws written in scripture but also rules laid down by people who construct a legalistic way of thinking that drives others away.  These Christians may being lording it over others by comparing themselves to others and thinking that now they are better than others.  They adopt a "holier than thou" attitude.  They are often called "Pharisees" by others. 

These Christians are being harmful while actually having a love for God.  They may feel that since they love God that what they choose to do to express their love for Him is what everyone should do.  They then press their family to go beyond the Biblical laws and principles and exercise human legalistic rules which presses their loved ones beyond reason.  This often gives birth to rebellion.

Then again, there are those who have been genuinely born again but have fallen back into habitual sin and still carry the label of Christian.  This person needs to either drop the label of Christian or, better yet, repent and obtain God's help to overcome their sin.  Otherwise, they are a genuine hypocrite. 

I admit.  It is difficult to see Christ in a hypocrite.  However, the interest of the questioning person should first not be on the character of the person speaking but first concern should be on whether or not what they are saying is true.  If a herion addict who is now shooting drugs into his vein should look up at you and say, "don't take heroin" he would be absolutely correct.  That word is true.

Christ was freqently critical of the Pharisees for hypocrisy.  But, his advice to people was to do what the Pharisees said when it was a correct interpretation of God's law, but to not do as they did in everyday life.

Those who point out hypocrisy as being the same as Christianity are incorrect.  Authentic Christianity is the opposite of hypocrisy.