Saturday, March 31, 2007
The Greatest Obstacle
I will tell you simply what is the greatest obstacle in salvation and reaching God. It is the self and the ways of the world. The way to God is to put aside your faith in other things and put your faith in him. The thing that holds people back from God is often not blatant sin. It is faith and confidence in other things such as our knowledge, skills, wealth and, strength. These things are good to have but not to put our faith in. The person who is closest to God will be the person who has no self-confidence at all but who puts faith entirely in God. Of course, this is diametrically opposite to human nature and the ways of the world and that is what the obstacle is.
Things To Think About
Now that people all over the world are thinking about the consequences of global warming, let's consider a few more things we should be thinking about.
FISH IN THE OCEANS
The cover story in this month's edition of National Geographic magazine was horrifying. It was about the frentic pace at which the fish in the oceans are being depleted due to overfishing. I have been saying this for years but, as with global warming, each report seems to be more alarming than the last.
We cannot directly see life in the seas as we can on land, so we do not notice this depletion. Fishing involving drift nets or dredging the bottom of the sea is incredibly wasteful. The sought-after species is taken and the rest simply thrown away. With the world's population ever-increasing, we are leaning heavily on the oceans for a supply of food and it is nearing the breaking point where the fish populations will be so depleted as to make recovery virtually impossible. The bluefin tuna, for example, is a magnificent fish that may weigh 1,000 pounds but the future of the species looks very dim due to gross overfishing.
Some fishing areas have been closed to more fishing already, such as the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. Unfortunately, the only real solution to this is to say "Thats it, no more ocean fishing for at least twenty years so the fish populations can have a chance to recover."
BEES
If you are one of the few people who seem to think that global warming is not a big deal, what about bees, particularly honey bees. These are quite fragile creatures that periodically die off in significant numbers, causing alarm. Bees are very sensitive to environmental changes. The reason that they are so important is that we are very dependent on bees to pollinate our food crops. Possibly 70% of the crops that humans use for food are pollinated by bees. Fortunately, rice and wheat, the two most important food crops worldwide, are not dependent on bees. But even so, the human race would face a grave situation if enough bees died.
ANIMALS
In early 2003, I recall one of the most mind-boggling news reports ever. At that time, it was reported that there was only 20% of the lions alive in the wild that there was in 1980. What are we doing to this world?
STARVATION
Does everyone realize that between twenty and forty thousand people starve to death every day? It takes a while to weave that fact into your view of the world.
MODERN AND OLD-FASHIONED
There is a general conception nowadays that a person who lives by the Bible is "old-fashioned" while someone who is not religious is "modern". I have never seen the logic in this way of thinking. All we have to do is read the Bible as well as other documents describing life in ancient times to see that many people lived godless and sinful lives back then just as they do today. The truth is that neither religion or irreligion is modern or old-fashioned. Both ways have been around since the beginnings of civilization.
EMOTIONS AND LOGIC
There is still an impression that people who are religious think more with their emotions and people who are not think more logically. I find this to be not true at all. it is true, of course, that religious people are emotionally attached to their God, but it is also true that atheism involves thinking with the emotions too.
Many people do not want the Bible to be true because they are living a sinful life and do not want a God to answer to. Others are really mad at God for something bad that happened or something good that didn't happen and are "punishing" God by not believing in him.
Remember that the fact that bad things happen is not God's fault. He gave us all the abilities and resources that we could ever need and we are the ones who could not handle things right because of our sinfulness. There is absolutely no promise that life on earth will be a bed of roses. However, there is a promise that heaven will be far better than any bed of roses.
SPORTS AND WARFARE
I am certain that the overall, long-term purpose of all sports is physical and mental preparation for warfare. A boy who is used to having a ball coming toward him will be better prepared to handle arrows or bullets coming toward him. Handling a bat or a hockey stick will make one better prepared to handle a rifle. Throwing and hitting a ball prepares a future soldier to judge the physics of moving objects like arrows and bullets. If warfare came to an end and we knew that there would never be another war, all sports would die out in time.
LAND MINES
Why can't the world ban land mines? An anti-personnel land mine (as opposed to an anti-tank mine) is about the size and cost of a can of tuna fish. It is used in wartime to secure an area by killing or wounding any enemy soldier that steps on it when it is buried just below the surface of the ground. Mine fields are useful for a military force that must guard a long border against possible invasion. The trouble begins when the war ends but the mines are usually still there. Some mines get decomissioned but others inevitably are overlooked after the war. Innocent people, especially children exploring a field, are maimed and killed by old land mines. These mines can last a long time.
THE DEADLIEST SECRET WEAPON
Several hundred years ago, people from Europe began exploring and settling in the western hemisphere. It was already populated by the native Indians, so-called because Christopher Columbus mistakenly thought he had reached India. For them, this wave of people from across the sea ultimately proved to be a disaster.
The white people were too numerous to resist in the long-term and had more advanced weapons. Perhaps most importantly, they had built up immunity to diseases that the Indians had not. On many occasions, the two groups lived in harmony but inevitably, North America came to be dominated by white people. When there were battles between the two sides, many more Indians would be killed than white men.
However, maybe that is not the end of the story. The white men may have had more knowledge of technology. But while knowledge is one thing, wisdom is something else. The Indians had introduced the white people to tobacco and that changes the whole story around.
Ever since then, the people that had invaded Indian lands, people in the countries that they came from and people in other countries that did business with the people that invaded Indian lands have been dying at a rate that no weapon in the world can equal. If tobacco can be considered as a weapon, it ranks with guns and explosives for the carnage it has produced at the very least.
The Indians are too outnumbered to actually regain control of North America. But due to tobacco, many white people have died for each Indian that died in the clash of civilizations. The Indians had massacres such as those at Sand Creek and Wounded Knee inflicted on them but nothing like the destruction and carnage of the Tobacco Massacre.
CANCER
There is one thing that I have wondered about but can never recall reading anything about, and that is what is disturbing about it. Has anyone besides me wondered about the health effects that auto exhaust is having on us? We do not stop to think about it but most of us spend our lives breathing in auto exhaust in at least some concentration. It is difficult to separate this fact from things like junk food in causing cancers.
Suppose we compare our cancer rates to societies without cars. I recall reading about the Hmong and their immigrants to America. The Hmong are a group of people in Laos who became acquainted with Americans during the Vietnam War. The Hmong lived a very nature-based way of life and cancer was nearly unknown. The experience of the Hmong in America, however, is completely different. Among American Hmong, the cancer rate has exploded. Part of the reason is no doubt due to processed foods, but how much is due to auto exhaust?
A similar case is a community of rural Jews in Yemen years ago that I recall reading about. Cars were virtually unknown and so was cancer. But when much of the comminity moved to a western-style city and lifestyle in Tel Aviv, that all changed. Like the Hmong, their cancer rate increased drastically. If second-hand cigarette smoke has been found to be so harmful, what do you suppose it does to you to spend your life breathing auto exhaust? If we do not think about this, maybe we should start.
PSYCHOLOGY
Bookstores seem to be full of all kind of manuals and books of advice on how to have a successful marriage and how to raise a child successfully. Going by the sheer volume of books, these are areas where there are no shortage of knowledge.
But something is just not right. There is so much information available from so many experts on how to raise a successful child yet, prisons are packed to capacity. Schools have never had such discipline problems as they do now. With all the books on how to have a successful marriage, the divorce rate is higher than ever. How can this be?
The answer is the difference between the ways of the world and the Ways of God. These are areas in which the ways of the world do not have the ultimate answers. In contrast to the wisdom of the world, you can look at a chart of the decline of average church membership over the last fifty or sixty years. Then look at a chart of the average increase in crime over the same period. You will see that one is almost a mirror image of the other. The Bible has the answers.
JUNK FOOD
The medical progress that has been made over the past century is one of the great accomplishments of civilization. The story of putting men on the moon may not even compare with it. If you ever want encouragement at what human beings can do when they put their minds to it and work together, just read about the diseases and ailments that have been conquered by dedicated work and research, there are few other stories that can compare with it.
Yet, so much of it is amounting to nothing. In spite of the near-miraculous progress that has been made in medicine, the present generation will actually decline in health and life expectancy. You do not need me to tell you why. Just walk along the aisles of a supermarket and look at all the garbage on the shelves. That is what people are dining on. In fact, garbage is not even the word for it, maybe poison is a better word.
OBESITY
My lecture about junk food below may not be very popular but just think of it in terms of national security. Has anyone besides me stopped to think that America, and probably other nations, will never again be able to institute a military draft in wartime?
A counter-insurgency is usually more mundane than a conventional war. Brilliant battle tactics are not as important. The main task in an insurgency is to canvass the country and make sure the insurgents are cut off from supplies and have no operating bases. Of course, this means that the counter-insurgency force must have enough troops. Without enough soldiers to cover the country, a counter-insurgency military force is greatly hampered no matter how high quality the force may be.
These Iraq and Afghanistan wars remind me of the conquest of Spain by Napoleon two centuries ago. In fact, that is where the term "guerrilla", meaning "little war" was coined. Spain was well past it's peak as a great colonial power. Napoleon defeated Spain's army and conquered the country just as he planned. But Spanish villagers were avid hunters and Napoleon's troops, in their bright blue uniforms, made inviting targets. In addition, Napoleon had imprisoned the Pope and the conflict thus took on the dimension of a holy war for Catholic Spain. It ended up requiring Napoleon four times as many soldiers to secure the country after it had been conquered as it did to conquer it in the first place.
Now back to junk food and obesity. If we should ever require a large number of soldiers, we would find that instituting a draft (conscription) is impossible. If there were a draft, at the very least, 25% of potentional draftees would have to be given exemptions for being too overweight to complete training or even to fit into a uniform. If those exemptions were granted, the result would be a legal nightmare. Why should one teenager who keeps fit have to go to war while another doesn't because he is too fat? More kids would get fat on purpose to avoid conscription.
This is really something to think about. The present volunteer force is of high quality but strictly limited in size by the number of volunteers. The country could not possibly fight a Vietnam-scale war due to junk food and the resulting obesity. This short-term thinking of ours is really setting us up for trouble.
This is almost certainly the reason there will be a nuclear war. The lack of soldiers will force the country to depend on high-tech weapons, including nuclear, in a critical situation. Why, for God's sakes are supermarkets allowed to stack checkout aisles with candy? The next time you hear of national security, think about this.
IMPOSSIBLE SITUATIONS
Have you thought that maybe God is allowing us to get into these perilous situations with this economy and terrorism to cause us to seek him? Nearly every month, we read about a planned terrorist attack against us. If we do not have a ready solution, God does. He can make our nations more secure than any of our own efforts. He is allowing this situation and waiting for us to turn back to him.
GOD'S OTHER PLANET?
I have wondered about the description of God's throne in heaven in the Book of Revelation, chapter four. St. John is given a vision of God's throne with twenty-four elders around it praising God. Clearly, these elders are human saints from earth. But there are also four "living creatures" praising God. John tries to describe these creatures, which are obviously ones that he has never seen before.
Where did these creatures come from? They could possibly be some kind of "heaven creatures" that God created to live there. But with all the talk in recent decades of life in outer space, could it be possible that God created life on another planet, which these creatures are from? The planet may or may not be in our universe.
If so, it is possible that their history turned out completely different from ours. Maybe they never fell into sin in the first place so that Jesus was not necessary on their planet.
JUDAH
One thing I have long wondered about is why the nation of Israel is thus-called. After the death of King Solomon before 900 B.C., the nation split into two states, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. When Assyria built a large empire, it depopulated Israel, which was composed of ten of the twelve tribes, and replaced them with people taken from other parts of the empire. These people mixed with remaining Jews and by the time of the Jesus were known as the Samaritans. These ten tribes were scattered across the Assyrian Empire and have been lost to history.
The nation of Judah remained. It's population was later taken into exile in Babylon but was returned when the Persians conquered Babylon. It is Judah, composed of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, that was dispersed following uprisings against Roman rule and then returned to form the nation of Israel in 1948, just as foretold in the Bible. So, I wonder, shouldn't the modern nation be called Judah instead of Israel?
FISH IN THE OCEANS
The cover story in this month's edition of National Geographic magazine was horrifying. It was about the frentic pace at which the fish in the oceans are being depleted due to overfishing. I have been saying this for years but, as with global warming, each report seems to be more alarming than the last.
We cannot directly see life in the seas as we can on land, so we do not notice this depletion. Fishing involving drift nets or dredging the bottom of the sea is incredibly wasteful. The sought-after species is taken and the rest simply thrown away. With the world's population ever-increasing, we are leaning heavily on the oceans for a supply of food and it is nearing the breaking point where the fish populations will be so depleted as to make recovery virtually impossible. The bluefin tuna, for example, is a magnificent fish that may weigh 1,000 pounds but the future of the species looks very dim due to gross overfishing.
Some fishing areas have been closed to more fishing already, such as the Grand Banks off Newfoundland. Unfortunately, the only real solution to this is to say "Thats it, no more ocean fishing for at least twenty years so the fish populations can have a chance to recover."
BEES
If you are one of the few people who seem to think that global warming is not a big deal, what about bees, particularly honey bees. These are quite fragile creatures that periodically die off in significant numbers, causing alarm. Bees are very sensitive to environmental changes. The reason that they are so important is that we are very dependent on bees to pollinate our food crops. Possibly 70% of the crops that humans use for food are pollinated by bees. Fortunately, rice and wheat, the two most important food crops worldwide, are not dependent on bees. But even so, the human race would face a grave situation if enough bees died.
ANIMALS
In early 2003, I recall one of the most mind-boggling news reports ever. At that time, it was reported that there was only 20% of the lions alive in the wild that there was in 1980. What are we doing to this world?
STARVATION
Does everyone realize that between twenty and forty thousand people starve to death every day? It takes a while to weave that fact into your view of the world.
MODERN AND OLD-FASHIONED
There is a general conception nowadays that a person who lives by the Bible is "old-fashioned" while someone who is not religious is "modern". I have never seen the logic in this way of thinking. All we have to do is read the Bible as well as other documents describing life in ancient times to see that many people lived godless and sinful lives back then just as they do today. The truth is that neither religion or irreligion is modern or old-fashioned. Both ways have been around since the beginnings of civilization.
EMOTIONS AND LOGIC
There is still an impression that people who are religious think more with their emotions and people who are not think more logically. I find this to be not true at all. it is true, of course, that religious people are emotionally attached to their God, but it is also true that atheism involves thinking with the emotions too.
Many people do not want the Bible to be true because they are living a sinful life and do not want a God to answer to. Others are really mad at God for something bad that happened or something good that didn't happen and are "punishing" God by not believing in him.
Remember that the fact that bad things happen is not God's fault. He gave us all the abilities and resources that we could ever need and we are the ones who could not handle things right because of our sinfulness. There is absolutely no promise that life on earth will be a bed of roses. However, there is a promise that heaven will be far better than any bed of roses.
SPORTS AND WARFARE
I am certain that the overall, long-term purpose of all sports is physical and mental preparation for warfare. A boy who is used to having a ball coming toward him will be better prepared to handle arrows or bullets coming toward him. Handling a bat or a hockey stick will make one better prepared to handle a rifle. Throwing and hitting a ball prepares a future soldier to judge the physics of moving objects like arrows and bullets. If warfare came to an end and we knew that there would never be another war, all sports would die out in time.
LAND MINES
Why can't the world ban land mines? An anti-personnel land mine (as opposed to an anti-tank mine) is about the size and cost of a can of tuna fish. It is used in wartime to secure an area by killing or wounding any enemy soldier that steps on it when it is buried just below the surface of the ground. Mine fields are useful for a military force that must guard a long border against possible invasion. The trouble begins when the war ends but the mines are usually still there. Some mines get decomissioned but others inevitably are overlooked after the war. Innocent people, especially children exploring a field, are maimed and killed by old land mines. These mines can last a long time.
THE DEADLIEST SECRET WEAPON
Several hundred years ago, people from Europe began exploring and settling in the western hemisphere. It was already populated by the native Indians, so-called because Christopher Columbus mistakenly thought he had reached India. For them, this wave of people from across the sea ultimately proved to be a disaster.
The white people were too numerous to resist in the long-term and had more advanced weapons. Perhaps most importantly, they had built up immunity to diseases that the Indians had not. On many occasions, the two groups lived in harmony but inevitably, North America came to be dominated by white people. When there were battles between the two sides, many more Indians would be killed than white men.
However, maybe that is not the end of the story. The white men may have had more knowledge of technology. But while knowledge is one thing, wisdom is something else. The Indians had introduced the white people to tobacco and that changes the whole story around.
Ever since then, the people that had invaded Indian lands, people in the countries that they came from and people in other countries that did business with the people that invaded Indian lands have been dying at a rate that no weapon in the world can equal. If tobacco can be considered as a weapon, it ranks with guns and explosives for the carnage it has produced at the very least.
The Indians are too outnumbered to actually regain control of North America. But due to tobacco, many white people have died for each Indian that died in the clash of civilizations. The Indians had massacres such as those at Sand Creek and Wounded Knee inflicted on them but nothing like the destruction and carnage of the Tobacco Massacre.
CANCER
There is one thing that I have wondered about but can never recall reading anything about, and that is what is disturbing about it. Has anyone besides me wondered about the health effects that auto exhaust is having on us? We do not stop to think about it but most of us spend our lives breathing in auto exhaust in at least some concentration. It is difficult to separate this fact from things like junk food in causing cancers.
Suppose we compare our cancer rates to societies without cars. I recall reading about the Hmong and their immigrants to America. The Hmong are a group of people in Laos who became acquainted with Americans during the Vietnam War. The Hmong lived a very nature-based way of life and cancer was nearly unknown. The experience of the Hmong in America, however, is completely different. Among American Hmong, the cancer rate has exploded. Part of the reason is no doubt due to processed foods, but how much is due to auto exhaust?
A similar case is a community of rural Jews in Yemen years ago that I recall reading about. Cars were virtually unknown and so was cancer. But when much of the comminity moved to a western-style city and lifestyle in Tel Aviv, that all changed. Like the Hmong, their cancer rate increased drastically. If second-hand cigarette smoke has been found to be so harmful, what do you suppose it does to you to spend your life breathing auto exhaust? If we do not think about this, maybe we should start.
PSYCHOLOGY
Bookstores seem to be full of all kind of manuals and books of advice on how to have a successful marriage and how to raise a child successfully. Going by the sheer volume of books, these are areas where there are no shortage of knowledge.
But something is just not right. There is so much information available from so many experts on how to raise a successful child yet, prisons are packed to capacity. Schools have never had such discipline problems as they do now. With all the books on how to have a successful marriage, the divorce rate is higher than ever. How can this be?
The answer is the difference between the ways of the world and the Ways of God. These are areas in which the ways of the world do not have the ultimate answers. In contrast to the wisdom of the world, you can look at a chart of the decline of average church membership over the last fifty or sixty years. Then look at a chart of the average increase in crime over the same period. You will see that one is almost a mirror image of the other. The Bible has the answers.
JUNK FOOD
The medical progress that has been made over the past century is one of the great accomplishments of civilization. The story of putting men on the moon may not even compare with it. If you ever want encouragement at what human beings can do when they put their minds to it and work together, just read about the diseases and ailments that have been conquered by dedicated work and research, there are few other stories that can compare with it.
Yet, so much of it is amounting to nothing. In spite of the near-miraculous progress that has been made in medicine, the present generation will actually decline in health and life expectancy. You do not need me to tell you why. Just walk along the aisles of a supermarket and look at all the garbage on the shelves. That is what people are dining on. In fact, garbage is not even the word for it, maybe poison is a better word.
OBESITY
My lecture about junk food below may not be very popular but just think of it in terms of national security. Has anyone besides me stopped to think that America, and probably other nations, will never again be able to institute a military draft in wartime?
A counter-insurgency is usually more mundane than a conventional war. Brilliant battle tactics are not as important. The main task in an insurgency is to canvass the country and make sure the insurgents are cut off from supplies and have no operating bases. Of course, this means that the counter-insurgency force must have enough troops. Without enough soldiers to cover the country, a counter-insurgency military force is greatly hampered no matter how high quality the force may be.
These Iraq and Afghanistan wars remind me of the conquest of Spain by Napoleon two centuries ago. In fact, that is where the term "guerrilla", meaning "little war" was coined. Spain was well past it's peak as a great colonial power. Napoleon defeated Spain's army and conquered the country just as he planned. But Spanish villagers were avid hunters and Napoleon's troops, in their bright blue uniforms, made inviting targets. In addition, Napoleon had imprisoned the Pope and the conflict thus took on the dimension of a holy war for Catholic Spain. It ended up requiring Napoleon four times as many soldiers to secure the country after it had been conquered as it did to conquer it in the first place.
Now back to junk food and obesity. If we should ever require a large number of soldiers, we would find that instituting a draft (conscription) is impossible. If there were a draft, at the very least, 25% of potentional draftees would have to be given exemptions for being too overweight to complete training or even to fit into a uniform. If those exemptions were granted, the result would be a legal nightmare. Why should one teenager who keeps fit have to go to war while another doesn't because he is too fat? More kids would get fat on purpose to avoid conscription.
This is really something to think about. The present volunteer force is of high quality but strictly limited in size by the number of volunteers. The country could not possibly fight a Vietnam-scale war due to junk food and the resulting obesity. This short-term thinking of ours is really setting us up for trouble.
This is almost certainly the reason there will be a nuclear war. The lack of soldiers will force the country to depend on high-tech weapons, including nuclear, in a critical situation. Why, for God's sakes are supermarkets allowed to stack checkout aisles with candy? The next time you hear of national security, think about this.
IMPOSSIBLE SITUATIONS
Have you thought that maybe God is allowing us to get into these perilous situations with this economy and terrorism to cause us to seek him? Nearly every month, we read about a planned terrorist attack against us. If we do not have a ready solution, God does. He can make our nations more secure than any of our own efforts. He is allowing this situation and waiting for us to turn back to him.
GOD'S OTHER PLANET?
I have wondered about the description of God's throne in heaven in the Book of Revelation, chapter four. St. John is given a vision of God's throne with twenty-four elders around it praising God. Clearly, these elders are human saints from earth. But there are also four "living creatures" praising God. John tries to describe these creatures, which are obviously ones that he has never seen before.
Where did these creatures come from? They could possibly be some kind of "heaven creatures" that God created to live there. But with all the talk in recent decades of life in outer space, could it be possible that God created life on another planet, which these creatures are from? The planet may or may not be in our universe.
If so, it is possible that their history turned out completely different from ours. Maybe they never fell into sin in the first place so that Jesus was not necessary on their planet.
JUDAH
One thing I have long wondered about is why the nation of Israel is thus-called. After the death of King Solomon before 900 B.C., the nation split into two states, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. When Assyria built a large empire, it depopulated Israel, which was composed of ten of the twelve tribes, and replaced them with people taken from other parts of the empire. These people mixed with remaining Jews and by the time of the Jesus were known as the Samaritans. These ten tribes were scattered across the Assyrian Empire and have been lost to history.
The nation of Judah remained. It's population was later taken into exile in Babylon but was returned when the Persians conquered Babylon. It is Judah, composed of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, that was dispersed following uprisings against Roman rule and then returned to form the nation of Israel in 1948, just as foretold in the Bible. So, I wonder, shouldn't the modern nation be called Judah instead of Israel?
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Atheism
Atheism is the belief that there is no god. There was an article that I read today about a writer promoting this idea. Let's consider a few implications of atheism.
Atheism forces us to find some other explanation of how we came into existence. Many atheists claim that life arose from inanimate matter by random collisions of atoms, in other words evolution (although evolution actually does not try to explain how life started, only how it developed). I have heard a number of people say that they do not believe in any religion but only in evolution, or something along those lines.
But when we consider the general definition of religion: That which brought life into existence, even though it cannot be proven. It becomes clear that evolution is as much a religion as anything. Likewise, stating that "there is no god" is every bit as much a religious statement as saying that there is a god.
The arguments of atheists often revolve around the behavior (behaviour) of Christians. Sure enough, not all Christians are perfect. In fact, none are. But if this discredits Christianity then, using exactly the same logic, democracy is invalidated when a politician is involved in a scandal as is capitalism when a businessman does some creative accounting. I think it is reasonable to agree that in any group with two thousand million members, there will be a few that fail to live up to the ideals.
It is unfortunately true that there have been bad things done in the name of religion, both Christian and otherwise. This is often pointed out by atheists. However, using the same logic and the same standards, we find that some Nazis believed that they were at a higher stage of evolution than inferior peoples. Thus, there was nothing wrong with killing or enslaving them in order to purify the genetic pool. Similar ideas were held by some in the imperial powers with regard to building empires. Communists were not driven by biological evolution, but by belief that communism was the next step in human social evolution.
So, my conclusion is that if Christians are resposible for the bad things done in the name of religion, evolutionists bear responsibility for the approximately 140 million people that were systematically exterminated during the Twentieth Century for ideologies that had some basis in evolution.
Atheism forces us to find some other explanation of how we came into existence. Many atheists claim that life arose from inanimate matter by random collisions of atoms, in other words evolution (although evolution actually does not try to explain how life started, only how it developed). I have heard a number of people say that they do not believe in any religion but only in evolution, or something along those lines.
But when we consider the general definition of religion: That which brought life into existence, even though it cannot be proven. It becomes clear that evolution is as much a religion as anything. Likewise, stating that "there is no god" is every bit as much a religious statement as saying that there is a god.
The arguments of atheists often revolve around the behavior (behaviour) of Christians. Sure enough, not all Christians are perfect. In fact, none are. But if this discredits Christianity then, using exactly the same logic, democracy is invalidated when a politician is involved in a scandal as is capitalism when a businessman does some creative accounting. I think it is reasonable to agree that in any group with two thousand million members, there will be a few that fail to live up to the ideals.
It is unfortunately true that there have been bad things done in the name of religion, both Christian and otherwise. This is often pointed out by atheists. However, using the same logic and the same standards, we find that some Nazis believed that they were at a higher stage of evolution than inferior peoples. Thus, there was nothing wrong with killing or enslaving them in order to purify the genetic pool. Similar ideas were held by some in the imperial powers with regard to building empires. Communists were not driven by biological evolution, but by belief that communism was the next step in human social evolution.
So, my conclusion is that if Christians are resposible for the bad things done in the name of religion, evolutionists bear responsibility for the approximately 140 million people that were systematically exterminated during the Twentieth Century for ideologies that had some basis in evolution.
A Simple Definition of Wisdom.
The Bible tells us that the entirety of the law can be summed up in one sentence, "Treat others as you would like to be treated". But what about wisdom? Is there a way to define wisdom in one simple sentence? Here is my conclusion.
Wisdom is not the same thing as knowledge, although there is an overlap between the two. One can have knowledge without wisdom but some knowledge is necessary to have wisdom. My definition of wisdom is simply big-picture, long-term thinking. Knowledge without wisdom will bring short-term success and long-term failure. Wisdom, as I define it, is always doing and thinking with the big picture and the long-term in mind. This is not the same thing as living in either the future or the past. The fruits of wise thinking will stand the test of time and, in fact, may require time to become apparent.
Wisdom is related to the idea of perfection but is more about making the very best of what you have, not in the short-term, but in the long-term big picture of things. In fact, wisdom can be defined as long-term efficiency. Taking every opportunity to do and think that which is most profitable and not doing or thinking that which is wasteful.
One component of big-picture thinking is insight. To see deeper than things look on the surface. Suppose someone tells you something negative about someone else. Do you automatically believe it? Maybe the person who told you just feels inferior in some way and is trying to build themselves up by trying to knock someone else down.
In fact, wisdom shows that hatred is a compliment in a very real way because it takes a great amount of energy to hate someone and so the object of the hatred must really have something to be worthy of the effort of being hated. Those countries that have persecuted Christians finally realized that hating someone for what they believe makes no sense at all because if what they believe is not true, putting in the effort of hating is utterly illogical and in fact the hatred shows that they suspect that the beliefs may be true but do not want them to be true.
Wisdom is a light that shines beyond the surface. Suppose that there is a person who dislikes you. If seen in wisdom, it may be more because of what they are than what you are. Maybe you have made them, or a group that they belong to, feel inferior. Possibly you have given them a reminder that their view of the world is inaccurate. Unless the person has a degree of big-picture thinking, this may cause them to have a dislike for you.
Every person has emotions, a mind and, a spirit. The most short-term, and unwise, plan is to have the actions dominated by the emotions. Being led by the mind is better than being led by the emotions. But the best of all is to be led by the spirit in alignment with God. The best of human wisdom can be wrong, and in any case falls short of ideal. A group or community of people are just as likely to be wrong as an individual. So, following the crowd cannot be the definition of wisdom, indeed someone who thinks as everyone else does will be no wiser than anyone else. The Wisdom of God gives people a compass with it's reference points from beyond the world. The big picture does not mean the entire world or your entire life, it means the Kingdom of God and all of eternity.
The definition of wisdom is related to the definitions of good and evil. I define good as being in harmony with the highest long-term reality and evil with being out of harmony with this reality. Good is long-term and evil, in most cases, is the product of short-term, self-centered thinking.
I have decided on a simple way to recognize a wise person. Such a person will thank you when you prove them wrong. That is my definition of wisdom.
Wisdom is not the same thing as knowledge, although there is an overlap between the two. One can have knowledge without wisdom but some knowledge is necessary to have wisdom. My definition of wisdom is simply big-picture, long-term thinking. Knowledge without wisdom will bring short-term success and long-term failure. Wisdom, as I define it, is always doing and thinking with the big picture and the long-term in mind. This is not the same thing as living in either the future or the past. The fruits of wise thinking will stand the test of time and, in fact, may require time to become apparent.
Wisdom is related to the idea of perfection but is more about making the very best of what you have, not in the short-term, but in the long-term big picture of things. In fact, wisdom can be defined as long-term efficiency. Taking every opportunity to do and think that which is most profitable and not doing or thinking that which is wasteful.
One component of big-picture thinking is insight. To see deeper than things look on the surface. Suppose someone tells you something negative about someone else. Do you automatically believe it? Maybe the person who told you just feels inferior in some way and is trying to build themselves up by trying to knock someone else down.
In fact, wisdom shows that hatred is a compliment in a very real way because it takes a great amount of energy to hate someone and so the object of the hatred must really have something to be worthy of the effort of being hated. Those countries that have persecuted Christians finally realized that hating someone for what they believe makes no sense at all because if what they believe is not true, putting in the effort of hating is utterly illogical and in fact the hatred shows that they suspect that the beliefs may be true but do not want them to be true.
Wisdom is a light that shines beyond the surface. Suppose that there is a person who dislikes you. If seen in wisdom, it may be more because of what they are than what you are. Maybe you have made them, or a group that they belong to, feel inferior. Possibly you have given them a reminder that their view of the world is inaccurate. Unless the person has a degree of big-picture thinking, this may cause them to have a dislike for you.
Every person has emotions, a mind and, a spirit. The most short-term, and unwise, plan is to have the actions dominated by the emotions. Being led by the mind is better than being led by the emotions. But the best of all is to be led by the spirit in alignment with God. The best of human wisdom can be wrong, and in any case falls short of ideal. A group or community of people are just as likely to be wrong as an individual. So, following the crowd cannot be the definition of wisdom, indeed someone who thinks as everyone else does will be no wiser than anyone else. The Wisdom of God gives people a compass with it's reference points from beyond the world. The big picture does not mean the entire world or your entire life, it means the Kingdom of God and all of eternity.
The definition of wisdom is related to the definitions of good and evil. I define good as being in harmony with the highest long-term reality and evil with being out of harmony with this reality. Good is long-term and evil, in most cases, is the product of short-term, self-centered thinking.
I have decided on a simple way to recognize a wise person. Such a person will thank you when you prove them wrong. That is my definition of wisdom.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Christian Holidays
The two major Christian holidays are Easter and Christmas. Easter represents the rising of Jesus from the tomb and Christmas represents his birth. So, why does Easter revolve around chocolate rabbits and Christmas around Santa Claus? Doesn't everyone realize what is at stake here?
This is the whole purpose of life, to show that only God's ways are correct and to see who is to enter heaven for eternity. These holidays were supposed to be about Jesus. It seems to me that over the years, people who are uncomfortable with this, yet who wish to celebrate the holidays have introduced these distractions.
We should be celebrating our God. None of us can really grasp what Jesus has done for us, making it possible for us to spend eternity with God by dying for us on the cross to pay the price for sin. We could not possibly qualify for God's salvation through our own merits. You know that we are not living the way we should but Jesus did and he died to pay the price for us. The crucifixion of Jesus was the focal point of all human history. No matter what else you have or do, if you do not spend eternity with God, what does it really matter?
The Bible is like a brilliant and glorious light that illuminates the entire universe. Opening the cover of a Bible is opening a doorway to the highest level of reality that a human being can reach. The whole time that evil is allowed to exist is actually very brief in comparison with all of eternity and the Bible is the key to that eternity. Nothing or no one can possibly oppose the Will of God.
This is the whole purpose of life, to show that only God's ways are correct and to see who is to enter heaven for eternity. These holidays were supposed to be about Jesus. It seems to me that over the years, people who are uncomfortable with this, yet who wish to celebrate the holidays have introduced these distractions.
We should be celebrating our God. None of us can really grasp what Jesus has done for us, making it possible for us to spend eternity with God by dying for us on the cross to pay the price for sin. We could not possibly qualify for God's salvation through our own merits. You know that we are not living the way we should but Jesus did and he died to pay the price for us. The crucifixion of Jesus was the focal point of all human history. No matter what else you have or do, if you do not spend eternity with God, what does it really matter?
The Bible is like a brilliant and glorious light that illuminates the entire universe. Opening the cover of a Bible is opening a doorway to the highest level of reality that a human being can reach. The whole time that evil is allowed to exist is actually very brief in comparison with all of eternity and the Bible is the key to that eternity. Nothing or no one can possibly oppose the Will of God.
The Empire Strategy
Satan is in opposition to the Will of God but he can only work by using human beings. We can see Satan's handprints all over the past few hundred years.
The reason that Christianity spread so fast was the Roman Empire. Israel was under Roman control during the time of Jesus and the religion spread rapidly along the empire's roads and by it's postal system. Had there been a patchwork of separate countries instead of one empire, the spread would have been much slower. I believe that Satan never forgot this.
Europe became the heartland of Christianity. I believe the Reformation to have certainly been the work of God, but it also gave Satan a chance to give religion a very negative image by promoting more than a century of religious warfare between Protestants and Catholics after the Reformation.
The modern political era began with the French Revolution of 1789. There was a deep hostility to the church among the revolutionaries for this was the Age of Reason when faith was being put in the reasoning powers of human beings instead of in God. Suppose Satan could spread this hostility toward the church all across the Christian heartland?
The French Revolution did not turn out as planned. In fact, it ended up as a dictatorship under Napoleon. His forces conquered, at least for a while, almost the entirety of Europe. Was this a part of Satan's plan to destroy Christianity?
The Industrial Revolution was underway. The rural agricultural way of life was largely replaced by factories and machines. There is a very strong connection between industrialism and secularism. Farming people spend the day dealing with, and being awed by, what God has created. But while working in a factory building sorrounded by man-made machines, they can see only what man has created.
I say that it is no coincidence that secularism did not become widespread until large numbers of people were working in factories instead of on farms. Just as it is no coincidence that America's Bible Belt is in what was traditionally the most agricultural region of the country. The Theory of Evolution is a product of the industrial age and uses a mechanical factory-like process to try to explain the development of life.
Has anyone ever noticed that the Theory of Evolution was developed when the British Empire was at it's height? Could Satan, remembering the rapid spread of Christianity through the Roman Empire, have been hoping to bring evolution and secularism to the world through the British Empire?
Human beings made more and more scientific discoveries and became ever-more adept with all kinds of new technologies. What if Satan could destroy the European heartland of Christanity with a cataclysmic war like the world had never seen before? Horrible new weapons appeared and European nations had a complex tangle of alliances and pacts among themselves.
Finally, Europe was at the point where only a spark was required to set it off. In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was visiting Serbia. A nineteen-year-old anarchist appeared with a gun and shot him. The government of Austria-Hungary was enraged. Russia had an alliance with Serbia. Germany had an alliance with Austria-hungary. France was bound to Russia by treaty, causing Germany to expect an attack on it's western border by France.
It all exploded into World War One, a war such as the world had never seen before. The war came to an end but at the Versailles Conference, where the armistice was signed, Germany was treated unfairly by the victorious allies, who insisted it had to pay the entire cost of the war. Satan must have known that this would ensure a rematch when the sons of the war veterans reached military age.
Satan knew the Bible prophecies of the Last Days of the world and he knew that it must be on the horizon. He knew that the culmination of the prophetic scenario is the end of him also. The prophecies of the End of the World revolve around the Jews returning to and reestablishing the nation of Israel and the great world leader of the future, known in the Bible as the Antichrist.
But what if Satan could take action and foil God's plans? Most of the Jews were in Europe, which was also the traditional heartland of Christianity. What if he could get a strong leader with a powerful army to quickly conquer Europe and kill all of the Jews? That would foil God's plans and give him his powerful leader over what once was Christianity's European base. Along came Adolph Hitler.
Satan's plan didn't work, although it did come close. But when the war ended, he had another powerful force against Christianity. Communism enforced atheism and looked like it could well be the future of the world, which would bring an end to widespread Christianity and achieve Satan's goal. That did not work in the long run either and by the 1990s, it was the United States, a predominantly Christian country that called itself "One nation under God" that was the strongest country in the world.
But Satan never gives up. By this time, the world was logged into the world wide web as well as being covered by television and instant news. Satan managed to see to it that when the world looked toward the U.S., they did not see a great Christian country that showed them how they should be living. Instead, they saw movies with every other word beginning with F and every other scene a shootout. They saw an unbelievable crime rate, school shootings, drugs and endless decadence in the U.S. as well as Europe.
Satan isn't finished yet. He will get a great worldly leader under his control. He will have his chance to run the world his way for a while after the Christians are taken out by Jesus. But it will turn into the greatest disaster the world has ever known or ever will know, the Bible prophecies of the End of the World. But following that, his time will be finished and Jesus will directly rule the earth, making it the paradise that it was always intended to be.
The reason that Christianity spread so fast was the Roman Empire. Israel was under Roman control during the time of Jesus and the religion spread rapidly along the empire's roads and by it's postal system. Had there been a patchwork of separate countries instead of one empire, the spread would have been much slower. I believe that Satan never forgot this.
Europe became the heartland of Christianity. I believe the Reformation to have certainly been the work of God, but it also gave Satan a chance to give religion a very negative image by promoting more than a century of religious warfare between Protestants and Catholics after the Reformation.
The modern political era began with the French Revolution of 1789. There was a deep hostility to the church among the revolutionaries for this was the Age of Reason when faith was being put in the reasoning powers of human beings instead of in God. Suppose Satan could spread this hostility toward the church all across the Christian heartland?
The French Revolution did not turn out as planned. In fact, it ended up as a dictatorship under Napoleon. His forces conquered, at least for a while, almost the entirety of Europe. Was this a part of Satan's plan to destroy Christianity?
The Industrial Revolution was underway. The rural agricultural way of life was largely replaced by factories and machines. There is a very strong connection between industrialism and secularism. Farming people spend the day dealing with, and being awed by, what God has created. But while working in a factory building sorrounded by man-made machines, they can see only what man has created.
I say that it is no coincidence that secularism did not become widespread until large numbers of people were working in factories instead of on farms. Just as it is no coincidence that America's Bible Belt is in what was traditionally the most agricultural region of the country. The Theory of Evolution is a product of the industrial age and uses a mechanical factory-like process to try to explain the development of life.
Has anyone ever noticed that the Theory of Evolution was developed when the British Empire was at it's height? Could Satan, remembering the rapid spread of Christianity through the Roman Empire, have been hoping to bring evolution and secularism to the world through the British Empire?
Human beings made more and more scientific discoveries and became ever-more adept with all kinds of new technologies. What if Satan could destroy the European heartland of Christanity with a cataclysmic war like the world had never seen before? Horrible new weapons appeared and European nations had a complex tangle of alliances and pacts among themselves.
Finally, Europe was at the point where only a spark was required to set it off. In 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was visiting Serbia. A nineteen-year-old anarchist appeared with a gun and shot him. The government of Austria-Hungary was enraged. Russia had an alliance with Serbia. Germany had an alliance with Austria-hungary. France was bound to Russia by treaty, causing Germany to expect an attack on it's western border by France.
It all exploded into World War One, a war such as the world had never seen before. The war came to an end but at the Versailles Conference, where the armistice was signed, Germany was treated unfairly by the victorious allies, who insisted it had to pay the entire cost of the war. Satan must have known that this would ensure a rematch when the sons of the war veterans reached military age.
Satan knew the Bible prophecies of the Last Days of the world and he knew that it must be on the horizon. He knew that the culmination of the prophetic scenario is the end of him also. The prophecies of the End of the World revolve around the Jews returning to and reestablishing the nation of Israel and the great world leader of the future, known in the Bible as the Antichrist.
But what if Satan could take action and foil God's plans? Most of the Jews were in Europe, which was also the traditional heartland of Christianity. What if he could get a strong leader with a powerful army to quickly conquer Europe and kill all of the Jews? That would foil God's plans and give him his powerful leader over what once was Christianity's European base. Along came Adolph Hitler.
Satan's plan didn't work, although it did come close. But when the war ended, he had another powerful force against Christianity. Communism enforced atheism and looked like it could well be the future of the world, which would bring an end to widespread Christianity and achieve Satan's goal. That did not work in the long run either and by the 1990s, it was the United States, a predominantly Christian country that called itself "One nation under God" that was the strongest country in the world.
But Satan never gives up. By this time, the world was logged into the world wide web as well as being covered by television and instant news. Satan managed to see to it that when the world looked toward the U.S., they did not see a great Christian country that showed them how they should be living. Instead, they saw movies with every other word beginning with F and every other scene a shootout. They saw an unbelievable crime rate, school shootings, drugs and endless decadence in the U.S. as well as Europe.
Satan isn't finished yet. He will get a great worldly leader under his control. He will have his chance to run the world his way for a while after the Christians are taken out by Jesus. But it will turn into the greatest disaster the world has ever known or ever will know, the Bible prophecies of the End of the World. But following that, his time will be finished and Jesus will directly rule the earth, making it the paradise that it was always intended to be.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
What is Heaven?
Have you ever noticed that human beings have a relentless drive that there must be something better than what we have here? There have always been people coming up with plans for some kind of utopia on earth. The methods used range from politics to technology to religion.
If it is not coming up with a future utopia, it is the adoration of some kind of golden past. No matter how the world progresses, there are always those with a plan to make the world, or part of the world, what it really should be. No animals, as far as we can tell, have such an instinct.
The reason for this is simple. Human beings, at least in terms of spirit, were not designed for this world, it can never be "good enough" for us. We were designed to live in the presence of the God that created us, but we must go through a test by living in this world for a while. This test is both for us as individuals and to prove that the ways of God are correct and that Satan is wrong for his rebellion against God.
When Satan, who was once a high-ranking angel called Lucifer, rebelled against God to exalt himself to be at least equal with God, he got some of the angels to join him. God could have quickly and effortlessly destroyed them, but that would only prove that God was stronger than Satan. It would not necessarily prove that God's ways were absolutely right. That is where we come in as a testing ground. Evil must be allowed to exist for a short time and then Satan and his angels will be locked in Hell.
Our bodies are created for this earth but our spirits are not. That is why the Bible emphasizes that we are not to be "of the world". We are to live by the ways of God, which are completely different from the ways of the world. Since all of our memories are of the world, we do not really realize what "misfits" we are here.
We are really designed to live in Heaven, or at least our spirits are. This is a place that we cannot even imagine. It is the place that we were made for with a perfect fit. The most beautiful earthly palace would be considered as a hovel if it were in Heaven. The Book of Revelation details the twelve precious stones that the foundations of the city in Heaven, the New Jerusalem, is made of.
There will be no such thing as time. It is not so much that we will live for eternity in Heaven, it is that time will not exist. In mathematical terms, you will always be at the beginning of your "time" in Heaven, whether you have just arrived or have been there for a million years. God is always at the half-way point of his existence since he has existed for eternity past and will be with us for eternity future.
Heaven is the perfect place. That means that nothing can enter Heaven that is less than perfect. The very idea of perfection is that imperfection is utterly unacceptable. This presents an insurmountable obstacle for less-than-perfect human beings. If even a very good person entered Heaven who was less than perfect, it would render all of heaven as less then perfect.
Fortunately, this conundrum has been solved by Jesus, who was sent here by God. If a person repents and accepts Jesus as Savior (Saviour), when God judges that person, he looks not at the person, but at Jesus, since the person had accepted Jesus. Since Jesus did live a perfect life, the person is admitted to Heaven without compromising either God's Justice or Heaven's perfection.
.
Heaven is the "real" place. It is the place that we were designed for. Upon arrival, we will wonder why anyone would want to live a long life on earth and then memories of earth will quickly fade. There will be nothing we could possibly want that will not be right in front of us. Every place in Heaven will be so beautiful that we will want to spend forever right there and will not wish to move on anywhere else.
Chapter four of the Book of Revelation describes how God appears but I believe this to have been done purposely for human beings. We will most likely live by a spiritual sense that will make seeing and hearing as we know it obsolete.
In Heaven, we will settle into a timeless existence with biblical figures such as Moses and Paul as friends. There will be no sense of self in the residents of Heaven. No sense of achievement or personal quality. We will be there only by the Grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus. We did not "earn" our way there nor were capable of doing so. Our only labor (labour) will be to praise God and we will gladly spend forever doing so.
If it is not coming up with a future utopia, it is the adoration of some kind of golden past. No matter how the world progresses, there are always those with a plan to make the world, or part of the world, what it really should be. No animals, as far as we can tell, have such an instinct.
The reason for this is simple. Human beings, at least in terms of spirit, were not designed for this world, it can never be "good enough" for us. We were designed to live in the presence of the God that created us, but we must go through a test by living in this world for a while. This test is both for us as individuals and to prove that the ways of God are correct and that Satan is wrong for his rebellion against God.
When Satan, who was once a high-ranking angel called Lucifer, rebelled against God to exalt himself to be at least equal with God, he got some of the angels to join him. God could have quickly and effortlessly destroyed them, but that would only prove that God was stronger than Satan. It would not necessarily prove that God's ways were absolutely right. That is where we come in as a testing ground. Evil must be allowed to exist for a short time and then Satan and his angels will be locked in Hell.
Our bodies are created for this earth but our spirits are not. That is why the Bible emphasizes that we are not to be "of the world". We are to live by the ways of God, which are completely different from the ways of the world. Since all of our memories are of the world, we do not really realize what "misfits" we are here.
We are really designed to live in Heaven, or at least our spirits are. This is a place that we cannot even imagine. It is the place that we were made for with a perfect fit. The most beautiful earthly palace would be considered as a hovel if it were in Heaven. The Book of Revelation details the twelve precious stones that the foundations of the city in Heaven, the New Jerusalem, is made of.
There will be no such thing as time. It is not so much that we will live for eternity in Heaven, it is that time will not exist. In mathematical terms, you will always be at the beginning of your "time" in Heaven, whether you have just arrived or have been there for a million years. God is always at the half-way point of his existence since he has existed for eternity past and will be with us for eternity future.
Heaven is the perfect place. That means that nothing can enter Heaven that is less than perfect. The very idea of perfection is that imperfection is utterly unacceptable. This presents an insurmountable obstacle for less-than-perfect human beings. If even a very good person entered Heaven who was less than perfect, it would render all of heaven as less then perfect.
Fortunately, this conundrum has been solved by Jesus, who was sent here by God. If a person repents and accepts Jesus as Savior (Saviour), when God judges that person, he looks not at the person, but at Jesus, since the person had accepted Jesus. Since Jesus did live a perfect life, the person is admitted to Heaven without compromising either God's Justice or Heaven's perfection.
.
Heaven is the "real" place. It is the place that we were designed for. Upon arrival, we will wonder why anyone would want to live a long life on earth and then memories of earth will quickly fade. There will be nothing we could possibly want that will not be right in front of us. Every place in Heaven will be so beautiful that we will want to spend forever right there and will not wish to move on anywhere else.
Chapter four of the Book of Revelation describes how God appears but I believe this to have been done purposely for human beings. We will most likely live by a spiritual sense that will make seeing and hearing as we know it obsolete.
In Heaven, we will settle into a timeless existence with biblical figures such as Moses and Paul as friends. There will be no sense of self in the residents of Heaven. No sense of achievement or personal quality. We will be there only by the Grace of God and the sacrifice of Jesus. We did not "earn" our way there nor were capable of doing so. Our only labor (labour) will be to praise God and we will gladly spend forever doing so.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
The Nature of God
If you would like to read my article about perfection and the nature of God, click here http://www.markmeeknature.blogspot.com/
After you read that, if you have any doubt that God must exist, please read my creation blog, www.markmeekcreation.blogspot.com
After you read that, if you have any doubt that God must exist, please read my creation blog, www.markmeekcreation.blogspot.com
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