Monthly Archives: December 2005

Standards of Truth and Righteousness

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I continue to be befuddled by those who would claim that absolute truth does not and cannot exist. I am also somewhat bemused by this because I find such individuals cannot remain true to their own arguments and philosophies. Their arguments claim that it is impossible to know truth because every determination of what is true is tainted and colored by the interpretation of that truth and by one’s own experiences, thus leading to many different understandings of what that truth actually says and means. Naturally, the more complicated the concept, the greater the deviation in understanding that truth (though I would posit that a complex truth is really actually made up of many smaller, individual truths, which easily understood separately, may combine to create a concept whose relationship between the smaller truths may be more difficult to observe and determine, yet not negating the truth of either the smaller truths or that of the composite truth).

Now, I have also talked with non-absolutists (as I will refer to them here) who have said that such-and-such act is or was wrong or evil. My response then becomes, Well, how do you do know? By what standard do you compare such an act to determine its level of good or evil, or its degree of rightness or wrongness? For anything to be considered in terms of morality (and the need to conceive of the world in such terms is obvious and necessary and inherent in all men, as evidenced by the natural inclination to establish rules and laws in order to keep the peace), there must be an absolute standard by which that morality can be measured. In the world of weights and measures, for instance, there are standards for all units — an object measured out to be the standard for the gram, or the liter, or the centimeter, etc. All all larger units are based upon these smaller, more basic standards so that measurement around the world may be consistent and uniform. It is the same with truth and morality. The rub seems to come in because these are more abstract concepts, not observable through any of the five senses. Yet the world functions in terms of morality, as it must in order to prevent its descent into anarachy and chaos.

So, there must be some standard for truth that is knowable and attainable and that can be standardized across the entire population. Men have tried using rationality as a basis for determining truth, and ultimately they are able only to return to the self as a standard, since that is the very origin of the rational mind, themselves a shifting morass of thoughts, ideas, emotions, and opinions. It should be obvious that this is not an ideal reference point due to that very continuous shift. Therefore, the standard of truth must lie elsewhere.

Science itself is not an adequate standard of truth. It is an ever-changing source of knowledge as its observations become more acute and the knowledge gleaned from its studied more comprehensive. And science addresses only those things that are directly observable; there is no ability for it to address the truth of good and evil, moral and immoral, those concepts that are often most necessary for the daily exercise of living. Therefore, the standard of truth must lie elsewhere.

Creation is not equipped to answer the truth of good and evil, to establish standards of moral and immoral, much for the same reasons as science cannot. Creation is observable and supplies only those truths that we can see, even though we may not be able to understand them fully. It has no voice to speak to the abstract, to the intellectual knowledge that governs the behavior of men. Therefore, the standard of truth must lie elsewhere.

So, the standard for truth would most likely belong to a sentient being, one gifted with a mind to fully know the secrets, both of the universe and of the ways of mankind, with a vision of the whole so complete that it could speak the knowledge into the hearts and minds of men, teaching them how they should live so that they may act with wisdom and live at peace with each other. Such an individual cannot be found among men, creatures who by their very definition are confined to and limited by the world they inhabit. Only an individual who is outside of the known universe, yet lives within it so as to interact with it, would be able to hold the entirety of it within their mind and be able to know it so completely as to speak the truth into it that would give men a standard by which they could govern their lives. This being would have to be a personal being, for no other would be able to establish the relationship with mankind to communicate the truth by which men may live.

There is One who claims to be all this and more, and who may be determined, through the testing of His precepts, to be the absolute standard of all truth. He is wise and all-knowing, greater than all existence, personal and knowable. His words are the truth and the way of life. His name is Jehovah.

Living On the Fringes

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It is the extremists of any major religion that end up giving the whole a bad reputation. Bad news travels more quickly than good news does, and poor behavior is more easily remembered and available to memory than is good behavior. So what typically ends up happening is that the whole organization gets placed under the banner of those who make the most noise, even though they are not necessarily a representative sample of that population. Christians are often perceived as hateful, unforgiving bigots because there are many who are exactly that. Note, however, that I did not say ‘majority’ or ‘most’ because it has been my own experience that, in general, those who call themselves Christian do strive to live up to the compassionate, forgiving ideals of the Bible and of Christ’s teachings. The same goes, as I understand it, for those of the Muslim faith. The vast majority are a peace-loving people, and those who perform heinous acts of murder and bombing are the fringe extremists, just as are those Christians who bomb abortion clinics, twisting the ideals of their religion into a perverted distortion of the actual. In the process they give the entire faith a black eye, and the world sees the whole as being just like the extremists.

So, the question becomes then, what underlies these fringe, extreme groups? What drives them to justify horrible acts and behaviors that are counter to the basic tenets of belief that define the faith they claim to espouse? Ultimately, I can only conclude that they are flawed people, just like the rest of us, who, whether through willful disobedience or through genuine ignorance, misunderstand the teachings of their religious system in such a way as to justify hatred and murder. They are the people who lack the personal discipline to control their emotional impulses, who act on their base desires, rather than striving to live up to a higher ideal of morality. They are the people who pick and choose which parts of their canon to abide by, rather than understanding that the bits they follow are parts of a whole and cannot be separated from it without ending up, by definition, with a completely different set of beliefs. They are the people who were already angry and bitter, who found a system of belief that was attractive to them and fit at least somewhat with their own preconceived notions of how the world should operate. They are the people who then twisted the system of belief to fit their own ideals, rather then reshaping their own ideals to fit the system. In so doing they found justification and an outlet for the violence already in their hearts, and by acting upon that violence, then sullied the name and reputation of the group they claimed to be a part of. Christians who bomb abortion clinics or express hatred, bigotry, and superiority to those not like them are Christian only in name; they are not Christian in actuality because anyone who truly understands the teachings of the Bible would not perform the sorts of behaviors that these extremists tend toward. Similarly, Muslims who fly planes into buildings and strap bombs to themselves and blow up a group of children, and who decapitate innocent victims are Muslim in name only; they do not represent the Muslim faith at large or the teaching of the Qu’ran and do more harm to people of that faith than good. These extremists cannot and should not be called Christian or Muslim, even though they call themselves that. They should be called murderers and hatemongers and should be separated, both in name and in deed, from the whole of the groups that they claim to be part of. Yet, perhaps because it is convenient to do so, they continue to be categorized into the group by the population at large, thereby stereotyping the whole by the deeds of the few. Unfair? You bet. But stereotyping is easy and convenient, even if it is at times unfair and makes it harder for those with the true ideals of their beliefs to communicate them. It is a challenge, no doubt, and that is why unity of the whole is necessary in order to overcome the misdeeds of the few.

Disbelief At Differing Conclusions

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One of the things that I think I find most irritating is when people make the assumption that, just because you hold a different viewpoint than them, you 1) must be mis- or underinformed; 2) must be spouting the standard ‘party’ line; and 3) must be unable to think for yourself, able only to blindly accept and regurgitate the viewpoint you’ve been taught all your life, since anyone who can and does think for themself would just _have_ to come to the same conclusion they hold. There is no room in these people’s minds that someone could look at the same evidence they have seen, experience the same events, or look at the same issues and still come to a _different_ conclusion about all those things. The same people who tell you to use your head and _think_ for a change are the same people who seem incapable of doing so themselves, because surely if they were to actually think about _this_ topic long enough, they would realize that people who think do often come up with different conclusions.

I see this phenomenon all the time in the world of politics and in the world of religion. One party touts their viewpoint and accuses the other party of being blind and of not thinking, so sure are they that if the other party were to think, they would have no choice but to embrace their own viewpoint. (How’s _that_ for a contradiction in terms, since so many of these people also do not believe in absolute truth?) Christians are continually accused of this by their antagonists. Part of this is because a lot of Christians _don’t_ think, _don’t_ exercise critical analysis, _do_ blindly accept answers they have never personally investigated. But part of this is simply unbelievers being unable to entertain the idea that anyone intelligent could possibly ever disagree with them. The latter we can do nothing about, but the former is something that anyone and everyone can continually work on. This is part of why I, personally, write, since the feedback I receive continually exposes me to new ideas and new questions. I, for one, believe that both faith and critical thinking _can_ co-exist, a notion at which many unbelievers scoff. Faith, by itself, can be just as blinding as rationality left to its own ends. I have seen people argue with incontrovertible scientific evidence, simply on the basis of their ‘faith’ (e.g. the Earth is flat, not round). Likewise, there are supernatural occurences that happen on a daily basis all around the world that science and rationality are wont to explain (e.g. keys that float through midair in someone’s home). This is why I believe that God asks us to first believe on Him, in faith, then provides us with further information, both about Himself and about this world around us and tells us that we should explore His creation.

Faith, without rationality, is dead; likewise, rationality, without faith, provides only half the answer. Only when the two meet and supplement one another can balance be found.

Lust: Defining It, Understanding It

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Ben “asks”:http://scatteredwords.com/2005/12/what-is-lust/ another very good question:

bq. Everyone decries it, but no one really explains. I spent some time today trying to find someone, somewhere on line who had a good handle on what it is. Obsessive sexual desire, or just sexual desire? To hear some, you’d think the latter, but I can’t believe that. The investigation continues.

The KJV uses the word ‘lust “53 times”:http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/index.php?search=lust&searchtype=all&version1=9&spanbegin=1&spanend=73, where the NIV uses it only “31 times”:http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=lust&version1=31&searchtype=all&limit=none&wholewordsonly=no, usually in a sexual context. Probably the most accurate definition of ‘lust’ is ‘any selfish “desire”:http://weblog.burningbird.net/, particularly one that interferes with a right relationship with God and that dominates the entire individual such that he or she leans in an obsessive and worshipful manner toward attaining said desire.’ There is nothing wrong with temptation, _per se_, since all of life is comprised of temptation. But temptation crosses over into lust when we allow ourselves to succumb to it, when we ruminate on that desire and obsess over it. Such obsession controls us, effectively ruling over us because it dominates our minds and our behaviors, as we fantasize about having it, about what we would do with it, about how we would go about acquiring it. This level of obsession then interferes with any pursuit of God by taking our attention away from Him.

The definition of ‘lust’ has narrowed over the years because few things cause such obsession as sexual gratification. I can lust over a car to the point where it is all I think about and such that it controls my behavior so that the only things I do are focused completely on acquiring said vehicle. But more and more our society is driven by sexual gratification first and foremost, and so when we say that someone has committed the sin of lust, we generally think of the sexual application of the term.

To answer Ben’s question more specifically, lust is _not_ just sexual desire, for sexual desire is natural and part of how God created us. Lust arises out of an obsessive sexual desire that is purely selfish and dishonoring, both to God and the object of the desire. In the instance of sexual relations, for instance, a man lusts after a woman when his only thought is how to use her for his own pleasure and enjoyment, with little care given to her. True romantic love, on the other hand, involves the mutual sexual gratification of both lovers, which is, in itself, glorifying to God. (Note: it should not have to be said that only monogamous, heterosexual intercourse between a man and woman married to one other is pleasing to God.) Ben, I think the reason why so few explain lust is because few people really understand it. Few Christians today, especially, consider it a ‘pure’ topic to think about, let alone discuss, and so it leaves a gap in our teaching and training that really ought to be filled.

Why I Don’t Do New Year’s Resolutions

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I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I never have, and I probably never will. To some people this might be considered heresy, but those are often the same people who make their resolutions and then never keep them.

I’ve honestly never seen the sense in setting fresh goals for each new year. Maybe this is because I always have long-term and short-term goals set already, things that I want to get done and things that need to get done, complete with deadlines (where applicable) and to-do lists to accomplish those goals. I’ve always been pretty proactive at getting things done. I’m a list-maker, a go-getter, a take-the-bull-by-the-horns kind of guy. I hate waiting for things to ‘just happen’ around me, preferring instead to take the initiative and set things in motion myself. For one thing, this gets things done more quickly, and for another, it allows me more control than it would were I to wait on someone or something else. (This is also a big reason why I love being in management.)

I don’t know all the reasons why people set New Year’s resolutions. Maybe it’s because not everyone is self-motivated and resolutions are the only way to get the ball rolling. Maybe because it’s tradition. Maybe it’s because it sounds good and garners attention. I’m sure these and many others are factors in why people set resolutions. I’ve just never seen a good reason to set resolutions for myself when I already have some very tangible goals for the coming days, weeks, months, and years. Some of them are needs, and some are simply wants. But my list is already written and undergoes continual review and revision.

This coming year has more goals than is normal for me, but that goes with buying a house and land, I think. There is lots to accomplish this year, and I’m looking forward to the challenge. Resolutions? Who needs ‘em? I already have more than enough on my plate.

Pointless Speculation, Revisited

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bq. What about questioning the existence of God, the legitimacy of the Bible, whether or not one should be living to bring glory to God? Are these also questions one should speculativly ask? “#”:http://open-dialogue.com/blog/index.php/archives/69#comment-180

Absolutely. I think everyone asks these questions at some point in their life, and probably more than once. Growing up I was raised in a particular way of belief. As a teenager I took that belief system for granted. It wasn’t until I got to college that my belief system was challenged, both by practical living and by my academics. I asked myself a lot of difficult questions — does God really exist? what if He really doesn’t, what then? what would it mean for my life now and in the future if we really are all alone in this universe? could evolution be true? could Christians be wrong? how do we know the Bible is true? how do we know that Christianity is the one, true faith? is God really good? why couldn’t God have created man without the ability to sin? if God knew man was going to sin, why did He create him anyway? what was the point of doing all this? did God need company? I asked myself all these questions and so many more. And I didn’t ask them once or even twice. I ran through them many, many times over the years. I conducted heavy research, talked to a lot of different people, wept and cried and wrestled with the questions and the answers. I was no less a Christian, even though there were points when my faith flagged, even though there were times when I really thought maybe Christianity was a bunch of garbage and lies and myths.

Ultimately, though, I came back to Christianity as the only complete answer for everything. Part of what swayed me was the general revelation of the world around me — I found it impossible to believe that the level of complexity this world, this universe exhibits could come about by some cosmic accident, even one that took billions of years. Over the years I have systematically answered all of these questions for myself. In the process I have made my belief system my own and become more convinced than ever. It does not mean, however, that I am opposed to listening to new viewpoints and contemplating them for a time. But what it does mean is that I subject every viewpoint to the same scrutiny that I ran my own belief system through. What has happened is that every other viewpoint has folded up beneath that level of questioning, leaving my own belief system as the only one able to answer every question and to answer it well.

All this to say one thing — yes, I believe that these are all questions that one can speculatively ask. I believe that it is expected that we should ask them, that it is good and healthy to do so. Not everyone will arrive at the same answers, of course, and many who arrive at different answers will criticize and belittle those who come to different ones. But the process of searching out your own worldview is important, and I do not think that there is any question that is off-limits. Ask the questions, find the answers. Through the process everyone will have the opportunity to choose or reject God. Through the process He will get all the glory.

Postmodernism in Politics

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There is no clear-cut definition for postmodernism, but it does seem to encompass two general facets of philosophy — 1) that all ‘truth’ is relative to the individual, that it is, essentially, whatever you make of it, and 2) a strong focus on relationship, both to people and to the world and nature in general. Listening to another political talk-show on the way back from New York last night, a connection clicked into place.

Politicians today are expert post-modernists in action. To them all truth is relative, subject to the whims of whoever is strong enough to sculpt it and make their message heard to the populace. Every single event is open for interpretation, and so the focus is not on finding out what happened but on putting a spin on the event that provides an advantage to one’s own party/organization/lobby group, etc. The only real truth in politics is power — how to attain it, and how to keep it. All else is relative to that. There is no such thing as truth or lies — only political advantage gained from remaking events and history so that they favor oneself. There is no such thing as good or evil — only people who serve as pawns to cast the politician in a favorable light. There are no good or bad ethics — except where it serves the politician to point out one’s own good ethics and the poor ethics of one’s opponent. Popularity is power, and politicians will do anything to gain that power and maintain it, whatever the cost. There is no concern for the people supposedly being served. There is only concern for one’s own political status.

This is the reason why we see so much mud-slinging on the political front. Since the truth does not matter, the only important thing is to make sure that when the dust settles, your opponent looks worse than you do. This is why so much of the information coming from Washington and other government sources is always cast with so much doubt — who can believe anything that comes from a politician when the only important thing to them is twisting the facts to cast themselves in the best possible light? This is why so many people are so cynical about politicians — they know they are being manipulated, and so the only thing they can hope to do is to choose the ‘best’ of all the manipulators. This is why so few politicians actually have plans for governing, and why those that do have plans cannot gain the cooperation to get them implemented — everyone is too busy playing the game of telling events as they want them to appear to actually make good and wise laws. This is the game that is played with our government and with our country. This is why we always feel have to choose the lesser of all evils when election day rolls around again. Truth is whatever the politicians can make of it for their own advantage, only that advantage has left the rest of us with the messes they don’t want to admit to because it would sully their reputations and whatever political power they have gained.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to isolate this phenomenon to just one political party or another — they are all guilty of post-modernistic politics. There are notable exceptions on both sides, of course, and we can only hope that those who approach politics with genuine honesty and integrity can have some influence on the rest. I fear, though, that it is a losing battle, that all politicians will ultimately end up being dirty, rotten liars, that ultimately our nation will fall because our leaders are too busy twisting the facts to recognize real danger when it rears its ugly head. The irony of all this is that in a democratic society such as ours, we are the ones who give the politicians power. We are the ones who keep electing the same liars and manipulators to office, the ones who twist facts and events to suit their purposes. What is more frustrating is that we can elect politicians who seem honest, only to find out they are no better than their counterparts. The world of politics today is fraught with dishonest men, and finding the honest ones is becoming harder and harder to do.

This is why I believe we need more Christians in politics, not to push their religious agendas, but to restore a measure of honesty and integrity to the positions of power that guide our nation. It’s not an easy job, but I have a deep respect for those few who can gain those seats, maintain their integrity, and wield power with wisdom, despite the overwhelming force of dishonesty that they face. Pray for our leaders on a regular basis. It’s a tough job they choose, and it is made at least somewhat easier by the support of people who care about bringing politics to a place of truth and integrity.

The Appeal of Gore

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Two new movies hitting theatres soon — “Wolf Creek”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416315/ and “Hostel”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450278/ — contain graphic displays of violence, torture, serial murder, and dismemberment. _Hostel_ touts the factoid that paramedics were required at the preview due to the extreme reactions of some of those in attendance.

I find that I must shake my head in dismay and disbelief. What exactly is the “appeal”:http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=columns&vol=chris_bellamy2&article=009 of these sorts of flicks? Why do hordes of people surge to the theatres to watch gratuitous displays of blood, guts, and other disgusting acts of violence? The best answer I have ever been able to come up with is that it is something like a roller coaster — it gives a thrill of fear and excitement that gets the blood pumping, adrenaline rushing, leaving you with a headrush and a high that feels good, makes you feel alive. These movies act on natural fears, and we are morbidly fascinated with horror.

It titilates the evil side of humanity, appeals to that innate darkness. We are repelled and sickened, while at the same time we find it somehow appealing. Hence, the flocking to the box office and the sky-high sales of such movies.

I can’t stand watching those kinds of movies. They touch darker parts of my mind that I would just as soon keep tucked safely away. I hate the way watching those kind of movies disrupts my psyche and my sleep for several nights afterward. I wish to avoid becoming desensitized to that sort of violence. I simply see no reason to subject myself to something that, so far as I can tell, has no benefits whatsoever. It fails to qualify even as mere entertainment.

I have never understood why anyone would want to watch blood, guts, and gore fly around the screen. If there are any good reasons why anyone, let alone Christians, should watch these kinds of films, I fail to see them.

Pointless Speculation

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When does “speculation become pointless?”:http://open-dialogue.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1526#1526 Just how many times can one ask, ‘What if…?’ before one ends up beating a dead horse? There are a lot of questions asked within the realm of Christianity and theology, a lot of arguments and discussions that can be viewed as pointless because the answers can never be fully known, because many of the conclusions are left to the individual’s opinion and discretion, because the discussion ends up only spinning its wheel, cycling again and again through the same arguments and logic. Are these questions and discussions then, in and of themselves, pointless? I would say, Not necessarily.

The backbone of most theological questions within Christianity rests upon the assumption that God exists, that He is active in the lives of His image-bearers, that we are in need of His salvation, that His Son provided the means to obtain that salvation, and that we only need accept that gift in order to permanently secure our place in Heaven in eternity to come. Everything else is, to some extent, up for discussion once you have accepted these foundational principles. I believe that God expects His children to be curious about everything, to ask questions, even if those questions have no answers right now. I think it hurts nothing at all to entertain speculative discussion, so long as that undertaking does not result in anger, hatred, and bitterness. It is all too easy to formulate an opinion about something and then hold to that opinion so strongly as to consider it proven truth.

The point of speculative discussion is, I believe, to ferret out falsehoods, as much as possible, and replace them with Biblical truths. God has provided for us everything that we NEED to know through the medium of the Bible — everything that we need in order to know Him, to enter into a relationship with Him, to live a righteous and moral life that is pleasing to Him. What He doesn’t tell us or leaves unclear is, therefore, less important, though no less open to our searching. I believe that it pleases Him when we entertain those questions that have no answers because it means that His image-bearers are exercising the image of God by thinking critically, using creativity, and discovering the vast intricacies and mysteries of this world, this universe in which He placed us. But I believe that it displeases and saddens Him when this exercise of His image results in conflict with each other and with Him.

So, ask your questions, entertain your ‘pointless’ discussions, but bear in mind that all this should bring glory to God and should be done with the end of learning more about this God we serve and to deepen and make richer the fellowship of the Body of Christ.

Pop vs. Classic

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During my commute home from work the other night, a song came on the radio that caught my attention after a minute or two. It was something in the pop rock genre, but what stood out to me about it was the fact that for the duration of almost the entire song, it never left the chord on which it began. The singer put some variation into his voice — but not much. The instrumentals behind him lent a little bit of interest to the song — but not much. Perhaps the most interesting thing about the whole song was the percussion — but not by much.

I kept waiting for the tune to progress to the next chord, to throw in a suspension, to modulate, to do — something. And it never did. The chorus did actually progress through the standard I, IV, V chords, but even those were pretty bland and were so covered up as to be almost unnoticeable. And while this is an extreme example of rock, it does put into sharp relief some of the things about popular music that I dislike.

I’ve been a musician for most of my life, playing piano since the 1st grade, and adding several other instruments to my repetoire over the years. I’ve played music by many of the greats — Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, and many, many others. The music I grew up playing and listening to had a level of interest, complexity, technical difficulty, and artistry that you just can’t find today. Granted, there is a lot of popular music that I enjoy listening to, but if given a choice, I will opt for the classic works by the great composers of yesterday. There is simply a richness and depth to their work that I admire and that I find lacking in so many of today’s supposed ‘artists’. The creativity of the great composers is why I will pick classic over pop every single time.