Freedom. Pro-Choice. Equal rights.
These are the terms our society embraces. Clearly we have freedom living in a democratic-republic. Still, freedom comes with responsibility and exceptions. One might say that person has free speech, but that freedom ceases when it jeopardizes the safety and well being of others in the pursuit of their own rights. For example, when someone exercises their free speech in a crowded theater by yelling fire when there is no fire; at that point, the person is criminally responsible for the panic and injuries resulting from the stampede.
Our freedoms do have limitations. I often wonder why abortion isn’t treated the same way as the illustration above. It is already considered—legally—double-homicide when an unborn baby is killed as a result of murder against the pregnant mother, and most scientists acknowledge the humanity of the unborn, despite arguments of viability, cognition, and such. It would seem that we have a moral double standard here. Hmmm!
My point in this blog is actually not to argue against abortion, or any other issue I might bring up, based on a legal or constitutional platform. Rather, I want to beg a rather important question: Are some of the freedoms our culture espouses to actually right? Regardless of having these freedoms (real or perceived), are they correct?
With all the rhetoric of freedom and equality and tolerance out there right now, the practitioners of what might be seen as morally questionable behavior by Christianity and other faiths or worldviews, seem to be preoccupied with the securing a place at the table over and above considering if such views are actually moral.
In a postmodern and often relativistic society, moral correctness has become an individual choice, subject only to the whims and notions of a person’s worldview, regardless of how that worldview is informed. I suspect that much of this subjectivism is fed by hedonism: Does it feel right or good?
Ah! Feelings… Perhaps emotion plays a bigger role in the issue than anything else. For example, homosexuality is a hot button issue. There are some who claim a bio-chemical cause to homosexuality, and maybe there is. It still doesn’t answer whether it’s right or not. The claimants might argue that it feels fight, or that they’ve always felt different & attracted to the opposite sex; therefore, it must by natural or as God designed it. This reasoning is based mostly on emotion and not on Scripture (though there are those who attempt to translate Scripture to support their views on homosexuality and other sins) or science.
So, we have a culture that promotes freedom based on emotional decision making and not the deeper truths of correctness. What would happen if people’s questioning and investigations led them to ask not what feels good, sounds good, or makes sense subjectively, and started asking “what is right?”.
Now, I must confess that my goal is not to target the big ticket sins that many Christians often do, like homosexuality and abortion, but these are perhaps the two biggest and best examples for my point. Rather, my goal is declare that the question of moral correctness is also relevant to each one of us on a personal scale as well. Look at me for example… I love food and am made fat for it. I am a confessed glutton. I have abused a good and natural gift of God and an essential freedom. I am just as culpable for my sin as anyone else, despite the media notoriety.
Sin is rooted in pride and self-autonomy to begin with, so it’s actually not surprising that people would substantiate their sins by leaning on emotion, feelings, or limited information. My goal is not to target the well known or the little sins of any one person or group. Rather, I simply hope to encourage everyone to consider not the freedom you have to do or choose things, but whether those things are objectively right, regardless of what it is. Blessings.
-Pastor Paddy
Thursday, March 27, 2008
A Quick Thought on Atheist Attacks on Christianity
In my last blog I promoted a book by Lee Strobel that provides a well developed apologetic for Christians, especially in light of recent atheistic counter-claims to orthodox Christianity. This blog is a brief continuation on that theme.
In his book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins says, “Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate… Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.”
Wow! Faith is a mental illness and religion is a danger!
Now, we must define the terms here. You and I might define faith and religion separately. The Bible never said that Christians “live by religion”. But Dawkins obviously equates the two, whereas we would perhaps define religion as set of practices or a platform for faith expression. But faith itself is a deeper belief whereby we place our full confidence, despite the known and unknown. Dawkins himself is making a faith statement when he says that religion and faith are world evils. Apparently, he really believes this and so he is placing his full confidence in his worldview.
I believe that Dawkins’ real problem is with religion and religious structure, and not with “having faith”. Religious organizations, like any human system, will find avenues for corruption, so long as humans remain human. Unfortunately, when a few bad apples enter the religious basket, the whole lot seems to spoil for many people on the outside.
Let me argue then that the root of the problem is not religion (or faith) but fallen human tendencies, which unfortunately use religion as the platform for sin expression. And, the fallen ideologies that Dawkins sees as a function of faith and religion (rather than a disease to these), are not isolated to faith. In fact, many of the world’s most atrocious systems and philosophies have been secular, not religious. Was Carl Marx a devout religious man? Were the communist dictators he inspired men of faith? No. And what of Hitler, Pol Pot, and many others? Religion is not the issue… Sin will find expression in any human system.
Dawkins fails to recognize that it was Christians who risked their lives to care for people during the plagues of Europe. It is—even today—the Christian missionary who risks life and limb to bring the grace and goodness of God, often through acts of compassion, in the darkest parts of the planet. These acts of mercy and care are unarguably not evil, dangerous, or of impaired mental faculty.
So, have faith. You can rest assured that your faith is not an evil, and is only a danger to darkness. God bless.
-Pastor Paddy
In his book, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins says, “Faith is one of the world’s great evils, comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate… Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness.”
Wow! Faith is a mental illness and religion is a danger!
Now, we must define the terms here. You and I might define faith and religion separately. The Bible never said that Christians “live by religion”. But Dawkins obviously equates the two, whereas we would perhaps define religion as set of practices or a platform for faith expression. But faith itself is a deeper belief whereby we place our full confidence, despite the known and unknown. Dawkins himself is making a faith statement when he says that religion and faith are world evils. Apparently, he really believes this and so he is placing his full confidence in his worldview.
I believe that Dawkins’ real problem is with religion and religious structure, and not with “having faith”. Religious organizations, like any human system, will find avenues for corruption, so long as humans remain human. Unfortunately, when a few bad apples enter the religious basket, the whole lot seems to spoil for many people on the outside.
Let me argue then that the root of the problem is not religion (or faith) but fallen human tendencies, which unfortunately use religion as the platform for sin expression. And, the fallen ideologies that Dawkins sees as a function of faith and religion (rather than a disease to these), are not isolated to faith. In fact, many of the world’s most atrocious systems and philosophies have been secular, not religious. Was Carl Marx a devout religious man? Were the communist dictators he inspired men of faith? No. And what of Hitler, Pol Pot, and many others? Religion is not the issue… Sin will find expression in any human system.
Dawkins fails to recognize that it was Christians who risked their lives to care for people during the plagues of Europe. It is—even today—the Christian missionary who risks life and limb to bring the grace and goodness of God, often through acts of compassion, in the darkest parts of the planet. These acts of mercy and care are unarguably not evil, dangerous, or of impaired mental faculty.
So, have faith. You can rest assured that your faith is not an evil, and is only a danger to darkness. God bless.
-Pastor Paddy
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Is there an eternal soul?
A recent editorial in the LA Times by a mathematician claimed that modern science has proven beyond any real doubt that there is nothing eternal inherent within humans – no eternal soul. Of course, the first question that should arise for all of us is whether science is even equipped to tell us if we have an eternal soul. But let me suggest that the answer to that question really doesn’t matter. In fact, I suspect that he is correct. And if he is, then the choice for the human race is quite simple and quite stark. You see, most of the other religious alternatives, other than the monotheist religions and atheism, depend on an independent existence of the human soul, in order that they might migrate to the next life. But Judaism and Christianity in particular reject this concept. Rather they tell us that humans were created by God as a part of this universe. That should lead us to expect that we would be prey to the same second law of thermodynamics as anything else – and that would mean that eternity is no more possible for us than it is for this universe. But the Bible doesn’t stop there. Rather, we are told that it is God Himself, who exists outside of this universe and is therefore not subject to its laws, who will bring us back to life again. Now the Bible doesn’t say how He is going to do that – and I suspect that if it did we wouldn’t understand it anyway. For my money, Dr. John Polkinghorne may have the best answer, but the real point is that God is the one who will accomplish our resurrection. But is that more than just a hollow promise? It might be except for one thing – Easter! God raised Jesus from the dead with a new body but the same person. And He is going to do the same for you and I. Or as the Bible says, Jesus is the “firstfruits” of the resurrection from the dead. So, this Easter when the preacher says, “The Lord, He is risen,” you can give back the traditional response with a new sense of joy: “He is risen indeed!” And perhaps, under your breath, you can also repeat, “And so, too, will I be!” Happy Easter!
Pastor Ken
Pastor Ken
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