Sunday, March 30, 2008

Myths

A few days ago, I talked about Hinduism. I was going to talk about Buddhism next, but there's really no point. Buddhism is merely another step in Hinduism. It came from the other religion in a way not entirely unlike Christianity coming from Judaism. It's the completion of an earlier religion. However, since Hinduism is problematic anyway, Buddhism has no foundation.

So next was going to be Islam, but that will be saved for later. For now: how do we know that the gods of various ancient civilizations weren't the right ones? These are what we refer to as "myths." Most cultures had some kind of god, all had some kind of creation story. Also, all that I have ever heard have possessed two major flaws.

1. The world existed as it was created.

If an egg hatched and out came the world (as one African culture believed), then something already existed before the world. Where did it come from? What is this egg that the earth hatched from? On a similar note, their beliefs conflicted strongly with what we know now. If the world were a flat disc resting on the backs of five elephants who stand on a giant turtle, then something is wrong somewhere.

(However, to this I will add one thing: in the Middle Ages it was commonly believed by Christians that the earth was the center of the universe, and the sun orbited around it. This is not a part of Christian belief, however, and was added later. Therefore the second point is not necessarily accurate. These ideas could have come along later and we just don't know.)

2. Every aspect of the world is ruled over by a different god

There's a problem here as well. A god is an ultimate power that rules everything. This means that the various little gods can't be gods. Some cultures solve this by refering to them instead as "spirits," and by having a "great spirit." I'm using Native American terms, but the same idea is in several other religions. However, this leads us to the original problem: where did the world come from? There has to be a god, not merely spirits. Spirits can't create a universe--that takes a god.

So upcoming is the largest of the challenges: Judasim, Islam and Christianity. The three largest religions in the world.

Mitchell

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Hinduism


I was going to post this yesterday, but I never finished it. Instead, I ended up looking at expensive guitars. I want this one. I don't know if I'll get it or not. What do you think--is it worth getting?




Basically, my next task, in order to show which religion is correct, is to go over all major religions and analyze them. I'm going to begin with Hinduism, because it's the easiest.
Hinduism has never been standardized. It's basically a term that describes a very large collection of religions. It generally contains at least one god, and more often hundreds. The atheistic aspect of it, of course, doesn't work because there must be a god. However, the theistic part has a problem too.
Like I said above, Hinduism has no standard belief. One of their traditional stories is as follows:
Five blind men are standing in an empty courtyard. As they stand here, an elephant is brought in. They here it, and decide to figure out what it is. One feels the tusk. He says, "it is like a spear." The next feels its tail. "No, it is like a rope," he says. The third feels its leg. "You're both wrong," he says. "It is like a tree." Then the next feels its ear. "It's like a fan," he said. Finally, the fifth feels its side. "You're all wrong," he says. "It's like a wall."
All were, to an extent, correct. But they only felt a part of the elephant. In this way, according to Hinduism, everyone is right but no one is completely right. But there's a problem with this.
Hinduism itself, because of its non-solid nature, often is cantradicted by the beliefs of two different Hindus. For example, one may believe that there are no gods, and another believes in two hundred different ones. How can both be right? The two cannot exist simultaneously.
So basically, Hinduism is a collection of mysticism that no one really understands. It's not nearly organized or coherent enough to bother applying much logic to. If you (the reader) happen to be a Hindu and I have drastically misrepresented your religion, let me know. This, however, is Hinduism to the best of my knowledge.
Mitchell

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Cause and Effect

One of the more important aspects of logic is the idea of cause and effect.* In case you don't know, cause and effect is when one thing causes another to occur. For example, if I type the letter E on my keyboard, an E appears on the screen. If I play an E on my (musical) keyboard, the resulting sound will be the E note.

However, there's more to cause and effect than is commonly realized. Basically, it proves the existence of a god. Not necessarily any specific god, but simply that there must be a creator. It does that in this way:

In the above example, I press an E on my keyboard, and so it appears on the screen. Pressing the E is the cause. However, I pressed the E for a reason. This means that the cause had a cause of its own. For example, I want to finish the word "the." Why do I want to write that word? Well, because it's part of a sentence I want to finish, which is part of a paragraph, which is part of a chapter, which is part of a book that I want to finish. So why do I want to write the book?

This can keeping going further and further back, all the way to the beginning of time. This is the clue: "the beginning of time." All of reality had to have a cause. That means something had to intervene in the middle of all the emptiness in order to cause the world to exist. Several qualifications are required to do this.

1. that thing must have existed perpetually, therefore having no cause.

2. that thing must be powerful enough to be a cause

Coincidentally, these happen to be two important attributes of a god. So there must be a god. The question is, what god? Is it possible for us to begin to grasp this god, or does our perception make sense?

More on that tomorrow,
Mitchell


*If I get "effect" and "affect" mixed up, I apologize. Just go ahead and comment on it so that I can be publicly embarrassed.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Happiness

Have you ever wondered how to be happy? Here's the answer:

How happy are those whose way is blameless, who live according to the law of the LORD!
Happy are those who keep His decrees and seek Him with all their heart.
They do nothing wrong; they follow His ways.
You have commanded that Your precepts be diligently kept.
If only my ways were committed to keeping Your statutes!
Then I would not be ashamed when I think about all Your commands.
I will praise You with a sincere heart when I learn Your righteous judgments.
I will keep Your statutes; never abandon me

These are the first eight verses of Psalm 119 (if you don't believe me, look it up. This is from the Holman CSB, in case you were wondering). I've read Psalm 119 several times before, mostly because I wanted to know what the longest chapter in the Bible had to say. However, I've never really read it very closesly.

This first eight verses speak massively beyond what they sound like at first. It tells us everything that everyone has always wanted to know. It gives us the key to happiness. Look at the first verse. "How happy are those whose way is blameless, who live according to the law of the LORD."

How happy. Do you want to be happy? Become blameless. Follow God. Do what He says. That's all there is to it.

When I first read this, I made a realization: life is a thing that matters. The number of people who question this fact is small, I think, compared with those who don't. I've never questioned it, but these verses made me realize how true it is.

If God has given us an entire book--or rather, an anthology of 66 books--on how to be happy, and how to live well, then life matters.

And there's yet another fact to be learned from this: it is vital to study the Bible. It is absolutely vital a relevant life on earth. The more you study God's Word, the better your life will become.

That's all I have to say,
Mitchell

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Traffic Laws

A lot of things in the church today can be illustrated by various traffic laws.

1. Legalism

Legalism is like this: imagine that you are driving along the road. You come to a stop sign. You come to a complete stop, look both ways, and then go. You don't, however, wait for the other cars to get out of the way. That's legalism: following a set of rules to the letter, but forgetting their actual purpose.

2. Hypocrisy

Now, you are driving on a stretch of road where the speed limit is sixty mph. You decide, instead to drive at sixty-five. This is illegal, of course. A few minutes later, a car passes you, driving at seventy mph. So you begin to complain loudly to anyone who will listen about how that person who passed you is a horrible law-breaker. Although you were speeding too, he was going even further above the speed limit.

I thought of others also, but these are the two clearest illustrations. So this is what I wrote.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Thursday, March 13, 2008

what we need

Matthew 4:4 But he answered, "It is written, "'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Matthew 7:11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

These verses aren't typically put together. However, once put together they form an interesting bit of knowledge. Here's what it is: God provides for us everything that we need. What we need, more than anything else, is God. So therefore, God provides Himself for us. He will give Himself away to anyone who asks.

So there you are. All that you wanted to know.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Monday, March 10, 2008

Illuminating Shadows

I heard a song today on the radio. In the first verse, there was a line sort of like this: "it's hard to shine/when the shadows are closing in." The point of the song was how much we need Jesus, but this particular line. . .isn't quite accurate.

Think about it for a second. Imagine you have a flashlight. You're standing outside on a clear day, in full sunlight. You turn the flashlight on, and because it's so bright outside the flashlight makes no difference.

Then, you take the flashlight outside on a cloudy night. There is no moon, and the clouds dim even the light of the stars. Now turn on the flashlight--suddenly, it makes a tremendous difference. In the daytime, the world is so saturated in light already that the flashlight does nothing. In the night, the flashlight stands out more than anywhere else.

So, the point is this: we (christians) can't make a difference surrounded entirely by other Christians. The light has already filled this place. This isn't a bad thing, of course, which is not to be implied in any way.

But, there's more to this parable. The flashlight will make a larger difference if it's outside, but not if it's turned off. The object itself is as darkened as everything else, until it's turned on. Until an electrical current is running to and from the bulb, there will be no light in the night.

Point 2 is this: we can only make a difference among the lost, and only if we choose to reveal our light. The question is, what's the best we to reveal our light?

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Two Lists

Things that will not get you to heaven:

1. Killing people

2. Lying and being deceitful

3. Committing any form of adultery

4. Telling people about Jesus (what? this doesn't get you to heaven?)

5. Going to church (what are you talking about?)

6. Giving everything you own to the poor (this is in the wrong list, right?)

Things that will get you into heaven:

1. The blood of Jesus

2. . .

*********************************************

We'll have to wait on number 2, until our weapons become advanced enough to knock down the gates of heaven, or we figure out how to splice perfection into our DNA.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Him That Pisseth Against the Wall

The really funny part is that he's serious.

Goodbye, valiant watcher,

Mitchell

Monday, March 3, 2008

On Being Free

Why are small children (and sometimes not-so-small children) commonly afraid of the dark? What's scary about darkness? Have you ever noticed how strange this is? Really, there is nothing about the dark that should inspire fear. A tiger is scary, because it can kill you. A falling boulder is scary, because it can also kill you. Darkness, however, doesn't even have deadly potential.

I think that the reason is simply that we can't see in the dark. If we could see, the darkness wouldn't be scary. If we were like owls, however, and became blind in the light instead, I imagine that the daytime would be scary.

If we can't see, we have no control of anything around us. I think that humans are instinctively afraid of anything we can't control. The things that control us, therefore, are hated and feared universally. That's why freedom is so longed for by our species, and also why control of others is such a powerful desire.

However, we also have a problem. Along with the instinctive fear of being enslaved, we also seem to have an instinctive feeling of enslavement. Look at all the religions that have formed over the last few thousand years. All of them have a common thread: something powerful exists in a realm not quite visible, and it has the power to control us.

This is seen in all religions, major and minor. The aborigines of Australia belief in several types of spirits, which control every aspect of their lives. Hindus believe in hundreds of gods, all of which must be kept happy at all times. Even Buddhism, an atheistic religion, contains this thread. They believe that freedom comes from breaking out of the cycle of death and rebirth and death and rebirth and death and rebirth and so on.

There is only one religion which offers freedom. This is Christianity. However, Christianity offers freedom in a most unusual way: by becoming a slave.

Numerous times, Jesus refers to us as becoming slaves of God. Nearly every New Testament author makes the same reference. This, also, is how we become free. So maybe, freedom is not what we think it is. Maybe what we feel isn't a lack of freedom, but a lack of function. Instead of being free, what we need is to be part of something else.

Freedom, this means, is not what we think. Real freedom is control by something ultimately stronger than we are. This is an interesting paradox. I hope you thought so too.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell