A New Heart - Holy Mackerel!

Ezekiel 36:26 "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." NIV One of the biggest problems with Salvation is the potential for sin associated with the persistence of the self into the afterlife.  As many, if not most Christians will fess up to, they still make mistakes and they still sin from time to time in one way or another.  But in the afterlife, supposedly no one will sin in the Kingdom of God. Clearly, something has to change. God will give the Saved a new heart, and a new spirit, such that they will never stray again.  But at that point, will they really be themselves anymore?  Or will they simply be puppets resembling their former selves?  And why not just start out that way, instead of condemning billions to the eternal junk pile as ultimate failures? While our mistakes, errors, and failings do not, or at least should not, define us, the potential for imperfection is what helps us identify and value the best qualities and achievements within ourselves and others, what drives us toward continual improvement and mastery, and what reveals to us the true nature and need of grace and love. As much as I hate to be wrong, I know it makes me a better person.  It would be a shame to lose that facet of existence for all eternity.  To err is human.  :-)

Divorce Limbo

Let's face it: marriage is a mixed bag.  We don't really know what we are getting into.  At least most people don't.

Me?  I was different.  I, sure as Hell, knew what I was doing.  Given that I don't believe in Hell, you know that means I didn't really know what the Hell I was doing either! ;-)  (As I've mentioned, my first marriage didn't last.)

Many marriages, especially in the Christian world, appear to be an act of free will.  I live in the U.S.A., and, as much as anyone does, I chose my first wife.  And I chose poorly.  (Of course, it does take two to tango, so she was quite foolish to choose me as well!)

But wait a minute.  Did I choose my wife?  Matthew 19:6/Mark 10:9 both say:

"Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

Oh, so it wasn't me who chose my spouse poorly, but rather God.  But wait again!  God can't choose poorly.  Duh!  And that's why God forbade divorce.  And that's why Jesus forbade divorce.

Now if you are foolish enough to get divorced from God's chosen companion for you, like me, you may find yourself thinking: 

Hey, God made one marriage happen.  Why not let God make another one!  After all, per 1 John 4:8, "[w]hoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."  So what could be wrong with more love?

Wrong!  If you have divorced, you should consider yourself in divorce limbo for the rest of your life, where the only person you can marry would be your ex-wife, unless she has been with another man.  Even if you feel the urge to marry someone else, you will be committing adultery if you do so (Matthew 19:9).

Of course, there is nothing different in the desire to marry another spouse after a divorce, other than (hopefully) a little more wisdom.  Yet given that God Jesus disapproves of subsequent marriages, then it certainly won't be God guiding you to your next love.

Well, I married again.  And not only did I marry again, but I married a divorced woman, which is explicitly forbidden by Jesus (Matthew 5:32/Luke 16:18).  Oh, the shame.


Anyway, I've got to tell you, I think I did a much better job picking out my second wife than God did with the first one.  ;-)  This is true love.  Yup!  We atheists have found God!  At least if you buy into the whole love = God thing...

The Point of Vectors

You know what you are by what you were.  Usually that works to your advantage; providing stability, a sense of purpose, and a sense of direction heading forward.

In the grand scheme, we learn the history of our respective counties to know our identities and directions as citizens.

In the same vein, our personal history defines our own identity and individual direction.  But sometimes, if not usually, our histories contain some "blemishes," for lack of a better word.  These blemishes can, and often do, affect the relationships we have and the choices we make, ultimately affecting the direction we take in life.

These blemishes affect the direction we take because emotionally, and/or logically, they point to the next steps of our behavior.  And those next steps lead to others, and those lead to others, etc.  But they don't have to.

Not to trivialize it, but after a blemish has happened, it is just a story, and you find yourself at a point where you choose to continue that story, or to break away on a new path.

You choose the narrative going forward at each moment in your life:  Either you are offended, an orphan, a victim of abuse, a liar, a thief, etc., or you were offended, an orphan, a victim of abuse, a liar, a thief, etc.  What is history truly is history.  Whether or not it lives on in our minds is our own choice.  Depending on the type blemish, it can be hard to let it go and leave behind, but that's where history is; behind us.  None of us claims "I am five" when we're actually twenty-seven years old, yet we all were five.

I challenge you to know yourself, not by who you were, but by who you actually are now, and who you seek to become.  A new vector can start at any point.

I'll leave you with a classic Buddhist tale to ponder:

Buddhist monks were forbidden to touch women, but one day a particular monk noticed a woman in distress who needed to cross a river to get to her family.  The monk picked up the woman and carried her across the raging river torrent.  Other monks had seen this activity, and they became indignant of the helpful monk.  They scorned him fiercely for breaking his vows by touching a woman.  The helpful monk replied in his defense:

"Friends, I set the woman down at the river bank.  Why do you still carry her?"

What are you still carrying?

Waxing Political

In case you don't live in Ohio, you may not be aware that it's time for another presidential election in the U.S.  As usual, the religious talk shows and some churches are giving their non-specific, but blatantly obvious political plugs for candidates whose names end with the letter "R."

I heard one radio show (Family Talk) that was playing a recording from a church service, where a former American Family Radio exec was speaking about the fundamentals of (political) economics.  It went something like this:

"If you make $100, and you go into a restaurant where everything costs less than $100, then you have complete freedom to get anything you want there.  But if someone takes money away from you, then they take some freedom away from you.  Because if you only have $80 left, you can no longer buy something that costs $90.  When somebody comes up to you with a gun and takes money from you, they take freedom from you and it's called theft.  When the government takes money from you, and they can do so with men with guns, they take freedom from you and that's called taxes."

I was thinking to myself, hmmm....

"If I have $100, but I can't drive anywhere to spend it because there are no roads, then I don't have freedom.  If I have $100, but my house has been destroyed due to a hurricane and there is no one to aid me in rebuilding my life, then I don't have freedom.  Etc.  On the other hand, if I chip in $30 for the collective good, to get roads and disaster relief, to protect the nation, to help ensure quality medication, to make sure that the water is safe to drink, to provide primary education, etc., then I'll have much greater freedom than I would ever have with just $100, and an entire nations of millions will share in that enhanced freedom with me."

Are the economic principles really that difficult to understand here?  Our government isn't perfect.  In fact, in a lot of ways, it really sucks.  And I am all for reform and responsible spending.  But to come at the problem from the perspective that keeping all of your money ensures you the most freedom, let alone that it is best for the nation, is fundamentally wrong.

Vote with your head.

I Feel Good

"I feel good."

It's such a simple statement; three little words.  Surely, you know what I mean.  But do you really?

You probably think that I mean that I feel content or happy, or perhaps even joyous or ecstatic.  But let's take a closer look.

The "I" is pretty self-explanatory, unless you want to fly off into the never-never land of difficulties in philosophically and psychologically defining the "self."

But from there, all bets are off.  Both "feel" and "good" have plethora of meanings to choose from, such that that simple three word statement could mean:

• I am happy/content.
• I am joyous/ecstatic.
• I am ethical.
• I am beneficial.
• I am functional.
• I am healthy.
• I am confident in my present abilities.
• I have the ability to sense benevolent forces.
• I do sense benevolent forces.
• My ability to receive tactile sensations is functioning.
• I am better in my ability to receive tactile sensations than other people.
• I am pleasing to touch.  (My personal favorite!)

And that's just a sample!  You could probably come up with at least another 5-10 definitions for that statement.  The obvious truth is that you need context to gain understanding.

In the world of text, context becomes super-critical, because you can't rely on spoken tones, body language, gestures, etc. to enhance the meaning of the message.  All you have are words.  And, if you're lucky, you have some framing circumstances described in the text.

For example, if I told you that I was at the doctor's office when I said "I feel good," then you are more likely to be correct in thinking that I was referring to my health in general.  Unless, of course, that doctor had performed a reconstructive surgery of the nerves in my hand after an accident, because in that case "I feel good" may have more to do with tactile sensation.

Yet when we are devoid of context, we all bring our own contexts to the table to parse out meaning.  What is usual?  What fits our paradigm?  Based on those assumptions, we find a meaning.  Our confidence in that meaning will typically be directly proportional to how well it aligns with our world view.

That brings us to a subject near and dear to my heart:  Biblical prophesy.  As a rough number, I would estimate that 95% of Old Testament prophesy is actually very easy to understand because there is a ton of supporting context, including many prophesies that overlap in scope and thereby confirm their meanings with different verbiage.

What makes Old Testament prophesy difficult to accurately discern is coming to it from the mindset of Christianity.  If you cast off or ignore the Jewish historical roots, then confirmation bias sets in and (even worse) the original meanings of the words are plucked from their context and realigned with the Christian vision of the world.  I know this from personally reading the Bible without an assumption that Christianity was its end goal.  That's why I had the confidence to issue the open challenge regarding Christian Prophesy.

Context is meaning, and I feel good about saying so.

Evolution as Myth

"It takes more faith to believe in Evolution than it does to believe in God [, as in the God of the Bible]."

I've heard this argument raised from Ken Ham and many other Christians, citing issues with the fossil records, their alleged evidence of a young Earth, the inherent complexity of DNA, etc.  You've probably heard this before, right?

So I started thinking; "Wait, does it actually require such a great faith to believe in Evolution?  What if Evolution was just another myth available for us to believe, a religion competing on the global pious market?  Would it really be hard to believe?"

Let's step aside from the fossil records, DNA, and all of the other data which supports the technical details of Evolution and just look at the big picture; the Evolution Myth, if you will.

The Myth
Life on earth was not created, but rather it was the result of raw materials, chemical reactions, chance, and time.  Once life came to be, deviations developed through self-replication errors and time.  Deviations which helped the life form to survive and/or propagate, and other deviations which had little to do with survivability or propagation, accumulated over time and branched out into multiple paths, eventually resulting in all of the biodiversity we know today, including humans.

The Solutions
As we consider this Myth, we have to look around and see if it fits into the picture of reality as we know it.  Avoiding the finite technicalities of Evolution, are there other extraneous evidences to support this Myth such that it would be easier to believe than, say, a God partially/fully becoming man, in order to be slain, in order to make propitiation for our sins, in order for that God to forgive our sins, in order that we may live forever with Him in an environment in which that God will prevent us from sinning?  Furthermore, are there any other answers are provided by this Myth?  Below are some of the implications, agreements, and answers I thought of.

(Note that I do recognize that there are many Christians who also believe in evolution, either in its pure format or in a God-enhanced version, but what follows will be from a perspective of the Evolution Myth standing on its own.)

1. The Earth is old, and the Universe is older.   As we gaze into the heavens at night, we look back in time, seeing light rays which left their respective stars billions upon billions of years ago.  Evolution is well in tune with this fact.
2. We are insignificant in the universal picture.  As astronomy tells us, the sun is the center of our solar system, but our solar system is in one arm of our galaxy and our sun is one of billions of stars in the galaxy, which is just one galaxy of billions of galaxies, each with billions of their own stars.  Our planet is just one of likely trillions in the universe.  Evolution is well in tune with this fact.
3. Evolution doesn't answer if there is or is not a god, but if there is one, it suggests that such a god is probably in line with deist theology.  The time it took to yield humans and the reliance on chance to form us suggests that no special attention was paid by any deity in our creation process.  Evolution is well in tune with this concept.
4. Genetic deviations occur without divine cause.  It is not a test, a punishment, or a learning experience given by a god if your child is born with Down Syndrome, or if you are genetically predisposed to colon cancer, or if you are born infertile.  Evolution is well in tune with this fact.
5. There is no divine cause for disasters.  Earthquakes, tsunamis, mudslides, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc.  They are acts of nature, not, as insurance companies like to define them, acts of god.  Disasters do not take sides, nor are they doled out as personal or communal punishment.  Evolution is in line with the science here.
6. There is no supernatural justice.  As we know all too well, good things can happen to bad people, and visa-versa, without any reckoning or reason.  People can commit great evils and go unpunished.  People can do great good and go unrewarded.  Using a poker reference, sometimes the cards are in your favor, but sometimes they're not, and it often has  nothing to do with your worthiness.  Evolution does not suggest anything different.
7. Being weaker, smaller, or poorer physically equipped than many other animals, finding traits which promote cooperation would not be surprising, and yet these same cooperative traits would still contend with drives to compete for limited resources.  This is perhaps one of the most interesting angles, as it explains a lot of our social behaviors as a whole, such as tribalism, nationalism, genocide, etc.  While I would not say that Evolution could predict our present condition or that our condition was somehow inevitable, Evolution has no conflict with our present condition.
8. If there is a god, divine intervention is unlikely, so we must take responsibility to change the world if we feel it needs changing.  It is up to us to right the wrongs and guide our species towards a better way to live.  We all know this, but Point 7 above helps to explain why we fall short of achieving such a goal.  Evolution does not suggest anything different.
9. There is no "good" or "bad" in the world except by what we define these concepts to be.  However, that does not mean that these concepts are entirely arbitrary either. Given that we have drives for cooperation, we live communally.  Out of this, the basic concepts of good and bad are readily born, as "good" are actions which promote harmony and the preservation of the community.  This is why the basic moral codes are ubiquitous across nearly all cultures (do not murder, do not steal - at least from those inside your group, etc.) and why the more abstract codes vary significantly (what is acceptable to eat, how you treat livestock, what kind of clothes you can wear, etc.).  Evolution has no difficulties with this concept.
10. Similarities between humans and animals would be expected.  The Myth suggests common lines of development.  Surely our similar skeletal structures in men and animals are in line with this idea.  Furthermore, our "human" actions of caring for and protecting the young, playing, fighting, teamwork, hierarchies, sacrifice, and compensation are all seen in the animal world as well, in varying degrees with different animals.  This matches the implications of Evolution.
11. This life is all there is.  There is no afterlife, other than your bodily materials being recycled by other life forms.  It's up to you to make the best of your life with the given circumstances.  Chance plays a large role in where you begin and what your limitations will be, but your success in life will also be largely driven by your chosen actions.  Evolution would not suggest anything else.

The Problems
Evolution, as a Myth, fits very well with the empirical, sterile evidence.  I don't know if you've checked lately, but we are anything but sterile creatures.

1. People have religious experiences with different faiths.  As mentioned above, the Evolution Myth doesn't say that there is or isn't a god, so having a religious experience would not contradict the Myth per se, but the doctrine of different brands of religions claim alternate reasons behind the creation of humans, their significance, and the age of the earth.
2. People want meaning.  The Myth offers no meaning to life.  Of course, the Myth offers no meaning of "meaning" either.  Songbirds sing and dogs wag their tails without having an apparent, well-defined sense meaning.  We, too, can be incredibly happy without having to define the meaning in each moment of our lives. But for those who want it, the responsibility on each individual to define for themselves what is meaningful, and to seek out that meaning in their own lives.  The easiest way to find that meaning is to draw to our "Mythical" evolutionary traits of cooperation and interdependence, as mentioned in point 7 above.  However, many people would prefer to have something outside themselves define that meaning for them.
3. People want to live forever.  The Myth itself offers no hope of continuing on forever, or or reuniting with lost loved ones.  That makes life bittersweet, as we should appreciate and make the most of each moment and each relationship, because they will not last.  (Although, there are some rather promising discoveries on the horizon in the field of life extension.)
4. People want justice.  Life isn't fair, and the Myth suggests nothing more.  People don't always get what they deserve, in both the good and the bad senses.  Usually it is beyond our power to right these wrongs in our society, so we would like to take some comfort in knowing that there will be a time of reckoning when people get what they deserve.  Instead, with the Myth, that responsibility falls squarely on us.
5. There is no explanation of why humans are so apparently superior.  Of course, there are many ways in which it seems that animals are superior to us!  Actually, the Myth does provide for this possibility, but depending on your perspective of how much better humans are than the other animals, by whatever arbitrary scales of measurement you'd like to use, this can make the Myth seem weak.
6. There is no explanation of why the universe exists.  Indeed, this is true with regard to the Myth itself.  Evolution's Myth doesn't explain its own raw materials, or how the earth was formed, or how the universe came to be.  These origins require other explanations.

The Aftermath
To me, the problems with an Evolution Myth are not problems with the Myth itself.  They are problems beyond the Myth.  Other than the conflicts of doctrinal issues of various faiths, the issue with Evolution as Myth is that it does not do more.  It does not provide answers that we might want.

But not liking a myth doesn't mean that it takes a lot of faith to believe it.  There are many things I don't like, but I still believe, just because those beliefs match up with reality, like the belief that religion is not completely harmless.

Similarly, the Evolution Myth, regardless of whether or not you like it, harmonizes with many apparent facts of life.  Because of its apparent correlation, it does not take much faith at all to believe.  According to Hebrews 11:1:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.  NIV

But, as noted in the many points above, we see various correlating evidences of Evolution even beyond fossil records, DNA, etc.  Plus, there is nothing we hope for (in a doctrinal sense) out of Evolution.  So by this definition, it actually takes very little faith at all to believe in the Myth of Evolution.


What Else?
When I read a list like this that someone has put together, I typically come up with things I would add, or things that I thought were not quite right.  So feel free to lay it on me.  Tell me what I've missed, and what I've messed up in this little thought adventure.

Spam Makes Me Smile

There's been an uptick in the comment spam lately, but I don't mind.  Some of it's pretty funny.  Not intentionally, but that's what happens when they use some literal translation from their native language into English.  I bet a master linguist could figure out exactly what language they originate from.  Anyway, I hope you get a giggle from this gibberish:

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