pressingheaven asked: I love your post "Where Are You, God?" Very eloquent and well done :) One thing I noticed reading the book of Job is that none of the people understand Satan, thus causing mass confusion. God is a God of healing (demonstrated in Christ). If He takes away, it's not as much as we think. All the speakers blame either God or Job for things and never even acknowledge Satan. I want to render this into a play :)

Thank you :) Yes, it is exactly as you say. No one even mentions the Accuser. The other thing I noticed is that Job spends his time in the ashes of his old house, the once Mr Popular who hosted parties and was respected, then cast out and ridiculed by those around him. But he doesn’t even blame his friends and neighbours for not helping him.

It reminds me of the famous quote “I’d want to ask God why he can stand by and allow pain and suffering, but I’m afraid He’ll ask me the same question”. 

I flicked through Job the other day. It’s a difficult book, and one that takes time to get your head around. I’ve also been reading some theologists views on The Problem of Pain. 

It has many variations:

• Why is there pain and suffering in the world?
• Why do bad things happen to good people?
• How could God allow pain in the world?
• If God loves us, why does he let us suffer?
• If a good God exists, how can evil exist?

Or, quite simply… 

• Where are you, God?

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Phew! It’s been SUCH a long time since I posted. Thank you for all the messages; one even asked if I’d died. Still here, people, I’m just a very busy student. :)

Trying to think up what to write about next. I sadly left my notebook in my flat (I’m home for Christmas) so I can’t continue my WLC review. So annoying!

For now I’ll share a passage from Luke I was reading that made me think:

He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.” 

Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.

 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”  So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

…

   Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” ¹¹ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him.

— Luke 5:3-11

Lots of people ask me what being a Christian is, how you become one, how you stay one, what it means. There’s a lot of misunderstanding out there, believe me.

Broken!

We can’t do this on our own. We’ve tried to struggle on alone, we’ve failed so many times. Even people who claim to already rely on God walk away and try again without Him. 

Later, Simon says he is a sinner and that Jesus should not be near him. Jesus certainly doesn’t leave! It is not the holy and pure that Jesus seeks out, but those in trouble, those who should be blamed, those who have sinned. 

To rely on God, you have to realise something is wrong, that you are missing something, that your nets are empty. 

Listen!

Take a look again at what Jesus does. He goes out into the men’s boat and talks to them. He actively seeks you out, and all you have to do is stop looking at your empty catch and notice He is ALWAYS right there.

Not just sitting there in silence, though. He tells Simon to try again, offers help.

And Simon agrees. 

To rely on God, you have to hear what He is saying and you have to do something about it!

Receive!

The Bible says that God is happy to bless us and help us out. You can see in the passage that He keeps his promises, and relying on Him results in this. More than you can imagine!

Ask for His saving grace and you will get that too, the best blessing of all.

Change!

Simon responds to this by dropping everything and following Jesus. In this case, he literally becomes one of the disciples. Relying on God means that you turn your life around, follow a different road and that can be scary. But in the words of someone very wise:

If you always do what you’ve always done, then you’ll always get what you always got.

If God has changed your life, then how can your life possibly stay the same?! How can you stand before Jesus, mere moments after He has cleared up your sin FOREVER and say “cheers, see you later!” ?

Speak!

Simon becomes a fisherman for men, he spreads the good news and lets many, many, many people hear about God. It seems ludicrous — why would God use a sinner?

If you’ve read the whole Bible, you’ll know that it’s a very common occurence. God does it all the time. And guess what — he’s going to use you too.

If God changed your life, and your life is now totally different, then you’re going to shout it from the rooftops. How can you stay quiet about it?

We update our facebook statuses when the weather changes… why do we stay silent when our entire life has been spun around?

The Good news isn’t news if no one knows about it. 

—

I think this passage is a brilliant summary for what it means to be a Christian. A follower of Jesus. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Light… and if you follow his Way, then this is what will happen. Trust me. God keeps His promises (it’s his name)

God bless, and as always you have my love and prayers! xxxx

Hold onto your hats, things might get philosophical.

I’m going to be talking about the debate I saw in Oxford. To start off the evening, William Lane Craig (WLC) spoke about how Dawkins in The God Delusion argued against the Cosmological Argument.

1. Everything that beings to exist has a cause
2. The Universe began to exist
3. The Universe had a cause

• As infinite regression of causation is impossible mathematically.
• So it cannot be Cause < Cause < Cause < Cause all the way to infinity, because that would be the equivilent of someone counting from negative infinity upwards and reaching zero. (i.e. … -3, -2, -1, 0. Phew!) Reaching zero is the equivilent of being here today. 
• The cause must therefore be uncaused.
• It must be non-temporal and non-spatial, as space and time are part of the Universe and the cause cannot be part of the caused.
• As it caused everything from nothing, it must be unfathomably powerful.
• It cannot have begun to exist (as it is uncaused) and is therefore eternal.
• As the eternal made non-eternal, that suggests choice rather than inevitability, so this means the cause is personal.

Dawkins agrees with 1., saying anything that begins to exist without a cause would be worse than magic. He doesn’t mention one argument that is quite commonly raised. Some people say that quantum physics has shown that particles can spontaneously appear and disappear from nothing and without cause. However, they do not come from nothing, but the quantum vacuum, which is actually an unstable state of energy. 

Dawkins also agrees with 2., saying that empirical evidence shows that the universe is expanding and therefore began. He says the Big Bang is the cause, but this merely pushes the original cause backwards, as the Big Bang is not uncaused and so therefore requires a cause in itself. Remember, infinite regression is impossible.

Therefore, Dawkins seemingly has no problem with 3. 

What Dawkins does have a problem with are two things:

• God should not be exempt from causation
• This does not explain the characteristics of God protrayed int he Bible: Good, omniscient, forgiving etc.

WLC explains that God is uncaused and the question “who designed the Designer” is a complete non-issue.

He goes on to say that not getting the Biblical God from this argument is irrelevent, and the very fact that Dawkins accepts 1 and 2 means he accepts God exists, as defined as transcendent, eternal, un-caused etc. Whether this is the Judeo-Christian God is another matter entirely. 

There were then responses by the professors. For the cosmological argument, only Daniel Cane (the infamous collegue of Dawkins who called him cowardly for not attending) made a point. He argued that an infinite regression of causes may not be impossible, thought it is counter-intuitive. He says that space contains infinity and yet it is still possible.

To give you an example of what he is talking about, say I am running a race and I am currently behind you. I halve the distance between us for every 10 seconds that pass. So the distance is first 1, then 1/2, then 1/4 then 1/8 all the way until 1/infinity, e.g. 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000. If infinity were impossible, as WLC argues, I can never reach you. Clearly I do, thus infinity is not impossible and so is infinite regression.

WLC agrees, saying the distinction is the difference between mathematical models and real life. He says space and time are not actually continuous. So in the mathematical model, space contains an infinite amount of regions, and so contains infinity. Real space is not like that. Time is the same.  The difference between the guy counting and the guy running is that the latter is a successive synthesis of immaterial numbers, unlike a person physically counting in time. 

Phew! Next time, the Moral Argument. 

…they tend to immediately challenge me to convince them by all the evidence that convinced me.

I’m more than happy to answer questions, but I find this challenge somewhat irksome.

• Being convinced and being convincing are very different things.
• I’m not qualified to speak with authority about the evidence, for example, how can I be convincing and hold up against attacks about quantum mechanics without at least a PhD in the subject?
• I haven’t got a good enough memory to summarise all the books and debates I’ve trawled through.
• If I give an example (e.g. the validity of the New Testament documents) then they cry “that doesn’t mean it’s true” and “that doesn’t mean God exists”. They want me to give a single, simple, short example that neatly packages and proves without a shadow of doubt the entire Christian doctrine, the Old Covenant, two thousand years of theology and the nature of God, six thousand years of Biblical history, human nature, transcendant and spiritual concepts while dispelling all other worldviews and thought thoroughly and without fault.
• If I can’t do this, apparently that makes me illogical and uncritical. 

It just boggles the mind. I took a lot of convincing intellectually and it was a long, long, long and personal journey. Trying to summarise it is not only impossible, it’s deceptive. 

(Sorry, rant.)

alteredclone asked: And what exactly is the "effect that it is producing" ? Some people are offended? I am "offended" when people say bless you. When it's "my turn to say grace at the table". When people tell me "your dad is in our prayers". You could call those things "harmless" but they aren't. But i don't tell people to fuck off when they say those things. I kindly thank them and go on my way. Because it's not their fault that I don't believe what they do. This sadly doesn't go both ways.

Well, I shall probably have to direct you to spectra fidelis for this question, as they raised this objection and not me. It is actually a different matter. 

I am not saying people should not ridicule Jesus because it offends me. I’m not saying people should not ridicule Jesus because it is offensive. While those two may be the case… it is not on the table.

I’m saying that people should not ridicule any person’s violent death because it reduces the personhood and value of that person, and that is wrong. It doesn’t matter who is amused or offended or harmed or not-harmed. 

spectra-fidelis replied to your post: spectra-fidelis replied to your post: The jews…

I didn’t. I mean the person who said “all of this ‘ridicule’ is nothing more than harmless jokes,” or something to that effect. People who make the jokes can call it harmless, but it’s down to the actual effect it produces, regardless of intention.

^ Yes. 

digitalkeegan asked: Just a note about the "worst death" discussion (could you call it that?), when I read the verse, what strikes me as the "worst death" is not the crucifixion itself, but what Christ truly did on the cross (I should note here that I am being completely one sided, hardly what scholars think historical) that is take "the sins of the world" upon himself, one can easily see how it could be the worst, he is paying the price for every sin, even those mentioned in regards to the holocaust....

Absolutely. We cannot even begin to imagine what it is like to endure the punishment for all sin ever done, or ever will happen at once. Nothing compares.

However, with alteredclone I was discussing Jesus’s physiological death in comparison to others. As alteredclone is an atheist, I believe he would not agree with the above.  

spectra-fidelis replied to your post: The jews were killed pretty horrifically in the holocaust. also (i did not write this hence the quotes) “Vlad the impaler came up with one that was as bad. They ran a stake through a person that went in their anus and came out of their mouth. They could live for days that way. At one time Vlad’s soldiers did 20,000 victims that way. When the invading Turks saw a forest of impaled people still alive they freaked and turned around. ” And most of the “ridicule” is harmless jokes. In my opinion.

Who are you to decide what is a harmless joke?

I’m going to assume you aimed this at me. When i said “joking about the Holocaust doesn’t cause harm”, I meant harm in the physical sense, such as cuts and bleeding and death. In the case of the Holocaust, many people can be affected dreadfully from such jokes as they may have experienced it directly. This is not the cause of the crucifixion or the impaling, so my analogy was incorrect. I apologise.  

alteredclone asked: For halloween i dressed up as the tree of knowledge (of good and evil) and my good friend dressed up as the serpent. Some said it was offensive, but why? To me it would be the same as dressing up as Hermes and Hercules. It's all just mythology to me. Very interesting mythology that I enjoy. But i wouldn't call it offensive. I think i made a very good and accurate tree of knowledge. I even read genesis again before my party. Can that be justified? Or am I just another bitter atheist to you?

I’m pretty sure most of Halloween costumes are offensive, whether or not you dress as a pumpkin or the Queen in her knickers (I’m British, thus that’s the most offensive thing I can fathom).  

I also think that’s the fun of it. Much of humour is made of being offensive. I wouldn’t condemn you for that costume, and nor should anyone else. My post about people ridiculing Jesus was primarily aimed at people ridiculing his death and the way he died. Such as this: http://i.imgur.com/6swjf.jpg

I just feel that people treat it differently to others who died painfully and unjustly. 

alteredclone asked: The jews were killed pretty horrifically in the holocaust. also (i did not write this hence the quotes) "Vlad the impaler came up with one that was as bad. They ran a stake through a person that went in their anus and came out of their mouth. They could live for days that way. At one time Vlad's soldiers did 20,000 victims that way. When the invading Turks saw a forest of impaled people still alive they freaked and turned around. " And most of the "ridicule" is harmless jokes. In my opinion.

I did not know about the Vlad the Impaler one, which does sound awful. The Jewish holocaust was death by starvation or by gas, not including the disease and psychological horrors of the camps. But if someone made fun of the way someone had died in Jewish death camps, we would be offended. I would also be offended if someone ridiculed a person who had died by impaling. I’m offended when people ridicule Amy Winehouse’s death or Gaddafi’s too.

Harmless, perhaps. It does not cause harm to another person. If I joked about the Holocaust, it doesn’t cause any harm either. However, it’s more than hurting someone. It’s about reducing a person beneath that of personhood. You remove their value, importance, worth. If you get into the habit of reducing a human beyond personhood… I would be concerned.

Every person’s death is significant, tragic, and affects many. Regardless of who they were, what they have done, or what they have said. Death is the great equaliser.

alteredclone asked: "the worst death in the world" is highly debatable. Plenty of people were ridiculed and tortured to death for what they believed in.

Yes, and I agree with that. People are unjustly killed in a horrific manner on a daily basis. However, I personally think crucifixion is the worst (from a physiological perspective). I may be wrong though — thousand cuts sounds awful. 

Even so, he died in a horrendous manner and ridiculing him cannot be justified. Doesn’t matter if he was God or not.

(Reddit is like a micro forum where people discuss current events, each other and a lot of memes. Their atheism section is particularly large.)

Most common objections to Christianity that stick out:

• Jesus did not exist
• Christianity is intellectually oppressive
• Christians think you can only be moral if you follow the Bible and God
• Faith is belief without evidence or in the teeth of evidence
• The Christian message is immoral
• Christians do not understand evolution
• Being an Atheist leads to persecution

The last one saddens me. I can definitely relate from the other side of the camp!

I mean, it’s offensive, don’t go there if you’re easily spooked. The amount of ridicule for Jesus unacceptable, no matter if he was God or not. If he was just a man, he was a man who suffered the worst death in the world for no reason. He was a man who suffered and died. Even Atheists should remember that. 

…it was really good. A lot more intense and philosophical than I thought it was going to be!

Rather than Dawkins, they had him up against three Oxford professors (two of philosophy, one of medicine). The subject was the God Delusion, and how Dawkins had failed to damage:

• the Cosmological Argument
• the Moral Argument
• the Teleological Argument 
• the Ontological Argument. 

Objections raised by the opposition included…

• The Universe may not have begun
• Multiverse may be more simple than a Designer
• Philosophy is the lack of theology, and adding theology ruins it
• What is “now” and “you” and being”
• Maybe the Universe isn’t finely tuned
• If there was a Designer, why don’t we see Him in everyday biology
• Evolution explains biology
• It’s not a good design a lot of the time

WLC even covered why he does not advocate genocide, as declared by Dawkins in his recent article.

I will write about this more, but I’m completely exhausted. :)