Tag Archives: problems

Why Logical Holes In A Religion Actually Strengthens Its Validity

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I read an interesting interview this week about a Christian magazine that has been around for over 20 years. The interesting part was not really so much that it was conducted by an atheist and posted on an atheist apologetics website – that has happened before. The interesting part was that both sides respected each other and didn’t let the interview devolve into a back and forth debate over the apparent logical holes in each side.

This debate is usually what you see when atheists and Christians meet (or really any religion and Christianity meets) – both sides pull out what they think is a logical flaw in the other side and try to stump the other.  The problem is, I have never really seem any point in a debate like this that hasn’t already been made a hundred times.

So – newsflash to all would-be apologists for any religion – any point you have to make has already been made.  And a logic counter argument has also already been brought to the table.  You have already been refuted before you make your point.

But guess what? Those logical flaws that you found in the other side doesn’t prove that they are wrong, either.  Sorry, they don’t.

Look at it this way – if God exists, then this being is much more complex and superior to us in every way. There are going to be things about this being that we can’t possibly understand. So are the logical flaws that we find with any view of God really flaws that disprove existence or are they actually failings of an inferior mind (that would therefore have inferior logic)?  Better make sure you know that one for sure before you dismiss it.

But if God exists, you might ask – then how do you account for these places where we don’t get it? Wouldn’t God want us to understand it all, to have every question answered? Why would God make it so hard to figure out which religion is the right one to follow?

It is all about free will and faith.

If all of the questions were answered, and there was an air tight logical case to be made for the one true religion, then humanity would have no choice but to follow. That would effectively end free will and make us slaves to logical thought. It would also eliminate all faith.  When everything is answered, no faith is required.  All of this would turn us into organic robots – and there is very little true pleasure to be had in interacting with robots that follow you because they are trapped logically.

So all of those logical holes that many use to “prove” that God doesn’t exist or that Christianity aren’t true are to me what proves it all to be true. The true God would leave holes and questions so that we would have the choose to follow or not rather than being mentally backed in a corner. The true God would want us to take a step of faith even though we don’t have all the answers – because the only one with all the answers would be God.

I personally don’t want the responsibility of being God, so I have to accept that I will never have all the answers. I’m too opinionated to be agnostic. And I have studied world religions enough to know that there is no way for them to all be true or to all just be different paths to the same God. There is just too much that they all disagree on at the core.  I have already stated one logical reason for believing that there is a God, but I am have experienced many, many more. If God does exist, even if in some ways we are not able to fully understand how, then at least one of the religions out there has to be right. Why is that? If God cares enough to obscure His/Her/Its existence just enough so that we need free will and faith to find the Truth, then He/She/It would also make sure that at least one religion contained enough truth in it for us to find Him/Her/It.

Young Adult Ministries as Church Mutiny?

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Interesting article today over at Relevant Magazine: Church Mutiny: Are young adult ministries killing the church? Some great issues are raised in this article. I don’t agree with every statement in there, but I also can’t count how many times I have run smack into “Arrogance Against the Old” in church. In fact, I was at a leader’s meeting just over a week ago when I ran in to it.  People in the 20 somethings age bracket really do feel that older adults have nothing to offer them. I have heard them say it directly occasionally.  Usually, however, they like to couch their arrogance by saying things like “I don’t want to hear about how you dealt with this issue 20 years ago – I want someone who is dealing with it right now, so they can give me empathy.”

Really? All you want is empathy? Dude – I want to change and get better. I want to know how the older person survived their issue 20 years ago… so maybe I can to. It gives me even greater comfort to know that someone actually survived what I am going through – not just that they are also going through it and can only “empathize” with me. You can empathize with me? Big deal! Show me how to get through what I am going through.

The crazy thing is that if you actually give “old people” a chance – they will usually give you empathy and help. But you would have to give them enough credit to maybe know more than you do in order to even sit and listen long enough to get help.

I’m beginning to feel that the problem most young people have with Church really has nothing to do with the Church itself.  The reason they don’t come is that Church is for the broken and messed up people in need of savior. If you already have all of the answers – who needs to be saved from that?

Worship at the Altar of Youth

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“I think it is a hangover from the sixties, the obsession with youth.  Some people die at seventeen and put their funeral off until they’re seventy-seven. And I see a lot of dead young people, I see a lot of alive old people.”

Bono: In Conversation With Michka Assayas

Bono so clearly articulates what has been crawling around in my brain for a while.  The worship of youth is getting worse and worse in our society.  I remember that I got some flack in high school for writing an essay or speech or something that basically said that people who want to stay young were stupid.  I’ve always been a strong proponent of respecting and listening to age and wisdom. But I feel more and more like a minority these days.

To me, it seems like so many people try so hard to stay young for so long in their lives.  And I’m not talking just with the clothes they wear, or the the language they adopt (but. the. period. after. every. word. thing. is. getting. mighty. dumb.).  It is in the way they describe the music they listen to, the books they read, the movies they watch… their whole bad attitude towards age shows through every comment and joke.  Its really funny to listen to a 30-something year-old talk about a teeny-bopper band and make fun of old people for not getting said band in the same sentence.  It couldn’t be that the band can’t sing or write a decent melody… no… it HAS to be that if you don’t like it, you are just too old.

What drives some to try so hard to hang on to their youth?  Forever young is just… boring.  Mainly because “forever young” is just a metaphor for saying “I want to worship youthand do everything they do, regardless of whether I really personally like it or not.”  That is what I think Bono is referring to: some people just want to stay 17, so they keep acting like the 17 year-olds around them even when they get in to their 30s and 40s.

I keep an ear to most music, and an eye on many trends. Sadly, I can general predict what friends are going to be gushing over what band or book or movie or trend just by following what is hip with the 17-year-old mind set.  These friends never, ever deviate from that.  They are truly enslaved to what is hip to the teenage mindset, even into their 30s.  If you really like it, that is cool.  There are some things that are cool among the teens today that I like also.  But if you are trying to make yourself out to be so cool and so much better than older people because you like some teenager thing, then stop it.  That is just pride and it reeks.

(and if this is you: most teenagers are laughing at you behind your back.  Really… trust me. I used to be a teenager that laughed at people like you, all the while telling you how cool you were to your face.  That way, you would keep it up and give us more stuff to laugh at.)

To me, the real goal – no matter whether you are old or young – is to be alive.  Who cares about being young?  That is an age thing that you can’t control.  But you can be alive no matter what your age is… living life to the fullest.  Do you like something the teens are in to? Great!  Just don’t talk down to those that don’t like it, or try to guilt others in to liking it.  Don’t like something the kids are in to?  That’s great, too – just don’t talk down to them for liking it in the first place.  Everyone has different tastes.

But now that I am pushing closer to the big 4-0, I can say more authoritatively to people in their 30s: stop living like a zombie!  Quit trying to immortalize your youth and start living “alive” today.

Atheism is Now a Religion?

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I’ve been reading all of these stories about Atheists going through de-baptism ceremonies.  They blow them selves with hair dryers marked “Reason” to banish the baptismal waters out of their lives.  I’m  not making this up.  Some are even doing this as a part of a larger Atheist Mass-type meeting they have regularly, where they take an anti-communion.

And this isn’t just a pure mock-fest for some.  Some really get in to it.

So now atheism is an organized religion?  There are churches of Atheists now (they usually call themselves churches of “free-thought”).  Aren’t Atheists supposed to be against not only God but all organized religion?  This is all sounding pretty organized to me.  I can’t find it, but I did read last week about an increase in Atheist evangelists out there.

Not convinced that Atheism is now an organized religion?  Here is more proof: they are starting to fight and divide over the issue of de-baptism “Hey, remember when one of the benefits of not following a religion was being spared that religion’s rituals?” one atheist blogged.

The Logical Conclusion Is Violence?

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I noticed this quote today, made in an opinion column by Frank Schaeffer in response to murder of the Dr. George Tiller:

When evangelicals on the right call President Barack Obama a socialist, a racist, anti-American, an abortionist, not a real American – and, echoing the former vice president, someone who is weakening America’s defenses and making us less safe – the logical conclusion is violence.

The logical conclusion?  I am sorry, but that is bogus.  We have to hold individuals responsible for their actions.  We can’t pawn the responsibility for atrocities off on a group just because we don’t like that group.  We have to face reality – every individual out there is responsible for their own actions before God, regardless of how they were influenced.

I agree that influence does play a role.  But you and I are still responsible for how we distort what other people say.  Taking a pro-life message and distorting that into one of violence is wrong.  Do we blame Darwin for the fact that several key Nazi leaders took his ideas and distorted them into the the foundations of the Nazi regime?  Hardly.  Well, some idiots do, but that is their stupidity.  It is sad how many people on the pro-choice side are trying to use this murder to guilt pro-lifers into not speaking out for their beliefs.  Just sad.

Many Muslim extremists take the words of the Qu’ran and use it to blow up as many “infidels” as they can.  So, should we start blaming all Muslims for the actions of the extremists?  No way.  I have read the Qu’ran.  It’s pretty open to interpretation in places.  We have to hold those extremists responsible for their poor interpretation.

Them’s Fightin’ Words!

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Some people say that I am really good with children.  I don’t know if it is that or I am just bad with adults and understand children better.  Adult interaction is just so complicated.

This week at work, the front secretary of our office came and told me that my appointment had arrived.  She was not in a good mood.  Apparently he had done something huffy with the door and his bag and had really upset her.  I had never met this professor, so I wondered what I was in for.  But the secretary seem really ticked at him.

The professor came down to my office, and proceeded to wonder what he had done to make the secretary so upset.  He was saying that she was acting hostile towards her and he didn’t know what he did to upset her.

All of this is just way too complex for me.  I thought the professor was a pretty nice man myself.  So who knows where the conflict started.  With children, it a lot easier.  All three of my readers know that I used to teach at an inner city junior high.  With junior high students, 80% of the time there is a clear antagonist.  Sure, you try to teach them to turn the other cheek and not respond in the same spirit and all, but the truth is – one of the two is usually always trying to push the other’s buttons.

I broke up a few fights in my days in the trenches.  Thankfully, all but one of those break-ups were pre-emptive… i.e. before fists flew.  The one where the fists were already flying was quite the adventure.  And pretty funny, actually.  But then again, all three of my readers have heard that story a million times.

Adults are much easier to upset and much harder to figure out than junior high kids.  There is one group blog that I like to read… but now I try to avoid commenting on it.  One of the bloggers just seems antagonistic towards me.  Every comment I leave, even if it is not on one of his postings, seems to get a smart-alecky reply from him.  Or even worse, he takes my comments in the most negative light and sets out to rebuke me.  I know that sometimes I can be cryptic in my comments, so I try to give him the benefit of the doubt.  The sad thing is, if I respond to him the way he responds to me, I get a huge tantrum response.  I don’t know what I did to upset him, but I even tried to apologize once and he said “I’m not buying it.”  Oh, well.  What can you do?  I just lay low on that blog now.