Tag: Christianity

Mailvox: Sam Harris and the lost sheep

In which a skeptic’s email is quoted:

I’ve written you before as a skeptic. Remember the topic about Sam Harris? I was a college student who lost his faith after reading Harris and reading atheist blogs. Actually, I had been skeptical for some time before that, as some of you pointed out. I have now graduated with a Master’s…. Anyway, last November I found Christ. Before I was probably merely a nominal Christian. I thought I had to believe, not that I wanted to, to get into Heaven. But that’s all over. I had a personal experience after reading Darin Hufford’s book The Misunderstood God. I followed his instructions, and I felt Christ enter my life. My relationship with Christ has since deepened.

It should come as no surprise that the spurious reasoning offered by the New Atheists holds an amount of appeal to nominal Christians who have been taught to hide from their doubts rather than to embrace and examine them. Those who are not taught to think critically about the Christian faith, but are merely raised in it, are always going to be susceptible to the sophistry and faux rationality of the Sam Harrises of the world. A license to do evil without ramifications or remorse is always going to be tempting no matter how shallow the justifications for it happen to be. And Heaven is a very long way off in the eyes of the young, especially when more immediate earthly paradises are there for the taking.

Anyhow, I’m pleased to hear that another wayward sheep has elected to return to the Good Shepherd. No doubt his faith will be all the stronger for experience of indulging his doubts. Believing in belief is no substitute for actually possessing it.

Not so fast

Markku is under the impression that he managed to catch me making a mistake about God’s knowledge of the design imperfections of His Creation. I think I can demonstrate that this is not correct:

“I think Jesus was the fix for a design gone haywire.”

Can’t be.

1Pe 1:19-20 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.

Now, Markku is correct to the extent that the verses make it clear that Jesus cannot have been a fix conceived subsequent to the problem. However, I think Markku is making a mistake in equating Jesus Christ’s existence and potential mission with the actual sacrifice of his life here. Since we already knew that the Word was with God from the start, his existence before the foundation of the world isn’t in question from a Biblical perspective. However, we can also see that the foreordaining does not refer to his “precious blood”, although I agree that the reference is still in the context of him redeeming Man. This distinction between the potential redemption and fact of the redeeming sacrifice is perhaps more apparent in other translations.

NIV: For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

Now, Markku’s interpretation is potentially correct, as it indicates that God was aware from before the beginning of the possible need to send Jesus Christ to redeem Man. The Redeemer was chosen from the start, but not revealed until later. But this does not make his interpretation necessarily correct because it is perfectly plausible that God would have understood that Man was capable of falling and had a backup plan prepared in case of such an event.

As a programmer – a very good programmer, as a matter of fact – Markku is well-equipped to understand the concept of an if/then structure created during the design phase. So, while these verses from 1st Peter certainly permit his interpretation of a scripted scenario of Fall and Redemption, they fall short of conclusively proving it. This means that my interpretation of an unscripted scenario remains Biblically tenable and it is possible that Jesus was the predetermined fix for a design with multiple potential outcomes.

Slashdot and charity: the lack thereof

I found this Slashdot poll to be quite informative. Based on the comments I’ve read there over the years, I have observed that Slashdot tends to skew heavily secular and libertarian as well as moderately atheist. So, when the regular poll asked about the amount of charitable giving that had been done in 2009, I expected the results to be somewhat on the light side given that it is been well-established that the irreligious are statistically less willing to give to others than are the religious.

I did not, however, expect to discover that Slashdot readers would prove to be such a complete collection of miserly bastards. 36 percent gave nothing to anyone. Another 20 percent gave less than $50. Less than 10 percent gave more than $2,000 throughout the entire course of the year.

Now, perhaps Slashdot readers are very low income, or perhaps they’re mostly religious Republicans. But, based on what I’ve observed, I suspect that this financial narcissism on their part points to one of the primary reasons there will never be organized irreligion without the use of force. Churches, synagogues, and mosques could not survive were it not for the voluntary donations of those who attend them. This is also a conclusive destruction idea of the notion that a truly secular society will necessarily be an improvement on a religious one. It’s no wonder that atheists tend to lean so heavily left. Those who are aware of their own unwillingness to lift a finger to help others in society naturally wouldn’t dare to trust in the willingness of others to do so in the absence of government force.

Now, don’t think for a second that I’m being naive here, much less some sort of Saint Largesse. I readily admit it will probably do no material good to give money to the shaggy man with the slurred speech or the emaciated girl. The odds are high that they’re just going to go off and score their intoxicant of choice. And I downright refuse to give anything to professional mendicants like the bloody organ grinders and immigrants who annoy shoppers at the grocery store. (Note to the “needy” immigrant family I saw the other day – your daily take will surely increase if you a) actually learn how to play those “authentic” native pipes, and, b) tell your little boy to stop playing his Nintendo DS in public.) But the man whose birth we celebrated yesterday was very clear how we are to treat those he describes as “the least” and it behooves all of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, to act on faith when we are asked for help by those who are clearly in need of it.

Merry Christmas

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Merry Christmas everyone. May God bless you and your families with happiness and joy this Christmas Day.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today, we give thanks to God for that with which He has blessed us.  We thank Him for our families, for our fortunes, and for our freedoms.  And in doing so, we should remember that to those whom much is given, much is expected.