Flawed Thoughts (Part 1?)

 One of my earliest blog posts was on The Third Choice in a Two Sided Argument that is something I have pondered for quite some time. I have continued to ponder it since that post and perhaps refine it a bit as well. The question I posed is "Why do people insist that Creationism and Evolution are mutually exclusive theories?" Now, I use God when I could use Supreme Being, but I'm not sugar-coating anything. My belief is in God, not just as the Supreme Being but as the Creator, and besides, anyone who merely believes in a Supreme Being is probably not a proponent of Creationism anyway. Creationism is after all a result of the book of Genesis. And I intend my arguments for people of faith rather than just anyone because they have that singular point as well. In my original post I ended up getting off tangent with a discussion on the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn. The discussion is not intended to make scientific types accept God, there are other apologetic discussions for that. Rather it is intended to get Christians to accept science and to see that the use of science is not an indication of a weakness or inability to create in any other way.

The first thing I realized after posting initially was that I did not intend to engage the thoughts of the scientific community, only those people of faith. Those who typically see anything scientific as not of God. I describe it as my Christian Flawed Thought. It is every bit as troublesome as the Scientific Flawed Thought. The CFT discounts the fact that science, scientific principles, and even the drive and desire to prove something all comes from God. It is not a worldly concept that merely leads to a humanistic explanation--in its purest form. Now perhaps as often as most of the time this drive does lead to a humanistic explanation. These would be the people I call "educated beyond their intelligence." Having this group of people seems to feed the belief that scientific endeavours are not of God.

Regardless of how the belief came about, or is perpetuated, there is a syllogistic gap in the logic that in itself becomes an incredulous object to those on the other side of the coin. One of my favorite authors, Douglas Adams, used the fact that the religious take any questioning of their faith as an affront to their faith and disallow it as an argument in favor of not believing in God anyway. His thought was that anything that required you to not think about it in order to prove that it exists, or that can only prove it exists by not proving it exists, must not exist. Those thinkers succumb to the Scientific Flawed Thought, that simply proving something (scientifically) is a sign that it is not from God. This also has a syllogistic gap in the logic, right at the very end, but in some ways the two flawed thoughts feed on themselves because the belief that proof shows non-existence increases the belief that the need to prove is a secular non-faith based activity.

There is still more to come on this subject, but the main point remains. Science cannot explain away God, but Christianity cannot explain away science.

Robet's Unread Rules

 Despite the fact that most people claim to use Robert's Rules of Order for parliamentarian procedure, few do so. Even fewer realize it, and still fewer have actually read the book. Being one of the very few sometimes gets to be a pain, at least if you want things to go by the book.

Some common examples of procedures that are not according to Robert but done are to call for a vote for a motion followed with saying, "Those opposed by the same sign." If the vote is by the same sign, it is a vote for the motion and not against. One of the matters that bugs me the most is when something is "Laid on the Table." The proper motion is to postpone for a set (indefinite is acceptable) time. The Lay on the Table motion is to set something aside to handle an urgent, pressing matter, which is then followed by resuming the first motion. Oftentimes, the Lay on the Table motion is used to kill a matter that no one wants to vote on.  At a recent City Council meeting I witnessed the Council repeatedly vote to suspend the rules. It was the correct motion, (since they wanted to avoid a vote on Unanimous Consent and consider something for immediate adoption rather than wait for another meeting) but the point here is that it is a regular occurrence to suspend the rules. Why have the rules if you're going to simply suspend (or ignore) them?

Organizations and governmental bodies do things the same way. They believe they are right, but the reality is they are just as wrong as the last person they saw doing it. Copying the last group has become the norm. Everyone expects things to run by the same procedure as before.

As Christians we are often similarly comfortable. We want our church services to be the same, the preacher to finish on time, the prayers to last as long, etc. Many times we want to deal with people in a certain way and for a set period of time or when nothing is bothering us. When we are annoyed we act differently. As C.S. Lewis put it in the Problem of Pain, "Everyone feels benevolent when nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment."

Just like the complacency in parliamentarian procedure, we get complacent in our Christianity copying those that came before us. Every now and then we need someone to come along and remind us to read the Book. 

Cut It Short

'I made this [letter] very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.' Pascal

It comes as no surprise to some, but I'm not very widely liked at church. Especially in the older crowd, or as I have heard them called (and often repeated) the Blue-Haired Crowd. Mind you I am not accusing all of the older generation, many of them are more God-fearing and righteous (in the right manner) than I am. In fact, there are still many I look up to. The reason for this is that unlike most in my age group, I show up at the business meetings, and I open my mouth. When I do it makes those who are comfortable in their status quo relationships at church uncomfortable.

The town I live in is one predominantly made of outsiders. People from all over come to live on the lake. Long ago I stopped asking people if they were from here and rather started asking them where they were from. My ability to discern they weren't from here was amazing to them--at least until they figured out how I did it. The church I attend, however, is full of people who ARE from here. I have had many conversations with other transplants, including some of the leadership of the church, about how difficult it is to "break-in" to the inner circle. Briefly recapping what I just said, I live in a town full of outsiders that embrace outsiders, and attend a church of insiders who don't always embrace outsiders. About 3 years ago I considered leaving, and had a friend tell me that if my family went somewhere else in a matter of 5 years we would see that things were the same there, at least here we know who is what. It was really then that I started to open my mouth.

One of my favorite authors, Ted Dekker, wrote a book entitled The Slumber of Christianity in which he described exactly the situation I see happening in the church as a whole, and my church in particular. People who get so comfortable in their Christianity and their status that they cease to zealously strive for Christ. Churches become a place to go socially, to connect with other like-minded individuals and not a place to rock the boat. They have been in the church for decades, and choose to run the church the way they want regardless of if it is the right way. Again, I do not mean that everything they do is wrong, but more often than not the decisions appear to be more self-serving than not.

An example is what happened in our recent recession. As the economy soured and money, particularly offerings and tithes, dwindled we were constantly called upon to "give sacrificially" or "give 'til it hurts." At the same time, the budget was amended to stop spending on things such as sending the staff to more conferences, less literature for the library and eliminating scholarships for mission trips.The message here was that members were to give until it hurts, but the church would be wise stewards of the money and not spend it on frivolous activities. Not only did I see this as a problem, but we had a speaker at our revival that year who specifically called out the same areas as things that were important that needed to not be cut out just because times get hard.

The lead group in this matter is one Sunday School Class which remains nameless. As mentioned a few times, not everyone, even in this class, is a part of the problem. There is a Sunday School Class of people my age that I have long joked will become the new class that does this, and I had to bite my tongue when I happened to be around when they were told they should move their class into the same room due to size (one meets while the other is in church then vice versa). This Sunday my small men's class joined them because their teacher was absent at the last-minute. Between getting started late because of this last second change and the subject we were speaking about (which in some ways hit upon some of the topics in this post) we spent 5 to 7 minutes praying at the end, and ran way longer than we should have. This in turn caused the older class to be late getting in.

As we broke up and the other class entered, I was standing in the back and a gentleman asked me who had taught today. I commented that at the last second my teacher had been called up off of the bench, smiling and being cordial. This gentleman was not very cordial or smiling and asked me if he knew he was supposed to be done fifteen minutes before. As my own mood began to change I told him no, he didn't and also that the guy in the yellow shirt was the one he would need to talk to. He told me he would just talk to the Associate Pastor (whose hats include Education Minister).

I walked away quite angry. So angry that on my way to the MPR where our contemporary service is held I decided quickly that I would not participate in the Lord's Supper (normally done on the first Sunday of each month) because my heart was not in the right place. We ended up not having the Lord's Supper, and I did calm down. Perhaps this whole post is just me ranting to get over it, I can't deny the distinct possibility of that. Part of me thinks that if he had made the comment to anyone else they would have allowed it to fall like water on a duck's back while I took it as water under a duck's butt.

It seems best for me to have been the one commented to, because I don't know what anyone else would have said or done. And that is a whole lot better note to end this rant on. In case you wondered though, the difference is that water on a duck's back falls harmlessly, water under a duck's butt sometimes gets crapped on.

Related articles

• Interpretative Labeling (byrdmouse.wordpress.com)

Interpretative Labeling

Southerners are their own group when it comes to talking. No one can talk quite like a Southerner, especially a Northern actor playing a Southerner, and that's not even beginning to touch any actor not from New Orleans playing someone from Nawlins. In addition to just our drawl and accents, we have two more bad linguistic points.

One, we believe it to be our right to mispronounce ANYTHING, except you'd better not mispronounce our names/labels. In my home town of Biloxi (it's Bill-uh-xe, not Bill-ox-e) we had Reynoir (pardon my french pronuciation attempt, rin-waa) which we pronounce rain-are, Caillavett (kaileevette) or Ki-vet, and used to have both Beauvoir (Bo-vo-ah) and Buena Vista (bu-ee-na vees-ta) meaning beautiful view that are massacred into Bovore and Beuna Vista. The picture here is looking down what is now known as the Vieux Marche (pronounced view mar-shay, though not in its native french), and another oddity is Point Cadet (pronounced Point Caddy). I can speak these much better then I can ever type them.

The second is our phrases, such as naked (pronounced nekkid) as a jaybird (nude), flat-out (meaning as fast as you can), 'bout as much chance as a kerosene cat in hell with gasoline drawers on (not going to happen), and others. In fact, I was 14 before I found out that damn Yankee was two words.

Our churches are no different. During the War Between the States the Baptists and Methodists split. Afterwards the Methodists rejoined, giving us the United Methodists, but we Baptists, ever the free-spirited, remain split. Interestingly though, both Baptists and Southern Baptists tend to agree on a few linguistic choices. Once we outgrow our sanctuary and build a newer bigger building we call the old sanctuary the "Fellowship Hall." Oftentimes it is surrounded or borders our Family Life Building (Recreation Hall), which in turn contains our MPR or Multi-Purpose Room (gym). We have an altar (stairs to the stage) at the front of the sanctuary, and we share (gossip) in Sunday School. Well, not share as much as we ask prayer for others because they are...(list gossip-worthy transgressions here). While we don't subscribe to concept of transmogrification, we do believe in partial transmogrification because we use grape juice (wine) when we have the Lord's Supper (Communion). I'm not entirely serious when I say that the Baptist word for sprinkler is Methodist, but a more serious definition is that we call dance interpretative movement.

That is a little simplistic of course, because as Baptist we feel dance is wrong, but interpretive movement is fine. Problem is, it's the same thing. And while anyone who is not a believer may look at this point (or this whole post) and say that it is a perfect example of the non-logic and therefore proof (though the two are not the same thing) of the errors in organized religions, I present that this is merely one of those "small points" rather than a larger truth that churches can argue over. Certain concepts are not to be argued over, but the finer distinctions between denominations (like dance) are open game.

Jesus never said not to dance, but our modern-day legalism believes dancing can lead to sinning with the whole 'vertical expression of a horizontal desire' reasoning. It's a gateway activity. While I don't kid myself into thinking that the Baptist church will one day accept with open arms dance, calling it anything other than interpretive movement, or even remove it from the list of don'ts, it does seem to gain traction as an activity each year. It remains one of those areas open for argument, or discussion if you prefer. Not quite on the level with the full immersion versus sprinkling concept, but open nonetheless. 

The Spoiled Ariel

This morning as I sip coffee, read the Bible and contemplate what to do with the day I stumbled upon the word ariel. I'm reading the English Standard Version, Dr. Thweatt finally got me to switch after literally a lifetime of reading NIV (my lifetime up to then anyway). In 2 Samuel 23:20 it describes that Benaiah "struck down to ariels of Moab." Being a modern-day scholar of useless information (it's really only useless if you never use it) the word intrigues me. In addition to occasionally converting useful numbers into metric I also from time to time have been known to convert things into cubits or furlongs. An ariel, while sounding like a name or misspelled antenna, appears to be a unit of some type. Anxiously I glance down to the footnote only to read that the meaning of the word is unclear.

Knowing the section was translated from Hebrew this started me wondering, what was the translator thinking? I speak American English, a smattering of the Queen's English and Southern (pronounced su-thurn). The rest of my lingual skills include a few sayings occasionally trying to decipher German, Spanish or french instructions and dialectic variations to include sarcasm or smart aleck-ness. My limited experience with translating does afford me the knowledge that sometimes a word in one language doesn't exist in the other or needs multiple others to approximate the more succinct foreign word. This is a word that confounded the scholars that brought us, not just the ESV, but the book of 2 Samuel. The meaning of a word, in a non-dead language is unknown, even though it translates to ariel in English.

In Moby Dick there is a scene where the nets are emptied and a "spoiled serpent" is noted by the narrator of the story. The existence and meaning of this serpent has been examined and over-analyzed for decades, over a century. There have been paragraphs, term papers and theses written about it but the only one I really remember is the one that supposes the printer either couldn't read Melville's writing or just created an errata that was not caught but copied repeatedly.

These two thoughts are combined for your contemplation. Meanwhile, I'm back to see what happened to Ben. 

Poster Boy for Answered Prayers

Not long ago, I was involved in a regular Thursday Morning Men's Prayer Group. We met each Thursday at 6:30 and after about a half hour of prayer walked across the street to eat a biscuit. I still maintain that there is something scriptural, and sometimes ephiphany-revealing (is ephiphanical a word?) about eating together. For just one example see Luke 24:30. It became to me more important than Sunday School, and that was the hour that my preacher still calls the most important hour of the day. I started attending after telling my employer I would be late on Thursday mornings. Then I changed jobs, twice, and told my boss after accepting the job, "By the way, I'll be late on Thursday mornings." It was not a question, it was a statement.

About 5 years ago my marriage hit the roughest patch it ever has. We were fighting each other as much as ourselves. Or maybe it was just me. I moved into an apartment closer to where I worked, which was also about 40 miles from home and church. At this time I stopped attending the prayer group. Eventually, I found myself to be so miserable without my beloved Ginger that we reconciled and have had a wonderful marriage since. We have had a third child, now 6 months old, named Faith. I could not have picked a more appropriate name, though I did try. Scarlett Grace was the name I tried for because it is by the blood of Jesus I have received grace. In less than 3 months I will have been married for over half my life, yet I can barely remember a life without Ginger. This despite my anal retentive memory.

After the incident I did return to the prayer group. My current job is such that it doesn't allow a late arrival on Thursdays, yet, but I miss the men and the fellowship. Just this past Sunday I found out that the men of the group had agreed to pray for me during that time I was away. Not only on Thursday mornings, but whenever they thought of me. They prayed that I would be so miserable without my family that I would wake up and come to my senses.

Oftentimes we pray without knowing if it will do any good. Other times we don't pray and still get blessed. Most of the time when I pray the answer I receive looks nothing like the prayer I asked, but fills the prayer request better than I could have ever imagined. For most of my life I have considered myself a poster boy for answered prayers. So much so that I am afraid it sounds like I'm bragging about it at times. God answers prayers for you, whether you prayed them or not, whether you knew they were being prayed or not. Especially when you least expect it.