Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
C.S. Lewis on Suffering
"When I lay these questions before God I get no answer. But a rather special sort of ‘No answer.’ It is not the locked door. It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask—half our great theological and metaphysical problems—are like that.
And now that I come to think of it, there’s no practical problem before me at all. I know the two great commandments, and I’d better get on with them."
-C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable. How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask—half our great theological and metaphysical problems—are like that.
And now that I come to think of it, there’s no practical problem before me at all. I know the two great commandments, and I’d better get on with them."
-C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Monday, July 19, 2010
Challenge
I just randomly read this "comment" from a CNN article about Donald Miller (author of "Blue Like Jazz," etc.). It is a (overly intense) challenge to Christians. And I challenge you to read it. Read the whole thing; read what he says about Christianity. Basically, his conclusion is that it is ridiculous to believe in a creator-being. I have to admit, it is very well spoken. I don't know how accurate all of his examples of numbers and proportions are, but it's interesting none the less.
The Earth is big. It is 25,000 miles around at the Equator. It is also old, about 4.6 billion years. We believe that anywhere from 5 million to 100 million species inhabit the planet, of which science has identified about 2 million. The reason for the gaping shortfall is the large number of insects, microbes and deep-sea dwellers we believe we have not yet catalogued.
Over the course of the Earth’s four billion year history, billions of other species have evolved into existence and been rendered extinct by competitors or natural disasters, well before the current cast of characters appeared. To say that a being exists that is capable of creating all this and orchestrating its 4.6 billion year pageant of life and death is ascribing incredible age, powers and abilities to such a being. An entire planet, teeming with life for billions of years! It is truly an enormous assertion to credit it all to the actions of one being. One is justified to ask, “What is your evidence for this incredible super-being?”
Our sun is huge. Stupidly huge. One million Earths would fit inside it. It is so big that, due simply to shining, it losses 4,000,000 tons of mass every second. In a day, it loses 345 billion tons of mass. It has been shedding weight at this prodigious rate for almost five thousand million years. Yet, it is so huge that this is hardly noticeable. To say a being exists that is capable of creating the sun is ascribing even more incredible powers and ability to such being. The putative being’s creative abilities have just increased a million fold!
Eight planets and their moons circle the Sun, along with Pluto, innumerable asteroids, comets and miscellaneous dust and space debris. Four of the planets are enormous, thousands of times bigger than the Earth. Pluto is so far away it takes 245 years to circle the Sun. Jupiter and Saturn are so big as to be circled by their own families of moons, some of which rival the other planets in size. All the planets and their moons (some of which have their own mini-moons) have volcanoes, mountains, impact craters and bizarre formations of different chemicals. This makes up the Solar System, a huge and complex system of circles within circles.
Assuming there is nothing particularly special about our solar system (and we are increasingly learning that this is so) there are likely about one hundred billion solar systems in our galaxy. That number slips off the tongue easily, but concentrate on it for a second. If each solar system were the size of a grain of sand of one cubic millimeter, they would fill 100 000 one liter coke bottles. Standing beside each other, these bottles would stretch for over six miles – each full to the brim with sand, each grain a solar system (probably) on average as big and complex as ours, resplendent with planets, moons, asteroids and, in some cases, perhaps life. Stop and picture this for a moment. Imagine scooping out a handful of sand from the first bottle and looking down the six mile line as the grains of sand trickle through your fingers. Each grain a solar system. The numbers and size are beyond the ability of the human mind to properly comprehend.
How’s that whole “one being made it all” theory going?
There are 200,000,000,000 known galaxies in the observable Universe. That is to say, multiply the above incomprehensible size by 200,000,000,000 and separate each galaxy by even greater distances. Put another way, for every grain of sand in the six miles of full-to-the-brim coke bottles, there are two galaxies, each made up solar systems that would themselves fill six miles of coke bottles. The numbers we cannot comprehend have just been squared – then doubled. The distances have exponentially increased.
All of the above only makes up about 5% of the Universe. The rest is dark matter or dark energy we cannot see. There are many strange and weird objects out there – black holes where space-time folds in on itself, neutron stars (a cubic inch of which weighs more than Mount Everest) and exploding suns. Space warps and time contracts. Atoms spring in and out of existence, gravity waves pulse out from violent star collapses, while antimatter spews out around the event horizon of black holes.
Six days and a talking snake starting to look a little silly? About as silly as Hoyle's storm blowing through a junkyard and creating a Boeing-747?
Believe it or not however, the god theory has to go even further. We not only assume/hope/wish into existence this most improbable of beings, we then unilaterally decide that it made the whole thing for us. The moon and stars were made “to light the night sky” for man as Genesis proclaims.
The infinitely old super-being did all this, waited 10 billion years, created the Earth, then waited another 4.6 billion years, causing life to slowly evolve into humans and then sent its “son” to Earth to talk about sheep and goats in the Middle East.
Somehow, “oh come on” just doesn't quite capture it.
One can imagine, if and when we are eventually visited by an alien civilization, one of the creatures staring incredulously at the Vatican and asking its human hosts, “so, you really thought it was all about you?”
When one actually turns one’s mind to the sheer absurdity of all this, the god theory collapses in a heap. For once actually think about it. Spend five minutes trying to actually conceive of such a being. The powers it would need, the size it would have to be, the complexity it must have, how could it have always existed, and what is its motivation? Would it really care about my $ex life or what I did on a Sunday?
If we accept that everything must have a creator, what created god? “God was always there, right?” In which case the validity of the very assumption you used to deduce god is nonsense. "We have no alternative explanation, therefore god did it!". Again, no. "We don't know" DOES NOT equal god. It equals "We don't know." And, by the way, we actually do have some very compelling theories on the origins of the Universe. Frankly, would any believer, absent having been taught it from when they were too young to question it, possibly conclude a creator-god as a thinking adult?
Post some comments and let me know what you guys think. Here is what the guy has to say about our faith:
The Earth is big. It is 25,000 miles around at the Equator. It is also old, about 4.6 billion years. We believe that anywhere from 5 million to 100 million species inhabit the planet, of which science has identified about 2 million. The reason for the gaping shortfall is the large number of insects, microbes and deep-sea dwellers we believe we have not yet catalogued.
Over the course of the Earth’s four billion year history, billions of other species have evolved into existence and been rendered extinct by competitors or natural disasters, well before the current cast of characters appeared. To say that a being exists that is capable of creating all this and orchestrating its 4.6 billion year pageant of life and death is ascribing incredible age, powers and abilities to such a being. An entire planet, teeming with life for billions of years! It is truly an enormous assertion to credit it all to the actions of one being. One is justified to ask, “What is your evidence for this incredible super-being?”
Our sun is huge. Stupidly huge. One million Earths would fit inside it. It is so big that, due simply to shining, it losses 4,000,000 tons of mass every second. In a day, it loses 345 billion tons of mass. It has been shedding weight at this prodigious rate for almost five thousand million years. Yet, it is so huge that this is hardly noticeable. To say a being exists that is capable of creating the sun is ascribing even more incredible powers and ability to such being. The putative being’s creative abilities have just increased a million fold!
Eight planets and their moons circle the Sun, along with Pluto, innumerable asteroids, comets and miscellaneous dust and space debris. Four of the planets are enormous, thousands of times bigger than the Earth. Pluto is so far away it takes 245 years to circle the Sun. Jupiter and Saturn are so big as to be circled by their own families of moons, some of which rival the other planets in size. All the planets and their moons (some of which have their own mini-moons) have volcanoes, mountains, impact craters and bizarre formations of different chemicals. This makes up the Solar System, a huge and complex system of circles within circles.
Assuming there is nothing particularly special about our solar system (and we are increasingly learning that this is so) there are likely about one hundred billion solar systems in our galaxy. That number slips off the tongue easily, but concentrate on it for a second. If each solar system were the size of a grain of sand of one cubic millimeter, they would fill 100 000 one liter coke bottles. Standing beside each other, these bottles would stretch for over six miles – each full to the brim with sand, each grain a solar system (probably) on average as big and complex as ours, resplendent with planets, moons, asteroids and, in some cases, perhaps life. Stop and picture this for a moment. Imagine scooping out a handful of sand from the first bottle and looking down the six mile line as the grains of sand trickle through your fingers. Each grain a solar system. The numbers and size are beyond the ability of the human mind to properly comprehend.
How’s that whole “one being made it all” theory going?
There are 200,000,000,000 known galaxies in the observable Universe. That is to say, multiply the above incomprehensible size by 200,000,000,000 and separate each galaxy by even greater distances. Put another way, for every grain of sand in the six miles of full-to-the-brim coke bottles, there are two galaxies, each made up solar systems that would themselves fill six miles of coke bottles. The numbers we cannot comprehend have just been squared – then doubled. The distances have exponentially increased.
All of the above only makes up about 5% of the Universe. The rest is dark matter or dark energy we cannot see. There are many strange and weird objects out there – black holes where space-time folds in on itself, neutron stars (a cubic inch of which weighs more than Mount Everest) and exploding suns. Space warps and time contracts. Atoms spring in and out of existence, gravity waves pulse out from violent star collapses, while antimatter spews out around the event horizon of black holes.
Six days and a talking snake starting to look a little silly? About as silly as Hoyle's storm blowing through a junkyard and creating a Boeing-747?
Believe it or not however, the god theory has to go even further. We not only assume/hope/wish into existence this most improbable of beings, we then unilaterally decide that it made the whole thing for us. The moon and stars were made “to light the night sky” for man as Genesis proclaims.
The infinitely old super-being did all this, waited 10 billion years, created the Earth, then waited another 4.6 billion years, causing life to slowly evolve into humans and then sent its “son” to Earth to talk about sheep and goats in the Middle East.
Somehow, “oh come on” just doesn't quite capture it.
One can imagine, if and when we are eventually visited by an alien civilization, one of the creatures staring incredulously at the Vatican and asking its human hosts, “so, you really thought it was all about you?”
When one actually turns one’s mind to the sheer absurdity of all this, the god theory collapses in a heap. For once actually think about it. Spend five minutes trying to actually conceive of such a being. The powers it would need, the size it would have to be, the complexity it must have, how could it have always existed, and what is its motivation? Would it really care about my $ex life or what I did on a Sunday?
If we accept that everything must have a creator, what created god? “God was always there, right?” In which case the validity of the very assumption you used to deduce god is nonsense. "We have no alternative explanation, therefore god did it!". Again, no. "We don't know" DOES NOT equal god. It equals "We don't know." And, by the way, we actually do have some very compelling theories on the origins of the Universe. Frankly, would any believer, absent having been taught it from when they were too young to question it, possibly conclude a creator-god as a thinking adult?
Update On Edwin!
Edwin arrived in Los Angeles for his mission trip today and he is really excited.
Keep praying for him as his team is heading out tomorrow morning to take the Gospel to the people of Santa Monica.
He said that when they arrived it was 72º. Ha. Must be nice. I told him he was missing out on our 104º heat wave here in Dallas. Everything's bigger, and apparently hotter, in Texas.
Now go pray for Edwin. Yes, you. Go. Pray.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Next Topic?...
Guys... notice that over there on the right we have a new poll. We need to vote on what you all want to study once we finish Ecclesiastes.
Put comments on this post if you have other suggestions; I'm open for anything.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Passage Investigation: Isaiah 5:11–12
that they may run after strong drink,
who tarry late into the evening
as wine inflames them!
They have lyre and harp,
tambourine and flute and wine at their feasts,
but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord,
or see the work of his hands."
• • •
Guys, this is an interesting passage, and it's not all about getting drunk! God is angry with His people because they are not close to Him.
Do you ever feel like that? Like you just aren't close to God?
Well, ultimately, it is our choice. We must pursue Him daily. All the time. Look at the last two lines of that verse. How are you doing with "regarding the deeds" of God? How do we even do that? How are you doing with "seeing the work" of His hands? How do we even do that?
If we can find out how to better do that in our daily lives... maybe, just maybe, we'll all grow a little closer to God.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Next Thursday Night Topic?
What do you guys want to study once we are finished with Ecclesiastes?
...how about get a new teacher?
:-)
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