What does God look like? What do angels and demons look like?
Since these questions deal with spiritual beings, I lumped them together.
First, God is a spirit. This is different from a ghost and so isn't really what you probably think of when you think of a 'spirit'. Most people probably imagine something like an invisible, incorporeal (non-physical) being, but one that is otherwise fairly similar to something in the known world. Like a translucent human. That's not a very accurate image of God though, so I kind of don't like it, but it may be as close as we can get to having a metal picture of God. We tend to think in visual images and it is difficult to think outside those boxes. God is not defined by a physical body or anything else that our human eyes can see. He doesn't have five fingers and toes - He doesn't have a physical body. Everything physical was made by Him, but He's beyond that. So 'what does He look like' is not exactly easy to answer.
There were some people who encountered God in the Bible and from their description, it might be like looking at lightning. Or like being on the surface of the sun where the very air is so filled with light and heat that you'd be burned to a crisp just by being close. Because of this, when God and people interact in the Bible, it is almost always with God taking on the form of something else. Like He spoke to Moses from fire and talked to Abraham through dreams. The people who found themselves in God's 'physical' presence were often there 'in the spirit' (so not in their physical body, somehow) and usually acted as if they were pretty sure they were about to die. The descriptions of such encounters vary, but there is usually a whole lot of blinding light.
Angels and demons are likewise not confined to a physical form like we are. They can almost be thought of as shape-shifters. The Bible says that sometimes people encounter angels and think they are regular people. And it says that demons 'disguise themselves as angels of light' (so, in the unlikely event that you ever saw an angel, be very, very doubtful that it is an angel and not a demon before you trust it!) The Bible several times admonishes the people not to trust 'spirits' and to test anything that claims to be from God (which is done by evaluating its words and actions very, very carefully). Anyway, we don't know exactly what they naturally look like, but when there were encounters with angels in the Bible, people were usually either fooled into thinking they were normal people or they were absolutely terrified by the glowing figures. And there were no cute fluffy wings to be found anywhere.
So, getting back to God, the answer to you question is that God is pretty much indescribable.
In fact, one of the 10 commandments (the ultimate law from God) was that the people never try to make a image of Him to worship. He probably made that rule because people tend to start worshiping the statue/painting/whatever itself rather than who it was supposed to represent and because nothing they'd create could be even close to accurate.
Now I get down to the exception to this. As I'd mentioned in a previous post, Christianity teaches that God took on human form in the person of Jesus. And if that's true, then God CAN be physically described by describing what Jesus looked like. Sadly, the Bible doesn't give us a detailed list of 'he was this tall and had this color of eyes, etc.'. In fact, the only real description of Jesus in the Bible comes from a prophecy of Him from the Old Testament that says 'There was nothing about his appearance to make him attractive'. So, we can be pretty sure Jesus wasn't a super-model. Beyond that, we can also have a few pretty good guesses. He was Jewish and lived in Israel, so he probably had dark hair, dark eyes, and bronze-ish skin tones. He was a carpenter by trade, so was also likely in good physical shape since that was a labor-intensive job. So all the lovely paintings of Jesus out there? Usually of him being blue-eyed and very pale skinned? Complete baloney.
But, as long as you realize that our mental pictures of God and Jesus are wrong, it doesn't hurt much to have some sort of vague image in mind when you think of Him.
The Bible reading assignment today is to read Ezekiel 1. Normally I won't assign two different passages to look up, but since there is a second really good one, I'm going to also add to this and have you look up Revelation 1:9-18. When you read this,
expect to have a whole lot of trouble trying to visualize what Ezekiel
is trying to describe. Most of the chapter deals with some sort of
creature/angel/spiritual being and only at the end do we get something
about God, but the point is that when you read this, it is confusing and
you get the impression that the writer was really having a hard time
trying to tell us what he saw. There are a lot of 'it was like' phrases
because he probably couldn't find the right words for it. In the end, you sort of conclude that it is nearly impossible to describe what they actually saw!
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Is all Religion Man-made?
Are all 'religions' man made?
That's actually a difficult question to answer since it depends so much on both what you are actually asking and what you define things as. Short answer: both 'yes' and 'no'. (That's totally unhelpful, isn't it?) I guess I'll start with clarifying some definitions.
First, I need to define what I think you are asking. You could be asking (1) Are the rituals and ceremonies used today to honor God 'man-made' (2) Is there any evidence that there is a spiritual reality? (3) How can a person believe that Christianity is different from, say, the myths of the Greek gods?
If I define 'religion' as a set of rituals or ceremonies that reflect man-kind's efforts to reach up to God, then I would say that pretty much everything you think of as religion is man-made. People have created sets of procedures (like the order of a church service) which they've found assists them in somehow honoring God or knowing Him, but these things aren't required by God. Take prayer as an example. The Bible says we should do it and it tells us not to do it in a 'showy fashion' (don't pray so that you can be told what a great person you are by other people). Although we have multiple examples of people talking to God in the Bible, there are no other commandments about it. God doesn't require eyes closed, hands folded, kneeling on the floor or head bowed. None of the 'ceremony' of prayer is necessary. However, many people find closing the eyes helps them focus and not be distracted by other things, so that's become the traditional way to do it. Traditions happen because they work!
Religion, in this sense, has come about because of people wanting to express their love to God or their fear of God or otherwise want some way to show Him honor in some way. When someone finds something that works, other people do the same thing (sometimes finding it works for them too...and sometimes not). That's why we have the church services set up the way we do. Someone found that it worked, a bunch of other people agreed and ta-da!
BUT this isn't true for everything. First, I freely admit that I am biased in this. If I didn't deep-down honestly trust that Christianity was more than just a fairy-tale, I wouldn't be a Christian. In fact, my story of becoming a Christian was due to researching and discovering the uncomfortable fact that I found it took more faith to believe that it wasn't true than faith to believe that it was! This is one of those things that sets Christianity apart, in my opinion, from other belief systems. You can dig down into its history, its philosophy, its logic, and find a very sold foundation that holds up to scrutiny.
I'm digressing - I don't think your question was about Christianity in particular, so I'll skip that for now.
We've dealt with the ritualized parts of 'religion'. That is the 'yes' part of the answer I gave you. Now we'll move onto the 'no' part - and this will be tricky. In fact, tricky might not even cover it, this is going to be down right complicated, but I can't think of how to simplify it, so I'm sorry for that. This gets into serious philosophy.
Alright, if I take your question and re-phrase it, what this seems to actually be asking is whether or not there are 'truths' about reality which reach beyond pure science or not. The question asks whether some spiritual reality exists or not independent of whether anyone believes it or not. Another way to ask this would be to ask if moral truths are real or not. If religion is completely man-made, then morality (right and wrong) is also completely made up - it is arbitrary. If religion is completely man-made, then absolutely nothing about life can ever be meaningful, have impact. Justice does not exist, neither does the idea of fairness or goodness or even love.
Why do I say this? Because if God does not exist, then there is nothing that can say if something is good or not. Without a 'higher authority' to set a standard, then the concept of right and wrong is just a preference and an opinion. Take murder, since it is an easy one to grasp. Is it wrong to kill your baby sister? I would hope that your first thought would be that yes, it is wrong. Why do you think that? Is is just because the people around you are telling you that it is wrong? Okay, let's eliminate that. Let's say that your teachers at school tell you that she's a distraction at home so you should get rid of her. Dan and Angela also let you know that it would be okay with them and there would be no consequences if you killed her. You can do so and get away with it. Is it now okay to kill her? Again, you'll probably say that no, it's not suddenly okay. Why? Why should it be a 'truth' that killing you little sister is wrong when there would be no bad consequences for doing so? From an evolutionary stance, it could probably improve your odds of being successful (your parents would spend less of their time and attention and resources on someone else!). But this isn't a preference where you prefer not to kill her in the same way that you prefer to eat chocolate over broccoli - you know it is wrong just because deep down you know it and whether you could get away with it or even benefit from it doesn't change that fact.
Why? Why is this true?
This is a problem for a strictly evolutionary idea of humans. Scientists have posed all sorts of ideas of why we have morals, why we think certain things are wrong. Everything from weird pack-mentality to instincts, but no one has ever been able to point to anything 'physical' for this. There is no 'do not murder' gene or a 'this is fair' chemical combination. From a strictly evolutionary view, the only thing 'good' is that which furthers an individual's chances of passing its genes on to another generation. And that's it. From that standpoint, rape should be the highest good! So why isn't it? The only answer scientists can seem to come up with is "We are this way, therefore, we must have evolved this way, therefore it must be evolutionarily favored." Sounds like flawed reasoning to me.
Humans all have an inate sense of what is right. None of us completely live up to that standard, but we all know it exists. Where does that standard come from?
If you include back in the idea of God, then the problem is solved. We have morality because God is moral. He declares that certain things are good and right and that standard is there whether a person believes in it or not, or whether a person acts like it is there or not. Murder then is wrong even if a person kills another person, no matter what excuse they have for it or whether anyone else on the planet thinks it is wrong or not. (We could discuss 'special circumstances' for this, if you wish in a separate topic - for now, just look at the big picture).
The problem with this whole thing comes down to the fact that these ideas are not nice, neat, tidy 'facts' like Gravity. How do you measure justice? People have been trying to do that for centuries! It's why we have law enforcement and courts and such. I cannot 'prove' with a tidy scientific formula that justice is a 'real' concept, but we both know it is still real.
You can stand up and say that spiritual and moral 'truths' exist separate from whatever any human has to say about them and, as such, are definitely NOT man-made (because if they were man-made, then we could re-define what is right and wrong whenever we wanted). So, in this sense, the answer to your question is 'no', not all religions are man-made because in Christianity, the foundational 'truths' about reality are simply declarations that, like gravity, are true whether a person believes in them or not.
Okay, I'm not sure I wrote this out in a fashion that is very clear, but I'll try to summarize. First, the 'ritualized' parts of religions are mostly man-made (but not necessarily bad things). The non-ritualized ideas behind religion - that there is truth in reality that originates outside of human opinion- is not man-made, because, like science, it holds up to investigation, even if, unlike science, it his hard to measure and put in nice little boxes.
Did that even get close to answering what you were asking?
That's actually a difficult question to answer since it depends so much on both what you are actually asking and what you define things as. Short answer: both 'yes' and 'no'. (That's totally unhelpful, isn't it?) I guess I'll start with clarifying some definitions.
First, I need to define what I think you are asking. You could be asking (1) Are the rituals and ceremonies used today to honor God 'man-made' (2) Is there any evidence that there is a spiritual reality? (3) How can a person believe that Christianity is different from, say, the myths of the Greek gods?
If I define 'religion' as a set of rituals or ceremonies that reflect man-kind's efforts to reach up to God, then I would say that pretty much everything you think of as religion is man-made. People have created sets of procedures (like the order of a church service) which they've found assists them in somehow honoring God or knowing Him, but these things aren't required by God. Take prayer as an example. The Bible says we should do it and it tells us not to do it in a 'showy fashion' (don't pray so that you can be told what a great person you are by other people). Although we have multiple examples of people talking to God in the Bible, there are no other commandments about it. God doesn't require eyes closed, hands folded, kneeling on the floor or head bowed. None of the 'ceremony' of prayer is necessary. However, many people find closing the eyes helps them focus and not be distracted by other things, so that's become the traditional way to do it. Traditions happen because they work!
Religion, in this sense, has come about because of people wanting to express their love to God or their fear of God or otherwise want some way to show Him honor in some way. When someone finds something that works, other people do the same thing (sometimes finding it works for them too...and sometimes not). That's why we have the church services set up the way we do. Someone found that it worked, a bunch of other people agreed and ta-da!
BUT this isn't true for everything. First, I freely admit that I am biased in this. If I didn't deep-down honestly trust that Christianity was more than just a fairy-tale, I wouldn't be a Christian. In fact, my story of becoming a Christian was due to researching and discovering the uncomfortable fact that I found it took more faith to believe that it wasn't true than faith to believe that it was! This is one of those things that sets Christianity apart, in my opinion, from other belief systems. You can dig down into its history, its philosophy, its logic, and find a very sold foundation that holds up to scrutiny.
I'm digressing - I don't think your question was about Christianity in particular, so I'll skip that for now.
We've dealt with the ritualized parts of 'religion'. That is the 'yes' part of the answer I gave you. Now we'll move onto the 'no' part - and this will be tricky. In fact, tricky might not even cover it, this is going to be down right complicated, but I can't think of how to simplify it, so I'm sorry for that. This gets into serious philosophy.
Alright, if I take your question and re-phrase it, what this seems to actually be asking is whether or not there are 'truths' about reality which reach beyond pure science or not. The question asks whether some spiritual reality exists or not independent of whether anyone believes it or not. Another way to ask this would be to ask if moral truths are real or not. If religion is completely man-made, then morality (right and wrong) is also completely made up - it is arbitrary. If religion is completely man-made, then absolutely nothing about life can ever be meaningful, have impact. Justice does not exist, neither does the idea of fairness or goodness or even love.
Why do I say this? Because if God does not exist, then there is nothing that can say if something is good or not. Without a 'higher authority' to set a standard, then the concept of right and wrong is just a preference and an opinion. Take murder, since it is an easy one to grasp. Is it wrong to kill your baby sister? I would hope that your first thought would be that yes, it is wrong. Why do you think that? Is is just because the people around you are telling you that it is wrong? Okay, let's eliminate that. Let's say that your teachers at school tell you that she's a distraction at home so you should get rid of her. Dan and Angela also let you know that it would be okay with them and there would be no consequences if you killed her. You can do so and get away with it. Is it now okay to kill her? Again, you'll probably say that no, it's not suddenly okay. Why? Why should it be a 'truth' that killing you little sister is wrong when there would be no bad consequences for doing so? From an evolutionary stance, it could probably improve your odds of being successful (your parents would spend less of their time and attention and resources on someone else!). But this isn't a preference where you prefer not to kill her in the same way that you prefer to eat chocolate over broccoli - you know it is wrong just because deep down you know it and whether you could get away with it or even benefit from it doesn't change that fact.
Why? Why is this true?
This is a problem for a strictly evolutionary idea of humans. Scientists have posed all sorts of ideas of why we have morals, why we think certain things are wrong. Everything from weird pack-mentality to instincts, but no one has ever been able to point to anything 'physical' for this. There is no 'do not murder' gene or a 'this is fair' chemical combination. From a strictly evolutionary view, the only thing 'good' is that which furthers an individual's chances of passing its genes on to another generation. And that's it. From that standpoint, rape should be the highest good! So why isn't it? The only answer scientists can seem to come up with is "We are this way, therefore, we must have evolved this way, therefore it must be evolutionarily favored." Sounds like flawed reasoning to me.
Humans all have an inate sense of what is right. None of us completely live up to that standard, but we all know it exists. Where does that standard come from?
If you include back in the idea of God, then the problem is solved. We have morality because God is moral. He declares that certain things are good and right and that standard is there whether a person believes in it or not, or whether a person acts like it is there or not. Murder then is wrong even if a person kills another person, no matter what excuse they have for it or whether anyone else on the planet thinks it is wrong or not. (We could discuss 'special circumstances' for this, if you wish in a separate topic - for now, just look at the big picture).
The problem with this whole thing comes down to the fact that these ideas are not nice, neat, tidy 'facts' like Gravity. How do you measure justice? People have been trying to do that for centuries! It's why we have law enforcement and courts and such. I cannot 'prove' with a tidy scientific formula that justice is a 'real' concept, but we both know it is still real.
You can stand up and say that spiritual and moral 'truths' exist separate from whatever any human has to say about them and, as such, are definitely NOT man-made (because if they were man-made, then we could re-define what is right and wrong whenever we wanted). So, in this sense, the answer to your question is 'no', not all religions are man-made because in Christianity, the foundational 'truths' about reality are simply declarations that, like gravity, are true whether a person believes in them or not.
Okay, I'm not sure I wrote this out in a fashion that is very clear, but I'll try to summarize. First, the 'ritualized' parts of religions are mostly man-made (but not necessarily bad things). The non-ritualized ideas behind religion - that there is truth in reality that originates outside of human opinion- is not man-made, because, like science, it holds up to investigation, even if, unlike science, it his hard to measure and put in nice little boxes.
Did that even get close to answering what you were asking?
Sunday, June 9, 2013
7th commandment
Do not steal.
What does this mean?
What is the Biblical response to stealing?
Lev. 6:1-5, Ex. 22:1-4
What else might fall under this category? Kidnapping?
What about this:
Malachi 3:8-12
What about 'grey areas' such as downloading bootleg videos? What other 'grey areas' exist?
What about gossip and slander? They can rob a man of their reputation.
What does this mean?
What is the Biblical response to stealing?
Lev. 6:1-5, Ex. 22:1-4
What else might fall under this category? Kidnapping?
What about this:
Malachi 3:8-12
What about 'grey areas' such as downloading bootleg videos? What other 'grey areas' exist?
What about gossip and slander? They can rob a man of their reputation.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Intro for Peyton
Peyton,
Greetings! :-) I have never done something like this so am feeling this will be an awkward introduction post, but I suppose that's okay. We'll see how this 'religion exploration class' idea works as we go along.
So, I guess I should start out with a sort of vague idea of how I see this working and what I'd expect from you. Okay, so, we'll start with your questions (which Angela sent to me), going through them one at a time. I intend to post the answer to one of them (and they'll be pretty wordy answers since I'll try to answer them in a complete fashion - the length of this e-mail will give you some idea of how I can ramble on and on...), then we'll discuss it in a question/answer format (to make sure it is thoroughly answered) before moving on to the next question. I would expect that as we go you'll come up with further questions that, instead of being answered in the discussion, will merit waiting to be answered as a full topic by itself. To organize ourselves, I think the Titles of our separate posts ought to be consistant. So for example, the first question I'll answer (to be posted next Monday) will be 'If the Universe is so vast, why should we think God would notice or care about humans?'. I'll set the Title of the Post as something like this:
Q1: Size of Universe
And when you respond (whether it is a question or comment), please put something like:
Q1 - (whatever else you want to put in here).
This way we can sort of figure out what we're talking about when we have multiple topics going and keep the threads of conversation connected easier. If it turns out that things are very straighforward and we don't need to do anything like this to keep it straight, then we can drop this format, but for now, let's try it.
In addition to the discussion, I'm going to ask you to do some Bible reading. The reason for this is that when thinking over the idea for this class, I came to two realizations - first: it's going to be a whole lot more work for me than for you to run this discussion. A single question from you may take me a few hours worth of research and typing to answer properly. I don't mind that, but think it's only fair to balance that out by requiring you to do a bit of 'research' on your own. The Bible reading I'll assign will be short (like at maximum a couple of pages), so it shouldn't be too much of a hardship for you to do this. My second reason for assigning this will be found in the logic behind the idea that you don't know what you don't know. In other words, you won't have any idea whether you agree with what Christianity teaches unless you know what it teaches! Since I have no idea what you might have been taught before, I'm going to assume that it isn't much of anything (except maybe a few basic 'fable-style' Bible stories). Because I don't expect you've read the Bible before, I would expect it to be confusing and spawn more questions. That's a good thing and the final reason for assigning reading. It'll open up the chance for further discussion.
Now onto schedule. I'll post on, Monday, June 24th, the answer to the first question in our discussion. You are then expected to get on Tumblr on Monday and read what I've written (and give it some thought LOL). At the end of the post, I'll attach a small 'assigned reading' (and maybe some explanation about the reading, if I think you may need it). My suggestion to you is to read both what I've written and the Bible passage with a pen and notebook at hand and jot down anything that occurs to you as you read. Is something confusing or weird or illogical or otherwise makes you wonder? Make a note of it.
On Tuesday, you will be expected to respond. It doesn't have to be long (there's no word limit), but I do expect it to be honest and thoughtful. Also, since this is a school-thing, I'll request that you attempt to use proper grammar (no chat-speak abbreviations). I'm not exactly going to be grading you on your English, so this doesn't have to be perfect, just keep in mind that an effort towards good communication skills would be wise practice.
On Wed. I'll write back, answering questions (depending on how many questions you have, and how much explanation is needed will determine how this plays out. If you have a lot of questions that need long responses, I may not get to everything, but if you have few questions and they can be answered easily, I may move on to posting another one of your initial questions). Whether you have absolutely no questions after reading everything (which seems unlikely to happen, honestly), or many questions, feel free to take the opportunity to ask about something unrelated to the reading or topic, if you want. I do want this to be a chance for you to figure out what YOU want to know. If you are curious about why some people seemed upset at Jesus for healing a guy on a certain day, feel free to ask, but if you would prefer me to answer a question about why we should believe Jesus healed anyone at all, then make sure to make that clear! It's very possible that the answer to something may itself need questions answered before it becomes a reasonable explanation and that's totally fine.
So, to continue with the schedule, we'll do a back-and-forth thing every other day. All posts must be up on Tumblr by noon on the respective days. On Fridays, whether it is your turn to post something or mine, I'll have an additional 'Think about it' assignment. I haven't decided exactly how this will work, but it'll probably be something where I ask a "What do you think about..." and will expect a fairly lengthy (several paragraphs, minimum) response. This will both exercise your brain and give me some feedback as to where you are at with this whole thing. Your response to this 'Think about it' will be due by noon the following Friday (so you'll have a week to write something up, so there won't be an excuse not to put a bit of time into it).
So, to summerize the guidelines:
1. Read the blog or post daily (alternating whether reading or posting).
2. There will be a weekly 'Think about it' question, answer due the next week.
3. Use proper grammar, spelling, etc.
4. All posts should be up on Tumblr by noon on the correct day.
As an example of how this might work, let me give you a bit of information that you may or may not already know about the Bible (I'm going to give you this example as if you'd asked the question: 'What is the Bible?')
My answer would be: The Bible is a collection of 66 books by various authors which people have recognized as helpful for knowing God and building a relationship with Him. The books are NOT chronological and they can be very different from each other. For example, the book of 'Leviticus' is a manual for the Jewish priests on how they were to live and conduct worship, etc. Unless you are interested in reading about what clothes they were to wear and how to sacrifice a sheep, that's not something I highly recommend a person read for fun. The book of 'Psalms', on the other hand, is a collection of Jewish poetry and hymms. The book of 'Romans' is actually a letter, written by a follower of Jesus to a group of Christians living in Rome dealing with how a person who claims to be a Christian ought to live. So, as you can see, there's a huge diversity of topics. For a Christian, the Bible is believed to be 'divinely inspired' (which means that while men wrote it, God had a hand in directing what they wrote so God made sure that what is written is accurate). It is not necessary to believe such a thing when reading it, since it can also be quite easily read as nothing more than a set of historical documents.
Okay, so the above was a brief answer to the question raised, but I would hope that if you read that paragraph, you'd have come up with a bunch of questions. To further this example, here are some ideas of what you might have come up with (I'd be curious to know if you thought of any of these and/or want answers to any of them...)
1. If the Bible isn't in Chronological order, what order (if any) is it in?
2. Why did the Jewish priests sacrifice animals?? Do they still do that?
3. What does Christianity have to do with Jewish beliefs?
4. What makes a Christian think that the Bible is 'divinely inspired'?
5. Why should anyone think that the books of the Bible are historically accurate? I mean, copies of copies of copies could be full of errors...
6. Since you don't recommend reading Leviticus, what do you recommend reading?
And thus the discussion would continue.
The topics of religion and what Christianity teaches are huge and the consequences of what you end up deciding about the whole thing can seriously effect your life, one way or the other, so although I have no way of forcing you to put any effort or thought into this, I do urge you to choose to do so. Personally, I love this topic and have done a whole lot of research into the foundations for Christian beliefs and have found them to be solid. Christianity does NOT require blind faith. You are encouraged to seek answers to questions within this topic. It is a belief system that rests on logic and holds up to inspection, I've found (unlike any other religion I've looked at). Perhaps you'll find this too during the course of this discussion. In any case, you should always know WHY you believe what you believe, no matter what that belief is.
Okay, I'm done with this mammoth post. Whew. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to either e-mail me back or to include them on your first Tumblr post.
Talk to you later!
Greetings! :-) I have never done something like this so am feeling this will be an awkward introduction post, but I suppose that's okay. We'll see how this 'religion exploration class' idea works as we go along.
So, I guess I should start out with a sort of vague idea of how I see this working and what I'd expect from you. Okay, so, we'll start with your questions (which Angela sent to me), going through them one at a time. I intend to post the answer to one of them (and they'll be pretty wordy answers since I'll try to answer them in a complete fashion - the length of this e-mail will give you some idea of how I can ramble on and on...), then we'll discuss it in a question/answer format (to make sure it is thoroughly answered) before moving on to the next question. I would expect that as we go you'll come up with further questions that, instead of being answered in the discussion, will merit waiting to be answered as a full topic by itself. To organize ourselves, I think the Titles of our separate posts ought to be consistant. So for example, the first question I'll answer (to be posted next Monday) will be 'If the Universe is so vast, why should we think God would notice or care about humans?'. I'll set the Title of the Post as something like this:
Q1: Size of Universe
And when you respond (whether it is a question or comment), please put something like:
Q1 - (whatever else you want to put in here).
This way we can sort of figure out what we're talking about when we have multiple topics going and keep the threads of conversation connected easier. If it turns out that things are very straighforward and we don't need to do anything like this to keep it straight, then we can drop this format, but for now, let's try it.
In addition to the discussion, I'm going to ask you to do some Bible reading. The reason for this is that when thinking over the idea for this class, I came to two realizations - first: it's going to be a whole lot more work for me than for you to run this discussion. A single question from you may take me a few hours worth of research and typing to answer properly. I don't mind that, but think it's only fair to balance that out by requiring you to do a bit of 'research' on your own. The Bible reading I'll assign will be short (like at maximum a couple of pages), so it shouldn't be too much of a hardship for you to do this. My second reason for assigning this will be found in the logic behind the idea that you don't know what you don't know. In other words, you won't have any idea whether you agree with what Christianity teaches unless you know what it teaches! Since I have no idea what you might have been taught before, I'm going to assume that it isn't much of anything (except maybe a few basic 'fable-style' Bible stories). Because I don't expect you've read the Bible before, I would expect it to be confusing and spawn more questions. That's a good thing and the final reason for assigning reading. It'll open up the chance for further discussion.
Now onto schedule. I'll post on, Monday, June 24th, the answer to the first question in our discussion. You are then expected to get on Tumblr on Monday and read what I've written (and give it some thought LOL). At the end of the post, I'll attach a small 'assigned reading' (and maybe some explanation about the reading, if I think you may need it). My suggestion to you is to read both what I've written and the Bible passage with a pen and notebook at hand and jot down anything that occurs to you as you read. Is something confusing or weird or illogical or otherwise makes you wonder? Make a note of it.
On Tuesday, you will be expected to respond. It doesn't have to be long (there's no word limit), but I do expect it to be honest and thoughtful. Also, since this is a school-thing, I'll request that you attempt to use proper grammar (no chat-speak abbreviations). I'm not exactly going to be grading you on your English, so this doesn't have to be perfect, just keep in mind that an effort towards good communication skills would be wise practice.
On Wed. I'll write back, answering questions (depending on how many questions you have, and how much explanation is needed will determine how this plays out. If you have a lot of questions that need long responses, I may not get to everything, but if you have few questions and they can be answered easily, I may move on to posting another one of your initial questions). Whether you have absolutely no questions after reading everything (which seems unlikely to happen, honestly), or many questions, feel free to take the opportunity to ask about something unrelated to the reading or topic, if you want. I do want this to be a chance for you to figure out what YOU want to know. If you are curious about why some people seemed upset at Jesus for healing a guy on a certain day, feel free to ask, but if you would prefer me to answer a question about why we should believe Jesus healed anyone at all, then make sure to make that clear! It's very possible that the answer to something may itself need questions answered before it becomes a reasonable explanation and that's totally fine.
So, to continue with the schedule, we'll do a back-and-forth thing every other day. All posts must be up on Tumblr by noon on the respective days. On Fridays, whether it is your turn to post something or mine, I'll have an additional 'Think about it' assignment. I haven't decided exactly how this will work, but it'll probably be something where I ask a "What do you think about..." and will expect a fairly lengthy (several paragraphs, minimum) response. This will both exercise your brain and give me some feedback as to where you are at with this whole thing. Your response to this 'Think about it' will be due by noon the following Friday (so you'll have a week to write something up, so there won't be an excuse not to put a bit of time into it).
So, to summerize the guidelines:
1. Read the blog or post daily (alternating whether reading or posting).
2. There will be a weekly 'Think about it' question, answer due the next week.
3. Use proper grammar, spelling, etc.
4. All posts should be up on Tumblr by noon on the correct day.
As an example of how this might work, let me give you a bit of information that you may or may not already know about the Bible (I'm going to give you this example as if you'd asked the question: 'What is the Bible?')
My answer would be: The Bible is a collection of 66 books by various authors which people have recognized as helpful for knowing God and building a relationship with Him. The books are NOT chronological and they can be very different from each other. For example, the book of 'Leviticus' is a manual for the Jewish priests on how they were to live and conduct worship, etc. Unless you are interested in reading about what clothes they were to wear and how to sacrifice a sheep, that's not something I highly recommend a person read for fun. The book of 'Psalms', on the other hand, is a collection of Jewish poetry and hymms. The book of 'Romans' is actually a letter, written by a follower of Jesus to a group of Christians living in Rome dealing with how a person who claims to be a Christian ought to live. So, as you can see, there's a huge diversity of topics. For a Christian, the Bible is believed to be 'divinely inspired' (which means that while men wrote it, God had a hand in directing what they wrote so God made sure that what is written is accurate). It is not necessary to believe such a thing when reading it, since it can also be quite easily read as nothing more than a set of historical documents.
Okay, so the above was a brief answer to the question raised, but I would hope that if you read that paragraph, you'd have come up with a bunch of questions. To further this example, here are some ideas of what you might have come up with (I'd be curious to know if you thought of any of these and/or want answers to any of them...)
1. If the Bible isn't in Chronological order, what order (if any) is it in?
2. Why did the Jewish priests sacrifice animals?? Do they still do that?
3. What does Christianity have to do with Jewish beliefs?
4. What makes a Christian think that the Bible is 'divinely inspired'?
5. Why should anyone think that the books of the Bible are historically accurate? I mean, copies of copies of copies could be full of errors...
6. Since you don't recommend reading Leviticus, what do you recommend reading?
And thus the discussion would continue.
The topics of religion and what Christianity teaches are huge and the consequences of what you end up deciding about the whole thing can seriously effect your life, one way or the other, so although I have no way of forcing you to put any effort or thought into this, I do urge you to choose to do so. Personally, I love this topic and have done a whole lot of research into the foundations for Christian beliefs and have found them to be solid. Christianity does NOT require blind faith. You are encouraged to seek answers to questions within this topic. It is a belief system that rests on logic and holds up to inspection, I've found (unlike any other religion I've looked at). Perhaps you'll find this too during the course of this discussion. In any case, you should always know WHY you believe what you believe, no matter what that belief is.
Okay, I'm done with this mammoth post. Whew. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to either e-mail me back or to include them on your first Tumblr post.
Talk to you later!
Monday, June 3, 2013
Why should God care?
Considering the vastness of the universe, why should God care about humans in general or me in particular?
First, I'd like to point out how there is a false assumption in this statement. You've equated size with importance and significance, which in reality have nothing to do with each other.
Is Jupiter, the biggest planet in our solar system more significant than Earth simply because it is larger? Considering how unique Earth seems to be, I'd say that it is not. Or, is a chunk of common rock sitting on the ocean floor more important than a human baby, just because it is bigger? Again, I'd say this is not true. Certainly, something can be both larger and more significant than another thing at the same time, but there is no direct connection between size and significance. Humans take up a very tiny amount of space in the vast reaches of the universe, but that does not necessarily mean that we are insignificant and unimportant. Size is irrelevant.
But that still doesn't answer the question of why we might assume God cares about humanity in general or individuals in particular. The short answer - He cares because He chooses to care.
But there's also a longer answer, and that answer to that lies in understand who God is - what His character is like. Let me give you some character traits of God and demonstrate how that's relevant to us.
First, God is creative and all-powerful. Which means that isn't limited in creating this Universe in nice, simple, small areas. Science is amazing! The detail in a cell, the balance of an ecosystem, the majestic movement of objects in space and all expressions of amazing creativity. For the Christian, we can look at the universe around us and see God's fingerprints and be honestly awed. He's told us (through the Bible) that we can see the characteristics of God in the creation - and this is one of the reasons that the universe is so amazingly huge! If our little planet had been placed just about anywhere else in our galaxy, we wouldn't be able to see so much of the universe (either because of cosmic dust, which our galaxy is coated in, or through the crowding of nearby stars, etc. We're perfectly placed to be able to see beyond our solar system and just that fact alone is incredible). God can (and apparently did) choose to create a universe that expresses an unbelievable depth of capability for creating variety and opportunities - for exploration and discovery. This universe was made huge and detailed and discoverable for our benefit.
Next, God is all-knowing (or omniscient). Which means He knows everything about everything. He knows what every atom in the universe is doing at this moment and what it will do in every future moment. He has the capacity to pay full attention to everything at once. Which means He can know what's happening on Alpha Centuri or in the Horsehead Nebula or in your schoolroom and doing so is neither difficult nor dividing his attention. So He has the ability to pay attention to us humans individually and, if God wanted, He could have a million other things going on in other parts of the universe and it wouldn't make his attention towards us any less. So assuming that I have his undivided attention is simply an extension of understanding how powerful God actually is.
But that would simply imply that we're as interesting to God as, say, the moon. A unique chunk of rock, to be sure, but just another collection of atoms. However, God is more than just all-knowing and all-powerful. He is also loving.
He is loving. He didn't have to create a universe that was filled with so much to explore and discover, but He did because He loves us and wanted to give us the best home imaginable. This point also circles around to the question of why God should care about us. He cares because one of the characteristics of God is love. He created us because He wished to love us and be loved in return. That was the whole purpose of making humanity. You want to know why you are here? Why you are alive? That's the answer.Because God chose to love you and wants to be loved in return.
So the answer to the question of why we should assume God would care about me or anyone else is because it is both God's nature and His choice to do so. To think otherwise would diminish who He is. To reverse that idea, if we assume that the universe is too huge for God to notice us, then that is saying that we don't think He is actually all-knowing. To think that the universe is too complex to be divinely created (which seems a bit backwards, but some people think that way), is to think that God is less than all-powerful. To think He'd create a thinking, feeling, relational people (humanity) and then not care about us implies that He is not loving - and if God does not love us, then honestly, all Christianity is empty and your life is completely pointless. We can explore that idea a bit more, if you'd like, but it kind of wanders off topic, so I'll end here.
Did that seem to answer your question, or do you still feel a bit unsatisfied with this idea?
First, I'd like to point out how there is a false assumption in this statement. You've equated size with importance and significance, which in reality have nothing to do with each other.
Is Jupiter, the biggest planet in our solar system more significant than Earth simply because it is larger? Considering how unique Earth seems to be, I'd say that it is not. Or, is a chunk of common rock sitting on the ocean floor more important than a human baby, just because it is bigger? Again, I'd say this is not true. Certainly, something can be both larger and more significant than another thing at the same time, but there is no direct connection between size and significance. Humans take up a very tiny amount of space in the vast reaches of the universe, but that does not necessarily mean that we are insignificant and unimportant. Size is irrelevant.
But that still doesn't answer the question of why we might assume God cares about humanity in general or individuals in particular. The short answer - He cares because He chooses to care.
But there's also a longer answer, and that answer to that lies in understand who God is - what His character is like. Let me give you some character traits of God and demonstrate how that's relevant to us.
First, God is creative and all-powerful. Which means that isn't limited in creating this Universe in nice, simple, small areas. Science is amazing! The detail in a cell, the balance of an ecosystem, the majestic movement of objects in space and all expressions of amazing creativity. For the Christian, we can look at the universe around us and see God's fingerprints and be honestly awed. He's told us (through the Bible) that we can see the characteristics of God in the creation - and this is one of the reasons that the universe is so amazingly huge! If our little planet had been placed just about anywhere else in our galaxy, we wouldn't be able to see so much of the universe (either because of cosmic dust, which our galaxy is coated in, or through the crowding of nearby stars, etc. We're perfectly placed to be able to see beyond our solar system and just that fact alone is incredible). God can (and apparently did) choose to create a universe that expresses an unbelievable depth of capability for creating variety and opportunities - for exploration and discovery. This universe was made huge and detailed and discoverable for our benefit.
Next, God is all-knowing (or omniscient). Which means He knows everything about everything. He knows what every atom in the universe is doing at this moment and what it will do in every future moment. He has the capacity to pay full attention to everything at once. Which means He can know what's happening on Alpha Centuri or in the Horsehead Nebula or in your schoolroom and doing so is neither difficult nor dividing his attention. So He has the ability to pay attention to us humans individually and, if God wanted, He could have a million other things going on in other parts of the universe and it wouldn't make his attention towards us any less. So assuming that I have his undivided attention is simply an extension of understanding how powerful God actually is.
But that would simply imply that we're as interesting to God as, say, the moon. A unique chunk of rock, to be sure, but just another collection of atoms. However, God is more than just all-knowing and all-powerful. He is also loving.
He is loving. He didn't have to create a universe that was filled with so much to explore and discover, but He did because He loves us and wanted to give us the best home imaginable. This point also circles around to the question of why God should care about us. He cares because one of the characteristics of God is love. He created us because He wished to love us and be loved in return. That was the whole purpose of making humanity. You want to know why you are here? Why you are alive? That's the answer.Because God chose to love you and wants to be loved in return.
So the answer to the question of why we should assume God would care about me or anyone else is because it is both God's nature and His choice to do so. To think otherwise would diminish who He is. To reverse that idea, if we assume that the universe is too huge for God to notice us, then that is saying that we don't think He is actually all-knowing. To think that the universe is too complex to be divinely created (which seems a bit backwards, but some people think that way), is to think that God is less than all-powerful. To think He'd create a thinking, feeling, relational people (humanity) and then not care about us implies that He is not loving - and if God does not love us, then honestly, all Christianity is empty and your life is completely pointless. We can explore that idea a bit more, if you'd like, but it kind of wanders off topic, so I'll end here.
Did that seem to answer your question, or do you still feel a bit unsatisfied with this idea?
Heaven or Hell?
How does God determine who goes to Heaven or Hell?
This question is actually the central point of Christianity. It also defines what separates Christianity from other belief systems. Let me start out by saying that in the vast majority of religions, the answer to this question would be that "a person is good enough". Meaning that a person had done enough good things to outweigh the bad things.
Perhaps it would surprise you to know that this is NOT what Christianity teaches though. Christians do not make it to Heaven by doing good or refraining from doing evil. I'll get to what this means in a minute. First, from a logical point of view, the above system of good deeds, which most religions claim a person needs to do is very abstract. How can a person know if they've managed to reach the unknown line of 'good enough'? What measure could a person use to decide if, say, weeding the garden for your parents without complaining could cancel out throwing a temper tantrum? What 'payment' would God consider worth canceling out the debt of cheating on a test? What would happen if a person thought they were doing okay, but had forgotten how they had thought unkind things towards another person and thus didn't do something to make up for it? The idea of 'Good Works' getting a person into Heaven would mean that you'd never be sure if you had made the cut or not. I don't think it is a bad thing to attempt to do more good than bad in your lifetime, but as a means of assuring that you're on God's "Good List", it's a rather poor idea.
So what does Christianity teach? Well, for that, I'll have to lay out some background teaching. First, Christianity believes that humans are inherently evil. (In 'doctrine terms', this is called a 'sin-nature') Meaning that we were born with a nature that will do bad things without having to learn such actions. A child is a good example of this. A parent doesn't teach a child to be selfish or to throw tantrums or to lie, but every child will do all of those things 'naturally'. We have to learn to be mindful of others, to be patient, to be truthful even when it is inconvenient. So, from God's perspective, we kind of start out life with a bit of a handicap. We start out with a weight on the negative side of things. I'll come back to this thought.
Now God, on the other hand, is morally perfect. He does not ever do anything evil nor would He be tempted to ever do so. Heaven is His home. And just like you would never walk up to a stranger who'd been rolling in dog crap and who was glaring at you in hatred and invite him home for the evening, God is the same way. The bad things we do (called sin), are basically spiritual 'dog crap' which we've coated ourselves with. And unfortunately for us, we can't get clean on our own. The good things we do are the 'expected behavior', not things that clean us up. It is IMPOSSIBLE for us to make up for the bad things we do. Crawling over broken glass all the way to Canada wouldn't make up for a single thing, no matter how awful a punishment it was. That's because at the beginning, God warned people that the punishment for any sin is death and separation from God (Hell). So at this point in the story, what you have is that everyone is going to die and go to Hell. It is humanity's default destination.
Which means that we have a problem. We are born with a sin nature and we do sinful things and nothing we can do can fix that situation. But God knew this and He chose to love us. Love means that you do your best to bring the highest good to the other person, even at a cost to yourself. So, since we were stuck, God provided a way to escape the situation.
First, he clothed himself in human form "taking on the likeness of man" - that would be Jesus. Then Jesus lived and taught as a man for about 33 years, giving us both an example and showing us what God is like and what He intended us to be like. You've probably heard of the 'virgin birth' before. Jesus was conceived by God, not by natural means, which side-stepped the whole 'sin-nature' problem. He then lived without ever doing anything bad throughout his life, and thus didn't rack up any debt that would have to be paid with death and Hell. Then, at age 33, he allowed himself to be killed. As I just mentioned, he didn't earn death, and that's the main point. It was like an accounting book - God took my life, all the sin-debt I have accumulated during my life-time and credited it to Jesus and then took Jesus' perfect life and credited it to me. We exchanged places in God's eyes. So my penalty of death and seperation from God is paid for (God, who is completely fair in his justice can't forgive a sin-debt without there being payment somehow, but he can forgive ME because He paid my debt himself). The death of Jesus was so valuable an exchange in God's eyes, His death isn't just payment for a single person, but payment enough to cover every single person who has ever lived.
Which means that anyone and everyone can get to Heaven. But not everyone makes it. And this is the final piece of this question. From what I just outlined, the 'ticket to Heaven' is freely available to everyone - no good deeds required. But the catch is that a person has to be willing to accept the trade of Jesus' death instead of ours. A person has to acknowledge before God that they deserve the punishment (in other words, they have to be truthful with God and fess-up to the idea that they've done bad things), then trust that Jesus' death was enough to pay for those bad things. That's it. A person does this and they've got a ticket to Heaven.
It seems so very easy (to the point of ridiculousness, almost), but it is intentionally done this way so that even the least intelligent person can understand and do what is required. But, despite the ease of the access to Heaven, many people still stumble over the idea. You notice first of all, I haven't mentioned that a person who believes in Jesus' death 'saving us' from Hell ever needs to do anything. No church attendance required, no feeding the orphans, no giving of money, nothing. That's because none of the 'good things' you can think of are required to become a Christian and get to Heaven. Don't think that this means that a Christian just goes on doing whatever they want however. Once a person becomes a Christian, God won't leave that person alone! A person who get's Jesus' perfect life on their divine accounting book is changed in that transaction. It's subtle, but in a genuine exchange, God transforms a person's heart and the person has a stronger desire to then please God and do what is good and right. This is where the good works finally come into play. It becomes more natural and desirable for a Christian to do good things - the good works are actually evidence of the changed heart. It's not an absolute definition (people who do good aren't necessarily Christians), but it is a very strong indicator (if a person claims to be a Christian, but doesn't live out the principles of love and goodness, then they are probably lying or self-deceived).
So now you know, if you ever want to go to Heaven, that's how it is done. You simply talk to God, then trust that He took care of your sin-debt. With that in mind, what questions do you have about what I've written?
This question is actually the central point of Christianity. It also defines what separates Christianity from other belief systems. Let me start out by saying that in the vast majority of religions, the answer to this question would be that "a person is good enough". Meaning that a person had done enough good things to outweigh the bad things.
Perhaps it would surprise you to know that this is NOT what Christianity teaches though. Christians do not make it to Heaven by doing good or refraining from doing evil. I'll get to what this means in a minute. First, from a logical point of view, the above system of good deeds, which most religions claim a person needs to do is very abstract. How can a person know if they've managed to reach the unknown line of 'good enough'? What measure could a person use to decide if, say, weeding the garden for your parents without complaining could cancel out throwing a temper tantrum? What 'payment' would God consider worth canceling out the debt of cheating on a test? What would happen if a person thought they were doing okay, but had forgotten how they had thought unkind things towards another person and thus didn't do something to make up for it? The idea of 'Good Works' getting a person into Heaven would mean that you'd never be sure if you had made the cut or not. I don't think it is a bad thing to attempt to do more good than bad in your lifetime, but as a means of assuring that you're on God's "Good List", it's a rather poor idea.
So what does Christianity teach? Well, for that, I'll have to lay out some background teaching. First, Christianity believes that humans are inherently evil. (In 'doctrine terms', this is called a 'sin-nature') Meaning that we were born with a nature that will do bad things without having to learn such actions. A child is a good example of this. A parent doesn't teach a child to be selfish or to throw tantrums or to lie, but every child will do all of those things 'naturally'. We have to learn to be mindful of others, to be patient, to be truthful even when it is inconvenient. So, from God's perspective, we kind of start out life with a bit of a handicap. We start out with a weight on the negative side of things. I'll come back to this thought.
Now God, on the other hand, is morally perfect. He does not ever do anything evil nor would He be tempted to ever do so. Heaven is His home. And just like you would never walk up to a stranger who'd been rolling in dog crap and who was glaring at you in hatred and invite him home for the evening, God is the same way. The bad things we do (called sin), are basically spiritual 'dog crap' which we've coated ourselves with. And unfortunately for us, we can't get clean on our own. The good things we do are the 'expected behavior', not things that clean us up. It is IMPOSSIBLE for us to make up for the bad things we do. Crawling over broken glass all the way to Canada wouldn't make up for a single thing, no matter how awful a punishment it was. That's because at the beginning, God warned people that the punishment for any sin is death and separation from God (Hell). So at this point in the story, what you have is that everyone is going to die and go to Hell. It is humanity's default destination.
Which means that we have a problem. We are born with a sin nature and we do sinful things and nothing we can do can fix that situation. But God knew this and He chose to love us. Love means that you do your best to bring the highest good to the other person, even at a cost to yourself. So, since we were stuck, God provided a way to escape the situation.
First, he clothed himself in human form "taking on the likeness of man" - that would be Jesus. Then Jesus lived and taught as a man for about 33 years, giving us both an example and showing us what God is like and what He intended us to be like. You've probably heard of the 'virgin birth' before. Jesus was conceived by God, not by natural means, which side-stepped the whole 'sin-nature' problem. He then lived without ever doing anything bad throughout his life, and thus didn't rack up any debt that would have to be paid with death and Hell. Then, at age 33, he allowed himself to be killed. As I just mentioned, he didn't earn death, and that's the main point. It was like an accounting book - God took my life, all the sin-debt I have accumulated during my life-time and credited it to Jesus and then took Jesus' perfect life and credited it to me. We exchanged places in God's eyes. So my penalty of death and seperation from God is paid for (God, who is completely fair in his justice can't forgive a sin-debt without there being payment somehow, but he can forgive ME because He paid my debt himself). The death of Jesus was so valuable an exchange in God's eyes, His death isn't just payment for a single person, but payment enough to cover every single person who has ever lived.
Which means that anyone and everyone can get to Heaven. But not everyone makes it. And this is the final piece of this question. From what I just outlined, the 'ticket to Heaven' is freely available to everyone - no good deeds required. But the catch is that a person has to be willing to accept the trade of Jesus' death instead of ours. A person has to acknowledge before God that they deserve the punishment (in other words, they have to be truthful with God and fess-up to the idea that they've done bad things), then trust that Jesus' death was enough to pay for those bad things. That's it. A person does this and they've got a ticket to Heaven.
It seems so very easy (to the point of ridiculousness, almost), but it is intentionally done this way so that even the least intelligent person can understand and do what is required. But, despite the ease of the access to Heaven, many people still stumble over the idea. You notice first of all, I haven't mentioned that a person who believes in Jesus' death 'saving us' from Hell ever needs to do anything. No church attendance required, no feeding the orphans, no giving of money, nothing. That's because none of the 'good things' you can think of are required to become a Christian and get to Heaven. Don't think that this means that a Christian just goes on doing whatever they want however. Once a person becomes a Christian, God won't leave that person alone! A person who get's Jesus' perfect life on their divine accounting book is changed in that transaction. It's subtle, but in a genuine exchange, God transforms a person's heart and the person has a stronger desire to then please God and do what is good and right. This is where the good works finally come into play. It becomes more natural and desirable for a Christian to do good things - the good works are actually evidence of the changed heart. It's not an absolute definition (people who do good aren't necessarily Christians), but it is a very strong indicator (if a person claims to be a Christian, but doesn't live out the principles of love and goodness, then they are probably lying or self-deceived).
So now you know, if you ever want to go to Heaven, that's how it is done. You simply talk to God, then trust that He took care of your sin-debt. With that in mind, what questions do you have about what I've written?
Sunday, June 2, 2013
6th Commandment
'Thou shall not commit adultery.'
Discuss this in the context of 'adultery' first. What are the consequences of adultery in the Bible? (answer, execution).
What about divorce? Mark 10:1-12
What about sex before marriage?
Hebrews 13:4 says, "Marriage should be honored by everyone, and husband and wife should keep their marriage pure. God will judge as guilty those who take part in sexual sins."
What about homosexuality? What, if anything, should be done in the legal sense regarding this issue?
Lev. 18:22
1 Corinthians 6:18-20 encourages us to "Run away from sexual sin. Every
other sin people do is outside their bodies, but those who sin sexually sin against their own bodies. You should know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit who is in you. You have received the Holy Spirit from God. So you do not belong to yourselves, because you were bought by God for a price. So honor God with your bodies."
What about porn?
Matthew 5:27-30
Discuss this in the context of 'adultery' first. What are the consequences of adultery in the Bible? (answer, execution).
What about divorce? Mark 10:1-12
What about sex before marriage?
Hebrews 13:4 says, "Marriage should be honored by everyone, and husband and wife should keep their marriage pure. God will judge as guilty those who take part in sexual sins."
What about homosexuality? What, if anything, should be done in the legal sense regarding this issue?
Lev. 18:22
1 Corinthians 6:18-20 encourages us to "Run away from sexual sin. Every
other sin people do is outside their bodies, but those who sin sexually sin against their own bodies. You should know that your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit who is in you. You have received the Holy Spirit from God. So you do not belong to yourselves, because you were bought by God for a price. So honor God with your bodies."
What about porn?
Matthew 5:27-30
Saturday, June 1, 2013
5th Commandment
Do not murder.
Why is this commandment given? Gen. 9:6 We discussed that the first commandments revolve around man's relationship with God, and the last ones around man's relationship with man, well this commandment actually is both.
What does this commandment mean?
What about abortion? Embryonic stem cell research?
Direct and intentional killing of an innocent human is the oldest and 'worst' sin.
What about Capital Punishment? 2 Sam 1:16 – in the Old Testament, when capital punishment was carried out, the blood guilt is not on the hands executors, but on the one killed.
What about self-defence? Ex. 22:2-3
What about suicide? (Taking this further, what about misuse of the body such as using tobacco or not eating right?)
What about warfare? In the old Testament, there are multiple instances where God commands armies to kill, does that still apply today? The Hebrew word used in the commandment is never used in the context of war.
'Vengence is mine, says the Lord'
The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm.
The NT does not explicitly say one way or the other, but does seem to implicitly support the idea of soldiers. For example, when soldiers came to John the Baptist, he did not ask them to repent of their profession, but admonished them to be content with their pay. (Luke 3)
- The reasons for going to war are defensive.
- "The damage inflicted by the aggressor ... must be lasting, grave, and certain."
- It is a last resort taken only after all other means of putting an end to the "grave damage" have been ineffective.
- The ultimate aim is peace and there is a serious chance of success.
- No graver evils are produced that overshadow the evil to be eliminated. This forbids the use of arms to eliminate whole cities and areas with their inhabitants.
- Respect and care is required for non-combatants, wounded soldiers and prisoners. Soldiers are required to disobey commands to commit genocide and ones that violate universal principles.
What did Jesus say about this commandment?
'Anger in the heart'
Is there ever a justification for getting angry then?
Yes – Jesus overturned the tables in the temple.
According to Martin Luther, by reversing this commandment into a positive statement, we must do whatever we can to prevent the death of others, including helping the sick and preventing dangerous situations.
Note: Scandal is classified under this commandment.
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