A Radical Miseducation

I had the pleasure of viewing this video this morning: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDHJ4ztnldQ&feature=related. Sadly, it was not up to par with what I would have enjoyed. The questions were infantile and simplistic, as it seems that the host cannot even begin to question the greater concerns of faith. Below is my simple response.

1) Miracles are almost always within the realm of the natural. And God is no respecter of persons.

2) Christ intended for His people to carry out His work. Simply asking for a raise is sin, unless that raise has as its goal helping the needy.

3) Theologically, none of these people were innocent; by birth, original sin, and by their acts of rebellion. These are portrayals of the second death.

4) Scripture is not opposed to science. In no way. In fact, it is man's duty to discover new things and seek to understand more of the natural world. Rarely are "scientific" inaccuracies found in Scripture proposed as literal events. For instance, the Genesis account does not claim to be literal. It is an illustrative example of what may have taken 5 minutes or 5 million years. It is extremely ignorant and arrogant to say that your theory is correct, no matter what.

5) In fact, God is not. Neither do all intelligent abhor slavery. That's simply fantasy. Slavery occurs in the Bible as a part of historical accuracy and fact. It was culturally and socially acceptable in that time.

6) The worst question yet. Never does Scripture claim that a man can be "good", but even Christ notes that He is not a "good" man (out of humility). There is no equation in the actual Bible that states good people will have good lives. In fact, the righteous are to expect a life of hardship and pain, especially if they are called to a great purpose.

7) Name one way they could have. Water to wine... consumption... nothing left. This is the realm of historical data, non-testable data, just like works of other ancients, such as Plato. All the miracles were events, that, mind you, happened and then were done with. All that is possible is a record.

8) Jesus never claimed He would appear to anyone, especially not any of us. However, many people today and throughout history have convincingly claimed to have had true encounters with Christ. This argument is infantile.

9) In the Old Testament, God forbade the Israelites to drink blood, for sake of breaking covenant. That, symbolically speaking, was the blood of the natural creation. Christ's blood, of the supernatural, is a symbol of breaking the covenant once shared with the world, a symbolic "evil' in Christianity. Not to mention, so much else, but you're assuming one perspective, called transubstantiation, which is only one theory of the Communion. Plus, it is not nice to simply judge Satanists as grotesque. Not very "tolerant" of you.

10) This is a huge issue, and reflects bad on the lack of faith in so many today. Christians who divorce are clearly not acting out their faith. Statistically, Christians who live devoutly by the historic faith have a less than 1% failure rate. When viewing stats, it becomes quite clear that the divorce rate follows the rate of contraception users. Generally, where contraception is high, so is divorce.

This is an amazingly ridiculous and childish video. It does not understand faith or belief and prides itself on asking questions that are prone to false answers and dead ends. Amazing how this can mislead.

A Unique and Fascinating Scene

While watching Six Feet Under, season 2 episode 10, I was shocked by one particular scene. Morally, the show has been incredibly lacking, though I do genuinely enjoy the plot, its development and characters, and much more. Also, due to the incredibly dysfunctional characters, the show has helped me immensely to step outside of an episode in my own life (itself involving a lunatic pseudo mother-in-law and her extremely dysfunctional family), allowing me the space to objectively reevaluate the damage and pain caused by these individuals who, now, I can pity fully.

The scene itself, however, dealt with Nathan Fisher, one of the primary characters and arguably the most important figure. Nathan is, similar to all the characters on the show, mostly clueless about the nature of morality. When confronted by a past relation, Lisa, Nathan is shocked to learn that he had impregnated her several months before meeting her at random in a public market. Lisa's words included a clear plan to keep the child, with or without Nathan's interest, and she hinted at having formerly terminated a child at his request. Later, Nathan dreams that he is working alone at night and has a horrific vision in which a small child (probably 8 or 9) approaches him from behind. He dialogues with the child and discovers that the child is the one that he had pressed Lisa to kill years before. Then another two children make their way toward him, and then a late-teen girl. Moving into the next room, Nathan is confronted with dozens of children running around and playing in the foyer. He is dramatically influenced by this illustration of what his selfish manners in the past have produced.

For such an immoral show, I was highly impressed at the actual consideration of the weaker and unjustly persecuted. Morally primitive people tend to think only of themselves and their feelings, limited by their subjective world, a byproduct of their illogical and deceptive ideology. Rather than consider a wide range of perspectives, usually convenience and "quality" are heralded as the only pillars of decision. People then become worthless in and of themselves, and all that matters is the self and that which is determined valuable to that self. As Bob Dylan famously remarked "Everything is broken".

Spiritual Humor

Yesterday I started to read St. John of the Cross' The Dark Night of the Soul. Looking into the details of each of the sins St. John discusses, I found that spiritual gluttony was clearly my sin. So many of the details were clearly familiar; experiences and thoughts/feelings that I have had so often. The humor is, not long after reading about this condition, I searched google for "prayers against spiritual gluttony". If such an event is not the most epitomic expression of irony, what is?

Theology in Lyrics

While discussing church matters, particularly those relating to music and the arts, I presented a new thought to a close friend. The discussion was centered around contemporary and traditional music and their respective places in the church of today. My friend was siding with the use of contemporary Christian rock, whereas I was pushing traditional music. Our main consideration was a challenge I presented to him:

If, in any particular religious celebration, you were to take all of the lyrics of the songs contained in that service and create a theology out of those words, what then would your faith be?

Imagine that an individual only had one church service their entire life, and music was the medium that was most likely to reach them. Would the lyrics of the music at your church service be enough to lead them to a true understanding of the faith?