Pictures

They say that you can't always believe what you see, but then they say that seeing is believing. It can get confusing, but the fact is that it really depends on how well yours eyes and brain work together. Some people are blind because their eyes don't work, while others simply can't see because the nerves don't work that carry information from the eyes to the visual cortex of the brain. Even so, almost all "seeing" happens in multiple places in the brain. Instant recognition of my child's face, or the immediate urge to run from a wall of fire has everything to do with unconscious decisions made by various parts of my brain that take information from all my sensory organs and make a judgement on what I see. 

For example, I can see a huge wall of fire, but since I can't feel the heat I can recognize that the wall of fire right in front of me is only on the screen of the movie theater. I feel a small bit of anxiety for the characters of the movie, or awe for the spectacle, but none of the fear I would feel if my sensory organs could tell me that my eyes were seeing a fire that was "wanting" to kill me.

Last night my wife's sister-in-law sent us the photos she took of our family and I kept zooming in on my face in the ipad screen. I'm not vain, but I did not recognize the man. My wife chuckled over my shock, but what I didn't tell her was that the man I see in the mirror every day is a monster. The horror of what I feel every time that I look in the mirror or that I feel when I recall my mental image of myself is now commonplace to me, but looking at my image on the ipad screen helped me see that I cannot always trust the image my brain makes of me. 

It was at that moment that I realized that my wife means all the good things she says about me. I really am an intelligent, loving man, who is successful in his chosen field. I am a little overweight, but I really can be called good looking. I really admire the man in the photograph, but I am struggling to see that he is the same guy I see in the mirror. I have read that depression messes with your perceptions of reality, but it really hit me last night how badly my depression messes with how my brain instinctively interprets what it sees. I need to remind myself that my brain tends to wear the wrong type of shades...

Its Time For the Media to Take Responsibility... I'm Looking at You, Facebook Friend

It happened again, a stupid statement was made in my presence and I couldn't hold back. I opened my big mouth and responded. I can help it. Stupid stuff drives me crazy.

Who is the real truth-teller?

A coworker informed me that he can't use Snopes.com anymore because they are funded by some political organization.
Really.
He honestly said that.
I looked at him dumbstruck, insisting he couldn't be serious.
"Well, where do you think they get their money?" He shot back.
All that advertising. They get so many clicks they could ask anything they want and get it.
"Do you honestly trust Snopes?" Was his next question.
I had to tell him I don't. The simple fact is that I trust no one. Zilch. Nada. I don't believe a word anyone tells me, and, honestly, I don't see how you can trust anyone yourself.

There was a time when the American public could sit in their living rooms and listen to the radio or watch the TV and expect truth. You could grab a paper and read through their headlines, and generally expect the facts would be in certain sections while pure opinion and speculation lived in its own page or two. Those days are gone. News today is more likely a few facts mixed with opinion and rumor.

The Colonial Version of Facebook

The current information age reminds me of the days of old when the only printed objects in the pioneer home would be the Bible and Pilgrim's Progress. News or current information was hard to come by, and the traveling peddler would bring a welcome change and a chance at news. Of course everyone knew that the peddler would tell whatever tale he could to keep your attention long enough to sell you something, but some news was better than nothing at all so people would be willing to risk the misinformation for the chance at getting anything. I can imagine when the man of the house came home after the visit from the peddler the family would spend hours trying to tease the truth out of all the tales told by the traveler. Imagine what it must have been like for all the rumors to develop when all these people living so isolated came to town for the rare visit and all the stories collected through the year were disseminated and dissected along with whatever out of date newspaper made it to the outpost to help everyone figure out where the truth really fit. I'm sure some things believed to be true never even happened. I couldn't blame them back then for believing untruths. They were at the mercy of travelers and their imaginations.

Fast forward to today and things are so much the same and so much different. I remember when I first learned to use a Boolean search with Lycos.com or Excite.com to find exactly what I wanted to find. My first big urban legend to bust using these tools was the silly Betty Martini article on Aspartame that was being passed around by email. I tackled crazy rumors about vaccines and then found myself a friendly ally in Snopes.com, which was a bulky website that took a little bit of skill to navigate in the early days, but focused more on the "why" of all these false rumors than the "what" was really true. Those were the fun days. Someone would include me in some stupid forwarded email chain with a "breaking news" story that "the media" wouldn't share, and I would do a quick search and respond with a link to a Snopes article or write a little note of my own showing the research I did to disprove the rumor. It didn't take long for those forwards to get to my wife's email, but never make it to mine. No one likes to look stupid.



Now the peddler with the rumors for anxious ears roams the internet, and misinformation abounds. The purpose of the peddler remains the same- to get your eyes to hover long enough to buy whatever they are selling. Back in the pioneer days it may have been tin, but now it is advertising dollars and, even more frightening, ideology. My social media of choice is Facebook simply because my side of the family shares their news and pictures there, but I see so much junk there too. One thing that did happen all over Facebook during this election was the sharing of misinformation, partly because so many of my friends insisted that they could not trust "The Media" to tell the truth. In the meantime a large number of sites popped up to fill the void. I caught one sloppy site in the act of creating itself, writing a bogus article about one of the candidates. I identified the site as a bogus one almost instantly, but then it began to populate its pages with news stories copied from other sites to make it look older and more legitimate than it really was. People like me who hunt urban myths for fun couldn't keep up with the deluge of purely false news pages that clone real-sounding pages simply to harvest clicks, and even legitimate news sources followed the clicks and reposts on social media and began sharing the bogus sites themselves. 
You probably expect me to now rant about how you need to stop clicking those wasteful sites to protect the sensibilities of people like me, but no. THAT is not my point. If it entertains you to give money to stupid click-bait sites then do it, and go ahead and repost the links so your friends can get sucked in. What really bothered me was that no one took responsibility for all the junk being spread. Hello fellow American! You can't blame the media for anything anymore! If I can prove a website false by doing a Google search in ten seconds you can check your own stuff too. Back when the media was our only source of information we could blame the media for not letting us know the truth, but now we can fact-check just about everything that pops up with archives that stretch back decades. 
What I learned from this election cycle is that our media companies are not in the information business, but advertising, and those who are the most outlandish get the most free advertising. So what was your job, friend? It was the same as mine, to research and share the truth. What often happened instead? my social media feed was filled with people reposting things that agreed with their ideology though the facts were wrong or twisted. Out of hundreds of friends I had only eight upon whom I could depend to post thoughtful links that were factually correct. The rest only posted stuff that seemed right, but was never checked to be factual. 
It is time for the American public to take responsibility. You are now "The Media". In fact it is pretty obvious to the objective viewer that no one watches your clicks and reposts more than the very "media" you vilify. If it trends on Facebook or Twitter, by golly, it will be on the news tonight. Who is responsible for all the misinformation on Trump and Clinton? You are. Why didn't we have better candidates for which to vote? A big part was because you guys wouldn't stop talking about the idiots on your social media feed. 
Its time to treat everything you are given on your social media feed like the pioneers did the peddlers of old. Use their information and stories to feed your curiosity, but don't let them suck you into their false narratives and lies. If you pass it on, check it out first. Right now, I simply can't trust you. I can't trust "The Media", remember? And you are the media.

Is Race Really A Side Issue?

I must admit that, as a Yankee, I am somewhat of an outsider in my adopted home just south of Birmingham, Alabama. I was told by my father of a time when he was an outsider in the South when I was a small child. He was repeatedly told that "He didn't understand." when he tried to bring dark-skinned brothers and sister in Christ into the Church where he ministered in North Carolina. Now I am being told that I don't understand.

I have been told by people with light-colored skin that racism is a thing of the past in our country, and that Black people are the problem because they keep bringing up the issue of race. In other words, my dear "white" friends here in Alabama truly believe that black people use race as a means to avoid the bigger problems of all the poor choices of the members of the black community. When a dark-skinned individual is attacked by police, and killed, my "white" friends tell me how the injured or dead deserved what they got for not complying with some order even though the facts don't always support that conclusion. Its interesting really. My friends often have the belief that the facts will prove that the "black guy really did something wrong" and they post false or dubious articles to their Facebook page to support their assertions.  

We can play with numbers, how more "white" people are killed by police than "black" people, though, admittedly, it makes statistical sense that it should be the case that the population with the highest numbers have the most run-ins with the police. It is interesting though, that my friends and family that have darker skin and dark curly hair have more negative encounters with the police for "routine checks" than do my lighter-skinned family and friends. It has been brought home recently when my aunt, who is a Native American from Western NY described to me how she is treated as a dirty Muslim or Mexican, and my friends who have adopted darker-skinned children or married someone with darker skin see their kids treated very differently than the light-colored kids they tend to be around.

 As illustration of this point I don't call these friends and children "black" because some of these friends are dark-skinned, but not necessarily from an African heritage. Our culture is so racist that they assume dark-skin is some form of an African heritage and worthy of mistreatment. The stories these friends and family recount are heartbreaking, and not all in the South. Children are called dirty, and told to stop playing with a group of children because they appear to have African heritage until that child's "white" mother steps in to correct those adults' behavior.

 I have been told that I don't understand true racism because I'm not from the South. I may understand better than you know. My grandmother, a Yankee by birth, used, to my father's horror, the n-word to describe dark-skinned individuals. She once told me how she wasn't racist because she didn't mind talking to "them". She really was more accepting of "colored people" than many of the people from which she learned culture growing up. My grandmother defined her racism based on how she compared to "true racists" that she knew, but generally felt that people who were darker-skinned were less trustworthy and not quite as industrious. In other words, though she didn't desire harm on others, she was racist and she didn't recognize it.

 I've come to see that my friends down here who are racist don't recognize their racism because they are comparing themselves to some pretty awful people. The fact is that we are all a bit racist, and most people who refuse to admit that they prejudge people based on their skin color are much more racist than they realize. This point really hit home when I heard one of my friends listening to the video Kalyn Chapman James posted on the internet where she admitted tearfully that she identified a bad attitude about police in her heart, and how she is trying to deal with the fact that the sniper who killed five police officers seemed like a martyr to her. In other words, she was using herself as an example of how one needs to recognize that they have to face the darkness in her heart and grow past it. The video was not politically correct. It was quite shocking, and I admired the girl's courage to admit something that will get her death threats. She insisted repeatedly that she would not accept this dark thing about herself, and was working on changing her heart, but my white friends could only see that she admired the murderer of five police officers. They totally missed the point. And they missed it because it came from a black woman.

 I don't have time to recount the number of times a white guy or lady admitted a wrong, very damaging, attitude of heart, and were forgiven by my friends for seeing their wrong attitude and trying to fix it, but my friends could not even hear this black woman's confession of sin that was coupled with a stated desire and plan for repentance. Donald Trump was more quickly forgiven for suggesting that black people should be beaten senseless at his rallies for being annoying, and he never expressed a desire to repent of his attitude. No, Donald Trump is lauded for refusing to be politically correct and saying what he really feels without worry about repercussions. The same apparently does not hold true if you're a tearful black woman wanting to change.

So don't tell me that racism is dead in 2016. Don't tell me that you don't see color. You may be better than your ancestors, but we are not out of the woods yet. It is not the imagination of dark-skinned individuals that police and the average citizen is frightened or wary of them simply because of their skin color. It is time to admit, like Kalyn did, that we have the wrong attitudes in our hearts, and there is room to grow. Refusing to face the darkness in our own hearts will only perpetuate one aspect of the darkness that creates such fear in the lives of so many law-abiding minorities in our country as they are held at arms length simply because they have more melanin in their skin than our favorite people do.

Evolution and Reality

I learned a song as a child that embodies the ideas and opinions of the adults around me about biologic evolution- "I'm no kin to the monkey. The monkey's no kin to me! I don't know much about your ancestors but mine didn't swing from a tree." It really is a silly song, but it reveals some very strong opinions about the state of mind among the adults that made up my childhood world regarding descent with modification. As a child it was made very clear to me that nothing evolved. In fact some of my friends worried about me because I was taught by my parents, and believed them, that dinosaurs were real. I was raised in an area where almost every rock in the creek bed contained marine fossils, and I was taught that they were present as a result of Noah's worldwide flood. I was drilled with the dogma about origins so that if I saw a fossil I instantly thought of "The Flood", and if I heard anyone speak about millions of years I would automatically translate it to thousands of years in my mind.

I mention all this to explain why this is important for me to state. I am different than that wide-eyed kid in so many ways, and one of those ways is the fact that I can conceive of a universe that is billions of years old, and that gave rise to life in a series of processes that are known generally as "biologic evolution." I now acknowledge biologic evolution as fact, and realize that were I to go back far enough I would find that one of my ancient ancestors probably did look quite bit like an ape, though I really have never really made any effort to determine if the ancestor really did swing from a tree.

So what is this biologic evolution? Evolution as a concept just means change over time, but I choose to describe it with the word "biologic" because this change over time is within systems that involve life. It is important to make this distinction because I was taught as a child that "evolution" entails the "big bang" and origin myths that are described within science labs in hushed, reverent tones. The concept of biologic evolution dovetails nicely with ideas about the origins of the universe since a primordial soup, of sorts, present at the infancy of our planet could have given rise to life if a series of coincidences worked just right. While this is true, biologic evolution does not require a big bang or primordial soup. All it requires is descent with modification, or the passing on of changes from parent to child. Where the original organisms come from, their origin, is not essential to the hypotheses that are now accepted parts of the working models that help humans understand where our species came from and where we might go.

Biologic evolution is not controversial really once we get past the arguments over the origin of life. It is not controversial, that is, unless you include a group of people who insist on interpreting the Christian Bible as a literal historical and scientifically accurate set of documents that present a very specific sequence of events to explain the origin of species. I think I will put this topic off for a bit.

Back to biologic evolution. Charles Darwin is known as the father of modern ideas of biologic evolution, though he certainly wasn't the only one who put forth such ideas. I highly recommend that every literate human spend time reading through his book On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection to understand what scientific research entailed in the days before Google. Darwin went around the world collecting specimens of plants and animals along with their fossils, if available, and writing letters all over the world to be transported by ship to receive more specimens and data from other researchers, It isn't like Darwin had this idea and wrote a book to advance his idea while hoping evidence would support his idea, but the guy did serious research.

Some of what Darwin argued against seems crazy in today's world, but he dealt with the idea that all animals existed in the areas that they were placed at the time of creation. Darwin explored the idea that some species migrated due to geologic, climate, predator, or dietary pressures and changed to fit the new pressures they faced in the new locations. A famous example is found in the beaks of the birds in the Galapagos islands who all obviously shared a common ancestor, but developed variations in beak size and shape based on the food available on whatever island the particular branch of the bird family made home. Darwin didn't know how such changes were passed on from parent to child, but he guessed some sort of particle was tweaked and the particle change was preserved in reproduction. Now we know that Darwin wasn't too far off, and that his vague particles are genetic code that is passed on from parent to child.

The way it works is fairly well established, but nothing in the field of science is written in stone. Let me try to explain this- Suppose we are talking about our friend the T-Rex. Imagine something happened in his exposure to UV radiation that tweaked his genetic code so that one of his genes involved in skin generation caused his baby to be born with a little wisp of a feather present in a certain region of skin. Some genetic mutations, "tweaked genetic code" cause organism death, but others simply result in insignificant changes that may only influence appearance. Over generations this genetic mutation being passed from parent to child could result in an obvious difference between the families of the wispy feathered dinos and the feather free variety. In fact, it is possible to imagine that certain size and colors of feathers made the feathered dinos so much more attractive to potential mates that they reproduced more often, and the differences between the variations of feathered dinos became even more obvious between families where the potential mates tended to like particular variations. Such preferences are seen among animals today.

As climate and food pressures changed smaller animals survived more often to reproduction age so that eventually the great, great, great, and so on, grandchildren of these dinosaurs look alot like emus and chickens. This is the part of my silly blog post that made some of my friends shake their heads vigorously. I had you until the animal species changed. If we rewind far enough such changes could mean that we could imagine prions coming out of the primordial soup. That's a bit much for some of my dear friends. Note that I didn't say who would be responsible for these modifications, and many Christians point to God's hand at work in biologic evolution.

Now for the Christians who just said, "God did not twiddle with some primordial soup". There you are dear one! I came back to you. Your version of the story is very simple. God said- "Let there be light, and it was so. And it was good." What does the long explanation above do with the history lesson related in Genesis 1-3? That is a problem that I will not solve, but Google can help you, or Bing, if you so choose. I've never been a fan of Bing, for the record. Let me tell you that making this your proof of a good Christian pushes more godly youth away from the Church than should happen. Try this for size- "Evidence points to species changes with biologic evolution, but God tells a different story in the book of Genesis. God's point is that He is the Creator and has the right to dictate to His creation. I don't know why reality and the story of Genesis does not mesh, but I will trust God in this and ask Him when I get to Heaven." Oops, I did present a possible solution. It is a very effective method for dealing with some touchy subjects. Try this- "I don't know why God commanded genocide in the Promised Land, but He obviously had a reason. We don't do that anymore, but we can ask God why in Heaven." Or how about this? "I don't know why God commanded his people to kill unborn children in the Old Testament, but I know God doesn't want us to kill them today. We can ask for an explanation in Heaven. I still trust that He is good." See how that works?

This doesn't work so well- "Yes, bacteria change species, and evolve constantly, and we have documented similar genetic changes that are recorded in species that are unrelated, and there is a pretty clear fossil record of biologic evolution, but we must believe that the Bible is true, and all these evidences of evolution that keep building in quantity are false. The truth will out someday." It will happen too many times that the student will decide that either God creates lies to deceive scientists, or the biblical literalists reject reality and deserve to be rejected. I won't even deal with redshift in stars and the Capulin Cinder cone evidence against Noah's Flood.

Now here is the meat of the matter. Some of you want to argue evidence and conspiracies back and forth. I'm not going to do it. Some want to talk about how kinds or species are immutable, but I see a bunch of evidence to the contrary. Remember that what differentiates between "kinds" could be tweaked with a bit of a genetic mutation that's exaggerated over generations. "Kinds" or species are often differentiated by visual morphology that is dependent on hidden genetic code. Change the code and the baby and great grandbabies look a whole lot different than great granddaddy many generations before. One little change and a species changes. It's not really all that far-fetched, and happens in bacteria and viruses all the time. These are the only organisms that reproduce fast enough that one can directly observe evolution in one lifetime.

Some of my friends state that faith in science has replaced God in our culture. Science is not a thing in which to have faith. Science is simple a collection of processes to evaluate evidence and create hypotheses to test. What my friends mean is that all men must have faith in something. This is a concept interpreted from a passage in Romans 1. As annoying as this idea is, I don't mind. The idea that someone worships, or has faith in, science betrays a poor understanding of science. Nothing proposed in the process of science is immutable. Biologic evolution itself is simply a collection of hypotheses (or theories if you like) that are constantly being modified as evidence is discovered. The idea that scientists are in a conspiracy to deny God with conjured evidence is laughable since scientists who get their names recognized are the ones who challenge accepted concepts and support their challenge with unimpeachable evidence and/or data. It is true that scientists or groups of scientists have pet theories that are hard for them to let go, but eventually such pets die.

Now for the inevitable call for proof that species evolve. I have no problem doing that, but remember? I believe Google is your friend for such things. Start there and I will meet you later.

True Colors

This is it.
I officially quit.
I wanted to believe.
I thought I could fake it.
I tried to hold on to the smallest little smidgen of belief I could find.
I went back and forth a couple times to try to keep in the Church I truly love, but its not worth it.
I must admit I don't believe.

So that's me. I see a lot of the word "I" above, but it must be so. This is about me. Some guy didn't make me so mad that I wanted to leave everyone behind. My parents did not plant a seed of doubt. I did not see an inkling of hypocrisy in my father, the man that taught me to read, and gave me a love of logic and philosophy. I didn't doubt because of a college education, and I didn't walk away because I was drawn away by rock music or some stupid movie that made me desire a more exciting life away from God. It took becoming a father to realize my own faith was really a faith in my father, and not his God. When I tried to grow into my own faith I ran into my skepticism. I realized that to look past all the realities I saw that didn't mesh with the Bible I would have to have an internal sense that the truth of Scripture was greater than my doubt. I don't have that internal sense. A Christian might say that I lack the internal witness of the Holy Spirit.

Let me say it another way using the Genesis story of creation as an example. There is so much evidence in real life of an earth and universe that is so incredibly old most human minds are not able to visualize, and yet many Christians hold firmly to the belief that God created the earth and universe less than ten thousand years ago based on the chronology of events described in the Bible. So here's the rub- if, based on the evidence alone, I see that the earth is well more than a million years old, then I would have to assume that any story I heard to the contrary is false. Yet the Christian Bible states, based on its chronology, that the earth is 10,000 years old or younger. What am I to do with the contradiction? If I have no reason to believe the Bible I can simply state, accurately, that the Bible is the product of Bronze Age humans making their best guess at reality using traditions passed down to them to record their best creation myths which they tweaked over time as their culture changed. If I ascribe to the beliefs based on the Bible I look at the contradiction and go with my gut which tells me more truth is yet to be discovered and allows me to suspend disbelief in favor of what seems to be Bronze Age beliefs.

This is where I am splitting off from my former Sunday School friends. I don't have that gut feeling that tells me there must be a creator to build this complex system of physics that keeps our universe doing its thing. I don't have faith that a cosmic being who is both cruel and good has a higher purpose in mind. I don't have some whimsical sense that a better world awaits when my body loses its ability to maintain its survivability.

In short, I don't have faith.

Some would say that I have exchanged a faith in God for a faith in science, but that would be untrue. I don't have faith in science. Science is method of testing theories to come as close to truth as possible, but it is not a thing in which to have faith. Science would be the antithesis of faith in that any assertions made as a result of a scientific endeavor must be testable in order to be believed, and, as such, can be disproved at any juncture. Famous scientists are made from people who found a way to call accepted truths into question.

Some would say I have rejected God. Not really. I have rejected an artificial sense of the existence of any god. I had built up a mental image, in Christian terms an idol, of what I wanted God to be, and when I tested my theory of God I found that it was not reflected in Scripture, and, in fact, no one image of God was present in the Holy Writ I examined. All of religious tradition contains the opinions of men who seemed to have come to know different creatures they called "God".

Some would say that I have been drawn away by my own immorality to reject Biblical morality, but I counter that there is not one version of Biblical morality. This is why American Christians still argue for and against slavery, and why abortion is both acceptable and unacceptable within various factions of the Christian Church. I suggest that our cultural morality dictates how we interpret the Scriptures rather than the Scripture dictating our morality. This is partly because so many standards exist in the Holy Writ that almost anything can be justified based on how the verses are arranged.

I wanted that faith. I prayed for that faith, and studied to build the knowledge that would give support to faith, but the more I learned, the less I could believe. This is not to say that your faith is wrong, but that your faith is not based on words printed on special paper in a carefully bound book, but on some ethereal sense that your brain created to help you cope with things you couldn't explain. Or, you might say, the internal witness of the Holy Spirit.

So here I am as I really am. You can pray that God's voice will break through the darkness in my mind and bring me to your version of the light of faith. I welcome that. It is not fun feeling left out in the cold. Until then, paint me as honest. From here on, I will only admit to that which I can truly believe.

Just a kid?

My wife and I have often observed that you are not really an adult, no I mean you're not really mature as an adult until you're 30. So when I married at 25 we had our first child, and then I realized that I had made a mistake in my career choice. I really had plenty of time to decide what I wanted to be because I wasn't 30. I said a number of things, made some commitments and some philosophical statements about my beliefs when I was 25 and actually when I was 27 and 28. There are some things that I probably should not have said, but I wasn't 30 so I really wasn't mature enough to really know who I was at that point. That guy wasn't who I am today and it really doesn't bear any likeness to me so I don't have any responsibility for the commitments I made or the things I said back before I was 30. Besides, that was, like, I don't know, 11 years ago. It was more than a decade ago so enough time is passed anyway.

Of course, no one believes this. I reached the age of "maturity" when I was 18, and I could even drink when I was 21 though I chose to wait till I was thirtysomething. I really did change when I got into my 30s, and I am not anywhere close to the guy I was before except for a few personality quirks. I still consider the things I did and said back then as things that I still need to take responsibility for. I tell my children the same thing, that there is no such thing as being just a kid. There are some things, however, that they do not need to worry about as kids. For example, a drivers license, or a job, or marriage, or dating, but I don't ever want to hear them say I don't have to take that responsibility because I'm just a kid. Let's say my 15-year-old did commit a crime as a juvenile. Let's say I found out his crime that he committed as a juvenile. My son had better know and expect that he is going to be treated as a criminal. I will be taking him to the police, and I will support his sentencing for the appropriate punishment. Though I do expect to have a lawyer on hand to make sure that everything goes the way it should it according to our justice system.

If my son, God forbid, ever did commit a crime I would not allow him 12 years later to say "I was just a kid." I believe in taking responsibility for everything we do in our lives whether we are children at the time or adults. Suppose my son was trying to use the statement "Well that was more than 10 years ago and now I'm a changed man, I've given Jesus my whole heart this time and that person who did that crime was not me." Well, that's too bad. You still committed the crime, and you still have to live with the consequences. If my son were to step up to a mic and accuse innocent people he didn't like of committing the crime he committed I would then call my son on the phone and inform him that he was hypocrite, and he should keep his mouth shut or I was going to go find duct tape for him. I would say, "I don't care if you are an adult, I will teach you humility and respect even for those you don't like." Ok, that last part may be hard to pull off, but I sure wouldn't give him a free pass.

If my son, God forbid, did commit that crime and 12 years later informed us that God forgave him, and his victims are okay, then I would inform him that he needs to keep his big mouth shut and let his victims speak for themselves. 

My children know better than to steal, and my children know better than to touch somebody without their consent, and my children know better than to lie, and my children know better than to hide a mistake so that they can do it again. If my children break any of these rules that they know, they don't get to say 12 years later that they are changed, that Jesus loves them better, and that this is been a valuable experience for them. No, they get to say "I'm sorry", and that's all. They get to say "I have nothing else to say but that I am still so very sorry." If they say otherwise then I will have to find duct tape. 

I need to find some duct tape for a few people that are outside my family right now, if anyone has an opportunity to help me help them help themselves take responsibility. One guy shares the same first name as I do and I am tired of seeing his name on my newsfeed on Facebook so I'm not going to write his name here, but he'd better get some duct tape quick or say the right thing and take some responsibility no matter how long ago was he committed the crime.

And to my kids- you don't get a free pass because you are underage. Do the right thing today and every other day of your life, and you have no worry about duct tape from me or crazy screaming news feeds full of crazy opinions about you.

Embracing the dark

English Standard Version (©2001)
Isaiah 50:10
"Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God."

When I was nineteen I did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I begged God to show me His will. I prayed and studied, but I could not get an answer. For the first time I felt like I was totally in the dark; which truly distressed me. Why would God keep from revealing this to me? Then I came to this passage in my personal Bible study. Isaiah 50:10 started with "who... Fears The Lord and obeys...?" I thought "that's me! I obey God." Then I read "Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust..." I felt the darkness so tangibly that I almost cried. There was my answer. I was to simply trust God's last direction and stay on the path that was last given, and so I did. I was soon after that moment of distress given a clear next step and moved forward, and it was this path that brought to this day where I have a wonderful family, and a job that more than meets my family's needs.

Ten years later (thirteen years ago) I was plunged into the deepest spiritual darkness that I have ever experienced. It wasn't all at once, but I felt like I was sinking far away. I even had the sensation that it was God Himself pressing me so far into the darkness that I felt as if God had buried me and walked away, totally abandoning me.

English Standard Version (©2001)
Isaiah 50:11
"Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment."

For a few years I kept up the motions of the Christianity I no longer could see, waiting for God to come back for me, but He never did. I assumed my faith was a farce, and that I had simply been caught up in the social pressures around me. I determined that my intense sense of God's presence before was simply the result of a desire to experience something that I had to make up to be part of a social group I admired. Rather than make a form of insincere faith upon which I could pretend, I simply let my faith slip away. I did not build myself a fire of false religion. I stayed in the dark. I surrounded myself with opportunities to minister, for only in the moments when I was sharing the Gospel in word or song did I have a fleeting glimpse of God from afar, and then He pulled the shade again. After ten years of this I decided to be honest and admitted to family and a few friends that I had completely lost God. I reluctantly embraced my seeming apostasy while calling those around me to live their faith honestly. I basically gave up the fight.

In this space I began to detail how I came to be an apostate, and then I began to see breaks in the veil God had made. I cannot explain what happened, but I understand that it was revealed to me that this was God's plan for me. Few know the horror of darkness, but those of us who have experienced it and been brought out of it can attest to the fact that God is in the dark (Psalm 139:12).

Jesus promised that those who followed Him would have His light (John 8:12), but what about me who followed Jesus but fell into darkness? You can search me for a sin that led me away from God, but which one of us can say we are without sin? It was not a sin I embraced which brought the darkness, but it was in the midst of constant repentance and worship that darkness was forced upon me. Looking back I see just enough of God's light that even though I felt the darkness I had enough faint glimmers of light that I was unconsciously able to reorient myself. Even in the pit He never really left me.

I still struggle with issues where I believe humans have imposed their morals on God's word, and I have not resolved completely the seeming contradictions between what God has revealed in the natural world and his Word. I firmly believe that rational faith must first begin with divine revelation. I could not talk myself into faith, but when the Holy Spirit lifted the veil I was once again able to experience the assurance of faith I once held so dear.

Why have I been here? I understand Job a little better, though I did not experience the physical loss he did, but I certainly felt abandoned by God. Like Job I don't have an answer; only a sense that I have so much to learn.

English Standard Version (©2001)
Job 42:1-6
"Then Job answered the LORD and said:
“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”"

Trust Walk Continued

One of our favorite events each year is the trek to the Gulf of Mexico. Our family calls it "The Beach", and we look forward to the moment when we step out of the car and hear the roar of the waves. The first time a couple of our children actually made it to the water the power of the waves frightened them and we had to hold them tightly in our arms as they watched the waves wash around us. My son recently recalled the moment when he actually felt strong enough to stand in the waves and feel them wash around him. He and I love to stand or sit in the "big" waves on the Alabama beach and feel the power wrap around us.

We talked about that moment when he came to me worried about some doubts he faced about realities he was considering, and I described his doubts as waves that he can let wash around him. I am told that the waves on the West Coast are better suited for surfing, but the waves in the sheltered Gulf of Mexico are perfect for relaxing in the water. If you find the perfect spot on the sandbar you can settle where the water comes up to your chest and then turn to face the shore with your back to the Gulf and let the waves splash around you, sometime splashing up against the back of your head. When the wave continues on to the shore the foam obscures what is under the water which is usually crystal clear, and dark shapes in the foam are suddenly made sinister. Once the foam clears I see the seaweed or the dark rock in the white sand for what it is, but for moments I consider sweeping my children up onto the dry sand in case it is a toothy predator.

I have learned to identify all the dark underwater shapes when i first step into the water, and I let the fear wash past me with the foamy waves when that split second glance through the foam made me imagine a shark. As I fight these doubts over the realities of the Christianity I was raised to believe, I recognize that I am not the first to have these doubts, and I take uneasy comfort in this. I have decided to stick with the beliefs I once held dear although they do not resonate with me as they once did. I will continue to seek to worship the God I loved even while the foam of doubt wraps around me. I want to believe. Help my unbelief!

Trust Walk

A few months ago an acquaintance told my Sunday School class about a father taking his daughter on a trust walk. The basic concept is that the father is to guide his blindfolded daughter up a tree-lined mountain path along with other father-daughter teams. The father gives his daughter this statement "I am here to guide you, only listen to me" - The father is to start out with his hands on the daughter's shoulders and giving reassuring advice until a facilitator motions for the father to remove his hands, and then later to stop speaking until asked for advice by the daughter. All along the trail the blindfolded daughter is harassed by a man with a tree branch who makes her think her father is leading her into a tree, and she is given false instructions by a man who contradicts her father. The idea of the exercise seems to be to teach the daughter to trust her father to lead her down the right path in life. It is interesting that the father takes his hands off his daughter at one point on the trail, and then he becomes silent unless asked for advice later down the path. This is so much like a good father letting his daughter grow up. I have warned my children that I will gradually step back from being their guide, and simply be an advisor.

The idea sounds neat, but I don't see myself doing this exercise with my girls. Instead of teaching my daughter to trust me to guide them, I am doing my best to get rid of any blindfolds they may be wearing so that they are not dependant on this flawed man and can find a good path themselves. My father had a similar approach in raising his children. He has some very strong beliefs about what is true, but he feels that, rather than indoctrinating us into a certain viewpoint, he should give us the tools to find the truth so that what we believe becomes our belief rather than simply a parroting of his and Mom's beliefs. His plan seems to be a risky one. By opening the door to personal investigation rather than blind trust my parents ran the risk that their children would be led away from the truth, but in reality children will do what they want anyway. I do not mean that Dad and Mom taught us that truth is relative, but instead they taught that any honest pursuit of truth would lead to the road that they walked. I was not taught that questioning my faith was sinful, but my father struggled through his doubts and taught us the truth in an effort to help us find what he learned and save us the trouble of dealing with doubt. 

If you have followed my blog for any amount of time you know I chose the hard way. Until I was twenty-five I lazily took my father's faith as my own, but then I came to realize that I instinctively didn't get it. Ever since then I have tried to argue myself into belief, but I have discovered it is difficult to do this. How did I get here? It has been suggested that I must have been hurt by my parents pretty badly to have rejected what they believe, but the fact is that I came to this situation on my own. When I approached my father early on about my doubts he expressed his belief that the only way to see the truth about God was to accept the presupposition that God is real and His Bible is true, but he has always made it clear that he loves me and accepts me no matter what I believe.

In a sense, my pride forced me onto this road. I want to be right for the sake of being right. I have been told by many that people like me choose to step away from their faith because they refuse to give up some sin. I am not morally perfect, but my pride was the sin that led me down this path. I saw Christians politicalizing Christianity in areas such as abortion, and the meaning of Christmas, and I wanted to have a faith that was more important than some reason to rally against a government in political meetings. I got the feeling that these issues were created to give a certain group influence over the nation by polarizing Christians. I find it interesting that abortion gave room to the "battle for Christmas" (with the hate for secularization of the nation) which gave room to the battle over gay rights, which gave room to the battle over the Islamification of America. I have watched Christians add anger to anger until there is no room for love. I think these are non-issues created to keep Christians politically involved. Now we have a Christian movement against a "communist" or "socialist" sitting confessed Christian president in favor of a Mormon candidate who has historically acted in a similar way to our current president.

In my proud way I wanted to rise above all this, and be a true loving follower of Christ. As I looked at my Bible to learn a more excellent way I found that the Scriptures can be ambiguous, and even contradictory. I wanted God's Word to be clear and in self-agreement, but it really isn't. I found that many of our main theological ideas were actually inferred from Scripture while seeming contradictory passages were ignored or explained away. The more I studied the Bible, the more I have come to feel that the book is more likely the result of various cultures trying to come to grips with their current situation. This is why the scientific concepts presented in the Bible are reflective of the primitive ideas held at that time. We now know the earth is not flat, is not the center of the universe, and was not made in six days less than ten thousand years ago, but those ideas made sense a few hundred years ago. As we understand the fetal development of the brain we now know that the brain is where sexual identity is developed despite what the body seems to indicate, and it is not sinfully deviant to have different sexual orientation than one appears that they should have no matter what the writers of Leviticus or the Apostle Paul thought.

So what do I use to guide my children? I have chosen to raise them in the conservative Evangelical Christian culture (sticking to what I know) while constantly insisting my children to approach their beliefs honestly. Whether they agree or disagree with me I play devil's advocate to force them to justify, in simplistic ways, what they believe. I want them to know that while truth is not relative, our ability to see it is often obscured by our desire to identify with a certain culture. So now my children roll their eyes (respectfully) when I start to discuss the pagan reasons to celebrate Christmas or the fact that God is not pro-life, and when I ask them why they believe something. I want to walk next to my children discussing the path as we continue to grow together not a guide to force them to my flawed level of enlightenment. They will hear my voice in their heads like I hear my father every day- "why did you choose that?" They will disagree with me, but they will know why!

A Problem by Any Other Name...

Sometimes a medical diagnosis is nothing more than a description. Think of arthritis, which simply means "inflammed joint". I imagine a patient telling his doctor how his joints are painful and swollen. "I think my joints are really inflammed! What is wrong?" "I think you have arthritis." "Oh, ok, thanks doc!" The big word is a way to communicate a lot with one word, but there are often other words that sit with the descriptive word. "Osteoarthritis" is one type of joint inflammation while "rheumatoid arthritis" is something else. Another one of my favorite diagnoses is tremor. "Why is my hand shaking?" "You have a tremor." But the fact is that there is more to be said about the tremor... An "essential tremor" describes a person whose hands shake for no apparent reason. A "secondary tremor" is caused by some other known disease process like a stroke or muscle injury. In my case I have been told that my walking problem is not a muscle weakness or even likely to be multiple sclerosis, but that I have "primary focal paroxysmal dystonia" in my leg. What that means is that from time to time my leg has muscles that fight each other for control of my leg when walking. "Primary" means that no one knows why, and "focal" means it is only in one place. Dystonia can be described as "crossed wires" in the brain where my brain tells opposing muscles to move. If you watch me walk you would see a twisting movement as these muscles pull one way and then another, and I look a little funny as I walk. It comes and goes so it is said to be paroxysmal, and it is often the result of being excited or worried so if I limp up to you I am either really happy to see you or you frighten me. When awaiting my parents' arrival from Pennsylvania i was so excited I could barely walk. I have been told that physical therapy may help me learn to walk a different way, or that some type of drugs to treat Parkinson's can help. There is more work to be done to determine what comes next, but this could be the new normal for me. 

What's Eating Me

  "So there's something like a worm eating your brain, and making it hard to walk?" So now I know I need to work on how I explain details to my children. The fact is that I don't exactly know what is going on in my brain, but for some reason certain muscles in my left leg aren't able work right so that I can't lift my leg when walking. The best explanation I have found after much testing is that my immune system has been signaled wrongly by something to build scar tissue in my brain and/or spinal cord that keeps instructions in my brain from making it to my leg for some reason. More testing needs to be done, but for now we are calling it a "multiple sclerosis-type disorder". The good news is that I am usually not in pain, it seems to be limited to my left leg, and my balance is still perfect. My symptoms began a year ago with some mild weakness and numbness in my left leg with some muscle spasms. The weakness and spasms cleared up after a few weeks, but the numbness remained. In late September this year I started to have pronounced weakness in my left leg which eventually progressed to where it is now that I need a cane to walk without tripping. I had a spinal tap and MRIs that showed inconclusive results so I now have appointments at other medical centers for a more comprehensive evaluation. If this is MS (multiple sclerosis) the symptoms may go away for a time, but some types of MS slowly progress with new disabilities appearing from time-to-time with no improvement in my symptoms. The future is uncertain and frightening, but I am glad for my present. I can still walk (although I look pathetic doing it), I can still work full-time, I have a wonderful and supportive wife, and many wonderful friends. That's where I am right now. When you see me with my cane know that I am grateful to be here. I don't know why my brain is short-circuited, but I am glad I can be here now!

Foolish Idolatry

Romans 12:1  I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

I have a confession to make - I found a new idol that has controlled my mind. You will never guess it, and you might even disagree that it is an idol. I am not trying to convict you about any idolatry that you might foster, but I must admit that this idol almost forced me to give up my faith in God completely. Perhaps my admission will help you, but I suspect it will make you sad or even upset you. Please at least give me a moment to explain myself, and try to read what I am trying to say rather than impose your instinctive interpretation on what I am saying. I have a friend on Facebook who helped me see this idol by his focus on it trying to convince me to worship it his way. 

I see this as an idol because I substituted its words for the true wisdom of God instead of seeing it as one tool to help me see God more clearly. When I found this idol to be flawed I decided to reject my faith because I had built my faith on it, but I believe I have found a better way. My idol was indirectly given to me by my parents, though I am sure that they did not intend the consequences that followed as I focused on this item for building my life of faith. This idol was not an issue until a series of events shook my ideas of God and I turned to this idol for reassurance, but all I found were problems and contradictions. 

What is this idol? The Christian Bible. It is a book written by men for the instruction of men with inspiration of God, but I mistook the Bible for the complete word of God. I am learning that the Bible is a starting point, but also that God had revealed Himself all over His creation. I have found that neither of these form of revelation are complete, but that they are guides to a deeper walk with God. Many have been praying for me on this journey for which I thank you, and I certainly beg for your continued prayers as I continue to grow in this walk.

Try to remember...

Music: Harvey Schmidt
Lyrics: Tom Jones
Book: Tom Jones
Premiere: Tuesday, May 3, 1960

Try to remember the kind of September
When life was slow and oh, so mellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When grass was green and grain was yellow.
Try to remember the kind of September
When you were a tender and callow fellow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

Try to remember when life was so tender
That no one wept except the willow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That dreams were kept beside your pillow.
Try to remember when life was so tender
That love was an ember about to billow.
Try to remember, and if you remember,
Then follow.

Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
Although you know the snow will follow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
Without a hurt the heart is hollow.
Deep in December, it's nice to remember,
The fire of September that made us mellow.

Deep in December, our hearts should remember

And follow.

Last night my wife and I watched the movie "The Vow" which was loosely inspired by the true story of Kim and Krickitt Carpenter whose relationship suffered after she lost her memory of their marriage following a brain injury. The movie characters actually ended their marriage after the girl lost any memory of the man she married a short time before, and returned to the very different life she led a few years before she met and married her husband. By the end of the movie the woman with memory loss had returned to many of the things she enjoyed even though her memory never returned, and the reason she returned to her life before memory loss is because her personality did not change. There is a debate as to how permanent personality is, but is wondered what would happen to me if I lost my memory of the last thirteen years supposing that our personality doesn't change after a brain injury. This seems like an academic question, but it really is practical because it can be assumed that I began this process of losing God because of some events or ideas that traumatized my sense of God's being. So I am going to try to remember.

This Need Not Apply

There is a promise in the Christian Bible that forces discomfort for many Bible believers. The verse 

reads "Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6) I know that the verse is not true, you know this too, for without a mpment's hesitation you can think of at least one situation when the parents did a good job and kid went way off the deep end. I have heard several explanations for why this promise is in the Scripture, all of them trying to excuse good parents from bad results. The problem is that this is a clearly-worded promise. The idea is good, that parenting is important, but the exceptions to the rule have caused much heartbreak as good parents blame themselves for their child's wrong choices. I have heard preachers suggest that hidden sin in the lives of the parents caused the failure, or that the statement is the description of a general rule. I have even heard that the book of Proverbs is not really a part of the canon of Scripture after the realization of several of these statements in Proverbs that really aren't consistently true. 

Today I heard another explanation- not any statement in Proverbs can be taken as true without comparing it to other statements in Scripture and personal experience. I like this- "thou shalt not kill" unless it is politically expedient (Judges 18:27-29), socially necessary, (Judges 20:48) a response to being insulted (2 Kings 2:23-24), or religiously motivated (Numbers 25:1-9). I could literally take any clear statement in the Bible and twist it using other ideas and events in the Bible to whatever purpose I have. The craziest version of this is those Christians who insist that the Bible holds that American capitalism is more Biblical than socialism or communism. What drives our economy but the desire to have what others have and working hard to earn it? Well that goes against the command to not covet. So much for being a Christian nation built on the Ten Commandments. 

The interesting thing is how these moral understandings of the Bible have changed over the centuries. Genocide by Christians was supported by scripture and then condemned by Christians using the same book. Slavery was also supported among Christians by verses from the Bible and the later condemned by it. Racism has been supported for the Church by bible verses and also now condemned by most Churches using other Bible verses. These same Bible believers tell me that only if I use the Bible will I have an unchanged moral standard, but that if I believe in evolution my moral values will change over time. To me it seems that today's Christianity is just as much a product of evolution as anything else. 

When I hear Christians condemn gay marriage I now know that the way they read the Bible will change. Those commandments need not apply.

Let there be light

At the end of June I can be found in Northeastern Pennsylvania on my parents' property involved in "Cousin's Camp" where seventeen grandchildren and a few dear friends will gather to spend time together and learn something. This year's theme is light and it's place in Christian theology, and five fathers will present material throughout the week on the theme. My segment is on the constellations so in the next several days I will be working this. I will let you join me on my journey.

"And God said, 'Let there be light' and there was light." What is light? That is a problem that has been debate for centuries. When God called for light in Genesis 1 what did the ancient writer mean? Did the particles come into existence or were the waves of particles that already existed leave their source and begin to bounce off the waters on the empty sphere called earth? What we know now about light is that it consists of particles that we called photons that move faster than any other particles of which we aware. Even though the little bits of light we see move really fast, the colors we see only make up a little bit of the light that is there. I could tell you all about the many, many tests scientists have done over the centuries to find the different particles of light and how they move, but we don't have time. I can tell you that scientists have found that light particles move in waves, and the different size of the waves are seen by our eyes differently or not at all. 

I said that light is made up particles, but I will keep talking about the waves of light because we could not really catch one particle of light by itself because it moves too fast. So what we can see is the effect of particles of light when they are together in waves. The funny thing is that you can split light up by its waves by setting special filters in the way of the light waves. When we have light waves moving together we often call that group of waves a beam of light, and so when we have a beam of light we can set up a filter to split the beam into several beams that consist of the same wave type. Suppose you want to see the waves, how would they look compared to each other? Red light waves and blue light waves have a different pattern in that the distance between the top of the wave for each is always the same for red and a little farther apart for blue light.

So when I write about different types of light I talk about different lengths between the peaks of the waves or to shorten it I say "wavelength". The cool thing is that there are wavelengths that are invisible to your eyes because your eye does not have the type of cell that can see it. Wavelengths that are outside the visible spectrum are still very important. You wear sunscreen because a wavelength of light that is shorter than purple (violet) light is invisible to you, but can injure your skin cells and cause burns or cancer. Other wavelengths on the shorter side of the spectrum can do even more damage like X-rays. The other side of the spectrum has really cool effects like radio waves. 

So when light began it wasn't just the ability to get rid of the dark that came, but new ways of experiencing energy. When we think about energy what you and I usually mean is the movement of particles called electrons. Electric wires carry electrons back and forth while gasoline burns as electrons move from one molecule to another. Light has the ability to move electrons. That is how your eyes work. Photons hit the cells of your eyes and electrons in those cells move chemicals that stimulate electrons in your brain which your brain connects to memories to understand what the light told your eyes. 

Morality

I recently saw a friend post on Facebook about the neurosurgeon Ben Carson who is standing against evolutionary theory because it is a poor basis of morality. His alternative? He feels that safety is found in basing our morality on the Christian Bible. At first blush this may make sense, but I don't really believe this and you don't either. I thought I could write something about this, but I see that I already did so here is a link to the different posts I put up on this subject- http://me-as-me.blogspot.com/search/label/morality

What is your reality?

You do not see this page with your eyes. Well, if we were to be real picky, you really don't see anything with your eyes. You may know this, but what really happens is that light enters the front of the eye, stirs activity in cells inside the eye which begin electrochemical reactions in the nervous system, and the reactions in the nervous system activate various areas within the brain that convert the signals from the eyes into images that are then matched to various memories to interpret what the light reveals. You really "see" with your memory. The cool thing about our brain is that it can remember concepts, things, and events so that you can read this word and instantly remember seeing it while connecting it to an idea, and possibly even have feelings elicited because of an event of which the word reminds you. This is why you learn about everything you see in your world instead of instantly knowing everything about your world. This is also why optical illusions are possible. 

I remember the first time I saw a mirage on the road in front of us on a hot summer day. I can still remember the feeling of surprise when the water wasn't there when we came to the dip in the road where there had been a puddle of water only moments before. My dad explained how the different temperatures of air bent the light to make it seem as if water was reflecting the sunlight, and I learned that things can seem different than they are. My favorite example of this is the McGurk Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McGurk_effect) in which a sound is "heard" differently depending on what is seen by the hearer. Some optical illusions show quirks in how light enters and is transmitted by the eye, but others reveal how what is "seen" is interpreted by the brain in conjunction with prior memories as in the McGurk effect. If you are used to distrusting what your eye tells you about sounds, like if you watch badly-dubbed kungfu movies, then the McGurk effect doesn't really work on you. 

All this is interesting because it is possible for your reality to differ from mine in very important ways. We often use the words reality and truth interchangeably, but some aspects of reality do differ from person to person because we experience the world with different brains which interpret things based on different memories and makeup. So while we both may experience the same sunshine your brain may see happiness and life while others may see murderous UV rays. I remember the story in the Gospels about the man Jesus healed of blindness who then described men walking around like trees (Mark 8:22-26). Imagine a blind man who knew by touch that upright structures were trees, but when his eyes worked he saw upright structures walking and talking like men. In other words his reality hadn't really included both sets of features in the same object. Mark remarks that a second touch from Jesus was required to allow him to recognize the same reality that someone who saw from birth had.

What if reality differed from truth? My favorite contribution to the Internet is my quote an acquaintance spread years ago- "Belief and sincerity do not define truth; it exists despite belief and sincerity." You may sincerely believe your reality is true but it doesn't mean that it is. One of my big frustrations is the false idea that still lives in this country that if something seems "natural" it is better. I am consulted by my fellow nurses at least monthly about some new "natural" treatment or supplement (as if taking a pill is natural) that seems better than modern medicine, and I must admit that while some people naturally see these things as better in obvious ways I do not agree with their reality. So our reality disagrees. What are we to do? An independent measure must be used to determine truth in our realities, and it cannot be who is loudest or most sincere. This is the real argument. When I still worked in the "alternative healthcare" industry I struggled over real evidence. My well-meaning mentor insisted that good healthcare started with the presupposition that certain concepts trumped "science falsely-so-called" that seemed to dominate the industry. In the end the only evidence that was included was whatever study supported his prior convictions of reality. I find this is often the case in the false healthcare industry- conventional medicine and science is supposed to be tainted and so only is right when it agrees with the nonconvenitonalist's preconcived notions. This has led to all sorts of craziness like iridology, applied kinesiology and overdosing on toxic plants because Aunt Gertrude saw a Chinese Indian take them once. 

This frustration is what led me to where I am. I found that scientists trust each other less than herbalists trust them. In fact they are constantly checking and rechecking their work to the be the gal or guy to prove a deeply held theory to be wrong. Preconceived notions are often thrown out to be reformulated or verified, and sacred cows are slaughtered whenever possible. So when a young earth creationist tells me that evolution is impossible because Genesis 1 says God did it in six days six thousand years ago I say, let's test that theory. "It's not a theory." I'm told "It is a preconceived notion that must be accepted to find the truth." What this means is that I must accept the way your brain interprets truth in order to find other truths. In other words this is a reality that lives on the same level as Aunt Gertrude's bitter poisonous green leaves. This is what I can't seem to swallow.

Justification or Explanation?

I dealt with a few approaches to the problem of evil in the last post, and how I am trying to reconcile what I see as reality with what I have been raised to believe. For many of my friends and family members "the problem of evil" is not even remotely an interesting question. These dear ones feel as if there is not any need to question God. When tornados tear bodies and lives apart some Christians see judgement of sin or a long-term purpose that goes beyond our understanding. Joseph of early Jewish history faced horrible rejection at every level, but he is remembered for recognizing God's higher purpose when he said "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." (Genesis 50:20) On the other hand Job was rebuked for looking for a higher purpose, and trying to understand why he was suffering. (Job 40:8) 

I know a little about suffering, but only a little. As a small boy we were told that my mother was going to die, and there were a few times that I was convinced that I was watching her last moments. Cancer hurts everyone related to the victim, but what would happen if you were to ask my mother how she felt about the disease her body finally defeated. Her physical and emotional suffering was incredible, and she will tell her story with a few ideas on what purpose God had for her suffering. Ask Mom in a particularly vulnerable moment and she will confide that she cannot really find a purpose of God that makes the suffering to feel truly worth it, but she believes in her heart that His plan is far better than any she could have so she chooses to tust Him though she wishes His plan could have been perfected another way.

As I read through different writings that deal with the "problem of evil" I see a pattern developing in which those who have a problem reconciling God's goodness with the presence of evil are inclined to distrust God in the first place. Christians who discuss the problem of evil seem to be trying to explain how their intensely felt belief in a loving God makes logical sense. I suggest you read a blog by a man currently in the raw moments of pain- http://raymelick.blogspot.com/2012/05/men-at-ease-have-contempt-for.html Ray knows how to tell it. 

 

As I struggle with my unbelief I am beginning to think that problems with belief are not a matter of logic, but obedience to an inner sense of reality. What do you think? Do you feel the way you do because it feels right or because of irrefutable logic? In other words, when you defend your beliefs are your providing an explanation or trying to justify how you feel?

Not a Tame Lion

My son was around five when I read him the C. S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia, and we happened on the statement that Aslan, the lion that seemed to represent Jesus in the allegory, was not a tame lion. It was a pretty good explanation to come back to when my son later noted a moment when something made him sad and I could not explain it by saying it fit God’s plan. "A tame animal is predictable and obeys your wishes, but you can't always predict what an untamed animal will do. It obeys no one but itself." Looking back I am interested that I didn't tell my son that God was a wild creature that can't be tamed. Instead I simply stated that he was not tame. A wild God is a scary idea. Wild animals bite and kill for no reason. A wild lion can turn on his handler, leaving onlookers puzzled as to what happened, and yet when I read that God, or Jesus, is not a tame lion, is the alternative simply that they are wild animals? 

One of my first concerns as I try to walk back through the doorway of my former faith is the problem of evil. Is it true that God is either not good or not all powerful? If he is good why does he allow evil unless he is too weak to fend it off? If God is powerful enough to fend off evil he must not be good enough to want to do it. The Christian Scriptures describe its god as all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfect in love. It seems to many that there is a breakdown somewhere in the attributes of God or that there isn't a god like the one described by the Christian.

I have heard different theologians speak of natural disasters as if they were the result of sin or satanic influence, but it is clear that if the God of the Bible can do anything He is fully in control of whatever happens in his world. If God let it happen then He is responsible for it happening. In the Bible even evil men are said to be under the control of God. Think about how God hardened Pharoah's heart while the ten plagues ravaged his country, and even how Solomon stated that the "heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord" and he turns it any way he desires. (Proverbs 21)

Google the word "theodicy" and you will see different attempts of philosophers and theologians (some of whom are philosophers) to make sense of the fact that the Christian god is perfectly good and all-powerful. I discussed this with my son recently and we went through all the options, but we decided that the only answer that really worked for him is that somehow God knows best, and we just have to trust him. This is good enough for many, but it really only works if you feel like God is perfectly good and need an "escape clause" to make you feel ok about an out-of-control world. It is as if you are saying "I know He is good so He must have some higher purpose at work." 

There is another approach that can answer why this world is out-of-control. From the beginning of time as we know it chaos has been the rule of the universe. When untamed powerful forces interact they can change the current organization of things to something very different which can disrupt life and its ability to survive. I am told by Christians "But if everything is the product of chaos then everything is meaningless!" Really? To see that our species has risen out of such chaos and thrived even as the forces of weather, geology, and the competition for resources worked against us creates an incredible sense of being part of an incredibly innovative movement of life. I have a small part of ensuring the continued success of our species as it evolves into the next stage of physical and cultural development. By producing children I have already potentially made a permanent mark on our species' genes for millions of years, and by working to teach my children I have a chance to mold our culture to be better in the future. As humans around me observe my behavior they instinctively develop opinions on how to copy or respond to my behavior which also modifies my culture in a small way, and as billions of us around the Earth act and observe we create the genes and culture of our future. Yes, there is meaning in life, even without a god!

So why would I want to return to my former faith? The culture and people I know and love draw me back, and I honestly want to be part of the confused happiness all around me in church. I remember the good feeling I felt when I believed that God was real and at work in and around me. Now I feel as if those days had me watching a movie on a screen while reality was obscured behind it. Now that I feel like I know the truth I only enjoy the movie for its sense of nostalgia, but I still long for the certainty that came with belief.

So what is the answer for evil? Did God create evil? In a sense the Christian must admit to some extent that his God did create evil, but he could argue that in doing so God had a greater good in mind that goes beyond philosophy and theology. So the God of the Bible allows horrible events to happen on a whim, and cannot really be predicted. All the Christian can say is, “Deep in my heart I know that God is good, and when I get to Heaven it will all make sense.” I guess you must accept God as being truly wild, or untamed, to accept His religion, but I am yet unsure that an untamed God is a better explanation than untamed forces.

Back again?

A few know I have taken this school year off from ministry because I have had some very serious doubts about the basic truths of modern Christianity. Some of those with whom I have discussed this know that I am not reacting to hypocritical Christians, although there are plenty of those around me. It is also true that I am not swayed by the problem of evil, though it is a reality. The simplest version of why I "left" the faith is that I lost the sense that it was true. It is very important for those who care about apologetics to realize that any belief in the Christian god must be "presuppositional" in that the individual must first choose to believe that there is an all-powerful God of the Christian type. The Christian scriptures declare that God can be seen in nature, but in reality scientific observation will not reveal the presence of God unless one already acknowledges the presence of God. The athiest sees a beautiful sunrise and sees an amazing interaction between gravity, gasses, and light while the Christian sees the same, thinking that God somehow planned this interaction. Belief in God does not guide the proper observation of the sunset, but this belief allows the Christian to give the interaction unobservable meaning. "The heavens declare the glory of God", but only to those who are willing to believe. So what can explain the difference between the athiest and the Christian observing a sunset? The best answer is the effect of a strong desire to see God that exists in the mind of the Christian. The nonchristian often believes the Christian's desire to see God comes from a need to belong to a specific group or the desire to claim special knowledge, but a Christian will probably cite the effect of the awakening of the Holy Spirit in his "heart" to explain how he can see God working around him. This is where I felt like I "lost" God. I lost the sense of this "awakening" by the Holy Spirit so that I did not have the intuitive sense that He was there. When I tried to "find" God, the logic of it all evaded me, and so I decided to let God pull me back to him if he existed.  I now have the sense that this is beginning to occur. I am in the early stages, but I began praying again this week. For the sake of understanding what is going on I am going to document my progress, and I welcome comments as encouragement or challenges to rethink what I write. Those who have been praying for me I thank you.