Gadfly's Muse

The Conversation Must Continue

If a contemporary believer wants to know the will of God as revealed in Scripture on any (matter).... it is certainly prudent to study the Bible carefully for oneself.  but is is just as prudent to look for help, to realize that the question I am bringing to Scripture has doubtless been asked before and will have been addressed by others who were at least as saintly as I am, at least as patient in pondering the written Word, and at least as knowledgeable about the human heart.

Mark Noll, Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity,  p. 16

There it is.  A near perfect  expression of what I have been trying to formulate in my own mind for years. 

Not Fewer Teen Pregnancies, Fewer "Unwed" Teen Pregancies

Joel Loukus is a veritable fount of information -  here is a link to a not-often heard view on teen pregnancies.  It's worth reading

http://www.frederica.com/writings/lets-have-more-teen-pregnancy.html

Dawkins: Religion and Morality

Richard Dawkins  The God Delusion,  commentary, part 3

Reading Dawkins requires a good deal of patience.  There just isn't enough time in the day to argue against everything he says.  The idea of "memes" as the cultural analogy to "genes" and the potential for a Darwinian type of explanation for why religion evolves is one.  It can be addressed on both logical grounds (Why is an inclination toward the supernatural present such that the meme can take off?  Does this not argue for a "genetic" basis?  Does this not give some independent support for the idea that man, as created, has "eternity in his heart?" [Eccl. 3:11]) and factual (Identify a "meme" such that it can be clearly demonstrated as being independent of subjective declaration - i.e. on what basis is a "meme" defined such that independent observers will always agree on particular components).  I haven't thought much about these things but Dawkins use of them doesn't strike me as particularly impressive.

But it is on the Religion and Morality thing that something HAS to be said.

Dawkins and the Idea of God's Simplicity

Richard Dawkins The God Delusion, commentary, part 2

(p. 149) A God capable of continuously monitoring and controlling the individual status of every particle in the universe cannot be simple.  His existence is going to need a mammoth explanation in its own right. (emphasis his)

I am not certain but I think Dawkins is here assuming a definition of "simplicity" that is more common and colloquial than that theologians use when speaking about God.  He seems to move about in his use of the word but evidently takes it alternately as meaning "easy to understand" or "free of secondary complications."  Theologians, speaking of God's simplicity, are attempting to speak of God's unity, of His fundamental-ness, in that no subdivision of God can be appropriately described of Him.  The problem with all human meditation about God's essence is that He is ultimately incomprehensible to us, being beyond our frame of time-space reference.  Thus, speaking of God's simplicity, is a logical construct, used by theologians to try to say something about God for which no analogy within time and space can adequately or even accurately express.

Dawkins' Delusion

The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins writes clearly and well. There is no doubt what he is saying nor about whom he is saying it. His target is religion as an acceptable human enterprise in all its forms but his specific aim is at Christianity because it is the most widespread and perhaps the most offensive.

Having interacted with atheists before, Dawkins does not introduce any fundamentally new arguments though he does present them well. He further confirms the truth of Addison's statement: " "Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life." If he just presented his arguments and put forth answers to those made against him, I would enjoy his book more. But, along with most other atheist progressive folks with whom I have had a dialog of sorts, he is not content with that. He must ridicule those who are so dense, short-sighted, bigoted and otherwise insane, as to hold religious belief. This is unfortunate at best.

By Whose Authority Do We Marry?

Thanks to Joel Loukus for the link http://www.mercyseat.net/BROCHURES/marriagelicense.htm
It's an interesting read and well worth thinking about.  I am not sure that I go as far as he does but he makes some good points.

I have written elsewhere that I do not believe that the state has the privilege of declaring what constitutes a valid marriage.   Although the state does have a vested interest in recording marriages and I consider the "marriage license" not so much as the state granting the authority to marry as being a convenient vehicle for recording the marriage when it is filled out and sent in after the ceremony.

When I perform a wedding, I declare the man and woman husband and wife, by the authority granted to me by the Presbyterian Church in America and with the knowledge of the State of Maryland.  I do recognize that a civil marriage is a valid marriage and that the state has the right to perform a "civil" marriage  according to its own laws, just as the state has the "right" to enact  other laws which are counter to God's Word.  They have the "right" to sin and God has will hold them accountable for what they do.  But, like Daniel, Christians must exercise their right to not abide by those laws nor grant any kind of personal legitimacy to the unions which are counter to God's intentions.  The state has absolutely no authority to bind Christians' conscience with regard to their own definition of marriage.

It's going to be even more important in the coming years for Christians to be unified in this.  I pray that the current trend within Evangelicalism is reversed.

It's All Gil's Fault... Of Course

Brian McLaren, The Last Word and the Word After That...

OK, we finally get down to it.  The central character, Dan Poole, poor, confused pastor that he is, is struggling with the justice of God in sending people to Hell.  How could God be so cruel?  How could He be so unloving as to send some nice man, a sensitive man like the fellow whose hands were so cruelly crushed in the death camps in Hitler's Germany, who spent the rest of his life teaching others to love music, to Hell after ALL that man had endured on earth?  How could He justify that kind of punishment on someone simply because he doesn't believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, come to make the nature and Person of God known to fallen humanity?

2007 - A Modest Resolution

This year I resolve to have few opinions. 

No, wait... perhaps I should  modify that to something that lies within the bounds of actual potentiality.  This year I resolve to express fewer opinions.  That's better but I wonder if even that is attainable.  After all, any and every conversation usually entails either expressing or reacting to an opinion, either one stated in the conversation itself of about one stated elsewhere.  And after all, what is "reacting" to an opinion except having an opinion about that opinion.  So, even here, I am caught in a bit of a dilemma.  I have a vague sense that I might even be breaking the resolution even as I write about it. 

So, what would be better?  OK, this year I resolve  to express fewer opinions in a passionate, argumentative and unwholesome manner.  Gosh, that sounds noble.  Maybe I'm on to something here at last.  The problem is that it requires discernment.  When is my manner of expressing something "unwholesome?"  And, after all, is not all debate "argumentative?"  There is nothing more despicable than lukewarm dispositions in matters of opinion.  If someone believes something then they ought to be "passionate" about it.  The obstacles here are greater than they first appear.  And yet it still sounds like a noble ideal.  Does this imply that my entire thinking about what is noble and what is not needs to be revised.  I will have to think about it..  form an opinion on it... you know... and then, after all that work, I can't imagine the world being better off if I do not express it.  And what if some lesser mind actually disagrees with me.  Would it behoove me to leave that person in the ditch of their own ignorant, short-sighted, low-brow imbecility?  No.... what's needed is more clear thinking on this issue. 

At least.... that's my opinion.

Oh... well... maybe next year.