Moving

My blog has moved to www.teknohazard.com/blog. Please update your bookmarks accordingly.

Thanks,
Abraham

Mis-clicking

well, i am really tired this morning, and i've been clicking on things again, without knowing what they are... so i lost a couple of items: among them, an entire blogpost and the comment that was posted to it. sorry about that. in answer to the comment, though, well, you're right; it's a song. it's by POD and its about how he copes with the death of his mother. (bloody dark) anyways, i adapted it to my situation, and in my particular case, it's not about someone dying, instead, its about someone you don't know.

anyways....... i hope y'all can still find my blog for now, since i am working on migrating over to bluehost.

When you start exercising again...

... then you wonder the next day whether you really beat up the punching bag, or it was just your imagination and you were the one who got beat up.

something for nothing

Is screaming... though it's not my state of mind. Exhaustion or caffeine, or something else means it. Sleepless dreaming. Nothing, is nothing. When I think about it, it becomes something. Don't even know what I'm thinking. Most of us don't anyway. Fill my head, with something else. Not voices, not crying. Not thinking. (focus) I don't want to. Dissipation. Tired of running away. There is nothing. Nothing... my mantra. Twin threads, like DNA, but I can actually hear the subliminal messages. I'm keeping glasses on my desk... for clarity of thought. Trying to stare through the clouds. Give me medicine. Give me focus. Give me desire. Give me more. Something. Another Wednesday and I'm struggling to swim up from the depths of this illusion. Because I keep thinking in circles. Too many "open loops." Open, screaming, flying, not falling- not anymore. and that's good. Still, there are so many faces. Maybe I just need a nap.

(how could i ever burden another person with this...?)

Prayer and Sin

In my study of world religions I came across two serious objections to the teachings of Christianity. Most of the objections I come across are stupid and poorly-thought-out, but these two have cropped up in my thinking again and again, because they seem to make a certain amount of sense.

The first is about prayer, and I believe I finally have an answer. It ocurred to me while I was reading Murray's book, "With Christ in the School of Prayer." But the explanation requires a little excursion into my train of thought.

Prayer, from the perspective of a thinking outside observer, appears to be little more than ineffectual hoping. You might balk at the idea, but think about it for a minute. How do you explain all of those 'no' answers? "It wasn't God's will." And in response to, "Why pray then?", we usually say something that can be reduced to, "God just likes to hear what we're thinking once in awhile, so He won't get lonely." Or worse, "Well, if you don't pray, then you're sure not to get it, because God often waits to carry out His will until someone prays for it."

Then you have to go on to argue, "Then is God's hand shortened, that it cannot save?" Of course not... and a 5-pointed Calvinist (this term is used derisively on purpose, and therefore doesn't apply to you Calvinists of a sharper disposition) says, "well, God always ordains someone to ask Him to do what He wants to do." That sounds to me like a bit of stretch--

But it gets even worse when the rubber meets the road, and we come right down to my personal prayer life. Because when I pray, how am I, as an individual, supposed to know whether what I am praying for is God's will, and; therefore, whether or not I will get an answer? In effect, the neigh-sayers are right. I'm only expressing my desires to God, with the vague hope that what I ask for will coincide with His will. And if this is true, then what is prayer if not a useless, misplaced desire-- a lazy replacement for taking action?

Indeed, certain religions take this "prayer," which I have just described, and which ocurrs primarily in a self-subjugated position called "kneeling;" and, they replace it with a little thing called "Will," which is capitalised in those belief systems just as it is here. The idea is, the stronger your will is, the more likely you are to get what you ask for, because instead of asking for what you want, and asking, and asking and asking, and doing nothing at all, you say, "Hallowed be MY name! MY kingdom come... MY will be done on earth, for there IS no heaven!!" And that is supposed to increase the likelihood that you will get up, go outside, and accomplish more of what you want by the time you expire than the ineffectual, unfaithful prayer of an unrighteous man could avail in ten thousand years.

Well, first of all, these religions also have loopholes. If you don't get what you want, then either you didn't want it badly enough (your will was either weak or divided), or you wanted something that just wasn't possible. After all, there are still the laws of nature to consider-- but since we're trying to get what we want, why not do as much as possible to stack things in our favor? Here is where Christianity actually trumps, because our God is not confined by our thinking, and He can do things that don't fit our superimposed models of observation, these so-called "natural laws". The difference here isn't that those with the Will to Power [Nietsche, Beyond Good and Evil; and Freud, On the Interperetation of Dreams] somehow vouchsafe to themselves the impossible; the difference is supposed to be that the Freudians and Nietsche-ans go out and take, while many (and I dare say, most!) Christians sit around and hope that things will start going their way.

Second of all, there's what I read in Murray's book. He reawakens the importance of the will in our prayer life, to a degree our detractors and I have never fully grasped:

"But the word of the Master teaches us more. He does not say, What dost thou wish? but, What does thou will? One often wishes for a thing without willing it. I wish to have a certain article, but I find the price too high; I resolve not to take it; I wish, but do not will to have it. The sluggard wishes to be rich, but does not will it. Many a one wishes to be saved, but perishes because he does not will it. The will rules the whole heart and life; if I really will to have anything that is within my reach, I do not rest till I have it. And so, when Jesus says to us, ‘What wilt thou?’ He asks whether it is indeed our purpose to have what we ask at any price, however great the sacrifice. Dost thou indeed so will to have it that, though He delay it long, thou dost not hold thy peace till He hear thee? Alas! how many prayers are wishes, sent up for a short time and then forgotten, or sent up year after year as matter of duty, while we rest content with the prayer without the answer.

"But, it may be asked, is it not best to make our wishes known to God, and then to leave it to Him to decide what is best, without seeking to assert our will? By no means. This is the very essence of the prayer of faith, to which Jesus sought to train His disciples, that it does not only make known its desire and then leave the decision to God. [emphasis mine.] That would be the prayer of submission, for cases in which we cannot know God’s will. But the prayer of faith, finding God’s will in some promise of the Word, pleads for that till it come. In Matthew (ix. 28) we read Jesus said to the blind man: ‘Believe ye that I can do this?’ Here, in Mark, He says: ‘What wilt thou that I should do?’ In both cases He said that faith had saved them. And so He said to the Syrophenician woman, too: ‘Great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.’ Faith is nothing but the purpose of the will resting on God’s word, and saying: I must have it. To believe truly is to will firmly.

"But is not such a will at variance with our dependence on God and our submission to Him? By no means; it is much rather the true submission that honours God" (75-76).

Need I say more? All of you who denounce displace prayer with Will Power, this is my answer! You are not limited by the laws of nature but by the will of God! No amount of magic(k) or effort can overcome it! And to you Christians I say, stop praying ineffectively! You are limited by the Will of God only, and He is a kind and merciful God, Who is delighted to give us more than we need.

The second is about sin. I mean, I'm working on memorizing these verses, right? From the Vest Pocket Companion for Christian Workers, by R.A. Torrey. And one of the first verses in there is I John 1:8, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Which is pretty bad news... since we are supposed to "be perfect, just as [our] Father in heaven is perfect;" and, "stand in awe, and sin not." I was talking to one of my friends and he said, it seems like it's just setting you up to fail. Clearly the Lord doesn't want us to spend all of our time in the temple, beating ourselves up and crying, "have mercy on me, a sinner!" Besides, isn't God "faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able; but will with the temptation provide a way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it?" Then why are we condemned to perpetuate this "wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?"

Well, the only plausible explanation that I can come up with is, this whole life is just one long, torturous purification ritual. We are doomed to be punished and to suffer and to repent, and repent again and, just when we feel that we've suffered enough to have ceased from sin (I Peter 4:1), we run up against I John 1:8. Where does it end? Don't you know, it's pretty stressful being stuck in this rut with pretty much a guarantee that the only escape is death. Any thoughts?? Because I'd just like to put my sin behind me, once and for all. lol

Motorcycle safety...

Is not an oxymoron. :) In the state of Nebraska in 2007, 1 in 1,000 motorcycle owners were injured (seriously or otherwise) in a motorcycle accident. 6 out of 43,000 motorcycle owners were killed.

Testing...

This is just a simple test to see how easy it is to blog from my G1. So far so good...

Why I'm not going to finish Bondage of the Will

I was reading through Bondage of the Will at the request of a friend, when I ran across this paragraph:

AND now, what if I prove from your own words, on which you assert the freedom of the will, that there is no such thing as 'Free-will' at all! What if I should make it manifest that you unknowingly deny that, which, with so much policy, you labour to affirm. And if I do not this, actually, I vow that I will consider all that I advance in this book against you, revoked; and all that your Diatribe advances against me, and aims at establishing, confirmed.

You make the power of 'Free-will' to be—'that certain small degree of power, which, without the grace of God, is utterly ineffective.

[...]

I will allow you to make the power of 'Free-will,' not only a certain small degree of power [...] : provided that, you add to it this doleful appendage—that, without the grace of God, it is ineffective. Because, then you will at once take from it all power: for, what is ineffective power, but plainly, no power at all?

In other words, if the will is only free by the grace of God, then the will is not free. Of course, this presupposes that God has not given His grace to whoever doesn't have free will. (He also says that even a Christian doesn't have free will-- and if he admits that free will is free only when it is backed by God's grace, then this implies that not even Christians have received grace from God.)

This assertion is contrary to scripture.

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself [His] own special people, zealous for good works. Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you (Titus 2:11-15).

From verse 14 ("that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself [His] own special people"), it would be very difficult to prove that this particular grace isn't the saving kind. In other words, God's grace is available to everyone. Luther acknowledges that the freedom of the will is contingent on the grace of God, so he has actually proven Erasmus right.

"Therefore, to say, that the will is FREE, and that it has indeed power, but that it is ineffective, is what the sophists call 'a direct contrariety.' As if one should say, 'Free-will' is that which is not free." - Wrong. Luther has failed to establish the assumption that God's grace is not available to everyone, which is required for the wills of some people are un-free. The existence of free-will has not been dis-proven from Erasmus' own words; therefore, everything in the book is revoked, and Erasmus' arguments are all confirmed. There's no point in reading a revoked book. ;) And, so much for Luther loathing to play the part of "rhetorician."

Seriously though folks, that' s my excuse for not reading. My real reason is disgust. Most of his arguments consist of "Erasmus is a retard and if you listen to him, you are going to hell." Whenever he does resort to logic in the first part of the book, it's broken and the arguments are messy at best. He talks alot about the scripture, but he rarely quotes it, and even when he does, it's out of context and sometimes it's even quoted inaccurately.

For example, he tries to quote Hebrews 11:6- "But without faith [it is] impossible to please [Him], for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and [that] He is a rewarder of those who hope in Him." Did anyone else catch the glaring error in this quotation? The verse actually says, "[that] He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him." But Luther doesn't believe that men can diligently seek God, so he simply edits out this inconvenient snippet. At least it flows well...

Here's another quote: "when we begin to be, in the least degree, disposed to trifle, and not to hold the sacred truths in due reverence, we are soon involved in impieties, and overwhelmed with blasphemies." Woah. I think it's okay to dance and play cards... is that blasphemy? This is another example of how he threatens his readers. In essence, he's saying that anyone who disagrees with him, even about the small stuff, is on s slippery slope that ends in hell. No wonder alot of folks who read this end up agreeing with what he says; they're afraid to disagree! Don't worry- "The curse causeless shall not come."

So that was the bad news, my worst foot forward. Now for the parts I liked:

"Nor ought you to impute it to the Christian doctrine that the impious do evil." Heh. Its easy to get sucked into the lie that Christians are so maligned and hated in this day and age, because of something we're doing, saying, or believing incorrectly. Actually,

If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before [it hated] you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me (John 18:15-21).

In reply to the idea that we should try to somehow make the gospel more acceptable to the enemies of Christ, he replies, There's a War On:

I see indeed, my friend Erasmus, that you complain in many books of these tumults, and of the loss of peace and concord; and you attempt many means whereby to afford a remedy, and (as I am inclined to believe) with a good intention. But this gouty foot laughs at your doctoring hands. For here, in truth, as you say, you sail against the tide; nay, you put out fire with straw. Cease from complaining, cease from doctoring; this tumult proceeds, and is carried on, from above, and will not cease until it shall make all the adversaries of the word as the dirt of the streets.

And you know how I used to say that one of the main reasons people don't want to become Christians is because of Christians? Well, that's probably still true to a certain extent (except for the main part), but:

But now the Gospel is come, men begin to impute unto it, that the world is evil. Whereas, the truth is, that by the good Gospel, it is more manifest how evil it was, while, without the Gospel, it did all its works in darkness. Thus also the illiterate attribute it to learning, that, by its flourishing, their ignorance becomes known. This is the return we make for the word of life and salvation!—And what fear must we suppose there was among the Jews, when the Gospel freed all from the law of Moses? What occasion did not this great liberty seem to give to evil men?

Luther puts this more eloquently than I can:

It therefore belongs to Christians, to expect and endure these things, with a stayed mind: as Christ says, 'When ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars, be not dismayed, for these things must first come to pass, but the end is not yet.' (Matt. xxiv. 6.) And as to myself, if I did not see these tumults, I should say the Word of God was not in the world. But now, when I do see them, I rejoice from my heart, and fear them not [...]

Too bad he had to follow that with: "But yet, the Gospel was not, on that account, taken away; but the impious were left, and it was preached to the pious, that they might not use their liberty to an occasion of the flesh "(Gal. v. 13.) This kind of reinforces my theory that "predistination" serves as a partial justification for what I like to call Christian Supremacy. It's the idea that some of us are just "chosen", and "the rest of you unfortunate losers are just going to have to go to hell." Yuck.

Rare nuggets like the ones above make it a worthwhile read if you don't mind wading through the sledge, and aren't intimidated by pretentious theological jargon and empty threats.

And now for my argument in favor of free will. "The will cannot change itself, nor give itself another bent; but rather the more it is resisted, the more it is irritated to crave; as is manifest from its indignation," says Luther. This is true. But the assertion Luther is arguing against is not the assertion that the will can change itself. He is arguing, in fact, against the assertion that I can change it. I am not my will. This is an example of the straw man fallacy. He's trying to prove that I can't change my will by saying that my will can't change itself. Not very convincing.

"This would not be the case if it were free, or had a 'Free-will.'" Now isn't that just funny? Of course my will doesn't have a free will- I do.

Later he says that if the unsaved "yield at all, they yield through force, or through something attended with greater advantage; they never yield willingly" (emphasis mine). So how is yielding through something attended with greater advantage, not yielding willingly? In fact, this is how God saves us. "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age," and, "We love Him because He first loved us" (I John 4:19). John 3:16 tells us that God doesn't just love the elect, He loves the World. In other words, the Lord presents us with some greater advantage, namely, the love of God, and that is, in fact, how we get saved.

But all of these arguments ignore the fact that God can be omnipotent and still allow for free choice. Just because I am the one who chooses whether or not to do a thing, that doesn't mean that God couldn't have either caused me to do it or stopped me from doing it... if He had wanted to. And of course He knows what I'm going to do. He knows that, sometimes, I'm going to sin. But just because He knows that, just because He allows me to do it, that doesn't mean He causes me to do it. So everything that happens is according to God's plan, even when that plan includes allowing something to happen instead of actively causing it. If a certain action or event doesn't match up to His plan, He just doesn't allow it.

Of course, God can cause people to do things sometimes, too. Like when he hardened Pharoah's hearts, or when (I'm just guessing) Caiaphas the high priest prophesied about Jesus' death. The idea here is that God doesn't lose any omnipotence because He allows something to happen instead of directly causing it. Also that God is not governed by logic- He's not a robot that has to follow His own programming. Even if "free will" did seem to challenge God's power or knowledge, it still wouldn't challenge it actually, because God would still be God and everything He said about Himself would still be true.

And what does all this say about free will? Nothing. I can honestly tell you that I don't know whether He causes me to make all of the choices I make, or just allows me to make them; but I can tell you, that it seems to me like He is just allowing it most of the time. I could turn out to be dead wrong, but I don't think it's worth the mud Luther slings at anyone who disagrees with him. Since it's not clearly spelled out in Scripture, I think we could spend our energy getting to know the Lord and each other, and serving and reaching out to the lost.

All that said, I'll probably still finish the book.

Template

My blog template up and broke itself sometime during my wonderful vacation weekend. My appologies, Dean, I did post a reply to your comment (brace yourself to get angry). I may or may not get around to fixing the template, but for now we are going to be stuck with the "simpler is better" look.

In afterthought, I will say that I did figure out a way in which atheism could be tennable... I have quite a bit more respect for the intellectuals who simply state, "I do not believe in God" than the mentally sick and socially handicapped fools who dogmatically exclaim an absolute belief in non-existence of God, based on so-called scientific research and logical reasoning.

By the way, paragraphs like the ones above are calculated (perhaps rather ineffectively) to bait thoughtful discussion and reasoned responses. If your comments do not fall into this category, please stand aside and let other speak. Otherwise, I might be forced to respond in kind... And, trust me; I am much better at being pathetically unreasonable than you are! :D

A new disease

In the wall street journal, I read about toxic epidermal necrolysis which causes your skin to fall off in large sheets.