Friday, October 29, 2004
Maxim
It's bad enough that the Internet is so flooded with pornography. This morning as I was working on my car, they went even farther. My cell phone buzzes and it says I have a text message. I open it up and it is from Maxim offering me to play a game over my cell phone that will reward me with "Maxim Photos" if I get the answers right. That was just so upsetting to me. Now even my cell phone has to become a place for temptation. Well, not much of one, but I think about the men (and women for that matter) that will fall into that temptation. God save our world!
It must be Halloween time...
...I woke up this morning to the sound of my clock radio playing Rob Zombie and a ghost/spirit expert on the radio.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
discoverable (and yet not)
I've been reading Augustine's Confessions all day today (literally) and ran across an interesting quote.
"If anyone finds your {referring to God} simultaneity beyond his understanding, it is not for me to explain it. Let him be content to say 'What is this?' (Ex. 16:15). So too let him rejoice and delight in finding you who are beyond discovery rather than fail to find you by supposing you to be discoverable." (trans. Chadwick, p. 8)
It's an interesting thought that sometimes we fail to know our God who is 'beyond discovery' because we assume that we can 'discover' him. I don't think Augustine means to say that we can't find God because in the same sentence he speaks of finding God. What I do think he is referring to is our desire as humans to fully discover God. We want to know everything, just like we want to know everything else. So that we can hold it, touch it, and ultimately control it. Augustine points out that we should rejoice and delight in finding our God of mystery. He is a God not of our own making but simply is.
The difficulty is that many people take this to be a cop-out. The ultimate example of how the Church turns a blind eye to incongruities and contradictions within Christianity. Truth is, there are a great majority of Christians that do that. Perhaps to their discredit, but at the same time maybe to ours (we being modernist thinkers).
I don't want to go off on writing my thoughts about the nature of Truth right now, but it'll suffice to say that we don't know everything and we can't know everything. God falls into that category as well. Christians are uncomfortable (including myself) with the implications that has since we are in such a pluralistic society that would seek to melt our Lord and Savior into a pot with every other convaluted deity that comes around the corner thereby destroying the significance of any of them. As comfy as that is, Truth isn't comfortable to encounter. I feel as if this tension between a God we can "know" and can't "fully know" is quite biblical but doesn't obliterate our God in a swarm of other gods. The parts of our God that are "knowable" are such that they distinguish the Lord from all other psuedo-deity. Plus, it suffices to say that falsehoods and lies are counterfeits of Truth, made specifically to look, act, and taste like, but having different substance than the Truth. I say that because I've had many argue with me that Christianity can't claim to be the one true religion because there are so many other that are similar to it. That doesn't mean anything to me. There are many things that look similar, but they are still different and Christianity isn't the same as any other religion.
I'm done, but just a side note: I believe that other religions contain truths in them. Ultimately, Truth is God and comes from God. Christianity, therefore, doesn't have a corner on the market of Truth.
All of this is bringing up other thoughts in my head about whether somebody might be a Christian and yet call Jesus by a different name. Does that open up the door to "many paths up the same mountain" sort of mentality? Seems to me that there are many paths to God, but they are within the boundaries that he has set and many others are climbing a different mountain altogether. Or they are building a hill out of dirt (which could be said of many Christians). Either way, I'll leave that thought for now and maybe come back to it later.
"If anyone finds your {referring to God} simultaneity beyond his understanding, it is not for me to explain it. Let him be content to say 'What is this?' (Ex. 16:15). So too let him rejoice and delight in finding you who are beyond discovery rather than fail to find you by supposing you to be discoverable." (trans. Chadwick, p. 8)
It's an interesting thought that sometimes we fail to know our God who is 'beyond discovery' because we assume that we can 'discover' him. I don't think Augustine means to say that we can't find God because in the same sentence he speaks of finding God. What I do think he is referring to is our desire as humans to fully discover God. We want to know everything, just like we want to know everything else. So that we can hold it, touch it, and ultimately control it. Augustine points out that we should rejoice and delight in finding our God of mystery. He is a God not of our own making but simply is.
The difficulty is that many people take this to be a cop-out. The ultimate example of how the Church turns a blind eye to incongruities and contradictions within Christianity. Truth is, there are a great majority of Christians that do that. Perhaps to their discredit, but at the same time maybe to ours (we being modernist thinkers).
I don't want to go off on writing my thoughts about the nature of Truth right now, but it'll suffice to say that we don't know everything and we can't know everything. God falls into that category as well. Christians are uncomfortable (including myself) with the implications that has since we are in such a pluralistic society that would seek to melt our Lord and Savior into a pot with every other convaluted deity that comes around the corner thereby destroying the significance of any of them. As comfy as that is, Truth isn't comfortable to encounter. I feel as if this tension between a God we can "know" and can't "fully know" is quite biblical but doesn't obliterate our God in a swarm of other gods. The parts of our God that are "knowable" are such that they distinguish the Lord from all other psuedo-deity. Plus, it suffices to say that falsehoods and lies are counterfeits of Truth, made specifically to look, act, and taste like, but having different substance than the Truth. I say that because I've had many argue with me that Christianity can't claim to be the one true religion because there are so many other that are similar to it. That doesn't mean anything to me. There are many things that look similar, but they are still different and Christianity isn't the same as any other religion.
I'm done, but just a side note: I believe that other religions contain truths in them. Ultimately, Truth is God and comes from God. Christianity, therefore, doesn't have a corner on the market of Truth.
All of this is bringing up other thoughts in my head about whether somebody might be a Christian and yet call Jesus by a different name. Does that open up the door to "many paths up the same mountain" sort of mentality? Seems to me that there are many paths to God, but they are within the boundaries that he has set and many others are climbing a different mountain altogether. Or they are building a hill out of dirt (which could be said of many Christians). Either way, I'll leave that thought for now and maybe come back to it later.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
reading week
i feel like I'm in a manic state in respect to my studies... During classes I'm studying like a mad-man and now that it's "reading week," I can't seem to get myself to study. It's like I need a good dose of Ritalin to get me centered down or sped up since all that is is just a toned down methanphendamine.
Monday, October 25, 2004
Super Size Me II
I'd like to note that I ate a 2/3 lb hamburger today at Bob's Burger & Brew in Bellingham, WA. I'd like to think that shows my ability to take things with a grain of salt, rather than pointing out that it highlights my inability to follow through with good health knowledge. Could you please pass the fructose tomato jelly, I mean... ketchup.
Super Size Me
Just saw Super Size Me
 | I'd have to say that I'll still eat fast food every once in a while, but when self-control is needed... all I have to do is recall the image of this man (slowly) pounding a supersize double quarter pounder meal and then ralphing it up because he isn't used to eating so much food. Either that or I could just imagine his liver self-destructing after eating McD's for 30 days.
That's it... I'm going to go work-out! |
Friday, October 22, 2004
in the beginning...
...alex awoke from a great sleep and said, "Let there be a blog for all to waste time reading" and there was and it was alright.
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