So I may have done something stupid this weekend.

Who wants to hear about it!!!

I don't remember where the blog post is, and I'm too lazy to go look it up, but I had posted a while ago about struggling with how to be friends with a Christian, and what it means. Well, I hung out with one of the Christians I referenced in that post, and somehow, we got into a theological discussion. For two hours. I still don't know how we got on that topic, after so fervently avoiding it (well, fervent on my part. She was no doubt hopeful, as it may plant seeds or something).

The highlights:

1) We talked about abortion, and her pro-life position seemed to come down to the idea of authority. The embryo/fetus was innocent in the sense of it hadn't broken any of society's laws, and so didn't deserve to die. But it wasn't innocent in the eyes of God, thanks to original sin. But it was also a soul from the moment of conception, which is why even birth control was wrong in her eyes, because it could possibly interfere with that. I pointed out that, from what I understand, birth control actually prevents the death of less fertilized eggs than a regular cycle, because a lot of fertilized eggs naturally fail to implant. Whereas birth control suppresses ovulation, and thus leads to no fertilized eggs being created. She said that would still be wrong, because birth control wasn't a natural function, and thus it wasn't up to God. Which sounded like her argument wasn't really about the sanctity of life, but about refusing to follow the will of God.

2) We talked about the nature of free will. Always a doozy. We got to this point after I pointed out that if the souls of all those fertilized eggs were in heaven, I had a hard time seeing how free will was such a gift and all, given that only a fraction of fertilized eggs were ever even able to make the choice, period.

2b) To which lead me to ask her why God couldn't simply create people that He'd know would freely choose Him, and not create anyone who would choose Hell. She said that would violate free will, because the people would only exist so long as they choose God. But I pointed out that God isn't forcing them to choose Him -- He's merely only creating those people who would freely choose Him. Why create people that you know aren't going to choose you, and thus condemn them to an eternity of suffering? She had to think on that one and may or may not come back to me with an answer.

2c) We also discussed the idea of how free will also meant that you'd have to want to choose to sin -- and thus have to be created with the ability to be attracted to sin in the first place. Ergo, created less than perfect, as since God is not attracted to sin and does not want to sin, that is part of what makes Him perfect.

3) We talked about Jesus and God and the Trinity. I pointed out that for such a core Christian doctrine, it certainly required a lot of interpretation of the texts and someone reading the Synoptic Gospels with no knowledge of Christianity whatsoever would have a hard time walking away with the idea that there was a Trinity. And that Jesus was God.

4) We talked about the penal substitution atonement theory. Always a fun topic, and always one that sends us in circles. To me, the theory violates the very nature of justice. You do not have a just character if you create people who are imperfect to begin with, and thus incapable of living up to a perfect standard, and then get angry and punish them for it. That's not justice. To her, it wasn't an issue because God took on the punishment Himself, and so the issue was now whether or not you accepted the sacrifice of Jesus. That still doesn't explain the original problem -- that there's a punishment in place for people created to be incapable of following the standards. Plus, her argument seemed to be that it would've only been unjust if Jesus *hadn't* taken the punishment, because then we would be held accountable to standards we couldn't live up to, and that was not just. Ergo, if we all had to pay our own way out this, then God wouldn't be a just God. Except I've also seen her argue that we all deserve Hell, and because God was just, He couldn't just gloss over that. That, and I pointed out to her except the Bible says that Jesus satisfied the wrath of God, which again comes down to God wrathful towards imperfect people who were created that way.

5) The best topic of all -- she mentioned her church and how they discussed those who reject God. I asked her, smiling in a non-passive aggressive way, if that included me. She got a little flustered, and did say that she still prayed for me. I don't know what came over me, but I then pointed out to her that there's a discrepancy between praying that I become a Christian, and saying that she accepts me as I am. Because if I become a Christian, everything about me changes. She disagreed. And we didn't go into more detail than that. She did look like she was uncomfortable with the discussion, and to indulge my ego for a moment, I'm thinking the discomfort was because I'm right and she can't acknowledge it. Converting to Christianity is life-changing. You go from being dead to sin to alive in Christ. You go from the old man to the new man. It's a radical change, and it's meant to influence all areas of your life. A lot of what I believe -- a lot of my core beliefs -- are either sins or heresies. You change those core beliefs, you change me. To say that that I won't in fact be changed all that much makes it sound like Jesus is merely a piece of one's life, rather than one's whole life.

They judge me, they judge me not.

A question for my ex-fundamentalist readers for when you were a fundamentalist: if you happened to have a really good friend who was a non-Christian, what did you think any time that non-Christian was less than perfect? Aka, simply human?

I'm lately wondering that any time I'm simply human around fundamentalist friends -- you know, those moments where you're petty, or mean, or jealous, or hateful. I wonder if the fundamentalist friend sympathizes with me or if a part of the friend is screaming, "God hates that behavior! How can you NOT see how imperfect you are, and thus how much you need Jesus?"

I'm now awaiting a comment that tells me this pondering is really because the Holy Spirit is convicting me of my sins and showing me my need for a Savior.

Calling Pontius Pilate ...

I've pondering Christianity and it's relation to truth. Pulling from memory, there are quite a few Bible verses dealing with truth.

"I am the way, the truth, and the life."

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

"God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth."

"God be true, even if every man is a liar."

"I have come into this world to bear witness to the truth -- Everyone who is of the truth shall listen to my voice."

Or that Satan is a deceiver, seeking to lure people away from God with lies and so forth.

Ergo, Christianity is very concerned with the nature of truth. So how far does this concern go? Is is a universal truth, or is just truth in terms of the Christian tenants? How well are Christians able to discern truth, compared to non-Christians? Overall, I would say they're no better, and no worse.

I'm thinking of stories I've read about de-converting Christians, who said that they spent years in the church as an atheist, in order to preserve the peace in their family, or because they couldn't confess that they were atheists. And not one Christian noticed at all. There wasn't any special discernment of the truth here.

I'm thinking of me personally, and how if I told my evangelical friends that I had confessed Jesus as my Lord and Savior, and started going to church and essentially acting the way a Christian should -- if I came across as sincere enough, they'd never know the truth. There would be no special discernment.

I'm thinking of really renowned Christian leaders, who rant against certain lifestyles, and then it turns out that the same Christian leaders in fact participate in those lifestyles. Christians found out about that the same way everyone else did -- through the lifestyle partners coming forward. There was no special discernment.

I'm thinking of the Catholic church and the child rapes, and how when the victims first starting coming forward, the Catholic congregations rushed to defend the priests against such "lies." Again, the truth wasn't uncovered until the victims came forward, and papers started appearing about how the Church was complicate in covering up the rapes. There was no special discernment.

In each of these situations, the truth came out because someone came forward, or someone confessed to something. There was no special nudging from the Holy Spirit, no special access to the one source of Truth, or anything like that. Christians discover what the truth is the same way other people did.

Now, perhaps a counterargument to this could be that in terms of God and Truth, that only deals with the nature of personal salvation, or the nature of God, or something like that. But if God is a God of Truth, why wouldn't He be concerned with all Truth, period? Why wouldn't He give His followers some sort of special insight that non-Christians lack? If God is that focused on the truth ... why are Christians discovering the truth through the same methods that non-Christians must employ?

Keep your eyes on Jesus ...

I met with a group of people last night, discussing what Roman Catholics believed and why. There was some segues, that included the aspect of Jesus walking on the water, and Peter coming out to meet him. Peter's doing fine, until he realizes how strong the waves are, and then starts to sink. He calls for Jesus to save him. Jesus does, while telling Peter that he was of little faith, and asking why he doubted (Matthew 14:22-33)

The discussion then went into the area where "keep your eyes on Jesus" has sparked song after song after song, about how things are fine so long as you keep your eyes on Jesus. As soon as your gaze goes elsewhere, you start to sink.

The discussion swirled in my head for a while, and now I'm wondering ... if Peter had a physical Jesus in front of him, physically violating the laws of nature, physically calling out to Peter to join him ... and Peter still took his eyes off Jesus, what hope do Christians have 2,000 years later when they just have the spiritual aspect? When keeping one's eyes on Jesus is essentially a mental effort, because there is no physical Jesus to look at and to hear? When keeping one's eyes on Jesus is dependent upon what reads in a book, as opposed to Peter, who had daily encounters with Jesus and the works Jesus performed?

That, and Jesus wasn't kind to Peter at this loss of confidence. The more I read the Gospel, the more Jesus comes across as unsympathetic to human frailties.

Even 0.0000000001% of sin hellbounds you.

By now, I'm sure everyone is aware of all Catholic Church scandals, in terms of some priests raping children, and then the church hierarchy essentially covering it up.

The defenses used by the Church have infuriated me. One is that other organizations also have their problems, and yet the Church is singled out due to anti-Catholicism. Well, other organizations don't claim that the head of their organization is the "Vicar of Christ," or that their organization is infallible or has a direct connection to God, or is the light of the world.

The other defense I see in some circles is that we also have to take all the good the Church has done into consideration. While these crimes are evil, it doesn't make the entire Church evil.

I don't know enough about Catholic theology, but from what I've read in standard evangelism, God can't stand even a micro spot of sin in His presence. It doesn't matter how many good works you do, those good works don't cancel out the sin/s. The sin is enough to taint all the good works. So if, in evangelical theology, the Church was an individual standing before God, asking God to take into consideration all the good works, even though said individual had either raped children or participated in a cover-up ... the Evangelical Theology would say the good works were essentially meaningless, as the crime tainted everything.

If Catholic Theology operates differently in terms of good works somewhat compensating for sins, then my question is meaningless. But if it doesn't, then I have to ask ... if your own theology, your own God Himself, cannot use good works to overlook sin ... why in turn are your defenders requesting that the world at large do something that goes against God's character? That goes against your very theology?

Jennifer Knapp and a closet ...

... so apparently,Jennifer Knapp has announced that she's a lesbian, and has been in a same-sex relationship for eight years.

The results from her Christian fanbase are what one would expect in this situation. So far, I think my favorite comment -- not in the link above -- has been someone advising fellow Christians to refrain from bashing her, but to also not support her, instead. This includes refraining from purchasing her upcoming album, as well as her prior albums. This commenter also said that all Christians were to remember that only God can judge, and they have no place telling her she's a sinner, and thus don't pass earthly judgment on her.

Now, where I come from, advising people to not purchase an artist's material because the artists lifestyle or belief system is immoral is passing judgment on that artist. I am judging that artist to be incapable with my system of morality, and so refraining from associating with said artist. But that's just me.

Or another one about how Christians don't judge people, they judge actions. I'm uncertain how the two are separated -- there would be no actions to judge unless the people were committing the actions. It's like calling someone a liar, and then saying, "I'm not judging you, I'm judging your action." The two can't be distinguished. Or in a murder trial -- you are judging what the person has done, and then holding that person accountable for the action.

There's also the standard "We just have to pray that God will help her/use someone to show her the truth." So far, my favorite pray comment is "We have to pray that God would help her to pray to Him ... " I was hoping for a comment along the lines, "God is using this to tell us to pray to Him that Jennifer will come to God and be healed."

I do admire Jennifer's courage in confessing this, and I'm glad that she's reached a point where she can be honest about who she is. And that she had the courage to do this, even though she had to know the backlash that would result.

The poor will be with you, always.

Only I can't help but hear that title in Obi-Wan Kenobi's voice where he says, "The force will be with you. Always."

I've been reading some non-fiction lately. One is The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government and the other is Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

The first one did deal mostly with the rise of lobbyism, but one of the other areas it explored was when Newt Gingrich did his whole Contract with America back in the 1980s, and how Tom Delay really worked to cement Republican control of Congress. Part of the tactics used to gain that control, in terms of getting the Republicans voted in, was the use of negative ads. Before, many of the ads focused on the positive traits of the candidates running: what they stood for, what they would do, what they had accomplished. Now, the ads shifted towards negative aids involving the opponents -- and these ads weren't always truthful.

I started thinking about this in terms of the conservative Christian movement, and how drawn they were to the Republicans. I try and put that pull in context of verses such as these:

And now, my friends, all that is true, all that is noble, all that is just and pure, all that is lovable and gracious, whatever is excellent and admirable -- fill all your thoughts with these things. Philippians 4: 8-9

Live like men who are at home in the daylight, for where light is, there all goodness springs up, all justice and truth. Try to find out what would please the Lord; take no part in the barren deeds of darkness, but show them up for what they are Ephesians 5: 8-12

Then put to death those parts of you which belong to the earth -- fornication, indecency, lust, foul cravings, and the ruthless greed which is nothing less than idolatry ... but now you must yourselves lay aside all anger, passion, malice, cursing, filthy talk -- have done with them! ... Then put on the garments that suit God's chosen people, his own, his beloved: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience ... Portions of Colossians 2: 5-13.

And, of course, the ever famous fruits of the Spirit passage: Anyone can see the kind of behavior that belongs to the lower nature: fornication, impurity, and indecency; idolatry and sorcery; quarrels, a contentious temper, envy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, party intrigues, and jealousies; drinking bouts, orgies, and the like ... but the harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control Galations 5: 19-21, 22-23

Based on those passages alone, I would expect that conservative Christians would've been the last to have been drawn in by the party that first used the negative ads and the lies. Especially as the use of both demonstrates a less than stellar character. Instead, the conservative Christians come across as almost attracted to the very thing that should repel them.

Now, I know there were a lot of complexities behind the marriage of Republicans and conservative Christians. I simply found the correlation interesting, as it doesn't match what -- per the Bible -- one is expected to see.

In the case of the latter book, the author mentioned in the afterward how at one college, the conservative students and state legislatures protested her book in the college curriculum, as they felt it promoted "Marxism." I'm wondering how many of those conservative protesters would claim to be devout followers of the One who inspired their Holy Book -- the same Book that emphasizes, over and over again, how exploited the poor are and how much they need help. And the Nickel and Dimed book operates on the same vein: how exploited the poor are, and the help they need to lead better lives.