The Nature and Knowledge of Stuff

I always thought about writing a book, but there's two major problems with that proposition. First, I am boring. Second, how can I compete with fictional novels about vampire romances? I was at Barnes & Noble in Ontario, OH this afternoon and God gave me at least a half day of some clarity. Fear comes in all sorts of ways. Whether it is financial, job-related, social, etc. And I think fear is the number one cause of cloudy thinking, at least with me. Today, fear seemed far away and clarity was welcomed, even if just for a bit. So, in order not to waste it, I wanted to jot down some things before I forget it all in the morning.

I love philosophy. I read lots of it. In fact, I received the multi-volume set of Coppleston's survey of western philosophy and I have been a kid in the candy store, savoring it as much as possible. I spent time reading and then re-reading Plato and Aristotle. Something about both of these guys seems even more clear than ever before. If I can use a boat metaphor, Plato and Aristotle are the boat and all current philosophical schools are barnacles growing on the outer hull of the boat. Those two guys, outside of Christ and Solomon rocked in terms of thinking about reality and how to explain it. But aside that realization, I began to think about metaphysics on my own, rather than fall back on theories and came up with some things I wanted to get off my mind and in writing.

Metaphysics is the study of being. That sounds very obtuse, but let me say it another way. Metaphysics tries to explain the nature of things...the nature of stuff or the universe. Why do things exist, rather than nothing? What is the nature of what's there? The pre-Socratics were stretching it to try to come up with an explanation about the nature of things, but to keep it short, all they were trying to do is try to explain why things change but yet there there is a stasis too, contrasted to change. Things change. Things stay the same. How do you explain that? That was their task and whether it was finding a binding essence that explained it, be it fire, water or atoms, they were all coming up short, crying out for some explanation. None came for a long time. Then comes Plato and he tries to explain change and sameness but saying that ideas are perfect and eternal and sort of imprint themselves on dead matter, so that the sensible world is nothing but an imperfect copy of these ideas. To Plato, things change because they are imperfect material copies of an unchanging and perfect realm of ideas. Aristotle, who found no good reason to figure out how to tie in the realm of these ideas to what's sensible, he tried to mix the cream with the coffee by saying that these forms or ideas are inherent in matter and matter expresses the actualization of the forms that were potential within it, like an acorn and a tree. Still come up with some problems. With Plato, he gives an explanation for ideas and concepts but at the expense of the sensible world. Aristotle tries to salvage the importance of the sensible world at the expense of the exemplary. Every philosopher since has failed to further this topic. In fact, post moderns have given up, simply abandoned the project and say that its all language and that's as far as we can go. Of course, that argument is weaker than the pre-Socratic views. So, what is the nature of things?

Things are comprised of stuff that is natural and stuff that is created. Through the senses and how the mind works, including the mind itself, we know a chair or a tree based on its purpose. The name is arbitrary. But when we see more than one chair, we see commonality of design and function. Chairs are for sitting. Once more, if I see a piece of the arm rest of a chair, that isn't a chair. It's part of a chair. If I see a chair back, seat with three of four legs, that is a chair, but a dysfunctional chair. The difference is enough parts to complete enough of the picture to conjure up the common design of chairs seen before and the understanding of what chairs are for. Does that make sense?

For natural stuff, its a similar concept, except natural things aren't made by humans for a purpose, even if humans can use things from nature to make other things for another purpose. Take a tree. A tree takes in carbon dioxide and gives off oxygen...provides shade, fertilizes through dropping acorns and becomes home for an entire habitat, in the case of forests and jungles. Eyes tend to see. Stars tend to give heat and provide gravitational influence. Rain tends to help vegetation, which provides food for living things. A brain contains a self-aware mind where the body and environment impacts it and it is a first cause that impacts the body and environment. The list goes on and on. But the ideas associated with chairs applies here too. We look at things nature based on what seems to be their function or end.

The forms or ideas are tied to material things based on design or end of those material things, rather than eternal realm of ideas or a pregnant piece of matter with potential. The telos or design of things tells us the function and the nature of what we sense. The concept of design is based on our sensibility on how we see things plus our rationale in the concept of purpose. When you see a chair, you know it is a chair based on 1) recognition from seeing other chairs plus 2) memory of realizing what chairs are for from seeing the very first one, forward. It's that simple. The nature of things is determined by purpose, design or function and a mind that properly functions to recognize it and also a part of it all. Again, language rules and definitions are arbitrary from the concepts of nature, design, purpose, etc. For example, a toddler can recognize spinach before she knows what to call it or how to say it or write it.

Are the only things that exist material/sensible? No. In this sense, Plato was correct and the nominalists were wrong. Realists believe, sort of like Plato, that there are non-material things that exist, as well as material things. Nominalists believe there's only physical or material things and all non-material concepts are handy illusions, rather than anything real. Nominalists believe that your idea of blue circles doesn't exist outside of your head. Nominalism reigns in all schools today because of the consensus of scientism and naturalism as the foundation for all knowledge. But there are obvious problems with nominalism. You can reduce blue circles as much as you want, in order to try to eliminate properties, relations and universals, like reducing blue circles to atoms and reflected rays to eye recepters. For example, the color blue is the aborption of all frequencies except the frequencies that bounce off and hit our eye receptors, giving us a blue sensation. But the explanation has properties like reduction, reflection. It has relations like sender and reliever, being the light waves and the eye receptor. There are universals, like atoms, rays, eye receptors. If you wanted to eliminate non-material entities, you would have to further reduce those properties, universals and relations, ad absurdum. You have to rely on the very things you want to explain away or eliminate, which are properties, universals and relations, in order to try to do it. So, you can't deny the existence of non-material entities. So, things like numbers, colors and morals can exist without being reduced to material explanations.

What about knowledge? This is sometimes referred to as the study of epistemology. How can we know something exists and its nature? How can we know anything? Skeptics believe that things called 'justified true beliefs' are impossible because of absurd problems that come up in trying to define what a justified true belief really is. But, regardless of the skepticism school you study, there is one common denominator. They all believe that any knowledge claim is guilty until proven innocent. In other words, unless you can perfectly explain any knowledge claim, you can't claim it as real knowledge or a justified true belief. How do you respond to these skeptical ideas? Well, its obvious. Of course there are some knowledge claims that require more than simple conclusions, like what the atomic weight of helium is. But there is knowledge that requires no deliberation. I know I am typing this. I know I had a steak for dinner. I know that when I turn on a switch, the light comes on. Now, I may be mistaken, but unless I have good reasons to doubt these claims, then there is no good reason to doubt them. So, my response is this: Any knowledge claim that has no good reasons to be doubted are justified and innocent until doubt can be established. A child understands this. A PhD has problems with this.

Knowledge also requires a mind that functions properly, the way it's supposed to. That binds metaphysics to epistemology. A working mind senses and critically thinks about what's out there as well as what is self-aware within us, whether it is pain, gladness or despair. All of this, whether it is metaphysics or epistemology, hinges on the universal and binding concept of purpose, design and proper function. In other words, the design of everything is the underlying foundation for philosophy. Without design, we can't discuss any of these things.

Now, regarding atheism and its sub schools of skepticism and nominalism: It seems gratuitous to begin with the knowledge claim that there is no God and use that as the foundation to arrive at nominalism or skepticism. Especially the latter. It would seem that atheism is a great big 'hold the phone' in terms of arriving at any conclusions. You can't prove the existence of God beginning with our tiny perspectives. But you can't conclude atheism for the same reason. However, when considering the nature of everything and knowledge, you can't discuss these things outside of design and design requires a Mind that's logically prior. If a chair is designed by a mind to help people sit, a Mind is behind the weak and strong force in our universe, gravity, multi-dimensions with only three spacial plus one temporal being sensed by people with minds that function to understand and comprehend. In other words, there's far more reason to believe in God than their is not to. This is Romans 1 in a nutshell and why Paul stresses design as the single important proof, even regarding morals as things that are 'self evident' so that we are 'without excuse.'

This has turned from a philosophical meandering to an apologetic one. However, if design or function underlies the topics of the nature of things and knowledge, then God or an Intelligent and Moral Mind is logically prior to design and makes it all tie back to God. Without God, you don't have a philosophy or a coherent world view. There's what you espouse and another way you live. With theism, you can live what you espouse without tension. Nominalism and skepticism and even sub-categories of logical positivism or deconstruction only work in a college classroom on a chalk board or a test. But they have no relavence in the real world. Abandoning God is the single most important reason why metaphysics has been abandoned, the prospect of true knowledge claims outside of scientific ones, impossible. And those conclusions are held in tension with living real life outside the classroom.

Another Brick In The Wall

I've managed to keep friends who've had every reason to never speak to me again and abruptly lost friends without ever knowing why or what happened. And I've managed, to my regret, to keep distance from making too many new ones because of those two realities. For those that edge towards being a bit contemplative by nature, gaining a friend gives enough fuel to last decades and losing a friend is a play ground for self absorption and self destruction. Regardless of our respective natures, in this way, we are all damaged goods. The more disappointment, the more intricate and sophisticated the masks we wear and the sheilds we hide.

My nature is to justify myself. Based on what I know of you, it's yours too. If a cherished friendship is gained, I secretly celebrate the discovery of my self-imposed virtuosity, in all its vanity. If a cherished friendship is lost, it must have been for my own good or someone from which I was being protected. But in truth, below the justification, is the acute despair of rejection and any justification is a way to avoid facing the rejection much as avoiding an endless abyss. Fact is, I'm not all that virtuous and I am also not all that stinky. Neither are you. Fact is, being damaged goods, as our individual realms bump into and out of each other's orbit, its a weird and overwhelming experience of fresh wounds opened and amazing sacrifice...sometimes from the same friend. When that friend exits, especially if they are awesome, it makes it tougher, because you begin to think maybe you aren't awesome or worthy of having awesome friends. In truth, it's probably the case they aren't all that awesome and if you knew why they split, you'd bought them a going away gift. Unfortunately, many times, you may never know.

Rejection is a strong fear. For those that were abandoned by someone that was a part of their closest circle of sufficiency, the scars and wounds are profound and sometimes lead to even death, if not physical then social. Not all may have something this profound, but we all have dealt with it in one way, shape or form. In fact, I think it's so strong that we've learned to cover it up with strategies for relating to each other in ways so natural, we are almost unconscious of them. As a result, we're oblivious to the fear that still motivates us on every level. Some people develop a personality that appears warm up to a point only giving way to a protective barrier that refuses any trespassing. Those are the more obvious means of avoiding the fear of rejection. But they can be far more subtle. Maybe the way you stick your left thumb in your pocket when conversing with someone or perhaps growing a soul patch when you're 43 :-) There are probably hundreds of learned ways of coping with this stuff we just don't think much about anymore. After a while, it gets hard wired.

For a non-believer, rejection and abandonment are more real than anything else. Fear and despair are at the core and joy, happiness are all around the periphery to the point that the core is only ignored if the mind is sufficiently occupied...I think that's way alcohol and antihistamines or People Magazine are so useful. But regardles, you have learned to move and glide your way through them, not because you are strong, but because you are numb. I was there. It's more of a game, sort of like Marathon Man, but involuntary. You figure out how to survive on your wits, avoid the potholes and strike or be stricken. For a believer, rejection and abandonment are very real too, except with the added element of mere imaging the way God thinks of you in the same way the person who rejected you thinks about you. It's not so bad if your friend bashes in your windshield or steals your lawnmower. But if they are really awesome people, their rejection profoundly hurts and makes it much easier to believe God feels the same exact way about your sorry butt.

For the believers who understand this, can I get an "Amen!" and from the non-believers, a simple "Hell yeah!" will do.

Let me focus on those who are believers for a moment. Over the past 3 months, I have had conversations burned in my memory about how we treat each other. I have a pretty good church family and sometimes I forget how it works most other places. Not saying my local church is the New Jerusalem. It's not. But it seems I have been protected from the abject horror of the religious profession, to a large extent. Let me say that although we are a body of believers, redeemed, called from eternity at the pleasure of God's will, for an inheritance, we can be some of the meanest people on earth. You know how spraying deodorizer in a room where the cat pooped and you can't find it smells worse than had you not sprayed anything at all? There's just something about the mingling composite aroma of Floral Sachet and cat crap that increases the gag reflexes more than if it were simply cat crap. In the same way, we can be worse because although we may not be as 'in your face' as pagans, the fact we are under the guise of the redeemed in Christ our neurotic, rotten behavior is almost as abjectly horrifying as Dahmer's testimony.

I think we do that because we believe things about ourselves that simply aren't true. We also don't believe things about ourselves that are as true as death and taxes. Our false idea of ourselves can't deal with the weight of real life and we act wounded animals, rather than children and heirs, when reality weighs heavy on us. So it would seems we'd treat each other better if we were able to abandon the silly religious facade and own who we really are, warts and all, as a first step. The second step would be to realize that God is very fond of us. Now, don't glance over that last sentence too quickly. Fact is, to be honest with ourselves, we think God is always sorely disappointed with us, and keeps His back turned most of the time.

Now I hate empty promises, especially religious ones. Nothing pisses me off more than a Hallmark encouragement that is probably false, and prefer a harsh rebuke that is embarrassingly true over it anyday. I am not giving you an cheap Hallmark card when I tell you that God is fond of you. He is. The fact that His Son willfully took on everything you and I deserved gives those of us who trust in Him a unique place of avoiding His wrath and anger and rejection. If we were honest, we'd have no problem understanding our true nature. Deep down, we all know we are screwed up. Understanding Christ's words in John, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" goes beyond a simple reading. They are true. It also says in Romans 8 that for those in Christ there now no condemnation. None. Instead of messing it up, He’s made it all good, before hand. He may orchestrate friendships to come and permit them to unravel, but His love for you has never wavered a bit. You may feel rejected and those who have rejected you may even be godly people. But to believe God feels the same way about you is to call Him a liar. You can do that, so long as you realize those are your choices…..believe Him or consider Him a liar. Even the people closest to you could profoundly hurt you even more, precisely because they are so close. But the rest and peace of knowing that you are loved, cherished, adopted by God as His own, has to be fed from His word to your mind until it penetrates your wounded heart and spirit. That’s why Paul says to think of the good things He’s done…not the things that suck you are pretending are good, but the really good things. They are there and they are many. What that does, in light of Jesus, reminds us of who we are, where He pulled us from and what He will do for us before its all over. We need to remind ourselves and He will help us if we make an effort to do just that.

Just always remember when friends are plenty, you can’t be the best friend to them until you realize you are loved unconditionally, cherished and forgiven by God Almighty, through faith in His Son Jesus. And when the friends split, their rejection of you has no resemblance to the way God feels about you. If you are not a believer, I wish I had some great wisdom for you, but I don’t. Outside of becoming a weird Jesus-freak like myself, not sure there is much to say without simply cheerleading you in the effort to manage outcomes and other people to best suit your needs. And I can’t do that, because its crap. But I realize for you it may be the only game in town and I don’t want to seem way too nihilistic and respect your position, even though I secretly pray for you to reconsider ;-)

Is There Evidence For God?

The last note discussed an explanation behind hostility and anger toward evangelical Christianity, being an utter failure for naturalism (the belief the physical world is all there is and there isn't any real knowledge outside of knowledge about the physical world) to provide a successful alternative.

But most naturalists discount theism out right. In particular, the media and the university only consider theism as a privatized matter of an individual or a people-group. But the concept of God isn't treated seriously because, in this view, science has provided a far better explanation for reality than the introduction of a deity. Is that true? I don't believe it is. There are three very basic evidences for God in general and one I bring up for the Christian God, specifically, to offer up. These are not intellectually complicated concepts. They are really very simple. In fact, although the skeptical arguments against God are prevalent from K-12, the university and media, it's not that those arguments are simple at all...just familiar.

The first three evidences are not based on Scripture, but simple reality. God has revealed Himself through Scripture, but the fundamental and ubiquitous evidence for God is not Scripture.

The universe began and something caused it.
First simple idea....anything that begins to exist is caused. If the universe began to exist, it was caused and since it couldn't be naturally caused by anything within it, the only explanation is that the cause was a Will or Mind.

A very basic idea behind the second law of thermodynamics is the idea that energy naturally gets used up, rather than the other way around. You fill up a car with gas and drive it, the gas burns up and the tank becomes empty. It's an established fact that the universe is expanding and using up energy. When the energy is used up in the universe, some things happen. First, the lights go out. Since it takes fuel for stars to burn, once they burn off, they no longer emit light. Second, the heat goes out. Heat requires energy and once energy is gone, there will be an absence of heat. Third, there will be no motion.

But, if the universe is using up its energy, then it must have started using up energy in the past. It couldn't have been using up its energy for an infinite past. If that was the case, it would have already burned up all of it. Go back to the car. If you have a quarter tank of gas, you never question whether or not gas was initially pumped into the tank. It couldn't have been burning up gas for an infinite past or else you'd already be out of gas, rather than have a quarter tank. In the same way, it is obvious that the universe had a beginning. It's not an infinitely old universe. A consensus of cosmologists have even concluded that at some time in the finite past, our universe began.

Something can't begin without a cause. A car just doesn't pop into existence, spontaneously, out of nothing. Since the universe began to exist, it has a cause. That cause can't be a part of the universe or even explained by the laws of the universe, since those very laws began with the universe. God is the only reasonable explanation for that cause. Why? What else could be a proposed efficient cause for time, space and matter? Well, it would probably have to be timeless, spaceless and immaterial. And since it would be prior to natural causes, the only other explanation for a sufficient cause would be a mind or will to cause it to come about.

So, the universe isn't eternal. It had a beginning. That beginning was caused and the only reasonable cause for it is a Mind or Will and that Mind or Will is God.

What's the alternative? Well, there are many. But do they fair better? You tell me. Let's take the beginning of the universe. Some may say the universe and time itself is infinitely old. But how could you ever arrive at the present if time had no beginning? Let me put it to you this way....how could you jump out of a bottomless ditch? You need a beginning point to even get anywhere and without a beginning point, there is no way you could arrive at the present time anymore than you could jump out of that bottomless ditch.

How about a cause for the beginning? Is it easier to believe something that begins to exist was caused or else something begins to exist without any cause at all? With regards to the sort of cause, does it make more sense to embrace some concept that the cause was due to chance or law, over a Mind? Seems as if it was chance, we simply can't even think about it, let alone talk about it anymore...and if it was law, again, how does something produced in the universe become the cause of the universe? The alternatives are far more of a stretch than the simple idea that the universe began to exist, was caused by a Mind or Will.

The origin of complex biological information.
The simple idea is that information can only come from an intelligent mind. Life contains huge volumes of information. All life must have been designed by a Mind.

I have to use Moreland's example from last weekend, since it is better than anything I could dream up off the top of my head. Let's say I have a huge bowl of alphabet soup and toss it into the air. When I do, the ceiling fan (which is on high) flings symbols all over the place sending a series of symbols to land on my desk. The pattern is "&KKH!8216,;@0". That would be a random sort of pattern. It conveys no sort of information. But, let's say I do the same thing 800 times and the 800th time, the letters on my desk form a simple pattern of "MEMEMEMEMEMEME". That would be a pattern, rather than mere randomness. Yet, it would only be a pattern and wouldn't convey any information in it. What if I threw up the soup, hit the ceiling fan and the symbols on my desk had this pattern, "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country."? This would convey information....content.

Stay with me a bit. Think of the movie, Contact. Jodie Foster's character worked for SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence). Satellites launched into deep space would receive sounds and transmit them back to SETI and SETI would look to determine if those sounds contained information. If they did, it would provide evidence of intelligent life in the galaxy, outside of earth. In the movie, Foster's character received a pattern of prime numbers, providing her ample evidence that we were being communicated with, by intelligent life. Had she received a random series of blips or even a simple pattern of blips, it wouldn't cause as much excitement as did receiving a pattern of prime numbers. And if SETI receives a pattern that can be classified as information, it must come from an intelligent mind.

Living things are filled with volumes and volumes of information. Did you know there are between 25,000 and 35,000 genes among 3 billion DNA pairs of the human genome. A DNA pair contains a combination of A, C, T, G and U proteins that pair up to make a chromosome that contain information that give us brown or blue eyes, tallness or shortness, hypoglycemia, etc. A living organism, in general, and human beings, in particular, contain billions of pieces of coded information. What best explains this? Chance or the same definition SETI would use if it received a series of prime numbers from outer space...that it comes from an intelligent Mind?

The most prevalent alternative explanations out there are that given enough time, under the precise natural circumstances, micro-cellular bits and pieces would form simple amino acids, which form more complex proteins and eventually we get DNA strands and libraries of coded information, which lead to life and then people named Charles that think, create, relate, using a mind. The explanation to reduce enormous complexity of information, outside of a Mind, is to attribute it to a long enough time line. Which makes more common sense? Do we redefine information as something that doesn't necessarily come from a mind? If so, if SETI received a series of prime numbers, couldn't you also conclude that it was chance, rather than intelligence? Nothing to get all that excited about. But the reality of it is, we all realize that information assumes a mind. Under a naturalistic view, we would have to introduce the concept of God, THEN discount it, prior to thinking of it as not really associated with intelligence. Like the cause of the universe, a theistic account for all life...that it contains billions of libraries of information that were designed by a Mind, has far more explanatory plausibility than a long enough time line.

Undeniability of Moral Obligations and Absolutes
Objective moral values exist. In order for morals to be objective and universal, they have to transcend humanity or else they aren't objective or universal. Objective moral values reflect the character of a moral Law Giver.

Among the things we know as facts are moral propositions. We know that throwing yourself on a grenade to save your comrades or giving half of your income to the poor are good things. We know that torturing toddlers for pleasure is wrong. Once more, we know these things as certain as we do that the external world exists or that 2+2 = 4.

What are the alternatives? Only theism and cognitivist pure virtue ethical theories provide objectivity to moral obligation. All the others reduce down to subjective moral values. And subjective moral values are far different from objective moral values for a couple of obvious reasons. First, they can only describe behavior rather than prescribe it. Second, there's no over-arching reason to determine morality between two conflicting views, outside of whoever has power is right and whoever doesn't is wrong. Once you get to the top of a ladder, climbing further requires falling. Likewise, if you peel the moral layers back and arrive at things like sociological evolutionary conventions, mere preference, etc., they are the top of the ladder and can go no further. However, everything within us knows that we have to go further in what is undeniably an objective moral view we have. Lastly, we can't live as if there are no objective moral values. Take a radical leftist environmentalist who rejects the concept of God and objective, universal absolute moral values. Then tell them you think it would be fun to throw tons of pool chemicals into the ocean. Would they say, "Hey, that's cool if it works for you." or would they get red faced and want you locked away? You can't live as if moral values aren't objective, absolute, universal.

But if that's true, they have to transcend humanity. You can't have more steps to a ladder, beyond its top step unless you can transcend that ladder. In the same sense, you can't have real rights or wrongs for humanity unless those concepts are grounded in something that transcends humanity. Since moral values convey propositional information that go beyond mere behavior, those moral values must originate in a transcendent moral Law Giver. Outside of that, you fall back down to the ground or get stuck on the top rung.

It's more plausible and persuasive to think the universe had a beginning, that it was caused and the cause was supernatural and intelligent. It's far more plausible than to consider the universe as infinitely old, or had a causeless beginning or that the any cause could only be in accordance with natural laws.

It's more plausible and persuasive to believe the volumes upon volumes of genetic encoding is information, that information can only come from an intelligent Mind and that all life reflects this Mind. It's far more plausible than to believe the information for all life, as complex as it is, is the result of lots of time and coincidental circumstances.

It's more plausible and persuasive to believe there really are real rights and wrongs, moral obligations and many are universally true and that because they are this way, they either had to come from a moral Law Giver or they don't really exist. It's far more plausible than to believe that morals are objective and come from a Law Giver than they come from nowhere, or that they are based on preference or biological convention and are yet still objective and real. And it is impossible to live as if they weren't.

The old fashioned Bertrand Russell argument says that it is rational to not believe in God simply because there is no evidence to support a God's existence. There are three obvious objections to this. How can you conclude it less plausible to believe the evidence above without first believing God's existence is impossible? If it is more plausible than the non-theistic alternatives, wouldn't that mean you might have to question your atheism or agnosticism and at least be open to the possibility of God's existence? Otherwise, there could never be any evidence to convince you, because you approach any evidence rejecting the existence of God outright as your rule to judge the evidence for His existence in the first place. That's putting the cart before the horse.

Second, the non-theistic alternatives require us to force them by devaluing common sense or experience. Let's face it. Which is easier to understand, the concept of imaginary time with reference to space-time curvature concluding in no real singularlity or beginning, or that the universe began and was caused? Which is easier to swallow, that DNA strands are accidental libraries of information that happened given enough time or that they reveal a Mind that designed this information, because information by definition comes from intelligence? Is it easier to believe there are real, actual and universal rights and wrongs that have to come from beyond us, or that they really don't exist outside of our conventions?

Lastly, several may conclude there are evidences against God's existence, like the reality of pain and suffering. But there are problems with using purported evidence against God's existence in this manner. First, it doesn't really provide an explanation to the evidence for His existence. Second, it confuses not being able to explain a difficult reality as conclusive evidence, when all it concludes is that there are difficult things that we just can't explain. Lastly, especially in terms of the reality of pain and suffering, assuming no God doesn't provide any resolution to the problem. In fact, I think it does the opposite....it jerks the rug out from any justification for concluding negative implications for these things. Voltaire's Professor Pangloss was an example of a wrong-headed response, but non-theism fairs no better and doesn't really deal with evidence that does exist that points to God.

As believers, we have no reason to waffle on even the most sophisticated arguments, because any sophisticated argument is based on a very simple concept that either makes sense or doesn't...either flies with what we know, or doesn't. Sometimes we let perceived intellectual superiority or study intimidate us. Once more, unfortunately, many in the church have bought into the false dichotomy between faith and thinking...belief and knowledge, emphasizing the former and discouraging the latter, as if that were even possible. We can stand flat footed, have the confidence Peter talked about and provide very good reasons for the hope we have.

Christian God versus Alternatives
None of these ideas show that Christianity is true. They only show that it is far easier to understand the existence of God as the best explanation to things, than atheism or agnosticism. But can the Gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in the New Testament arguably be the best option among all other religious claims? I think so.

First, you have to pick a religion that believes in the supernatural. The naturalist would argue there can be no supernatural because we never see signs, wonders, miracles or supernatural beings in everyday life. But limiting knowledge to just what can be observed with the five senses will cut the rug out from under all rationality. Empiricism is one way to knowledge, not the only way. Secondly, I would argue that there is evidence for the supernatural in everyday life. We have consciousness and consciousness cannot be reduced to physical processes. Believe me, I have read on this topic at length and the best naturalism can provide in terms of explaining consciousness is that it has to be reducible to physical processes, even if we can't figure out how that would be possible. Really? That's preferable over consciousness not being reducible? And if it can't be reducible, we walk around everyday with evidence of something beyond nature....supernatural. And it is so mundane and regular, that it is more so than any perceived law of physics. The evidence provided above also point to something beyond the natural. Nature can't explain the universe's cause, the origin of life's detailed information or the existence of objective moral values. To accept a religion that rejects the supernatural is naturalism with extra bits to it.

Second, you need a religion that is verifiable, rather than unprovable. Let me use Islam as an example. The entire religion hinges on one man, Mohamed, going into a cave and coming back out with a different story to spread, given to him by an angel. How is that different from Christianity? Well, Jesus Christ is purported to have been born in Bethlehem, became a teacher in His adulthood, was arrested by the Sanhedrin, turned over the Pontius Pilate and executed with two other prisoners. It is also purported that many people, including friends and enemies, witnessed Jesus bodily resurrected from the dead. According to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, 500 or so were eye witnesses and several were still alive to talk to about it, when he penned that letter. There's lots of strong historical evidence that points to validating the Gospel accounts of Christ's life, death and resurrection. I won't go into them in this note, but the point is, it is open to historical verification, unlike Islam.

Which is easier to take seriously, something where you have to take the word of one man for an event that is unverifiable or take the historical accounts in the New Testament and test them to see if they can be verified or rejected? The unique thing about Christianity is that it is tied to time-space historical events, people, places. It is open to verification. None of the other religions are. The fact that liberal scholarship has spent over 100 years trying to debunk the history and release Christian beliefs from history is, in and of itself, very telling of its uniqueness.

For the non-believer, I ask you to consider some of the simple evidences and also consider my own story and life, when it comes to God's existence. I am not the most moral person in the world, but He changed my life in 1996 and I have never looked back....and I used to be an avid skeptic of the Christian faith and all religion. But don't just consider my own personal testimony. Look at what is obviously very good evidence and don't presuppose skepticism of God's existence before you consider the evidence. That's close minded.

For the believer, you have nothing to fear. Truth need not fear evidence and will always vindicate itself. It isn't about winning or being right. It's about finding the truth and going where the evidence and existential realities lead. We have good reasons to give people for the hope we have. And it doesn't matter if you are knowledgeable in physics, chemistry or philosophy. God has provided us very simple and obvious evidence for His existence outside of Scripture. And if you do engage with a skeptic, don't take the postmodern route of separating faith from knowledge and use it to try to escape dealing with the arguments on their face. Your faith is based on knowledge. Truth is a real state of affairs. Knowledge is a belief about a real state of affairs. Regardless of all the scholarship that tries to undermine that, it's rock solid and even the scholars who teach against this, use it everyday to do it. Don't get intimidated. All of the sophisticated arguments are window dressing of fair simpler ideas that more than likely don't hold any water.

Naturalism: A Big Reason for the Anger & Hostility

(I am going to attempt to regurgitate the conference material from J.P. Moreland last weekend, to the best of my ability. Of course, it will be in my own words. I may miss a thing or two, but will try to get the main ideas that were presented, across.)

Ecclesiastes 1

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.

What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?

A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.

The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.

All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.

All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.

What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.

There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be
among those who come after.

I the Preacher have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

What is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.

I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.
For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

WHY THE HOSTILITY
There has always been a hostility towards Christianity, particularly evangelical Christianity. In fact, I can recall my own hostility towards it in the not-so-distant past. But, a rather new trend is to consider evangelical Christianity immoral. If you worship Jesus as Lord and Savior and as the only way, you are not only considered ignorant, but also immoral and bigoted. That's relatively new. Lots of anger directed at evangelicals. Why? I mean, I can understand the ignorant claims, since they aren't new. But coupling it with immorality seems really weird....people who worship Jesus as the way, truth and life are immoral people? How has this new hostility come about and why? After all, there are good statistics out there that show that dedicated Christians are more apt to give to charities than their non-believing counterparts. Our work in the third world is unmatched in terms of providing basic needs. Even our ultimate example, Jesus Christ, taught us to be servants to all. So why are we singled out now as essentially immoral?

There are particular arguments raised, but I'd like to try to get behind the noise and see what the real reasons could be. I think the text above nails it better than anything else I have ever read. It isn't exhaustive but does give us some incredible insight into a big reason behind the hostility. And that reason being our current prevalent worldview and the logical implications of what holding that worldview will have on our outlook on life. The worldview is naturalism. I have brought this up in a few previous notes, but will define naturalism once more. It is the prevalent idea that nothing exists except the physical world and the only things you can know are through the scientific descriptions of that world. Things such as morals, religion, politics, philosophy...the entire humanities departments of all universities...are not engaged in real knowledge. The only knowledge attainable is that which can be reduced down to physics and chemistry. There is no supernatural, no God, no spirits. Just the physical world as observed through the five senses.

Now, it can be effectively argued that this worldview isn't defend-able nor a good one to hold, rationally. I am not going to get into that in this note because Solomon decides to take a different approach. He's talking from the standpoint of someone who has lived out all these views to their ultimate conclusion and is speaking as one with experiential knowledge, rather than just theoretical knowledge. And the conclusion is that there seems to be bad side effects on one's outlook on life by logically and fundamentally embracing naturalism as the only reasonable and available view of reality.

King Solomon illustrates that conclusion in chapter 1. First, he proclaims that 'under the sun', all is vanity. The word for vanity, in Hebrew, has two meanings. The first meaning is fleeting....quickly passing. The second is meaninglessness. The literal Hebrew word provides a visual of breathing on a spoon....fogs up and then quickly disappears. Under a view excluding everything except the physical world we see, our lives are, in the scheme of cosmic time, infinitesimal, fleeting and meaningless. What does a man or woman gain from his or her toil? It's implied: nothing.

Going down this text a bit further, we find something that does seem to last....the earth. Winds blow, rivers flow, suns rise and set, long before we are born and long after we die. One reason why environmentalism is a new religion and earth/nature the new goddess has alot to do with what Solomon has said here. Without God and only a view of the physical world as all reality, what lasts? Even though we don't, the earth does. So, our tendency is to diminish our own value and raise the value of the earth/nature.

"FIND A HAPPY PLACE....FIND A HAPPY PLACE....FIND A HAPPY PLACE...."
So, what sort of outlook does this view outlined by Solomon give him? Dissatisfaction and despair. Look at verses eight and nine. All things are full of weariness...eyes are not satisfied...ears are not satisfied. It reminds me of Turkish Delight in Chronicles of Narnia. The kids were given Turkish Delight, but the more they ate, the more they craved and became addicted. Likewise, by looking at reality as only natural, all the things seen, heard, done, result in dissatisfaction and then despair. Everything has been done, said...nothing new. And that causes us anxiety and depression, on a deep level.

Solomon brings up two conclusions: 1) whatever is crooked cannot be made straight. 2) what is lacking cannot be counted.

Consider a couple of quotes from atheistic scientists in this regard:

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference. -- Richard Dawkins

Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth.... Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, [ethics] is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, `Love thy neighbor as thyself,' they think they are referring above and beyond themselves.... Nevertheless,... such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction,... and any deeper meaning is illusory.... -- Michael Ruse

If there is no straight stick, you can't really even call a crooked stick, 'crooked' and have it mean anything. Under a view that has no room except the physical universe, then there are no real moral values. We can't live as if they don't exist, but under naturalism, there just seems to be no place to put these undeniable things...so we explain them away as either relative or clever biological conventions. In either case, they are really just describing us, rather than making statements about real states of affairs, like 'torturing babies for pleasure is wrong'. We may feel that's an objective, universal, absolute moral value, but with naturalism, there's no room for it.

But that leads to knowledge, which is conclusion 2. You can't count what isn't really there. We can't deny morals, but we have no room to allow their existence under a naturalistic framework, which creates a weird mysticism....living against what we know because of what we don't know or understand. We fill in the gaps and try to make the best of it when the best of it isn't very good because, you can't count what is lacking...you can't explain what is unexplainable if your view of reality is only the physical universe. We know enough to agitate our curiosity and we are ignorant enough to make life miserable.

So, where can we turn, if we insist on holding to naturalism, in light of this conclusion? Solomon first states we could pursue an education to try to give life meaning and purpose. Go to college, get a PhD and fill in the void with lots of scholarship. But Solomon doesn't give us a very hopeful or promising return if we decide to pursue education under a naturalistic point of view. Solomon says it creates sorrow. Not very promising. So, without God and only considering the physical world as all of reality, an education is a waste of time, because all it will conclude with is sorrow and meaninglessness. The more you know, the more depressed you get.

What's next? Pleasure. This is Hollywood. Wealth, notoriety, sex, drugs, rehab, satisfaction with having a name in lights. But Solomon concludes in chapter 2 that this leads to meaninglessness. In fact, the sad part about Hollywood (and even music industry) is that they ultimately realize that their jobs are worthless. That creates an overwhelming sense of guilt and then there's the enormous energy spent on all kinds of charities and causes....trying to make an empty life worthwhile after all. In the end, its all nervous activity, not to make the world a better place, per se, but to quell the anxiety and depression of a life that isn't really making alot of sense, even with all the wealth, notoriety, pleasure, etc.

Solomon goes on to get into money, work, etc., but you get the picture. By only focusing on life 'under the sun', everything is vanity and is a striving after the wind....striving after nothing. That makes people angry, depressed and hostile. Even Christians can get this way, but it isn't systemic and ultimate, like it is by holding to naturalism.

A SOURCE OF CONTENTION
So, then here comes a Christian wanting to talk about Jesus and eternal life, etc. For the naturalist, they don't want to hear it. It's the last thing in the world they want to hear. It invokes anger and hostility because it goes against the basic view of naturalism, which has led to nothing but despair, meaninglessness and that pisses them off. Why else would The Simpsons or Arrested Development portray Christians as pollyannish, insipid and naive people? Because we're generally happy with our view of reality and our faith in Christ, and we didn't have to strive at great lengths like they did...and it pisses them off. This is important to understanding Solomon's conclusion in everyday life. That anger reflects the despair of a bankrupt worldview, the pain and disappointment it causes, in light of someone smiling, happy, content....because, of all things, a God-Man who was born of a virgin, died on a cross, rose again and offers salvation for doing nothing more than admitting to weakness and placing all hope in His hands? They may claim these things violate rational thought, but that's not really the reason behind the anger, to be honest. In fact, giving good reasons doesn't seem to help much. You remember before Jesus how you used to feel about Christians? I know I can and I hope I can paint that picture clear enough.

In fact, the naturalistic worldview these days has a perverted sense of stoic virtue of having tried over and over, with pain and failure, as a proudly worn badge of honor. To come along and talk about Jesus pulling you out of darkness and meaninglessness, all the sudden, violates those stoic sensibilities. But since there is no real charge to stick on those who act consistently with the teaching of Jesus Christ, charges have to be invented. Among some; we are against science, rational thought, freedom and liberty, even a meaningful and moral life, to mention a few. In fact, let me give a few examples.

"When people say to me, 'You hate America,' I don't hate America. I love America. I am just embarrassed that it has been taken over by people like evangelicals, by people who do not believe in science and rationality. It is the 21st century. And I will tell you, my friend. The future does not belong to the evangelicals. The future does not belong to religion." -- Bill Maher

Today factual information is readily available so there is no valid excuse for believing in the myths and deceits so common two thousand years ago. There is no empirical evidence for supernatural beings or places. The evidence that the existence of all human life ends when the body dies is overwhelming.. This is the only life that humans will ever have and for the purveyors of religion to say otherwise is to engage in blatant deceit for their own benefit. -- Kieth Cornish

The only reason its not taken literally today is because science has advanced to a point where no sane human being can claim to believe in it literally without being ashamed of themselves and laughed at publicly by anyone who knows even an elementally level of natural science. Further more if they could get away with it, these same people would ban science, and impose ignorance on the population because it is only in a vacuum of knowledge that religion can exist, multiply, and flourish like a virus, because that is exactly what faith is, the worst case of bioterrorism in human history, a man made virus responsible for the ruining of more lives than any other known to man. -- blogger

Either Solomon was wiser than these guys or these guys are self-misguided. We can expect more hostility, more bullying. Yet, a defensive reaction to such behavior will not work. In fact, they'll smell blood. Confidence...a quiet and obvious confidence in our beliefs is required and provides the best response to this hostility. You can't have that confidence unless you have very good reasons behind your knowledge of God, in general, and Christ, in particular. This isn't 'smart guy' knowledge but more like stripping away alot of the window dressing we're taught most of our life (public schools teach naturalism as a staple) and realizing that outside of Scripture, God has given us enormous evidence of His existence and our responsibility to respond to such evidence. I'll regurgitate three basic (and very obvious) things that not only provide a far more adequate alternative to naturalism, but a confidence in this evidence that will help ease you more if (more like when) you get blindsided by this hostility.

Why Preaching Jesus in a Public School Can't Really Be Considered Improper for Secularists

If Franklin Graham came to PS 32 in NYC, in the middle of world history course for 8th graders and preached that Jesus died, rose again for their sins, it would be controversial, to say the least. In fact, it would be all over the news as well as blogs and several FB links. The outcry would be on the grounds of 'separation of church and state'. Pressed further, that argument would be an appeal to interpretation of the rules of the road, in this case, as they apply to speech in a publicly funded setting. But the outrage wouldn't be over the breaking of a rule. The outcry would be visceral and from the perspective that preaching Jesus in a public school, aside the prescription against mixing church and state, would be objectively wrong. Some might say that you can't force your opinions on to others, especially religious ones. Others might claim that Jesus being the only way to salvation is bigoted or that even suggesting something is wrong with us would be insulting.

In essence, Graham's preaching to a world history class in a public school would be considered a moral violation, in addition to being perceived just as rule breaking. Not only that, it would be considered normative and objective and universal moral violation. As the argument might go, preaching Jesus to kids in public school would be a real state of affairs that should never be permitted (normative). The same argument more than likely would conclude Graham's speech, or others like him, from preaching to kids in a public school should never be permissible, regardless of other opinions (objective) and that it would apply anywhere, at anytime, to anyone (universal).

Those with the outcry would come from a strict secular perspective where religion and state should not mix. Some might even be avid church goers, so it wouldn't necessarily split down the categories of religious and non-religious. The underlying and fundamental reason backing the secular idea would be that religion in general and Jesus in particular are not knowledge claims but only express cultural idioms and traditions. This isn't in the context of a school's curriculum but more behind the moral objections to bringing this sort of speech into a school to begin with. In this view, science gives knowledge. Mathematics gives knowledge. Any claims Graham has about Jesus are personal, individualized and isn't knowledge, per se. Along side science and mathematics, can there be knowledge claims about religious claims? Is knowledge purely gained from the five senses? Well, that's another topic (but a good one). I bring it up because it is related to this topic. What sort of moral arguments against Graham's speech are out there? Here's a summary of some that are popularly held.

Moral relativism believes that morals are relative to the individual or society and cannot be objective, normative or universal. Anyone who believes that Christianity is 'true for you but not for me' is subscribing to this thinking. There are several types in this category. There are those that just feel its wrong (emotivism), or that it simply expresses the desires of society (prescriptivism or imperativalism). However, if separation of church and state, in general, and someone like Graham preaching Jesus in a public school, in particular, is REALLY wrong, no matter who does it, where they do it, then there is an exception to the moral relativist, in this regard. But if there is this one exception, are there others? If pressed, it would seem that if morals are relative, then even a moral claim about moral relativism would have to also be relative. So, if the moral relativist is right, she's wrong and if she's wrong, she's still wrong, by her own rulebook. So out goes that theory. It certainly can't be used against Graham's alter call in world history class. Under moral relativism, neither Graham or those against him would have a moral argument that would apply to anyone outside of themselves or their group. There's simply no way to adjudicate between either side of that argument under moral relativism. What ends up with moral relativism is a inclination towards simple prescriptivism or imperativalism. In short, that's what you see on The View and other day time talk shows. Overpowering, rather than justification, is the game plan under those settings. If there happen to be more Graham supporters, then Graham wins. If there are more secularists, they win. Nothing more can be added. So much for that.

But then there are those that would not side with moral relativism and say what Graham did is really wrong. These folks would fall into two types: 1) ethical non-naturalists, like crazy evangelical and catholics (tongue in cheek, obviously) and 2) ethical naturalists. Ethical naturalists hold to objective moral values, so they would condemn Graham but it would be based on evolutionary biology. In other words, they would hold it as wrong because most people would hold to that value as a societal convention created for survival purposes. Most in this category are considered utilitarianists or those that believe the rules are based on maximizing outcomes, as outcomes are perceived by a species or society. You could have relativists that are utilitarians but there are also ethical naturalists that are as well. But the grounding feature of the latter folks would be evolutionary biology, more than likely. Graham, in this view, would be wrong because it goes against the tribe's rules and the tribe's rules are there for the survival of the tribe. In this case, the tribe would be America and the tribes rules would be having religion overlap in publicly funded settings.

So, do these views have any merit and how would they fare against Graham's speech? Ethical naturalism devolves, rather than evolves, into subjectivism...meaning, things aren't really right or wrong. The reason why is that they confuse an 'ought' with an 'is'. What does this mean? It means that saying something is really wrong, but then backing it up with it being attributable to biological or societal instinct is only describing behavior, rather than justifying anything or condemning anything. Describing the color of tree bark is entirely different from saying that tree bark should never be brown. Silly analogy, but you get the drift. You can't successfully go from the first description to the second prescription, without it ultimately being relative, subjective or privatized. Notwithstanding the persuasiveness of the argument, the naturalist would say that condemning Graham is how our society has chosen to protect and promulgate itself. But that isn't an argument against Graham's speech. It's just a perceived description of those that are against Graham. First, it could be an entirely different set of tribal rules are more effective at survival than those, in which case one would have to suspend judgment if cogent arguments were raised. Second, even if those were the best rules for survival, it wouldn't tell us anything regarding its rightness or wrongness. It would just be describing animal behavior. So, that's out.

What's left to argue against Graham's alter calls in a public school? Power. In the end, the only framework secularism can devise any moral propositions is through power. Whoever is in charge rules and whoever isn't doesn't. The only reason Graham's speech is detestable is because Graham isn't in charge. Secularism is in charge, so Graham is wrong. However, that also means that if Graham is in charge, then secularist arguments are all wet. In the end, secularist ethics devolve into king of the hill realities. I would contend the only reason why secularism's power struggle hasn't already devolved into bloodshed and tyranny is because of an old, fading Christian consensus. As that continues to fade, as it is today, there will only be the non-theistic cognitive and non-cognitive alternatives to morality and as we have seen, they can't hold any water and are really just power struggles disguised as arguments.

So, what would the Christian possibly argue against the Graham alter call? You might be surprised. Although the Hebrews in the Old Testament were a theocracy, initially (they became a monarchy before the kingdoms split), the New Testament recognizes a secular state, as was the reality in the 1st century as it increasingly has become today, and commands respect for those authorities. Romans 13 is a case in point. You can also go to Jesus' teachings about paying taxes to get the same principle. Why should the believer in Christ observe and respect secular authorities, even if they are anti-Christian? Two reasons are given in Scripture: 1) All human beings are given a moral barometer that reveals the character of God, whether they believe in God or not. This demands respect. 2) Love. Pure and simple, we are to love others and serve others. We are to show Jesus and be the salt and light He proclaimed we should be. The New Testament teaches under a setting of secular rule, not a theocracy, as some would try to incorrectly portray Scripture. So, Franklin Graham would probably not give an alter call in PS 32 world history class, out of obedience to these overarching biblical ethics. Would that mean Graham would simply not talk about Jesus? No. He would simply find a venue that would not create contention and contempt, so that he could show Jesus Christ, rather than another political power struggle. That's the Scriptural and real view of the situation at hand. We should be lovers, not fighters, because Jesus is our example. He didn't raise an army. He didn't protest the consulate. He told the truth, excepted the consequences of doing so, but never disrespected others. Quite the contrary, His entire ministry and His work on the cross is one of a servant.

So, only the evangelical, ironically, would have an argument. You may not agree with it, but the real issue at hand isn't whether you agree or disagree, but whether or not there are good reasons out there. Ironically, secularists' arguments all fail, morally speaking. Folks with an outcry against it may simply be emoting their feelings for or against, in what ultimately is only a power drama, rather than an argument about real right and wrong....or they are confusing a state of affairs with a moral argument and are skirting the issue altogether while claiming to be providing an answer to it. Only the believer's adherence to a moral sense that is inherent in all people, reflecting the character of God, rather than biology, sociology or relativist musings, is the only argument that stands. Again, you may not agree with it and there are arguments that can be taken. I will say that it can be sufficiently defended, but the point in this article is to put the cards on the table, given a specific situation and see how secularism fares. And it is a non-starter, despite itself.

Lost Wages

$12.4 Trillion is the amount of debt outstanding for the USA. The federal government brings in $2.1 Trillion in tax revenue and spends $3.5 Trillion, year after year.

Gross Domestic Product is around $14.3 Trillion now. So, tax receipts are about 14.7% of GDP. Got it?

Now, in order to balance the budget (remember, can't begin to reduce debt till that happens first), we would need to either raise taxes $1.4 Trillion raising it to 25% of GDP or slash government spending by $1.4 Trillion. Perhaps we split the difference. Just raise taxes $700Billion and slash spending $700Billion.

First, you would probably see GDP go down because it costs more to do business with higher taxes and you will never get the coveted $700Billion. Second, if you slash spending, where would you do it? Defense spending is about $660Billion, Social Security is around $759Billion, pensions are $190Billion....interest on the debt, alone, is $558Billion. Everywhere you look is a goiter the size of Canada.

But assume you were able, somehow, to accomplish it and balance the budget. Ok, now we can start to look at reducing debt. But wait, we just discovered that, in addition to owing $12.4 Trillion in bonds, we apparently have robbed all the payroll tax revenue, year after year, from social security, medicare, medicaid, prescription drug benefits, to the tune of $107 Trillion in "IOU's". Once more, it appears we also forgot to mention that the FHA and GSE losses on mortgages is about $6 Trillion. Total real debt owed is not $12.4 Trillion but more to the tune of $125.4 Trillion. We only make around $14.3 Trillion a year in income. If we taxed 100% of GDP, we would be able to pay off the debt in 8.77 years. Of course, that's insane. It's sort of like asking someone to not eat for 12 years in order to pay off a VISA card.

Maybe we just scratch all future social security, medicare, medicaid and prescription drug benefits for everyone....say "I'm sorry" and start over? Assuming that was palatable, it would mean losing $107 Trillion in payroll taxes from employed, legal workers for a lengthy period of time. If we are willing to part with all that money and forgo all the benefits, then we'd be able to eliminate the $107 Trillion. We could also eliminate the bond debt too...since $7.5 Trillion is owed to other countries, we'd tell them to take a hike. Since $1.5 Trillion is owed to people who invested in bonds through an IRA or mutual fund, they'd have to write off all that money as a loss, since it won't ever be redeemed. The Fed owns the rest, which is sort of like Fantasy Land and so we will leave that alone for now. Could we get away with that? Hardly.

So, what do we do? Maybe we play games with our currency. Get the dollar to tank so that our debt is worth far less tomorrow than it is today, then we could pay it off easier. But in order to do that, we'd cause prices of all goods and services imported to us...cars, toys, picture frames, watches, etc, to go way up in price. Wages would have to go up to in order to keep up, but in the mix, we end up getting back into serious deficits because taxable income would keep going down and although we'd have cheaper debt, we'd have a bigger hole to jump out of due to inflation.

Maybe we elect all Republicans in the fall and then take the White House in 2012. Ok, fine, but we already did that and spending, deficits and debt, along with robbing from social security, medicare, medicaid, etc., still happened, even if on a smaller scale than with Democrats...so, history shows that Republicans won't answer this problem.

Yeah, but maybe there could be a reformation and we could send a new breed of people to DC in order to fix this mess, unlike all the other times before. Well, if the USA had no stomach to finish Iraq, and that was far away, brought to us by 24 news channel reporting, how much of a stomach will the USA have to do what I mentioned above? We expect climate control, water you don't have to boil in order to drink, plenty of staples at the grocery stores, lots of pharmacies, doctor's offices, hospitals with machines that go 'ping' and lots of entertainment.

What we are seeing in Greece, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Ukraine, Japan are all the same stories...governments that have continually spend FAR beyond the means of both tax revenue and borrowing capacity. This whole cycle began about 100 years ago as a means to move onward and upward, improving the lives of citizens around the world, and has ended up with global insolvency.

The fact is...as distasteful as it is....we have no answers to our problems. All the capital has been spent and leveraged, far beyond the remaining capital's value. The way I see it, hitting a 'reset' button is about the only avenue left. But that will rock the world in ways we've probably never read about throughout recorded history. All government bonds, derivatives would just have to get written off. Balance sheets all over the world would tank, barring more squirrely accounting FASB rules. It would catapult governments and economies into chaos and world stability would go away for a while. The 'reset' button's bright side would be betting on something good happening once the dust settles.

What I am getting at is that the world you were born into and grew up in is passing away rather quickly. It still looks the same and seems to keep humming like it always has. But just like ENRON, GM or any other business that is in serious trouble, there comes a time when you are out of cards and run to the authorities to seek protection. The difference here being, the authorities themselves are in need of protection, when none exist.

My guess is when the 'reset' button is pressed, the other side of it will probably require a third Humanist Manifesto, since the first two were dismally Pollyannish, if we're fortunate to be thinking about, let alone, writing any kind of manifesto on the other side of this. "The ways of man seem right to him, but the Lord sees the heart." Everything will be alright. However, it won't be because of economic stability, a new provisional government or another computer revolution.

Although I am a screw up, with plenty of mistakes littered through out my life, I have one thing going for me. I am beloved by Jesus Christ, saved by Him and promised to never be abandoned and also promised to inherit an unmovable Kingdom. That may sound Pollyannish to many of you, and I can understand that. I just would hope you would consider the fact that there's no way anyone could read this note and call me Pollyannish, without impugning their sanity :-) I believe I am a realist, and the Kingdom is as real as you can get. If I look back in time, from the time Christ started His church until now, I see kings and kingdoms come and go, with His Kingdom growing and growing. I have His Word and that history to help me stand on something firm in a world where very little, if anything, is firm these days. He suffered and died so that idiots like me could approach God with confidence and simply be loved into the type of person I was always intended to be. Hard pressed to find another alternative to that, to be honest.

In a world about to get shook like a can of paint, I implore you to get on the Rock and stand firm on His unmovable Kingdom. The only thing required is to accept the way Jesus provided, with empty hands. He's done all the rest. I know, many of you think this is nuts. But I've just about tried and thought about every other way. And as for reputation, I have little to lose and everything to gain. Take that for whatever its worth. If I didn't give a rip, I wouldn't bother.

Living and Dying

I was studying the word 'sin'. Another one of those religious words that seems to carry with it no more objective meaning than the memories it conjures of those who used it against us or when we used it against others. And, as a result, more of a weapon than a word.

But here's the meaning. The Greek word is hamartia. It comes from the root word meros, where we get merit, meritocracy, meritorious. Meros give the image of a portion, share, division of something good. The 'ha' at the beginning of hamartia is usually used as a negative prefix. Put them together and it implies no portion, share or division. Sort of like missing it...not obtaining it. In fact, many times the word is interpreted as 'missing'. That's why many bible teachers use the phrase 'missing the mark' to define sin. It's a derailment on the way to a purposeful destination.

In Hebrew, the word for sin is chataw and it means the same thing, but carries with it even more connotations. Chataw invokes the idea of leading astray in a way that results in harm.

What is the missing thing? What's the main idea or destination implied in this word? Well, a clue is found in James 1 when sin begins with what can be interpreted as desire or feelings. The Greek word for it is epithumia and means a heart's desire, coveting or lust for something. The feelings work together with our thoughts and choices to bring forth a missed objective. In James, the contrast is between life and death. To allow the pressure of our existence to bear down on us provides an opportunity for our faith to build us up strong and durable through the mess and lead to the crown or wreath of life. On the other hand, allowing the pressure to conjure up feelings to give in and react ultimately lead to death.

So, although we always have heard that sin leads to death, it usually goes in one ear and out the other as another religious phrase. I want to know what it means without allowing those thoughts and preconceived judgments and memories conjure. And I think the actual meaning in the Bible brings out an incredible thing. In fact, it knocks me over every time I think about it.

You think about it for a minute. Take inventory of an average day. Go through all the things that happened, your reactions and the stuff that resulted from it. How much of your day is driven by what happens to you, creating feelings that drive your reaction? Be honest. Someone drinks the last cup of coffee and leaves the pot burning causes you to cuss and spit. Maybe more serious things, like a pink slip or served with divorce papers. If you think about it, human beings are really just held captive to events and our almost unavoidable response creating a chain reaction and even more events, and it works outward like waves caused by a rock thrown in the water. If you were honest, you would have to admit that people are in bondage to what happens to them, what could happen to them or what they wish would happen to them. And our responses always follow accordingly.

Someone tempts you, messes with you, threatens you or your own, it produces feelings that produce reactions. They can either be active or passive, but they are reactions and strategic ones at that. They are intentional and are born out of a deep fear and mistrust about our own survival. We are thrown into existence, live through all these events and then die. We know this from the beginning and carry with us an anxiousness that acts like fuel for a car all our lives. Of course, we don't walk around as fearful, scared creatures. Some do. But most learn to mask it and mask it well, to the point that by the time we are adults, we are unconscious of it anymore. We're layers.

And despite our best efforts to drive appearances and outcomes, we get drug around by our feelings and desires. In fact, they drive our choices, thoughts, bodies and social context. Things we choose are driven by feelings. Our thoughts, whether they are imagination, perception or judgment are driven by them too. Our bodies follow and so do those we choose to hang around or not hang around...who we accept and who we reject. And rejection is so harmful to us at the deepest level, it alone drives most of those feelings and the resulting actions we take. We necessarily become self-absorbed, self-obsessed. Knowing how wrong that it and also realizing we are powerless to overcome it, left to our own resources, we mask these horrible deficits through well-practiced ways of appearances and relating. Yet, with all our ingenious ways to mask it, it is still there and as the pressure of life increases, our management of appearances works less and less until what is really on the inside is visible on the outside. It impacts lives around us, the entire time, including our own, and we end up destroying ourselves through all our efforts to survive and flourish. This is what is meant by sin leading to death.

At the beginning of James, he doesn't state that believers in Christ are immune to this dynamic. It's obvious we are in the middle of the mess too. But the distinguishing thing about us is that even though we are in the mess, we can count on the faith given to us (we don't have faith in God unless God gives it to us, because of everything I described above), to make us stronger, endure more with the end goal of being non-impaired, regardless of what hits us, lacking in nothing. And it leads to real life that we were looking for all along, rather than the counterfeit we get by following our desires like a dog on a chain. Many Christians, me included, can act just like the person giving into desires and the strategies to survive and prosper, just using 'Christianese' to mask it all. But we know what we're doing and it works no better than the unbeliever that does it. We end up getting dinged pretty good. It happens sooner or later, but it happens.

But, at that moment when we lose the client, get the pink slip or simply see the burning coffee pot, we are hit with the impact and at the very depths of us, we can either follow the pattern or fall back on the faith given to us. What does that mean? It means when the crap hits the fan, which it inevitably will, we can handle or manage it our way, or trust God with the circumstance, the strength to deal with it and the wisdom on how to move forward through it. What that does is help us trust Him more than we did before. For anyone who trusts that Jesus is the Son of God, died for all this mess so that we can have a way to God, His Spirit resides with us, all the time, asleep or awake, good times and bad. We have Someone to cooperate with and lean on all the time. And that trust as it plays out in life creates in us an endurance, a maturity, that leads to us resembling Who we worship. We don't need to fake it or even stay conscious of that fact. We just accidentally look like the One Whom we give praise, honor, thanks and glory.

Of course, that's what happens when we place our trust in a comedian, politician or rock star...we start to resemble them too. But there is power in resembling the One who holds everything together, sustains it and is redeeming it, over time. And there ought to be excitement in being able to be a participant in that whole deal. That's life. Real life. It's why we are hear and the point to our existence. As for old ideas of religion, church, preconceived ideas of a stifling imagination of the religious folks we knew or encountered, or the stifling life many have encouraged us to embrace and even pretend to love, forget that all. What He offers is a life far more imaginative, creative, exciting and wonderful than the coolest thing this world system could ever conjure up. He really does. We fall down, mess it up. But, unlike those who decide Jesus Christ doesn't have anything to offer, our mess ups are never cosmically fatal. We can get back up and get on the tight rope again, realizing the Net below is will always be there. This assurance gives us confidence to get back up.

By giving Scripture a second chance and using the resources available to us these days, I encourage you to delve into what Scripture means by these things, rather than relying on talking heads or billboards to interpret them for you. Something incredible can happen. I can remember getting my eyes checked and getting new glasses. It was like I could see for the first time. Stripping away all the layers of paint and getting to the actual source, you will find that Scripture isn't just the best answer for living; but the only answer out there.

Life Begins At 40: Living honsetly without hope

Life Begins At 40: Living honsetly without hope

Let's Suppose

Let's suppose that there is a God who is absolute in His holiness and righteousness.

Suppose He freely creates mankind and gives each human being the gift of life.

Suppose He sets His creatures in an ideal environment with the freedom to enjoy the wonders of the entire creation.

Then let's suppose that God imposes one small restriction upon them, and warns them that if they violate that restriction, they will die. Would such a God have the right to impose such a restriction with the penalty of forfeiture of the gift of life if His authority was violated?

Then let's suppose that for no just cause, the ungrateful creatures disobeyed the restriction. Yet suppose that when He discovered their violation, instead of killing them instantly, He redeemed them.

Suppose the descendants of the first violators increase their hostility and disobedience to God to the point that the whole world become enemies of God.

Suppose God still determined to redeem these people, and set aside a distinct nation for Himself, giving them special gifts, so that through them, the entire world would be blessed. Suppose He kept delivering them from all their enemies, yet as soon as they were liberated, they rose up in rebellion to Him.

Suppose, because of His mercy and grace, God sent specially endowed messengers or prophets to plead with His people to return to Him.

Suppose the people killed these divine messengers and mocked their message. Suppose they then began to worship idols of stone and things they had made.

Suppose they then invented religions which were totally opposed to the truth He had made clear to them, and they worshiped creatures rather than the Creator.

Suppose in an ultimate act of redemption, God Himself became incarnate in the person of His Son. Suppose this Son came into the world not to condemn the world, but to redeem it.

Suppose this Son were rejected, slandered, mocked, tortured, and murdered. Yet, suppose that God accepted the murder of His own Son as punishment for the sins of the very persons who murdered Him.

Suppose this God offered forgiveness, and a cleansing from all guilt, victory over death and eternal peace with Himself. Suppose God gave these people as a free gift the promise of a future life that would be without pain, without sickness, without death, and without tears.

Suppose that God said to these people, "There is one thing that I demand. I demand that you honor my one and only Son and that you worship and serve Him alone."

Suppose God did all that, would you be willing to say to Him, "God, that's not fair, you haven't done enough?"

If man has in fact committed cosmic treason against God, what reason could we possibly have that God should provide any way of redemption? In light of the universal rebellion against God, the issue is not why is there only one way, but why is there any way at all?

taken from R.C. Sproul

COUNTRY RUN!

Anyone remember studying about bank runs? People would lose confidence in the bank's ability to secure our deposits, we'd go withdraw them from the bank....along with everyone else, hence the panic. Our solution? Create a lender of last resort, namely, the Federal Reserve, or in other countries, the Central Bank. At the centralized level, banks would secure deposits with a combination of tax revenue treasury debt. That seemed like a problem resolved for many years. Of course, the system necessarily devalued currency and caused several booms and busts, but we all seemed to acclimate ourselves to these swings.

Now, it appears we've reached the bottom of the central bank bucket...specifically, central banks are stressed on the ability to raise funds for government spending through the sale of government bonds. For Greece, which is insolvent, a bank run has evolved into a country run. Greece, like us, have a problem controlling government spending. Add to that a progressive tax system, like ours, that relies almost entirely on rich Greek citizens, you have the ingredients for a country-run. The rich pull the money out of Greek banks and go somewhere else. Those remaining are left to potentially pick up the slack, causing even more pressure and more potential for flight. Now, the EU has to seriously consider bailing out an entire country. If they do, Greece will be healed for the time being. However, without curtailing the systemic issue of spending and taxation, they will just be back at the EU trough in the near future. Also, we have Spain, Portugal, Iceland and Ireland teetering as well. Spain will probably go next. If the EU bails out Greece, it sets precedence for bailing out other nations and jeopardizes the EURO as a currency and the EU as an entity.

Over here, California is Greece. It's insolvent. They have over $500billion in IOU's with no ability to pay, a progressive tax system relying on rich people, while rich people are leaving, creating a bigger hole and, as we have seen in the brilliance of California governance, higher taxes on the rest, which will never fill the gap. Michigan is right behind California. New York, New Jersey, Oregon are all sliding in the same direction of insolvency. The main problems? Well, aside the real estate crash impacting all of them, including Nevada and Arizona, the states I mention are like the Federal Government in that they are heavily weighted down with welfare spending and ever-growing public sector union payroll and pension costs. In collective bargaining, you have the labor force negotiating for higher compensation across the table with company management, who try to maximize profits. In state and federal government, collective bargaining means automatic pay raises and pensions, even during recessions when the private sector experiences cuts and lay offs.

In essence, the progressive dream from 100 years ago of a heavy centralized government Network Operating Center, managing aspects of human life at the state and federal level, has failed. What we are seeing in the states and in other nations is insolvency, collapse and uncertainty about what fills in the gap. In the short run, central banks and the Fed will simply rely on shooting up the same narcotic....auction off more bonds and raise more cash. However, they also have to balance that with making sure the amount of cash in the banking system encourages lending. Add to that the stress of selling bonds in a world that is already so heavily leveraged, Moody's has even considered downgrading the United States from AAA to AA. As that happens, yields and interest will necessarily rise, causing more stress on the private sector and more gaps in government spending compared to tax receipts. As interest rises due to spiralling interest and government spending/debt, corporations and individuals have less taxable income and the government loses tax receipts. Add to that a central bank (The Fed) that tries to manipulate growth and contraction through soaking up or pumping in money via debt creation and you get our tenuous situation. As debt gets harder and harder to sell, culminating in zero interest rates and quantitative easing, both the government and the fed are running out of tricks as the law of physics bears down more and more.

It's a spiral and barring some reset button, this 100 year experiment is speedily culminating in a global watershed moment. Since progressive power is entrenched in Washington and most state capitals (the Reagan Revolution didn't extinguish progressive government....just slowed the train down about 5 miles per hour), it doesn't look like a return to constitutional republicanism will prevail without adding an element of political upheaval to the mix.

Human government is impossible. Human systems, no matter how ingenious and successful in the short term, fail and end up in the dust of time. Our choice is to bury our head in the sand, fight for change we can't really envision after a century of centralized bureaucratic and monetary exploitation, or trust God. A remnant will trust God. However, the rest will choose either of the first two options. If, for some strange anomaly, many people do trust God, then maybe we can see new life breathed in America. However, that doesn't seem likely. Couple this with a global melt down, it seems as if much more than human short sightedness is doing the shaking these days.

Count on the church surviving it all, contrary to all efforts to marginalize or quell her. In the west, her numbers aren't growing that much. However in parts of the world where preaching Jesus is still illegal and constitutes jail time, it is growing rapidly. You can bank on God and His church hanging around through the long haul. Even though Rome co opted the church in the 4th century, when Roman state fell, the church survived and became a constant reality throughout history. It will be no different through this watershed period. Intricate monetary or governing systems are ingenious creations destined to follow the curve and end up in the trash, along with all the others.

We can spend our life or invest it. You can't invest it in human systems that end up in the land fill. If you could ask Octavius Gaius Caesar, he'd concur, if you could get him to stop cussing and spitting long enough to respond.

The End of An Era - The Beginning of A New Era

Any society's foundation is only as strong as it's weakest link. That goes for Egypt, Rome, Greece, Caliphates, British and even American world powers.

But today, western culture, specifically America, has a unique situation. It has no foundation. It has long since abandoned its original and really hasn't replaced it with anything except a buffet-style steam table of different cultural ideas, religions, philosophies and ethical systems. As a result, our society is now sort of like a balsam wood stack resting atop a foundation of brittle Styrofoam. We aren't necessarily rudderless....we're guided in directionless, chaotic and spastic movements by thousands of tiny rudders, heading off in different directions...leaving us tugged to and fro from within.

We have merits we fall back on to help encourage us. We abolished slavery, universalized the vote and shattered systemic racism in our society, even though it may still exist in pockets. But those achievements were prior to our aimlessness....a bygone era, based on a foundation we no longer embrace. Within a couple of generations, we have only lived off the capital of these accomplishments and created no more ourselves. We have decided, for example, beginning with the universities and ending with the churches, that Biblical Christianity is intellectually naive and obsolete, to be accredited with horrors. By ignoring the horrors realized today, and those planted and nurtured for a future generation, we are blind guides, leading ourselves and our progeny into trenches and shackles.

Ironically, we replaced this with refuse. Blind guides with willfully deteriorated Swiss-cheese intellects, passionately arguing, with all moral pathos, against objective morality....standing flat footed in absolute resolution against the existence of absolute truth. Our origins have become well crafted mythology, supported with all rigor, believing as fact that bats and sponges share a common ancestor, while denying a human nature. We are troubled with evidence of a beginning, so we begin postulating multi-verses to ease that tension. Our destiny as ambiguous and ever-changing as fashion sense. Our interests have degenerated into voyeurism, living vicariously through the lives of people we never met or never will meet, in order to stimy the pain of boredom and emptiness in our own lives, in which only the only antidote is scandal, profligation, gossip and promiscuity. Any society in our shape would have vanished into dust. Ours has been living off of the capital from the past. But our capital has run dry.

Our wealth, arguably built upon a rich foundational view of reality, used up, recycled and used up again. For the past 100 years, our wealth has been generated through debt creation, our currency devalued completely, as it is backed by nothing more than more currency and that currency representing debt. As I write this, our last recession has resulted in record breaking declines in economic activity. Twenty four months into this recession, sales and jobs continue to decline, which hasn't ever been witnessed before. Rumors abound that the only reason we have a stock market is attributable to the Federal Reserve and US Treasury being the primary buyer of marketable securities, in the absence of demand. Our strength abroad has deteriorated, aspiring new tyrants to test the waters of our resolve. Those more brave are giddy with the ability to disrupt everyday life through the act of terrorism. Less is taught, less is known, generations reveal an indirect correlation of declining desire for knowledge and increasing desire for more entertainment. Of course, the entertainment is a much needed diversion. The less we know, the better off we are, so we think. A well presented speech trumps actual leadership for us, any day.

We are about to head into another election year and although it seems as if incumbents have much to worry about, even a completely different congress in 2011 will be dwarfed by a monolithic and extraordinarily entrenched governmental machine, put in place, gradually, over the past 100 years. Now, democracy is totally eclipsed by bureaucracy. Our economy is no longer based on production, but buying and selling financial paper promises. Our industries artificially managed by federal agencies, with little or no success, comparable to gamers playing interactive Sim-Nation scenarios over XBOX. And our leaders are clueless, dishonest and make decisions purely on the short term gain, despite the long term impact. And we accept that, encourage it, by sending them back or replacing them with the same old, dry, corrupt, pooled reserve of political insiders who have made a killing at being 'servants'.

In essence, the United States of America is terminally comatose. The signs of life that remain are like twitches or raised fingers in a comatose patient. Maybe we'll snap out of it. But, diagnostically, we probably won't.

For those that solely defined themselves as Americans, this is horrible news. In fact, its the end of the world for you. It's still horrible news for me, but it's not the end of the world. In fact, it could be that we are on the verge of a new era, in which opportunities present themselves in ways they never could have before.

For those that don't buy into Biblical Christianity, you're waiting for a brave new world to come rescue us before the dark sets in. In fact, many of us in that category are still in denial that the sun has set, let alone face the coming darkness. Notwithstanding, that new world will come for you and replace this one. Although it will be akin to a high tech serfdom, its perks will scratch the itch. You will not only be satisfied with it, you will probably hold in contempt anyone who would want to replace it or change it. A world currency is in the works, along with a world economy. Countries that have a cost advantage over others will be the producers and the rest will be the consumers, fueled purely by debt...borrowing the new currency controlled and backed by a world bank, loosely held together by several nations. And with the currency, comes hegemony. Our governments will be subservient to this new system, even though it will appear with the same old fashioned constitutional, parliamentary trappings.

It could be that none of this transpires, we encounter a national revival and continue on another 200 years or so. It could happen and I'm open to it. However, it seems like all that has transpired, represented by alot of what has already been described here, appears as if a pattern has formed...one that is set. Several want a return to Constitutional purity, as do I. But even re-establishing Constitutional purity isn't sufficient for a foundation. Constitutional purity must rest on a foundation. Without that, it's like trying to build a second floor without a first floor. That foundation has been utterly rejected by so many, that those that are not hostile towards it, have replaced Biblical Christianity, as a foundation, with Constitutional purity. And that's fatal. Even if I were an atheist, it seems logically conclusive that if God has spoken, there is no foundation sufficient aside what He has revealed. Any other way to look at it would be to treat God as an encouraged Saturday morning cartoon for adults.

For those who have placed confidence in Christ but are saddened by this reality, consider the fact that although we have been blessed to have participated in a civic experiment never before witnessed in world history, we are now, united in Christ, without borders. We belong to the King and our future is secure. As this new system sets in place, quite distinct from any other way of life, we love those in this new system...serve them in the name of Christ even though they want nothing of Him or us. We will be considered weak, easy targets, yet impossible to extinguish, which will fuel the anger and hostility, leading to even more violence and persecution. Instead of lashing back in violence, we accept it, and rejoice that we had the opportunity to share in His sufferings. All this, with, contrary to popular fiction novels, a very technologically advanced and wealthy world system. For His own, it won't be too comfortable. We'll be the football to be kicked around. But our strength is beyond us, and our resolve will baffle and fuel even more contempt. But out of that, more will come out of that system to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, just like we did. Right now, places like China, Africa, Indonesia are on fire with the Gospel of Christ...churches planted and growing in the midst of horrible persecution. Meanwhile, the church in the west is flattening out and declining. The coming hostilities will ironically fuel the flames of our passion for the Gospel and our resolve in reaching as many as we can, being servants, rather than masters, the punching bag, rather than the fist.

It may seem depressing to consider, but only because the familiar is going away. Uncertainty and the prospects of such treatment doesn't bode well and we shudder in considering our children and grandchildren in this reality. But remember, Jesus has conquered the powers of this world, even death itself. He will replace the fears with excitement, upset the odds, supplant concern with encouragement. Take what He's done in your own life and consider it to pale in what He will do. Once more, His Kingdom continues to grow throughout, like yeast in dough....like a conspiracy. Despite the end of this era, I want to assure that the next will end with far more than we ever anticipated in this one. No more heart-ache, war, tears, death or sickness. In the meantime, He still reigns and if you listen for Him carefully, tuning out the noise, you will see Him on the move like never before.