One of the comments I got in my recent saga with atheists was a "dare" to prove that God exists. After some discussion, I realize what is probably obvious to most people. There was no proof of the existence of God that this guy would accept.
As I thought about it last night, a "vision" of sorts came to me.
Imagine, if you can, a God Who can hold the entire universe in His hand. OK, we don't really know if God has hands, or that He can hold the universe in one. We don't know what shape the universe is in, or what it would look like from His perspective. Stay with me, though.
Now imagine a man or woman demanding that God "show Himself" to prove that He exists.
The only way that such an infinite God could do that would be to leave His infiniteness and cram all He is into a container, say a box. You could only see God in that little box. The problem is, it wouldn't be God. It would be some subset of God, an aspect of Him that wouldn't be all He is.
Then I saw a place that I'll call "The God Store." This was a place where you could obtain your very own god.
"We have a wide variety of pre-made gods for you. There are the classic Greco-Roman gods, like Zeus, Hercules, Aphrodite — she's for adults only …"
"I don't want any of those fairy tales," interrupts the skeptic.
"Well, we have the one true God."
"Show me."
"Well, sir, I can't. The one true God is so big, you can't see Him."
"Then how can you prove He's here? No, I want that God, but I don't like all of the things I've heard about Him."
"Well, we can customize for you."
"Great! Okay, I want a loving God, one that doesn't send anybody to Hell. He has to accept whatever I like and whatever I do."
"Get rid of justice. That's a common request." The shopkeeper enters that into a computer at the counter.
"I want a God that I can see and touch, one that I know is there."
The shopkeeper removed "infinite" from the list, and added "100% physical" under the "Limitations" category.
"I want a God who will bless me, but punish those who do me dirty." More keyboarding from the shopkeeper.
This went on for a few more rounds, then the shopkeeper said, "just give us a few minutes to produce your god for you."
After a few minutes, a hunk of white plaster appears in a curtained window behind the shopkeeper. It resembled a poorly chiseled statue of what could've been humanoid at one point.
"It doesn't look as nice as the rest of your gods," the customer remarked.
"No, custom orders rarely do. This was made to your specifications, though."
With that the transaction was completed, the statue was placed in a box, and the customer departed.
Some time later the customer returned with the ugly plastic statue. "I want to return this."
"What's wrong, sir? Doesn't it meet your requirements?"
"No, it does not. I asked it for enough money to pay off my debts, and to give me a new Porsche. It never showed up!"
"Quite right, sir. You chose to remove 'omnipotence' rather early on in the process."
"When was that?"
"Well, sir, no physical statue can have omnipotence. That was removed as soon as you placed your order."
"It also doesn't provide me any sense of love."
"No, sir, you removed that option as well."
"Don't you have any guarantee for these things?"
"We guarantee that all the items you wished didn't apply to God be removed. For many of the benefits to work, though, several unpopular options must be retained."
"So why didn't my god zap that guy who cut me off the other day?"
The shopkeeper tapped a few keys on his computer. "Oh, yes, that driver. It seems he purchased a god very similar to yours. It allowed nothing to go bad for him. That blocked your god from doing anything to him."
"That's not what I wanted!"
"Sorry, sir, but that requires the Justice option, which neither of you chose to keep."
"Okay, okay. What god do you have that has any sort of real guarantee?"
"Just the one, true God, without modifications."
"Can I read the feature set and guarantee first?"
"Of course, sir. In fact, you may keep a copy."
With that the shopkeeper hands him the Bible.
Consider †his: God is God, and we are not. God is not subject to our demands. He is not under our authority. We are under His authority. We can accept Him or reject Him. We cannot make Him into our own image and expect Him to still be God.
God chooses to reveal Himself in ways that are incompatible with our own logic and demands. He has that right. He loves us enough to reveal Himself through the Bible, but even that refuses to meet our rigorous 21st century demands of accountability. Does that make the Bible wrong, or does that make our demands wrong?
God is under no obligation whatsoever to meet our demands. We can take Him or leave Him just as He is. Why not take Him as He is? He'll take you as you are.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Unicorns and Atheists
According to some individuals, I must be doing something right, because I'm being "attacked" for my belief in God.
Well, maybe not attacked as much as pestered by some atheists. (Oh, and somebody who appeared to be aligned with Westboro Baptist, but that's another story.)
In one of my recent but rare posts, somebody started to debate, as he has done on Twitter since he found out about me, the truth of the Bible, or the lack thereof. Considering he consistently refers to the Bible as a "storybook" or "fairytales" (the lack of space is his), I think I can discern that he's not going to consider anything I say that might weaken his position.
I'm okay with that.
That in itself is a miracle, since I tend to have very little tolerance for the arrogant, especially when they claim the proverbial "moral high ground" and call me "arrogant." But that's not the point.
The point is that he compared the Bible to a book about unicorns.
I deleted his comment, because it was drifting too far off of the topic of the host post, and I want this blog to be a safe haven to discuss the Bible and God. I will not accept otherwise. However, I sense that maybe it's time to address a major question that it brings up to me:
What is it with atheists and unicorns?!?
This isn't my first time dealing with an atheist. When I was a supervisor over at WikiAnswers, I chose not to block one irritating "contributor" who always was trolling for a fight. Like this new guy, he threw some stuff from his apparently Catholic upbringing at me and virtually "dared" me to defend it or not. His take on the Bible was that it "couldn't" be right, because it refers to unicorns.
Did you know that unicorns are Biblical? Atheists do, it seems.
Of course, the word "unicorn" probably won't appear in modern translations, but it appears 6 times in the King James Version, specifically in Numbers 23:22, Numbers 24:8, Job 39:9-10, Psalm 29:6, and Psalm 92:10. What these people choose to avoid, of course, is noting that the Hebrew word used there is now better known to refer to a wild bull or ox. They apparently didn't know that in the 17th century, though, so they chose instead to use the word "unicorn."
And that, apparently, is enough to throw the whole thing out. Of course, nobody studies the Bible to update it … never mind that the ESV and NIV both use "wild ox" in place of "unicorn."
The problem is that the atheist sees only what he wants to see, even if it's unicorns in a universe of unchanging ignorance.
The more recent reference to unicorns dealt not with this passage (thank you, sir), but rather with the credibility of the "storybook" known as the Bible. He claims it's no different than saying a book about unicorns is reliable.
So how would you handle this type of situation? Would you study unicorns, or God's Word? How do you support what you believe?
(Oh, and a quick note to the fellow who went off about unicorns: go ahead & post it here. This time it's fair game, even with a closed mind.)
Update: I just found an awesome article from Creation Science Evangelism that explains, even better, why the Bible mentions unicorns. It most certainly educated me; I'm sure it will you, too!
Well, maybe not attacked as much as pestered by some atheists. (Oh, and somebody who appeared to be aligned with Westboro Baptist, but that's another story.)
In one of my recent but rare posts, somebody started to debate, as he has done on Twitter since he found out about me, the truth of the Bible, or the lack thereof. Considering he consistently refers to the Bible as a "storybook" or "fairytales" (the lack of space is his), I think I can discern that he's not going to consider anything I say that might weaken his position.
I'm okay with that.
That in itself is a miracle, since I tend to have very little tolerance for the arrogant, especially when they claim the proverbial "moral high ground" and call me "arrogant." But that's not the point.
The point is that he compared the Bible to a book about unicorns.
I deleted his comment, because it was drifting too far off of the topic of the host post, and I want this blog to be a safe haven to discuss the Bible and God. I will not accept otherwise. However, I sense that maybe it's time to address a major question that it brings up to me:
What is it with atheists and unicorns?!?
This isn't my first time dealing with an atheist. When I was a supervisor over at WikiAnswers, I chose not to block one irritating "contributor" who always was trolling for a fight. Like this new guy, he threw some stuff from his apparently Catholic upbringing at me and virtually "dared" me to defend it or not. His take on the Bible was that it "couldn't" be right, because it refers to unicorns.
Did you know that unicorns are Biblical? Atheists do, it seems.
Of course, the word "unicorn" probably won't appear in modern translations, but it appears 6 times in the King James Version, specifically in Numbers 23:22, Numbers 24:8, Job 39:9-10, Psalm 29:6, and Psalm 92:10. What these people choose to avoid, of course, is noting that the Hebrew word used there is now better known to refer to a wild bull or ox. They apparently didn't know that in the 17th century, though, so they chose instead to use the word "unicorn."
And that, apparently, is enough to throw the whole thing out. Of course, nobody studies the Bible to update it … never mind that the ESV and NIV both use "wild ox" in place of "unicorn."
The problem is that the atheist sees only what he wants to see, even if it's unicorns in a universe of unchanging ignorance.
The more recent reference to unicorns dealt not with this passage (thank you, sir), but rather with the credibility of the "storybook" known as the Bible. He claims it's no different than saying a book about unicorns is reliable.
So how would you handle this type of situation? Would you study unicorns, or God's Word? How do you support what you believe?
(Oh, and a quick note to the fellow who went off about unicorns: go ahead & post it here. This time it's fair game, even with a closed mind.)
Update: I just found an awesome article from Creation Science Evangelism that explains, even better, why the Bible mentions unicorns. It most certainly educated me; I'm sure it will you, too!
Sunday, January 02, 2011
Quick News Note
Since this just came up, it's probably time to note and remind the readers of a few important rules of the blog.
The biggest thing to note here is that, regardless of what others may think, this blog assumes the validity of the Bible. Comments about things outside of the Bible are OK. Intimidation and mocking this belief is not OK and will result in deletion of the comment(s) and potential user blocking. The decision is mine, and is effectively final. I do try to "play fair," but I will not permit intimidation and mockery, as it stifles true discussion about the points under consideration here.
Anyone with an honest question need not fear action being taken against them or their comments. Anyone who has already decided that anything relating to any sort of "god" is ridiculous can find other blogs or areas to harass people.
Okay, I guess that was only one rule. Sorry I can't count.
The biggest thing to note here is that, regardless of what others may think, this blog assumes the validity of the Bible. Comments about things outside of the Bible are OK. Intimidation and mocking this belief is not OK and will result in deletion of the comment(s) and potential user blocking. The decision is mine, and is effectively final. I do try to "play fair," but I will not permit intimidation and mockery, as it stifles true discussion about the points under consideration here.
Anyone with an honest question need not fear action being taken against them or their comments. Anyone who has already decided that anything relating to any sort of "god" is ridiculous can find other blogs or areas to harass people.
Okay, I guess that was only one rule. Sorry I can't count.
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