I just read a quote on Facebook that said "The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil." I disagree. Good and evil refers to things of a moral nature. Wisdom doesn't always deal with moral nature. Wisdom is "knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action." A judge who is deemed wise will "make the right call" or do the correct thing. This correct thing, for it to be wise, must be correctly justified. In other words, wisdom is sound judgment or good sense. Sound judgment is needed in more than moral decisions.
Sound judgment goes by another name, reason. So, wisdom is really reason, or good reason.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Pick a Topic
You can tell what's important to someone by the kind of topics they gravitate toward in conversation. I often will bring up theology or music in conversation. One can probably tell that these subjects are important to me just from reading this blog.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Fame!
Everyone wants to be famous, to see their name in lights, to be loved by tons of people, to be iconic.
I wanna be famous.
Why? For me, I think being famous means you did something or were somebody.
We all want to have a legacy for this reason.
The desire for fame seems to be rooted in conceit. It is completely self-serving, even if the method to becoming famous is by helping others. Their true motive distorts any other motive.
The desire for fame is a beautiful poison.
I wanna be famous.
Why? For me, I think being famous means you did something or were somebody.
We all want to have a legacy for this reason.
The desire for fame seems to be rooted in conceit. It is completely self-serving, even if the method to becoming famous is by helping others. Their true motive distorts any other motive.
The desire for fame is a beautiful poison.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
The Correlation Of Morality and Order: A Criticism of Postmodern Thought
Some people see the horrible, monstrous acts of mankind and can fathom how people could do such things. It's so easy to grow numb to morality, though. This brings up an excellent point: does morality make us human? An act that is deemed "inhumane" is never a moral act. Yet, I believe that I'm innately evil due to my sinful nature. Interesting!
Now, I've come upon this thought in numerous ways in my life. Every time, I discover the same thing: humans are living contradictions. We are built to desire order, yet we act chaotically. We want to be moral, yet we act immorally. Paul talks about this saying, " I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." Again, interesting.
I see this fight for order best displayed in little children. Young children desire order but act chaotically. They long for structure, but struggle to fit into it. What a strange phenomenon! Like I said, humans are walking contradictions.
One might notice that I grouped order in with morality. This is not to say that chaos is a totally evil thing. Perhaps it is, but I don't feel that I'm someone who can rightfully make that call. I just want to make the seemingly obvious connection between morality and order. A lot of things in morality are set up to keep some sort of order. Killing, rape, and stealing goes against the order of our world because it harms others. The same could be said about adultery and coveting. This brings down the system of order. It harms.
The next part is the most difficult portion of the connection to understand: love and "venial sins." Venial sins, according to some doctrines, are the lesser sins. I must preface this by saying, I don't believe in venial sins. The Bible says "the wages of sin is death." It didn't specify that it was certain sins that lead to death. No, it just said "sin." My reasoning is that if all sins lead to death, then there really is no difference between different sins. All are deadly. That verse goes onto say, "that the gift of God is eternal life." After reading up on this saving gift of God, one will find that it was done purely out of love - God's love for humanity. Love is a big deal to God. It is God's quintessential attribute. And it was Jesus's greatest command: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
At this point, I must explain the link between "venial sins" and love. The postmodern church, along with a lot of other postmodern minds, disregard these "venial sins." For example, the postmodern church doesn't believe that swearing is really a sin. The more effective way of describing their view on this is that swearing isn't that big of a deal. It's a venial sin (though I doubt they would ever use that term.) Their reasoning seems very logical. It goes back to the correlation between morality and order. Swearing really doesn't disrupt the order. It doesn't harm. Therefore, they don't see it as immoral. This makes sense except for the first part of Jesus's greatest commandment "Love the Lord your God." Jesus says that "if you love me, you will obey me." This doesn't say anything about reasoning for sin. Jesus didn't say "if you love me, you will obey me if it makes sense."
I think the main problem of following God's commands without knowing the reasoning is that it seems to lean towards the behavior of a Pharisee. On the contrary, I believe that truly following Jeus's command goes against the previously explained postmodern thought and the Pharisees' dead religion. Both lack love in certain ways. The problem with the Pharisees was they were following a religion that they lacked love. If I was to give a description of a modern Pharisee, I would probably describe Christians who hate the sinner and the sin, instead of loving the sinner. These people see the Christian doctrine as God and rules can replace God. "If righteousness could be attained through the law, then Christ died for nothing!" Here is where we fail. We see people worshipping the rules so we start to look negatively at the rules. Rules are still important. The law is still important. But we see people misunderstanding the purpose of the rules and start to regect the rules. I think its funny that the problem with conservatives and liberals in Christianity is the same thing - mistreatment of God's rules.
The best way I've found to understand this is to look at God in a fatherly role. What does a father want for his children pertaining rules? A father wants his children to obey the rules out of love and respect for him. Well, it seems that one child obeys the rules just to look good to the father or to avoid punishment or to get something from the father or because they value rules more than the rulemaker. This is not what the father would want. Not one of those reasons involve obeying out of love. Now, it seems another child obeys the father's rules because he/she loves him. The only problem is that this child only obeys certain rules, one he/she agrees with. This is not what the father wants either. He wants the child's love, but part of that love is TOTAL obedience even when it doesn't make sense. For surely, this father has a reason to have each and every rule. Sometimes, a father's reasoning is far above the child's. He is older and much wiser. This is the way it is with God.
Now, I've come upon this thought in numerous ways in my life. Every time, I discover the same thing: humans are living contradictions. We are built to desire order, yet we act chaotically. We want to be moral, yet we act immorally. Paul talks about this saying, " I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." Again, interesting.
I see this fight for order best displayed in little children. Young children desire order but act chaotically. They long for structure, but struggle to fit into it. What a strange phenomenon! Like I said, humans are walking contradictions.
One might notice that I grouped order in with morality. This is not to say that chaos is a totally evil thing. Perhaps it is, but I don't feel that I'm someone who can rightfully make that call. I just want to make the seemingly obvious connection between morality and order. A lot of things in morality are set up to keep some sort of order. Killing, rape, and stealing goes against the order of our world because it harms others. The same could be said about adultery and coveting. This brings down the system of order. It harms.
The next part is the most difficult portion of the connection to understand: love and "venial sins." Venial sins, according to some doctrines, are the lesser sins. I must preface this by saying, I don't believe in venial sins. The Bible says "the wages of sin is death." It didn't specify that it was certain sins that lead to death. No, it just said "sin." My reasoning is that if all sins lead to death, then there really is no difference between different sins. All are deadly. That verse goes onto say, "that the gift of God is eternal life." After reading up on this saving gift of God, one will find that it was done purely out of love - God's love for humanity. Love is a big deal to God. It is God's quintessential attribute. And it was Jesus's greatest command: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
At this point, I must explain the link between "venial sins" and love. The postmodern church, along with a lot of other postmodern minds, disregard these "venial sins." For example, the postmodern church doesn't believe that swearing is really a sin. The more effective way of describing their view on this is that swearing isn't that big of a deal. It's a venial sin (though I doubt they would ever use that term.) Their reasoning seems very logical. It goes back to the correlation between morality and order. Swearing really doesn't disrupt the order. It doesn't harm. Therefore, they don't see it as immoral. This makes sense except for the first part of Jesus's greatest commandment "Love the Lord your God." Jesus says that "if you love me, you will obey me." This doesn't say anything about reasoning for sin. Jesus didn't say "if you love me, you will obey me if it makes sense."
I think the main problem of following God's commands without knowing the reasoning is that it seems to lean towards the behavior of a Pharisee. On the contrary, I believe that truly following Jeus's command goes against the previously explained postmodern thought and the Pharisees' dead religion. Both lack love in certain ways. The problem with the Pharisees was they were following a religion that they lacked love. If I was to give a description of a modern Pharisee, I would probably describe Christians who hate the sinner and the sin, instead of loving the sinner. These people see the Christian doctrine as God and rules can replace God. "If righteousness could be attained through the law, then Christ died for nothing!" Here is where we fail. We see people worshipping the rules so we start to look negatively at the rules. Rules are still important. The law is still important. But we see people misunderstanding the purpose of the rules and start to regect the rules. I think its funny that the problem with conservatives and liberals in Christianity is the same thing - mistreatment of God's rules.
The best way I've found to understand this is to look at God in a fatherly role. What does a father want for his children pertaining rules? A father wants his children to obey the rules out of love and respect for him. Well, it seems that one child obeys the rules just to look good to the father or to avoid punishment or to get something from the father or because they value rules more than the rulemaker. This is not what the father would want. Not one of those reasons involve obeying out of love. Now, it seems another child obeys the father's rules because he/she loves him. The only problem is that this child only obeys certain rules, one he/she agrees with. This is not what the father wants either. He wants the child's love, but part of that love is TOTAL obedience even when it doesn't make sense. For surely, this father has a reason to have each and every rule. Sometimes, a father's reasoning is far above the child's. He is older and much wiser. This is the way it is with God.
Pirate Shoes in Her Garden
One night I had a dream (as in a dream you have when you sleep) that I recalled today. The dream was quite bizarre. I dreamt that I had accidentally gotten a girl pregnant while I was sleeping. An older gentleman in the church that I was attending at the time, Roy Lincoln, warned me for some reason with a peculiar phrase: "Don't put your pirate shoes in her garden." In my dream, this made total sense. When I woke up, it didn't.
Anyway, there is no point to this story, though it did remind me of Roy Lincoln. Since then, he has passed away. He was a really great, simple guy who loved Jesus and people. R.I.P. Roy. You are missed.
Anyway, there is no point to this story, though it did remind me of Roy Lincoln. Since then, he has passed away. He was a really great, simple guy who loved Jesus and people. R.I.P. Roy. You are missed.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
New Love
I've recently fallen in love with these bands -
Margot and the Nuclear So & So's
Grizzly Bear
Oh, Sleeper
Margot and the Nuclear So & So's
Grizzly Bear
Oh, Sleeper
Big Dreamer, pt. II
I feel like my life, or life in general, is a book waiting to be written. Some people have a terrible writer's block. I feel like I have the opposite problem like I said before. I have to many things to write and a built-in sense of indecision that I can't shake.
Lack of action has always been a huge character flaw of mine (which reminds me of Hamlet, who had a similar fault.) I need to get over this. It's pathetic. Sometimes, I think I go down the path of least resistance. This is contradictory to my affinity for big dreaming. I see worlds to conquer but I back down like a gutless Napoleon. Weak!
These thoughts lead me to my problem with the story of Cinderella. I know - random. So, all Cinderella does is dream and she gets a "happily ever after." No work, just gets handed a magical opportunity and she takes it. A Cinderella story is ideal, but is completely stupid as a mentality. Do I have that mentality? Perhaps. I see a great path and like what I see. I plan to walk it wholeheartedly. When it comes time to act, I don't follow through or do briefly but eventually just give up or forget about it. Pathetic.
I'm beginning to change. My switch to becoming a vegetarian and sticking with it is my first step to a much-needed transformation. So, is this blog. :)
Lack of action has always been a huge character flaw of mine (which reminds me of Hamlet, who had a similar fault.) I need to get over this. It's pathetic. Sometimes, I think I go down the path of least resistance. This is contradictory to my affinity for big dreaming. I see worlds to conquer but I back down like a gutless Napoleon. Weak!
These thoughts lead me to my problem with the story of Cinderella. I know - random. So, all Cinderella does is dream and she gets a "happily ever after." No work, just gets handed a magical opportunity and she takes it. A Cinderella story is ideal, but is completely stupid as a mentality. Do I have that mentality? Perhaps. I see a great path and like what I see. I plan to walk it wholeheartedly. When it comes time to act, I don't follow through or do briefly but eventually just give up or forget about it. Pathetic.
I'm beginning to change. My switch to becoming a vegetarian and sticking with it is my first step to a much-needed transformation. So, is this blog. :)
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