Merry Christmas!

But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:10-11 (NIV)

Quote of the Day

"About 1340 Petrarch climbed a mountain, Mount Ventoux, in the south of France just to climb it -- something new."

- Francis Schaeffer in his book "How Should We Then Live"

Is God Blowing Bubbles?

H.G. Wells wrote an intriguing story entitled "The Island of Dr. Moreau". In it, Dr. Moreau is a scientist whose desire is to create human beings out of animals. On a small island in the middle of the Pacific, he experiments on one animal after another, each time trying to make something that is a little more human. He performs surgery on the creatures to change their appearance and mannerisms to become somewhat human like, then teaches them to speak and therefore think as humans. However, his experiments go terribly wrong as the Beast Men, as his creatures are called, revert back to their animal ways and end up being the cause of his death and destruction.

The story is narrated by Prendick, a man who, through various circumstances, becomes stranded on the island with Moreau, Moreau's assistant Montgomery, and the Beast Men. It is through his eyes that we see the tale of unfold. At first he knows nothing of what is occurring on the island, but he soon learns and finds he has no choice but to trust Moreau, even though he is repulsed by what Moreau is doing. Wells painted Dr. Moreau as being the "god" of his island. Dr. Moreau creates the beings that populate the island in "his" image, gives them laws to live by, and punishes them when they fail to follow those laws. After Moreau is killed by one of his creatures, the other Beast Men see that he is dead, but in order to maintain order Prendick informs them that he is not really dead, but has merely changed his shape for a time. He tells them, "'For a time you will not see him. He is...there'--I pointed upward--'where he can watch you. You cannot see him. But he can see you. Fear the Law.'" Is this not the very thing that we are taught about our own God? That he is "up there" somewhere and is watching us, so we should fear him and obey his law? The "god" Moreau even has a priest to preach his rules to the Beast Men. There is a certain gray-haired Beast Man that is known as the "Sayer of the Law". This law gives a list of things that they should not do, such as crawl on all fours, suck up drink as animals, or eat flesh or fish. It also includes sayings about Moreau, their creator, such as "His is the Hand that makes," "His is the Hand that wounds," "His is the Hand that heals," "His is the lightning-flash," "His is the deep salt sea," and "His are the stars in the sky." If this is not the description of a god, I don't know what is.

However, this god that Wells created has no room in his heart for love or mercy. He cares nothing for his creatures' pain. He creates them in pain to live out a life of agony as he forces them to follow laws that directly go against their innate animal desires. They have strong urges to follow their animal desires, and yet are bound by the laws he gave them to make them more human, like him. Everything Dr. Moreau does is merely to satisfy himself and his own whims and curiosity, with no real reason behind what he is doing. Prendick makes the observation that once the creatures were created in the laboratory, suffering through intense pain during that process, their tortures didn't end there as they were released to live on the island and made to continue in a life of agony. "Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not understand; their mock-human existence began in an agony, was one long internal struggle, one long dread of Moreau--and for what?" H.G. Wells seems to be trying to make an analogy of our own existence. We are created by God in his image, we have sinful human desires but are given a moral law that is meant to restrict those desires and make us more like God and to live more in conformity to his nature. Wells' idea seems to be that God created us merely to make us suffer through our lives following this law as Dr. Moreau did his Beast Men--for no real reason. Is our existence really as pitiful as Moreau's Beast Men? Why did he create us in the first place? Does God really care for us?

Montgomery, one of the characters in Wells' book, asks, "Are we bubbles blown by a baby?" This seems to be the very question that H. G. Wells is putting to the reader: "Is the god who made us merely playing with us? An infantile creature who could care less about the bubbles that he creates and then pops, merely to satisfy his own whim?"

Cause, Effect, or Affect?

The following may not have much coherence or make much sense, but please bear with me. I am thinking "out loud".

I heard a speaker the other night say that, since Jesus has authority over all of history, he caused the bad things that happened, including the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Does God cause bad things, or does he allow them to happen? And if he allows them to happen, does that mean that he is not in complete control? Are the bad things things that God does since he controls everything, or are they the result of the evil in this world and our fallen, sinful human nature? The Bible says that God works things out for the good of those who love Him, but does that mean that he takes the bad situations that we cause and uses them for good, or does that mean that he causes the bad things and still uses them for good? A god that caused bad things to happen to the people he created does not seem like a very loving god, but more like a child with a magnifying glass killing ants on a sidewalk for the fun of it. There are also situations where something that we perceive as being bad at the time ends up being a very good thing when we look back on it, although perhaps not something that is on the same scale as the World Trade Center attack. Are large scale "bad" things viewed differently by God than things that we see as being on a smaller scale, such as loosing a job or a loved one?

Genesis 50:20: "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." That is what Joseph said to his brothers after they sold him into slavery and he ended up being able to save all Egypt from being victims of a terrible famine. Did God make the brothers sell Joseph, or did he just use the situation without causing it in the first place? If he made the brothers sell Joseph, doesn't that mean that he didn't allow them free will?

When Job is suffering from intense illness and the loss of his children and all his possessions, his wife comes up to him and tells him to "Curse God and die!" Job replies, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" (Job 2:10) In Job's story, God does not cause the bad things that happen to Job, but instead allows the devil to do them to Job, with set limitations. Is this how things really happen? If so, the devil influences people, and not God, to do bad things and God allows them to do those things. However, people still have the ability to make the choices for themselves and have free will and can only be influenced.

God could cause things to happen that influence our decisions by influencing the decisions of others in a very complicated web of influence and decision making. But he would also know what those decisions ended up being in advance since he is beyond the restraints of time. I once heard it said that when we make a choice to follow God, it is like us choosing to open a door and God is on the other side saying "I have chosen you." So does God use our choices, and causes things to happen that make these choices work out the way he wants them in the end?

It is all very confusing...and I think my brain is about to explode. I think it is safe to say that God is much bigger than I am, and it is a good thing that he understands everything, because I definitely don't.

An Arachniphobe's Nightmare

A state park in northern Texas is home to a recent phenomenon that will send shivers up the spines of any sane, spider-fearing citizen. There is a network of spiderwebs enveloping several trees and bushes along a 200 yard long stretch of trail within the park. It seems that this giant network of web-spinners is very rare and entomologists have yet to discover what has caused these particular spiders to do what they have done. Being an avid spider fearer/hater myself, I found watching a video of the phenomenon to be rather disturbing. There was one part in particular that caused me great worry. At the end of the video, a lady had one of the eight-legged construction workers of terror crawling on her hand and she was calmly asking it if it was going to bite her. I wanted to tell her, no, yell at her to drop it, kill it, squash it, and run! That is one part of nature that I have no desire to experience. I will postpone any further plans to travel to Texas or any portion of the southern United States until those...things...are gone. Until further notice, I am moving to the Arctic, the only place of safety on earth where there are no insects or arachnids of any shape, size, or form.

First Hurricane of the 2007 Season

Hurricane Dean is quickly spinning towards the Gulf Coast as the first Atlantic hurricane of the year. It has already devastated several of the islands in the Caribbean and is predicted to make landfall in eastern Texas, a region that just endured tropical storm Erin and has sustained heavy rains and flooding throughout the year. Flooding is definitely a potential problem in this area as Dean brings more heavy rains.

All of this seems so far away as I look out the window and listen to the lightly falling rain outside. To me, it is refreshing and pleasant, but to the people in Texas and throughout the Caribbean, it is a hazard that they could definitely do without.

Update: It looks as though Texas will miss the brunt of this storm...but still be praying for those in this storms path as it tracks through Mexico. Also pray for those in the Caribbean who have already experienced the strength of Dean as they repair their homes and the lives that were so rudely interrupted.

Reeeassons

There are so many times when I wonder "why me?" or "why now?". I am of the opinion, though, that nothing happens that does not have a reason. We do not know at the time what that reason may be and, in fact, we may never know, but, nevertheless, there is one. When I have an experience that makes me want to just crawl into bed, cry uncontrollably, and pity myself like there is no tomorrow, I have to remind myself that there is a reason and I do not have to live in a hopeless state. When I lose a loved one for seemingly no reason, when I make a decision that seems to be completely wrong at the time, or whenever life seems to fall down around me, it definitely helps to know that life is not just a pointless random sequence of events but rather a meaningful story with many minor characters and plots along the way that are all woven together into one beautiful, if not sometimes tragic, tale, much like a Charles Dickens novel. Who is there who can say that the experiences that seem tragic right now will not make them stronger and able to live life to the fullest in the future or to help someone in a way for which only that experience would equip them. I find myself looking back at some of the more difficult times of my life thus far and seeing that, as bad as they were, good did come from them in the end. There are still many times that I look back on and wonder "why?", but I have to be content with the fact that I may never, and probably will not ever, know the answer.

Killing Them Softly

Since I have been so lax in posting for the last several months (in fact, it has been almost half a year!!!) I have decided to post something I wrote some time ago, but never posted. Life and death and the line between the two have been on my mind a lot lately, and so this post is still very relevant to me at this time.

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A very hot topic in our society today is that of euthenasia or physician assisted suicide. Should people be allowed to request the doctor to put them out of their misery?

There are pros and cons on each side. First of all, nobody wants to go on living in pain, but should that be a reason to kill someone? We put dogs out of their misery when they are dying and are in pain, but should be be able to do the same thing to people? Personally, I think that people's lives are worth so much more than that of any dog. God made people, not animals, in his image and it is people, not animals, that he sent his Son to die for. People and their lives are infinitely precious, but when you do not see it from a spiritual viewpoint and you believe that we are really no better than animals and we evolved through natural selection exactly the same way that the animals did, that argument goes out the window. If you don't believe in God and don't believe that human life is precious since God made it that way, there is no reason to keep people alive.

There is also the argument that each person should have control over not only their life and their health, but also their death. People get to have input in pretty much everything having to do with their health. However, people did not create people. People do not get to choose how or when they come into the world, should they be able to then choose how they leave it?

People say that if a person is mentally ill or is depressed and they want to have their life ended they shouldn't be allowed to. Why? Shouldn't they still have control over their life since it is their's and they are basically animals anyway. Why should we care if they choose to end their own life prematurely. Even if they are not in pain physically, emotional pain can hurt excruciatingly, so shouldn't they be allowed to be put out of their misery, too? They say that those receiving the physician assisted suicide would be going to die anyway, but aren't all people going to die anyway sooner or later? What if they desire for it to be sooner, much sooner, than it most likely would have been if they had allowed it to happen naturally?

Making doctors who are supposed to be physicians and healers into killers is also a disturbing thought. They are supposed to be doing all they can to help you and save your life, not end it. Giving them the power over life and death is not what is supposed to happen. Only God should have that power. Anything that is done to end one's life is final and has eternal consequences. Once you are dead you are dead. There is no turning back once the act is taken. If we are to love others, why are we to take away their life, even if they ask us to. Life is the most precious possession any of us have here on earth. If Bill Gates was told that he could either keep his billions of dollars and die or give it up and live, I am pretty sure that he would choose life. Life is something that no one other than God, the creator and supreme ruler, should be able to take away from a person.

Spiderman 3

Yesterday morning, at approximately 12:06AM, I had the priviledge of being one of the first Americans to see the latest blockbuster, Spiderman 3. I had seen and loved both of its predecessors, so needless to say I had high hopes for this movie. It met and exceeded my expectations.

I am a person who doesn't like to be merely entertained but wants to be challenged and to over think things that aren't supposed to be. Spiderman 3 is one of those movies that may seem like it is just entertainment and a good flick for wasting an afternoon, but as I often do I saw so much more than that.

One of the new villains introduced in the movie was an alien being known as Venom. Venom would latch onto a host as a parasite and would then bring out the worst in that host. When it found Peter Parker, it became his new black Spidey suit. Whenever he would wear the suit he not only became more powerful, he became a rude, obnoxious beast of a man. Normally subdued, nice, friendly Peter suddenly was the man of the hour who would do what he wanted, say what he wanted, and be the last person anyone would want to be around. Likewise, when Peter tore the suit from himself after he became disgusted by his own behavior and saw how it was hurting those both himself and those around him, Venom then latched itself onto photographer Eddie (played by Topher Grace) and brought out his inner evil as well. He would do anything he could to kill Spiderman/Peter Parker. But, contrary to Peter's eventual throw away of Venom and it's evil, Eddie embraced it and, when given the chance to be rid of it, he would not let go and instead held onto it even though it meant his doom and his death. He didn't want to let go of the power that it gave him and the good feeling that he got from it. Peter Parker admitted that it felt good to wear the Venom suit, but he was able to give it up when he realized that it was destroying him. When he tried to save Eddie from his eventual fate, though, Eddie would not listen. It felt too good and gave him too much power that he wasn't ready to get rid of.

Venom could very well be Satan and sin. It latches onto us and brings out the worst in us, a sinful nature that is already innate in us. It destroys us and hurts those around us, and yet it feels good because it means that "we" are in power and we can do whatever we want no matter the consequences. We have two choices of what do do with the venom that infects us: give it up with God's help or keep it and go to our death holding on until the very end. The vibration of the bell and pipes was the only thing that could defeat Venom and keep it in check. Likewise, God is the only one that can save us from our sin and keep it in check. Without him we can work at pulling the sinful suit off as much as we please, but it won't do a thing. Once we pull one part off, it latches onto another part of us. We can't be rid of it.

You never thought Spiderman was so theological, did you?