Megan Wedding 2017

Megan Wedding 2017

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Self-Control

So today, my friend mentioned to me that he has disabled Facebook on his phone and deleted his account. He remarked that it has become an idol in his life and he doesn't want anything to do with it. 

This isn't the first time he has done this. He has made decisions like this before, previously getting rid of a smart phone altogether or deleting accounts. As he mentioned it this time, I thought of self-control. It is spoken of in the Bible. It is part of the fruit of the Spirit. And in 2 Timothy 1:7 it says, "For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." Self-control is also translated sound mind. 

Here's my point. I'm wondering at times how much we give God an opportunity to work in our life. Does my friend really need to disable and delete his Facebook account or does he rather need to learn to submit and surrender to God and say "Yes" to Him and "No" to those things that entangle him? I mean, would that not be allowing the Spirit of God to do a work in his life and give him (the Holy) spirit working of self-control in his life. By deleting Facebook, where does self-control now have a chance to succeed in his life? 

It is like these internet screening services or programs program that get installed on phones or for browsing. Doesn't this take the work of God and His power out of our life? How is self-control going to be manifested if we force remove our ability to sin? 

I don't know, sometimes I wonder if we are pushing the Holy Spirit out of his role in our life by setting up all of these safeguards so we really don't have to trust God. I mean, when was the last time you had to go without a meal because you couldn't afford it. So what sort of meaning really is "Give us this day our daily bread." 

Circle people around in a room and ask for prayer requests. #1 item that comes up are medical needs in America. Why? Because we've taken care of everything else in our lives. We've taken over control of everything else. But health continues to attack us despite our best efforts to have good jobs, nice homes, safe cars. And so for those reasons it is "God, help!" And the crazy thing is I don't even see these types of prayers often in the Bible. There are not many prayers in the Bible for better health, but instead the prayer is to accept what you have been given. It just feels like we are no different from those folks following Jesus around, just wanting to see him do a miracle when he just wants to share His eternal truth to us about having eternal life and living with him. But we are so fixated instead with what is in front of us. 

I just wonder. What are we doing? Are we taking God out? Are we giving the Holy Spirit a chance to work in us? I mean, wouldn't it be a greater testimony to say what we did is decided to trust God and allow His Spirit to work. "I got out of the way and God gave me the Self-control He promised to give me." That sounds better than I removed something from my phone or I added something that prevents me from going to a site.  

Sunday, April 09, 2023

Growing up on Bellehaven Court

I grew up living at 1705 Bellehaven Ct, the first house I remember, my folks moving there when I was approaching the age of 2. We stayed there till the summer of 1977 when at age 9, almost 10, we moved up to 1194 Bobcat Blvd. It was a move to the heights to a house my dad had built by Mr. Kaplan. But those 7 years at Bellehaven Court (feels longer) were a great experience. I guess my big memories from there are:

  • Christmas morning getting the pinball machine. It wasn't the fancy one from the arcade but one my folks got for us anyway. 
  • Cooking with my mom in the kitchen. 
  • Playing with T in our play room. 
  • My dad saying, "The wind is my friend."
  • Staying home from school and watching "Dialing for Dollars" on TV which was the afternoon showcase of movies. 
  • Playing 500 game with the kids on the street, at the end of the cul-de-sac. 
  • Getting babysat by all of the Reynold's kids, but mostly Mark and then Brian and I think their sister one or two times. The Reynolds moved across the arroyo to a bigger house. Seemed like a dream house to me. They had a shaggy dog. I was probably 5 when they moved from their house next door. 
  • Throwing rocks at the car with T and then getting punished by taking a bath. Car wash drying by my dad. 
  • Visits by the Jewel man, sitting on my mom's lap or next to her. 
  • Watching my mom put on her cosmetics in her bathroom. 
  • Birthday party in the garage with all of the neighborhood kids. 
  • Spending the night at Don's across the street and having Mrs. Faerber kissing me good night. 
  • Hanging out in Cindy and Missy's little house in their backyard. 
  • Cherry tree next door. And in Faerber's back yard.
  • Mr. Weeks and AB's visits. 
  • Playing hockey in our driveway. 
  • Putting my pillow in the freezer to get it cold.  
Well, just thought I'd start making a list of memories on Bellehaven growing up. 

New Atheism - A Survival Guide by Graham Veale - Chapters 1 and 2

New Atheism - A Survival Guide by Graham Veale

Chapter 1
- How to Slay a Spaghetti Monster -  Atheists are good at ridiculing the Christian's position of faith. They use this tactic all-to-often making it laughable that anyone would be a person of faith. They start with this and then take marks at certain points of faith, but they start with belittling the subject. They present that no rational human being would have a belief in God equating belief in God to a piece of pasta.

[In this world of tolerance it is interesting that the persecution of the church is rampant, possibly because people of faith put forth a division of secular-spiritual, Christian-non-Christian dichotomy of sorts. The world seems to be bent on the idea that all spiritual people are the same and to that end being religious is now an affront to this type of thinking. The world thinks that it is okay to be religious as long as everyone believes the same thing and religion is kind to society's ideals.]

Dawkins claims that since there is no rational evidence of God then the default belief holds true - atheism.

We are physical beings living in a physical universe, so does our knowledge of this universe rule out any transcendent and non-physical entities or is agnosticism (definition: existence of God unknowable) the only sensible conclusion? 

History teaches us to prefer simple explanations or hypothesis. Theism seems to be a simple hypothesis teaching that one God with limitless power is the foundation for everything that exists. It's not only simple but this explanation explains something about our universe. And theism seeks to explain things about the purposed activity in our universe -- why good and evil are real and present and the reason for suffering. Therefore, saying that the Flying Spaghetti Monster or a fairy tale or ghosts are an accurate comparison is incorrect because those things don't purport to define our universe.

Chapter 2 - Science falls into a Gap - Only a few heed the call by a prophet. When Moses parted the red sea, only a remnant followed him. In movies, a scientist often follows this path. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, a scientist (Richard Dreyfus) investigates UFO's; he sees something that others don't and comes upon a small relic of people gathering together to witness this encounter from aliens (not of this world). 

Why the shift in Hollywood and society to the scientist? The scientist became the problem-solver. Engineers and inventors brought about the machine, replacing the power of man and beast (horse) and the notion was that science rather than man began to answer more and more of our questions. Yet, science was still a product of man and didn't disprove religion; many saw it making religion unnecessary and atheism loved this.  

Scientism or Dogmatic Scientism is the belief or worldview that physical science answers every question or every eventual question. Scientism is more akin to philosophy than scientific theory. However, there is a difference between saying "science answers questions" and "science answers every question." Literature, history and philosophy teach that science does not explain everything.
  •     Are people only products of their environment, their genetics and life experiences? 
  •     Can people be held accountable for their actions? 
  •     Are we agents or persons that have purposes and can act on them or are we only products?
Science is impersonal. It is based on observation and as events occur, there is measurement of how events follow other events and this in turn helps explain events. For example, in determining Mars' (the planet) current location, there is the study of the solar system and where planets reside and also the law of gravity - to conclude and explain the location of mars. Yet people (agents) are personal, are  individuals and we don't observe one person's actions to then explain another person's actions or movements. 

Yet, some do think humans are not agents but instead a product of genetic nature, of a person's environment, and of a person's life experience. There is no choice in behavior, but rather events happen and as they do, we react and act. But, then how can a person be held accountable for their actions? 

An example of this comparison - scientific explanation vs personal explanation is from the movie Iron Giant about a robot that, sent to our planet to attack it but upon its arrival, hurts its skull and thus wipes out its programming.  A boy, Hogarth, who finds it, tries to hide it from the paranoid government but eventually the government catches up to the giant. In the struggle, Hogarth is knocked unconscious, but the giant thinks the boy is dead and this triggers his programming and he attacks those trying to seize him. Now the giant follows its programming to attack the planet. Then Hogarth comes back into the giant's life and tells him "You are who you choose to be!" The giant flies into an incoming missile, kills himself, but saves his friend and his friend's planet. So at one point the giant is at the mercy of his programming, but once he interacts with a human, the Giant acts as an agent and not a machine. 

God-of-the-Gaps
Thus far:
scientific explanations - explain events by appealing to impersonal laws and objects
agent explanations - appeal to the purposes and abilities of persons

Dawkins said in the past we appealed to religion to explain events we did not know about but now we can get answers solely from science because science defines and governs nature. Science explained God away. 

Think of Princess (Lady) Diana and the possible reasons for her death (car accident in an underpass by the River Seine) in 1997. Diana at the time was dating a Muslim man. British conservatism was horrified by their courtship. Both die in the crash. Complex conspiracy theories gave way to a simple explanation of a tragic accident. The evidence is complex and starts to seem irrational. In the first chapter, we said if a complex theory can be avoided it should be

After research, the conclusion was the driver had been drinking a lot, the passengers (Lady Di and boyfriend) were not wearing seat belts and the driver was trying to escape the paparazzi and drove dangerously. Thus, the hypothesis explains away the need for a complex conspiracy theory.

New Atheists believe that science now explains away any evidence for the existence of God. For example, Newton said God guaranteed the predictable order of the planets, but then LaPlace showed we don't need this hypothesis. William Paley believed that God designed the body plans of complex organisms, but Darwin could do this without divine tinkering. 

Key thought -- One explanation can explain another away only when the two explanations are incompatible. 

But theism and science are not incompatible. Our universe is ordered by a rational agent and the science proves this. In the example of Lady Di, the conspiracy theory speaks of the power of the media, but this helps to understand why the accident took place. Thus, they work together, and are not incompatible. Theism and science are compatible because theism encourages us to seek laws and mechanisms out; they are not in conflict.  

Explaining the Bloodlands

Hitler wanted to eliminate the Jews of Europe. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, wanted to eliminate Jews. He set up Belzec, in Poland, not as a concentration camp, but an extermination camp, where hundreds of thousands were transported to the gas chambers and die within a few hours of arrival. Himmler's opportunism does not explain away Hitler's responsibility for the Holocaust, rather they confirm it.


---- April 2023 -- I finally finished this book. Never did post this summary and obviously wish I would have done a summary on each chapter, but going ahead and submitting this.