Good for the Soul
I went to two services yesterday – morning and evening – in different churches and heard two sermons which complemented each other and helped refresh my soul. They were about improving things in 2010, and as the old song goes, “All good gifts around us are sent from Heaven above… so thank the Lord for all His love.” Actually, we didn’t sing this one at either service!
The message was that we should not just believe in God, nor just try to obey Him, but to love Him. It sounds simple, until perhaps we examine our own lives.
At the end of the evening service, three teenage boys turned up, wanting to wish us Happy New Year for some reason. Maybe they were aiming to get their hands on the collection plate, or perhaps, like so many others of their generation, they are looking for meaning in their lives and answers to the questions nobody else can give them. I can fully understand their angst living in a society that teaches them they are nothing more than descendants of pond slime, that gives them a third-rate education (I blame the government, not the teachers), that tells them that Allah and his suicide bombers are equal to Almighty God and those who will be redeemed through Christ, and that gives them all they need to have ’safer sex’ – but omits to explain the spiritual and emotional aspects that can reduce them to despair.
I have met so many adults who have been through the alcohol/drugs/sex/gambling/(insert your vice here) black hole and thankfully come out the other side, and they realise that none of these things was able to fill the ‘God-shaped hole’ in their hearts.
But few in the secular world now dare tell the children.
Which is very sad, especially since our society allegedly does everything these days for the children. It is baloney, of course. What these youngsters really need is to have wisdom, good role models, and most importantly, a love for God. Come the General Election, which political party will you trust on the issue of giving comfort to the soul?
Yet, there are others who will read the kind of sentiment you express and feel hope drain from them.
???
? me no ?s.
Your message could not be better-intentioned by your lights. Just saying, there are those who have different views of what human progress could be – and what you, and many others who think as you do, say may bring some of them just a little closer to the edge of giving up.
Why are they close to giving up in the first place? Because there isn’t enough joy and hope in this cruel godless world being constructed. Surely things were harder in the past, but their faith and hope carried them on.
I presume this is true for the UK too, but in Australia, suicides have gone up in proportion to church attendances going down. Coincidence?
I’ve seen what secular humanists’ views of human progress is and it’s not progress – it is tyranny.
Like I said, I know many people who have tried to find joy in the things of the world: things that can never satisfy. Only God can fill that God-shaped hole. It is what many people are missing.
Oh, for ***** sake, Stewart, why can’t you accept that people are different? We’re never going to be a homogenous race of God-fearing, abstinence-loving, teetotal hetrosexuals. Just because you think you’re happy with one lifestyle, it doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t be happy with ours.
You’re not in our heads, you’re not in our lives – so you don’t know.
I was just wondering about you a short time ago, Andrew. Haven’t seen you around. Hope you have a great year.
(You may remember that sweary words mean the comment gets held for moderation.)
Anyway, what’s got your hackles up?
I’m not calling for teetotality (is this a word?). What I am saying is that drinking can be a vice. It was with me. A big one – one that deprived me of many things. Nobody could be happy with the sort of lifestyle I had.
You’re not in our heads, you’re not in our lives – so you don’t know.
Ah, but I know from the experiences of many others.
Why are they close to giving up in the first place?
Because they despair of what they see as the mindlessness of the human race and the pointlessness of existence. Probably we agree on that. But for those for whom religion is not only not an option, rather just another symptom of that mindlessness, only signs that human aspiration and wisdom are advancing could provide any hope.
Well, Jim, I would say that blind adherence to religion isn’t a recipe for success. I know we don’t agree on everything, but I’m sure you agree I am not mindless or uncritical.
Why do you say religion is not an option for some?
Stewart,
I certainly do agree about that in your case. I have known quite a few religious people who react violently to any disagreement with their beliefs, just as you have known atheists to do. You and I are not such people, which is why I continue, and expect will continue, to find your blog and our exchanges interesting. If you were just a ‘religious nut’ I’d leave you to it and would probably not in any case be welcome on your site – something I have never had cause to suspect. But for some, faith is certainly mindless, as is faith, for some, in empiricism. There again I suspect we can agree.
I think I said a while ago – in another place, to use Parliamentary language, that, personally, I consider religious belief to be by no means necessarily irrational (the circumlocutory less-than-faint-praise is quite deliberate). I re-iterate – I think religious belief saves a lot of people from total despair who would otherwise be at its mercy, and therefore cannot condemn it. I condemn those who appropriate it for personal, venal, political ends, as I know you do.
I say, ‘those for whom’ – I didn’t say ‘for me’. But, I, of course, regret that the relief from desolation that religion provides is necessary for so many having no religious beliefs myself. I think you’ve said in the past that atheists envy the serenity of the religious. That may be true, sometimes. It’s not true in my case. I don’t envy you. I don’t pity you either or think you a fool. I merely disagree with you.
Religion is not an option for some becuuse they are unable to experinence the spiritual and can experience only the temporal. I am one of the latter. Either there is something wrong with your brain or there is something wrong with mine. Neither of us can say.
Jim, your final sentence is refreshing. I’m used to discussing things with unbelievers on the likes of Dawkins’ blog and I’ve never heard such an admission there. They presume that theirs is the default position and that those who believe in the supernatural have something wrong with their brains (literally), even though believers (in something) are in the majority.
I try not to react violently, because, well, I’m not that way inclined anyway (Indigomyth might disagree!) and I have spent years in the wilderness myself, looking for answers. But, I don’t think genuine Christian believers tend to act violently. One of the tragedies of our multicultural mess is the mixing up of religions in people’s minds, so that when they see another suicide bomber, it strengthens their belief that religion should be banned.
I think you’ve said in the past that atheists envy the serenity of the religious.
I said something like that, I recall. We have hope. Personally, the prophecies for our time – these last days – although uncomfortable, are coming to pass, and so this also gives me comfort that the Lord’s return is indeed nigh, although I also know that persecution will increase beforehand – is increasing now. The global elites know it as well, which is why they have rebuilt the Tower of Babel in Strasbourg. I keep meaning to blog about that!
So, going back to your final sentence, all it takes is a ‘mustard seed’ of faith to get started, and even Dawkins has one of those, but he has stunted its growth so that it is still only a seed. The man’s main problem is pride.
There is an arrogance to Dawkins, to put it mildly, I agree. A good scientist is one who points out the strengths but also the weaknesses of any theory. It is for the religious to be evangelical, not the scientists. Hubble pointed out that if his red-shift theory is wrong then the cosmos may be a whole lot smaller than if the theory is correct. I call that being a good scientist. Dawkins could indeed do with a bit of humility.
As for the end of days – people have been predicting the end for two thousand years now Stewart. What makes us so special? Mind you, I noticed that report today about the star that, for all we know, might have blown up 3000 or so years ago, such that we will get the benefit anytime now. I had to smile. That’ll put ‘climate change’ in perspective eh? Al Gore will look pretty stupid then. What am I saying? He looks pretty stupid now.
Indeed, the end of the world has been predicted for ages. What makes us so special? Because the prophecies are coming true now. Because we have the capability to destroy the earth unlike no other time in history. Christians are beginning to be persecuted again all over the world. The Devil is having his greatest triumphs and stealing record numbers of souls with his lies.
What star is that you mentioned?
‘Because the prophecies are coming true now.’
Nah. Propehecies are always ‘coming true’. It’s in their nature to be interpretable just about any way you choose; bendable to fit any impressions. That’s why astrologers are and always have been so popular.
The star is about 3,000 light years away and has been belching fit to blow ever since we started watching it over a hundered years ago. It’s late for its latest eructation, about twenty years late. So, the next one could be the big one. It may fry us – another mass extinction event, though sea creatures might be OK. So, we can add that to the Yellowstone Caldera, asetroid stike, previous gamma ray bursts, and several other things that have wiped out 95% of life a few times now.
As I say, what’s new?
And as for the prophecies of persecution. Those were mere observations – the Romans rather took agin the Christians for a while – unusually for them because they were normally tolerant of local religious practices. It’s so much easier to suffer for your faith if you believe those inflicting the suffering will get it in the neck from God and you will be immortalised. Human nature.
Jim, maybe you could look at my reply to E.V. on the homeschooling post. There are very specific prophecies for the last days.
Thanks Stewart. OK, I’ve looked. Looks like the usual could-mean-anything therefore-means-nothing stuff to me. The gate to Hell is in Berlin? Er, where? The only gate I know in Berlin is a gate to Unter den Linden. Very smart it looks too now that it’s been cleaned up. There are bollards in place now so that nobody can drive through in an open-topped Mercedes and get big ideas.
Thanks Stewart. OK, I’ve looked. Looks like the usual could-mean-anything therefore-means-nothing stuff to me. The gate to Hell is in Berlin? Er, where? The only gate I know in Berlin is a gate to Unter den Linden. Very smart it looks too now that it’s been cleaned up. There are bollards in place so that nobody can drive through in an open-topped Mercedes and get big ideas.