THE BIG ONE! 3.0
cont.- from The Big One! 2.0
(start from the beginning- The Big One! 1.0)
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THE BIG ONE! 3.0
Final Weaknesses: to each case:
“Do Believe”- these are the main weaknesses and gaps in the argument FOR the Believers:
#1.- “If there truly IS a God who created us and the whole universe, and who loves us, how can you think that He would ever send any of us to Hell? What’s the difference between you and I for example?”--- I don’t know, I really don’t. It’s true that this doesn’t seem fair…… But look at this poor illustration: If you were able to create an entire, huge ant colony out of Play-Dough and not only did they just keep going about their business, ignoring you, but they started biting you, why would you go out of your way to save any of them?
#2.- “There is no proof at all. If someone could give any type of proof, even that a God is necessary for the existence of the Universe, I might consider.”--- Again, there is clearly a reason why these protests have spanned the test of time and may themselves be un-provable. Buy this question IS answerable, whether right of “not right”. Here is my reply: “The Proof is in the Pudding.” To the untrained (and unbelieving) eye, we are all just complex organisms living on a tiny rock that by random luck allows for evolutionary life, as we all float through an endless and meaningless….. expanse(?). However, those simple, naïve folks who claim that they know God, they talk with God, and that God lives INSIDE of them, are remarkably able to see God and the Characteristics of God in normal, everyday people, things and events. “Hey, that doesn’t sound half bad!” But all of this is contingent upon FAITH! “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”- Hebrews 11:1 (KJV). There you have it: If someone wants evidence, here it is: ME!!! My FAITH!!! My proof is in the pudding: in the fact that I can write so unabashedly, with such conviction and confidence about an insane concept that, sure, might be nice, but is an entirely un-provable, immeasurable “fantasy”!!.... “Foolishness!!!!”….. FAITH!!!
“Don’t Believe”- Now we’ll just look at the 1 main inherent weakness to this side: Why? Why-in-the-world, do some WANT to be right SOOOOO badly, when there’s no benefit whatsoever should they be right and there truly be nothing more?! Why the drive, why the hate, why the passion? It must only be a tremendous insecurity and need to be right, even when it doesn’t benefit that person. This drive to disprove a God is akin to this illustration: a frenzied crowd of bloodthirsty pirates is forcing 2 men to walk the plank with a sea boiling with man-eating great white sharks. The first guy walks to the end of the plank and his mind races desperately. “How can I get out of this?” “I could fight them all! Except my hands are bound, I have no weapons, and there are 50 of them….. I could talk them out of it! But I did kill the captain’s son, steal the gold from every one of them, and try to sink the ship…. GOD! Of course, God! Except that’s ridiculous. How could there ever be a God? Only a total imbecile idiot would EVER believe a God would save you if you simply ask! I’ve never seen proof of it and I would never stoop to that level! Well, f--- it, I guess I’ll die with pride!” He steps off the end of the plank, falls, and ……. Oooh, Yep, he was right! He sure did!! The second guy steps on the plank shaking his head. He too, has doubts about a God and Salvation, but he prided himself on being a logical man. He drops to his knees and lifts his face to the Heavens……… You get the point. Whether he was miraculously saved from his predicament or not, which guy took the more prudent course of action? Which course of action had the only favorable potential outcome? Which guy’s tenacity to “not be wrong” makes no sense whatsoever? Even when weighed against the laws of science or physics versus the “improbability” of a “supernatural” God, one man’s terror of being irrational made him make a curiously irrational choice. Could Choice and Freewill work to the benefit of both sides?!! Even removing the proposed spiritual nature of this act, and supposing the 2nd guy did fall to the sharks, I suppose his last thoughts were of the Heavenly glory he would visit in moments while the 1st guy may have been imagining what his own flesh would taste like to the sharks that would shred him in seconds…..gross! Surely, at times even the most skeptical and defiant human mind must admit, or at least wonder, if there are greater Laws at work here(?)(?).
THE RESULTS:
First of all, there is a major problem to resolve. “The Big One! 2.0” left the human race fallen short of the glory of God and worthy of death. While we treat each other as vibrant, unique hues and our actions vary only in their measure of “Grey-ness”, the grander scheme shows all of creation under the shadow of darkness and the souls of Humanity as dark and impure to the Pure, Perfect Creator and Judge. Fortunately, in an act of love which my mind can’t comprehend, our Creator and Judge also decided to be our Savior, by sending His own Son, Jesus, to die and pay “the wages” of our “Sin”. Therefore, all of Creation was Redeemed!.... if we only ASK. “…that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”-Romans 10:9. Therefore by this ultimate act of Love the God of the Universe wiped clean our transgressions and gave us the opportunity to be seen as Pure once more, simply by kneeling and humbly receiving.
But not all of creation will……..
For arguments sake, the World which WE SHARE may NOT be defined by Right and Wrong/ Black and White/ or Good and Evil. Still, my Faith in God, led by His Spirit within me, tells me that these elements exist and I will pattern my own life after these standards- but who am I to impose this stance on others? Advise, Yes. Influence, Yes. Impose, No. We all bear the weaknesses of Human nature and the very eyes through which I view the world are imperfect. How could I even know, absolutely know, what it is that I’m looking at? “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?” Matthew 7:4. However, this isn’t my World!! And I don’t feel that the God who created everything needs to be PC about this issue! God is perfect- totally perfect- totally Pure- totally Good- and anything less is unacceptable! So then How, when, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), can any Human ever earn Salvation? They can’t. It’s impossible. On our own merit, we can never become Right with God! Fortunately God became Us to make Us right with Himself!(?) However, this amazing act paid the wages of sin: death, if we ask Him, but it didn’t permanently purify ALL of creation.
..So…
**(God, being a loving God, would perhaps not want me to deliver this olive branch with a sledgehammer, so….) Even if we bypass the other “hateful”, “divisive” terminology, this is Not a Right or Wrong, Black or White, Good or Evil, or even a Pure or Impure World, but I feel like it’s safe to say that our existence most certainly IS defined by and composed of Right or “Not Right”. “White” or “Not White”. Good or “NOT GOOD”. Pure or “Not Pure”!!
From my perspective as “One Who Does” queried to “One Who Doesn’t”- (“Believe”), I would like to put a spin on that brilliant monologue by the Agent Smith character in “The Matrix” (noted at the beginning). This is a similar dramatization of a semi-feigned shock that anyone could see things differently than me: “Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you do it? Why get up Tomorrow? Why keep fighting? What are you fighting? Do you fight simply to prove to people who have discovered the Truth- that there is no Truth? Is that what fuels your fire? Is it that desire to be Right? Surely it’s not simply to be Contrarian! So Why? Why Mr. Anderson? What gives you the motivation to press on? Can you tell me what it is? Do you even know? Is it Success? For what? Or Independence? Perhaps Happiness? Could this all be summed up as Pride? Greed?- NO?! …OK…. They’re all delusions, Mr. Anderson. Mere glimpses of a brilliant Glory, diluted down for the simple human mind. The temporary pleasures of a feeble human capacity trying desperately to quantify and contain an existence created and controlled by an Almighty Being… while trying to package what we have been given into an existence in which we are the Almighty….. although admittedly for no purpose….So, again I ask: Why?” (…WHEW! BREATHE!)
(And this time, to answer “Because I Choose To” is not noble, or honorable, or brave, or….intelligent. The answer, it would certainly seem, must either be “Because of ---- Reason,” or “There is no Reason.” Because the truth is that this Freewill has only 2 options. Perhaps not delivered as a “Yes” or “No”, but surely received as “Yes” or “not Yes!!”)
***Finally, I realize that I tend to get fired up, but NO, I’m not insane. I realize that writing this small thesis probably won’t change the world. And in fact it may not convince even those near me with differing views to even consider what I’m proposing. BUT….THAT WAS ONLY HALF THE POINT!! For those “of Faith” who are reading this, WTF?!! What are we doing? Why are we mistaking conservative moral values for God wanting us to be WIMPY and contented, while we just sit by the wayside complaining that Secularism is taking charge?!! I’m no theologian, but I CAN read the Bible for myself. And it doesn’t say Sh-- about Contentment and retracting from the world, nor sitting on one’s ASS waiting for God’s Will to drag us through life. Will He do that? Sure, but how do you think HE feels about this? When I read, I hear words like “we are more than Conquerors” and “Christ will be MAGNIFIED in my body.” I speak to myself as well when I ask, “Why are we not applying ourselves”? Why are there not more Christians in Politics? In Business? In Education? In Law? Of course we seem ‘holier than thou’. We come across that way by simply hiding at the end of the bench, complaining how no one’s changing the game- while snickering at the guys who don’t have the latest Air Jordans! And Fu….um…Forget Humility, we’ve mastered that! We don’t have to be down-and-outers to be humble. Humility is NOT proclaiming that you have nothing, so that’s how it’s meant to be; but rather becoming “the Boss”, and yet living as a servant and thinking as highly of your neighbors as you do of yourselves!!! Y’know what? It’s not wrong or ‘holier than thou’ to be proud of your beliefs and carry yourself with dignity- if you Win! And if you’re Right! Just start helping others attain the measures which you have, while praising God for your victories- in word and in deed! Not for Yourself, but for All of Creation! THEN you can help others! THEN- they- will- ASK for what you have!!!
*Breathe…
John 14- :12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
