Their Story Helps Define Who We Are

Note the phrasing there: “helps define”, not “does define”. I often wonder as Christians when we witness if we approach people who have that assumption of us – that is, that we allow the lives of Abraham and Moses and Joshua and Jesus and other Bible figures to define us, that we feel threatened by scientific method and empirical curiosity and so hide behind our beliefs, only occasionally pawing out and looking into the light. This weekend I asked the question on a Facebook page, “Rationally Thinking And Honest Humanists” just what is a freethinker anyway? Just read … well, an answer which is a little long as well as a short one. I'll quote the short one here, posted by Jock from the Facebook page “Abrahamic Insanity”: “People who can think for themselves, and are not told what to believe or think.”

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The longer answer, from “Rationally Thinking And Honest Humanists”:
“Free thinkers, everyone has their own description of it, Here's what I believe one should hold within their life. We think (do stuff) therefore we exist. The universe (matter, space, time) does stuff, therefore IT exists. A rational person can either choose to believe that some unknowable supreme being created all this shit that does stuff, and still be left with doubt as to the TRUE nature of this supreme being, or we can spend our lives trying to understand as much as we can about the "how" about the ultimate true nature of the universe. The essence of reality is DOUBT.Faith is simply the feeble attempt at trying to succor a mind that is ill equipped to handle realizty.   

This is a very very slightly modified description to my thoughts on a Rationally thinking human. It can be used in either direction I think.

Good enough for you David?”


My response:

" 'A rational person can either choose to believe that some unknowable supreme being created all this shit that does stuff, and still be left with doubt as to the TRUE nature of this supreme being, or we can spend our lives trying to understand as much as we can about the "how" about the ultimate true nature of the universe. The essence of reality is DOUBT.Faith is simply the feeble attempt at trying to succor a mind that is ill equipped to handle realizty.'

A rational person -- how I'm reading this at least -- is someone open to being convinced that their worldview isn't necessarily the right or even a complete one. That's a challenge believers confront every day. And the doubt you speak of -- again, this is how I'm reading the comment -- there is nothing wrong with, provided you don't let doubt paralyze you into inactivity. To understand as much as we can about the "how"; we're certainly not penalized for that by either an all-seeing god or gods, we're not asked to be ignorant, but we are asked to be discerning. Certainly you and I, we'd like to think, are discerning.

The essence of reality -- wouldn't that be reality itself and not doubt? Certainly there's no doubt about the reality you and I live in, that it exists and we're in a linear progression toward some end; we likely can't know all of it in one lifetime, but that doesn't keep us from looking and discerning and seeking some increase in our knowledge and increase in ourselves, does it?”

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Please feel free to respond to that, for I could certainly be wrong, and I'd like to be proven so if I am. am making a difference.

Got an extra day this weekend due to heavy snowfall in our area! Monday morning Martha and I both got phone calls that were prerecorded messages from the assistant superintendent of Minot Public Schools that due to the winter storm warning we were under until 6 am this morning as well as accompanying snowfall, school would be closed for the day. Two hours later I got a phone call from my boss Erik and heard that due to snowfall – even as I write this, parts of the frontage roads leading to and from my workplace are mired in snow – we'd be closed. And I could handle that; Sunday afternoon after church where I taught two combined classes and, although I feel we didn't accomplish everything I thought the lesson about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead should have (I really need to plan better) I didn't lose it in front of the kids. Classroom management I freely admit has never been my strong suit … but the more I see of them (the other kids as well as my own) the more I

Phoebe one of the fourth graders – oh, I had eight kids in my Sunday school class – in fact came up to me and asked me if I knew why she chose to come over to my class Sunday. I shook my head no and she replied, “Because I wasn't here last week.” For a little context, I teach Parable Playhouse where we read Bible stories and then act them out with puppets while my sister-in-law Lesa teaches Garden of Eatin' (where Sarah and Triniti and four other first graders were) where they made cinnamon rolls with marshmallows inside and baked them ten minutes. Now there's a symbolism in each ingredient – let me see, the pastry itself represented Lazarus' bindings, the marshmallow was Lazarus, the oil and butter were the anointing oil and spices, and the oven was the tomb – and it kinda blew my mind hearing that. To quote John Keating (Robin Williams' character in Dead Poets Society), just when you think you know something you have to look at it in a different way!

Triniti whom I mentioned above was a guest at our house for Sarah's first sleepover which doubled as her seventh birthday party! In three hours we so managed to get Sarah's birthday cake – actually it was just a matter of frosting Sarah onto a Happy Birthday cake with cupcakes surrounding it – and balloons and a birthday banner which is still up on our wall AND get to Beardstock over at Minot State University where Triniti got to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” and with a boost from Martha did awesome! Had the local family in the house (with the Four Sisters – remember, Martha's the youngest of four – together for the first time since Christmas), enjoyed cake and ice cream, Sarah opened several presents and all the girls except one who got a little nervous and cried for her mom so she headed home early were having an awesome time. (I wasn't that big a fan of my first sleepover either, I remember …)

Ok, now to today's title (I was going to go into the books I've finished, but I've got time later for that); Sunday night Martha and I got to watch the first part of The Bible on The History Channel, the basic cable network that's one of the few bastions of truly intelligent television. And at least the Bible is being regarded AS history, not some wild dream … hard to find sometimes outside of anything related to the Abrahamic faiths of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. (All three of them regard Abraham as a central or founding figure, hence the adjective form.) The story shared from Creation to the entry of Joshua's spies into Jericho certainly keeps you on the edge of your seat; I debated whether to keep the recording for Sarah and Jeffrey to watch too, but decided against it for now. Besides, the DVD of the series will probably be out before year's end!

For Israel! David