Ensign: Looking For God In R'amen
All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3
AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 25 September 2015
With all due respect, Christianity has a near-twenty century head start on the term "church", but I digress. The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster was started as a protest against the intelligent design movement in Kansas as an argument that all ideas on creation and the age of things should be given an equal say and equal amount presentation time. And I'm sure my non-Christian friends (yes, I do have some, probably more than I know) will tell you I'm really oversimplifying it.
"Although adherents describe Pastafarianism as a genuine religion, it is generally seen by the media as a parody religion." (last sentence, paragraph one, "Flying Spaghetti Monster" on Wikipedia)
Believe it or not, we need parodies as much as we need satires. I had a high school English teacher of mine explain satires once as containing a degree of truth, that's why they hit so close to home. The ones who write parodies and satires as much as the ones reading them are showing their skepticism, their objection to any revealed truth. Or to put it another way, the only truth is that there is no truth. Ah, but that's when you cross the line between skepticism and cynicism ...
When Alexander the Great was marching on a Greek city, the story goes that he came upon a man living in a wooden barrel. And apparently he'd heard of Diogenes -- hey, the philosopher Aristotle was marching with Alexander's armies so it's not impossible -- the "head" of a school of philosophy called cynicism, the name coming from the Greek word for dog and one of those schools that seeks living to the bare minimum. So Alexander asks what he can do for Diogenes, and he responds, "Get out of my sunlight!" Could have killed him for that, but instead he was impressed by it.
I'm reminded right now of that final space in the board game LIFE where you have to choose either to proceed on the path to "Millionaire: Retire in style" and hope you have more cash and assets than everyone else or just turn aside to "Bankrupt: Retire to the country and become a philosopher" and don't have to hope anything -- you'll have a particular place in the game (e.g. second, third, sixth), it just won't be first. But here's the scoop; you don't know what place you have in the game until the game ends.
You and I are born. Something must have happened before we were born because we don't come out into this big nothing, so an argument there is nothing before we exist and live is already invalid. You and I will (in my view as a Christian, barring the Rapture) at some point die, but whatever is going on in the world around us will not come to a stop except for ourselves from our standpoint. So an argument there is nothing after we exist also is also invalid, wouldn't you agree?
The Flying Spaghetti Monster (though adherents will deny this), the principal monotheists Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and every other faith practice-slash-religion is an attempt to answer "what's next?" I would argue -- though I hate arguing, you just get a lot of bad feelings and sore throats that way -- that even atheism and agnosticism are attempts to answer those; atheism simply denies the existence of a god or commanding deity while agnosticism says we don't know enough to conclude that there is or isn't a god awaiting us before and after that brief span of our lives.
If you came here today expecting chapter and verse references peppered throughout the text, I hate to disappoint you. But there are times when devotions have to be like the book of Esther: no name for God appears anywhere in the text, but we can know He is there when we are looking for Him. This isn't a divine hide and seek, or at least for you and I it shouldn't be. I'll go with one Bible verse, Hebrews 11:6 -- "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
So let's start and keep looking. My God works with skeptics (and cynics).
David
P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book, and I hope to be an encourager to action too! If you find that I'm not or you want me to get lost, just let me know -- thank you!
Thank You, Lord, that we can come to you in prayer and that You provide for all our needs, even when we don't know what they are. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence there and around the world.
Thank You, Lord, for everyone in leadership and service, both here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have and the promise of new life through You. I pray that we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.
AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 25 September 2015
With all due respect, Christianity has a near-twenty century head start on the term "church", but I digress. The Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster was started as a protest against the intelligent design movement in Kansas as an argument that all ideas on creation and the age of things should be given an equal say and equal amount presentation time. And I'm sure my non-Christian friends (yes, I do have some, probably more than I know) will tell you I'm really oversimplifying it.
"Although adherents describe Pastafarianism as a genuine religion, it is generally seen by the media as a parody religion." (last sentence, paragraph one, "Flying Spaghetti Monster" on Wikipedia)
Believe it or not, we need parodies as much as we need satires. I had a high school English teacher of mine explain satires once as containing a degree of truth, that's why they hit so close to home. The ones who write parodies and satires as much as the ones reading them are showing their skepticism, their objection to any revealed truth. Or to put it another way, the only truth is that there is no truth. Ah, but that's when you cross the line between skepticism and cynicism ...
When Alexander the Great was marching on a Greek city, the story goes that he came upon a man living in a wooden barrel. And apparently he'd heard of Diogenes -- hey, the philosopher Aristotle was marching with Alexander's armies so it's not impossible -- the "head" of a school of philosophy called cynicism, the name coming from the Greek word for dog and one of those schools that seeks living to the bare minimum. So Alexander asks what he can do for Diogenes, and he responds, "Get out of my sunlight!" Could have killed him for that, but instead he was impressed by it.
I'm reminded right now of that final space in the board game LIFE where you have to choose either to proceed on the path to "Millionaire: Retire in style" and hope you have more cash and assets than everyone else or just turn aside to "Bankrupt: Retire to the country and become a philosopher" and don't have to hope anything -- you'll have a particular place in the game (e.g. second, third, sixth), it just won't be first. But here's the scoop; you don't know what place you have in the game until the game ends.
You and I are born. Something must have happened before we were born because we don't come out into this big nothing, so an argument there is nothing before we exist and live is already invalid. You and I will (in my view as a Christian, barring the Rapture) at some point die, but whatever is going on in the world around us will not come to a stop except for ourselves from our standpoint. So an argument there is nothing after we exist also is also invalid, wouldn't you agree?
The Flying Spaghetti Monster (though adherents will deny this), the principal monotheists Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and every other faith practice-slash-religion is an attempt to answer "what's next?" I would argue -- though I hate arguing, you just get a lot of bad feelings and sore throats that way -- that even atheism and agnosticism are attempts to answer those; atheism simply denies the existence of a god or commanding deity while agnosticism says we don't know enough to conclude that there is or isn't a god awaiting us before and after that brief span of our lives.
If you came here today expecting chapter and verse references peppered throughout the text, I hate to disappoint you. But there are times when devotions have to be like the book of Esther: no name for God appears anywhere in the text, but we can know He is there when we are looking for Him. This isn't a divine hide and seek, or at least for you and I it shouldn't be. I'll go with one Bible verse, Hebrews 11:6 -- "But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
So let's start and keep looking. My God works with skeptics (and cynics).
David
P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book, and I hope to be an encourager to action too! If you find that I'm not or you want me to get lost, just let me know -- thank you!
Thank You, Lord, that we can come to you in prayer and that You provide for all our needs, even when we don't know what they are. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence there and around the world.
Thank You, Lord, for everyone in leadership and service, both here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have and the promise of new life through You. I pray that we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.
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