The Non-Existence of God...

Some comic relief related to my previous post... enjoy!

April 1st - National Atheist's Day ?

As I was driving to work today, I went passed a church that has one of those message boards that churches seem to like to have these days. Every time I drive passed this church (which is twice a day), I wonder about the impact of these signs on people. Sometimes the messages make me groan, other times I chuckle, and sometimes I do a bit of both at the same time.

Today's message was, "April 1st - National Atheist's Day." There is a bit of an urban legend behind this - that a Florida court set aside April 1 as "National Atheist's Day" after a lawyer argued that there was no religious holiday for athiests. But it never actually happened as far as anyone can tell. The connection being made is between atheism and foolishness (obviously), and is probably inspired by the Bible verse in Psalm 14, "The fool says in his heart - there is no God". If that is the case, then it is not really a fair cop. The Hebrew word used in the Psalm for fool means someone who is morally deficient, not someone who isn't smart or "just doesn't get it". The Psalm goes on to highlight the sins of these particular people as "corruption", "frustrating the plans of the poor" and "devouring people like men eat bread" (Wow - powerful poetry). These are baaaad people...

I have a great neighbour who told me once that he'd love to believe in God but the suffering he sees in the world holds him back from taking steps toward that belief. Hardly seems like foolishness to me. I have wondered about this many times myself. As a 16 year old Christian young man, I went to India on a 6 week trip with a Christian volleyball team, and came back with my own faith in God in tatters as a result of my first-hand experience with poverty and its effects on people. God had some questions to answer as far as I was concerned - if he even existed at all... People often have some pretty good reasons for why they don't believe in God and I'm not sure that we help to change their minds by poking fun at them from signs. I find that the talks with my neighbour help both of us to develop our beliefs. It seems to me that when God wanted to do his most important restorative work among us, he didn't erect a sign with a witty message on it, he moved into the neighbourhood, became one of us and got involved in our lives.

Anyway, foolishness is in the eye of the beholder. I have just started reading Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion". Dawkins is a well known atheist who thinks that belief in God is irrational and harmful. He would consider those of us who have a belief in God to be the fools and would set aside April 1 for people like me and call it "National Believer's Day" or something like that. But that is okay... There is another verse in the Bible that I like that refers to us fools who believe in God. It is found in 1 Corinthians 1 ("The Message" Bible) and says:

Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.".

So, I'll see you on April 1st - a day for all of us fools to celebrate not what know, but who we know.

Shalom...

(for an intersting video on Dawkins and atheism from CPX, click on the God Delusion image above)

Watchmen

One of my favourite 21st birthday presents was a video of the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turltes" movie. I don't know all the reasons why, but I love it when they make comics or cartoons into movies - it is probably my favourite kind of movie to watch. I think it was Robin Williams playing "Popeye" that first got my attention as a child. So, when I heard that "Watchmen" was coming out as a movie, I got pretty excited. "Watchmen" is supposed to be THE BEST graphic novel (translation - comic book for adults, but on steroids) of all time.

When I went to see it, I had that "I'm in the presence of greatness" type feeling that sometimes comes over me when I am at the movies. But as the movie progressed I got a bit distracted by the loud, graphic violence of the film, and by the bright blue penis of Dr Manhattan that seemed to take over every scene he was in (you'll have to watch the movie to make any sense of that comment)... I allowed these features to overwhelm all other impressions of the movie I might have had, and left the theatre a tad disappointed in the overall result. I remember saying to friends, "It could have been a really great film, but..."

A few days after watching the movie, I read the Damaris Culturewatch review of "Watchmen" and it helped me to see the thoughtful aspects of the movie that had been lost to me because I'd been distracted by the violence and Dr Manhattan's ever-present "little blue friend".

Over the last few years, I have been quite impressed with the Damaris group and the resources they provide on a Christian perspective on various media - particularly movies and TV. I'd recommend that you have a look and a read of their review on "Watchmen" and would put it forward as a good example of the thoughtfullness of their work. I'm pretty open-minded and not easily put off by bad language, sex scenes and violence in films, and for these kind of reasons, "Watchmen" is a movie that Christian groups might easily write off.

To the credit of the Damaris group, they didn't write "Watchmen" off, but looked deeply at it and found some valid social commentary and interesting refections on God and life in it. Lessons that I missed but certainly appreciated when they were highlighted to me...

For the Damaris Culturewatch review on "Watchmen" click here...

Shalom...

ABC Q&A - Religion, Sex and Politics

Last night, the ABC's Q&A show was entitled, "Religion, Sex and Politics" and was a very interesting watch. If you missed it and want to find out what it was all about, you can click here and get to the page where both the podcast and transcript are there for your edification.

Topics covered are alcohol use and young people, the St Mary's Catholic church situation (Father Kennedy is one of the guests), the church and sexuality and the Obama administration. I won't comment any further, I'll just bring the show and the episode to your attention. If anyone wants to chat about it, then feel free to add a comment to this post.

Shalom...

Where to start? Where to start?...

Over the last few weeks there have been so many interesting things going on in the world and I have been chomping at the bit to get started on this blog. We've had a new president in America, a Global Financial Crisis, the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, the first anniversary of the National Apology for the stolen generation, and of course, the struggles going on at St Mary's Catholic Church in West End. Where to start? Where to start?...

While all of these events and the themes that surround them are worthy of attention, I think that I will start closer to my heart. U2 and their new album - "No Line on the Horizon". I hope you're not disappointed with this topic. If you are, you probably just don't get the "entertainment phenomena with substance" that is U2. Not only do they keep ensuring that their songs and musical production are amazing, they keep on the cutting edge of entertainment technology and lead the way in just about all areas of this... but most of all, they sing songs of incredible depth and substance. I just love the whole package...

For me, the best example of all this on the new album is their song, "Stand Up Comedy". It is "funky as" and has words that make you laugh and think at the same time. If you haven't heard it, you can get a 30 second snippet of it by clicking here. In this snippet, are my favourite lines: "Stand up for faith, hope and love, But while I'm getting over certainty, stop helping God across the road, like a little old lady." (for all the lyrics to this fantastic song, click here).

My friend Francis (a huge U2 fan) and I were discussing what this great lyric might mean the other day, and of course, you can never quite tell. But it had been on my mind for awhile and what it means to me is something about how I only really believe in just a few things these days. There are a lot of beliefs that I've just dropped off and even the idea of how valuable beliefs themselves are seems to have dropped off for me. What I like about these lyrics is the encouragement to "do something" rather than just believe or "be certain" of something. In this "dizzy world" it is important to stand for something solid and eternal like the "faith, hope and love" talked about in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 13. Another friend of mine, Russ, always says that "God doesn't care what we believe, he cares what we value. Because we do the things we value."

So, I guess that while there are lots of questions about why the world is like it is and lots of things that drive me to doubts about my faith at times, in the meantime, I can stand up for faith, hope and love on behalf of the God of love - and the rest I'll try to sort out along the way. God isn't some "little old lady", I think he could handle that from me for the time being...

Shalom...

PS: I also like these lines - "I gotta stand up to ego but my ego’s not really the enemy. It’s like a small child crossing an eight lane highway, on a voyage of discovery." There is substance there too, but I really just them because they are so cool...