Tim

I have an old friend who is in Afghanistan at the moment. It's part of a massive trip he's planned that's going to take him around Asia, Europe and Africa. Every now and then he drops an update. He's only up to update two, but it's absolutely amazing. Seriously the second post took my breath away. So I think you guys should check it out.

He posts on http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=62363633274&topic=8164
If you join the group then you will have the updates land in your inbox on facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=62363633274

Seeing this is a short post I should probably rant about something.

Um... What's up with... Buses and junk... With the... Not coming on... Oh, I give up!

The Superlong Post

Forgive me the superlong post, but I want to spend some time explaining the name Jacob Jeremiah. As Brooke pointed out in her comment my real name is Jonathan. (Spot on spelling Brooke) I chose Jacob Jeremiah as a pseudonym because of the great significance those two characters have on my outlook.

Jacob, as you may know, is a character from the Old Testament. Think "Joseph the Dreamer's" dad. It was during his time that the Hebrews, then consisting only of his family, moved into Egypt. Which incidentally turned out to be a bad idea, and culminated in a nasty episode involving 10 plagues and a 40 year trip in the desert.

Anyway, Jacob started off life as the second of twins, which means that he missed out on being daddy Issac's heir by about 5 minutes. Before he's even born there's a prophecy made about the boys, that the younger would overcome the older. On top of that Jacob's mum and dad decided to play favorites. While his big bro Esau was dad's manly hunter son, Jacob was the responsible mummy's boy.

It's not that surprising that Jacob got fed up with the situation, and with a little coaxing from his mum was convinced to fool his ailing father into accidentally leaving the best bits to him. And it turns out it was a lot more then just material wealth. Issac passed on a promise to him, a promise that was made to his father, (Jacob's granddaddy) Abraham. A promise by who? By God himself. A promise of prosperity, a great future and a legacy that would stretch into eternity.

Needless to say, Esau was totally pissed off! A little bit of intrigue occurs between Esau and dad at this point which becomes incredibly important another couple of hundred years down the track. However the relevant part is that Esau decided that after Issac does croke he's going to make Jacob croke too.

It's at this point Jacob goes into exile. He runs away. Far, far away.

It's at this point you need to get into Jacob's head. He begins to have encounters with God. He's separated from everything he's ever known. He didn't take wealth with him, he was using rocks as pillows. He's considered a child of prophecy, and now he has the promise to back it up. But at the same time, he has nothing.

Finally he makes it to his uncles joint, back in the land his mum came from. It's at this point a little romance gets thrown in. Jacob meets his cousin (yes cousin, this was back in the day that that was considered far less creepy) and falls madly in love with her. So, after some hard dealing he makes a contract with uncle. He gets the girl for 7 years labour.

He does it too. It says it didn't seem very long to him, he's so in love with that girl. So at the end of the 7 years he gets the girl. But his backstabbing uncle decides it would be shameful to marry off Rachel without marrying off he big sister first. So he pulls a swiftly and Jacob ends out married to the wrong chick! On top of that his uncle demands another 7 years for Rachel.

So Jacob does it. That's how much he wants the girl. But it's something that he struggles with directly for the next 20 something years of his life, and the real consequences, the backstabbing and conflict between the sisters, leaves scares on him and his sons for many generations.

Jacob now decides to really build up his wealth. He agrees to another contract with his uncle. This time in return for livestock. God blesses Jacob, and with a bit off tricky gaming Jacob becomes increasingly stinking rich.

It's at this point we see the rubber hit the road. God asks Jacob to do the stupidest thing ever. God tells him to go home.

Over the trip, moving ever closer to his psychotically angry brother, we see Jacob really begin to crack. You see, in life, Jacob feels like he's kind of been screwed over. He follows God. But God never seems to just give him good things. Everything comes through suffering. And things have happened to him he didn't deserve, all for following this path. All the while he hears of his brother, marching towards him, with 400 men, to meet him. Jacob feels like a dead man.

It culminates one night, as he spends time alone, trying to get his head together, and a man comes out of the dark. They become locked in a physical struggle. They struggle through the night. As the sun rises the man "wrenches" Jacob's hip by touching it. (giving away that he's not just a man) Jacob refuses to let go until the mysterious man blesses him.

The mysterious man then renames Jacob as Israel, "Because you have struggled with men and with God and overcome."

Jacob was blessed because he struggled with God. Because he struggled with God. Struggled with God... and overcame.

You have to understand this isn't a struggle for superiority. God wrenched his hip with a touch. You can't become superior to God. This was a struggle for understanding and purpose. For answers of why the world was how it was. It was an internal struggle to find the purpose of the pain God had dragged him through.

The struggle with the mysterious man was the physical incarnation of a spiritual struggle. That's how intense it had got for him.

It's then that we see Jacob, now limping because of his hip, cross the river towards his brother.

I hope you understand that it doesn't matter what happened when they met. At this point Jacob is more complete then he has ever been.

It isn't a shameful thing to struggle with God. He wants us too. I don't half doubt some of the bad things that happen in life are purely there to provoke us. To wake us up. We can never be made whole, if we never wake to our emptiness.

Better Late Then Never

I'm super pumped at the moment for the new Project 86 album, due to come out on July 14. It will be their 7th studio album. If you haven't heard these guys, they are big. Especially in my scene. They are big, bad and have a lot to say.
I'm a bit after the mark, but I recommend this interview with the lead vocals:
http://jesusfreakhideout.com/interviews/Project86_Phone2009.asp
He's a really articulate and well spoken man.

For a listen to some of their stuff:
http://www.myspace.com/project86
http://www.purevolume.com/project86


And while we're on the topic of music, I've been listening to a CD of b sides, demos and rares of Flyleaf. Man, I love that band. Lacy is definitely my favorite female vocalist. The rest of the band was real good too, before the producer neutered them. Such a shame, their demos are FAR better then the album versions.

The Accidental Strawman

While writing my last post I had to use a good measure of restraint to avoid launching into a long rant on one of my pet hates and obsessions. I ended out using the example of abortion in legal morality because I have respect for both sides of the mainstream argument. In the particular topic I'm thinking of I don't have respect for one of the factions. The Christian one.

The argument is of gay marriage. I find the stubborn opposition Christians tend to show in this area unimaginably frustrating. I find it frustrating because there is no straight answer. Only straw-men. Usually something about the negative affects on children. But in their heart the majority (though not the loud ones) know that this is not the real reason that they show opposition. The problem is that they know it has more to do with their own beliefs then any real concern of the mental state of children. Not to say those concerns don't exist, but just that they are not the real motivator.

But society has taught us to think relatively and so, because we are tolerant, we must keep beliefs out of it. And so the straw-men are invented and dressed up. And we've been pretending their real so long we've forgotten they aren't.

So without further ado, here, in my words, is the real problem Christianity has with gay and lesbian marriage.

First, what is marriage? In the modern world it is a legal contract. It defines the legal relationship between two people. OK, that's cold. But as numerous soaps and comedies have reminded us, it only implies a spiritual and emotional bound. Otherwise it's marley a contract.

But this isn't the view Christians have. From the Christian view marriage is a spiritual connection. A spiritual union even. It was a union created and sealed by God. The ceremony and the legal contract came after. They came as reminders of the bond shared.

So here you have opposing views. To humanists marriage is a legal bond that implies a spiritual one, and to Christians marriage is a spiritual bond that implies a legal one.

However you feel about tolerance toward the homosexual portion of the population. However close minded you think Christians may be. This issue runs over the line of right and wrong sexual conduct and into the very definition of a sacred bond and relic of the Christian heritage this country holds.

For the humanist the extension of marriage to be available for gays and lesbians is like extending the definition of eligible voter to include women. For the Christians it like extending the definition of aardvark to be inclusive of hummingbirds.

You are trying to change something sacred to cover something it is not.

The simple fact is that, even if you practice it in law, to a Christian, a man can never marry a man, or a woman a woman. It's not possible. Despite what you call it.

That is why the thought is offencive to the Christian faith.

Relative

Last night I had a long conversation with a group of the people I live with, mainly relating to relativism and absolutism. This is a topic I touched on in my last post when I said that Christianity is self-reliant. Christianity also demands absolute truth. But that's not the message you'll always hear from Christians. This blog is about The Three Fallacies.
Relative truth says that what's truth for you is truth for you, and what's truth for me is truth for me. Absolutism says that, no matter what you think, there is a truth, and if what your think isn't that truth, your wrong.
Absolute truth has gone out of favor over the last century, and is actually quite repugnant as far as the West is concerned. No wonder with the intolerance shown to huge swathes of the population by the few that "had it all down".

Religion is the center stage in the great battle of the truths, and morality is the point of highest contention between Christianity and Humanism. Humanism says that there is no higher power then society to be held responsible to. So, as long as society finds it tolerable, all morality related law should be liberalized to allow for relative truth.
Abortion is a pretty clear example, as for once both sides of the argument are arguing on the right basis. In this debate the humanistic side even calls themselves pro-choice. They say that a woman should be able to make the moral decision for herself. Does she feel morally bound to bring the baby into the world? Sometimes its even, does she feel morally bound to not bring the baby into the world?
In relativism each person is their own judge. Liberalised laws make it possible.
Let me make something clear here. I think this, in general, is a good thing. Were it doesn't harm anyone to allow moral choice, allow moral choice.
But Christianity does demand absolutism. It demands that those who follow it see things in black and white. Right and wrong.
Christians haven't handled the situation very well though, so this tends to manifest in one of three ways. The Three Great Fallacies.
First is absolute rejection of, and meanness to, all who brake Christian moral law. That's just dumb. It's not our place to pass sentence on anyone. That's God's place. We are called to simply love.
Second is to become "tolerant". By which I mean, let others walk all over them, and hide in case the whole "right and wrong" thing offends anyone. This to is really dumb. If you are convinced of a danger as great as a judgment day with God, your not showing love by not warning people. It's not our place to pass sentence, but it is to warn people of the possible charges to be brought against them.
The third great fallacy is trying to break the chain of self-reliance in Christianity. This is most strongly embodied in the post-Christian religions. If your a non-Christian reading this, STAY AWAY from this fallacy. Jesus did not leave room for His words to be taken as just good advice, He did not intend to. Christianity must be taken literally, and in one piece, or not at all.
This, simply, is trying to change the rules. Redefining the rights and wrongs, to be more comfortable. It's a fallacy that's morphing too, from making others more comfortable, to making ourselves more comfortable. So we don't have to change for God, but He must change for us. I fear that this fallacy has crept in far more places in far more subtle ways then anyone truly realises.

Why Christianity?

I know that a few of my classmates and others who don't have the same view on life as me are going to be reading this bolg. So I'd like to answer an obvious question about me. Why the Christian faith?

First I'd like to make it clear that this is going to be incredibly brief recounting, and I have more important reasons for believing then the ones I'll be listing. But not more coldly logical ones.

The first big question is of God, or god, or higher power or whatever you want to call it. There are two basic options, either there is or there isn't.

Because of our human limitations we only have the evidence we can see and touch and hear, science, to explain the world and were it came from. Unfortunately it can't. The problem being time.

Time by it's nature is finite. Which means at some point it began. This causes a problem because it's one of the dimensions of our physical reality. Basically science fails at this point. There is no way to test or measure or experience what happened before time itself began.

The strange realisation here is that all explanations for the universe are supernatural (not of our world).

That's not proof for a higher power, but it does put the higher power on equal footing as any other belief. If there isn't a higher power we wont understand how we got here in our lifetime, if ever. It would require either going outside, or seeing outside the dimensions we live in. That just hurts my head. I think if I gave up on a higher power I would either become a nihilist or a glutton. Seems to me there's not much point in doing anything but just enjoying yourself if there's no purpose to life.

So either the compulsion human beings have to believe in something greater then themselves is some sort of survival instinct or its driven by a deep knowledge of the truth. All I can say for that is that if it is survival instinct it's not doing a very good job.

As I see it a higher power could be intelligent or mindless. If it is mindless I would think that all religions are basically various degrees of misunderstandings of the truth. After all, who's good enough to understand it all? Any and all religions would be handy to know about in that case. Taoism and Buddhism being my picks as probably being the closest to the truth.

What if it is intelligent? Well I would say if it was it would want to be know to us. If it doesn't then it might as well be mindless. What I mean is that we are really only guessing what it's like.

So if the higher power is intelligent, and wants us to understand it, it seems to me that one of the religions are spot on, or at least was spot on before we started misinterpreting and changing it. You see the monotheistic religions, despite what you may have been told, are completely self-reliant. Basically put, if you remove one part then it all falls apart.

From here Christianity wins me on elegance. I'm definitely not talking about the idea you've got in your head about Christianity. The down side of living in a "Christian nation" is that Christians have become incredibly lazy through years of religious dominance.

Most Christians and "Christians" don't have a clue. Most don't have parents who have a clue. Most are running off what they have picked up in Sunday school.

Combine that with the epidemic that has gone round in the last 4 decades, "baby Christian syndrome", which is basically a trend towards weak, baby-level teachings, and you have little hope of getting a well thought out picture of what Christianity is.

This blog is about my battle with understanding. It is about my conception of the world. It is about my refusal to believe anything just because I've been told it. It is about the endless questions I pose my own beliefs. In this blog you will see Christianity and "Christianity" through my eyes, the eyes of a sceptic on the inside.

The Well-Meaning

Today I had a good chat to a friend from college. He was approached yesterday by two guys, who proceeded to tell him they were doing a survey for their church. They began to ask him questions. Being an up-and-coming journalist, my friend did what comes naturally and started asking questions back.
My friend threw out some easy ones relating to what we Christian refer to with a technical word, "salvation". The answer he got was a vague construct of the salvation message. (Jesus came and died for our sin so we could have eternal life, yadda, yadda, yadda) Don't think I'm being irreverent. This stuff is key. That is my point. We're here hundreds of years after the reformation, with a Bible in every second room and more time free from jobs of survival then ever before, and that's the most convincing version we can present.
Take my mates reaction for instance. First problem, what is "sin" and why do I need to be saved from it? If your anwser is that sin is rebelling against "God", why should I care? Do you mean to say that there's a god out there, who is weighing my actions morally, and has decided I deserve to burn forever, and he is supposed to be good?
Hebrews 6:1-2 calls this stuff "elementry principles". Yes, it's talking about the lot! A full and self-complete explaination of sin and why it is relevant to the average person is elementry. And it's not so hard.

So here's a question I want to pose the Christian reader. Do you understand the elementry principles? Could you explain it, in a relevant way to someone who did not believe?

I also have a challenge to all the non-Christian readers. Ask questions. If a Christian starts talking to you about spiritual things, ask them the hardest questions you can. There are only two correct replies. The first is to give you a solid anwser. The second is to admit they can't, and tell you how to contact someone who can.

Gravity of Relationships

I moved into Sydney at the start of the year from Wodonga. Part of me is still very much in love with that place, but after spending my entire life there up until the move it was time to move on and experience new things. Now I live in a large church-run student lodging hostel.
Living with a large number of 18-22 year-olds who have all moved into Sydney at the start of the year in quite bizarre. I always liked watching Dr. Phil because of the exaggerated character traits you could see in the guests. You could learn a lot about the average person you met, because you could learn to see those character traits, even in a much less extreme form. I've discovered that the "Dr. Phil" effect applies if you put average people in exaggerated circumstances as well.

One thing I've noticed now, and previously in different circumstances, is that the moment two people overstep the conventional friendship lines, it's assumed that it has developed into a romantic relationship.
I have no doubt that this is another product of the modern trial-and-error philosophy of romance. Which goes, "Just keep trialing until you stop erroring, and for goodness sake, don't think to hard!" I do understand how the "don't think to hard" got there. It is a function to remind us that we are only human and can misjudge. If a Christian is really in communion with the Living God, it seems quite superfluous though. If God has an input into your life, and you are open to it, He'll let you know if your being dumb.
This is another demonstration of the way modern thinking has infiltrated the Church of the West. It's all the little things that give us away. In this case the seeming equality between the divorce rates inside and outside the Church is the killing blow.
It's time we began to rethink how we go about things, because right now we're only doing as well as the world, and this is a matter of love, so as children of love we should be pretty good at it.
To be fair, I advocate a trial-and-error philosophy myself, but it's a bit different. Apart from tending to be far more cautious and far more picky it states, "Learn from all your errors, so you know better what you need and want, and for goodness sake, ask God for help and understanding!"
God invented marriage, surly His people should be able to do it properly! Yet we can see ingrained the cultural precept that if you like the look of something you should try it, whatever is at stake. Even if that something is a person and what is at stake is a friendship.