Christ - Ideal or Reality?

The Christmas season seems to be a tough season for me.  As I talk to more and more people, I come face to face with the reality that Christmas brings out the selfish, greedy, indulgent, self-centered thinking of many people.  A recent Facebook post I saw had taken the opportunity to turn the idea of being able to lie to your kids about Santa as proof that we can simply tell our kids that gay couple are alright because they have love (I don't link it here because why would I want to give it any more places to exist?).  This post appeared on an alleged Christian's page.  I specifically say alleged because I have come to doubt the reality of belief in almost everybody I meet that claims to be a Christian.  I have no idea whether or not they are true Christians and more likely than not they are better people than I am.  But the thing I've realized is that many people tend to be fonder of the IDEA of God or Jesus rather than actually believing the reality of God's existence.  Really, when these people say they believe it is really saying, “I like the general idea of it, so I accept that position.”  However, the position is excepted on the condition that they don't have to actually believe it (which would impact their life).

I find this idea of the Christian idealist to be the most common person I meet claiming to be a Christian.  The problem is I have no idea who is sincerely chasing Christ and just failing as a sinner or who is the person attached to the idea – I don't think there is any way to tell without really getting to know the person, but even then we can't look inside their heart to see their true intentions.

  

With that said though, something strikes me; certain things flat out contradict the very thing you say to believe and so accepting those positions means you really can't believe that which you say.  Gay marriage is one of those things that is so blatantly against the Bible, one cannot possibly believe that Christ is who He claims to be and still support gay marriage as a Christian.  One cannot possibly believe Christ is who He claimed to be an still believe the only thing that matters in life is the nice car, nice cell phone, and whatever little thing fills you with happiness aside from Christ.  Materialism is a sign of those who see themselves as the center of the universe and therefore cannot be serving Christ.  Liberalism and its pursuit of murder of children, gay marriage, the suppression of religion, and conformity to social morals is against Christ and therefore supporting liberalism means you are NOT supporting Christianity.   I find that people that claim to be Christians yet support these opposing views are simply NOT Christians at all (doesn't mean they don't live better lives than me), but somebody who got attached to the idea of God rather than believed in God. 

How can you judge them, you know you aren't supposed to judge? How can I? Simple, because I know some things are mutually exclusive.  You cannot be an atheist and a Christian.  You cannot support gay marriage and serve Christ.  Simple.  But I'm not supposed to judge right?  You see though, I'm not judging here, I'm simply stating the conclusion of the truth claim.  Liberals try to find ways to reinterpret the scripture to fit their belief system but that just shows the point, they serve liberalism and not Christ. Jesus himself says you cannot serve two masters.  The idea of serving your own belief system and making it to say what you FEEL it should, means that you are serving YOURSELF and not Christ.  These are not judgments, they are simply observations based on basic rational thought.  Though I could defend being judgmental in certain circumstances, I don't even have to offer any justification for a simple statement of truth – if the two claims are mutually exclusive then one cannot accept the position of one claim and yet hold the other to be true as well. 

Christmas is a reminder that I am a disgusting sinner in need of a savior and that God graciously provided one.  I see the darkness is the people around me, everywhere I look.  It's not the unbelievers that make me sick; it's those claiming to be Christians while clearly serving the wrong master.  This Christmas season, I find myself trying to look at the mirror and make sure that I am not attached to an idea.  This Christmas, I want to find that I BELIEVE and that I'm not stuck in the pursuit of an idea – my own ideas especially.  It isn’t my goal to condemn the world, but rather to make sure we have some rational thought.  We must understand that one cannot accept all positions equally.  Naturally, if some beliefs are to be accepted others are rejected in the same action.  It is sometimes worth looking at our lives to see if maybe we've compromised a bit and have started to embrace the IDEA of God rather than the REALITY of Him.

Atheism - The "Neutral" Enemy

Is Atheism neutral?  This question arises because within politics it is often easy to find people on both sides, liberals and conservatives, that believe atheism is a neutral position.  Part of the problem comes from the effective re-branding of atheism.  The atheist movement has made an intentional effort to redefine atheism as a simple lack of belief in a deity.  This watered down definition is not really what it means to be an atheist however.  Noe-atheism, as it is called in some philosophical circles, tries to include everybody that simply lacks a belief in god.  When we talk atheists though, what we really mean are those who reject the existence of God or a god.  We don't mean the person that hasn't considered the question; we mean the person who has considered it and concluded positively that there is no god of any sort. 

This definition is important because it contains the direct answer as to whether atheism can be neutral at all.  If somebody has already drawn a conclusion then they are NOT NEUTRAL.  Most politicians or political groups that go out to try to eliminate religious belief in politics do not just lack a belief.  They have taken a position against God and rejected all religious belief.  Of this belief, the 1828 edition of the Webster dictionary has this to say, “Atheism is a ferocious system that leaves nothing above us to excite awe, nor around us, to awaken tenderness.” Do we want leaders who have rejected our belief system?  This is what gets me, politics is precisely where belief SHOULD be expressed.  Leaders should lead based on BELIEFS.  The atheist REFUSES TO BELIEVE there is a God.  It’s not scientific.  It’s not the default belief. Most of all, it IS NOT NEUTRAL.

  

So what's the point of this?  I guess the more I look at the world, the more I see believers getting sucked into the mentality that leaders should govern outside of their religion.  The assumption has become that the atheist position is not only neutral, but also the default.  These so called believers need to be slapped because this is total nonsense.  First off, as pointed out atheism cannot be neutral (I also touch on it in my other post: Is Religion Bad?).  Second, all these believers need to realize the default position is belief.  Look at the history of the world, look at the primitive tribes that exist today, look at the studies of belief, and look at the kids of the world.  BELIEF IS DEFAULT.  Atheists always try to act like belief is learned and that atheism is the natural way.  This however is complete false!  A quick look at primitive tribes or study of ancient history shows that the default has always been BELIEF in a deity.  We might learn our particular religious belief system, but we don’t have to be taught to believe.  G.K. Chesterton covered this in his book Orthodoxy, in the chapter “The Ethics of Elfland.”  Dr. Alvin Plantinga also discusses the idea of a properly basic belief frequently – he actually lists belief in God as properly basic.  My point is Christians need to wake up and stop acting so dumb about atheism.  Understand that to be an atheist is to REJECT the Christian view.  It doesn’t mean the person that never considered your position, but rather the person that considered and chose to reject belief in God.  This is an opposing view to Christianity, not the pre-Christian belief.  Those who lack belief need to be educated.  Those who rejected it need to be opposed.

When we vote for leaders, when we encounter laws, we need to reject the liberal view that religion should be separate.  Religion should permeate politics!  Governing should be done based on a belief system other than atheism.  The U.S. government cannot promote a single religion, so why do we not get up in arms when they promote the religion of atheism?  People need to be educated that atheism isn't a neutral position; it is the partner of liberalism, the enemy of conservatives, and in direct opposition to Christianity. 

That Dang Pope!

Sorry for the long delay in writing, I’ve just been very busy with work.  I couldn’t find time in my day to write anything for the blog.  Though there were a number of things on my mind like the government shutdown, the future of conservatism, and what we should aim for as conservatives in a liberal society, I just couldn’t find the hours in a day to write about any of them.  Now that the shutdown is over, I actually wanted to address another issue completely different than those I just mentioned – the Pope.

See, right now the Pope is highly controversial among Catholics and has caused quite a stir.  Some conservatives want his head while many liberals are cheering him as if he fighting for their cause.  Now, as a non-Catholic I have found that I tend to come in with a slightly different view of him.  Pope Francis has been in the media quite a bit and many of his statements seem to have been flaunted as a change in Catholic teaching.  However, what the liberals would like the Pope to say and what the Pope is actually saying are two different things.  Francis has sparked a lot of debate and I hear many conservatives bashing him as completely stupid for even talking.  So let me breakdown my perspective a little.

First though, let’s address the media.  As most people with half a brain know, the media is completely sold out to liberalism.  The news is just a propaganda machine trying to bend everything in a way that promotes liberalism.  Liberals are absolute idiots, they’re never going to embrace logic yet try to argue with logic until they get destroyed and then they argue emotions.  As far as liberals are concerned, debates are over: evolution, global warming, gay marriage, and even religion.  They are over because the liberals are so smart they don’t even argue, don’t follow science, logic, reason, or intelligent process and instead just say the arguments are over.  This approach is surprisingly effective because the news (along with essentially every TV show, except Last Man Standing, is liberal) promotes the idea that the argument is over and just doesn’t ever talk about the other view, ever.  So whenever there is a story about the Pope on the news we need to understand as non-Obamaholics that each story comes in the context of EXPANDING THE LIBERAL AGENDA.  Meaning, most likely the news will use words to skew the story, take out of context the quotes, and have some sort of bash on conservative values – very slyly over course.  If you’re a conservative and mad at the Pope because of something you heard on the news, you’re misinformed. 

However, some conservatives are well aware of the worthless news and have decided the Pope is an idiot because he even talks and should be aware that the liberal media will decimate whatever he says.  I find this a bit disturbing because it gives MORE power to the media! Should the Pope really be holding his tongue because the liberals will try to change it to fit their agenda?  Set the Pope aside for a second and ask yourself if all conservatives should be quiet in order to not give the liberal media something to talk about.  Living in fear of being taking out of context gives all the power to the liberals and we as conservatives have done their job for them.  Conservatives should be celebrating that at least the Pope is still a news story!  Make no mistake; liberals can’t wait till there are no conservatives to talk about and bad mouth.  Remember, the only compromise a liberal knows is where the other party talks, looks, eats, acts, thinks, and votes the same as them.  The Pope is a story because HE IS NOT one of them and the liberals want to make him like them. 

The second thing to take into consideration is that the Pope has successfully brought the debate forward.  Gay marriage and women’s roles have actually been talked about again and people have had the opportunity to EXPLAIN the conservative view.  For a long time the conservative view has been described by everybody else EXCEPT the conservatives.  Liberals have defined what we believe and others have accepted.  “The church hates homosexuals.” “Christians believe just being gay is a sin.” “Christians think they’re so much better than everybody else.”   When the liberals define the conservative view, then the real conservative view can never win.  All the attention the Pope has drawn has given an opportunity for conservatives to actually talk about what the REAL conservative view is.  Conversation has actually surfaced and the time for educating the liberals and other “conservatives” has started because of the Pope.  Mention “Christian” or “Catholic” and you automatically have images flood into people’s minds – many images that have been defined and establish by the LIBERALS and are therefore completely distorted.  We can win every debate against liberalism because conservatism is simply a better, rational, logical, and intelligent view of the world but many conservatives have succumb to the liberal view and have accepted the liberal media’s position that the debate is over.  Because of the focus on the Pope we have been given the opportunity to educate the world, liberals and conservatives alike, on the real beliefs of conservative Christians.  THIS IS A GOOD THING!

A third thing to realize is that the Pope has attempted to be more Christ like and less Pharisee like VISUALLY.  It’s not to say other Popes where Pharisaical, but rather that Pope Francis is specifically trying to change the IMAGE that is perceived when viewing the Pope .  Many of the conservatives remind me of the Pharisees who had their own understanding of how things should be and were unwilling to see any differently.  They held so tightly to THEIR PERSONAL beliefs that many missed the very thing they were looking for.  Often times these conservatives get so focused on their way that they believe they personally know better than everybody else.  By making many of the drastic or more subtle changes, the Pope has moved into a ministry that is much more Christ like than acting loftier and higher than everybody else.  Focusing on the poor, emphasizing love, and walking among the crowds is very much a shift in style and a great attempt at changing the PERCEPTION that exists among people.  How effective it will be in the long run remains to be seen, but the contrast is clear when compared to some previous Popes, especially those in recent memory of the people.  He has to find a way to be on the level with people because stories of the smuggling millions of dollars in or spending millions on lavish living continue to pop up.  How do we educate people and change the perception WITHOUT doing something different? I think people need to really appreciate what the Pope is trying to do, whether or not it is successfully achieved.  People expect the Pope to be in a palace.  People expect extravagance.  People expect the Pope to not talk about anything controversial.  However, what has this done for the message of Christianity and what has this done to establish the Christian attitude of serving people?  Something NEEDED TO CHANGE!  We don’t want to sacrifice CONSERVATIVE VALUES, but we need to find a way to express CHRISTIAN VALUES that effectively represents the message of Christ while at the same time shatters some of the views that the liberals have so effectively instilled in the minds of the people.

I’m not here to defend the Pope in everything he does or says.  My main point is that all this attention is good and it gives conservatives a real opportunity to educate people.  Liberalism is the enemy of reason and logic, but most of all it is the enemy of conservative Christian values.  We need to take advantage of this time to use these conversations to spread the real conservative message and dispel the liberal implanted ideas.