The Problem of Religion.8

"You build monuments to the prophets, and place flowers at the tombs of the righteous, and say: 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have allowed their innocent blood to be shed.'

Be witness to your own inconsistency! You are the descendants of those who killed the prophets, and have surpassed even their wicked acts. Snakes! Generation of vipers! How will you escape the condemnation of eternal judgment?"

--Jesus

image from artinruins.com

"Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance." --CS Lewis

One of the most challenging aspects of parenting is "practicing what you preach!"  During our boy's formative years I often reflected, not so much on what we were trying to teach and train them in, but in what was I or my wife unwilling to change that might have destructive consequences in their lives.  

image from wbtruth.blogspot.com

Not having Omniscience can prove troubling in predicting the outcomes of every nuance of every sin of which we are capable. More troubling still, at least from the Omniscient One's point of view, is mankind's vain attempts to put lipstick on the pig's snout of reprehensible deeds.

"We would never have done that" is a good fall back position when confronted with the likelihood of moral failure and perhaps shock if someone could show us what, in the future, we will do that is as bad or worse from that which we deny.  A close friend found out that her husband had been a serial adulterer over the course of their marriage.  Was it really such a shock that the son had indeed followed in his father's philandering ways?

But shock is exactly what the Son of Man attempted to do for the moral and spiritual leaders of his day --and any day-- for that matter.  For He knew that Goodness comes from God alone; goodness cannot be separated from God-ness. Unfortunately, mankind's response to sin exposed is usually the same: kill the message or the messenger! 

Any attempt to define goodness without a reference point in God, in other words, not recognizing what in the thought or deed is God-like or God-worthy, leads to oppression and tyranny.  As an example, societies across the world are being confronted with pressure to legitimize a special class of mental disorder and sexual deviancy: transgender-ism.  The debate over granting special protections and privileges to an extremely small population segment in public schools and commercial institutions is reaching hysterical proportions and is completely devoid of any spiritual or moral foundation save that which proponents press upon the pubic through threats of retaliation and retribution. 

Any attempt to make ourselves, and not God, the measure of goodness is, rest assured, Hell-fire warmed over.

Christ's Prayer For His Disciples.1

"This is life eternal: that all might know the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth by completing the work that you entrusted to me. Now, Father, reveal my glory as I stand in your presence, the glory I have known with you since before the world began."

--Jesus

"This is what the LORD says: "Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, [nor the NSA boast of their data,] but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight," declares the LORD." --Jeremiah

Mankind's love affair with all things technological is being exposed for what it really is: a deep seated belief in our ability to control our own destiny....apart from God.  Far from a public outcry at Big Government snooping on our private affairs, a collective yawn sweeps across the land of the (rapidly deteriorating) "free" and home of the shamefully-indifferent-fading-memory-of-bravery.

It is a truth that what we worship in the object of our devotion is what we worship in ourselves.  What we extol in ourselves is not, typically, the Divine attributes of kindness, justice, and righteousness, but rather power and status.  How else to account for our fascination with the pomp and circumstance of Hollywood or Washington DC, the Super Bowl or Olympic champions, Wall Street or Bourbon Street, Silicon Valley or The Pentagon.

As the government collects more data on US citizens, presumably to keep us safe, we can only conjecture on what they could do with it.  The details of the IRS' decision to target certain political groups sends a chilling message of what people in power are capable of in the name of safety and "fairness".

In Buried Treasures, Rabbi Lapin makes a powerful point that goodness cannot be separated from God:  

"...the English word 'good' derives directly from the source of all good, which is God.   ...There is a compelling linguistic argument that originally humans understood that God and Kindness were not two separate ideas.  There is also a logical argument to be made that all attempts to define goodness or kindness without a framework of reference [in God] are doomed.  They were not even two separate words.

For as long as they were understood as a sort of merged reality, each dependent on the other for meaning, mankind was better off.  However, once a culture commences to define kindness with a political frame of reference instead of a religious one, it runs the danger of stepping on to the slippery slope that ultimately converts kindness to cruelty and tyranny."   

We know that the Perfect revelation of God cannot be separated from Jesus.  Let us press on to  completing the work He has entrusted to us: knowing Him! Let a fearless faith and commitment be strengthened in our knowing Eternal Life!  Be glorified in our knowing You Father!

"But you, LORD, 

are a shield around me, 

my glory, 

the One who lifts my head high.

I call out to the LORD, 

and he answers me from his holy mountain.

I lie down and sleep; 

I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.

I will not fear though tens of thousands 

assail me on every side." --David