Insights from the 'Traveling Atheist' on PBS

The guy Robert Lawrence Kuhn who does the docu-show Closer to Truth on PBS-2 at 9:30 am weekdays was devoting this episode to asking the question, 'what does it feel like to be God?' I find the episodes where he asks philosophical questions of theologians to be by far the most interesting, because it actually gives the interviewees an opportunity to set the record straight. I like newscasts that choose to interview experts for their take on stories for the same reason -- they are free to give their unrestrained opinion and so you're much more likely to get the truth straight from them rather than the host of the show--if only for the reason that the host is trying not to be biased.

Here were the interesting points, (I took brief notes) and I'm sorry if I misspell any of these names:

Brian Leftowe was first, and made two points:

1. God is not temporal--he doesn't experience time like us, and He doesn't exist within His own time-continuum outside of ours. But logically, God does have something that is like temporality, in the sense that certain aspects of His knowledge are prior to/precede others. Leftowe referenced mathematical theorems as the example, where the axioms are logically precedent to the conclusions derived from those axioms. In this sense, some of God's thoughts must be "after" others in a sequence, but this continuum is not time, but possibly 'time-like.'

2. God does experience negative things -- the idea that a perfect being cannot experience grief, for example, is not necessary to believe -- just as He experiences positive things, but these don't cancel out. The negative is mitigated by His knowledge of its purpose in context--the end for which those negative (emotions, let's call them) are felt, by Him.

John Polkinghorne pointed out that the accessibility of Christianity lies in that we can -- uniquely among all faiths -- know what God is like in the person of Jesus Christ. I was pleased at this. Unfortunately, Mr. Polkinghorne accepts evolutionary history, but the point he made about trade-offs can still be applied to many questions of good versus evil. He said that the requirement for natural selection (he used the term evolution) to occur, mutations in germ line cells, necessitates mutational mechanisms, which as a consequence can cause errors in somatic (body) cells, which lead to cancer. Prior to this (explaining natural evil) he had mentioned the tried-and-true answer for the reason we have free will -- that moral evil is a necessary outcome when beings are free to choose what they will do. Freedom is necessary for love, and freedom guarantees the possibility that love will be rejected, and a refusal to love God is by its very definition sin. So freedom results in sin. In explaining why there is good and evil, the answer is that God decided that a world where people can love and in which there is evil is better than a world which does everything God tells it to, yet in which there is no such thing as, no capacity for love.

Gregory Ganza made a very interesting proposition, and that was to address the question of whether God, knowing everything, would get bored. I think, personally, this is probably the heart of the question when people have trouble fathoming an infinite mind that knows everything there is to know. It's the same problem I have with it--not a problem of belief but one of understanding. I have a hard time imagining what enjoyment I could get if I was incapable of learning because I had learned everything there was to learn, and the only thing left was to repeat what I had already done. But Ganza (Ganzell?) changed the direction of the answer--instead of talking about God's knowledge, he addressed the emotional enjoyment of God, something (that is, emotion) that is easy for me to overlook, being someone who tends toward using thought as my prior way of approaching things, rather than how I feel about them. But Ganza used marriage as a model: that he continually learns more about his wife, as a temporal person, BUT then there's an aspect in which he gets enjoyment from just dwelling on what he already knows about her, in just cherishing their relationship as it is. And for God, that enjoyment is infinite. So would He get bored? Not if you can imagine a man in love getting bored thinking about the woman he loves. And since God refers to Himself as a husband and His faithful followers as His bride, I think I can now gain a fuller appreciation, being a man, of how it may be for God to experience existence. Only that my piece of understanding is infinitesimally smaller than the whole sum of God's reality.

~ Rak Chazak

Poordom

Poordom
n. 
The state of being bored because of being too poor to do anything that costs money.

Just for fun, a daily life update

I just ended my third week working at a fast food location in my hometown. I can fly around the cash register ordering screen much more easily now, so the awkwardness of the first three days are history. Corporate does occasionally change the buttons around remotely, though, when a new item is being offered, which can get confusing when you're used to automatically finding something under a particular menu.

In the meantime, I've been trained a bit more broadly than when I last did a stint in the food service industry in 2009 and 2010. I know what I would need to do to manage the grill and make sure that there's enough meat, chicken and baked potatoes available for sandwiches and salads, and when and how to prepare more. I've gotten to the point where I can prepare most of the food except the sandwiches themselves--stuff like chili, staging fries for orders, and refilling the big ketchup containers in the dining room as well as the ice cream mix for the machine. All that's remaining is the prep-work for salads and bacon, I think, as well as getting some practice actually making sandwiches to go. You could say I'm 'skilled at many positions.' And of course I mean that in a totally clean way, which is what makes it a joke.

Transportation has been fun. I've needed to juggle getting rides or borrowing the car but a week or so ago, I got a bike from Wal*Mart for $94.94 to use to get to work. I would have to change in the bathroom, which is absolutely horrid to my senses, but survivable. The bike didn't last too long, however, because the handlebars slid out of the place where they were locked into the front wheel mechanism, and began wobbling up and down whenever I would stand on the pedals to bike faster. Because they were loose, the handlebars rotated backwards maybe 120 degrees, so the brake levers were leaning toward me, which was dangerous and very difficult to depress to stop the bike. Naturally I needed to get it exchanged.

The timing for when I went in to investigate if I could do an even exchange (I would still need to bike home, after all) was propitious. When I walked back to the bike section of the store, I ran into an old schoolmate (not classmate, because she was in a grade below me) who was looking at cards. I'd run into her only once since graduating, last year when my mom had taken me to Relay for Life because she didn't want me to be sitting around doing nothing at college on the weekend because I didn't have anywhere to go. I was scared to approach her because the last words I'd ever said to her were "I'm sorry," -- right after I had kicked her in the chin! The track team was doing a warmup lap and I got the dumb idea to jump on the high-jump mat which was right next to the track. I never talked to her again. I was mortified, terrified, thought she hated me. So when she caught me looking in her direction last fall and smiled and waved, a wave of relief washed over me. I'm forgiven! Or she forgot it happened. But either way, she isn't holding it against me. 

What we talked about in Wal*Mart actually became the subject of a short poem I wrote (I'm just really digging writing poems now, you know?) that night, and it'll be posted here later today. :)

~ Rak Chazak

When Open-Air Preaching 'Clicked' for Me

Prologue

I was 11 when I started to take following God's commandments seriously. Not because I was wantonly disobedient before, but merely that the reason I was doing it changed. And to tell you the truth, I can't be completely sure I know the reason. I'm very hesitant to say that I wasn't saved before, lest I blaspheme and profess to say something about God that isn't true. But from a perspective of evaluating myself, I realized as I prayed last night, I don't think I can ever "know" that I was saved before, since the way to really know is to understand the theology of salvation, which I didn't have any incorrect ideas about, to my memory, but I certainly didn't have a complete understanding. So for the simplicity of language's sake, I think I can say that I know I've been saved, since somewhere between the beginning of 2011 and 2012, with confidence. That said,

Wake-up Call

It was even before I know that I was saved that I became "converted" to the belief that open-air preaching was not only useful, but important, and a necessity. I had lived most of my life having a basic understanding of God from whatever I'd gleaned from church and what I got from the books I'd read at my own leisure, which included Genesis, Exodus, Revelation and parts of Daniel. You know, the 'exciting stuff.' And though I had no shame in talking about God with others, as I can easily remember from my time in Boy Scouts, I never had the urge to evangelize--to go out and talk with people with the express intention of trying to explain Christianity to them, and if possible, convince them of its truth. This makes some degree of sense, considering that I didn't yet have the complete picture myself, whether it's the case that I had weak faith or vain faith. But I took for granted that Jesus was God and that the basic points of the Christian faith were totally understood by everyone in America, because of how widespread the influence of christianity is.

My wakeup call came in my second semester of college, when I passed by one of the street preachers. There was one guy who came regularly to my university, and another who traveled more widely and whom I know less about, and came less frequently. It was not the first time I'd seen a crowd gathered in a semi-circle around the speaker, but this time I wasn't in a rush and I took some time to listen. I can't remember to this day what exactly I heard, and I might be conflating several different moments into one, but I remember being utterly shocked at how ignorant the people challenging (heckling) the preacher were of basic Biblical facts. Further, my university had a very high minority population. There were substantial amounts of foreign nationals from Africa, the Middle East and the Orient, as well as students who descend from those regions and had been brought up in that culture in their home, but had grown up in America. One might expect a Saudi national at an American university on a royal scholarship to not be aware of Christian doctrine. But these were white, native-born American kids who couldn't tell right from left when it came to theology. And this was something I understood as soon as I saw it, even long before my 'awakening' in the spring of 2010. I was shocked. Shocked. 

That experience impressed upon me the belief that open-air preaching is an important service, getting the basic facts of the Gospel out there so that people can at least know what it is, in order to make an informed decision about it. Like the Bible says in Romans 10:14, "how can they hear without a preacher?" If it weren't for men like these, the message would be lost over time in the culture, because people simply don't look it up on their own. That is a lie. The only way they'll hear the truth is if someone annoys them with it when and where they don't want to hear it. 

The Preacher and the Preaching

After I began studying the Bible passionately a year later, I began to feel the effects of regeneration, I believe. A strong desire to share the amazing truth that I was learning took hold of me, and my feelings toward the street preacher went from affirmation to thankfulness and encouragement. I introduced myself to the preacher, who served the Mid-Atlantic region for the organization called "Open Air Campaigners." His name was Paul Adams, shown above, and would be very recognizable from a distance with his painting easel and the crowd that typically gathered in the middle of the day. I'm very happy to report that this preacher doesn't live up to his reputation among the students as the angry, loud, offensive bigot he supposedly is. It's funny, the cranks who make such comments confuse other students to the point where they're not sure they're talking about the same person! No, Paul's Gospel presentation is complete (not lacking anything essential), done in love, and just salty enough to not let people's consciences off scot-free. "If only" he didn't speak against people's favorite sins, they wouldn't be offended. But as 1 Corinthians 1:18 and 1 Peter 2:8 together say, "the Gospel is an offense to those who are perishing."

Another year later, after my initial immersion in studying Creation, Biblical Inerrancy, and then Islam, to cover all my theological bases, I had moved on to "meatier," more in-depth Christian theology. Throughout most of 2011, I eventually came to wrap my head around what is commonly called "Calvinism," but which is nothing more than the key parts of the Gospel, clearly emphasized in no uncertain terms. I also began to learn about pseudochristian sects and heresies, and came across the concept of false believers. This was early in the year and happens to coincide with the "P" part of TULIP (an acronym for the points of Calvinism): a video of Ray Comfort preaching on youtube called "true and false conversion." In it he asked  a young man if he "knew the Lord," when he was allegedly a believer. If he answers yes, he admits God exists, if he answers no, he admits he didn't know God. So any unbeliever who claims to have once been a believer, bottom line, never was. And that, I believe, is how I began to watch Way of the Master (Ray's ministry) videos and began watching their On the Box videos fairly regularly.

That was how I got to 'meet' the guys involved in their ministry, which at the time also included Tony Miano, who is now a freelancing preacher as well. I just wanted to bring this up to make the teensy-tiny observation that I think Tony and Paul are alike in a few ways. They:

* are sponsored by (and rooted in) the church they worship in to go out and preach

* have a similar testimony, in that they came to faith when they were a bit older. Paul was in the Marines(? if it was the Army, my mistake) and Tony was a Roman Catholic, but I'm not sure if they overlap here necessarily. But both were 'tough guys' whose regeneration produced highly noticeable changes in their character. 

* used to have a history of shouting and sounding angry, from which they've changed and now if you'd hear their typical open-air, they're some of the calmest, kindest, least-wrathful-sounding people there--the hecklers are the nasty ones.

I had a funny thought. That last bit made me think of Vulcans. From Star Trek--do you know that they had a reputation for always being highly in control of their emotions and never seemingly getting angry? But if I remember the backstory, Vulcans behaved that way because they were inherently VERY aggressive and angry people, and learned to 'stuff' their outbursts deep down over time and focus on logic over emotion. This isn't to imply that these guys are bursting with rage on the inside, haha! Just that from an observer's standpoint, they can take disrespect and aggressiveness from others with extreme calm and not return kind for kind. You can really see that particular fruit of the Spirit in each of them when they're in action.

It's from watching videos of Tony (and Ray Comfort and Todd Friel) online and from seeing Paul in person that I've come to believe from personal experience that open-air preaching, combined with tracting and the use of internet sites as tools to amplify your ability to reach people, is and is going to be the most effective way to evangelize the nation we live in. The mission field isn't in Africa. It's down the road from where you live, in America. It's time to hit the streets.

Some pictures of Paul preaching

 Heckler front and center

 A wide assortment of people turn out, gather around, and at the very least hear the Good News.

If you don't believe it works, then when you see the crowd it draws, and hear the questions that are asked, and the answers that are given, I almost guarantee you'll change your mind.

~ Rak Chazak

What About the Jews?

Should We or Should We Not Pray for God to Come Back Soon?

Poem: "What of the Jews?"

I recently wrote a poem exploring the conundrum I've had regarding whether it's best to ask for God to come back as soon as possible or whether it's best for Him to be as patient as possible, letting history drag out and waiting for more people to be saved before the final 7-year period of Earth history known as the Tribulation.

I think I explain the issue pretty well in the rhyme scheme itself. Without further ado, please enjoy the below poem, and feel free to read the footnotes for background information on the things I make reference to in the poem. It is my favorite poem I've written yet, because of how much complex thought I was able to fit into it without upsetting the scheme. 

Reading note: Lines will have the stress on the second syllable, a la "dut-duu," unless there is an asterisk -- * -- at the beginning of the line, in which case the stress will be on the first syllable, a la "duu." 

What Of the Jews?

A thought about the Rapture’s¹ struck my mind in recent days
It came about as I was contemplating how to pray
Should I petition for the Lord to come to Earth with speed?
Or should I ask that individual Jewish souls be freed?
The Bible says that, in the end, “All Israel shall be saved.”²
But in the years before that, many more go to their graves³
* What, then, ought my focus be in praying for my friends?
* What will give them the best chance to make it in the end?
The way to life is death, as their whole hist’ry goes to show⁴
I yearn for them to sooner meet the Savior that I know
Before the Time of Jacob’s Trouble,⁵ many will refuse
A “partial hardening”⁶ has become the norm among the Jews
I wish it were not so, but it is hard to reach them now*
As a nation, one could say, their heart is far too proud.⁷
Could this be reason, then, to hope for Tribulation⁸ come?
That hardship would ensure all live, instead of only some?
But if the Tribulation came today, what of my friends?
* Would they be unsaved if they should meet untimely ends?
The fear of asking carelessly is keeping me awake
And anxiously considering the lives which are at stake
* What’s a bigger roadblock to a Jew’s accepting Christ?
Is it prosperity or is it deadly human strife?⁹
* War can make a man more urgent, peace can make him slack.
* Should we then hope that the Jews come soon under attack?
* May it not be so! Let me suggest another way:
The many  Jewish tribesmen sealed descend from those today¹⁰
Implicit in that they believe is that they’ve heard it preached—
The Gospel cannot save the men to whom it hasn’t reached¹¹
So whether they believe through trial, or escape before
The answer to my doubt, it seems, is: Preach the Gospel more!
We can’t assume the end will come so soon s’ as to be lazy
Few things in life are truer than [that] the future is quite hazy
* We don’t know when time runs out. We can’t afford to quit
So carry on, and do God’s will—yes, every little bit!
I love the Jews, and want them saved, from great to very small
But best of all for them ‘s to join us at the Trumpet call¹²
“Escaping all these things,”¹³ to spite their stubborn ancestry
Rejoicing at the Wedding Feast¹⁴ about God’s majesty
* Meanwhile, those we left behind will have another shot
To flee their sin, repent and put their faith and hope in God¹⁵
* Stubborn Israel took two thousand years to learn the truth:¹⁶
That God, in choosing men for heaven, cares not what we do
* We can only e’er do any good by His great grace
To try to work our way to Him is, in His eyes, disgrace
* My dear Jewish friends, I hope you’ll come to Faith today
But if you don’t, as we have seen, God still will have His way.
Baruch HaShem¹⁷

Footnotes for those curious:

1. The Rapture is a Biblical concept supported by the theological reasoning behind the purpose of the present Church Age and future Tribulation. Put shortly, in the final 7-year period of human history before the return of Jesus Christ, God punishes the pagan gentile nations and disciplines rebellious Israel. As the Church is neither pagan gentiles nor rebellious Jews, there is no reason for it to be present on earth during this time. Concurrently, the book of Revelation nowhere mentions the Church after the description of the end-times begins, although Israel is mentioned many times. The letter to the Thessalonians explains why the Church is not present by saying that all believers in Christ will be “caught up” (Grk. harpazo, Lat. rapturo, from which we get ‘rapture’) 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 introduces this doctrine, and 1 Thessalonians 5:9 supports it by saying “we are not appointed to suffer wrath.” A subsection of the Tribulation period is known as The Wrath, where God releases His righteous anger on the world. See Revelation 6:16-17. Logically, 5:9 indicates that the Church won’t be on earth during that time period. For clarification, the Church is defined as the sum total of all those who are saved by faith in Christ. It does not refer to a building or religious institution. The Roman Catholic Church is not THE Church, and neither is any other church. There are unsaved people in every religious institution that calls itself “christian,” and there are probably at least some who are saved, in every such institution as well. Do not be mistaken: affiliation with a religion does not save you, only faith in Christ can save you.

2. Romans 11:26

3. This refers to two things: one is that for as long as the Church Age draws on, Jews will continue to live and die natural lives and most of them will remain in unbelief, dying in their sins, and this is a great tragedy. The other thing is that it is quite possible that even though many will come to faith in the Tribulation, many will also die, and it is presently unclear to me whether there is any guarantee in Scripture against the possibility that those who die before the Return of the King will be unsaved. If there is no such guarantee, then the Tribulation will result in the deaths of many unbelieving Jews, and thus for those who do not convert before the end of the 7-year period, and die, the calamity means nothing but damnation for them, and not salvation. Such a possibility urges me strongly against wanting to ask for the end to come soon, lest I inadvertently be praying damnation on someone.

4. The first part of this, “the way to life is death,” refers to Christ dying on the Cross for us. His death made possible our eternal lives, if we repent and receive His sacrifice as a substitute for the punishment we deserve because of our sin. Consequently, Romans 6:11 “Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” To live, we must die. The second part of the line is just a clever artistic reference to the fact that it is the very history of the Jewish race that has brought us the message of life as delivered to them by God, through continual national calamities after calamities. Even today, the Jewish story is not yet over, because even though they are still killed throughout the world, and will yet be in the future, those who are alive at the end of the Tribulation will be alive in Christ even as the whole world has died – and those who live now have the opportunity to live by the power of God through dying to their Jewishness and accepting the Gospel of salvation through faith and not nationality.

5. The Time of Jacob’s Trouble is another name for the Tribulation, further lending support to the doctrine of the Rapture of the Church. Jacob is Israel. The primary reference for this is Jeremiah 30:7 “How awful will that day be! No other will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it.”

6. Romans 11:25

7.  That the Jews have stumbled because of a general case of religious-nationalist pride (being the “Chosen Ones,” you know – it can make you arrogant, and it did) is a common theme in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament where the prophets preach continuously against their countrymen’s sins. Here is how Paul—the Jewish Pharisee—puts it in Romans 10:19-21 :

“Again I ask, Did Israel not understand? First, Moses says, “I will make you envious by those who are not a nation; I will make you angry by a nation that has no understanding,” And Isaiah boldly says, “I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.” But concerning Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and obstinate people.””

8. The term Tribulation comes from Jesus’ discourse in Matthew 24:21, where the word He uses to describe the future events He’s foretelling about has historically been translated ‘tribulation,’ meaning distress, trouble, etc.

9. Proverbs 30:7-9, the sayings of Agur:

“Two things I ask of you, Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you, and say, “Who is the Lord?” Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.”

10. Simple logic. Revelation 7:4-8 describes 144,000 people of Jewish descent, 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes, as being “sealed” by a mark on the forehead before the earth was subjected to the Trumpet and Bowl judgments, but after the Seals (read Revelation for more details. The three categories described are telescoping sequences of catastrophes unleashed on the earth during the Tribulation period). Those sealed were supernaturally protected from death and suffering throughout the course of the Tribulation, in the vision John saw. The hope that these could be Jews who turn to Christ very shortly after the Rapture and Seal judgments is a potential motivation to pray for God’s Second Coming to happen soon. Revelation here blatantly guarantees that 144,000 Jewish people who were NOT believers prior to the Rapture WILL be saved. This is very encouraging news. And so the logic that I lay out in the poem above is, if they come to faith, they must have had access to New Testaments and/or the preaching of Christians prior to the Tribulation, so that the events would have provoked them to faith in Christ. The reasoning for this is in the point below.

11. Romans 10:13-14 “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved  (ref: Joel 2:32). How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”  The following verses go on to say, “How can anyone preach unless they are sent?...Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” The conclusion, then, is to preach the Gospel so that the Jews may hear and believe.

12. The ‘trumpet call’ phrase is inspired by the line in the song “Days of Elijah” by Twilah Paris, that goes, “behold He comes, riding on the clouds, shining like the sun, at the Trumpet call.” In comparing Matthew 24:30-31 with 1 Thessalonians 4:16, these passages identify a trumpet of some sort with the Rapture, as well as informing that God Himself will make a “Second Appearing,” coming down but not touching down on earth, before the Tribulation, but not to be confused with the Second Coming.

13. Luke 21:36 (Luke 21 is the parallel passage to Matthew 24 in Luke’s Gospel).

14. Revelation 19:6-9. The Wedding Feast of the Lamb is a celebration that takes place in heaven during the Tribulation, where all those who belong to God participate in glorifying Him. It is called a Wedding because the Church is symbolically represented as a bride, such as in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her…”

15. Romans 9:31-32. “But the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone.”

16. I don’t mean anything concrete by this. It simply indicates that if the end of history is within the next century, then it took roughly 2,000 years after the Messiah came for the Jews to finally believe in Him, one and all. It doesn’t mean that no Jews ever have. Remember, it was a partial hardening. Romans 11:23 says, “And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.”

17. This is a common Hebrew phrase meaning "praise God," "thank God," or literally, "blessed be the name of the Lord."

Further reading about Israel: Romans 9-12.

Note: the verse quotations were taken from my NIV Bible. I have a KJV and NIV, so the way I phrase something may appear to look different from the actual quote I put up, but this is simply a matter of translation. For that matter, the verse pop-up feature uses the ESV version. Variety is the spice of life!

~ Rak Chazak

Treatise: What Made the Red Planet Red? A Theory of Planetary Colonization and What Could Have Been

I have an idea about the possible explanation for how distant, habitable, yet lifeless planets fit into a Biblically Christian framework of cosmic history. It’s based on the three points I mentioned already—the distance, the habitability, and the lack of any evidence of other sentient life among them. I’ll unpack them. First, why should there be any planets that could be habitable by humans, other than Earth, if humans were only planted on Earth initially? It seems like a simple conclusion that, given enough time, we were expected to live on them as well. Otherwise there would be no point in them being habitable, from a purposeful-universe-by-design perspective. But why should they be so far away? Well, the universe itself is vast, so if there were no habitable planets in distant reaches of the universe, then large parts of it would by definition be uninhabitable. And how then could mankind fulfill its role of exercising dominion over all creation?—assuming, with reason, that the Dominion Mandate would be extended from just the Earth to encompassing all of the universe, at some point. It does appear to be the intention that humanity would have,upon fully developing the Earth, have been given dominion over the stars as well, and told to spread out to distant planets so as to govern the entire universe that God created. But something prevented this from happening.

The reason that other planets don’t have life is very simple. It’s not just that we haven’t found it, or that it’s sparse throughout the universe, but that it isn’t there. There are very good reasons for believing that no intelligent aliens exist, or life of any kind beyond the Earth for that matter. Here are a few:

* Sentient aliens would either have spirits or not. If they did not, they would have no hope of life after death. Why would God create self-reflective beings like humans but make them otherwise just like an animal, denying them eternity? And if they did have a spirit, then are they perfectly sinless or sinful? If they are sinless, then they suffer from the Curse which is over all creation, which is unjust to them—what did they have to do with Adam’s sin? And if they are sinful, then they are also fallen, and according to the developed concept of a kinsman-redeemer, needed God the Son to be born as one of them, live a perfect life on their behalf, and die in their place for their sin. So Jesus would suffer and die an untold amount of times for an untold amount of aliens. But the Bible said He died once for all. Is this reasonable? Alternatively, if the Bible doesn’t only restrict the Atonement to humans, (though none of the language implies this to be true), then how would aliens learn about it so as to believe and be saved? And why should humanity have been the one place where Jesus came to be incarnated, and not one of the multitudes of other alien races? These are all important questions to consider before accepting that alien life can coexist, even as a concept, with orthodox Biblical Christianity.

* The Bible strongly implies that everything that was created is for the benefit of mankind. If there were unknown lifeforms on other planets, what good would these do for Man if he couldn’t even know that they were there, much less utilize them? If this doesn’t sound convincing, then what do you make of the utter lack of any mention of other planets or life forms in the creation account in Genesis? The Earth is the only place described where plant, animal and sentient life were created, and at the end, the record concludes with the declaration that ‘thus was (the heavens and the earth, that is, everything) created, in all its vast arry,’ which means that no other life was created elsewhere afterwards. The circumstantial evidence is strong that there are no aliens anywhere. And it is such a strong implicit case, like the Trinity is also, that a scientific test to prove or disprove Scripture would come down to the question of whether alien life will be found outside of earth. If our faith can’t be disproven, it isn’t meaningful. A faithful Christian can with confidence say that the discovery of sentient alien life, such as that in Star Wars, Halo, Star Trek, etc, would invalidate the Bible. And that same Christian would have no fear because of his confidence that that will never happen, because of the strong Scriptural case against it, and his preeminent trust in the Bible as the word of God.

So what prevented mankind from being given the commandment to spread out among the stars and have dominion over them? It’s the same reason Mars is red. Key to the understanding of the universe as it is today, is the knowledge that “all creation groans and travails in birth pangs together,” and the knowledge that that is happening because of Adam’s sin as recorded in Genesis 3. The entire universe is wearing down and breaking to pieces. There is some aspect in which this has to do with the second law of thermodynamics, since it concerns the increase in entropy, that is, disorder, which means that energy tends from more usable forms to less usable forms over time. Stars become dust. Buildings become rubble. It takes energy to maintain things in a specific condition. It takes no energy at all for things to fall apart. It happens on its own. There is one form for a wineglass when its molecules are all ordered together, but an infinity of ways for those molecules to be arranged if the glass is destroyed. Pure statistical probability, then, guarantees that, given the opportunity, things will randomly break down rather than remain in “high energy conformations.” But please note that the second law of thermodynamics describes things like friction and the release of energy due to food digestion. It would be incorrect to say that the law was not in effect at all in the initial creation that God made. But there appears to be some aspect of the universe now—a general trend of decay—that wouldn’t have been the case before.

What’s my point in saying this? Fairly simple. Mars is red because it is rusted. The whole planet is rusted, which means that the whole planet at some point was covered in water. It is an amusing irony that astronomers are willing to posit a global flood on Mars, a planet with nearly no surface water, and none in liquid form, but unwilling to accept the claim of a global flood on Earth, a planet 75% covered in water, to depths of several miles in places. Mars has almost no atmosphere, and it’s posited that it was blown away by solar winds that were undeterred by the planet’s weak magnetic field. Earth’s field reflects charged particles from the sun all the time, which “keeps the atmosphere safe,” and intact. Water evaporates and becomes part of the atmosphere, given temperatures above freezing point. The Red Planet’s water would then have blown away also, and any water that now remains would be the amount that had not yet evaporated when the temperature permanently plunged below zero degrees Celsius.

What’s the point, you ask again? Simple—Mars is red because its magnetic field decayed and its atmosphere was blown away by the intense radiation given off by the sun. And why should the field have decayed rather than maintained at its primeval initial state? May I suggest that God is the one who ‘holds all things together,’ and that while He keeps everything material in existence to this day, has as one consequence of Adam’s sin chosen to remove, partially, His activity of maintaining the creation in pristine conditions? Mars used to have more water than it does today. How much, we can’t be sure, but the channels on its surface are considered evidence of gouging by large amounts of fast-moving surface water. We could have eventually settled on that planet, but even if we can now, it seems like it’s going to be much more difficult on a frozen rock with nearly no atmosphere.

Because of the Fall, the universe is in decay. Because of the Fall, we no longer have the opportunity to settle the universe this side of eternity. We could try, but the end of history as described in Revelation will come long before we get very far at all. What remains is the evidence of the planets that could have been colonized if we had been obedient to God. What remains is a faded picture of what could have been, and what one day may be the reality yet again, for those who repent of their sin (since sin is, after all, why our universe is so uninhabitable and generally messed up) and put their faith in Christ—they will one day live in a new universe, one that won’t see decay. Maybe we can have fun playing a game of galactic colonization with the other saints. Who knows what God has in store for us. But make sure you don’t miss the boat. The Ark was the ‘door of salvation’ to those who survived Earth’s global flood. Now it is Jesus who says, “I am the door…” and will save you from the second and final time that God destroys the Earth. Mars is red, because we sinned. Who would have thought?

~ Rak Chazak

Related reading:

Is the Bible Falsifiable? And Would a Real Live ET do it?
Did God Create Life on Other Planets?
Will We Have Any Work to do in Heaven?
What is a Kinsman-Redeemer? - GotQuestions
The Creation of Planetary Magnetic Fields - CRSQ
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"No Man Is As Polite As You"

Ehm. Not to toot my own horn. I wasn't expecting such a compliment, but that's what made it stand out when I heard it. I'm going to attempt to draw something valuable out of it.

I just began working at a fast-food chain restaurant, and each of the days I was there, there were also two or three Ukranian girls at the fry-station, sandwich area and drive-thru station. I worked the cash register. In the middle of the day, there would tend to be a 'rush,' where there's more than two or three people in line at a time, for an extended period of maybe an hour or more (at our establishment, at least)--this prevented us from being able to talk much initially, not that you should be doing too much of that when you're on the clock, anyway. But over the 5 days we were there at the same time, we had the opportunity to trade some words back and forth. I "impressed" them with showing that I knew the words 'spaziba' and 'dobre utre' (I'm spelling them as they sound to me, not according to any actual standard), which mean 'thank you' and 'good morning.' I learned 'dobre veche' (good evening), 'bon scheuye spaziba' (thank you very much) and was reminded of the word I'd forgotten, 'izviñi,' which means both 'excuse me' and 'I'm sorry.' It' a very utilitarian word, thus. 'Parschallista' means both 'please' and 'you're welcome,' making it very easy to get the words right if you're just learning the language! Specifically, this language is Russian. There is a Ukranian language, but Russian is widely spoken in the country and it's the only thing I heard them speak while they were there.

They were there doing a student work-exchange over the summer. I've run into Russian college students doing that before, when I worked at a summer camp. There was a girl named Vicka who was really motivated to try to experience everything (rock wall, swimming pool, biking) while she was there, and I had the most opportunity to talk to her. Some of the other guy staffers suspected us of being interested in each other, romantically. That wasn't the case. In February, there had been some Thai girls doing a similar exchange at the same restaurant. So it seems that this is a widespread thing, where other countries send students here to work and live for a short amount of time, to have the opportunity to practice their English, interact with actual Americans, and of course see the sights. Always surprised that my small town ever gets the interest of people from far away, I nevertheless enjoy being a part of the impression that these people get of the place when they leave.

Free Use, Wiki Commons

The above graph on the left shows the religious diversity in the Ukraine. White is atheist, and the rest of the colors are mainly sects of the Orthodox Catholic Church. This is typical of European countries of the present time--there tends to be more nontheists than any other individual group in these countries, though there are long histories of the influence of traditional religions, mostly Christian or nominally christian, in those places. I bring this up because while I'm not assuming what the girls I worked with believe, it's nevertheless a reasonable inference to make, that what I was asked was influenced in part by the national spiritual landscape of their home country, irrespective of their personal beliefs.

The "more American" of the girls (spoke better English, not that the others were unable to communicate or anything) spoke up when they were all standing together and we were talking. She said, midst giggles from the other two, that 'no man can be (or is, I forget which she said) as polite as you.' This was after first asking why I was so polite. To me, I was just behaving normally, not putting on an act in order to speak with customers, although maybe putting in more effort to appear cheerful and friendly than usual, but other than that, 'what you see is what you get.' I tried to think of a reason, and gave her that it's just natural to me to be respectful like that, that it's genuine. "No men are as polite as you," she said. And now I come to the twofold impression I gained from the experience:

1. It struck me that this has happened before. It isn't something that contains itself based on geography. I've met many an American girl that treated me with suspicion for no readily explainable reason. Through the grapevine, it's come forth that people sometimes have the impression that I'm putting on a front, not being genuine, that maybe I'm hiding something. They think I'm too nice. Of all the things to have for a problem, right? People think I'm faking my personality because they can't see why I should seem so happy or pleasant to others, particularly strangers. It hurts a little, but I'm more happy that it's because of being too friendly and nice than because I come across as the opposite. I wouldn't be surprised if a great number of potential friendships or romantic relationships were prevented in the past because my demeanor motivated people to be suspicious of me. It's a loss, to be sure, but on the other hand it's inadvertently screened for people who are more confident in themselves and less judgmental of others to be the sort of people that I eventually get closer to. And lest I be remiss, this all is directly tied to my faith--or rather, my regeneration. You can really tell the difference between a saved and unsaved person by whether they have joy or whether they do not. In general, of course. I simply want to affirm that I have the outward personality that I have because I have the inside satisfaction and joy that comes from knowing the answers to the tough questions of life, and having relief in the knowledge that I know where I'm going, I know what my purpose is, and I have a healthy relationship with my heavenly Father. It isn't any more complicated than that. Which brings me to my next point.

2. Shortly after that, the young girl (they were all about 19--at 23, I feel fairly old) asked me if I was religious. For simplicity's sake, I didn't argue about the meaning of the word, and decided to answer 'yes.' I wanted to make myself understood and not confuse her. She responded, "ah, that explains it." A little while after, she asked me if I went to church and I explained that I hadn't had the opportunity to visit during college and currently didn't have a car (see earlier blog post). She said, 'aha, well you're not *really* religious, then,' and this may have been her teasing me and possibly attempting to bring some jocularity into the conversation to draw it away from the serious topic, which people can find uncomfortable, because the other girls laughed at her and implied she was messing with me. I did respond that 'well, if being religious just means you go, sit, and leave, once a week, then yeah, I'm not really religious.' So there you see that I did make a slight attempt to define the term and not imply that I was just your run-of-the-mill lame churchian, or whatever she might have had in the back of her mind because of her prior experience, when she asked.

It was a short but fascinating exchange, to me. My surprise at the declaration by the girl (and the two others emphatically agreed on that point) that I was inhumanly polite can be explained by the fact that there's very few Christians (capital C) around, and consequently most people live the bulk of their lives without really getting to see the fruit of sanctification in another person. So what's the reason why I was so polite and why they were so confounded by my behavior so as to comment on it -- and to declare that no other man on earth was as polite as me, no less? It comes down to Christ and His grace. His gospel. It always comes back to that. He is at the root of it all. 

So that was a little way in which I might have 'witnessed,' recently. Not something extremely remarkable, since I didn't exactly have (take?) the opportunity to share the full Gospel with them, but I'm hoping God will take that memory and use it to bring fruit in their lives when the moment is right in the future.

~ Rak Chazak

Crop Dusting

I caught some pictures of this plane on film camera last year, but when I came back from a morning run one morning this summer, I witnessed this single-engine skimming the tops of the trees directly over our house. I quickly ran inside and grabbed my digital camera and snapped a few shots, but the video was better. Here's what a single pass looked like, from the road:

This is my first video upload anywhere on the internet, (correction: outside of Facebook) so it's going to be interesting to experiment with this and see how it goes.

~ Rak Chazak

Employed!

I've gotten a position in fast food for the time being. My prior experience in the summers of 2009 and 2010 helped me transition in very quickly, and allowed me to be useful. I think I came at a good time, because other people were leaving (more to come in a future entry), and I'm scheduled to work a 36-hour week this week. Hopefully it keeps up.

In the meantime, I'm taking the free moments I have and working on continuing my search on-line for degree-related work.

~ Rak Chazak

Currently in the Works

No promises as to whether I'll actually accomplish the things listed, because some have been on my to-do list for a few months, but then again, I've turned out 3,000-word posts in single days before, so it's possible.

Here's what I'm working on offline, and when I have a stroke of writing inspiration, I finish one off and post it.

* An evaluation of the lyrics to Globus' Europa, to investigate the religio-nationalism of the song.
* A post on whether it's acceptable for Christians to use anonymity or pseudonymity, particularly online.
* Thoughts on dying young/before you expect
* A criticism of how 'honors' programs and societies put stragglers in a Catch-22
* Three poems:
     - Proverbs 31 put to rhyme
     - On preaching the Gospel even if it leads to your death
     - (My favorite so far): A poem exploring whether Christians who care about the souls of their Jewish friends should want to pray for the Second Coming to be soon, or not.

The poems are actually already finished. I'm keeping them on hand to post later in the month. I initially wrote them in snail-mail letters to some friends, and they haven't gotten them yet.

Here's one that I sent a while ago.

The kind of romances that last
Are not the ones we enter fast
But those in which we patiently
Engage the other healthily.
And when we think we've found our love
We must take note, we're not enough!
To satisfy a human heart
We need to bid our God take part.

'til next time!

~ Rak Chazak

"60s Girl Grooves" on PBS

I've admitted before that I only have broadcast television at home. This means that I sometimes get to see interesting things that I didn't know about because I don't have a choice in the matter. If you have the freedom to choose to do whatever you want, you may choose to refuse to do some things on the basis of not knowing that you would actually like to do them. So not having total freedom of choice can be a good thing, sometimes.

In this particular case, I tuned in to PBS and saw that they were advertising a series of music videos and tracks of hit songs by girl bands from the 60s. The title to this post gives the name of the program. I myself am a stalwart 80s person when it comes to the style of music I like (not necessarily the lyrics...you'd be surprised how many of them talk about sex, euphemistically, if you haven't stopped to think about it before). Nevertheless, I recognized quite a few of the songs I heard. But what I was most intrigued by was not the music, but the women themselves. And not in the way you might expect of a guy in his 20s.

I was shocked by how they were dressed. Having not lived through the '60s, I've often heard about how the '60s was the decade of the Sexual Revolution, when modesty was thrown out the window. If you've heard of Hippies, this is the heyday of when they roamed the earth. Anyhoo, what I hadn't realized was that if modesty was lost in the 60s, then it must have been had, initially, in order to be lost. So in the early part of the 60s, you should expect to see evidence of modesty rather than immodesty. This is what I saw in the music videos.

Allow me to emphasize this observation: almost all of the videos shown on the broadcast depicted the performers covered from ankle, to wrist, to neck, with no skin showing in between. Only one had shorts that ended above the knee, and even she had a one-piece getup that covered her arms to the elbows. The "most undressed" of all were the ladies who had their arms uncovered:

Look at that! How scandalous.

Above are the Supremes. One might imagine when hearing the name of their hit, "Heatwave," that one should see bikinis and dancing on a beach. Nope. I couldn't find any still shots on line, but they were dressed ankle-to-wrist in whatever-they-call-those-things. I was stunned. 

Beyond the get-ups, their motions as they performed were extremely restrained by comparison to musical mainstream artists today. Again the 'guilty party' were the Supremes, who moved around the most on stage of all the artists that were featured. Guess what they were doing? Swaying their hips. Oh man. Yes, most of the artists stood still and maybe turned side to side or snapped their fingers with the beat. It was SO WEIRD, coming from a world where I've been able to see the dance moves of pop stars on television and on Youtube, which by and large utilize armies of sex-specific (depending on the performer's sex, that is..it's the opposite in the) backup dancers, elaborate sequences of choreographed steps and typically even a striptease or hip-thrusts that would put Elvis-the-pelvis-Presley to shame...or is that, 'to dignity?'

I ate it up. It was fascinating.

The 60s was only 40 or 50 years ago, depending on which end of it you're counting from. When you see what a difference that period makes in a culture's sense of acceptable attire--and stage performance behavior--it can make you wonder, what will the next 40 years look like? Will things become even more licentious? Or are we going to experience a bounce-back? A rebellion against the rebellion to the old culture, which has become the new culture? One hopes. Call me crazy, but I think I enjoy the type of artistic atmosphere that promotes female talent based on their musical skills and not their willingness to behave in shocking ways in order to "please" a crowd. 

I've always thought t-shirts and shorts looked better than string bikinis, anyway.

~ Rak Chazak

Time to Get Critical: Mandisa’s “Stronger” and “Overcomer”

Abstract

Mandisa is a popular CCM artist but her two most recent songs are poor influences. They encourage listeners to focus on their own abilities and to seek power to overcome difficulties inside themselves, rather than trusting in God for help. The songs make inappropriate guarantees of end to difficulty, and relegate God's role in our suffering to the sidelines, as someone cheering us on rather than leading us through it. For these reasons, I discourage everyone from listening to or promoting those two particular songs. Their melodies are no substitute for their lacking content.

Analysis

                I don’t know this particular artist, I can only judge the subject matter of the songs that are aired constantly on my local Christian radio stations. Their frequency implies that they are very popular, and so I think it’s important for there to be an analysis of them on the Internet somewhere. I’ll do my best to give them a fair treatment here.

                The songs are not blatantly anti-Christian, and in fact have a few references to Biblical doctrines (the latter more so than the former), but these would be easily missed by the Biblically illiterate main stream christian crowd, and especially any nonbelievers who might be listening in. The songs unfortunately fall into the category of CCM (Christian Contemporary Music) that can be summed up as “self-help encouragement.” The problem is not that it attempts to make people feel good, but that the emphasis is far too often on some alleged inherent capacity in the individual to “be great,” rather than on relying on God for blessings.

                Now I’ll look at a sampling of the lyrics. Here is the chorus from “Stronger”:

When the waves are taking you under

Hold on just a little bit longer

He knows that this is gonna make you stronger, stronger

The pain ain’t gonna last forever

In time, it (can/will) only get better

Believe me, this is gonna make you stronger, stronger

As is common when I write the longer blog posts, I’m not online as I write this, and so I can’t remember the entire song’s lyrics (repetitive as they are), but here is an excerpt from the second verse:

Try and do the best you can

Hold on (for as long as you can/and let Him hold your hand)

Go on, fall into the arms of Jesus [**the only reference to Him by name in the entire song]

whoa oh oh

****** (I can’t remember this line)

Even if you cannot feel Him

I promise you that He still cares

(chorus)

                All right. So what’s wrong with that? Let me count the ways: 1) emphasis on what you do, not what God has done for you or will do through you, 2) unBiblical promise that pain will go away (the song does not imply it will end in heaven), 3) unBiblical view of sanctification, 4) distant view of Christ as someone on the sidelines cheering you on.

                And the part that bothers me the most is the most subtle: “He knows that this is gonna make you stronger.” The He knows part galls me. Why? Because it says that whatever you’re going through is going to make you a better person somehow, and the only role Jesus has in the whole situation is to know that that’s the case. He apparently DOES nothing, just watches you suffer. At most, the song implies that Jesus tells you that it’s going to get better. But He doesn’t actually help you. The lyrics frame Christ as either unconcerned, sadistic, or impotent. Combine this with the end of the last line of the second verse: when I first heard the song, it sounded as if it would naturally end in, ‘Even if you cannot feel Him, I promise you that He’s still there.’ But according to this song, Jesus isn’t even present with you in your afflictions. He “cares,” but “Stronger’s” Jesus doesn’t ever show it. He’s like the estranged grandparent who lives in the next town over and sends $20 and a generic Hallmark card on birthdays but never visits or calls. I don’t want a God who “cares.” Personally, what has always made most sense to me is to have a God who “knows.” Because since He is omniscient, that means He knows all about my problems, and He knows the best way to answer my prayers. I can trust such a God. But a God whose main emphasis is on emotion divorced from rationality is a scary thought. What good does it do if God, or anyone, “cares” but doesn’t help you? The problem I have with this is that emotions, in the present culture, are viewed as chemical sensations and not as goal-motivators. When I say that God cares, it means that He’s actively being intimately involved in your personal struggles and is guiding you through them for His glory and your good, as the Bible says. When the Culture says “God (or anyone) cares,” it means that He feels bad for you – but that’s the extent of it. In the contemporary view of emotion, God caring about you doesn’t mean anything! It does nothing for you! So how, then, can this possibly be encouraging to someone? I affirm that it can’t. And so the song, though it seems aimed at being encouraging on its face, really plants seeds of discouragement in the listener. Because what happens after a person has been struggling for 30 years, wondering every day when their affliction will end, and all the time people are telling them “hey, God cares.” They’ll despise the gesture. It’s as meaningless as saying “Jesus loves you” because people don’t know what love IS. We need to explain these things, we can’t just throw them out. And sadly, the context of how the words show up in this song confirms that the “encouragement” is empty.

                Do I have a Bible verse to justify this with, so I’m not just throwing out my opinion? You bet. And this is what I challenge the people who say “God cares” frivolously with:

“Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”

James 2:15-16

Upcoming Blogs

My schedule is variable, as you can tell by the upload dates over the past two months. I'm working on some longer posts that I'll put up later this month, when I've completed them. And I've got two new poems, which I must say at least one of is really good! I promise it'll be good reading.

Meanwhile I'm working on trying to get employed, exercising regularly, and helping out around the house. As things happen in my life, I'll keep this place updated. See my first blog post for an explanation of the purpose of this blog.

Stay tuned!

~ Rak Chazak

A Brief Thought On the Word Glorious

God is glorious, we know that. But the word 'glorious' is often used for such things as a beautiful sunset or other thing that causes us to be amazed. I wondered, linguistically, what the connection is. Because if 'glorious' means 'possessing glory,' it would definitely apply to God, but I'm uncertain that it would be a wise thing to say of material things or human events. On the other hand, if 'glorious' means 'revealing the glory of God,' then it can both apply to God and things. And more than in the former case, the word must necessarily refer to everything, because everything in creation reveals the glory of God (Psalm 19:1-4, Romans 1:18-20). 

I like that. An unbeliever may certainly use the word 'glorious' with different intention, but for me, since everywhere I look I can see God's glory revealed, I can happily declare that the sunrise, the stars, and even "mundane" things like a cold shower or a political victory, are glorious, because they all point back to God, for the one paying attention.

~ Rak Chazak

Follow-up on the Last Blog Post

Elizabeth and I seem to have been thinking the same thing. I wrote a short little comment on how the Spirit accomplishes sanctification and what role material things play in that, and just yesterday she posted an article reflecting on how the Spirit interacts with us in general. 

I'll link it here. It's very good (just 1900 words or so :) ) http://the-end-time.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-are-we-led-by-spirit-and-how-does.html 

If this line of thinking interests you, I highly recommend the fiction book, The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, for more examples and thought experiments. The book is written as a collection of letters from a 'senior fiend,' or something to that effect, to his subordinate, and it explores the relationship between mind and body, in particular the relationship between spiritual influences (good or evil) and our minds.

~ Rak Chazak