Your life can change in one second, one phone call, one instance… you are not really in control, it’s an illusion. This is what makes faith so good.

Sometimes when I am depressed with how slowly my life/career is moving I remind myself that everything can change in an instant. This change could be for better or it could be for worse… especially if you believe in fate as opposed to having faith.

Forgive me for getting a little “christian” on you but I faithfully believe that in spite of what I see, in spite of what I experience… things are ultimately going to get better. Believing in a specifically personal, singular God is not very hip these days… it’s all about the universe.

Unfortunately the universe is not really specific and personal enough to care about you when you are going through your “lonely” moments this Christmas… excuse me while I go answer the phone…

This blog will hopefully be updated daily, or near daily, as per the title….My name is Matt Wright and I am a spiritual teacher and intuitive, and I work with my friend Jeremy Elliott, who is a spirit medium.

We hope that this blog is interesting and fun to read, and help you understand the our daily life and experience of us Light Workers!!!

Peace be upon you, always, in All-Ways,

Matt

Over the years and years that I’ve been looking into religion and its many facets,
I never really understood what it was that I was looking for.

Was it selfish? Was it selfless? Did it have something to do with the afterlife? Did it have something to do with belief? And on and on and on.

Why did the idea of the ‘One True Religion’ bother me so much? And why did Coexistence between all religions make no sense to me, either? Yes, it’s good that all religions should coexist with one another for perfect peace and world harmony and blahblablahblablah.

Why did all of this irk me to no end? Push my buttons?

I was looking for truth. And still am. That’s why, while yes, all religions can be argued to be respectable in their own right, WHAT IS THE TRUTH?

And this is where science truly comes in. I think that onlt (ONLY!) through science, logic, reason, and exploration can we as humans discover the truth.

So why then, do people still believe so heavily in religion?

a) they need something to get them through tough times, something to hold on to.
b) they need a road map for their life, in a sense that they need justification for doing good things, or not doing ‘bad’ things.
c) they need to satisfy their egos, even though it’s in a ridiculously convoluted way.
d) people DO NOT look for truth. They look for what feels good, what’s comfortable. They don’t want to know the truth, they just want to get through life unscathed.

And it’s a pity because the more truth-seekers we have, the better our future looks.

c: E

I Believe
 
That God is so immense He can fill a universe easily, yet can be intimately
present to each individual who calls on Him, and all at the same time. That
this intimacy is so powerful that we feel that it is only us and Him, that
the rest of the universe is barely there, so lost in His Love we are and so
intimate and precious He makes us feel, when we love Him as He desires.

That the closer you get to the mountain, the bigger it becomes from your view
and the smaller you seem in comparison. And when you really comprehend “the
mountain” of God, you realize that you are truly nothing, and that is when
you become. And it is overwhelmingly enough to be nothing, if He is all, He
who saturates the universe with His Love and penetrates to the very core of
your soul and beyond.

That God speaks our language through His Son, that part of God that desires
to touch us and make us His own, no matter what the cost. That the Sacrifice
was ALL and the guarantee nothing. That God waits in longing for us to figure
out that it is God that we are searching for as we wander further away,
feeling God has deserted us, while we desert God.

He wants to be in our hearts, infinetly vunerable to our will to love Him……………………………..

That eternity is a long time, but it begins in the present moment and that
moment can last forever. That when we live this moment for Him, in Him, when
He is all and we are nothing, when we love with all we are until we are
nothing, we step into the eternal moment and heaven comes to us wherever we
are…

…and that moment can last forever.

Ó2002 Caryn Brady

“To fall in love with God

            is the greatest of all romances,

                                 to seek Him, the greatest adventure;

                                              to find Him, the greatest human achievement.”

                                                                            St. Augustine.

THE HUMAN HEART MADE SACRED

This Sacred Human Heart so longs to love and be loved in perfect, intimate unity and makes Sacred this Holy Desire of one heart for another.

This tender Human Sacred Heart feels the emptiness of a longing for love unfulfilled, of a love rejected, of a love simply not seen nor heard, nor cared about.

This Heart of the Saviour, through forsaking His Divine Majesty for the humanity of the human condition, and in this state, giving all for love, remains for the most part, except for the rare few, unloved in the deepest sense of His desire for the  highest of human love. His Holy Desire for perfect unity, for perfect intimacy, for perfect mutual surrender in love, remains a passionate human and Divine longing that pierces the Heart of God, a God that so loved the heart of the human as to become one and suffer all His Humanity, all for this love!

This leaves this Heart in sorrow and in abondonment so immense as to be unfathomable to the human heart. Though loved in the shallow sense of human love by many, His desire is for the perfecting of human love, of a love totally surrendered, totally sacrificing all for the Beloved, totally united in perfect love.

When embraced by this completely selfless and passionate love, the love such as that of saints and matryrs, the Heart of our God is held in perfect unity of the heart’s highest love, responding fully to its Beloved, and is moved by all the highest and most passionate of human emotions. This heart is not only one in flesh, but one in emotions as well. When held in love in this way, the Heart of our God is focussed on this love and is comforted against the abandonment of the masses. He responds with His mercy and grace which pours forth upon not just the one who comfoorts Him, but on all His people. This is how our God desires to love us, completely surrendering His love and mercy to be completely responded to with a return of selfless abondonment of love. Though not responded to in this way by all His people, the rare soul who loves this Sacred Heart with such perfect human love stirs this Heart to such immense passion and unites with this Heart to such a high degree that the abandonment of the masses is forgotten in the perfect love of the one who loves beyond all human love. Thus protected from the abandonment of love, the Sacred Heart of our Lord is moved to perfect joy and an immense outpouring of grace.

Caryn Brady

IMAGINE

Imagine a Heart that is so close to you that every cell in yours feels as if it touching this Heart, being bathed in its Light and Love.

Imagine that this Heart is alive, beating, loving, and that every beat you feel completely, as if it were your own, moving in you.

Imagine that there is nothing more tender than this Heart, that every movement, every touch is of complete, pure Love, completely overwhelming tender love and compassion, and sweetest joy beyond explanation.

Imagine that this Heart desires your love, your tenderness, your touch.

Imagine that this Heart longs to be cradled in your love, to be held close, to be cherished above all else.

Imagine that above all else you desire to hold this Heart close, to surrender all you are, to the very core of your being, to this Heart, this Love, this Touch of the Divine.

Imagine that this is what this most Sacred Heart desires as well, deeply, completely, and that you touch deeply to the deepest core of your being; everything you are centers in this most Sacred Heart, and you are one, in Love more precious than life.

Imagine that He breathes into your soul to hold Him this close….forever.

Imagine that you have just breathed into His Heart that you desire to hold Him this close forever, to never be seperated for a moment.

Imagine the mutual longing and desire for love fulfilled, in deepest, surrendering Union of Love.

Imagine the love of our Lord for the smallest human heart.

Caryn Brady

ADORATION

I came, stumbling

across the threshold of Your house

falling into pieces on Your floor.

Once again, the vessel broken

scattering across the Holy Ground of Your Presence.

Only so precious few hours, no, minutes,

before had I petitioned for Your Strength,

Your Wisdom, Your Holy Silence and Your Peace.

And here I was, in pieces,

broken intentions, fallen to the floor

as my tears of failure.

I love You so much

why can’t I do what I intend for You?

Why do I always fail?

Why can I not step into

the silence of Your Love

when I am tempted?

Why is it so hard?

Your precious hands pick up my pieces

so lovingly holding them together

and making me whole again

with the glue of Your Love.

And then,

as if that wasn’t enough,

You poured Youself out into my

chalice to overflowing,

baptizing me once again

in Your Love,

holding me together with Your Strength.

Picking me up with Your Courage,

molding me.

Into my ear You whispered

words of Love and Hope,

words of comfort

in Your Plan!

You poured Yourself out

to overflowing.

Overflow, You said,

Into My people.

Thankyou, my Lord, my life, my Beloved, for Your Loving Kindness

and Mercy.

Caryn Brady

THE  TIDE  OF  YOUR  LOVE

As Your Love pours out to me

and mine returns to You, its Source,

as the waves crashing to the shore will,

when intense, mix with the tide

returning to the sea.

Becoming that swirling, churning mixture

until it is hard  to seperate the coming in

from the going out,

so our Love becomes that sweet mix

swirling, churning, bubbling with life

inseperable.

Lord, Your Love to me is more precious

than life!

Swirl me, churn me in Your Precious Life

until there is no seperation between us

and I am lost in You!

Caryn Brady

BRING HOLY JOY

Reaching, stretching, grasping for Your Love,

Your treasures of joy and peace come

tumbling upon me.

Covering me in Your wonderous riches,

lifting my heart to Yours!

I touch Your Sacred Heart with the hands

of my love

and sense something more precious than

words can describe!

Your Sacred Heart, so full of love and sorrow,

moves with my touch , and is changed!

There, in Your Kingdom of Eternal Love,

my reaching, grasping turns Your sorrow

into Joy!

How tenderly You move

touching my heart, drawing it into Yours.

Every cell in my body transformed

in Your waterfall of Joy and Love,

tasting Heaven,

my soul rests in the Eternal Peace

of Your Embrace.

Caryn Brady

I made a major boo-boo today.
in front of the head of the language department.

Basically, I was trying to explain to someone the definition of indoctrination,
and the head of the language department was listening in.

So, I was explaining the definition,
and the phrase “for example: the way fundamentalist christians indoctrinate their children.”

That’s one of the things you never bring up in conversation with someone whose beliefs are unknown.
this is not good.
but what can you do?

Also. An idea relating to the fundies:

Most fundies think that evolution should not be taught in schools and/or creationism should be taught.
and they don’t seem to understand why it isn’t a VALID THEORY.

a)there’s no evidence, except in the bible, to support it.
b) it supports one religion (we are talking about the fundie christians here).
c)because it is a public school, it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL to support one religion above all others.
d)it’s a science class, and therefore should be treated as such. This includes teaching the latest scientific theories.

They’re so blind to the world around them.
They don’t think about other beliefs, and really only give
consideration to their own thoughts and religion.
That’s pretty selfish, if you ask me.
(but then again, they do worship a personal god that they think
caters to their needs. Trust me. If there were a god, god wouldn’t care about
the fight you had with your best friend. The religion is based off of a selfish idea, and trying to make
the individual feel better about oneself.)

I’ll probably expand more on those ideas in a more orderly fashion, in time.

c: E

[Original Post: 10-12-09]

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”  Revelation 3:19

I’m ashamed to admit it.  Here for all to see.  But I must.  You see my church is putting on a series of evangelistic meetings on the book of Revelation and has invited the community to come learn and become a closer follower of Jesus through the Revelation of Him in this book.  What’s not to like about that?

Boredom.  Self-righteousness.  Creative minds thinking “outside the box.”  Let me explain:  I’ve attended series like this since I was a very small child.  They used to captivate me and draw me close to Jesus.  But as I’ve grown up I’ve questioned the public evangelism methods such as these and become a strong advocate and supporter of friendship evangelism, making friends for Jesus one-on-one.  There have been seminars galore and creative thinkers that have promoted these “newer” methods and found them quite effective.  Perhaps I began to develop an either/or type-of-thinking.  I have been quite skeptical that this post-modern era would not have any interest in attending public meetings with handbills sent out with pictures of beasts.  I even became a bit embarrassed to mention the meetings to my friends because of my prejudices.

Yet wasn’t it just a few months ago that my previous little church held a similar set of meetings and I was in full support, even leading the prayer team?  Or was praying for the meetings partially a cover for my unbelief in this method of evangelism?

A driving spiritual gift of mine is evangelism.  Why wouldn’t I want all to come and be changed by our unique and relevant message for these last days?  Perhaps it’s because I didn’t truly believe the messages were still relevant and would be presented as such.  I didn’t want my friends attending something that would be out-of-touch with their world.  I passed out no handbills.  I invited no friends.  I applauded the prayer walkers I saw in my neighborhood and continued to pray for my neighbors also.  I figured prayer was always a positive thing, no matter the occasion.

I’ve struggled with these notions for some time now, not sure how long.    Just last Sabbath it all came to a head for me.  In trying to sort out my conflicting emotions and ideas about this, I opened up to our hosts at Sabbath dinner.  It was just us, two couples who attend the same church and love the Lord deeply.  All of us have experienced the wonderful Seventh-day Adventist message all our lives.  We have attended many series and have also been involved with other methods of evangelism, including friendship.  We discussed our perspectives about the upcoming series together and our roles in this outreach.  Our church headquarters has set aside 2009 as the “Year of Evangelism” and has asked each church to hold meetings during this year.  Who were we to think we might know better?  Who were we to doubt that Jesus would be uplifted in each message presented?  I hate to admit it, but I voiced my questions and my doubts more adamantly than any of the rest.

That night as I tried to go to sleep I was troubled.  I usually end my day chatting with my Abba Father and interceding for those He brings to my mind.  Something was different that night.  I felt there was a barrier between us.  It was uncomfortable and stiff, like a thick board separating my prayers from Him.  Something wasn’t right.  What was it?  I sought God for answers, as I knew He was trying to get my attention.  With strong authority that I could clearly understand He spoke to my heart that these were His meetings and that I was not to speak against them.

How humbling.  How compelling.  I got up and cleaned up the kitchen as I thought about what He had said.  He was right.  His program was bigger than me.  His plans were larger than my vision.  He had called our speaker to this place, at this time, and who was I to speak against God’s work?  I repented and immediately the barrier was lifted.  Our hearts were reunited again, yet stronger because God had taken the time to graciously correct His child.  He cared enough about me to bring me back in line and keep me from hindering His work in the meantime.

The next day I was able to talk with the wife of the other couple and tell her how God had corrected me.  She told me that her husband woke up that morning and told her that they were going to support the meetings.  Jerry had always been in support, he said, as I shared what God had done in me.

All week I’ve been trying to make up for lost time.  I’ve passed out some handbills, prayed faithfully, and today I even talked to my un-churched neighbor (whom I recently met) about the meetings.  She expressed an interest in hearing the personal testimony of the speaker next weekend.  Who would have thought it?  She’s been coming with me to a moms group at that church but I wouldn’t have normally invited her to a series this soon in our friendship.  Hmmm…God’s plan is bigger!

Tonight was opening night.  It coincided with Andrew’s bedtime but I decided to extend it a little later because I was so excited to see the fruit of my changed heart, prayers, and the efforts of the church at large!!!  I was blessed to see a full house and unfamiliar faces.  Greeters reported many community attendees!  Praise the LORD! 

At one of the tables I stopped by to chat with a friend.  I looked down at the Bible lessons laid out for the attendees.  A quiver went through me as I realized that they were the very same lessons that I had filled out as a 5^th grader when I was home schooled, attending my first Revelation Seminar with my family.  These were the very lessons God had used to prepare me for baptism that next summer.  (I have kept the ruler that came with them in a Bible I used for ongoing study.  It has been a memento all these years later.)  With an open heart I breathed a prayer that others would be touched by these carefully prepared materials as I was.

Tonight I was even invited to join a small prayer team that met before the beginning.  How humbling to join my prayers with those who have been on board with all this all along.  How moving to my spirit to see God’s corrective power in my life.  Makes me want Him to have more and more access to all my life and make me a pliable vessel He can use in all circumstances.

Many decisions that ought to be taken are not taken due to one of the following reasons:
1. we try to rationalize the situation assuming that our finite and limited human minds has infinite comprehension and abilities or
2. we think of the consequences of the decision and are paralyzed for fear of life or fear of being ridiculed.

In today’s text, taken from Daniel 6:1-28, we will look at Daniel, who chose to pray NO MATTER WHAT.

Many of us are probably familiar with the story of Daniel in the lion’s den, but for the benefit of those who aren’t, as a backdrop to this character, Daniel was cast into a den of lions by king Darius, who was tricked by jealous conspirators, into signing a foolish decree that no one should make petition (pray) unto anyone else, except the king for a period of thirty days. These evil men knew that Daniel was faultless and fervent in his allegiance to the one true God, Jehovah, and sought to have him killed, for they knew that he would not compromise when it came to the matters of God or his commandments, the first being, you shall have no other gods before Jehovah, a.k.a., you shall not worship or pray to anyone else , except Jehovah. The law in the kingdom of Darius, a Medo-Persian kingdom was unchangeable, once ratified and sealed and so when the king was informed of Daniel’s continuance in prayer to Jehovah, not once but thrice a day, the king who favored Daniel, was now in a quandary and had to follow through with the decree. Daniel is thrown into the lions den, but miraculously, the mouth of the ravenous lions are held shut by the angel of God sent for his protection among the beasts. What the conspirators or the king had failed tor realize was that while the law of unchangeable, the lions were not. When juxtaposed between choosing life by not praying or choosing death by praying to God, Daniel chose to pray to God, NO MATTER WHAT. In other words, Daniel was not willing to refrain from praying, even if that meant, it would cost him his life.

If Daniel would had rationalized or thought of the consequences, he would have probably ended up like the majority, refraining from praying to God, and breaking His commandments, by praying to a man (the king Darius). This might have saved his life for a short while longer but in the end he would not have gone down in history as someone who had the privilege of spending a night with lions and living to tell its tale. His act of courage and faithfulness not only did it deliver him from the lion’s den, but also proved to the heathen kingdom, that the God whom he served is far more than able to deliver the righteous one out of any trouble, even from seemingly dire and deadly situations. Our acts of prayer can prove unto the unbelieving world that the God whom we pray to, is in deed able and is a personal, prayer answering God, unlike any other.

Points to ponder:

1. What is God asking you and me to pray for?
2. Can we take the step to pray to God, without rationalizing or thinking of the consequences, NO MATTER WHAT?

Let him who seeks, not cease seeking until he 

finds, and when he finds, he will be

troubled, and when he has

been troubled, he will

marvel and he will

reign over the All.

                             (The Gospel according to Thomas, logion 2)

As a bee seeks nectar from all kinds of flowers

Seek teachings everywhere.

Like a deer that finds a quiet place to graze

Seek seclusion to digest

all that you have gathered.

Like a mad one beyond all limits

go where you please and live like a lion

completely free of all fear.

                                        (Dzogchen Tantra)

Seek the wisdom

that will untie your knot,

seek the path

that demands your whole being.

Leave that which is not, but appears

to be,

seek that which is, but is

not apparent.

                        ( Rumi )

You are searching the world for treasure

but the real treasure is yourself.

If you are tempted by bread

you will find only bread.

What you seek for

you become.

                                 ( Rumi )

I asked, “What should I do?”

He said, That is the question.

I said, “Is that all you can say?”

He said, Seeker, always keep asking,

“What should I do?”

                                       ( Rumi )

God is in thy heart, yet thou searchest for Him in the wilderness.

                                                                                Sikhism : Adi Granth

Give Me your whole heart,

Love and adore Me,

Worship Me always,

Bow to Me only,

And you shall find Me:

This is My promise

Who loves you dearly.       

                                  (Bhagavad Gita 18:65)   

“Love the Lord Thy God, with thy whole mind, thy whole heart and thy whole soul…”

Love me more-oh, much more!-than human beings love one another.” (M.T. no.134).

“I desire to be loved; I crave the love of my creatures! When they will come to love Me, they will no longer offend Me. When two people really love each other, they never offend each other.” (C.B., p.98)

“Nothing is wanting in my heavenly beatitude, which is infinite, but I yearn for souls….I thirst for them, and want to save them.” (Sister Josefa Menendez, p. 377) 

[Mary:] “O! If only souls knew Him better, they would love Him so much more.” (J.M., p.322)

The best way to learn to know Him is by offering Him acts of love and through fervent, unceasing prayer expressing the desire to truly know Him so that we may love Him better.

“Ah, if souls only understood how ardently I desire to communicate Myself to them! But how few do understand….and how deeply this wounds My Heart.” (J.M. p.109)

Everything starts with desire……

Grant us the grace to desire You with our whole heart, that so desiring, we may seek and find You, and so finding You, we may love You, and loving You, we may hate those sins from which You have redeemed us.

“I want souls so much to understand this! It is not the action in itself that is of value; it is the intention with which it is done.” (Emphasis added) (J.M., p.213)

Love beyond ordinary human love:

“Love is good actions freely performed.

I would never refuse love to someone

who asks for it – but it is your will,

your actions that will develop it in you. “

                                                                   (MT no. 204 )

” I thirst for love.”

Nothing pleases Him more than making little sacrifices, depriving oneself, out of love for Him, of some illicit pleasure or good thing, and offering it to Him for His Heart’s intentions. His goal, always, is to save souls!

“There are sacrifices which I desire but do not ask – so as to leave to souls the joy of offering them to Me of themselves.”

                                                                                ( M.T. no.289 )

“Ah! If only they [souls] knew my Heart….mankind is ignorant of Its mercy and goodness; that is my greatest sorrow.” (J.M., p.32)

Tears welled up in our doctor’s eyes this morning as she reviewed the report of the ultrasound I had just taken.  We were stunned to see her emotion.  She’s a no-fluff kind of doctor who tells it like it is.  We appreciate that about her very much.  She’s also compassionate as we have seen many times, like today. 

She reported that there is no sign of the extra fluid that had been part of our earlier complications.  The baby is in the 90^th percentile (size) and showing all signs of health.  With a beaming smile and eyes glistening she listened as I told her how strong I felt inside, how healthy I had been.   At our last visit, Dr. P had made it very clear that she believed that this baby’s life was a miracle.  She had told us that it was a miracle (her word) that 1) I’m doing so well off bed rest, 2) I’m still carrying the baby this long,  and 3) I didn’t lose him back in June when I went to ER with the placenta tear.

There are no words to describe our gratitude to God for gifting us with this precious life.  He didn’t have to do this for us or for Baby Hope.  He could have just let “nature takes its course” as He did with our first baby.  Yet, He has gone to great lengths (from our human perspective) to protect this little one and preserve Him in my womb.  Jerry and I have experienced when God says “no.”  This time He is saying a resounding “YES!”  It’s overwhelming and wonderful.

Many people have prayed for us and this new little boy (very much a boy, acc. to ultrasound!).  Andrew was a prayed-for baby as well.  I write to you today so that you can share in our joy!  God has done marvelous things.  It is wonderful in our eyes.

God has not released us from our prayers, however.  Doctor pointed out that I have an excess amount of amniotic fluid.  She warns me that this could create a situation in which my “water” would break prematurely and I would be on bed rest again, but this time in the hospital.  She assures me that they would not have to take the baby at that point, but would wait as long as they could.  My prayers continue to be that this baby will come in God’s timing.  He’s obviously in charge and knows what is best.  I’m leaving the outcome to Him. 

Friends and readers, there is such a beautiful peace that comes from letting God be Himself!  Through this whole pregnancy process He has been prying my fingers away from my pitiful sense of control.  For most of my life I have lived under a tremendous sense of obligation, worry, and over-involvement in things out of my control.  There is little peace in this day-to-day kind of life.  As an Adventist Christian I have struggled tremendously to live the abundant life Jesus came to bring us (John 10:10).  I recognize what seems like a great chasm between the way I live and the way Jesus lived.  I long for the kind of life that will keep me peaceful while trusting my Savior completely.  Seeing the changes God is working in me keeps me hopeful.  Receiving of His gracious gifts brings me great joy.

Please join me in praising God for His goodness and keep Baby Hope in your prayers as God brings him to your mind. 

Thanks!

Andrew was having a rough day.  At breakfast he twisted and turned, and pulled his food out of his mouth with such a look of disgust on his usually-sweet face.  Each time I put him on the changing table for a clean diaper, he would yell and fuss, kick and flail his arms though no sign of diaper rash.  Nothing seemed to help him.  His changing table toy went over the edge.  I sang 52 songs, talked sweet, talked strong, added a light corrective touch, made faces, giggled, etc….all the while thinking “I’ve just got to get this dirty diaper off and a new one on as quickly as possible.”  Still he was unhappy. 

The drone of fussing and fuming was the background of the day.  I repeated the above tactics at intervals but to no avail.  Playtime was just as bad.  He wasn’t content to play alone with his toys like he can do sometimes.  Instead, he perched by the ottoman that serves as a gate by the side of his play area close to where I was, whining and complaining, or down-right crying.  Whenever I picked him up to comfort him, he wiggled and squirmed and pulled my hair.  When I set him down, he cried all the more.

Sometimes during the day he would be pointing to this or that or nothing in particular (it seemed) and saying “bah, bah”.  He is successfully using some of the sign we have been teaching him.  Useful mostly at mealtimes.   He’s getting more and more clear about what he wants.  Yet, I was frustrated that I couldn’t understand my baby or help him enjoy himself.  The day was long and tough, for both of us.  My ears were ringing and my face was sad.  I finally called my mom and shared about the day.  What was wrong?  He didn’t seem to be teething.  On Sunday he will be one year old.  We finally decided he might just be expressing frustration in not being able to communicate with us. 

Finally it was bedtime.  One last diaper change and wrangling into PJs.  I gathered Andrew up in my arms, covered him with a blanket and gently rocked him in the rocking chair.  He snuggled up to me and laid his head on my shoulder.  I felt led to tell him a story before he fell asleep.  We prayed for God to guide our thoughts and teach us through the Bible story. 

The story that came to mind was about  Jesus and His friends:  Mary, Martha, Lazarus.  I told him how special it was that Jesus had such friends, how He could rest in their home.  I told him that Lazarus became sick and messengers were sent to Jesus to come make him well.  But Jesus did not come.  This surprised his disciples and the messengers.  But Jesus assured them that God had a good reason for what He wanted Him to do.  I told Andrew that Jesus was not always understood either.  I described Jesus coming finally and raising Lazarus and of his prayer to His Father.  God was glorified in this miracle.

I told how “Jesus wept.”  I said there were many reasons Jesus cried that day, but one was that he understood us.  Even if Mommy and Daddy or Eric or anyone else around him didn’t, my baby needed to know Jesus always understands.  I realized this was the message from God for us today.  With a calm spirit, Andrew went down in his crib for the night.  Mommy went to bed with a calmer spirit too, thankful that God had brought a story to mind to fit the need of the day.

I enjoy telling Bible stories to my babies.  All those stories that I grew up hearing are coming back to me, coming out in interesting paraphrase and with varied emphasis.  Each time, God shows a message for both of us.  If you have little ones at home or near you, try telling them a story about Jesus or another favorite Bible story.  It’s a beautiful experience.  It doesn’t have to be word-for-word KJV.  Bring into it what God has taught you.  You might be surprised to even learn something new:  that’s the Holy Spirit working.  I’m learning so much right along with Andrew.   Jesus always understands!

               “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth,

He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One

             who could save Him from death,

and He was heard because of His reverent submission.

Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered

and, once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation

for all who obey Him.” 

Hebrews 5:7-9

This is Scripture!  I think I have overlooked this many times, this insight into Jesus’ life on earth.  This text has rocked my world!  I need to know that Jesus does not judge me for my tears and agony.  I need to know that Jesus understands!  He knew where to take His cries.  He knew Who could help Him.  He learned obedience and walked perfectly with his Father God because of the lessons that suffering taught Him.

Recently, during my days of internment , I had the privilege of rereading a Christian classic:  Hinds’ Feet In High Places by Hannah Hurnard.  It’s an allegory about the Christian life that I highly recommend.  I so relate to little “Much Afraid” and all her “Fearing” relatives.  I relate to the absolute love of the “Chief Shepherd” and have also answered His call to go to the “High Places” with Him.  But when He gave Much Afraid companions who would help her on her journey there I cringed with her as they were “Sorrow” and “Suffering.”

Where do we get the idea in the Christian life that accepting Jesus leads to a life of continual bliss and that suffering is somehow contrary to that life and must be fought instead of embraced?  I read a plaque today that said, “Faith makes things possible…not easy.”  How true.  Much Afraid was strengthened in her journey only as she took her companions’ hands and allowed them to lead her through the rough areas on the path.  Oh, how sobering.  How difficult.

Yet she was not left alone.  The Chief Shepherd ALWAYS responded immediately when she called for Him.  He came bounding along the hills with His hinds’ feet (see Hab. 3:19 and Song of Sol. 2:8).  He rescued her from many temptations and was a welcome presence throughout the journey.  This is my hope, what gets me through on this often-difficult journey down here:  God’s presence near me ALWAYS.  His promise to “never leave me nor forsake me” has sustained me.  When the way seems to dead-end, He whispers the reminder: “I am with you always, even to the end of the world.” 

Oh, I refuse the lessons of suffering so often.  I reject the notion that I must suffer here.  I whine and complain and toss around my floating thoughts on the subject to anyone who will listen, as if by talking, suffering will be driven away.  I hate that about me.  But Jesus doesn’t reject me for it!  He points me to a purpose and a plan.  He shows me that He went this way too and knows that our Father God is the one to take it all to, the One who can do something about it.  He teaches me that reverent submission.  He is now fit to be my Savior.  I love Him so! 

It helps so much to have Jesus’ example of taking His feelings to the One (His Father) Who could deliver.  He still delivers today.  My feelings have been quite strong lately, thanks to a tremendous amount of pregnancy hormones and some challenging situations.  I weep alone sometimes.  God is coaching me in an exercise of releasing those feelings to my heavenly Father.  I have started to experience peace in place of deep hurt, which has kept me from snowballing into self-pity, bitterness, etc. 

Someday our weeping will cease and our feelings will be permanently replaced, just like in the story: Sorrow and Suffering were transformed to Joy and Peace when they arrived at the High Places.  Much Afraid got a new name too.  We’ve been promised that “weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”  God will give us beauty instead of ashes; joy will replace mourning.  It will not always be as it is now.  Until then we can journey forward, knowing that a Faithful Friend walks with us, His tears mingle with ours, and His peace begins to spread about in our hearts.

As I argued to Clergy Guy recently, there is a qualitative difference between talking about the possible scientific/metaphysical principle of a ground of all being defensibly called “God” and talking about one of the personal deities of historical religions who are claimed to engage with each other and with humanity in highly specified ways by their corresponding traditions.  ZJ is right that there is no compelling evidence whatsoever for a Yahweh, an Allah, a Vishnu, a Thor, a Zeus, etc.  All such beings are as credible as the tooth fairy. There are scientific and metaphysical mysteries about the source of all being and so there are at least defensible arguments one can make for some sorts of theism. The problem is when people use a speculative and uncertain, but nonetheless minimally plausible, belief in some principle of “being itself” as at all justifying their belief in a deity of historical religion—such as Yahweh or a divine Jesus—they try to derive from their arguable concept to claiming it gives them justification to believe in something which is no more likely than the tooth fairy to be real.

UPDATE:  ZJ was gracious enough to reply to my remarks on his facebook fan page.  He wrote:

1. As with Daniel Dennett, I certainly have to recognize the lack of knowledge we currently have regarding cosmology and what, if anything, preceded the big bang. At the present time, I see no reason to assume that if a prior cause is discovered, it must have been supernatural, an intelligence, or something we should call God. I don’t rule it out as a possibility, but natural causes have a considerably better track record than supernaturalism. Throughout history, there have been recurring episodes of progress where a phenomenon that was thought to be supernatural in origin is found to have a natural cause. What’s particularly notable is that this has never, yet, been reversed.

2. I don’t think we should use the word “God” carelessly, as in simply attributing it to anything especially significant regarding our origins — that would be like calling the big bang “God”; perhaps some people have vague enough religious beliefs that they’d be fine with this, but for many (billions) more people, “God” means a personal being, with a real and ongoing presence in our reality, who issues moral commands and the like. Even if we did discover that our universe was the product of an intelligence, that intelligence might not be anything like what we would consider to be a god. A being advanced enough to make universes might think it’s rather stupid that anyone would want to “worship” it.

And I agree completely on both points, (succinctly and accurately stated on your part as always). Whenever we don’t address those two points explicitly in refutations of God’s existence we frustrate educated theists because they go on assuming we didn’t refute the god of philosophy but ignored him. It’s a loophole they keep using to say that the New Atheists are dodging the real questions when saying there’s no evidence and they feel free to shut us out and ignore all our other arguments when we skip those issues (even though I know, for example, that in his case he treats them in other videos).

We need to stress that that the principle of being (if an explicable question at all) is (a) an issue for complicated cosmology and irrelevant to people’s faith beliefs, (b) doesn’t get you to a personal God, (c) gives no credence to Yahweh or any other interactive gods of religious traditions, (d) offer no foothold for supernaturalism, and (e) is irrelevant to explaining or defending morality. These points about the difference between the possible deist god of philosophy and metaphysics and the gods people actually talk about and worship need to be pounded home much more than they are in my estimation. (And none of that is to say the deist gods are LIKELY—they’re just not as ludicrous as the tooth fairy, one of them might yet admit of a coherent physical, mathematical account).

Your Thoughts?

If this is true, then we should be able to prove it by what is seen all around us. Here are some things that we would expect if there is only one self-existent, intelligent Creator, Redeemer, personal God in the universe.

1. God lives in, but is not part of, the universe.

2. God is more glorious than all other beings in the universe.

3. The whole universe was created by God.

4. All creation must show the work of an Intelligent Being.

5. All creation must have a purposeful, orderly design.

6. God has absolute control over the whole universe.

7. God governs the universe with a standard of absolute morals.

8. There is a God that can and does communicate His will to us.

9. God’s wrath is upon those who rebel against His sovereign will.

10. Human rebels are given a way to renew their fellowship with God.

11. Everyone can have a personal, loving relationship with God.

12. Our loving relationship with God is based upon our trusting and obeying Him.

    God does not have to prove His existence any more than we do. Furthermore, we are accountable to God, He is not accountable to us. Be this as it may, there are plenty of proofs that all of the above are absolutely true, as we see them in full view before our very eyes through our honest study of God’s Creations and His Word.

    Let us take an example. “5. All creation must have a purposeful, orderly design.” This is shown over and over again everywhere we look. Take the human body as an example. There is not one part of our body that is not designed for a purpose in mind. If the genetic code is changed slightly, the whole system is adversely affected. Contrary to common misinformation, mutations of an organism are very harmful.

    Let us take another example. “1. God lives in, but is not a part of, the universe.” In other words, God is not a part of His creation. He is before all things. He was just as much God before He created “the heavens and the earth” as after His creation of them. “God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him (not His creations) in spirit and in truth.”

    If you are interested in finding out more about God, “Deceitful Masters” would be a good choice. Its 448 pages cover over 130 topics relating to God and His material and spiritual creations. You can go to www.DeceitfulMasters.com to order your reserved copy now.

    
    
    

In a previous post, I wrote the following of Rod Dreher’s decision to inculcate in his children a faithfulness that would safeguard their faith against intellectual faltering:

I can say that it is utterly depressing you could be so self aware about inculcating your children to believe regardless of truth or falsity, to put faithfulness above truthfulness as a fail-safe against their daring to break away from a faith about which you are profoundly intellectually insecure. In short, you read a book about how our minds by our wills’ prejudices and resolve to better prejudice you childrens’ wills.

In reply, Rod wrote to me in the comments section of his post to which I was replying:

But I believe our religious faith is true, and like Erin, I understand now that everything in our family’s life must testify to the truth of it if our kids are going to have confidence in their faith.

Actually true things do not need everything in one’s family life to testify to them for kids to believe them.  I didn’t grow up every morning being told about how DNA creates a cell.  I didn’t go to a Sunday Science School where we built little DNA models.  I didn’t even own a single science kit and I let my lab partners in high school do all the work because I can’t think with my hands (I’m rather ashamed of this).  My mom and I never had big long talks about DNA, nor did I go to summer camp to study it, and nor did I celebrate any family holidays of tribute to DNA.  Yet, I believe in the truth that DNA exists because there is plenty of evidence to believe it exists.  And when I form beliefs about truths, I turn to experts in the sciences or in history or in the social sciences and I simply learn the truth.  And on philosophical questions I listen to and read various reasons and I come to different positions.  I wouldn’t come up with a better conclusion about the free will/determinism debate or the “universalists vs. nominalists” debate or the “realism and anti-realism” debate based on my family’s traditions.

And that’s because confidence in beliefs should be, and for me is, inculcated according to rational reasons for belief.  Turning your kids’ lives into a social conditioning to accept a certain view of the world is not teaching them anything about truth or how to find it but about your beliefs and how to think only in terms of them.  But, I’ve already addressed this point at length, so I’ll move on:

My post intended to express what I’m learning, and have learned through bitter experience, about the fragility of human knowledge — and that includes knowledge of atheism, too — and how conditioned it is by subjective factors. This is not to deny Truth, but only to recognize how imperfect our grasp of it is in our subjective state. Yet we cannot live as if all truths were tentative; we must choose, and choose wisely.

No, that’s categorically false.  We must live as though tentatively known truths are tentatively known.  You would never suggest that Barack Obama take a given tentatively proven suggestion about what might help improve health care in the country and insist that there is no room for holding beliefs tentatively.  You will not accept it if he says, “well there is a 52% chance that this program will be improve health care, but there is a 48% chance it will make things worse.  But there is no room for half-beliefs in life, so I demand everyone get 100% behind the Truth that we must enact this program.”  That’s not choosing wisely.  It’s choosing recklessly, irresponsibly, arrogantly, and stupidly.

But we must choose one way or the other and our choice cannot be tentative since it takes one course and not another, right?  That’s a false either/or.  If I choose to believe A on 52% evidence and commit to a course of action based on that degree of evidence, I also should adjust my manner of following that course of evidence to account for the hypothetical possibilities that the other 48% likely scenario is actually true after all.  This is different than a belief about which I am 99.99% sure.  In that case, I do not usually have to take any precautions or modifications to the course of action dictated by the likely belief.  I just follow the belief’s prescriptions without hesitation or adjustment for probable incorrectness.  And, sometimes, the dangers of a less probable scenario are so great that I should act as though it were true just in case.  If there is a 1% chance there is a bomb in the building, I should act as though there is a bomb in the building.  But if I know the odds are 1% I shouldn’t believe there is a bomb, just act as though.  While leaving if someone were to ask me, “do you really believe there is a bomb?”  I should say, “no, I think we are safe, but the odds, however slight, make this precaution necessary.” That’s acting wisely.  That’s prudently apportioning beliefs to evidence in accord with the best standards of careful reasoning and that’s acting according to reasonable calculations of risk and cost.

But, you may protest, it’s different with belief in God!  With God, we must leap 100% one way or the other since there is no probability either way and the evidence is inconclusive!  But that’s false.  There are numerous famous reasons available that people find compelling for either belief in God or lack of belief in God.  These arguments may convince someone to one degree or another.  One should adequately rigorously investigate those arguments.  I doubt anyone who does with any intellectual sincerity and consistency is coming out 100% convinced of the crazy genocidal tyrant three-in-one Godman/Godhead/Godspirit of the Bible that demands blood sacrifices for our sins and who rises from the dead and who punishes people for other peoples’ sins with curses and eternally punishes those who do not see the murky evidence of his existence as convincing.  That God has really low probabilities against Him.  A leap to believe in Him is at least a 99% leap against moral, scientific, philosophical, and common sense.  And such a leap does not wisely deserve 100% commitment of belief even when made.  That’s not respect for “Truth”, that’s not a wise willingness to face the forced choice that requires no tentativeness.  That’s just plain old irrational.

But the evidence of some vague impersonal ground of all being or Anselmian perfect being or Spinozistic substance of the universe or deistic originator of all being is worthy of weighing.  I can’t say I’m a 99% atheist about those various “god” concepts, I just need to get clearer on a lot more ontology, cosmology, physics, mathematics, etc. before I can feel confident either way.  But those possible philosopher gods are utterly irrelevant to the religion you try to justify with contortions of the word truth.  So, let’s return to those:

Kierkegaard taught (correctly, in my view) that truth is subjectivity, by which he meant not that truth is relative (which he did not believe), but that the kinds of truths for which men live and die can only be known subjectively — that is, appropriated inwardly with passion.

First of all, that is false.  I can understand rationally, through publicly accessible and assessable reasons the values of freedom and equality and human prosperity.  I can defend my commitment to them through a wide range of publicly accessible and assessable considerations.  Moral philosophers have for centuries worked out powerful arguments for understanding the objective and defensible dimensions of our ethical concepts and reasoning processes.  There is, of course, no unanimous agreement either about the metaethical foundations of ethics (or whether it has any), or about the best principles for settling hard moral cases, or about every particular of ethical application.  It’s an ongoing discussion with further challenges and requirements for clarification and defense of concepts and categories all the time.  But it is nonetheless a rational process, capable of rational justifications.  And only those such principles, ones for which you have reasons that you can give to any fellow human being who would ask (not just the members of your narrow religious cult) are ones worth living and dying for.  Suicide bombers sacrifice everything for a voice of God they cannot confirm.  That is irrational, it’s irresponsible, and it’s dangerous beyond belief.

Religious inquisitors and “reformers” murdered each other for hundreds of years in the West by living and dying for opinions that admitted no rational adjudication but which they audaciously and contemptibly held to be capital T true and worth intemperately killing for as though they had absolute certainty.  No, there is nothing wise about untentatively holding the beliefs that you have only convinced yourself you know through a subjective intuition of the voice of God or your thoroughly subjectively and dubiously recounted experience of “knowing God.”  And a collective set of such false intuitions embodied in a formal religious tradition only multiplies the intellectual and moral error, it does not make it any truer or morally respectable.

And, for the record, a “truth”-claim justified only by your subjective feelings is the definition of a relativist truth.  Kierkegaard was one of philosophy’s most ridiculous sophists and manglers of philosophical concepts.

You cannot prove that God exists; you can only know Him with your heart, and in an act of the will (this is the well-known “leap of faith”). It is not, in SK’s view, to believe a lie, but to recognize that establishing a relationship with the Truth requires faith, which is not the same thing as intellectual knowledge.

This is gibberish.  You cannot know someone in your heart or anywhere else without first proving he exists.  It’s a fallacious dodge to say, I can’t prove God exists, I can only know him in my heart.  If you can know him in your heart, you must have proven he exists or you don’t know anything.  You wouldn’t argue this flat out stupidly about anything else in life.  But with God, with a 100% heart and life commitment, you make these ridiculous elisions of logic?  And this is your “wisdom??”

And this idea of non-intellectual knowledge is special pleading for your right to say you know what you do not have reasons for.  That’s not profound—it’s arrogant.

I want to create within my children the kinds of hearts that want to know Christ, and to do so in the Orthodox Christian faith, and that desire that so fervently that whatever test they are put to in the future, they will have the inner strength and conviction to withstand it for the sake of their faith. As a Catholic, I assumed that reading and talking about Catholicism all the time was the same thing as being a good Catholic, and that my faith was safe because it was always on my mind. I ought to have been reading less and praying more. It’s a tricky position to be in, because I wouldn’t have come to Orthodoxy had I not lost my Catholic faith, so in a sense I’m grateful. But at the same time, what happened to me as a Catholic could happen to anybody, whatever their faith, if they don’t understand how complex the process of knowing is, and how limited and fragile we are as subjects.

You say that I’m intellectually insecure about my faith, and I guess you’re right — but intellect did not save me before.

No, but your intellect still can and must save you from this arrogance that wants to let your subjective heart make you exempt from rational demands for the reasons for your beliefs.

My experience has taught me not to doubt my faith, but to be more empathetic and tolerant with people who are suffering crises of faith, and who have lost their faith. It’s a tricky position to be in — recognizing how fragile faith and knowledge can be, but remaining attached to a religious faith.

I have a tremendous amount of empathy and tolerance for people who are struggling to get out of the mental slavery of faith too.  I was there once.  I know how hard it is to liberate oneself.  But it’s so crucial for growth into a genuinely intellectually responsible person.  I hope they make it out and am willing to help anyone who needs the help.

But there I am, and I can’t unlearn what I’ve learned. If I want to be more secure in my faith, the thing I must do above all is to love God more, and to love others more in Him and through Him, and to pray more so that the dark glass through which we all see will become clearer. Orthodoxy teaches that we know God through our nous, and that the way to clear our nous — the faculty of noetic perception — is through constant prayer. Makes sense to me.

Again, you read an article about how rationalization prejudices us against contrary beliefs and what is your solution?  Constant prayer, constant conditioning of your mind to believe what it already believes, constant repetition of the falsehoods with which you want to brainwash yourself.  What a disaster.

Are there any atheists reading this who ever doubt their faith? What forms does that doubt take?

Again, atheists do not have faith. We have beliefs that we attempt to proportion to our evidence and best inferences as best as possible.  We don’t let our hearts trump our reason, condition our wills to refuse counter-evidence as a matter of pride, practice, or principle, and we certainly do not claim that we access absolute Truth through subjective experiences of gods who we can contradictorily “know” but not “prove exist.”  That’s how we do not have faith, however much we may be proportion our belief that there is no personal biblical or koranic God to the overwhelming evidence that we see that there is indeed no such crazy, contradictory, moral monster out there justifying irrationalism and authoritarianism for millennia.

Your Thoughts?

To catch up with any previous installments of this “Disambiguating Faith” series which you may have missed, follow the links listed below. Each post can be understood without reference to the others, even though many develop interrelated theses.

Disambiguating Faith: Trustworthiness, Loyalty, And Honesty

Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Loyally Trusting Those Insufficiently Proven To Be Trustworthy

Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Tradition

Disambiguating Faith: Blind Faith: How Faith Traditions Turn Trust Without Warrant Into A Test Of Loyalty

Disambiguating Faith: The Threatening Abomination Of The Faithless

Rational Beliefs, Rational Actions, And When It Is Rational To Act On What You Don’t Think Is True

Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Guessing

Disambiguating Faith: Are True Gut Feelings And Epiphanies Beliefs Justified By Faith

Disambiguating Faith: Faith Is Neither Brainstorming, Hypothesizing, Nor Simply Reasoning Counter-Intuitively

Disambiguating Faith: Faith In The Sub-, Pre, Or Un-Conscious

Disambiguating Faith: Can Rationality Overcome It?

Disambiguating Faith: Faith As A Form Of Rationalization Unique To Religion

Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Deliberate Commitment To Rationalization

Disambiguating Faith: Heart Over Reason

Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Corruption Of Children’s Intellectual Judgment

Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Subjectivity Which Claims Objectivity

Disambiguating Faith: Faith Is Preconditioned By Doubt, But Precludes Serious Doubting

Disambiguating Faith By Soul Searching With Clergy Guy

Disambiguating Faith: Faith As Admirable Infinite Commitment For Finite Reasons

Sometimes I have a hard time dealing with change. Today was filled with SO much change that I my emotions are a little confused…I am excited for my son J.D. who had his first day of first grade today and lived to tell about it! I am sad because my son J.D. had his first day of first grade today…he’s growing up SO fast! I am excited for my 17 month old son M.A. who learned to turn the door knob on his bedroom door and is extremely proud of himself for reaching this new level of becoming a big boy! I am frustrated because now I have to figure out another way to keep him in their bedroom all night while not blocking the door so that J.D. can get out to go to the bathroom when he needs too…I am sad because on the SAME day that J.D. went off to first grade (without ME I might add!) had to be the day that M.A. started this new step in his growing up. Time is going by so quickly! Sometimes I just want to tell God to give me a minute to catch up with all of the changes! Don’t get me wrong…I am glad that I am raising independent children….but its hard to watch it happen sometimes…

Today I told God that I wasn’t sure if I was ready for all of these changes! As my tears started to flow…He, my loving heavenly Father, took me into His arms and reminded me that I am growing too…I am writing again after so many years of my voice being silenced….I have a new wonderful relationship with an incredible Godly man, Will…I am working on moving across the state for a new and fresh start…My loving Heavenly Father told me that it is normal and OK to feel overwhelmed with all of the changes happening in my life and in their lives.

He reminded me that He will never change…His love for me will never change…His amazing promise of eternal life with Him will never change…and that He will be with me every step of the way! And if I need to curl up in His arms and cry or come to Him to celebrate or tell Him how frustrated I feel…all of that is OK! He wants me to come to Him! He never wants me to feel like my concerns are small or insignificant or silly…I am His daughter and just like when my young sons come to me in tears or excited I am there for them….He is there even more for me!

I am SO grateful! I feel SO blessed! It is so amazing! It is so incredible! To have such a personal God and Heavenly Father! Sometimes I forget that He understands my feelings and wants to comfort me and listen and just be there! Why is it that so many times in our lives that we go to Him last? Thank you Lord for being there for me today! For lifting me up! For holding me tight! For listening to me talk through the tears of joy, frustration and fear all happening at the same time!!! You are amazing!!! I praise you and love you! Help me to remember to go to you first!!!

After all…you are my Heavenly Daddy!

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Dear Mr. Einstein, meet my friend Mr. Comb.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

This may be the most famous quote from Einstein,for many reasons. Proponents of “non-overlapping magisteria” love it; others use it to try to “disarm” atheists and atheism, showing through some kind of appeal to authority (with Antony Flew perhaps not far behind) that you can be smart, critical, and theistic too.

And of course, no one is saying you can’t. But one thing that seems to go unnoticed is that all the words around this quote — for it’s part of an essay which is part of a collection of essays — raise a rather surprising conclusion for Mr. Einstein.

Namely, the people who often want to use this quotation fail to realize that Einstein had rather interesting ideas about religion and science, and actually wrote to distance his ideas about religiosity and deity away from popular conceptions. So his deity, at first glance, doesn’t support of the belief in personal as many people want to believe. Looking further, Einstein’s very idea of religion seems rather tame.

You can read the collection of four essays Einstein wrote here concerning science and religion here.

In the first, Einstein describes how he believes the traditional religions arose and popularized and what their failings are:

With primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious notions – fear of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal connections is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed toward a mortal. In this sense I am speaking of a religion of fear.
…The social impulses are another source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer’s outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God.

Reading on, you’ll find that Einstein believes these are two natural, yet underdeveloped forms of religion. Einstein’s highly prized third form of religion, which he heralds as that which “religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by,” does not feature such anthropomorphic deities who protect or comfort, but simply a sense for the cosmic — and his point is that the cosmic provides “the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research.”

In the second essay on the page, Einstein presents a clear version of non-overlapping magisteria and the is-ought problem. As he writes, “…it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.” He pays deference to the aspirations that Judeo-Christian tradition have given us, but he also notes that these goals can be taken out of religious form and put into human terms. Albert Einstein, after all, was a supporter of Ethical Culture and humanism.

The third essay (a second part to the second essay) on the page contains our golden quote, but it also comes with caveats — what qualities define “religious” according to Einstein:

…a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonal value…

Einstein notes that religion cannot deal with “facts and relationships between facts” (where have I heard this?), but that nevertheless, science and religion depend on each other. For how can a scientist research without an “aspiration toward truth and understanding”? And how can religion attain its goals without knowing “what means will contribute” to that attainment?

But still, Einstein takes aim at the idea of a personal God, noting that it is the “main source of the present-day conflicts between the spheres of religion and of science.” He suggests that nowadays the idea of a personal god merely takes solace in gaps of knowledge, but where he makes his theistic claim (and breaks away from what atheists might argue) is in saying that through the discovery of generally valid rules (which acculturates to accept that there is order even if we don’t know the rules yet — for example, with complex systems like weather), humanity can be “moved by profound reverence for the rationality made manifest in existence.”

And this is reverence and this rationality is what he finds to be religious and worthy of religion.

So, at best, we come to a few conclusions (which have been seen in a few “famous” cases). Einstein’s religion and deity is that of pantheism — it is closely aligned, if not exactly aligned to the natural univerese. So, Einstein’s essays effectively sums to the idea, “The natural, rational universe is god…and of course based on the evidence, I believe in the natural, rational universe.” (In this case, if we could agree that pantheism is what theism should recognize, I would imagine that most of all the current nonbelievers would instantly be theist by virtue that nearly everyone will believe in the natural, rational universe.)

The second conclusion possible, which was seen by Antony Flew (ok, so I admit I haven’t read a lot from him), is that this sense of awe and wonder for the rationality within the universe, if it is not the universe itself (pantheism), is some entity that set forth these rules (deism).

In either case, there is a way to go before reaching a personal deity.

My child, trust in Me. 

Loneliness, confusion, and brokenness have been My companions also. 

My heart was prepared so that today, when you called My name,

I would remember and understand.

                Author Unknown

These words first brought me encouragement when I was a preteen.  I won a poster at campmeeting for some small achievement.  It pictured a teen with his head in his hands, leaning against a row of lockers.  The colors were greys and blacks.  The only light streamed in from double doors illuminating the shiny, institutional floors leading to the boy.  In white letters, the message appeared beneath him. 

The poster hung in my bedroom throughout my tumultuous teen years.  Whenever I felt discouraged and was going through a difficult time, these words would be like a balm to my broken heart.  I knew Jesus had been through so much when He lived on earth.  I knew He understood my TODAY.  Whatever I was going through that day, I drew courage from knowing that Jesus wanted me to tell Him all about it.

I read the poster so much that the words and their truth are ingrained in me. What comfort Jesus’ life on earth, and His personal interest in me, has been in my life.  Though I’m past what seemed to be the worst part of my life, I’ve continue to gain strength from talking to Jesus about my todays.  He is so compassionate.  He knows and loves me.  He is a patient listener and He’s capable of taking care of things.  After all, He says “Trust in Me.”  So I learn to trust Him to see me through the dark times, knowing He has been through them too and came through victorious.  So can I.

What troubles you today?  It’s OK to trust Him.  He’s listening for you.

A wildfire fire

sweeps over my spirit

I run, not knowing,

which way to turn,

searching for reasons,

I’m placed here to be,

a boat without a rudder,

a hawk without eyes,

Quench my unrest, oh God

where are you?

***************

I pursue the accolades

of man, only

to realize I am,

an eagle without wings,

a nightinggale without song,

Be my fulfillment, oh God

where are you?

***************

War rages within me,

a spewing volcano

engulfing,

devouring

the landscape,

My tears, a reservoir

of disappointments,

Give me peace, oh God

where are you?

*****************

My pain lures me

to poppy’s seduction,

and alcohol’s forgetfulness,

Heal my memories past, oh God

where are you?

Where are you, oh God?

**********************************************************************************************************

My beloved,

I’ve set the stars

in place to

give you night, and

dawn to disperse

the darkness

to show you

each day, is a beginning

to start anew.

***************

My beloved,

I am here,

I speak to you when unawares

I am here.

***************

I’m the innocence of the new born babe.

The whisper floating on the wind,

The calm of the evening sunset,

The hugs of trusted loved ones,

The comfort of the rhythmic seasons,

The green of the first glimpses of spring,

The lace of each fallen snowflake,

The majesty of the Milky Way.

The heartbeat of first love,

The tears of shared lost,

The disappointments of broken promises,

The devastation of betrayed vows,

The reality of dreams dashed

***************

I am in all of these to

gently guide you

to me,

I love you and am seeking you-

turn to me.

I’ve provided a way for you,

my beloved, in my Son,

Jesus.

**********************************************************************************************************

There are infinite philosophies from every culture, every nation, and every era. They represent the pinnacle of mankind’s thinking, creation, and imagination. Each has withstood the test of time. They deserve our respect and honor.

These philosophies have inspired numerous practices-sacred customs, magnificent artwork, exemplary standards for relating to one another, respect for God’s creation, healthful eating habits, caring for the less fortunate, and outward adornment that reflects a humble heart.

These philosophical practices have striven to seek and find God based upon human terms. Many of these philosophical practices claim that mankind is already perfect and good; however, if we look around us, at ourselves, we can quickly conclude that we are not. We are in need of a Savior, so…

What if ?

Just, what if there is a God who has set things right based upon His terms for us to come into a personal relationship with Him? After all, He is God. What if this God is who He claims to be and is the God of the Bible?

What if this God of the Bible is such a loving God that He sacrificed Himself, His only Son, instead of you and me, so that we could be set free from our sins, have a personal relationship with Him, and eventually have eternal life?

Just what if the Bible is true?

I’m not referring the cultural practices and traditions that have developed around God through the centuries. I’m referring to the loving, patient, sovereign God of the Old Testament; the sinless, sacrificially, perfect God the Son, Jesus Christ of the New Testament; and the empowering God the Holy Spirit of the present age.

A God who loves us just because He loves us. In turn, we love because He first loved us. We serve others in gratitude to God for what He has done for us and given us. We are who we are where we are and want to give away what God has given us.

What if all the claims are true-a fulfilling relationship with God, the healing of past hurts, forgiveness of sins, power to live the life He has planned for you, and in the end eternal life.

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.’” (John 14:6)

What if your purpose for being here is tied up with Him and His purposes for you?

What if the God of the Bible, the God who’s written a 66 book of love letters to you is who He claims to be?

Have you given the God of the Bible much consideration?

Copyright 2009 by Nurturing Wisdom

A good many people nowadays say, ‘I believe in a God, but not in a personal God.’  They feel the mysterious something which is behind all other things must be more than a person.  Now the Christians quite agree.  But the Christians are the only people who offer any idea of what a being that is beyond personality could be like.  All the other people, though they say that God is beyond personality, really think of Him as something impersonal:  that is, something less than personal.  If you are looking for something super-personal, something more than a person, then it is not a question of choosing between the Christian idea and the other ideas.  The Christian idea is the only one on the market.

+ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him neither the rule of humans nor the rule of divinity exists as an independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a personal God interfering with natural events could never be refuted, in the real sense, by science, for this doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific knowledge has not yet been able to set foot. But I am convinced that such behavior on the part of representatives of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine which is to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark, will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable of cultivating the good, the true, and the beautiful in humanity itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably more worthy task…

“. . .Cling to Me.” Jeremiah 13:11

In my journey through the Bible I have landed in Jeremiah.  This morning I read about the “ruined waistband.”  God used a linen waistband as an object lesson for His rebellious people.  He asked Jeremiah to buy it and bury it.  When he retrieved it, it was not able to be useful as a waistband anymore.  Then God’s anguish over His children is expressed.  He wants us to be like waistbands that cling to Him.  He wants us to be that close to Him, yet we disconnect ourselves from Him and become ruined.  What a waste!

In my day today I choose to cling to my Jesus!  He wants me that close to Him!  I can be useful to Him.