Indifference towards God

I write a lot about evidence and proof for God and Christianity specifically.  It's meant to engage other people and get them to think about the world around them.  It's also meant to help other Christians in defending their faith and answering challenges.  But there's a third group that many people fall into and I think it's probably the biggest group of people who don't make a definite decision about Jesus one way or the other.  It's those people that are indifferent.  I'm not talking about agnostics I'm talking about people who are lukewarm.  They might believe in the existence of God but don't want to challenge themselves or others.  This is a group who might believe many roads lead to God we just have to believe.  They might believe that no one can really know so why choose one religion over another.  They might believe that they'll just have a good time while they're alive and sort it out when they die and meet God.  They might believe that it just doesn't matter because God will let everyone in.  However, Jesus made bold claims about being the only way to heaven.  He didn't allow for indifference.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. John 14:6 (NLT)

That doesn't say being a good person and anything you believe will get you to God.  It doesn't say as you long you believe there is a God (Father) you'll get there.  He says you must go through him.  You don't get to decide after the fact you must decide about Jesus before you die and meet God.  In fact Jesus says this about people who are indifferent:

I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth! Revelation 3:15-16 (NLT)

Literally in the Greek "spit you out" means vomit.  He says it would be better to be against him (cold) than to be indifferent or neutral (lukewarm).  Jesus is not indifferent about people who are indifferent.

Blaise Pascal was a 17th century French mathematician, physicist, inventor, scientist, and apologist.  He had an argument that is referred to as Pascal's Wager.  In summary it says that we all have to make a wager about God either for or against.  So we're better off to make the wager on the for side because in making on a wager on the against side you have nothing to gain but everything to lose.  Is that a reason in and of itself to believe in God?  I don't think so but I think the point is still valid.  It should be enough of a reason to examine the Christian position and come to a reasonable conclusion.  You should have better evidence against Jesus than there is for Jesus in order to make a decision against him because the consequences are much more severe if you're wrong.

We have already begun the journey of life and we are headed towards death.  There is no option to pause and put our death on hold while we decide whether Jesus is the only way to God or not.  Death is coming and if you don't make a decision for God it's as good as a decision against God and in fact the scripture quoted above Jesus says it's worse.

If you are still skeptical about there being any evidence have you looked yet?  If you are part of another religion apart from Biblical Christianity including religions that use altered versions of the Bible or use other books claimed to be scriptural have you looked at the evidence and criticisms of those texts?  If you think that all roads lead to God and you just have to believe have you looked at the differences in believe systems?  Are they really all the same?  Because it's not the similiarities that matter it's the differences.

We should all be looking at the most important questions in life such as:

• How did we get here?
• Is there a God?
• Which god is he?
• Why am I here?

The answers to these questions will ultimately lead to the meaning of life and what our own purpose is.  I look at Pascal's Wager as a call to move away from indifference and engage in the questions of life and our own significance.  If we're just DNA what's the point to life?  Significance cannot be found apart from God.

Tebow has it right

I just recently moved from Denver after having lived there 16 years and I'm a Broncos fan.  I'm a Seattle Seahawks fan too and have been since I was a kid but the Broncos became my home town team.  I was a season ticket holder for 7 or 8 of those years and during that time they won 2 Superbowls and moved into a new stadium.  I was at the game when Jason Elam kicked a 63 yard field goal to tie Tom Dempsey and I was at the game when Terrell Davis broke 2,000 yards (against my beloved Seahawks no less).  I watched John Elway throw numerous TDs and I watched the famous playoff collapse against Jacksonville that very likely could have been the first of 3 Superbowl's in a row instead of 2.

So you would think given all that and being a Christian I would have been excited when the Broncos drafted Tim Tebow in the first round.  It was great on the one hand to have a person with such great character on the team who shares my own worldview but on the other hand I felt like they drafted him way too high.  By this time if you don't know who Tim Tebow is well I'm not sure what rock you might have been living under.  You can easily Google him and look at his great college career.

Tebow might just be the most well known player in the NFL or at least one of the most well known.  People either love him or hate him.  The hate part I don't get and probably never will.  He doesn't get into trouble and never seems to put himself first.  I think that might be why people some people don't like him.  He's got it all, money, fame, and could have most anything, but yet he doesn't take credit for any of it, ever.

I watched the interview with him last night after the game and the commentators wanted to bring him down in a way I don't think I've ever seen with other players.  He just lead the Broncos to another come from behind win in the last few minutes that was amazing to watch.  He hadn't had a great game but just like the previous games he kicked it into another gear near the end and put the team on his shoulders and scored the winning TD with less than a minute remaining.  But the interviewers were asking him questions like "When you miss your receivers and they are are wide open what do they say to you when you come back to the huddle?"  That's a paraphrase but those were the tone of the questions.  It was like "Yeah, you won but you weren't perfect, why are you so bad?"  When it's clear that Tebow's teammates respect him and they follow him.

The entire time these insulting and ridiculous questions were being thrown at him, he of course pointed to Jesus at the start of the interview, but he just kept heaping praise on his teammates and coaches giving them credit.  It doesn't come across in an insincere or cliche way either, it's not false humility like so many athletes spew out.  Here he was engineering one of the greatest, most exciting wins in Broncos history and they ask how excited he was about it.  He says he was way more excited about announcing earlier in the day that he was partnering with another group to build a children's hospital in the Philippines.  The thing is you believe him when he says that.

He also said he's been given a platform to influence others and have an impact on other people's lives and football is just the vehicle to accomplish that.  There's a human being who has it right.  Win or lose I have little doubt that his focus will still be the same.  I'm a Tebow fan no matter what he does because he's doing life the right way.  I'm not putting him on a pedestal, because he's not perfect.  But his approach is right and his heart is in the right spot.  As Christians we should do everything that God has given us to influence and impact those around us in a positive way to glorify God just like Tebow.  I'm going to look to Tebow's example and do a better job in those areas in my own life to help those around me and not only point them to truth but to just care about them.  Tebow being drafted 25th overall in the first round seems like a steal now.  Not for the wins and losses but on his character alone.  Tebow has put himself second I want to do the same.

I'm A Good Person

I used to think that getting into heaven required something on my part namely being a good person.  My rationale was that I'm not perfect but I'm also not as bad as Hitler or others who may have committed some pretty heinous crimes and compared to them I look pretty good.  So therefore I'm a good person and God will let me into heaven.  In fact most world religions say that you have to do something to get right with God so he'll open the door to heaven for you.  This is called works and Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and pretty much every other world religion outside of Christianity says you have to work your way to heaven or the nirvana or zen state.  Even some Christian denominations such as Catholicism say you have to accept Jesus but you also have to get baptized or do some other type of works to get entry into God's kingdom.

What I didn't understand (and neither do these worldviews) is the standard for good.  When I compare myself to Hitler I'm using a relative (subjective) standard.  What if you compare Hitler to the Chinese dictator Mao though?  Mao was responsible for the murder of at least 25 million people so does that mean Hitler is a good person compared to Mao?  What if you compare Jeffery Dahmer to Hitler?  He 'only' murdered 17 people so is he a good person compared to Hitler and the millions he was responsible for the murder of?  What if I compare myself to Mother Teresa?  She spent her entire life serving the poor and had a big impact on the world and those around her.  Am I still good if I compare myself to Mother Teresa?  What if the good standard is Mother Teresa and I don't meet it?  What if it's better than Mother Teresa and I don't meet it, what happens when I meet God?  The problem with this type of good standard is it's ever changing and I don't really know if I'm good enough to get to heaven before I die.  How fair or just is a god that doesn't tell us what the standard is and we just have to hope for the best when we get there?

So what does Biblical Christianity say about the standard for getting into heaven?  The Bible says that the standard for gaining entrance into heaven is perfection.  Never breaking one of God's laws ever gets you into heaven.  Never lying, never stealing, never lusting.  Never putting money, ourselves, or even others ahead of God.  Honoring our parents always.  If we do any of these things even once we've broken God's law and deserve to be disciplined.

The reaction sometimes is "You've got to be kidding!  One lie and someone will go to hell!"  Has there ever been someone who has only lied once or only broke one of God's laws?  Pretty doubtful.  But to say that is really not to understand the nature of God.  Suppose you had a family member that was brutally assaulted and left disabled for the rest of their life.  The person is caught and goes to trial and is found guilty.  He is brought before the judge and the criminal says "Yes, your honor I did what I'm accused of.  However, on the way to the court room today I was driving behind a school bus and the school bus was hit by a semi and burst into flames.  I stopped and pulled 10 school children from the burning bus saving their lives.  I've got several witnesses here who will say I did this.  Saving 10 lives outweighs permanently disabling one person so I should be let go."  If the judge let the person go we'd be furious and feel that justice was not served for our family member. We'd think that judge was a horrible judge and we'd be right.

The fact is that assault still requires punishment no matter how many good things have been done.  But this is exactly what worldviews that promote works say: Yeah, you've done wrong but if you do enough good things you'll erase the bad things you've done.  We wouldn't accept that for criminals but we want to accept that for ourselves.  So why is it we'd find it unbelievable that God would require punishment for breaking his laws no matter how many good things we've done?  We want justice but when it's us facing that justice it's a different story.  God is holy and not punishing law breakers would not be holy.

So given that we're all guilty and we're facing judgement where does that leave us?  It leaves us facing punishment no matter how good we think we are.  It's not a very good picture.  However, there is good news:  God has provided a solution.  Most of us have probably heard that Jesus died for our sins.  But what does that actually mean?  Jesus was sent to live a perfect life and broke none of God's laws.  He was the only one who could face God and be allowed entry into heaven on his own record.  Because he was blameless he is the only one who could take our punishment for us.  He gave up his right to have no punishment to take yours and mine so we didn't have to.

To illustrate this substitution imagine if someone who had lied stepped up and said they would take your punishment for lying.  They would already be facing punishment for their own lies so it wouldn't mean much.  That is why Jesus dying for us is such a big deal.  He is the only who didn't deserve it but yet he took the punishment.  This satisfies the requirement for our law breaking to be punished but it also gives us the opportunity to be right with God.  All we have to do is admit we've broken God's laws and accept Jesus' sacrifice for us on the cross.  That's it.  No good works just faith in Jesus.  But it's still our choice.  We can take our own punishment and spend eternity separated from God in hell or we can spend eternity with our creator in heaven.

Works do have a place in Christianity but it has nothing to do with whether we go to heaven or not.  We do good works because God loves everyone (whether they love him or not) and we love God.  How much better are good works if we do them out of love for God than if we do them out of love for ourselves?  It makes works a completely selfless act as opposed to doing something to save ourselves.

Some might say (I did): How do you know Christianity is right and any of the other worldviews aren't?  Well, quite simply it's the evidence.  If haven't examined the evidence look at some of the resources mentioned in other blog posts or some of the listed books as a start.  If you haven't examined the evidence for your own worldview you owe it to yourself to look at it.  Don't leave your eternal destination up to chance and hope.  Examine the evidence objectively and follow where it leads.

Things that look designed are designed

We take for granted that material things we see everyday have a mind behind them.  If we see a billboard we don't wonder how the ad got there.  We don't assume that it posted itself or it just appeared out of nothing with no purpose.  We know that there was thought behind it and someone designed it for a purpose.

I like to hunt and fish.  A lot of times I can be out in the middle of what seems like nowhere.  I'm not on a trail and it seems remote like maybe I'm the only one to have ever been there and I'll look down and see a pop can or a burnt out campfire.  My first thought is usually, "I wonder who left this here?".  I never even question though that there was someone behind it.  I don't think "I wonder if this pop can just sprang out of the ground or appeared from nothing".  That sounds crazy but that's exactly what some people do when it comes to explaining how nature came to be. 

In his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins argues that the universe looks complex and appears to be designed but really isn't.  He goes on to say that the temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to a designer.  When I first read this I had to scratch my head.  What complex system have we ever observed as being designed that wasn't?  We attribute designers to design because designed things don't just appear on their own.  Impersonal forces (i.e. non-designers) can't choose to create (i.e. design).

In fact there is an argument called the Teleological Argument (telos means design in Greek) and it goes like this:

1. Every design has a designer
2. The universe has highly complex design
3. The universe has a designer

If the first two premises are correct then the conclusion follows that the universe has a designer.  It's argument based on the fine tuning of the universe.  I wrote a blog on this fining tuning before and that can be found here.  So why do some very smart people believe that the most complex thing known to us, the universe, does not have a designer behind it?  Mostly because of an a priori commitment to naturalism.  That just means they have a prior commitment that nature is all there is so every explanation for the world around us has to come out of nature including nature itself.  They say that everything has a natural cause (including nature itself) and we'll eventually find the answer through science.  Eventhough we've never observed (science is about observation of effects) something coming from nothing we'll eventually figure it out.  However this will never be proveable because they will never be able to create something from nothing because anything they do create will have a designer behind it, namely the scientist.

The naturalist competing theory is the Multi-Verse.  This says that there are infinite multiple universes and given enough time and chance a universe like ours would be created and we just happen to be in the right one.  There are several problems with this.  One, there is absolutely no proof for this.  For people who claim science and nature is all there it's odd they'd appeal to something that is completely devoid of evidence.  Two, this could never be observed.  They are taking it on faith that there are other universes.  Third, it's actually impossible to have an infinite number of material things.  To illustrate this imagine a runner running an infinite race.  As the runner settles in the starting blocks they get moved back because the starting line is infinite.  Each time he settles into the starting blocks the line is moved back so he'll never actually start the race.  The same thing can be said for an infinite number of days.  If time were infinite the "beginning" point would constantly be moved back so today would never be reached.  Numbers are infinite but numbers aren't material things.  And lastly multi-verses just moves the starting point for a designer back and multiples the need for a designer.  What is the agent pumping out all these universes?  Same goes for Stephen Hawkings theory of energy in a vacuum creating the universe.  Where did the energy come from?  Energy isn't nothing it's something.

The theist doesn't reject science at all in fact the theist embraces it.  Science tells us about the world around us but when our observations point to causes outside of nature we can take that to where it leads and that's to a designer.  The attributes of the designer of our universe fit those that theists for thousands of years have attributed to God.  Theists are justified to believe in the existence of God based on the evidence.  It's a position that can be defended intellectually with sound reason and confidence and in fact is the most reasonable explanation of our universe.  It's not unreasonable to attribute design to a designer.  You can take confidence that theism answers the questions better than any other belief system.  And as the other evidence (Jesus, the Bible, the resurrection) is examined Biblical Christianity is the most reasonable against other worldviews.