The Tongues of Trolls

Recently there have been a couple of news stories about people making insulting and threatening comments on twitter aimed at female equality campaigners. Twitter’s not the only platform on which this occurs; unfortunately this practice of ‘trolling’ appears to be an unpleasantly intrinsic part of the web. Yet this behaviour isn’t new, people have always been threaten and insulted. The difference now appears to be the anonymity of the action, an anonymity partly due to the distances involved, there is often no realistic expectation that the troll will ever be confronted in person by the one they are abusing. This isolation from those they interact with is allowing more people to feel unconstrained by the social norms developed over millennia of human interactions.

These social norms constrain us, explaining that not everything that goes on in our heads is ok to do in public, in the realms of speech it introduces politeness where there are certain things which it is simply unallowable to say, no matter whether that is what you believe. Yet if it is our social conventions that constrain us where does the desire to say something abusive come from? From our own nature?

In the Bible, the tongue is compared to the rudder of a boat, though it is only a small part, it can steer a vast vessel. So too what we say so often turns into actions whether or not that was our original intent. For instance consider how an argument starts, simply with words yet it could result in actions – saying something you didn’t really mean that destroys a relationship entirely. Whilst we may see this, prescient like, an inertia takes hold and we continue on heedless of the irrevocable harm we may do. It is hard to control what we say all of the time – in fact biblical teaching is that it is impossible, the sarcastic comment in James “and if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man…” perhaps sums it up best “…but no human being can tame the tongue.”

So if it is impossible, by human endeavour, to fully control everything that we say should we not be more forgiving in what is said. Particularly when a transitory comment becomes permanent through a lack of awareness of such issues inherent in the use of the internet. Personally I’m going to try and remove the plank from my own eye before calling others to account for what they say. I’m sure if someone played back to me every word that I’ve said today then I would be sorely embarrassed.

If Anything is Good...

If anything is good, think on such things. Is that what we do? Is that where our thoughts dwell? Personally I find this a huge challenge, so often my thoughts meander away from what is good towards what is not. A stray thought entices the mind to linger there, and so that stray thought grows, gnawing away at the determination not to think on such, until it is a stray thought no longer but has engulfed everything.

Why is it that a simple thought of something evil becomes a snare that so easily entangles whilst one must constantly strive to think on something good? I suspect that this difference reflects the fallen nature of humanity, that all have fallen short. That it is not in our strength or human nature to be truly good. Rather it is only possible to be good, to be holy, by putting off our old self and taking on a new nature, given as a gift. Putting on white robes cleansed through the blood of the paschal lamb and seeking after a new name engraved upon a white stone; a new name to express our new true humanity, to accompany the new song of the heart that we will sing. A transformation that is not completed when we dedicate ourselves to follow God, but rather a process that starts there. When it is finished, on that day, it will not be evil that entangles but rather it will be good that ensnares, and ensnares so thoroughly that there is not room for any other thought, and evil will have no foothold.

Mistletoe and Wine

Happy December everyone, the snow has been falling and Christmas is almost upon us. Everyone is starting to get excited and looking forward to seeing their friends and family. Time to buy presents and look forward to gifts. Time for goodwill and peace. For decorations and food, for comfort and warmth.

That’s the point of Christmas isn’t it? To have a good time, to please ourselves and others. That is just one of the things that Christmas has become. Whilst giving and receiving gifts are not bad things Christmas today has to many people become simple that; a celebration of celebration itself rather than of the coming of the promised messiah; Jesus.

In the coming month it is worth reminding ourselves of why we are celebrating at this time of year. It is not because it is cold and dark, it is not because we have to celebrate or lose hope. We celebrate Christmas because we have a sure and certain hope. A new life with God, due to the sacrificial death of the man Jesus upon a cross 2000 years ago to pay the penalty that we deserve, to set us (previously captives) free and proclaim the Lord’s favour.

Remember this Christmas that we celebrate Christ. He should be the centre of our festivities not simply an after thought, just something that is done. Enjoy the fact that the whole country is celebrating with you and pray that those who don’t know it hear of the true reason why the country so fervently celebrates.

Has Science disproved God?

As part of a series on apologetic teaching at church we, this week, looked at the question of whether science has disproved God, courtesy of Tim Wears. Whether the study of science is incompatible with a belief in a God and leads to the view that religion is divisive leading to oppression and violence.

One of the topics I’d like to highlight was that of the different types of Naturalism. In fact there are two distinct types of naturalism: Scientific naturalism and metaphysical naturalism. There is an important distinction between the two and one does not necessarily logically lead to the other. Methodological (scientific) naturalism concerns knowledge and how to get trustworthy knowledge of the natural world. Any hypothesis has to be explained and tested only by reference to natural causes and events; this is the proper way to do science. Whilst Metaphysical (philosophical) naturalism is a world view concerning existence, what exist and what doesn’t. It states that there is nothing beyond nature, that nature is everything.

It is important to note here that a belief in metaphysical naturalism is exactly that, a belief, a philosophical position that can not be proved. A presupposition rather than a conclusion and it is a world view which by definition has no room for God in it. So to say that scientific endeavour has in someway disproved God is meaningless as it either can’t say anything about God or already assumes that there isn’t one. Many scientists would agree with this, for instance Steven Jay Gould, an eminent evolutionary biologists and atheist, said

“To say it for all my colleagues and for the umpteenth million time: science simply cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the issue of God’s possible superintendence of nature. We neither affirm nor deny it; we simply can’t comment on it as scientists.” 1

This was just one of the points that was made by Tim, and in a far more elegant way than I could possibly manage. I would highly recommend listening to entire talk which you can find here, it starts about 5 minutes in. As part of the talk we watched a clip of Alistair McGrath on the ethics and morality of religion. This has been omitted from the recording (approx 39 minutes in) and can be found here. I hope that you find it as interesting as I did.

1. "Impeaching a Self-Appointed Judge" (Review of Philip E. Johnston, Darwin on Trial), Scientific American (July 1992): 119. (c)1992, Scientific American

Feelings and Faith

What happens when we are feeling sad, down, depressed? When we just have one of those days or if things are not going well? Do we give up? Or do we keep running the race set before us?

In a small group this week we ended up talking about praising God all the time. That the first chapter of Ephesians tells us that this is the ultimate point of our salvation: ‘To the praise of his glorious grace’. Someone said that this means that we should praise God the whole time. But I think this is not the case. After all there is a book in the Bible called lamentations, and there are psalms of lament, and then we have Job.

All of these describe people who are bringing everything before God, not just the good bits but the whole of there lives. Their lives are not perfect yet they bring the whole of their lives before God. Before we start to think that this is simply an Old Testament phenomenon, in the New Testament we are told to ‘bring everything before God in prayer and petition’. Yet bringing everything to God does not imply doubt in God’s goodness or power. Job brought his complaints before God yet still believed in him and knew that he was loved by him.

After all if you are truly in a relationship with someone you don’t only tell them the good things. They know a whole plethora of things about you from the big things down to the minutia. How superficial would your relationship be if the whole time that something was wrong you were pretending that everything was fine?

Another problem with the idea that we should be constantly praising God is that when we feel down and don’t praise God it becomes easier to doubt the truth because we then ‘can’t’ bring how we are feeling before God. Thus our relationship with God ends up depending on our fickle feelings. To avoid this dependence on our feelings we need to know the truth in our head. We need to be imbued by the word, its knowledge percolating our whole being. So that when we don’t feel like praising God, when things are going badly, we still know that our salvation is secure in Christ and that God does indeed love us, even if we’re not feeling it.

Path(s?) up a Mountain

All paths lead to God, don’t they? That was the question posed at a sermon I attended at church. Picture a mountain if you will, with God at its heights and us at the base. There are many paths from where we start, many ways that we can live our life but only one path will enable us to complete the climb. Only one path can draw us close to God.

Some people claim that all the paths up the mountain reach the top and that from the bottom we can simple not tell. That is true, we can only have knowledge of the mountain from someone who was once on top and able to look down and see all the routes and whether or not they reach the summit. In Christ we have such a person, God incarnate, he who was once high humbling himself and coming to us at the bottom of the mountain.

Whether you believe that or not, it is certainly true that Jesus considered himself the only ‘path up the mountain’.

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well” John 14:6-7.

Likewise the founders of other religions would have denied that other religions were true. In Islam, Muhammad taught that the teaching of Judaism and Christianity had both been corrupted and that he had been given the true revelation of God. Buddha decided that Hinduism was wrong and so founded Buddhism. Thus to say that you follow one of these religions and still claim that all ways ‘lead to God’ means that you do not truly follow the teachings of your faith. Thus it is predominantly agnostics who hold this view.

The main objection to the fact that one religion can lead to God seems to be (at least to me) that it is a particularly arrogant claim. To essentially say that this religion is correct and all the others are wrong stinks of unacceptance. This however misses the point; the arrogance of a claim does not impact upon its validity. I, for instance, could say that I’m absolutely great at maths, the fact that I’ve made this statement doesn’t alter my mathematical ability one iota, I either am, or I am not.

A second argument against this objection is that in saying that my belief (that there is only way ‘up the mountain’) is wrong they themselves are making an equally arrogant statement: namely that they are able to perceive fundamental truths better than anyone one of that faith.