Can 'meaning' trump 'truth'?

The rational atheists can never learn anything from theists while they think that theists are more beholden to 'meaning' than 'truth'.

The whole point of theism is that it is taken as true on the basis of faith. And that perspective of 'theism', 'truth' and 'faith' is internally consistent. In other words, theism has 'meaning' because, for a theist, it is primarily 'true'.

Atheism which claims to be founded on intellectual rationalism can never enjoy such consistency of perspective, because atheism obviously cannot be shown to be true by rationality alone. The more thoughtful atheists (such as Andre Comte-Sponville) rightly see their atheism as a belief. The problem they have is that they are left without 'meaning' and so they are left with 'despair'. So, like Sartre before him, Comte-Sponville says, 'there is no way for a lucid atheist to avoid despair'.

http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/religion/2013/03/god-dead-long-live-our-souls

Listening to an opponent

There is such huge value to listening to an opponent in an argument. It makes me wonder why I don't do it more often!

Love is a verb

I read a tweet earlier today from a vicar who said that he didn't feel sure about the idea of falling in love. He thought that people really fall in 'lust' or 'attraction', but that love is a verb and is something we 'choose' to do.

And I thought that all sounded a bit grim. He takes something that's romantic and squashes it down to something earthy. 

So I told him.

I said that falling in love with someone who you think is wonderful is thrilling, exciting and overwhelmingly good. It is jolly nice. It makes you feel extremely happy.

Anyway. He ignored my tweet.

I know he has a point. I know that real love is a commitment and requires faithfulness, sometimes doing things you rather wouldn't (or not doing things you'd like). But I don't think that should mean that love isn't the other stuff as well.

Falling in love with my wife was one of the most wonderful experiences in my life and it still is. It was made all the more dramatic and powerful because I trusted God every step of the way, I respected her personal space and didn't make love to her until we were married. In fact, it was 6 months after I first decided she was a wonderful woman before I ventured to ask her for a date. I fell in love with her over many months - at times feeling dizzyingly excited about her, but consistently self-controlled and looking to God for his leading and guidance.

Falling in love with someone shouldn't be denigrated as a brute passion that is uncontrollable. It can be appreciated as one of God's great gifts to us, so long as it is coupled with self-control and seeking God's lead.

Bucket List

Hey! I've only got ONE THING on my 'bucket list': to take part in 40 days of prayer and fasting!

Just imagine lying on my deathbed...'I'm glad I went to New Zealand and saw the little hobbit houses'?, 'At least I jumped out of an aeroplane strapped to some stranger and got a video of me pulling funny faces'?, 'I'm glad we had that family holiday in Disneyland and managed to pay for it out of the mortgage'?

But how about 'I reached a point in my life where I so seriously sought the Creator of the universe that my friends  and I prayed solid for 40 whole days, regularly skipping meals just to express how vital we think God is'.

Bonkers! Wonderful!! How could I NOT do it??!! (and it costs nothing! In fact...it could save me a few quid in grub). I'm free to not do it. But I must do it.

As a church near here once said on it's website, 'we believe that nothing of any lasting value will take place unless it is energised through an encounter with the spirit of God.'

Significance

On Boxing Day a tweet went around the world to millions of people. It was a recommendation from a humanist website to read an article called, ‘We’re Puny, Insignificant and Doomed – and that’s the good news’. It was written by a man who described how he told his 3 year old about the universe.

That’s it son, you’re ‘puny, insignificant and doomed’.

Now I happen to believe that the universe is 14 billion years old, that it is absolutely ginormous, that one day planet earth will crash into the sun, and that compared to these things we are tiny and short-lived.

But I really object when we use descriptions of stuff to talk about value.

The value of a person is a personal thing. It’s got little to do with size or lifespan.
God is a person. He is the ultimate person. We need to remember that people have value. Not stuff. Whether it is the stuff of stars or the stuff of ipads. Value is a personal thing. Not a stuff thing.

http://richarddawkins.net/news_articles/2012/12/26/we-re-puny-insignificant-and-doomed-and-that-s-the-good-news#.UOGvom_eQ6l

Cosmos

‘We are the cosmos made conscious’ says Brian Cox, ‘Life is the means by which the universe understands itself’.

Although Professor Cox doesn’t believe in a God, he is full of wonder and awe at our ability to understand how things work and our awareness of what things are made of. In the Narnia books one of the clever children comments that a star is simply a cloud of collapsed hot gas. An older, wiser person comments that ‘even in your world that isn’t all that stars are’.

Just because we understand what stuff is made from, it doesn’t mean we understand what they really are.

Like people! Just because I understand what you’re made from, doesn’t mean I understand you!
People are wonderful things. But not just because of what they’re made from.

New Year (3)

Happy New Year!

How long does it take for a New Year Resolution to be broken?

I’m a regular swimmer – twice a week I do lane swimming at Rugby School swimming pool. And January is notorious for the influx of people determined to get fit! The place is heaving until around the second week.

Then they all disappear. And the New Year becomes just like the old one – a year when we have failed to live-up to our own expectations.

The trouble is that we get so fixated about the wrong kind of newness. There is a newness that God makes. It’s a newness of the future, not of the past. We see it reflected in the newness of springtime, when new things grow out of the old and, what seems to be dead. If we look to God for our newness it is full of promise and hope. If we look to manufactured human things then we are soon disillusioned.

How can you tell the difference between something that God has made and something that people have made? When you magnify them the human-made things look very crude.