Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools.
Do you ever wonder why the world is such a mess?
There is a reason for it.
Do you ever scratch your head at some of the inane things that are often said by highly educated folks in places like New York or Las Angeles? Or how is it that so many folks living on either coast so completely don’t understand the vast majority of the rest of our country living in the “fly over” states?
How is it that so many of the folks who head up so many of our educational, cultural, governmental, and corporate entities seem able to come up with such bizarre stuff? And then, if someone might happen to disagree, either look at them as though they are ignorant children or portray them as nasty folks for daring to dissent with what everyone knows to be true?
Did you know there is a reason that so many people think followers of Jesus are a bit loopy. (I mean besides the fact that so many of us have turned Christianity into nothing more than a list of do’s and don’ts and rail on anyone who isn’t keeping our list. That’s a topic for a rant of its own.)
Paul talks about this very topic in the Bible. It is a long passage. But take a moment and read the whole thing.
But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who push the truth away from themselves. For the truth about God is known to them instinctively. God has put this knowledge in their hearts. From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they became utter fools instead. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people, or birds and animals and snakes.
So God let them go ahead and do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies. So they worshiped the things God made but not the Creator himself, who is to be praised forever.
The truth is that in spite of how poorly many of us Christians represent the person of Jesus, in the end folks won’t be able to use that as an excuse. The reality of God’s existence is evident in the world around us. People who insist on having “proof” that God exists before they will acknowledge him only need to open their eyes and look around.
Of course when you’re looking for an excuse, any excuse will do. For someone who doesn’t want to believe it doesn’t matter what “reason” for not believing they fix on. One excuse works just as well as another.
But after reading that bit from the Bible, is it any wonder that so many different religions have sprung up here in the last two thousand years? We humans have been hard wired with the desire to worship something, anything, even if it is ourselves. When folks reject God it is not uncommon for them to eventually begin to make up their own ideas of what God is like.
Many of the newer religious sects claim for their authority the fact that their founder was visited by an angel who delivered to them a divine message. Yet Paul has strong words about that too.
Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including myself, who preaches any other message than the one we told you about. Even if an angel comes from heaven and preaches any other message, let him be forever cursed.
You may think that the idea of someone bowing down in worship to a statue of a bird or a snake is silly, something that never happens anymore. Fair enough. Yet, if you think about it, how many folks do you suppose place inordinately high value on the world around us? There are definitely some who place a higher value on earth, and the other living things on it than they do on other people. They focus their energies on protecting these things at the expense of people’s welfare in the interest of caring for “Mother Earth.”
Some really do choose to worship the environment. How else do you explain inane statements like cigarette smoking is a significant contributer to greenhouse gases? I mean I’m no fan of smoking, but that is just silly. It seems to be a statement from someone who is claiming to be wise but has become an utter fool instead.
When we choose to reject God and instead focus on disproportionally emphasizing the things that God made, God in his mercy lets us go off in that direction. He could by rights strike us dead when we reject him, I suppose. But instead he chooses to continue to give us opportunities to change our mind and follow him.
The Bible says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding.”
James even lets us know how we can get more wisdom if we find we are lacking it.
If you need wisdom–if you want to know what God wants you to do–ask him, and he will gladly tell you. He will not resent your asking.
Rejecting God is a very dangerous business. We may believe we are doing the smart thing by doing so. But the irony is, the smarter we feel we are getting, the dumber the things we do and say as we get further from the wisdom of God.
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Chris,
» And then, if someone might happen to disagree, either look at them as though they are ignorant children or portray them as nasty folks for daring to dissent with what everyone knows to be true? «
If you take that statement in itself, I would like to point out that from the viewpoint of an outsider (i.e. me), this statement quite accurately describes what you are doing in your blog post.
Because your post says that everyone who differs from your truth (or that of your bible) or from what every follower of God knows to be true, is an ignoratn fool or dumb.
Now I assume, that that you believe your truth is truer than their’s, and that you have the reference points and quotes to show everyone why this is so … but so do they.
Quite par for the course, is it not?
Markus
Marcus,
Is the stuff in this post that you found offensive the parts that I wrote or the passages I quoted from the Bible?
Because I know I have the capacity to be sarcastic and condescending. For proof of that just go look at some of my early, more political posts. Sheesh!
However I took the cure from political stuff here (mostly) and I am working on improving in that area across the board. If I haven’t quite managed to overcome that yet I sincerely apologize.
But if your issue is with the stuff you find in the Bible, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I can’t take credit for it. Neither can I take the blame. God claims it is His word and I figure He is big enough to be responsible for it all on His own. If your problem is there you need to take your beef up with Him.
And I don’t get your understanding of truth. There is no “your truth” or “my truth” or “their truth”. Truth simply exists. Nothing can be “truer” than something else. Truth doesn’t come in degrees.
Just like there are no degrees of death. It’s a binary solution set. Either you are dead or you are still alive. Something is either true, or it’s false.
I have neither a monopoly on nor ownership of truth. I can choose to align myself with it or I can choose to disregard it and align myself some other way.
Do I get it right all the time? I wish I did!
I’m not even saying here that I know for 100% certainty that I know truth. I can get it pretty stinking close through rational thought. But ultimately there is a sliver left that remains, the tiniest gap that can’t be closed with out the metaphysical faith. I guess that is probably because I am not God. But because of that I know there really is at least a possibility that I may be wrong.
But if I were to arbitrarily pick and choose what I want to call “my truth”, that would be an intellectually dishonest cop out that I would put in place simply to protect myself from the unpleasant reality of my not wanting to align myself with what is true.
No. To be honest with myself I have to acknowledge that there is a standard, a truth, to which I fall woefully short. Changing that standard so that I appear to measure up is only fooling myself. By doing that I might be able to claim to be wise. But in reality I’d be an utter fool instead.
Chris,
in my view truth is a tricky business and I wouldn’t even think of trying to challenge your truth or even try to convince you of a different one. If the bible works for you, why would I want to mess with that?
But in my life I have made the observation that different people believe different things to be true. Hinduists or Shintoists are no less convinced they’ve got it rigth than Christians and atheists are. Heck, even various Christian churches ans sects can’t agree on what the finer points of truth are.
And I have met nobody in my life who did not have good reasons for it (including faith, which is a good enough reason for me as reasoning). But I see the outcomes are quite different. I have had many many philosophical and political discussions in my life, with all kinds of people, but in most cases they eventually (after a long night or two) ended in something like “I can see where you are coming from, it’s just that we can’t agree on the base assumptions”.
As said, I don’t want to challenge your belief and faith in the bible, but since you seemed so genuinely pissed about the fact that those highly educated folks ridicule or marginalize the others for differring from what they believe is right and true, I found it ironic that you were doing the same with them in your post.
I know that there’s this bit about “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” and you have every right to act accordingly, i.e. ridicule those whom you feel ridiculed by, but a couple of posts ago (in the comment from the guy called DOT) I mentioned the concept of “matching energy” and that was somehow related to Jesus saying to “turn the other cheek”.
I’m not exactly sure why I write all this, because I’m very sure that I don’t want to convert you to or convince you of anything.
But in your post you ask:
» Do you ever wonder why the world is such a mess? «
I don’t have an full answer to that, but part of it (part of my answer), would be, that what plays a major role in this mess is that people don’t taks others seriously and thing of them as “less” (with tall the results from tha), if the others differ from their own belief.
And in that I find your blog post a bit troublesome.
Markus
Marcus,
If I sound pissed I again apologize. It is definitely not the case, and I know it does nothing to detract from the stereotype of the “angry Christian”.
I have a tendency to express my opinions strongly and can come across as angry when it is just the New York in me and the strength of my convictions coming out. My wife will attest that this phenomenon is much more pronounced in person! (“Its not what you say, Chris. It’s the tone.”) Really I’m not angry. I’m working on that. Sorry if I come across that way.
I started to write a whole long response here. But it was getting way too long for just a comment so I’m going to finish it as this morning’s post.
What you have to say here is important, Marcus and deserves some attention. We should spend some time with it, thus the whole post.
Chris,
tell you a funny thing. This comment of mine took a long time to write and I had the impression all the time, that I was missing an important point. I was going for a short drive to run an errrand and the post worked it’s way along the back of my mind.
If I had to write it again, I’d say:
Chris, you’re a good man. Just don’t be so harsh with others and with youself.
Markus