Josiah Concept Ministries

Religious scholars are meeting this weekend to discuss the pseudo-deity known as the Flying Spaghetti Monster. According to Wikipedia, FSM was created in 2005 by physics major Bobby Henderson in order to protest the teaching of intelligent design in Kansas classrooms. Since its wide media exposure, the FSM is used by atheists and agnostics alike to discredit the existence of God.

The American Academy of Religion has a few talks on its plate (no pun intended) about the Noodly Master. The graduate students giving the talks, Samuel Snyder, Alyssa Beall, and Gavin Van Horn, insist that this carbohydrate creator raises serious questions about the origin and practice of religion.

In other words, are religions based on theology or on practices? Most atheists would argue that religion is only a method to control behavior. They point to made-up religions like pastafarianism as a way to make this point. Richard Dawkins refers to it in The God Delusion, and frequently in debates.

So what are the grad students’ conclusions? I guess we’ll have to wait for the papers to be published. I just think that this lends far too much credence to a phenomenon that already has too much attention.

Dr. William Lane Craig agrees with that:

I think you can see that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is vastly overrated, both as a parody and as a being. As a parody, he fails to show that an inference to an intelligent designer of the universe is either illegitimate or unwarranted. What the parody shows is that we are not justified in attributing to our explanatory postulates arbitrary properties that are not justified by the evidence. Natural theologians have always known this. That’s why, for example, Thomas Aquinas, after his five brief paragraphs in his Summa theologiae proving the existence of a being “to which everyone gives the name ‘God’,” goes on to discuss in the next nine questions God’s simplicity, perfection, goodness, limitlessness, omnipresence, immutability, eternity, and unity.

As a being, the Flying Spaghetti Monster comes up drastically deficient as an explanation of those phenomena, some of which you list, which lie at the basis of the arguments for God’s existence. Those arguments, if all sound, as I think they are, require cumulatively a being which is the metaphysically necessary, self-existent, beginningless, uncaused, timeless, spaceless, immaterial, personal, omnipotent, omniscient Creator and Designer of the universe, who is perfectly good, whose nature is the standard of goodness, and whose commands constitute our moral duties.

The real lesson to be learned from the case of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is that it shows how completely out of touch our popular culture is with the great tradition of natural theology.  (source)

First, please help me locate the part of the New Testament that will make it clear to me that Leviticus, Numbers, and whatever other books to which this claim applies were invalidated by Jesus. I’m not saying you are wrong - I’m nowhere close to even starting the New Testament yet - I’d just like to know where I’ll find this part so I can be more careful about how I’m reading the Old Testament now. (source)

The Old Testament law is essentially divided into two basic categories.  Jewish Ceremonial Laws (which includes dietary laws) and General Moral Principles.  I would think that reading the law books, this division would be obvious to a reasonable person such as VJack.  In Romans and Galatians, Paul makes the purpose of the law clear: to teach us what sin is (Rom 3:19-31; Gal 3:10-14).  We are enslaved to sin (Eph 2:1-3).  But thanks to the grace of God that we enjoy through Christ, sin no longer has any dominion over us because Christ’s sacrifice freed us from the law (Rom 6:14).

Why do we still have the Bible?  My brother-in-law shared this in an e-mail to me, and I think it perfectly expresses what I’m trying to say:

It [the Bible] was written long ago, but it very much is valid in modern times. It is a timeless book of truths that is 100% correct. It should be our source for faith and understanding, but not the ONLY source. That is what prayer and thinking of Christ does for us. We are able to look past what the scripture says to the WHY. But without the initial scripture, we could never have anything to hold it accountable to. The Bible is the final authority. Period.

And if we are free of the letter of the law as my brother-in-law says (and Paul says in 2 Cor 3:6), then why not just live a life of sin?  We’re saved anyway, right?  We can find ways to argue that our sin is the “spirit” of the law, can’t we?  Well, the apostle Paul said it better than I could in Romans 6:1-14.  If we profess a life of righteousness by faith, we ought to live that life out rather than just talk about or think about.

I may have misjudged VJack from Atheist Revolution. I thought that his true motive behind reading the Bible from cover to cover was to poke fun at it. But it seems that the convicting power of the Holy Spirit may be at work in his heart, as he now seems to actually want to understand what he is reading with more clarity:

When confronted with scriptural evidence that there are many laws, clearly stated as such, for which the penalties are often banishment or death, which virtually no modern Christian even attempts to follow, one should expect a predictable Christian response. The wording will vary, but the response will be along the lines of how the Old Testament no longer applies because god’s covenant with Moses and his predecessors was replaced by Jesus and the New Testament.

Fair enough. I’ll ask two things of the Christian making this claim, and I’ll ask them not in a challenging manner but as a plea for assistance. (source)

I’ll answer his questions in a moment. But first, let’s understand why there are no more animal sacrifices.

First off, we have to understand that the wages of sin is death (Rom 6:23a). Calling death a “wage” implies that we earn it through our sins. All have sinned (Rom 3:23), so all have earned death by their sin. This means that every human being on this planet deserves to die because we all sin. Everyone.

With that in mind, is it so terrible that God demands the death penalty for some sins that we consider relatively minor? Of course not–it is all sin, which is paid for by death. “[W]ithout the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins” (Heb 9:22)–either our own blood or someone else’s. Up to this point, the blood of animals had been used to cleanse and purify us from our sins (Heb 9:13). Now, the precious blood of Christ purifies us (Heb 9:14).

Christ offered Himself to the Father, perfect and without blemish (Heb 9:14), as propitiation for our sins once for all (Heb 9:26b). Throughout the book of Hebrews, the author argues that the tabernacle and Tent of Meeting described in the Book of the Law is an imperfect copy of heaven (Heb 9:1-12). Jesus has entered into the real thing–heaven–and is seated at the right hand of the Father, making intersession for us in a way that no high priest ever could (Heb 1:3b, Heb 7:11-28).

The prophets predict an end to animal sacrifices. Malachi predicts that a new type of sacrifice will be offered:

For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts. (1:11)

This is fulfilled by Christians living by the word of God, everyday and in every place:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom 12:1-2)

Christ’s sacrifice perfects us. We no longer need animal blood to do so.

I will address VJack’s specific questions in my next post. Stay tuned.

TurretinFan has a great post on God’s wrath being understood side-by-side with His love rather than in opposition to it. This post fits well into my series on pain and atheists’ darkened understanding.  It lends some Reformed theology to my otherwise philosophical view.  I urge everyone to check it out if they have time. It’s short but profound.

While you’re over at TF’s site, you should read his rebuttals to objections on the limited atonement (the L in TULIP), as well as his definition here.  Nice theological reflections.  Real solid food (Heb 5:14).

The problem of pain–existence of suffering in a world allegedly controlled by a benevolent and all-powerful God–is the number one issue that seems to drive atheists away from Christianity.  I don’t think that this is as big a problem as many make it out to be.  I think that this is as big a problem as you want it to be.

God’s love is only properly understood side-by-side with His wrath, not in opposition to it.  Like any father, He only wants what is best for His children.  This means that, unfortunately, discipline is often necessary.

God has disciplined us specifically in the Bible (Gen 3:14-19, for example).  But more often than not, I think that, like any good father, He simply allows us to stumble and fall on our own.  This means that we create many of the problems in this world ourselves.

God, benevolent though He is, should not be obligated to clean up our messes.  We create most of the problems on this little blue dot, and we should accept that responsibility and clean them up–without expecting God to snap His fingers and make it all better.

However, there must be a reason why God allows us to suffer at times.  I propose that He lets us suffer for two main reasons.  First, He does it to teach us something.  Second, He does it because that is what is best for us.

I can speak as a father now, and use my daughter Ashleigh to illustrate my point.

Ashleigh still has trouble controlling her muscles.  I’ve obviously been controlling my muscles for many, many years now; so I find it amazing that this little girl actually has to learn how to do that from scratch.  She’s not skillful in the least, yet.  Sometimes, she scratches her eyes.  She’s never put a fingernail directly into her eye, but I imagine that someday she will.

My point is that I can try to take her hand away from her eye as much as I want to.  I can warn her to be careful, but at one month old that isn’t going to make a whole lot of impact.  Nope, painful as it may be, the best way is to actually let her scratch her eye.  She will learn the lesson much faster than if I try to save her from it once too often.

Ashleigh is very squirmy.  She flails about a lot.  She hates being tied down for any length of time, and was been like this even in utero.  She was known to kick monitors away when the doctors would try to perform tests on her.

Given this, you can imagine that she hates to be swaddled.  Sometimes, however, swaddling is the only way to calm her down or even to keep her warm with this cold November weather.  As much as she struggles against it, I know what is best for her–and sometimes swaddling is just what she needs.

The second example makes a great explanation for the problem of pain.  Sometimes, we confuse our needs with our wants.  God knows exactly what we need, and I think that an honest person who looks back at a trial in his life will decide that he needed that to happen at that moment.  I know that the first year of marriage for me was rough, but I believe that it was just what Jody and I needed to become stronger as a couple.

Maybe someone who is reading this went through a trial for which there is no explanation.  He didn’t seem to need it to happen.  He didn’t learn anything.  Does this invalidate my theory?  I don’t think so.  Perhaps the reason has yet to be revealed.  I’m not taking the Christian stance that atheists hate so much here; these trials are to teach us something here.  That something may be a long way down the road.

Whatever your trial, remember the words of James, brother of our Lord: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (Jms 1:2-3).

The lovely Elizabeth Schmitz has challenged me yet again:

[Y]ou write, “What Elizabeth is doing is taking a modern relationship and reading it back into a culture where it never existed.” I will grant you that. If contextualism is such a concern of yours, perhaps you would refrain from taking the ancient/tribal mores and applying them to modern life… (source)

The issue here is the relevance of social mores that were written between 1450 and 1410 b.c. by Moses, who would have never had so much as a glimpse of modern life. Therefore, why would what he wrote for a group of people, wandering in the desert, be relevant to someone living, stationary, in the Midwestern United States in a.d. 2007?

In many ways, I admit what my critics assert. Tribal codes, as Elizabeth calls them, written between 1450 and 1410 b.c. have no relevance to modern life. So I would contend that I don’t follow them. I follow a higher moral standard that we all know exists, but cannot achieve regardless of how mightily we try. It is all there in our hearts. The Bible does back me up on this:

• “I delight to do your will, O God; your law is within my heart” (Ps 40:8).
• “Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings” (Is 51:7)
• “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer 31:33).

The last of these verses is actually a prophecy. God is stating that He will write His law on the hearts of His people, the elect discussed in the New Testament, so that we will know it instinctively. This way, we will be His people. As one of the elect, I know God’s law instinctively, for the day Jeremiah spoke of has come to pass, the law was fulfilled in Jesus (Mat 5:17).

As a side note, so that I don’t seem to sound so high and mighty, I claim to follow a higher moral standard. I believe that it was God who wrote it on my heart, so that I could be His and He could be my God. I do not, however, claim to ever hit the mark set by this moral standard. I fail in my walk every day. Each day, I also ask God for forgiveness, and try to make amends where I can to the people I hurt.

So that no one can say that the verses in Jeremiah don’t apply to me since I am a Gentile by birth, let me put a few verses out there. First, Romans 4:9-12:

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

This means that all who believe are the descendants of Abraham, not just the physical descendants of Abraham. The apostle continues:

That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” (Rom 4:16-22)

Finally, Paul wrote this to the Galatians: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (3:28). The distinctions have passed away under the New Covenant, what once applied to the Jews now applies to the Gentiles.

The moral code is written not just in the Bible, but on our hearts. The trouble is, no one recognizes it or follows it (Rom 3:23). This is the first of the five-part Reformed TULIP doctrine: Total depravity. Mankind is dead in sin (Eph 2:1-3). Read more »

Some Christian pastors are using Scientology principles in their teachings and their evangelism, according to a recent article from CNN.com. This is very alarming, especially in light of things like this:

Though Jimirra Kennedy [daughter of one of the pastors] insists she does not ascribe to the religious side of Scientology, she still considers herself, at least in part, Scientologist. “We say this all the time and I know my father says this, but I am like a Pentecostal Scientologist, that’s what we are.”

It is unacceptable to blur the lines like this. Jesus made it very clear that He is the way, the truth, and the light. No one can stand justified before God except by Christ (Jn 14:6). Scientology teaches that there are many paths to God, and outlines ways, while not bad and many with Scriptural support, to achieve oneness with God. Guess how many involve Christ.

I would have to agree with Rick Ross, a Scientology expert: ” ‘I think that they truly believe that this may help their communities, but in my opinion, they’re naive,’ Ross said. Scientologists, he added, ‘have their own agenda.’ “

I’d still be interested in the Tom Cruise debate idea, but I’m sure that will never happen.  Both of us are busy with babies.  Me more than him; Cruise can afford two nannies, I hear.

Interested in more Scientology? Check out the Comparative Theology page.

Today was a day for housekeeping, or “blogkeeping.”  I tweaked a few things on my layout, most notable is dropping the image in support of Fred Dalton Thompson for President in 2008.  It’s not that I’m not going to vote for the former Law & Order star, it’s just that I don’t want this blog to become a political blog.  I want to keep this an apologetics blog.

Mike will be interested to know that I finished the critique of the founding principles of Geocreationism.  You’re a real sport, buddy!  I’m not converted, sorry, but you do have some really good ideas.  You’re welcome to keep trying to convert me, however.

Internally, I alphabetized the list of articles under my Articles tab, and placed a star next to all of the ones that aren’t done yet.  Readers won’t notice that, but it will help me.  That is when I noticed that I have three articles that I started but never finished.  So I will finish those over the next three to four weeks, in addition to my regular posts.  I’m going to start with finishing my answer to the Jesus Tomb documentary (better extremely late than never), followed by a critique of open theism, and finally a more satisfactory answer to this video than this guy (part 2).

I’m going to try to get back into a 4-6 post per week habit, as that is the only way to increase my blog’s rank, attract more readers, and retain the readers that I have.  If I were asked the secret to blogging success, I would have to say that regular posting is it.  Regular posting gets me more hits per day than any links that float out there.  Although I’m still going to try to collect those by interacting with some other blogs, and maybe by conversing on TheologyWeb.

That is a preview of what is to come on Josiah Concept Ministries.  Stay tuned!

I know that I have promised this and promised this. I’m sorry it has taken so long. New parents and anyone who has suffered depression in their lives will totally understand. I’m sure that many of you have doubted that it would ever arrive. But here it is, in PDF format. I hope that it was worth the wait. Enjoy!

We know that David Copperfield is an illusionist.  He isn’t magical.  The tricks he performs on stage are just that: tricks!  They are sleight of hand illusions, albeit very large and complicated.  As his website proclaims, he amazes audiences.

His website also proclaims that Mr. Copperfield has “sold more tickets and grossed more money than Lion King, Cats, Phantom of the Opera, and Chicago even during their best weeks.”  In fact, he still holds the Broadway record.  His London show sold out 20 straight performances.  His television specials outperform top sporting events and won him 21 Emmy Awards.  Over the past ten years, he has grossed $1 billion in ticket sales.  We keep coming back for more and more, even though we know that he’s playing tricks on our eyes and our minds.

In other words, we understand that there is a rational explanation behind his illusions.  Some recent TV shows have taken us behind the scenes of magician tricks, showing audiences how the illusions actually work.  Yet we still keep coming back for more illusory magic.

Why, then, is the battle between atheist vs. theist so heated on the “God of the gaps” point?  Science, the atheist says, narrows God’s province as we furnish more and more phenomena  with a rational, scientific explanation.  Instead, why can’t we just be in more awe of God, who provided nature with that design in the first place?

We humans are still in awe and wonder of other humans who do amazing things.  As I’ve shown above with David Copperfield, even though we know that a rational explanation exists, we still keep coming back for more.  So I don’t see why science should drive us away from God; rather, it should pull us closer.