Online since the 90's, GodWords is where I put all of the stuff I find interesting. You might find it interesting, too. If you do, subscribe to the GodWords RSS Feed to keep up with what's new.

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution reads, in its entirety, as follows:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Our Brilliant Founders

Note this: the US Constitution was written to limit government's powers, and this includes the 2nd Amendment. The idea was that armed citizens were insurance against a tyrannical government. It's still a good idea.

If you'll allow me a moment's indulgence, I'd like to post something personal. It's the newest video from Danger: Radio I usually focus on Christian music, and Danger: Radio doesn't play Christian music. They're more like 'party funk'.

There's a reason I'm posting the video, and it's not because the band rawks or because everybody in the band is totally hawt. My nephew Andy is the guitarist in the green shirt, and I'm thrilled that they're doing well.



I ask random teenagers that I meet on the street if they've heard of Danger: Radio, and they have all said that they have, and that they love them. I'm impressed by that, since the word seems to have gotten around.

D:R is coming to Denver (again) in August...and when they read this, they should drop me a line. If they have time, I'll buy them dinner (yes, all of them). If not, I'll be happy to just watch them rock the house (again).

Despite growing up in Seattle, I can't say that I'm a Mariners fan. They were just that bad, and didn't seem to try all that hard. Since I moved away, they've had some pretty good seasons. I was impressed when they traded Ken Griffey, Jr and Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez all at once and then tied the record for most wins...brilliant.

Of course, I thought at the time that Lou Pinella had lost his mind. Now I know he was crazy like a fox. If this young lady is anything like the young talent they're bringing up from AA, they're in good shape.

Yes, I know. =)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently spent some time discussing Landmark Education with one of their leaders. I'm meeting him for coffee in the morning, so their teachings are on my mind.

I also fielded a phone call from one of their follow-up guys at dinnertime tonight. I took the opportunity to share with him, since he asked, my objections to the Landmark "technology" as I understand it. He was very nice.

A lot of the time I've spent thinking has been spent thinking about the idea that everything is empty and meaningless. That's a Landmark truism. As they say, things only truly have the meaning that we give them.

Well, I simply can't buy that. Today's CNN story about child abuse in Mineola, Texas leaves me no alternative than to think they're wrong.

In the windowless front rooms of a former day care center in a tiny Texas community, children as young as 5 were fed powerful painkillers they knew as "silly pills" and forced to perform sex shows for a crowd of adults.

In all, six adults have been charged in connection with the case, including a parent of the three siblings involved.

CNN.com/Crime

The Landmark leader I spoke with earlier (and with whom I'm meeting tomorrow) suggested that we couldn't really say whether Hitler's actions in the 1930's and 1940's were good or bad...that we each had to provide our own meaning. That's crap. Evil exists in the hearts of men and women all over the world, including the one I see in the mirror.

I've only seen one belief system that takes seriously the notion that mankind is capable of both unspeakable evil and unbelievable goodness...only one, that is, that has any kind of existential framework to explain it. I'll tell you what I told him:

I believe that we were made in God's image...that's the good part. That image has been damaged, broken. That's the bad part. Denying that both exist seems pretty stupid.

Comedy legend and social commentator George Carlin passed away yesterday. He was 71 years old, and as insightful as ever. Despite his increasingly angry tone toward the end of his career, I still love his work. One of his better-known bits was known as Baseball and Football...and it's one of my favorites. It's posted below, for your enjoyment. Nobody could break it down like George could.

Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely-scattered light towards morning.

Al Sleet, George Carlin's "hippie-dippie weatherman" character

Every once in a while I hear a Christian say that they're "not into theology". They say that they "just love Jesus". Even my pastor told me that he took theology classes only so that he could be ordained.

Sometimes these kinds of statements depress me. It's not surprising that the average American Christian is considered Biblically illiterate when even our leaders avoid theology. I'd like to do my small part in helping to change this trend...so I'll explain what theology is:



Theology means words about God. THEOS = God, LOGOS = word or words. Every time we think about God or write about God or talk about God, we're 'doing theology'. There...I did it again. Christians have no way of living their everyday lives without doing theology!

We all do theology, even if we don't realize it. The beginning of John's Gospel tells us that Jesus is the LOGOS. He's THE Word of God. Technically, Jesus IS theology.

Some say that the secret to always having your prayers answered is to always pray for things that God wants. They say that God always says yes to those kind of prayers.

Bologna.



Some prayers may be answered with a resounding NO...even if those prayers are in line with God's will! Let's look at two Scriptures:

He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
2 Peter 3:9b

They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power.
2 Thessalonians 1:9

We know that praying for what God wants is 'praying in His will'. We also know that God wants everyone to be saved, so praying for someone's salvation hardly seems like a prayer that God would answer with a NO. However...it's also clear that, despite God's desire to the contrary, some people will end up in hell.

What can we conclude? It's safe to say that prayers for another's salvation depend largely on God, but not entirely...or everyone would end up in heaven. Since we know that won't happen, we have to face the reality that some of our own prayers - even ones in line with what God wants - may go unfulfilled.

There is no truth, no meaning, no value.

That's what I learned at last night's Landmark Education meeting. My friend invited me because she's excited about what Landmark has done to help her. I spent a couple of hours with her and a mutual friend and the gentleman who led the discussion.

Landmark Education provides educational opportunities that purport to help people all over the world reach their potential. They do this primarily at a 3-day meeting called Landmark Forum.

I wasn't taught about no truth or meaning or value during the introductory meeting, but in a subsequent three-hour personal discussion with the leader. I had a good time, and I like everyone I met that night. They all seem like genuinely nice people who care about others.

And that's part of the problem.

What's that? Oh. You're wondering how being nice is a problem, aren't you? I don't normally think of niceness that way, but it appears to be a problem for Landmark devotees.

You see, one test of a belief system is internal consistency. I didn't find much consistency in our discussions. A foundational tenet of Landmark Education, from what I gathered, is that nothing has meaning or value beyond the meaning and value that we individually give. That seems to fly in the face of statements like the one that opened our introductory session: they were committed to giving us something of value before we left. This value statement is echoed on their website, of course...they're a business:

The Landmark Forum is specifically designed to bring about positive and permanent shifts in the quality of your life. These shifts are the direct cause for a new and unique kind of freedom and power.

Participants overwhelmingly report that their participation in The Landmark Forum yields not mere insights or improvements, but provides lasting results that expand and unfold over time.

Landmark Education Website

Do you see the contradiction? Landmark has no value of its own, but they want to convince me to take part because it will help me. The leader (a very nice guy with whom I hope to have more contact) believes that the statement "there is no truth" is true. I find such self-refuting statements both funny and fascinating, like this one:

I'm sure I'd remember having amnesia.
See? In making the statement, you also break it open and expose it as nonsense. Here's another:

No sentence has more than six words.
That sentence has more than six words, so saying it invalidates the claim. My time learning about Landmark Forum was filled with seeming contradictions like those. Check out these paraphrased bits:

Landmark Leader: What we teach can help you.
Me: And helping me is good?
Landmark Leader: No.
Me: It's not?
Landmark Leader: No.
Me: Why should I be involved with Landmark Forum?
Landmark Leader: There's no reason you should.
Me: So what was all that talking you did in that meeting?
Landmark Leader: I don't know what you mean.
Me: You said that your program could help me, and now you're saying that helping me isn't better than not helping me. You're saying that being involved isn't better than not being involved.
Landmark Leader: Now you're getting it!
Me: Why are you involved with Landmark?
Landmark Leader: I'm going to do something with my life, so I might as well do this.
Me: You choose this instead of other things?
Landmark Leader: Yes!
Me: So it's better to do this than to not do this.
Landmark Leader: No. There's no value or meaning in Landmark Forum beyond the meaning and value that I give it.

Did you see what I saw? It's the age-old idea that truth is relative to the observer. Landmark Forum apparently has no meaning or value of its own. If I consider it valueless, it is...for me. If someone places great value on it, then it's valuable...for them. It's perfectly okay, by the way, to place no value on it. To do otherwise would be to make a value judgment, which is - I guess - taboo. It gets in the way of being "in the now".

The truth is that they do make value judgments. It's at the core of what they do, and why they exist. The three-day seminar costs hundreds of dollars, and Landmark appears to guard both their reputation and their "technology" zealously. Like their (maybe not-so) distant cousin Scientology, they file lawsuits against people who talk bad about the program. For a group that makes no value judgments, that seems pretty inconsistent.

In the final analysis, Landmark is part of the Human Potential Movement. That puts them in the company of people like Norman Vincent Peale, Napoleon Hill, L. Ron Hubbard, and even Joel Osteen and Jesse Duplantis. The idea is that, with the proper application of certain bits of knowledge, we can be all we can be.



Call me cynical and jaded, but I have a serious problem with the idea that humanity is intrinsically good, pure, and complete...and that we only lack 'technology' to unlock that potential. Everywhere we look we see another person being raped or murdered or lied to or cheated. The idea that we're good at heart doesn't match what I see around me.

The clear message of the Bible is that man does have intrinsic goodness. We were made in God's image, but that image has been corrupted. It teaches that our potential will be reached when God restores all of creation to the state of perfection that was lost at the beginning of time. The idea that man is both godly and insufferably wicked matches what I see around me, what I read in history books, and what I see when I look in the mirror.

That's not a latent self-image problem to be overcome by separating my conscious mind from my unconscious...it's a recognition of reality. For those who buy Landmark Education's message, Hitler's murder of millions has no intrinsic value. If we consider it good, then it's good for us. Stalin killed many more, but that can't be considered a negative by those who believe that good and bad and truth and error are false distinctions.

I'd love to hear from you. Have you been to a Landmark Forum? Did you "get it" at 4:00 on Sunday afternoon? Have I missed the boat entirely? Fortunately for me, I love to talk about this sort of thing...even if I'm not inclined to believe it.

Imagine that you're a healthy young man. Now imagine that you've been in an auto accident, and that you're now a paraplegic. That would be sad and difficult, of course.

Now, imagine the Roman Catholic church rubbing salt into your wounds. That's what happened to a 26 year-old man in Viterbo, Italy. A Catholic bishop has blocked a 'church wedding' for this man and his fiancee. Why? Because he is, as a result of his paraplegia, impotent. His fiancee knows that he's impotent, but that doesn't matter to the Roman Catholic church.



A spokesman for Bishop Lorenzo Chiarinelli said that no bishop or priest can celebrate a wedding when he knows of admitted impotence. Why? Among Roman Catholics, it's apparently a motive for annulment of the marriage.

I think that's a really stupid position to take. The Roman Catholic church considers marriage a sacrament, which means that this young man and the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with are being denied what they consider a spiritual benefit by the only ones able to grant it. It's not their fault that the gentleman is impotent, yet they bear the burden of never being married in the eyes of their church.

In a word, that sucks.

Try this thought on for size:

In most places in the world, paying for sex is illegal. However: paying someone to have sex on camera, making millions of copies of the video, and selling it all over the world isn't.

What's the difference? Does the presence of a camera somehow make an illegal act legal? The phrase "double standard" comes to mind.

What do you think?

A GodWords reader asked:

Am I alone on this? I don't see pot smoking as ok. I also don't want to cast stones, but...am I missing something?

Charlene

Thanks for asking, Charlene! When it comes to smoking pot, I have three points of view: practical, legal, and theoretical.



Practical:
Marijuana sometimes helps with specific medical problems, but most people probably shouldn't smoke anything at all. I certainly don't see smoking as an impediment to salvation. However: as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 6:12, I don't want to be mastered by anything...so I avoid things that might cause me to lose control of myself.

Legal:
If marijuana is legal where you live, then smoking is a matter of preference. If it's illegal, then it's not a matter of preference. Peter taught that Christians should submit to civil authorities, so law-abiding citizens (as all Christians should strive to be) won't smoke pot.

Theoretical:
Some believe that pot should be legal everywhere. While I'm not fully convinced, I do see denial and hypocrisy in its illegality. Cigarettes and alcohol are legal in most places, but pot isn't...and that doesn't seem logical. Nonetheless: where pot is illegal, Christians should abstain. If the law changes, then Christians will be free to smoke pot if they wish. Those who break the law to smoke pot recreationally and pretend that it's some kind of civil disobedience are, in my opinion, fooling themselves...and nobody else.

We should welcome pot smokers into our churches, but we shouldn't pretend that illegal activity is acceptable - no matter who does it. Immature Christians sometimes look for reasons to continue pleasing themselves, while mature Christians look for ways to please God with their lives. We should all strive for maturity, encouraging one another to never stop growing.

Volcanoes are cool...especially underwater volcanoes. This video is the first to include both images and sound for an undersea eruption. Enjoy!

In case some of you haven't heard, there's a "revival" going on in Lakeland, Florida. It's led by "man of God" Todd Bentley who does "miracle healings".



Yes, I put those things in quotes because I have serious doubts about what's going on there. Here's generally what's been happening all over the interwebs:

Bentley Believer:
You should see the amazing move of God in Florida! It's an incredible revival! God is using Todd Bentley to do some amazing things!

Skeptical Brother in Christ:
Really?

Bentley Believer:
Oh, yeah! People are being saved all over town, people are being healed, the anointing is all over the place, people are being raised from the dead, amputees are being healed, and a guy with a glass eye can suddenly see with it.

Skeptical Brother in Christ:
Really?

Bentley Believer:
Totally! I'm going to take a trip down and there and be part of it. I don't want to miss what God is doing, and I want to be helpful if God can use me there.

Skeptical Brother in Christ:
Really?

Bentley Believer:
Yeah!

Skeptical Brother in Christ:
You know, I have some questions about what's going on. I saw Todd Bentley on YouTube and GodTube and HealingEvangelistTube and am concerned about what I saw. He seems to say that angels do the healing. He said that God told him to kick an old lady in the face so she could be healed. People report feathers falling from heaven, and gold dust appearing on people. As you can imagine, I'm pretty skeptical when someone says that they've raised the dead.

Bentley Believer:
What's wrong with you? Don't you want God to move? You just don't understand God's miraculous ways. Why would you cut down Todd Bentley, who's just being used by God to help people?

Skeptical Brother in Christ:
Um...

Bentley Believer:
I'm really disappointed in you. How can a Christian doubt what God can do?

Skeptical Brother in Christ:
Um...

Bentley Believer:
Don't you want revival? Don't you want people to be healed?

Skeptical Brother in Christ:
I'm happy that God might be doing incredible things in Florida. I wonder whether other things are going on, though. Do you really think that God would tell Todd Bentley to choke a man until he got healed?

Bentley Believer:
I don't care what you say. God can do whatever He wants. If it's not prohibited in Scripture, who's to say that it's not from God?

-------------------------

I'm sure I'll write more on this later, because it really bothers me that so many Christians are both so gullible and so hungry for anything that looks like the supernatural. A lot of people uncritically accept almost anything - like "holy laughter" and barking like dogs and being slain in the spirit - when it's accompanied by a gospel presentation.

Yes, I'm happy that some are being saved. I wonder, though, about the thousands who are being taught to accept whatever a supposed 'man of God' says. I don't think we should stop the gospel from being preached simply because someone's doing something wrong...but I also don't think we need to accept bad theology and false doctrines and bold-faced lies in the process, either.

What do you think?

I'm not an atheist. That should be obvious. I do value atheism, however, for at least two reasons:

First, atheism is a validation of the concept of free will. There are those who've recently claimed that humans are 'hard-wired' for religion. While I might concede that our brains are functionally receptive to God, the idea that religion is simply the result of biochemical processes is rendered meaningless in light of atheism. Unless one makes the point that atheists are biochemically defective, these two ideas don't seem to jive.

Second, atheism provides a check against wild religious claims. Religious folk are sometimes the least rational among us. Seemingly noble religious ideals are often surrounded and shouted down by superstition and the irrational notion that faith should not be examined. The atheist's doubts present a challenge to people of faith to provide some reason for their belief. That sounds an awful lot like 1 Peter 3:15, which I find ironic:

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.

1 Peter 3:15

The Greek word translated as "reason" is APOLOGIA. It means to make a verbal defense for something, or to give a reasoned statement or argument. This is a very important verse for people of faith, but it's ignored by many. It presupposes that a person of faith can articulate the reasons that they have come to believe as they do. The word APOLOGIA is translated into our modern apologetics, which is a type of 'defense of the faith'.

While I recognize that it may be impossible to nail down the truly transcendent things in life, I reject the notion that examining one's beliefs 'takes the magic out of it'. The word "know" (and its variations like knowing and knowledge) appear over 1100 times in the Bible. That makes it a very important concept to people of both the Christian and Jewish faiths, but an unfortunate few take it to heart.

The four men in the video are Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. They're very influential atheists, and I appreciate the opportunity to see them interact. I recommend that you take some time to listen to these four men. Doing so will likely inform you, and challenge you. It might also, for those unaccustomed to thinking critically, knock these seemingly brilliant men down a peg or two. A lot of people are intimidated by formally-trained atheist philosophers, and they shouldn't be. They're just people with ideas and beliefs like the rest of us...the difference is that they've heard most of the arguments before, while most of the rest of the world hasn't.

If we become familiar with the arguments, we'll be better able to do what Peter taught: to provide a reasoned and reasonable explanation for believing as we do.