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The friend I mentioned a few days ago and I were talking about this topic recently. I had linked her to an MP3 of Lauren Winner speaking on sexuality. Lauren Winner is the author of “Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity.” This is a book I think everyone who wants to learn something about a Christian view of sexuality should read.

Lauren Winner in the MP3 and in the book cites the corniest story of all about a couple going out to a movie and the man goes home saying “Lord. I know the wedding is in two weeks and your grace is sufficient, but if you could just make these weeks fly, I would be really appreciative.” Most of us can understand that one and think it makes sense.

The lady, on the other hand, seeing as this couple had been to the movies, snuck home a popcorn kernel that she will keep in her diary as a treasured memento of this event. Winner says the authors of the story claim the girls want “non-sexual socialization.” Yep. You can picture a girl sitting at home one night waiting for her boyfriend to call saying “Wow. This guy is great for non-sexual socialization.” (And no, I’m not saying that sexual socialization means having sex.)

This kind of thinking though is an insult to men and women.

My own mother, for instance, I have been told was told when she got married that you just have to act like you enjoy it. This is definitely a shame. Women. God gave you a clitoris. The purpose being so that you could have pleasure in sex. Your bodies are designed I believe to bring men pleasure, but then they are designed so you can receive pleasure from men as well. The Bible affirms this numerous times whether highlighting the joys of marriage or the language used to describe Israel chasing off after other lovers.

What is the idea given? As Winner says, it’s that women don’t have libidos. Women are never told apparently that they might one day have their own sexual desire and might really want sex one day. However, this is far from the case. Naturally, as a guy, I can’t say I know from personal experience, but from talking to women who I often find to be just as interested as men are. (And in fact, some of them are more interested.)

When women are seen in this light, then they become objects. The denial of physical pleasure as a blessing for a woman is a damage to the woman as well. Is it wrong for a woman to have physical pleasure in sex? Not at all. She was made so that she would. I do believe of course that sex is for the purpose of reproduction and we know the woman carries the brunt of that, but to deny her physical pleasure is simply to make her just a machine that is supposed to breed babies.

Now let’s move on to the men.

What’s the message given to men? Men are simply bundles of hormones who think about sex 24/7. Now I’m not sure that’s accurate. I will say as a guy, I think about sex a lot, but I can’t say it’s all I think about or it’s all that is on my mind. There are times I could be playing a game or writing a blog or doing some reading in a book and sex just isn’t on my mind. 

When it is though, what are we to do? Well men are supposed to take a lot of cold showers.

If we men were often in that position where when we had strong sexual desire, we had to take a cold shower, we’d never leave the shower.

Consider this also with the attitude the church gives on lust. You are not to think about sex until you are married. Sorry guys. You’d better be thinking about it before marriage. It is such a contrast that we give the impression that sex is dirty and that men better not think about it, but that is all they can seem to think about so what’s a guy to do in that situation? He often feels condemned if he does think about sex, and wonders if there’s something wrong with him if he doesn’t.

And also, men are not just bundles of hormones. I know my friend would speak of my great fascination and wonder with women, but she would also say that underneath that also, or rather in support of it, is a strong side that seeks to honor a lady and treasure that beauty. It is one that wants to come to that pleasurable moment and have the pleasure not just be mine, but hers as well. (Men. Here’s some advice. Pray that you can bring your wife as much pleasure as she brings you or will bring you.)

Why not admit the truth instead?

We both think about this. Men and women are thinking about it. They think about it a lot. They have strong desires and we simply need a fruit of the spirit, self-control. Men need the support of men and women that of women. 

Sure, there are some differences, but if we are giving images that aren’t rooted in reality, we not only deny sexuality as it is, but we do a great harm to those who are young and growing up and are wrestling with these issues.

Ravi Zacharias has talked about this topic before also citing Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher who said you never step in the same river twice. The water is always changing. His student Cratylus said you don’t even step in it once. You are changing as the river is changing. As much of a paradox as I think that last statement is, I would like to touch on a truth of a changing world.

Everything changes it seems. Here in America, we’re about to change who will lead our country and we’re liable to see several other changes as well. As I go through school, I find some of my views changing on various issues. I have a problem with allergies often and so I find myself changing from sneezing constantly one day to being fine the next. My own emotional reactions to myself and what is going on are in a constant state of flux.

Thus, how I wake up in the morning is no guarantee of how I’ll go to bed at night. The world I wake up to is rarely the same one I go to sleep in. Something has changed throughout the day and usually something that I consider significant. Some of my relationships or some of my opinions have changed so that the world is different.

I can also think of how things are for people who have to relate to me and I to them. Could the way my roommate and I interact change often based on our different moods? Could it be safe to ask me a question one day and unsafe to do so the next? Could it be that one day I’ll want to have a friend spend time with me and the next day I don’t?

Everything is changing.

I find something when I pray at night, and for me, I’m a nighttime guy with prayer. Prayer is the last thing I do before I turn out the lights. I find the first thing I am usually saying when I come to God is that I am thankful that he is constant. God is one that never changes. He is outside of space and time and is eternally acting. This is so mind-boggling to me. This is a concept I find myself wondering about. In my view, God is viewing my birth right now, my wedding someday, my children being born, my death one day, my being in his presence in Heaven, all in one eternal now.

God and time. It’s such a fascinating topic to think about and I’m still thinking about it and when I have clearer and more certain thoughts on it, I’ll probably write about it.

I’m thankful though that he doesn’t change. When I come to him, he is the same. He is the foundation that the whole world rests on us. You don’t have to worry if God is different than when you approached him yesterday. He’s not. You don’t have to worry if they’ll be a different God tomorrow. There won’t be. He is the one constant that you can always turn to.

That means you can always rely on him. 

Think about the attributes of God and see how incredible he is and realize that that will never change. Nations will rise and fall. You will live and die. He will be there always though. Throughout endless ages, God will remain the same. When all the world is collapsing around you, you can always look and realize God is constant. He is not changing.

Whatever is going on in your world, keep that in mind. You’re changing, which isn’t always bad, but he is not. You can trust in him forever. He is the rock.

As readers know, I celebrated a birthday yesterday. I had a friend contact me afterwards who is a very wise lady and whose words of wisdom and conversation I always appreciate. Friend. You know who you are and you mean a lot to me. This friend reader the blog I wrote yesterday and was saying that they thought it was excellent and then said something that surprised me “And you were thinking about that on your birthday too!”

Now, that’s just a paraphrase, but I found it interesting. I’ve got another friend who has learned that he has to watch what he says around me. If he says something, he’s liable to get me going on on a long tangent for a long time. It’s just the way the mind works I suppose. I’d even say a lot of insights I come across just come from hearing what people say and pondering on it, which is where Parmenides said we can learn a lot of philosophy in Plato’s dialogue named after him.

My thoughts immediately were, “The reason why some people don’t think on their birthday is not because it’s their birthday, but because they don’t think on the other 364 days of the year.” If you are thinking on those days, it will be no problem to think on your birthday. In fact, you will be thinking on your birthday like on any other day.

Could there also be something to this with our holidays as well? For non-American ones, I am going to be listing some of our American holidays here, so you can supply your own equivalents if need be. Holidays I believe are to remind us regularly of what we should be doing all year long. I don’t think God wanted the Israelites to remember the exodus from Egypt only during the Passover.

Do I have a hard time being thankful on Thanksgiving? It’s probably because I’m not thankful the rest of the year.

Do I honor my Mom on Mother’s Day? If I don’t, maybe it’s because I don’t honor her enough during the rest of the year.

Do I really give thanks that I live in a country where I am free to worship and speak as I wish? If I don’t, it might make sense if I have a hard time recognizing the 4th of July.

Do I take time to remember those who died in war so that I could live freely? If I have a hard time on Veteran’s Day, maybe it’s because I’m not doing that the rest of the year.

What about the incarnation? Could it be Christmas can be hard for some because they don’t celebrate the incarnation the rest of the year?

Could it be we miss the reality of what happened on Easter because we don’t spend enough time throughout the year acknowledging the resurrection?

Now I’m not against these holidays either. I think they’re good times because they also have a great community aspect to them. We should be seeing them all year long though. We should be celebrating the reality of each of these all year, including our birthdays as our existence is something good to celebrate as is that of our friends and family.

So, do I think on my birthday? I hope so! If I’m not, then maybe I should be seeing what I’m doing the rest of the year.

Readers know that I normally write blogs to good friends honoring them on their birthdays.

What do I do on mine today?

Which went well, my roommate did excellent surprising me with a cake and some books and my folks gift to me today of Smallville Season 7 was quite pleasing. I was hoping to get it on my birthday. Last night though, I was pondering what this meant to be thinking about another year of existence.

The first idea is on my belief of God’s knowledge. In my mind, I and everyone else did exist as an idea in the mind of God before I actually acquired existence in the space-time universe. God was not surprised by me. He saw me from all eternity and in fact, it would be better to say that he sees me from all eternity. It is difficult for us to often talk about God as our thinking is so time-laden that we seem to drag God into that unawares.

That always brings in to mind the uniqueness of existence. I have always been on God’s mind and he brought me into existence at a certain time. I believe that he knows what he is doing and does all things well. Please understand this readers. I say this about me as it is my birthday that I am thinking about, but what I am saying is not unique to me. It applies to everyone in the universe.

Existence itself is a gift. What it is entirely, I will have to think more on. One of our textbooks this year will be “An Interpretation of Existence.” I have been thinking about existence more and more since I heard it. What does it mean to exist? We all think the question is so simple, but could it be something so simple that we don’t really know what it is because it’s right in front of us?

I’d like to bring in another idea though that I’ve had seeing as I plan on writing a paper on the Trinity. I recently read Rushdoony’s “The One and the Many.” This is talking about the ancient question in philosophy of which has primacy. The one or the many? In Christian thought, it’s both as God is one in nature and three in person. Thus, God is one and many.

Notice what that means. There is universal and particular both in God. There is the nature of God and there are the particular persons that share the nature of God. Universals would be such things as redness. There are objects that are red and partake of the quality of red. Particular would be a stop sign. That one stop sign is red.

Have you ever considered that this explains so much of the creation as there is a universal and particular there also. All that we see participates in a nature beyond itself somehow, but yet, each thing is a particular object. The tree outside our apartment bears the nature of being a tree, but it is a particular tree. It is not all trees.

What about you and I?

We each bear the quality of being human. Some of us partake of extra qualities, such as I partake of being male, being caucasian, etc. However, there is a particular to me as well. I am the only one of my kind that bears the attributes that eventually get down to me being me. There are things about me that are not true of anyone else.

Which means not only am I an idea in the mind of God at first then, but I am a unique one, and again, the same applies to you. There is no one else like you. God could not have another idea of you because if those two ideas are the same, then they are really one. You are unique in your own way. There never has been anyone like you and there never will be anyone else like you. If you don’t believe God makes mistakes or that things don’t happen accidentally, then you exist for a reason.

This means also that that person that you meet on the street exists for a reason. They are unique in the mind of God and it would be tragic for us to treat them as common. Each one is unique and it could be that each of us is meant to show something different about the nature of God in eternity. None of us alone can fathom who he is, so the more of us that are there, the more we all know about his nature and how awesome he is.

In closing though, what do I see? A birthday is a unique event to celebrate God bringing something into actual existence that is unlike anyone else that has ever been or will be. That applies to my birthday and it applies to yours as well. Your existence is here for a reason. Will you not use it for something greater than your existence?

For those curious, today’s blog is being done early due to having a friend over to celebrate an important event with me.

Yes everyone. It’s the Season 8 premiere of Smallville.

Thus, I will have tonight free and spend it with a friend. On to the blog though.

I don’t usually go political, but I am going to somewhat this time. I am a strong conservative, as most of you probably know, but today, I speak more as someone who believes in morality. The news reported yesterday that Sarah Palin had had her computer hacked by someone and that personal information was leaked all over the internet. A story even said the AP refused to comply with the Secret Service in the situation.

I went to a page talking about the story and read through 100 comments. I was greatly concerned because I did not find one that said “This was wrong.” Instead, they were making jokes about her email server, about whether she got spam or not, that she was a moron for letting this sort of thing happen, etc. No one said anything about the morality of the situation.

I’ll go on and say it then. This was wrong. I don’t care if it had happened to Obama or Biden. It was wrong. Bristol Palin as a result of yesterday’s event had her cell phone ringing constantly as her number was in it. I really feel sorry for this girl having to deal with a pregnancy as a young teenager, but now the media has blown it out of proportion. Yes. She did something wrong. The family is working together though to deal with the situation. Drop it.

A debate I had with someone recently on the topic of abortion had this person saying, as they are older than I, that they are thankful they won’t be around to see what the upcoming generation will produce. What they meant was my kind though who are pro-life and believe in the sanctity of the unborn and what oppression that would put on women.

I am concerned about the future though when I see an evil act take place and all anyone can do about it is laugh. It is not a laughing matter no matter who is involved. If you are a conservative, you should condemn this. If you are a liberal, you should condemn this. If you are a moderate, you should condemn this. This is not about what party you belong to. This is simply about right and wrong.

I hope you will do what is right. Don’t read these things that have been leaked. If you see someone laughing about it, point out that what was done was wrong. It is no laughing matter. (I wonder how many of these are the ones that press the homosexual argument about what people do in private though finding it funny that private emails are on display.)

For the future of America, we need morality.

My roommate and I are both on staff on a forum where a member sent me a message recently asking if we were brothers. I had to laugh and say “No. We’re not. Just roommates.” It brings me back to when we first moved to this city and went to the bookstore looking for the apologetics study Bible. I went to the counter and asked and they said “Yeah. Your brother was just here asking about it also.”

I sent that reply, but then I began to wonder.

“There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother….”

Friendship is an interesting thing. If you look at your family, chances are, you wouldn’t like them at all if you were not related to them. I could probably list many great traits of my parents, but I am also quite sure that if I was not related to them, I’d probably never get to know them enough to notice those traits and probably would have them just be people I ran into in the world.

Friends are different. Friends have relationships with you because they choose to and you agree to that relationship for the same reason. You want to be a friend with that person. There is something that you two click over. For us, it was Final Fantasy and apologetics and I believe over time, we found a unique knitting of the spirits.

I have heard that Aristotle said “Friendship is one soul in two bodies.” Indeed, my roommate and I do seem like that at times. We make a great team when we’re in ministry together. When we had the Mormons visiting our house, we were so in sync with each other’s personalities that we knew where the other was going so we could go and prepare to head the Mormons off at the pass.

When a time came that we had to tell a friend some hard news, I was unprepared to handle it. That’s my personality type. I just can’t do something like that. My roommate broke the news. When it came though to counseling them through that situation and offering words of solace, that is where I stepped in. That’s my personality.

There are times we’ve had to be blunt with each other, and when it’s happened, we’ve always been the better for it. I’d like to think that we’ve helped each other to grow as stronger Christians. I will say that being in an area with a friend this close has enabled me to grow and do things that before I ever came here I never would have dreamed of doing.

I then think that too often I take this for granted. You expect your family to care for you, and even that can be taken for granted. Think about your friends though. They seem more unique. These people choose to care for you even though they never knew you at all at one point. They came across you and under no obligation, decided to form a friendship.

I know I take it for granted at times. I should go to bed thankful every evening that I’ve got an excellent friend nearby me. I think that I have someone who knows my quirks and so many of my deep dark secrets and such, but likes me anyway. Have you ever considered what it means that someone likes you with all your foibles and problems and such?

Friendship is indeed something special.

So to the person who asked, is he my brother? Genetically? No. However, I often think he might as well be. The best of friendships could probably be considered “Family by choice.”

A reader of my blog sent me a question privately. (Btw, I don’t mind questions being sent privately. Some of you might have a question you don’t want everyone to see on the blog. That’s okay! You can find a way to contact me privately.) As with all readers, I keep his identity secret, but he was asking me a question about lust.

He was wondering if he sees a beautiful girl and thinks “Wow! She’s hot!”, if he’s guilty of lust. Friends. I can really relate to this kind of question because of the way the church has treated us. I grew up in a style that sex just wasn’t talked about and you didn’t speak about it at all, which could be one reason I speak about it so much now. 

What was lust? Who knows! You’d just better not think about sex! I have since dropped that view. For one thing, I think it’s doomed to failure. Let’s face it my single male friends. We’ve mentally played out in our mind our honeymoons countless times. When we see a girl, we are not thinking “I hope she has good moral character” first but instead “Wow! She is hot!”

I don’t think there is anything at all wrong with that.

Too often, we have come with a more gnostic view to Christianity with saying that the body is dirty. Now I do place great emphasis on the soul, but the body is just as necessary to my being fully human as the soul is. This body is important. I do not believe it is accidental that God made me to be a physical as well as a soulish creature.

My body was also made to be attractive to a female, and I hope that I am. The human male body was made partially to be attractive to the human female. (Interesting that you seem to rarely hear talk to girls about controlling lust though. You will never hear a talk about a girl needing to go and take a cold shower. It’s just the guys.)

Also, the human female form is meant to be attractive to the human male, and indeed it is! I am one who has spent some nights pondering, “Lord. Why did you make women like this?” or “What makes X attribute of a lady attractive?” I still ask these questions. There is something in the beauty of the human female that goes beyond the material of the body.

I think if God made the human female to be attractive, there is no sin in giving thanks for that, and personally, there are times I have probably been spellbound just seeing one specimen of the female of the species and thinking “Wow. I didn’t know they made them like that any more.” Does this count as lust? I don’t think so.

So what is lust?

I don’t think lust is desiring sex. I don’t think it’s even desiring sex specifically with another person. I think it’s when you treat that person as an object only for your sexual satisfaction. I also think there could be some truth to the idea that Jesus is speaking specifically of someone else’s wife in the context. Rest assured men, the days before our wedding, we will be thinking about the honeymoon night specifically and I don’t think it’s a sin. In fact, I’d be very concerned if you weren’t thinking about that.

To the church also, let’s do better. We’ve been so hard on the body and on sex that young people are getting confused messages. We speak sermons on abstinence without talking about joy. I have spoken before of being in a sermon on this topic and being bored. If you are in a sermon on sex and you are getting bored, there is something wrong. (There’s also something wrong if you’re in a sermon about God and getting bored.) 

We need to speak of the joy of sex more than anyone else! We need to be of the style that we will show the secular world how it’s done properly. Sexuality is not meant to be strictly a list of “Do not’s.” There are “Do’s” as well. Do rejoice in the wife of the youth! May you ever be captivated by her love! These are commands for a Christian. He is to rejoice! He is to rejoice in the physical pleasure even!

To my friend, I hope this answers your question better. To the church, I hope this shows the need for your answers better.

My roommate is not a Smallville fan.

*Pauses as he imagines people saying “And you haven’t killed him yet for blasphemy?”*

No. No. No plans. Now he’ll come in sometimes though while I’m watching and watch a scene or two, but to watch a full episode, it hasn’t happened yet. However, he recently said something while I was watching an episode that made me ponder the way we view truth about God and how we have an inadequate view of him.

In Season 1, Episode 18, Drone, Clark gets thrown into politics when Pete nominates him for Class president. Upon the encouragement of Lana, he decides to run against three other candidates. One though, wants the position badly and is willing to do anything to get it and turns out, has the power to control bees.

Two opponents have been hit with a swarm. One is in a coma and the other is in the hospital, but not in a coma. Clark is left and he manages to survive an attack. It is then that he calls the other candidate, Sasha, to his barn to talk.

At first, he makes it sound like he’s going to drop out, but then while she’s walking away confidently, he accuses her of putting her opponents in the hospital. 

Clark: I know you’re behind the attacks.

Sasha: So? What are you gonna do, Clark? Even if the police believe you, they can’t stop me. No one can.

Clark: Try me.

It was at this point my roommate was watching with me and said about Sasha, “Yeah. Real smart.”

Now for us, we are prone to think, “Yeah Sasha. Go ahead and try to take down Clark Kent.” However, we forget something. She doesn’t know who Clark Kent really is. Let’s list some things Clark has survived up to this point.

Being hit by a car at 60 MPH.

Hand in a shredder with no damage.

Being electrically supercharged.

Being hit by a swung construction beam.

Being in an explosion of an automobile

Walking through fire.

Thrown and landing on his back on a car.

Being frozen solid.

Having a knife shatter on him as someone tried to stab him.

Being run over by a tractor trailer.

Being hit by a bus and stopping it.

Having a two-ton generator fall on him.

Having a mace shatter upon hitting him in the face.

Being shot with an uzi.

A fist in his insides. (Episode Kinetic. It’s easier to watch than explain.)

Being shot with a shotgun.

Having a life-decaying figure touch him and start to suck the life out of him.

All of these he’d survived unscathed not to mention the constant contact of meteor rocks. (a.k.a. Kryptonite.)

And what he’s done up to this point….

Pulled automobiles and lifted them like they’re nothing.

Pushes in nails with his fingers.

Rips the hood off of a car.

Bending steel pipes

Running posts through granite.

Ripping a safe out of a wall.

Throwing said safe.

Ripping apart a security cage on a priceless artifact.

Breaking bones practically with a handshake.

This is not in neglect of the general super speed, super strength, X-ray visions done in beating up every bad guy in Smallville.

Now let’s go back to that scene.

If Sasha had known those things and who she was dealing with, would she have acted differently?

For those who don’t know, Sasha’s shortly thereafter said:

Sasha: You may be thick-skinned, but what about your mother?

Thus, Clark had to save his Mom from a bee attack. Would it have come though if Sasha had known who Clark was? Doubtful.

Okay. Some of you are thinking this is interesting, but what has this to do with anything?

How would we act if we knew who God really was?

We talk a lot and we can say the creeds and we can defend orthodoxy, but is it doing us good if we do not have acknowledgment of who he is? We speak of him as sovereign. Do we believe it? We speak of him as holy? Do we believe it? We speak of him as loving. Do we believe it? We speak of him as omnipotent. Do we believe it? We speak of him as omniscient. Do we believe it?

You get the picture.

Thus, we will do something we know is wrong in sin against this God and could it be we are making the same mistake Sasha made? We do not see the one we are dealing with as he really is. Perchance if we caught just a glimpse of the splendor and power of God, we might view things a little bit differently and not live our lives as if he wasn’t there often?

Sasha can be justified for not knowing who Clark Kent really was. He hadn’t really revealed himself as God has. Unfortunately, that didn’t help her as she still wound up in the hospital at the end and even later when she makes a reappearance in Season 7, as she dies in that episode. Yes. Sasha’s mistake was still fatal.

Let us hope we are not making a fatal mistake and having a false view of God also.

The End of Faith really shouldn’t be damaging to a Christian’s faith. That some ministers lost their faith as a result of this book shows the sad state a lot of the church is in response to education. If a man is not grounded in biblical theology and is unable to defend a biblical worldview in the face of opposition, he has no business being a pastor, PERIOD!

Yet why is this so? Sam Harris does bring up some information I do consider interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the aspects about memory. It seems that in those areas, Harris might have some skill. It would require more looking into that area to consider, but he did make me think about my own views on the topic.

I also agreed with him on Islam and I appreciated his bringing forth statistics. I do agree with him that Islam is a threat. When Sam Harris talks about the possibility of Muslim nations getting their hands on nuclear weapons and how they wouldn’t hesitate to use them, then I think we all need to wake up and realize that he could very well be right.

I also agree with him on the bankruptcy of moral relativism. I do believe with Harris that many of our moral absolutes are simply known intuitively. If I could not convince you that murder was wrong, I would probably not go out and try to find another argument. Instead, I would find a good bodyguard and find you a good counselor. (Who might prefer long-distance counseling.)

So where did he go wrong?

For one thing, Harris seems to assume a type of Christian and frankly, I can understand the error. He assumes a type of Christian who approaches Christianity differently from everything else with a false notion of faith. If Harris has a problem with a Christianity like that, he’s not alone. I have a problem with it also and I suspect that many of the pastors who abandoned their faith are the ones of that school who will go from being uncritical and unthinking Christians to uncritical and unthinking atheists.

If one reads Harris, they will have no idea that there are intelligent Christians out there who have written on the topics that he has raised up. Harris does not engage his opponents in any way. Indeed, from his work, one would think that his opponents just don’t exist. Instead, there are simply the intelligent atheists and a bunch of morons for Christians out there.

This brings us to his bibliography. The only Christian I could find was Augustine quoted twice and in those, he doesn’t give arguments from Augustine on the existence of God or the truth of Christianity. One who read Harris alone would have a completely wrong view of Augustine who was one of the greatest intellectuals of the medieval period.

Now I’ve said that I liked what Harris said about Islam, but even in his chapter on Islam, you don’t find Muslim sources. In fact, the only time he quotes a Muslim, it’s cited in someone else. One wonders if Harris has ever really read anything that he disagrees with. Now I grant that he quotes the Bible and the Qu’ran, but he could have just gone to the Skeptics Annotated Bible and the Skeptics Annotated Quran for those.

Primary sources would have done Harris a world of good. Instead, I found myself reading page after page of straw man and nothing in this book honestly made me blink. I did not read an argument and think “Geez. I really need to look into that.” All Harris has done is gone and attacked a weak form of Christianity and done so thinking he’s slaying the real thing.

If Harris wants to bring down that weak form, good for him. I’d like to see that form die out also. Who am I interested in as a disciple of Jesus Christ? I’m interested in those who are devoted to their faith, who want to learn the ins and outs of it, and be the ones that Harris will be afraid to write books against. Not because he’s afraid of criticizing a religious worldview, but he’s afraid the minds on that religious worldview would tear his arguments to shreds.

In conclusion, this one is more readable than the God Delusion and not as ranty, but it’s still just as full of misrepresentations. I am more and more inclined to believe the new atheists are just ignorant of what they attack.

Today, we’re going to look at the final part of Sam Harris’s “The End of Faith.”

There is a line at the start that is very saddening to me. Harris talks about the Christian ministers who wrote to him to say they lost their faith. (Thankfully, he says some wrote to say they hadn’t.)

The first part, of course, is what saddens me.

There was a day when Christianity thrived on the intellectual. I believe Christianity still does, but I don’t think Christians do.  We’ve fallen away from that. The ministers should be prepared to handle all manner of objections. B.B. Warfield placed high on his list “Apologetics” as something that a minister should be trained in.

Today, most ministers just say “I’m called to preach!” and leave it at that.

I sit back and think “I wish God had made you a good preacher when he called you.”

Harris indicts us then unintentionally I’m sure on where we have fallen. He’s not wanting us to stand up and realize that we are to be intellectual Christians but for us to abandon the faith because he believes it is unintellectual. Of course, I disagree, but I have a great sorrow for these ministers. What happens to their flocks?

Ministers are supposed to be shepherds. They’re supposed to protect them from the wolves. If you had sheep and you were hiring a shepherd, would you want one that was completely unprepared to defend your sheep from predators? Of course not. So many put pastors and ministers in charge though who have no defense and simply emotion. You don’t want the shepherd who says “Defend them? Nah! I got a good feeling that they’ll all be okay though!” You want the one who can wield the shepherd’s rod well.

Harris goes on to raise an objection to his argument. That’s that many great acts of violence have been done by atheism. What he gives in response I see as an entire cop-out.

Harris seems to say that these weren’t rational. This is what happened when people accepted a belief without giving it critical examination. If they had thought better, they wouldn’t have done such things.

I don’t find that convincing at all and I doubt you do either.

Mr. Harris. There is no reason in atheism to not do the things that have been condemned. It can follow naturally, especially if we live out “Survival of the Fittest.” Are we going to say the great minds that formed Communism did not understand it, or the ones that built Nazism did not understand it? No. They were acting in direct line with their beliefs.

That’s the difference. The teachings of Christ do not logically lead to the events done in the name of Christ often by some Christians. 

Could it be the ones done by Christians were by ones who did not really examine the teachings of their Lord?

The other objections have been addressed before, but the last is worth noting in that atheists condemn his book as a door to new age thought instead of atheism. Harris denies this, but I think it’s valid. There is no place for spirituality if matter is all there is.

Tomorrow, we will look further and see where Harris went wrong.