Martyholman.com » Spiritual life

George and Darren: The Finale

Marty Holman — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:45:02 +0000

George Lippert

Darren Bell

George and Darren are having a conversation about faith and worldview. George is an artist/writer who is a christian, and Darren is an engineer who is an “agnostic.” The last several days they’ve been having a conversation on martyholman.com based on this question:

MH: In a world full of opinions and thoughts and gray, as opposed to previous eras of black and white, it can be tough to really know where someone’s coming from. As a writer/artist (George) and an engineer (Darren), What is the basis for your worldview?

They talked for some time of the Bible and rationalism and belief and knowledge and have shown the utmost respect for one another in the process. But coming to the end of the conversation, will it get intense? Here’s the finale of George and Darren. And in case you missed them -

part 1
part 2
part 3 – with Jeff

The first comment from George is from part 3, but is important to read before Darren responds, as Darren references several parts of George’s comments:

George Lippert: The claim that Truth is unknowable is, in itself, a Truth claim. What is the basis for this Truth claim? Using your previous comments, I’m led to the next few questions.

On the other hand, you compare Truth about spiritual matters (vague and disparate) to the Truth about the mass of an electron (measurable and uniform). I’ll call this the Disparity Quotient, and I think it is a very fair question, one that I consider myself at length.

The Holistic Quotient is one you already addressed by acknowledging that, eventually, one has to make logical assumptions based on the available evidence. Thus, you do not need to measure every electron on earth to determine a logical assumption of its mass. And yet you say that since we cannot experience the absolute totality of God’s alleged omnipotence, said omnipotence cannot be assumed. Why?

The Disparity Quotient is admittedly trickier, methinks. Still, how does disparity of beliefs about spiritual matters deny that there might be one absolute Truth? Many people might disagree about the contents of a mysterious box (think of the classic thought experiment of Schrodinger’s Cat), but that does not imply that there is not one constant truth regarding what actually IS in the box.

To claim that disparity of beliefs means there is no such thing as Truth seems to me like saying that in a world of second graders there would be no such thing as algebra. Mathematical Truths exist even if the second graders have no concept of them (although they themselves may deny it vehemently).

So. All that to say, how do you back up your Truth claim that there is no way of knowing Truth? I believe I know Truth (albeit in a limited form, revealed by God’s revelation through the Bible, and through NO act of wisdom, wit, or worth on my part). Your worldview denies mine. Therefore, I would be curious to know what your basis is for it. Why, in short, am I wrong?

Darren bell: I don’t actually have a problem with faith, but I believe faith should be put within reasonable limits. Faith should be salted by an understanding that as humans our perspectives are very limited, and we cannot make claims larger then what we actually have knowledge of.

I don’t believe any ground exists where it is possible to say that one religion is right and one is wrong, or that there is one true path, etc. To say that you need the top of the mountain view, and no human being has that.

All tertiary claims of having a top of the mountain perspective to me are no better. To say, “I do not have knowledge of the top of the mountain, but I know the creator of the mountain, and he told me what the mountain looks like from the top” or any variation of divine revelation through a secondary source whether person or book still claims to have irrefutable knowledge of the source. The source makes claims greater then humans can reasonably make, but you trust the source, so you allow it to make greater claims then you would yourself. At different points in our lives we all do this. I had a conversation with a friend of mine earlier this week about a relationship, and she was giving me advice and I recognized that in my current circumstances she had more perspective on my life then I did so I listened to her. Because I know her I trusted her and I recognized that my decision making ability was impaired.

I have three problems with extending what I mention above about my friend to religion. 1) I’m still responsible for that decision, and almost all of the facts surrounding the decision are obtainable by me, it’s just confusing. Meaning that the advice I accepted wasn’t out of the circle I have drawn around myself for what I can and cannot know, she was just helping me make sense of the facts I had in my circle. That I had observed or experienced firsthand and involve people I know. 2) The evidence required to substantiate the claims that because you know God in your own sphere means he is God everywhere and over everyone in order for you to extrapolate his seeming omnipotence to you to the universe are very high, and as far as I can tell unobtainable. 3) The subjectiveness of the argument, and the fact that the subjectiveness of spirituality does not lead to consensus but leads to dissent and that there are literally millions of people all claiming to know absolute truths, or claiming to know the creator that has told them the Truth, that contradict each other should concern any person. It is highly concerning.

In the 21st century we literally lock people up that say they have received divine revelation or know personally the God of the universe, unless they are part of an established church. I don’t believe any of the evidence of the Bible stands up to modern critique and the rigorousness by which we judge it is watered down because of it’s antiquity and the mysticism surrounding it. If anyone claimed that someone rose from the dead today we don’t believe them, it doesn’t matter how much proof they have or what they say. As modern people we believe that to be impossible. But it was possible 2000 years ago!

But in the end I concede that to my mind there is enough room for God even in the most reasonable and rigorously defined formulation of knowledge. Our doubts and unknowable are just too great. And though I have serious concerns about that moral compass of mine leading me towards religion just being sociological and cultural baggage . . . there the needle rests none the less.

Faith salted in this way leads to respect of other people, it leads to humility when viewing yourself and it leads to you putting yourself in a worldview that includes other people and is able to be widened by others experiences also.

GL: Thanks Darren.

Just to respond to a few things:

1) I actually don’t have a problem with a subjective experience of religion/God, although I can see how it might seem that way from what I said. Any religious experience is a very personal, subjective thing. I DO believe it is a problem when one’s subjective/speculative experience of God is the primary basis of their belief. We humans are simply too unreliable, distracted, fallen, and selfish to be trustworthy in that regard. This is why I choose to trust external revelation– i.e. the Bible.

2) I am intrigued by the idea of personal balance. We are more than purely intellectual beings, just as we are more than purely spiritual or emotional beings. I suspect that our beliefs (not only about spiritual things) become flawed when we rely too heavily on only one of those resources.

Darren, I admit that if I had your mind, I suspect it would be very hard for me not to filter all of my beliefs (or lack thereof) about Truth through the hard lens of empirical evidence. For another person, they might choose not to engage their clinical intellect at all, instead rejecting some beliefs based on the fact that they don’t “feel genuine”. Another person might believe or disbelieve based on some personal mystical speculation gleaned from spiritual meditations.

In short, I wonder if potential Truth can only be grasped (albeit imperfectly) when one balances all the facets of our humanity? Does that make sense?

I have not attained balance, but I will say this: where my intellect fails me in my belief, my spiritual experience of God’s truth takes over. Where my spiritual experience of God’s truth fails me, my emotional assurance of God’s fatherhood takes over. These are hardly perfect, and frankly I still struggle quite a lot from time to time (especially if I allow only one of those aspects of my humanity to exert too much influence), but all told, this is where my belief in Truth holds: in the web between intellect, spirituality, and emotion.

Thus far, I respect your perspectives Darren (and I sometimes share them, at least a little), but while I see that your worldview makes a certain kind of sense, I don’t see how it denies that there might indeed be a Truth– or that the revelation of God through the Bible might be wrong. Nor do I see exactly how a lack of PERFECT intellectual understanding of the totality of Truth means that one must reject any form of the concept (anymore than failing to grasp calculus is a reason to assume that it is impossible to know or does not exist). I appreciate that it is a struggle, though, and a messy one.

But honestly, here’s the nub of it: if Christianity isn’t true for everyone, then it isn’t true at all. That’s evident in Jesus’ own words. Call it arrogant, simple-minded, and culturally insensitive, but none of those things are arguments against the veracity of the claim.

But I appreciate being sharpened on these things and being pressed to think carefully about them. I look forward to more.

DB: I wouldn’t say that my worldview denies that there might be Truth, or even that the Bible reveals God through revelation. I like your analogy about the second graders and algebra, but the only thing I would say about it is that you say that second graders can’t comprehend something higher then them, but that that higher thing exists in spite of their knowledge of it. And yet, if you give second graders the chance to advance mathematics . . . you would wind up short of algebra or calculus. You would end up with a mess.

Sans an algebra book of course, which is what we all claim we have.

Here indeed is the crux of the whole issue:

“But honestly, here’s the nub of it: if Christianity isn’t true for everyone, then it isn’t true at all. That’s evident in Jesus’ own words. Call it arrogant, simple-minded, and culturally insensitive, but none of those things are arguments against the veracity of the claim.”

I agree with you that this doctrine is true. And it is the chief conflict of my religious thought at the moment.

Because I assert that you do not have the authority to say such a thing. To make such a claim. And more to the point: I think it is too far reaching to allow the Bible the authority to make such a point.

It is beyond what it is possible for a human to know. I do not believe that any amount of historical or psychological evidence can support the claim (especially in light of the conflict of other people against such views) that the Bible is the revelation from God that is applicable to all human beings.

The more I look at myself and the arguments and evidence I rely on. The more I see other people saying the opposite thing from me who rely on the same subjective experiences, cultural momentum and historical evidences backing up their antithesis. And it shakes my foundations and makes me questions the basis of all my beliefs, correctly so.

That being said, I don’t reject that God may exist. But my rationality forces me to frame God within my known limits of what I can have the ability to declare. I do not have the ability to know whether the Bible is God’s inerrant word for all human kind, and therefore I do not claim it is, regardless of the fact that according to it’s internal doctrine I must claim that in order to adhere to it perfectly. I can BELIEVE, I can have FAITH, but I cannot KNOW.

GL: I like it when we find places that we can agree upon, even if our perspectives on them are totally different. Again, I suspect this could go on forever, so for now I am content to say “good topic everybody!”

Tomorrow I’ll share my thoughts on the conversation, but today, feel free to share your thoughts about what was said!

Tweet This Post

George and Darren (and Jeff)

Marty Holman — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:26:20 +0000

George Lippert

Darren Bell

Round three took place on a quiet Monday afternoon, as George worked at his computer in St. Louis and Darren nodded off at his workplace in Philly. But just when things were starting to quiet down, my friend Jeff asked to read the conversation, and believing the conversation to be a part of an ‘all-in’ facebook thread, he intervened, and brought new life to the conversation. You can read parts 1 and 2 here and here.

Jeff Campbell (JC): This is Jeff Campbell. What an awesome go around. There’s a whole bunch of things I’d love to chime in on. But I think I’d like to muddy the waters in one quite specific way. I think this really applies to both of the positions I’ve seen lain out here.
The question (which I’ll admit is a wee bit loaded) for me is this:
In most of our relationships, we don’t wander around looking for propositionally sound logic. I don’t make any attempt to inductively or deductively prove my love for my wife.
Why does this appear to be our sole mode of discussion about God?
I’ll buy that some of this belongs– since George has never met my wife (Darren has) I might owe him some sort of scientific/mathematically sound argument to prove her existence.
I believe in Truth with a capital T but agnowledge I only percieve truth with a lower case t; I believe the whole thing is wonderously and glorioiusly subjective in this life…
Any thoughts?

Jeff Campbell

GL: Hi Jeff,

Just to try a quick stab at this: as you say, if I (for some reason) decided to deny that your wife exists, it would not be enough for you to tell me that she exists because you love her. I would require SOME sort of scientific, objective proof. While I myself am content that the Bible’s claims are true, that Christianity is the one way to God, etc, I respect the doubts of those who require more concrete, measurable evidence. In the case of your wife, you could merely point at her and say, “there she is,” case closed. Making the case for Christian belief with those who do not immediately except the inerrency of the Bible (or my subjective experience of it), etc, is a very different prospect.

Fortunately, I think the truth of Christianity can indeed be shown (although not conclusively proven) by historical, psychological evidence. As you know, many skeptics have approached the historical record with intention to disprove Christianity only to become converts themselves.

Thus, I am reluctant to merely state “Christianity is true because this is how it subjectively effects me”. The Truth is not true because I believe it. It’s true even if no one believes it. That’s what makes it Truth. I respect the doubter and the true skeptic enough to deal with the issue on their terms.

At least, as much as possible.

DB:

To Jeff:

There is consensus between you and your wife about your love. It is acknowledged by pretty much everyone as a subjective thing (love) and only effects a small amount of people. I think love should be rigorously looked at to ensure it is positive and not detrimental to yourself, your wife or the people you interact with, which all good people search themselves thoroughly before they let their loves loose on the world. How much more so for religion?

Basing a worldview on personal experience is fine so long as you don’t extend your worldview to other people, ’cause it might not be true for them. Unfortunately this is what religion does. My point was never that we cannot know anything, it was that we need to make better distinctions between what we know and don’t know and then let that distinction effect how we interact with other people. So that we don’t interact with them thinking we have knowledge that is more awesome or better then theirs.

The weird thing is I think Jeff is saying something that George will strongly disagree with. That it is not improper for religious belief to be based on subjective experience. That those subjective experiences express something just as true as rational thought.

Also I do try to frame everything in my life in terms of making propositionaly sound logic. I’m not denying that I love the things I love, and that to me certain of my desires are a priori in themselves without further reason, like love. But those things aren’t uncontrolled in my life, I think for a long time about my feelings and their sources, whether they are robust, whether they are going to be around tomorrow, how they effect people. I take my feelings and I put them in a larger framework. Same for God, I may love him, but don’t trust that love unless I can put some scope in it. Cause Darren’s love of God is meaningless unless God is God right?

MH: As the conversation continues, what do you like or not like about what the participants are saying?

Tweet This Post

George and Darren, 2

Marty Holman — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:10:37 +0000

Darren Bell

George Lippert

Yesterday I introduced a conversation between my friends George and Darren. I know them from two completely different contexts, but from my recent facebook interactions with them, I noticed that they were very similar in some ways and very different in others. So I thought I would ask them to answer some questions for me via email, then replay the action here at martyholman.com. The following is part 2 of that discussion. You can find part 1 here.

George Lippert (GL): Intellectually and spiritually stimulating, Darren.

If I understand you correctly (and pardon me if I am boiling down a stew to make a pill), is it a fair summary to say that your perspective is basically that everyone’s truth is true for them but not necessarily true for anyone else? All religions are equal (different paths up the same mountain)? In essence, is it the case that all truths are relative to he/she who believes them, based on the proposition that, to them, those truths order their world, give them clarity, and therefore serve the basic purpose of a belief system?

Darren Bell (DB): Partly. But mostly I think I’m trying to say something deeper.

To take the mountain analogy and the famous humanist scenario of many people walking up the mountain from different sides all moving towards an ascendancy, the top of the mountain. A friend once told me that that story has the major flaw of all bad philosophy, that it fails to take itself into account and be self-reflective. The story requires a view from the top of the mountain to propose.

When I was thinking about your summary earlier today my first response was “No! I’m claiming there is no mountain at all!” Then I realized that is also claiming a knowledge that I don’t have.

To keep the mountain metaphor going in my view people are walking around in a forest with ~20 yards of visibility. In walking around we meet other people and talk to them about what they have seen walking around. And sometimes you meet people that are walking around that claim that we are all on a mountain, and that some people are going the correct way in the forest and others are going the incorrect way.

I hate the word truth. The sentence “Everyone’s truth is true for them” to me is the whole problem, and it is what most people do. They have experiences, they put those experiences together and then they blanket the world with them and operate like they are true for everyone. I think it is a very subtle difference but it is to me, an important difference in attitude about how you view your ‘own truth’ or ‘own worldview’. And that you DON’T let your personal truth become Truth.

Because Truth is unknowable.

To talk even briefly about the God thing. To know for a fact that God existed using the faculties we have you would have to be able to witness his infinity. Literally, to say God is infinite you have to see his infinity, you have to see or experience his omnipotence everywhere and through all time. Maybe there is a very strong force that operates in my cubicle at work, as far as I know it is omnipotent. But when I go to my co-workers cubicle he is no longer powerful there.

Now I understand that at some point for knowledge to grow you have to extrapolate knowledge from your circle of experiences and make assumptions about the way the rest of the world works. The problem with most of spirituality though is that the experiences people have are GLARINGLY DIFFERENT!! In science when a scientist measures the mass of an electron every other scientist measures the same mass. However when people follow their ‘internal moral compass’ everyone scatters like cats each chasing their own cubicle god and claiming it is God. “Well he is god in my cubicle so he must be God everywhere.” That is bad extrapolation. And the myriad of human experience tells us that is bad extrapolation because there is no consistency of experience between one person and the next.

I don’t have Truth. I have experiences and perspective, and those things can never be wrong, only my interpretations of their meaning can be wrong. Because of that I try to be very careful with my interpretations of there meaning and confine that interpretation into what I believe claims that can be rationally asserted and are also going to be true for the next person that has the same experiences as me. You know . . . more or less.

GL: Thanks for going into it again, Darren. Obviously I disagree on some major points, but I won’t spend anymore time in this post hashing over it (unless you and Marty wish it). We could go on for volumes, I am sure. I do agree with you vigorously on the futility of seeking Truth through subjective personal cogitations and speculations. I suspect we humans no more contain Truth than lightning bugs contain Lightning (to paraphrase the immortal Twain).

MH: Actually, I wish it. Would love to hear your answers to his, and maybe another round or two.

GL: Well, honestly, my answer is just a couple more questions. I really don’t mean for this to be belligerent, so I apologize in advance if this sounds obtuse. The claim that Truth is unknowable is, in itself, a Truth claim. What is the basis for this Truth claim? Using your previous comments, I’m led to the next few questions.

I appreciate that you use analogies. You describe us as people wandering aimlessly in a foggy wood. We are unable to know the full Truth about this wood because none of us can see the whole of it. I’ll call this the Holistic Quotient.
On the other hand, you compare Truth about spiritual matters (vague and disparate) to the Truth about the mass of an electron (measurable and uniform). I’ll call this the Disparity Quotient, and I think it is a very fair question, one that I consider myself at length.

Tweet This Post

George and Darren

Marty Holman — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:00:45 +0000

George Lippert

Darren Bell

George Lippert and Darren Bell.

A creative and an engineer, both who happen to be friends of mine, and today I’d like to introduce you to a new feature of Martyholman.com. Both George and Darren are really really smart. Now I wouldn’t tell them this, but when I see them write on facebook or their blogs or when I chat with them, their insight and thoughts have inspired me to think more, so as a connector, I had an idea.

Why not get them to help more people think in a gentleman’s dual of intellect.

So I asked George and Darren, as two men who think very different from one another in some ways, and very much alike in others, to answer a question that I would ask via email, and then chat back and forth about their answers. Along the way, Jeff Campbell gets involved in the conversation, and he makes things even more interesting. Because this conversation was so lengthy, these posts will last most of the week. I trust you’ll be inspired to think thorugh their conversation and ask questions to all the participants. So I’d like to introduce you to George (GL) and Darren (DB).

MH: So tell us a bit about yourselves.

George Lippert: I’m a full time CG artist and part-time writer currently haunting the suburbs of St. Louis. Between being a husband, a father of two awesome little kidlets, paying taxes, cooking Mexican food, mowing the lawn, keeping my 100-year-old house from falling down, and playing lots of racing video games, I formulate lots and lots of “controversial” opinions. Some of them I will surely share below.

Darren Bell: I’m Darren Bell. I’m a Chemical Engineer living in Philadelphia that lived for 6 years in New England mostly going to college and one of those years attending Fellowship Church. Spiritually I’ve been all over the spectrum from an Ayn Rand-esque athiest to going through 40 Days of Purpose. The last couple years I’ve been away from the church and Christianity, in the past 6 months I’ve found a church I really like in Philadelphia. Although aesthetically something appeals to me in Christianity and also I find it helpful to be reminded of certain morals I tend to forget I am pretty much agnostic.

GL: We do indeed live in a time when a black-and-white worldview is not only unpopular, but outright ridiculed. Hard and fast absolutes are considered narrow and intolerant. Up until recently, I shared this perception, based on my background in (what I’ll call for lack of a better term) a fundamentalist upbringing.

I, like many people, grew disillusioned with a spiritual worldview that placed far too much emphasis on superficial rule-following. In rebellion against this, I (rightly) trashed the external rulebook as a method of determining rightness or wrongness in God’s sight.

Unfortunately, along with that man-invented rulebook, I also trashed the God-ordained fundamentals of absolute truth. I didn’t do this consciously, but it happened nonetheless. I began to trust subjective sources of spiritual reality as much as the Bible. Speculation became just as reliable as revelation in terms of the truth (if such a thing could even be known) about God.

The result was that I very nearly abandoned my faith (such as it was). I was disillusioned, selfish, confused, and generally irate with God. Why? Because he simply did not make a lick of sense to me. Of course he didn’t. My head was full of contradictory thoughts about him, based on the wildly various sources of information that I was trusting as a means of knowing him.

Just to list one example of those many contradictions: how could God want my “best life now” for me, while the apostles themselves were almost all murdered horribly for their faith? Was I better than them, somehow? Had God changed his M.O. toward mankind?

This and many other confusingly contradictory thoughts about God eventually wore me down. I was done.

And then, for the first time in a long time, I heard the gospel. I won’t go into it in detail (this is already too long) but it floored me. It was so simple, so amazing! This basic, fundamental truth that 1) I was simply too messed up ever to save myself, and 2) that I didn’t have to, because Jesus did it for me– it absolutely boggled my mind.

I had been in church for decades, and I had not heard that basic, simple, awesome truth for as long as I could remember.

So I began to seek out more of those basic Biblical axioms, completely free from human speculation. I fell in love all over again (and maybe even for the first time) with the comforts of simple, absolute truth.

Now, I need to hear those truths everyday, because I forget them so easily, and because the world is so bereft of them.

There is, in short, a mind-boggling misconception that absolute truth is restrictive, somehow– that it does not respect freedom and diversity.

In fact, absolute truths are the most freeing thing in the world. Just ask anyone who has ever had to navigate a mine field. Would they claim to be offended at the “absolute truth” of a map showing exactly where all the mines were? Or would they chafe against the “restrictions” on their ability to tramp however they wished, pell-mell, regardless of the outcome?

In fact, the map of certain fundamental truths is the most freeing thing in the world. It frees me from the constantly worrying blare of the voices of speculation and guesswork. It provides a groundwork for belief that is unshakable because it does not originate with me or with other men. It comes directly, by revelation, from God himself.

Of course, this depends on one accepting the Bible as God’s inspired word. Without that, then it’s all just back to the wildly disparate winds of speculation again. If I was stuck with that, I’d choose to believe absolutely nothing. It’d be safer.

I do choose to believe in the revelation of God through the Bible, however. Not out of faith alone, but because the evidence of history, sociology, psychology and my own conscience point toward its veracity.

The existence of certain unavoidable and undeniable truths is not popular– it is, in fact, about the least popular concept in the country right now. But (and this is a huge but) the popularity of a belief bears no weight whatsoever on whether or not it is true.

MH: Thanks George. Darren?

DB: One of the first things I think of when I consider what the basis for my world view is is the importance of perspective. We are kind of trapped in perspective. Everything I view and interpret and touch mentally or physically, to take it into my mind and try to understand it or interpret it I have to get my Darren fingerprints all over it. And this is how it is for pretty much everyone as far as I can tell. I think a really healthy way to live is to have a respect that other peoples lives make sense to them inside their own heads, just like yours does. In fact exactly like yours does. I think a second healthy trait is to try to see your beliefs from the perspective of someone who doesn’t share them to see if they are merely based on your own perspective (i.e. I got in a car accident once and now I don’t drive even though driving is statistically pretty safe) or if they are broader then just what is in front of your eyes, in other words are the things you’re building a worldview on bigger then your own personal truths?

Back when I was a Chrisitan I was really excited about it’s “internal constancy” and faith=sight arguments, I would always say “I believe in God like I believe in the sun, not only because I can see it, but that by it I can see everything else.” And it really does!! It is totally true, that ain’t a sham at all. It took me several years but the more I thought about it the more flaws I saw in that type of thinking.

One of the advantages of trying to see your own beliefs from the third person is that you start to understand that just because we live in society that is religiously dominate by Christians, other people actually have religious worldviews that illuminate their world the same way as the Christian worldview. I started asking myself “Don’t you think Muslims feel that their beliefs correctly and insightfully help them to understand the world, and Buddhists and Jews?” In fact that is what all worldviews do, they are suns to our mental world. And for years I looked at the world through the lens of Christianity and honest to goodness, it was compelling, it made the world make sense, it had answers that made me think “Man, this is all so clear, I must be looking through the right lens onto the world!” But then I realized other people were looking though different lenses, and were at least claiming to see the world just as clearly as I was claiming.

This lead me only recently to conceptualize an important idea about what we can and cannot know, that it is proper for people to understand the limits of their ability to know things and the extent their beliefs can reach, and to have an intellectual respect for those limits. There is a circle around me. And within that circle is my perspective and my experiences, and that is pretty much all I have. From that I develop a worldview, I say some things are good and some things are bad and some are in between. I say some things are pretty or ugly, valuable or worthless, meaningful or banal. And I try to respect that circle and the limitations it imposes on what I truly can and cannot know, it is the salt of my worldview.

I believe aesthetics are important. I pursue happiness, beauty and understanding cause I just plain old like them. I don’t pursue them because they are absolutes, or ordained by an eternal creator. I just like sitting out under a blue sky reading a book, and it doesn’t concern me at all that doing so isn’t good because it was ordained by some higher power, I’m content with doing it simply because it’s pleasant.

So the above kind of answers the questions “what is the basis for your worldview?” even though it does very little to define the content of that worldview, what I think about things, whether love is important, if I voted for Obama and whether I eat baby puppies for dinner. And since that was Marty’s question I guess I won’t go too much further (at the moment) in to WHAT I think, as I have answered HOW I think.

MH: So what do you think? Any questions so far for George and/or Darren?

Tweet This Post

Navigating through Change

Marty Holman — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:57:15 +0000

Navigating through life gets you through that life, but navigating through change helps you to flourish through that life.

Anybody can get through life. And the ways we find to cope are typically mechanisms to help us simply survive. they are the easy ways. They are ways to communicate like complaining, arguing, sarcasm, laying low, just get by, or bitterness. These might help us to get through life, but they won’t help us flourish.

To flourish, we must fight our desires to take the easy route, and navigate head first into change, especially in a world full of extraordinary and fast-paced changes. And in every area, we must meet those changes with the fierceness of someone who wishes to flourish.

Your friends may change. Your technology will change. Your clubs, groups, and churches will change, so too, will the things you’re able to do. Your job will change. Your likes and dislikes will change. And most of the people around you will change. This blog post sounds a little like the book of Ecclesiastes. The tone seems a bit down, but in the end, there is only one great common denominator, and He does not change.

But He helps us to change, and to navigate through those changes, so that in the end, we begin to understand that He is the one we rest upon. He is the one in whom we rest.

Tweet This Post

It’s fun to hate on Rick Warren

Marty Holman — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 13:43:38 +0000

Something about the human nature that you’ve no doubt seen or experienced, and the chances are good that you’ve done it: Most of us have probably gone on record in social networking either by blogging or twittering or “facebook statusing” to make some sort of reactionary statement against something that has either happened to them in the past or a perceived popular notion that easily has another side that’s been apparently neglected by whoever came up with the notion.

I’m thinking about this because recently I’ve seen many people take a few jabs at Rick Warren in the Facebook world. Now I understand taking jabs at some extremes like the KJV only position or preaching against alcohol or any number of insane extreme personal convictions that are not backed up by Scripture but simply by the Holy Spirit convicting an individual (this of course is not wrong, and I applaud those who have different convictions from others), but come on, Rick Warren?

The guy preaches what he preaches, and it is the gospel, gives away 90% of his income, and so now countless numbers of people decide that this guys fluff, why? Because he’s not reformed or uses his influence to reach far outside of the church? One thing I’m learning about the church and myself: We need to pick on someone. We have a desire in our hearts (clearly not from the Spirit, so where’s it coming from?) to find what we assume is a weakness in someone because of what they didn’t say or what their book didn’t point out, and we call them out. I call them out.

Enough of that crap! I’m not doing it anymore. If someone’s preaching a gospel that’s different than the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus, that’s one thing. But Fellowship Church in Massachusetts will not be known for our who we pick on or who we call out. We are called to build up, and encourage, and esteem others better than ourselves. And that starts with me.

And that starts now.

Tweet This Post

Before We Grow

Marty Holman — Wed, 05 May 2010 12:42:42 +0000

Today we tear trailers down at Fellowship Church. Trailers that have been around for a lot of years, have a certain amount of nostalgia associated with them, and currently house scores of little furry creatures that, for years, have caused much headache on our property.

We would like to have built first, a children’s facility or a new sanctuary, but before we did that, the trailers had to come down. Years of use, abuse, decay, and becoming the habitat for skunks, raccoons, and ground hogs have left the trailers unusable for us, so before we put another building up, and continue to improve our facilities, we had to ask ourselves, “What has to go?” I think before we said, “What do we need to do?”, we needed to say, “What needs to go?”

This was a must in terms of our future maturity.

Tweet This Post

I love you with all God’s heart.

Marty Holman — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 15:04:00 +0000

I’m forgiven and …

I’m sorry if you don’t forgive me or you remember who I was back then or you can’t get over what I did,

But I’m forgiven by my Father who sent his Son to come to this earth,

and to do some miracles, and feed the hungry, and give mercy to the merciless,

Then they killed him. Or he gave his life.

Either way, it was through that killing, that sacrifice, that blood, that I was forgiven.

But it gets better.

Because sacrifice is important, but it’s not unheard of. Many have died, many have sacrificed,

but the next step made all the difference.

Then He rose from the dead by way of the Father.

That meant my forgiveness wasn’t just from a man, it was from a God, the same God who loves the world.

So you may or may not forgive the person I used to be,

or you may not like me now and decide to talk about that amongst your friends.

But it’s ok, because I’m forgiven.

permanently.

And my God is alive to prove it.

So because of all that, and because I’m still not perfect, but I’m working on it,

I would just like to say, here on this “good day”

I love you. With all God’s heart.

Tweet This Post

Why Easter’s not the point (and copying is bad for the church)

Marty Holman — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 14:28:36 +0000

Many know by now that Easter is another word for Ishtar, who was a self-proclaimed, real life Babylonian goddess, said to have been married to the biblical figure of Nimrod (Genesis 10:8-10) and long before it (meaning “Easter”) was celebrated by Christians around the world, it was celebrated by pagans worshiping this goddess who happened to specialize in fertility (I guess if you’re going to specialize in something…). This celebration apparently drew world wide popularity because King Herod Agrippa celebrated it after killing James, one of Jesus’ disciples and then decided to imprison Peter during the party, which at the time had no connection to the resurrection of Jesus. (see Acts 12:1-5, KJV) It happened to occasionally connect with the Jewish celebration of the passover.

Years go by and the church becomes official and the church becomes THE CHURCH. THE CHURCH decides, in honor of their risen Savior to mix holiday metaphors a bit, and copy the culture that exists. Easter then becomes a THE CHURCH holiday. The problem is the former holiday never really goes away, but the two begin to meld together in a bunny loving, egg coloring, candy eating, oh yeah, and by the way, Jesus rising type of way.

By the time it’s too late, THE CHURCH becomes THE CHURCHES and wonders what all the confusion is about – this thing, after all, is about one thing. The one thing that, somewhere along the way, was not enough, and needed to be pepped up or apologized for or altered a little bit, because it’s been years since anyone’s seen anyone rise from the dead.

So this Sunday, THE CHURCHES are going to do everything they can to ‘pull out all the stops’ and wow you with classy production, excellent gimmicks, and the pastors best 3 point outline. None of those things are wrong and none of those things are going to be demonized here, but none of those things are also the reason why we meet together and call ourselves “followers of Jesus” or “Christians”.

But the reason we are gathered as the church is not because of a holiday or a tradition or because we’re supposed to, but because a man walked this earth (many have done this), did amazing, miraculous things (many have done this, too), could not be found guilty of anything (no one else has done this), gave His life for the glory of God and for the salvation of mankind (wait for it…), then three days later rose again, after he was indeed (not figuratively) dead. (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

The hope that we have because this happened is unimaginable, as our trust can now be placed firmly outside of our own hands and into the hands of a Savior and a God who made a way for our world to be healed and redeemed back into His arms.

Call it whatever you want, but just celebrate the right thing.

Tweet This Post

B90X

Marty Holman — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:45:27 +0000

When I read a book, I don’t read details and individual points. I read general concepts. This is how I do it. This is who I am. So when I tell someone I’ve read a book I’ve enjoyed, and they totally believe it’s blasphemous or heretical or even absurd, then they proceed to show me why on pages, 22, 47, 89, 217, and of course, 666, I am wrong for enjoying the book. I don’t even read there emails or letters in depth. I read, “Wow, they are against that book in a way that I am not.”

In truth, I am a bit envious of people like that. People who can take the time and have the skill set to completely parse each corner and section of a passage written by an author, then tell me what’s good and/or bad about said topic as far as each section/line of the book.

I also wonder how they’re not bipolar (see “A Beautiful Mind”). For no human can possibly get everything right, and I’m sure there are agreements and disagreements about every human author’s writings, namely because there are agreements and disagreements between the writings of the book inspired by the Holy Spirit of God.

With that said, On December 28th, 2009, I began to read the Bible within a 90 day period. Some called it B90X, after the popular and intense workout video series. I wouldn’t suggest this type of reading for everyone, because it’s not for everyone. I would say its for people who are like me. They read quickly and take away the one or two main concepts of the book being read. Reading an average of 16 chapters a day probably wouldn’t work for those prone to taking apart every line they read every time they read.

But for those like me, I found the quick trip through the Scriptures refreshing and wonderful, learning things and seeing things I had never seen before. From the beginning of time when God’s amazing creation breathed its first breath to John’s last apocalyptic visions, I was introduced to a story like no other, all of which I’d heard before, but never in an entire complete scenario at one condensed time period. In this reading, for the first time in my life, the writings of Moses and Samuel and David connected so tightly with Luke and John and Paul that I could see the family resemblance.

The Gospel of Jesus came to life once again, as I read about how my Saviour, the Messiah, would live and serve, then apparently be crushed and killed, then be raised again to be with His Father, but not until after He spent a bit more time teaching those He had walked with and discipled for three years.

The best way to describe this way of reading through Scripture is the difference between Watching “Lost” week to week for years and years, and the watching it on DVD through the whole story in one short portion of time. If you’ve ever sat together with your spouse or a friend and watched episode after episode and season after season of a show, this is the way it feels. It comes to life in one shot!

For me, this way of reading the Bible is going to be a habit, for it screams of my best chance to learn and grow from that reading. This is who I am. If you’re an adventurer, I suggest you try it out once and see how you like it. If you don’t, stop. But I suggest that a regular reading of the Bible is important, not only because of what God did those many years ago in Creation to the redemption of the world through Jesus, but because of what He’s doing now in our world.

You can find a 90 day Bible reading plan or another 29 or so plans at youversion.com, a ministry of Lifechurch.tv

Bible reading rocks!

Tweet This Post