Jan 29

At night, the monsters come out.

apologetics, musings, theology 1 Comment »

Putting my daughter to bed the other night I listened as she whined in protest about not wanting to go to bed. I half-heartedly asked her why (as I was hurriedly stuffing her blankets, dolls, and other paraphernalia around her) and right as began to shut the door, giddy with the anticipation of a few hours of glorious silence (freedom!) I heard her whisper ever so quietly…

At night, the monsters come out.

Something about this struck me. Not wanting to miss a teachable moment, I stopped what I was doing, walked over to her bed and sat down next to her. The following conversation ensued about the monsters in her room that come out at night.

Me: Honey, you don’t need to be afraid of monsters. Want to know why?
Her: Why?
Me: Because Jesus is stronger than the monsters.
Her: Jesus?
Me: Yes, and do you know where he lives?
Her: Heaven?
Me: Yes, and He also lives in mommy and daddy. And you know what else?
Her: What?
Me: He owns this house.
Her: Really?
Me: Yes. So who can beat up the monsters?
Her (more confidently now): Jesus!
Me: Right, and where does he live?
Her: Mommy and daddy.
Me: Right
Her: and me too?
Me: Some day honey. But for now, you can rest assured in the protection provided by your father and mother through Jesus.

Since then, not only has my daughter “been brave” and faced the monsters with the knowledge that they aren’t stronger than Jesus. She has also begun to look forward to the day when she can accept Jesus into her heart.

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Nov 24

Tuesday bonus: The Secular case against abortion and homosexuality.

apologetics, musings, philosophy, polemics, politics 11 Comments »

In a stimulating discussion with a friend of mine following my earlier post on homosexuality I was asked to provide further support from a wholly secular standpoint to substantiate my position against homosexuality. Here’s my response:

My secular argument against homosexuality mirrors my secular argument against abortion and that is: Population.
Human capital is the greatest asset any nation has. This has been true for all nations at all times in all places. In fact, there is almost nothing that can’t be solved with a brute force application of people (just ask the Chinese).
While your assertion of homosexual couples adopting unwanted children (a product of a highly feminized culture I might add) is a nice sentiment, the reality is that selfishness does not produce the sacrificial environment required for the rearing of children. homosexuality, as you so eloquently put it above, is not something done for the mutual pleasure of the other person nor is it done for biological means. It is wholly done, as are the vast majority of abortions, for selfish motives.
For the single and simple reason that a population in decline is readily susceptible to merely being out-bred by foreign cultures (as is the case in in the EU currently in regards to Islam), I would strongly argue that the last thing we ought to be doing as a culture is worrying about the myth of overpopulation or propping up anti-family and anti-children ideologies.
Simply put, we need babies. Lots of them.
Not babies that are left to the state to support and care for. Or the army of single mothers created in recent decades by liberal legislation. no, we need strong families with men who give a damn about someone other than themselves.
In retrospect, the issues of homosexuality and abortion share more in common than being anti-family and anti-children. They are both only sustainable in a culture that is anti-men which got that way when men became fat and lazy.
Incidentally,

My secular argument against homosexuality mirrors my secular argument against abortion and that is: Population growth.

Human capital is the greatest asset any nation has. This has been true for all nations at all times in all places throughout the history of human civilization. In fact, there is almost nothing that can’t be solved with a brute force application of people1.

While your assertion2 of homosexual couples adopting unwanted children (a product of a highly feminized culture I might add) is a nice sentiment, the reality is that selfishness does not produce the sacrificial environment required for the rearing of children. homosexuality, as you so eloquently put it above, is not something done for the mutual pleasure of the other person nor is it done for biological means. It is wholly done, as are the vast majority of abortions, for selfish motives.

Simply put, we need babies. Lots of them.

Not babies that are left to the state to support and care for. Or the army of single mothers created in recent decades by liberal legislation and social programs. No, we need strong families with men who give a damn about someone other than themselves.

In retrospect, the issues of homosexuality and abortion share more in common than being anti-family and anti-children. They are both only sustainable in a culture that is anti-men which got that way when men became fat and lazy.

It should concern us that the countries with growing populations are not in the first world. They are in “less developed”3 countries where things like abortion on demand and pure pleasure seeking aren’t luxuries the average man can readily afford.

For the single and simple reason that a population in decline is readily susceptible to merely being out-bred by foreign cultures4, I would strongly argue that the last thing we ought to be doing as a culture is worrying about the myth of overpopulation or propping up anti-family and anti-children ideologies.

Update:

After publishing this I received a challenge regarding my assertion above regarding population decline being a real issue in many countries. My opponent pointed out that the population of the US in particular was actually increasing. Here is my response:

The US’s population is increasing due to immigrants, specifically the Spanish-speaking community not because we are choosing to have the required 2.2 children required to merely sustain our population.

As far as military service or society, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing for a society to discriminate against behaviors/lifestyles that aren’t conducive to their growth. Russia found this out not too long ago as their national policies against sex plunged their country into a population crisis such that now they are forced to almost completely reverse their stance on the matter and hold national sex days in hopes of merely staving off a massive population shortage.

In short, its not just the type of sex that is an issue here, it’s the selfish lifestyle and attitude towards procreation in general (which is why I lump abortion in with this argument as well).

We should, as a country, at least be focused on the fact that killing off our population (abortion) or promoting selfish lifestyles (which stretches beyond homosexuality) is not something that strengthens us a country nor something that has benefited any country in history.

  1. just ask the Chinese [↩]
  2. This is in reference to a rather colorful description of anal intercourse which I’ll leave up to your imagination while sparing you the details. [↩]
  3. Read: less selfish [↩]
  4. as is the case in in the EU currently in regards to Islam [↩]
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Sep 29

Are all children born on this earth meant to be?

apologetics, doctrine, philosophy, polemics No Comments »

I think that question really depends on how you define the phrase “meant to be”.

If the question is whether every life is infinitely valuable to God and worth a chance at a full life then I would emphatically say yes, the Bible teaches that all life is precious.

If you are asking whether God knows who will and won’t be borne then I would have to say that he does since it is clear in Scripture that he knows the end from the beginning.

Now if (and I think this is the culmination of the other two for most people) you are asking whether God has a hand in who lives or dies and has a reason for some living and some dying then I think we need to back up and remember the above two facts in addition to what God essentially told Job through a blistering series of questions.

Specifically, that God is not the only actor in history. Even though he knows and is more powerful than the other actors (such as Satan and you and I) God is not obligated to prevent them from causing evil of their own and generally acting against his will.

We also need to keep in mind that while God knows the end from the beginning, we also know that this world is not the perfect one God is working towards. In Genesis 3 sin entered the picture and had a profound effect on everything, including the human reproductive system such that some children are lost to what we could call “natural evil” and some children are lost to evil someone intentionally does (like abortion).

It is important to keep in mind that we essentially live in a war zone between heaven and hell and until Jesus comes back we should expect to see evil like the loss of innocent children.

This is actually one of the reasons the Gospel is called the “good news” because it lets us know that the death and destruction we find all around us here on earth will not last forever and that Jesus, by rising from the dead, has conquered death which provides us hope.

In other words, even the children who don’t make it aren’t completely lost.

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Jun 20

Epistemology for Children

apologetics, doctrine, theology No Comments »

Last summer our family got the privilege to take 2 vacations lasting a week a piece with my mother, father, aunt, sister, and her family. Quite a few people in all including 7 children with ages ranging from 1 to 12 years old. During the first week we decided to hold nightly devotions and, being a spur of the moment decision, our lessons for both vacations were largely ad-hoc with minimal preparation (it was a devotion we held right before bed time after all).

This year I am planning on doing things differently.

First of all I want to have an overarching theme that the kids in particular can latch on to dealing with an issue they face a lot of since my sister’s recent divorce. This is the issue of truth.

Now the study of truth is an academic area known as epistemology which generally contains some very dense material. In fact, I am forbidden from reading aloud articles or scholarly journal entries1 dealing with epistemology in the car with my wife when she is driving since doing so had nearly lead to several wrecks as she nods off because of the repetitive and tedious nature of epistemological arguments2 . The greatest challenge will be to break down the monolithic question Pilot asked in John 18:38, “What is Truth?” so that a child can understand it3 .

As it turns out, there are a few resources available when it comes to teaching basic philosophical concepts (such as epistemology) to children. Most of these resources focus on mining great classic children’s books such as Horton Hears a Who4, Morris the Moose5 or games6 oriented at stimulating thoughts about how we think and how we know what we know7 is generally applied when solving a mystery or puzzle.)).

In fact, philosopher Jean Piaget argues8 that classic games such as Clue or Guess Who, and many others can also fill this role by focusing on specific areas of epistemology such as logic and mathematics. The key to it all seems to be getting the children to communicate their ideas and to help them think through what can otherwise be a very daunting subject.

According to Karen Gallas, using art as a means of expression9 seems to help children express their ideas more freely and concisely than if we were to confine them to merely using verbal means of communication to express their ideas.

Using these techniques and approaches, the next step will be to apply what the Bible teaches about how we know what we know10 . I think the best approach will be to do this using stories from the bible that all relate to truth and specifically truth in relationships, specifically with God.

So here’s the lesson plan for the week:

Day 1 (Monday):

We will all have just traveled quite a distance and will probably be pretty exhausted. This will be a great opportunity to introduce the plan and theme of the week and introduce them to the subject of truth by using the question Pilot asked in John 18:38 as a springboard for the rest of the week. This will also be a great opportunity to hear their thoughts on the matter and perhaps explain some of the ramifications of the topic and how it impacts our entire lives.

Day 2 (Tuesday):

Our first true lesson on the topic will begin by setting up a basic definition of truth and some tests for it. The passage we will use will be the story of Solomon’s wisdom in determining the mother of a child in 1 Kings 3:16-28.

Day 3 (Wednesday):

Today we’ll turn to truth in relationships and look at Jonathan and David in 1 Samuel. Specifically, how Jonathan remained loyal to David and showed it by telling him the truth even when it hurt.

Day 4 (Thursday):

Today we will look at a negative example of truth in relationships with Samson and his wife in Judges 14:1-20.

Day 5 (Friday):

Today we will look at truth ultimately being a person in the form of Jesus Christ using John 14:1-31.

Day 6 (Saturday):

Today we will look at the Holy Spirit’s role in guiding us into all truth using John 16:1-16 as our text.

Day 7 (Sunday):

Our final lesson will focus on trust in God using the story of Abraham going up to the mountain to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis 22:1-18 as an illustration of how much we are to trust God who made everything and can raise us up from the dead if he so chooses.

I’ll probablly edit the lesson plan above after next week when we find out what does and doesn’t work. In the mean time, I need to finish packing…

  1. Like Philosophia Christi [↩]
  2. Because they are generally written to be a comprehensive refutation and portrayal of their positions they generally contain very technical and carefully defined terms. This is understandable, but ends up having the consequence of taking ten pages to say something you could have said in only one, or less. [↩]
  3. Or at least begin to think with a Biblical epistemology. [↩]
  4. Philosophy for Kids, Horton Hears a Who [↩]
  5. Philosophy for Kids, Epistemology and Morris the Moose [↩]
  6. Epestemic Games [↩]
  7. Most of these games focus on deception and detecting whether we are being deceived or not by examining the evidence we’ve been given. The same thing could conceivably be done quite easily with detective stories, games, etc. since the same epistemic analysis ((or analytical thought process [↩]
  8. Jean Piaget’s Genetic Epistemology [↩]
  9. Arts as Epistemology: Enabling Children to Know What They Know, Harvard Educational Review Volume 61, Number 1 [↩]
  10. A Biblical Epistemology [↩]
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