God and what we talk about - Ch5 For

Hello, my name is Thomas and I am a skeptic.

Experience

I try to immerse myself in a religious environment, like I will somehow absorb its message by osmosis. At heart however I am still a skeptic. In reality, I am standing there in a lab coat, I have no idea what it means to be religious.

I'm not sure if there is anything I can do about that. If there is a God, I hope he is FOR us. In the rare circumstances I do pray, I hope he is listening and cares. Despite God loving everybody, I hope I am good anyway.

This chapter took a few turns, I think I will need to revisit it and maybe update this post.

God and what we talk about - Ch4 With

Are we experiencing the presence of God? Is God with us? Does it matter if God is or is not?

Eh.

Many people seem to think so, on all accounts.

I am not so sure.

In my old age (also known as the last 5 years) I have picked and chosen my battles. I used to view myself as an open minded. Now I just am. I have learned that 5 years ago I was in fact not open minded. I probably still am not, though I am a lot more than I was.

I've seen people who are really into the God thing, they feel God is with them all the time. People who are into the God thing and wish God would throw them a bone just once (And some of them, if you are listening, could really use one [not a real bone, I'm talking figuratively. But you probably knew that, cuz you are God.]). Then there is the atheists and the agnostics, for the most part they seem just fine (You don't really miss something you don't expect to be there).

Transcending

People often describe food as being SO GOOD, it transcends. It is more than food can be. I like food, I have sat next to people who talk this way and I can't help but look them in the eye and say "It's alright."

We are supposed to have faith in God, God has a plan for us, God is more than us, transcends us. We are supposed to pray. I've prayed, maybe even twice. I don't remember what it was, but I must have been in a pickle (at least emotionally).

For the most part though, the only thing I feel "transcends" is relationships. There is so much more than what is at the surface.

I don't know if there is more to life than what is at the surface. It seems safer to assume there is not and hope there is. I try to get the most out of life. 

Closing

I apologize for how much of a mind dump these posts are.

I'll leave you with this

 

God and what we talk about - Ch3 Both

Words and how we describe many things. How you describe things make a big difference. You may not even stretch the truth but you may provide too little or too much precision. How something is described can portray confidence and authoritativeness in a description.

Faith and Doubt

It would not be faith without doubt. Without doubt you must be certain, but when it comes to God how could you be certain? Similarly, it is natural to question that which is not certain.

Conclusion

I am not really sure what the point of this chapter is. Seems mostly a verbose way of saying it is difficult to describe God. Yet we can't seem to stop describing God.

God and what we talk about - Ch2 Open

I am a bit of a slacker when it comes to keeping on top of things. I finished a class a month ago that I had been blaming for taking all my time and yet I am still just now getting to chapter 2. Which, by the way, is a really long chapter.

OPEN

There seems to be two camps and you have to belong in one or the other. Either you are a theist or you are atheist. But what about the people who identify as "other"? I would say that I am still biased in many regards (The whole supernatural thing always bugs me). However, I would also say that I am not firm set in my ways and can accept other view points most of the time (There will always be exceptions, like Scientology). I wish more of the world was more accepting of people. Instead if they don't fall within the systems of either side they are shunned and hide from the "normal" world. There are groups that I know that don't speak up, they wish they could but the world doesn't understand. The world always focuses on the bad and a few rotten apples mean everyone has to suffer. When an event like 9-11 happens (I am writing this sitting in the shade of a 9-11 monument) suddenly if you look Muslim you must be a terrorist.

Rob goes into a high school physics lesson (and a little AP Physics) discussing space and time, atoms and quarks. While we can find patterns and compute probabilities, we can't say anything for certain. Why did a certain particle interact the way it did? Who knows, but we can tell you what the odds were that it occurred.

Rob talks about blurring the line between matter and spirit and how observation changes things in the quantum world. This reminds me about one of my harebrained ideas in high school that maybe, just maybe, the world observed away god. I am talking schrodinger's cat, except with the operation of the universe. What if the atoms and the quarks and the fact that plants need nutrients in the soil didn't exist, until we went looking for them? There is more that goes into it that probably only a Software Engineer would think about, but I'll save that for another time.

"We are an exotic blend of awesome [...]." We can describe a great deal of our physical composition, but our soul is still a mystery. The soul is real (A persons sense of identity. I think, therefore I am.), but it is beyond analysis and description. Rob suddenly gets a hardon for the Germons because they have a word to describe the one "beyond analysis and description"'.

If there is anything to pull from this chapter, it is to not be so nitpicky and accept that people believe different things. They might be right and they might be wrong, but so might you. Can't we all just be friends?

God and what we talk about

I had been going through the Old Testament "in order" but now I am going to do a little change of pace. Now you may be saying that I haven't been doing that since I did a few posts and then stopped. Ok, you would be right, I've been busy, get over it.

What We Talk About When We Talk About God

I'm going to be going through a book by Rob Bell whom I am told is a great writer on Christianity. I will be blogging as I go through the book as a sort of raw stream of thoughts. While this is more for my benefit, if you are going through the book (If you are not, I would stop reading now) it may be interesting to see someone elses thoughts on the matter.

Hum

Hum is the first chapter in the book, I skimmed quickly through it already and will be going through in detail for the rest of this post. It is pretty much introducing the book and why the chapters are named as they are. I would generally expect this to be the Preface, but it is rather long so it kinda has to be a chapter.

The first thing I notice is how Rob Bell is rather frank. He opens with a cautionary statement about how he may ruffle a few feathers. While the way it is worded indicates that it is targeted to non-believers, it seems to also be trying to disarm more "strict" Christians. It is hard to sat at this point if that is true, I guess I will just have to read the rest of the book.

Another thing I notice is how it is written as if he his speaking to you. Well, more like he is giving a sermon with his use of "we". I identify with this writing style as easier for me to follow. There is a number of nonfiction books that I have great difficulty reading because of the voice.

The problem with God

I often feel like I am talking about a different God than everyone else. Maybe that is why I have this bucket list style goal to look at several religions. I wish I could retire right now and study them, but alas I feel like what I do for my day job carries much more benefit to society (Like any at all). This would be in conflict of "God first", but if that is a problem then I will cross that river when it comes.

God is like Oldsmobiles

"If you are open minded, your brain will fall out."

I also would lose count at work on the number of Athiests. Though interestingly enough, many of them have religious spouses and go with them on "holidays".

I find it really interesting and inspiring that this could all be random. Thought that is just one possibility.

Realization

One day in college, my dear friend who is Mormon was talking to my then girlfriend. She was a relatively strong opinionated Atheist, while I was more agnostic. One way or another it came up that she should go to church with him that Sunday. Having, never been to a Mormon church and being rather ignorant, I expressed interest in going as well (After all, I drove him to church each week anyway). This was dismissed by the two of them, at which I silently left the conversation to resume my studies. That bugged me and I set it upon myself that "eventually" I would study several of the worlds religions. Well, in January, a few weeks after breaking up with her, I started. Slowly.

While it would be more "efficient" to just read the bible in the time I go to church on Sunday, it would kinda defeat the point. If you want to get to know a group, you have to jump in and coexist with them. Listen to their stories, their pains, their ambition.

Turn it to 11

"What's really going to tickle your noodle later is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything." - The Oracle.

Closing

Well, this has been a mind dump about chapter 1. It likely portrays my opinion though probably doesn't do it justice. I hope you are enjoying the book, I look forward to the rest of it.

Genesis 4 - 7

Notes since last time

I want to clarify one thing, I didn't mean to imply that I was going to limit commenting to a single paragraph for each chapter. I tend to be very terse in writing and was merely estimating how I foresee many sections going. Especially in the beginning, I don't find much of the chapters interesting and I don't intend to be a substitute to reading the relevant chapters (before reading the notations below). This is more of a notation of my thoughts while reading it.

Getting on with it

Genesis 4

The story of Cain and Abel, the people not the hacking utility. Cain killed Abel because God favored Abel and was outcast. Lineage is described, including polygamy (This is merely a historical account and does not condone it nor condemn).

This is also a spot many people focus on "make love", a special act. Well, I'm telling you to get over it, the Jehovah’s Witnesses say "intercourse" and that isn't special at all.

Genesis 5

Family Tree, tl;dr. Though this is apparently not comprehensive because where did these spouses come from?

Genesis 6

An age limit of 120 is set by God. I could argue this is describing evolution where long age does not affect procreation, but that is not really relevant at this point.

God liked Noah, so he had him build an ark with two of every animal before he flooded the world (and his children and children's children, etc.). God regretted making us, bummer.

Genesis 7

Noah apparently worked for DuPont and made the ark larger than spec because when the time came for flood, God instead sent 7 pairs of all animals (except for the unclean ones).

Then the flood came, 40 days of rain and the flood lasted 150 days.

Bible critical

Rather than try to summarize this other blog, I am simply going to link to it since the writing is much better than mine. Relevant Post

Introduction & Genesis 1 - Genesis 3

When you Google a definition of religion, you are told that it is "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power." Wikipedia quotes Émile Durkheim in saying that religion is "something eminently social." I tend to identify with this in saying that I am "spiritual, but not religious." I would also say that I am an agnostic theist, I don't think we will be able to know if there is a God any time soon; nor do I believe that it matters. To me, the existence of God being more of an academic exercise, which probably puts me in the realm of being an apatheist.

Regardless, I think that reading and understanding the belief systems of the many different religions is a good idea. An idea that I had never actually followed up on after being raised a non-practicing catholic. So after being dumped at the end of last year, I decided that I should keep occupied and try to take up activities I had been putting off. In other words, I went to church. I was surprised, I had been to a few churches in my youth and none of them were like this one. The church I attended, while obviously christian, had a more inviting feel. Straight off the bat, I was encouraged to participate as much or as little as I was comfortable, they were just glad I showed up. Through this church I met some awesome people that are fun to hang out with. But most of all, one of them encouraged me to take on my primary mission of reading The Bible.

So here we are, I actually have read through the first 20 chapters of Genesis to get a general feel for how this is going to go. My verdict is: slowly. It is a tough read, I have a hard enough time keeping track of the main character in a novel and Genesis pops out a new name every few verses. So my hope is by making this blog, I will make notes of what I think is the most important and can review it later in another pass through the bible.

Comments on format

I plan on mostly making small comments as I read through. Some of these may not be "PG", though apparently neither is Genesis. I expect at most a paragraph per chapter.

I recommend Google Dictionary, I have a terrible vocabulary and I find it to be helpful to double check subtleties in words.

I plan to follow along with Bible Critical. It seems to be a similar experiment to my own, so it will be interesting to see what he says. It sounds like his posts will be less filled with opinion on content and more a critique on the writing itself. I have printed out a 90 day schedule, I don't know if I will follow it but we shall see.

I am using primarily the New International Version, but will occasionally also compare it to the New American Standard, King James, and just for kicks the Jehovah’s Witnesses version.

Critiques on my grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation are welcome. This is supposed to be a learning exercise, so if I can squeeze some writing lessons in too then all the better. Though I still reserve the right to disagree and "do it my way" in some cases.

Getting on with it

Genesis 1

So basically, this is the part everyone seems to know and was basically the extent I knew. It is the classic creation story of the Earth, Sun, Moon, Animals, Humans, Plants. The world was also good, at this point it seems like an odd thing to say. Almost like a passive aggressive God is saying "Yeah. I made earth, it was really nice. We won't talk about what happened to it when I turned my back."

It is worth noting that there is a passage

6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.”

 This describes what many call "the dome theory." An environment where above the sky is water, but based on our travel to space, no such water exists. It may be lost in translation, it could be an error, who knows.

Genesis 2

The seventh day is for rest. I kinda wish it was the third day, wouldn't that be nice?

We take a step back and now describe the creation of Adam and Eve and naming all the animals. They were nudists... good for them... Oh, and don't eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

Genesis 3

Women suck. People with knowledge don't like naked people (It is a miracle you were even born). God gave out punishment, including banishment from the tree of life which would have given immortality. This is also the first indication of the male ruling over the female, that or they were into kinky sex.

Bible Critical

Relevant Post

Interesting, he points out a continuity error in Genesis 2 about the order of creation. He also points out how Adam and Eve are pretty much just doing whatever they are told and the serpent had seemingly just as much authority as God.

Closing thoughts

I'm tired. I got 3 hours of sleep last night, so making it to Genesis 16 isn't happening today. If you have any feedback, drop a comment.