Sunday, November 25, 2007

A Play on the Word

This post first appeared on God Vs. Darwin, and is reprinted here, backdated to match the original post on GvD.

***

When I was in South Carolina last week, a very interesting discussion occurred behind the scenes here at GvD. AG suggested to the group that Esther write a guest post for this forum. Dabich readily agreed and once I discovered the proposition, I saw the brilliance of the idea. When I advised her of this discussion, and after the shock of it wore off, she was excited to be asked and thrilled to do it. Scribe had a dissenting vote and Rudy's opinion was never given one way or another. On this forum, at least regarding posting, majority rules. So without further ado:


God versus Darwin.

Hmmmm. . .

From the first moment I read this blog title, I was struck by that little word in the middle - "versus."

It is a daring proposition to think that there is anything in the finite human Darwin on par, "against," or "versus" what we know and have credited to an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent God, but that initial turn of phrase intrigued me.

Versus.

It is still intriguing me, and from here, I write.

I have always been drawn to word plays and puns. Love them.

When I read the Scripture, I languish and meditate over the words. I digest them slowly, and I savor every morsel and bit of sweetness and spice that I can draw out. I not only want the meat off the bone, I want to taste the marrow in the bone.

"Versus" is a word that I am sensing this with on several different levels.

Allow me to enjoy this little word exploration, if you don't mind, and maybe we can find common ground and a blessing from it.

***********************************

"Versus" as defined by The Merriam-Webster Dictionary means "against" or "in contrast or as an alternative to."

Is God really "versus," or against, Darwin?

I would posit to say, No. No, not really.

Some of you are gasping right now realizing that I am a Conservative Christian, and I seem to be saying that God is not opposed to Darwin's Theory of Evolution. No, I'm not saying that, and I'm not going there in this word endeavor either. To tell you the truth, my aim in this word voyage really has nothing to do with proving or disproving Evolution or finding a "plausible" combination of Evolution and Creation.

My objective is to show you something about the word "Versus" that is beautiful, refreshing, and has application to our lives.

God is definitely not against Darwin. Darwin the man, that is, with a need for greater purpose and an eternal connection. With all that God has done for Man as outlined in Scripture, God has never truly been against Man. Sure, God has had moments of anger and frustration when Man has brought consequences on himself by his disobedient actions, but scripture after scripture and story after story tells of God's desire to give Man another chance and to "raise him up" to something better.

Whether you believe the Scripture to be true or not, the essential and well known Gospel Story is that of a Father so desirous of a whole and healed relationship with Man that He turns over His greatest and purest love - His son - for sacrifice. For those of you with children, how many of you love anything more than those children and would be willing to send your child alone to a small tribal village across the world where they practice cannibalism and genocide to let your child die a tortuous death with the mere possibility that the village could be saved from its murderous preferences and desires? Not too many, I would say.

Everything in God cries out "to be with us" not "against" us. The very term Emmanuel, which has so much application at this upcoming Christmas Season, means "God with us."

God wants to be with us. Apparently, God likes us.

Gasp.

Get down to the real and raw essence of what I just said. Ahem (Clearing my throat, that is.). . . In my best New York by way of South Carolina accent: "Whatcha gonna do 'bout it?" The Man Upstairs likes us. He apparently thinks we're pretty special and cool enough to hang out with.

I didn't write the Scriptures. I didn't create the story. I'm just putting in layman's terms what the whole Bible talks about - over and over and repeatedly. The story goes on and on about how God did this and that to show His love, how He visited this or that person to comfort him or her, how He created this or that miracle to prove His love, and how He gave up (sacrificed) this or that - and ultimately His greatest love, His son - to win even ONE back to His arms.

It is so easy to look at the Bible as a list of rules and regulations and dos and don'ts when really the overriding story is of a God who is totally smitten and in love with a bunch of men and women who are pretty egocentric and repeatedly find reasons to doubt and distrust Him and that love.

To reference a recent topic in Scribe's blog: God's got a bad case of unrequited love.

[As a side note: How nice it must be for Him when He does get to experience rekindled love in one of His creation. In Scripture it says that all of Heaven rejoices with Him when one person realizes how much love has been waiting for him or her all along and comes to His arms by trusting in that love.]

Stop pontificating and finding reasons to push God away. God likes us even when we give Him all kinds of reasons NOT to like us. Get over yourself. Get freed up. You're not "all" that, you never will be, and you don't have to be, and guess what? God is totally in love with you, and He has already proven His love for you. Those two previous sentences alone should be liberating in and of themselves.

God loves you with your bed head, bad breath, moodiness, anger, and all. He's just waiting for you to stop throwing up defense mechanisms as to why you don't need His love or don't want His love. Get over it. He already does love you. Accept it and believe it.

God already proved how much He wants to be with us. He let His son take the fall to regain that privilege for us. . . and for Him.

Please get that: GOD HAS DONE WHAT HE HAS DONE AS MUCH FOR HIM AS FOR US. He is madly and passionately in love with us.

God wants to hang out with you and let you get to know Him too. God wants to be known, Guys! Jesus hung on the Cross so we can hang out with God.

Since when do we turn away new friends, let alone one so well connected?

There is no "versus" in God's heart when it comes to His love for us. That love is absolutely and totally pure and paid the highest cost ever.

There really is no God versus Darwin, because, even with his skewed theory, God was madly and utterly in love with Darwin as His creation....

and that's no "monkeying around."

********************************************************
I said I love plays on words, and there's more that I see in the word "versus."

It's really a continuation on the previous theme of God's love and how He wants to "Verse Us."

That play on the word will have to be saved for a Part Two sometime down the line...

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Comments:
I have reprinted the comments in tact from the original GvD post, except for those that were deleted by the author after leaving them (I think there were three). They contributed nothing to the discussion


Post a Comment On: God Vs. Darwin
"A Play on the Word"
20 Comments - Show Original Post Collapse comments

green said...
Very well done, Esther! We just may need to vote you a full share of the pie...
Monday, November 26, 2007 8:38:00 AM

Esther said...
What's the pie, Green? :)

What flavor?
Monday, November 26, 2007 9:08:00 AM

DaBich said...
Great job, Lady. I love your spin on the "versus" RE: God's love for us. When will we ever learn?
Tuesday, November 27, 2007 1:40:00 AM

scribe said...
Have any of you ever seen "Godzilla Versus the Smog Monster?" Really good use of "versus" in that one.

For the record, I was also a dissenting viewpoint on the title. I had better ones in mind but alas 'twas not my brainchild. Well-written, Esther.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007 12:08:00 PM

Rudy said...
Green, I voted for her to guest post.

Dabich, I love your use of the word "spin" when commenting to a conservative christian. Reminds me of Green's "taking verses out of context" blather.

Esther, That was a nice sermon. Leaves little room for debate, but I'll throw in the usual comments that Xians never give satisfactory answers to. Take your best shot, Esther.

If God loves everyone, why did he tell Israelis to cross the river Jordan and kill ALL the Caananites, even those too old, too sick and too young to offer human sacrifice to their god - too young to believe in, or worship their false idol. I see it as Isreal's excuse for genocide and infanticide. If it's not that, then I see an evil god that I would rather not worship. And I fail to see love in that act. Plus there's that erased from the book of life send you to Hell stuff. If he loves us that much when we're on earth, just imagine how much "love" he'll have when you move in with him forever and ever and ever. Almost every myth has a "loving" god. This one seems to be one of the most horrific.

Everyone and their uncle: I think more people should be asked to guest post. Not just xians, but those on the dusty trail to Hell.

My vision is going to Hell. I'll post on my own blog now and then, but I think two blogs is too much now.

Don't nobody kill any Girgashites.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007 12:55:00 PM

Althea said...
I have to echo Rudy's sentiment. Very eloquent.

Howsoever...

Stop pontificating and finding reasons to push God away.

Something about a pot, a kettle, and a shade that isn't a colour. Since the subject of vocab has been broached:

pontificate: to speak in a pompous or dogmatic manner.

In any case, it's not personal. It's strange how what I see as letting go of a duplicitous concept: naively formed, poorly based, and highly abused series of ideas, someone else may see as their best friend being slapped in the face. That's the danger in having amorphous friends whose existence can be denied, I guess.

You phrase your arguments as though the existence of 'god' (assuming there's commonality between diff't ppls meaning of that one word) is an obvious truth. Yet, where's the proof? A bunch of ancient documents, that contain biased details of events that may or may not have happened? Your own personal experiences extended to encompass the experience of all living creatures?

What I would ask you to consider, what I would ask any other Xians who are feeling sated with righteousness at reading this post to consider is this:

Pretend that you are an android-type of alien being, substantially similar to humans in terms of biologicial and neurological tendencies (e.g. need for affection, inclusion etc) who has never heard of 'God' of 'Heaven' of 'religion' of 'spirituality' and, by and large, has gotten along alright in life and in the universe to date. How would the following sound to you?

God likes us even when we give Him all kinds of reasons NOT to like us.

Those two previous sentences alone should be liberating in and of themselves.

God wants to be with us. Apparently, God likes us.

GOD HAS DONE WHAT HE HAS DONE AS MUCH FOR HIM AS FOR US. He is madly and passionately in love with us.

God wants to hang out with you and let you get to know Him too. God wants to be known, Guys!

There is no "versus" in God's heart when it comes to His love for us. That love is absolutely and totally pure and paid the highest cost ever.

Would it sound like fact? Or would it sound like something that's just a little too convenient (as far as the psychological desires of social entities are concerned) to be fact?

The point I'm trying to get across, I guess, is not that "Believing in god is stupid, give it up, get over yourself," but rather that you don't have to have faith in a figure thought of as 'god' to have faith in yourself, principles, the future, and the universe.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007 5:08:00 PM

Althea said...
Or know love and comfort in an existential sense.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007 5:11:00 PM

Hot Lemon said...
maaan, that wuz tastee!! I have yet another suggestion: convert to Pastafarianism. It's an easy path to follow and Heaven is full of beer volcanoes!!

who's first to weigh in on whipping lil' ol' lady schoolteachers for naming teddy bears after the Prophet Muhammed?
Thursday, November 29, 2007 8:11:00 AM

Jason Hughes said...
Esther, you say 'Get over yourself. Get freed up. You're not "all" that, you never will be, and you don't have to be, and guess what? God is totally in love with you, and He has already proven His love for you. Those two previous sentences alone should be liberating in and of themselves."

I know we're nothing special, but in a strange twist, you seem to think that abasing yourself to a god makes you more special. In fact, you're advocating that we're so damn special god killed his kid for us--or, at the very least, allowed his kid to participate in some Roman-assisted suicide...

So how can it be both? How can we be "not all that" and still be worth the death of a god?

There's a glaring dis-logicity here...
Thursday, November 29, 2007 2:30:00 PM

scribe said...
Yeah, it's funny isn't it? On one hand we are miserable wretches but on the other we have these grande destiny that places us above the angels as god's favored creations. more schizo behavior.

but let's simply explain away the inconsistencies with the illusion of "free will" that comes with only 2 choices & the intangible concept that mankind disappoints its creator and must be punished instead of rehabiliated. Why? Because of that pesky free will!
Friday, November 30, 2007 11:34:00 AM

green said...

Jason: In a nutshell (well, not so much) here's the point that Esther has made:

God knows we're not perfect. God knows that we can be ugly, grumpy, irritable and unloveable. But he loves us anyway!

You see:

When God created the first humans, Adam and Eve, they were perfect in every way. Which is to say without sin and able to enjoy a personal, face to face relationship with God for eternity. When they disobeyed God, they immediately died spiritually - no longer able to enjoy the relationship that they once had - and eventually died physically. Death and disease entered the human condition at this point and has been passed on through the generations ever since.

God, being perfect, can not tolerate sin because it is contrary to His nature (there's a lot more to that, but not now).
In the sinful state humans are now in, it is impossible for us to enjoy the fellowship with God that He intended from the beginning of creation.

No matter how hard we try, no matter how good we are, no matter if we lead the most noble life here on earth we still are separated from God because of that sin. We can do nothing to earn our way into heaven and into God's presence. We can no more throw a stone across the ocean than get into heaven on our own merit.

But God had a plan from the start, first mentioned in Genesis 3:15 and all throughout the Old Testament --

Finding its fulfillment in the New Testament:

The only one who could bridge that gap for us was God himself.

How exactly did God bridge that gap?

After Adam and Eve sinned, God declared that the shedding of blood was the only way to cleanse a person from sin. Killing yourself and offering your own blood just didn't work (hardly practical), so substitute sacrifices were used. This is where the Jewish Temple ritual of animal sacrifice came in. However these blood sacrifices were only a temporary fix and needed to be repeated over and over again.

Enter into the picture, Jesus, who is God in human form. Jesus mission here on earth was to become a permanent blood sacrifice for the sins of all mankind. This sacrifice was accomplished at the cross, when Jesus was crucified in 30 AD. The act of redeeming humans was now complete.

Jesus' resurrection offers solid proof that Jesus is who he claimed to be and guarantees that we too may enjoy fellowship again with God, if we only accept that Jesus came, died and rose again on our behalf.

Simple faith and the declaration of it is all it takes.

But that doesnt mean that Christians are exempt from sin. On the contrary, we are not. The difference comes in this:

When God looks at me now, instead of seeing my sins, He sees the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross instead, as the substitute for a debt (sin) that I could not pay.

Therefore, one day I will be able to enjoy the presence of God in creation, as it was meant to be, for eternity. Of this I am guaranteed, because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life, who comes into your life the instant you accept Jesus as your personal savior.

Why did God do this?

The simplicity and beauty of the gospel message is summed up in that God did not have to provide a substitution for the sins of mankind. But God loves us so much and wants to fellowship with us so much that He did just that (see Romans 5:8) by being the sacrifice Himself.

Do me a favor, ok? Go find yourself a Bible (I know you can!) and read the following verses:

Romans 3:23
Romans 6:23
John 3:3
John 14:6
Romans 10:9-11
Revelation 3:20
John 3:16-18
Romans 5:6-10

After reading these verses, ask yourself these questions:

Are you a sinner?
Do you want forgiveness of your sins?
Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross for you and rose again?
Are you willing to surrender yourself to Christ?
Are you ready to invite Jesus into your heart and into yourlife?

If the answer to these questions is YES, then all you need to do is pray to God, acknowledging that you are a sinner and that you cannot get into heaven on your own. Ask Him for forgiveness from your sins and accept the sacrifice that He made for YOU.

God promises that all those who seek Him will find Him, and he will turn away no one. God does indeed love us and want to be with us. All we have to do is ask him to come into our lives and He will. Change will not come overnight and it is a long, gradual process. But it is a journey that is well worth the taking.
Friday, November 30, 2007 11:34:00 AM

Jason Hughes said...
And the dis-logicity continues...

Green, you said: When God created the first humans, Adam and Eve, they were perfect in every way. Which is to say without sin and able to enjoy a personal, face to face relationship with God for eternity. When they disobeyed God, they immediately died spiritually - no longer able to enjoy the relationship that they once had - and eventually died physically. Death and disease entered the human condition at this point and has been passed on through the generations ever since.

IF they were perfect, they wouldn't have sinned. IF they were naive, and didn't know right from wrong, then they can not be held responsible for "disobeying," as they didn't know it would be wrong to do so. IF this "sin" nature they we inherited is directly responsible for, and I quote, "death and disease," are you saying god didn't create viruses and bacteria until AFTER the fall of man? The not everything was created in those first six days...

You also said: God, being perfect, can not tolerate sin because it is contrary to His nature (there's a lot more to that, but not now).

Therefore, God, being assumed perfect, could not have possibly created anything IMPERFECT, as, creating an imperfect thing shows truly he wasn't perfect, for how can perfection create imperfection? Even free will would have been "PERFECT," meaning, we would have been free to only choose GOOD things among a plethora of GOOD choices if such a perfect creator were to have existed and indeed engaged in a creation process...

You also said: In the sinful state humans are now in, it is impossible for us to enjoy the fellowship with God that He intended from the beginning of creation.

Love should be more than good intentions...

Now I'm going to skip the doctrinal mumbo-jumbo as it's nothing new and nothing I once upon a sad time in my life also preached to get to the nutshell of your little "salvation" message...

When you said: Jesus' resurrection offers solid proof that Jesus is who he claimed to be and guarantees that we too may enjoy fellowship again with God, if we only accept that Jesus came, died and rose again on our behalf.

Thus, your god amounts to nothing more than conditional love, and "proof" has no place in the realm of faith and belief in sky daddy, meaning that god's "intentions" aren't about us at all, or our sin nature, but ultimately for his ego. "I need props for you to be saved" ISN'T something I subscribe to any longer... I'm ashamed to admit that I once did...

In your grand finale, I'm sure you thought these were grand clinching points, "deep" questions I'm assuming you think I never thought through before, but just in case you actually DO think that these questions have never entered my mind, I will answer them for you, that you may rest easy in thinking you have fulfilled your Christian duty...

1. Are you a sinner? No. Sin is an arbitrary concept that changes with the rules and whims of man as his social evolution swings and whirls around us.

2. Do you want forgiveness of your sins? I have done nothing for which I haven't already been forgiven from those who I felt I had wronged (and sometimes who felt I had wronged them), and these, my fellow humans, are the only opinions that matter--not your invisible, imaginary "god" or his followers...

3. Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross for you and rose again? I believe that HE thought he was doing this--you got to admire that level of crazy, really... And that he rose again? LOL! That's a very firm NO. He didn't. No one ever has, no one ever will... Well, except those that get that need electric shock from the pads the EMT's are always running around with... Could it not be said that they ALSO rose from the dead? When is dead a sticking point anyway? How long do you have to be dead to count as "rising" from it...?

4. Are you willing to surrender yourself to Christ?

I surrender to no man.

5. Are you ready to invite Jesus into your heart and into your life?

Whether I like it or not, his followers are in my life. The only thing in my "heart" is blood vessels and muscle.

Oh, and the bible verses? Sad to say, most of them I still know by heart even after being outside of the brain washing circus these many years... Some things never get scrubbed clean...

Sell crazy some place else. We're all filled up here... (Can anybody name that movie? Start Jeopardy tune...)

Do-do-do-dooooooo, do-do-dooooooo....
Friday, November 30, 2007 2:29:00 PM

Althea said...
Pff. Too easy Jase.

That would have to be As Good As It Gets.

Kudos on the well-timededness of that quote.

The only thing that I can really add at this point is: I've been born once. That's enough for this incarnation.

But I'm more than happy to take on Green's "Can you read nominated bits of the Bible and retain a non-contradictory and non-black & white view?" challenge. Results pending.
Friday, November 30, 2007 4:46:00 PM

Rudy said...
This quote has been floating around the internet since Ann Coulter announced that Al Gore claims that he invented the internet:
Christianity- The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie named Jesus who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.

Christianity in a nutshell.
Friday, November 30, 2007 8:32:00 PM

scribe said...
I love how Christians always seem to think nobody has researched their beliefs or their book when they argue their point. As if none of those who argue against them could be former Christians themselves.
Saturday, December 01, 2007 5:32:00 AM

Lui said...
"Are you a sinner?
Do you want forgiveness of your sins?
Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross for you and rose again?
Are you willing to surrender yourself to Christ?
Are you ready to invite Jesus into your heart and into yourlife?"

The disturbing thing is that you actually think someone will find this compelling.

"God promises that all those who seek Him will find Him, and he will turn away no one."

To be sure that we're on the same track, will you please confirm the following?

A person who has never deliberately hurt everyone, who understands the need for compassion and helps others when he can, but who happens not to believe in God because he finds the tenets of religion to be bat-shit crazy will be rejected by your all-loving God.

But Augusto Pinochet, who presided over a repressive state apparatus consisting over the secret police, the regular police and the military which routinely used torture, murder and rape, will not be rejected because he was a devout Christian (and he was; he turned deeply religious at a young age when he recovered from a near fatal illness). There was a saying: "In Chile, there are only three sources of power: Pinochet, DINA [the secret police], and God."

Just so we're on the right track.

All that stuff about Adam and Eve doesn't fly either, because Adam and Eve never existed. Humanity is reckoned by the best available science to be about 200,000 years old, but let's assume that it's 100,000 years. This is what Christopher Hitchens, roughly, had to say about that: God looked at the inter-tribal warfare in our species in which women were kidnapped and resources plundered, in which human beings suffered from and died from diseases they knew almost noting about, that they were hunted by large predators near water holes, that we were often at the mercy of the weather; and then, much later on, when civilisation arrived on the scene, emperors and their underlings had giant harems of women, where the powers that be could execute someone for criticising the king, and where wars were waged in which prisoners of war were killed or worse, and where tying a cat to a rope and burning it alive were considered forms of entertainment. And God watched all this happening, for 98,000 years, and only two thousand years ago did he think to himself "I think it's time to intervene."
Sunday, December 02, 2007 9:08:00 PM


Althea said...
Nice Rudy. And also Scribe.

Green, I have read the passages you nominated, and have emerged with the following beliefs:

1) The Bible is a very interesting piece of historical literature.
2) The Bible, in all likelihood, retains little more than a grain of truth, if only due to the extent to which it's been updated and upgraded for the needs of the average user.
3) Along the vein of 2), the Bible is really, really set-up to prey on the desperate.
4) The individual who recommends reading passages in the Bible as a way to be 'saved' hasn't read Denial of Death or any number of other quality books that clearly demonstrates what the Bible does not: The Almighty Power of Cause And Effect.

Somewhat short of a full-on conversion, in other words, but an interesting exercise nonetheless.
Monday, December 03, 2007 7:28:00 AM
 
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