Sometimes HATE Feels Like LOVE

Introduction

     People love to hate, but I would assert that it isn't our natural tendency.  From an early age, we are told what is right and wrong.  This alone would be great; all people need a sort of moral compass taught to them when they are too young to understand the world around them, but we are also told to hang out with the "right" people and avoid the "wrong" people.  Since these values are taught at such a young age, they are ingrained in us; this creates the false illusion that hate is love.  The reality of this is that, for many of us, hate feels just like love.

Willful Ignorance: The Plague of Christianity

     A major issue that is plaguing Christianity today is willful ignorance.  Willful ignorance is defined by the Urban Dictionary as, "The practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded [arguments] because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs." (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=willful%20ignorance)  Ignorance in itself is not wrong; it is actually impossible not to be ignorant because ignorance is just not knowing something.  Willful ignorance is knowing that you don't know something and refusing to learn about it.  Many Christians today believe that willful ignorance is something holy and that you must be ignorant in order to love God.  They will deny fact and say things such as, "If it's not in the Bible, then I don't believe it!" or "I will not read or listen to anything outside of God's word!".  It's just too bad that they believe that God and his words are limited to the Bible.  Do they not know that all knowledge is knowledge because God made it to be so?  Do they not understand that if they believe in the Bible, then the world around them is all God's words that came into being*?
     If you are truly reading the Bible, then you should know that knowledge is something that we are told to attain.  We are told to seek knowledge and to be wise**.  Many Christians would claim that Paul tells us to forsake knowledge and love***, but he tells us that Jesus is the embodiment of knowledge<>.  Are we to forsake Jesus?  What is happening in Christianity today is that many people are missing the point when Paul forsakes knowledge in the wake of love.  What he is saying is that we are not to use knowledge to make ourselves feel important, but we are to love others and build them up.  He further explains this when he claims that knowledge without love is nothing, however, he doesn't say that you cannot have knowledge along with love.  His point in saying all of this is that if you are standing on knowledge alone, you will fall because people will reject you.  What is knowledge if you cannot share it?  However, if you have love, then people will listen and you will have solid ground to stand on and share your knowledge.
     What Christians need to realize is that knowledge is a part of God because He created it and when they abandon knowledge; they are abandoning a part of God.  How could we know things if God had not first given us the ability to?  I will continue to do everything I can to learn because the more I learn, the closer I get to God!

*Genesis 1

**Nearly all of Proverbs

***1 Corinthians 13:7 & 8:1

<>Colossians 2:2-3

The Creation Account and The Big Bang

     If you look into what science and Christianity have to say about the origins of the world, then you may be surprised and you may realize that there must be a God. In the big bang theory everything began as a small dense fourth dimensional mass which can be seen as in the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth. God is timeless and so is the fourth dimension according to most science fiction writers; coincidence? I think not. Science doesn't know what cause this immensely dense fourth dimensional mass to expand(not explode), but they do know that the reason it did is because somehow light began to separate from the mass causing many chemical reactions. The Bible states that God said, "Let there be light". How would early Christians know that light came first without access to the amazing science that we have today unless God clued them in on it? Then the Bible says that God separated the waters of the Heavens from the waters of the Earth, thus the Heavens and the Earth separated and grew apart as the universe expanded. But wait, there is even more to these theories. Science states next that there was so much heat from the expansion of all of the molecules that the light was muffled by a dense fog-like state of the molecules and light would not return again until the sun and stars were formed. This explains why the Bible recreates the separation of light from dark and God creates the sun, stars and moon. As the stars appeared in Science everything began to cool and thus planets were formed. I don't think that it is a coincidence that everything lines up almost perfectly with the Bible. How could early Hebrews know the order that science has determined the world came to be in without divine enlightenment from God? I don't think they could have.  These are my thoughts on the topic and I know the two theories don't fit together perfectly, but they are close enough that you have to wonder how the Hebrews could have gotten so close without our modern advances.

     Genesis 1

Defending Christianity With Other Beliefs

    When someone questions, denies, or attacks your beliefs you are to defend them if you are a Christian*.  In order to defend your beliefs, you must know what the other person is saying about your beliefs.  To know what the other person is saying about your beliefs, you must know what they believe.  To know what they believe, you must research the ideas of their beliefs.  If you do not do this, then they will not listen to you because you will not be able to defend your beliefs against theirs.  Once you do know what they believe and the main points of their beliefs, then you will be able to have a conversation with them without looking(and sounding) like a fool.  Many Christians today would avoid everything about other religions at all costs because they believe that even discussing them will lead to confusion and the dangers of "falling off the path".  They believe that learning about these religions is a sin because you are somehow denying God.  These are the same Christians who are generally sola scriptura and they have no idea that they are denying the Bible by refusing to learn about other religions*.  The scripture reference that you will find on the bottom of this post tells us to always be ready to defend our faith, but to do it with care and respect.  This doesn't mean to tell them that we claim our faith because of something in the Bible or something that we have experienced.  Why, because they don't believe in the Bible and are not going to start because we can quote a scripture and if we try to use our own experiences they will write us off as crazy.  Once you realize this, you may ask what else you can do.  You can research their beliefs and find out what makes their beliefs so appealing to them.  Show them the common points in your beliefs and how they tell the same story and how their beliefs actually point to yours because that will affect them a lot more than mindless quoting of scripture.  Now you may ask how you would stay respectful and kind in doing this.  My answer is that you present your common points and show them that you understand where they are coming from and then explain how the Bible shows where everything adds up in the gray areas of their texts.  This won't offend them and the worst that could happen is they think their beliefs suit them better and then you can still talk to them regularly and gain a new perspective on the world.  Another way to share your faith is to not be disgruntled or angry when it is questioned.  So many Christians fall into the trap of non-Christians and get angry, defensive, and confrontational when their beliefs are disrespected or questioned.  Instead of going into a frenzy and trying to throw scripture at the attacker, defend your faith by showing that it is real.  How do you do that?  You do not get angry and throw insults back, you respectfully disagree and either move on or do as I have instructed above.

Lets face it, you cannot defend God, convincingly. You can offer explanations and all that but the truth is no one is bound or obliged to believe how you think your God is good. To an atheist, a Muslim praising his God, a Buddhist praising Buddha and a Christian praising Jesus is all the same.  Most atheists display a remarkable ignorance of faith and its inner working. And so very often if you are going to quote your bible, my bet is it is not going to work because to the atheist it is a “crap load of fabricated stories”.

 Regardless of what you believe, he is entitled to his opinion. But my point is, do not step into something you can not achieve, and that is you can not defend God and the truth is you are never asked in the scriptures to defend God. There is a difference, you are called to show how God changed your life. Don’t be pissed off, do not be angered, frustrating as it may be, do not give into it. God is more than adequate to defend himself, for that he doesn’t need you. But your faith is something that only you can defend and that is something you should always remember.

Read more:  http://johnadavid.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/defend-your-faith-not-god/

 

    The Bible calls us to defend our faith and argument against that are not Biblical.  Some will say that the word of God doesn't need to be defended, but in defining what the word of God is you are defending it.  If someone asks you what exactly the word of God is and you tell them it is the Bible, then you have just defended the stance that the Bible is the word of God.  If you claim that someone talked into faith can be talked out of faith and use that as a defense against reasoning someone into believing in God, then you need to read 1 Corinthians 15, for in it Paul gives reason for believing in Christ**.

Those who oppose these clear biblical teachings and examples may say, "The Word of God does not need to be defended!"  But which of the world's writings are the Word of God?  As soon as someone answers that, he is doing apologetics.  Some claim that human reason cannot tell us anything about God-but that statement itself is a "reasonable" statement about God.  If it's not, then there is no reason to believe it.  A favorite saying is, "If someone can talk you into Christianity, then someone else can talk you out."  Why is this a problem?  Did not Paul himself give a criterion (the resurrection) by which Christianity should be accepted or rejected in 1 Corinthians 15?  It is only misplaced piety that answers in the negative.

Read more: http://www.gotquestions.org/defend-faith.html#ixzz2wnPOM2wf 

    There are countless other passages that would reinforce reason in the Bible and if you need more, feel free to ask me.

     *1 Peter 3:15 - "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord.  Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect," New International Version

     **1 Corinthians 15