DMP Mini Leader and Intelligent
Design
From: Ron Bishop
Mr. Moore,
I enjoy reading your columns. Steve Jobs may be ambiguous about
his religious beliefs, but the DMP (DealMac Project) Mini Leader
recently "saw the light"....
http://homepage.mac.com/krbishop/comiclife/index.html
- Part 1. DMP Presents: Tales of the Insanely Great
- Part 2. DMP Presents: Tales of the Insanely Great, Too
For further information on the DealMac Project:
http://homepage.mac.com/pronaholic2/dmp/
Ron Bishop
Hi Ron,
Thanks for the comments and links.
Going up the in the next mailbag.
Charles
RELIGION ALERT: If religious discussion offends you, time to
stop scrolling. Since I'm aware that some readers are not enchanted
by discussion of religious topics on Mac Websites, I am
accommodating their sensibilities with this convenient Bypass Religious Discussion link, which will safely
transport you back to the Low End Mac home page where you can find
a huge selection of exclusively Mac or IT-related topics. CM
Great Article
From Sam Kawesa
Hi Charles
Thanks for your article on Steve Jobs' speech. I listened to it
through a website whose link I forgot. I downloaded it and listened
to it with my wife and kids (14, 12, 10, and 8 years old). We
wanted to show our kids that it's not how you start this race but
how you end it. Encouraging as Steve's speech was, the same
questions you had came up, and we had to explain to the kids what
the real truth is. Your article came in as a help to this end -
thanks.
This is not the first time you have professed your faith in your
writings, and though I forget the last topic when your confessions
were made, you were unmercifully attacked then also. Even then, you
stood your ground. I love perusing your website if for nothing but
the kinship I feel when I click on Low End Mac.
In your article you said:
"Not so long ago, most people died at home - not
out of sight in hospitals or nursing homes. Death and dying were
witnessed firsthand by most people, even the very young. Remains
were customarily laid out in the family home, not the remote
institutional setting of a funeral parlor. It wasn't unheard of for
relatives to participate in preparing a body for burial."
Actually, that is still true in other places, and yes it brings
love back to the dying. It is a very Christian way of saying
good-bye to a person, say after a long battle with AIDS, cancer,
and what have you. I am Christian originally from Uganda, and so I
guess I also tend to "put all of the elements of Uganda-brand
Christian dogma into . . . sentences for pomp and
ambiguity."
Whatever that means, Christy, talk about ambiguity.
In the West, the baby is welcomed with pomp by parents, but in
the last hours of life, usually there are no loved ones in sight
and the majority die looking at hospital gadgetry and white walls.
Maybe that's why Steve has such a view of death and dying.
Hey, I am neither Canadian nor American (I live in America), but
if I were Chinese, Arab, Indonesian, Sudanese, or any other
Christian, I would be happily guilty as charged. As a teenager, my
wife and her whole church languished in one of Idi Amin's jails for
three months charged with the threat of death for being Christians
associated with a Canadian/American church. They stood their ground
and were released (a rare occurrence under Amin). So I encourage
you to stand your ground even on a technical website like yours.
After all, do we have anything that we have not been
given?
I am a pharmacist addicted to Macs, and I find myself many times
defending my faith to other healthcare professionals. It helps me
and trains me to defend the Mac, too, in a Windows world. You don't
have to publish this reply, because I realise it's long, It's just
to encourage and support you.
Keep on and God bless,
Sam Kawesa RPh
Serving Him Thru
Tech
Hi Sam,
Thank you for the excellent letter so full of wise observations
and insights (at least I think so). :-)
I do endeavor to stay on topic 99% of the time while writing for
Mac websites, but if comments by Steve Jobs are not topical subject
matter, I don't know what is.
I'm delighted to hear that you found the article interesting and
helpful.
Charles
Respect
From: "John R. Helms
Hello Charles,
I would like to rebut Christy's remarks to a certain degree
here. I am on most political issues an extreme liberal. As one who
lives too geographically close to Pat Robertson to control my gag
reflex at the uttering of the word Christian from time to time, I
have to take issue with the insulting tone of her letter.
In my experience (I've read your column weekly for almost two
years) I've never seen any truly inappropriate use of this forum to
discuss politics or religion. Many columns do discuss these topics,
but there has always (if memory serves) been a disclaimer in the
topic headings. So, when I have been in too bad of a mood to even
consider reading political or religious opinions that differ from
my own . . . I just don't scroll that far down.
While I would personally not hold it against you to express your
political/religious views throughout your columns, I feel the need
to point out that you have shown great restraint in this
regard.
Part of the problem with the tone of religious conservatives in
my part of the world is that they have rather a lack of tolerance.
Sadly, this too seems to be Christy's (and many of my liberal
friends) problem. If you wish to be accepted and respected as a
person with unusual or no religious beliefs, it is important that
you accept and respect people who have dogmatic or even more
unusual religious beliefs . . . no matter how much it
galls you sometimes to do so. We are all people worthy of respect
as individuals.
As regards your technical expertise: In my experience, when
confronted with a question beyond your understanding you always own
up to this and submit the question to the readers of the column for
a solution. I am of the opinion that this is a great service to
your readers. Furthermore, your readers are a savvy lot who do not
seem to hold back when they spot a technical error in your column
or in other readers' letters. This forum is not free Apple
technical support. I think most of us know that and take it for
what it is.
Thank you for all of your work . . . even the
political and religious stuff that annoys me to no end.
JH
Hi John,
While it appears that our religious and political views are
widely divergent, we are on the same page when a comes to the need
for respect, civility, and tolerance.
It is unfortunate that Christianity has become associated in so
many people's minds, with intolerance. If one examines carefully
the principles of functional Christian belief, the opposite would
obtain.
To give a concrete example, when the Christian church pioneered
the establishment and operation of hospitals in the Western world,
they were open to anyone, not just Christians. The same would apply
today in many relief efforts operated by Christian organizations in
the less developed world.
That is not to say that tensions are not inevitable,
particularly on issues of public morality, some of which literally
involve life and death questions.
However, it is crucial to always regard even our ideological
adversaries as fellow human beings worthy of dignity and respect.
Unfortunately, the culture wars, as with other forms of human
conflict, tend to have a coarsening effect on even the best of us,
so the ideals of civility sometimes fall by the wayside. The best
we can do is to try to practice them to the best of our
ability.
Charles
Absolutely Brilliant
From Jack
Charles.
Just read your "bon voyage" reply to Christy. Absolutely
brilliant! Never have I read such a well thought out and
delivered rebuttal. Bravo! I will continue to read you as
long as you publish.
Sincerely,
Jack Buccellato
Hi Jack,
Thanks for reading and for the positive comment.
Christy is, of course, entitled to her opinion, and I have no
problem at all with her disagreeing with me. What I found mildly
annoying was her supercilious attitude.
Charles
Regarding the 'Farewell to LEM" Retort
From Dan Harmon
Mr. Moore you have done it again.
This was absolutely priceless:
"Ergo, your broad brush ad hominem critique of my
general intelligence and insight, well beyond the topic at hand. So
typical. Surely no one gullible and unsophisticated enough to
actually believe the Christian Gospel could possibly have a lucid
and analytical grasp of much of anything."
Very nicely done Charles. The only thing missing was the
hand emote at the end, but frankly after reading that
powerful response you didn't need it.
Take care,
Dan Harmon
Hi Dan,
Thank you for the thumbs up. I guess my response reflects some
35 years of being involved in Christian apologetics and having
encountered critiques like Christy's with monotonous frequency.
Charles
Insecurity and Doubt
From: Viswakarma
Dear Mr. Moore,
I read your commentary on Steve Jobs' Stanford University
Commencement Address and the letters from your readers. I am not
surprised at the content of either your commentary or that of the
letters. All of them show the limited world of the Desert
Religions. There is something wrong with the Desert Religions and
their practitioners. They have to wear their religion on their
sleeves and talk about it at every occasion. This shows a sense of
insecurity and doubt about the religions they practice.
Sincerely,
Viswakarma
Hi Viswakarma,
Thanks for your comments.
I can't speak for the other desert religions, but Christians are
instructed by Christ's Great Commission to "Go into all the world
and preach the gospel to the whole creation." (Mark 16:14) and by
the Apostle Paul to "Preach the word, be urgent in season and out
of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience
and in teaching" (2 Tim. 4:2)
Charles
From Viswakarma
Dear Mr. Moore,
Thanks for your reply.
There lies the problem. Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified and
became a martyr, and his disciples were all born in the desert and
moved around the desert. They have not seen anything beyond the
desert of the middle east. There is a much larger world out
there.
The practitioners of Judeo-Christian-Islamic follow books,
written by some "xyz" as to what God "told" them. Basically this is
second- or even third-hand information. Books are static. The world
is dynamic. Anybody who follows a book essentially should live in
the environment and time where and when the books were written.
They are not fit to live in more connected and diverse.
More atrocities were committed and more people were killed by
the followers of Jesus of Nazareth and Mohammed than anybody
else.
I think the Christians have a lot of issues. Their whole
religion starts with "sin". When you tell people that they are born
sinners, they end up with very low self-esteem and psychological
problems. They have to constantly prove to themselves that they are
better than others and end up being slave owners, child molesters,
rapists, murderers, war mongers. In general, they create more havoc
in the world than anybody else. It is the so-called Christians who
killed Jews, Gypsies, and others by the millions; dropped the
atomic bombs on innocent civilians; fire-bombed Dresden where the
innocent German women, children, and sick took shelter; and
pillaged colonies in Africa, Americas, and Asia. Look at the
atrocities committed by these Christians on the natives of the
Americas. The list goes on and on.
There are a whole lot of wisdom that comes from the Eastern
world, that the Christians need to take heed -
- A frog that is at the bottom of a well has a very limited view
of the world.
- One has to keep one's bottom clean before he/she cleans
others.
There is much more wisdom out in the world on how to live in
harmony with one's neighbors and surroundings than can be contained
between the two covers of a "book".
Sincerely,
Viswakarma
Hi again Viswakarma,
Christians believe that Jesus Christ is not only a martyr, but
is God who created the universe (John 1:3 "All things were made by
him; and without him was not any thing made that was made"), so
from our perspective your assertion that Jesus was limited in
vision and experience seems rather quaint.
And, of course, the Christian position on this rests on faith.
The essence of the Christian faith focuses on the person of Christ.
If Christ was God Incarnate, as the Christian Church has maintained
for two millennia, then there is no possibility that evolution will
ever produce a greater human being than Him, and no moral or
philosophical progress past His teachings will be possible either.
If Christ is who he claimed to be, then his authority over creation
and everyone in it is absolute.
The sentimental notion that Christ was merely a charismatic
teacher of nice ideas about love and human brotherhood simply
doesn't stand up to critical scrutiny. On the basis of Jesus' own
sayings recorded in the Bible (outside of that we know little of
Him at all) we are faced with a clear-cut set of alternatives:
Jesus was either a madman with paranoiac delusions, or he was
indeed who he said he was.
No founder of any other significant religion ever claimed that
he was, in his own person, the One True Living God. Mohammed
didn't. Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) didn't. Ali Muhammad (the Bab)
didn't. Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri (Baha'u'llah) didn't. Lao-tzu didn't.
Only Jesus Christ claimed to save the world because he himself was
God, and that he had personally defeated sin and death. The
quintessential Christian challenge is: "What think ye of Christ?" -
"Who do you say that I am?"
If Jesus was not God and there was no literal resurrection, then
all of Christianity is a fraud and not worth bothering with. If he
was God and did rise, as Christians believe, that changes the
complexion of things enormously.
And you are correct that sin is the central focus and raison
d'etre of Christian belief. Humanity wrestling with sin is the
dominant theme of the Christian Bible from Genesis chapter three
through Revelation. The problem of sin was the whole reason for God
incarnating himself as a man. Jesus himself sweated blood in his
struggle with the original sin that was part of the human nature he
took on, and he was the only human being in history to be
successful at defeating it. ("For we have not an high priest which
cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in
all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." - Hebrews
4:15)
However, you are sorely mistaken in your notion that functional,
faithful Christians imagine that they are better than others. Even
St. Paul, who described himself as "the chief of sinners"
lamented:
- "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I
see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my
members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So
then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the
flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7: 22-25)
You are correct that those who perpetrated the atrocities you
cite were/are "so-called Christians". Anyone can call himself a
Christian, and being in captivity to the law of sin, as Paul noted,
we will all fail to live up to the Christian standard to some
degree, but that is an indictment of sin, not of Christianity.
A very wise friend of mine, who spent most of his life serving
as a missionary in Africa, commented this week,
- "What God has, and what we have, is the Church that actually is
and has been for the last 20 centuries, and it has fallen very far
short of any ideal . . . 'Worldliness' in its widest
possible sense - including striving for political power - has
infected the visible historical Church almost from the earliest
days. (Perhaps from the earliest days if we consider Ananias and
Sapphira.) The Church's history is the history of an institution
that in many ways has been utterly worldly and unspiritual and
unbelievably unChristlike. Perhaps marginally better than
institutions outside the Church, but that is no excuse. Of course
the Church has also included innumerable men, women, children,
clergy, and even popes of great holiness of life, but that does not
alter the fact that the Church as a visible organisation in
many ways has been terribly wicked. However, catholics would say
that even so it is still the Bride of Christ and Christ cannot have
any other Bride . . . There is an ancient collect which
summarises the catholic position beautifully: 'O God of
unchangeable power and eternal light, look favourably on thy whole
Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; and by the tranquil
operation of thy perpetual providence carry out the work of man's
salvation; and let the whole world feel and see that things which
were cast down are being raised up, and those which had grown old
are being made new, and that all things are being brought to
perfection through him from whom they took their origin, even
through our Lord Jesus Christ.'"
I have nothing useful to add to that.
Thanks for the discussion, which hopefully serves to enhance
mutual understanding, if not agreement.
Charles
Self-Evident Truths
From Alarik W. Skarstrom
Dear Charles,
I've been following your discussion and am finally moved to
participate. Thanks in advance for the hearing.
The truth of Christianity (by which I mean the Christianity you
espouse) is self-evident only to those for whom the truth of
Christianity is already self-evident. The problem is that once this
truth becomes self-evident it is, by definition, superior to all
other truths. I assume that all sincere fundamentalist Christians
of whatever stripe must believe that the truth of their faith
trumps human systems, which would include philosophical,
scientific, legal, and political systems.
To the degree that is the case, to that degree many would see
the articles of their faith as essentially superior to all other
sorts of articles. How one is to reconcile that to, say, the
articles of the Constitution I do not know. Why should church and
state be separate if the former represents a higher truth? Is it
only a constitutional habit in America? One that we could or
perhaps should get over?
One could distinguish, I suppose, substance and process. That
is, the state would be about process, procedure; the "church"
(meaning here the one true faith, whichever it happens to be) about
substance. Liken it to a jury trial, where the jury system is the
procedure, but the verdict is the substantive conclusion or truth,
which is the ultimate purpose of the process. But 1) that sort of
distinction is perhaps a mere legalism, and 2) it still leaves the
truth of faith in a superior position - it is, after all, the
verdict. More significantly, given this superiority there is no
reason, no rationale, apart from the fact that it is in the
Constitution, to separate church and state. If "church" is true and
right then they ought not to be separate.
I do not understand how the true believer can believe in the
separation of church and state. And indeed, if you look at
countries and nations where there is no constitutionally mandated
separation, there is indeed no other sort of separation; hence, the
theocracies.
I think, Charles, that is the inevitable logic that underlies
much of the inarticulate resistance of the non-Christians you
encounter. The position to which you adhere - by definition - puts
you in a superior position, and it is from that view, sub
species aeternitatis, that you appear to view the rest of us.
You know more about our possible redemption, or lack thereof, than
we do. It is troubling, indeed, irritating to know that others view
one this way. It has a look of arrogance and autocracy that makes
those who are the objects of such looks angry and resentful. The
non-Christian does not prosper under the yoke of disapproval in
quite the same way that, say, the "primitive Church" did (as you
know, by primitive I mean the evangelical church of the early
Christians).
I will leave it at that.
Thank you for the web site, which I have always enjoyed.
Regards,
Alarik W. Skarstrom
Hi Alarik,
Thank you for the thought-provoking, insightful, as eloquently
articulated observations.
As Pontius Pilate rhetorically queried Jesus, "What is
truth?
Whether it is objectively true that Jesus Christ rose from the
dead or not is more than a theological question. If Jesus didn't
rise on Easter morning, then Christianity is a fraud and a
pointless delusion. As St. Paul put it, "If there is no
resurrection from the dead, then Christ is not risen, and if Christ
is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is empty
. . . If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are
of all men most pitiable." (1 Cor. 15: 13-14, 19)
On the other hand, if Jesus really did rise from the dead, the
implications are profound. Christianity is either the truth, or it
is a lie. It can't be both. Anyone who purports to believe the
Gospel of Christ must consider it the absolute and final truth.
And that's it in a nutshell. Other religions may or may not
claim exclusive and unique authority in defining truth, but that is
not an option for Christians. Christ claimed to be God the Creator
incarnate, and Christianity is based upon the claim that he rose
bodily from the dead. These claims are either true or they are not
true. If they are not true, then Christianity is a fraud and a
sham. If Christ was a madman with delusions of being God, and if
the Apostles were a bunch of liars, why would any sensible person
what to be part of the religion they founded?.
However, if their claims are true, the notion that there can be
contradictory or dissonant "truths" that are equally valid and
morally equivalent to the truth of Christianity is nonsensical.
As you observe, such assertions are likely to give the
impression of "arrogance and autocracy". Those qualities are
certainly not the intent of faithful Christian witness, but the
inference is understandable. However, I'm inclined to think that
the dynamics of this are unavoidable, and that there is no logical
or coherent way for Christians to avoid them, although many try to
out of dysfunctional politeness. The concept of absolute objective
truth is unpopular in a culture increasingly steeped in the dogmas
of relativism, to say the least.
The idea that Christians can affirm the teachings and beliefs of
other religions or atheistic philosophies as being "equally true
and valid" is logically absurd. According moral equivalence to
mutually contradictory religious views is the product of doubt and
rationalization - not faith. I hasten to emphasize that the
essential Christian belief that everyone needs to accept Jesus
Christ as Lord and Savior, and that those who reject him are in
grave spiritual peril, neither implies nor condones coercion or
disrespect. It is impossible for someone to become truly Christian
against their will in any case. Christians must respect and
scrupulously affirm the right of adherents to other religions or no
religion to be mistaken (in our analysis) and to practise their
beliefs in peace, but we must never flinch from affirming what we
believe to the the truth if we are sincere when we recite the
creeds and claim to be followers of Jesus Christ.
Affirming the unique truth of Christianity does not mean that
other religious traditions and disciplines have nothing useful or
important to say to us. For instance, University of Wichita
religion professor John Carmody notes:
- "Any Christian whose theology of grace is up-to-date will
suspect that . . . classical East Asian views have been
potent revelations. Through them millions of human beings have
found consolation and peace. These ways are far from the whole
story of God. For Christians they will always be less eloquent than
Jesus. But they are essential chapters in the story...."
Indeed, more then a few Christians have found Christ by way of
the Eastern disciplines. Psychiatrist/author F. Scott Peck
affirms that "I came to God through Zen Buddhism, but that was just
the first stretch of the road. The road I have chosen for myself,
after twenty years of dabbling in Zen, is Christianity. But I doubt
that I could have made that choice without Zen."
As C.S. Lewis noted,
- "If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all
religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of
the truth . . . But of course, being a Christian does mean
that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity
is right and they are wrong. As in arithmetic - there is only one
right answer to a sum, and other answers are wrong: But some of the
wrong answers are much nearer to being right than others."
It must also be emphasized that while devout Christians believe
that Christian religion embodies and articulate absolute truth, it
is, and always has been, practised by poor sinners who at their
best can only reflect Christ's Truth to the world with varying
degrees of distortion. Christ is infallible; Christians are all too
prone to failure. If you're looking in at Christianity from
outside, look for Jesus - and remember that the human shortcomings
of Christians are ours, not his.
As for separation of church and state, the very concept implies
that religion is at best an optional extra that can be safely
dispensed with. I profoundly disbelieve this. To deny religion as
something necessary and indeed intrinsic to human experience is to
pretend that one-third of the wholistic triad - body-mind-spirit -
does not exist. It goes hand in hand with the erroneous but popular
belief that human beings are merely smart, highly-evolved animals,
and that belief in the existence of a human soul is a superstitious
construct of borne of fearful ignorance that we may blithely cast
aside now that we are so much more knowledgeable than our poor,
naive ancestors who cowered in caves and lived without
television.
Modern humanist conventional wisdom holds that while religion,
"spirituality", and "the sacred" are all well and good "in their
place", that place is not the public square. This premise has
become a rigid dogma, especially among liberals, that religion and
the freedom supposedly afforded through scientific enlightenment
are in essential conflict.
What people who buy into this notion fail to grasp is that
Christianity was instrumental to creating the sort of civilization
that allowed liberal ideas to develop and scientific investigation
to flourish in the first place. You can have civilization without
Christianity, but what we recognize as modern Western civilization
cannot be sustained without continual reaffirmation of the
Christian principles that created it.
Economic structures, technological innovations, and secular
ideologies are too thin a glue to hold functional societies
together, because their values and theories aren't backed by
objective moral authority. As G.K. Chesterton warned: "if people
won't believe in God, the danger is not that they will believe in
nothing, but that they will believe in anything." Values
substantial enough to sustain democratic culture and a functional
social order must derive from something more profound than the
variegated subjective suppositions of human reason. If people think
they want to revert to a paganized, non-Christian culture, they
need to be aware of the inevitable consequences of such a
policy.
Even Nietzsche, who was driven by a hatred of Christianity -
with one of his chief objectives being to purge human consciousness
of belief in Christian ideas, which he considered a hobbling
inhibition to the realization of human greatness and superiority -
was intellectually honest and consistent enough to acknowledge that
if Christian faith was to be denied, then Christian morality must
also be spurned.
Societies and cultures cannot continue to function sustainably
without a consensus on what constitutes moral order and addresses
the issues of good and evil, right and wrong. Perfectly functional
societies have been built around various religions. However, ours
was founded and built on the principles of Christianity, which I
don't believe are dispensable without dire consequences
ensuing.
Charles
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