Well Said [Skepticism, Prayer, Microbiome]

Even though I don't have much time to write, I can find time to listen to podcasts and watch a few youtube videos. Here's some stuff I've liked recently.

The first one is from Steve Shives. I've really been enjoying his channel lately, in particular his "an atheist reads..." series. He recently started a new series reading The Reason for God, he started off (at about 4 minutes) with a comment about the book's subtitle "Belief in an age of skepticism".

This next one is from a podcast I have found pretty recently that I have been enjoying quite a bit, the imaginary friends show. In this episode (at about 9:30), they were talking about people praying for victims of natural disasters.

This last one is from ask an atheist in their "moment of science" segment (at about 46 minutes into the show). They were talking about the staggering number of microbes in our digestive system. I've recently been fascinated by microbiomes and this fact really jumped out at me. So cool!

background picture from wikimedia commons

Exodus 8: The Entire Egyptian Population is Collateral Damage

Today's Podcast

Previously:

God sent Moses and Aaron to ask Pharaoh to free the Israelite slaves, but God wanted to punish Pharaoh and the Egyptians, so he hardened Pharaoh's heart to keep him from releasing his slaves and then sent plagues into Egypt.

The Second Plague: Frogs (v. 1-15)

Handful of Frogs (Photo credit: deanj)

God had Aaron use his staff to bring about a plague of frogs that would get into everything everywhere all over Egypt. Pharaoh's magicians were able to also being about frogs with their "secret arts". But Pharaoh pleaded with Moses and Aaron to beg God to take away the plague and he would let the Israelites go sacrifice to God. They talked to God about it and all of the frogs died and the land stank. Pharaoh's heart hardened and he didn't follow through on his promise.

Interesting that he's not asking for the slaves to be let free, he's still asking that they be allowed to go sacrifice to God. Also, is dead stinking frogs everywhere really better than live frogs?Perhaps he didn't keep his word because the from plague was taken away in a terrible way.

From Guzik

In His good mercy God gives Pharaoh another chance at repentance, but Pharaoh will not take it.

But not really, because as we saw before, God hardened his heart and prevented him from repenting. I think I will keep having this same disagreement with Guzik because he has tried to explain away God hardening Pharaoh's heart (which is central to this story) and I don't accept his explanation.

God threatened a plague of frogs for a specific reason. The Egyptian goddess Heqt was always pictured with the head of a frog. For this reason frogs were considered sacred and could not be killed.

Again, this is quite interesting, just as in the first plague, it seems that God is targeting the Egyptians gods more so than the actual Egyptian people. I think this really highlights the polytheistic roots of this book. If God was real, and the Egyptian gods were imaginary, why would God care that they are worshiping them? On the other hand, if the early Jews thought that multiple gods were real, then it makes sense for Yahweh to attack the other gods in their stories.

The Third Plague: Gnats (v. 16-19)

Gnats (Photo credit: Andrew Coulter Enright)

Note: it seems that in some other versions it is lice instead of gnats.

Aaron then used his staff to turn all of the dust in the land to gnats, gnats were on everything. Pharaoh's magicians tried to replicate the trick but couldn't, and declared that this must be the work of God, but Pharaoh's heart was hardened and he refused to listen to them.

They really seem to be jumping to the conclusion that it is God really quickly. "That other guy has a magic trick that I can't do, it must be God!"

Again, from Guzik

The hardness of Pharaoh's heart is shown when he will not even heed the analysis of his own advisers. There is no rational reason why he insists on resisting the LORD God.

Why would there be a rational reason? God hardened Pharaoh's heart! Pharaoh isn't just refusing to listen to God because he's a dick, God has prevented him from doing so. 

The Egyptian priesthood was extremely scrupulous about hygiene and ritual cleansing and an infestation of lice made them unable to worship their gods. 

The plague of lice was also upon every beast. The gods of Egypt would not receive the sacrifice of lice-infested animals, so this stopped their sacrificial system.

Again, we see that the real purpose of the plagues seems to attack the Egyptian gods rather than the Egyptian people.

The Fourth Plague: Flies (v. 20-32)

They needed a few of these (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Then God sent swarms of flies into the land of Egypt so they would be covering everything. But he would set aside the land of Goshen where the Israelites lived so that it would be obvious that they are set apart and not being hit with the plague.

It seems like a good idea to set apart God's people from the plagues and therefore God's wrath. Why is this starting at plague 4?

Pharaoh said that Moses and his people could go sacrifice to their God as long as he took away the flies first. Moses said they needed to go 3 days away, otherwise the guards would be upset at them sacrificing to a God they don't believe in. Pharaoh said fine, so God took away the flies, but then Pharaoh changed his mind and didn't let them go worship.

Again, we have this ambiguous language about Pharaoh changing his mind. It says his heart was hardened, but the way it is written it seems as if he just changed his mind and he's an asshole. But, as we saw previously, God is the one hardening his heart. Given that we know Pharaoh's mind is being manipulated, it's pretty hard to blame him for the bad things he's doing right now.

the point of this plague was probably the same as the plague of lice. The Egyptian gods could not be worshipped amidst this uncleanness.

Again, the real purpose is to attack the Egyptian gods.

Moral of the story:
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem like it's terribly interesting yet, it is the same moral as last time as far as I can tell, worship God or else. So I guess it all boils down to obedience, Moses and Aaron are obeying God and doing horrible things to the people of Egypt, they will be rewarded. Pharaoh is not obeying God (although he's not being allowed to) and him and his people are being severely punished.

Highlights

This was from a post over at Atheism and the City about how he believed in irrational things in the past. It's a very common experience I imagine, there are so many crazy things out there and as a kid we don't know how to sort through it all. I know for myself, I believed in all kinds of crazy stuff when I was little. I do remember stumbling across the James Randi Education Foundation website and learning about skepticism, I was hooked pretty much right away.

That actually followed really well from the previous one. This is from the Skeptics Guide to the Universe Podcast #418 (at about 45 minutes in). Jamy Ian Swiss being interviewed along with James Randi.

I recently found this guy's youtube channel, I have really been enjoying his stuff. This particular quote was from one of his 5 stupid things videos. What originally caught my attention was his series reading apologetics books from an atheist perspective, I have been enjoying his other stuff as well.

Do We Just See What We Want to See?

pic source

Last year I started this blog to read the Bible and find out what is in it for myself. My motivation from the beginning was that I would often hear atheists claim that the bible is full of really terrible things and Christians would always claim that it was full of really wonderful things. Both sides seem to think that if you read the Bible you would come around to their way of thinking. A very curious situation indeed. Before I started I figured there were a couple possibilities for what I would find.

1. The Atheists were completely right, the bible is full of horrible things, God is a jerk, Jesus is overrated, and while there are a few good verses here and there, they are vastly outnumbered by bad verses
2. The Christians were completely right, the bible is full of good things. Sure, there are a few passages that look bad in isolation, but when taken as a whole even those passages make sense coming from a loving God
3. The truth lies between both of these extremes. There are enough passages on both sides of the ledger that each group can pay attention to stuff that fits their point of view and ignore things that don't. 

When I started this, I assumed that 3 would be reality. The interesting part would be to discover how much it leans towards either option 1 or 2. I think it is important to be as fair as possible, to count both the good and bad equally. In fact, given my bias I think it is important to push things in the opposite direction a bit, try to highlight any little bit of good I come across, and dispense with the nitpicky bad things (or at least admit they are nitpicky). I think I succeed pretty well in this matter most of the time, I really try to highlight good aspects of the reading, the Christian commentaries have definitely helped me on that account a few times.

Nevertheless, after reading all of the New Testament and Genesis all I see is number 1. There are terrible things everywhere and there's not that much good stuff. What's more, the good stuff is usually mixed up with an equal portion of bad (take the sermon on the mount for example). It's hard to me to imagine someone sitting down and reading this book and thinking it came from a loving God, and yet they do. I used to think that Christians must just not read the thing, but I come across people all the time who do read it. People say they have read it cover to cover X number of times in their life. I will occasionally see someone post the challenge to read the whole bible in 90 days and chart their progress. 

What the hell is going on here? How can we both read the same book and have such a different impression of it? Is it not as bad as I think and not as good as they think? I think I can make a pretty compelling argument that there is a ton of horrible things in the bible, but am I also missing a bunch of good stuff? Honestly, I don't think so. I think there are many stories that I count as bad and they count as good. Look at when God commanded Abraham to kill Isaac for example. I read that story and I'm horrified at what I see, obviously both the God character and the Abraham character here are terrible. And yet Christians will almost universally describe this as a good story because Abraham is obedient. They want the bible to be a good book, and so they twist their perception to make it good even when it is plainly not. They are seeing what they want to see.

Now the question is, am I doing the same thing from the other side? Am I looking for the bible to be a piece of shit and that is what I'm finding? I feel like I try to be as fair as possible and highlight the positive as well as the negative. I really try not to be bias, but it's pretty hard to explain the disconnect without it. Is it really reasonable for me to think they are taking a book that is THAT terrible and twisting their perception to see it as good, or am I also twisting my perception to make it worse than it is? While I think it is important for me to be self-reflective and consider my own bias here, looking at a few examples such as the Abraham and Isaac story it really does seem that I'm on solid ground. In that story there's no middle ground to be reached. God is a horrible character and so is Abraham. The question then becomes whether that story is typical of the bible or an extreme example.

This Week's Highlights

My son is 2 weeks old, I figure he should start life on the right foot, so I'm reading him the demon haunted world. As I was reading a line really popped out at me that I thought would be perfect for the blog, as it is one of the big reasons I think religion is dangerous. Since I'm reading the kindle version I can't tell you what page it's on, but it's location 414 on kindle

The second item today is from the bitchspot report episode 17. Cephus said this right near the beginning of the episode (2.5 minutes in or so)

As much as I think religion is a problem, and I very much think religion and a lack of skepticism go hand in hand, I would rather have someone stay religious but be generally skeptical in the rest of their life than become an atheist and continue thinking uncritically about the claims they come across.

Name One Issue Where You Disagree With Your Group

We all wear a lot of labels: Democrat, Liberal, Humanist, these are all labels that I identify with to at least some degree. We all do this, it just becomes a necessity at some point. There are so many ideas and opinions that we can't express all of those things at once very easily, it is nice to have a shorthand. If my ideas generally conform to the stereotypical democratic viewpoint it is much easier to say I am a democrat than to try to explain all of my nuanced ideas. If I get into a deeper conversation I can then indicate which democratic ideas I think are off the mark.

The problem comes when people do this in the opposite order. "I'm a democrat and democrats believe X, therefore I believe X". A lot of people do this and it is a huge problem. I think it is just so much easier to do things this way, thinking through all of the issues we have to deal with is a big job and most people don't care enough to do it, so instead they just agree with the party line, whatever that happens to be. I really wish we people would just say "I don't know, I haven't thought about that much" or even "I don't care about that", but I think they are afraid of sounding stupid. They'd rather have an opinion, any opinion, than just leave themselves open.

The reality is, no one really agrees with every single opinion under any given label. It might be subtle, it might be a refinement, but there are places where you will disagree with the label. This is fine, the label should just be a way to quickly get some information passed at the beginning of a conversation, it doesn't have to be the end of the conversation as well.

A few years ago I heard this "no labels" idea, that people cling too closely to their political labels so we should get rid of them. The idea definitely has some appeal, but it seems to take things too far, labels do serve a purpose. It's nice to organize ideas together and work together with like-minded people, you just can't do this so blindly as everyone seems to want to. I think the right thing to do is identify with the group that seems to share your ideas as much as possible, but always be willing to challenge those ideas and even change labels if it becomes appropriate (whether that is because your ideas have changed or the party platform has changed). You should question ideas that come from people who share your label exactly as much as you question ideas coming from people of other labels. If you are a democrat who agrees with everything that Obama does and disagrees with everything that Boehner does, you are doing it wrong.

But disagreeing with our own group is hard. It is much easier to follow party lines and conform to ideas that we have thought about previously. And we identify with our labels for a reason, chances are a new idea under that heading will be to our liking anyway, it can be tempting to skip the step to verify this and just adopt this new idea before really giving it your full attention. This is fucking dangerous. This is how huge numbers of people wind up holding positions that are against their own interests. So what do we do about it?

source

This brings me to the title of this post. I don't think we should simply question ideas regardless of the source, I think we should go out and find some issue that you disagree with from any group you strongly identify with. Again, it could be something subtle, or it could be a refinement from a commonly held position, but I feel pretty confident that you should be able to find something. For myself, I feel like little things come up all the time, but it is hard to think of examples on the spot, which is why I've been sitting on this for a few weeks. But I have come up with a few examples that seem to go against the first few labels I have up at the top:

1. Social Security

Now don't get me wrong, I love the idea of social security. People shouldn't spend their retirement eating cat food because they can't afford anything better. I think we should do as much as we can for the people who really need the help. I hate the idea of cutting programs and having people's needs not be met. But there is an economic reality that social security is screwed up right now. We basically have two options, cut a little bit now or a lot later. I would much prefer we do a little bit now.

The problem is, when the idea of cutting social security comes up, many democrats and liberals stand up and cry bloody murder. This is not because the proposal is unfair or the cuts are too deep, but just because the issue is on the table at all. If they want to pick apart a plan that is proposed and say that there are issues with it, I'm right there with them. It's quite likely that I would agree with many of their complaints. But I hate this idea that social security can never be cut, ever, no matter what. With this mentality there is only one option, wait until things get to catastrophic levels and then make much deeper cuts that we would have had to earlier.

2. Death Penalty

As I understand it, the humanist position on the death penalty is that it should be completely removed. The main argument would be that many people who are on death row have been exonerated. New evidence came up, maybe they had a terrible lawyer, who knows. It is also my understanding that death penalty is used much more against poor people. In general I think the death penalty is bad, I don't think it should be used very often. Almost never I would say. But there are extreme cases where I think we should just kill the guy. Any of these mass shooting that seem to be all the rage lately are great examples. If they go into a public place and kill 20 people indiscriminately and they don't kill themselves, we should just do it. There is no question that they are guilty and they have done something beyond horrible, I say kill em. Serial killers are another great example. The evidence needs to be absolutely overwhelming, but assuming we know for sure these guys are guilty, I say kill em. What do we gain by keeping them locked up for the rest of their lives?

One final thing I want to add here, this whole thing applies to people as well. If you are a big fan of someone and you listen to a lot of what they say, you should make sure it doesn't become hero worship. Do you love Dawkins or Hitchens? That's great, but I'm sure you disagree with some of their opinions, keep that in mind as well.

What Does the New Testament Say About Faith?

Check out today's episode

I have recently finished reading the New Testament and I am collecting my thoughts about what I read in this series of posts. Today I am writing about what the New Testament says about Faith. Other entries in this series:

1. Slavery
2. The Apocalypse
3. Women
4. Violence
5. Sexuality
6. Obedience
7. Fear
8. Blasphemy
9. Wealth
10. Binary Thinking

When talking about faith, the first question we probably want to ask is what faith means exactly. Atheists will often assert that Christian faith is blind faith, while Christians will say that their faith in God is no different than the faith we all have in things like the sun coming up tomorrow. But what does the New Testament say? It seems to be on the side of the atheists here, Hebrews 11:1 says pretty explicitly that faith is blind faith, it says "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.", that sounds a lot more like blind faith to me than our shared 'faith' that the sun will come up tomorrow. 1 Peter 1:8 talks of loving Jesus even though you have never seen him and 1 John 4:12 quite explicitly says that no one has ever seen God. Further, in John 20:29 Jesus is talking to people who believe in him who have known him, but highly praises those who believe in him without having that benefit, clearly blind faith is being praised here. In all of these cases we are supposed to believe in and love God despite having never seen him. Seems to me that the bible really does mean blind faith when it says faith.

This will be a surprise to no one, but the bible considers faith to be a virtue. Romans 4:5, Philippians 3:9, 1 Timothy 6:11, 2 Timothy 1:5, 2 Timothy 2:22, Revelation 2:10, and Revelation 2:19 all mention faith as something to strive for, as well as many other verses that I, quite frankly, just got tired of keeping track of during my reading. So what does all this faith get you? Matthew 7:7, Mark 9:23, and 1 John 3:22 all say that we will get whatever we want from God if we ask for it. John 14:12 says that whoever believes in Jesus will do the works that he did, which seems to consist largely of miracles. Several verses get more specific on this point, Luke 17:6 says that if you have faith you can command a mulberry tree to uproot itself and plant in the sea. And Luke 8:48, Luke 17:19, and James 5:16 all make reference to faith healing.

You might think that these last items would give us something to look into more deeply. If faith healing works we should be able to set up some kind of an experiment, or we could ask someone who has faith in God to command a tree to uproot itself. However, such experiments are explicitly forbidden. In Luke 4:12 and 2 Corinthians 13:2-3 we are told that testing God is against the rules. It makes me wonder what they are so afraid of, if faith really works wouldn't we be encouraged to examine its effects? It would seem that someone who doesn't want their record analyzed has something to hide. The idea of examining evidence itself is interesting, as the New Testament gives us instructions on how we should do this, it is easy, anything good is God's doing, anything bad is man's. This might seem silly, but Philippians 4:13, James 1:13,17, James 3:15, and 2 Peter 1:3-4 all push forward this philosophy. Honestly, it is somewhat brilliant in its simplicity. If you can get people to swallow it, no matter what happens will turn out favorably for God, everything good is from him, everything bad is us puny humans screwing up his plans.

This brings us to the opposite of faith, which is skepticism, there are actually a few verses which promote skepticism. 1 John 4:1 tells us to test spirits to see if they are really from God. This sounds great, but I'm not sure how we are supposed to carry this out as we saw in the last paragraph that we are not allowed to test God. It would seem that we would need to know whether or not it is from God before we test the spirit to see if it is from God. Furthermore, Luke 2:46 and Colossians 2:3-4 tell us to ask question and to learn, although they are really talking about learning about Jesus from the church leaders. And while the pro-skepticism messages are quite weak, the anti-skepticism messages are very strong. James 1:6 tells us to keep the faith and never doubt, while 2 Timothy 3:14 instructs us to just keep believing what we already believe, citing an argument from authority. We are told to ignore details (2 Timothy 2:16, 1 Timothy 6:20) and to not ask too many questions (Titus 3:9, Philippians 2:14-15, 2 Timothy 3:7, Colossians 2:8), that certain things shouldn't be learned (Matthew 16:12, 1 John 2:27) and in Titus 3:10-11 we are even told that if someone asks too many questions that we should never talk to them again. So if we are not allowed to gain knowledge through skeptical methods, how are we supposed to learn things? Apparently faith is the best way to gain knowledge (Philemon 6).

More of my comics

One final thing I want to talk about to day is the idea of faith versus works. What does it take to get into heaven, is it just faith in Jesus regardless of what you do, or do you have to earn your way into heaven with works. In the church I grew up in, the idea that works matter was discarded completely, faith in Jesus was the one path to heaven and nothing else matters. But what does the bible say about it? It actually takes both sides of this issue, Galatians 3:1-9 takes the same position as my church growing up, that faith matters and works don't. However, James 2:14 seems to say that works are also necessary, it says that if you don't do works as well as have faith then the faith is dead. What does that mean? It seems to say that works are necessary too, but I think if we look at 1 John 2:4 we get a slightly clearer picture. It says that if you truly have faith you will want to do those works. It's not that those who don't do works will not get into heaven, the works themselves are not required. However, those who truly have faith will do the works anyway. This perspective actually makes a lot of sense to me, and it fits well into the picture they draw of what it really means to accept Jesus into their hearts.

Jude: When all else fails, use fear

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Back to wikipedia, apparently the authenticity of this book was never doubted, but it's canon status was. "The links between the Epistle and 2 Peter, its use of the Apocryphal Books, and its brevity raised concern." The links between Jude and 2 Peter are that they are too similar, and either one was copied from the other, or they both used a common source.

Greeting (v. 1-2)

Jude identifies himself as the writer and he says he is writing to those who believe in Jesus.

Judgment on False Teachers (v. 3-16)

Be careful, some ungodly people have crept in to the church hierarchy to pervert it.

Now this is interesting, it is basically admitting that there are bad people within the church and that you should be wary of that. I know there have been previous messages about false prophets and such, but this explicitly says that are from within the church, which wasn't the message I got before. I'm not sure if it wasn't implied before or if I was just being thick.

Don't forget, Jesus saved a people out of Egypt, but also destroyed those who did not believe. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities served as an example of those who deserve a punishment of fire.

It was Sodom and gomorrah and surrounding cities? I don't think I've ever heard that before. Also, I'd like to point out that in this version of the story it is Jesus who is doing these things. I guess this is consistent if Jesus=God.

Don't forget about the angels who sinned and are being kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until judgment day.

Whoa, I'm guessing stuff like this is why the canon of this book is questioned.

These people, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious one.

Interesting what is chosen as the horrible thing to do, defile flesh (sex), reject authority and blaspheme. These really don't seem like the worst sins to commit to me.

According to Guzik, the bit about their dreams means that they were dreamers out of touch with reality. It also could mean that they were relying on supposedly prophetic dreams. Seems like a reasonable enough interpretation to me.

v10 "these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively."

This verse really jumped out at me. Does it really make sense for blasphemy to be so horrible if the person doing it doesn't understand what they are doing? It's one thing to understand what God is and blaspheme against him, at least that makes sense for God to get irritated by. But if someone doesn't even understand it and blasphemes, it is basically on accident right? I mean, if a young child or a mentally deficient person commits a crime which they don't understand, we don't punish them in the same way we punish an adult who knows what they are doing. You are being punished for ignorance. Furthermore, you are punished for you animal instincts, which presumably God gave you. Seems pretty damn unfair to me.

Enoch prophesied that Jesus would come with 10,000 holy ones to execute judgment on the ungodly.

Why does God need such a posse?

A Call to Persevere (v. 17-23)

Remember that Jesus said there would be scoffers in the last time. Keep yourselves in the in the love of God.  Wait for the mercy of Jesus that leads to eternal life, and have mercy on those who doubt and save them from the fire. To others "show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh."

Again, it seems that the end times are said to be near, although this one is less solid than many others we have seen in the past. Also, I'm not sure what that last line means, but it sounds like we are supposed to save those we can and fear those we can't. 

According to Guzik  this second group must be saved with fear. They need to be confronted more strongly but with the right approach can be saved. I suppose this is consistent with the reading.

Doxology (v. 24-25)

Jesus is great.

For the overview post (If you think I should add or remove stuff from this list please let me know, I think it would make good conversation)

Good:

Jude 4 Be aware of enemies in your midst

"For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ."

Jude 22 Help those who need it

"And have mercy on those who doubt"

Bad:

Jude 8 Sex, disobedience, and blasphemy are the worst sins

"Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones."

Jude 10 Punished for ignorance and following God given instincts

"But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively."

Jude 18-19 End times prediction

"They said to you, "In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions." It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit."

Jude 23 Use fear tactics if necessary

"save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh."

1 John 4: Love Casts Out Fear

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Test the Spirits (v. 1-6)

There are many spirits out there, you need to test them to see which are from God. Every spirit that confesses Jesus has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not is not from God.

First, I thought we were not supposed to test God, 

Luke 4:12 And Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

okay, I know this is a spirit from God, and not God or Jesus directly, but it feels the same to me. Think of it from the perspective of a random guy, he needs to decide who to believe. Some dude claims to be Jesus, he is not allowed to test Jesus because that is testing God and not allowed. Of course there are false prophets, so if a false prophet claims to be Jesus our random guy is just fucked because if his first thought is that it might be Jesus, he is not allowed to test him. But if it is a spirit, he is supposed to test him? It just seems inconsistent to me.

Second thought, this seems like a pretty easy test for an impostor spirit to pass. All he has to do is claim that Jesus came in the flesh, then he can tell you anything else he wants. We better hope none of those spirits ever get their ethereal hands on a bible.

God Is Love (v. 7-21)

Anyone who loves was born of God, and anyone who does not love does not know God.

I love my wife, does that mean I know God?

Guzik says that every display of love doesn't have to be from a Christian, but our capacity to love comes from God because we were created in his image.

v18 "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love."

But I thought God wanted us to fear him. For example, recently in 1 Peter 1 we saw that God wants to rule us through fear. If you want more examples, a quick google search reveals many examples.

Now, this is an item for my summary, as I want to be able to reference it later to put as contrast to other verses which say fear is a good thing, but do I count this item as good? I don't think it's good, love doesn't cast out fear, you can love something and still have fear in regards to it, for example, you could love someone and be afraid for their safety. Ask any parent whose kid is doing something dangerous. If anything, there is an argument that this would be bad, as it might make people think they don't really have love as they still have fear. I think I'll just put it as "interesting"

Guzik has an explanation for this, which I want to quote here

What about the many passages of Scripture, Old and New Testament (such as Ecclesiastes 12:13 and 1 Peter 2:17), which tell us we should fear God? The fear John writes of here is not the appropriate reverence we should all have of God, but the kind of fear which involves torment - that agonizing kind of fear which robs our soul of all joy and confidence before God. It is the fear that is the opposite of boldness in the day of judgment.

Basically, his explanation is that we are talking about different kinds of fear, this is a translation issue. So I decided to take a look at the lexicon. The current verse (1 John 4:18) uses phobos, which is "panic, flight, fear, the causing of fear, terror". This is the kind of fear we should not have according to Guzik's interpretation. If we look at 1 Peter 2:17 we get phobeisthe, which is "to put to flight, to terrify, frighten", which doesn't read as that much different to me. And wouldn't you know, it also says that the origin of phobeisthe is phobos, I think there is a pretty good argument that we are talking about the same kind of fear. 

[note: added after I recorded the podcast as I noticed this during recording]

v12 "No one has ever seen God..."

This seems like a pretty obvious contradiction, my understanding is that Moses talked to God, didn't God tell him what to write for the part of the old testament that he wrote? And certainly Moses talked to God when he went up the mountain to get the 10 commandments, right?

Guzik claims that no one has seen God because he is invisible. He then addresses the complaint I had with the following quote from Boice:

The Old Testament theophanies, including the apparently contradictory statement in Exodus 24:10, did not involve the full revelation of God as He is in Himself but only a suggestion of what He is in forms that a human being could understand.

Basically, the claim is that anywhere it says they saw God, they didn't really see God, they saw the avatar of God which isn't quite the same as seeing God. This is utter nonsense as far as I am concerned. The bible says plainly that they saw God, not that they saw a facsimile of God, but they saw God. If you want to say that they thought they saw the real God but they didn't actually see God, fine, but you have to admit that you are just making stuff up to reconcile some obviously contradictory verses. Otherwise, cite an actual source.


For the overview post (If you think I should add or remove stuff from this list please let me know, I think it would make good conversation)

Good:

1 John 4:1 Don't believe everything you hear

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world."

Interesting

1 John 4:18 Love casts out fear

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love."

1 John 4:12 No one has ever seen God

"No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."