Very Rainy Monday

It was a very soggy and wet day yesterday.  The temperature dropped down in the 40s and stayed that way all day.  We are not used to that here, because we live in "sunny" Southern California.  But we need the rain, and I welcome the cold weather as well.

Sondra and I had no pressing nor urgent business to attend to, so we went out for a late breakfast.  After breakfast, we went to an early matinee.  The AMC theater near us has a special rate before noon, with a price of $6 rather than the evening price of $11.  We went and watched The Blind Side, with Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw.

An amazing movie, with emotional and spiritual overtones.  It showed the compassionate side of a Christian family, as the well as the dark and ugly side of Christian people who still hold on to petty biases and ungodly prejudices.  That is the reality of our world, and it is my task as a faithful believer to stand up to the wrongs of the Christian community at large, to hold high the standard of truth and righteousness.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched a video promo by a humanist named Greg Epstein, author of his new book entitled Good without God.  At the end of his one-sided discussion, I was left with the feeling that humanists want all the good that the Bible calls us to be and do, but then they want to take God out of the equation.  So, to be blunt, they want society to be good without a basis for good.  If I am a humanist, if I am an atheist, if I am an agnostic, why would I want to be good?  Where do I get that from?

To be honest, good is a relative term if we leave God out of it.  Who then defines it?  One person will tell you it is treating others with respect.  Another person will tell you it is helping others (which you can do without respecting them).  Another will tell you that good is the activity of not hurting others.  But who sets the standard for that?  Me?  You?  The guy next door?  The lady who sells herself on the street?  The teenager selling drugs on the corner?  Who? 

So, you see, the "good" that some seek is society-based at best and self-serving at worst.  That means I, if I were an individual humanist, I get to set my own standard for good.  Nobody is in charge of me but me.

Do I get goodness from within?  I think not.  I have too many fallible ways on my own.  Do I get it from others?  I think not.  Look at any society left to its own devices without God.  Total chaos and anarchy result.  That is just human nature.  The greed and lust for power takes over.  The Bible continues to tell us that there is no one who is "good."  Sin has corrupted our nature.  We need God.

Why did you even watch that video, then, Galen?  I am so glad you asked.  Because I have a friend (of the humanist persuasion) that I desperately care about who continues a discussion with me about spiritual things.  He, in his own way, asked me to watch that short video.  I wonder and want to know about his mindset and thoughts about these deeper things of life, about how he sees things logically and intellectually.  To see if he can show me where the Bible is no longer relevant.  It's the challenge, and I love a great challenge.

I need to know why there are those who are so anti-religious.  Because, to tell you the truth, I am anti-religious too.  I am a believer in Jesus Christ, the son of God, the messiah who came and whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.  He is the only one who can forgive my sins and rotten nature, and who can give me everlasting life in a holy place called heaven.  And so, it is about Jesus and not about a religion.  Jesus came not to establish a religion but to bring us back into relationship with an awesome Father in heaven who cares for his own.  I am one of God's children through faith, and I want that to be the joy of others as well.

That is why I am anti-religious!  I am pro-Jesus!  I don't want to be good, I want to be righteous.  You can't be righteous without God.