Living as we are Inclined to Believe

We have heard that we live according to our beliefs.  But I wonder if more often, we live by what we are inclined to believe.

What's the difference?  We all have solidly held beliefs.  Whether it be that murder is wrong, God exists, or all Jews should be exterminated, we have beliefs that are very strong.  We will not compromise these beliefs.  We will die for them.  Do we live for them?  Sure we do; there is no question on them in our minds, so our lives will be structured around them.

But there are those beliefs that may not be so strong.  And I wonder if THESE beliefs actually dictate more of our day to day life, and play a huge part in our major decisions.  Let me give some examples.  One may be inclined to believe that inter-racial marriage is ideal for humankind, that the best way to live a fulfilled life is to travel broadly, that it is best to live close to relatives, that a web start-up is the quickest way to get rich, or that there may not be a God.
When we are making decisions, I am certain we think about these "inclined beliefs" more than our strong beliefs.  Our strong beliefs allow for no question, so we spend little time thinking about them.  If they affect our decision, we already know the answer, because we won't allow anything contrary to those beliefs.  I wonder though, if what we are inclined to believe is a very strong factor in our decision making.

Perhaps we sort of make a test case of ourselves.  Why?  We may be out to see if something really is, and we're the only way we know to test it.  Or we may be out to prove something to ourselves, and if possible, to the world.  We are unsure of the belief, and what better way to test it than to step out and try it ourselves?

What do you think?

Robin Hood (does not rhyme with Robbin' Food)

A look
at the book
by one entity
who saw the movie

The book Robin Hood does a much better job explaining why exactly Robin Hood was an outlaw in the first place. He shot a kings' deer by reason of not noting that it was a king's deer. When assailed and finally fired upon by those of his company, he fired back, killing one of them. Thus it was that Robin became an outlaw.

One thing is not so well explained in the opening of this book. How exactly is it that this band of Merry Men gets along so well? They all have outfits of green, and provisions not lacking -- they get them from somewhere. Of course, they have no need of houses, for they live in Sherwood Forest, which is owned by no one in particular, except if it is crown land. They eat by hunting deer, which belong to no one, unless it is the king himself. The large quantities of ale are not so easily explained, as they do not grow naturally, to my knowledge, in any part of our world.

One must remember that Robin Hood occurs in England, which is very different from America. In America, one could say he partially owned the government forest, for in America, the citizens ARE the government. But in England, government property was by no means public, as it was the personal property of the king.
When reading Robin Hood, one can easily understand the desire of Daniel Boone and our early pioneers. In this place we have called home, there is no spot of land that is not owned by someone, or by that agency we call government. There is no longer a place where the animals are "wild." They are all owned by someone, by virtue of treading upon his land. There is no spot where a landless and foodless man can go, live and eat, without becoming an outlaw. We speak of those who are homeless, and say they must roam the streets. And so they must, always on someone else's property, and always breaking the law.

No wonder Daniel Boone left for parts unknown. He went to the land which was regarded by those who lived there to be owned by itself, and all men were free to live and make a living on it. I speak, of course, of the Indians. The concept of personal property was not highly developed among the native inhabitants of this land. They had territory, but not land. They owned the fields, but not the fish and deer. There were large expanses of "no man's land," where anyone was free to hunt. This was land that allowed for poor men.

In our modern era, our ownership of property is so highly developed, that we sell not only our entire globe, but other planets as well. Property is being sold on both the Moon and Mars!
http://www.moonshop.com/
http://www.marsshop.com/

Is it possible that we have gone a bit overboard?




Thoughts from this section of Miscellany of Men,
By G.K. Chesterton

The dawn of the mediaeval civilisation found him a serf; which is a different thing from a slave. He had security; although the man belonged to the land rather than the land to the man. He could not be evicted; his rent could not be raised. In practice, it came to something like this: that if the lord rode down his cabbages he had not much chance of redress; but he had the chance of growing more cabbages. He had direct access to the means of production.

Since then the centuries in England have achieved something different; and something which, fortunately, is perfectly easy to state. There is no doubt about what we have done. We have kept the inequality, but we have destroyed the security. The man is not tied to the land, as in serfdom; nor is the land tied to the man, as in a peasantry. The rich
man has entered into an absolute ownership of farms and fields; and (in the modern industrial phrase) he has locked out the English people. They can only find an acre to dig or a house to sleep in by accepting such competitive and cruel terms as he chooses to impose.

Well, what would happen then, over the larger parts of the planet, parts inhabited by savages? Savages, of course, would hunt and fish. That retreat for the English poor was perceived; and that retreat was cut off. Game laws were made to extend over districts like the Arctic snows or the Sahara. The rich man had property over animals he had no more dreamed of than a governor of Roman Africa had dreamed of a giraffe. He owned all the birds that passed over his land: he might as well have owned all the clouds that passed over it. If a rabbit ran from Smith's land to Brown's land, it belonged to Brown, as if it were his pet dog. The logical answer to this would be simple: Any one stung on Brown's land ought to be able to prosecute Brown for keeping a dangerous wasp without a muzzle.

Thus the poor man was forced to be a tramp along the roads and to sleep in the open. That retreat was perceived; and that retreat was cut off. A landless man in England can be punished for behaving in the only way that a landless man can behave: for sleeping under a hedge in Surrey or on a seat on the Embankment. His sin is described (with a hideous sense
of fun) as that of having no visible means of subsistence. The last possibility, of course, is that upon which all human beings would fall back if they were sinking in a swamp or impaled on a spike or deserted on an island. It is that of calling out for pity to the passerby. That retreat was perceived; and that retreat was cut off. A man in England can be sent to prison for asking another man for help in the name of God.

You have done all these things, and by so doing you have forced the poor to serve the rich, and to serve them on the terms of the rich. They have still one weapon left against the extremes of insult and unfairness: that weapon is their numbers and the necessity of those numbers to the working of that vast and slavish machine. And because they still had
this last retreat (which we call the Strike), because this retreat was also perceived, there was talk of this retreat being also cut off.

Like Egg Whites in Concrete

... is sin in the Church

Why is sin generally more accepted in our culture today?

    Our attitude toward God has changed.  We want our culture to change, so we've looked for ways to justify our actions.  We have not looked to Christ first, and asked what is right.  We have looked at what we want to do, and asked if it's so wrong.

    The next step is doing whatever we want, and asking God to bless it.

In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.  – Judges 17:6, NKJV
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. --Proverbs 14:12, NKJV

    This is not the spirit of God.  This is not even Christianity.  This attitude does not please God.  It is paganism, masquerading as Christian religion. 
    How do you know?  The focus is on what we want to do.  The focus is not on God.
    Whenever we look at something and say, “Wow, that seems great.  God, there's no way that's wrong,” we have got it backwards.  Sometimes, we forget to even God ask that much.

    My friends, this is selfishness.  God is not pleased.  True Christianity looks to God first, and asks, “God, what would you have me to be involved in?”  “What would bring the most glory to You?”

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. – Matthew 6:33, NKJV (emphasis mine)

Technorati Tags: religion, sin, church, apostasy

Thoughts Upon the New Year - Welcome to 2009!

... ; ...

They Gained "Wait" After Christmas Too!

Merry Christmas!
This is the day we celebrate that God came down to earth to become one of us in order to save us!  That's big news.
Who ever heard of the great God above becoming part of His own creation, in fact, coming to the very bottom, in order to raise us all up?  This is the day.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Merry Christmas to you!

We normally think of Christmas as "it."  Christ was born, He came to die to save us from sin.  It's almost like it's all over and done in one day.  It didn't quite go like that.

Think about this:
There were only a few people that knew how important this baby was.  Even counting Simeon, Anna, and Elizabeth, the whole crowd is certainly less than 50.  Suppose you were Mary, or Joseph, one of the shepherds, or one of the wise men.  The anticipation was probably the biggest part of the whole ordeal.  Check this out -- there were a lot of super-natural events that accompanied the birth of Christ.  But He did not start His ministry for thirty years!  I tend to doubt pretty quickly.  I'm sure that in 10 years, I would be wondering if it was true. --  Did it really all happen back then (10 years ago), or was I just caught up in the emotion of the moment?  All those things were pretty random, and everything's been pretty normal since.  Maybe God has changed His mind.  Maybe I was hoping too much.  -- But to wait another 20 years after that?

Do you think the shepherds kept tabs on Jesus?  How often in the next 30 years do you think they thought about that one very strange night?  They went back to their routine lives, and not another thing happened for the next 30 years.  If one was 30 at the time of Jesus' birth, he would be 60 before Jesus started His ministry.  I wonder if any of them were around 30 years later to hear about this Rabbi named "Jesus."  Did they get to hear Him speak?  Were any there to see Him die?  How about the wise men?  They went back home.  How would they ever know when this new king took power?  Did they wonder what happened years later, when they never heard news?
We celebrate Christmas every year.  Did they forget Christmas?

Where will you be in 30 years?  How many "spectacular events" you have seen recently will still be on your mind then?  Will you still be in touch with the people you know and the friends you have now?  It's a long time - a very long time.

What if you knew this child was the Messiah, but then you watched Him grow up for 30 years?  That's what Mary did.  Joseph isn't mentioned much after Jesus started His ministry.  Did he even get to see His son's ministry?  What if you were Mary?  The anticipation of waiting for the Messiah - your Son - to be revealed.  Then, a short miraculous ministry, and an early death.  Bam, it's all over.  You've been waiting 30 years, and this is what you get.

You see, we shorten the story because we know too much of it.  This Christmas, let's go back to Bethlehem and wait -- WAIT -- just like everyone had to that first Christmas.  The Christmas story is so much fuller and richer than we realize.  Think of the anticipation.
We often want God to work fast.  What if we had to wait 30 years?

~700 Years before Christ
Isaiah 7:14, NKJV
"Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel."

Prophecies relating to Christmas:
http://www.jeffkouba.com/SundaySchool/ChristmasProphecies.htm

Chesterton on The Tree

"If a tree falls over in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make any sound?"

This age old scientific/philosophical question has affronted minds for generations.  You see, before the invention of recording devices, there was no scientific way to answer this question.  It became a question of philosophy.

So I wondered how the literary philosopher G.K. Chesterton might answer.  In thinking forward, it might appear like this: (My apologies to this great man, as I am so far stuck in thinking backwards.)

One might think that this tree's fall would produce no sound, and one could be assured in thinking so, because he does not hear it.  But for one to think that all of nature performs its act for our benefit alone is quite presumptuous.  Nature was created before man, and does not need man to exist.  The fact is so well recognized, in fact, that Mr. Wells and many other novelists have all but said that nature is best without man.  No, this tree did not wait for human ears to confirm its glorious downfall.
It fell, with a crack more sharp and a crash more thunderous than any human has ever heard, precisely because it had no reason.

Google Launches Middle East Peace Initiative

The California-based information company known world-wide for innovation and working outside market standard has done it again. Yesterday, Google International announced the release of its global peace initiative -- just in time for Christmas. While the long term scope is to facilitate cooperation and understanding between all world groups, the planned first step will be no easy task. Google spokesperson announced, "We're taking the solution right to the heart of the struggle." First Step? -- The Middle East.
The hotbed of conflict for centuries, the Middle East will be the perfect proving grounds for this daring initiative. If it works here, Google will instantly have a lucrative contract with the United Nations. The world will be watching the Google World Peace Initiative.

Check it out:
http://mideastpeace.google.com

If the site doesn't come up, please be patient, and try back later.
Mideastpeace is still beta, and doesn't work all the time.



Links:
http://jesusislife.net/articles/ChristIsTheAnswer.html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=world+peace

Related blog:
http://dlorimer.livejournal.com/52509.html