Gee - do you really think God might judge nations and people afterall?

Remember after 9-11 how certain right wing religious commentators and several Immans representing the Muslim community suggested that the terrorist massacre in New Yonk and the Pentagon just might be Gods' (or Allah's) judgement on a corrupt nation? Remember how the "reasonable" among us criticized and ridiculed all who would dare suggest such a thing? That might be the only time that Christians and Muslims agreed on anything.

Does God really judge and mete out justice to nations and peoples who turn their backs by not honoring at least most of his standards (morality) He established? Or are we to believe that is all an outdated fable?

Are there consequences to selfish, careless, lazy, or immoral behavior of either individuals or societies? Islamic religion certainly believes this. Reviewing some of the central tenants of Islam, such as the "honor killings" depicted here should provide a wakeup call to the "clueless about the real Islam" among us.

Islam is a hyper-moral religion that interprets God's judgement not as patient and loving, but as vengeful and immediate. Its principle leaders of our day, as in the years of its founding, believe Allah demands believers to mete out immediate "justice" according to their Koranic requirements (Sharia law). Sharia law is the system of government that promulgated 9-11 and that instigates hundreds of terrorist acts every month around the planet - justice on behalf of Allah. That is how Islam sees it - Allahs justice against an immoral and corrupt society.

I believe the God of Israel and of Christianity is a different God from Allah. In His justice, He is loving, patient and kind. But He is just. He is just in a different manner from Allah. Allah, who more closely matches the stereotypical Satan, the devil, the Son of Perdition, the rebelious one who forces his will on his subjects, apparently missed the classes on "love", "patience", and "free will."

If there is such a thing as "immorality" and "sin" and "corruption", God needs to be just, eventually, in cleaning things up in His creation. He lets such behaviors prevail for awhile - sometimes for a few days, years, or even decades or centuries, depending on the magnitude and seriousness of the behavior. But He does prevail with His justice.

The population growth of those who practice Islam in Europe is mushrooming - greatly outpacing the rate of population growth of all other religions combined. It is estimated that in several European countries, Muslims will constitute a majority within the next decade or two. When Islam is the majority religion, Sharia law is the form of government of all. Forget about a "loving, patient, and kind" God at that point. Forget about "free will" and liberty. Things will get cleaned up in a hurry in a most unpleasant manner.

It is wierdly uncanny that the liberals, the "tolerant, open-minded" ones in this and other nations, are the ones who defend Islam the most. They are the ones who deny its recent resurgence of radicalization. Their political philosphy is the one that is enabling Islam, the relgion of intolerance, to gain a foothold and, ultimately, supremacy in western nations. It is wierdly uncanny that the liberals are the ones who's tolerant, inclusionary, "embrace diversity" cultural diversity-loving political philosophy will be most ripped to shreads by the intolerance of Islam and Sharia law.

I have to ask myself where is God in all this? Is Islam really a means by which He will be meting out His justice to rectify our corruption, greed, and denial? Have we morally declined to the extreme point where God feels the need to apply the stronger medicine of "third party" Islamic intolerance on our behaviors? This nations' drift toward the embrace of Islam, most notably via the emerging policies of the Obama administration, strikes me as insanely supernatural - like we are helplessly being sucked into an inescapable vortex.

I find myself increasingly coming down on the side of believing that God includes in his judgement "toolbox" the actions of the unGodly against us. Whether He merely "allows" such things to happen or "directs" them to happen is a useless distinction. The fact is, they happen.

We, as a nation, are traveling ever distant from being in awe and reverance of God. That distance, I fear, will lead us through a difficult and painful vortex of separation before His existence, love, and laws become real to us once again.

God: Why Science Exists

As I was reading the introduction to The Shack by William P. Young, this thought about those atheists and agnostics who have a narrow but abosolute faith in Science crossed my mind. I thought I'd share...

It is this: There would be no need for science if there were not an unlimited number of undiscovered, unexplained, unknown, and seemingly unknowable things for science to prove or disprove. God fits in the category of things that science hasn't figured out. If it ever did, there would be no need for science. In the meantime, it would serve devotees of science well to accept the fact that God exists. Some scientists know him; some consider him unknowable. But to assert he does not exist is foolish - and unscientific.

The God of Science, Atheism, and Reason

I’ve heard various discussions about science and atheism being “forms of religion” or “another religion” in contrast to the traditional religions of Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, etc. Why? Because both are “faith based.” Science is a belief system where all of reality, past, present, and future, is based on the belief that science and human reason hold all the answers worth knowing. This belief is so strong as to be held in a religious sense, denying any evidence to the contrary. In other words, science and reason become “faith based”. This may sound circular, and perhaps it is. After all, by definition, if one believes in reason, nothing is reasonable outside of it.

Recently, I heard a discussion by a former pastor, now an atheist. He claims atheism is not a form of religion. Atheism is based on pure “reason.” Therefore, he reasons science and reason are beyond a religion – above, superior to, and exclusive from religion. He apparently rejects the concept of “faith” altogether. He will deny he has faith in science or reason. Science and reason just are. They don’t require faith. Faith would pollute, distort, and destroy them both.

Religious people rely a great deal on science and reason as well. In fact, intelligent religious people have learned to integrate science, reason, and their religious faith. I have “reasoned” that people who deny “faith” are narrow, self-deceived, and eliminate a majority of potential answers to the mysteries that permeate human existence and purpose.

Atheists live in a world that only science has revealed. Their world is unstable, unpredictable and incomplete because science, its theories and facts, are unstable, unpredictable and incomplete. Scientific “facts” are constantly changing with each new scientific peer group affirmation. Who were the “scientists” of 2,000 years ago? Astrologists. Predictors. How long has “modern science” been in existence? Depending on who you believe to be the “father of modern science”, Galileo, or Robert Hook, today’s version of science began in the mid-1600’s. Science itself is a form of reason in a state of flux. What might science and reason reveal a thousand years from now? Something very different from what we have now is a certainty. What does that say about the accuracy and reliability of science today? It is less consistent and predictable than most world religions!

It’s amusing to see the atheist deny God, make science and reason their God, and then deny that they make science and reason their God. They deny God. They deny faith. They apparently live only in the present and reconstruct the past and guess the future based on as much faith as the most devout theist. Yet their “scientific methods” have been around for less than 400 years. Sounds like a severe case of Napoleon complex and presumptive superiority to me.

And on the topic of reason, which is the atheist’s number one value (aka “God” if they believed in one.) A reasonable person would have trouble believing reality, past, present, and future, can or should be based only on science, knowing that science is so relatively new, so changeable, and so utterly incomplete. It seems to me, being a reasonable person, that there is much more reality all around us than what science has revealed. Reason goes further. Reason has created religion. Reason has created faith. Reason leads to the belief in a distant past that science will never figure out and in a distant future science refuses to imagine. I’ll go yet further. It is reasonable that there are forces that communicate in subtle ways with humans. We don’t know the exact nature of these forces, they could be genetic, airborne, radio-frequency, or an undiscovered sixth sense. In the meantime, we call the force “spiritual.” We call the messages “revelation.”

The realities of life are tenuous and incomplete with only science as the revelator of all truth. The realities of life are richer, whole and hopeful when completed with faith that only God can create.

So, who should we strive to be like?

Some of the greatest deceptions of our time are the messages that entice us to become someone we are not. Advertisements and the media urge women to become anorexic, vain, air-brushed vamps - men to become debonair, sensual, power-hungry yet carefree jocks. (That sounds like a candidate for multiple personality disorder diagnosis!) For all of us to lust after cutting edge technology, or lust after the opposite, or any sex. These messages are apparently effective at keeping our economy going strong. They sell products; they keep people motivated to earn and spend on the things that help us become the people in the ads. It matters little that the basest instincts of humanity are invoked to achieve these purposes. This all occurs at the secular level.

I've observed a more puzzling and hypocritcal attitude at the religious level. In Christian writings, the Bible in particular, there are numerous admonitions to become "more Godly", "more Christlike". Most Christians are familiar with the concept of our "Heavenly Father", or "our Father, which art in heaven..." What does that make us, Iguana? No. We are sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father; of the one true God. The Bible sets forth a high ideal for our lives and our eternity. We have a heritage and a purpose. But most of today's religions do not take this relationship with God very seriously. They water it down and spiritualize it. They take the reality out of it. They read and quote the words but deny the meaning - they deny our hertitage and our potential.

So when a group of people (LDS) come along who read and understand the words of Scripture for what it says, they are ridiculed and called a blaspheming cult. What are some of the words of the Bible that describe who we are and who we can become?
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Genesis 3:22 - "Man is become one of us." Who is quoted here? Certainly not the Iguana! Sounds like God the Father and His son making an assertion.

Psalm 82:6 - "Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most High"

Matthew 5:48 - "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." Is this a trick request of Jesus, something that is unatainable? Or was He serious?

John 10:34 - "Is it not written in your law...Ye are gods?"

Acts 17:29 - "...we are the offspring of God."

Romans 8:16-17 - "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together."

2 Corinthians 3:18 - "But we all, with oopen face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

Ephesians 4:13;15 - "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ...may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ."

1 John 3:2 - "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him..."

Revelation 3:21 - "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." Elsewhere Scripture teaches that in our mortal form we can't even lay our eyes upon Him without being destroyed. And here we have the "overcomers" sitting on God's throne right next to Him. What's different here?
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What do these verses all mean? Are they random verses taken out of context, meaning something different from what they appear to say? Or do they represent a central theme of God's word, that God is our Heavenly Father, we are heirs of Christ, are urged to follow him, become like him, and someday sit down with our Heavenly Father in his throne. What does that make us, Iguana?

Are we to take these verses as symbolism, as literary license? God forbid, that would be the road to spiritualize away the person and work of Christ himself! Might as well study "Gone With The Wind" and yearn for Tara! Then instead of Iguana, we could call ourselves Tara-dactyls.

What are the evangelicals and other "orthodox" Christians trying to get at when they disparage Latter Day Saints for taking the words of the Bible seriously? From my study and understanding, they are denying a principal doctrine of Scripture, they are denying the power of God, and believing that we, sons of God, can never be more than sinful humans. They are saying "God forbid that we would become like gods!" In reality, God does NOT forbid that we become like gods. He commands us to!

Many of us see through a mirror so dimly that we think that what we are is all we can ever be. I guess in my career as a planner, I am trained to look ahead a bit. But this is really looking ahead. Certainly we will not reach Godly stature in this lifetime. But to deny that we will ever be capable, or have the hope of achieving the status promised in Scripture is denying God's power. And never to be forgetten is the immutable fact that our Heavenly Father is and always will be our Heavenly Father, the one true God, whatever we might become.

The heading of this article is a link to a wonderful Jeff Lindsay.com article titled "The Divine Potential of Human Beings: The Latter-day Saint Perspective." There is even a section in that link titled "Do any objective, qualified, non-Mormon experts agree that early Christians thought that they could become gods?" For those wanting to explore this topic further, that is a great place to start.

A note of humilty and reality - Just as salvation cannot be presumed based only on the overly simplistic and isolated admonition of "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou wilt be saved", the ultimate "god" status spoken of in Scripture is not a slam dunk, either. Just as they say in the TV infomercials: "Wait, there's more!" There is also the "James" part of Scripture and all the other parts about keeping commandments and helping our neighbor while maintaining a saintly attitude, etc. Most of us lack the faith needed to trust we won't get mugged helping a stranger change a flat tire. And even more of us have difficulty comprehending the possibility of accepting the truth of the Scriptures quoted above, never mind the number of millenia that it might take to realize it. There is a lot of testing and proving to be done through the eternities. But our faith in Christ and our efforts in the here and now in this life is our continual starting point. This brings even more significance to the Biblical mandate to "persevere to the end."