Don't Back Down

In speaking of idols, it occurs to me that, while catchy, a name such as American Idol for a television show might be a little over-the-top. Well, it is Fox, so it probably is over-the-top.

But is this what we have come to? Creating idols on television? A lot easier than carving them from stone, to be sure. And while I understand that the winner of the show will not necessarily be an idol in the strictest sense of the word, it seems to me that we very much approach idolatry in our world on a very regular basis. Maybe that isn't such a good thing.

Another thing that made me wonder about it is the recent death of the pope. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against the pope, or people honoring him for his life, or even against Catholicism in general. I just wonder about the millions who rush to see his body. How many of those millions do you suppose think of his life, his death and their loss? Probably most.

Now how many of that same group do you think consider not these things, but His death? I'd be willing to bet that the number is smaller, and that's a shame.

I recently discovered the blog of Bob Parsons, founder of GoDaddy. He doesn't blog often, but when he does, he writes a pretty good bit. I think he might be a bit long-winded, but generally I find Bob to be a pretty decent writer.

So while reading through his archives, I noticed this entry on the GoDaddy super bowl ad. If you haven't seen the ad, or even if you have only seen the one aired during the game, I'd highly recommend you watch the extended version, available at GoDaddy.

I personally thought that the ad that aired during the game was great. I had no problem with it. Yes, even though I, like Bob, consider myself a Christian. What exactly was the problem with roasting the government? I do think that the extended version was better, as it provided more insight into the ad. The aired version was just too short. As such, it allowed people to focus on the wardrobe malfunction rather than the point of the ad.

But in the end, I think there was no indecency. There was no nudity. No crass words. Only a humorous look at how our government overreacts sometimes. I also don't think it was tasteless. They simply couldn't do the same ad without the wardrobe malfunction. And according to Bob, the numbers after the ad certainly appear to have justified the expense. I, for one, would say it was brilliant.

Even if accurate, radiocarbon dating has existed for - at most! - 1% of the life of the earth. That's not a very big sample. Consider my life. 1% of my life is about 130 days. Do you think you could look at 130 days of my life - contiguous or not - and accurately determine the rest with any degree of accuracy? I think it's unlikely, but what do I know?

I do realize that radiocarbon dating isn't trying to determine all the details - only one. That's fine. I still don't think, for reasons outlined previously, that it can be particularly accurate past even a relatively short period of time.

And as the age of the earth increases across various theories, that becomes more and more of an issue. If the earth is indeed about 6000 years old, and we've been using radiocarbon dating for 1% of that time, it might be a reasonable sample. Many polls - particularly presidential polls - are taken with a sample much smaller than that, and we mostly accept those results.

The fact is, 6000 years is by far at the low end of the scale, and those wanting us to believe that they can accurately measure things millions of years old are not the people who subscribe to the earth being only 6000 years old.

So let's assume that the earth is instead 4.55 billion years old, as mentioned in this article. That's a really long time. In fact, 55 years (the length of time we've been dating things with radiocarbon tests) is just 12-billionths of that time. I hope I counted those places correctly. Let me know if I didn't.

When applying that to my own lifespan thus far, that would be equivalent to roughly 42-hundred-millionths of a year, which in turn is about 15-hundred-thousandths of a day, also known as 36-ten-thousandths of an hour, making just 22-hundredths of a minute, or about 13 seconds. I've spent (far) more than 13 seconds writing this entry. And that is going to somehow tell you about the rest of my life, or even anything - just one thing - about the rest of my life? That I'm a male, okay, you got one. But that fact, generally speaking, won't change over time.

Monitoring 13 seconds of my life may be able to give you a general idea of how old I am, but that's also because you have an idea of how long a person can live. It's measured. It's recorded. Every day we have more evidence of this time window, and experience in what happens during that window. THe same can't be said for an earth that is even 6000 years old, much less one that is billions of years old. As time goes on, I'm having more and more trouble buying that explanation.

This solution is a miniscule percentage, it isn't particularly accurate and it is terribly limited even if we forego the other problems with it. Maybe one of the reasons that we can't measure that far is that there is simply no way to measure that far, because nothing has existed that long. There simply isn't anything there, because there was nothing there (nothing that we can measure, anyway). We've seen that measuring methods are imprecise, and that the yardstick used (namely, carbon-14 in this case) decays at a variable rate, one which we can only verify back a few thousand years. By extension, anything beyond that is just a guess. A well-educated guess perhaps, but still a guess.

It's also widely acknowledged that things like the advent of the nuclear bomb will alter the elements. We don't always know reliably what happened on the other side of the world today - how are we going to have any chance of knowing that some alien lifeform wasn't doing nuclear testing in the greater Washington DC metro area ten thousand years ago? That would skew the heck out of any numbers.

I guess what I'm getting at is that there is no less uncertainty in looking at The Creation in scientific (evolutionary) terms than there is in looking at it from a creationist perspective. We simply have no way of knowing what happened. We can guess. We can look at evidence. But there is just no way to know what happened with any degree of certainity. Even if we travel back in time, we are upsetting the time that already happened, therefore skewing it for the future, which causes all sorts of repurcussions.

So if there are simply differing degrees of uncertainty, which do you choose? I'm leaning more and more towards choosing the answers presented in the Bible. If I remain honest with myself there is no way that I can say that I don't think about the other possibilities. But as the thought process continues and you see uncertainity from every direction, it becomes less and less difficult to make that leap of faith. Proof? No more than that of science. But there's also no less proof than that of science. Remember that. I am quite a fan of science. But science has proven only one thing: That after you find an answer, you know you have (at least) one more question. That isn't an option in the Bible. Of course, this all depends on whether you believe in the Bible. But we'll talk about that another time.

Apparently the Dead Sea Scrolls will be coming to Charlotte for a visit next year. That might be cool. I saw the Declaration of Independence when it was here a while back, and that was neat. Not sure about the scrolls. I mean really - my Hebrew is a bit rusty, so it's just going to be a bunch of old parchment that I can't read. It might be someone's grandmother's recipe book. And at the other show, you waited in line for a while and were able to spend all of three seconds in front of the case. Still, it might be worth checking out. I'll post more info as it becomes available.

I won't get into anything really deep here. Just a thought that came to mind. I regularly - or as regularly as possible - attend the Baptist Men's breakfast at our church. Typically held once a month, I've made it to probably 5 of the 7 or so held since we joined our church, and I always enjoy the experience. For a long time I didn't especially enjoy this sort of thing, and I still don't like it enough to do it daily - but once a month is great. In fact, I enjoy it so much that I have recently joined a smaller group of men who meet (sort of) once a week for breakfast, and that's nice as well.

So the idea of the fellowship, and specifically the thoughts and prayers and feelings that come out of the meeting, is, well, awesome. I really do enjoy it. So I can see the sense in making this happen with more regularity. I can extend the vision and see that everyone should enjoy it. Not just men, not just women, but everyone. The simple fellowship and camaraderie that comes out is well worth the effort. Seeing someone doing this on a grand scale is comforting.

What I don't get is the cost. $22? I'm sure the music and the message are great. I'm sure the food is good. But come on now. Our monthly men's breakfasts are $3 each (if you have it to donate). Typically I spend maybe $5 when we go out each week. And I understand that this event is yearly, so perhaps $22 isn't that bad in comparison. But still - if I'm paying $22 for something, it's more of an event. That is to say, a spectator event. A sport if you will. I understand that pro sports will cost far more than that, but the principle is the same.

I think it's safe to say that, tradition or not, quality or not, I won't be attending.

The first thing that jumps out at me about any creation account is the sheer size of these numbers. Even if you start with the biblical account, the earth is at least 6000 years old. I don't think anyone will argue that the earth is at least that old. Most will argue that it is much older indeed.

Meanwhile, the science of radiocarbon dating is just 55 years old, being created in 1949 by Willard Libby. Compare that to the age of the planet. If we assume a 6000-year-old earth (remember, the very low end of estimates), you're talking just under 1% of the time elapsed since creation. That's not long. 1% of my life is about 130 days, a period of time which can go by in the blink of an eye.

But also consider in that article that the very process of decay in carbon-14 is not constant. If an element that makes up the very structure of the universe isn't constant, then no measurement based on that element can have much degree of accuracy. In the case of carbon-14, scientists had to use growth rings in trees to match up their dating process, and they say it is accurate to about 11000 BC.

What's more, so far as I know, the oldest "verified" writing goes back perhaps 5500 years, and even that should probably be called into question. What if someone just wrote an older date on their writing tablet? My sons write dates into the future all the time. It doesn't mean that it's actully being written on that future date, and it isn't verifiable proof that can be used for dating anything.

But regardless of all this, let's pretend that the process is spot-on accurate all the way back to 11000 years ago. That's far short of the claimed capability of carbon-14 dating (50000 years), and it could only be achieved with the assistance of dead trees. There's simply no way that anything longer than this period could be deemed accurate. While I personally don't think even dates under 11000 years ago will be accurate, I'll allow that perhaps I may be wrong.

That still results in a bunch of stuff that's less than 11000 years old, and other things that are somewhere between 11001 years old and, well, any date you should like to set. Even with an accurate window of 11000 years, the dates line up much more closely to the 6000-odd years of the bible than they do to the billions of years espoused by many theories. Just makes you wonder.

Disclaimer: This is a blog. These are my thoughts. I am not necessarily aware of any evidence to back up this information other than that linked here. If you have some, please present it, but do it in a conversational - as opposed to confrontational - way, and I'd be happy to discuss it. If you want confrontation, go somewhere else.

Apparently archaeologists in Jerusalem believe they have discovered the remains of the Siloam Pool, where a story told about Jesus curing a man's blindness. I think it's cool. Whether you are a Christian, believe in Jesus as a historical figure or don't even think that much is true, that something can be uncovered from 2000-odd years ago is neat. I found a book at the thrift store the other day that was 125 years old, and I thought that was awesome. Especially since it was only a buck. I can't even fathom something 15 times older.

What I don't see though is why people are so defiant against Christianity - or any religion at all, for that matter. Now don't get me wrong. There have been many times in my life, and I'm certain that there will be more, where I have questioned what I believe. I have wondered if the whole pursuit is simply delusional or if it could possibly result in an eternal life in heaven. I think it's human to question, and that's not what I don't understand.

What I see from those who I will call atheists is something different. And before I get into it, I'll say that I might be using the wrong term. It's just easier for me to use a term. By "atheist", I'm simply referring to someone who doesn't believe there is anything but this life. That when we die, it's over. If I misuse the term and offend you, I'm sorry. Provide the correct information and I'll update this entry with it. But as you'll see, the term is just a tool to make things easier, and doesn't really make a difference. The word alone doesn't define something. The behavior of those who I'm talking about does.

And I don't get those people because they argue that science doesn't support the existence of a God. And that's fine, as they are certainly entitled to their opinion. What I don't get is that they would prefer to believe in nothing than something. I mean come on - what harm is there in believing that there is a God and that He has promised certain things through His word, contained in the Bible? That you're duped into going to church most Sundays, reading and studying a historical text (divinely inspired or not, it is a historical text with some pretty decent things to say)? That you don't want to get to your deathbed, and realize that the great computer program that designed the earth thinks you fool for believing in something all your life?

I don't get it. Even if you are wrong, so what? You spend your life believing in something greater than yourself. You share time with other people who believe similarly to yourself, and you enjoy their company as well as the special moments found through time spent together. Often you help the lives of not only yourself or those other people, but people who would never have been helped otherwise. This might be through something simple like a few kind words to a coworker or it might be something more tangible, like a donation to the less fortunate or perhaps even a meal for someone who cannot afford it on their own.

Now I'm not saying that atheists don't do these things. I'm not saying that at all, as I'm certain that there are some that are quite generous with their time and their money. I'm simply pointing out - using the scientific method if you like - what it is that atheists think is so wrong about believing in God. I don't know. I'd like to know. Is it that they don't want to be victims of a hoax? Or that they simply don't want to feel like they need such a "crutch" to get through life? Is it that they simply don't have time for things associated with God and need evidence (or a lack thereof) to support such a decision?

As I said, I don't know. I don't see it. But I do know this much. I am certain that my life now is better than my life even a year ago, when I felt that I didn't need God, or more specifically, the church. And what have I lost? The chance to disprove the Bible? To proclaim the church as the greatest hoax in history? The opportunity to declare that I don't need a crutch to get through life? I think that's a trade worth making.

Merry Christmas.

Last week in our Sunday School class, we reviewed the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32, some versions call it the parable of the lost son). This is a story with which most anyone - even non-Christians - are familiar (though they are perhaps less familiar with it). The story is a simple one. A wealthy man has two sons. One of these sons, being impatient as most of us are, wants his inheritance up-front. He's waited too long and is ready to get on with the process of spending it.

The man, who wishes to please his son, gives him what he asks. The son then takes his inheritance and spends it wildly (really - the Bible says he spent it on wild living). He finds himself working as a servant for a famer, realizing how the pigs he is feeding are eating better than he. So the son realizes that his father's servants eat better than this, and decides he will return home, not to be a son but to be a servant, so that he may be treated better than the pigs in this strange land.

While he is still a ways out, his father ran to him and welcomed him home, giving him robes to wear, rings for his fingers and even bringing in the fattened calf for a feast. The son, naturally, was amazed, but nonetheless enjoyed this welcome.

After reading this, you might be likely to think that the lesson is a simple one: Don't waste your resources. You may even take it a step further and get from the story that you shouldn't waste your time holding a grudge. Open your arms to them, don't get caught up in the little things. The image may very well be an illustration of serving and eventually reaping the reward. And you might be right on any - or all - of these counts. But there's another part to the story that I never particularly noticed until now.

While all this was going on, the man's other son decided that this was too much. The younger son had squandered everything given to him, come crawling back, and was still being welcomed as a prince. Why did he feel this way? Because he felt that he had stayed the course, that he had done The Right Thing and that he had never received the fattened calf for his efforts!

Does the moral of the story change for you now? It did for me. There are so many times in my life that I see this. And I'm not pointing the finger at anyone. I do this all the time. When I'm driving and point out how the other idiots aren't paying attention (while I'm obviously not either, since I am watching them). When I look down the street and see the larger houses and newer cars and harbor ill will that we work and save and can't afford such things. I do it all the time.

And I think that might be the true meaning of the story. Don't spend your time worrying about what other people are receiving for their efforts. If nothing else, you are then not tending to your own worries. More often, you have more than you know and simply don't see it because you are so used to things the way they are. There is an old saying that says something like you don't know what you've got until it's gone. The younger brother didn't know. The funny thing is, neither did the older brother. While you might think he was the responsible one, he was, in fact, taking the exact same road taken by his younger brother. He might have just been travelling along this road a little bit slower, but he was still on the same path.

I mentioned last night that I wanted to talk about my faith, and I will. But first, some more introduction. I think where I have the biggest problem is that I don't understand why there isn't more positive dicussion about religion. Don't get me wrong - I know people take their beliefs very seriously, and if someone questions them or even proposes an alternative, it might be taken badly. But what I don't get is that people just don't have those conversations at all.

There is a certain subset of our society that doesn't want to talk about anything that could be seen as remotely controversial, and that's okay. But every time I hear about someone who is talking about their beliefs, they are either doing so in a way that denigrates other faiths, or in such a way that it seems they don't do anything else. The latter is certainly a great testament to faith, but most of us have real lives - or reasonable facsimiles thereof - and need help with the daily grind.

That's where I am now.

By any account, I have been a Christian for most of my life. I can't put a specific date on it, but I was confirmed into the United Methodist Church at around age 12. I remember taking some sort of class, probably with the pastor, and going over some particulars, but I have no idea now why I went through the process.

I have said the words over and over. I have been both a churchgoer and not a churchgoer. I have done things that even those aforementioned non-religious people may discourage. In fact, very rarely have I ever regularly undertaken actions that anyone would consider Christian-like. While I'm certain that it's too early to tell, and by nature I am pretty cynical about this sort of thing, I think that's changing. I think that I'm actually feeling it, and it's exciting. I'm going to try to delve deeper.

As I mentioned previously, I don't know where this is going. I just feel the need to get it out. If it helps you in any way, or if you even just enjoy reading, then you're certainly welcome. Even if you want to encourage particular subjects or discuss the finer points of something I might bring up, you're welcome too. But this isn't about hatred, and it isn't about rubbing anyone's nose in it. It's purely about my own process of discovery.

You're welcome to join in, as either an observer or a participant, but please do us all a favor and don't be an ass about it. I've attended church most of my life, and yet I still question my beliefs. There really isn't much chance of everything suddenly being revealed in an angry, fight-provoking comment. So why bother?

For what might be the first time since I created my blog, I'm introducing a new category before I actually write anything in it. Typically I find that it takes a while before I've written enough about a particular subject that it deserves its own category, but this time it's more of a feeling that I will be writing.

The first exciting news is that I have no idea what's coming, except in a very general sense.

The second exciting news is that it's a topic that people don't like to - or don't choose to - talk about, which I find fascinating. People talk about their bowling scores, their hangups, their letdowns, their sexuality and yes, even their politics. But they rarely talk about their religion.

Sure, there are notable examples - most of them fall into one of two camps. There are those who don't subscribe to any particular religion, or in fact they don't like even the idea of religion, and do anything possible to rebel against it. Then there are people who may seem a bit over the edge and speak about nothing but their religion, as if it would be foreign to do any differently.

I have nothing against any of these people, but they don't do diddly for me. I may see a beautiful sky and think to myself "Nice job, God". I may see something horrific and think "Wonder what he did to deserve that, God". But the vast majority of my experiences fall somewhere in between the two extremes. I suspect that it is similar for most people.

Because of that, I'm starting a new category, called Christianity. Why not Religion or The Search for Truth or something else, something less confrontational and more widely appealing? Because that's not who I am, nor is it what I'm after. There is an infinitesimal possibility that it may lead somewhere else, and if it does, I'll change the category. But for now, this is where I'm going, so I think it'll do.

Today's quote is courtesy of none other than Jake Delhomme, quarterback for the Carolina Panthers. While not surprising that he references his religion - many players pause to pray after games, providing at least a glimpse of their beliefs - it is unusual that he so openly mentions it in a mainstream newspaper. You may see it during an interview from time to time, but this may be the first time I've noticed it in print.

There's only one person that was perfect and everybody knows what they did to him.

Bravo, Jake.