Here's an Idea

Here's an idea; what if Christians didn't turn into jerks when someone disagreed with them?

Right now I’m wrestling through the old-earth vs. young-earth debate, and I’ll be honest, it’s so much more difficult to go through than I had expected. I didn’t expect to find an easy answer, so that didn’t catch me off guard me too much, but I’ve been surprised by something else. I expected the debates to be less attacking.

After spending a couple months researching the intelligent design theory vs. materialism I’m pretty familiar with reading papers that sound very angry. People get really upset when you question their foundational beliefs, and if you’re not a Christian, you don’t really have a reason not to get mad and just say degrading things about the “bad guys.”

Priorities

Okay, confession time.

I have a tendency to get my priorities in the wrong order.

This sounds insane, but I all too often put school as too high of a priority. Getting to know God is more important than getting into Stanford, but sometimes I forget that.

Sometimes I mix up the order of Jesus' words in Mark 12. I get myself so focused on loving other people and planning ways to show my love for them that I forget to show my love for God.

I think a big part of my problem is that these aren't inherently bad things. School is good; loving my neighbour is good. They're not what it's all about, though.

How to Infuriate an Atheist

Want to tick off an atheist? Just refer to Natural Selection as random. That one really gets 'em riled up. The problem is, it's starting to bother me too.

When you learn about the theory of natural selection, as told by those who agree with it, not those arguing against it who all too often misrepresent it, you realize that it's not an idea of random processes. Natural selection is more accurately described as an "undirected" process.

Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes is probably my favourite book of the bible. I know that’s not a normal thing to say, that most people find it rather depressing, but I have found quite the opposite.

The other day I decided to read Proverbs since I’ve never read through the whole thing. Well, Solomon is my new favourite bible character. I was already a big fan after hearing about his prayer for wisdom years ago, but Proverbs blew my mind.

Anyway, next thing I know, I’m done. I had somehow read through all of Proverbs in one sitting, but even stranger is that I wasn’t done. I still wanted to read more, so I began reading Ecclesiastes all the while praying that it wouldn’t depress me, but that I would be able to see the beauty behind it. Big surprise, God was faithful.

How I Research

This might make me a bad Christian, but it seems better logic than the alternative, and I have a feeling that God's a fan on logic. When I'm researching something controversial, particularily in science or philosophy, I don't look for evidence to back up a biblical worldview. That sounds bad, but here's the thing, I'm not living my life to prove my beliefs to be true, I'm living to find truth and act on that truth.