Christianity vs. Islam Part 1

One evening last week, I fell asleep while reading. As I slept, I had an unusually symbolic dream. Though it resembles the format of Biblical prophecy, I attribute this to my reading of the prophetic book of Ezekial. As for the topic, I believe that to be the result of recent musings. So please don't think I'm trying to predict what is to come. I'm merely sharing this because I found it interesting, and because I think it adequately sets the tone for what I plan to write about Christianity and Islam.

When I woke up, I recorded the dream because I didn't want to forget it. This is what I wrote:



I had a dream in which Christianity and Islam were fighting for
ownership of humanity, battling for control.

And in this dream, I saw two dogs fighting over a ravaged and bloody
carcass. Both beasts were clamping down, trying to get a better grip
on their prey, hoping to tear it completely from the mouth of the
other.

Then they became birds, still tearing at the ravaged corpse, clamping
and pulling, biting and jerking, trying desperately to pry the prey
from the mouth of their adversary.

I knew the carcass represented mankind as a whole. And as I watched
the two beasts tearing into their prey, I heard mysellf say in a
panicked voice, "They're going to destroy it!"

And then I woke up.


--Thanks for Reading (Your Comments are Appreciated)

When the Bible isn't suitable for church...

Ever read Ezekial 23?

I think I first stumbled upon it when I was in junior high or high school. At the time, I was shocked (and being a typically immature young man, probably also highly amused) to find that God's Word contained such naughty things.

Examples:

Ezekial 23:2 "They became prostitutes in Egypt. Even as young girls, they allowed men to to fondle their breasts."

Ezekial 23:8 "She was still as lewd as in her youth, when the Egyptians slept with her, fondled her breasts, and used her as a prostitute."

Ezekial 23:19-20 "Yet she turned to even greater prostitution, remembering her youth when she was a prostitute in Egypt. She lusted after lovers with genitals as large as a donkey's and emissions like those of a horse."

Can you picture many pastors saying that from the pulpit: "She lusted after lovers with genitals as large as a donkey's and emissions like those of a horse."? I think the pastor that read that verse (in many churches) would have a few unpleasant voicemail messages waiting for him on Monday morning.

I read these passages again recently. Instead of being amused, like I had been when I was younger, this time I felt something like uneasiness.

Part of me felt like these things didn't belong in the Bible. It's so crude and tawdry. Why would God include something about lusting "after lovers with genitals as large as a donkey's"? Was it really necessary to be so descriptive?

Yeah, it was. And I just realized why.

Here's the context. Ezekial, a prophet of God, is recording what God reveals to him. Chapter 23 is all about these two sisters who turn to prostitution. God calls them Oholah and Oholibah. God says through Ezekial, "I married them and they bore me sons and daughters. I am speaking of Samaria and Jerusalem, for Oholah is Samaria and Oholibah is Jerusalem" (verse 4).

Did you catch that part about God saying he "married them" and they bore him "sons and daughters"? These were God's chosen people. But what happens in verse 5? "Then Oholah lusted after other lovers instead of me." Later it will say that Oholibah (Jerusalem) followed her sister's footsteps, but she was "even more depraved" (verse 11). So if God "married" these girls, then this prostitution of theirs, I'm sure, is not something about which He would just shrug His almighty shoulders.

Though this chapter doesn't conclude with verse 35, I think it adequately sums up God's main point: "And because you have forgotten me and turned your back on me, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: You must bear the consequences of all your lewdness and prostitution."

God is telling his people that he will not tolerate their betrayal. He will not permit such unfaithfulness.

But again, why the explicit language? Why would God choose such offensive descriptions?

Well, if pastors today can't read these verses about "gentials the size of a donkey's" without getting phone calls, what kind of response do you think it would have evoked thousands of years ago? I don't know, but I think people might have been a little more conservative then. In a time before internet porn, MAXIM magazine, Victoria's Secret commercials, and R-rated movies. And remember, the people Ezekial was to share this with were the ones God was calling prostitutes. So it wasn't just lewd to them; it was personal.

(By the way, I can't help but feel sorry for Ezekial. In verse 36, God tells him, "you must accuse Oholah and Oholibah of all their detestable sins." Man, I'm sure that was an enjoyable task. Then in Chapter 24, Ezekial isn't allowed to mourn following the death of his wife. Poor guy.)

But back to the question: Why the explicit nature?

Maybe because God wanted to show His people exactly how offensive their behavior was to Him. Maybe because God wanted to frame their betrayal in terms that could almost do it justice, comparing it to the most despicable, most deplorable thing those people could imagine, something that would make them cringe, angry, ashamed. Maybe to make them feel a hint of what God felt when he watched his people eagerly pursuing other gods when He had always remained (and always would remain) so unwaveringly faithful to them.

At this point, God has made up his mind to judge both of these "prostitutes" for their unfaithfulness (see verses 36-49), and because God is loving, maybe he's also using Chapter 23 as a resounding explanation for why he's about to punish them. The punishment is coming, but God wants to make sure His people (the adulterous prostititues that they are) know why. He lets them know he hasn't stopped loving them, but their actions demand consequences.

Even though I didn't understand the need for such explicit descriptions when I first read these passages, now I can't think of a better way for God to convey his displeasure with His people's unfaithfulness. And if it can still be offensive to us today, that's probably good. Because we've been unfaithful, too. Haven't we?

Haven't we also lusted after lovers with genitals as large as a donkey's and emissions like those of a horse?

Does that offend you?

I hope so. Because I think that was God's intention.


--Thanks for Reading (Your comments are always welcome)


Note: I would be proud to know any pastor who read these passages in church. Because the Bible is the last thing that needs to be censored.

Blog Changes Going into Effect Immediately

Consider this a Public Service Announcement:

Since starting my own blog a couple months ago, I have maintained an erratic schedule for posting. My posts have been long and detailed.

And I've realized recently that this is rarely what people look for in blogs. People want blogs that are concise: good, but short.

Because I recognize the opportunities that exist in the blogosphere, I plan to start posting more regularly. And most of my posts will be shorter, though hopefully still worth reading. Some will still be long, of course, since I am naturally long-winded and am easily carried away by something about which I am passionate.

But if you are someone who checks my blog, feel free to check it more regularly. Because the content will be fresher, and you won't have to sit down for 25 minutes to read one post anymore.


Coming soon:

--God's use of an explicit sexual allegory in Ezekial 23

--Islam vs. Christianity: Why Christian evangelism has a lot to learn from the Muslim world


--As always, thanks for reading

What is love really?

I want to briefly clarify an aspect of my previous post, "Objectively Thinking."


In that post, I refer frequently to the concept of "love," using its existence as the basis for my disagreement with Ayn Rand's Objectivism. But it has been brought to my attention (Thanks, Nate and Luke) that I need to clarify what exactly love is----or what exactly I mean when I use the word.

These two thinkers stressed the importance of differentiating between love as a verb and love as a noun, and also between self-less and selfish love. In this case, I think the most important distinction is between selfish love and self-less love.

I wrote that post with the concept of self-less love (though I hadn't put that name to it) firmly ingrained in my psyche. Because of this perception, I hadn't even considered that selfish love could exist. I think, in fact, many of you would question this, saying "Can it really be love if it's self-centered?"

My answer would have been no. No, it can't really be love. But Ayn Rand, I believe, would disagree. And that's why this clarifying post is necessary.

She wouldn't deny love's existence, but she would assert (I think) that our love stems from our selfish interests. I admit I am a selfish person. I know I struggle with myselfishness (I combined those words intentionally. It's poetic. I think.). And I know I can't love perfectly. But based on what I have felt and known, based on those times when I have been able to put myselfish interests aside, I believe true love stems from self-lessness. And I believe this is the model of love God has shown us, especially through the life and death of Jesus Christ.


I still believe God is love (self-less love). I still believe love exists (self-less love). And I still believe Rand's Objectivism attempts to deny both God and love (self-less love). And I think she's wrong on both counts. Sadly and depressingly wrong.


--Thanks for Reading

Objectively thinking...

I recently finished reading Ayn Rand's classic novel, The Fountainhead.

Though I was immersed in the plot and interested in the characters, I read the novel with a twinge (sometimes it was more like a convulsive twitch) of doubt. The novel is not overtly allegorical, but all the elements are there. And they all combine to guide (maybe "strongarm" is a better term) readers to an understanding of Rand's thesis (something I prefer not to find in novels). To her credit, away from the pages of The Fountainhead, she never tried to deny her theory nor her use of novels (including another classic, Atlas Shrugged) as vehicles to express her philosophy.

In fact, she was so open about her philosophical ideals, that she founded her own school of philosophical thought: Objectivism.

Ayn Rand summarizes Objectivism like this:

"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

This philosophy is exhibited full force in The Fountainhead through the glorification of Howard Roark, an architect who flouts societal norms to pursue personal achievement. Roark is the "fountainhead" to which the title refers, the source from which all things flow. Why? Because he is willing to put himself first, to ignore the expectations of others and pursue only that which matters to him. His selfishness is glorified as a way of being true to oneself. (It's no surprise that Rand also wrote a book titled "The Virtue of Selfishness.")

Objectivism is still championed today by the Ayn Rand Institute, which, according to its website( http://www.aynrand.org ), has a "two-pronged strategy" (it never specifies for what goal this "strategy" is designed) that includes "educational programs" to enable the institute to "find, train, and support individuals who thoroughly understand Ayn Rand's ideas" and "outreach programs" through which Rand's works are "disseminated...to the general public."

Wow, what kind of author wouldn't crave that kind of PR? Though unfortunately for her, Rand isn't alive to reap the financial benefits. She passed away in 1982, roughly eight months before I was born--not that this information is relevant in any way.

I'm not going to say that Ayn Rand's philosophy is wrong (at least, I won't say that so definitively), and I certainly won't claim that it is entirely lacking in merit. Rand was wiser than I ever will be; in Objectivism, she created something grandiose, something that could only be conceived in the mind of an introspective, observational, and extremely astute thinker.

But, that doesn't make her right.

Stephen Hawking, for example, might be able to write a confounding dissertation refuting the existence of gravity; he could espouse theories, formulas, theorems, and all kinds of data that would boggle my mind. Yet, even though I would never claim to be smarter, more capable of significant and profound thought, than Stephen Hawking, I could know that his thesis was wrong. Because he formed it on a faulty premise, one that doesn't allow for the existence of gravity.

Rand's philosophy, I would suggest, is also formed on a faulty premise--one that doesn't allow for the existence of God.

Taken from the Ayn Rand Institute's website, here are the essentials of Objectivism (Feel free to skip over number 4):

1. Reality exists as an objective absolute--facts are facts, independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes, or fears.
2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses) is man's only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3. Man--every man--is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man's rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.
source: http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro

(And that is just the "Introduction.")


As I said earlier, I'm not going to argue that her whole theory is bogus. (For example, how can one argue with the suggestion that "facts are facts--independent of man's feelings, wishes, hopes, or fears"?) But, again, I think her premise is flawed.

Rand's theory clearly does not allow for the existence of God. On the same ARI website mentioned above, within the "Essentials of Objectivism," one can find statements such as "Thus Objectivism rejects any belief in the supernatural" and "Thus Objectivism rejects mysticism," defining mysticism as "any acceptance of faith or feeling as a means of acquiring knowledge," and "Thus Objectivism rejects any form of determinism, the belief that man is a victim of forces beyond his control," which is then classified to include "God" as one of the forces beyond man's control.

As for the Christian idea of living one's life for God...a response to this can be found in Rand's view of ethics, which states "Thus Objectivism rejects any form of altruism--the claim that morality consists in living for others or for society."

These ideas become more interesting to me when I consider what 1 John 4:16 says:

"And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him" (NIV).


God is love. In the light of Ayn Rand's philosophy, it is interesting to think about this verse, because while Objectivism clearly does not allow for the existence of God, it also (not so coincidentally) leaves no room for the existence of love.


Of course the rejection of love isn't openly stated (Nowhere does it say, "Thus Objectivism rejects the belief in love..."). But think about it:

Point 1 says "Reality exists in facts."
Point 2 says that reason is the key to knowledge, and it limits reason to ideas that can be derived from the five senses.
Point 3 states that man exists only for himself.
Point 4 really just promotes Capitalism (undoubtedly because Rand barely escaped from newly Communist Russia in 1925).

Based on the first 3 points (the 4th point has no bearing on a conversation about any emotion, or things regarding man's individual experiences, since it is more concerned with man as an organized, cooperative body), I challenge anyone to find something in Rand's philosophy that allows for love. Reason? Is love reasonable? Reality, facts? What can be factual about love?

Love can't be directly connected to the ability to taste, touch, smell, see, or hear. Love can't be perfectly categorized, accurately measured, or even adequately compared. (How can one know what "love" feels like to another? It would be like knowing how much someone else enjoys the taste of lobster, or pistachio-flavored ice cream.)

I know these arguments could be made for other strong emotions, but I think there is a difference. Anger, for example, usually can be traced to a recognizable source. Love's origin is not nearly as easy to pinpoint. We also can feel love, sometimes inexplicably, for family members with whom our relationships are strained. Why? How?

Personally, I believe love might be the one emotion that exists completely detached from reason. No one decides to love someone because it's prudent, reasonable, the most logical step for achieving one's future goals. (Some might choose to marry for these reasons, but not to love.)

Though love can't be proven scientifically, or even philosophically (at least, I don't think it can), few would argue that love doesn't exist. Not even Ayn Rand would suggest this, regardless of what her philosophy says (or doesn't say). I can say this because even Howard Roark, Rand's "fountainhead," her "ideal man," acknowledges love for two people in her novel. How her ideal man can love, when he is supposed to function solely through the machinery of reason, is something she never bothers to explain. I would contend that it is something she can't explain. Because it just doesn't fit.

And this is where Objectivism breaks down. Love exists. None can prove it, but we know it to be true.

God's existence is something that I know I have felt, and something I can't prove. But God's existence is something I know to be true (And I don't mean "relativistic truth," as if it isn't true for others. I just mean I can't say I know that they know it to be true. One can't be certain about what others "know.") But God's existence is something I have felt deeply and truly, sort of like the way I feel love for (and from) my family, friends, and Barbie. I think there is an explanation for why these feelings are similar, and it goes back to 1 John: 4:16:

"God is love."

And I think everyone has felt that on some level, whether they know it or not. I don't think anyone can find fulfillment or purpose in Objectivism, in the idea that our own happiness should be our "moral purpose in life," that "productive achievement" is our "noblest activity," or even that "reason" is the only "absolute."

Because love is absolute; love is real. And God is love. To deny God is to deny love, and to deny love is to deny God. Either way, without God and without love, we would be left with nothing but ourselves. We would be left with only our ability to reason, our ability to achieve, and our own personal pursuit of happiness. We would be incapable of transcending Rand's doctrine of selfishness; we would be left with Objectivism.

If this were really the world we live in, one without God and without love, then Ayn Rand's philosophy would do a great job of categorizing and explaining it. Thankfully for all of us (despite what her theory claims), hers isn't a world of reality, but a product of her own construction.

Sort of like the impressive buildings designed by her beloved protagonist, her manifestation of Objectivism, architect Howard Roark.

As for Howard Roark, I admit I liked him. He demanded my admiration as I observed his resolve, hard-nosed determination, and unwavering belief in himself. I respected his unwillingness, or inability, to compromise.

And yet, I always felt that twinge, that convulsive twitch, of doubt. Howard Roark was created by Ayn Rand to exemplify a life lived rationally, relying solely on reason, but I couldn't escape the feeling that, page after page, no matter how hard Rand tried to make him real (and she often tried very hard, with long-winded diatribes that would promptly be edited down if the book were written today), Howard Roark just wasn't believable.

And that's because Howard Roarks do not exist in reality. Neither does Ayn Rand's Objectivism.

Thank God.



--Thanks for Reading.

Note: If this were a book review, I would recommend The Fountainhead. It was Rand's philosophy with which I found contention. The story itself was intriguing and refreshing in many ways. I tried to refrain from providing too much plot detail in order to preserve the novelty for any prospective readers. If you're interested in reading it, don't let me discourage you. I enjoyed it.