This is less of a philosophical post than previous ones, I'm trying to figure out why home has become so dreary since college started, and I think I have come up with an adequate answer. The answer is a social life, I finally got one and every break(Quad, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Spring, Easter, and Summer) I desert my social life for my family.
I suppose this is putting it a bit drastically. I mean, I love my family, I would not have ever survived my childhood with any other family(they would have killed me). But there is something about friends that make life more interesting, they make life, at least my life, worth living. I have found that I am more free to be who I want to be when I'm around my friends than when I'm with my family. When I go home for breaks I go back to who I used to be, to some degree, because I'm placed back under the direct authority of my parents and the expactations of my family. They expect me to be the same person I was when I left, and while I still am for the most part, there is change and I like the change.
Like I mentioned, I now have a social life. Before college, I had friends at school(not many mind you), friends at church, and once upon a time friends in my neighborhood. But I never really hung out with anybody outside of those areas. Most of my time was spent at home, playing videogames by myself or watching tv or some other mindless activity. When I went to college, I got to experience what it was like to go hang out with people whenever and wherever. Spur of the moment trips to Starbucks or just about anywhere off-campus, latenight movie nights and Claymore runs. I got to hang out with people my own age, schedule my own time, and do essentially whatever I wanted to do. (Of course I still had hw and stuff I had to do.)
Going home, while there is no work to be done(homework-wise), there is no one to hang out with either. I get to spend time with my family, but its just not the same... And since I totally just lost my train of thought, I'm going to say that the new Pirates movie was freaking awesome and end with that...
P.S. The whole point of this post is to say that I miss my friends, and its only been two days for some of them... If any of you are reading this(though you had better not be, because that means you are probably following me), I miss you.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Hell, A Nightmare?
Can we imagine what Hell is like? Can we experience "A Hell on earth", as the expression goes? I think because of sin we get little snippets of Hell here and there. The consequences of a lie, rejection, the loss of loved ones, bad break-ups, divorce, miscarriages, rape, war... These can all give us a taste of what it's like to be apart from God. But what is Hell, really? What makes it so bad? Is it really a pit of fire that burns our souls for eternity? I don't know for sure, no one does. But we can speculate.
Personally, I believe Hell is simply the complete isolation of a person for all of eternity. The pain that is described as fire is the pain of complete loneliness. Think of a time when you were left alone at home, or got lost in the woods, or found yourself alone working on hw when everyone else has gone to bed. Think of the pain you felt when you realized there was NO ONE else around, that there was absolutely no one to talk to, no one to help you find your way, or to comfort you. Then try multiplying that pain by infinite. Hell is complete separation from God, and I take that to mean that a person in Hell is completely isolated from everyone and everything else in existence. No God, no family, no friends, no pets, not even any enemies. Nothing but yourself.
Maybe you're ok for a day, maybe you like being alone. But after a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, a millenium, you might begin to long for companionship. The loneliness will creep up on you, it will begin to consume you, every fiber of your being will be racked with the pain of the absence of others. What's worse, you might even be able to remember your time here on earth, so you remember what its like to have friends, or at least someone to talk to and hang out with. You remember what it's like to not be alone.
I don't know about you, but I couldn't take it. I like being alone for a little bit here and there, I just need to get away from people and breathe. But even then, God is with me. He is always by my side keeping me company, guiding me through my life, giving me strength to go on. Without Him, I don't think even my friends could begin to fill the gaping hole that would be left in my life. I've got wonderful friends and I don't know what I would do without them, but they can't take the place of God.
Hell is too much, way too much for me handle. If anyone truly thought about it, they wouldn't be able to handle it either. There would be no choice left to them but to accept God's free gift of salvation. And I realize that I haven't said much, nor have I put much structure in these paragraphs, but whatevs, right? It's just a blog, not a term paper for Historical Perspectives or anything serious like that, so get off my back. =P Also, I'm definitely too self-critical...
Personally, I believe Hell is simply the complete isolation of a person for all of eternity. The pain that is described as fire is the pain of complete loneliness. Think of a time when you were left alone at home, or got lost in the woods, or found yourself alone working on hw when everyone else has gone to bed. Think of the pain you felt when you realized there was NO ONE else around, that there was absolutely no one to talk to, no one to help you find your way, or to comfort you. Then try multiplying that pain by infinite. Hell is complete separation from God, and I take that to mean that a person in Hell is completely isolated from everyone and everything else in existence. No God, no family, no friends, no pets, not even any enemies. Nothing but yourself.
Maybe you're ok for a day, maybe you like being alone. But after a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, a millenium, you might begin to long for companionship. The loneliness will creep up on you, it will begin to consume you, every fiber of your being will be racked with the pain of the absence of others. What's worse, you might even be able to remember your time here on earth, so you remember what its like to have friends, or at least someone to talk to and hang out with. You remember what it's like to not be alone.
I don't know about you, but I couldn't take it. I like being alone for a little bit here and there, I just need to get away from people and breathe. But even then, God is with me. He is always by my side keeping me company, guiding me through my life, giving me strength to go on. Without Him, I don't think even my friends could begin to fill the gaping hole that would be left in my life. I've got wonderful friends and I don't know what I would do without them, but they can't take the place of God.
Hell is too much, way too much for me handle. If anyone truly thought about it, they wouldn't be able to handle it either. There would be no choice left to them but to accept God's free gift of salvation. And I realize that I haven't said much, nor have I put much structure in these paragraphs, but whatevs, right? It's just a blog, not a term paper for Historical Perspectives or anything serious like that, so get off my back. =P Also, I'm definitely too self-critical...
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
End of Evil?
After the last post I decided to go back and look over some of the other handouts he gave us, remembering that I had a similar spurt of writing at another time. In class we were talking about deconstuctionism, whichdoes not look to resolve conflicts or derive true meaning in a text, it simply points out inconcistencies and how the text unravels itself. Here is what I found:
"Evil won't be done away with because God destroys evil with evil, inflicting pain and suffering upon those who do not submit to His will.
- However, one must consider that if God truly is the Creator of this world, He not only has the right to exert authority over us, but also the authority to determine what is right and wrong.
- Sin is defined as an act of disobedience to God. Therefore evil must be defined as any force acting in opposition to the will of God. If this is the case, God truly cannot sin, because He cannot act contrary to His own will. In this way, His actions in Revelation are not evil, they are a judgment against those who do not/did not follow the rules He set out for us to live by. Christians are exempted from most of this judgment because we have chosen to accept the gift of salvation that God gave to all who were willing to accept it.
- Hell is defined as complete separation from God. I don't believe there is any fire involved, just the pain and suffering that comes with being totally and utterly alone. When God condemns all unbelievers to Hell, He is essentially giving them what they want in that to them He will no longer exist; they can no longer know Him."
Once again, I think there is a bit of a lack of transition between my thoughts, but at least they are separated by bullet points, right? And the conclusion I have come to here is that God cannot sin, nor is He evil. Christians are not judged as harshly as non-Christians because we chose to at least try to follow God. And when non-Christians go to Hell, they suffer from complete and utter loneliness, there is nothing worse than being alone, and no pain greater. Fire is simply used to elaborate the fact that its a constant, searing pain.
There will be an end to evil, as we see in God's act of destroying it which I touched on a little bit in my previous post. Also, I have decided that short posts are useless in this blog, so don't expect to see any more...
"Evil won't be done away with because God destroys evil with evil, inflicting pain and suffering upon those who do not submit to His will.
- However, one must consider that if God truly is the Creator of this world, He not only has the right to exert authority over us, but also the authority to determine what is right and wrong.
- Sin is defined as an act of disobedience to God. Therefore evil must be defined as any force acting in opposition to the will of God. If this is the case, God truly cannot sin, because He cannot act contrary to His own will. In this way, His actions in Revelation are not evil, they are a judgment against those who do not/did not follow the rules He set out for us to live by. Christians are exempted from most of this judgment because we have chosen to accept the gift of salvation that God gave to all who were willing to accept it.
- Hell is defined as complete separation from God. I don't believe there is any fire involved, just the pain and suffering that comes with being totally and utterly alone. When God condemns all unbelievers to Hell, He is essentially giving them what they want in that to them He will no longer exist; they can no longer know Him."
Once again, I think there is a bit of a lack of transition between my thoughts, but at least they are separated by bullet points, right? And the conclusion I have come to here is that God cannot sin, nor is He evil. Christians are not judged as harshly as non-Christians because we chose to at least try to follow God. And when non-Christians go to Hell, they suffer from complete and utter loneliness, there is nothing worse than being alone, and no pain greater. Fire is simply used to elaborate the fact that its a constant, searing pain.
There will be an end to evil, as we see in God's act of destroying it which I touched on a little bit in my previous post. Also, I have decided that short posts are useless in this blog, so don't expect to see any more...
The Origin of Evil
So I haven't posted in forever, not like it matters... But anyway, this semester I took a course on Biblical Hermeneutics, which is the study of interpretation and translation in regards to the Bible. Well at one point in class the professor mentioned a passage in Revelation which refers to the sea being no more, and he interpreted that to mean that evil would be no more, because earlier in Revelation the beast, which definitely represented evil, rose up out of the sea, and so the professor proceeded to equate the sea with evil. Well, this did not sit well with me, and so I began to write furiously on the back of our handout(he loves handouts). Here is what I wrote:
"When John mentions/adds the fact that the sea will be gone (no more), I do ont think it is the case that he is referencing the evil represented by the sea. A close reading of Genesis 1 will show that there is no mention of the creation of the sea (water). "The Deep" is mentioned, and God separates the Deep into the sea and the sky. He does not create it, He only separates it. So the significance in John is that not only will God destroy created things but pre-creation things as well.
It is possible that one can still allude the sea to evil, since there is no explanation about how evil came to be. In this case, the Deep could be a possible source of evil, as most Christians will not tolerate the thought that God created evil. Which begs the question, If not from God, where did evil come from?
Personally, I believe that in some way evil came from God. Without evil, He cannot be glorified in every aspect of His being. His goodness cannot be glorified if there is no evil to compare it to. His mercy and grace cannot be glorified if we did not fall and become in need of it. Therefore, in order to be fully glorified, I believe God created evil. It's that or evil is also eternal. Once again, the significance of the destruction of the sea can be seen as God destroying something that He did not create, which would glorify His omnipotent power."
As you can probably tell, I was writing fast and didn't really pace myself enough to make transitions between thoughts, so it might a little difficult to follow, and I apologize for that. Basically the conclusion i came to is that either God is the creator of evil, and ultimately its destroyer as well, or evil, like the sea, is an eternal object like God, and that He is so powerful that He can destroy even other eternal things (which of course would make them a little less eternal than they thought =)).
I've never really heard any other suggestions for the origin of evil. I feel like Christians like to believe that Satan (or Lucifer) created sin, although they would probably never actually say it, because that means that God is not the only being with the power to create. Maybe He is, maybe He isn't. I'm not sure that we can really know. But my purpose in writing this is to put some questions in your head, and if you don't like it, that's too bad because you shouldn't be following me anyway...
"When John mentions/adds the fact that the sea will be gone (no more), I do ont think it is the case that he is referencing the evil represented by the sea. A close reading of Genesis 1 will show that there is no mention of the creation of the sea (water). "The Deep" is mentioned, and God separates the Deep into the sea and the sky. He does not create it, He only separates it. So the significance in John is that not only will God destroy created things but pre-creation things as well.
It is possible that one can still allude the sea to evil, since there is no explanation about how evil came to be. In this case, the Deep could be a possible source of evil, as most Christians will not tolerate the thought that God created evil. Which begs the question, If not from God, where did evil come from?
Personally, I believe that in some way evil came from God. Without evil, He cannot be glorified in every aspect of His being. His goodness cannot be glorified if there is no evil to compare it to. His mercy and grace cannot be glorified if we did not fall and become in need of it. Therefore, in order to be fully glorified, I believe God created evil. It's that or evil is also eternal. Once again, the significance of the destruction of the sea can be seen as God destroying something that He did not create, which would glorify His omnipotent power."
As you can probably tell, I was writing fast and didn't really pace myself enough to make transitions between thoughts, so it might a little difficult to follow, and I apologize for that. Basically the conclusion i came to is that either God is the creator of evil, and ultimately its destroyer as well, or evil, like the sea, is an eternal object like God, and that He is so powerful that He can destroy even other eternal things (which of course would make them a little less eternal than they thought =)).
I've never really heard any other suggestions for the origin of evil. I feel like Christians like to believe that Satan (or Lucifer) created sin, although they would probably never actually say it, because that means that God is not the only being with the power to create. Maybe He is, maybe He isn't. I'm not sure that we can really know. But my purpose in writing this is to put some questions in your head, and if you don't like it, that's too bad because you shouldn't be following me anyway...
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