Apparently, Religion is Close to Extinction!

I find it difficult to believe that otherwise intelligent people fall into the eternal trap of thinking that human practice since time began is going to collapse in a few short years? Yet those who can’t learn the lessons of history, because their determined divorce from God blinds their vision, once again repeat that tired old idea.

An American Physical Society study noted a steady rise in the percentage of residents who claim no religious affiliation, and explained how social factors could help push religion toward the dustbin of history. But they it give a hundred years; time to die before their predictions can be challenged! Read their story at http://www.canada.com/life/Canadians+losing+faith+religion+faces+extinction/4485943/story.html

The world renowned Physicist Stephen Hawking, pictured, claims, awking, pictured, joins the chorus: “God no longer has any place in theories on the creation of the Universe due to a series of developments in physics,” hardening his previous position that “the Big Bang was merely the consequence of the law of gravity.” Read the account at http://www.canada.com/life/create+Universe+Hawking/3473347/story.html

These predictions also remind me of those who predict the end of the world or Christ’s return on specific dates. I recall Paul’s declaration that “the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:25), or that “the One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs” at those who seek to throw off God’s “chains” Psalm 2:1–4).

In fact, Reginald Bibby’s careful analysis of statistics on religious belief in his book Restless Churches disputes the persistent old line of religion’s decline. It seems that academia, the legal system and media who promote the idea, believe most people share their secular philosophy and carelessly fit the numbers to their beliefs.

The claim of religious decline not only contradicts history, it also repeats the same discredited claims by eminent ones in the past. Bibby lists Comte, Durkheim, Marx and Freud. He also quotes Harvey Cox who deserted his secular followers with: “Today it is secularity, not spirituality, that may be headed for extinction.”

In a recent cross-country trip to Montreal, Ann and I noticed new large churches, often several, in most cities we visited. In hardened Montreal, an old church building is being revitalized by a flourishing church plant. Even this simple exercise makes it hard to believe in religion’s decline.

The protestations of those like the American Physical Society and Hawking seem like a mouse trying to rationalize away the elephant behind him, instead of taking action to preserve his life!

It’s a Mad, Mad World

The atrocious treatment of unarmed demonstrators during the last week in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, as well as Libya underscores “man’s inhumanity to man” in strong relief. The cries of the numbers of people bereaved or maimed for life in Arab uprisings makes it difficult to sleep at night.

Yet we are aware of similar atrocities in Sudan, Congo, and Rwanda in recent memory. In addition, the last century saw 155 million killed by two world wars and national oppression. A cursory knowledge reveals this carnage has been a defining characteristic of humanity in recorded history.

The enormous firepower and precision of current war machines, currently illustrated in Libya, is a reminder of the growing ability of well-armed despotic rulers to subjugate their people and destroy opponents. History has taught us we have every reason to expect similar violence to continue.

This is in contrast to the irrational belief that humankind is somehow improving with time. What improvement has occurred is predominantly in countries with a Christian heritage, generally in the west. Yet there, the eroding of Christian values threatens to return those countries to chaos.

Even in Canada, with the ebbing of Christian belief, there is a creeping loss of human rights and growing restrictions on belief and expression, engineered by “Human Rights” tribunals. The only real light for the world is the One who called Himself the Light of the World.

If there is any hope for humankind, the exploding increase of Christ’s message across the world, in places like South America, Africa, China, even Mongolia, will help alleviate human cruelty. But final peace and justice on earth will be imposed and administered by the Righteous One.

Just one compelling reason to crave the soon return of Jesus Christ. "Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done” will herald the end to earth’s bloodshed (Revelation 22:12).

The Japan Disaster: Seeking Answers

As I discussed in the last blog, the suffering of the Japanese people raises the perennial question of how a good God could stand by and let enormous suffering like this continue. In fact, why does God allow suffering at all, if He is powerful enough to terminate it?

Bertrand Russell, the most cynical of British philosophers, put the matter baldly. If God is powerful enough to stop suffering and He doesn’t, He can’t be good. If he is good, but allows suffering to continue, He can’t be all-powerful. “From this argument,” Russell claims, “there is no escape.” (Unpopular Essays). God can’t be both good and omnipotent.

C. S. Lewis, before his conversion to Christianity, believed in the common wisdom that God could not exist on the basis of the cold emptiness of the universe, and that the world’s “creatures cause pain by being born, and live by inflicting pain, and in pain they mostly die.” (The Problem of Pain)

But Lewis came to recognise that this position poses a specific problem. “If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator?”

Christianity maintains that God is good, and His creation is good, But humankind, in seeking a rebellious independence from Him, messed it up. Ian, in response said, among other things, “I think that this devastation, as horrific as it is, reminds us of the fallen world in desperate need of redemption.”

It is also a symptom of that Fall. In my blog Thursday February 24: Christchurch: Why Me? I show how Scripture supports the idea that our sinfulness pollutes and defiles the ground, destabilising the planet from its original operating specifications.

I have also given some more thought to the general problem of suffering on the Inscribe Writers’ blogsite http://inscribewritersonline.blogspot.com/.

But grinding of the Japanese tectonic plates certainly pictures “creation . . . groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” waiting to “be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:21 and 22).

The Japan Disaster: Why?

  

Every disaster on this scale raises a host of feelings: shock at it’s suddenness, helplessness at the scale of the carnage, but most of all confusion, even anger, at the meaninglessness of it all.

Questions invade our minds. Where is God in all this, why does He allow it? Is this a judgement of sorts on the people or nation? For Christians, the juxtaposition between the calamity and God’s love is especially poignant. Is life, after all, just a matter of chance?

While Christians believe there is a final answer to these questions, the murkiness of our flawed understanding will always leave some mystery unexplained in this life. We see “through a glass darkly,” our view circumscribed by our ignorance, reminding us that our walk is by faith, not by sight.

Of course, pat answers are no help to anyone, especially those made destitute, bereaved, or maimed in minutes. For them, the questions must wait; our duty is to bring succour and relief within our capabilities. But the questions remain, hanging as an oppressive cloud over the event.

Volumes are written on the subject of suffering, yet every catastrophe casts a shadow of doubt on all our attempts at answers. Each time it causes us to review the fragility of life, our view of the purpose of life, and the paradox of human disaster and a God of love.

I would like to discuss these questions together in succeeding blogs. Please feel free to share your ideas.

No Fault Injury?

No Fault Injury?

Once again, the uproar about serious hockey injuries has erupted. It will continue to do so simply because injuries like Pacioretty received a few nights ago will continue to occur. It may be the result of a brawl, deliberate hits or an “accident” as this one has been termed.

Despite Pacioretty’s inability to play hockey in the near future—may be a lifetime—apparently, no one is to blame. We’re told accidents happen, and should be expected in high speed, hard hitting games. Expect to get injured and suffer the consequences. Survival of the fittest!

But accident or not, why is the one causing the injury absolved from responsibility? In a dangerous game, the expectation is that a player will cause, as well as receive, injury, so why not expect to share in the consequences?

A vehicle “accident” is always paid for the by the causing party, and even the game of hockey itself is fairer than life. Every foul requires a penalty—accident or not. Yet strangely, that principle is considered too vengeful for real injury.

The common complaint of western “justice” is that the punishment rarely fits the crime, even though popular wisdom dictates that an “eye for an eye” or “life for a life” is malicious and vindictive. But of course, that was never the purpose.

The principle of an “eye for an eye” simply ensured the punishment fit the crime and there was no gain for the perpetrator. That was not only a deterrent, it also prohibited escalation, while satisfying the concept of fairness in justice.

Unfortunately, the principle of punishment fitting the crime has been devalued in western culture because wrong doing is considered a character flaw to be corrected, not a vice that requires a penalty. Just consider Canada’s prison system; “Corrections Canada” says it all!

Let’s be honest. It’s selfishness—our current cultural creed—that requires the other guy to take the fall—in Pacioretty’s case, literally and outcome. Yet fairness would dictate that a perpetrator suffer the same game consequences as the injured player.

It seems to me that if the one causing the injury automatically suffered the same loss of hockey as the victim, not only would violence decrease, perhaps the rules of the game itself would change. However, I’m not sure Canada could cope with a kinder, gentler hockey, or even a simple thorough-going fairness.