Deus

Deus is the Latin word for God. My previous blog had a number of entries that discussed theological concepts that I feel are worthy of an encore. Those entries you will find now, here, all originally written by me. Enjoy!

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January 13, 2008

CSI: Double Cross

This was the very first episode of CSI that I have ever watched. The only reason I watched it was because it involved the Catholic Church, and a priest suspected of murder. The victim was found strangled by a rosary, and was crucified, hanging from the rafters of a church. (How could I not watch this show!)This episode had a number of themes worth mentioning.

• God or the girl? The priest was willing to leave the priesthood for the love of a woman. Deciding whether to pursue the priesthood or to pursue married life is something that almost every young man considering the priesthood wrestles with.
• Confession. The priest cannot reveal any sins revealed in the confessional. The true murderer confessed to killing the victim “for cheating on me with you”, for cheating on him with the priest, that is. That angered the priest so much that he jumped out of his stall and assaulted the guilty man. Yet later when questioned, the priest did not reveal who the true murderer was, but instead, sacrificed his own innocence by falsely saying that he himself was the murderer – thus protecting the guilty. The innocent sacrificing his own life for the guilty… sounds like something Christ himself did by dying on the cross for us all.
• Guilt. The episode played on this a lot. For example, the interrogator said to the priest, ” In our world you’re either innocent or guilty.” The priest replied, “In my world you can be both.” So, how so? I can feel guilt for knowing that someone was murdered, even though I am innocent in that person’s death. There are countless other examples.
• Forgiveness. At the end of the episode, the priest is asked by an authority, regarding the murderer, “Can you forgive him?” The priest replies, “That’s Christ’s mandate. You know what that means.” The authority responds, ” You have no choice.” The way Catholics express love for God is by loving their neighbour, which involves forgiveness… forgiveness of friend and foe. No, it’s not easy – if it were, are world would be a lot more peaceful, but people hold grudges, anger, hate, and thus we end up with all the quarrelling and fear that is in our world today.

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December 28, 2007

Father Batman

I was watching the 1989 Batman film tonight and came to a realization that Batman’s lifestyle is like that of a priest. Think about it. The priest sacrifices his life for the greater good of others. He challenges society’s norms by living counter-culturally, sacrificing having a family and the pursuit of wealth, among other things. The priest takes the vow of celibacy in order to devote his energies and time into serving God by serving others, which means that should the priest find a woman falling for him, he is obliged not to get romantically involved as this would compromise his ability to devote all his energies toward God. Same goes for Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman. Bruce sacrifices his way of living in order to serve and protect the innocent. He also is an unmarried man and remains that way as long as he has his crime-fighting career. There was a scene in the 1989 Batman film that emphasized this. Bruce’s interest Vicki Vale, once she was let into the batcave, confronts Bruce and asks “why won’t you let me in?” By this she is questioning why Bruce seems to be careful in how attached he becomes to her. She wants to know if the two of them will ever try to love each other. Bruce loves Vicki but refuses to commit fully to her. Bruce is committed to his alter-ego. The priest is committed to his Church. Both of them are men of sacrifice. Both of them are heroes.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. -John 15:1

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October 07, 2007

the placebo power of the “prayer cloth”

Televangelist Don Stewart offers green “prosperity cloths” on his show, and one can get one by simply phoning for one. His program shows us testimonials of people using such a cloth to turn their lives around, as through getting new jobs, or getting out of financial debt. Can such a little green cloth really do all that, and more?Proponents against all forms of religion may see this as a clear reason as to why religion can be nonsensical. Religion certainly is valuable when approached with good moral attitudes, however, just like everything else in the world, it has its imperfections, one of which is when some may use it to their own advantage. The following is taken from Don Stewart’s website:

MAKE A VOW OF TITHE BY FAITH!

A Vow of Tithe by faith is a sacred promise to give God a special offering in advance, based on what we believe God will give us in the future. It’s the same as planting seed today for a future harvest. Since this is a vow on future earnings and blessings, the amount of your vow will be determined by what you are expecting God to do for you. If you are believing for big blessings, then you make a big vow of tithe by faith. The greater your need…the bigger your expectations for the future…the bigger your vow. In other words, the more seed you plant, the greater your harvest will be.

In simple terms, here’s how it works. How much money do you need? If you make a vow of tithe for $1,000, it means you are believing God for $10,000 [emphasis mine]. If you make a Vow of $2,000, it means you’re believing for $20,000. Your future need may be much greater than that. You set the level of your need and vow to give to God according to that need.
I challenge you to make a vow of $1,000 or more.
http://www.donstewarttv.com/Home/GiveOnline/tabid/5387/Default.aspx

For some people, especially those who have lost all hope and are desperate to try anything to get themselves out of whatever hardships they may be in, Stewart’s appeal can sound quite inviting. If you go to church, your church shouldn’t be egging you on to give thousands of dollars, and saying that the amount you believe in God is based on how much money you donate! That is absurd, and is a manipulative way of persuading the vulnerable to give more and more, believing that the more they give, the more they believe in God, and the more God will want to answer their prayers for that new car!

When’s the last time you heard a priest say that the more you put in the collection basket, the more God will love you? The bottom line here is this: God loves us all equally well, the only problem is that too many choose not to reciprocate or even acknowledge that love, resulting in… evil.

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September 16, 2007

Dawkins’ style…

I’ve been going through athiest Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion lately and I’m almost near completion of reading it. One thing that strikes me odd is his style of really minimizing aspects of Christianity taken from the bible. For example, in the story where Abraham obeys God’s test of faith by nearly taking his son’s life, Dawkins asserts that the child will end up growing up mentally traumatized and that Abraham should be penalized for child abuse. Dawkins’ overall tone is quite belittling that he might as well have said something like the following regarding Jesus’ feeding of the 5000: “Well, if Jesus fed 5000 men, why didn’t he feed ALL of the starving people in the world? What kind of saviour is that? Why didn’t he go on and give them all houses too? What kind of saviour is that?? Why didn’t he go on and give them all 21st century technology? What kind of saviour is that??? Why didn’t he give everyone iPods? Why didn’t he make everyone on earth millionaires? Oh please tell me… what kind of saviour is that!??!!!!!!!!!!” I can picture Dawkins making this claim, while using some silly music soundtrack as background accompaniment.You get the idea.So let’s use Dawkins’ tone when talking about athiesm: “So, you say there is no God? Well, if there is no God, then I guess now I can truly be happy!!! Rejoice! Now I can finally live with the satisfaction of knowing that I am now truly living the good life! Now I can fornicate all I want! Hey, as long as it’s between consenting adults, it’s okay! And guess what? Now I can truly say I’m not being brainwashed! For you see now I only let Mr. Dawkins brainwash me, and all of the other scientists who say that there is gravity! Even though I can’t see gravity, I guess I’ll just believe it since I can feel the force of it acting on me! Hoorah! And what else… now I can live knowing that my life is meaningless since the real reason we are in existence is because… oh wait, there is no God… I’m in existence for absolutely no good reason! Hallelujah!!!!”Of course I’m using a belittling and condescending tone here, just like Dawkins does in his book. With such a style, it’s hard to appreciate just how objective a work of literature is.I particularly take interest in this one quote of Dawkins.

I do not, by nature, thrive on confrontation. (The God Delusion, p.281)

Well if that’s the case, then I guess his thriving on the confrontation that his book has created amongst atheists and non-athiests is not the reason why he’s thriving on the glorious profits of his book.

I’ve heard of religious becoming athiests. I’ve heard of athiests becoming priests. God sure has interesting plans for each and everyone of us…

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September 07, 2007

Who gets to go to heaven?

Recently I was asked the question that many religious and non-religious will ponder at some point in their lives: who gets to go to heaven? Who goes to hell? Do only Catholics go to heaven? Does it matter if you’re Catholic, can you be any religion and still go to heaven? What if you’re a really morally responsible and just individual, and yet athiest, Buddhist, whatever… would you still get to go to heaven?There are a couple of ways to answer this. The first is the most obvious way: answering with a straight yes or no… but that’s no fun, so let’s look at this question using an analogy.Let’s say you hear about a really good person named Michelle. Michelle’s throwing a really huge party in the very near future (she doesn’t tell you exactly when but it’s soon) and this party becomes more popular day-by-day. In fact, her party is promising to be one of the most prestigious social events ever to be held in a long time, and of course, people are wanting to go to this extravagant party, yourself included. Michelle is a very friendly and outgoing gal, so much so that she’s decided to send out invitations to pretty much everyone. Anyone can go to the party, the only requirement for one to be allowed to go is to follow what it says in the invitation. The invitation says that, among other things, you need to have a liking for classical music, a liking for red wine, and a knowledge of Homer Simpson. Most importantly, on the invitation, Michelle has written: “I personally hope that you take the time to give me a quick phone call and to tell me a little about yourself before you come to my party… I look forward to meeting you!”So time goes by, and the party day arrives. You’re excited like crazy and ring the doorbell to Michelle’s place. She opens the door… and gives you a puzzled look. She doesn’t know who you are – you haven’t given her the phone call she expected, nor have you taken the time to learn to like classical music, red wine, and Homer Simpson. In fact, you haven’t done anything that the invitation requested, yet you still hope to get into the party. But Michelle doesn’t know you, and you aren’t even prepared for the party. To Michelle, your unpreparedness tells her that you really don’t want to join her party… so she smiles at you, and then closes the door, giving you essentially what you wanted, according to your being unprepared. And you walk away, having messed up your one and only chance to be a a part of the “party of the century”.Draw your own analogies there… Officially, the Catholic Church teaches that one must die in a state of grace, in a loving relationship with God, in order to go to heaven.

Those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they “see him as he is,” face to face. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2M.HTM

So, if all you need is a friendship with God, can’t religious non-Catholics also go to heaven? Well, one needs the grace of God as well. How can one truly experience such grace? Through the sacraments of the Catholic Church.

Final thoughts for the undecided from philosopher Blaise Pascal:

Pascal’s Wager (or Pascal’s Gambit) is the application by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal of decision theory to the belief in God. It was set out in the Pensées, a posthumous collection of notes made by Pascal towards his unfinished treatise on Christian apologetics.

The Wager posits that it is a better “bet” to believe that God exists than not to believe, because the expected value of believing (which Pascal assessed as infinite) is always greater than the expected value of not believing. In Pascal’s assessment, it is inexcusable not to investigate this issue:

“Before entering into the proofs of the Christian religion, I find it necessary to point out the sinfulness of those men who live in indifference to the search for truth in a matter which is so important to them, and which touches them so nearly.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascals_wager

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August 05, 2007

painting all the religious as creationist zealots…

You know how on Sunday mornings, there are a lot of Protestant services televised? Well, one of them caught my ear. It was James Kennedy on Coral Ridge Ministries, and he was preaching about how evolution and creation are completely incompatible, and that the two can never co-exist. He went on to say how coming from a green sludge (ie. primordial soup) is an insult to us being made in the image of God. Lots of what he was saying would probably seem ridiculous to most of the non-religious. Admittedly, I have to agree that what he was saying seemed too backwards and nonsensical. Kennedy even had his huge congregation pray to God that evolution be destroyed. I’ve posted this before on a previous post, and I’ll say it again here: Catholics do not teach that creation and evolution are completely incompatible. In fact, evolution is a highly acceptable theory, provided that God is acknowledged as the ultimate prime mover of evolution. Remember, Catholics do not interpret the Bible in a literal word-for-word manner as other religious denominations will.See James Kennedy’s anti-evolution sermon here: http://www.coralridge.org/medialibrary.asp?mediaId=3506

Fr. Roderick’s down-to-earth explanation of creation & evolution deserves mention here. Listen to the following podcast, Daily Breakfast #342, by Fr. Roderick of SQPN.com and you will find his explanation of the Catholic Church’s stance on evolution quite clear and to the point. Fast forward the podcast to 15:10 for Fr. Roderick’s talk on Catholics and creation/evolution, it goes up to about the 32:00 point. Listen to that whole segment, it’s very interesting!

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August 04, 2007

when to engage in apologetics and when to know to hold back…

If you truly believe in something, is it always right to defend your convictions in all situations? What if in engaging in such defense of your beliefs, you end up harming your relationship with the person you are debating with? On one hand, you want to just “lay down the law” and defend your faith, but on the other hand, doing so might make you appear arrogant, condescending, and stubborn. So what is one to do?Engaging in such defense of one’s faith is what Catholics refer to as “apologetics”. When done properly, it can actually end up having an evangelizing effect; however, when done poorly, it can have a detrimental effect. In some cases, there are situations in which upsetting another person may harm an important interpersonal relationship with a friend, or someone that you want to become your friend. In such cases, the arrogance that you may project in a “know-it-all” attitude is pride, a capital sin, in the eyes of God.Here’s a good rule of thumb to follow. The way I see it, I’ll engage in apologetics only if I am questioned on an aspect of my faith. Otherwise, if all someone else is doing is ranting about why he or she hates Catholics, without asking me any specific questions, then trying to stuff your beliefs in their face because you can’t handle a little criticism is evidence of poor self restraint, and an inadequate sense of humility, an all-important catholic virtue.