Confessions of an ex-atheist - Psychoanalysing myself

The first question that popped into my head after my first ever experience with God (which, to prove how powerful God is, was on a senior high disco retreat) was “How do I know that this isn’t just some psychological trick that my sub-conscious is playing on me because I am too weak to deal with the hard truth? This was a question that haunted me for the first couple of years of my Christian walk. How do I know? At times I would be convinced that I was playing tricks on myself and that I needed t quit, sometimed I didn’t care because my life was obviously improved and I was just a utilitarian after all (which bothered the snot out of me, sort of an internal yin and yang playing tug o’ war), but the I realized something. I was asking the wrong question and I needed to just stop. How was that any more intellectually satisfying? Well let me explain why it is the wrong question. If your watch is broken and one of the gears decides that the watch needs to be fixed, it does not help if that gear climbs out of it’s spot to tromp around inside your watch trying to find the problem because now one of the major problems is that the gear is out of place, it is out trying to fix the problem when the problem is that it is out. Our mind is part of us and it is supposed to be working in harmony with the rest of us. If we let it wander around banging on things with a wrench, then we will never work properly, because our mind is out of line. When I quit asking that silly question, I realized something else. The psychologist who was telling me that I couldn’t trust myself because I was only acting the way that I was conditioned to act was only saying that because he was conditioned to say that, and since you can’t trust a conditioned action, (so he insisted) then I can’t trust what he is saying. And if I can’t trust what he is saying then I don’t know if my actions are untrustworthy after all. Realized that if he was right, then he was wrong, and if he was wrong then he can’t be right, and if he isn’t right, then he is wrong. As I said before, my problem all along was that I was asking the wrong question.

Confessions of an ex-atheist - the Problem of Reepicheep

When I was a child, thanks mostly to my father and mother (and to some extent a government program called Tesera) I filled my time with the reading of books. But not lame books like the time machine, great books like the chronicles of Narnia, King Arthur and the nights of the round table, the hatchet, and the hobbit (I remember at the time thinking that Bilbo’s trip home was longer than necessary; I have since changed my opinion). In the sixth grade, because I had decided on physics as my future occupation, I became an Atheist. From sixth grade until my conversion in the tenth grade I held just about every intellectual theory close to my bosom for some short period of time. I was an evolutionist, an existentialist, a materialist, and even a Marxist. For a time psychology held sway, then biological determinism, then multiculturalism, but at some point along the journey I realized that I had lost Reepicheep. He was no longer on my side. Imagine Reepicheep in a confined space for any period of time with someone that says things like Karl Marx “A prostitute is more valuable in a society than a housewife.” He would run him through and no one on the Dawn Treader is going to stop him. Or Freud “No little mouse, you are wound up because your Id desires to sleep with your mother” Not only would no one stop him, everyone would cheer when Reepicheep sword spilled Freud’s blood all over the starboard deck. This was disconcerting for a junior higher. I was loosing my hero’s so that I could say ridiculous things like, “Multiple partners is our animal instinct, I mean come on, its just mating.” And you just do that because your older brother was always stealing you lime light, and besides, if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad.” I new that Arthur wasn’t saving a seat for me at the round table. This is one of the things that kept me wondering about Jesus; Reepicheep, Arthur, and Bilbo all seemed to need Him to make sense. I new that I was half-hearted (at best) about everything that I did. I was slipping away from what I wanted to be, someone that Reepicheep would respect.

Bureaucratic thanklessness

Bureaucracy is institutionalized thanklessness. In bureaucratic communities (like ours), you can work with countless institutions and never have anybody to whom you can send a thank you card. If you qualify for the permit, then the faceless bureaucracy must grant you your rights. Check the boxes get the signatures, and you qualify. And if you can do it all over the internet, you don’t even have to talk to anyone. Bureaucracy is impersonalized, thankless, semi-meritorious mediocrity. We think that if we can check all of the boxes then we deserve what we are getting. It is our human right. But why should I thank anyone for my education, I meet all the criteria; I qualify. Why should I thank anyone for this government grant, I qualify, I deserve it. There is no one expecting a thank you card in a b bureaucratic institution, because there is no to thank.
Often times our solution can be worse than the disease. We don’t want to just get all sentimental about feudalism, or the ante-bellum south or the American war for independence. But in particular, we don’t want to just start complaining about those bureaucrats over there in the house and senate. The answer is to repent of our thankless view of God being some big bureaucrat in the sky. God does not think of us as just a number that needs to get the boxes checked. We need to stop thanking that we just need to get the boxes all checked and everything will fall into place. I have checked all the boxes, it is now my right to have believing kids. I have done what I am supposed to, it is now my right to live long and prosperous without any severe hardship. I have a Christian worldview (I took the CWVAT Christian Worldview Analysis Test), I’m postmillennial, I am classically educating my kids, I am home schooling, I am covenantal, I am reformed, I drink and smoke and don’t work on Sundays. We will use almost anything to set ourselves apart.But God is not a bureaucrat. God is not waiting to check the boxes. God gives promises. God says raise your kids to fear me and I will give you believing kids, and we say, there’s the box, got to get it checked. But God says, “believe me, trust me, quit trying to accomplish what I have told you that I will do.” Quit trying to do what God has already accomplished when Jesus Christ died on the cross for you and your children. Just say thank you. Say thank you. God is not a bureaucrat. God is a personal king who is gracious, who is full of grace, and gives wonderful gifts. He gives believing children, he gives unexpected money, he gives unexpected bills, he gives jobs, he gives cars, and car wrecks, he gives arthritis. He gives unbelieving politicians and He gives persecution and times of peace and we say thank you. We say thank you for it all because God is not a beaurocat. We do not get what we deserve, we get what is good for us, and we get what is right for us, so we need to quit whining.

More on Gossip

I wonder why they call all those magazines in the checkout aisle gossip magazines?

On Gossip

I recently realized that Gossip is not lying. Gossip is when you take refuge by appealing, "What, it's true." Gossip is destructive often times because it is true, but of course we must do unto others, and that does not mean that because you like to hear gossip that you will do unto others and share the gossip. That means that we ought to be willing to shut up our mouths to defend our brothers, because, someone seeking the destruction of the people in their own camp (which is what gossip is) is not seeking the good of their people.