Oh look, honey, they’ve built a doomsday machine!

Posted on September 8, 2008 by me

MSNBC.com reports today on the Large Hadron Collider, which the fine folks at CERN plan to switch on tomorrow in the hopes of re-creating conditions that may have existed in the first few seconds after the Big Bang. Not knowing, of course, exactly what conditions existed in the first few seconds after the Big Bang or what the result of slamming atoms into each other at breakneck speeds of 99.9% of the speed of light will be, the scientists are eagerly awaiting whatever surprises await. Including the possibility of creating one or more black holes, which the scientists at CERN assure us will not cause any problems.

Personally, I’m not scared. However, a number of folks are, and have filed a lawsuit to try to stop the machine from being turned on until more studies are done. MSNBC reports that the CERN scientists’ fears are not the black holes (I envision these guys sitting around like my teenagers blowing up fireworks in various illegal ways, making comments like, “cool!” “wicked!”), but that someone else may beat them in the race to find the Higgs boson, or that perhaps the experiment is a $10 Billion bust or even worse, that they find that no Higgs particle exists.

The Higgs boson is the theoretical particle that “is thought to interact with other particles to give them mass.” It has been aptly nick-named “The God Particle” because without it, the Standard Theory says, there’s no explanation for mass. In other words, they haven’t yet been able to explain the existence of matter apart from this theoretical particle. MSNBC quotes John Ellis, a physicist at CERN:

“This is in some sense the holy grail of particle physics, to find this missing link in the Standard Model,” Ellis said. “So that’s one thing that we’re really looking forward to with the LHC. In fact, back when we persuaded the politicians to stump up the money to build the thing, that’s probably what we told them.”

Wow, that really inspires confidence in these guys, doesn’t it?  So, what if the particle doesn’t exist?

Ellis acknowledged that was a possibility. “This might be a little bit difficult to explain to our politicians, that here they gave us 10 billion of whatever, your favorite currency unit, and we didn’t find the Higgs boson,” he said.

But Ellis has faith that even then, there’d be something to discover — maybe something even weirder and more wonderful than the Higgs boson.

Maybe even itsy-bitsy black holes.  Could this been the doomsday machine?  Personally, and this is a totally uninformed hunch, I don’t think so.  At worst, we could lose parts of France and Switzerland. Even if this did trigger the end of the world as we know it, I’m not afraid.  I’m quitting my job, so that just means that finding a new job wouldn’t be an issue. I’m okay with that.  It also could mean that science would have “proved” the existence of God, in a way.  So, more power to ’em.

Tomorrow, MSNBC will apparently continue to look at the negative and positve possibilities of the collider.

Posted in Faith, Science & Doubt | 4 Comments

More good stuff from Ben Witherington

Posted on August 31, 2008 by me

Ben Witherington’s blog has become essential reading for me- he has a lot to say on such diverse topics as Biblical archeology and movie reviews. The following quote from his blog is from a draft of an upcoming book on the New Testament and ethics called The Indelible Image.  His blog post contains a much larger segment on the connection between the Old and New Testaments.  It’s good stuff, and I think even non-Christians who question the validity of the Bible, believing it to be full of errors and contradictions,  will find it interesting and hopefully enlightening. Trust me – if you’ve ever criticized the Bible, you probably should read this if you want to maintain any kind of intellectual integrity.

Some will ask why is it so important to consider the theology and the ethics in the Bible in a processive and progressive manner? One answer is that we cannot judge the meaning of a story, and the character of its actors before we get to the end of it. Consider for a moment the example of the great trilogy the Lord of the Rings. One cannot tell whether Frodo will have the necessary character to do what is required with the ring until we get to right near the end of the story. Up to that point we do not know whether he will pass the test. Or even more tellingly, we cannot tell whether Gollum is going to end up being an adversary or an assistant in the process of saving the Shire and the world until right near the end. Or what of Gandalf? Will he return in time or at all to help the human race ward off evil? We don’t know until many hundreds of pages into the story. The Bible involves a similarly epic story from creation through fall through various acts of redemption to the final new creation. Viewing the whole story from the end changes the way we look at the character of God, the character of God’s people, how human history will play out, the nature of redemption, and a host of other subjects. The truth is—we don’t fully know God and the divine character sufficiently for eternal salvation before Jesus turns up to reveal it.

This is not necessarily the best section to quote, but I chose it because it is reasonably self-contained and does give the flavor of what he’s saying. I really encourage you to head over to Ben’s blog (here’s the link again) and read the entire article.

Now for something completely different, thanks again to Ben W for finding this little gem:

Who says that Christians don’t have a sense of humor?

Posted in Humor and/or Sarcasm, Theological Musings | Leave a comment

What do you mean, “Christianity isn’t about making me happy”

Posted on August 30, 2008 by me

“I was quite shocked…that most people thought the reason for Christianity is to make you happy. I shared that with the youth worker at my congregation…as I told him about that I invited him to bring the high school students to my class because I was expressing things about the faith and that particular Sunday I was going to talk about the Creed. So the youth came and they participated a little bit…when they went back to their own class they voted whether to come to my class anymore, and they voted not to, because they didn’t want to learn the substance of faith.

I was very disappointed, and I asked about what they were doing in their junior high class to prepare them for high school class. There they were doing “How Christianity helps us grow up.” But it was matters of “I need comfort when I break up with my boyfriend.” There’s more to Christianity than how its going to make you happy… Young people have very little doctrinal content. And that’s dangerous because, if it’s just feelings that hold them to Christianity, when their feelings aren’t there…they’ll move away .”  – Dr. Marva Dawn from The White Horse Inn, 8-24-08

Thanks to Charles St-Onge for the quote.

This issue has been plaguing me for some time now. One of the issues that gave rise to the Reformation was the theological and Biblical ignorance of the Roman Church, including the leaders. Many of the local priests didn’t even understand the Latin that they recited daily from memory. Today, as “educated” as we are, with an amazing plethora of resources available for free on the internet, the contemporary evangelical church is largely ignorant. And, they apparently want to stay that way, even many of the leaders. I’ve heard from more than one pastor that they don’t have time to read or study (aside from what they have to do to prepare sermons, etc.). More and more sermons are on the level expressed above, “where do I find comfort when I break up with my boyfriend?”

It’s embarrassing, and it’s frightening. I’m putting my son, who’s a high school senior, though a self-study theology program (called “The Theology Program“), so at least he’s got some kind of foundation. He’s not getting it in the youth group. Fortunately, my wife and I taught 3 years of Jr High and High School classes (my wife has taught for longer) where we provided basic theology, but still, it was nothing like the education I had growing up. As a Lutheran in Confirmation class, I learned church history as well as basic theology, including the meaning of the creeds, and so on. It takes a church, not just one person.

Who cares, today?  I don’t think the church we’ve been attending does.  Churches today are offering more practical, “meaningful” topics to attract people to their classes. It’s not about education, it’s about marketing, experience and entertainment. It’s time for a new Western evangelical reformation, and the emerging movement isn’t it. Cultural relevance isn’t it.

The church needs to rediscover the Gospel, that Jesus is Lord (king) and that he’s got a plan. We’re not just here wasting time waiting to be taken away to some Heaven-Nirvana. We’re called (remember “calling?”) to a purpose, to start working for the Kingdom here and now.

To those waiting to hear the next “feel-good” sermon about what’s in it for you, this is what I have to say: “Suck it up. Wake up. Get over it.” Certainly there are benefits for you in the process; Christianity is a religion of “enlightened self-interest.” But recall the Bible talks about working out your salvation. That’s not working for your salvation, that’s putting your salvation to work.

Welcome to the New Reformation.

Posted in Church, Letter to a Christian Nation, Theological Musings | 2 Comments

Journalist Julie Burchill: For the love of Christ

Posted on August 24, 2008 by me

Today, atheism is big business with the success of books like The God Delusion. If you want to get ahead, be a heretic! Something, however, has been lost. Say the word “atheist” 100 years ago and it conjured up a vision of sexy, freewheeling rebels celebrating life, love and creativity in their rejection of a higher power. Say it now and a vision of fun-hating killjoys, desperately scared that somewhere a Christian is having a good time by singing lustily in church on a Sunday morning, comes to mind. And, sadly, the alleged “humanist morality” never happened – to this day, 80% of all unpaid and unself-interested voluntary and charity work is faith-driven.

From For the love of Christ.

Thanks to Quixote for pointing me toward this article. I wasn’t familiar with Ms. Burchill before today, but I’ve looked back on a couple of earlier articles. She certainly has an interesting persepctive on things, and a way with words. She also seems to understand that being a Christian means something beyond finding personal peace (which, coincidentally, appears the direct opposite of what my oldest son heard in the church he attended this morning), as she states in her opening paragraph:

First of all, let me tell you what this isn’t. It’s not some “I-was-lost-and-now-I’m-found” sob story. These days, many people reach out to faith “to find peace”. I had too much peace in my life already. In faith, I was looking to be troubled – on behalf of other people. Every film and pop starlet, trawling after a reason to exist, says, “I’m not religious – but I am spiritual”. I don’t have a spiritual bone in my body; but what I am, is religious. I believe, literally, in the God of the Old Testament, whom I understand as the Lord of the Jews and the Protestants. I’m a Christian Zionist, as well as a Christian feminist and a Christian socialist. But over the past two decades, almost without me knowing it, the Christian part has become the most important.

I haven’t yet figured out what her “Christian Zionist” thing is, and how that fits with her Christian socialism. But, she has a perspective on things that is not what we usually hear, and I appreciate that.

Posted in Faith, Science & Doubt, Reviews | 4 Comments