Don’t keep Africa down. Help them modernize by any means possible unless you favor genocide, enslavement, and shorter lifetimes. Help with energy technology improvements over time. Let the people of Africa rise!
We’ve got to stop trying to oppress and coerce one another because we think we know what’s best for everyone else. Change over time is possible if we’re willing to cast off the hard sell, and adapt.
High Park Fire, US Air Force, 22 June 2012, 06:05:53, in the public domain
For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. Hebrews 6:10-12 English Standard Version (ESV)
This is a key verse of assurance. Self-sacrifice in service to our brothers and sisters is both a marker and builder of our confidence in His promise of eternal life. And that service is not directed only to those professing faith, but those especially; while not forgetting our duty for service to all.
For God is not unrighteous, etc. These words signify as much as though he had said, that from good beginnings he hoped for a good end.
But here a difficulty arises, because he seems to say that God is bound by the services of men: “I am persuaded,” he says, “as to your salvation, because God cannot forget your works.” He seems thus to build salvation on works, and to make God a debtor to them…
…God does not pay us a debt, but performs what he has of himself freely promised, and thus performs it, inasmuch as he pardons us and our works; nay, he looks not so much on our works as on his own grace in our works. It is on this account that he forgets not our works, because he recognizes himself and the work of his Spirit in them…
…God is righteous in recompensing works, because he is true and faithful: and he has made himself a debtor to us, not by receiving anything from us; but as Augustine says, by freely promising all things.
And labor of love, etc. By this he intimates that we are not to spare labor, if we desire to perform duty towards our neighbors; for they are not only to be helped by money, but also by counsel, by labor, and in various other ways. Great [diligence], then, must be exercised, many troubles must be undergone, and sometimes many dangers must be encountered. Thus let him who would engage in the duties of love, prepare himself for a life of labor…
By saying that they had ministered and were still ministering, he commended their perseverance; which in this particular was very necessary; for there is nothing to which we are more prone than to weariness in well doing. Hence it is, that though many are found ready enough to help their brethren, yet the virtue of constancy is so rare, that a large portion soon relax as though their warmth had cooled.
But what ought constantly to stimulate us is even this one expression used by the apostle, that the love shown to the saints is shown towards the name of the Lord; for he intimates that God holds himself indebted to us for whatever good we do to our neighbors, according to that saying,
“What you have done to one of the least of these, you have done to me,” (Matthew 25:40)
and there is also another,
“He that gives to the poor lends to the Lord.” (Proverbs 19:17).
And we desire, etc…“You have made,” he says, “your love evident by many acts of kindness; it remains, however, that your faith should correspond with it; you have [diligently] labored not to be wanting in your duties to men; but with no less earnestness it behooves you to make progress in faith, so as to manifest before God its unwavering and full certainty.”
Now, by these words the Apostle shows that there are two parts in Christianity which correspond with the two tables of the Law…Let us then remember, that the life of a Christian is not complete in all its parts, unless we attend to faith as well as to love.
To the full assurance of hope, or, to the certainty of hope, etc. As they who professed the Christian faith were distracted by various opinions, or were as yet entangled in many superstitions, he bids them to be so fixed in firm faith, as no longer to vacillate nor be driven here and there, suspended between alternate winds of doubts. This injunction is, however, applicable to all; for, as the truth of God is unchangeably fixed, so faith, which relies on him, when it is true, ought to be certain, surmounting every doubt. It is a full assurance, πληροφορία, an undoubting persuasion, when the godly mind settles it with itself, [which] it is not right to call in question what God, who cannot deceive or lie, has spoken…
But followers, or imitators, etc. To sloth he opposes imitation; it is then the same thing as though he said, that there was need of constant alacrity of mind; but it had far more weight, when he reminded them, that the fathers were not made partakers of the promises except through the unconquerable firmness of faith; for examples convey to us a more impressive idea of things…
Faith and patience, etc. What is meant is, a firm faith, which has patience as its companion. For faith is what is, chiefly required; but as many who make at first a marvelous display of faith, soon fail, he shows that the true evidence of that faith which is not fleeting and evanescent, is endurance. By saying that the promises were obtained by faith, he takes away the notion of merits; and still more clearly by saying that they came by “inheritance”; for we are in no other way made heirs but by the right of adoption.
Of course all humans fail and err. However, does Tyson mean to impugn God?
According to Mother Jones’ biblical and cosmological authority, Chris Mooney:
To be a Young Earth creationist is to hold a truly unique place in the history of wrongness. These religious ideologues don’t just deny human evolution; their belief in a universe that is only a few thousand years old commits them to an enormity of other errors, including many beliefs that fly in the face of modern physics.
But maybe he’s just host of MJ’s Climate Desk.
According to Mooney, Tyson explains:
To believe in a universe as young as 6 or 7,000 years old is to extinguish the light from most of the galaxy. Not to mention the light from all the hundred billion other galaxies in the observable universe.
But, by this statement, Tyson fallaciously misrepresents his opponent.
Crab Nebula by Hubble Space Telescope (Public Domain)
Someone of no import nowadays, John Calvin, had this to say of God’s prerogatives with respect to His universe:
With regard to inanimate objects again we must hold that though each is possessed of its peculiar properties, yet all of them exert their force only in so far as directed by the immediate hand of God. Hence they are merely instruments, into which God constantly infuses what energy he sees meet, and turns and converts to any purpose at his pleasure. No created object makes a more wonderful or glorious display than the sun. …No pious man, therefore, will make the sun either the necessary or principal cause of those things which existed before the creation of the sun, but only the instrument which God employs, because he so pleases; though he can lay it aside, and act equally well by himself: Again, when we read, that at the prayer of Joshua the sun was stayed in its course; that as a favor to Hezekiah, its shadow receded ten degrees; by these miracles God declared that the sun does not daily rise and set by a blind instinct of nature, but is governed by Him in its course, that he may renew the remembrance of his paternal favor toward us…
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know. It is our will that decides how and upon what subjects we shall use our intelligence… No philosophy is completely disinterested. The pure love of truth is always mingled to some extent with the need, consciously or unconsciously felt by even the noblest and the most intelligent philosophers.
However, I think we’d all do well to heed John Horgan when he says:
Of course we feel validated when others see the world as we do. But we should resist the need to insist or even imply that our views—or anti-views—are better than all others. In fact, we should all be more modest in how we talk about our faith or lack thereof.
By way of disclosure, we do nothold to typical creation hypotheses, we believe Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are in harmony, and John Horgan does not endorse the content or views expressed on this blog.
No, I’m not referring to the song by Stevie Wonder (as much as I like the instrumental version). But, instead, I refer to the prevalent bias against truereligion. When we see religion as moral and ethical obedience to God–given law that is beneficial to us and to others, I’m not sure how we justify anything else. Except, of course, in order to avoid our responsibility and laugh in the face of our inevitable accountability.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
And we do the latter in everything we do in this scientific age. The art work in this post, Flammarion (Photo credit: Wikipedia), shows a medieval missionary delving into heaven through the firmament to see the workings of God. I think that our sciences expand the firmament to the extent that we shut out the possibility that the immaterial has place in our thoughts and contemplations. This “expansion” is seen not merely in our astrophysics but in our neuroscience and in all the other scientific disciplines. This is a mistake.
With regard to inanimate objects again we must hold that though each is possessed of its peculiar properties, yet all of them exert their force only in so far as directed by the immediate hand of God. Hence they are merely instruments, into which God constantly infuses what energy he sees meet, and turns and converts to any purpose at his pleasure. No created object makes a more wonderful or glorious display than the sun. …No pious man, therefore, will make the sun either the necessary or principal cause of those things which existed before the creation of the sun, but only the instrument which God employs, because he so pleases; though he can lay it aside, and act equally well by himself: Again, when we read, that at the prayer of Joshua the sun was stayed in its course; that as a favor to Hezekiah, its shadow receded ten degrees; by these miracles God declared that the sun does not daily rise and set by a blind instinct of nature, but is governed by Him in its course, that he may renew the remembrance of his paternal favor toward us…
So, our Principle of Least Action, applied to quantum fields (if they turn out to be fields, except in approximation, as a result of the coming paradigm shift), is falsified by these “superstitious beliefs” put forth by scripture and exposited by John Calvin. Our entire mode of living, apart from reverential awe due to God, is falsified. Call scripture superstition if you must, but God is simply accommodating our finiteness as he calls us to into account before it’s too late for you or for me.
Mandated Memoranda 