Checking your brain at the door!

One thing that I think people sometimes get hung up on with faith/religion is that they feel they have to check their brain at the door before entering the church... that all reason must be set aside if they are to believe what they are going to be told. I think that's very untrue. Granted, there are things that I don't understand, and I may never understand, but I don't just dismiss them as untrue. Sometimes, however, people will think that if there isn't an adequate explanation, that must mean something is not true. I don't think I've heard a good explanation of the theory of relativity that brings it down to my level, but it's still been proven true through the evidence. So I'll still believe it.

Interestingly, even though people don't want to check their brain at the door when it comes to faith and religion (and I don't think they should), it's almost like they make a conscience effort to do so by their own strong will. People should not be expected to set aside their reasoning ability, nor should they be doing it to themselves. People seem to fail to apply the same amount of reason to their faith as they do to the rest of their life. You can tell someone about a news story that seems somewhat unbelievable. Then you present the evidence to that person. If the evidence is reasonable, usually the person will believe you. However, when it comes to matters of the faith, you can point out the truth to someone. You can point out the evidence for the truth and against their erroneous belief, yet no matter how much their ideas contradict each other, they will not let them go. It's simply amazing.

Here's an example from my conversations with the Jehovah's Witnesses. They like to tell you that they have a very accurate translation of the Bible. They like to point out how different passages between the New World Translation match up with how your Bible translation reads. Many times this is true, until you start to get to passages where their translation is so obviously tainted by their agenda of pushing the Watchtower's beliefs. As you may already be aware, Jehovah's Witnesses are very big on calling God by their interpretation of His Hebrew name in the Old Testament, which they believe to be Jehovah. Here's where things get interesting with their Bible translation, the New World Translation (NWT for short).

Let me refer you to this article from the Watchtower's website:

God's Name and the "New Testament"

Interestingly, they freely admit that God's name DOES NOT appear anywhere in the New Testament "in full". (Except,as they claim, in an abbreviated form as part of the word "Hallelujah".) Now, in the NWT, they have taken the liberty of adding in God's name in many, many places.

Also refer to this link from the Watchtower website:

"Hallowed Be Your Name"—What Name?

Here they say, "If someone deliberately changes or omits part of the contents of the Bible, he is tampering with the inspired Word." I agree with this.

So why is it that the Watchtower feels that tampering with scripture is so serious, yet they then proceed to insert what they believe to be God's name all over the place in the New Testament. They do this while admitting that none of the Greek manuscripts contain His name as mentioned above.

Granted, they give many reasons why they believe God's name should be there, but that doesn't make it OK to tamper with scripture. I believe in the Trinity. I believe all the evidence is there to believe in the Trinity. Does that give me the right to go and insert the word "Trinity" where I see fit in my own Bible translation? NO! Can I get an AMEN? AMEN!

So anyway, I decided to bring this up with the JW's when they visited. As best I can recall, the conversation was along these lines (this is just a simplified version):

Me: "The Watchtower has this quote in one of the publications that talks about tampering with scripture." ---I read the quote.--- "Would you agree with this?"

JW: Yes, it is a serious matter.

Me: Do you believe we have accurate Greek manuscripts from which to translate the Bible.

JW: Yes.

Me: "Here's another quote from the Watchtower." ---I read the quote about God's name not showing up in any of the Greek manuscripts.--- "So if the name isn't in the manuscripts, and you believe we have accurate manuscripts, then why does the Watchtower insert His name in the NWT Bible? Isn't that tampering with scripture?"

JW: "Well, I believe that over time, superstition concerning the use of God's name as well as copying errors crept into the Bible."

Me: "So then you don't believe we have accurate Greek manuscripts?"

JW: "That's not what I said."

Me: "I don't understand how this adds up. You believe that superstition and copying errors have crept into the Bible. But at the same time you believe the manuscripts are accurate. How can you believe both of those things at the same time? That seems contradictory."

From here, he just tried to go into explanations as to why it's reasonable to believe that God's name was in the original manuscripts. He could not admit that his beliefs contradicted each other. He could only move on to another subject.

I can only hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will let things like this weigh on his heart and help him to become open to the truth. This example is why I said that I feel people make the choice to check their brain at the door. There is no way to reconcile his contradictory beliefs, yet he seems not to care.

Perhaps it's cases like this that cause others to think that all faiths require you to set your reasoning ability aside. It is good motivation to know why it is that you believe what you do.

Apologetics Approach

I tend to think that people often times approach the defense of the truth in the wrong manner. Of course a lot of your approach will depend on the person you are discussing the truth with.

Hopefully people know why they've decided to believe what they do. However, if you only believe something because it's what you've always believed and you don't know the reasons why it's true, it'll probably be difficult to explain the reasons for your faith to someone of another faith. Here might be an example of this:

Catholic: "I believe in the Trinity."

Jehovah's Witness: "Really? Why? That's not supported by scripture!"

Catholic: "I've been taught about the Trinity all my life. I just know it's true."

Jehovah's Witness: "Can you show me where that is in scripture?"

Catholic: "No one has ever asked me that. I don't know where to tell you to look."

Jehovah's Witness: "Let me show you how scripture doesn't support the Trinity."

And so the conversations goes... The two people look into the scriptural evidence and the Catholic may very well become a Jehovah's Witness. I don't say this because I think scripture is against the Trinity. Scripture does support the Trinity very well. I say this because the Catholic didn't know his faith well enough and didn't know scripture well enough. At the very least he didn't know where to look or he didn't put the effort into prayer and research before converting. A few verses get brought up against the Trinity and the Catholic doesn't know what to say. (One of the JW's that's been visiting me has said that he used to be Catholic, but now he's a convert to the JW church because Catholicism isn't supported by scripture while the JW beliefs are.)

If you don't know your faith well enough as a Catholic, then you're better off turning people of other faiths away when they come to your door. That's just my opinion. However, I feel there is also an exception to this... If you think you'd like to share the truth with them, then you'd better be willing to spend the time in prayer and time looking for the answers to questions about your faith that will arise during the conversations. If you are not willing to do this, your visitors could leave with the impression that there is no support for your faith. In that case, you've strengthened their faith in their lies. Your faith could also get weakened in the process. People like the JW's and the Mormons find easy targets in those that don't know their faith.

Now back to the subject of apologetics approach. I believe when you are talking to someone of another faith, it's best to understand why they believe what they do and where they are coming from. With that knowledge, you can meet them where they are and explain the truth in terms that they need to hear it. Often times I think people make the mistake of showing others the truth through their own eyes. It's approached like this, "You should believe these things for reasons X, Y, And Z. X, Y, and Z are what I consider important, so if I can convince you of these three things, you will believe the truth like I do." The problem is that the person you are talking to may not consider X, Y, and Z important at all.

Let me give you an example. When I was Baptist, I believed in Sola Scriptura (Bible Alone). There was no validity to church tradition. Things outside the Bible were not trustworthy. Heresy crept in over time. If you believed something, it had better be supported in scripture. Now, when I talked to Catholics, they could tell me what they believed, but often times they could not support it from scripture or their support seemed weak at the time. They could mention Church History, or Tradition, but that did not matter to me. Ultimately what would get the ball rolling was disproving me on my own grounds. I needed to see that Sola Scriptura was not Biblical in and of itself. I needed to see that my beliefs about Baptism and the Eucharist were not Biblical. I think that's ultimately what opened the door to looking at other evidence for the Catholic faith. The point is, if I only believe the Bible is true, then the best starting point is to talk to me about the truth based on the Bible. Don't start with Tradition or the early church fathers. That's not what I needed at that time. It was helpful in the end, but likely not the best starting point.

Let's extend this example to the JW's. They believe the New World Translation of the Bible is the most correct. After looking at it and doing a little homework, I can tell you that is complete non-sense, but they believe it none-the-less. If you take the time to find this out from them, you at least have a starting point. Now, if you're going to discuss the Trinity with them based on scripture, then you'd better make sure that you know how the verses you plan to quote are translated in the New World Translation. Otherwise they can just tell you that your translation is not very good. I can tell you that the NWT massacres many of the passages that have to do with the divinity of Jesus. So find verses like John 20:28 where Tomas says to Jesus, "My Lord and my God." This one is translated correctly in the NWT. Don't go with verses like John 1:1 where a normal translation refers to Jesus as "God" where the NWT refers to Jesus as "a god". This will get you nowhere UNLESS you are prepared to discuss the process of Biblical Greek translation with them. I will cover this in another blog post to come.

An example from the Mormons is that you're best bet is probably not to point out how the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible. Mormons don't believe the Bible is as accurate as the Book of Mormon. So if there's a problem, the Book of Mormon wins, hands down. My suggestion is to point out the truth and contradictions starting with their own books. For example, passages in the Book of Mormon indicate that Joseph Smith used to believe in some form of the trinity when he starting writing the Book of Mormon. These things are going to be bigger stumpers, in my opinion, than pointing out Biblical passages that they can just tell you are mistakes.

Let's look at St. Paul for an example. He knew the Jews believed in what we call the Old Testament section of the Bible. So he would reason with the Jews from the scriptures to prove that Jesus was the Messiah (Acts 17:2). He doesn't try to prove that Jesus was the Messiah simply because Jesus appeared to him on the road. St. Paul, in talking with the pagans, pointed out that they had an alter to an "Unknown God". He then told them that he knew who that God was, and he went on to proclaim the truth. He didn't just start talking about Hebrew scriptures that wouldn't have meant anything to the pagans. St. Paul met people where they were at. He discussed the truth from their perspective. He didn't just tell them that they needed to believe for the same reasons he converted.

Bear in mind that the process of spreading the truth is what we are called to do and I'm just giving tips on what I think a good approach is. Ultimately what is most important is that you put this work in the hands of God. Pray that they Holy Spirit will work in their lives. Pray that you will be given the words to say that these people need to hear. Pray that their hearts will be opened to the truth. Pray, pray, pray... Not praying and just relying on your own knowledge is a fallacy that's easy to fall into. I know I've done it! I just have to keep telling myself that this is God's work and put it all in His hands.

With that, I'll end here. I'll start talking about more specifics with apologetics concerning the Jehovah's Witnesses in my next post.

Witnessing to the Heretics

It's been a while since I've created a post, so here I go again. Fr. Erik suggested that I document my dealings with the Jehovah's Witnesses on my blog. (For those that don't know, they've been coming to talk to my wife and me for several weeks in hopes that they can get us to convert.) That's sounded like a good idea. Most people just dismiss the JW's when they come to the door, but I think that few actually know what they believe because they have never talked to them. JW's remind me of the Mormons in a certain sense. They would totally disagree with the Mormons, but here's what they seem to have in common...

Both groups start out with talks about the hope we have in God and the great plan He has for us. I agree, He does have a great plan for us, just not the plan they proceed to tell you. They tell you all about their beliefs that start out seemingly reasonable, but you can see the subtle underlying flaws if you pay attention. They try to make it sound like they believe a lot of the same things you do. As you go on with any of their lessons, the non-sense gets deeper and deeper and deeper, and... well, you get the picture. For example, the Mormons won't tell you that they believe that if your a man, you can eventually become a god of your own planet. They won't tell you about polygamy still being part of their religion when it comes to the afterlife. In the same way, the JW's won't start our by telling you that they believe Jesus is actually the Archangel Michael. They also don't start out with their doctrine that only 144,000 will go to heaven. They don't start out with how they don't hope to go to heaven, they just want to live on paradise earth.

Basically, both groups seem to rely on being good salesmen rather than spending their time actually researching or sincerely spending time in prayer to see if they believe sound doctrine or not.

Often time it seems like people are very surprised that I will give either of these groups the time of day. Most just send them on their way. I have three responses for this.

1. It's an excellent learning experience concerning my own faith. When I get asked questions about my beliefs, or people attempt to point out inconsistencies with my faith, I then go and get the answers to their questions. This teaches me more about my faith, why I believe it, what the early Church believed, what the Church teaches as shown in the Catechism, etc.

2. It's an excellent opportunity to learn about the faith of others. Understanding others' beliefs can be a real eye opening experience. It gives you insight as to why they do the things they do (even if you don't agree with their beliefs). Then you can at least understand their actions rather than just thinking they are totally off their rocker with no basis for their actions.

3. Third, and the most important... we are told to spread the Good News. I tend to not be very good at doing that. So I look at it like this: If they want to come to my house to share what they believe to be the truth, then it gives me the opportunity to share the ACTUAL TRUTH with them. Maybe they walk away thinking I'm an idiot, but at least they gave me the opportunity to plant the seed. I even had the added bonus of not having to leave the house since they came to me to hear the truth week after week. SWEET!!! (Maybe that's just the lazy man's method... who knows...)

My wife pointed out that she doesn't think they even listen to what we are saying. It's like a wall goes up and they don't hear a word. This is my response in a nutshell, "Been there... Done that. And at the core, I don't think that's how it is."

I grew up Baptist. I loved to talk to Catholics about how wrong they were. It was great to point out how their faith did not line up with scripture. I was spreading the truth. I'm sure that when people tried to reply with responses based on history, scripture, Church Tradition, etc, they probably thought I was very hard-headed and wasn't hearing a word. I'll admit, I was hard headed. I was relaying the truth and, by golly, you are not going to try to convince me of a lie.

Well, to make my long conversion story short, there were many Bible passages that ate at me because I had no explanation for them. Catholics used these scriptures in their defense. Mentioning the early church beliefs that were directly in line with the Catholic Church ate at me because I had assumed all my life that Church History would show that Christians were Baptists.

In the end, the Holy Spirit worked in my life. My heart was finally opened enough to at least look into these things that bothered me. Now, here I stand in the Faith of the Catholic Church as handed down through the ages by the Apostles and their successors through the work of the Holy Spirit.

So back to my response to hard-headedness... my view is that maybe it appears that people are not hearing a word you say, but down deep the things you say may bother them to the very core. They won't let you see that. But maybe one day, they will be open to the truth. The Holy Spirit will work in their lives, and there'll be another convert than can help other Mormons or JW's to find the truth. All you had to do was plant the seed in spite of feeling like you were talking to a brick wall. More to come concerning apologetics and my dealings with the JW's...

Coastal Beauty

There were no posts for a while since my wife and I went to the Oregon coast to enjoy a short vacation before I returned to work. Both of us like the beach, but for different reasons. I mainly like to go to all the tide pools and look at / play with all the critters. She likes the scenery and sunsets more (along with watching me be like a little kid). And the dogs... they just like to have fun. But most of all, they appeared to like to eat barnacles!

Here are some pictures of the outing for your enjoyment...

The Cold Within

This a poem I like. I don't know where it came from, but it's an excellent example of human nature...

The Cold Within

Six men trapped by happenstance
in dark and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood,
or so the story is told.
Their dying fire in need of logs,
the first man held his back
For the faces around the fire,
he noticed one was black.
The next man looking across the way
saw one not of his church.
So he couldn’t bring himself to give
the fire his stick of birch.
The next man dressed in tattered clothes,
he gave his coat a hitch.
Why should he use his log
to warm the idle rich.
The rich man just sat back and thought
of the riches he had in store.
And how he could keep what he had earned
from the lazy, shiftless poor.
The black man’s face bespoke revenge
as the fire passed from sight.
All he could see in his stick of wood
was a chance to spite the white.
The last man of this forlorn group
did nothing but for gain.
Giving only to those who gave
is how he played the game.
The logs held firm in death’s still hands
was proof of human sin.
But they didn’t die from the cold without,
they died from the cold within.

-Anonymous

Institutions Gone Awry

Some people will make the point that a good way to change institutions that have gone awry is to get good faithful Christians into them and change them from within. I've heard this said of places like Notre Dame and even our local Catholic High School which has a very poor reputation. I think in some cases, that is a good approach, and in some cases it is not.

For example, let's look at our government. We don't have a choice of whether or not we have a government. We have one and will continue to have one, and so we must use our best means possible to change it. That means praying earnestly for those in office and doing our best to get faithful Christians or, at the very least, moral people elected so that we can bring change from within. This is where the above strategy works well.

With institutions like Notre Dame or St. Joseph's High School, I think the better approach is to remove your support altogether. When you have a choice of where to go to school or what business to support, I don't think anything speaks louder than removing your support and going elsewhere. Your continued monetary support is like giving them approval for their actions. Yes you can continue to support them and openly disagree with them, but then you're left with a stance similar to that of the Fr. Jenkins/Obama scandal.

Here's a similar examples. I like my parish. There are many faithful orthodox parishioners there and the priest, Fr. Erik, can be trusted to provide orthodox teaching and take a stand for what is right and true. I want to support a parish like this one. Now, I ask this: When I have the option to support the truth, should I instead leave my parish and go to one that stinks of liberalism in hopes that I can bring some change from within? I could take my tithing and support a parish that claims that gays should be able to get married and that abortion is not so bad. I could hope that my presence would have an impact on all those people and the priest. When I have an option of where I will go and give my support, is this the choice I should make? I believe that choice would send the message that I want more liberal priests and parishes. I think the right choice is to uphold the truth and to go where the truth is spoken and upheld.

I think supporting the truth speaks louder than supporting lies and merely talking about the truth.

Notre Dame Student Hypocrisy

The issue with Notre Dame University inviting President Obama to their commencement as a speaker has bothered me since I had heard about it. However, given what I've heard about Notre Dame in general, I can't say it's all that surprising that the university would place prestige in a higher position than truth. It came up in conversation with a priest that a couple friends of mine were going to Notre Dame. Without hesitation, his first response was, "Are they Catholic?" The school's reputation leaves this as an open, honest question. People I know that want a good Catholic education don't even have Notre Dame on their list of schools to consider.

Now a note on the students' hypocrisy... I support their decision to stand up for the truth. Basically, it seems they are now trying to make the best of their original horrible mistake. What mistake is that? It's the mistake of going to Notre Dame in the first place. Their disagreement with the school and particularly Fr. Jenkins is hypocritical. The good Catholic students don't like the fact that President Obama was invited as a speaker and will receive an honorary degree. This is because they feel this is a demonstration of support for the the President when he stands for so much against the sanctity of human life. This goes directly against the USCCB's statement on Catholics in Political Life. I totally agree with them on this.
See the response letter to Fr. Jenkins from Bishop D'Arcy.

I'd say this is the pot calling the kettle black on the students' part, however...

Why? Although I agree with the students' frustration with their university, let's put the students under the microscope for a bit. Let's pose some tough questions for them:

1. Didn't you know that your school stood for immorality like the "Vagina Monologues" (among other things) which was described by the local bishop as "pornographic" and "spiritually damaging". Yet you still attended the school.

2. If you claim ignorance to this fact, didn't you figure this out after your first year there? Or maybe you walk around with your eyes shut and ears closed...

3. When you knew this information, did you decide to leave and give your money to an institution that upholds the truth, or did you continue to fund Notre Dame's immorality with your tuition dollars?

4. Were you looking for a good Catholic institution or where you drawn in by the prestige that you could gain by saying you went to Notre Dame?

5. If you were simply looking for a good education, were there no alternatives to giving your money to support a school that serves to give the Catholic Church a bad name?

My take on this is that you students want to voice your frustration (and rightly so) with the school and Fr. Jenkins even though he says he doesn't support Obama's views. He's showing his support by inviting Obama and giving him a degree. One the other hand, you students want to go to a prestigious school and give them all your tuition dollars and then go around with the attitude of, "Yes, we keep giving the university our money and support by attending here, but we want to make known that we don't agree with the school's actions." Well, I'd say that makes you no better than Fr. Jenkins, whom you want to accuse of wrongdoing. Your actions of attending/supporting the school as well as Fr. Jenkin's invitation to Obama speak louder than any words either of you can say. You both have given your support to immorality whether you want to admit it or not.

Perhaps it's time for the students to take a step back and reflect on their poor choice of a university before they go around being hypocrites. Perhaps websites like NDResponse.com should express their deep regret for supporting Notre Dame along with their deep opposition to Fr. Jenkins.

They seem to see themselves as victims, yet are blind to their own role in this whole mess.

Boiling a Frog

The recent political climate has reminded me of the story of how to boil a frog. It's said that if you put a frog in a pot of water and heat it quickly, the frog will jump out to save its life. However, if you heat it slowly, the frog's temperature will adjust with the water and he'll be none-the-wiser. He'll boil to death. (I've heard this is actually false, but go with me on it. It's a good analogy.)

Anyway, it seems over the years the liberals have been slowly turning up the heat. Things in the US have slowly gotten worse and worse. But the process has been slow enough that many people slowly change their views to conform with the times and they don't gripe to much about it. However, with the new president, he's turned up the heat so much all at once that people are finally being forced to make a decision of whether or not they are going to jump out of the pot.

As a result many are finally standing up for what they believe to be right rather than just being tolerant of all the wrongdoing. In that regard, the president could be said to have a certain good effect. On the other hand, it order to create this effect, he's going to cause a lot of damage in the process. HUGE DOWNSIDE!

Construction... or lack thereof...

Perhaps there are things that I just don't understand about why construction goes so slow. But from the outside looking in, it appears to be lack of motivation and poor management of projects. Every time I drive through construction it seems there are just as many people standing as there are people actually working. One time I even drove by 5 men just staring into a hole. I hope there was at least one man actually working in the hole. Otherwise all hope is lost!

I would imagine that if these projects were managed by a private company rather than the city or the state, they would be disciplining and/or firing workers for their productivity level.

Another issue is see is the amount of equipment that just sits around. Often times it would seem there's 2 pieces of equipment that sits for every piece of equipment that is actually doing something. Let me put this in business terms... WASTE OF MONEY AND CAPITAL!!! Having worked in a factory environment, I know that the purchasing of new equipment required justification. You can't justify buying something that costs $500,000.00 if the data shows that it will sit unused for a good portion of the time. Now let's take a look at a construction site. From what I've seen, they can have 5 backhoes sitting along a stretch of road (I won't get into the fact that they are only working on 20% of what's torn up.) And generally only 1 backhoe is actually in use. If you're not going to use the equipment, then don't purchase it with taxpayer money. If you already have the equipment, and you're not going to use it on the site, then send it to a site that will use it or else rent it out to get back some of your investment.

I probably wouldn't be as frustrated if it was just a private business throwing away money. But in this case, it's the city or the state throwing away my money. (Or at least what used to be my money.) I guess I'd still be frustrated to some extent, however, since the person that's paid to hold a "slow" sign would still be holding up traffic forever because their waiting for a dump truck to pull out sometime in the next century.

I think those signs are only an indication of their work speed. There are only two options with them... 1. SLOW 2. STOP

Enough said!

Miracle of Life

Recently one of my sugar gliders had a baby. (Actually, it just came out of the pouch. It was born a while back.) It's body is only about 1.5 inches long.


Here you can see its tiny curly tail as it clings to its mom's tummy.

Sugar gliders are actually only pregnant for about 16 days before they give birth. The tiny baby, weighing only about 0.007 ounces (that's not a typo) is born and manages to find it's way up the mothers belly and into the pouch where it nurses and develops for about 2 months before it comes out of the pouch. Now it's old enough to be left alone while the adults eat and play at night. What I find so amazing is that the baby is so tiny, and fragile, yet it manages to know to wiggle and crawl its way into its mother's pouch in order to survive and grow. I don't know how some people believe that this all happened by chance. I think it actually takes more faith to believe in chance than it does to believe in a Creator. If you've ever read about the probabilities of evolutionary steps just happening to take place on their own, the chances are so small it's ridiculous. I've read that the chances are so small that they are way beyond what is normally dismissed as part of the "will never happen" group.

Here are the adults having fun on a branch.