If 'it' was up to you....

Imagine, if you will, that you were sat in a nice comfy chair.

Now stretching the imagination further, imagine that the rest of the universe doesn't exist. Infact you are God before the beginning of the beginning of creation, and in front of you is big button marked "press to create the world".

Do you press it?

Now as you're God you have the capacity to think things through, and so you think to yourself "I wonder what would happen if I press this button?"

And you imagine the world as it could be, and as you're God you can foresee what is most likely to happen - war, famine and pestilence. Human rebellion against themselves, countless horrors and unspeakable evils. You also consider the good things (you're not a pessimistic God), you think of Art, mathematics, beauty, joy, love and many other things.

You now have to make a choice, if you don't press the button then the world will never exist, or indeed have existed so no one has lost. If you press the button then you are going to bring people into good, and into suffering.

You think of [insert some of the best things you can think of] and you think of [some of the worst things you can think of, e.g. the holocaust, rape, children dying from hunger]. Is it worth it? Would you be doing a good bringing this world into existence or an evil? (or a neutral?)

To quote D. Adams "In the beginning, God created the world... this has widely been regarded as a bad move".

Let's suppose you decide not to press the button.

Now what? You have the following options:

-do nothing

-consider the button again

-consider creating a different world

If it was up to you, what would you do?

Truth?

I was reminded recently of a story;

A professor was ill, very ill, (cancer in fact). To cut a long story short, after several treatments he managed to recover.
Whilst he was still less than 100% (but on the road to recovery) he took part in a prestigious conference where he could present some of his latest work.

During the course of the presentation, in the middle suddenly someone stood up and said "no that's wrong"
"no it's right" retorted the Professor,
"no that's wrong" (etc)... .then the man began to explain why he believed a certain theorem was actually false.
[as it happens this stranger was correct]
What does that sounds like?

In many walks of life, one would say that the person who stood up was being rude, how could he have been sure he was right?
Even then surely that was not the right time to talk? He was being insensitive to interrupt in the middle of the talk for starters, and moreover he was being insensitive to a person recovering from cancer.
If you can, put yourself in the place of the professor. I suspect you (or I) would feel it as a personal attack, an embarrassment perhaps; definitely they are trying to score points at 'my' expense.

Put yourself in the shoes of the stranger, what do you feel? What was your motivation after you have noticed a mistake? Perhaps this is a chance to prove your worth? Maybe now you can demonstrate people need to take you seriously?


However the thing is- all of these 'deep' questions that we might use to analyse motives are missing the point.
The 'truth' is what is being discussed (the truth of a mathematical concept). That is what should be at the centre of decision making.
But in the name of the truth people will make point-scoring attacks. Or dismiss a stranger telling them this is the wrong time to talk (to divert any attention from your own failing).

I think that what has really got into the centre of the discussion is "whose truth".
Is the professor upset that the truth is different to what he thought, or is he actually upset that someone else's truth is now believed?
Is the man who stood up acting to try and reveal the truth, or to reveal that he is the one who knows the truth?

[And before you claim that this story isn't realistic, or that I am making up emotions in the characters to prove a point - think back over the past year to any confrontations that took place between two other people, I'd wager you could find one that fits the basic pattern above.]
We only consider the above story an attack, because we allow ourselves to have concepts of 'owning the truth', and to personalise it as 'my theory', 'my idea'.

When you tried to imagine how this might pan out in reality, did you recall the stranger shouting "no you're wrong" rather than as I wrote "no that's wrong"?


[As it happens, it's a true story.
Indeed the Professor involved is Miles Reid, who is one of the best, Algebraic-Geometers alive today. He is a Professor at Warwick.
Some people at the time observing followed the train of thought above, however I am told Miles did not take it as an attack. The stranger was a former student of his, and so he knew that the young boy was more concerned with what is right rather than who is right.



As soon as you loose sight of the 'quest to truth' being more important than 'who gets to the truth', I feel you have slipped down a dangerous road attaching emotion to truth.
And as you become more aware of others attaching emotion to truth, you begin to let that affect your presentation of the truth.
Fair enough, but then when you are aware of others like this, and no longer prioritise finding the truth over all else... then you have gone down the same path as the politician who decides to choose based on what will cause the better emotional reaction amongst people
i.e. 'what do they want to believe is true' is more important to you than 'what is actually true'?
You have gone down the path that says 'I will condemn one man rather than another man, because the public want to vilify this man over the other' and pays little attention to who should be condemned.
This is (if you haven't already noticed) the same path as saying 'I Pilate, will send the innocent Jesus to die, because it is what the Jews want'.




So what are we to do?
If we take the attitude of the former-student above then sooner or later we will meet someone who doesn't like the way you abruptly point out 'truth' without concern for feelings.
We have to worry about how people will hear, no one likes to hear they are wrong, and I don't this is a character weakness. But there are ways of presenting it without seeming rude.

The balance we must strike is somewhere between:
-admitting we can be wrong
-regarding others feelings
-but when all is said and done, making sure that we done more 'making feel comfortable with our presentation of the truth' then 'making the truth more comfortable to peoples feelings'.

i.e. if someone is innocent, then they should not be made a scapegoat.


Jesus died because it is easier sometimes to give the people what they want, than what is good.

He died because when push came to shove Pilate had given up on an absolute definition of truth and had gone for a more post-modern 'everyone can have an interpretation that is equally valid' definition of truth.
It's a lot easier to live with other people when you do what Pilate did.
And let's face it, we're lazy.
That is why we sent him to die.

Back to the Bible...

After what seems an age, I am once again in the position of having to study the bible, digest it, and then produce something useful for others...

This time it's harder (or in my head it is), as it's not a sermon but a group discussion.

A sermon you can just talk for 15-20min present your arguments well, and then relate whatever points you are making to the real world. Well ok so it's not that easy/like I described, but in comparison...

With a group discussion you are not 'the expert' and whilst you may wish to guide people down certain avenues, ultimately you need to be able to providing questions that fulfil a number of criteria:

1-people feel able to contribute - don't ask them something 'too technical'

2-they don't feel belittled by contributing - i.e. don't ask something you would only do in a kids-bible-study i.e. in the passage: I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain. [Gal 4:11] don't ask "what did Paul fear?" (annoyingly most internet resources seem to be pitched at this level meaning I can't just copy stuff)

3-something that is relevant to them, there lives/life experience - it helps build community, and will also help people ground this into something that affects their lives.

4-helps move the discussion along to central points you wish to make - well normally you have a point you'd like to leave people with

5-isn't too restrictive and allows people to move onto other areas they would like to talk about if its more relevant to them - well it is a discussion after all, maybe it will lead elsewhere, if it's productive that's still good

6-doesn't allow it to move to unproductive tangents too easily - you'll obviously have some that you need to manage as it happens, but you don't want to make your job any more difficult than it has to be.

7-that with all of this structure you remember it's actually God via the Holy Spirit who's meant to be teaching, so stop trying to impress people with your knowledge of some obscure monk in southern Russia who had something interesting to say about the passage.. stop it [yes I'm talking to myself] just leave it alone.

Instead make sure God has as much room as possible during the prep stage, and at the actual event to mess everything up

hmm

perhaps I should goto sleep rather than try to achieve all this at 1 in the morning..

I probably am over-thinking it, but I haven't had to write one of these things in over 6 months!

And that I got away with by saying "I'm not going to stick to a passage, I'm going to use the question "am I my brothers keeper" asked by Cain. Then I'm just going to keep asking questions about the implications of this question and where that might lead and through in bible verses every so often for people to reflect on along with a little church history and see what happens"

(I might try and put the notes for that online sometime) - That worked surprisingly well, but was a topic I had already been putting much thought into and easily linked with that terms theme of 'community'. This time I have no simple question to hang everything on, and have instead resorted to the 'bible passage' approach (because I know what the theme is for the next month and a bit) and so I need some kind of introduction to it (which also satisfies a number of other requirements for our cell) leaving me with wanting to study being sons/daughters of God.

You know I really have over thought all of this, it won't surprise me at all if by lunch tomorrow I decide actually there is a much simpler way round this...

Never mind,

Night All

I'm awake

and so I felt I should probably use this time to blog...


today I have much to be thankful for,
firstly the bins have finally been emptied.
This may not sound like a cause for celebration, but as we've been having quite a lot of snow recently our rubbish has not been collected in well over a month (to be fair the first two weeks it wasn't collected because after we said to each other "oh we should put the bin out tonight as it needs to be collected" we all managed to forget).

Anyway now this calamity is over I am happy.

Secondly I have a rug.
A friend was trying to get rid of a rug (and as it happens a stereo and a lamp also), I have successfully relieved them of these items and made the lounge more livable.

However sadly I have a few more reasons to be less thankful.
I still don't have a proper job :(
and I think I may have managed to move from too patient with people, to being too easily annoyed.

but then again, on the real upside - I shall soon be in bed

well, maybe there's hope for me yet

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling