A Pub Gathering
For starters, surely I am violating one of the cardinal rules of blogging (if anyone has the blogging rulebook, send me a copy), because I am going to quote the same excerpt from the same book that I quoted in my last post. But it is a fine way to introduce the topic, so here it is, from "Blue Like Jazz", Donald Miller, p.103:
"My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don't really do that anymore. Sooner or later you just figure out there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly I don't care..."
I experienced a real life example of this last night. I took a bus from downtown over to Seven Corners in Dinkytown, where I met up with Jamie Miller, and we proceeded to the Corner Bar to attend a "Pub Gathering" of Missio Dei (www.missio-dei.org), a Christian community at the U of M. They had invited a couple of representatives from the Minnesota Atheists organization (www.mnatheists.org) to come and tell us why they are atheists. They gave a presentation, whiteboard and all, then there was a time of Q&A afterward.
These were a couple of nice gentlemen, about my age or older, with no visible horns growing out of their heads, not shaking their fists at God (no God to shake a fist at, after all), just two guys very comfortable in their own skin as thinking functioning atheists, and willing to talk about it with anyone who will listen. And on this night that was us - a group of about a dozen Christians in the basement of the Corner Bar, which would become a Comedy Club 24 hours later. No one was out to convert anybody, just a very non-confrontational, respectful dialogue between two groups of people with diametrically opposed beliefs about the existence of God.
It was a spirited discussion between highly educated individuals, with each side sporting at least one philosophy major. To give you an idea of the flavor of the discussion, if I had been playing that old college drinking game where I would have to take a shot every time someone said the words "epistomology" or "ontology", Jamie would have had to carry me out of there. (Don't worry, I played no such game). Luckily, I have read enough Francis Schaeffer to know what those words mean, and it was actually all quite fascinating. Just the high points...
First, where this idea of God came from. This was a fabrication of ancient civilizations who could find no other explanation for natural phenomena. They used the concept of God to explain the gaps in their knowledge, thus the "God of the Gaps". But now that science has filled in most of these gaps, there is no longer a need for God. Science now explains what once required a "God of the Gaps".
Alas, I thought of this 12 hours later (on the bus this morning), but I would assert that the "God of the Gaps" still exists. It has just evolved (pardon the pun) into a different name. Today it goes by the name of "Time + Chance". If it can't be explained it must have happened over billions of years and trillions of chance mutations. How did the primordial ooze become intelligent life? Time + Chance. That's right. Swamp Gas + Time + Chance = You and Me. Case Closed. End of Debate. Let's Eat. See, now I'm getting confrontational, and that would not have fit in with the tone of the meeting last night.
But the whole evolution debate was just a side issue, as was separation of church and state, gay marriage, socialism vs. capitalism, and the subtle differences between the God metaphors in Star Trek vs. Star Trek:Next Generation vs. Star Trek:Deep Space Nine (here I was out of my element - all I know about Star Trek is that if Captain Kirk and Spock are beaming down to a planet with some guy nobody has seen before, that guy ain't coming back to the ship).
All that aside, what mainly interested me was finding out how these men found purpose in life. What made them tick. What made them want to get up in the morning, knowing that this life is all there is. And this is where a most interesting illustration was offered by the presenter, August, using the familliar glass half full...
He drew a picture of a glass on the whiteboard, and asked us to visualize life as this glass. Half of the glass is filled with the natural world, that which we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch. The top half is then filled with the supernatural world, that which is beyond our five senses. He came to the point in his life where he came to believe there was no supernatural world, resulting in a temporary state of depression, because now his glass was half full. But then he came to realize that since there was no supernatural world, that top half of the glass did not exist anyway - and he erased the top half of the glass. In other words, when your glass is half full, just pour it into a smaller glass, which in his mind was now filled to the brim with the natural world, and he was able to face life again, a happy, well-adjusted and quite content atheist.
The more I think about it, the more I see this as a perfect illustration of John 10:10. Thanks, August, though I am sure that was not your intention. Jesus says this in John 10:10b:
"I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." (ESV)
"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (NIV)
I think the NIV translation is particularly helpful with this illustration. Back to the glass as your life. Try as you might, with all that this natural world has to offer, you will only fill up your glass of life halfway at best. What Jesus is saying is that you don't have to be content with a glass half filled, nor do you need to convince yourself that life is just a smaller glass. He came to give you life, not to the half, but to the full - life abundant. Life filled with Himself. Life filled with things beyond our comprehension.
So if they are beyond our comprehension, how do we comprehend them, you ask? I defer to the Apostle Paul:
"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him"—
but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
1 Cor. 2:9,10 (NIV)
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared to pour into your life's glass. Drink up.
"My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don't really do that anymore. Sooner or later you just figure out there are some guys who don't believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it's about who is smarter, and honestly I don't care..."
I experienced a real life example of this last night. I took a bus from downtown over to Seven Corners in Dinkytown, where I met up with Jamie Miller, and we proceeded to the Corner Bar to attend a "Pub Gathering" of Missio Dei (www.missio-dei.org), a Christian community at the U of M. They had invited a couple of representatives from the Minnesota Atheists organization (www.mnatheists.org) to come and tell us why they are atheists. They gave a presentation, whiteboard and all, then there was a time of Q&A afterward.
These were a couple of nice gentlemen, about my age or older, with no visible horns growing out of their heads, not shaking their fists at God (no God to shake a fist at, after all), just two guys very comfortable in their own skin as thinking functioning atheists, and willing to talk about it with anyone who will listen. And on this night that was us - a group of about a dozen Christians in the basement of the Corner Bar, which would become a Comedy Club 24 hours later. No one was out to convert anybody, just a very non-confrontational, respectful dialogue between two groups of people with diametrically opposed beliefs about the existence of God.
It was a spirited discussion between highly educated individuals, with each side sporting at least one philosophy major. To give you an idea of the flavor of the discussion, if I had been playing that old college drinking game where I would have to take a shot every time someone said the words "epistomology" or "ontology", Jamie would have had to carry me out of there. (Don't worry, I played no such game). Luckily, I have read enough Francis Schaeffer to know what those words mean, and it was actually all quite fascinating. Just the high points...
First, where this idea of God came from. This was a fabrication of ancient civilizations who could find no other explanation for natural phenomena. They used the concept of God to explain the gaps in their knowledge, thus the "God of the Gaps". But now that science has filled in most of these gaps, there is no longer a need for God. Science now explains what once required a "God of the Gaps".
Alas, I thought of this 12 hours later (on the bus this morning), but I would assert that the "God of the Gaps" still exists. It has just evolved (pardon the pun) into a different name. Today it goes by the name of "Time + Chance". If it can't be explained it must have happened over billions of years and trillions of chance mutations. How did the primordial ooze become intelligent life? Time + Chance. That's right. Swamp Gas + Time + Chance = You and Me. Case Closed. End of Debate. Let's Eat. See, now I'm getting confrontational, and that would not have fit in with the tone of the meeting last night.
But the whole evolution debate was just a side issue, as was separation of church and state, gay marriage, socialism vs. capitalism, and the subtle differences between the God metaphors in Star Trek vs. Star Trek:Next Generation vs. Star Trek:Deep Space Nine (here I was out of my element - all I know about Star Trek is that if Captain Kirk and Spock are beaming down to a planet with some guy nobody has seen before, that guy ain't coming back to the ship).
All that aside, what mainly interested me was finding out how these men found purpose in life. What made them tick. What made them want to get up in the morning, knowing that this life is all there is. And this is where a most interesting illustration was offered by the presenter, August, using the familliar glass half full...
He drew a picture of a glass on the whiteboard, and asked us to visualize life as this glass. Half of the glass is filled with the natural world, that which we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch. The top half is then filled with the supernatural world, that which is beyond our five senses. He came to the point in his life where he came to believe there was no supernatural world, resulting in a temporary state of depression, because now his glass was half full. But then he came to realize that since there was no supernatural world, that top half of the glass did not exist anyway - and he erased the top half of the glass. In other words, when your glass is half full, just pour it into a smaller glass, which in his mind was now filled to the brim with the natural world, and he was able to face life again, a happy, well-adjusted and quite content atheist.
The more I think about it, the more I see this as a perfect illustration of John 10:10. Thanks, August, though I am sure that was not your intention. Jesus says this in John 10:10b:
"I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." (ESV)
"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (NIV)
I think the NIV translation is particularly helpful with this illustration. Back to the glass as your life. Try as you might, with all that this natural world has to offer, you will only fill up your glass of life halfway at best. What Jesus is saying is that you don't have to be content with a glass half filled, nor do you need to convince yourself that life is just a smaller glass. He came to give you life, not to the half, but to the full - life abundant. Life filled with Himself. Life filled with things beyond our comprehension.
So if they are beyond our comprehension, how do we comprehend them, you ask? I defer to the Apostle Paul:
"No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him"—
but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
1 Cor. 2:9,10 (NIV)
No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared to pour into your life's glass. Drink up.
posted by wilsonte | 5:33 PM
2 Comments:
The last line of your post-
"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared to pour into your life's glass. Drink up."
-got me to wondering if we sometimes (maybe most of the time) arn't "drinking up" some of what's already in the glass. The whole idea of taking things for granted and not enjoying the simple pleasures of life.
Taking family (kids, spouse, the dog), blessings (material and otherwise), simple pleasures like sunsets (creation in general), a quiet evening with the family, etc, for granted, as though we have gotten used to, and thus forgotten, how truly wonderful some of the flavors are that already exsist in our glass.
So, as you have already stated...
Drink Up!
Don't worry Tom. I won't tell anyone about getting you to the car!
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