Monthly Archives: April 2012

Bible Ignorance in America

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A recent survey indicates that a large percentage of America find the Bible to be a valuable resource, while a majority of the nation is ignorant as to what the Bible actually says.

There is a lot of speculation about both the current role and the appropriate role of the Bible in America. But each year, American Bible Society puts the guessing aside and asks a sampling of Americans to tell us how they view and use the Bible and what they believe its role should be in America.  Recently, American Bible Society released this year’s results from that research in the 2012 State of the Bible report.

The State of the Bible in America in 2012 can be summed up in a two words: encouraging and unsettling.

The research, commissioned by American Bible Society and conducted by Barna Research, found that the majority of Americans (69%) believe the Bible provides answers on how to live a meaningful life. But while 79% believe they are knowledgeable about the Bible, 54% were unable to correctly identify the first five books of the Bible.  And approximately half of Americans surveyed didn’t know the fundamental differences between the teachings of the Bible, Koran and Book of Mormon, with 46% percent saying they believe all three books teach the same spiritual truths.

The State of the Bible in America in 2012 can be summed up in a two words: encouraging and unsettling.

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While nearly half of Americans (47%) believe the Bible has too little influence in society—a far cry from the anti-faith picture often painted in culture—approximately half (46%) say they read the Bible no more than once or twice a year.

What The State of the Bible report also confirmed is that the lack of engagement with the Bible among Americans isn’t caused by a lack of access to it. Here in the United States, 85% of households own a Bible. Actually, most families own more than one, with a household average of 4.3 Bibles.

Looking more closely at the data, something really interesting emerges. When we examine responses to the question “Do you believe the Bible contains everything a person needs to live a meaningful life?”, we find that older respondents agreed at a much higher rate than did younger respondents. While 61% of those surveyed between ages 18-27 agreed, those 47 years and older agreed at a rate of 75%.

Before you assert that older people are just naturally more traditional, remember that the older group is made up of the Woodstock generation, free-love ‘70s kids and the MTV generation. The data seems to say that the older you are, the more likely you are to value the Bible. Maybe it’s that our own life experiences prove the value of the Bible’s wisdom?

 

If the culture values the Bible as much as the survey shows, one would imagine it would spend more time reading it. But perhaps this disconnect is common among Christians; I know I find myself spending less time reading than I ought.

That the older generations value the Bible more than the younger should be no surprise. It seems that the older people get, the more they are interested in sources of information and truth that did not originate in their lifetimes whereas younger generations seek popular and current sources. Perhaps the additional life experience has something to do with it as well. Having more time to test their worldview, perhaps their worldview has had time to grow.

Full text of the article is here.

Wars in the Name of Atheism

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I read web comics on occasion. Most aren’t lighthearted but are often funny at least. This evening, as I was browsing one of them, I came upon something that was frustrating and saddening at the same time.

The comic’s plot involved a Christian and an Atheist arguing over Adolf Hitler and Stalin. The Christian claimed, in essence, that the two were motivated to their mass murders by their atheism. While the author of the web comic accurately confirmed that both dictators were atheists, the atheist in the comic had less than worthwhile things to say.

The response was that “believing in atheism is like believing in math”, and that Adolf Hitler killed people “because he was an [expletive], not because he was an atheist”.

Atheism is a worldview. Just like Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism, Islam, Mormonism, Agnosticism, and a plethora of others. A worldview is the fundamental basis a person has for every single action they take. A man is not a human without a philosophy. While many people deny their worldview any attention, it is a dangerous game to ignore the core of your reality.

It would be fallacy to claim that atheism alone drove either Hitler or Stalin to the depravity for which their lives are known. At the same time, it would be fallacy to say that atheism had no part. Hitler’s worldview was a direct descendant of Nietzsche, a man who personified the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible without the positive outcome. Nietzsche believed that everything was meaningless. He believed in a purely material world where mankind had no real worth. Eugenics was based upon his philosophy, the motivating force for Hitler and his death camps. That philosophy is directly based upon atheism. It requires atheism.

A worldview which says that there is a God or there s a supernatural order can give man worth. It can say that man has a purpose and that killing fellow men for the purpose of achieving utilitarian goals is wrong. But an atheistic worldview cannot. It can claim that one method of living is easier, or one method of living provides more comfort or pleasure. It cannot, however, assign meaning. It is no coincidence that the first real century of pure atheism (the nineteenth century) preceded the bloodiest century in human history.

While Hitler and Stalin may have been motivated by any number of other forces, their worldview was atheism. Everyone who lives is merely a product of their worldview. It is entirely correct to say that without their atheism, Hitler and Stalin may have been entirely different men.

It is rather unfortunate that someone with as large an audience as the author of this particular web comic would make the claim that Hitler and Stalin were not influenced by their worldview. From worldview, all actions flow.

Obama, Jimmy Fallon, and All Sorts of Crazy Things

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I’m not a fan of Obama. I’m not a fan of late-night. So if you put the two together, you can probably predict what my feelings will be. However, since it is becoming popular among my 20-30 age group, I thought I’d digest a bit of what was said and analyze a little of it.

“On July 1st of this year, the interest rates on Stafford student loans, the same loans that many of you used to help pay for college, are set to double. That means some hardworking students will be paying about $1,000 extra just to get their education. So I’ve called on Congress to prevent this from happening. What we’ve said is simple: now is not the time to make school more expensive for our young people.” -Barack Obama

All right. Where to start here. In 2007, under a democratically controlled congress, the United States passed a law that would cut interest rates on student loans by a large margin until July of this year. I don’t know that they were intentionally trying to put this into an election cycle or not, but I don’t think it matters much. The fact is, we are on a temporary break in the rate, and the time frame was established by the president’s own party. He can’t blame republicans or independents for that.

“Hard working students will be paying about $1000 extra just to get their education”. The real travesty? Half of new graduates are underemployed or unemployed. There’s another side to this as well. The government has encouraged people to borrow money to go to school for a long time. But borrowing money is a stupid thing to do. Students typically leave high school only to take on the burden of immense debt by attending schools away from home, not working (or not working much), and then not having any guarantee of a job afterwards. If someone were to ask you to pay $40,000 for the chance to make an extra $20,000 a year for the rest of your life, would you do it? Would you really spend 40 grand on the lottery? Then why would you do it with student loans?

The fact is, student loans are a form of debt, and debt is an unnecessary risk. But I digress.

“Now, there’s some in Congress who disagree. They say keeping the interest rate low isn’t the way to help our students. They say we should be doing everything we can to pay down the national debt – well, so long as it doesn’t include taxing billionaires. But their position is that students just have to make this rate increase work. Frankly, I don’t buy it.” – Barack Obama

Well, Mr. President, keeping the interest rate low is only good at encouraging more people to take out debt. Paying off debt is what would help students. Not taking out debt is what would help students. Perhaps there are some in congress who aren’t concerned with raising the interest rates. That is entirely possible. But you immediately follow it up by suggesting those same people ‘want to pay down the national debt’. Clearly, based on your comments on student loans, you don’t think debt is a problem. That makes you financially incompetent; a poor place to be for a president.

Additionally, I can’t think of anyone in congress who opposes the taxation of billionaires. Nice jab at people who think the tax system is fair as it is though.

All in all, the above portion of the dialogue simply reinforce something in my mind: The president’s primary goal is getting votes. He is losing the youth vote this election, so he’s trying to make up for it. He’ll succeed in some ways. Politician’s have one primary ability: manipulating public opinion. Don’t be manipulated.

Three Posts in One Day

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Considering there have been periods of three months during which I have written no posts, this is pretty rare. But I’ve had a lot on my mind recently and have decided to post about it here.

I’m working on music again, similar to my habits from previous years. I feel as though the past 3 years have been a blur. Lots of emotion, changes, work, school, and other things that have kept me from working on what I’ve always felt called to do since I got my hands on it and my ears tuned to it.

As I’ve thought about it, I’ve realized that there are two tangentially related callings in my life to writing music. The first is writing, the second drawing, and although neither is something I want to do as a career over music, both are things I feel as though I need to be more active with. It has taken a lot of searching through the innermost portions of my soul to realize that there are certain things in my life that I enjoy doing and there are certain things in my life that I feel called to do as a priority. I’ve had to lay down some things that aren’t as highly ranked, and continue to struggle with some things that should be demoted; video games being an unfortunate inclusion in this list.

While drawing is something I’m postponing really jumping into at this particular moment, writing has been on my mind for a considerable amount of time, and my passion to write has been growing with each day I have let slip by without engaging in it. That may be part of the reason for three posts. The primary reason for this post is to reflect a bit, but also to focus on what this blog is exactly.

While I will continue to write on topics that interest me, I will make it a priority to live up to the name: Practically Christian. That name came to me once several years ago. What does it mean to be a Christian in the practical sense? What does it really mean for my life? What should it mean? Is a Christian someone who is self-righteous and concerned only with rules? Does a Christian care about rules at all? Does a Christian need to know what or why they believe?

These questions and others seem to be alluded to by culture, by friends, and sometimes even by family. They need answers. Practical answers. But I don’t think one can be practical without a dose of thought and reason. In the future, I’d like to write here on what it means to be Practically Christian, what it doesn’t mean, and my experiences in trying to get there as best I can.

When Non-Programmers Pretend to be Programmers

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The following phrases tend to annoy me more often than not:

  • I’m a technology/mac/google/twitter/facebook evangelist
  • I develop websites using [not a programming language]
  • I’m a social media fanatic
  • [Will add more as I think of them]

Maybe it is the .00001% of my soul that has been tainted by the infernal touch of the hipster (infernal in the truest sense of the word). Perhaps I’m a bitter old man (at 24 years old). It could be that I don’t like it when other people pretend to sound smart (okay, that one is true, even when I do it myself sometimes).

The fact is, all of those phrases make you sound ignorant to people who know something about computers, programming, and web development. I’ve worked on websites for some small commercial places and for personal use for…. what’s the date today…. seven years. Not once have I claimed to develop a website that I really just used WordPress, Drupal, or another CMS for. Because in reality, all I’ve done for those types of sites is make them look pretty. Drupal may be a minor exception; I’ve coded portions of Drupal sites before.

But in reality, the web today makes it painfully easy for anyone with virtually no experience to create great websites. It simply takes a couple of tutorials and a good internet connection. As someone who has written simple database driven websites and applications from scratch before, I’m almost insulted when people claim the title of “Web Designer” just because they’ve purchased a domain name, installed WordPress using a web-based script, and then changed the color. Call yourselves website theme builders. That’s accurate.

Reading that someone is a Google/Mac/[Other Company] ‘evangelist’ makes me cringe as well. Evangelists historically are the ones who proclaimed the reality, sovereignty, and attributes of the Almighty God of the universe. It is an insult to use the term to spread a similarly passionate message about some stupid company. I use the term ‘stupid’ intentionally, as the companies themselves seem to encourage the use of the term, and comparing a company with God is laughable, regardless of worldview. If you are really that dedicated to a company that you aren’t even working for, I’m sorry for you. Worshiping tools is a pretty low point in anyone’s life.

Not all ‘evangelists’ are company-specific. ‘Technology evangelists’, however, follow in the footsteps. Technology is not God (though perhaps some people substitute it as an idol). If you really feel the need to ‘evangelize’ technology in a culture so saturated in it that it could deal with an enormous vacation from it, you probably need a vacation yourself. In the woods. With nothing electronic in your pockets. For a month. Please stop reading and go do that immediately. Bring a copy of Augustine’s “Confessions”, GK Chesterton’s “Heresy”, and a pad of paper and a pen.

Last but not least, we come to the “Social Media Fanatic”. Social media is a term I’m not a particular fan of anyway – technically anything can be ‘social’ if there is a comment section. Or at least, that seems to be the standard that is used. But having a profile and the ability to produce comment threads doesn’t make a website ‘social’. People do. And people don’t need ‘social media’ to be social, as our thousands of years of civilization indicate. Instead of being a ‘social media fanatic’, it would be better to be someone who -uses- websites but also spends time in person with people. Away from the smart phone. Yup. Put it away and look at the person who is talking to you.

Our over-reliance on technology has spawned a lot of people who don’t have to think very much. We can accomplish ‘great’ things at the click of a button, irritate or please scores of our friends with a couple keystrokes, and do a lot of other distracting things… almost anywhere at any time.

But maybe that isn’t the point of technology, and maybe that isn’t the best use. As a non-optimistic computer scientist, I think it is a waste of our time to treat technology like a god. It is a tool, pure and simple. A tool that works most of the time and is overly distracting for my taste.