What makes a person “good”?

I’ve been sporadically reading a book by Bill Medley titled Religion is for fools, and he mentioned the common fallacy people have that being good means not doing bad; so a person will consider themselves good if they don’t murder or rape or steal. This is to conclude that the positive is true by the absence of the negative. In other cases this may be correct but not in this one.

Medley’s answer is insightful: that we expect people not to do wrong – not committing murder is what we should do anyway; it isn’t worthy of praise. A person could live their entire life not doing anything bad but this wouldn’t make them good. If they obeyed all the laws, they would be neither bad nor good, they would just be doing what was expected of them. A good person would do more: they would serve their community, give to charity, help other people, and try to make a positive lasting impact on society.

By analogy, it’s like saying a car is good because it will get you from A to B without breaking down. So what? That’s what we expect of any car. A bad car may break down; but a good car will not only get you to your destination without breaking down but it will do so economically and in comfort.

 

What is the collective noun for a troupe of trouser ghosts?

Barring the last week, over the past fortnight I’ve had strangely frequent gusts of wind: noisy but not particularly olfactorily offensive. Don’t know why.

It’s been about the same time that two friends of mine have had a similar experience: Fluffy has been breaking off the leash more frequently. None of us can isolate any specific common factor.

Weird. Although I, as much as anyone, enjoy floating an air biscuit, when Boyle’s law causes a marked rise in internal trouser temperature, enough is enough.

 

I saw the sign.

It said, “Sports store: guns and ammunition, fishing tackle, bocce bowls.” Nothing like having a supplier for all the manly pursuits.

 

In the name of God.

In the Bible, a person’s name isn’t just a way of identifying a person: it describes them or refers to an essential aspect of their character; such as with the saying: “X is my middle name” (where X is a word like “danger” or “reliable” or “gregarious”. Below are some of the ways “name” is used in the Bible in a way different to mere identification.

1. God’s name = God’s nature/ character = God

Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:5-7)

This is part of God’s reply to Moses’ request to show him, Moses, God’s glory. God’s name may be seen merely as Yahweh but it is understood to include the extended description in verses 6-7 because of the reference to “the Lord”, which is a repetition of “the Lord” in verse 5. The “name” of the Lord does not just identify God, it indicates His character, which God describes in these verses.

 

To be Christian is not to be good.

Several people I know have questioned why we need to bother with belief in God, specifically, in the Christian God, when we can live good lives without such a belief, let alone religion (whatever nebulous concept people have about it).

The reason is simple. Christianity is not about being good or bad; it’s about being alive or dead. Less dramatically, Christianity is about allegiance: who controls our lives, God or us? This is depicted in the third chapter of Genesis, when Adam and Eve chose to reject what God said to them: not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. This is the central issue of Christianity – do we accept or reject God (and therefore) God’s word as the final authority?

 

It’s been a while

I’ve not posted for a while, perhaps because life has been, for the first length of time in years, not bad. Many good things have happened. Job – only part-time, but still better than the dole – friends, family, and I’ve been working on promoting the book of a friend .

I’ve had much to think, and ipso facto post, about but when I’ve just not gotten around to it. Too much else to do, or was done, instead. All of which makes for a boring post but, as Tolkien noted, pleasant days don’t make much of a story, while dark and unpleasant tales are better to tell, and to listen to. Therefore, I would say I’m sorry to bore you with a bland post, but my medication removes much of my natural (?) anxiety, so I really don’t care.

 

A week of cyclothymia.

Since Monday I have experienced emotions between mild euphoria and despair. On Monday the books arrived, and since then I have been working on promoting it and giving copies to family and friends.

And then today I went to a bookstore, one of those that is going to have it on the shelves, and I saw that there were almost half-a-dozen others on the same topic. Books that weren’t there when I checked last time. Dismay arrived, and gloom followed when I recalled what someone told me recently, that only about 3% of writers can make a living from the profits from their books.

 

Just buy the book and no one gets hurt.

http://www.zeus-publications.com/called_to_hope.htm

AND

http://called2hope.wordpress.com

 

Of stress, friends and fried ice-cream

Over the last couple of weeks, this one especially, I have felt worn down and under stress.

Still no job and the funds are getting lower – no stimulus package from Mr Rudd yet, although I’m due – and the flatmate gets on my nerves; thankfully he’s not around much. Then yesterday I learned that my father, who is fighting inoperable liver cancer (his second batch; the last one was in the bowel) has been diagnosed with glaucoma and cataracts, and possibly diabetes, although that could be due to a faulty tester.

 

God and Suffering

Possibly the most common argument against the existence of the Judaeo-Christian God is the existence of suffering [1]. It’s expressed in this syllogism:

Premise 1. The Bible claims that God is good (loving) and all-powerful.
Premise 2. Evil exists.
Conclusion. Therefore, God is either not completely good (loving), or not all-powerful.

Either conclusion denies what the Bible tells us about God. Does this mean we are caught in an antinomy, that the Bible is therefore invalid, and we have to choose between the Bible and the truth; between faith and reason? No, the syllogism is invalid [2] because there are several incorrect assumptions bound up in the premises, such as: