I was recently going over my demographics on my Youtube channel (Listen to me... I sound like such a legit youtuber). I found that Youtube can record the top ten countries that your videos are played in. Of course, I'm definitely not a very well-known Youtuber. So I was quite astonished to find countries like Singapore, Finland, The Netherlands, and Japan pop up as just a few of my top tens.
I was pretty taken aback. This means that somewhere in the course of this past year, some kid (most probably an18-23 year-old male, according to my demographics) had a window opened up in their internet browser, listening to me play them a song. Seriously?
Our day and age is absolutely insane. I'm pretty taken aback.
Anyway, today is quite cloudy. Definitely a Bing Crosby kind of a day.
Thanks for reading,
Isaac
Thursday, October 27
Thursday, October 20
The Conventional Church and Me
I woke up late today and missed one class, then got an email saying the rest of my classes were canceled today.So now I sit in a very messy house with nothing to do for the rest of the day. I do believe it's Fall cleaning day. Isn't that what Americans do? I don't know....
But before I do, I really wanted to get back here and talk to a computer again.
I just recently saw a video on facebook of a really talented painter on stage, dramatically painting a picture. I've seen it all before-- no one really knows what he's painting until the last second, where he does this little trick of some sort. This time he turned the picture upside down, and there was that moment of "Oooooh, I get it. It's Jesus." Except I and everyone else with an overload of conventional Christian influence would have known the picture was going to be Jesus even before he started painting. The mega-plex stage, the studio lighting, the painter's trendy hipster clothes, the upbeat Christian music. What else could it be about? Anyway, the painter was really talented, and his clothes were really nice, and the stage was really nice, and the people who cheered after the turning of the painting were extremely nice. The lights, the hubbub, the everything was really nice.
If this was anything but a Christian church, I would be extremely impressed. If the painting was that of something other than Jesus, and if no one was doing all of this Hubbub in the name of Christ, I would have been completely happy with the art.
And I think that's something wrong with me.
Modern Christianity values Hubbub. They like different colored lights, and different trendy praise songs with conventional chord patterns, all in the convenient key of G, hopefully written by Hillsong. The guitars MUST be shiny new Fender teles or Gibsons and the Bass must be a four string, no more (We can't get too carried away, can we?) They like trendy clothing with trendy haircuts and trendy glasses.
For some reason, I've come to the conclusion that Christians shouldn't allow themselves to have these things. I think it was John Wycliffe who stated, "If I were to die with twenty pieces of gold in my pocket, I would not be doing the will of God." Or something along those lines. Perhaps true Christians should take in these words, and not put so much weight on the shiny sensationalism of the Church, and more weight on... I don't know... Christ's teaching?
They like their bibles leather, marked up and underlined with different colored ink to give the feeling of depth and understanding of "The Werd." They like to use words like, "All glory to God." and "Not my will, but His will be done." or "I love you, brother," and especially "I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me." The 'all things' must be bold and italic, otherwise you just don't get the point across.
I don't mean to bash Christians. This post is more about myself. The reason I "left the Church" (as people say) is because I was both too fed up with the sensationalism that the Church as a whole has fallen into, but also because I was too scared to stay in it and make a change away from the sensationalism in my own life. I found it much easier to sit down and watch and complain about all of the things that Christians do wrong, rather than to change my own values from the Hubbub to the Hosanna. (That sounds like a nice trendy phrase that'll get popular in ten years). Anyway, this was wrong of me. And I've dug myself into this ditch of pessimism and (can I even say) unjustified hatred for the conventional Church as I watch safely from the outskirts as the church drowns itself in its own distractions.
Thanks for reading. Onto cleaning the house.
May the Grace and Peace of our Lord, Jesus Christ be with you.
(The bolds and italics are supposed to get the point across).
But before I do, I really wanted to get back here and talk to a computer again.
I just recently saw a video on facebook of a really talented painter on stage, dramatically painting a picture. I've seen it all before-- no one really knows what he's painting until the last second, where he does this little trick of some sort. This time he turned the picture upside down, and there was that moment of "Oooooh, I get it. It's Jesus." Except I and everyone else with an overload of conventional Christian influence would have known the picture was going to be Jesus even before he started painting. The mega-plex stage, the studio lighting, the painter's trendy hipster clothes, the upbeat Christian music. What else could it be about? Anyway, the painter was really talented, and his clothes were really nice, and the stage was really nice, and the people who cheered after the turning of the painting were extremely nice. The lights, the hubbub, the everything was really nice.
If this was anything but a Christian church, I would be extremely impressed. If the painting was that of something other than Jesus, and if no one was doing all of this Hubbub in the name of Christ, I would have been completely happy with the art.
And I think that's something wrong with me.
Modern Christianity values Hubbub. They like different colored lights, and different trendy praise songs with conventional chord patterns, all in the convenient key of G, hopefully written by Hillsong. The guitars MUST be shiny new Fender teles or Gibsons and the Bass must be a four string, no more (We can't get too carried away, can we?) They like trendy clothing with trendy haircuts and trendy glasses.
For some reason, I've come to the conclusion that Christians shouldn't allow themselves to have these things. I think it was John Wycliffe who stated, "If I were to die with twenty pieces of gold in my pocket, I would not be doing the will of God." Or something along those lines. Perhaps true Christians should take in these words, and not put so much weight on the shiny sensationalism of the Church, and more weight on... I don't know... Christ's teaching?
They like their bibles leather, marked up and underlined with different colored ink to give the feeling of depth and understanding of "The Werd." They like to use words like, "All glory to God." and "Not my will, but His will be done." or "I love you, brother," and especially "I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me." The 'all things' must be bold and italic, otherwise you just don't get the point across.
I don't mean to bash Christians. This post is more about myself. The reason I "left the Church" (as people say) is because I was both too fed up with the sensationalism that the Church as a whole has fallen into, but also because I was too scared to stay in it and make a change away from the sensationalism in my own life. I found it much easier to sit down and watch and complain about all of the things that Christians do wrong, rather than to change my own values from the Hubbub to the Hosanna. (That sounds like a nice trendy phrase that'll get popular in ten years). Anyway, this was wrong of me. And I've dug myself into this ditch of pessimism and (can I even say) unjustified hatred for the conventional Church as I watch safely from the outskirts as the church drowns itself in its own distractions.
Thanks for reading. Onto cleaning the house.
May the Grace and Peace of our Lord, Jesus Christ be with you.
(The bolds and italics are supposed to get the point across).
Friday, October 7
Frederick Buechner
I shall quote from the wise Frederick Buechner.
"There must be a God because (a) since the beginning of history, the most variegated majority of people have intermittently believed there was; (b) it is hard to consider the vast and complex structure of the universe in general and of the human mind in particular without considering the possibility that they issued from some ultimate source, itself vast, complex, and somehow mindful; (c) built into the very being of even the most primitive man there seems to be a profound psychophysical need or hunger for something like truth, goodness, love, and-- under one alias or another-- for God; and (d) every age and culture has produced mystics who have experienced a Reality beyond reality and have come back using different words and images but obviously and without collusion describing with awed adoration the same Indescribability.
'Statements of this sort and others like them have been advanced for several thousand years as proofs of the existence of God. A twelve-year-old child can see that no one of them is watertight. And even all of them taken together won't convince any of us unless our predisposition to be convinced outweighs our predisposition not to be.
'It is as impossible to prove or disprove that God exists beyond the various and conflicting ideas people have dreamed up about him as it is to prove or disprove that Goodness exists beyond the various and conflicting ideas people have dreamed up about what is good.
'It is as impossible for us to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.
'All-wise. All-powerful. All-loving. All-knowing. We bore to death both God and ourselves with our chatter. God cannot be expressed but only experienced.
'In the last analysis, you cannot pontificate but can only point. A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, "I cannot prove a thing, but there's something about his eyes and his voice. There's something about the way he carries his head, his hands. The way he carries his cross. The way he carries me."
--- Wishful Thinking by Frederick Buechner.
I was recently in a rather heated discussion about Faith and the Proven and the Unproven-- idealogical stances about God and his Goodness and/or Badness, Evolution versus Biblical creationism, the Easiness and/or Difficulty of daily 'Christian living.' It was a pretty hopeless conversation, and afterwards I found myself to be a bit embarrassed of how I handled myself.
Over the past year and a half, I've come to the realization that reality is situated in such a way that one cannot prove in a 'water-tight package' the existence of God or the absence of Him. No matter what our argument or our evidence, there is always that margin of doubt or error, the possibility for contrary evidence or ideas. God and Faith are not things we can measure through scientific procedures. We cannot sense them, scientifically speaking. When it comes to trying to prove things about God, the conversation becomes muddled, hazy, and often times ill-tempered and nasty.
It is as impossible for us to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.
I love that quote, and I completely agree.
Whenever I talk to ANYBODY about Christianity or God, we always end up having our own set of standards and belief about God and salvation, usually accompanied with different pieces of Historical evidence or textual artifacts or just Good Feelings.
After a while, I became cynical. I could never find anyone who was willing to admit that their ideologies might be wrong. No one would honestly tell me that they simply don't know.
I for one didn't know. I wished to know-- to have a stance about God's state of existence, to believe that he was Good or Bad. But I couldn't. Every belief had too much of a margin for error to believe in. So I didn't believe anything, and it was a miserable place.
Today after reading this I realized that I've spent so much of my time being angry with certain Christians and their never-ending desire to prove their beliefs, and being fed up with myself for my inability to choose a certain belief, that I've forgotten about the most crucial part of all of Christianity---- Christ.
Regardless of proof or evidence or Christian debates or disagreements, Christ existed outside of all of this. He had power and love, and he suffered.
A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, "I cannot prove a thing, but there's something about his eyes and his voice. There's something about the way he carries his head, his hands. The way he carries his cross. The way he carries me."
I don't know if I expressed this well. I am not angry with anyone. I'm just trying to find peace in all of this Christian turmoil.
"There must be a God because (a) since the beginning of history, the most variegated majority of people have intermittently believed there was; (b) it is hard to consider the vast and complex structure of the universe in general and of the human mind in particular without considering the possibility that they issued from some ultimate source, itself vast, complex, and somehow mindful; (c) built into the very being of even the most primitive man there seems to be a profound psychophysical need or hunger for something like truth, goodness, love, and-- under one alias or another-- for God; and (d) every age and culture has produced mystics who have experienced a Reality beyond reality and have come back using different words and images but obviously and without collusion describing with awed adoration the same Indescribability.
'Statements of this sort and others like them have been advanced for several thousand years as proofs of the existence of God. A twelve-year-old child can see that no one of them is watertight. And even all of them taken together won't convince any of us unless our predisposition to be convinced outweighs our predisposition not to be.
'It is as impossible to prove or disprove that God exists beyond the various and conflicting ideas people have dreamed up about him as it is to prove or disprove that Goodness exists beyond the various and conflicting ideas people have dreamed up about what is good.
'It is as impossible for us to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.
'All-wise. All-powerful. All-loving. All-knowing. We bore to death both God and ourselves with our chatter. God cannot be expressed but only experienced.
'In the last analysis, you cannot pontificate but can only point. A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, "I cannot prove a thing, but there's something about his eyes and his voice. There's something about the way he carries his head, his hands. The way he carries his cross. The way he carries me."
--- Wishful Thinking by Frederick Buechner.
I was recently in a rather heated discussion about Faith and the Proven and the Unproven-- idealogical stances about God and his Goodness and/or Badness, Evolution versus Biblical creationism, the Easiness and/or Difficulty of daily 'Christian living.' It was a pretty hopeless conversation, and afterwards I found myself to be a bit embarrassed of how I handled myself.
Over the past year and a half, I've come to the realization that reality is situated in such a way that one cannot prove in a 'water-tight package' the existence of God or the absence of Him. No matter what our argument or our evidence, there is always that margin of doubt or error, the possibility for contrary evidence or ideas. God and Faith are not things we can measure through scientific procedures. We cannot sense them, scientifically speaking. When it comes to trying to prove things about God, the conversation becomes muddled, hazy, and often times ill-tempered and nasty.
It is as impossible for us to demonstrate the existence of God as it would be for even Sherlock Holmes to demonstrate the existence of Arthur Conan Doyle.
I love that quote, and I completely agree.
Whenever I talk to ANYBODY about Christianity or God, we always end up having our own set of standards and belief about God and salvation, usually accompanied with different pieces of Historical evidence or textual artifacts or just Good Feelings.
After a while, I became cynical. I could never find anyone who was willing to admit that their ideologies might be wrong. No one would honestly tell me that they simply don't know.
I for one didn't know. I wished to know-- to have a stance about God's state of existence, to believe that he was Good or Bad. But I couldn't. Every belief had too much of a margin for error to believe in. So I didn't believe anything, and it was a miserable place.
Today after reading this I realized that I've spent so much of my time being angry with certain Christians and their never-ending desire to prove their beliefs, and being fed up with myself for my inability to choose a certain belief, that I've forgotten about the most crucial part of all of Christianity---- Christ.
Regardless of proof or evidence or Christian debates or disagreements, Christ existed outside of all of this. He had power and love, and he suffered.
A Christian is one who points at Christ and says, "I cannot prove a thing, but there's something about his eyes and his voice. There's something about the way he carries his head, his hands. The way he carries his cross. The way he carries me."
I don't know if I expressed this well. I am not angry with anyone. I'm just trying to find peace in all of this Christian turmoil.
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