The Forum

I ask you:

Why are you right?

Take any opinion you believe to be correct in and ask yourself why you think your correct? Do you say “Oh well I think I’m correct because fifty three experts who’s names I don’t remember say its true.” If you did I humbly ask you to rethink your opinion.

We believe things because we think they are true. Granted our belief may have come about by others influence but in the ends its “our” belief. So why do we put so much faith in evidence to convince someone? Only that person will in the end convince that person of whatever that person wants to believe.

I ask you:

Why do we put so much faith in evidence and experts?
How do you know you’re right? Well these experts say so.
How do you know the experts are right? Because the have experience and are more intelligent.
Why should their experience matter more than ours? Because they have training.
How do you know their training is correct? Because its in reputable schools.
Why are the schools reputable? Because they have lots of experts that say so…

In the end all evidence comes down to who has the most people supporting it. The reason evolution is embraced is because a lot of smart people said it was true. And these people were declared smart by schools which large groups of people have agreed are just in determining who is smart and who isn’t.
Essentially every time you bring up an experts opinion you are committing the logical fallacy of Ad Populum. Appeal to the people.
This aristocracy of intelligence is one of the things that has kept stupidity in the world. The idea that if someone or an organization has experience and intelligence they have the right to dictate truth to us like a king. I would say that no matter how many people say someone is smart it doesn’t matter.

If you become the smartest person in the world how will you ever be able to convince people of anything? Its not like you could quote people smarter than you. You would be forced to use (shutter) logic. Imagine it. People using logic to prove points and not evidence. Yet if the smartest person in the world shouldn’t quote people why should we?

Is truth based on peoples opinions or on truth? Unfortunantly when it comes to finding out the truth behind events (what did and didn’t happen) the only way we can figure it out is through asking people. But beyond this there isn’t an excuse for basing your opinion on other people’s.

Have you ever wondered why the Bible doesn’t just say “Do this, do that, I’m God, trust me.” Even with commandments God usually states why we should follow them. Such as in genesis after the flood God tells Noah not to kill anyone and to punish anyone who kills with death because people are made in God’s image.

The 1st 2nd 3rd 4th and 5th commandments in the ten commandments have long logical arguments to why they are being commanded.

Jesus constantly used parables and logical syllogisms to support his arguments. (can a house divided against itself stand? Is physician for the well or the sick? etc.)

Jesus did quote scripture but that’s scripture, we all know its correct. But why do we put so much faith in non scriptural evidence? Why can’t we use logic?

I think its because we have used evidence as a crutch to replace logic. In some circles its a mandated crutch. We think that because we are so stupid we have to use other peoples logic. Why can’t we just become smart? If we would spend all the time we spend looking up other people’s arguments and instead actually make up some arguments on our own we would be so much less wrong.

Some of the best ways to learn new arguments is by talking to smarter types. But we should at least make our own arguments and not steal them from others.

Street witnessing is an interesting experience because it forces you to drop all evidence and simply argue on a logical level. This is because the amount of evidence you can bring to the fight is severely limited. And when do you think about it, do we want people believing something because some guy or girl said it? Or because its right? An aside from divine action reason is the only way to know what is true.

We’ve all heard the critiques. “We have to submit to authorities.” Over and over again when I try to argue about rebellion people say things like “Well we are always supposed to follow the government because the bible says so.”

They read verses like
Romans 13:1-2:
“1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.”

Or Titus 3:1-2
“1 Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, 2 to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.”

Since these people who believe in following the government no matter what don’t have a name i will give them one . We will call them Subjectis’s. Because they believe in us being subjects of the government.

The problem with Subjectis is that they only look at a part of a part of scripture in order to justify their ideologies. If we look closer to the verses and look at scripture at a whole, we can discover that we are only meant to follow governments that follow God. You can actually see that in the Titus verse.

I ask you:

What defines an authority? Who should we follow and who shouldn’t we? What if an authority does something we think is wrong?

“At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.

“Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.”  Acts 5:26-30

Well there is our answer right there. It would seem that if the government goes against what God says then we should not follow them. Its interesting to note that in creation God put Adam in authority over everything in the earth… except other people.

what if the government shed’s man’s blood (unjustly) or acts in some other way that is evil? Such as Human Trafficking? Well in Joshua the government told Rahab to bring them the spies. Rahab lied. And yet Rahab isn’t punished for this. Or take the Midwives in exodus who lie to the government in order to protect unborn (oh wait excuse me… cough cough) infant children. And it says that God rewards them for their actions.

Obviously God doesn’t hate rebellion. In fact He helped start several half dozen in the book of Judges.

What makes these governments different from the ones that we are supposed to follow? Well these “governments” were evil. And its important to remember. Just because a group of guys has guns and claims to have authority doesn’t mean they actually have it. (Yes that includes the American government)

In fact God commands us to protect human life.

“5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” Genesis 9:5-6

But this is only talking about life right? Well what exactly does life include? If we force someone to act a certain way we are taking away their “life” in the sense that they are losing their ability to act. We are stealing their time. And as the epic theologian Gregory from that Adventures in Odessey episode said “When you waist your time you waist your life.” I would contend that when others waist your time they waist your life. And when they steal your time they steal your life. If that be by stealing your possessions and thus destroying the produce of your time in the past or whatever. We are commanded to protect peoples lives.

So if a government is killing people or enslaving them are we supposed to let them just take our lives away from us like that? The bible commands us not to. But what about submitting to authority. Well Jesus explained it all very well when he said

(Luke 20:25) “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

What if Caesar asks for something that it doesn’t deserve like your life aka freedoms? Only God deserves our lives. Therefore we are commanded not to give our freedoms to Caesar and fight against them as so many biblical characters from Rahab to Gideon did.

Does this mean we should rebel any second the government is imperfect? well lets listen to this story about Jesus and a strange fish:

“After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax[b]?”
“Yes, he does,” he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own sons or from others?”
“From others,” Peter answered.
“Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

Matthew 17:24-27 (emphasis added)

Essentially what was happening was that the government was asking for a tax that they had no right to ask. Jesus didn’t say “Oh well we are supposed to submit to government so just do as they say.”
No he essentially said. “Yes they are wrong but we don’t want to make enemies so go ahead and pay it.” This is one of the rare cases of Jesus being pragmatic.

Therefore in little things we shouldn’t get our muskets out. But the point is that Governments only have “Authority” over us when they tell us to do what is right. And since no one can do anything good except by the power of God that would makes sense that God would say in Romans that we must follow authorities. Because people only have “Authority” when they are in the right. They may have power but not authority. We have assumed that because our government has power it therefor has authority but that’s not necessarily the case.

You know you are not a people person when playing xbox games with your dorm buddies is your “social time” yet this was the situation I found myself in several months ago. My friends had gotten the new “Call of Duty! Modern Warfare 2! This time its not Modern warfare 1!” game.

Having wasted many a waking hour on first person shooters I decided to give the game a try with my Asian Messianic Jew friend. I learned two things. 1st. Don’t mess with Asian Messianic Jew’s… and second. Killing people in simulations for extended periods of times can be emotionally taxing. Here I was defending america from some russian invasion and killing hundreds of begins created in the image of God. Even though it was war… it still did something to me.

Now I have nothing against war. But it was kind of sickening how much killing I was doing.

Anyway later I was over at the same place for my weekly allotment of “social time.” and they started playing the same game. I watched and played a bit then they switched games.
They switched to a zombie game.

Now I had heard about these type of games but never actually seen one up close. On the echelon of bad games zombie games were at the lowest of the low. Some rate them on the same level as games like Grand Theft Auto. I thought “As if it wasn’t bad enough already…” I was fixing to leave but something made me stay. It could have been my curiosity or the fact that I literally had absolutely nothing to do. Probably both.

Anyway after several minutes of playing one of the players had to leave. So the other guy playing asked me the fatal question. “Hey, you want to play?” and handed me the controller.

I stared at it.

Now for any girls reading you have to understand. When I guy is asked if he wants to play a game he is not being asked if he wants to play a game. He is being asked if he wants to enter a world. I was being asked if I wanted to enter a world filled with hundreds of hungry, sleep deprived, corpses monsters running around.

Now its not that I hadn’t refused the controller before and that it would have been weird for me to say no. But for some reason I grabbed the controller and entered the world.

It didn’t take me long to find out that this world was much different than that of Call of Duty. In call of duty when someone got shot it was a real nuisance to have to go over and “revive” them. Yet in this game, the zombies were so much more powerful than you that you had to rely on your companions to survive. If one of your companions was knocked to the ground or got tied up by a giant zombie tongue net (don’t ask) you had to fight like crazy to save them. Because you knew that your life was tied up in theirs. If they died you were in big trouble.

But also because these people weren’t just gun weilding mimes. They talked to you all the time and your character talked back. You would discuss where to go next, crack jokes and ask for help or point out things that others hadn’t seen. It was really rather interesting to get to know the characters like I was reading a book. Except I was one of the characters.

Because the Charcters were so important I had expected that characters didn’t die. They would just get knocked out or something and then stand back up when the fighting was over.
I was wrong.

At one point the character who was being controlled by the guy who stood next to me was in trouble. We were all out of med packs and his health was real low. Health had gotten low for all of us before but this time it was serious. I was wondering what would happen if someone’s health got to zero. But he couldn’t die. These characters were too interesting for them to die off.

After a rather fierce battle his health got so low that I figured “Ok this is it they don’t actually die, only the perosn controlled characters die.” Still…I wanted to run ahead and try to find medical supplies and bring them back. This guy was my bro we had gone through dozens of adventures together and saved each others life innumerable amounts of times.

But we pushed on. Then we got attacked again and I fought like crazy to keep the monsters away from our wounded. But it didn’t work. The old man took his last blow and crumpled to the ground.

We all stopped. Was he really dead?
He didn’t move.
Oh no.
The guy next to me put the controller down and left the room as if to say “Looks like you have to lead them to safety now.” Me? He was a million times better at playing than me. I couldn’t lead these people to safety! I went through shotgun shells faster than banks go through sitmules money.

For a good half minute I just stayed there unable to move on. me and the two other survivors looked at the dead body of the man who twenty minutes ago was joking with us and ten minutes ago almost had a panic attack thinking about how the zombies “come at you and come at you and never quit. They never #@*% quit.”

And now he was dead.He was really dead.

If I remember correctly the girl charter (Zoey was her name I think) stooped next to the body and said “No no! He can’t be gone!”

It was demoralizing. Finally the other guy walked up to me and said “Hey we need to keep moving.” And so we did. But that memory stuck with me.

This wasn’t like any first person shooter I’d ever seen. In others when your friends died you just went on like nothing happened. After all they would respawn in a few seconds. But this man wouldn’t respawn. He was gone forever and there was nothing we could do about it.

Was a first person shooter causing me to put a greater value on human life? How is that possible? First person shooters always make people numb to death. Don’t they? Yet death wasn’t around us like in other games. We hadn’t actually killed any humans. Just zombies.

The thing about zombies is that they are not made in the image of God. They are just dead bodies who got some kind of virus that causes them to simulate life and go around harassing rednecks. I could “kill” them all day and not feel any remorse. I was destroying a corruption of one of Gods greatest creations. I was destroying the epitome of evil.

In Call of Duty I felt sick killing humans and hearing them scream to each other in Russian. Yet in the zombie game I felt so alive. There was so much lack of human death that when my companion died it was just shocking.

I won’t say the game had its problems. It was addicting which is bad and incredibly violent. Yet I had expected a disturbing game and I got the complete opposite. In Call of Duty there were about 46 different guns to use to kill people. In the zombie game there were like 4. Yet I found the zombie game so much more fun. Because zombies are so demonic, so evil, so grotesque looking that there is almost nothing in the world like the feeling of shooting them as they attack a defenseless girl. Its very therapeutic actually.

In other games if you ever save someone else’s life its a huge deal. You get to brag about that for weeks to come. Cause if you had to have someone else save you then that means you’re just a terrible player.

But in the zombie game saving peoples life happened ever ten seconds. The whole game was about the protection of the living. We were warriors for life, not death. We were literally battling death itself in order to protect one of God’s greatest treasures.

I used to think that anything with zombies in it had to be evil. In many cases this is true. But I don’t think the zombie genera is evil. It has just been misused and gotten bad press. We must remember not to judge a book by its cover (or its chapter)

So yes I like Zombies. As a literary tool and as an enemy. When our enemies aren’t evil enough it causes problems. But when we show evil as evil and good as good its very refreshing.

I ask you:

What if its someone’s birthday. You go to the store to buy a card and find that all the birthday cards are identical. All of the lads and lasses going to the party are buying the same birthday card. So you buy the same card that everyone else is buying and write your name on it. Its a great card though. It speaks the truth and is real touching.

Or

You slave away for a week to create a well decorated card and write an original message? Its not quite as fancy as the other cards and it isn’t as well written, but its yours.

Of course the second scenario is a greater display of affection.

Yet don’t we do that with worship? We go to church and sing a bunch of songs that are someone else’s creation. The same songs that everyone else is singing. In some cases they are songs that have been around for hundreds of years. Yet if someone’s birthday is worth spending the extra time to create something original, isn’t God the creator of the universe worth us doing something original for Him?

Even if we meant the songs, and even if the songs are powerful, even if they are theologically correct (which isn’t the case very often) its still not the same as going through the work to create a new creation that’s just your creation and just for God.

look at this list of all the references that talk about singing a NEW song to God. http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=a+new+song&x=0&y=0

I don’t know how it is that you have been gifted in. But whatever that is use it to create something for God. If that be writing a song, writing a book, creating a game, painting a picture etc. Make a creation just for God. Of course some things are easier to make glorifying to God than others and its hard to make a painting or game point people to God. But I’ve seen it done.

Doesn’t the greater work show a greater display of affection? God will accept us (Christians) and love us no matter if we are original or not. But does that give us an excuse to slack off?

Worship songs that some other guy wrote are better than nothing of course. I don’t want people to stop worshiping at all.

But I ask you:

What are you making that will be your way of glorifying God? How much longer are you going to do second hand worship?

God will come and marry us.

That was a line in a song at a church worship service. When I heard this, I flipped out. Yet its not the first time that people have taken the analogy of the church being the bride of Christ way way to far. At another church I heard one of the speakers talk about how one of the translations for “worship” is to kiss, and how we need to expect God to come and kiss us.

I have two things to say: first: That’s sick. God is not a romantic being, neither is he homosexual. Both of which would be necessary for him to “marry” us.
Secondly:
I ask you:
When the bible uses the word “love” to describe our relationship to God does it use the world for romantic love (Eros) or Agape love? If its not romantic love then why do we treat it that way? The metaphors of comparing the church to a bride are just that: metaphors. You will notice the prevelence of the word “Like” or “As” when refering to the church as the bride of Christ. “And behold I saw the church coming like a bridge adorn for her husband” -some verse in revelation I don’t have time to look up.

But what about Song of Solomon you say? I say what about it? That dilogoue was a writing about a conversation between two actual people from what I understand. The guy is talking about some girls actual hair and face and stuff. The church does not have hair, or a face or the other things that I won’t talk about which are described because I’m trying to keep it PG. My point is I’m pretty sure that’s literal.
So unless you are making the claim that the guy who said all those things was actually Jesus manifested in the flesh several hundred years before he walked this earth then I don’t see how you can make the claim that God flirts with us like that. It would mean some pretty sick ramifications.

Yet other people don’t seem to think so. When I hear people talking about “slow dancing with Jesus” (I actually heard that once) it makes my stomach churn. How shallow can we be that we think that God’s love for us can be put in terms of love between a guy and a girl? Yes romance is one of the strongest loves humans can feel and its a good analogy to use because its strong, long lasting and is about commitment like our relationship with God is. But its just an analogy. You don’t see people comparing God to a fisherman or a sower of seeds and singing about how God is going to eat us like fish or bread. But why not? There are parables that compare God to that.

Jesus is not going to marry me (unless you use a very very vague definition of the word marriage) neither is he going to cook and eat me like a fish. Metaphorically? Well yes I suppose so. But metaphors can be taken too far.

I ask you

Should we be surprised when God moves?
Many people do. In fact at so many churches whenever a person says that someone was healed or raised from the dead the crowd flips out. Why? I don’t feel its because they are celebrating the effects of the healing. You say that some grandmother was just healed of cancer and the crowd will get just as loud as if someone’s gastrointestinal reflex muscle just had its internal vertebrate miraculously realigned. The less likely something is to happen the more excited the people get.
Why? Is healing someone of heart trouble any harder for God to do than raise someone from the dead? Even if they don’t know what that means… or if it doesn’t actually exist, they still go crazy. Why?

I must confess I don’t get all that excited when someone gets healed. Why? Because I don’t really see its all that special. I mostly just think “Oh thats nice. Praise God.” Don’t get me wrong I do think its incredible and amazing. But its not worth screaming about.
When someone watches jaws appear out of the water they scream. When someone wins the lotery they scream. When people see Miley Cirus on the streat they scream (in fear). Why? Because all those things are unexpected and out of the ordinary. Its not everyday that those types of things happen.
Then why do we scream and get excited when someone is healed? Because its unexpected. We expect God to keep the moon at the correct distance from the earth to keep the tides from flooding the planet. Yet we don’t expect someone to be cured of menaflosia. Why don’t we? Which is a bigger miricle?

When I first found out people got healed and saw my first few healings I was surprised. But then I thought. “Why am I surprised? What’s so surprising about the power of the spirit?” Its almost like seeing the miracles was making me think “Oh my gosh God is REALLY real!”
Right after Pentecost the disciples went all around healing and preaching like there was no tomorrow. People were getting healed by touching their shadows and all heaven was breaking lose.
How do you think they would have responded if somebody got their foot healed of arthritis? Would they flip out? Probably not. Granted they would praise God and thank Him and acknowledge its miraculousness. But they wouldn’t have been like “Oh my gosh! Did you see what just happened? Wow! I’ve never seen anything like that! Dude!” Wouldn’t they expect God to do incredible things? Shouldn’t we?

Of course we shouldn’t be surprised when God doesn’t heal someone. I think we shouldn’t be surprised by anything God does. He pretty much does whatever he wants and we should expect that.

Jesus told us that we would do greater things than He did. Should we be surprised that He keeps his word? Now we should of course realize that God is doing something miraculous, but is it right to find it odd or weird or out of the ordinary? Do we not trust God enough for him to do amazing things? Why is the impossible so surprising? He is God for crying out loud!

Our surprise when God moves is just a sad reminder of how little we trust him to do what He said. Now I know that its not a sin to get excited when God moves. Its understandable. But we need to remember that God moving is what is supposed to happen. Thats why I don’t try to get surprised when God moves. I’m glad, I’m thankful. But I keep trying to remember that this is just business as usual for our incredible, marvelous, and awesome God.

Why do we schedule time for Jesus? Are we just so busy that we need to specifically allot time to Jesus to make sure He isn’t left out? Is Jesus some client that we have to fit into our schedule? How dare we prepare an hour every day for Jesus to show up. Who do we think we are?

Yet this is exactly what people do when they have “Quite Times.” Quite Time  is an amount of time that is allotted to “Spending time with Jesus.” People usually do this as a way to prepare for the day and make sure that they don’t forget to read their bible. I have to say this. If your using Jesus as a tool to prepare for the day your motivation is wrong. When Marten Luther said “I have so much to do today I must spend twice as much time with him as usual.” That was wrong! Jesus is not a medicine that we take more of when we are having troubling times.

And if we are so far from Jesus that we have to schedule time for him so we don’t forget to be with Him then there is a deeper problem. Where in the Bible does it tell us to schedule time for Jesus? I thought we were supposed to pray without ceasing. In my experience Jesus pretty much just does whatever He wants and doesn’t care about our schedules. The closeness that we have with Jesus should not be based on our circumstances. In everything we say and do we should be embracing and pursuing God. If you are having “Jesus Time” That means that all other times are “not Jesus time.”

I agree that its fine to schedule times to read your bible and fellowship with the saints (like church). Cause just reading you bible or fellowship isn’t enough. You need to pursue God in other ways as well. But spending time with Jesus should be something that we are always doing. How can we say “Oh thank you Jesus for touching me like this. Now I gotta run to class, see you tomorrow. Don’t be late.” Its sickening.

How can we say. “Jesus really touched me today.” What so he isn’t touching you now? What made Him stop? Did you have another appointment? Jesus is not a drug that gives us a temporary high that we get addicted to and need to keep doing. Jesus is someone who has been eternally bounded to your soul. Saying your going to spend time with Jesus is like saying “I’m going to spend some time with my heart today. Pump some blood and stuff, then I gotta go visit my lungs, haven’t breathed in a while and need to take care of that.” Yet Jesus is a million times more important than these.

Our whole life should be one big quiet time.

Just kidding. I only said that to get more traffic

Ben’s Blog: http://jibenow.com/myjournal/2010/02/15/
Ben said:

“I do not believe, for God to be GLORIFIED, a movie must be perfect. However, in order to honor God, we are to obey His commandments.”
Ok so for a movie to Honor God then it has to be perfect. If something completely follows ever single commandment that God has given then it is perfect. (Jesus followed every commandment and He is perfect.) So what your saying is that to honor God then a movie has to be perfect. Interesting. I’m still confused how honoring and glorifying are different.

You didn’t respond to my argument that temptation is different for different people. If you think your going to be tempted to do more bad than good, by all means don’t watch the movie. Just don’t be a perfectionist.

If a movie is going to make you all and all better how is watching it bad? You’re saying “Because the movie is not making you as good as it could therefor you should not watch it.”

You are making the assumption that something cannot both honor God in one way and dishonor God in another. Its not like a media production only has one message. It has dozens of messages. Some good some bad. But just because it has a bad message doesn’t mean that in total the messages don’t have a comparative advantage morally.
This is in regards to the dirty magazine argument. I would say that the Bible verse part of the magazine is good and the rest is bad. Since in total the damage done is much worse than the edification therefor you shouldn’t read the magazine.

You said that we shouldn’t change Gods words. Under that argument we should all speak Aeremeic and Hebrew. Cause translation is “changing God’s words.” I say as long as you communicate the originally intended meaning then you are safe. And that is the purpose of media: To communicate the truth in a way that the world will embrace. The bible is vital to discerning if you are actually communicating the truth and pragmatism is secondarily vital to determining if the world will understand and accept the argument.

The reason I haven’t brought up verses is because you have done that for me and I’m just using those to support my arguments.

Should we willingly subject ourselves to evil? Wrong question. Evil is not a pure element. Nothing is purely evil. The question is: how much evil should we subject ourselves to? Because you cannot completely avoid evil. As all the verses you stated say we should try to avoid evil. and the way we do that is by embracing what parts are good.

Is the Bible a perfect source of truth? Yes of course. Does this mean that because anything we create is imperfect and therefor we should never write anything? If you believe it or not this is what you are arguing. Since all things except the bible have evil in them therefore (under your reasoning) we should not willingly subject ourselves to evil and therefor not read anything but the bible.

If you want to argue this that’s fine. Some might argue it. Its at least consistent. I personally don’t believe it. God has an incredible track record of using imperfect tools to do what is amazing. Therefor we shouldn’t ridicule something because of its imperfections. We should ridicule it on what it is doing and if it is being used by God.

You said God has been drawing people to himself without using movies for a long time. Yes. But God has used media ever since the bible. Its only because Marten Luther used the new media of the printing press to spread bibles and his own writings all over Europe that the Protestant church was started.
We have a new media here: The movie. We have to use that influence the world. America was turned evil through the movie and it is through the movie that she can be revived. But only if the movie is made much more Godly than it is now. and good will never been sought if we require perfection.

You said that if Fireproof had a “bed scene.” Then you wouldn’t have watched it. However Luther (a movie you have admitted is one of your favorites) has such a scene. I personally think that its a bad scene and should have been changed. It kinda messed me up a bit. But the other parts of the movie make up for the bad parts. Also many people may have not been messed up. So I’m not going to say the entire movie is bad because of one scene. That is the fallacy of composition. and you haven’t given one verse saying that we should commit fallacy’s of composition.

In regards to the last verse you posted, (Mathew 5:30) if you look at the context of that verse its talking about church discipline so I don’t see how it applies. However if you want to we could look at it as an example of how God does believe in separating items into its parts and seeing if some parts are evil and some aren’t. Once again the verse supports my argument. Its better to ridicule a part of a movie and say how its bad than to discard the entire film.

You said that if Book of Eli tempted you to sin then you wouldn’t watch it. Fine, but that’s not my argument. You said in an earlier post that if a movie  “glorifies “Christianity” but includes ”Sex, Swearing, and Violence”. There is no way a movie like this could glorify Christianity.”

You are judging a book by its chapter. This movie is glorifying to God. Yet its imperfect and has that stuff in it. You argued that a movie like Book of Eli can’t glorify God. Yet as all my sources state, it does. Therefor you’re wrong.

*This is David Umstattd using The Asker’s user name to post these comments*

This is a response to Ben Chamber’s post here:

http://jibenow.com/myjournal/2010/02/13/can-christians-honor-christ-while-watching-a-movie-depicting-things-that-dont/

Ben said: “I do not believe, for God to be glorified, a movie must be perfect.”
Why thanks Ben. That’s my whole argument and I’m glad you agree with me. However I do not believe that you actually believe this.
“If, in the movie, repentance is not offered for the sin – the lie is glorified – then there is no glory given to God in the movie.”

So what your saying is that if sin is ever glorified in a movie then the entire movie is bad and has no good in it. I ask you: How is that different from requiring the movie to be perfect?

I liked your argument that the question is: if a movie glorifies sin. That’s a good point. However. I would contend that if a movie ever glorifies anything evil then all that proves is that part of the movie is evil. Why can’t we just set our minds on things above? Meditate on the good aspects of the movie and not let the few evil aspects keep us from seeing the truth in it. remember “If [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on theses things.” The key word here is: any. You are assuming that Jesus is refering to complete items and not parts of items. If a part of an item has any virtue shouldn’t we dwell on that?

So often its easy to just quote a verse and say “See? I quoted a verse and you didn’t therefor I am right.” We must use reason to understand what the verses are saying.

Ben said: “why watch a movie when we have the Bible?”

You did not just make that argument.
Under that logic all books except the bible should be burned. Every pastor who has ever written anything should be ridiculed because he is imperfect and therefor has made an imperfect creation. The very acts of this post and your post are evil because they are not the bible. So nobody should read them. I mean after all… they should read the bible and not anything we have to say.

Just because the Bible is perfect doesn’t necessarily mean it is easy to understand. Also its a lot easier to influence culture through movies then through screaming verses that nobody understands. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for screaming verses. But I don’t think its a sin to ever say something that isn’t a bible verse.

Your argument about temptation was rather good. However I would say that temptation is different for different people. Some people may see something be tempted to murder. Another person can see the same thing and be tempted to go save lives. Granted some things are just plain tempting. But we should ask the question “Does this movie encourage more good than it encourage evil?”

Regarding the fireproof example. I hope you aren’t arguing that the movie is perfect or anywhere near the level of the bible cause it sounded that way. The makers of the movie aren’t perfect. The movie isn’t either. Which under your reasoning would make it not worth watching. I mean it isn’t the bible so we shouldn’t watch it. What can we learn from fireproof that we can’t learn from the bible?

Ben said: “He presented an analogy of a movie that glorifies “Christianity” but includes ”Sex, Swearing, and Violence”. There is no way a movie like this could glorify Christianity.”

Interesting you should mention that because I wasn’t just making up a movie. There is such a movie. Its called The Book of Eli. and (according to Plugged In) its one of the most blatantly christian movies since the passion of the Christ. Nobody who goes to see that film cannot see the Christianity in it. And I cannot see how any christian (of proper age) cannot be brought closer to God through it. (I guess its possible) Its about one of the last Christians in the world trying to protect the last bible in existence so that he can get it mass produced and save the world from eternal damnation. Both Thomas Umstattd, and Brian Morgan have both endorsed this film.

Yet you could argue that the movie glorifies murder and lying. Is it imperfect? Of course. Is it glorifying to God? Absolutely. Now many people may not be able to handle the movie. Some may be tempted to do evil by it. but the movie is still an excellent one. (However I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone under the age of 17, and there are a few things in the movie which just should not be viewed.) however its advantages outweigh its disadvantages.

Why? Because its heart is good. You see Ben you cannot judge a book by its chapter.

You also said that we should compare media to the bible.
Yes we should, but its not going to match up. Ever. so what exactly is your point here?

In regards to the discussion about if God were to judge us with perfection. I was referring to “us” as in Christians. God doesn’t judge Christians that way. Yet you are judging movies this way. If you are not perfect why should you reject everything that isn’t perfect? Anyone who believes this philosophy will never get married.

Please don’t bring up any of the “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” arguments because those verses are referring to people and how God will judge the unsaved. Just thought I’d spike that argument.

An entire movie is only bad if the entire movie is bad. An entire movie is only good if the entire movie is good. We should judge a movie based on the compilation of its parts. You cannot say “Because scene 3 glorifies stealing therefor scene 29 which glorifies compassion is wrong.” You just said compassion is wrong, don’t do that.

I ask you: Is it right for Christians to defend themselves from attackers?
Luke 22:36
He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.

oh… well that answers that question. However I want to point out what Jesus says a few verses later:

Luke 22:38
³⁸The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.”
“That is enough,” he replied.

So apparently its not only right to defend yourself but it is also alright to defend others. (since only two of the twelve would have swords)
But exactly when is it alright to kill people?

Genesis 9:6
“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed ; for in the image of God has God made man.

notice, God says that the reason that men should punish murderers with death is because they are made in the image of God. Do pagans believe that man is made in the image of God? well not necessarily. So which men do you think God is talking about here?

Numbers 35:33
” ‘Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.

So bloodshed pollutes the land. And the way to atone for that bloodshed is to shed the blood of the person who did the shedding. Now God commands us to not pollute the land. So what happens if our land is polluted by bloodshed? We are commanded by God to “Unpollute it.” by slaying the guy who did the bloodshed.

Given this I ask you: If someone was attacking your children would you attack that person to protect the children?
I ask you: If someone were attacking another persons children would you attack that person to protect the children?

Note: Attack just means fight the person with the intention to stop them at all costs. This may or may not include killing them depending on the circumstances.

I ask you: If the government were killing people unjustly (such as the Nazis in Germany) should we do any and everything possible to resist the government and save lives?
What would you think of someone who ran into a Nazi death camp and began machine gunning up the place and freeing the inmates?
What if someone ran into a Nazi death camp after all the inmates had been gassed and shot up the place in order to prevent them from killing any more people?
What if the reasoning to shoot up the place because “Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it?” (Numbers 35:33b)

I ask you: What if our government were killing millions of innocents like the Nazis did?
Would you just try to pass a law that would keep children safe from killers or would you take action? Wouldn’t you charge into the places that were killing the children and save them? Wouldn’t you hide the children away in your homes to keep them out of the reach of the hands of the government? Or would you just sit quietly at your home and vote to get rid of the murderous laws. The longer you wait the more children die.
Wouldn’t people be justified in forming an organized rebellion against the government, and then march over to the places that these murders were taking place and make them stop by force of arms?

Now for the kicker: What if the government were doing this to unborn children? Cause they are.