Geez..be more creative!

For the love of God (literally) be more creative! Can't we come up with something different than "Hey! This thing might be anti-God...BOYCOTT IT!!" Isn't there some sort of constructive method of entering into conversation about topics that might go against the flow of what we believe?

Take for instance the upcoming movie The Golden Compass. If you haven't heard, there is a large movement of Christians that are supporting a boycott of the film. Why? Because in the final installment of the series, the children 'kill God'. Seriously. Now, what should our action be?

Does getting on the trumpet calling for a boycott sound like a smart maneuver? Did it work when the Southern Baptist Convention boycotted Disney and their affiliates? Not at all. In fact, that boycott didn't do anything but make Christians look stupid and cost the jobs of people who desperately needed them. I was working there when they fired thousands of people to recoup that money.

I think about when Jesus called his children to be the light of the world. Are we really being a light when we get more up in arms over a series of books than when a 15 year old girl is imprisoned with 20 men and raped repeatedly over several weeks?

Let's be more creative in our approach to things we don't approve of. To the world, we look like a bunch of lunatics crying about a children's movie. I once again point out that there wasn't a break out of witchcraft in our elementary schools because of the Harry Potter series. If you don't support the movie, that's fine, don't see it. But making a huge fuss about it only further destroys our voice in this world because we look like a big child throwing a temper tantrum.

Perhaps instead of being so scared that children are going to flock to atheism, we enter into a conversation with our children after seeing the movie/reading the book and talk to them about it. Giving kids what I call a "crap filter" is absolutely imperative in this world that we live in. If they aren't able to distinguish between what is good and evil and what the hidden agenda is, they are in for a difficult life. We have to teach discernment.

But please, let's be more creative than the old fashioned boycott.

Common Ground on Evolution

Lately I've been obsessed with social bookmarking sites such as Digg.com and StumbleUpon.com, in fact I often use popurls.com every couple of hours to keep up on what is 'hot' on the internet.

What I have found lately though, is that there is a common rising of popularity of atheist and evolution websites that keep popping up. Is it because there is a rising population of atheist and/or evolutionist? Or is it that these sites just happen to have a larger sample of those belief systems? I don't have the answer to that. But regardless, I have been keeping up with a lot of those sites, blogs and vlogs.

I think what bothers me the most is that neither side is able to come to any type of common ground on the issue of origin of life. The Creationist/Intelligent Design is not willing to step up and talk to Evolutionist and vice versa. What I've noticed is that a lot of the reason why, is because of preconceived generalizations about the other party.

Creationist/ID believe that evolutionists are morally depraved atheists, hell-bent on destroying the Christian faith.
Evolutionists believe that Creationist/ID are religious fanatics with no real intelligence.

Sadly, both sides have justification for believing some of those stereotypes. Speaking on behalf of intelligent Christians, I apologize for any of my brothers and sisters that may seem "stupid" or resolve to unintelligent debate such as circular reasoning. Unfortunately, we have earned many of our stereotypes and I think it's high time we started proving ourselves.

When it comes to the issue of origins, we have to have some kind of common ground on both sides in order for some sort of dialog to continue. I think it's going to have to be the Creationist/ID that will step up and make the effort.

How does that happen?

I think we have to start with one question: How did it all start?

When these 2 groups get together to "talk", both sides decide to spill their entire worldview onto the other, and that doesn't do any good. If we stick to one point, we can have dialog. Let me give a for instance:

Creationist/ID: Let's forget about the age of the earth, or evolution for a moment and think about life. How do you think life started?
Evolutionist: Honestly we don't know, but our best guess is that there was a pool of water and lightning struck it and 'life' was started.
Creationist/ID: I believe that instead of a bolt of lightning, there was an original mover, call it 'God', call it aliens, call it some advanced form of life before us.

We have to speak on terms with those that don't adhere to our set of beliefs. Sure, we believe in God and miracles and that God created us. But the instant we start down that path with someone who doesn't believe in any of that, we appear to be preaching to them and we lose them. Now if a relationship exists, then it's a different story. But that's another post. Speaking in terms that an evolutionist can identify with only helps our dialog. We have to remember that we're talking to someone that doesn't share our faith, and finds things like miracles simply unbelievable.

I honestly believe that the point of Intelligent Design can be a plausible one for the scientific community. I don't expect it to be any science text books, nor do I think it should be (after all you can't apply the scientific method to God), but in a general dialog both matters come down to "Neither of us were there and no one else was, so we have to do our best guess." We will have our lens of faith while the other has on the lens of science. But we have to seek a common ground.