“You can’t, except in the lowest animal sense, be in love with a girl if you know (and keep on remembering) that all the beauties of both her person and of her character are a momentary and accidental pattern produced by the collision of atoms, and that your own response to them is only a sort of psychic phosphorescence arising from the behavior of your genes. You can’t go on getting very serious pleasure from music if you know and remember that is air of significance is a pure illusion, that you like it only because your nervous system is irrationally conditioned to like it.”
C.S. Lewis, On Living in an Atomic Age
atheismbunch:
The more I read into this book, the more I realize just how awful it is.
Today, I’ve decided to share the entry for October 10, as it emphasizes one of the main components (and, in my opinion, main problems) with religion: blind obedience.
“How Will I Know?
‘Jesus answered and said, ‘I thank…
Yeah, that’s twisted.
Though the passage of this book (what book, btw?) cites Scripture, I’m going to be honest and say I disagree strongly with the theology presented.
Christianity is based on the work that Christ has done on the cross. Both fully God and fully man, Jesus lived the perfect life we could not live, died the painful, tortuous death we should have died, and rose again that way may have new life with him. To be “saved” from the grasps of death and hell, one only has to believe the works of Jesus and trust that the debt of our sin is paid. That’s it. From there, The Lord continues to shape our hearts (through the process of sanctification).
That’s what makes Christianity different. Following Christ really doesn’t reflect what we do. It’s all about what he has done. You can’t earn grace because grace can only be given and received. Romans 6:11 says if something is presented by grace, “it is no longer granted on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.”
If I had to earn my salvation, I would be defeated and helpless. I can’t even remember all my good deeds and bad, so how in the world can I count on them to save me? Instead, I believe what is stated in Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.
You come to Jesus as you are, broken and messy. Cleaning up and “getting our lives together” before surrendering is not faith. It’s just another way of trying to earn grace (which, as stated previously, negates any “grace”).
Thank you for posting this and your insight.
I don’t actually know when I accepted the grace of Jesus’ work on the cross as my salvation. I grew up in a Christian home and remember really loving Jesus as a child - although, I’m unsure of whether or not I actually understood the Gospel. For years I went to church and did “Christian things” without caring about what any of that actually symbolized. Ritual is not relationship, religion is not relationship, but following Christ is. It is possible that I have been saved by the grace of God since I was six and lived disobediently (and apathetically) for nearly a decade and a half. But, the truth is, I lean more toward the idea that I really didn’t know the Lord. Something changed dramatically for me a couple of semesters ago and, for the first time, I really began walking with the Lord.
Because I didn’t understand the timeline of my acceptance of the Gospel, I have debated for almost two years about whether or not I should get baptized (again; the first time was when I was six). I still don’t know, but it doesn’t matter now. I’m in the hand of the Lord, I wear the robes of Christ, and I desire Him completely (not his riches, not heaven, not escape from hell. Just Him.).
I have decided to be baptized as a mark of my new walk with Christ and the new creation he has made in me. Next Sunday, April 28th, 2013 I will be baptized at 11am. I am so excited to mark this season and the work Christ has done, is doing, and will do. Although my decision in being baptized now may seem belated, I know that God’s timing is perfect and I trust that He still dances in the joy of my cleansing. Praise Him.
Do you know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in a death like this, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. | Romans 6:3-11