Quotes to Ponder

[vernecarty]

Their beliefs are grounded in antithapy towards God, not rationality.

Blessings,

Thomas Maddux

Actually Tom, the problem is much worse than mere antipathy.
People who deliberately reject God's revealed truth become incapable of rational thought. The examples you provided clearly attest to that fact.

What happens at death?

We know that the body dies.  What happens to the soul and the spirit?

Marcia

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.  2 Cor 5:8

Verne

p.s. the unsaved are another matter...the story of Lazarus and the rich man may be probative ( Luke 16:19-31).

[outdeep]

IMHO much of the postmodern yak is nothing more than folks who don't know what they are talking about trying to sound sophisticated, or worse, trying to justify their evil acts.

I think this is true for a true postmodernist (someone who truly believes that truth is merely a power grab).  However, I think the emerging church movement has a mismash of people.

1.  Those who are missionary minded and feel they can figure out how to reach these people in a "postmodern context"  (much like those in the church growth movement wanted to reach baby boomers).

2.  Those who feel that mainstream churches are not doing it for them and would are hoping they will find answers in this new movement (been there, done that).

3.  Those who feel the inhumanity of war and poverty are greater issues than abortion and family values and found in the movement Christians who think like they do.

4.  True postmodernists who go to church but if pagan sex rituals are your thing, that's OK too.

I was easdropping into their conversations to see if they came up with any solutions to the problems they were trying to solve.  So far, I haven't heard of anything that impressed me as they still speak with many voices.  I think, like the church growth movement, they will have their stars that rise to the top, ride the wave and have some influence on the American church as a whole and then turn into another church fossel.

One speaker (it may have even been McLaren) said that he was looking forward to them completing a book of postmodern theology but they are still trying to figure out what it is.  Personally, I think it will look less like a book volume and more like a computer game where each person can select options as to where they are coming from.

[sfortescue]

"To have peace with this peculiar life, to accept what we do not understand, to wait calmly for what awaits us, you have to be wiser than I am."
                                   -- M. C. Escher

[al Hartman]

     As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place.
 
 --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz

[sfortescue]

Relations between pure and applied mathematicians are based on trust and understanding.  Namely, pure mathematicians do not trust applied mathematicians, and applied mathematicians do not understand pure mathematicians.

[al Hartman]

    Perhaps never before in the history of the church have the people of God been so apathetic to the reality of the resurrection, ascension, intercession, and second coming of Christ.  Nevertheless, we are called to celebrate Christ's resurrection, ascension, and intercession, and we are called to proclaim boldly His second coming, not merely through a personal testimony, but by the preaching of the Good News of Jesus Christ so that the lost might believe and so that we might rightly live coram Deo, before the face of God.

                 --Burk Parsons

[Eulaha L. Long]

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

-Mother Teresa

[al Hartman]

                       Every cask smells of the wine it contains.

                       - -Spanish proverb

[Joe Sperling]

This isn't really a quote, and I'm not sure who the author is, but I'll paraphrase something I read the other day that I thought was quite good.

A girl begins complaining about her lot in life to her mother. Her mother says "Have you ever heard the story about the carrot, the egg and the coffee beans?" "No" she says. "We'll put all three of them in separate pots of boiling water and sea what happens". Twenty minutes later the mother says "Look at the carrot--it used to be hard and firm, but once in the boling water it became soft and easily broken. Look at the egg--it faced the boiling water and became hard inside--it has the same outer shell, but it has lost it's fluidity and softness. But now look at the coffee bean--it faced the boling water---and it changed the water into a smooth tasting drink. Daughter, are you the carrot, the egg or the coffee bean? When you face the boiling water of life do you give up and become soft? Or do you like the egg, become hardened inside and firm? Or, do you like the coffee bean, actually change the situation around you when faced with turmoil?"

When we were born, we came into the world crying--and everyone around us was smiling. May we live our lives so that when we die everyone around us is crying, and we are the one who is smiling.

--Joe

[al Hartman]

               I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

                   -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

[sfortescue]

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself.  The larger the denominator the smaller the fraction.
                                   -- Count Lev Nikolgevich Tolstoy

I know, indeed, and can conceive of no pursuit so antagonistic to the cultivation of the oratorical faculty ... as the study of Mathematics.  An eloquent mathematician must, from the nature of things, ever remain as rare a phenomenon as a talking fish, and it is certain that the more anyone gives himself up to the study of oratorical effect the less will he find himself in a fit state to mathematicize.
                                   -- J.J. Sylvester

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
                                   -- Bertrand Russell

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so.  The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.
                                   -- Bertrand Russell

Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, because they want to comprehend at a glance and are not used to seeking for first principles.  Those, on the other hand, who are accustomed to reason from first principles do not understand matters of feeling at all, because they look for first principles and are unable to comprehend at a glance.
                                   -- Blaise Pascal

[M2]

A sign is not the same thing as proof.  A sign is merely a marker for someone who is looking in the right direction.
...
With hard evidence of a spectacular miracle walking free in the person of Lazarus, they[the chief priests] balefully conspired to destroy that evidence.  In no event did the miracles bowl people over and "steamroller" them into belief.  Otherwise there would be no room for faith.

pgs. 178,180-181 The Jesus I Never Knew  by  Philip Yancey

[al Hartman]

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on
silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise
and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.
Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and
trilling bolster his ego.

     -Jean Arp, artist and poet (1887-1948)

[M2]

I know of no more poignant contrast between two human destinies than that of Peter and Judas.  Both assumed leadership within the group of Jesus' disciples.  Both saw and heard wondrous things.  Both went through the same dithery cycle of hope, fear, and disillusionment.  As the stakes increased, both denied their Master.  There, the similarity breaks off.  Judas, remorseful but apparently unrepentant, accepted the logical consequences of his deed, took his own life, and went down as the greatest traitor in history.  He died unwilling to receive what Jesus had come to offer him.  Peter, humiliated but still open to Jesus' message of grace and forgiveness, went on to lead a revival in Jerusalem and did not stop until he had reached Rome.

Pg. 194 from The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey

[vernecarty]

  He died unwilling to receive what Jesus had come to offer him. 
Pg. 194 from The Jesus I Never Knew by Philip Yancey

Yancey did not get it quite right. Judas' conditon at his death was far more tragic than  his being unwilling to receive what Christ had come to offer...he was at that point unable...
Verne

p.s. the reason is that after his betrayal of Christ, there were no longer any viable options left in this life;
scripture says it would have been better for him not to have been born!