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Thank you for sharing your experience.
Outstanding. Thank you.
Fascinating. I bet if you were a more mature Christian at that point you wouldn’t have stood a chance of convincing Kevin. So many of us are so convinced of the rightness of our arguments that we forget the links between first principles and resulting beliefs. Killing abortion doctors is wrong because… because of course killing abortion doctors is wrong.
A great story with a great message. Thank you.
Yes this taught me a lot about first principles. I am pretty sure that Kevin could sense that I was not sure he was wrong and that is why he agreed to walk through the decision with me. I am also proud that Kevin knew that a decision of this magnitude deserved to be thought through. He told me during our talk that what was holding him back was the bad character of his friend Yates, he was pretty Yates encouraged him for kicks, and that he needed some kind of blessing. He needed to be sure.
As we sought out the first principles together he came to realized that he had made several deep errors in his world view and he did not want to let it go. But by the Grace of God he did.
I am marking this for later and will get back with real reactions when I have time. Thanks for the post.
Very insightful. This post needs to go main feed ASAP
I find your comment very insightful as well and I fully endorse it…
So many interesting tales in your past. And you can tell them, too.
This conversation is part of our Group Writing Series based on August’s theme of Will. If you have a tale to tell about any aspect of will, or even a guy named Will, we still have several openings for later in the month. Our Schedule and Sign-Up Sheet is waiting for you, and operators are standing by.
So, so true.
Such a good post!
I agree that for people who have determined their cause will not be violent (pro-life, Tea party, etc) there may be some debates among members who need to be persuaded to stay the course. What I fear is the protest movement that pretends to be non-violent, but does not have the debates, and allows its members or fellow travelers in the mob to take over with no repercussions.
As far as changing hearts, it cannot be done in a vacuum. You can’t just say, don’t do this. One must be given a reason to change their mind (such as seeing your baby with the ultrasound), or an alternative (drop your newborn at a hospital, no questions asked, or uncomplicated adoption procedures), and support throughout the pregnancy (non-judgmental pro-life centers with material resources and encouragement).
Yes, you are right. It is vital that we connect our ends and our means to our first principles. People must do the work of figuring out why they want something and the right way to get it. When of the scary things about the Left is the willingness of their leaders and thought makers, thinkers and writers to ignore their principles, disdain the means and proclaim themselves only concerned with the practical matter of winning their political battles right now.
That is the reason that the Left always has great difficulty dealing with the New Left or the Socialists. That difference is why the Pro-life movement did not radicalize and finally it is the danger now on the Right where winning in the moment is so prized and the ideas and the right process for winning is right now so despised. If the road you are walking down is divorced from its past and its source it is a dangerous road, for you and your fellow travelers.
Well done. Engaging, funny.
I can’t wait to share it with my kids.
Evening Brian,
Do you think the pro choice movement was developed in our culture in the 50’s – 70’s because of heart to heart discussions, or rational analysis and review of basic principles? I don’t. The question which I would like to have greater understanding is, how do changes in group beliefs occur? I think many times culture is influenced through emotions and little else, from our desire to be seen in a good light/popular, to how our expectations change our reactions.
Universities would seem to have something to do with it.
Interesting story.
I can identify with Kevin. During middle school I realized all of the kids of the people in church were no different from the kids who had nothing to do with church, and I got the sense I was the only one who cared. Jesus seemed incredibly weak. The popular image of Him as a pathetic excuse for a leader and a doormat filled my vision. Christianity seemed like bending over and begging to be raped. My father, my childhood hero, seemed weak compared to my stepmother. I was not given any active heroic ideal.
What was not weak was violence. Violence solves everything, if you use enough of it. So I began to revere violence & destruction. I had never seen much violence on TV, so I sought it out, and it was incredibly satisfying. I would not be a submissive loser, I would strike back. I understand the mindset that motivates people to shoot up schools or join ISIS. Being a servant of destruction gives awesome power to those who feel weak – social power is nothing compared to violence.
The problem was that I had heard only part of the bible story, the sanitized portion. Jesus said he came to bring a sword, and people should sell their cloak and buy a sword. “They cry Peace, Peace when there is no peace.” – that verse resonated with me. God was not a pantywaist who liked being beaten. God was terrifying and dangerous, but a Hero, a Savior, the captain going down with the ship, the guy holding the line to save his men. He was, is, and always will be the absolute Ruler of the universe, the most Powerful Force in the cosmos.
And when I prayed to Jesus to save my soul one day in June 1999, I felt that Power. Unmistakable. Unquestionable. Invincible. I was in the Throne Room of the Universe, and violence knelt before the Almighty King.
No I think the pro-choice movement developed because of our lack of heart to heart discussions, rational analysis and review of basic principles. If more people had been armed with the ideas and been willing to engage on the issue emotional upheavals can be modified, limited and even reversed.
The point of my little essay is that Kevin was already modified and radicalized by his emotional response to abortion. He seemed willing to kill people. If I had only emotion to confront Kevin with I think we likely would have went out to try and kill someone.
Also my little is story of how I became Pro-life I think illustrates the point as well. My public school teachers wrapped me up in my own notions of liberty, individualism, and less government. My emotional reaction to their appeal was to embrace the Pro-Choice program as a basic freedom of all women.
My parents stopped me in my tracks and pointed out that the baby had a body too. No one was controlling the woman but saying the woman was not allowed to kill her own child. Government was saying that a small helpless child deserved no protection from the law. When I reviewed the facts in the light of reason, morality and justice, things I only did because my parents demanded that I do that. I became Pro-life and never had to looked back.
If we bother to fight the battle of ideas and develop reasons we can beat emotion.
Imagine are emotional selves as a roiling, tumultuous sea. Ideas, first principles, even theology and philosophy are like giant sea walls. They can’t ever cancel the sea out but they can shape the water, they can direct the water to less harmful places and they can contain the water. Sure the sea may boil up in a giant storm and overwhelm the wall but the wall is still there and the sea will recede and once again be contained.
Amen brother, I was saved in Feb of 1999 quite a year that was.
Very well said.
It reminds me of the verse in that hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy” that mentions “Cherubim and Seraphim bowing down before Thee…” It struck me one time that this is describing beings who are themselves awesome in power and might. Beings one could easily imagine themselves instilling fear and reverence should they be encountered by a human. And yet they fall prostrate before the throne of the Almighty.
I am so happy that many of you have found this story useful and interesting. Something has been bothering me a little bit though and I won’t to set the record straight here. Because I am telling about a real event as story and in essay the messy realities of the entire story and its conclusion have to shortened and tightened up. But these conversations were real.
So like in the quote above the last really combative meeting we had where I think Kevin really gave up his plans was on a Saturday and we did talk about the meaning of Peter defending Jesus and the reaction Jesus had to Peter’s defense and what that meant.
However we also had long digressions on the superiority of Babylon 5 to Star Trek, for instance, a lot of other pop culture references and we gave each other a lot of crap about our respective favorite football teams.
The story makes it seem like that we just sat down with some fine wine and smoked cigarettes constantly sharing deep thoughts. We did keep coming back around to the main points but we always had long tangents in our talks. There I feel like a weight has been lifted off of me….
David was a mighty warrior-king, one who commanded the armies of Israel and had his own unit of elite soldiers – his mighty men. He was also generally a servant of God. He was terrified of an angel hanging around, to point of refusing God’s command to go toward a temple. Angels generally say “Do not be afraid” when they arrive for a reason.
Yet they are as nothing compared to God.
I sometimes think we neglect the concept of just what “Almighty” entails. God knows the life and death of every star in the universe. By his Word existence began – before that there was no reality. He is the wellspring of all laws of logic and mathematics, much less the laws of this universe. God is completely beyond time, seeing all history as if it was one moment.
Before that there was no other reality.
I like the “wellspring of all laws of logic” formulation, as well as the implication of all other laws, including moral.
That solves the Euthyphro question. Does G-d command what is right because it’s right, or is it right because G-d commands it? Well, yes.
But what if G-d had commanded us to eat babies and torture kittens? He couldn’t; the laws of morality are rooted in his own good, loving nature. He could no more command evil than a circle could have four right angles.
Uh, one @rightangles is enough.
Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ll address the knee-jerk argument “Oh, you think G-d can’t do certain things; therefore he isn’t omnipotent!”
Anselm is right: The ability to do wrong or to contradict oneself would be a weakness, not a strength. Like the ability to die or to suffer. Omnipotence actually entails that there are some things G-d cannot do.
Amen, brother.
Thanks a lot you guys
I was just hoping it would cause you to photoshop four pictures of yourself inside a circle, but maybe you’re not up to the challenge. 😈
Oh now you’ve gone and done it. haha just kidding, I’m pretty sure there have been quite enough pictures of me already.
I have always said that certain things are not possible by definition. You cannot have more that a continuum infinity. That is literally the largest possible concept – it contains an infinite number of infinities. There is no difference between how many numbers between 0 and 1 and how many numbers between – Graham’s number and +Graham’s number. If God possesses that level of power, it is not possible for anything to be more powerful. The silly line about making a rock too heavy for God to lift falls apart for this reason
Also, I believe God could make a square circle. With a sufficiently distorted geometric surface, I believe it would be possible to have something that could qualify as both a square and a circle. God could operate in any number of mathematical dimensions. The more I understand science and mathematics, the more amazing God is revealed to be.
Oh, interesting! You might be right. A square circle, but as a logical possibility, not a contradiction in terms.