Afterglow and Echo

I’ve been watching some episodes of Ghost Hunters, the sci-fi channel show, online. Compared to other shows of its kind this is quite professional, though its factuality is possibly in question I am treating it as real for the purpose of this post. I certainly have an opinion (if you can call it that) about Ghosts. Shock of all shocks, I hold to a predominantly biblical view of such things and while the bible doesn’t speak directly about "Ghosts" it has much to say about life, death, and “spirits”. As for life and death, they are the only two real states to be mentioned so the ideas like purgatory and hauntings are not truly biblical. A dead person can, God willing, be seen/heard here on earth, but the circumstances of those occasions do not place them under the standard definition of ghosts.

As for the term spirit, we know that God’s Word tells us about “spirits” in many ways. Some of the talk of spirits is in reference to a spirit of love or a spirit of enmity, but these are obviously meant to help portray the emotion or condition within a person. Some places the word spirit is in reference to human souls or the Holy Spirit, but never as a haunting. In other places the term spirit is referring to true spiritual entities though; separate from mankind and God. These are things that are not human and not God; the likes of fallen angels otherwise known as demons by most of us. The rule regarding these is that they are deceptive and dangerous to humans, not to be trusted or even trifled with by the average person.

Anyway, as I watch and listen to them I noticed over and over that they aimed to be empirical in their work; using meters, cameras, recorders, and thermal imaging equipment. They would go out and collect data from a location then bring it back and review it looking for signs of “Ghosts” or other paranormal activity. That in itself, dangers aside for the moment, is admirable. Instead of letting a camera chase them around a spooky location gathering only personal experiences, these guys try to debunk and get some form of empirical evidence.

However, and this is the point of the post, when they have personal experiences or when they have the data reviewed and in front of them it does not clear up the matter. They never come to a sound conclusion on anything, not because of the lack of evidence, but because they have no guide to help them interpret the data and experiences they have. While they seem to have interesting adventures and the equipment seems to do well as they use it, they only have blinking lights and ethereal voices at the end of the day. They come home from these adventures with a few pieces to a puzzle and begin the process of inferring (guessing as to) what is missing.

Using God’s Word they might be able to interpret their findings accurately. The spirits they find are not people who pass away nor are they residual emotion, but the deception of various dark spirits. The question is, would they accept the help that God has provided? If they were shown to be arbitrarily guessing at what was going on, would their search for answers really bring them to an acceptance of God? Or would they reject Him for rebellions sake anyway, choosing a faith in the confusion of unguided theories?

Stopping by...

So a lot has been going on and a lot of thoughts worth mentioning have come around the past month; yet none have made it to the blog here. Soon there will be several and what I expect to be a final post. I figure it is okay to finally shut down at post number 300. I'll leave this up obviously and maybe finish the archive on the right so it can all be accessed from start to finish.

In the meantime, I've been struggling with a lot these days; personal struggles and struggles in service mostly. It isn't that I am depressed or falling apart (nobody worry), but that life is simply not easy all the time. It does not matter how talented you are, how laidback or hard a worker you are, some times life pours it on. These are the times when we get to show ourselves though. A man's strength can't be seen until he lifts something heavy after all and the same thing goes with spiritual matters.

On the business end of things, I've got my hands full at church. Sunday school for the 15-18 year olds and youth group devotions for a rowdy bunch of 12-18 year olds. On top of that the new service is starting to pick up again with the addition of a new worship leader, but our sound tech is gone so I think I'm in charge of coordinating with the new leader. Also, if all goes well, the Small Group will be starting in mid October, but as is I don't know for sure.

Today I took a few minutes and re-read some letters I had written on youtube; they have me pining for the days of debate and discussion with people. I really miss that even though it rarely seemed to matter to them, but no time exists for more than re-reading old letters these days.

Perspective: "Religions"

The question is, “where did all the other religions come from”? It is a question that comes up often by inquisitive youth and elderly alike in Christian circles. The answer is linked to the tower of Babel and the flood of Noah much as cultures, skin colors, and languages also are linked to those events; I thought it would be interesting to go over. We should begin by remembering that between the flood of Noah and the tower of Babel all people on earth were derived from the line of Noah’s family and Noah himself was a godly man. (That is in fact why he alone was found righteous in all the world.)

From the “fresh start” after the flood, all people should have been instructed to worship God by the patriarch Noah, but the bible tells us that Noah’s descendants quickly turned to themselves and their own ability over a generation or two, creating the tower of Babel and the empire surrounding it. God eventually confused all the people around by making them speak different languages and so they gathered with like-speaking people and migrated away; forming the cultures and eventually defining the physical features in those cultures we see today.

As the newly separated people groups (cultures) pass their history through the generations they hold fragments of truth which can still be seen today. (For example most cultures still have a flood account that resembles the flood of Noah and most of these cultures also have an account o the tower of Babel as well.) However, they also had turned their hearts from the God of Noah and in doing so began deifying and worshiping both nature and themselves, which is a practice seen in all but a few religions today. The bible tells us in dozens of places how people who refuse the true God and their true history only grow in futile thoughts and confusion. Turning from God they worship the wrong things and end up making creation out to be god when that is not the truth (Romans 1:25). So with the historical account of the bible we have a witness of actual history that accounts for the fall, the flood, and the tower (most of which are all found in most world religions) and that allows us to know that the other religions are in fact warped views of history created by a series of fallen people groups post-Babel.

This is only a summary version of the whole answer of course, but consider how muddled and confused people are when they try to guess at historical events, be it recent or long ago; like having a few pieces to a puzzle and deciding to draw in the missing pieces by inference. Instead, why not use the written accounts God has painstakingly passed down to us? The bible is more than a set of spiritual lessons, it is our history. If applied, the answers are easily found. Give that old tome a chance to speak and it may tell you more than you imagine.

In stereo...

With this blog slowly falling into a black hole of its own I thought it would be good to at least stop and share a special find with all those music lovers out there. It is a place called stereofame which is set up almost as a game. The true point of the site is to gather unsigned artists to a community and let them share their works, but the site is set up also for listeners like myself. When you sign up you choose to be either a listener or an artist and then you earn points by either listening and reviewing or being reviewed and listened to, in a nutshell. You can check out stereofame or my profile here.

Oh and for those who are indeed musically interested, though perhaps not musically inclined, the old samich platter forums have been updated. We are no longer a gaming community, but a music community. So stop by and make some noise... (^_^)