Winning the Monk Debate

Mr. Hitchens apparently swayed a significant number of people to believing that the world would be better off without religion, winning the Monk debate with Tony Blair.

While Mr. Hitchens has his points, he failed to mention the one reason I actually would agree with him.

In any debate, there are a number of levels on which the argument and discussions occur.  There’s the surface discussion.  To be honest I’m not very interested in the surface discussion, because I don’t think a debate between intellectuals will actually change anyone’s viewpoint in a lasting way (enough to say ‘he won’, sure, but not enough to climb out of a foxhole during a firefight).  Then there’s the motives behind each individual involved.  I can’t comment on those because such are hidden behind their words – to pick at them you have to be willing to engage in a discussion that is little more than gossip.  Then there’s the hard truth - now that’s interesting.

To get to the truth you only have to understand that God is transcendent – far above man.  The whole point of the Scripture, as Ken Boa once pointed out, is that God is God, and everyone and everything else is not. 

That is right order, not religion.  Both Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Blair speak about the realities of the way people practice their belief systems.  Is it really so hard to realize that people are never, by themselves, going to practice a relationship with transcendent God in a manner that is pure? 

That’s actually the point of the Old Testament.  That’s why the Scripture teaches us Christ came to us.  Because no matter how hard we as mere human beings try, we’re not going to understand God.  It is only by the Holy Spirit coming to reside in us that we have any grasp of Scripture itself – how much more so the application of Scripture to the character of God!

So really, the question being debated is - do unregenerate people dreaming up impure ways to practice a flawed understanding of God do more good than harm?  The answer is irrelevant, and the debate of the question is just evidence of ignorance, not a celebration of mankinds’ intellect.  You take the prize, Christopher.

The small matter of integrity

Today in the paper there is a story about Hydro One (a provincially owned company) giving donations to the provincial government of the day.  The minister in charge says there is nothing wrong with a taxpayer funded company donating to a political party.

It is interesting that in many ways, it is the small things that call people out as lacking integrity.  We often have little trouble trusting those we shouldn’t trust with important matters.  I think that is because we somehow believe that they intrinsically understand the gravitas of such things.  And I don’t think that trust is truly misplaced for most. 

Rather, it is the smallest things that people first lay down their integrity on.  I think the reasoning goes something like that which we are all familiar with in our diets and exercise plans.  “Oh, it’s just minor thing – I’ll make up for it later”.  The problem is that often we believe we’ll actually make it up (if such things can be ‘made up’ – for the time is forever lost).  The only real problem (we may reason to ourselves) is if anyone notices.

The problem is of course that someone does notice.  We notice right away, and if we (being human and evil) can notice such a thing, do we really think that God does not notice?  That the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ do not notice?  That angels and demons do not notice?  The scandal may come to light only when the reporter publishes the story, but the scandal was there for all to see from the very moment the decision was made to act on impulse.  And once enshrined in time (and therefore history), it will always be there to look back on, even if we are successful in ‘making it up’.

And so the trade is made.  Our integrity for a cookie (or the trust of an entire province for a few hundred dollars).  And then once that trade is made, the next trade is right behind it – for we are living beings, and moving things always gather momentum.  Now you are also limited – and on that page we are all the same.  The clock testifies that we all have a mere 24 hours a day.  The question then is - how much of that time and how much of our limited energy will go into stopping the momentum we’ve built up once we realize we’re headed in the wrong direction?  If the momentum we’ve already acquired is too much we won’t be able to ‘make up for it later’ – no matter how hard we try.

So pay attention to the small things.  It doesn’t need to be winter to see a snowball effect, and it takes no effort at all to roll things downhill.