Heaven Is …

I am a child of summer. I would LOVE nothing more than living in a perpetual summertime. I love being outside in nature. I love hearing birds sing and lawn mowers at 6 am. I love wearing nothing more than shorts and a shirt and going around barefoot. I love open windows and cool breezes. I love green flowering and fruiting plants. I love the sun’s warmth on my skin like a blanket. I love summer.

I am not a child of winter. I don’t miss cold, snow and wind chills. I don’t miss frosted windows, windshields and mustaches. I don’t miss the hollow sound of creaking, empty trees dealing with overweight snow and brittle winds. I don’t miss bundling up in layers upon layers of clothing just to get the mail. I don’t miss the salty roads, dirty snow piles, and slush. I don’t miss the sunless days where cold comes on you like a prickly sweater. I don’t miss winter.

I tell people, who don’t live in the south that we have one spring, two summers and a really hot season. I don’t miss winter. Of course this is a preference and I know others who have EXACTLY the opposite view of mine. I have a distant relative with whom I share the same name, who lives in Norway and LOVES the winter and can’t wait for summer to be over. Others I know love the changing of the seasons and would miss summer leaves turning to fall, fall colors turning to a white blanket, winter white turning to the new growth of spring, and spring sprouting into a full blown summertime.

I cannot see myself in a cold climate again. But I can’t say I will NEVER be in a cold climate again. I find an even deeper truth than my love of summer. I find that God has plans that may not have ANYTHING to do with my preferences. What happens if God calls my wife and I back to Michigan, or to a church in Northern Alberta? No, sorry God, I prefer summertime. How about Hawaii or the Florida Keys?

Actually that is a picture of heaven for me. Right now, my preferences and God’s plan are often at odds. But there will come a time when they are one and the same. There is a place where I will be just where God wants me to be and that will be the same place where I prefer to be. That time and that place is heaven. I can’t wait (well, I can, but you know what I mean) to move there!

Heaven is where your preferences and God’s plan become one.

The Star

After a few years of meeting his potential the rising Star seemed to be flickering a bit. He did amazing things and crowds followed him everywhere just to hear him sing. Those close to him reveled in the popularity and jostled for the position of his right hand man.

But then something changed. The Star started hanging out with the wrong people and his image began to be tainted. The rumors were bad enough but now people began to SEE him hanging out with prostitutes and, even worse, the Bernie Madoffs of the day. Not only was he hanging out with those people who stole others money but he was accepting invitations to their home for dinner and sing for THEM!

The media of the day were having a great time documenting his fall from grace. The people still listened to him because he had a GREAT voice, one like no other. But the leaders began to manipulate the people by spreading rumors and innuendo. The Star made it easy for them by socializing with the wrong people and not even caring that they were the wrong people. The Star even called the RIGHT people the wrong people. What was he thinking?

It all came to a climax when the Star showed up at an event he was not invited to. In fact, he was WARNED to stay away or there would be “dire” circumstances. When the Star arrived, the crowds cheered him for his audacity but instead of singing, he caused such an upheaval the crowds ran away from the repercussions. Now the authorities had an opportunity to arrest him or worse.

Knowing this, and that his time was short, the Star had a last meal with his closest followers. The couldn’t understand his songs any more. They just wanted to go back to the popular times. Maybe he could to a come-back tour or something. After the meal, in the middle of the night he was arrested, tried and convicted in a VERY short time. The authorities felt they just HAD to make it a quick break. All his “close” friends ran away, fearing the same authorities.

He was executed. In retrospect many wondered how it happened so fast. From the greatest rising Star to a death sentence. But it must just have been one of those cases that kind of slip through the cracks of justice, propelled by … who-knows-what.

Now, many years later we know that it was the Star-wannabees that pushed the execution. The competition from the Star was too much and he had to be eliminated. His competition tried to bury his songs and punish others for playing them. But they never counted on the resurrection of the Star. Not just his music, but the Star himself. The ULTIMATE comeback tour lasted for 40 days and then he was gone. But his music, oh, his music continues to play in our hearts and minds even today.

I have his Easter album bursting from my buds today. Can you hear it? Does it move you still?

Cowboy Poem: Better Keep in Touch

Jake, the rancher, went one day to fix a distant fence

The wind was cold and gusty and the clouds rolled gray and dense

As he pounded the last staples in and gathered tools to go

The temperature had fallen, the wind and snow began to blow

When he finally reached his pickup, he felt a heavy heart

From the sound of that ignition he knew it wouldn’t start

So Jake did what most of us would do if we had been there

He humbly bowed his balding head and sent aloft a prayer

As he turned the key for the last time he softly cursed his luck

They found him three days later frozen stiff in that old truck

Now Jake had been around in life and done his share of roaming

But when he saw heaven he was shocked – it looked just like Wyoming

St. Peter and he talked for a minute or two, or maybe it was three

Nobody was keeping score for in heaven time is free

I’ve always heard, Jake said to Pete, that God will answer prayer

But one time I asked for help, well, he just plain wasn’t there

Does God answer prayer of some and ignore the prayers of others?

That doesn’t seem exactly square – I know all men are brothers

Or does he randomly reply without good rhyme or reason?

Maybe it’s’ the time of day, the weather or the season

Now I ain’t trying to act smart, It’s just the way I feel

And I was wondering could you tell me what the heck is the deal?

Peter listened very patiently and when Jake was done

There were smiles of recognition and he said “so you’re the one!”

That day your truck, it wouldn’t start, and you sent your prayer a flying

You gave us all a real bad time with hundreds of us trying

A thousand angels rushed to check the status of your file

Buy you know, Jake, we hadn’t heard from you in quite a long while

And though all prayers are answered and God ain’t got no quota

He didn’t recognize your voice and started a truck in Minnesota

Animals and Eternity

There is a painting by Giuseppe Vermiglio of the Last Supper. This painting has three animals in it. I have never pictured the Last Supper with Jesus to have animals included but this is how Vermiglio saw it. The first animal is in front of Jesus and is the butchered Passover Lamb. This lamb was to be spotless and without blemish in order to be sacrifices and served at the Passover meal. This animal represented Christ himself, OUR Passover Lamb. The spotless and perfect one who was sacrificed for us.

The next animal is a small dog. You see this dog coming out from under the table the disciples were reclining on. The small dog here was a symbel of the destitute in society, of those who fed off the scraps of the tables the rest of the people left over after they had their fill. Whatever fell to the floor was picked up and cleaned up by the small dogs. These were the friendly, big-eyed, whimpering ones and not the mean and nasty dogs of the street.

The third animal is a fat cat. Not even a black cat but a cat that represents the devil. The only one to notice this cat is the small dog. The cat/devil sits behind Judas whom we recognize because he is holding a bag full of 30 pieces of silver in his right hand and while all the other Apostles are listing to and leaning toward Jesus, he seems to be looking to make his way AWAY FROM the Savior.

Vermiglio was saying some pretty interesting things through his painting. The dog is in a defensive posture and probably barking annoyingly which the disicples simple don’t see or pay attention to. The only one that sees the evil hovering around Judas is the destitute in society. The Apostles are too busy trying to jocky for position and learning from Jesus that they neglect the world around them and the devil in their midst.

While not crafted and as popular as DaVinci’s version of the same scene, Vermiglio captures something the Leonardo misses. Listen to your animals! Okay, maybe not that so much but certainly BE AWARE of the world around you even while you are worshipping and spending time in the presence of Jesus.

The Ten Commandments

Minnesota Style 1. Der’s only one God, ya know. 2. Don’t make that fish on your mantle an important thing 3. Cussin ain’t Minnesota nice 4. Go to church even when you’re up nort 5. Honor your folks 6. Don’t kill, Catch and release 7. There’s only one Lena for every Ole. No cheatin. 8. If it ain’t your lutefisk, don’t take it 9. Don’t be bragging bout how much snow ya shoveled 10. Keep your mind off your neighbor’s hotdish Vegas Style 1. Love only God, and God is not the name of an exclusive nightclub 2. Sequined purses and boots are not to be worshipped 3. Watch what you say and how you act – there are camera’s EVERYWHERE 4. Even swing shifters need time off, take a day 5. Remember to comp your mom and dad when they are in town 6. Even when the guys pulls a crazy flush on the river to beat your 3 of a kind, killing is not an option 7. Keep your eyes on the road and not the billboards, or taxi signs. 8. A One-Armed-Bandit is a slot machine not a way of life 9. Don’t tell me you “just about broke even” that is Vegas-speak for “I just lost $500 and my wife is gonna kill me.” 10. Your suite is fine, don’t worry about your buddy getting the Presidential Suite Internet Style 1. Don’t bow before your computer even though google is “all-knowing” 2. That perfect internet connection is not your purpose 3. BOLD FACED TYPING is yelling too, watch your language 4. Let your computer rest, never leave it on full time you never know what bugs and spam it will pick up 5. Skype your mom and dad frequently 6. Don’t enjoy mashing your “friend” in WOW too much 7. Keep your firewalls up 8. Knowing your friends passwords can only get you into trouble 9. Watch out what you Text and Twitter about it WILL come back to haunt you 10. The latest MEGA graphics card won’t make any difference if you buy it just for show No matter how you slice it, as good as it may be; the original is still the best. AND still appropriate and timely.

Es Es Percepe

Is there really an external world? Is there really a world outside of our experience? When you see an apple, you picture it in your mind (as you are right now); what happens when you close your eyes and think of something else? Does the apple disappear? Does the world disappear when you close your eyes? If everyone in the world closed their eyes and emptied their minds at the same time would the universe disappear? When we group our regularly occurring experiences we give them names. “Apple” is our word for a consistent collection of sweet, red, crunchy sensations of a certain size, texture, and smell. But that is all an apple is. Or is it? According to George Berkeley (1685-1753) that is all an apple is. To suppose that it is something more, something OUT THERE, is to go beyond the evidence of experience. Worse, it is to think the absurd thought that sweetness can exist untasted and red can exist unseen. To believe that something exists in the realm OUTSIDE the senses is to build a shaky scaffolding to stand on. Yet it might surprise you to know that George was a devout Christian. He actually used this “idealism” as evidence and proof for God. Berkeley argues that God perceives and therefore sustains the whole of the universe whether we happen to be looking at it or not. For Berkeley the continued existence of everything is proof not only of God’s existence but also his benevolence. If God blinked, not only would our world go out of existence but so would we. The Latin “es es percepe” means “to be is to be perceived”. What would we be without others experiencing us? What would we be without our own senses? What would we be without God perceiving us? With us being unable to trust our own senses reality and truth, then, is how God perceives it. The truth corresponds to reality as GOD perceives it: NOT OUR PERCEPTION. Our very existence depends on GOD perceiving us: NOT OUR PERCEPTION of HIM! I think ancient scripture writers understood this when they gave us the priestly benediction: “May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord make his FACE SHINE ON YOU and be gracious to you; may the Lord TURN HIS FACE TOWARD YOU and give you peace.” May the Lord PERCEIVE you too.

Quantum Faith

There is a weird, yet incredibly powerful faith in something called “quanta”. The faith was first developed by a German physicist called Max Planck, who proposed that energy comes in tiny lumps called “quanta”. The faith was extended by Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Paul Dirac, and Werner Heisenberg; all priests of the faith in the 1920s.

It is because of the faith of quantum mechanics that we have most of our modern technology. This faith in quanta brought forth semiconductors and lasers which, in turn, brought forth all modern computers, MP3 players, cell phones, and many lifesaving medical treatments and scanners.

One of the priests: Niels Bohr commented on the faith, “If you are not astonished by quantum mechanics, they you haven’t understood it!”

Despite the tremendous success of the faith quantum mechanics remains shrouded in mystery because no one really knows how or why it works. It make certain predictions about the unseen world that go completely against our common sense. For instance, it explains how an atom can exist in more than one place at the same time until we check to see what it is up to and then it magically appears based on our looking for it. So it is everywhere until we seek it and then it appears in that particular place as if we called it there. This faith also says that an electron can spin both clockwise and counterclockwise at the same time until we try to measure it. So it is everything in every way until we seek to limit it.

I am anticipating the ACLU will soon ban the study of Quantum mechanics in all Schools.

Universe

There is a lot going on in the Middle East as I am writing this. There is a deposed leader in Egypt. There is death and rioting in Libya and in many other countries as the people try to rise up against their despotic leaders. The United States seems to be caught in the middle of supporting then not supporting then supporting again alternately the leadership, the people, then different people, then…

It is a mess and people are dying.

Will something better than before come from the ruins? History shows that eventually the right side wins but often after brutal and blood years. But history also tells us that the oppressed, when they come to power, soon become the oppressors. Then we have the mess again.

We feel the same thing in our country on a smaller, less deadly scale in the battles for control of state houses and political maneuvering. Our representative government is crazy, messy, prone to abuse, and sometimes hurtful BUT it is the best thing out there right now. Our nations motto is E Pluribus Unum which means “Out of many: ONE” We need to understand that we are MANY different people, different backgrounds, different colors, different skills, different advantages, and just plain DIFFERENT. But it is that difference that can make us whole and complete. The Bible calls us the Body. A metaphor that could be used nationally too. Some of us our hands, some feet, some muscle, some eyes, and some brains but we all NEED each other to make the whole body work. Can the eye say to the foot, “I don’t need you!”

Ancient philosophers looked up to the skies and saw a reflection of themselves twinkling back at them. Thy saw the diversity of the sun, moon and stars but they also saw how they moved in a particular order and harmony. They saw different colors and even some special stars like the North Star, but all in one. They decided to call what they saw “Unity” within “Diversity” or the shortened word: universe.

There is a sense, a standard out there that people need to see. We see it in the universe and we put it on our coins now we just need to live it.

Exclusivity and Truth

Today a key word in politics and social justice is “inclusive”. We need to include individuals who have ideas different than ours because, after all, ALL ideas are valid if someone holds to them. I can say to you that I love fish and I know that fish is good for me. You can hate fish but still tolerate my statement because it is an opinion based on my personal preference. As long as the statements revolve around personal preference we can “tolerate” each other and “include” each other in our own little society.

But what happens when my “true” statement is necessarily stepping on your personal toes? What happens when my statements, true for me, are stated to be true for you too? Statements like “Jesus is Lord” will step on the toes of those who say “Allah is Lord”. If I precede my statement with “I believe …” then no one would/should have a problem with it. I can say I believe Jesus is Lord and you can say you believe this tangerine is Lord and we would both be okay with it. Or would we?

The very definition of Pagan belief is “MANY gods” and was practiced by the ancient Greeks and Romans. They were okay with you worshipping whatever god you wanted to only make sure that you don’t have a problem with me serving my gods. Worship was a matter of DOING something for your god like offering a sacrifice at the temple of your god and calling it a day. You have your “religious activity” done for the day/week etc. Jewish religion changed that a little but didn’t force the pagan hand. They lived together and Jews had no problem with pagans as long as they left the Jews alone. Each can serve their own god, perform their religious rites, and go on their way.

Then came this crazy Christian religion. This religion said that there was only ONE God to be worshipped and to worship other Gods was wrong/evil/sinful and should be stopped. This crazy religion said that you needed to do more than just go to your temple and sacrifice, you had to actually BELIEVE in this God and BELIEVING was what got you to heaven. Pagans really didn’t have to believe anything they did, they just had to do it. This crazy new religion sought to convert others to their religion, to make them give up their gods and worship the “one true God” exclusively. How crazy is that?!

You will notice in Pagan religions, including Judaism that there is no such thing as heresy. The reason there is no heresy is that there is no orthodoxy. Orthodoxy means true or right belief and heresy means wrong belief. How can a Pagan religion have a wrong belief when you don’t have to believe, just perform a rite? How can a Pagan religion have orthodoxy when EVERYTHING is included and right and okay?

To me, this is PROOF of the truth of Christianity. Christianity MUST be true because it is the only religion that is EXCLUSIVE. Christianity must be true because it is intolerant of other gods and other religions, you cannot combine Christianity with any other religions and stay TRUE to Christianity. To say you are a Christian Buddhist is not only a stupid thing to say but it is also a WRONG thing to say. It is the equivalent of saying “I am a human tomato”. You cannot have truth without exclusivity and intolerance. I am sorry but someone has to be wrong, we can’t all be right.

Egypt #7: Floating on the Nile River

Our cruise ship on the Nile was little more than a glorified house boat. It had probably 50 rooms on three floors along with a dining hall to feed us and a “night club” type room to entertain us. But by far my favorite place was on the roof of the ship. The whole upper deck was open to the outside and allowed a 360 degree view of Egypt. There were awnings to sneak under when the sun was too hot and a small pool to hop into to cool off.

In the morning, before most were up, I would climb to the top deck and secure a deck chair at the stern of the ship and just stare at the drifting away countryside of Egypt. The Nile river valley is one of the most fertile places on earth and the lush green shores were beautiful in the early morning. In some areas it looked much like a modern farm with tractors working in the fields and trucks hauling the produce to market. But in other areas I saw the Egyptians getting water from the Nile by an ancient cantilevered system with the long tree branch pivoted on a stump with a weight on the other end to counterweight the bucket of water which was moved from the Nile to a waiting trough.

I liked the stern of the ship because I could see the small waves of the ship’s wake “V”-ing out to the shores making a million sparkly diamonds on the surface. The Nile is the longest and one of the largest of rivers in the world and the diamonds stretch all the way across its half mile width as we pass.

Before the sun has a chance to burn off the mist you get an eerie, other-worldly feeling as you pass. Almost like you step back in time to be a part of the Pharaoh’s barge heading from Cairo to Luxor for his twice yearly sacrifices. While papyrus is now rare in Egypt it used to cover the shores of each side and now you can see other reeds and bushes coming down to the shore where a princess might have come to find a reed basket that contained a future leader.

Many temples or ancient building can be seen from the Nile and you cannot imagine how beautiful it must have been in its heyday. Majestically carved, painted and decorated for the arriving dignitaries or celebrations. 18th dynasty gold was so common that most kitchen chairs had gold in them so you could imagine what the kings throne was like and how the barq that carried the sculpted god was gilded.

I sit now in my 30 year old home wondering if it will make it another 30 and think of Egypt with its 5000 year old buildings. We’ve lost something in our make-it-quick- and sell it mentality. We wonder why time seems to go so fast when we build our lives in the fast lane. We wonder why nothing seems to last when we can’t wait for a few years for something of value to be built. The Ancient Egyptians can still teach us, someday you should ride on the Nile with me and listen to them.

Egypt #6: Religious Deconstruction

The ancient ruins of Egypt are amazing. One of the amazing facts is that they survived the wind, desert heat, and sun for thousands and thousands of years. What is even more amazing is that the ruins are not ruined because of the desert but because of human DE-construction and DE-struction. A lot of that destruction is for religious reasons but let’s start at the beginning.

The Great Pyramids of Giza, as majestic as they are, would have been in a LOT better shape if the later generations of Egyptians didn’t remove the shiny limestone surface and use it for other buildings leaving us just the huge granite monoliths to view today.
Many Pharaohs were either an embarrassment to the next pharaohs or they were heretical and so all of their construction was demolished, their statues broken down and buried, and their hieroglyphs sculpted over. The female Pharaoh Hatshepsut was one who later generations tried to erase. The heretic king Akhenaten was also deconstructed after his death and all his statues demolished.

Later kings simply needed the building materials and so “borrowed” from previous Pharaohs for their own construction. And finally during the Intermediate Periods of Egypt (kind of like their Medieval Dark Ages) they scavenged all they could to live and used tombs for homes and mummies, wood implements, etc. for firewood.

Most of this we can understand, not like, but understand. But some of the destruction of ancient antiquities that really gets us is when it is done for religious reasons. When Greece and Rome conquered Egypt they didn’t have a problem with all their gods, they simply incorporated them into their pantheon by calling Ra Zeus and Isis Athena and so on. But in the 300’s, when Rome became Christian and the 2nd commandment prohibited “graven images” or images made by man, then the real deconstruction happened. Christians defaced and destroyed images of the Egyptian gods and then used the ancient temples for new churches. The religious fervor can still be seen today in the scraping off the faces of gods and in the carving, plastering and painting of Christian symbols into the walls. Later, in the 700’s when the Muslims conquered Egypt they did the same to the Christian churches and even completed much of the deconstruction of the Egyptian gods.

Religious zealotry has its place and we must be on guard against syncretism (combining two or more religions by watering them down) but there must be a place and a way to preserve the culture of a place WHILE changing the worldview of the place. I mourn the loss of Egyptian antiquities to the hand of Christian zeal because there would be so much we could have learned from that history. Even if that learning is simply what NOT to do.

A thousand years ago Christians battled over icons for the same reasons and there was the terrible destruction of the iconoclasts. Today Muslims destroy Buddhist statues in Pakistan that survived 1300 years so we still have not learned from our mistakes.
Apostle Paul used an ancient stone with an inscription to the “Unknown god” to teach that Athenians about the true God. I use the ancient temples of Egypt to teach people today about their religious heritage from Egyptians through the Hebrews to us We attempt to deconstruct the religion by destroying wood and stone instead of deconstructing the heart by shining the light of truth on it.

Egypt #4: New Age Loons

We ran into the loons in Egypt. Not the birds that walked among the reeds of the Nile but the kind that have something wrong in their head. Our first experience was while we were waiting in line to get tickets for the Great Pyramid of Giza. These tickets would allow us entry INSIDE the pyramid and only a few hundred in the morning and another few hundred in the afternoon were allowed. While we were waiting to be among that few hundred we were told by our guide that a group, primarily Americans, paid over $15,000 to open the pyramid early so that just 10 of them to get into the pyramid by themselves for an hour to “meditate”. They believed in the power of the pyramid and believed they would gain special “knowledge” or “blessing” from that meditation. The pyramid was cool to be in but certainly didn’t give me any special powers when I was there. But maybe there were too many of us and I didn’t meditate right.

Our second encounter with the loons of Egypt was in Abydos. Abydos is the holy site of ancient Egypt. After the epic battle between Osiris and Set led to the dismemberment of Osiris he was again reassembled in Abydos and later buried there after reviving enough to have a child with his wife Isis. Osiris was worshipped for thousands of years as the god who ushered you into the afterlife and so his burial place was important. You can find the oldest temple, rivaling that of the great pyramids in Abydos. Within one of the temples at Abydos you will find sculptures up high in the supports of the roof with unusual Egyptian characters. One looks a LOT like a helicopter, one like a submarine and another like a blimp. How did the ancients know these items? How did they sculpt them into their stone 4000 years ago? Many of these New Age Loons will tell you it was because of aliens or at least a “special” knowledge grasped by the ancients and so we found many lugging their “prayer” rugs around Abydos so they could meditate and pray in this sacred alien place.

Now I love ancient Egypt and am developing relationships with some modern Egyptians as well but I don’t worship the ancients or the aliens who may have influenced them. I look at the monoliths and I see nothing more than human ingenuity. Enough people and enough time and you can move a mountain or build a mountain. The work done by the ancients was hard work but it wasn’t hard-to-understand work. We are amazed simply because we build buildings in a matter of a few years where they would plan for decades. We are amazed because they would coordinate tens of thousands of people to work together and we have trouble with more than three trying to get together. We are amazed because they maintained a culture for five thousand years and we are worrying about whether we will last through our third century.

Don’t worship men who worshipped gods that were poor substitutes for the true God. Don’t meditate on wonders of human ingenuity when you have the same image of God within yourself. Don’t stand amazed at the past; do appreciate it, do learn from it, and most of all DO follow the truth into the future.

Akhenaten

Akhenaten ruled only 17 years as Pharaoh of Egypt but his influence was astounding. Imagine a new president coming to the US and this president deciding to change the center of power from Washington DC to the middle of the desert in central Nevada. They would have to start building new buildings from the foundation up, then work on the infrastructure of roads, airports, power lines, etc. Then they would have to move all the governmental support with the people, copy machines, computers, office furniture. They would then have to fill in with the Walmarts, Home Depots, Pharmacies, and Bars. You get the idea.

That is what Akhenaten did. He moved EVERYTHING from the capital near Cairo to a new capital 350 miles away in the middle of the desert called Amarna. He moved the whole government, people and all, to this new site. But what he did that REALLY changed everything was to outlaw the gods of Egypt. He “starved out” the temples to all gods but one: the Egyptian god Aten, the sun god. He changed his name from Amenhotep (Amun is happy) to Akhenaten (Spirit of Aten). This was heretical to the people, but what can you do when your king, the ultimate ruler, said “jump”?

It took a LOT of money to do this. It took a lot of confidence in Aten to do this. That is why many biblical historians believe that Akhenaten was the Pharaoh of Joseph. Joseph influenced Amenhotep with the dream interpretation of HUGE prosperity followed by TERRIBLE famine. Joseph influence Amenhotep towards ONE God, the God who shines on all people, not just the Egyptians. Joseph influenced Amenhotep to become Akhenaten, the Spirit of the One God. Because of the prosperity Egypt was awash in gold, because of the famine and being the ONLY one with food Egypt was FLOODED with gold, people looking for work, and people who couldn’t ply their trade anywhere else. Just what is needed to build a new city in the middle of the desert.

It is interesting that built into the four corners of this new city were steles (tombstone like granite plaques) which were inscribed with the rules for behavior and commands for living in this new city. Here are some of the commands: “There is no God but Aten, you shall worship the Aten and the Aten alone.” And “You shall make no images of the Aten out of wood or stone.” (which, again, was radical because ALL the other gods had images made of them) The Aten was represented only in beams of light coming from the sun which gave light, warmed, and even was shown with little hands on the end of the beams indicating that all we have is from the Aten.

I don’t know if Akhenaten was influenced by Joseph or not. I don’t know if his view of the Aten was really the same God we serve but I do know he changed everything from the government, to the religion, to the art (check out Amarna period Egyptian art). Change came only from HUGE amounts of money and willing workers. But his changes didn’t last long. Akhenaten’s son Tutankhaten (Living image of Aten) became pharaoh at the age of nine due to the untimely death of his father and older brother. He died only 9 years later at 18 and many believe he was murdered because of his father’s heretical ways. (Many priests were unhappy that their patron god was de-funded by Akhenaten). Even though the boy tried to change back under the influence of his “vizier” Ay and changed his name from “Living image of Aten” to “Living image of Amun” or Tutankhamun or as we know him King Tut.

A short 32 years later the 18th dynasty of Egypt came to a close and there came a new dynasty of pharaohs who probably didn’t know Joseph and probably would have made those troublesome Hebrews work a little harder for a LOT less money.

Egypt 1: The Pyramids

My second time in Egypt and my second time at the Giza Plateau proved that they are no less awesome today. You can see them from a distance as our little mini-bus takes us close but you cannot grasp how big they are from that view. Even parking within was seems like a little walk away proves to be a LONG walk as they grow larger and larger in your camera view screen. You have to stop taking pictures of the whole because the whole no longer fits and you are still hundreds of yards away. So you take pictures of parts of it and finally all you can get is a few of the monolithic blocks in your camera as you stand close and look up at this immense stairway to heaven.

The largest pyramid is open for sneaking in if you get there early enough. We did and it truly felt like we were sneaking into the greatest man-made structure in history, the only one left of the 7 ancient wonders of the world. Khufu (or Greek Cheops) lifts up her skirts and lets mere mortals take a look underneath.

We start by climbing a hundred modern wooden steps to get up the few ancient blocks to the side opening of Khufu and our cameras are taken from us by a head-dressed Egyptian. There is only one way in and one way out, so they will be there for our return. You can smell the age but it isn’t the musty, humid smell of basements in my memory, it is a dry, dusty, OLD smell. We find a smooth but declining floor lit by fluorescent tubes on the bottom and in the corners so they cast an eerie upward shadow in the tunnel. After about a hundred feet of descending we find a smaller square tunnel in which we have to bend over to ascend, there are boards on the floor to help you climb. Khufu had decided to build his burial chamber UP instead of down and under, so we go UP. “Where’s the escalator?” cried my Las Vegas mindset. Hundreds of steps, bent over and climbing with many stops waiting on people ahead and sucking the dry, old, but now sweaty oxygen. We reached a small landing and made our way through a ladder fed hole in the ceiling only to find another stairway leading farther up and farther in. But this chamber had plenty of head room, in fact it had an amazingly HUGE gap from us to the ceiling. We could see the human traffic jam now as we slowly made our way up. The final landing was only about 5x8 feet as we waited to get into a hole in the wall that was only about 3 foot tall and about 15 foot long. This final tunnel gave us entrance to Khufu’s burial chamber. Only a few could fit through the tunnel at a time and only one direction, we had to take turns. My turn into the tunnel and I met an Asian woman who HAD to get out and didn’t want to wait. She simply got on her hands and knees and crawled between my legs as we met in the middle of the small tunnel. Her daughter apologized profusely as I got into the chamber and found her waiting for me.

The chamber was nothing special. A comparatively large room about 15x20 with no carvings and no paintings on the wall. A simple stone sarcophagus in the one side, no mummy, no gold, just time packed into stone. I was left wondering what these walls have seen over the last 5000 years. From the pounding construction sounds to the pomp of the pharaoh’s funeral procession to the people who robbed and desecrated to the passion of explorers and archeologists to the passage of thousands of years to finally me, here, now.

I seem small and insignificant as I feel the sweat pouring off my face when I pass through that same small tunnel and make my way back to the entrance. I am reminded of the Tower of Babel story in scripture and one of my lessons from that story is that “Man united can do absolutely AMAZING things.” And that is why God doesn’t let us do it too often. I suck in the fresh air and welcome the sun on my face as I emerge again into the real light.

Where do Ethics come From? Part 4

Aristotle's thought ethics came from choosing to do GOOD rather than choosing to do BAD.
Rousseau thought ethics needed to be forced on you by an absolute authority or leviathan.
Hobbes thought ethics were determined by the majority and so we need a government to force that majority belief upon us to have a GOOD society.

Kant believed in a variation of the golden rule where GOOD would be achieved by everybody asking themselves BEFORE they act "would I want this done to me?"

John Stuart Mill was a utilitarian. Which means that ethics and what is GOOD is determined by whatever promotes happiness at the time you make the decision. Does this give pleasure or pain? Mill is talking about aggregate happiness of the greatest number of people though, not necessary your personal happiness. Mill had to build in some checks so that we all don't become totally hedonistic (seeking only our pleasure all the time) so he came up with certain kinds of pleasure being better than others. Listening to good music, for example, is likely a better kind of pleasure than spending the day eating Ben and Jerry's ice-cream. He explained this by calling on experience: nobody who has experienced both higher and lower pleasures would be willing to swap a life of higher pleasure for lower ones. He said "No intelligent human being would consent to be a fool though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs."

There are, of course, many problems with this. Not the least of which is the fact that the GOOD in Mill's case would be the pleasure of the greatest amount of people. But mob rule is rarely a good thing especially when practiced at the pleasure of the KKK or Gestapo. This also leaves too much room for personal choice, I would be hurting if all there was was Starbucks since I don't like coffee or chocolate but Starbucks seems to give pleasure to a GREAT amount of people therefore I must be a BAD person.

It, again, boils down to the NECESSITY of having an outside arbitrator of what is good or bad. A rule or guide given to us by someone who knows the truth and the best and has our best interests in mind. Sounds like a Savior I know and a Word I try to follow, doesn't it?

Where do Ethics come From? Part 3

Aristotle's thought ethics came from choosing to do GOOD rather than choosing to do BAD.
Rousseau thought ethics needed to be forced on you by an absolute authority or leviathan.
Hobbes thought ethics were determined by the majority and so we need a government to force that majority belief upon us to have a GOOD society.

Kant had a slightly different take on the nature of ethics. He didn't really care if we were born bad or born good. He though that all we need to do in order to be ethical would be to impose the "golden rule" on every decision we make. Think BEFORE you choose: "would I want this done to me if I were on the other end of this?" If I borrow money from you with NO intent of ever giving it back, would I want that done to me? If I sneak into your home and steal your 64 inch flat screen TV would I want someone to do that to me?

Kant believed that if EVERYBODY thought this way BEFORE they acted then society would be an ethical one. This sounds very rational and efficient but is practically impossible. We are selfish animals and so that battle must be won first. When we win over our selfishness then we get into the rationalization problems inherent in the system. What if I steal from you to feed my family? What if I steal from you because you have so much more than I do? What if I steal from you to give to those who don't have any? Once we get past the selfishness issue and the rationalizing issue then we are left with the ability to make this simple choice of the golden rule.

I believe that Jesus, who espoused the golden rule, had an even better one that people keep forgetting. Call it the platinum rule: "Love God and Love your neighbor." If every decision you made you would not only ask yourself: "would I want this done to me?" ask Kant says; but would also ask "Does this show my love for God or my love for my neighbor?" then you would be an ethical person if you can answer yes to those questions on every decision.

Kant was right but didn't go far enough, Jesus takes us the rest of the way.

Where do Ethics come From? Part 2

So Aristotle believes you are good because you do good things, the more good things you do the better person you would be; therefore, ethics is simply choosing the good over the bad.

Hobbes and Rousseau had some VERY different ideas of where ethics come from. Hobbes said that without the civilizing effect of societal pressure we would be poor, nasty, brutish, and live in continual fear. Rousseau was a little more optimistic because he called us "noble savages" who lived only for SELF and a desire to fulfill only our immediate needs. Hobbes saw civilization as the only means to taming the savage beast and that includes handing some of our "rights" as individuals over to an absolute authority (he called leviathon). This social contract is the only thing keeping us safe and sane. Rousseau bought into the social contract idea but believed that the only way for people to overcome their savagery is for them to accept the "general will" of the public as expressed in government.

The question these two are answering is this: "Is monstrous, unethical behavior natural or is it created by society?" Is society or the will of the masses the savior or the problem as far as ethics is concerned? In order to fix us do we need to fix society first? If we have a perfect government will we have perfect people?

The Bible tells us that we are corrupted from birth and will always have that bent towards doing the wrong thing. We must constantly struggle against that bent.

Growing up on the farm I remember trying to get the pickup truck out of a rut that was hard caked into the ground. It was a constant battle to get the wheels out of the rut and onto the smoother surface. The steering wheel fought me the whole time and I really didn't need to drive if I kept in the rut since the rut steered for me. That is like us and our nature. We are in this rut that keeps pulling us back in, it's easier, and even a kind of autopilot to just do what our nature tells us to do. To be an ethical person takes hard work, fighting against the rut and never letting go of the steering wheel.

Society and government is a reflection of the individuals that make up that society. When we are good people, fighting to be even better we will have a better and better society. Society doesn't civilize us as Hobbes claims, nor does society tell us what is ethical by majority vote as Rousseau claims. WE are society and what we do is echoed and even amplified in our society/government.

So choose wisely.

Where do Ethics come From? Part 1

Aristotle's first run for being good is that there are no rules. Being good is about developing your character, so that you are disposed to do the best thing in each situation. It is NOT about internalizing some moral manual. Human being are creatures of habit and just as a good musician becomes so by practicing, so, by doing virtuous things, we become virtuous people.

But then the question becomes, "What is virtue?" According to Aristotle it is living according to our natures as rational animals. A good dog does doggy things well. A good human does good human things. We can be guided towards the right action by NOT thinking of good and bad as opposite ends of a spectrum but we must think of good as lying on a "mean" or middle of the two BAD extremes. For instance, courage lied between the excess of rashness and the deficiency of cowardice; generosity between meanness and profligacy; kindness between the excess of ignoring others and the deficiency of indulgence.

Aristotle's ethics are about more than being good - they are about living right. So doing the right thing is not about following rules, but striking the correct balance according to the circumstances.

This seems to make sense and in a society where people actually have the urge to BE virtuous or good, it would work. Unfortunately we live in a society where people no longer believe in virtue or goodness. So we lock up our kids after school instead of letting them play in the streets, we take the keys out of our cars in our driveways and lock our houses at night.
The thinking is circular and so illogical. We know what the right thing to do is because we see it in the good people, we know they are good people because they do good things, they do good things because ... they are good people. Um, wait?

Now Aristotle was attempting to describe a perfect world but as long as selfishness, greed, and evil is present there will not be a perfect world. But that doesn't mean you should not be virtuous or good. What it means is that you must work VERY HARD at being good in a bad world. It also means that we need some OUTSIDE standard that will determine whether what we do is good or not because we cannot rely on the good we see in others.

Now, where did we put that 10 commandments again? Oh, yea, here it is!

Fun Philosophy 2: The Ghost in the Machine

The 20th century philosopher Gilbert Ryle said that philosophers who think of the mind as a kind of thing that causes the body to move are making a bad mistake. He called the view of the mind "the ghost in the machine". He would walk around Oxford and would say, "I see all these buildings but where is Oxford?" The mistake is in thinking that Oxford is in the sum of its buildings, but it is more than that. Ryle claimed that those who think of the mind as a thing in addition to the body are missing the point that the body and its activities comprises the mind. In other words your mind is NOT just your brain. You mind is made up of all the actions, activities and decisions of your WHOLE BODY. When we say someone has an inquisitive mind we cannot pull that brain out of the person and find the inquisitive part and analyze it. What we are saying is that all the actions of that person, the questions and movements indicate that they are inquisitive. That person behaves in inquisitive ways. The mind is not a ghost in the machine it is a way of describing the machines activities.

Modern science has been throwing wrenches at this ghost in the machine. Brain scans have revealed actual places where inquisitiveness comes from, where joy shows up as firing neurons, and where anger can be removed or lessened. So the question for us fun philosophers is which is it?

Are you the sum of your parts? You raise your hand due to a decision made by firing neurons in your head which tell you that if you do you will be rewarded because other neurons tell you that it happened in the past that way.

Of are you something separate from your actions, activities, and decisions. As if you could stand outside your body and direct it and have everything still work?

Is your mind in your brain or is it something outside your physical body? If you were cloned would your clone have a "mind"?

If you take the Bible seriously you would have the answer to this question. God created us special and put his "image" within us. God's Image is the Ghost in the Machine. We stand outside our physical bodies as spiritual beings. Every time you make a decision it and use your "mind" you are proving that God exists. And those who don't know that are simply out of their mind.

Fun Philosophy 1: The Demon, Determinism, and Free Will

Pierre Simon Laplace supposed that everything is composes of atoms and that the motions of atoms are governed by the laws that Isaac Newton discovered in the 17th century. Laplace imagined a super intelligent and mathematically gifted demon, who knows the positions and velocities of all particles in the universe at a particular time, along with all the laws of nature. He claimed that this demon could compute the positions and velocities of all particles at every other time. The demon then could PREDICTE where you body would be and how it would be moving next year from your history and the history of time. Basically he was saying that Newton's laws were deterministic or you could predict the future based on his laws.

Interesting, but what does that mean, really? What it means is that you future is already determined. "I knew you were going to say that!" you would say. If the motions of every atom in your body have been determined when God set everything in motion way back when; then you have no control over your movements, they have been predetermined. Laplace then stated that ether Newton's deterministic laws are false or Free Will is an illusion.

Many philosophers have battled with this paradox of free will vs. determinism and many have made good attempts at resolving it in some form of free will within the confines of determinism but the conflict is still there. Today philosopher/physicists believe that Newton's laws are probabilities and not absolutes. In other words, these laws work MOST of the time the rest of the time Quantum laws take effect. But it would be wrong to say that Quantum mechanics is not deterministic simply because we haven't figured it out yet.

I said all that to say this: Does free will exist? If not, can we have things like justice and morals? Is everything pre-determined for us? If not, what do we do with the laws we keep discovering? This paradox of free will vs. determinism is a VERY biblical battle as well and it has split churches.

The problem with a seemingly irresolvable conflict or paradox is that we tend to throw our hands up in despair and give up. I mean, if all the smart people can't figure it out, how can we? But remember: the growth doesn't happen in reaching the answer, the growth happens in the struggle to get there. Let's struggle together.