Thought of the Day 09.01.09

I used to know a guy who ran a very successful web design company, and the one thing I always remember him telling people over and over was a simple formula which has stuck with me for years. He’d tell them, “I can make you a website that’s excellent, I can make you a website fast, or I can make you a website inexpensively. Pick two.”

His fairly obvious meaning was that you couldn’t have all three, but any two could be arranged. Good and now at a high price. Good and later at a low price. Or bad now at a low price. And his implication was that if someone else told you he could deliver all three, he was lying.

This, in a nutshell, is my biggest concern with President Obama’s proposed health plan. He tells me it will give far more people far better health care at a far lower price, especially if we do it really fast right now. Since I know this to be a fantasy, I’m left to wonder which part of his offer won’t come true, and my concern is that the more “right now” the thing gets done, the more likely it is that’ll be the only part that will turn out to be true.

Thought of the Day 08.31.09

Have you ever wondered what percentage of your beliefs might be mistaken? I mean, we all think that every particular belief we hold is correct, but we also know that we must be wrong about a lot of them and just don’t yet know it. Despite being a talk show host and editorialist, I have to honestly say that I suspect something like 50% of my beliefs are wrong. However, there are about 20% of them I know for sure I’m not wrong about.

I bring this up because I think that something like 90-95% of most people’s beliefs are ones they aren’t justified in saying they “know” with any degree of confidence but rather take for granted. So, what makes beliefs not be in this category?

Well, obviously you can put more confidence in ones you have changed during your lifetime because you’ve lived on both sides. Also, beliefs that deal with controversial subjects are slightly more reliable if only because they get social discussion. Thirdly, it’s possible to intentionally explore your belief in any area. All of these strategies help us make fewer blunders in our beliefs.

Thought of the Day 08.28.09

Our culture is terribly confused about the nature of love, the basic error being that love and pleasure are the same thing. Thus, we love people who bring us what we want and we love people by giving them what they want, both of which generate pleasure. Since no one is pleasured by criticism, giving it is viewed as unloving and receiving it is viewed as an impediment to love.

So when the Bible tells us to love our neighbors, our culture mistakenly believes this means we must never criticize them. Unfortunately, the Biblical concept of love is rooted in devotion rather than in pleasure. And if I am devoted to the wellbeing of my neighbor, then I might very well confront him if he is behaving in a self-destructive way.

Loving our neighbors, then, looks a lot like loving our children. We make tremendous sacrifices for their benefit, but we also correct them and even withhold things from them if that is what they need from us. To do otherwise, either to our children or to our neighbors, would look much more like hatred than like love.

Thought of the Day 08.27.09

Critics sometimes say that the only reason Americans are Christians is because they grew up in a Christian culture. Had they grown up somewhere else, they would have believed something else.

Ignoring the irony of hearing this objection from someone who also grew up in America but rejected Christianity, let’s consider the real issue here. The underlying idea is that people tend to adopt a faith that matches their socio-cultural background. Thus Middle Easterners become Muslims, Indians become Hindus, and Americans become Christians.

However, although Christianity has long dominated Europe and North America, it is currently growing exponentially in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In contrast, the local religions of those areas have never successfully penetrated other parts of the world.

Thus, even though those cultures strongly condition people to be something other than Christians, they still convert to Christianity by the millions. Viewed globally, then, the “religion is culturally conditioned” argument actually backfires into becoming one of the most powerful endorsements of the trans-cultural truth of Christianity. It also shows why the label “world religion” technically only applies to one faith group.

Thought of the Day 08.26.09

My middle son, Ethan, is so fascinating to me. Depending on the moment, he might either knock me down to get me to hold him or else throw a fit if I even try to touch him. He’s three.

So the other day in our van, I reached back to tickle his knee, as every good parent periodically does. But rather than rewarding me with a giggle or a pleased grin, he just looked away and sort of harrumphed at me. Nevertheless, I reminded myself that such tickling is always driven by more than just the selfish desire to have my affection reciprocated.

Although I enjoy simply expressing my love for him through touch, the most important reason to tickle or caress or hug or hold Ethan is because I want to continuously send him the message that I am glad he is my son and I love him deeply.

And even if that message doesn’t seem to be received on any one particular occasion, I think I’ll just do what God does for us: continue sending it every chance I get. Regardless of whether he wants it, it’s my job to know he needs this from his daddy.