Professing themselves wise...

Cynicism can be a cheap imitation of wisdom. It means, by definition, to doubt the good of things. The cynic does not think critically and carefully like the sceptic, the cynic dismisses and derides things as worthless. The cynic may consider themselves too wise to be taken in and fooled into believing in anything. And the cynic may think themselves wise and yet become a fool.
To the cynic, anything uplifting or good cannot be true. For sure, sometimes it is necessary to look at things carefully so that we're not deceived. Satan is the arch deceiver. It ( I can't use a personal pronoun like 'he' for something so vile) had its first ever contact with God's children in the Garden of Eden by causing them to doubt God's Word. And the modern approach is to say 'How can a loving God let bad things happen?' etc. The answer is that God does not control us all like little puppets and a lot of the bad things that happen are the fault of humans who make or let them happen. They are not God's doing at all. And if God does not stop disasters like cyclones or earthquakes, that might be because humans choose to ignore Him. Also God does not promise a rose garden, He promises comfort and salvation. But the cynical approach of the 'enlightened intellectual' scorns the idea. They say it is too good to be true. They compare the idea of a loving God to the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. The cynic therefore will not afford themselves the joy that they could receive, and worse, they try to deny it to others.
To themselves, the cynics of this world are too clever to believe in such things. But if they were really so clever, they could see the awesomeness of God in the good things that do happen, even in the midst of the bad. Trouble is, that would be embarrassing to them. It seems clever to just rubbish it all.
So the cynic will let their own 'wisdom' stand between them and coming to know the living God. It is easier to be destructive and contemptuous because it excuses their own mean ungiving behaviour. One author I admire put it this way: "We cannot endure the goodness of God". (Glendon Swarthout in "Bless the Beast and Children."
So the cynic turns their face away from the wonder of God's love and grace, and thinks they are being clever to do that. As the Bible itself says, "Professing themselves wise they became fools."

Distractions to see through.

Checking the ninsemen news, I hear about a marriage celebrant refusing to marry a mixed-race couple. The husband was black, the wife white, and they had to find another celebrant. His reason was, 'he always thinks of the children'.
It didn't quote any Christian principle. If it did, that marriage celebrant should be reminded of what God revealed to Peter as described in Acts chapter 10: God does not exclude any race from His Kingdom or His presence. We are ALL made in His image.
Racial prejudice is not from God. It is a vexatious delusion suffered or perpetrated by some humans.
The celebrant's stated reasons were that marriages between the different races do not last and the children of them are not accepted by either race. If anyone can tell me whether or not it's true that inter racial relationships fail more often than others, I can only say that I never knew that before. There should be no reason why people can't love and live close to those of other races - not if we see what is really human. About the children, I hope that's not true nowadows. Is that view a bit out of date? In Australia, and (I thought) the U.S. there are so many people who are 'biracial' that it's not an issue anymore. Please correct me if I'm wrong. But I blogged not long ago about Muhammed Ali visiting Ireland, because one of his great-great grandfathers came from there. And I'm sure it was reported recently that one of Michelle Obama's great grandfathers was white, as well. Come to that, who has NOT heard that the U.S. president has a parent from each race? So how do we get this attitude that such children can't get a life?
It is a shame that race has become such a huge issue. If you think about it scientifically, in purely genetic terms, race is just a matter of adaption to the environment that humans have undergone. It's well known that darker skin is an advantage in a very hot sunny climate. Narrow deep set eyes, as seen in some Northern Eurpoeans, are an advantage in a climate where there is cold wind. My own ancestry is mostly Scottish, English, and some German and French. People used to tease me about having small narrow eyes. And the reason is my ancestors lived in a cold windy climate and God is His wisdom gave them physical characteristics suited to that environment. In biological terms that is all race is: a physical type suited to the place where people of that type live. Or their ancestors did.
Of course different races, and nations, may have varying cultures. But culture is a learned thing. Far too much is made of race as a distinction or a barrier between people. It is regrettable. Nowadays, when the races are so widely dispersed and so mingled, it should be clear that we are all equally human. But for some reason too many people want someone to look down on. It is a distraction that Christians in particular need to see through. Racial characteristics are God's gift to His created beings so that they can cope with living in a certain set of conditions. They are NOT the way He decided to make some of them 'better' than others. It's easier to talk than to do, I realize. But correct me if I'm wrong. There is NO good Christian reason for objection to inter-racial relationships.

The past is another place

All the raging over Roman Polanski brings a few interesting arguments to light.
As some people say, if Polanski was not famous and widely admired then there would not be so many people standing up for him. If he was an obscure person found years after getting away with what he did, few people would bother taking his side. So why does being talented and famous excuse something pretty nasty?
On the other side, people say he has suffered a lot in life already. True, but that doesn't help his victim to cope with what he did. Too much excuse making for the wrong-doer goes on already.
It's worth noting that the young victim's mother put her in that situation, where she was at the mercy of an adult who did this. Was the mother so fixated with making her daughter a show-biz success that she put the daughter at risk? So much for the shallow view of life that without being rich and famous life is not worth living.
My own ten cents worth is this: in some ways, Roman Polanski's behaviour was symptomatic of the seventies. If you recall the 1960s and 70s, or read about them, it wasn't all as good as some people say. What was called the 'sexual revolution' aimed to break down all taboos about sex, and 'liberate' people. What actually happened was some important social restraints were broken down. Very young people became sexualized. On the one hand, they were encouraged by parts of society to 'experiment', or 'find themselves', or 'discover their sexual identity', and all that. On the other hand, they were no longer considered off-limits for such involvement. Those who raised any objection were howled down as 'fascists' or sick repression cases.
Too see the seventies from inside, look at what they produced. One famous and widely read novel of that period was "Papillion", by French author Henri Charriere. In the novel, (though not the film), the narrator describes seducing his 13 year old sister in law. While living with Venezuelan Natives, he marries a woman and also has her younger sister. At the time, this was widely admired literature, considered a modern classic. The school where I worked had copies for student reading. Nowadays, that passage from the novel would be considered a glamorization of paedophilia.
A famous film of that era was 'The Summer of '42', in which a fifteen year old boy is sexually initiated by an adult woman. At the time this too was considered fine artistic entertainment about a young man's 'awakening'. Today, the female lead character would be considered criminal.
But that was the 70s. Anything except openly coercive rape was legitimate. It was 'liberated'. If a person regretted any sexual involvement afterwards, they were accused of being too 'hung up' or 'inhibited' and in need of getting used to it. I'm utterly sure there were people living in the 1970s who thought an adult enticing a 13year old into sex was simply 'liberating' them, helping them get free of their 'hang-ups'. That was the 70s. There were psychologists who had intimate relationships with their patients, and called it part of the therapy. There was a lot of interest in Sweden where, it was said, children as young as 13 sometimes had children and even married. That was the 70s.
So what Polanski did was criminal, right enough. But he might not have considered tyring it on in a different social climalte. I believe that some of the so-called 'progressive' thinkers of the time have a lot to answer for. They tried to tell us all that we should do whatever we wanted and 'be free'. The idea of ethical restraint in sexual behaviour was ridiculed.In that sort of climate, there were probably a lot more incidents like the one for which Polanski is indicted. Some of them involved female adults on male children. Some of those pointing fingers at Polanski now were probably jealous at the time that he did what some of them would have liked to. That sounds harsh, but it might be true all the same.
The 1970s was another place from today, and in some ways a much worse place. People in millions scorned the notion of God holding out guidance for living, thought they had better ideas and made a shocking mess. Polanski might only be a symbol of much that was wrong with that era.
We need to get back to God's way. When that gets forgotten, the results can be dreadful and the realization too late.

Which way is it to be?

In Australia, some women are claiming the right to be front-line soldiers on the same basis as men. The claim is that they should be allowed to go into battle as combatants on precisely the same terms as male soldiers, as part of equal rights. There could be a problem here that some people have not considered.
If the world wants to prevent violence against women, women should not be put in situations where they could experience unavoidable violence, such as a combat zone. And nor should they behave violently towards men, if the man is not to retaliate. To put it simply, if a woman attacks a man she cannot blame him for defending himself; and in combat, she could find herself attacking a man, forcing him to fight back. This could give the female soldier an unfair advantage. If a man has been taught not to offer violence to a woman, or has a natural aversion to doing so, then he can't fight back against a female soldier the way he could do against a male one. It is sometimes possible in combat to clearly see and identify your adversary. A man realizing that the soldier in his line of fire is female may be less able to fight back against her. This gives the female soldier an illegitimate advantage. Of course, we can say violence should be avoided altogether, but so far no-one has found a way of preventing war. It only takes one side to insist on getting their way by armed or physical force, and their intended victim has to defend themselves. At least if we can't stop war we might limit the evil of it by restricting the way it is conducted. That is the basis of the Geneva Convention, with rules such as no killing of prisoners.
Some commentators say that women are less suited to combatant duty than men. That probably varies with the individual. Some men loath violence utterly. Some women resort to it very easily. The point here is that if violence against women is a thing we want to abolish, then women should not be in a situation where they would either inflict it or suffer it. For that matter, if it is worse for a man to attack a woman than to attack another man, the same applies in reverse. It is bad for a woman to attack another woman, worse to attack a man. Cross gender violence violates the special relationship that should exist between the two genders.
Equality in principle is not the same thing as being identical in practice. It may be that in some ways the two sexes are different and that should be reflected in the duties they undertake. Any thoughts?

False distinctions

According to an Australian newspaper, Muhammed Ali has visited Ireland - to get in touch with some of his relatives. That's right - Muhammed Ali, the Afro-American boxer, is part Irish. One of his great grandfathers came from the town in Ireland, emigrated to the U.S., and Muhammed has traceable relatives there. It seems to me like one of the greatest things he has ever done. The reciprocal gesture would be if a prominent white sportsman who has in fact got some African ancestry to say the same thing. The bitter division between the races that sometimes arises overlooks the fact that in fact some people of each race have blood kinspeople belonging to the other. The same thing happens in Australia. Some people who identify as white do in fact have some Aboriginal ancestry. And many people who identify as Aboriginal are quite obviously part European (white, if you like). It is quite easy to see why the feelings of anger are there. Too much blood has been shed. There are reasons for the anger and hostility. But no good comes of it. It just causes the hostility to carry on. Apparently the Irish people in this town welcomed Muhammed Ali as one of their own migrant sons. Good on them! Why should they reject him on racial grounds! Now can someone tell people like Jeremiah Wright? Or Michael Mansell, or Jeff Clark?
These last two are Australian Aboriginal activist leaders, the second of them apparently the son of a Scottish migrant to Australia. Making a war over race simply means the hate goes on. We ARE one and the same race. God did not invent racial distinctions. Abram, later Abraham, was originally a Babylonian. He came fro Ur, of the Chaldees. And Peter was sent his vision, that God is no preferer of persons. We are all made in God's image. We need to remember that.

Stick to the plan - 2

Certain ways of doing things have a natural logic. Doing them differently can be at least pointless, or even damaging. For a simple example: human beings are designed to walk on two legs, not four limbs or on their arms. To do so, unless you have a disability and can't use your legs, is pointless for a start and can be damaging to the body because the load-bearing is on limbs not intended for it.
This applies also to sexuality. There is a natural and right way for it to happen, and variations on it may not just be individual preferences. They defy natural logic or law.
Sexual relations have two intended purposes if approached in the right way: the affectionate bonding of the two participants and the conception of children. Even if someone is not convinced by Christian teaching, or Jewish, or any other, pure logic shows this: the only kind of sexual relations that meet these two purposes is, consenting sex between adults of opposite genders. Any other form fails to meet one or both of those criteria.
Sex between two people of the same gender cannot produce children. It is naturally illogical.
Sex between a human and an animal cannot produce children. Apart from the disgust it may cause, it is naturally illogical.
Sex between an adult and a child can be traumatic or injurious to the child. It does not cause affectionate and safe bonding between the people involved, so it does not serve both the two purposes intended.
Forced sex, or rape, is traumatic to the unwilling partner, and denies to notion of affectionate bonding. For that reason, as well as denying the victim's rights, it is a bad idea. It can hurt someone, so it should not happen.
Sex involving multiple partners can cause uncertainty about who the father of a given child is. It also denies the bond between two individuals, dissipating it among a group.
Sex among strangers, with no real connection, denies the idea of bonding between the people involved. It is physical intimacy without emotional intimacy, thus a clash with the ideal of affectionate bonding.
God made things a certain way. Trying to vary it leads to dysfuntion and adverse side effects. God makes rules for our sake, not to be a spoiler.
Stick to the plan.

Stick to the Plan - 1

The saying goes, why reinvent the wheel? It makes sense, but that doesn't stop people trying to do things their own way - and messing up badly sometimes.
This is all pretty direct, but then life's like that. Things need to be said.
Back in the 1960s something happened which they call the 'sexual revolution'.
It was meant to bring in an era of universal love and peace, with everyone loving everyone else and no fighting, no being possessive and controlling, and so on.
It failed. In short, it failed because it tried to do things differently from how the Maker of all things meant them to operate. More specifically, it failed because what it expected to happen was simply impossible. Human nature did not allow it.
For the idea of 'universal love' to work, everyone would have to feel included. Everyone would have to feel that they got their share of the love. Nobody should be left out, and feel rejected and unwanted. As soon as someone was, then the 'revolution' was not doing what it claimed. It was not freeing everyone and making them all feel loved and happy. What happened in the 60s was, it simply degenerated into a lot of casual sex, and a lot of emptiness and resentment.
This is the trouble with casual or promiscuous sex, sometimes called 'free love.'
Some people attract far more partners than others, and have a queue waiting to get near them. Others are always waiting in a queue. And this draws attention to the fact that, in human terms we're not all equally advantaged in the way we're born. We're all equally human, and all equally valued by God, but we are not equally valued by each other. Some people are much more admired and respected simply because of the way they look or the talents they are born with. And they have suitors by the hundred. Others just don't turn heads everywhere they go. They only look good to those who know them and see the worth of them as people. And the 'sexual revolution' drew cruel attention to the fact! Instead of making us all free and fulfilled it made the problem worse. Some people had a wild time until it all turned sour because of the shallowness of it, others were constantly reminded that they did not attract others.
Add to that, the fact that casual sex was about using someone for one thing only, and not really connecting with them as anything more than a physical body. How ironic that the 'free love' advocates talked about reaching out to others, when in fact they were making human relationships incredibly shallow.
The race started out with a man and a woman. It was not a man and several women, or a woman and several men. It was one to one. And that was the template, the Divine Plan. People who thought they knew better had slogans like 'smash monogamy', and 'share the love'; and what they got was widespread divorce, anger, estrangement, lonliness, rejection - and an epidemic of STDs. So where did they go wrong to start with? They thought they could trash the way God set things out. What was also forgotten was that sexual relations sometimes have this side effect called conception- it leads to the birth or children. Yes, that comment is ironic. But people act as if intercourse was just like having a dance, or something, with no lasting consequence at all. Another thing they forgot was that it can be immportant to know who is father to a child, which might not be known if there has been too much 'freedom' in partnering. It has happened that people who do not know, accidentally form relationships with their own siblings.
God knew what He was doing. Who were these people who reckoned they knew better?
Stick to the plan.