Scot
Do you really rise and post these at 4 am?
Ron

WordPress permits you to write a post and set off the time you want it to appear. I write Weekly Meanderings throughout the week and Friday set the time.

“I’ve invented a new saying of Jesus for the Cubs: “He who is not against us is actually against us.” Folks, it’s sad — this Cubs season.” Amen! And as I have said before the Cubs are the perfect team for a Christian – constant suffering and eternal hope. And for all you White Sox fans who are reeling from their losing streak, all I can say as a Cub fan is welcome, come on in, we have plenty of room. Youi will get used to it after a while.:)

Subversive Influence » Blog Archive » Jesus Creed » Weekly Meanderings

[...] Scot McKnight’s weekend reading assignments are now available for July 29, 2006. [...]

Scot,
We’ve got the Bulls to look forward to if the Bears turn out to be a disappointment.
Rod

I didn’t know anybody was interested in the Koyzis review. It didn’t get a whole lot of comments. Thanks for the encouragement!

I love Anne Lamott. Our living life are similar in areas. I can always count on some good laughs, from her putting into words something similar about me. In this interview I had a hearty laugh over : You say you wake up in the morning and say, “Thanks, God–I have another day.” How do you maintain that spirit of gratitude?
Well, I have no memory now. I’m almost 52. I started out very absent-minded as a child, and always have been that way. Getting older and menopause have not really heightened my ability to remember things.
Me : Boy can I relate! Gratitude by poor memory, now there’s a best seller book!

I think I like Ann Coulter too. Never heard of her till yesterday on this blog. I respect women who refuse to play the good girl just because we’re supposed to be good girls. And, I think, often are criticized for not staying in their place, even though words about their views are stated. I think behind it, is she’s not playing the way she’s supposed to, she’s coloring outside the lines.

Ann Coulter was asked “When you pray, how do you hear from God?”.
This question highlights a recurring problem with prayer. How are non-believers going to be convinced that communication with God is possible when they never see that communication taking place? Think about conversations between two people – these can be observed by third parties.
This is unlike communication with God which is characterised by the following:
1. Observation by a third party will reveal someone apparently talking to themselves – i.e. they never hear a reply.
2. Communication from God suffers from lack of clarity. One can never be clear exactly what God intends to say. Evidence on this is clear from the contrary directions and beliefs of various Christian groups.
3. Communication with God can easily be confused with mental dysfunction. How difficult is it to distinguish between psychological trickery and meaningful communication?
T

Ann Coulter’s next book ought to be titled Heartless: Faith of the totally absorbed.
Coulter is the Christian Right’s pinup porn queen. I bet Donald Rumsfeld keeps a fold-out of her in his briefcase.

Dissenter,
Tell me the truth: What would it take for you to be convinced that prayer to God was genuine? What if someone said “I prayed that my mother would be healed of a cancerous growth, and the doctor said there was no longer a growth”, or if someone said “I was in prayer and sensed there was something wrong with my child, went upstairs, and saved my child from SIDS”? Tell me the truth, would you believe them?

Thanks for the shout-out, Scott!

“What would it take for you to be convinced that prayer to God was genuine?”
If I observed a being, obviously recognisable as God, in conversation with another person, my interest would be piqued.
The problem would then be how do you recognize God. A similar problem, surely, to how one recognises “God’s voice” when engaged in private communication with Him.
Apparently, the ability to commune with God is not naturally innate or easy to acquire.
The problem with the “sense of God’s presence” scenarios you outline above is that they can easily occur to people who are not of any particular faith – even to atheists. Their vagueness also lacks that hard, cold factual evidence a skeptic would seek. Let me ask you, would you accept similar annecdotal evidence in support of a proposed new drug? You know that pharmaceutical companies would be acting unethically in marketing drugs based on such flimsy evidence. Why accept a lesser standard when it comes to prayer?