I was thinking tonight about the biblical prohibitions of certain actions, i.e. inappropriate sexual activity, killing, lying etc. Our modern train of thought asks why are certain of these actions wrong (especially the sexual ones)?
The answer, or one of the answers is God likes certain physical actions and disproves of other actions. Jesus challenges us to love our neighbor as our self but not in a non-lucid sense but through specific actions like forgiving, supporting, helping. So there are clearly actions that God likes us doing well then there would be actions he would not like us doing. Since God is specific in the actions we take he likes, he would certianly be specific in actions he doesn't like.
Take sexuality as an example. 1 corinthians 7 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.
So... Husbands and wives should have sex and have it often together in the bounds of marriage. Ok so there is a great example of a bit of fun Godly legislation so if God has specified actions, "bounds" on sexuality there should also be restrictive ones, as we are all aware of in the cases of adultary, sodomy and fornication.
God requires us to do very specific actions & to love and shuns very specific actions because they are not love-
There was something amazing about the Casey Anthony Case that wrapped up this last month and when something amazing happens I try to think about it. One of the facets that surprised me was the national attention given to this crime. The other, what came to be, as most of us believe even more shocking, the verdict.
Here are some questions I asked myself:
Why is this so upsetting?
Am I simply ignorant of judicial process?
When will someone shoot her on the street? (not that I think they should by the way)
Finally and most potently why do we (most of the people I am in relationship with) think she was guilty.
The answers to these questions led me to Materialism and our national denial of the soul. Let me explain;
100 years ago and for most of the history of time before the 20th cenctury there have been systems of government in, family, social, economic and certainly personal senses. In these systems whether making declarations about a verdict (judgement call) in 18th century England or making a vital personal decision circa 2BC, we as a people have depended on intuition. My definition of Intuition will be: Soul Knowledge, something I know or believe deeply regardless of a direct, laid out, logical process to affirm my beliefs.
Many of us believed by intuition the defendant in this case was (and is?) guilty. Our intuition tells us Mom's don't loose there daughters minutes let alone weeks and weeks without calling the Police, freaking out, breaking down, etc. Our intuition tells us something is wrong and immediately points guilt at the Mother.
Why does our intuition tell us that? Because we have had experience with Mothers our whole lives, we have had experience with children and relatives and relational causality and Most Importantly!!!! We have had experience with our own sins and the process of lying and trying to cover them up. We know how humans work better than anyone because we are fully human. Our intuition has been formed from a lifetime of real, valid experiences.
To Materialism!
So Materialism is the belief in exactly that, the material. Whatever is physical and touchable is real and valuable and whatever is not is of less value. So love, intuition, emotion, loyalty are all devalued at the expense of the, "real" the "scientific." Materialism says DNA evidence and fingerprinting are what solve cases and anything less is speculation. Essentially, since your intuition or perception might possibly be faulty you should throw it out for something perfect, hard, Sure... you guessed it Science. Science, something that is always right, we know they don't ever make mistakes because of those other worldly white lab coats.
So intuition and judgement are out and only DNA evidence is in? If that's the case and it seems to be more and more the case why is there a jury at all? We could just run our courts by computer process? I think some would be in favor of that, to give our power over to a machine rather than possibly send an innocent man to jail.
Funny thing about sending an innocent man to jail is our nation used to believe that there was something after this life and God would justify them. But if there's no God and No afterlife fear hinder makes justice impotent.
ANywayz my main point was that Intuition represents the soul and the denial of intuition shows the swing to an even more mechanistic society. Sounded better in my head <;)
