Did God stuff up?

Oscar Wilde obviously thinks so.
"I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability." - Oscar Wilde

I think most people would know what Oscar was talking about when he said this. It is no mystery that man can be a wicked debased creature. That his capacity for cruelty, corruption and malice are second to none. No thing in creation so perverts itself as comprehensively as man. it seems that there is no place or action too disgusting for some person on earth to wallow in.
However that is not the sum total of man. Man also has the exceptional ability to display unmitigated selflessness. To express love to the unlovable, compassion to the underpriveleged, grace to the ungraceful. Man, more than any other thing in creation has the capacity for love, respect, honour, passion, and just plain goodness. Mark Twain wrote “God has put something noble and good into every heart His hand created.”

So here we have this dichotomy of character that at different times manifests itself to varying degrees in all of us. The question some people ask is "Why did God create us with the ability to be at once so noble and yet so base?". However I think the real question is "How could God have created us with freedom, yet at the same time forced us to always be good and perfect". In fact the two concepts are mutually exclusive, because as soon as you inhibit bad behaviour you are at the same time inhibiting freedom. The more freedom you give, the more chance there is to misuse that freedom for evil purposes. Why do people choose bad behaviour? The same reason they reject Gods ways. Man has an innate desire for complete autonomy and God gets in the way of that selfish desire. The result is that God allows us to be consumed by our own evil desires because he loved us enough to let us choose. But make no mistake: we choose our own behaviours and our own destiny. How about we stop blaming God for what is clearly our fault.

Oscar Wilde was most certainly being facetious, and probably meant something like "clearly there is no God, for who would create such a flawed being, and if he did so then he would certainly not be a perfect God, therefore God is either fake or flawed, and in either case worshipping him is not justified". But I believe that mans pervertedness is just proof of mans pervertedness and evidence that God will not interrupt us in our quest for freedom and autonomy. Yet still he stands by the side of the road offering safety and redemption from our own foolishness. God created us with the ability to cause lots of problems, yet in his love he gave us to perfect solution for all of them.

The difference between Oscar Wilde and myself is that while he states that God made us that way because of His lack of abilities, I believe he made us with freedom to choose either way, out of His divine wisdom.

The making of a good movie

I have this theory about movies and it goes something like this:
“The quality of a movie can be judged by the direction in which it inspires us to move.”

A good movie is that which inspires one to be good in word and deed.
A bad movie then is that which inspires one to be bad in word and deed.
A foolish movie to be foolish, a great movie to be great.

A movie reveals its worth and lasting value by the quality of the motivation that it implants within the viewer.

A good movie leaves viewers with a lasting impression that moves them to act in a way that brings about a greater good. It does not necessarily leave a person feeling good, for a renewed sense of outrage against injustice can bring about good actions.
From this, ones moral senses are pricked, and feelings of duty and honor are revived by it.

On the other hand a bad movie does not necessarily leave one feeling bad. An effectively bad movie can in fact encourage people to perform evil deeds and be glad about it. The rise of teenage ‘party’ style movies is a case in point, as authority and decorum are cast into the wind with scorn, and pleasurable good times are had by all, yet without the impact of real life, long term consequences.
One can excessively drink but not get over-drunk or contract liver disease, can smoke marijuana yet not be effected by short or long term paranoia, and can have sex without ever having the burden of children, and be promiscuous without contracting veneral diseases or die of AIDS. All of these real life consequences are conveniently left out of such movies in order to maximize the promotion of fun and minimize the tedious burden of responsibility.Violent movies that romanticize excessive violence and the glory obtained therein, encourage the viewer to be more aggressive in their behaviour because therein lies their sense of achievement and worth, perhaps even a feeling of power.

A good movie then does the opposite of this. Instead of condemning duty and responsibility, it exalts and glorifies them for their virtuous nature. It renews the youthful exuberance in purity, goodness and justice. It condemns our carnal vices and praises our heavenly virtues. It revives the knowledge that love of our fellow man, presented through acts of mercy, patience and peace is what crowns a man in glory. It is the very nature of God revealed through his image instilled within a righteous man, which sets him apart from all else and proclaims his honor.

Someone said once that you can judge a country’s state of health by the manner of art that it produces. If this truly is the case, and our entertainment industries are considered to be creators of art, then ‘entertainment’ today may well be considered a sad indictment upon the decadence and moral degradation of western society.

Reality TV shows like Big Brother encourage voyeurism and our lust for eavesdropping and gossip.
Dysfunctional families in shows such as the Simpsons and My Wife and Kids make light of, and encourage acceptance of, inappropriate family behaviour and responses. Movies with inappropriate sexual or violent content numb our moral senses and eventually fail to elicit the rightful shocking and appalled response. On the contrary, they fuel our evil natures with the lust for erotic or violent encounters.

The older I become, and the more I understand about God’s nature and Man’s behaviour, the more convinced I am of the paradox that almost every thing that almost everyone knows in "human" wisdom is almost completely wrong.

Fundamentally wrong assumptions lead to fundamentally false conclusions. The viewing perspective can make all the difference and until we see the universe through the eyes of the one who understands it best, we will never understand one piece of worthwhile truth.

Thankfully though there are a few good men and women who still know how to produce good movies that provide a well needed respite from the perversion of the modern media, and employ within us a desire to see the right and proper way of things through honorable and righteous living. Good movies according to my criteria are few and far between, but when they do arise, often they are championed as truly great movies by those who appreciate the true meaning of glorious.

World peace is just a song away!

There seems to be a common misunderstanding that we have not found the answer to world-wide peace. The truth is that it was discovered a very long time ago. In fact there are many people today who know exactly what it is and if you listen carefully you will find it in the lyrics of certain songs. The problem is not that we don't know the solution, rather the problem is that the solution has not been effectively applied.

Its not that the solution isn't perfect, because it is. There is no flaw in it at all, and if it was just implemented then there would be perfect harmony on earth. Everyone would be happy and pain and war would cease forever. The thing is, that there is a deeper issue that remains that will always sabotage any attempts at Nirvana on this earth and until that issue is addressed everything else is in vain.

There are many songs on the radio that irk me. Some of them are overtly rude, immorally suggestive, or just plain obnoxious. By far however, the songs that irritate me the most are the ones that many other people seem to get warm fuzzies over. They are the sort of songs like John Lennons "Imagine", or Billy Joels "We didn't start the fire". The first song grates against my being for its foolish concept that if we remove God and religion from society then there will be peace (yeah right, look at the last 100 years where God has slowly been fazed out and replaced with the greatest loss of human life and war atrocities since the beginning of recorded time). The second is distasteful to me because it is a cop out, and a passing of the buck. It states that we had nothing to do with the world being such a stuffed up place, but we are just trying our best to sort it out. It implies that we are perfect creatures born into an imperfect world and cannot be held liable for anything. The philosophical ramifications of that idea, even from a naturalistic, athiests point of view quickly show it to be complete nonsense, unless you attribute our problems to elusive and malicious aliens that are continually deceiving us.

The latest song that has made it on my short list of "songs written by intelligent idiots" violated my offended ears today. I am yet to find the Artist or title of the song so I will paraphrase the intent. Basically the thesis is that if we just stopped lying, cheating each other, and otherwise using people, and replaced it with love, concern and selflessness, then the world would be such a better place. I felt so enlightened by this knowledge that I was temporarily motivated to want to go into all the world and tell people that the answer to world peace had finally been discovered and if everyone just listened to this song then we could all live in harmonious bliss. (In case you didn't catch my tone it was one of "biting sarcasm")

Now in truth, this idea has been floating around for a very long time, and despite my scathing treatment, I do believe it to be true. However it always leaves out one minor detail: how we actually go about making it happen in reality. The problem is, and has always been, how to make people behave in this way. Throughout history some have tried it by being merciful and kind themselves, while others have tried to impose some sort of state rule that either passively or actively influenced people to behave well. Some have allowed people to find their own way there within less stringent guidelines while others have through despotism demanded it or taken lives.

Real life forces us to the conclusion that although we know the answer to worldwide peace, we somehow continue to fail in its implementation and cannot seem to find the way to make it stick. The arrogance and ignorance associated with a song that just re-states what people should do without a way for them to actually make it happen is like telling a village of poor, starving, under-nourished natives that the solution to their woes is to just eat more food. Or can you imagine walking up to single mother of five young children who struggles just to make the rent, and can't afford clothes or food for her children, and telling her that you have the answer to her woes, and that the answer is that she needs more money? Thank you captain obvious!

No, its not that we don't know ultimately the answer, its just that we are really just restating it in the opposite fashion to how we would state the problem. For instance, one problem is that more than two thirds of the world lives in abject poverty while the rest live in relative luxury. The captain obvious solution is to say that we just need to redistribute the wealth so that no one has to suffer such poverty. This sort of solution is not really a solution because it leaves out the "how". In the same way, proclaiming that the way to have a happier, more loving world is for people to behave in a happier, more loving manner, is merely restating the question as an opposite statement. It is no solution at all without further explaining how this could actually come about in reality, with real people in the real world. How do you successfully and permanently get people to be happier and more loving? That’s the question that I want to hear answered properly, and answered in every corner of the globe.

When we are ready to actually face the real question of "how" to make the world a better, happier and more peaceful place, we instantly run into a monumental obstacle that I believe is the reason why we have made very little progress in turning our world around. This monumental obstacle is human nature. You may call it the sinful nature, or sin, but the issue is that we all have an inbuilt mechanism that sabotages our valiant and altruistic efforts for a better world.

There is no doubt in my mind that unless we tackle this problem head on, all efforts to create an earthly Nirvana will ultimately fail. Unless we first work on personal reform we will always fail with corporate or national reform. Just look at how many people have been brought down from high positions because of their immoral personal lives.

Yes the answer to peace in the world is currently known by most of the people on earth. How to make it stick however is only known by a relative few. And those few only know because of the superior knowledge and love from the Creator of all things. The guy who brought it all into existence is the only one who has real answers. The created things cannot usurp the position of, nor be greater than the creator. Unfortunately the arrogant and proud component of the majority refuse to submit to the wisdom and rule of God, and therefore reject His messengers and consequently continue to fail in creating heaven without God.

When we achieve peace in our hearts, only then can we begin with the attempt to achieve peace on the earth, and God is the only one that can give lasting personal peace.