Things That Don't Do The One Thing They Were Designed To Do - Part Two

If you had been passing Fenchurch Avenue a week or so back, you probably have no idea how close you came to being confronted by an angry young(ish) man with his trousers round his ankles hurling a useless plastic toilet-paper dispenser into the street.

Let me explain.

Some time ago now, you may remember, I spent several column inches venting my spleen about delivery companies, tin openers, badly designed clocks, and all Things That Don't Do The One Thing They Were Designed To.

Well, I've added to the list.


How hard is it to get a toilet-paper dispenser right? Yet there I was, for ten minutes, the chill effluvial winds of despair circulating around my unveiled posterior as, with arms akimbo and wrist contorted into the sort of shape that would raise some eyebrows at A&E, I attempted the key-hole surgery equivalent of finding the end of a roll of sellotape, operating entirely by feel and with a serrated plastic blade threatening to curtail my promising career as a concert violinist at any moment. Half a wheelbarrow's worth of plastic serving no function whatsoever other than to ensure that my only option for paper-based sanitising was the crumbling feathery chunk I hacked out of the roll with my door key.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a Thing That Doesn't Do The One Thing It Was Designed To Do. And, if you have even a shade of empathy in your hearts, I hope you would have mentally applauded me as I hurled the useless abomination into the street and jumped up and down on its spiteful grabby entrails.

Anyway, now that my implacable plastic foe has been vanquished, mentally at least, and you've stopped applauding, and I've pulled up my trousers, it's time to consider the rather disturbing question I posed at the end of the original post: What if WE are Things That Don't Do The One Thing They Were Designed To Do??? Would God be justified in hurling us into the street and jumping up and down on us?


Which sort of begs the question: What, exactly, were we designed to do?
Or, to put it another way:




Of course, it's a question which all the greatest thinkers throughout history have cogitated over. Philosophers, scientists, artists - innumerable ingenious minds over many many centuries have all contributed their sparkling strands of speculation to this, the greatest debate in history. Intellectual giants, boldly locking horns with the intractable problems that blight every age of man, wrestling on our behalf to make known the mysteries that lie behind our very existence.

Let's look at some of their answers:

Britney Spears - Born To Make You Happy

I think this is a fairly common philosophy. It's probably got a fancy name. I'm going to call it the "Life is about making people happy" philosophy. I suspect a lot of people subscribe to it.

Here are some questions to ask of it:
1) Who exactly were we born to make happy?
2) What actually makes them happy?
3) Can we actually do what makes them happy?
For example, what if our sole purpose in life is to make God happy, and perfect obedience is what he likes, and none of us can do it?

Delta Goodrem - Born To Try

I've not really got a chuff what this song is about, but I'm going to name a philosophy after it anyway, and I'm going to call it the "Life is about doing your best" philosophy.

Questions to ask of the life-is-about-doing-your-best philosophy are:
1) Who, genuinely, has ever done their best? Okay, the narcissistic little twerps in the Apprentice may claim to be giving 210% percent, but that is because they are remedially-brained, mathematically illiterate asses.
2) How do you know that life is graded on effort, rather than achievement? Isn't that a bit of a gamble?
3) Do you best at what, exactly? (I hope it's not learning New Testament Greek. I've definitely not done my best at New Testament Greek. What the heck is an aorist?)

Incidentally, about three minutes into this video is the moment where musical enlightenment is reached. Ah, Delta.

Sha-na-na - Born To Hand Jive

As philosophies go, it would be a tough sell to suggest that our one true purpose in life is to repeatedly form our hands into strange shapes in time to some 50s rock music or the Blockbusters theme tune.
So let's broaden this out a bit and call it the "Life is about having fun" philosophy. Or, if you want to get all fancy, you could call this Utilitarianism, or Secular Humanism, or probably any number of other philosophies which are based around the idea that the happiness of the individual contributes to the well-being of humanity.


Questions to ask:
1) What if the thing you enjoy most happens to be eating living human skulls?
2) What if you aren't having any fun, because someone is eating your skull?*


Personally, I think this philosophy would work provided everyone wore those massive petticoats. Massive petticoats are pretty much all kinds of brilliant. I can't really imagine how anyone could be sad with an acre of crinoline frothing around them at every turn. Mark my words: what the world needs now is a massive petticoat.

Steppenwolf - Born To Be Wild

So, this is a cool song for cool dudes on cool bikes running cool and free through cool countryside. It doesn't get much cooler than this. Though I'd like to point out that real men use pedals.
Anyway, let's call this the "Life is about individual liberty" philosophy. I believe this could be termed classical liberalism.


Here are some thoughts about the pursuit of freedom:
How free is it possible to get in this life? Creation is ordered - there are rules built into the fabric of the universe, from which there is no freedom:
1) The human body is designed to work a certain way - you will never be free of the need to eat, drink, sleep etc.
2) You cannae change the laws of physics - so you will never be free to fly, walk through walls, turn yourself invisible, etc. This is a bummer.
3) Time only goes in one direction - you will never be free to undo past mistakes, you will never be free to be in two places at one time, and you can't stop getting older.


Mankind has made some great advances, but in all the really big, important areas of life, there is no freedom whatsoever. Except in death. (And that's making some pretty big assumptions about what happens after death, too.)
Speaking of which:

Lana Del Ray - Born To Die

Or possibly Born To Stand Naked In Front Of An American Flag, or Born To Have Funny-Shaped Lips. The reason this post is about eight months late is that I made the foolish error of attempting to work out what this song is actually about. I went a little deeper into the rabbit warren than was perhaps advisable. I see from my notes that someone somewhere on the internet - possibly the voluminously be-lipped chanteuse herself - described it as a "homage to true love and a tribute to living life on the wild side". I shall call it the "Life is all about finding your one true love and then pursuing it recklessly at the expense of all other things because after all we are all going to die, so you might as well die in an explosive love-fuelled vehicle accident whilst wearing hotpants" philosophy.


I actually own some hotpants. Many of you know this.


Questions to ask of this philosophy include: ah, whatever. Just enjoy the tigers. She has tigers. Tigers are cool.

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

This is an easy one to critique:
NO. WE WERE NOT BORN TO RUN.


DO.
NOT.
MAKE.
ME.
RUN.


I do not like running.


Okay, that important fact established, let's forget about the literal interpretation of the title, and blatantly hijack it in order to introduce the "Life is all about forgetting what life is all about and just getting on with things" philosophy, or Just-Keep-Busy-And-Don't-Think-About-Itism. What Existential Therapists call "Dereflection" - basically, the idea that worries about the meaning of life will evaporate if you just get on with living.


I suspect most of us, if we had to pick a philosophy, would pick this one.


Questions:
How is this any different from just sticking your head in the sand?
Getting so engrossed in living that you no longer need to worry about why you are alive is a little bit like driving as fast as you can so that you don't need to worry about which direction to take. I've been in cars with drivers like this, and eventually we always had to stop, look at a map, and turn around.
Or to put it another way - when I'm really engrossed in work, I sometimes forget about the need to pee. 

But there always comes a reckoning.

Ray Price - Born To Lose

Finally, let's have the good old "Life is pointless" philosophy. We evolved, by chance, so there's not much purpose to anything. This is rather in vogue these days, what with Dawkins running around publishing books and bellyaching like a miserable old woman about all things religious. The sciency bits of it might be new, but that whole God-Is-Dead thing has been around since the 1800s. Existential nihilism, innit? Whatever.

Things to ask an existential nihilist when he tells you there is no point to anything:
What's your point?

The Bit You Knew Was Coming But Which I Don't Have A Cool Song For:

That's my hugely simplistic and limited tour of some of the answers I think people might give to the question "What do you believe is the meaning of life?"**

What do you believe is the meaning of life?
Any of the above?
None of the above?
Have you ever thought about it?
For more than a minute?

Because if there is a creator, who created us for a purpose, and we are not doing that thing for which we were created, then we are the deeply useless Thing Which Does Not Do The One Thing It Was Designed To Do. And that's not really a good place to be.

Here's the first question of the Westminster Catechism, which was written by a smart bunch of dudes who really knew their Bible:

Q: What is the chief end of man?
A: Man's chief end is to glorify God, and enjoy Him forever.

Making people happy is a good thing. The Bible says you should try it. But it's not the purpose of life.
Trying hard is a good thing. The Bible says we should try hard. But it's not the purpose of life.
Having fun is a good thing. The Bible wants us to have fun. But it's not the purpose of life.
Individual liberty is a good thing. The Bible has much to say about freedom. But it's not the purpose of life.
Love is a good thing. The Bible has much to say about love. But it's not the purpose of life.
(Running is not a good thing. Let's just gloss over that one.)

The Bible, over many centuries, through many stories, using many genres, by the mouths of many characters, reveals a purpose that fundamentally revolves around God, and our relationship to him. In a nutshell: Our reason for living is to glorify him, and to enjoy him forever.

And the Bible is quite clear that everyone was designed with the same purpose in mind - whether they believe that or not. It's also quite clear that the only way to Do The One Thing For Which We Were Designed is by putting our trust in Jesus Christ.

If we've not done that, I'm sorry to say, we are a broken toilet-roll holder, and we risk getting jumped on.

Jesus, incidentally, is the perfect Britney - the one man who made God happy, by doing what God loved, perfectly.
He's also the perfect Delta - the one man who actually did give 100%, all the time.
And he's the means by which we can have perfect, eternal fun - the "enjoy Him forever" bit...
And he's the means by which we achieve perfect freedom - freedom from the curse of sin, death, pain, all that stuff.
He also demonstrates perfect love...
...by being, literally, born to die.
(And, though I hate to admit this, in one of his parables he portrays God as running.)

This website might help you explore these ideas further: http://www.christianityexplored.org/

Thank you for your time.

*Of course, the internet solves a lot of these problems for us, because the people who enjoy eating skulls and the people who enjoy having their skulls consumed can now find each other in a skull-eating chatroom somewhere and hook up. But I think it's fair to say that, as long as there is death in the world, life is not going to be fun all the time for everyone.


**Limited mainly by the fact that it's hard to find good "Born to..." songs. I could have had Monie Love's "Born to B.R.E.E.D" in there, for instance, but that song makes me want to gnaw my feet off and stick them in my ears. I figure if I'm going to make you think about philosophy, the least I can do is ensure there are good songs involved. And Britney.

Is Christianity A Crutch? Part Three - Like Torchwood Only Not Horrible

Welcome back, gentle readers, for part three of our investigation into this age-old question: Is Christianity real, or is it just a psychological crutch used by sad little people who can't otherwise cope with the harsh realities of a Godless, pointless, aleatorically-created universe?

Or, to put it more succinctly, Christianity: Truth or crutch?

It's been a while since I managed to crowbar a Disney illustration into this
blog, but I hereby proudly present the feathery crutch of the flying elephant.

But as you will know, if you have read parts one and two, this is a specious question - presupposing, as it does, that a thing must be one or the other, and cannot be both truthful and crutchy. This is a fairly absurd position to take. A few weeks ago I watched a man on a genuine literal crutch struggling to climb onto a tube train. This being London, no one bothered to help him, but no one actively tried to take his crutch away from him either. Despite being, quite evidently, just a crutch, it was not treated with the least disdain by either him or his fellow passengers. Obviously. Because he clearly needed it, and it was working.

A crutch, I think we can agree, is a Good Thing, when there is a need for it and it works.
The important questions about Christianity, therefore, are: Do we need it? Does it work?

In part two, we looked at the need. And lo, I sayeth unto you that the need is great*. We face death, and we face judgement, and by ourselves we are powerless to avoid either. It's not the weak who need it, it's everyone. And if you were remotely convinced by the answer to that question, then the second question should now be of paramount concern to you: does it work?

Well, it's interesting you should ask that. Because, in the passage of the Bible we've been scrutinising, the answer to that question depends squarely on another.


Here's our passage:

17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19 If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. 25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:17-26)

And here's the question:

About two thousand years ago a carpenter's son who claimed to be God got violently, brutally executed.
Did he stay dead... or did he rise?


It happened a long time ago, a long way away from the bean-bag I'm currently sitting in, but it remains the fulcrum on which this whole debate rests. There are no middle options - he either rose or he didn't. If he did, says Paul, Christianity works. If he didn't, it doesn't. For Paul, there is no such thing as a psychological crutch. It's real or it is nothing.

If you are a Christian, you don't have to look all that far to find someone who thinks you are an idiot. For example:

"Faith means not wanting to know what is true." - Friedrich Nietzsche
"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence." - Richard Dawkins
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence." - Bertrand Russell
"Christian faith is futile, and those who hope in it are idiots who should be pitied more than anyone else in the world." - The Apostle Paul.

Yay, surprise. Good old wrote-most-of-the-New-Testament Paul totally agrees with Nietzsche, Dawkins, Russell, and all that crowd - if, that is, Christ wasn't raised.

You would think Dawkins would have a more open mind, what
with marrying a Time Lord and everything. Shame on them both.

Let me just pause and hammer a point home here:

This is about something that either happened, or didn't happen.
If we could hop into the TARDIS and get the Doctor to take us to Jerusalem 2000 years ago, we would be able to camp outside Jesus' tomb and watch to see what happened next. We'd either see a dead man stay dead, or we'd see a dead man get up and walk around.
There is nothing subjective about this. If it happened, then it happened, whether we believe it or not, whether we like it or not, whether we need a psychological crutch or not. If it's true, then it's true for everyone.

How often have you heard people say something like "I don't believe it myself, but if it works for her, then that's great."?
Or "It's true for you, but it's not true for me."?
Or, as Jodi Picoult put it: "My feeling is that everyone should be able to believe what they want or need to believe."?**

Well, with all due respect: twaddle, pish and fiddlesticks. It's either true for everyone, or it's rubbish for everyone.


Christianity is either the solution to death and sin for everyone who turns to it...
Or it is a ridiculous, tragic waste of time for everyone.

Can I say that again?

Christianity is either the solution to death and sin for everyone who turns to it...
Or it is a ridiculous, tragic waste of time for everyone.
Apparently I can. Good.

"You know, Romana, Christianity is either the solution to death and sin for
everyone who turns to it, or it is a ridiculous, tragic waste of time for everyone."

So: which is it?

Well, Paul seems pretty certain about this:
Verse 20 - "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep."

Right, well, that's a pretty absurd claim. It's probably why most people dismiss Christianity as myth. But Dawkins is wrong when he talks about lack of evidence. There are four gospel accounts - written by, or taken from interviews with, people who saw it happen - which testify that it is true. There's the whole of the Old Testament, which points forward to the event, through hundreds of prophecies and foreshadowings - all fulfilled in Jesus. There are the New Testament letters, which point back to the event - which are the writings of intelligent, literate men, who continued to claim it was true in the face of persecution and death. All of this would be remarkably difficult to fake, even if there was the slightest reason to do so. It is hard to come up with a more plausible explanation for the rise of Christianity than this: the rising of Christ.***

Christ was raised, and what that means is this:
Christianity is a real crutch, founded on real events, that offers a real solution to the real problems that are faced by everyone.

Do we need it? Yes!
Does it work?

Just look at the passage - look at what it says about death:

Verse 20a: Christ has been raised from the dead. Death is no longer a one-way door!
Verse 20b: He's the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep - that means he's like the first bluebell in spring - when he appears, you know there are going to be millions more!
Verse 21: As by a man came death, by a man - Jesus - has come the resurrection of the dead. The dead are going to rise!
Verse 22: For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive!
Most amazing, verse 26: When God destroys his enemies, death itself will be on the list. What happens when death is destroyed? No more death, is what. Nothing can die! It'll be like the last series of Torchwood, only good. And hopefully without John Barrowman getting naked all the time. We don't need to see that again.

It won't be like this.

So we're not talking zombie movies here - reanimated corpses shuffling around eating brains. We're talking about the dead coming back to life, and death itself being destroyed. And the proof that this will happen is that Jesus was raised.

And it won't be like this.

That's the problem of death. What about the problem of sin, which we talked about in part two? We'll only look at this very very briefly, but here's a question: why did Christ need raising anyway? Obviously because he died, but why did he die?


The Bible tells us that he died to save us from our sins. Remember all the post-it notes we were carrying around? The ones that marked us out as God's enemies, destined for destruction? There was no way we could get rid of them ourselves. There was no way we could get rid of each others'. Well, in an act that renders any number of stationary-based analogies utterly inadequate, Jesus took them from us at the cost of his own life. Now, it would take someone uniquely qualified to do such a thing. No one who isn't the perfect son of God is going to be able to pull it off. Was Christ the perfect son of God, who therefore dealt with the problem of sin, or was he just some nutter who got killed for upsetting the Jews? Let me ask you this: how many nutters can you think of who came back to life after getting themselves killed? His resurrection proves his identity, and his identity proves that he did what he said he did.

Christ's resurrection proves that the problems of death and sin are dealt with.


Do we need it? Yes.
Does it work? Yes.

And that's pretty much it. But there's one final question I need to ask...

Do
You
Have
It?

You see, we've glossed over a few words in this passage:

Verse 18: Those who have fallen asleep in Christ...
Verse 19: If in Christ we have hope...
Verse 22: In Christ shall all be made alive...
Verse 23: Those who belong to Christ...

If you are in Adam - which is the Bible's way of saying if you are human - then you face the problems we talked about. Everyone faces the problems.

If you are in Christ, you have the solution.
So... who is "in Christ"?

And there's our cliffhanger. Come back next time for the answer, and bring your friends.

"Goodbye now! See you next time! And don't forget that Christianity
is the solution to death and sin for everyone who turns to it!"

* So great, in fact, that it hath temporarily made me talk all olde-worlde.
** I want to believe that I've correctly positioned all the full stops, question marks and quote marks in those last three lines, but the nagging fingers of doubt are clawing at my mind.
*** There is a great deal to say on this, of course. If you can stomach the infuriating writing style (and you've stomached mine so far, so you might be okay) then this is a reasonably good place to start.