About Christianity and the Christian Faith
Christian Living
- How to Believe in God: Brain First, THEN Emotion July 2, 2009
- Proof That God Litters July 1, 2009
- The Fear That Feeds Our Discontent June 30, 2009
John is currently writing a (funny/not so funny)
memoir that takes off from the depths of his sudden adult conversion
experience to an exploration of his life up to that point. If you would
like to be notified when John's memoir is finished (or would perhaps like
to read and comment upon parts of it in progress), e-mail him at johnshore@sbcglobal.net, or let him know via the "Contact Me" page on his website, JohnShore.com
John is the author of I'm OK--You're Not: The Message We're Sending Nonbelievers and Why We Should Stop (NavPress); Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang (Seabury Books); and co-author, with Richard Lederer, of Comma Sense: A Fundamental Guide to Punctuation (St. Martin's). Both Penguins and Comma Sense won San Diego Book Awards for best books in their respective categories (Religious/Spiritual, and How To/Reference). He is also co-author, with Stephen Arterburn (Every Man's Battle) of Being Christian: Exploring Where You, God and Life Connect, Midlife Manual For Men: Finding Significance in the Second Half, and Regret-Free Living: Tools for Building Strong, Healthy Relationships.
As e-books on Scribd.com, John has made available for downloading or reading online, collections from his blog, entitled Seven Reasons Women Stay in Abusive Relationships (and How to Defeat Each One of Them), How to Make a Living Writing, and My Funniest Stuff. He has also made available his book, I'm OK--You're Not: The Message We're Sending Nonbelievers and Why We Should Stop.
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Friday, July 3, 2009 | 22:23 PM
God designed us with absolute and inviolate free will so that we could choose to be in relationship with him; the fidelity of a person who has no choice but to give it is worthless. God desires a real relationship with us, not one of zombie automaton to controlling master.
Granting us absolute and inviolate free will means granting us absolute and inviolate autonomy. That's why God arranged for us to come into this world from nothing, and to leave it again into what we can only call a mystery. That's the only way for us to remain truly, permanently, organically autonomous.
It's also why God doesn't ever, in any objective, empirically verifiable way, "prove" he exists to anyone. Because then whomever he proved that to would have no choice but to believe in him---meaning their free will had been severely compromised. Which would render them unsuitable for a relationship.
Again, we're meant to choose to be in relationship with God.
People are forever getting their relationship with God backwards. It's supposed to be brain first, and then emotion.
Comment here.
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Wednesday, July 1, 2009 | 09:09 AM
You would think, with all the attention the environment's been getting lately, that God wouldn't just fling huge wads of junk out of heaven. But as I was walking through San Diego's Balboa Park the other day, I found this disturbing proof that that's exactly what he's done.
Doesn't God care about us??
Comment here.
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009 | 09:04 AM
We all struggle with too often or habitually doing or thinking things that we know are bad for us and/or those around us.
Our dysfunctional behavior is fueled by anger and resentment deeply rooted within us. We are angry at the fact that, somewhere along the line of our lives, our core emotional needs were not met.
Like so much anger we manifest, that which fuels our dysfunctional behavior is a reaction to fears we hold.
We fear that our core emotional needs cannot be met.
That enduring, fundamental human fear is two-fold: that God (or something/someone like it) is not in control of things, and that we are not lovable.
Those two fears---the one which looks to the outside world, and the other which looks to the inside---are complementary aspects of the same fear: That we and the world at large are not grounded in love.
The deep and abiding fear that the system in which they live and operate is not ultimately defined by love has always made everyone, in one way or another, crazily insecure.
The conditions necessary for the reality of human free will---being mainly our absolute autonomy---means that it always will, too. The cost of our ineradicable uncertainty is our free will.
(Note: While its assertion that God is love automatically renders Christianity a perfectly comprehensive answer to the one great human fear, being Christian does not inure anyone from the acute, ongoing angst of existential doubt. Every Christian remains, after all, a human---free will and all.)
Comment here.
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Sunday, June 28, 2009 | 13:00 PM
Mmmmmm ... delicious water meter honey.
I came across this extremely busy hive (bees were zooming in and out of there like it was Christmas at O'Hare) in an alley running between some businesses and homes in downtown Encinitas, CA.
Did the bees think, "Who cares if it's a cement hole in the middle of the street? It looks just like a hive! Let's do it!"?
Comment here.
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Thursday, June 25, 2009 | 16:19 PM
Here's a picture I took this weekend in some mountains four miles from our home. I haven't slept since.
Be afraid.
Comment here.
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