"ethics is not self-evident"

I was listening to a Ravi Zacharias talk called "Creedal Affirmation in Search of Commitment" which talks about morals and discussing where we get the authority and grounds to follow them. How ethics are not self-evident and that by treating them as if they are they lose their meaning because we aren't accrediting them with any sort of attachment to a rhyme or reason as to why we should follow them. We can say what it is...(ex. "love your neighbor")...but why is it that way? And in what manner is this to be carried out? The proceeding analogy given I think puts it well, "Our moral beliefs will decay if they are cut off from their source, just as a stream will become a stagnant pool if it is no longer fed by its spring." or, without knowing the source of a moral or ethic, we're really just throwing around semantics that can mean anything to anyone and therefore loses it's meaning other than that of meaning possibly anything and therefore, I would say, just cancels itself out in the first place. Why follow creeds like this if we don't know why? For what purpose? To be good? Define good. Who says we have to be? The words don't lose their meaning because we haven't defined what they mean to begin with. However, I see hope when people want to be loving, to be good, to be selfless...but when these words are defined as a million different things I believe they lose their meaning. Because if something means everything...well...what doesn't it mean then? How can we love one another, our neighbor, if everyone defines it as something different? If not defined I believe we will continue to live in our own narcissistic worlds pretending that we weren't put on this earth, on one planet, to learn to live together and to really love each other: whatever that exclusive definition of love may be. In western thought (and even as I've seen too creep into eastern thought living here) I think this ambiguity of definition goes on for fear of naming a black and white in a world that's ever striving to lean on the grey's to get us by. However, I think that when you call something "grey" it's not (it can't be) anything else. Not blue, green, orange....it's grey. So, when you speak of grey, you've actually given it an objective meaning, but with the allusion of it being completely subjective. It can all get really messy and pretty soon you just end up contradicting yourself. You have an opinion. You aren't all inclusive. Even the claim to be excludes those beliefs which are exclusive to yours. The danger in saying one accepts everything is not only living in a contradiction (how then could you accept views that are contrary to each other, or even the view that you just claimed as all inclusive with those that beliefs claim they are exclusive?) but I believe it leaves you in a place of no answers. In that pool cut off from it's source.

I apologize if some of that wasn't so clear. I just kind of poured out what listening to Ravi stirred in my mind and thought "I've only blogged once...I'll just vomit on there". I guess if I could somewhat sum up what I was saying (this is always hard..ha...) it would just be....are you satisfied with a back-boneless moral? can they stand the test of fire? when you look back on the things you cling to, do you see that it's working for you or that you desire more? Because you actually do hold on to morals with a definition that probably goes back to what your parents told you, friends, TV, etc...some sort of doctrine.

And I don't want to leave this post at just that. I believe there is hope. I believe that morals were given to us to show us that we actually will not be able to fulfill the true meanings of them a part from the authority with which they are given. That Jesus Christ was truly the only man that ever has fulfilled these morals and laws to show us that we can be dependent on Him to work His love through us and therefore, loving our neighbors as we are loved by God. We love because we were loved first. We love because we are dependent not on empty words, but the truth and meaning behind them which comes from our authority, God.

I say this because I have found Jesus. (not that he was lost and needed me to, or did I find Him in a gaudy church, at a street revival or something stereotypical of that nature...although one could find Him in those places too, I just find that people label those things in a negative light...I guess I could go on about that...next post?)...but it was in the quiet of my home about 8 years ago that I decided to trust Him with my life and eventually my death. Of course the knowledge of what this means grows within me as God's character is made more evident through the work of His spirit within me, but it wasn't by a huge revelation of everything true on my part with which I decided to follow Christ. It was in the quiet surrender of my heart, it was in a vulnerable place of saying that I don't have it all figured out (still don't) but that I trust that He does. Ever since then, I'm starting to understand more about what things like "love your neighbor" come from and how I am supposed to do that. I've failed, but what beckons me to continue to love is the unending love and forgiveness that I receive from Jesus. How a love like His, that I haven't ever experienced until I knew Christ and am convinced it's something contrary to anything this world offers concerning the matter, calls me to love when all I want to do is hate, run, be apathetic, or just try to forget. When I hear people define love...it always has an exception. The beauty about Christ's love is that I did nothing to earn it and I can do nothing to lose it. ....and amazing how that kind of love....it makes you want to live to love Him.

If any of that is confusing or you would like it to be expounded upon....questions about anything or what it would even mean to know Christ (sometimes I can be ambiguous, but this is something I don't want to be ambiguous about) please ask me any kind of questions you may have concerning...well....anything. I can't guarantee I'll have the answers, but I'll seek His Word my best to see what He would say on the matter. my email is

merlanky@yahoo.com

and, if you've read all of this....thank you :) It can be overwhelming to write a blog....thus why I don't do it often.

and as if this wasn't long enough!....i'm going to post the link to the talk and article that inspired some of this....

Ravi Zacharias link: http://htod.cdncon.com/o2/rzimht/MP3/JT/JT20100329.mp3

and Ravi makes note of an editorial in the Sunday Telegraph....I could only find an excerpt online of it....here ya go....

"In one of Ravi Zacharias' talks, he reads from an editorial in the Sunday Telegraph (I can't for the life of me find it online or find out when it was published) entitled Who cares if Christ is risen?. The author of the editorial provided the following poignant analysis:

What is true at this time in our history is that we are moving into uncharted territory. Since the French revolution, many influential intellectuals have rejected religion. But it is only now that religious ideas underpin general morality. Because these ideas have prevailed for so long, people tend to assume that the morality that goes with them is somehow obvious and common sensical and will continue. "Love thy neighbour as thy self" is widely considered to be a moral imperative that everyone can accept and try to follow without religious faith as if it were a belief that came natural to man. But this is a terrible error. No moral doctrine comes naturally. As the derivation of the word doctrine implies it has to be taught. It can only be taught if enough people understand the theories on which it rests...We have entered a period in which this is no longer so and we are beginning to see the results...With this loss of a truly human morality comes paradoxically a greater emphasis on the importance of human gratification. As human beings no longer believe that have a unique standing in the order of creation they turn inwards. The great modern crime is to prevent people do what they want to do...The consequence of this is that what was once called selfishness is now considered fulfillment. The word love is used just as much as it ever was but it means something else. For a Christian the measure of love is what one is willing to give up for it. For the post-Christian love is the most exciting state of the ego. The social consequences are...an extreme restlessness that makes contentment almost as outdated a term as crinoline...Religion has an extraordinary and unique capacity to keep sublime concepts of beauty and truth and the principles of conduct that derive from them in the minds of ordinary people. Our moral beliefs will decay if they are cut off from their source, just as a stream will become a stagnant pool if it is no longer fed by its spring. This is what is happening in the West today. The injunction to "love they neighbour" is not a statement of the obvious. It is a commandment and one that is only makes sense because it flows from the first "love thy God". We must obey it because it is true and we know that it is true because of the event that Easter commemorates." "

There it is.

...this post is so long...definitely makes up for not ever posting...for like....however many years I've had this account.

cheers :)