The Mystery of Evil, the Soverenty of God

The mystery of evil, the Soverenty of God. ATL civic center. This talk had two speakers Os Guinness and Ravi Zacharias. The talks were followed by a breif Q&A session.  I tried to type as much of the points in my iPhone as possible but I didn't catch all of it. There are still some powerful and interesting points. I have a bunch of spelling and grammer errors, please ignore them. 

My notes: 

Os Gunisses
- Evil is the greatest mystery we face having come out of the most murderous century. 
- "The un examined life is not worth living." - Socrates
- We need to know where evil comes from
- Where does evils come from? how does it enter the evil ones heart
- evils comes frome our 1bodies, 2nature, or 3other human beans
- Bodies) It is easy to see that our bodies are frail and allow sin to vet in
-nature) Cataclysmic sources of devistation
- humans) 100million killed in war, 100mil political reasons, 100 mil 

- Every suffer is unique, you cannot treat them all the same or make sweeping generalizations
- people ask -> Why me? Where's God? How can I stand it?
- People also ask - why not me?
- Athiest tend to blame their not beliving in God on God.
- If you know a why to live it will take care of any how - Neitche
- Appretiates the modern transformations of evil. 
 - We are not more evil now, just bigger toys
- define:polyanerusin <-- that was a really big word...  - in 1900 with asprin is the first time we can live without real pain and suffering - a queen had 14 dead children  - Modern toys let evil be able to be done by ordinary laymen. who were not aware. People get distanted from the affected people.  - we marginalized the way we deal with evil.  - America is making evil cool. we should be warned. look what came out of Germany. what are we breeding in this country.  - You can't use science to measure questions - people turn to worldviews and religions for explainations - buudism is a religion sized answer to evil. Ducca - Hinduism - freedom from individuality instead of to it - Athiest - even if we fight heroically we are facing never ending defeat. the real problem is existence.  - Trilenna: 3 problems - Big Question: Could God be all good, all powerful, and evil still be evil? - Its not existence that's the problem, it's human disobedience - John 11 -> v35 Jesus wept was a strong wept, furious, the word was the strongest for anger or outrage. 
- Evil was nit suppsed to be this way. 
- "No other wounds"
- "I don't know the answer to evil, but I do know love."   
- We know know God is good bc of Jesus. 
- The resistiance leader knows best. 
- We are in the Dark because of some stuff, but Jesus is the resistance leader. 
- In auchwitz a lot of people actually deepend in faith - Francol
- A small faith is like a small fire. Wind In a small fire blows it out but a large fire get fanned. 
- More athiest took their lives ls bc they cannot handle evil.  

Ravi Zacharias
- The lonliest moment of life is the abscense of pleasure
- In the breaking of a life it is senldom only one life if broken/affected. 
- Tiger woods= have I kept to the teaching of my faith this would have not happened. 
- the buddist founder left his family the day he son was born. he thought the way to life was total renounciation of family and everything. 
- Quoting : Tye day America told the truth
-- Women are more moral than men
-- America has no leaders
-- I US was a business we would have been taken over
-- US makes up it's own rules w/ out respect to anybody
-- Us is loosing their childhood
-- US is the most violent
-- break down of taking care of elderly
-- US has no heros
- The conclusions of this is that we all have moral implications. The book title assumes the truth was told. 
- define:evil--> violation of purpose, the purpose of the creator. 
- the great writers talk about a noble ambistions in people to make a heroic act. 
- The people like Karl Marx that te idea of God is an idea that lost it's legitimacy. 
- i want to raise a veneration of young people devoid of a conscious, relentless... - Hitler on the sign at Auchwitz
- [A Deitrick Bonhoffer quote about good and evil writtern in prison.]
- How does america frame it's mission statement?   
- "We Declare these truths to be self evident...." Something that is self evidence is undeniable. - This is how we define our nation. 
- We believe in inallienable rights. This was paid for 
- You are not a body with a soul you are a afoul with a body. 
 
- 1) there is an announcement -  In the begining God...
- Earnsy Heckle - German zoologist influenced Darwin. 
- lower races are nearer to apes and dogs than human.
- 2) there is a commanment - we don like laws
- 3) there are boundaries between life
- Chesterton says thy whenever there is a fence we have to stop and see why it was there in the first place
4) There is a blessing  

- When somebody blesses and prays for you in their own human state you come from thr realization that the blessing is from God

- When God made us he called us good
- Principles to govern our lives -- faith, hope, and love
- It is only the love of God that frees us
- "I was covered in somebody elses blood and they took me for dead and spared me." - Words from a man in the Bombay hotel masacre
- The last link in darwins athiesim is the damnable doctorine of eternal damnation. 
- Ghandi would not have worked if he wasn't appealing to the hearts of a Christian nation - Bertrand Russel 
- God -- goodness -- love --???

- When we ate of the knowledge of Good and evil we made the choice of deciding for ourself
- God gave us the greatest good and free will, in order to make it whole he had to allow for the possibility of evil and to reject the gift of good.

- Pornography makes the individual seek after a feeling instead of a person.
- I was riding the tiger of deceit for so long that I was afraid that if I got off it would devour me.

- Origin, morality, meaning, and destiny
- Always combine knowledge with mistery.
- God has left enough in the world to make faith in him the most reasonable thing. He has left enough out to make it impossible to live by reason alone.
- Truth goodness and evil is a personal responsibility.        

Do you need to be poor to be a disciple?

Which disciples were poor?

• Simon Peter and Andrew (Mark 1:16) Probably if they were casting their nets
• James and John (Mark 1:19) the sons of Zebedee were probably extremely rich if their father had a fishing company (see 'hired servants').
• Levi (Mark 2:14) was a tax collector
• Simon (Luke 6:15) was a Zealot, which would be a sort of political figure.
• Luke was a Physician
• The rest... I don't know

In a time with a small upper and middle class and a disproportionately group of poor, a lot of the disciples seem to come from the upper and middle classes.  It is interesting that most of the 12 people Jesus chose to change the world do not appear to be as poor and needy as you think.  But they each recognized the authority of Jesus, left everything behind, and followed him.

Soak Instead of Scrub

Soaking in God's word is like adding soap and hot water to a dirty pan, and letting it sit. The pan in the water, along with the soap, loosens the dirt and grime that has built up on the pot over time.  The dirt and grime is there simply because the pot was used.  The pot was doing what is was meant to do.  (Soaking in how water and soap also helps dust.)

For ministry, and in life in general, it is important not to go long periods without taking time to soak in the word of God.  Disagreements, problems at work, arguments, and any other issue of life can start to cling to us, and build up.  After a while, if we don't soak, all that mess builds up and really starts to stink.

If we don't soak regularly, to get clean we  need a good scrubbing!  Sometimes scrubbing can really scratch and bruise the pan... but at the same time, a good scrub is exactly what we need to get us clean.

So, soak regularly instead of scrubbing irregularly.

Tithing Explained via Amdahls Law

I have a pretty busy schedule. It may not be busy from your perspective but I am having trouble completed all the tasks that I assigned for myself. So I am looking for a way to improve the amount of hours I have per day, or at least increase the number of tasks I complete per day. I am trying to increase my effectiveness.

My issue is with time. For problem solving purposes, lets trade my problem of limited time for a problem of limited money. If I had a problem paying my bills, or buying whatever I needed to buy, the first thing I would make sure that I am doing is tithing. If I am not giving at least 10% of my income away, I would up whatever percent I am giving to at least 10. If I am already giving 10%, I would increase that number, and give more to my church, friends, the needy, or a charity.

In increasing my monetary giving, I can expect that I will receive or obtain more money. This is the law (or principle) of tithing.

The Principle of Tithing

The Lord says on many occasions in the scripture that he owns everything. Psalms 24:1 says that "The earth is the LORD's, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." We, humans, were given dominion over the earth, as written in Genesis 1:28. With this said, tithing is the act of giving a portion of your money, animals, or crops away. Able first did this in obedience to God in Genesis 4:4. After giving, God, in turn, says that he will bless what you gave Malachi 3:10 Matt 13:23.

For example, if a farmer decides to plant extra seeds instead of eating or selling the seeds she could reasonably expect to produce a larger crop with a greater amount of total fruit (and more seeds) the next harvest.

I am probably oversimplifying the whole concept, but I have friends who went from living from paycheck-to-paycheck to being able to go on vacations simply because they started tithing. In undergrad, when I was short on money in my last year, I prayed and tithed, and out of no where I got a job that was enough to pay for my rent. Even though I took out loan money I did not have to use it.

I know for sure that God honors tithing.

Now concerning time, what naturally occurring phenomenon can explain that if I give more time to God he will Honor my commitment? I believe the answer is Amdahls Law.

Amdahls Law

Amdahl's Law says that greater 'speed up' (concerning systems) is achieved when the portion of the code that makes the largest impact is improved. This law is associated with the phrase "Make the common case fast." This is represented by the following equations:

Speedup = 1 / ( (1 - f) + (f / n) )

where f is the percentage of the importance that can be enhanced and n is the amount or factor by which the system is enhanced.

For example, if I improve 10% of my activities by a factor of 10 then I would obtain a speed up of 1.1 (f = 0.1, n = 10 -> Speedup = 1.09). If you increase f to 0.5 and make a 10x improvement you would get a speedup of 1.8. When f = 0.1 and n = 20 you get a speedup of only 1.10. This shows that you should work to improve the important task.

Now, imagine that we can measure the tasks in our day by the importance. In order to increase our efficiency during the day, by applying Amdahl's law, we should invest more time in "improving" the most important parts of our day. If spending time with Jesus is the most important part of your day, then an improvement in the time spent with him would allow you to achieve a significant increase throughout the day.

Therefore, investing your time were it matters the most will improve your day as a whole. The speedup, or blessing received by investing time with Jesus is definitely worth the sacrifice it takes to make that improvement.

I hope you followed me on this... I know at the end it got a little blurry, let me know what you think.