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Friday, November 4. 2011

Mark 9

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.


Mark 9:24. (For a fine 15 minutes, read all of Mark 9. It has something for everybody in it.)

Posted by Bird Dog at 11:09 | Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)

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That one goes right to the nub, doesn't it.
#1 pbird on 2011-11-04 11:48 (Reply)
I found this very confusing. It straightaway says he 'believes', so why does he need help with his 'unbelief'?

Can you half-believe in God?

Furthermore, I had the feeling Dad is an OWSer, always asking someone else to bail him out. And why the hell is he taking a small child to an OWS protest? Or is it the child that needs help with his unbelief, but Dad, only being a half-believer at this precise moment, decided to give the local pastor half a chance and the OWS protesters half a chance and let the kid make up his own mind?

And is 'unbelief' like that reverend guy you once linked to who claimed that atheists practice the "religion of atheism"? Don't they practice the belief of Unbelievism? Is Unbelievism recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt religion, like Scientology? Unbelievism doesn't have a god or gods, but neither does Scientology, so what's the dif?

If we capitalize 'He' and 'Him' when referring to God, why isn't 'thou' capitalized, and especially because it's addressing Him directly?

And why the hell was the goddam dad crying in the first place? What kind of role model is that for an impressionable child? Was he crying with joy over his new-found belief? But if God's sitting right there in front of him to talk to, then just how hard is it to find belief? Strikes me it'd be kind of obvious.

Honestly, Bird Dog, if you're going to post mystical, arcane references from thousands of years ago, the very least you could do would be to provide a few answers.

And what in blazes happened to you to cause you to post this one solitary line from the Bible? As far as I know, this isn't Good Friday, so why did we suddenly get a religious post (however mystically arcane) today? There's got to be a story behind this. Inquiring minds must know!
#2 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-11-04 12:42 (Reply)
This is an oft-quoted (not at all obscure) Bible quote. It expresses what has apparently been true for a long time, though we think it is a modern dilemma. A person can believe and not believe in God at the same time. I think most of us are in that situation at some time.
#3 Park Slope Pubby on 2011-11-04 13:16 (Reply)
Or it's the fact one does believe, but has problems believing enough to live the life which believing requires.

"Not believing strongly enough" was how my nuns used phrase it. They didn't doubt their little charges believed in God (lord knows we had to believe in their class), but we just weren't totally on board.

Otherwise, we'd have behaved, right?
#3.1 Bulldog on 2011-11-04 16:04 (Reply)
It's the categorical imperative, doc.

To recognize the primacy of trying to distinguish right from wrong is to elevate that pursuit from a passive waiting for inspiration, to an active engaging of method.

One could hope that the G20 meeting will eschew the bubble manual in Cannes and instead chew the bubbling Immanuel Kant.
#4 buddy larsen on 2011-11-04 13:36 (Reply)

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