Monday, November 20

Why are we so stupid?

Mark Nelson at 11:11 AM 12comments

12 Comments

at 2:47 PM  Anonymous said...

I have this episode saved because it really made me ask a lot of questions...it hit a lot of touchy subjects! I've watched it twice and I'm still thinking on it...

 

at 3:24 PM  Anonymous said...

I could mention a lot of reasons why, but I think they would end up being hurtful to the bride of Christ...so I refrain. It seems to me that all people want someone else to be stupid so they can feel like they aren't.

It's pecking order and also the fact that believing in Jesus requires a person to believe in something far greater than their realm of experience or knowledge. God cannot be fully understood and when a person doesn't understand something then they have two options...dismiss it as stupid and irrelevant or accept something beyond.

that's my opinion as of right now. :-)

 

at 4:47 PM  Liz Pinckert said...

Wow, it's been a while since anyone asked me opinion,(stay at home mom you get the picture) even indirectly, so I'm game for this....

Ok, without being too nasty, I'll say the reason why the "world" thinks "religious" people are stupid, is because religion in general gives pat answers to age old questions. We don't actually take the time to love the person and understand their question. Their question might be answered only in a lifetime (like "Does God care?" or "How can God help me with my own unrest?") so giving a quick and studied answer to a deep and pressing question is absurd. I think that people respond to love, and can sense love, especially when the H.S. is living and breathing inside of you, and they can't put a finger on it, but they want to be a part of it, they're curious, they're inquisitive. I think the world's questions shouldn't be answered outright, but rather their curiosity should be tweaked and they should be loved straight into the heart of Jesus. I know I know, I'm too lazy to do it too.

Check out what Phillip Yancy says...
“I want my life to be integrated in the one true reality of a God who knows everything about me and desires for me only the good. I want to view all the distractions of my day from the perspective of eternity. I want to abandon myself to God who can elevate me beyond the tyranny of my self. I will never be free from evil, or from distractions, but I pray I can be freed from the anxiety and unrest that crowds in with them.”

 

at 6:57 PM  Anonymous said...

I think we do sometimes cause others to think we're stupid, by dumb things we say and do, but the fact is that some people are going to think we're stupid anyway.

Faith doesn't make logical sense, it can't fully be explained intellectually, and when we try to act like it can, we just end up looking dumb sometimes or making people feel undervalued. (Like what Liz was saying)

I think we'll probably always seem a little naive, if not stupid or crazy, to people who don't believe. It's when we get defensive and try to prove ourselves to be smart that we prove their point.

 

at 8:19 PM  The Adkins Family said...

Pat Robertson
Jerry Falwell
Benny Hinn
Carman
Stephen Baldwin
Creed

Six off the top of my head.

 

at 8:58 AM  Anonymous said...

Greg is on to something (especially with the Creed thing), but it's still lacking. Besides, is that the question we should be asking? Don't we know the answers too well? I don't know. What do you think?

By the way, love the show. I just got my TiVo/DVR reinstalled and one of the first things I put on the list was that show. It's great (but keeps me up too late).

Great post, Mark.

 

at 10:07 AM  The Adkins Family said...

I should probably clarify my list a bit...

I know that it's probably not the most helpful thing to just point the finger at the most public examples of Christians who make the rest of us look bad, but I do believe that it has a lot to do with the reason people hold us in such low regard. Think of it this way... if you met someone who said they were a scientologist, wouldn't you automatically lump them in with Tom Cruise? I probably would... maybe they're nothing like that and it isn't really fair, but I'd probably do it anyway in my mind. That might not be the best analogy, but you see where I'm going.

I think the tendency is to just lump all of us together and to define us by our most public, outspoken voices. Sadly in the last 10 years, those voices have generally been the likes of Robertson, Falwell, etc and I can't really blame people for thinking we're a bunch of raving idiots.

 

at 10:07 AM  The Adkins Family said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 

at 10:08 AM  The Adkins Family said...

I should probably clarify my list a bit...

I know that it's probably not the most helpful thing to just point the finger at the most public examples of Christians who make the rest of us look bad, but I do believe that it has a lot to do with the reason people hold us in such low regard. Think of it this way... if you met someone who said they were a scientologist, wouldn't you automatically lump them in with Tom Cruise? I probably would... maybe they're nothing like that and it isn't really fair, but I'd probably do it anyway in my mind. That might not be the best analogy, but you see where I'm going.

I think the tendency is to just lump all of us together and to define us by our most public, outspoken voices. Sadly in the last 10 years, those voices have generally been the likes of Robertson, Falwell, etc and I can't really blame people for thinking we're a bunch of raving idiots.

 

at 4:35 PM  Anonymous said...

Maybe we're stupid because the world's wisdom isn't God's wisdom. Maybe we're foolish to them.

Wait...does that sound familiar to anyone?

:)

 

at 11:37 AM  Anonymous said...

There's also the seemingly huge gap between our creative edge and secular societies creative edge. Salvation doesn't hang on creativity, don't get me wrong, but this is obviously a reason why they think we're stupid. They think we're not very creative...which is unfair because there are very creative flows in our christian culture but the ones that get noticed on are TBN and not the really creative guys. Maybe God has planned it that way, I don't know.

In watching a great HBO interview with Bono and The Edge last night, I was reminded of this when Bono said..."you here all these guys say I'm just a voice for God and he uses me (he says this in a really funny gay irish accent). Well, really? I mean, could God write all these crap songs?"

I laughed.

And I was depressed at the same time. It's not about whether Bono's assesment is right or wrong, fair or unfair, or simply unenlightened...it's the perception we give off some times. We just don't seem smart or creative very often or often enough to dispel this perception.

How much credit should we give to 'fixing the perception'...I have no idea. However much we can while still glorifying God in the process I guess.

Sorry. Long comment. Got inspired after watching the interview last night.

 

at 11:24 AM  Mark Nelson said...

Good stuff Jeph...

Thinking about your question "how much credit should we give to 'fixing the perception'?"...

I'm not sure, I know it can't be our main goal, but I do believe that living out who we truly are in Jesus (creative, imaginative, inspired by Spirit that is Holy) would go a long way toward re-identifiying who the world thinks of when they think of believers in Jesus.

 

Post a Comment