Reddy's Right Rhetoric: 'Those who believe God is a crutch, say Yeah! by Ramesh C. Reddy

The Pitt News column titled “If the question is ‘Why?’ God may not always be the answer”, written on Feb 03, 05 by Daniel Masny has many holes in it for me.

Masny believes ‘God, among other things, is a crutch’ and gives his reasons for it.

Yes, people can go on, for the world is surrounded by atheists and agnostics. For those who do believe in the Bible understand that God’s blessings are not limited always to those who believe in Him and do His will.

The Bible says, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:45, NIV)

God’s blessings are not limited to those that are righteous and believe in Him. Rising of the sun and pouring of rain at the right time are seen as blessings by many people.

When a person has broken his leg, he/she would need a crutch or crutches to walk. Without them, he/she won’t be able to walk without assistance. In this instance, a crutch is needed.

If Masny’s definition of a crutch is to imply that the world would not function without God’s existence then he is right in stating that God is needed as a crutch for the world to function. You take away the crutch and you take away the support that keeps the world together just as a person whose crutch is taken away won’t be able to walk without other assistance.

However, reading his column does not make me believe that is how he wants the word to be interpreted as.

He goes on to state ‘God can help you out when you're broken. My maternal grandmother died a few years ago, and I don't think my mother would have been able to deal with the loss without the help of God. God can sometimes answer the deep spiritual questions that we face in times of crisis. For some, God serves as a moral guideline.’

He wants you to believe that the world can function outside of God. But the truth of the matter is it cannot. God is the One that keeps the world together!

Just because non-believers in God experience blessings and live there life among those who believe in God does not mean God’s existence is not needed. God’s existence is the reason why the world exists and blessings come because of His mercy.

The Bible says, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:3-4, NIV)

God cares for humanity but Masny believes God is not needed to live our lives but people want Him as a crutch to survive.

Everyone needs God whether they acknowledge it or not. They may think that they don’t need Him because things are going well in there lives and they alone are responsible for what happens.

The question becomes who is smart enough to intricately and uniquely create someone’s body with precision and give them the breath of life?

For those who believe that human beings just evolved won’t see a need to believe in God because for them God is not responsible for the human beings existence.

Contrary, to evolutionists, there is a belief that God is responsible for the creation of human beings. In this instance God is needed as a crutch for that body to have life. Wanting a crutch and needing a crutch are two different things.

The Psalmist says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:13-16, NIV)

Masny wants to make you believe that ‘using the crutch’ makes you a zombie or thoughtless person because the crutch is ‘to do the thinking for you, to make the important decisions in the place of your own rationality’

Is rationality basing decisions after examining the facts of evidence or is rationality not believing anything that does not come from your own head?

Rationality is defined as “the state of having good sense and sound judgment; the quality of being consistent with or based on logic” according to dictionary.com

When judges make decisions in the court of law, they do not just make a decision out of their head thinking, ’Oh, no if I look at the evidence presented and make my decision, then people will think that I am using the crutch [evidence presented] to do the thinking for me.

They use their God given rationality to reason by looking at the evidence presented to make their decisions in the court of law. Some may like to call it a crutch but without that crutch what standard can be used to make a decision in the court of law because evidence is the crutch.

A crutch is not a bad thing and no one should be ashamed if someone says to them that ‘God is their crutch’.

So, rationality could actually involve using a crutch whether it be evidence in the court of law or whether it be the Torah, Book of the Law. The Bible could actually be seen as a law book to help us govern our own lives.

For Masny to state, ‘But as soon as you turn to organized religion or a book for how to resolve all issues and decide the outcome of all arguments, you are placing responsibility outside yourself’ is to state that rationality begins within oneself.

Rationality is a gift given by the Author of Life who created life. God has the copyright rights to rationality and has given it to human beings as a gift. For that gift to be utilized effectively involves the help of the Author of Life who has given humanity an instruction manual for life that some like to refer to as the Bible or the Book of the Law.

Belief in God does not make human beings irrational beings. On the contrary, to be able to believe in anything, human beings have to be able to reason why they believe what they believe even when it involves God. So, there is actually rationality involved and different types of evidence help with rationality.

Proverbs 3:5-7, says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and shun evil.”

There is testimonial evidence, real evidence, and circumstantial evidence. Based on those evidence human beings are able to use deductive and inductive reasoning to come to conclusions and make rational decisions.

When you look at the Bible in its entirety, there can be found testimonial, real, and circumstantial evidence that human beings have been able to see and use deductive/inductive reasoning to come to reasons for the belief in Jesus Christ too!

The Bible says, “The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, if you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach.” (Deuteronomy 30:9-11, NIV)

For those that are wondering, most of our law books are based on codes taken from Book of Deuteronomy and Book of Leviticus.

When human beings have had God as their law giver what better place to go then to the Book of the Law to base common law and American jurisprudence on! It is being rational not to let the Book of the Law depart!

The Bible says, “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” (Joshua 1:8, NIV)

Masny goes on to say that placing responsibility outside self could be dangerous.

People are responsible for their own actions but that does not mean what is in the Book of the Law automatically becomes nullified. What is in the Book of the Law should be obeyed and followed and everyone who supposes to speak for God and His Word should be checked with the Source.

If a pastor or priest says something and it does not fit in with the Word of God, it does not mean people ought to follow it. If they do then they are placing responsibility outside of self but when they test what is stated with the Source [Word of God] and then follow it, then they are placing responsibility within self to make the right decision.

There are many who profess to speak for God but if there message is not in line with the Spirit of God, then they are not actually speaking for God.

The Bible says, ”Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”(1 John 4:1, NIV)

Masny also states, ‘people will use the Bible as evidence that homosexuality is wrong…’

Homosexuality is wrong and there are many instances of references to homosexuality in the Book of the Law. God’s law is not overturned by any Supreme Court for He is the Supreme Being and has ultimate ruling on what is right and wrong.

Our own laws including sodomy laws have been based on the Book of the Law. Just because some activist judges decide to overturn those laws and decide it is not wrong anymore does not make it right in God’s sight.

When the Bible says something is wrong then it is wrong. Any humanistic view or post-modernist view that presupposes to think their view is the right view over God’s view has missed the instruction manual for their life.

There is evidence of the authenticity and validity of the Bible. People like to think that it is not the Absolute Truth so this way they can absolve themselves of guilt and live their life in a hedonistic way. This however does not make the Bible any less true!

The Bible says, “All Scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17, NIV)

Masny goes on to say, ‘I have been experimenting with different religions and going to churches of different sects of Christianity since I was 16. The one thing that I heard almost everywhere was that "God is in control of your life, but he makes bad things happen. We can't explain why they happen because God is mysterious."’

Wherever Masny heard these statements are only half-truths. God is in control but that does not mean He will exempt us from the free will, He has given us. If that were the case then Adam and Eve would not have ever eaten from the tree of ‘Good and Evil’ because God would have stopped it but God wants us to be free to choose. God allowed them to eat it and then asked them what happened when He forbid them not to eat.

Allowing something to happen cannot be equated to making it happen. God does not make bad things happen. For someone to even say God makes bad things happen is to say that God is not Holy which is false. A Holy God will not make bad things happen! Bad things happen because of the world we live in.

When God created everything on earth, He saw that everything was good! Everything was good until the disobedience of Adam and Eve after the war in the heavenlies! Now Lucifer, the fallen angel wanted to mar God’s creation and tempted Adam and Eve. They gave into it. After their sin, death came into the world and destruction became part of the world so bad things happening can be explained.

Because of the world we live in, bad things have become part of the world. It is not God’s fault but humanity’s fault. The Good News is there will come a day when all the tears will be wiped from people’s eyes because of God’s love for the world.

Even when the world sinned and messed up, ‘God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life’, as John 3:16 states.

Masny’s idea of ‘use rationality, use science’ cannot stop bad things from happening. The Good News is that Jesus Christ can help humanity through this life and one day take us to be with Him for all those who believe that He alone can ransom people from their sin.

Jesus is the answer for death and destruction. For Jesus will one day bind all evil and there will be no more evil but only good, righteousness, and purity.

Some believe that they will just become dust and be buried. If you believe in the Bible, then there is the afterlife.

If there is no afterlife you have not lost anything but if there is an afterlife then you have lost a lot without Jesus.

God in His holiness sent Jesus Christ to ransom humanity from their sins. When God looks at us, He sees us marred with sin. A Holy God cannot let anyone enter Heaven who is carrying their load of sin. So, what happens is that they are given over to Lucifer, the fallen angel. Sin joins sin after death.

When we acknowledge that we are sinners and are filled with sin we have diagnosed ourselves with a disease. We have been infected with the virus known as sin. It is the deadliest virus ever known to mankind. This virus is responsible for the bad things that happen even to those who are seen as good. This virus infects and infects. There is only one antidote that can remove that virus from each human being. The antidote is available but it won’t be forced upon people. It is the reddest, purest antidote known to mankind. It is also the purest that can cleanse and clean any human being. When a human being accepts this antidote, he has willed to have a transfusion take place in his body. But for the transfusion to occur there are no IV’s but only wood, nails, and a body. This body is drained of the antidote to give life to all those wanting the transfusion of change.

The antidote is the blood of Christ shed for the remission of sins. When we acknowledge that we need Jesus in our lives to save us from our sins, we have actually acknowledged to God that we have been cleaned and cleansed. Now when God sees us, He sees Christ’s blood covering over us and His judgment passes over us.

Passover deals with God’s judgment not striking the first born of all those houses that have been covered with lamb’s blood. Because the angel of death saw the blood on the door post, it had to pass over them.

In the same way, Christians celebrate Passover because when God sees us covered in Christ’s cleansing blood, His judgment decides to pass over us. Jesus became the perfect sacrificial Lamb of God so judgment could pass over us.

The Bible says, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. " (Romans 6:23, NIV)

Jesus died for you and me to give us Eternal Life! Jesus loves you Daniel Masny and died for you too! You are never out of His love and never out of His reach. He loves you but won’t force you to believe in Him. You do have the free will to believe in the One who loves you and created you!

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