Political correctness

[Jess]

Human beings were not made to be perfect, and I personally don’t think that God is perfect either. If he didn’t know how to make mistakes, then how could he know how to help us when we make ours? How do you explain natural selection, the eradication of species that don’t work, if God himself wasn’t acknowledging hat he could make better, more successful animals than the ones he’s already got? Why create Lucifer at all if he was only ever meant to rebel and try and overthrow Heaven...?

I always say that if God can do anything, then why can’t he change his mind? If God was writing the Bible today, I don’t think he’d be so strict and severe about it all. The world is different now. We have science instead of miracles, we understand how the world works and we don’t have to rely on faith. We have knowledge instead. And with that knowledge, we don’t have to be afraid of what we don’t understand, because we know there’s an explanation out there if we just look for it. As such, I think that God would know that he can’t rely on ignorance and fear to command us, he’d rely on mutual respect and love so that when he had something important to tell us - not a pet peeve regarding his name - we might actually take the time to listen. He gave us free will so we could choose to follow him, not so he could control us and dictate our every thought and deed.

I really liked your theological essay, Jem; however, a few points of contention (even though I'm unsure as to how much this has to do with political correctness, but there are worse things to be discussing!):

1) Human beings were made to be perfect. It was only at the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (or the fall of man generically, if you don't take creationism literally) that we became imperfect. God gave us free will, and because they gave in to temptation we lost our perfection. God created us as an expression of His love and power, and the fact that He did so even though He knew we'd mess up just makes this love even more amazing. He didn't leave us in the messed up world, either - "He sent His only begotten Son" (John 3:16) to offer us the hope of salvation.

2) God is perfect. He knows what it's like to be truly man because He sent Jesus, who is Himself made man. If He wasn't perfect, then He couldn't be eternal. If He wasn't eternal, He must've been created. If He was created, then He's not God - the being that created Him is. Therefore, it makes no sense to talk of an imperfect God. Because He has this perfection, then He has the ability to change His mind, but He doesn't and neither does He have to. God "promised" to do something, and this will happen because "He does not lie" (Titus 1:2). In Hebrews 6:18, it also says that it is "impossible for God to lie". It is made clear in Numbers 23:19 that "God is not a man, that He should lie/Nor a Son of Man, that He should change His mind". Thus, it is made very clear in the Bible that God can't change His mind because He is perfection, and so there's no reason for Him to do so because He has a plan that is "to prosper us and not to harm us; to give us a hope and a future".

3) The world may be different, but it's also the same. Our knowledge of science is God-given, and our notions of faith and miracles can still fit in with our perceptions of the every day world.

[Zetti]

I am asian and my opinion is that asians havea sense of humour as well. People try way too hard and they dont really have, we dont bite

[rennyren]

I agree with most of the points made that political corectness has gone to far - Holidaymas, indeed! Pshaw! However, in the case of the teacher that named a teddy bear Muhammed ...

So, here's the thing. When people migrate to Australia, we expect them to abide by OUR laws. For example, no marrying cousins, no stoning people to death, no public executions (ruins all our fun! ) but when a "Westerner" disrespects another country's laws, then there's a massive dispute about it, and that is just NOT RIGHT. She was well aware of their beliefs and she chose to disrespect them, so she should be ready for the punishment. It's like if someone from another culture where, say, being a homosexual is a criminal offence punishable by death, came over here and started shooting up the Mardi Gras, then was like "Oh, but it's my CULTURE!" I highly doubt that they would be pardoned by the government.

But anyway, that's just my opinion on the whole Mohammed/teddy bear type thing. I mean, when I was young, I got a dinosaur with flashing eyes for Christmas and called it "Jesus", so if we'd had the same social structure, I would have been a goner.

[emmasi]

I named my toy dog, Dog. That's God spelled backwards!

1) Human beings were made to be perfect. It was only at the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (or the fall of man generically, if you don't take creationism literally) that we became imperfect. God gave us free will, and because they gave in to temptation we lost our perfection. God created us as an expression of His love and power, and the fact that He did so even though He knew we'd mess up just makes this love even more amazing. He didn't leave us in the messed up world, either - "He sent His only begotten Son" (John 3:16) to offer us the hope of salvation.

2) God is perfect. He knows what it's like to be truly man because He sent Jesus, who is Himself made man. If He wasn't perfect, then He couldn't be eternal. If He wasn't eternal, He must've been created. If He was created, then He's not God - the being that created Him is. Therefore, it makes no sense to talk of an imperfect God. Because He has this perfection, then He has the ability to change His mind, but He doesn't and neither does He have to. God "promised" to do something, and this will happen because "He does not lie" (Titus 1:2). In Hebrews 6:18, it also says that it is "impossible for God to lie". It is made clear in Numbers 23:19 that "God is not a man, that He should lie/Nor a Son of Man, that He should change His mind". Thus, it is made very clear in the Bible that God can't change His mind because He is perfection, and so there's no reason for Him to do so because He has a plan that is "to prosper us and not to harm us; to give us a hope and a future".

3) The world may be different, but it's also the same. Our knowledge of science is God-given, and our notions of faith and miracles can still fit in with our perceptions of the every day world.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree, because I don't buy into any of that. For a start, I'm not even so sure that there is only one God. Some days I think he's it, some days I think he created a bunch of other ones to help out. Some days I don't believe in anything but myself... and that includes thinking that the entirity of the world around me is a figment of my imagination .

Mostly I don't believe that anything should be impossible for God. Isn't that the whole point of having faith in him? The belief that he can do anything? It's all just too contradictory to get upset about, to hate people for, or to kill and die for. All religions should be taken with a grain of salt, because in the end, every bible is written down by humans, translated by others, and then changed by others again. No version of the bible today is perfectly accurate and therefore it can't be trusted as the absolute word of God. That's why I don't read it or go to church, or strictly define my beliefs by any one religion - I just say I'm Christian because I do believe 100% that Jesus existed and that he was trying to inspire people to do the right thing. I also believe that he suffered and died for me, and that's something I'm grateful for, even if I don't exactly know that it worked. But there are plenty of other people in history and mythology that have done similar things, so I can't be exclusive about it. It just takes too much effort to explain it all when people want to give you an easy lable, and I don't exactly understand my beliefs myself. I just know that there's something out there, and I don't need other people to tell me what it is, because they have no more authority about it than I do. If we're all children of God, then he should speak to us all equally. I don't need an ancient text written in a dead language to know right from wrong. I can feel that for myself, and if my feelings are wrong, then I've been made wrong, and I won't be held accountable for a manufacturing error. IF I believe in the Garden of Eden, and I believe that God always has a plan, then it must have been his plan for Adam and Eve to eat the fruit, and for the serpent to tempt them, because otherwise he wouldn't have put the tree there, nor would he have created the serpent, and he certainly wouldn't have given humans the ability to disobey him. It's all just a mental mindf*** if you think about it. And if that's the case, who wants to hang their hopes on a God who's intention from the first moment of creation was to mess with us? Doesn't make much sense to me. Especially considering that EVERYONE is punished for what two people did, before the rest of us were ever born... How is that fair? It's not. Therefore, God as shown in the Bible isn't fair, and has no sense of proportionate justice, and we should all just give up on thinking that he'll enlighten us because - unless he made a mistake in his methods, which he's since corrected - he himself lacks enlightment, because all he knows is cruelty, torture, punishment and the enslavement and subjugation of the very people he's supposed to love. That makes no sense to me at all, so I prefer to make up my own version of God, one that's more human and can be forgiven for bad judgement as much as anyone else.

[John]

It's absolutely ludicrous. The funniest thing I think I've read about it is "The Fat Controller" in Thomas the Tank Engine having to become "Sir Toppum Hat" so as not to offend!

Si, I think the Kookaburra song is more to do with a change of vocabulary than anything. Not many people immediatly associate "gay" with "happy" anymore.

I find with TV shows these days, I watch them and can immediatly spot the token multiculturalism - its most evident in adverts most of the time.

I too am a fan of kids TV, but today's shows are too "safe" and manufactured. I don't like racism, but at the same time I don't like tokenalism, and I think there's far too much of that these days.

It offends me that he's become Sir Toppum Hat!!