Because I'm Happy...

Right now I'm studying for a DSST (similar to CLEP) test, Ethics in America.  Well... technically I'm supposed to be studying that right this moment, but I keep getting distracted.... So here I am!  Anyway, here's the most recent thing that's making it a little more challenging for me to focus:

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As I've been reading Moral Philosophy:  Theories and Issues (which really is excellently and understandably written, in my opinion) and listening to lectures online from a Harvard professor on the same topic, I've begun to notice a trend.  There's a commonality among many of the theories and viewpoints I've studied thus far:  Happiness.  For example,

                    Moral Egoism:

It's always morally acceptable for a person to do
what he/she believes to be in his/her own self-interest.
(If I make someone else happy while making myself
happy, that's great!  Furthermore, if making someone
else happy makes me unhappy, that's bad.)

                    Utilitarianism:

People should be morally guided by whatever will
maximize pleasure and well-being of the majority.

                    Moral Subjectivism:

Whatever a person believes to be right or wrong IS
right or wrong for them, as influenced by their happiness
and emotions.
                    Kant:  Claims that all who are rational
necessarily pursue or desire happiness.

Now, these and so many other ideas are based on the worldly and seemingly logical thought that the pinnacle of human experience is happiness.  That so, it also seems only logical to do whatever one can to be as happy as possible as much and for as long as possible.  Right?  Of course right!  Right, unless you aren't supposed to be living as someone who's a part of this world.  (Ephesians 4:17-32, 1 Peter 2:11-12)

During Bible study this week, one thing that really stuck with my was from a discussion we had concerning the fruit of the Spirit.  Basically, we went through and considered the difference between the worldly concepts of love, joy, peace, and so on; and the biblical concepts of the same.  When we came to joy and peace it struck me that the world has, I think, rather warped definitions.  To the world, peace seems to mean a lack of hostility, noise, chaos, etc., whereas true, biblical peace is something which can only come from God Himself, and is characterized by a calm and quiet spirit.  To the world, joy is synonymous with happiness -- if you're sad or unhappy or hurt, you cannot possibly be happy or joyful.  On the other hand, biblical joy really has nothing to do with happiness or some lack of happiness.  Rather, it has everything to do with choosing to let God's peace and control take over in your life; to be content in whatever situation is going on, whether good or bad, easy or challenging; and to focus on serving God and others before yourself.

Please don't get me wrong!  I'm certainly not meaning to insinuate that I dislike being happy - I love hugs and being around people who make me laugh and doing fun things! - or that happiness is somehow a bad or wrong thing in and of itself.  The point I guess I'm trying to make here is that happiness seems to have become such a god in virtually every society, such an all-consuming goal, that these theories I'm studying and people in general forget that there is a higher calling and greater purpose found in loving and obeying God.

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Whew!  Okay, if you read all that and were able to follow my unedited, rambling, I-sure-hope-she-actually-has-a-point style, kudos!  Seriously.

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Quick side note here -- I genuinely enjoy Pharrell Williams's song "Happy" and find myself singing along every time I hear it.  The title of this post just happens to coincide directly with the most commonly sung phrase in that song.  ;)

Real or Not Real

I wrote this while I was in the ER, on February 20.  I may or may not have been on pain medication, which fact I'm counting on to cover for the title being straight out of a certain book authored by Suzanne Collins, which I don't really like very much (but that's another conversation).  Anyway, here (word for original word) is what my slightly delirious brain caused me to scribble down in between middle-of-the-night checkups.

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It seems to me, if a thing is said to be real, it may only truly be so when its reality has been tested.  Until that point its reality is only a supposition, which by nature may be flawed, thereby making it (in part) unreal.  If any part of this thing is unreal, the integrity of the entire thing cannot be trusted.

The point when one may surely trust the thing as being real is when the false stuff has been burned up and knocked off by other things, situations, people, etc., which have themselves been proved really real by a similar process.

This would, of course, lead to circular reasoning on my part but for this:
There is an ultimate, final Tester.  God, who is Himself Truth and its Creator, is the solid line past which no untrue (false or "not real") thing may venture, even to the tiniest smudge on the solidity of reality.

Now we, as flawed (fallen) humans with our incomplete ways of thinking and going about things, will surely faltering in providing "reality checks" and such.  This by no means lessens the purity of things that are real and true; only our perceptions of them.

One day -- a day I do greatly look forward to -- you and I will be able to finally, fully comprehend real reality in its loveliest sense, I'm sure.

Theory of Abnormality

Here's a slightly sillier thought for ya:

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Assume the words "different," "weird," and "abnormal" are synonymous here.

A lot of people get accused of being abnormal by others who typically consider themselves to be normal.

However, by my observations, and general consensus, most people, if not all, have some sort of abnormality about them.

This being so, it is more normal to be abnormal than it is to lack abnormality.

Therefore, so-called normal people are the truly weird ones, and those they accuse of weirdness are more normal by commonality, if not popularity.

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And there ya have it, you fellow weirdos.

Off Guard

"...On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is?  Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth?  If there are rats in a cellar you are more likely to see them if you go in very suddenly.  But the suddenness does not create the rats, it only prevents them from hiding."  (Mere Christianity, p.163)

I never really thought of it this way before, how when I act or react in ways I shouldn't (that is, ways that aren't Christlike) it isn't that I can be excused by having been caught off guard.  No, rather, it's that my core self sprang up first.  This is the self that needs to be traded in each instance for Christ-likeness, since it's a remainder of my old self which must not be allowed to remain.

Feelin' It

Because my faith isn't based in or founded upon emotions -- though they truly are a result or side effect of things revealed by this faith -- I have no excuse for my actions or attitude on the basis of emotions.  "I just don't feel like being Christlike today." "I'm not feeling up to praying (or spending time in God's Word, or sharing my testimony, or being joyful) right now.  Maybe I'll be more in the mood for that later."

Seriously, what is that?  Why is this even an issue?  It certainly is an issue for me, at least, and I'm sure I'm not alone here.

Regardless of where it comes from, why it's there, and all that, I firmly believe it is a remnant of the old me -- my fleshly, worldly self.  And therefore, this attitude absolutely must be discarded and replaced with a spirit of submission to God's will and an attitude of joy and thanks.

Be Infected with Christ

"There are lots of things which your conscience might not call definitely wrong (specially things in your mind) but which you will see at once you cannot go on doing if you are seriously trying to be like Christ."  (Mere Christianity, p. 161)

If this is so, then stands to reason that I ought to -- indeed, I believe I am obligated tot -- conform and reform my conscience to match biblical, Christlike behavior.  By God's grace and a great deal of His help, this is a realistic goal (unattainable in this life, though it is).

And remember:  I am (you are) not alone in this transformation process!

"If there were no help from Christ, there would be no help from other human beings.  He works on us in all sorts of ways: not only through what we think our 'religious life'."  (MC, p. 161)

Heads up!

It's been a while since I last posted, but here's a heads up:

I've been slowly inching my way through C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, and have some thoughts I'll be sharing that I wrote down as I've been reading.  Please let me know what you think, and what your thoughts are.

There will probably be some posts mixed in, as well, that don't really have anything to do with Mere Christianity, but the same is true for them:  Speak up!  :)