Welcome to LifePlace
Pick your starting place and jump in, or read the intro below first if you like:
I'd Just Like To Find Peace in Life
I Want to Find Peace with God
I'm An Atheist or Agnostic
I'm Skeptical About Jesus
I'm Hostile to Christianity
I'm Curious About Jesus
I'm Of A Faith Different Than Christianity
I'm A Christian
INTRODUCTION
As fellow-travelers with you in a world that presents both awe-striking beauty and mind-numbing evil, we understand the incredible tensions of the age. The media pours forth images that mix a constant stream of natural wonders, shocking devastation, and bewildering problems. Technology dazzles us with life-changing advancements, but promised answers to life's problems seem to constantly elude us into a fog of conflict, chaos and fragmentation.
Have we lost our way and is there even a 'way' to lose? Are there answers or just ever-increasing questions?
We believe that the solution is not as complex as it might seem to be. The heart of the problem lies in a basic confusion. We have lost sight of one simple fact, which is this; some things change and some things don't. That doesn't sound like a blazingly profound insight, does it? We said it was simple, but before you mistake the notion of 'simple' for 'simplistic', we would like to invite you in for a chat. We believe that a very profound wisdom for life comes by understanding what changes in our universe and what doesn't, and by acting accordingly. We also believe that a number of factors in modern life make understanding this simple distinction profoundly difficult.
SOME THINGS DON'T CHANGE
When we say that some things don't change, all we mean is that the universe has a certain FORM. For example, there are physical laws like gravity and motion that affect everything we do at all times. We either learn to respect these laws or we suffer painful consequences. The laws don't change for our convenience, for our excuses, for our special circumstances or anything else. We are born into a universe with these laws already in place and we learn to conform our lives to them. We may test them, question them, study them, even challenge them, but we dare not ignore them.
These unchanging laws are signals to us that the universe has a definite form that we need to grow to understand and respect. People refer to these unchanging laws with various terms such as 'laws', 'absolutes' or 'universals'. These are principles in the universe that are fixed and unchanging. They are ultimate, absolute, universal and eternal. We can choose to resist and fight these principles, or choose to live in cooperation with them. The first approach brings destruction and death to our lives and the second brings life. That's why we call this 'LifePlace'. We believe that within this unchanging form of the universe there is an unchanging source of life behind it that brings good things our way when we understand and adapt to it. Opposing this source of life inevitably brings pain and destruction to us, even though we may not feel the consequences immediately. If I fall off a roof, the law of gravity tells me that I will hit the ground. If I fall off the roof of my house I will hit the ground sooner than if I fall off a skyscraper, but either way I will eventually hit the ground.
SOME THINGS DO CHANGE
WITHIN the form of the universe a lot of things DO change. This is where the confusion sets in. Especially throughout the 20th century and now into the 21st, we have seen staggering developments in technological capability. These wonders have set us up to have a cocky and arrogant attitude. We have developed a sense of hubris that leads us moderners to believe it is just a matter of time before we conquer, command and control everything about the universe. We've come to assume that if we encounter an obstacle we can eventually figure out how to overcome it and shape it into a form that is suitable to our needs. In other words, we either ARE God or we are on our way to being God.
When I was a kid the 'Jetsons' was a popular TV cartoon that incorporated all kinds of ideas about what life would be like in the future. It was a futuristic family that enjoyed flying cars, robotic servants, instant teleporters and many other things that science fiction has long projected as inevitable future developments. But we have found that translating our imaginations into real life requires our ideas to conform to the realities of the laws of both physics and economics. Some of those science fiction gadgets have come to pass, but many haven't.
No doubt technological developments can and will continue to bring wonders to us, but the point is that they will come WITHIN the demanding and restrictive laws of the universe. Advancing technology is fascinating to all of us, but this technology develops within the parameters of the form of the universe which does NOT change. The question is --- how are we to discern this unchanging form and structure of the universe? How can we best detect its limits and unlock its secrets? And while we are chasing our technological dreams with vast sums of time, money and brain-power, we should also be asking ourselves why it is that in so many ways the human condition remains in misery and even continues to get worse?
HOW DO WE KNOW?
The problem is that we humans have developed myopia about how to know the form of the universe. For several centuries our philosophers thought REASON would unlock all the mysteries to us and when that proved limited we turned to EMPIRICISM. We really do tend toward tunnel-vision when it comes to the area of knowledge. It seems we have forgotten that much of what we consider to be good about Western Civilization came out of a world-view that embraced REVELATION, which now receives only contempt and scorn from the academic, scientific and technological realms of study. Accepting the need for and validity of Revelation does not exclude the use of Reason or Empiricism as well as some of the other proposed paths to knowledge. But finding how these knowledge sources can and should work together is essential to getting a picture of the FULL breadth of universal principles. It is all well and good to develop faster computers and cutting-edge medical breakthroughs, but why is it, with the development of all these technological wonders, that humans continue to kill and steal and do abominable things to one another? We're riveted on technology while the human condition is descending into the abyss.
We'll say right up front that we are coming from the historic Judeo-Christian point of view, and will endeavor to demonstrate why we believe this perspective is imminently reasonable and preferable. But before you tune out and click away from here, we would like to ask you if you have ever truly and honestly considered what made this world-view the driving-force of Western Civilization for so many centuries? If you have, you're an exception, because most people deal with caricatures of Christianity, not the real thing.
This site is arranged so you don't have to wade through a lot of information. The structure allows you to start from wherever you are. You are welcome to read everything, but you might prefer to have an entry point that resonates with how you see the world. Choose a jumping in place below and give me the privilege of having a 'digital' conversation somewhat like what would happen if we sat down together. Although I would much prefer to chat with you in person, I'll do my best with the virtual world and invite you to 'follow the white rabbit', so to speak.*
I'd Just Like To Find Peace in Life
I Want to Find Peace with God
I'm An Atheist or Agnostic
I'm Skeptical About Jesus
I'm Hostile to Christianity
I'm Curious About Jesus
I'm Of A Faith Different Than Christianity
I'm A Christian
* A line from the film, The Matrix, where Neo is led out of his entrapment in the virtual world of the Matrix by being told to 'follow the white rabbit'.