Scoring Points Through Service to others:

Point to ponder--How is our view of those we are called to teach, or serve limited or constrained by our human feelings, thoughts, and emotions?

This post was inspired by a a friend who posed these questions as a Christian. I am thinking about them as a Humanist.

Are we shepherding? Are we serving? Are we teaching? Are we doing all that we are called to do?

My impression is that a lot of "service" is actually self serving and doesn't take into account the recipient. In other words, it's not done selflessly - it's done to score points. And that sort of defeats the purpose. Serving for the sake of serving. That's powerful! The people I know who truly serve in the best sense of the word are some of the most amazing people I know.

If you want to serve, do the people you want to help a favor. Find out from them what they need first and what they think will be helpful. Don’t just assume you know and for goodness sakes, don’t force yourself on people who don’t want your help!

A Good Book

Not to brag or anything, but when your Christian mother in law likes your new book about Humanism, A LOT, you’re doing something right. She called me the other day to tell me she was reading “a good book.” Not the good book, mind you, but a very good book. It was mine. She likes it so much she is planning to share it with others. Did I mention she is a Christian? And that my book is about Humanism? And that the people she is planning to share my book with are Christians?

What she said she liked about my book is that it is filled with just plain old common sense. The sort of stuff her preacher talks about. Living a good life isn’t rocket science. It just requires common sense, which, unfortunately, isn’t always common, and sometimes doesn’t make a lot of sense until someone explains it to you explicitly. But then, once you understand the reasons why, it makes perfect sense and your understanding of the world is more complete as a result.

Humanism is a lot like that. It’s simple. It makes a lot of sense, and is born out of common sense. But until or unless someone explains it to you, it remains a mystery. The other thing this experience teaches is that it is possible to explain Humanism and its emphasis on secularism in a way that makes sense to people of faith and in a way they will listen to, seek out and accept without the knee jerk reaction that characterizes most interactions between atheists and people of faith.

See what a good book can do for you? And yes, I realize this is a shameless plug for my new book, but honestly I couldn't think of any way to not plug the book and share this really cool story- so deal with it! LOL.

A Quick Tip

If you think the bible is too liberal and needs to be re-written to reflect a more conservative viewpoint, then you might want to consider this chilling possibility. You may be a Christian in name only and the religion you think you are practicing is probably not Christianity. My quick tip of the week is to actually read the bible for yourself instead of waiting for the conservative re-write. After all, if the good book has worked well for the past 1,500 years, then perhaps it is fine the way it already is.