IGNORING THE OBVIOUS
One of my sons gave me an audiobook called STEVE JOBS for Christmas. I had a lot of driving around to do that week, so I heard all seven CD's in the book. I am a huge Apple fan going back to 1984, and am most appreciative for the phenomenal intuitiveness and elegance of their designs. Jobs was in many ways a tyrant about design and interface, and it was not very easy to work with him. Yet his demand for a high level of refinement in an industry known for many clunky devices worked wonders long term for the company. Apple is now the world's most valuable company, passing Microsoft, Exxon, et al.
Steve had a massive temper and could be a royal pain to work with. He was demanding to the nth degree and had no tolerance for sloppiness or inelegance. On a hospital bed in Memphis before his liver transplant, the nurse put a mask on his which he deemed to be "ugly". He ripped it off his face and demanded they bring his five new designs to make the mask acceptable esthetically! They had to forcibly put it back on! Such were his compulsions. He was demanding about the design of the INSIDE of the cases of Apple products. On one, he had the project team put their names down which appeared inside the case.
All this makes it all the more stunning that Steve Jobs rejected God at an early age. As a young teen he saw pictures of starving children in Biafra. He determined there could therefore be no God. Now I never discard the problem of suffering, because it has tripped up many. However, God did not cause that disaster. It was a fruit of man's inhumanity to other men in a fallen world. We cannot blame God for human sin. Rather, we need to come to him to be delivered out of sin.
Steve Jobs studied Zen. He went to India for a time. He meditated. He explored Buddhism. He had a strict vegetarian diet. With all this, he never really found much other than some principals such as simplicity being the greatest elegance and other proverbs he put into practice. About the only time he considered whether there was a God was when he heard Yo-Yo Ma play Bach on the Cello.
The tragedy is that one of the most focused and successful managers of design in the world, who prided himself on the marriage of art and technology, seemed totally blinded to the most obvious facts in the world.
- We live in a universe of impeccable design - like a Bulova watch, it is precise and man has been able to rely on times and seasons and years for time immemorial.
- Our bodies are a testament to a more compulsive designer than Steve Jobs. Especially beautiful women such as my wife! God could have made us with one eye. He gave us two. The proportions and relationships of the parts are so engraved in our psyche that if you design a house in accordance with the principles of the design of the body, people will like it. When you deviate in a deconstructivist fashion, it is a hard sell.
- Even a single cell is more complicated than ANY Apple device. It is no more plausible that it evolved from premordial slime than an I-Phone "happened" when a car crashed through an electronics part store window and upset all the bins (now it may be plausible to believe that with a Windows computer!)
- The ability of man to create is not explainable in any other way than we are made in the image of a Creator. Other than by the Word of God, there is no explanation for how information came to be.
The ignorance of Steve Jobs on the most important issue of life is stunning. Unfortunately, he is not alone. Atheism is surging in this country due to years of largely unchallenged indoctrination of the young and inadequate answers from those who know God.
Our challenge today is to have answers for those who begin with honest questions before they are hardened in their unbelief. In a recent piece I wrote on Christopher Hitchens, I had not been adequately prepared to counter all his arguments. The Holy Spirit has shown me, but Christian education should prepare our Christian youth so that when they go to college they will not be shaken. Instead of Christian videos and rock bands, we need to study to show ourselves approved. I went to very serious church, and studied the cults and answers to some of the hard questions. I have followed apologetics for a long time and devote time to it. However, the assault today requires considerable effort to counter. It is not good enough to simply repeat the mantra, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." While God's word is sufficient in and of itself, we need to know the Bible inside out and how to harmonize difficult passages.
JESUS spent a lot of time correcting the scribes and Pharisees and other members of the educational elite of his day. We have the same Spirit in us if we are submitted to Christ, so we should be able to be just as effective in countering that which is against the heart of God.
If we are not, we will join the ever-increasing flock of skeptics. It is not just at Harvard and Yale my friends. The preponderance of seminary graduates today DO NOT believe that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone. They believe that is OUR way, but that there are OTHER ways for other people.
You have been designed to glorify God. Let us do that with new resolve!
Steve had a massive temper and could be a royal pain to work with. He was demanding to the nth degree and had no tolerance for sloppiness or inelegance. On a hospital bed in Memphis before his liver transplant, the nurse put a mask on his which he deemed to be "ugly". He ripped it off his face and demanded they bring his five new designs to make the mask acceptable esthetically! They had to forcibly put it back on! Such were his compulsions. He was demanding about the design of the INSIDE of the cases of Apple products. On one, he had the project team put their names down which appeared inside the case.
All this makes it all the more stunning that Steve Jobs rejected God at an early age. As a young teen he saw pictures of starving children in Biafra. He determined there could therefore be no God. Now I never discard the problem of suffering, because it has tripped up many. However, God did not cause that disaster. It was a fruit of man's inhumanity to other men in a fallen world. We cannot blame God for human sin. Rather, we need to come to him to be delivered out of sin.
Steve Jobs studied Zen. He went to India for a time. He meditated. He explored Buddhism. He had a strict vegetarian diet. With all this, he never really found much other than some principals such as simplicity being the greatest elegance and other proverbs he put into practice. About the only time he considered whether there was a God was when he heard Yo-Yo Ma play Bach on the Cello.
The tragedy is that one of the most focused and successful managers of design in the world, who prided himself on the marriage of art and technology, seemed totally blinded to the most obvious facts in the world.
- We live in a universe of impeccable design - like a Bulova watch, it is precise and man has been able to rely on times and seasons and years for time immemorial.
- Our bodies are a testament to a more compulsive designer than Steve Jobs. Especially beautiful women such as my wife! God could have made us with one eye. He gave us two. The proportions and relationships of the parts are so engraved in our psyche that if you design a house in accordance with the principles of the design of the body, people will like it. When you deviate in a deconstructivist fashion, it is a hard sell.
- Even a single cell is more complicated than ANY Apple device. It is no more plausible that it evolved from premordial slime than an I-Phone "happened" when a car crashed through an electronics part store window and upset all the bins (now it may be plausible to believe that with a Windows computer!)
- The ability of man to create is not explainable in any other way than we are made in the image of a Creator. Other than by the Word of God, there is no explanation for how information came to be.
The ignorance of Steve Jobs on the most important issue of life is stunning. Unfortunately, he is not alone. Atheism is surging in this country due to years of largely unchallenged indoctrination of the young and inadequate answers from those who know God.
Our challenge today is to have answers for those who begin with honest questions before they are hardened in their unbelief. In a recent piece I wrote on Christopher Hitchens, I had not been adequately prepared to counter all his arguments. The Holy Spirit has shown me, but Christian education should prepare our Christian youth so that when they go to college they will not be shaken. Instead of Christian videos and rock bands, we need to study to show ourselves approved. I went to very serious church, and studied the cults and answers to some of the hard questions. I have followed apologetics for a long time and devote time to it. However, the assault today requires considerable effort to counter. It is not good enough to simply repeat the mantra, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it." While God's word is sufficient in and of itself, we need to know the Bible inside out and how to harmonize difficult passages.
JESUS spent a lot of time correcting the scribes and Pharisees and other members of the educational elite of his day. We have the same Spirit in us if we are submitted to Christ, so we should be able to be just as effective in countering that which is against the heart of God.
If we are not, we will join the ever-increasing flock of skeptics. It is not just at Harvard and Yale my friends. The preponderance of seminary graduates today DO NOT believe that we are justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone. They believe that is OUR way, but that there are OTHER ways for other people.
You have been designed to glorify God. Let us do that with new resolve!
posted by John | 10:18 AM
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