Author: Robert Sutherland
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1412018471
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
Many scholars find the legal metaphor of an Oath of Innocence inappropriate, though for different reasons. Some liberal scholars opt for an aesthetic, not a moral, resolution of the question of evil in the world. They find a sublime beauty in God's review of the animal and physical worlds, Behemoth and Leviathan. But that is all they find. They find no suggestions of moral purpose in God's creation and control of evil. Indeed, they feel none could be forthcoming. God is beyond good and evil so no moral resolution is possible. Since no moral resolution is possible, a legal mataphor such as a lawsuit dramatizing the moral question is inappropriate. They interpret Job to understand that position. And they interpret him to retract the lawsuit in its entirety. This author feels such liberal scholars miss a moral resolution for five reasons. (a) First, they fail to give adequate weight to Satan's first speech in heaven setting out the moral solution. (b) Second, they misinterpret Job's struggle with God to be a request for a restoration of his former position, rather than a request to know the reason behind evil in the world. (c) Third, they fail to appreciate the moral restrictions under which God has to operate. God cannot reveal any moral answers directly without defeating his very purpose in the creation and control of evil. As a result, they miss the suggestions of moral purpose in God's two speeches and the inferences God would have Job draw. (d) Fourth, they fail to fully appreciate the legal dynamics of the enforcement mechanism of Job's Oath of Innocence. In particular, they fail to appreciate the distinction between causal responsibility and moral blameworthiness. Thus, they do not understand God's comments concerning vindication and condemnation in his first speech to Job. And they do not understand Job's hesitation to proceed beyond his own vindication to a condemnation of God in Job's first speech to God. Ultimately, they fail to see Job's adjournment and continuation of his Oath of Innocence implied by the allusion to the story of Abraham and Sodom and Gomorrah in Job's final speech. (e) Finally, they fail to give full expression to God's ultimate judgement on Job. Job and only Job spoke rightly about God. In the face of such a judgement, there is no room to deny the ultimate propriety of the moral and legal question as a way of framing man's encounter with God. Some conservative scholars opt for a moral resolution of the question of evil in the world, but their resolution is equally unsatisfying. They interpret Job's so-called excessive words and his Oath of Innocence to be sins of presumption. Thus they would have Job retract his lawsuit in its entirety and repent morally for either his so-called excessive words, his raising of the lawsuit or both. This author feels such conservative scholars miss a satisfactory moral resolution for three reasons. (a) First, they fail to understand the depth of Satan's challenge to God. It is not merely that Job will curse God. It is that God is wrong in his judgement on Job's goodness. God missed sin in Job's life. Such scholars think their moral resolution is possible, because although Job sins, Job does not actually curse God. Their resolution actually makes Satan right in his challenge of God so that God should step down from his throne and destroy mankind. (b) Second, they fail to give proper weight to Job's blamelessness and integrity. The raising of the Oath of Innocence is an expression of that blamelessness and integrity. It is what God expects of Job, though he cannot tell him that directly. (c) Finally, they fail to give full expression of God's ultimate judgement on Job. Job and only Job spoke rightly about God. In the face of such a judgement, there is no room to attribute sin or wrongdoing to Job for either his so-called excessive words or for his Oath of Innocence. My personal interpretation charts a new middle course between these two-fold horrors
Putting God on Trial
Author: Robert Sutherland
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1412018471
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
Many scholars find the legal metaphor of an Oath of Innocence inappropriate, though for different reasons. Some liberal scholars opt for an aesthetic, not a moral, resolution of the question of evil in the world. They find a sublime beauty in God's review of the animal and physical worlds, Behemoth and Leviathan. But that is all they find. They find no suggestions of moral purpose in God's creation and control of evil. Indeed, they feel none could be forthcoming. God is beyond good and evil so no moral resolution is possible. Since no moral resolution is possible, a legal mataphor such as a lawsuit dramatizing the moral question is inappropriate. They interpret Job to understand that position. And they interpret him to retract the lawsuit in its entirety. This author feels such liberal scholars miss a moral resolution for five reasons. (a) First, they fail to give adequate weight to Satan's first speech in heaven setting out the moral solution. (b) Second, they misinterpret Job's struggle with God to be a request for a restoration of his former position, rather than a request to know the reason behind evil in the world. (c) Third, they fail to appreciate the moral restrictions under which God has to operate. God cannot reveal any moral answers directly without defeating his very purpose in the creation and control of evil. As a result, they miss the suggestions of moral purpose in God's two speeches and the inferences God would have Job draw. (d) Fourth, they fail to fully appreciate the legal dynamics of the enforcement mechanism of Job's Oath of Innocence. In particular, they fail to appreciate the distinction between causal responsibility and moral blameworthiness. Thus, they do not understand God's comments concerning vindication and condemnation in his first speech to Job. And they do not understand Job's hesitation to proceed beyond his own vindication to a condemnation of God in Job's first speech to God. Ultimately, they fail to see Job's adjournment and continuation of his Oath of Innocence implied by the allusion to the story of Abraham and Sodom and Gomorrah in Job's final speech. (e) Finally, they fail to give full expression to God's ultimate judgement on Job. Job and only Job spoke rightly about God. In the face of such a judgement, there is no room to deny the ultimate propriety of the moral and legal question as a way of framing man's encounter with God. Some conservative scholars opt for a moral resolution of the question of evil in the world, but their resolution is equally unsatisfying. They interpret Job's so-called excessive words and his Oath of Innocence to be sins of presumption. Thus they would have Job retract his lawsuit in its entirety and repent morally for either his so-called excessive words, his raising of the lawsuit or both. This author feels such conservative scholars miss a satisfactory moral resolution for three reasons. (a) First, they fail to understand the depth of Satan's challenge to God. It is not merely that Job will curse God. It is that God is wrong in his judgement on Job's goodness. God missed sin in Job's life. Such scholars think their moral resolution is possible, because although Job sins, Job does not actually curse God. Their resolution actually makes Satan right in his challenge of God so that God should step down from his throne and destroy mankind. (b) Second, they fail to give proper weight to Job's blamelessness and integrity. The raising of the Oath of Innocence is an expression of that blamelessness and integrity. It is what God expects of Job, though he cannot tell him that directly. (c) Finally, they fail to give full expression of God's ultimate judgement on Job. Job and only Job spoke rightly about God. In the face of such a judgement, there is no room to attribute sin or wrongdoing to Job for either his so-called excessive words or for his Oath of Innocence. My personal interpretation charts a new middle course between these two-fold horrors
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
ISBN: 1412018471
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
Many scholars find the legal metaphor of an Oath of Innocence inappropriate, though for different reasons. Some liberal scholars opt for an aesthetic, not a moral, resolution of the question of evil in the world. They find a sublime beauty in God's review of the animal and physical worlds, Behemoth and Leviathan. But that is all they find. They find no suggestions of moral purpose in God's creation and control of evil. Indeed, they feel none could be forthcoming. God is beyond good and evil so no moral resolution is possible. Since no moral resolution is possible, a legal mataphor such as a lawsuit dramatizing the moral question is inappropriate. They interpret Job to understand that position. And they interpret him to retract the lawsuit in its entirety. This author feels such liberal scholars miss a moral resolution for five reasons. (a) First, they fail to give adequate weight to Satan's first speech in heaven setting out the moral solution. (b) Second, they misinterpret Job's struggle with God to be a request for a restoration of his former position, rather than a request to know the reason behind evil in the world. (c) Third, they fail to appreciate the moral restrictions under which God has to operate. God cannot reveal any moral answers directly without defeating his very purpose in the creation and control of evil. As a result, they miss the suggestions of moral purpose in God's two speeches and the inferences God would have Job draw. (d) Fourth, they fail to fully appreciate the legal dynamics of the enforcement mechanism of Job's Oath of Innocence. In particular, they fail to appreciate the distinction between causal responsibility and moral blameworthiness. Thus, they do not understand God's comments concerning vindication and condemnation in his first speech to Job. And they do not understand Job's hesitation to proceed beyond his own vindication to a condemnation of God in Job's first speech to God. Ultimately, they fail to see Job's adjournment and continuation of his Oath of Innocence implied by the allusion to the story of Abraham and Sodom and Gomorrah in Job's final speech. (e) Finally, they fail to give full expression to God's ultimate judgement on Job. Job and only Job spoke rightly about God. In the face of such a judgement, there is no room to deny the ultimate propriety of the moral and legal question as a way of framing man's encounter with God. Some conservative scholars opt for a moral resolution of the question of evil in the world, but their resolution is equally unsatisfying. They interpret Job's so-called excessive words and his Oath of Innocence to be sins of presumption. Thus they would have Job retract his lawsuit in its entirety and repent morally for either his so-called excessive words, his raising of the lawsuit or both. This author feels such conservative scholars miss a satisfactory moral resolution for three reasons. (a) First, they fail to understand the depth of Satan's challenge to God. It is not merely that Job will curse God. It is that God is wrong in his judgement on Job's goodness. God missed sin in Job's life. Such scholars think their moral resolution is possible, because although Job sins, Job does not actually curse God. Their resolution actually makes Satan right in his challenge of God so that God should step down from his throne and destroy mankind. (b) Second, they fail to give proper weight to Job's blamelessness and integrity. The raising of the Oath of Innocence is an expression of that blamelessness and integrity. It is what God expects of Job, though he cannot tell him that directly. (c) Finally, they fail to give full expression of God's ultimate judgement on Job. Job and only Job spoke rightly about God. In the face of such a judgement, there is no room to attribute sin or wrongdoing to Job for either his so-called excessive words or for his Oath of Innocence. My personal interpretation charts a new middle course between these two-fold horrors
The Trial of God
Author: Elie Wiesel
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 0805210539
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 211
Book Description
The Trial of God (as it was held on February 25, 1649, in Shamgorod) A Play by Elie Wiesel Translated by Marion Wiesel Introduction by Robert McAfee Brown Afterword by Matthew Fox Where is God when innocent human beings suffer? This drama lays bare the most vexing questions confronting the moral imagination. Set in a Ukranian village in the year 1649, this haunting play takes place in the aftermath of a pogrom. Only two Jews, Berish the innkeeper and his daughter Hannah, have survived the brutal Cossack raids. When three itinerant actors arrive in town to perform a Purim play, Berish demands that they stage a mock trial of God instead, indicting Him for His silence in the face of evil. Berish, a latter-day Job, is ready to take on the role of prosecutor. But who will defend God? A mysterious stranger named Sam, who seems oddly familiar to everyone present, shows up just in time to volunteer. The idea for this play came from an event that Elie Wiesel witnessed as a boy in Auschwitz: “Three rabbis—all erudite and pious men—decided one evening to indict God for allowing His children to be massacred. I remember: I was there, and I felt like crying. But there nobody cried.” Inspired and challenged by this play, Christian theologians Robert McAfee Brown and Matthew Fox, in a new Introduction and Afterword, join Elie Wiesel in the search for faith in a world where God is silent.
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 0805210539
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 211
Book Description
The Trial of God (as it was held on February 25, 1649, in Shamgorod) A Play by Elie Wiesel Translated by Marion Wiesel Introduction by Robert McAfee Brown Afterword by Matthew Fox Where is God when innocent human beings suffer? This drama lays bare the most vexing questions confronting the moral imagination. Set in a Ukranian village in the year 1649, this haunting play takes place in the aftermath of a pogrom. Only two Jews, Berish the innkeeper and his daughter Hannah, have survived the brutal Cossack raids. When three itinerant actors arrive in town to perform a Purim play, Berish demands that they stage a mock trial of God instead, indicting Him for His silence in the face of evil. Berish, a latter-day Job, is ready to take on the role of prosecutor. But who will defend God? A mysterious stranger named Sam, who seems oddly familiar to everyone present, shows up just in time to volunteer. The idea for this play came from an event that Elie Wiesel witnessed as a boy in Auschwitz: “Three rabbis—all erudite and pious men—decided one evening to indict God for allowing His children to be massacred. I remember: I was there, and I felt like crying. But there nobody cried.” Inspired and challenged by this play, Christian theologians Robert McAfee Brown and Matthew Fox, in a new Introduction and Afterword, join Elie Wiesel in the search for faith in a world where God is silent.
God on Trial
Author: Peter H. Irons
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780670038510
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 396
Book Description
A detailed examination of five recent landmark court battles over the separation of church and state offers coverage of the cases from both sides, from the 1989 challenge of a cross in a San Diego public park to the 2004 fight by parents who objected to the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board's decision to mandate the teaching of intelligent design.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780670038510
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 396
Book Description
A detailed examination of five recent landmark court battles over the separation of church and state offers coverage of the cases from both sides, from the 1989 challenge of a cross in a San Diego public park to the 2004 fight by parents who objected to the Dover, Pennsylvania, school board's decision to mandate the teaching of intelligent design.
Jesus on Trial
Author: David Limbaugh
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 1621572552
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
In Jesus on Trial, New York Times bestselling author David Limbaugh applies his lifetime of legal experience to a unique new undertaking: making a case for the gospels as hard evidence of the life and work of Jesus Christ. Limbaugh, a practicing attorney and former professor of law, approaches the canonical gospels with the same level of scrutiny he would apply to any legal document and asks all the necessary questions about the story of Jesus told through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. His analysis of the texts becomes profoundly personal as he reflects on his own spiritual and intellectual odyssey from determined skeptic to devout Christian. Ultimately, Limbaugh concludes that the words Christians have treasured for centuries stand up to his exhaustive enquiry—including his examination of historical and religious evidence beyond the gospels—and thereby affirms Christian faith, spirituality, and tradition.
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
ISBN: 1621572552
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 418
Book Description
In Jesus on Trial, New York Times bestselling author David Limbaugh applies his lifetime of legal experience to a unique new undertaking: making a case for the gospels as hard evidence of the life and work of Jesus Christ. Limbaugh, a practicing attorney and former professor of law, approaches the canonical gospels with the same level of scrutiny he would apply to any legal document and asks all the necessary questions about the story of Jesus told through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. His analysis of the texts becomes profoundly personal as he reflects on his own spiritual and intellectual odyssey from determined skeptic to devout Christian. Ultimately, Limbaugh concludes that the words Christians have treasured for centuries stand up to his exhaustive enquiry—including his examination of historical and religious evidence beyond the gospels—and thereby affirms Christian faith, spirituality, and tradition.
God on Trial
Author: Richard W. Morris
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780741457554
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780741457554
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Sparks of Redemptive Grace - Seeking and Seeing God Amid a Loved One's Mental Illness
Author: Catherine P. Downing
Publisher: HIS Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780578177175
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 96
Book Description
Mental illness impacts millions of families each year. Sparks of Redemptive Grace provides an authentic view of one family's transparent hope in God's unfailing love, hewn in the fires of fear and faith.
Publisher: HIS Publishing Group
ISBN: 9780578177175
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 96
Book Description
Mental illness impacts millions of families each year. Sparks of Redemptive Grace provides an authentic view of one family's transparent hope in God's unfailing love, hewn in the fires of fear and faith.
Keeping Faith
Author: Jodi Picoult
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061981729
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
“A triumph. This novel’s haunting strength will hold the reader until the very end and make Faith and her story impossible to forget.” —Richmond Times Dispatch “Extraordinary.” —Orlando Sentinel From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes, Change of Heart, Handle with Care) comes Keeping Faith: an “addictively readable” (Entertainment Weekly) novel that “makes you wonder about God. And that is a rare moment, indeed, in modern fiction” (USA Today).
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061981729
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 450
Book Description
“A triumph. This novel’s haunting strength will hold the reader until the very end and make Faith and her story impossible to forget.” —Richmond Times Dispatch “Extraordinary.” —Orlando Sentinel From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes, Change of Heart, Handle with Care) comes Keeping Faith: an “addictively readable” (Entertainment Weekly) novel that “makes you wonder about God. And that is a rare moment, indeed, in modern fiction” (USA Today).
A Year of Biblical Womanhood
Author: Rachel Held Evans
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
ISBN: 1595553673
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 349
Book Description
New York Times Bestseller. With just the right mixture of humor and insight, compassion and incredulity, A Year of Biblical Womanhood is an exercise in scriptural exploration and spiritual contemplation. What does God truly expect of women, and is there really a prescription for biblical womanhood? Come along with Evans as she looks for answers in the rich heritage of biblical heroines, models of grace, and all-around women of valor. What is "biblical womanhood" . . . really? Strong-willed and independent, Rachel Held Evans couldn't sew a button on a blouse before she embarked on a radical life experiment--a year of biblical womanhood. Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible's instructions for women as literally as possible for a year. Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a "gentle and quiet spirit" (1 Peter 3:4). It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period. See what happens when a thoroughly modern woman starts referring to her husband as "master" and "praises him at the city gate" with a homemade sign. Learn the insights she receives from an ongoing correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish woman, and find out what she discovers from her exchanges with a polygamist wife. Join her as she wrestles with difficult passages of scripture that portray misogyny and violence against women.
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Inc
ISBN: 1595553673
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 349
Book Description
New York Times Bestseller. With just the right mixture of humor and insight, compassion and incredulity, A Year of Biblical Womanhood is an exercise in scriptural exploration and spiritual contemplation. What does God truly expect of women, and is there really a prescription for biblical womanhood? Come along with Evans as she looks for answers in the rich heritage of biblical heroines, models of grace, and all-around women of valor. What is "biblical womanhood" . . . really? Strong-willed and independent, Rachel Held Evans couldn't sew a button on a blouse before she embarked on a radical life experiment--a year of biblical womanhood. Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible's instructions for women as literally as possible for a year. Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a "gentle and quiet spirit" (1 Peter 3:4). It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period. See what happens when a thoroughly modern woman starts referring to her husband as "master" and "praises him at the city gate" with a homemade sign. Learn the insights she receives from an ongoing correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish woman, and find out what she discovers from her exchanges with a polygamist wife. Join her as she wrestles with difficult passages of scripture that portray misogyny and violence against women.
The Master's Mind
Author: Lance Hahn
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0718038592
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
God Wants to Help You Overcome Your Greatest Battle of All What we think and believe determines who we are. If that’s so, then why are we so insecure, defensive, lonely, empty, fearful, depressed, self-absorbed, dysfunctional, angry and confused? We are a mess. But that’s not what God has in mind for us. In fact, the Master has hope, strength, beauty, joy, love, creativity, freedom, power, peace, patience, goodness, laughter, organization, effectiveness and purpose for us. So, what went wrong? We lost our identity in our sin. We’ve become unanchored, tossed about on the sea of a million influences, none of which is our Master’s heart or mind. Between the world, the flesh and the devil, we don’t know what to think and therefore our lives are filled with hurt, pain and regret. Someone is running the show in our minds and it’s not us, at least not the real us, nor the real owner. Jesus is not okay with this. He died to save us from our sins and set us free. He made a way for our souls to be rescued from our enemies. He bought the territory of our minds and planted His flag of holy ground. It’s time for us to get angry enough to take back control of our minds, to master them and bring them back in alignment with the Master’s will. It’s time to return to The Master’s Mind.
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
ISBN: 0718038592
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
God Wants to Help You Overcome Your Greatest Battle of All What we think and believe determines who we are. If that’s so, then why are we so insecure, defensive, lonely, empty, fearful, depressed, self-absorbed, dysfunctional, angry and confused? We are a mess. But that’s not what God has in mind for us. In fact, the Master has hope, strength, beauty, joy, love, creativity, freedom, power, peace, patience, goodness, laughter, organization, effectiveness and purpose for us. So, what went wrong? We lost our identity in our sin. We’ve become unanchored, tossed about on the sea of a million influences, none of which is our Master’s heart or mind. Between the world, the flesh and the devil, we don’t know what to think and therefore our lives are filled with hurt, pain and regret. Someone is running the show in our minds and it’s not us, at least not the real us, nor the real owner. Jesus is not okay with this. He died to save us from our sins and set us free. He made a way for our souls to be rescued from our enemies. He bought the territory of our minds and planted His flag of holy ground. It’s time for us to get angry enough to take back control of our minds, to master them and bring them back in alignment with the Master’s will. It’s time to return to The Master’s Mind.
Blameless in Abaddon
Author: James Morrow
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 057508149X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
In Towing Jehovah, the discovery of the two-mile-long corpse of God in the mid-Atlantic proved a serious menace to both navigation and to faith. But was God truly dead, as the nihilists and the New York Times believed? In Blameless in Abaddon, His body - comatose yet far from inert - has been hauled from its temporary resting place in the Arctic to Florida, where it has become the Main Attraction at Orlando's Celestial City USA. And now one Martin Candle, a small-time and sore-afflicted judge practicing in Abaddon Township, Pennsylvania, proposes further travels for the Corpus Dei: to the World Court in The Hague, to answer for history's injustices large and small. In his quest to counter the world's great theodicies, Martin embarks on an astonishing odyssey through the mind of the Creator, where Lot's wife proves a most convenient way of adding salt to a margarita glass, early hominids vigorously debate Augustinian doctrine over jasmine tea, and Martin's alter ego, Job, keeps an eternal vigil atop his dung heap. Once the Trial of the Millennium has begun, Martin will understand why Abaddon is another name for Hell. God hunting simply is not a sport for amateurs.
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 057508149X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
In Towing Jehovah, the discovery of the two-mile-long corpse of God in the mid-Atlantic proved a serious menace to both navigation and to faith. But was God truly dead, as the nihilists and the New York Times believed? In Blameless in Abaddon, His body - comatose yet far from inert - has been hauled from its temporary resting place in the Arctic to Florida, where it has become the Main Attraction at Orlando's Celestial City USA. And now one Martin Candle, a small-time and sore-afflicted judge practicing in Abaddon Township, Pennsylvania, proposes further travels for the Corpus Dei: to the World Court in The Hague, to answer for history's injustices large and small. In his quest to counter the world's great theodicies, Martin embarks on an astonishing odyssey through the mind of the Creator, where Lot's wife proves a most convenient way of adding salt to a margarita glass, early hominids vigorously debate Augustinian doctrine over jasmine tea, and Martin's alter ego, Job, keeps an eternal vigil atop his dung heap. Once the Trial of the Millennium has begun, Martin will understand why Abaddon is another name for Hell. God hunting simply is not a sport for amateurs.