Friday, May 30
Anti-Dating Pastor Who Says You Can't Leave A Church Exposed In Sex Abuse Coverup
Liberty Students Denied Liberty To Exempt Themselves From Cultic Indoctrination
Issue Of Personhood Foundational In Bioethical Debates
Perhaps the most fundamental concern raised by a standpoint informed by the principles of the Bible is none other than personhood. Though something we each possess, its value varies drastically depending on the worldview each of us brings to the concept.
For example, to the person living out a consistently evolutionary or materialistic perspective, the idea of personhood is not that important since it is merely an arbitrarily contrived social and intellectual construct with no inherent worth other than what we decide to give it. Thus, it is no major concern if the concept is altered to exclude those at the extreme ends of life’s continuum unable to sustain themselves apart from intensive medical intervention.
However, if one approaches the matter from the Judeo-Christian perspective, the concept of personhood impacts dramatically the techniques and procedures one finds morally justifiable. Since man is made in the image of God, the life and spirit of man (his personhood if you will) is unique in all of creation. As such, it is due a respect placing it just below the reverence due God Himself.
Since the human being holds a special place in the heart of God, it is God Himself that establishes the guidelines regarding how we are permitted to relate to and treat other human beings. In Genesis 9:6, where God establishes His covenant with Noah it says, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man”. Later in the Ten Commandments this decree is reiterated in the command “Thou shalt not commit murder”.
From this, it is established that it is morally incorrect to take an innocent human life not having itself taken another human life. Therefore, it is improper to deliberately take a human life that does not threaten yours or has not violated the law.
Since the minds of men dwell continually on evil, a number of wily thinkers attempt to skirt around the issue by redefining personhood to make it distinct from the humanity of these individuals facing the prospects of having these procedures inflicted upon them. However, even these attempts prove inadequate as they endeavor to describe things how some would like them to be rather than how God created them.
For humanity/personhood is something one possesses inherently rather than bestowed upon you as a result of having reached some developmental milestone. The individual remains a distinct biological entity throughout the continuum of existence.
If anything, by limiting personhood to those having reached some arbitrary standard such as viability, quickening, or sentience speaks more to the limitations of medical science than an actual state of ontology. And with advances, these frontiers are being pushed back further all the time.
Things are now to the point where doctors are able to do surgery inside the mother’s womb. A photo of one such procedure where a tiny hand reached out of the mother’s abdomen got Matt Drudge fired from the Fox News Network. It was feared such an image might unsettle or disturb the consciences of viewers regarding the issue of abortion.
Scott Rae in “Moral Choices: An Introduction To Ethics” concludes his examination of the abortion issue with the following argument advocating for personhood of the unborn: “(1) An adult human being is the end result of the continuous growth of the organism from conception... (2) From conception to adulthood this development has no break that is relevant to the essential nature of the fetus... (3) Therefore, one is a human person from the point of conception onward (142).”
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, May 29
Global Elites Lament World Obesity Statistics
While the U.S. still has the largest number of “obese” people, surprisingly an increasing number can be found in the Middle East and North Africa.
So at least we shouldn’t any longer have to hear about these people starving to death in the attempt to shame the industrialized world regarding our widespread prosperity.
One headline for the story read, “Report On World Obesity Just Dismal”.
Would those categorizing the report in such a manner prefer children go to bed starving or perhaps rather a bit on the portly side?
On BBC America’s Robin Hood, in an episode the Sheriff of Nottingham remarked that lean and hungry people were more exploitable than the well-fed.
As such, a great many are not lamenting world obesity statistics from the standpoint of individual health but rather because it may take more than mere crumbs or table scraps to manipulate the masses into complying with any number of social engineering policies and agendas.
by Frederick Meekins
Wednesday, May 28
A Facebook meme commences with a cartoon depiction of Satan enunciating the following: “God loves everybody. God wants everybody saved. Man has a free will to accept Christ.” Apparently these Calvinists know more than the Scriptures. God [really didn’t] for so love the WORLD (John 3:16). Neither should we take at face value II Peter 3:9 which deceives us that “The Lord is…not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.” And finally, Joshua 2:15 is a total waste of time if the text is not an admonition to “choose this day whom you will serve” if this has no bearing whatsoever on the life of condemned or redeemed alike.
A Facebook meme consisted of the following Spurgeon quote: “I believe that one reason why the church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church.” Shouldn’t predestinarian Calvinists rejoice since that is exactly how their version of God sovereignly willed things to be?
A Facebook meme insinuating that salvation is not determined by whether or not one places faith in Jesus Christ but rather if one submits to Calvin’s soteriological ruminations reads “Preaching predestination is like preaching in a cemetery…there are a lot of folks around…but no one is listening.” Technically, is this hermeneutic is the correct one, that is nobody’s fault but God if the individual has no choice in the matter.
Tuesday, May 27
Monday, May 26
Are Critics Of Intelligent Design As Intelligent As They Propagandize?
The caption beneath the illustration reads, “The Intelligent Design God is something of an underachiever.” He apparently also has a high tolerance for guff as very few have poked as much fun at the venerated spokesman of a particular world religion with a fetish for explosives and flying jetliners into skyscrapers.
In all seriousness, the cartoon is a jab directed at the work of biochemist Michael Behe who popularized the flagellum in “Darwin's Black Box”. It was the likes of the Darwinists and the naturalists who first categorized the single cell and assorted microscopic organisms as “simple” in comparison to other biological, geological, and astronomical phenomena considered to be complex.
With the concept of irreducible complexity, pioneers of the Intelligent Design movement such as Michael Behe and Phillip Johnson popularized the concept how these simple cells and organisms were anything but with their entire systems breaking down unless all of the components work in tandem and likely worthless without the others. Likewise, these functions are of a magnitude so beyond the sum total of the constituted parts that it is unlikely that they would have arisen on their own over time through the minuscule accumulation of random genetic modifications.
It is not that the proponents of Intelligent Design have totally ignored these other scientific curiosities such as stars, galaxies, and other mind boggling wonders of the physical universe. In fact, a number of these are presented in a marvelous manner that can be appreciated by the scientist and understood by the enthusiastic non-technician alike in “I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist” by Frank Turek and Norman Geisler.
Adherents of the worldviews of naturalism and scientism often stand behind their lecterns before their blackboards clicking their tongues how religious faith and its corollaries of intelligent design or some kind of creation theory cannot be categorized as true science because it is doubtful that the faithful believer would ever renounce their preferred theology no matter how overwhelming the evidence arrayed against traditional revelation and dogma. However, the subtitle of the organization's own newsletter is “Defending The Teaching Of Evolution And Climate Science”.
Just what evidence will adherents of these perspectives accept before themselves surrendering to the epistemological or paradigmatic inevitable?
For example, the newsletter's Dec 2013 cover might spoof the Intelligent Design movement's flagellum fetish. But haven't the Darwinists been harping their finches, fruit flies, and peppered moths even longer?
At the end of the day, no matter how much these creatures might change over the generations, they pretty much remain fruit flies, finches, or peppered moths begetting other fruit flies, finches, or peppered moths respectively not that dramatically different on the genetic or molecular level where it counts from the original. So should geneticists dig deep enough that it is discovered that, despite the considerable material similarities between the species, it is impossible for a chimp to make the leap to human being, will multitudes of academics come forward to renounce many of Physical Anthropology's cherished foundations?
The second area of focus in the mission statement is defending the teaching of climate science. There is hardly a Christian out there walking free this side of the funny farm fence that condemns meteorological forecasting. Even if they don't catch the segment on the 11 PM news or fiddle around with Doppler radar and satellite imagery, even the Amish probably consult their own methods to get some kind of idea what the weather will be like the next day.
The National Center For Science might go out of its way to position itself as one of Feurbach's cultured despisers of religion. However, what this organization really means by the term “climate science” is instead the faith of global warming and environmental extremeism.
And as in the case of the most diehard adherent of traditional theism, there will be nothing to dissuade these zealots that man (especially of the White industrialized variety) isn't the cause of climate change.
Had a warmer than usual winter? It's global warming's fault.
Had a colder than normal winter? That's global warming's fault also.
Had a summer or winter where the weather was for the most part within the range of what one should expect for that particular season? Surely, it was the fault of global warming.
Like any good revivalist, the goal of the ideologues at the National Center for Science Education is not so much to dispassionately impart a set of objective facts for the recipient to then make up their own minds as to whether they will accept them into their existential epistemic framework and then determine how these should be applied to life and policy. For example, it is doubtful the newsletter publishes articles detailing how the world really hasn't warmed for over a decade and how, when changes take place, they are more the fault of solar activity than the failure of the American people to willingly embrace a lifestyle virtually indistinguishable from that of Third World squalor.
One of the greatest gifts parents and educators can bestow upon a child is to cultivate an awareness of the assorted charlatans that will attempt to take advantage of the weak-willed and simpleminded. A considerable number will appear wearing the cloaks of a great many religions. However, just as dangerous are those wearing lab coasts that instead attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the unsuspecting by rattling off numbers presented as statistics and obtuse obscure verbal formulations masquerading as facts.
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, May 23
Episcopal Hierarchs Blame The First Amendment For Income Inequality & Unemployment
Critics Of Transhumanism Denounced As Not Christian
Similar to the logic where the early Christians were persecuted for being atheists.
Click On The Headline
Lessons In Apologetics #10: Naturalism & The Supernatural
In the chapter "Naturalism & The Supernatural", Geisler examines the argument against acts of God classified as miracles. The basic argument, presented in its textbook form by David Hume, is stated in the following manner: "(1) A miracle by definition is a violation of (or exception to) a law of nature. (2) But the laws of nature are built upon the highest degree of probability. (3) Hence, a miracle by definition (as an exception) is based on the lowest degree of probability. (4) Now the wise man should always base his belief on the highest degree of probability. (5) Therefore, the wise man should never believe in miracles (266)."
The variations of this argument that have been developed over the decades and centuries since the time of Hume share a number of assumptions. The first is the assumption that the universe operates in accord with repeatable norms which we refer to as natural law. The Christian also shares this belief as God has chosen these to imbue the physical creation with what we perceive as order and what causes events contradicting these principles to stand out as events worthy of special attention.
However, it is beyond this point that the Christian and those that believe God does not intervene in the creation must part company. The naturalist essentially pursues two lines of reasoning that the Christian cannot endorse.
One principle basically eliminates miracles by definition. This is accomplished by postulating that whatever occurs in the natural world is a natural event. We as finite individuals might not be able to explain or understand why something happened in the way it did, but that does not mean there is not some kind of reason within a closed system to account for the phenomena in question without having to appeal to an interdiction by an outside higher source.
The other major assumption underlying arguments against the miraculous is that miracles do not occur because such events would be a violation of the probabilities natural laws are derived from. While natural laws are descriptions of what transpire in most instances, the sincere researcher aspiring to the distinction of scientist must study the events that actually take place and not sweep away those that do not conform to preconceived notions as to what is and is not possible. It is only by carefully scrutinizing these instances out of the ordinary that the researcher is able to uncover either explanations that fit within the normal operation of natural systems or rather the intervention of an intelligence beyond that which mortal minds are not generally accustomed to interacting with.
Even though the Christian must accept and defend the notion that natural laws as we understand them are not so inviolable, neither should the Christian go to the other extreme and herald every unexplainable occurrence as an undeniably direct intervention by the hand of God. As Geisler deliberately points out, there is a set of criteria an event should be evaluated by before the Christian accepts it as a miracle (280-282).
Foremost, the investigator seeking to determine the nature of an event contradicting normality must ascertain if its origin is possibly Satanic. Scripture warns that in later times there will be deceitful signs and wonders that would deceive the very elect if that were possible. The Christian must always let God’s revealed message rather than experience be the final court of arbitration.
Secondly, the Christian must be careful to distinguish between miracles and anomalies. For example, if someone appears to die on the operating table, is hauled off to the morgue, and seemingly comes back to life several hours later, though there would be reason to rejoice and look to this as a gift from God, there still might not be sufficient grounds to declare this a miracle. This is because such an occurrence could very well be an anomaly firstly because the event may have a cause which may be naturally explainable but at the time beyond the boundaries of our scientific understanding. And secondly, there is not necessarily any moral or theological claims connected to the unexpected healing.
To help the believer through this confusion, Geisler provides a number of guidelines an alleged miracle must measure up to in order to be categorized as such: (1) A miracle must be an exception to the normal pattern of events. (2) A miracle involves some kind of theological truth claim as an act of God would not contradict what God has revealed about Himself. (3) A miracle must also have good moral impact as God would not violate his standards. (4) And lastly, miracles suspend normal patterns rather than violate natural processes (282).
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, May 22
A California Christian school finds itself in a heated legal quandary. The question at hand is whether or not the civil rights of educators were violated when they were terminated from their positions for being Roman Catholic. The school claims students should only be exposed to teaching in compliance with the sponsoring church’s doctrinal statement. The fired teachers insist that they did not attempt to manipulate students into embracing Roman Catholic peculiarities. In all fairness, unless the teachers were deceptive about their denominational allegiances or switched teams mid game, the school ought to be punished for extending an offer of employment only to snatch it back once revivalistic fanaticism sweeps through the institution.
Wednesday, May 21
Lessons In Apologetics #9: Theism
However, Geisler does not leave readers dangling by requiring them to embrace Theism simply for the lack of another viable alternative. Instead, Geisler provides an argument more positive in its orientation incorporating analytical and evidential components.
The argument is stated as such: "(1) Some things undeniably exist. (2) My nonexistence is possible. (3) Whatever has the possibility not to exist is currently caused to exist by another. (4) There cannot be an infinite regress of current causes of existence. (5) Therefore, a first uncaused cause of my current existence exists. (6) This uncaused cause must be infinite, unchanging, all powerful, all knowing, and all perfect. (7) This infinitely perfect being is called "God". (8) Therefore, God exists. (9) This God who exists is identical to the God described in the Christian Scriptures. (10) Therefore, the God described in the Bible exists."
Borrowing from Descartes' conclusion "cogito ergo sum", Geisler posits that, in order to deny that one exists, one must exist in order to do so. From reflections upon the nature of our own existence, one concludes that our nonexistence is possible. For even though we do not like to admit it, there was a time when the world was at least able to hobble along crippled without us in it.
We know that whatever has the possibility of not existing is currently caused to exist by another. Each of us resulted from the physical union of the genetic material of our respective parents who in turn came from the union of their parents, etc, etc. However, physical laws such as those of thermodynamics point out that this chain must have a cause that does not need to be caused. To accomplish this, the uncaused cause would need to be infinite, unchanging, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all perfect. Anything less would be unable to be this uncaused cause.
It is appropriate to call this cause "God" since it possesses the attributes traditionally assigned to divinity. Therefore, God exists.
Geisler further argues that the God affirmed by this proof is the God described in the Bible because there can only be one infinitely perfect and changeless eternal being. However, at this point in the apologetic task Geisler is careful to point out that, "This does not mean that everything the Bible claims that this God said or did, he actually said or did. Whether or not what the Bible says about this God is another question. What we conclude here is ... the God described in the Bible exists; second, whatever the Bible claims for this God that is not inconsistent with his nature, it is possible that he did indeed do and say (250)."
Having reached this conceptual plateau, the apologist can rest for just a moment before he must begin the sectarian and denominational wrangling to make the case that the Christian path into fellowship with God is indeed the correct one.
by Frederick Meekins
Insufficiently Brainwashed Bob Jones University Students Placed On "Character Probation"
Click On The Headline
Tuesday, May 20
It was claimed that there is no quicker way to clear out a church than to preach election and predestination because doing so supposedly separates the sheep from the goats. Within that statement is also the assumption that non-Calvinists are going to Hell. However, why is someone obligated to remain in a congregation that will do little more than create mental despair and emotional depression? Because in such congregations, not only is one constantly berated and belittled for the least little offense but are constantly beaten over the head that God created you for no other reason that to let you fall into the Hellfires of eternal damnation.
Monday, May 19
Spiritual Preparation: Standing On God's Word
Saturday, May 17
Pecksniffs Of Providence
Part of this disdain usually stems from certain misunderstandings as to the nature of the Christian religion.
One common complaint often arises when Christians in media are required to present and disseminate information regarding less than pleasant realities or discuss the implications of said events and ideas.
Christians in mass communications, as a result, are accused of fostering a negative tone. They are then admonished to take a "distinctively Christian approach to the news" or "work to supply ... a uniquely Christian news flow."
Usually this means either mimicking the spin taken by more traditional secular news sources or confining one's coverage to more acceptable religious fair such as bakesales, choir robes, and sermons so inoffensive in nature as to be devoid of any real theological content.
Employing such a standard, the Bible itself would have to be tossed out with the other offending publications.
John 8:32 says, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Biblical figures did not embrace this notion in some abstract sense without any bearing on everyday life.
The prophet Nathan did not hide behind the false distinction between the public and private lives of government officials when criticizing King David's shortcomings with Bathsheba. Paul did not back down from the Athenians on the Acropolis or the Jews on the Sanhedrin.
It may come as surprise, but not all criticism of rigorous Christian and Conservative media stems from the leftwing of the theological and ideological spectrum. A great deal is in fact generated by those classifying themselves as Fundamentalists.
Even though he does not usually address issues considered distinctively religious in nature, Rush Limbaugh's social and political philosophies are close enough to those regularly found among civically engaged Evangelicals that many of the criticisms leveled against this particular radio personality by Fundamentalist researcher David Cloud in his O'Timothy magazine and website readily apply to Christian mass communicators who address issues of the day in their publications and broadcasts.
David Cloud argues that Rush Limbaugh is in violation of Scripture by disrespecting and stirring up discontent against divinely appointed rulers.
In support of his case, Cloud quotes verses such as Titus 3:1-2 among others which says, "Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work. To speak evil of no man..." As well as from I Peter 2:13 which says, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord's sake; whether it be the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for punishment of evildoers."
To utilize these verses in condemnation of Conservative media is to misunderstand the nature of the current American political system.
Those opposed to Christian social and political engagement often point out that these passages were written at the time of the Roman Empire. But in all due respect, what of it?
The United States is a completely different political animal. In the Roman Empire, power and authority were vested in the Emperor. In the United States, the people have assented to place final authority in the Constitution. The President, members of Congress, judges, and an increasing array of public officials manning the bureaucracy are merely servants under the Constitution and answerable to the American people through the Constitution, a major clause of which guarantees the citizen the right of free speech.
Rush Limbaugh and his fellow conservative media personalities are in no sense undermining authority duly constituted in the American context.
According to Marvin Olasky in Telling the Truth: How to Revitalize Christian Journalism, such writers are practicing a craft that can be traced in this country back to the days of the Puritan forefathers.
One early American commentator steeped in the Judeo-Christian worldview Olasky quotes sounds strikingly similar to one of the many cogent conservative voices one might find along the radio dial or on the editorial page in our own day. William Leggett wrote in the New York Evening Post during the 1830's regarding government redistribution schemes, "A government administered on such a policy may be called a Government of Equal rights, but it is in its nature and essence a disguised despotism."
It has been said that one ought not unnecessarily discover the sins of others. However, it becomes one's obligation to expose these transgressions when they hit one's pocket book or come to impact the physical and/or moral well-being of one's family or country.
If anything, the actions of mass communicators taking these kinds of stands are more in compliance with the moral order than those taken by government officials who transcend the bounds of their delineated authority in the pursuit of individual aggrandizement or the imposition of freedom-curtailing ideologies.
If Conservative and Evangelical mass communicators are to refrain from criticizing government leaders since to do so would be speaking evil in violation of I Peter 2, then by what right does a pastor have to chastise the shortcomings of the congregation? Like the pastor calling for a return to righteous living, the commentator is simply admonishing wayward officials to return to the principles of just leadership.
Critics of Evangelical cultural involvement have also failed in understanding the multifaceted threat faced by Christianity for the soul of America. David Cloud asserts in the O' Timothy article, "Limbaugh does not understand the root problems with America's ills, which are spiritual and moral rather than political."
The assessment of the nature of the problem is correct, but it fails to account for the fact that the nature of totalitarianism is to infect and smother all areas of existence. Under this system of social organization, those involved with the administration of political affairs take it upon themselves to exert control over those aspects of existence considered more spiritual in nature.
Limbaugh and others like him do not necessarily advocate political answers to nonpolitical problems. What they do insist upon is for political leaders to disentangle themselves from other social spheres and to return to America's founding principles.
David Cloud continues, "The Christian's primary business is to preach the Word of God to the ends of the earth and to be ready for Christ's return." He also adds that what we need are preachers and not radio entertainers.
Such statements reveal the kind of ignorance regarding the nature of Christian and Conservative media and mass communications alluded to earlier. It also exhibits a serious failure in realizing that not everyone is called to promote God's message in the same way.
Ephesians 4:11 says, "And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers."
While it is the duty of every Christian to promote the saving message of Jesus in their own way, not everyone is to do it in the same way. Broadcast personalities and print correspondents can address topics and issues not necessarily appropriate coming from behind a pulpit such as the threats posed by terrorism or the intricacies of education policy but that do have bearing on the implications of God's will for man in the world.
Even though Christ's return is imminent in that it can occur at any time, there is a world to occupy and evil to hold at bay in the meantime. Certain Christians excuse their social quietism on the grounds that prophecy predicts conditions will grow increasingly more evil. Did they ever stop to think such foretold apostasy was the result of Evangelicals abandoning the culture willy-nilly to the forces of the adversary without a fight?
This self-imposed dichotomy between the sacred and the profane advocated by certain brands of fundamentalism was not the position taken by the Protestant Reformers who saw all of creation and culture as part of God's handiwork to be enjoyed by His children.
Therefore, all labor undertaken in His honor was to be as equally important. Be it as a farmer behind the plow or as a preacher in the pulpit. Somewhere along this spectrum there must be room for Christian commentators, broadcasters, and journalists who look to both the concrete realities of this earthly life as well as to the eternal principles by which the affairs of the universe are governed.
by Frederick Meekins
Friday, May 16
Obama Administration Denies Entrance To Nigerian Christian Victimized By Jihadists
Thursday, May 15
Italian Bishop Calls For The Acceptance Of Homosexuality, Abortion & Euthanasia
Lessons In Apologetics #8: Atheism
Atheism is the worldview that believes that God does not exist. Those embracing this perspective tend to do so over both objective and existential reasons.
Those claiming to embrace Atheism for objective reasons often concentrate their attacks on the more scientific approaches to the existence of God such as the cosmological argument. The cosmological argument for the existence of God holds that all contingent things must have a cause and that this cause is at the minimum Aristotle’s Uncaused Cause and preferably the God of the Christian faith as expounded by Aquinas when he adapted these propositions for Christian usage. Atheists raise their hands and say hold on a moment to what they see as presumptuous conclusions.
From the Christian perspective, since God exists beyond what we perceive as time, He is sufficient or necessary to jumpstart the universe and get the temporal ball rolling. However, the Atheist has no metaphysical problem with an infinite chain of causality. Yet the laws of thermodynamics might dictate otherwise as these fundamental principles of physics hold that there is only a finite amount of energy available within a closed system.
So even though the Atheist may not have an intellectual objection to a material universe that is infinitely old, such an assumption smashes eventually against the hard wall of reality. However, seldom has that ever stopped anyone adamant about adhering to their favored delusions no matter what the evidence might say.
The next set of arguments for Atheism against belief in God center around a set of moral objections. All must confess these have crossed our minds at low points in each of our lives.
The most objective of these centers around the nature of goodness and God's relationship to it. This argument was developed by Bertrand Russell (218).
The moral disproof for God states that good must result because either God decrees it or He does not. If good is good simply because God says it is and no one can argue against Him since He is the biggest guy on the cosmic block, good is not really good since God has willed it so arbitrarily. However, if God declares something good because of its own inherent nature or compliance with a standard beyond Himself, doesn't that mean that the standard rather than God is ultimate? Thus, at best, God ends up being demoted to the status of Plato's less than omnipotent demiurge.
Geisler counters, though, that this is really putting the ethical cart before the theistic horse. Geisler writes, "Rather than flowing from God's arbitrary will, the moral law may be seen as rooted in God's unchangeably good and loving nature, then the apparent dilemma is resolved (226).” Thus, good is something God is rather than something God decides or does. This brings to mind verses such as John 8:58 where God proclaims “Before Abraham was, I am.”
Other moral objections to the existence of God are a bit less ethereal and considerably more visceral and marked by the pain those leveling them have experienced or witnessed living here in an obviously fallen world. One such objection raised by Albert Camus in The Plague uses the backdrop of an epidemic to make the point that theism is inherently anti-humanitarian. The story posits the dichotomy that, if one assists the suffering, one is siding against God by interfering with the work of His judgment, and if one wants to be in His will and not stand in His way, one is therefore opposed to human well being (221).
Other related objections to God over the problem of evil dismiss His existence all together. A number of Atheists deny the existence of God on the grounds that, because people often suffer disproportionately to what they have done wrong, an all powerful and all good God does not exist. It is argued a God possessing these attributes would not allow evil. But because evil is rampant, that is proof that either God is not all powerful and cannot do anything about evil or that He is all powerful but does not do anything about the evil in the world because He is not good enough to care.
Though it is not always a comfort to someone that has befallen an overwhelming tragedy such as the murder of a loved one, the existence of evil does not by default disprove the existence of God. It does, however, toss the apologetic ball into the theist's court to provide a plausible reason as to why an all-powerful and all-good God would allow suffering to exist.
Known as "theodicy", these explanations attempt to reconcile the simultaneous existence of both God and evil. It is at this point that the theist must counter claim that the evil in the world is solvable or redeemable. The Christian especially can point out that God has indeed done something about the evil by sending His only begotten Son into the world to do something about this tragedy in the most personable of ways.
If the Atheist presses this objection too vigorously, the wily apologist ought to turn the argument back on his unbelieving compatriot. To even make the claim that God does not exist, because the world is not as good as we think it would be if He really did, is actually an indirect argument that He really does.
For to argue that things are not good enough is to assume some kind of standard exists beyond the earthly fray we find ourselves in. If this material universe was all there ever was, the highest good we could ever know is what we see around us and we’d be unable to criticize anything as the “is” automatically becomes the “ought” in such a context.
Yet there is a deep dissatisfaction that compels most human souls onward towards a better world. Romans 2:14-15 says, “...when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts..." Secondly, Atheists claiming disbelief in God because, in their view, He has not done enough to stop or prevent suffering in the world often want to have things both ways. These theophobes not only deny God over the imperfections they see in the world but then hypothesize that, if God existed, man would not be free because human freedom would be, as Geisler puts it, "circumscribed by his divine determination (231)."
However, it is because God loves us so much and respects us as individuals that in the vast majority of instances He does not directly interfere with most actions but rather permits their outcome to propel the world onward to His ultimate plan for all of His creation. Geisler writes, "If love is persuasive but never coercive, then allowing men to freely determine their own destiny would seem to be the loving way to make them (231)."
Unfortunately, some are in such a state of rebellion against God that they take this animus out on others. Foremost among such deeds would no doubt rank murder.
Some would respond that, if God really loved the innocent, He would intervene to prevent this crime. However, as C.S. Lewis hypothesizes in The Problem Of Pain, for our own benefit God has created a world that operates in the vast majority of instances by a series of repeatable and verifiable principles.
For example, according to this moral "steady-state theory", I am able to pick up a knife to either slice a steak or slit my neighbor's throat for the purposes of providing man with a rational world where we will not go mad. Faced with such, the Christian must embrace Romans 8:28 as a comfort in a world that often does not seem fair to our finite minds.
By Frederick Meekins
Wednesday, May 14
British School Children Forced To Pray To Allah Under Threat Of Academic Reprisals
Tuesday, May 13
Lessons In Apologetics #7: Panentheism
The next worldview examined by Geisler in "Christian Apologetics" is Panentheism. Whereas Deism postulated a God detached from His creation for the sake of transcendence and Pantheism claims that God and the world are coterminous for the sake of immanence, Panentheism attempts to conceptualize a God that is distinct from yet part of the world.
To the Panentheist, God is to the world what mind or soul is to the body (193). Like many of the worldviews and methodologies already discussed, Panentheism can be traced back to the days of ancient Greece.
Perhaps one of the foremost examples of Panentheism would be the Demiurge of Platonic thought. Whereas the Judeo-Christian God created matter out of nothing, Plato’s Demiurge did not create the world out of nothing but rather shaped and crafted it out of independent eternally existent matter.
Since the matter which coexists with this version of God is just as eternal as God, God does not necessarily have the ultimate say. As such, Panentheism is also known as finite godism or process theology.
According to Alfred North Whitehead, God is bipolar. No, that does not mean God is depressed though you might be if this system posited is the best man can hope for. The theology of bipolarity hypothesizes a God with one end in eternity where His potentiality and the things He hopes to accomplish are located and His other end located in the temporal world where His actuality is manifested but not always to the extent He might intend as His creations possess their own autonomy.
Since the world and those in it are able to exhibit a degree of independence thwarting God’s will and ends, the bipolar theory of God is also a form of process theology or finite godism. According to process theology, God changes over time, must rely on us for the accomplishment of His plans in the world, and cannot assure from eternity past that He will ultimately prevail.
In his analysis of the theory, Geisler writes, "How can anyone worship a god so impotent that he cannot even call the whole thing off? Is not such a god so paralyzed as to be perilous (210)?” If the Christian has no assurance that God will triumph, from the way the world appears to be going, one would be better off hedging one’s bets by siding with the Devil or sitting the whole thing out all together.
by Frederick Meekins
Monday, May 12
Will Transhumanists & Anarchists Form Alliance To Destroy Traditional Morality?
What Freedoms Will Christians Be Duped Into Surrendering In The Name Of The Environment?
Not One Mention Of Islam In Frau Obama's Plea For Release Of Nigerian Schoolgirls
Friday, May 9
Pope Insists Deadbeats More Deserving Of Property Than Those Actually Earning It
Click On The Headline
In a podcast discussion of doctrinal distinctives, a caller remarked that like an oak tree, once you have been planted in the church, you don’t leave. That is until they carry you out after have swigged from the doctored Kool-Aid or carried out on a stretcher following the ATF raid. You leave anytime you feel in your spirit that things aren’t up to snuff.
In a podcast discussion regarding doctrinal distinctives in the church, it was remarked that one should not seek a likeable pastor. That said, neither is one obligated to remain in a church with one where you constantly bash heads or where one feels belittled. If you aren’t careful, Jonestown can result.
Lessons In Apologetics #6: Pantheism
If Deism is the belief that God is so transcendent from the cosmos He created that He no longer participates directly in it, Pantheism must be the worldview at the other end of the continuum believing that a higher power exists as Pantheism holds that God is so immanent with the universe that God and the universe are one. As a worldview, Pantheism has plagued the religious thought of both the East and West from ancient times on up through our contemporary day.
Though there are various forms of Pantheism, most share a set of common characteristics. Pantheists will agree that ultimately there is but one substance.
Parmenides hypothesized that there is either being or nonbeing and in order to exist there must be being. And if everything possesses this quality, everything is of the same substance as to differ by nothing would be not to exist at all.
Though everything is ultimately one under Pantheism, what we perceive as multiplicity or distinction are either manifestations or emanations of the absolute unity.
In the "Enneads", the Greek mystic Plotinus said that from this impersonal unity flowed the various levels of reality starting with unity, then inward into mind, then the world soul, then multiple souls, then to the lowest level of matter. It is man, Geisler writes in "Christian Apologetics" of this brand of Pantheism in as "the microcosm who possesses mind, soul, and matter" that the journey back to unity and oneness begins (175).
Though slightly different, other forms of Pantheism share considerable similarity. For example, in Spinoza's pantheism, God is a substance of infinite attributes and we exist as transient manifestations of the absolute that are eventually reabsorbed back into it. And in Hinduism, though that world religion is noted for its multiplicities of divinities, in its philosophically complex variants, the various gods all the way down to the material components of the physical world are the assorted levels of the comprehensive totality known as Brahman.
Though many Pantheists claim to embrace tolerance as they contend all religions are merely human efforts to understand the same all-encompassing God, one is really taking the serpent to one’s bosom when dealing with Pantheism. For example, in much of Pantheist thought, it is held that both good and evil flow from God much in the same way there is both a light and dark side of the Force in the Star Wars epic. Other Pantheists claim that God is beyond good and evil as understood by human beings.
Such positions could be used to not only justify any number of atrocities but also to view them in a disturbingly detached manner or even positively in an around about fashion. For example, if good and evil are simply just human conceptions useful for ordering social relations, what is so inherently immoral about the Holocaust?
After all, were not the Jews the ones anyway that set the ball rolling on the theism that ended up promoting the conceptual dualism that now hinders the expansion of consciousness? Besides, by liberating them of their physical materiality, aren’t we doing them a favor by reuniting them with universal oneness? Under Pantheism, the “is” becomes the “ought” and that is why one sees cows strutting freely down the streets of India with the baby girls tossed out with the trash.
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, May 8
Interesting. Licentious progressives demand such uniformity of mindset that those privileged to be spotlighted in the media targeting that particular demographic must not be allowed to formulate streams of cognition contradicting this ethical hegemony even when these reflections are not highlighted in the information such personalities are contracted to convey. For example, HGTV removed from its lineup a new program titled “Flip It Forward” because the Christianity espoused by the hosts of the program opposes gay marriage and abortion. Never mind the fact that it would be Christian beliefs that would motivate an individual to assist the destitute in acquiring shelter. That should teach the hosts a lesson. Perhaps they should just use their skills at carpentry and real estate to accumulate wealth for themselves with those unable to do so allowed to fritter into destitution and ruination in compliance with the Darwinian hypothesis. Yet when there is the possibility that a small segment of the media is at least open to the possibility of allowing for the expression of a broadly traditionalist or theistic perspective in a public format, these very same licentious progressives rampage how this one outlet is suppressing dissent. This is particularly evident in liberal opposition to Fox News. Derangement against that news organizations is so widespread and vehement that some time ago, liberals about pulled their hair out how the network was featured in episodes of 24 (a drama that tends to skewer conservative in terms of its viewership) even though Fox (the network upon which 24 aired) and Fox News are owned by the same company.
In justifying why a pastor must never be seen in a Hawaiin shirt, a fundamentalist Baptist insisted that the world needs to see that we are like God and not the world. So how is such a perspective markedly different than those that insist ministers should wear clerical collars and vestments rather than business suits? Isn’t it that the business suit is the clerical collar and vestment of most hyperlegaistic fundamentalists?
A pastor condemned a fellow minister for making an idol technology because he did not return a phone call after several attempts but replied to a text within 30 seconds of receiving one. What we have here is not so much a sin but rather a difference in personal technological preference. So would condemnation on part of an Amishman or a Luddite of the minister conducting his communications through telephone rather than through written correspondence or perhaps face to face also be valid or would that simply be viewed as fanatic overkill? And what of those that condemned the proliferation of the printing press during the days of the Reformation?
Interesting. In terms of coercing compliance irrespective of whether or not that which being called for is a clearly delineated issue, pastors often emphasize the Hebrews 13:17 calling for obedience of those that rule over you so that their task might be joyful. What about the verse where those in authority (especially parents) are urged not to provoke those under them to wrath?
A number of questionable assumptions were expounded in an elocution on national repentance based upon the Book of Joel posted on SermonAudio.com. For example, for true repentance to come about the pastor insisted that first one was required to first conduct a “fast of the spirit”. Apparently, it is not enough to abstain from that which is merely sin. One must also abstain from those desires that find their origin in the flesh but are otherwise legitimate. So does that mean if your backside itches, you can’t scratch it? Giving up that which one is not required to does not earn brownie points with God. If anything, it merely takes one dangerously closer to works-based righteousness “at best” and at worst might push one over into a proto-gnosticism that denigrates materiality and embodiment. Secondly, this pastor went out of his way to spoof those that prefer to deal with there in the pew any conviction they might be under from the Holy Spirit rather than going forward to make a, shall we say, spectacle of themselves in the front of the church. Instead, in times of judgment, repentance must be made public. So apparently, not only can’t you scratch your own backside, you’ve got to cop before an audience to each time you’ve stolen a glance of someone else's backside Frankly, on what grounds do these variety of Baptists then complain about Roman Catholic ritualism such as confession, unnecessary penance, and bodily mortification?
Transhumanist Conference Ponders The Theological Implications Of The Pending SIngularity
Lessons In Apologetics #5: Deism
The first worldview examined will be Deism. As with Christianity, Deism believes that God created the universe and set it up to operate in accord with a system of natural laws both physical and moral that are discoverable by mankind. What sets Deism apart from Christianity is the extent to which each believes God intervenes in the affairs of both nature and man.
Often, Deism is described as the watchmaker view of God. Those holding to this view believe that, while God created the world and set it into motion, the natural laws He established were so comprehensive that God no longer intervenes in or on His creation’s behalf. This assumption puts it at odds with orthodox Biblical theology on a number of points.
As a system, it could be said that Deism served as a transitional set of beliefs between two great epochs of Western intellectual history. Following the upheaval of religious conflicts such as the Thirty Years War, in a sense Deism was a recoil to the horrors of dogma that had been exorcised of the doctrines of compassion and moderation.
Deism also softened the shock to those wanting to turn their backs on a Biblically-based understanding of life but not yet ready to embrace the rampant secularism characterizing the more recent contemporary era. Deism was also the end product of the scholastic undertakings of the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration whereby European thinkers had to come to grips with the realization that a world, a goodly portion of it consisting of cultures as at least as complex as their's, existed beyond the borders of Christendom.
The Father of English Deism was Herbert of Cherbury. In his book “On Truth“, Herbert established the following principles as common to all men: that there is one supreme God, that he ought to be worshipped, that virtue and piety are the chief parts of worship, that we ought to be sorry for our sins, and that a divine goodness dispenses rewards and punishments both in this life and the hereafter (153).
At a quick glance, the list does not appear all that controversial and there is not much there the orthodox Christian would disagree with. However, it is what is not on the list that Deists following after Herbert of Cherbury expanded upon that brought this worldview's anti-Christian underpinnings to full fruition for all the world to see.
One thinker that most have at least a cursory knowledge of connected to Deism was John Locke. According to Geisler, Locke in “The Reasonableness Of Christianity” endorsed the Deist unitarian view of God and denied the deity of Christ.
Among early Deists, the average Christian would really have to be on their toes to detect the subtle attacks against the faith. Often then the attacks were carefully aimed at other religious systems rather than directly on the Bible itself. However, as society became more accepting as to the amount of dissent that could be openly expressed, a number of Deists more bluntly stated their antagonisms with varying degrees of success.
For example, Matthew Tindal in “Christianity As Old As Creation” argued that, since God is perfect by definition, the revelation of God in the created order is so complete that the idea of the Bible is superfluous and is actually inferior as Tindal considered the Bible to be full of errors anyway (160). And by the time of the founding of the United States of America and the early years of the Republic, Thomas Jefferson edited a version of the Bible exorcising the Scriptures of their miraculous content. Our third president ended the Gospel with “there laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone in front of the sepulcher and departed”, thus causing this version of the good news not to be all that good as Jesus had not risen according to this act of censorship (165).
Source: Geisler, Norman. "Christian Apologetics". Baker Academic, 1988.
by Frederick Meekins
Wednesday, May 7
Emergent Church Propagandists Insist Life After Death An "Unbiblical Concept"
But why are those that work at regular jobs obligated to support these beatniks.
They also badmouth the notion of self preservation and defense.
That means when Jim Jones passes the Koolaid, you are obligated to slurp it down.
Click On The Headline
A Facebook meme was posted insisting that fear of punishment and desire for reward are weak motivations for accepting Christ. But without these, what is the point? More importantly, why do preachers arguing such rail on incessantly about sin and often against things that really aren’t sin after all?
Missouri Synod Lutherans Bent On Destroying Legitmate Dissent
Is It Anakin Skywalker's Virgin Birth Celebrated In Vancouver Church?
Click On The Headline
Lessons In Apologetics #4: Pragmaticism & Combinationalism
Christians may instinctively recoil from this initially. However, the proper response to this epistemological methodology needs to be more nuanced than the believer might originally suspect.
Providing in part an alternative to the early 20th century viewpoint promoted in large part by Sigmund Freud that belief in God was psychologically harmful, in works such as The Varieties Of Religious Experience, James believed religion should be judged by its results in the life of the individual. Overall, James concluded that, "In a general way...on the whole...our testing of religion by practical common sense and the empirical method leaves it in possession of its towering place in history. For economically, the saintly group of qualities is indispensable to the world’s welfare (109).”
However, any alliance the Christian apologist may make with William James is tenuous at best. For example, James categorized the pantheistic outlook of Mediterranean paganism as healthy and those emphasizing the need to be “twice born” as epitomizing a Germanic dourness characterized by an obsession regarding man’s fallen nature and need to be saved by God (105).
Though few in number, Christian apologists have adapted pragmaticism to the defense of the faith. Foremost among these is Francis Schaeffer.
Schaeffer’s method might not be considered solely pragmatic by the methodology’s purists as he does not allow a worldview’s viability to determine whether or not it is true but rather to show how the Christian worldview is the most consistently livable. Schaeffer refers to this test as an experiential teleological argument (110).
In a Schaefferian apologetic, one takes the propositions of a particular worldview and projects them onto the movie screen of life. For example, Schaeffer noted how the materialism of Jackson Pollock drove the artist to suicide and how musician John Cage did not adhere to the philosophy of chance that categorized his music when it came to picking potentially deadly mushrooms
The next epistemological methodology is combinationalism. Throughout this discourse thus far, it has been observed that, while each methodology contributes something to our understanding of God and knowledge, none of these approaches is sufficient enough to stand alone as the only way through which to obtain an understanding of reality. But instead of falling into a state of solipsistic dismay that nothing can be known since each approach falls short, combinationalists suggest that the insights of each method ought to be knit together in order to produce the most comprehensive understanding possible.
One such apologist utilizing this approach is Edward J. Carnell. Carnell combines rationalism, which he defines as a “horizontal self-consistency so that all of the major assumptions of the position can be so related together that they placate the rules of formal logic” and evidentialism, which he categorizes as “a vertical fitting of the facts” in that one’s assumptions must cohere with the “real concrete facts of human history (122).” Together, these elements make up systematic consistency.
However, even combinationalists must proceed with caution. As Geisler points out in “the leaky bucket argument”, if the other methodologies are insufficient on their own, these do not necessarily hold the epistemological water any better when they are combined together (129). Furthermore, often when one proceeds to evaluate a worldview, it can be very easy to fall into the trap of presupposing the worldview before it has been established or the facts are spun in such a way to fit into the worldview.
For example, Geisler uses the example of Christ's Resurrection. Geisler writes, "An apologist...cannot legitimately appeal to the miracle of Christ's resurrection as a proof for the existence of God (129)." This statement, shocking on its face value, means that God is already presupposed if the event is categorized as miraculous in terms of its explanation. Geisler reassures, "On the other hand, grant that God already exists, then the resurrection may very well be a miraculous way of confirming that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God (129)."
Source: Geisler, Norman. "Christian Apologetics". Baker Academic, 1988.
By Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, May 6
Lessons In Apologetics #6: Pantheism
If Deism is the belief that God is so transcendent from the cosmos He created that He no longer participates directly in it, Pantheism must be the worldview at the other end of the continuum believing that a higher power exists as Pantheism holds that God is so immanent with the universe that God and the universe are one. As a worldview, Pantheism has plagued the religious thought of both the East and West from ancient times on up through our contemporary day.
Though there are various forms of Pantheism, most share a set of common characteristics. Pantheists will agree that ultimately there is but one substance.
Parmenides hypothesized that there is either being or nonbeing and in order to exist there must be being. And if everything possesses this quality, everything is of the same substance as to differ by nothing would be not to exist at all.
Though everything is ultimately one under Pantheism, what we perceive as multiplicity or distinction are either manifestations or emanations of the absolute unity.
In the "Enneads", the Greek mystic Plotinus said that from this impersonal unity flowed the various levels of reality starting with unity, then inward into mind, then the world soul, then multiple souls, then to the lowest level of matter. It is man, Geisler writes in "Christian Apologetics" of this brand of Pantheism in as "the microcosm who possesses mind, soul, and matter" that the journey back to unity and oneness begins (175).
Though slightly different, other forms of Pantheism share considerable similarity. For example, in Spinoza's pantheism, God is a substance of infinite attributes and we exist as transient manifestations of the absolute that are eventually reabsorbed back into it. And in Hinduism, though that world religion is noted for its multiplicities of divinities, in its philosophically complex variants, the various gods all the way down to the material components of the physical world are the assorted levels of the comprehensive totality known as Brahman.
Though many Pantheists claim to embrace tolerance as they contend all religions are merely human efforts to understand the same all-encompassing God, one is really taking the serpent to one’s bosom when dealing with Pantheism. For example, in much of Pantheist thought, it is held that both good and evil flow from God much in the same way there is both a light and dark side of the Force in the Star Wars epic. Other Pantheists claim that God is beyond good and evil as understood by human beings.
Such positions could be used to not only justify any number of atrocities but also to view them in a disturbingly detached manner or even positively in an around about fashion. For example, if good and evil are simply just human conceptions useful for ordering social relations, what is so inherently immoral about the Holocaust?
After all, were not the Jews the ones anyway that set the ball rolling on the theism that ended up promoting the conceptual dualism that now hinders the expansion of consciousness? Besides, by liberating them of their physical materiality, aren’t we doing them a favor by reuniting them with universal oneness? Under Pantheism, the “is” becomes the “ought” and that is why one sees cows strutting freely down the streets of India with the baby girls tossed out with the trash.
by Frederick Meekins
In a discussion of the impact of digital media on the family, it was observed that many contemporary youth have little contact or awareness of the “adult world” up until the age of 28 or thereabouts. If that means these youngsters are not engaged in some kind of gainful employment, that is wrong. However, if that is a nebulous reference to realities the speaker is not willing to discuss further such as the adoption of an affectation of contrived stuffiness, does it really matter? There is nothing requiring you to dress like an old person or take up golf if you don’t care for the game in the first place. Most adults aren’t all that willing to relinquish much of the status or power that they would naturally lose as part of an expanded social circle anyway.
Monday, May 5
Fanatic Homeschooler Insinuates Those Without Multiple Talents Barely Worthy Of Survival
Lessons In Apologetics #3: Experientialism & Evidentialism
To the experientialist, God or the Ultimate is not so much something to be understood or comprehended but rather felt. Stretching all the way back to the Neoplatonist Plotinus, experientialism views what the believer refers to as God as "the one beyond all knowing and being (66)."
In fact, God is so far beyond what the finite mind is capable of comprehending that to really say anything about God is highly inaccurate as to do so would be limiting God. As such, the best the individual can aspire to is an intuitive mystical union with the universal by turning inward through an ascetic detachment from the physical world around us in pursuit of a metaphysical unity.
Friedrich Schleiermacher provided for a more accessible apprehension of the cosmic or divine by equating religious experience not so much with monastic solitude but rather with the feeling of absolute dependence we all feel from time to time. According to Schleiermacher, this feeling is actually the World Spirit reaching out to us and actualizing within each of us.
To experientialists, dogmas and doctrines are not that important (that itself actually a doctrine though) as these conceptual formulations are merely shadows or echoes of the deeper experience. While experientialists are correct that the individual must have some kind of encounter with God beyond that often referred to as "book knowledge", one begins to trod upon dangerous ground when the experience becomes the ultimate criteria for judgment by positing that those having more intense experiences are somehow more in touch with the cosmos as in the case of certain meditation cults.
If experience itself is made the highest standard, the individual will end up not knowing whether or not he is being led into deception. I John 4:1 tells us to test the spirits to see if they are from God.
The next apologetic methodology is evidentialism. Rationalism, fideism, and experientialism are largely inwardly focused approaches to knowledge of God with both fideism and experientialism also being highly subjective as well. Evidentialism tends to be more objective as it points to evidence existing independently of an individual's internal emotional or intellectual states to make a case for the existence of God.
While experientialism stresses the importance of a personal acquaintance with what we categorize as the divine, evidentialism provides an anchor to prevent such hypothesizing from meandering off into exceedingly esoteric or individualized speculation by providing a basis for belief any interested party is free to investigate at their own leisure. The primary forms of proof offered by evidentialists are nature and history.
Nature is probably the form of evidence best used when the individual being appealed to is not yet even a theist. This proof for the existence of God is known as the teleological argument in that it holds that the intricate structures found in the world point to the need for a designer.
This idea is expressed in terms of the Watchmaker Hypothesis formulated by William Paley. Paley contended that, if one found a watch in the woods, one would from the intricacies of its parts working together in tandem for a purpose assume the contraption would need a designer. Likewise, since the world is no less complex and actually even more so, it is only logical to conclude that the physical universe around us would also require a designer.
Having lived from 1743-1805, Paley himself did not face the Darwinian onslaught. However, others since then have tweaked the argument to make it stronger against criticisms such as those of John Stuart Mill. Mill argued that the watchmaker analogy was weak because we know things like watches have watchmakers and, without a perspective beyond which a finite human being is capable, Hume's speculation of organicism with the world growing like a vegetable could very well be correct.
To counter the Darwinian and Humean notions that given enough time a number of elements could be reshuffled enough to fortuitously result in the world we see around us, A.E. Taylor and F.R. Tennat have argued that the world around us shows too much adaptation and anticipation to have been the product of random chance. For example, Taylor notes how the body’s need for oxygen is anticipated by biological structures such as membranes and organs. Geisler writes, “In fact, mind or intelligence is the only known condition that can overcome the improbabilities against the development and preservation of life...In short, the order evident in natural development of life is evidence of God (90)."
While this brand of evidentialism is vital in convincing the atheist or agnostic that God exists, it is not enough to bring someone to a saving knowledge of Christ as many of the world's religions such as Judaism, Islam, and even apostate forms of Christianity are full of theists barreling down the road to Hell. An evidentialist approach emphasizing history directly confronts the unbeliever with the decision he will have to make to decide his eternal destiny.
One of the aspects of Christianity that sets it apart from many of the other religions and belief systems is its historical nature in that the validity of its claims ultimately rest upon the veracity of actual events. II Peter 1:16 says, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty?"
Since these events took place within the flow of normal time, by utilizing research methods similar to those used to investigate the past such as the examination of ancient documents, one can construct an intellectual framework reasonably assuming that Christ did indeed exist. Prominent evidentialists utilizing history would include John Warwick Montgomery and Lee Strobel.
Despite the strength of evidentialist apologetics, its efforts to elevate religious dialogue beyond one's internal feelings (the burning in the bosom referred to by the Mormons which could very easily be indigestion), the approach is not without drawbacks. For while facts can indeed exist as objective realities, the individual can often go to great lengths to put a spin on them that fits them into an individual’s preconceived worldview.
For example, those inclined to marvel at the world around them can more easily be persuaded that everything was created by a wise and loving God than those who view the world through a survival of the fittest mindset focusing on the violence, bloodshed, and disease that often characterizes both the human and animal realms. Evidentialists will counter that often the theistic interpretation turns out to be the most credible rather than naturalistic ones that stretch plausibility such as the Apostles absconding with Christ’s body or Jesus being revived in the cool of the tomb.
Source:
Geisler, Norman. "Christian Apologetics". Baker Academic, 1988.
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, May 2
But Is Racism As Bad As It Use To Be?
Thomas omitted the “s” from “nutcase”.
So should he mockingly be asked if he went to public school as he does to others that fumble their words or make grammatical flubs?
Granted. I often make similar typos.
However, all I am or ever will likely ever be is a blogger, a wordsmith in a class Thomas has repeatedly expressed contempt for for taking attention (and thus revenue from his pocket) of establishmentarian media outlets.
Thomas' advice does ring with validity. However, what is defined as a racist or a nutcase is continually being redefined by the liberal elite.
No longer are the racists we are to separate ourselves from those burning crosses on their victims lawns. Now, according to Slate.com, condemnation should be heaped upon you if you limit your ethnic preferences on a dating website.
In another incident, one likely Obama voter and Trayvonite sympathizer went proverbial ape excrement on a White restaurant owner demanding free service as compensation for slavery.
As to a concern about associating with nutcases, should Christians distance themselves from religious doctrines that seem perfectly acceptable to that particular profession of faith such as monogamous heterosexual marriage or the divinity of Christ that both baffle and infuriate the world?
For daring to enunciate a run of the mill analysis of atheism that could have been endorsed by nearly any monotheistic religion, I was in essence told by one Tea Party group that I would be kicked out the door if I ever again verbalized such theological bigotry.
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, May 1
Fascinating. Factions in Hollywood create the impression that you are some kind of weirdo if you aren’t out fornicating with anything that moves and, when a sufficient number embrace the philosophy that the baser instincts must be fulfilled at all costs, they paint you as an ever bigger weirdo if you question the propriety of addressing from the federal level the rotten fruits resulting from this warped outlook.
Lessons In Apologetics #2: Rationalism & Fideism
In a rationalist methodology, there exists in the mind a number of innate ideas or principles that allow the individual to arrive at an understanding of the universe. These include principles of logic such as the law of noncontradiction. It is from contemplation upon ideas generated through reflection upon such foundational principles that the thinker is able to postulate systems of truth in a manner reminiscent of mathematics and geometry.
For example, in his system, Descartes started from his "cogito, ergo, sum (I think, therefore I am)" as his ability to doubt was the one thing he could not doubt. From here, Descartes built a theistic proof.
Descartes begins this with the admission that, since he lacks knowledge, he is imperfect. However, to realize one is imperfect, one must have knowledge that perfection exists. Yet perfection cannot arise from within the imperfect. Therefore, there must be a perfect mind from which perfection originates and this is God (31).
An apologetic utilizing the rationalist approach possesses a number of strengths as well as drawbacks. As to its strengths, the rationalist method stresses a consistency of reality.
It follows that a rational God would create a universe that regularly operates in accord with verifiable laws that we as His creations would be able to arrive at through deliberative contemplation. As rationalists posit, the mind to an extent must possess some kind of mental architecture to process the jumble of sense experiences the individual is bombarded with almost constantly. Even Scripture indicates that part of man's knowledge regarding God and His character is innate as Romans says that even the Gentiles, who were not formally given the Law in the same direct manner as their Hebrew counterparts, still had many aspects of the Law written upon their hearts.
Despite the strengths of the rationalist approach to apologetics, the methodology is not without drawbacks. The foremost is the acknowledgement that it can be argued that the rationally consistent does not always translate into the realm of necessarily actual and does not provide the bedrock certainty its advocates claim. For example, regarding the ontological argument, Geisler notes, "But it is not logically necessary for a necessary Being to exist anymore than it is for a triangle to exist...But the point here is that there is no purely logical way to eliminate the 'if' (43)."
Of the next religious epistemology, fideism, Geisler writes, "In view of the fact that empiricism led to skepticism...and that rationalism cannot rationally demonstrate its first principles, fideism becomes a more reliable option in religious epistemology. Perhaps there is no rational or evidential way to establish Christianity (47)." Thus fideism holds that truth in religious matters rests on an accepting faith rather than a critical scrutiny.
As with the other methodologies, fideism comes in a variety shades. On its more moderate side, one finds Blaise Pascal. At the more extreme end of the spectrum, one would find the likes of Karl Barth.
As a fideist, one might find Pascal a bit subdued. Though one would assume reason had no place in fideism, Pascal did not dismiss rational appeals outright. He just did not build his foundation or case upon them. Of Pascal's position, Geisler writes, "A proof at best may be the instrument by which God places faith in one's heart (49)."
Thus, the real difference between Pascal and the rationalist was basically a differing estimation in what each thought reason could achieve. To the rationalist, the thinker is able to deduce their way to a logically irrefutable foundation for a belief in God. To Pascal, such proofs were not absolutely conclusive and the chasm separating doubt and certainty had to be crossed by a bridge of faith.
Since at best, in the mind of Pascal, the individual is left with a fifty/fifty chance regarding the existence of God, the matter did not come down to a dispassionate calculation but rather to a matter of personal existential destiny best summarized by his famous wager (49). According to this wager, if the odds as to whether or not God exists are about even, one is better off believing God exists and then be proven wrong since upon death you would merely pass out of existence than to say God does not exist and then be proven wrong upon death as then one would end up in Hell.
At the other end of fideism's spectrum stands the Neo-Orthodox such as Karl Barth. According to Barth, God is "wholly other" in that God can only be known through faith in revelation. Geisler summarizes Barth's position as such: "We do not know the Bible is God's Word by any objective evidence. It is a self-attesting truth (54)." Thus to the Barthian, the accounts contained in the Bible transpired on a plane beyond the parameters of objective, investigative history. One either accepts them by faith or one does not. Therefore, the believer does not have to answer and is immune from those such as the Higher Critics claiming to apply the rigors of scholarship to the scriptural texts in the hopes of either authenticating or discrediting these documents.
As with rationalism, fideism has both strengths and drawbacks. Fideists are to be commended for holding that the God of the Bible is much more than the God of mathematics. Though there is merit in the attempt to prove that belief in God does not violate reason and logic, there is a great danger in reducing God to the level of a distant first cause not all that interested in how human beings live their daily lives. Fidesits are also correct that ultimately, no matter how much evidence one might collect or how many syllogisms one might be able to deduce, one has to make a leap of faith over those gaps of doubt that remain no matter how small they might be.
Yet despite the strength of their methodology, it has shortcomings as well. Foremostly, fideism makes it very difficult to engage in a debate or discussion with someone holding to another worldview if one must accept a comprehensive system of faith solely by faith without evaluating between them with some agreed upon criteria. Geisler writes, "...either a fideist offers a justification for his belief or else he does not. If he does not, then as unjustified belief it has no rightful claim to knowledge (63)."
Source:
Geisler, Norman. "Christian Apologetics". Baker Academic, 1988.
by Frederick Meekins