@joe keysor: The second is atheism. The beliefs that the universe is an accident; that life in that universe is itself an accident; and that therefore each individual needs to decide for himself and do as seems best, are influential, even dominant in many areas of society.
This is a typical religious Straw Man. Atheism is merely the absence of belief in any gods or deities. There's no belief that the Universe is an 'accident'.
I disagree with your contention that atheism is "merely" the absence of belief in any gods or deities. On the contrary, it is a starting point for many different logical conclusions.
For example, it is natural for people to wonder about the creation of the universe. How did it come to be in the first place? And why does it have the features it does?
In the past, it was much more common to see divine creation as the cause. Now that atheism is becoming more fashionable, what answers do atheists have to this question? They cannot say "God created the universe" unless they abandon their atheism. So, they are forced to say that the universe came into being somehow without any creator.
This means random, uncontrolled, unplanned interactions of energy and matter, which means chance, which means "by accident."
I admit, atheists do not like to say the universe happened by accident, that would be too obviously impossible, so they invent different theories and explanations - but in the end, random, unplanned, undesigned creation by chance, is to me creation by accident.
Also, if you say you only believe in the absence of any gods or deities, but have no related views on nature, life, politics, philosophy or metaphysics derived from your atheism, then what good is your atheism, if it cannot be used to explain life and the world around us?
"God exists" or "God does not exist" do not just exist in a vacuum.
Also, what do you think of these comments I made about Sartre? One of the most famous and influential atheists of all time surely cannot be a strawman, yet his ideas seem false.
"Seeking to be as reasonable and rational as possible, Sartre deduced that there was no meaning in life, that life and the universe were inherently absurd. But, since we as human beings do not want to just sit in a padded cell gibbering incoherently all of our lives, and want to do something, we need to invent our own meaning. We, as humans, are free to choose and give our meaningless lives authenticity and significance by the choices we make.
"Thus, there is no independent ideal or reality of humanity which we can look to for a pattern. We just choose our own ideals and values - and does that not describe myriads of people today? Many who have never read a word of Sartre nevertheless come independently to the same conclusions, and are living out the private realities and personal truths which they have invented."
RE: Can anyone who is born-again into the holy-theocratic culture of Christ’s Newness of Life look at the vile-democratic culture of this Orwellian AI-Digital Age and scripturally argue for the superiority of Technocracy’s new eugenic ways of doing things while our digitally-marked (SS#) souls are enslaved, from cradle to grave, within the Marxist UN Beast’s abominable Socialistic Security System? Are we not rather foolish virgins from Christ’s Bride, with our empty oil lamps, drifting farther and farther into Lucifer’s eternal darkness from fundamental holy realities of the Bridegroom’s brilliant life? Drifting, it may be, down Democracy’s ecumenical Broadway to our own destruction? What if God has sent a powerful MAGA delusion that arrogantly rides upon a white horse to Big Brother’s Democratic-Socialist UN Global Village, and much of what we are seeing in Neo-Babel’s advanced modern society today shows the corruption of carnal-minded reason and the hateful denial of truth? And what if our lukewarm Laodicean attempts to religiously revise and save degenerate human nature will necessarily fail, leaving suffering, misery, death and destruction behind them?
I agree with much of your content but the tone is too inflammatory, in my opinion.
We do live in a sinful and evil world, our modern culture is corrupt with profound totalitarian tendencies and a corrupt and useless UN.
Many Christians are drifting from scriptural Christianity as you say, with no oil in their lamps, only doctrines.
As to MAGA, I think – and have said before – that that is a mistake, and I have never supported it. Americans do not need to be boasting about how great we are. Yet, I am hoping God will use Trump, in spite of Trump’s many flaws, to give us some respite from the far out lunacies the left wants to inflict on mankind.
I do think much modern American Evangelicalism and fundamentalism are gravely flawed, and are in need of something much deeper than exhortations to try harder, or do better.
It is possible (!) we are in the great falling away, in which God himself is withdrawing his Spirit. That would explain many things.
People will say this is only escapism, but we cannot save the world, and are not called by God to save the world. What we can do is work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and do what we can to shed the light of Christ in the areas of activity that he has placed us in.
And, no matter how bad things get, there are many promises and consolations for those who are in Christ. As in “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
So there is always matter for thanksgiving and rejoicing.
RE: I agree with much of your content but the tone is too inflammatory, in my opinion.
We do live in the Truth-hating Democratic-Socialist world order of Harlot Babel’s UN Global Village, that is Satanically bewitched under God’s powerful delusion. Democracy’s modern anti-Christ culture is not unlike the pre-flood days of Noah or the woke days of Sodom and Gomorah; corrupt with Jezebel’s profound totalitarian anti-theocratic spirit. In your opinion, Joe, could the tone of Noah’s gospel warning of the coming flood to his parents and relatives be too inflammatory, causing them to be offended and perish outside of the ark? Perhaps if Noah had lukewarmly presented his offensive gospel with smooth words of political correctness, maybe many more of his beloved family members would have joined him in the ark. Hopefully the ear-tickling tone of Elijah’s voice wasn’t too inflammatory to the uncircumcised ears of Jezebel’s 450 Baal prophets as he compassionately brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there (1 Kings 18:39).
We don’t know what Noah’s message might have been, but all of the prophets who were directly appointed by God to preach wrath also had many beautiful encouraging words of God’s grace and consolation. It was not just denunciations of corrupt, degenerate and evil society and nothing more.
And, people are under delusions that God himself as afflicted them with - but to oppose those delusions truth also must be offered, in case God might grant them repentance.
Christians are supposed to have a ministry of reconciliation, it is not only wrath and denunciation of delusion but also grace and presentations of God’s truth and love.
@joe keysor: The second is atheism. The beliefs that the universe is an accident; that life in that universe is itself an accident; and that therefore each individual needs to decide for himself and do as seems best, are influential, even dominant in many areas of society.
This is a typical religious Straw Man. Atheism is merely the absence of belief in any gods or deities. There's no belief that the Universe is an 'accident'.
I disagree with your contention that atheism is "merely" the absence of belief in any gods or deities. On the contrary, it is a starting point for many different logical conclusions.
For example, it is natural for people to wonder about the creation of the universe. How did it come to be in the first place? And why does it have the features it does?
In the past, it was much more common to see divine creation as the cause. Now that atheism is becoming more fashionable, what answers do atheists have to this question? They cannot say "God created the universe" unless they abandon their atheism. So, they are forced to say that the universe came into being somehow without any creator.
This means random, uncontrolled, unplanned interactions of energy and matter, which means chance, which means "by accident."
I admit, atheists do not like to say the universe happened by accident, that would be too obviously impossible, so they invent different theories and explanations - but in the end, random, unplanned, undesigned creation by chance, is to me creation by accident.
Also, if you say you only believe in the absence of any gods or deities, but have no related views on nature, life, politics, philosophy or metaphysics derived from your atheism, then what good is your atheism, if it cannot be used to explain life and the world around us?
"God exists" or "God does not exist" do not just exist in a vacuum.
Also, what do you think of these comments I made about Sartre? One of the most famous and influential atheists of all time surely cannot be a strawman, yet his ideas seem false.
"Seeking to be as reasonable and rational as possible, Sartre deduced that there was no meaning in life, that life and the universe were inherently absurd. But, since we as human beings do not want to just sit in a padded cell gibbering incoherently all of our lives, and want to do something, we need to invent our own meaning. We, as humans, are free to choose and give our meaningless lives authenticity and significance by the choices we make.
"Thus, there is no independent ideal or reality of humanity which we can look to for a pattern. We just choose our own ideals and values - and does that not describe myriads of people today? Many who have never read a word of Sartre nevertheless come independently to the same conclusions, and are living out the private realities and personal truths which they have invented."
RE: Can anyone who is born-again into the holy-theocratic culture of Christ’s Newness of Life look at the vile-democratic culture of this Orwellian AI-Digital Age and scripturally argue for the superiority of Technocracy’s new eugenic ways of doing things while our digitally-marked (SS#) souls are enslaved, from cradle to grave, within the Marxist UN Beast’s abominable Socialistic Security System? Are we not rather foolish virgins from Christ’s Bride, with our empty oil lamps, drifting farther and farther into Lucifer’s eternal darkness from fundamental holy realities of the Bridegroom’s brilliant life? Drifting, it may be, down Democracy’s ecumenical Broadway to our own destruction? What if God has sent a powerful MAGA delusion that arrogantly rides upon a white horse to Big Brother’s Democratic-Socialist UN Global Village, and much of what we are seeing in Neo-Babel’s advanced modern society today shows the corruption of carnal-minded reason and the hateful denial of truth? And what if our lukewarm Laodicean attempts to religiously revise and save degenerate human nature will necessarily fail, leaving suffering, misery, death and destruction behind them?
Hi John,
I agree with much of your content but the tone is too inflammatory, in my opinion.
We do live in a sinful and evil world, our modern culture is corrupt with profound totalitarian tendencies and a corrupt and useless UN.
Many Christians are drifting from scriptural Christianity as you say, with no oil in their lamps, only doctrines.
As to MAGA, I think – and have said before – that that is a mistake, and I have never supported it. Americans do not need to be boasting about how great we are. Yet, I am hoping God will use Trump, in spite of Trump’s many flaws, to give us some respite from the far out lunacies the left wants to inflict on mankind.
I do think much modern American Evangelicalism and fundamentalism are gravely flawed, and are in need of something much deeper than exhortations to try harder, or do better.
It is possible (!) we are in the great falling away, in which God himself is withdrawing his Spirit. That would explain many things.
People will say this is only escapism, but we cannot save the world, and are not called by God to save the world. What we can do is work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and do what we can to shed the light of Christ in the areas of activity that he has placed us in.
And, no matter how bad things get, there are many promises and consolations for those who are in Christ. As in “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
So there is always matter for thanksgiving and rejoicing.
Hi Joe,
RE: I agree with much of your content but the tone is too inflammatory, in my opinion.
We do live in the Truth-hating Democratic-Socialist world order of Harlot Babel’s UN Global Village, that is Satanically bewitched under God’s powerful delusion. Democracy’s modern anti-Christ culture is not unlike the pre-flood days of Noah or the woke days of Sodom and Gomorah; corrupt with Jezebel’s profound totalitarian anti-theocratic spirit. In your opinion, Joe, could the tone of Noah’s gospel warning of the coming flood to his parents and relatives be too inflammatory, causing them to be offended and perish outside of the ark? Perhaps if Noah had lukewarmly presented his offensive gospel with smooth words of political correctness, maybe many more of his beloved family members would have joined him in the ark. Hopefully the ear-tickling tone of Elijah’s voice wasn’t too inflammatory to the uncircumcised ears of Jezebel’s 450 Baal prophets as he compassionately brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there (1 Kings 18:39).
We don’t know what Noah’s message might have been, but all of the prophets who were directly appointed by God to preach wrath also had many beautiful encouraging words of God’s grace and consolation. It was not just denunciations of corrupt, degenerate and evil society and nothing more.
And, people are under delusions that God himself as afflicted them with - but to oppose those delusions truth also must be offered, in case God might grant them repentance.
Christians are supposed to have a ministry of reconciliation, it is not only wrath and denunciation of delusion but also grace and presentations of God’s truth and love.