Welcome to our next installment of the much anticipated worldviews series. I hope you have all had time to ponder over the things we discussed in the previous two segments, and I hope you take them to heart. Today we will discuss a worldview that is dominant in America today, especially among scientists and philosophers. Of course I am talking about modernism. Let's begin with a little history. During the Enlightenment Era, people began to tire of the constant religious warring between Catholics and protestants (much as we here at Insense are today). This conflict between the two different sects caused many people to believe that if Christianity had so many internal struggles, how could it possibly solve the world's problems? This kind of thinking gave rise to an age of science where materialism ruled.
The first belief that the modern worldview holds is called naturalism. Naturalism basically says that everything in the universe can be explained in terms of physical processes. As a result, modernists tend not to believe in a soul or life after death. They also do not believe in God in the sense that premodernists believe in God.
The second part of modernity holds that there should be a "sacred/secular dichotomy" (as Mr. Rojahn puts it). Sacred is viewed as everything faith and values based. Secular is obviously viewed then as everything "factual" and scientific. Modernists believe that the two should never mix. The premodernists believed that everything should be centered around and contained within God in one's life, whereas the modernists believe that religion should only occupy one small area of one's life...if one so chooses.
Since the modern worldview believes in naturalism, it is only logical that it also states that truth, morals, and meaning in life are grounded in human reason. This is best exemplified in the works of Kant (Deontological Ethics) and Mills (Utilitarianism). As Protagorus said, "Man is the measure of all things."
The fourth point under modernism is positivism. Positivism is the belief that through reason, science, and technology the world can be made a better place for those who live in it. Modernists believe that through secular means, man can be relieved of his misery and suffering and brought into a state of utopia.
Individualism is the last point that the modern worldview emphasizes. Individualism is pretty much an excuse to be self centered. It says "I have rights, I think of the world in terms of me, my happiness, my goals, my desires, etc" (straight from Mr. Rojahn's notes).
There are obvious problems with this worldview. To begin with, it brushes off the existence of God as merely imaginary. It states that truth, morals, and meaning are all based around human reason, but human reason cannot account for truth, morality, and the like. C.S. Lewis writes about this topic extensively in The Abolition of Man and the beginnings of Mere Christianity (we highly recommend both). If there is no God and no ultimate judgment, then what makes an action wrong? Suppose I was on a desert island in the middle of the ocean, why would it be wrong for me to lie or kill someone with me if no one will ever find out? Another problem is encountered in relation to positivism. The world has taken a turn for the worse since modernism came in full force. We have been through two world wars, a nuclear arms race, a present day terrorist situation, the Vietnam war, the Korean war -- all stemming from the belief that the answer lies in science and technology. Advance in technology is what allowed the Nazi army to roll across Europe and raze it to pieces. I am not condemning technology, but technology, science, and reason in exclusion from God can lead, and has led, us down dark paths. Modernism is not the key. It reduces humans to merely graphable data; it says you are nothing more than a few cells clumped together by random chance. The next worldview we will discuss is postmodernism, and that is even scarier than modernism. Check back often for more updates and for Worldviews IV.
~Tribal~
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Friday, February 24, 2006
A Call for Prayer
Woot for South Dakoda! I recommend some celebration for the result of this battle. I do implore that each of you continue to pray for our representatives and court justices. Planned Parenthood has pledged to challenge this decision and so it has a very real posibility of going into the national spotlight if it is eventually brought before the Supreme Court. This is positive because it will force our often wishy woshy politicians to finally face such a controversial issue that they have often been more than glad to ignore. This is also positive because it can very possibly cause the eventual adoption of similar laws in more states and in the federal government. The possible negative outcome is that this new law is in danger of getting shot down in the courts. Please pray for wisdom for our politicians and court justices. Pray for their guidance towards what God wants for our nation. In the meantime, celebration!!
~AndyJams~
~AndyJams~
Hope is Not Yet Lost
A front page Fox News article:
"PIERRE, S.D. -- State lawmakers voted Friday to ban nearly all abortions in South Dakota and sent the measure to the governor, who said he is inclined to sign it.
Under the legislation, doctors in South Dakota would face up to five years in prison for performing an abortion unless it was necessary to save the woman's life."
You can read the entire article at the above link, and we strongly suggest that you do. This is an unbelievable victory for life. We at Insense wish to thank all who had a hand in bringing this about, and we pray that more states will continue to follow in South Dakota's footsteps. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" -- hope never fails.
~Tribal~
"PIERRE, S.D. -- State lawmakers voted Friday to ban nearly all abortions in South Dakota and sent the measure to the governor, who said he is inclined to sign it.
Under the legislation, doctors in South Dakota would face up to five years in prison for performing an abortion unless it was necessary to save the woman's life."
You can read the entire article at the above link, and we strongly suggest that you do. This is an unbelievable victory for life. We at Insense wish to thank all who had a hand in bringing this about, and we pray that more states will continue to follow in South Dakota's footsteps. "If God is for us, who can be against us?" -- hope never fails.
~Tribal~
Monday, February 13, 2006
Love and Live
"Love God and do as you please" -- so says Saint Augustine in Homilies on Saint John's Epistle (A.D. 407). Many Christians would initially take offense to such a statement, but upon further examination, it actually embodies the whole of Christian doctrine.
Loving God is the core to the theology of every main religion. It is no different with Christianity. We are told numerous times in the Bible to love God "with all our heart, mind, and soul." It is not so much the first part of Augustine's statement as the second part that some Christians may take offense to.
Saint Augustine said to live as we please. This can indeed by itself be a huge fallacy in Christian doctrine. Combined with the "love God" half of the sentence, however, it becomes merely an addition to the first part. That secondary half of the phrase does not stand on its own, it depends upon the "love God" prerequisite that precedes it.
When combined, the entire sentence makes very much sense and is indeed a good description of how a Christian should live his or her life. Saint Augustine said to "Love God and do as you please." If you really, truly love God, then you will choose to do what is right in His eyes. If you choose to live a life of sin and choose to not attempt to overcome it, then do you really love God? Is He the most important thing to you, or is your sinful nature the most important thing to you? If you truly love God, then you can do as you please; but how you live is a result of your loving God and depends a great deal upon the amount of importance you place upon God in your life.
~Tribal~
Loving God is the core to the theology of every main religion. It is no different with Christianity. We are told numerous times in the Bible to love God "with all our heart, mind, and soul." It is not so much the first part of Augustine's statement as the second part that some Christians may take offense to.
Saint Augustine said to live as we please. This can indeed by itself be a huge fallacy in Christian doctrine. Combined with the "love God" half of the sentence, however, it becomes merely an addition to the first part. That secondary half of the phrase does not stand on its own, it depends upon the "love God" prerequisite that precedes it.
When combined, the entire sentence makes very much sense and is indeed a good description of how a Christian should live his or her life. Saint Augustine said to "Love God and do as you please." If you really, truly love God, then you will choose to do what is right in His eyes. If you choose to live a life of sin and choose to not attempt to overcome it, then do you really love God? Is He the most important thing to you, or is your sinful nature the most important thing to you? If you truly love God, then you can do as you please; but how you live is a result of your loving God and depends a great deal upon the amount of importance you place upon God in your life.
~Tribal~
Terri, Meet Haleigh
This was recently posted on Rock For Life:
"What's the deal with Haleigh Poutre? Haleigh is an 11 year old Massachusetts girl who was beaten severely (into a comatose state) by her stepfather and her aunt (who adopted her after her biological mother was deemed an unfit parent by the state). On January 17, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court granted permission to the Massachusetts Department of Social Services to remove Haleigh's feeding tube, effectively starving her to death in a matter of days. However, the day after the verdict was received, Haleigh began to show signs of improvement. She began to breathe on her own, the first time in four months that she did not need to use a ventilator. Other forms of improvement have since been observed, but the hospital officials have remained tight-lipped on most aspects of Haleigh's condition. Denise Monteiro, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, stated that the decision to stop feeding her was the 'best diagnosis that we thought we had at the time.' The DSS has since rescinded that decision, and has not removed the feeding tube.
Haleigh's case is a perfect example of the faultiness of a 'persistent vegetative state' diagnosis. The British Medical Journal has reported that PVS is misdiagnosed almost 43% of the time! That alone should allow for serious questioning of any attempt to take the life of someone who has been diagnosed as PVS. Even with this, we now know that Haleigh has shown signs of recovery, and full or partial recovery may very well be possible; that is, if she's given the chance. The easy thing to do would be to let the government, courts, and hospital decide what her life is worth. The harder road would be to fight for this innocent little girl's right to life."
It is interesting to note that almost half of the people diagonsed as being in a vegetative state are in reality not. This could raise new questions about the unfortunate Terri Schiavo situation, and hopefully it will. Maybe if her husband would have actually allowed her treatment over all of the years she was in the hospice, Terri would have also showed such signs of life and would have been saved...as if active eye movements and grunts and moans debatedly resembling "I want to live" were not enough...
~Tribal~
"What's the deal with Haleigh Poutre? Haleigh is an 11 year old Massachusetts girl who was beaten severely (into a comatose state) by her stepfather and her aunt (who adopted her after her biological mother was deemed an unfit parent by the state). On January 17, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court granted permission to the Massachusetts Department of Social Services to remove Haleigh's feeding tube, effectively starving her to death in a matter of days. However, the day after the verdict was received, Haleigh began to show signs of improvement. She began to breathe on her own, the first time in four months that she did not need to use a ventilator. Other forms of improvement have since been observed, but the hospital officials have remained tight-lipped on most aspects of Haleigh's condition. Denise Monteiro, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, stated that the decision to stop feeding her was the 'best diagnosis that we thought we had at the time.' The DSS has since rescinded that decision, and has not removed the feeding tube.
Haleigh's case is a perfect example of the faultiness of a 'persistent vegetative state' diagnosis. The British Medical Journal has reported that PVS is misdiagnosed almost 43% of the time! That alone should allow for serious questioning of any attempt to take the life of someone who has been diagnosed as PVS. Even with this, we now know that Haleigh has shown signs of recovery, and full or partial recovery may very well be possible; that is, if she's given the chance. The easy thing to do would be to let the government, courts, and hospital decide what her life is worth. The harder road would be to fight for this innocent little girl's right to life."
It is interesting to note that almost half of the people diagonsed as being in a vegetative state are in reality not. This could raise new questions about the unfortunate Terri Schiavo situation, and hopefully it will. Maybe if her husband would have actually allowed her treatment over all of the years she was in the hospice, Terri would have also showed such signs of life and would have been saved...as if active eye movements and grunts and moans debatedly resembling "I want to live" were not enough...
~Tribal~
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Let's Kill Some Stereotypes....A Call for Christians to Love One Another
I’ve got a bone to pick with Christians all across the country, nay, the world even. (Overdramatic perhaps? I’m never overdramatic!) If you’re a Christian, you and me have to have ourselves a little heart to heart. If you’re not, well, I highly recommend that you and Jesus have a little heart to heart cause He loves you bunches and as a fellow who’s been gone from Christian to atheist to agnostic back to Christian, I can tell you life is poop without Him.
Let’s pretend you’re in your favorite coffee shop ordering your favorite caffeinated beverage to sit down in front of a fire to have all manner of intellectual banter with the other coffee-feigns who frequent this establishment (If you don’t like coffee…well, just work with me here.) Got it? Alright, so I come and sit in the overly comfy chair across the chessboard from you and ask you a socially taboo but very common question.
What kind of church do you go to?
Gasp! How could I ask such a thing? Well, stay tuned in the relative near future and I’ll explain briefly why some socially unacceptable questions should be asked (Are you a Christian? Wanna hear about Jesus? Winter or Summer Olympics? ….but I digress.)
Alright, so honesty time. What was your answer? United Methodist? Episcopalian? What about Charismatic Episcopalian? Hmm. I bet some of you put on your thinking caps real hard and pulled out some great Sunday School answers. Many of you were thinking, “I’m a Protestant and fiercely proud of it! Go Luther!” Most of the rest of you were all like, “Catholicism for life baby! The pope’s my boy!”
What’s the correct answer? (Uh oh, he’s about to call one right and the other wrong…two to one he says Catholics are dumb dumb heads.)
Alright, so here’s my answer (and indeed what I believe with all my heart to be correct). I go to the church of God, and all of you who are Christians, you do too (and those who aren’t Christians, God’s been leaving messages on your voicemail for years and wants you to return His calls).
So finally I return to what I started talking about…finally. I’m sick and tired of Christians hating other Christians because of some sort of stereotype or pre-determined bias they have against them.
I’m mostly signaling out Protestants here because thanks to the Vatican II council, the Roman Catholic church now does indeed recognize that other Christian denominations are indeed Christian and important to the Body of Christ. Catholics are no less Christian than Protestants! What follows is why I can say something so outrageous to many of you.
For a very very long time (most of my life actually) I thought Catholics were nothing better then pagans, worshipping all manner of saints and Mary and that none of them actually believed in God and Jesus as Christ. You know what changed my mind? What could cause such a drastic paradigm shift? What else could so drastically cause a teenage boy to re-evaluate his perspective on life but an amazing girlfriend? My freshman year of college I had a short relationship with a Catholic girl, and discovered that amazingly enough, she was Christian! Gasp!
Suddenly, for the first time in my life I was forced to sit down and actually think about the stereotypes I’d held for years. I discovered that both she and her mom (also a Catholic) had very strong and developed faiths.
(I realize just now that perhaps this was God’s purpose for putting this girl into my life. You who know me personally know who I’m talking about, and know that the breakup was rough, but you know, as I’m writing this I realize that I can be thankful because God used this girl to eliminate all the stereotypes about Catholics I had and to cause me to want to learn more about the orthodox doctrine and dogma. Crazy how I live with heartache for a very long time until I realize that it was all God’s will. So if you’re reading this Catholic girl, thank you.)
My story of discovering the truth about Catholicism doesn’t end there. During that same freshman year (what a year for me) I became good friends with a fellow astrophysics major when I gave her first aide for a nasty skin avulsion in her hand and then rushed her to the hospital (kids, please don’t stick an exacto-knife in your hand by accident whilst cutting holes in trashcan lids…it never ends well). When we took a sailing class together we began going to this friendly little diner for breakfast before class and spent our time discussing things mostly of a physicsy and religious nature. In case you couldn’t figure out where I was going, this good friend of mine is Catholic. She’s probably the first person of a different denomination who I’ve spent serious time discussing faith and religion with, and so she’s the first person who I’ve actually gotten to see grow and develop in her faith and theology over an extended period of time.
By this time I was shocked to realize that I actually began defending Catholics. I started to see real Catholics in their real faith. I also started to formulate why exactly I believe so many Protestants have this idea that all Catholics have dead faith.
Let’s think about this. Most of us have had the misfortune of watching a close friend lose their once strong faith. Yeah, it sucks, and yeah, keep workin’ on ‘em cause God misses them. So when a Protestant becomes an atheist or agnostic, do they keep calling themselves Protestants? In most cases they call themselves atheists or agnostics.
Now let’s think about Catholics. Catholicism, unlike Protestantism, is more than a faith. Catholicism is history, community, heritage, much like Judaism. If a Catholic ceases to believe the tenants of his faith, he usually still thinks of himself as a Catholic because he sees his being Catholic as his heritage and nationality. The same is often true of Jews.
So here’s where Protestants have Catholics wrong. It seems as though there are more false Catholics than Protestants just because more Catholics retain their “title” of Catholic even after they cease being Christian than do Protestants.
If this seems mildly questionable to you, just sit and think about it for a minute. I think if you’re being open minded and honest with yourself and with me you’ll see that what I’m saying is true.
Alright, so now for the night that forever changed my view of Catholics. Down here at school I attend a wonderful church pastured by a man with a great gift for Bible teaching. I like to think of it as a party in God’s house and everyone’s invited. Great praise, great Bible teaching, great just about everything. It’s pretty much your stereotypical charismatic new age Christian church. One Sunday in mid November I overslept both morning services. I told my good friend (who I still frequent the friendly diner with) when we went to see a movie, and she suggested I come with her to her church that evening. I was skeptical. Before this day I’d been to two Catholic services in my life. What I saw at this lovely church amazed me.
I have been to all sorts of services at all sorts of different denominations all over different parts of the country. I have seen, heard, and felt amazing things in these churches. This Catholic mass was one of the most spirit filled and amazing services I’ve ever worshipped in. God was very much present here. You see the teenagers praise and worship with tears and hands raised, dancing and singing like any charismatic youth Christian conference. The best part for me though was the prayer during the Eucharist. (Communion time). Amazing wonderful awesome prayer. I discovered that in this place I was able to be more vulnerable and more broken before the Lord than anywhere else. In this love filled, spirit filled parish I was able to truly bring my hopes, fears, wants, and needs before the Lord earnestly and faithfully. This church completely blew away what remained of my biases and stereotypes. I still go to my protestant charismatic “mega-church” Sunday mornings because it’s great for Bible teaching and praise, but I now also go to this Catholic mass on Sunday nights because it is so good for prayer.
The priests in their sermons have been encouraging seemingly very Protestant things: joining a small group is important for Christian growth, being with God more than just on Sundays is a must to build a relationship with Christ, reading the Bible is necessary so you know what God wants of you.
Wait, did he just say Catholics have small groups? They have personal relationships with Christ? They raise their hands in praise?! This is unheard of! I figured they just prayed to Mary and rubbed some rosary beads! This guy is off his rocker!
At school I study science. All day all I do is science and math. This semester I had the opportunity to mix it up a bit with a class in the history of the Catholic church. To be honest, my biggest motivation was the fact that at the end of the class we all get to go on a pilgrimage to Rome….and that would be kickin awesome. As a result I’ve started to actually learn about a lot of what makes up Catholic dogma and doctrine (and yes, there is a difference between dogma and doctrine). I want to say right now very plainly and simply that true Catholics (when I say true Catholics I mean Catholics who are Christians, not just Catholic by birth) do not worship Mary, they honor her. And you know, I kind of think Mary deserves a bit of honor. She’s the mother of our Lord and Savior. She gave birth to the God-Head made flesh. Isn’t that something pretty amazing, especially when you consider that she had a choice in the matter? She could have said no to God. She could have said, “sorry God, but my people will stone me because no one will believe that I didn’t “know” a man to have this kid, and that’s punishable by death in Your law…so I think I’ll pass.” (For those who might be new to this whole Bible-ese, “to know” someone is not learning about who someone is….this is Bible-ese for sex, so get used to it.) Think about what kind of faith that required her to have to trust in God. So yeah, Mary gave birth to Jesus, so although she does not disserve worship, she does disserve honor. The arch-angel Gabriel called Mary “most honored among women,” and I think we can trust the angel who was in charge of delivering God’s messages.
The rosary is not required to pray to God, it is merely a particular form of prayer. This isn’t any different then when different people say different graces before they eat (I like the Johnny Appleseed Grace myself, but that’s just my personal preference) I won’t go into details just now cause it’ll take a while to explain, but just realize that the rosary is one prayer and is actually pretty cool for reflecting on the mysteries and glory of God.
What about confession? Yeah, that was a big issue I had with Catholics for a very long time. Let’s learn about its history though. In the Bible we as Christians are called to confess our sins to each other as well as God. People did this for a while, but a problem developed. Although we are called to forgive everyone of their sins against us, this is often very hard to do (as I’m sure you all know as well as I). So imagine you’re a farmer in the early church, and a fellow Christian confesses of cow tipping at your farm and causing the death of you’re favorite, Betsy. Would you be real happy with him? Would you be tempted to hate him? Maybe just dislike him a lot. Maybe retaliate? So yeah, this whole confessing our sins to each other is good and important I think, but there are potential problems that arise just because of our human nature. So to keep this whole “confess your sins to fellow Christians thing” goin the early church started having the people confess to their religious leaders. Confession seem as blasphemous to you now? Didn’t think so.
Alright, so let’s bring this thing up to the present. This Thursday evening in History of the Catholic church class there was a visiting speaker to teach about the Old Testament. This man has an STD (Stop laughing! Yes, I did too) which is basically the Catholic equivalent of a doctorate. He knew the Bible through and through. He could probably quote you any verse you wanted. The cool thing is that because he knows Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic (among several other languages) fluently, he has actually read the Bible in its original un-translated form. You know what I think was neat? He compared today’s charismatic Christians to the Old Testament prophets. But wait, aren’t Catholics supposed to see charismatic gifts as foolish and crazy? Turns out no. Turns out that charismatic Christians are seen as present day prophets. How amazing!
Most Protestants are very familiar with the “alter call” (especially if you are Baptist). This is basically the time when the pastor calls all those who are not Christians to come to the front of the church and to invite Christ into their lives. So what’s this got to do with a college class on religion in a very very very (did I mention very) secular church? At the end of this priest’s teaching on the Old Testament while he was discussing the importance of wisdom and what God viewed as wisdom he all but did an alter call. Woa! In a college class?! I was amazed (especially because there’s at least one atheist I know of in that class. He was talking about Jesus as the wisest of all men because he is indeed the Word of God made Flesh (read the beginning of John if you don’t know what I’m talking about) and that although you may be wealthy and viewed as successful by the world without Christ, you truly are foolish. Only with Christ in your life can you be wise in the eyes of the Lord. This is especially crucial because when you die, your wealth and earthly positions are worthless. Yes, a Catholic priest (an upper ranking priest no less) talked about heaven and hell! How strange, right? Apparently not.
You’re going to have to trust me when I say this (because I happen to have a gift in discernment of the spirit) that this guy was the real deal. He was a true Christian with an amazing faith. As a side note, I want to tell you about what he told me after class when I went to talk to him. I introduced myself as a Protestant who had never had any exposure to the Apocrypha (the Catholic Bible includes more books than the Protestant Bible, but in the scheme of things, I really see this as not a real big deal because regardless they are good historical sources….when I learn more about that I’ll share it) and I wanted to know what translation of the Bible he would recommend for me to read if I wanted to check these books out. As we were leaving the classroom he commented on the fact that as a Protestant I have a great advantage because we’ve read the Bible. Want to know when someone is really in tune with reality? If they recognize the fact that there are problems and flaws in themselves they know what’s going on. If they try to pretend that they are perfect, be wary of them. This priest recognized the fact that Catholics as a whole don’t read the Bible nearly enough. He joked that before Vatican II as a child he was told not to read the Bible because if he did, he would become Protestant. (Please take this as a joke, because that’s what it is). Also, don’t get me wrong. It was not the Catholic church’s position that the Bible shouldn’t be read. The church’s view was that the lay person should not read the Bible because they might not interpret it correctly; they should rely upon their priest to interpret it for them. This was all changed though in the decisions of the Vatican II council (Read about it everyone! It was groundbreaking!). I like the fact that he could talk about the problems in the church with a light heart. This just shows how real he is. Just think, the Catholics see Protestants as great Christians.
Alright, so let’s get straight with this. Catholicism is not perfect. There are problems. Many Catholics misunderstand what the church teaches and so a lot of Catholics get wrong ideas about the importance of saints and Mary and confession and such. There are some bad priests out there who believe questionable things and consequently teach it. This is however now different then Protestantism. The Word of God is perfect, and God is perfect, but sometimes humans get things wrong and are dumb. That’s just an unfortunate side effect of sin. You don’t doubt that Protestants are Christians, so then why do you doubt Catholics when they are really truly no different.
What’s the bottom line? Worship preference really. God made us all different, and thank the Lord for that. It’d be boring otherwise. Different people pray to God, worship God, and see God in different ways. This means that different people require different types of worship, which calls for different types of churches, which is the whole reason why there are so many denominations of everything Christian. But it’s really just worship preference.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that everyone in the world is right. Here’s how you know if a church is right in the eyes of God.
1.) Is God sovereign and singularly the only deity?
2.) Is Jesus Savior and the only way to God?
3.) Is the Bible the infallible Word of God?
If it’s yes, then it’s Christian. The way to check to see if a church, a person, or a thing is holy in the eyes of the Lord, look in the Bible (yes, this means you need to read it, and I guarantee it’s a good read). If a church or a priest teaches something that conflicts with the Word of God, it is wrong. If a church or a priest teaches what is right in the Word of God, then it is right. Simple as that.
So please, stop hating each other! All Christians need to come together to bring the world to God. The in-fighting of Christians is doing nothing but hurting the kingdom and prevents countless millions from seeing the truth. Love one another!!
~AndyJams~
Let’s pretend you’re in your favorite coffee shop ordering your favorite caffeinated beverage to sit down in front of a fire to have all manner of intellectual banter with the other coffee-feigns who frequent this establishment (If you don’t like coffee…well, just work with me here.) Got it? Alright, so I come and sit in the overly comfy chair across the chessboard from you and ask you a socially taboo but very common question.
What kind of church do you go to?
Gasp! How could I ask such a thing? Well, stay tuned in the relative near future and I’ll explain briefly why some socially unacceptable questions should be asked (Are you a Christian? Wanna hear about Jesus? Winter or Summer Olympics? ….but I digress.)
Alright, so honesty time. What was your answer? United Methodist? Episcopalian? What about Charismatic Episcopalian? Hmm. I bet some of you put on your thinking caps real hard and pulled out some great Sunday School answers. Many of you were thinking, “I’m a Protestant and fiercely proud of it! Go Luther!” Most of the rest of you were all like, “Catholicism for life baby! The pope’s my boy!”
What’s the correct answer? (Uh oh, he’s about to call one right and the other wrong…two to one he says Catholics are dumb dumb heads.)
Alright, so here’s my answer (and indeed what I believe with all my heart to be correct). I go to the church of God, and all of you who are Christians, you do too (and those who aren’t Christians, God’s been leaving messages on your voicemail for years and wants you to return His calls).
So finally I return to what I started talking about…finally. I’m sick and tired of Christians hating other Christians because of some sort of stereotype or pre-determined bias they have against them.
I’m mostly signaling out Protestants here because thanks to the Vatican II council, the Roman Catholic church now does indeed recognize that other Christian denominations are indeed Christian and important to the Body of Christ. Catholics are no less Christian than Protestants! What follows is why I can say something so outrageous to many of you.
For a very very long time (most of my life actually) I thought Catholics were nothing better then pagans, worshipping all manner of saints and Mary and that none of them actually believed in God and Jesus as Christ. You know what changed my mind? What could cause such a drastic paradigm shift? What else could so drastically cause a teenage boy to re-evaluate his perspective on life but an amazing girlfriend? My freshman year of college I had a short relationship with a Catholic girl, and discovered that amazingly enough, she was Christian! Gasp!
Suddenly, for the first time in my life I was forced to sit down and actually think about the stereotypes I’d held for years. I discovered that both she and her mom (also a Catholic) had very strong and developed faiths.
(I realize just now that perhaps this was God’s purpose for putting this girl into my life. You who know me personally know who I’m talking about, and know that the breakup was rough, but you know, as I’m writing this I realize that I can be thankful because God used this girl to eliminate all the stereotypes about Catholics I had and to cause me to want to learn more about the orthodox doctrine and dogma. Crazy how I live with heartache for a very long time until I realize that it was all God’s will. So if you’re reading this Catholic girl, thank you.)
My story of discovering the truth about Catholicism doesn’t end there. During that same freshman year (what a year for me) I became good friends with a fellow astrophysics major when I gave her first aide for a nasty skin avulsion in her hand and then rushed her to the hospital (kids, please don’t stick an exacto-knife in your hand by accident whilst cutting holes in trashcan lids…it never ends well). When we took a sailing class together we began going to this friendly little diner for breakfast before class and spent our time discussing things mostly of a physicsy and religious nature. In case you couldn’t figure out where I was going, this good friend of mine is Catholic. She’s probably the first person of a different denomination who I’ve spent serious time discussing faith and religion with, and so she’s the first person who I’ve actually gotten to see grow and develop in her faith and theology over an extended period of time.
By this time I was shocked to realize that I actually began defending Catholics. I started to see real Catholics in their real faith. I also started to formulate why exactly I believe so many Protestants have this idea that all Catholics have dead faith.
Let’s think about this. Most of us have had the misfortune of watching a close friend lose their once strong faith. Yeah, it sucks, and yeah, keep workin’ on ‘em cause God misses them. So when a Protestant becomes an atheist or agnostic, do they keep calling themselves Protestants? In most cases they call themselves atheists or agnostics.
Now let’s think about Catholics. Catholicism, unlike Protestantism, is more than a faith. Catholicism is history, community, heritage, much like Judaism. If a Catholic ceases to believe the tenants of his faith, he usually still thinks of himself as a Catholic because he sees his being Catholic as his heritage and nationality. The same is often true of Jews.
So here’s where Protestants have Catholics wrong. It seems as though there are more false Catholics than Protestants just because more Catholics retain their “title” of Catholic even after they cease being Christian than do Protestants.
If this seems mildly questionable to you, just sit and think about it for a minute. I think if you’re being open minded and honest with yourself and with me you’ll see that what I’m saying is true.
Alright, so now for the night that forever changed my view of Catholics. Down here at school I attend a wonderful church pastured by a man with a great gift for Bible teaching. I like to think of it as a party in God’s house and everyone’s invited. Great praise, great Bible teaching, great just about everything. It’s pretty much your stereotypical charismatic new age Christian church. One Sunday in mid November I overslept both morning services. I told my good friend (who I still frequent the friendly diner with) when we went to see a movie, and she suggested I come with her to her church that evening. I was skeptical. Before this day I’d been to two Catholic services in my life. What I saw at this lovely church amazed me.
I have been to all sorts of services at all sorts of different denominations all over different parts of the country. I have seen, heard, and felt amazing things in these churches. This Catholic mass was one of the most spirit filled and amazing services I’ve ever worshipped in. God was very much present here. You see the teenagers praise and worship with tears and hands raised, dancing and singing like any charismatic youth Christian conference. The best part for me though was the prayer during the Eucharist. (Communion time). Amazing wonderful awesome prayer. I discovered that in this place I was able to be more vulnerable and more broken before the Lord than anywhere else. In this love filled, spirit filled parish I was able to truly bring my hopes, fears, wants, and needs before the Lord earnestly and faithfully. This church completely blew away what remained of my biases and stereotypes. I still go to my protestant charismatic “mega-church” Sunday mornings because it’s great for Bible teaching and praise, but I now also go to this Catholic mass on Sunday nights because it is so good for prayer.
The priests in their sermons have been encouraging seemingly very Protestant things: joining a small group is important for Christian growth, being with God more than just on Sundays is a must to build a relationship with Christ, reading the Bible is necessary so you know what God wants of you.
Wait, did he just say Catholics have small groups? They have personal relationships with Christ? They raise their hands in praise?! This is unheard of! I figured they just prayed to Mary and rubbed some rosary beads! This guy is off his rocker!
At school I study science. All day all I do is science and math. This semester I had the opportunity to mix it up a bit with a class in the history of the Catholic church. To be honest, my biggest motivation was the fact that at the end of the class we all get to go on a pilgrimage to Rome….and that would be kickin awesome. As a result I’ve started to actually learn about a lot of what makes up Catholic dogma and doctrine (and yes, there is a difference between dogma and doctrine). I want to say right now very plainly and simply that true Catholics (when I say true Catholics I mean Catholics who are Christians, not just Catholic by birth) do not worship Mary, they honor her. And you know, I kind of think Mary deserves a bit of honor. She’s the mother of our Lord and Savior. She gave birth to the God-Head made flesh. Isn’t that something pretty amazing, especially when you consider that she had a choice in the matter? She could have said no to God. She could have said, “sorry God, but my people will stone me because no one will believe that I didn’t “know” a man to have this kid, and that’s punishable by death in Your law…so I think I’ll pass.” (For those who might be new to this whole Bible-ese, “to know” someone is not learning about who someone is….this is Bible-ese for sex, so get used to it.) Think about what kind of faith that required her to have to trust in God. So yeah, Mary gave birth to Jesus, so although she does not disserve worship, she does disserve honor. The arch-angel Gabriel called Mary “most honored among women,” and I think we can trust the angel who was in charge of delivering God’s messages.
The rosary is not required to pray to God, it is merely a particular form of prayer. This isn’t any different then when different people say different graces before they eat (I like the Johnny Appleseed Grace myself, but that’s just my personal preference) I won’t go into details just now cause it’ll take a while to explain, but just realize that the rosary is one prayer and is actually pretty cool for reflecting on the mysteries and glory of God.
What about confession? Yeah, that was a big issue I had with Catholics for a very long time. Let’s learn about its history though. In the Bible we as Christians are called to confess our sins to each other as well as God. People did this for a while, but a problem developed. Although we are called to forgive everyone of their sins against us, this is often very hard to do (as I’m sure you all know as well as I). So imagine you’re a farmer in the early church, and a fellow Christian confesses of cow tipping at your farm and causing the death of you’re favorite, Betsy. Would you be real happy with him? Would you be tempted to hate him? Maybe just dislike him a lot. Maybe retaliate? So yeah, this whole confessing our sins to each other is good and important I think, but there are potential problems that arise just because of our human nature. So to keep this whole “confess your sins to fellow Christians thing” goin the early church started having the people confess to their religious leaders. Confession seem as blasphemous to you now? Didn’t think so.
Alright, so let’s bring this thing up to the present. This Thursday evening in History of the Catholic church class there was a visiting speaker to teach about the Old Testament. This man has an STD (Stop laughing! Yes, I did too) which is basically the Catholic equivalent of a doctorate. He knew the Bible through and through. He could probably quote you any verse you wanted. The cool thing is that because he knows Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic (among several other languages) fluently, he has actually read the Bible in its original un-translated form. You know what I think was neat? He compared today’s charismatic Christians to the Old Testament prophets. But wait, aren’t Catholics supposed to see charismatic gifts as foolish and crazy? Turns out no. Turns out that charismatic Christians are seen as present day prophets. How amazing!
Most Protestants are very familiar with the “alter call” (especially if you are Baptist). This is basically the time when the pastor calls all those who are not Christians to come to the front of the church and to invite Christ into their lives. So what’s this got to do with a college class on religion in a very very very (did I mention very) secular church? At the end of this priest’s teaching on the Old Testament while he was discussing the importance of wisdom and what God viewed as wisdom he all but did an alter call. Woa! In a college class?! I was amazed (especially because there’s at least one atheist I know of in that class. He was talking about Jesus as the wisest of all men because he is indeed the Word of God made Flesh (read the beginning of John if you don’t know what I’m talking about) and that although you may be wealthy and viewed as successful by the world without Christ, you truly are foolish. Only with Christ in your life can you be wise in the eyes of the Lord. This is especially crucial because when you die, your wealth and earthly positions are worthless. Yes, a Catholic priest (an upper ranking priest no less) talked about heaven and hell! How strange, right? Apparently not.
You’re going to have to trust me when I say this (because I happen to have a gift in discernment of the spirit) that this guy was the real deal. He was a true Christian with an amazing faith. As a side note, I want to tell you about what he told me after class when I went to talk to him. I introduced myself as a Protestant who had never had any exposure to the Apocrypha (the Catholic Bible includes more books than the Protestant Bible, but in the scheme of things, I really see this as not a real big deal because regardless they are good historical sources….when I learn more about that I’ll share it) and I wanted to know what translation of the Bible he would recommend for me to read if I wanted to check these books out. As we were leaving the classroom he commented on the fact that as a Protestant I have a great advantage because we’ve read the Bible. Want to know when someone is really in tune with reality? If they recognize the fact that there are problems and flaws in themselves they know what’s going on. If they try to pretend that they are perfect, be wary of them. This priest recognized the fact that Catholics as a whole don’t read the Bible nearly enough. He joked that before Vatican II as a child he was told not to read the Bible because if he did, he would become Protestant. (Please take this as a joke, because that’s what it is). Also, don’t get me wrong. It was not the Catholic church’s position that the Bible shouldn’t be read. The church’s view was that the lay person should not read the Bible because they might not interpret it correctly; they should rely upon their priest to interpret it for them. This was all changed though in the decisions of the Vatican II council (Read about it everyone! It was groundbreaking!). I like the fact that he could talk about the problems in the church with a light heart. This just shows how real he is. Just think, the Catholics see Protestants as great Christians.
Alright, so let’s get straight with this. Catholicism is not perfect. There are problems. Many Catholics misunderstand what the church teaches and so a lot of Catholics get wrong ideas about the importance of saints and Mary and confession and such. There are some bad priests out there who believe questionable things and consequently teach it. This is however now different then Protestantism. The Word of God is perfect, and God is perfect, but sometimes humans get things wrong and are dumb. That’s just an unfortunate side effect of sin. You don’t doubt that Protestants are Christians, so then why do you doubt Catholics when they are really truly no different.
What’s the bottom line? Worship preference really. God made us all different, and thank the Lord for that. It’d be boring otherwise. Different people pray to God, worship God, and see God in different ways. This means that different people require different types of worship, which calls for different types of churches, which is the whole reason why there are so many denominations of everything Christian. But it’s really just worship preference.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that everyone in the world is right. Here’s how you know if a church is right in the eyes of God.
1.) Is God sovereign and singularly the only deity?
2.) Is Jesus Savior and the only way to God?
3.) Is the Bible the infallible Word of God?
If it’s yes, then it’s Christian. The way to check to see if a church, a person, or a thing is holy in the eyes of the Lord, look in the Bible (yes, this means you need to read it, and I guarantee it’s a good read). If a church or a priest teaches something that conflicts with the Word of God, it is wrong. If a church or a priest teaches what is right in the Word of God, then it is right. Simple as that.
So please, stop hating each other! All Christians need to come together to bring the world to God. The in-fighting of Christians is doing nothing but hurting the kingdom and prevents countless millions from seeing the truth. Love one another!!
~AndyJams~
Evolutionary Flaw of the Day 02/11/06
Today's EFD is about the missing trunk of the evolutionary tree. Life was supposed to have evolved gradually over time, if scientists are right. However, the earliest parts of the fossil record (the lowest sedimentary layers of Cambrian rock) show abounding diversity of life. Variations among species abound, and life appears suddenly, full-blown, complex, diversified, and dispersed -- worldwide. Many times more phyla of organisms existed in Cambrian times than exist today. Such complex species as fish, worms, corrals, trilobites, jellyfish, sponges, mollusks, and brachiopods appear suddenly, with no sign anywhere on earth of gradual development from simpler forms. In fact, every plant and animal phyla in existence today can be found in the Cambrian layers. The tree of evolutionary progression has no trunk, and once again it is found that the fossil record clearly does not support evolution.
~Tribal~
~Tribal~
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Evolutionary Flaw of the Day 01/09/06
Today's EFD is about fossil gaps. If the process of evolution unfolded as modern scientists say it did, then there would obviously be a gradual transition between organisms in the fossil record. The species found at the bottom should start out very simplistic. As one observes the fossils higher up in the layers, the types of species should grow continually and gradually more complex. This is not the case, however, and even evolutionists will begrudgingly admit this. To quote from the book In the Beginning by Walt Brown, Ph.D.:
"Fossil links are missing between numerous plants, between single-celled forms of life and invertebrates, among insects, between invertebrates and vertebrates, between fish and amphibians, between amphibians and reptiles, between reptiles and mammals, between reptiles and birds, between primates and other mammals, and between apes and other primates. In fact, it is not links that are missing; it is chains. The fossil record has been studied so thoroughly it is safe to conclude these gaps are real; they will never be filled."
It is obvious that there are gaps in evolutionary theory. Maybe it is poetic justice that many of those gaps are in fossil record. Check back tomorrow for discussion on the missing trunk of the evolutionary tree.
~Tribal~
"Fossil links are missing between numerous plants, between single-celled forms of life and invertebrates, among insects, between invertebrates and vertebrates, between fish and amphibians, between amphibians and reptiles, between reptiles and mammals, between reptiles and birds, between primates and other mammals, and between apes and other primates. In fact, it is not links that are missing; it is chains. The fossil record has been studied so thoroughly it is safe to conclude these gaps are real; they will never be filled."
It is obvious that there are gaps in evolutionary theory. Maybe it is poetic justice that many of those gaps are in fossil record. Check back tomorrow for discussion on the missing trunk of the evolutionary tree.
~Tribal~
Foiled Terror Plot
This is a bit of a story from Fox News that I doubt you will hear on TV or in the newspaper:
"Bush Details Foiled 2002 Terror Attack
WASHINGTON -- Al Qaeda planned to hijack a commercial airplane with shoe bombs and fly it into Library Tower in Los Angeles, President Bush said Thursday, describing just one of many foiled terror attacks on the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
The plan, similar to the successful hijacking and flying of planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon that killed more than 3,000 people over four years ago, was stopped with the help of coalition partners who arrested key operatives, Bush said."
That's interesting because I thought, according to the far left, that Bush's policies to deal with terrorism were ineffective. We are told by the media that the Patriot Act is used to gain information about and arrest political opponents of the president. Their slander also continues when they try to push on us that the president spies on innocent American civilians, even though many key government leaders have denied this. It is interesting that the ones farthest away from the knowledge of what is actually happening are the ones trying to tell the American public the "truth." They are nowhere close to being on the "inside circle," but they pretend to know exactly what is going on even when those on the inside deny it. I would rather take the word of a man who is a Christian, opposes same sex marriage, and is against the killing of the unborn than the word of a man who left his girlfriend to drown after driving off a bridge, the word of a woman who's husband committed adultery in the oval office and then lied under oath about it, and the word of a man who doesn't know where he stands on any issue at all.
~Tribal~
"Bush Details Foiled 2002 Terror Attack
WASHINGTON -- Al Qaeda planned to hijack a commercial airplane with shoe bombs and fly it into Library Tower in Los Angeles, President Bush said Thursday, describing just one of many foiled terror attacks on the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.
The plan, similar to the successful hijacking and flying of planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon that killed more than 3,000 people over four years ago, was stopped with the help of coalition partners who arrested key operatives, Bush said."
That's interesting because I thought, according to the far left, that Bush's policies to deal with terrorism were ineffective. We are told by the media that the Patriot Act is used to gain information about and arrest political opponents of the president. Their slander also continues when they try to push on us that the president spies on innocent American civilians, even though many key government leaders have denied this. It is interesting that the ones farthest away from the knowledge of what is actually happening are the ones trying to tell the American public the "truth." They are nowhere close to being on the "inside circle," but they pretend to know exactly what is going on even when those on the inside deny it. I would rather take the word of a man who is a Christian, opposes same sex marriage, and is against the killing of the unborn than the word of a man who left his girlfriend to drown after driving off a bridge, the word of a woman who's husband committed adultery in the oval office and then lied under oath about it, and the word of a man who doesn't know where he stands on any issue at all.
~Tribal~
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Evolutionary Flaw of the Day 02/08/06
I extend my apologies to you all for being delinquent in my updates. This past week has been very busy, but more will be posted this weekend. The next installment in our worldviews series will also be posted in the very near future, so check back often. Today's EFD will be about parallel strata. The sedimentary layers observed in such locations as the Grand Canyon are typically parallel to adjacent layers. Now this raises an interesting environmental question. If erosion cut layers into the soils in times past as erosion does today, then would it not be reasonable to presume that there should be observable erosion evidence, carved by "millions and millions" of years of depositing? This is not the case, however, in almost every place in the world. This leads to the conclusion that the layers of sediments were deposited before they had a chance to erode enough to cut deep grooves. As a result, it did not take millions and millions of years to deposit the layers, meaning that the earth is not as old as modern scientists like to think it is. A big hole in evolutionary theory? I'd say so.
~Tribal~
~Tribal~
Friday, February 03, 2006
Evolutionary Flaw of the Day 02/03/06
Starting today, and continuing for the next week or so, our EFD's will focus around fossilization and fossils in general. Today we will deal with rapid burial of those fossils. Many fossils that have been found over the years show signs of a very rapid death and burial (possibly by a flood?). Quite a few fossil specimens were buried before their flesh even had a chance to decay. Prime example of this? -- jellyfish. Many jellyfish fossils show the details of their soft, fleshy portions as well as their more stable and rigid components. If it took as long as scientists say it did to fossilize these creatures, then their flesh would surely have rotted away before all the layers of sedimentary debris could have piled up. Is it not likely then that a cataclysmic event, oh let's say a flood, for example, almost instantly swept all this material on top of the creatures and fossilized them under tremendous pressures of rushing flood waters before their flesh could rot? In addition, many animals found buried in mass graves are twisted into contorted positions. This hints at nothing other than a rapid and violent burial under immense amounts of pressure (flood waters higher than mountains maybe?).
These observations, in addition with the occurrence of compressed fossils and fossils that cut across two or more layers of sedimentary rock, are strong evidence that the sediments encasing these fossils were deposited rapidly. How could a fossil transverse two or more layers of sediments if it took millions of years to form these layers? Furthermore, almost all of the sediments were sorted by water. On top of all of this information, comes even more interesting and bizarre fossils. There exists fossils in which a fish is caught in the act of swallowing another fish. What happened to cause this I wonder? A flood? "Of course not," the evolutionists say, "he just choked on his dinner and died with it shoved into his mouth to make it look like it was rapidly buried." Seeing has how fish breathe from their gills and not their throats, I think my theory is more scientifically acceptable. The fossil records all across the world show evidence of a rapid death and burial. This is clear evidence of a flood, which strangely enough, is told about in the Bible! Wow, I guess the Bible really did get history right!
~Tribal~
These observations, in addition with the occurrence of compressed fossils and fossils that cut across two or more layers of sedimentary rock, are strong evidence that the sediments encasing these fossils were deposited rapidly. How could a fossil transverse two or more layers of sediments if it took millions of years to form these layers? Furthermore, almost all of the sediments were sorted by water. On top of all of this information, comes even more interesting and bizarre fossils. There exists fossils in which a fish is caught in the act of swallowing another fish. What happened to cause this I wonder? A flood? "Of course not," the evolutionists say, "he just choked on his dinner and died with it shoved into his mouth to make it look like it was rapidly buried." Seeing has how fish breathe from their gills and not their throats, I think my theory is more scientifically acceptable. The fossil records all across the world show evidence of a rapid death and burial. This is clear evidence of a flood, which strangely enough, is told about in the Bible! Wow, I guess the Bible really did get history right!
~Tribal~
Evolutionary Flaw of the Day 02/02/06
Today's EFD is about embryology -- the study of embryos. Evolutionists like to claim that as an embryo develops, it follows an evolutionary sequence similar to that of other organisms. This is absolutely, 100%...false. What did you expect me to say? The belief in this theory is outdated and based on old information. For instance, scientists often claim that the tissues resembling "gill slits" on an embryo are just what they look like: gills. They really have nothing to do with breathing. Instead, the tissues are formed there because they develop into other parts of the face, the bones of the middle ear, and endocrine glands. In fact, Ernest Haeckel, by deliberately falsifying his drawings, was the source of this incorrect but widespread belief. Many modern textbooks continue to spread this falsification as factual information even though it is not.
~Tribal~
~Tribal~
Your Taxes Hard at Work
Did you know that every year, over 250 million dollars of your tax money goes to fund America's largest abortion provider: Planned Parenthood? If you think this is as disgusting as I do, go here to sign the American Life League's petition to our government. Here are some quick facts from the American Life League website about this sickening institution:
"--Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion chain in America and has killed more than 3 million innocent children at its facilities."
Sad, but true. Three million is really a small number when compared to the combined casualty rate of 530 million in the U.S. alone, but Planned Parenthood leads all other organizations in surgical abortions.
"--Planned Parenthood's top goal for the next 25 years is to push its agenda of promiscuous sex everywhere in our society"
Don't believe it? Planned Parenthood goes around to schools and sets up displays to promote the use of condoms. They literally tell kids it's ok to have sex as long as they are protected. In addition, the day they visited my friend's school, they had staff members talking all about the latest rave drugs.
"--Planned Parenthood puts minors on birth control without parents' knowledge or involvement"
True again, and of questionable legality...
"--Planned Parenthood has demonstrated a willingness to cover up for rapists and child predators"
Very unfortunately true. Planned Parenthood's most recent example of this was trying to conceal the rape of an 11 year old girl by her 17 year old boyfriend.
"--Planned Parenthood pushes pornography onto children with shocking and offensive websites, books, and literature"
This was recently brought up again in Vermont. You can read about that case here.
"--Planned Parenthood is openly hostile to Christianity, and regularly mocks people of faith"
Around Christmas time, Planned Parenthood released a Christmas card mocking Christ's birth. The card read, "Choice on earth," and had a picture of Jesus in the manger. In addition to this, there has recently been an outrage over a keychain Planned Parenthood tried to mass produce that had a condom inside it. The outside of the key chain had a picture of God's hand reaching out to give a man a condom.
"--Planned Parenthood hurts women with misleading and dishonest medical information"
They support abortion and tell women it might be necesarry to have one to save her life. In reality, abortion is never necessary to save a woman's life. Enough said.
"--And Planned Parenthood does all of this with over $265 million dollars a year of your tax money!"
Are you going to let them continute to do this without a fight? Will you let your tax dollars go to pay for all of the above mentioned activities? If you are as fed up with Planned Parenthood as we here at Insense are, sign this petition.
~Tribal~
"--Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion chain in America and has killed more than 3 million innocent children at its facilities."
Sad, but true. Three million is really a small number when compared to the combined casualty rate of 530 million in the U.S. alone, but Planned Parenthood leads all other organizations in surgical abortions.
"--Planned Parenthood's top goal for the next 25 years is to push its agenda of promiscuous sex everywhere in our society"
Don't believe it? Planned Parenthood goes around to schools and sets up displays to promote the use of condoms. They literally tell kids it's ok to have sex as long as they are protected. In addition, the day they visited my friend's school, they had staff members talking all about the latest rave drugs.
"--Planned Parenthood puts minors on birth control without parents' knowledge or involvement"
True again, and of questionable legality...
"--Planned Parenthood has demonstrated a willingness to cover up for rapists and child predators"
Very unfortunately true. Planned Parenthood's most recent example of this was trying to conceal the rape of an 11 year old girl by her 17 year old boyfriend.
"--Planned Parenthood pushes pornography onto children with shocking and offensive websites, books, and literature"
This was recently brought up again in Vermont. You can read about that case here.
"--Planned Parenthood is openly hostile to Christianity, and regularly mocks people of faith"
Around Christmas time, Planned Parenthood released a Christmas card mocking Christ's birth. The card read, "Choice on earth," and had a picture of Jesus in the manger. In addition to this, there has recently been an outrage over a keychain Planned Parenthood tried to mass produce that had a condom inside it. The outside of the key chain had a picture of God's hand reaching out to give a man a condom.
"--Planned Parenthood hurts women with misleading and dishonest medical information"
They support abortion and tell women it might be necesarry to have one to save her life. In reality, abortion is never necessary to save a woman's life. Enough said.
"--And Planned Parenthood does all of this with over $265 million dollars a year of your tax money!"
Are you going to let them continute to do this without a fight? Will you let your tax dollars go to pay for all of the above mentioned activities? If you are as fed up with Planned Parenthood as we here at Insense are, sign this petition.
~Tribal~
Thursday, February 02, 2006
More Theological Lessons from the Childrens' Reading Section
C.S. Lewis writes the following in his Chronicles of Narnia: The Silver Chair:
"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things -- trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."
These lines were spoken by the Marshwiggle character Puddleglum upon meeting the Queen of Underland. She tried to enchant the four main characters of the novel into forgetting all about the trees, sun, moon, stars, grass, and even Aslan himself. Prior to this event, three of the main characters (including Puddleglum) had fallen through a hole in a cave to enter Underland. This is where they met the fourth important character, the Prince Rillian, who had been enchanted. They freed him from the enchantment, and then they tried to escape back to the "Overworld," or above ground, when they were caught by the witch. She played music from an instrument and used an inhalant drug coming from the fireplace to carry out her sorcerous intentions, but the brave Puddleglum had resisted her trickery and fought back.
This is basically a primer to Pascal's Wager. Atheists and materialists claim there is no meaning to life, there is no God, there is no heaven, and there is nothing to live for besides the indulgence of selfish pleasures. This is represented by the witch trying to keep the travelers locked into the "Underworld," or that sect of worldly thinking that is naturalistic. In fact, the witch can even be viewed as Satan himself. When the witch tries to enchant our protagonists, Lewis writes that often the person being enchanted does not realize he or she is being enchanted. This is such a clear picture of what happens in everyday life. Those who reject God are totally unaware that they are being lulled to sleep by the forces of evil in this world. They think they are perfectly in the right and that Christians are the ones who have it wrong.
Ultimately, Puddleglum comes to state that it is better to believe in Narnia even if it does not exist than to believe soley in the dark, dreary, and hollow world of Underland. After all, if the witch was right, then Puddleglum and his companions would not have wasted their lives on anything because their is no meaning to life. If Puddleglum was right, however, then there would be severe consequences for the witch. This is Pascal's Wager in a nutshell. Pascal said that we put faith into one line of thought whether we realize it or not. Pascal argued that it was more beneficial to believe in God for the same reasons Puddleglum believes in Aslan and Narnia. Pascal says that if the atheists are wrong, they will go to hell and be eternally damned. If Christians are wrong, who cares? Life would be meaningless anyway, so what was wrong with wasting it on religion if that is what a person wanted? It is therefore beneficial for an individual to believe in God, because the greatest rewards come if you are right, and the worst results come if you are an atheist and you are wrong. C.S. Lewis truly was a literary genius. All of his works, even his novels, are deeply interwoven with the faith that drove him on. Another good job by Christianity's greatest apologist.
~Tribal~
"Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things -- trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."
These lines were spoken by the Marshwiggle character Puddleglum upon meeting the Queen of Underland. She tried to enchant the four main characters of the novel into forgetting all about the trees, sun, moon, stars, grass, and even Aslan himself. Prior to this event, three of the main characters (including Puddleglum) had fallen through a hole in a cave to enter Underland. This is where they met the fourth important character, the Prince Rillian, who had been enchanted. They freed him from the enchantment, and then they tried to escape back to the "Overworld," or above ground, when they were caught by the witch. She played music from an instrument and used an inhalant drug coming from the fireplace to carry out her sorcerous intentions, but the brave Puddleglum had resisted her trickery and fought back.
This is basically a primer to Pascal's Wager. Atheists and materialists claim there is no meaning to life, there is no God, there is no heaven, and there is nothing to live for besides the indulgence of selfish pleasures. This is represented by the witch trying to keep the travelers locked into the "Underworld," or that sect of worldly thinking that is naturalistic. In fact, the witch can even be viewed as Satan himself. When the witch tries to enchant our protagonists, Lewis writes that often the person being enchanted does not realize he or she is being enchanted. This is such a clear picture of what happens in everyday life. Those who reject God are totally unaware that they are being lulled to sleep by the forces of evil in this world. They think they are perfectly in the right and that Christians are the ones who have it wrong.
Ultimately, Puddleglum comes to state that it is better to believe in Narnia even if it does not exist than to believe soley in the dark, dreary, and hollow world of Underland. After all, if the witch was right, then Puddleglum and his companions would not have wasted their lives on anything because their is no meaning to life. If Puddleglum was right, however, then there would be severe consequences for the witch. This is Pascal's Wager in a nutshell. Pascal said that we put faith into one line of thought whether we realize it or not. Pascal argued that it was more beneficial to believe in God for the same reasons Puddleglum believes in Aslan and Narnia. Pascal says that if the atheists are wrong, they will go to hell and be eternally damned. If Christians are wrong, who cares? Life would be meaningless anyway, so what was wrong with wasting it on religion if that is what a person wanted? It is therefore beneficial for an individual to believe in God, because the greatest rewards come if you are right, and the worst results come if you are an atheist and you are wrong. C.S. Lewis truly was a literary genius. All of his works, even his novels, are deeply interwoven with the faith that drove him on. Another good job by Christianity's greatest apologist.
~Tribal~
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Evolutionary Flaw of the Day 02/01/06
Today's EFD is about two-celled life, or rather the lack thereof. If everything came from single celled life, one would expect to see gradual growth and development in organisms over time, resulting in species of two-celled life. However, the organisms with the next largest cell count besides one occurs at six. Oddly enough, organisms with 6-20 cells are parasites. First of all, where are all of the organisms with 2-5 cells? If macroevolution occurred, one should find many forms of life with 2-20 cells as transitional forms between one-celled and many-celled organisms. However, as noted above, those organisms with 2-5 cells are nonexistent, and those with 6-20 are parasites who need the existence of much larger organisms to feed off of. A hole in evolutionary theory? You bet it is.
~Tribal~
~Tribal~
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