There’s this guy, axinar, and he has a blog. This a response to him since there wasn’t enough room in his comment section.
You’re talking about theistic evolutionists there. I’m not one of them. A few of the things I was talking about in my comment are here if you want to look it up. Mind you, not all of their stuff is completely watertight.
There is one, very interesting mathematical concept that is not very widely known, but is intriguing to those to know about it.
The Golden Mean, or Phi, is an irrational number that equals 1.618…. It is a ratio that appears everywhere in nature. The Fibbonaci series is very closely related to it, since the difference between the numbers of the Fibbonaci series above 8 is roughly phi. Spirals are closely related to it. The elements of the human face and body are equal to the golden section, which is basically: line A is to line B as line B is to line C. The difference between those sections is 1.618…. This occurrence and regularity of phi is seen in plant branching patterns, animal and plant proportions, population growth, and almost everything else throughout nature. It is found in galaxy spirals, planet orbits, and other astronomical things. It is also found in music, the Bible, and a few other things. Some say that economics and human attitude is related to it, but that’s beyond my field.
Now all these things are truly the result of divine design. Some call this ratio God’s signature, since it is the foundation of beauty. How can unconsciousness and chance produce such order and beauty throughout the world? I’m just touching the tip of the iceberg here, for more info and phi basics go to here.
A term has come into common use in the past century. The term: puritanical. It has come to mean something or someone who is completely bland, serious, and harsh in terms of morals. Not many things in this world are further from the truth.
Most people mistake the Puritans for the Quakers. The Quakers were the ones who always wore black, and were always serious. In fact, the Quakers often accused the Puritans of being too caught up in this world. The Puritans liked games and had fun like everyone else today. (Without, of course, modern devices)
The thing that people exaggerate though is that the Puritans believed in limits on fun, games, and entertainment. They believed in standards and morals which today’s society scorns. They believed in fun after work was done. They believed in games on all days except Sunday. They believed in inside of marriage. The only thing that was strict about them was their strict following of the Bible.
So people, don’t ridicule the Puritans for being what you think they were like; learn the facts and history of their lives. Many things can be learned from them.
Yes, I’m using the “r” word.
Racism has been a plague to western culture from its very beginning: The Romans against the Goths, the Europeans against the Gypsies, the whites against the blacks, the Arians against the Jews, etc.
Now Christians certainly were, embarrassingly, involved in some of this. Christians held slaves. But if you look at the accounts, true Christians treated their servants with kindness. There were books written by godly people, which told about how to treat a slave in terms of family life. Selling slaves, and splitting up families was strictly despised in the Christian community in the South. There has come to be a common stereotype, which depicts the entire South as beating their slaves and killing them. This was true in some cases, with some non-Christians; but on the whole, it was atypical. George Washington Carver is a good example of this. He kept up correspondence with his master’s family long after his release. Slavery is of course very wrong, and the Christian slaveholders were wrong, but they still condemned the atrocities of brutality. Other Christians were heavily involved in getting slavery abolished in England, for instance.
But one thing that’s interesting, and that no one admits; is that Darwinian evolution was the precedent and excuse for much of the abuse that followed the Civil War. Darwinian evolution teaches that a species develops by acquiring and keeping those characteristics that elevate it above the other species and enable it to survive. (aka survival of the fittest) In the human sector, this can be applied to races. One race is “superior” to another, and therefore must either subject or kill off the other races in order to purify, and thus advance the human race. Most people don’t know that the complete title of Darwin’s book is On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, The Preservation of the Favored Races in the Struggle for Life.
This led to all kinds of injustices. People took aborigines and Negroes and put them in cages beside monkeys and apes with signs in front of them that said, in effect, “Here is the missing link between the apes and us.” Aborigines in Australia, especially were subject to heinous crimes. Hitler, when he implemented the Holocaust, was cleansing the human race of inferior beings. There are many more examples, but I’ll stop here.
By the way, how did races come about from an evolutionary perspective? Oh yeah, and please don’t say that they were different monkeys.
Before I start this post, I have to admit that the idea came from John Piper’s article in World Magazine on Feb 18, 2006. It was called Being Mocked. It was such a good article that I felt I had to post it in my own words.
One interesting thing about the recent Danish cartoons and the ensuing reaction to them is the difference between the ministries of Mohammed and Jesus, and thus between Christianity and Islam. The Muslims were protesting the blaspheming of Mohammed’s name by the Danish cartoonists. They say that they honor Jesus more than we do, because Allah would not allow his prophet to die the shameful of the cross.
But this suffering and was essential to our salvation. Christ took the punishment for our sin on Himself. He was scorned, mocked, and reviled so as to fulfill prophecy and to endure what we deserved. Then, He died. But after three days He rose from the grave so as to show that He conquered sin and , and to show that the Father had accepted His sacrifice. This is much more glorious than the Islamic notion of him living out his days in peace. Jesus also said during His earthly ministry that He would be mocked. He said that if He would be persecuted, so would those who followed Him.
Christianity and Christ have been mocked many times and in many ways over the centuries, but the message of Jesus’ sacrifice still rings true. You didn’t see Christians rioting and people when Andres Serrano did his against Jesus, or when The Da Vinci Code came out. Sure we are grieved and angered, but we follow the Bible, which says, [God speaking] “Vengeance is mine, I will repay” (Romans 12:19)
The contrast is stark between a religion that will threaten upon those scoffing its leader, and believes that their works will earn their salvation; and one that adores the Incarnate God who suffered scoffing in our place, and took away our sins so that we may have life.
“He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Isaiah 53:3a, NKJV.
In my last blog post, I established that humanism is a religion. Now, I am going to take this concept to one of its logical conclusions.
There have been many discussions, court cases, and legal fights about the religious part of the first amendment, where it applies, and seperation of church and state. Here it is, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Now people have used this clause to justify the taking out of all mention of Christianity from public places. This is completely wrong for several reasons.
First, the clause says, “Congress shall make no law…” Thus, there is no application beyond the federal level. Most of the legal fights are in state and township jurisdiction, but the Constitution has no authority over those disputes. In fact, at the time of the Constitution and afterwards, some of the states still had established churches. No one had a problem with this, and eventually they also passed legislation, which disestablished religion in their respective areas.
Second, the clause says, “…establishment of religion…” In other words, there can be no state endorsed religion on the federal level. The founding fathers put this in as contrary to England, where the Anglican Church was the established religion; you had to attend church there or you would be arrested. You also had to pay your “church tax.” This forceful attendance was the reason for the Pilgrims (Separatists) and the Puritans becoming persecuted. They got sick of it, and came to America. The founders knew this, and put this clause in to prevent anything like that happening here. Establishment does not mean that you make no mention or acknowledgement of any religion anywhere on public property; it only means that government cannot force people to attend or tithe to a certain religion. Thus, most of the cases today are absolute falsehood, and act like this country doesn’t have any Christian tradition.
However, one thing most people don’t notice or bring up is this little logical induction:
Humanism is a religion
Public schools receive federal funds and teach humanism
The Constitution forbids federal funding for the teaching of a religion
Public schools are unconstitutional.
Now, I know that trying to touch public education in this country is like poking your finger through a hornet’s nest that has just gone through political turmoil, and is itching for something to focus its destructive energies on. Nevertheless, it still stands that public schools are unconstitutional according to the 1st amendment.
Some women in California in the 60’s realized this, and petitioned the current Attorney General to change it. Now “the current Attorney General” is a very important phrase because that person is important in this story. His name is: Robert Kennedy. This guy waited and waited, until after a few more repeated letters, he had to respond and told the women’s group that they were right, that the public schools were teaching humanism, that humanism is a religion, and that it was unconstitutional for the public schools to do that. But, he also said that he wasn’t going to do anything about it. The women’s group looked into it and found out that it would take more than a million dollars to push the issue in court. Thus, the idea died. But it still remains one of the most glaring unconstitutional programs out there.
The Webster’s dictionary definition of religion is “noun, any system of belief, worship, conduct etc., often involving a code of ethics and a philosophy.” Then, logically, you could say what no one else seems to want to admit: humanism is a religion.
Let’s go through the adjectives in the definition to see if they match humanism. Belief: Yes, humanism is a belief. Worship: Yup, they worship man, in particular, their own selves. Conduct: Check, they conduct themselves with little or no morals. The only law (it is frequently violated) is that you cannot violate someone else’s sphere or damage their person, conscience, or feelings. A code of ethics: Definitely, the code is you do what you think is best or what appears right to you. Philosophy: Absolutely, it’s Darwinist, and following the teachings of one or more of the following: Nietsche, John Dewey, John H. Dietrich, R. Lester Mondale, Kant, Sagan etc. Humanism even has its sacred documents: the Humanist Manifestos. Their priests and ministers are evolutionary scientists and authors. They have many organizations across the country, and are very influential on government.
This religion is the dominant religion of America, and it is dangerous.
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