Posted on 09/24/2009 8:37:40 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
We are losing our children! Research indicates that 70% of teens who are involved in a church youth group will stop attending church … [1]
Similar statements from Christian leaders aren’t new, but many still can’t seem to identify the root cause of the problem. However, most front-line evangelists in the Western world have reached a consensus. The following quote is from a person who shares his faith more times in a month than most Christians ever will in their lives...
(Excerpt) Read more at creation.com ...
“... there are Catholics (and protestants) who fill the pews but have NO relationship with the Saviour.”
What business is that of yours? You practice Christianity according to your custom, and let them practice according to theirs. That shouldn’t be too hard.
And what coup d’etat would that be?
““I am an evangelist. I go around and talk with people. One-on-one conversations. My time on college campuses and talking to high schoolers, the number one answer that I get for there not being a God, so then I don’t have to believe in [God/the gospel], is evolution.”
Believing in the God of the Bible brings responsibility with it and that's not an easy thing to accept, while believing that we are the products of evolution doesn't require any particular actions toward our Creator, much easier a road to follow.
I couldn’t agree more! I would just add that I have heard it said that many have an added reason to accept evolution. That is, not knowing or believing what the Bible says about the origin of our fallen world, they opt for evolution rather than putting all the evil and suffering in the world on God.
When I talk with my daughter about this very subject she asks how a God of love could allow evil and I ask her how humans can blame God for what they permit and make excuses for in themselves.
Needless to say the discussions become spirited. But we've gotten past much of that as she's learned more of the Scriptures.
I agree.
Do not ping someone to a thread after he has been instructed to leave it.
Do not ping someone to a thread after he has been instructed to leave it.
If a person is told to leave the thread, they shouldn’t be back on it, should they?
Buck showed up in 290, 301, and 302 after being told to stay off the thread in 268.
I understand the rule about not pinging someone who is told to stay off the thread, but it seems that if the person continues to respond, that it’s not surprising that people would respond back.
Quandry: To courtesy ping Buck to let him know he is being discussed and violate the RM’s directive to not ping him, or not ping him and violate FR protocol.
Choice: Abide by mod’s directive and not ping aforementioned chastised FReeper.
In my defense, I did not post to him until after he had violated your instructions and returned to the thread.
He still hasn’t left.
Prior to 1859 the academic world was not split on its perceptions of reality in the Western world. Yes, there where varying concepts of reality truth, but there was basic agreement that the world, its laws, its order, and truth eminated from a Transendent Being.
Now we find academia split into what C.P.Snow called, "two cultures, with humanities sharply divided off from science. Today that bifurcations reaches all the way down to elementary grades. In school darwinism is not open to question; students are not exposed to evidences against the truth of darwinism that they might make conclusions on their own. Science is treated as public truth, regardless of private beliefs. In short, the sciences hold the ideal of objective truth, while matters of religion are subjective personal values, and thus have no place in debate in the public square.
Questions of scientific merit will not be allowed if questions of evolutionary force truth is placed at risk. For example, if we organisms that arose by adaptation to environment, and our brains are likewise the product of those same impersonal forces, then ideas must have likewise so arisen, as must have abstrations such as logic, truth, and all that is mental. The very Theory of Evolution is unapproachable by the darsinst, to be explained and justified by the materialist, naturalist. Should these concerns be expressed, the anti-religious usually resort to the scientific congener of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals in trying to define someone who danes posit such questions. The contempt on the faith of Christianity and the Christain God begins very early in our deucational system along with the essential libertine world which ushers from it. So we see behavior in elementary schools through adulthood which, here-to-fore were unheard of.
So we see a shift from "religion as knowledge to religion as faith alone." In short religion, according to the postmodernist, darwinist,becomes something that can be tolerated for people who need that kind of crutch.
So the Truth of God is has been exchanged as vain, foolish imaginations. The materialists worldview cannot explain Truth, or justice, or logic, or moral law. Darwinism is devoid of all of those things, yet proclaim to be the very 'protectors ' and purveyors of that Truth. They cannot justify Truth, but in their hearts they know Truth exists and they want it to be theirs exclusively. Yes, "For the invisible things of Him from creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so they are without excuse;" The issue is not the content of morality so much as the Truth Status of moral claims. Is morality a universal normative standard or only a matter of subjective preference. The honest darwinist can only say the latter, thus negating Truth at all junctures.
So the question becomes, Does Truth exist?, from the Christian apologists viewpoint. Can that Truth be demonstrated to the materialist on his own turf? Upon this question of epistemology - which one dominates our culture - will the gatekeeper of knowledge of Truth being imparted to our children, depend. At this point it seems the intelligensia is prevailing. It reminds me of the admonition which Screwtape, senior demon of C.S.Lewis book, The Screwtape Letters, advising the nephew junior demon, Wormwood,..."We [devils] are really faced with a cruel dilemma. When the humans disbelieve in our existence, we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism, and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make skeptics and materialists of them. At least not yet. I have reat hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotinalize and mythologize their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, belied in us (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in the Enemy (God)." "Science", upon demanding usurpation of defining Truth, now spends billions of dollars on 'scientic endeavors with gratitude of Aesculapius on clinical application of Hinduism (pantheism), TM, study of drug connection of pantheism, psychokinesis, clairvoyance, and a thousand other declarations of "truth" to be studied or used, all in the name of science. This dominent epistemology determines the definition of truth and which ideas are to be taken seriously.
Their strategy is that first you placate religious eople by telling them how much you respect their belief and feelings - but then remind them that private feelings are not something we can impose on others in the public arena. What Christians desparately need is to understand labels like science and reason are often used to mask what is actually a substantive philosophical posistion. By unmasking that hidden worldview Christians can level the playing field, debunking the materialists' position, which is a double standard that allows only secular views -not a religious one - a seat at the table of public discourse. These same materialist secularists used to argue that religion is false, which meant Christians could at least engage them in discourse abut reason, logic, and evidence. But today, since reason, logic, and evidence can only be justified by the Christian worldview, they have redefined terms to argue that religion does not have the status of testable truth claim at all - that it does not belong at the table.
The rightful reclaimation of the Christain worldview at the head of the table will be achieved when the TRUTH is advance through the justification of logic, reason, and rational thought with the materialst. The Christian must demand and take the materialist darwinist to a place where they cannot hope to deal with Truth through logic and reason, domains which elude their justification, and the very place the God of Reason and Logic provide more than sufficient evidence to make the case that this universe is reasonable, logical, and rational and then tell them the justification why you make that assertion as a Christian.
You don’t post often, but excellent, as usual.
There is a big problem with one side controlling all the definitions. Evos and scientists complain that non-evos and scientists can’t define scientific terms and impose any restrictions on science, they sure like to define non-scientific terms and impose their restrictions on non-scientific areas.
Kind of heads I win, tails you lose situation.
But after denouncing that philosophy has no place in science to keep others out, likewise, they ought to mind their own business and not meddle in philosophy and religion. If they’re going to meddle in those areas, they ought to expect people to push back, at the very least.
Do not ping someone to a thread after he has been instructed to leave it.
Good verse. Also, verse 16 is a good marker of whether what one professes is true or not.
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