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In my seventieth year I find myself in a very peculiar position. Raised a Quaker, I lost my faith in my early twenties and it has never returned. I think of myself as an agnostic on deities and ultimate meanings and that sort of thing. With respect to the main claims of Christianity - loving god, fallen nature, Jesus and atonement and salvation - I am pretty atheistic, although some doctrines like original sin seem to me to be accurate psychologically. I often refer to myself as a very conservative non-believer, meaning that I take seriously my non-belief and I...

Why is it that so many people believe that the world works the way that they want it to work, rather than the way it actually works? The philosopher Robert Nozick taught me the answer to this question. He also taught me that leftists are not the only people in America who cannot escape from the "attitude of ideology." Robert Nozick's office was a bastion of intellectual refuge for me when I was a college student at Harvard. I spent hours in his office complaining about my Harvard education --an education that seemed to me to be mostly indoctrination into...

Less than one percent of the youngest adult generation in America has a biblical worldview, found a new study examining the changes in worldview among Christians and the overall U.S. population. The Mosaic generation, those between the ages of 18 and 23, “rarely” have a biblical worldview as defined by The Barna Group. The research data found that less than one-half of one percent of Mosaics have a biblical worldview. A biblical worldview, as defined by the Barna study, is believing that absolute moral truth exists; the Bible is completely accurate in all of the principles it teaches; Satan is...

Similar to the way ancient pagan civilizations, including Greece and Rome, experienced a stillbirth in science because the ideological glasses they were wearing did not allow them to see the world as a distinct creation by God with fixed laws rather than an emanation from God with ever-changing forms, modern-day Christian worldview thinking has an inherent stillbirth factor built in. Every time some progress is made in defining a cultural problem that needs to be fixed in a biblical way, someone will enter the stage, take his position behind the podium and state in unequivocal terms, “This is all true,...

Then there is Thomas Sowell, the economist and political philosopher. He prefers an older way of looking at American politics--a much older way. In his classic 1987 work, A Conflict of Visions, Sowell identifies two competing worldviews, or visions, that have underlain the Western political tradition for centuries. Sowell calls one worldview the "constrained vision." It sees human nature as flawed or fallen, seeking to make the best of the possibilities that exist within that constraint. The competing worldview, which Sowell terms the "unconstrained vision," instead sees human nature as capable of continual improvement. You can trace the constrained vision...

Hotel chains are removing Bibles from guest rooms, replacing them with "intimacy kits" and adding "One Night Stand" packages as well as "romance concierge" personnel to their offerings, according to a new report in Newsweek. Tens of thousands of Americans are protesting the trend, through an action e-mail alert sponsored by American Family Association. The Newsweek report by Roya Wolverson suggested a new marketing campaign could be based on the apparent values-less programs that are appearing. "Marriott spokesman John Wolf says the Bible question [whether to include them in guest rooms] is premature for the new [boutique hotel] venture, which...

by Dr. Peter Jones In 1974, when I left the States to teach in "godless" France, the cultural revolution was a Left coast/San Fran' phenom', and America was still "Christian." When I returned in 1991, I was in for culture shock, but still never imagined what lay ahead. One man warned us. In 1978, Pastor Charles Mcllhenny recorded his experiences after his church fired a homosexual organist (When the Wicked Seize a City). Church property was repeatedly vandalized and his family almost killed by a firebomb. "Law enforcement" never found the culprits. Mcllhenny used San Francisco as a striking example...

The world according to Pyongyang By Andrei Lankov Over the past couple of weeks, the small community of Seoul-based Pyongyang watchers was busy discussing a minor professional sensation. The Wolgan Chungang monthly, widely known for its good insights on all things North Korean, published a lengthy transcript of a speech, allegedly delivered last December, by a high-level Central Committee official. He was obviously talking to a group of prominent academics and engineers. The official's name is cited as Chang Yong-sun, but he seems to be a complete unknown to the North Korea experts. The authenticity of the transcript cannot be...

One hundred million people: that’s how many died under the oppression of Communism. Those victims have too often been ignored by much of the Western press—especially by members of the media who were sympathetic with the Communist ideology. But on Tuesday, the victims were remembered—and a Washington park was dedicated to their memory. It’s called the Victims of Communism Memorial Park. Rising above the park grounds is the statue of a woman, her arms lifting a torch aloft. It’s a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue carried by anti-Communist demonstrators in Tiananmen Square 18 years ago. The statue and...

PITTSBURGH - Anger is good for you, as long as you keep it below a boil, according to new psychology research based on face reading. People who respond to stressful situations with short-term anger or indignation have a sense of control and optimism that lacks in those who respond with fear. "These are the most exciting data I've ever collected," Carnegie Mellon psychologist Jennifer Lerner told a gathering of science writers here last month.

A Contrast in Worldviews What difference does a worldview make? Around the world, we are seeing the clash of civilizations in action. In recent days, that clash has given us a story of life, and stories of death. In Baghdad yesterday, a terrorist blew himself up with a car bomb, killing at least twenty-eight people and wounding dozens more. One witness told the Associated Press that pieces of human flesh were scattered all around the marketplace. In Afghanistan last month, another terrorist blew himself up near a crowd gathered for a ceremony to open a hospital emergency ward. A few...

You would think that all Christians have a biblical view of the world around them. After all, we go to church, we’re a part of a small group, we’ve read The Purpose-Driven Life. Are you ready for a reality check? The research says just the opposite. Most Christians do not have a biblical worldview. Author and researcher George Barna made waves by citing statistics that show just 9 percent of all adults in America who claim to be “born again” have a biblical worldview. You didn’t read that incorrectly—it was 9 percent. Protestants as a whole could only manage 7...

The American left exhibits ambivalence toward Christians and Christianity. On the one hand it routinely demonizes them and their values, and on the other, identifies with them. This sometimes looks like an insulting charade. Liberals often mock the perceived backwardness of Christianity, yet their prominent politicians jump at the chance to appear at megachurches to rub elbows with their robust congregations. They conspicuously wear their Bibles for photo-ops and cite Scripture in campaign speeches, yet deride Christian conservatives and condemn Republican politicians for allowing their Christian beliefs to inform their policies. Their pastors write books upbraiding Republicans and conservatives for...

As we bid farewell to President Gerald Ford, we should duly note that he lived squarely in the camp of those that eschewed the opinion polls and did what he thought was the best thing for the nation. With the American public overwhelmingly in favor of a public trial for former President Richard Nixon, President Ford issued a full pardon. In his address to the nation he said, “It can go on and on, or someone must write ‘The End’ to it. I have concluded that only I can do that. And if I can, I must.” At the time...

When the Gospel Community Church in Coxsackie, New York, breaks midservice to excuse children for Sunday school, nearly half of the 225-strong congregation patters toward the back of the worship hall: the five youngest children of Pastor Stan Slager's eight, assistant pastor Bartly Heneghan's eleven and the Dufkin family's thirteen, among many others. "The Missionettes," a team of young girls who perform ribbon dances during the praise music, put down their "glory hoops" to join their classmates; the pews empty out. It's the un-ignorable difference between the families at Gospel Community and those in the rest of the town that's...

Believers can take comfort in the fact that atheism barely amounts to a "movement." American Atheists, which fights in the courts and legislatures for the rights of nonbelievers, has about 2,500 members and a budget of less than $1 million. On the science Web site Edge.org, the astronomer Carolyn Porco offers the subversive suggestion that science itself should attempt to supplant God in Western culture, by providing the benefits and comforts people find in religion: community, ceremony and a sense of awe. "Imagine congregations raising their voices in tribute to gravity, the force that binds us all to the Earth,...

A Lesson In Bias Joseph Farah It's unusual for me to devote an entire column to an otherwise obscure assistant professor with a less-than distinguished writing career – let alone a second column. But Mel Seesholtz of Penn State University, the subject of my musings Wednesday, has responded in a letter to the editor suggesting I ignored the substance of his argument in favor of "bias free" education and dwelled only on his thinly veiled call for my death, along with James Dobson's. Somehow, it had never occurred to me that I should concern myself with the substance of an...

At the end of the 18th century, Founding Fathers like John Adams and Alexander Hamilton were becoming increasingly troubled by the revolution that was unfolding in France. Unlike the American Revolution, which was founded on the Christian principles delineated in the Declaration of Independence, the French version was virulently anti-religious (particularly in regard to Christianity). The revolutionaries sought to replace religion with human reason, even going so far as suggesting that Notre Dame be renamed the "Cathedral of Reason." Adams observed of France with great alarm: "I know not what to make of a republic of 30 million atheists." Hamilton...

. . . < snip > . . . Among such liberals can be found a cluster of many of the same religious components: 1. Dogmas. The backdrop for the major dogmas of the religiously liberal are those of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment: that mankind must overcome religious superstition by means of Reason; that empirical science can and will eventually answer all the questions about the world and human values that were formerly referred to traditional religion or theology; and that the human race, by constantly invalidating and disregarding hampering traditions, can and will achieve perfectibility. Contemporary liberalism also includes three...

Ali Sina is the Iranian ex-Muslim behind the website www.faithfreedom.org. Along with other former Muslims such as Ibn Warraq, Sina is spearheading what may be the first organized movement of ex-Muslims in Islamic history, made possible during the past ten to fifteen years by Muslim immigration to the West and the growth of the Internet. Publishing rational criticism of Islam, reaching hundreds of thousands of people and potentially hundreds of millions of people across the world, has never been done before until a few years ago. This is also part of the inspiration for my own suggestion of creating an...

Remember humanism? That optimistic belief that human beings are the apex of the universe, the source of all values, and the measure of all things? Throughout the 20th century, many intellectuals believed that humanism would take the place of the world's religions. And yet, even within the world of humanism, the status of "Man" has been diminishing. In the sequence of Humanist Manifestos issued over the years, what began with the exaltation of "Man" has been reduced to the exaltation of "science," by which adherents mean evolution. Today, "secular humanists" still believe in secularism, but the humanism is all but...

In modern society it is often considered arrogant and intolerant to suggest that any individual or group knows the truth about the world. Yet as we see from moment to moment in life all around us, truth is inescapable. To reject any worldview is simply to counter it with your own, whatever that may be, or however undeveloped in your own mind. The question is simply, which account of the universe is true? The atheistic evolutionist's and humanist's big story about the human condition is summarized by Oxford zoologist and atheist Richard Dawkins: If the universe were just electrons and...

There's no helping you. This site is now just a diversion -- like a train wreck. This site is inherently for and about raving egomaniacs, and Jim's site policies -- which amount to excluding reality and actual dialogue in favor of political/militaristic pornography -- is conducive to cognitive dissonance, which at the times your worldview is threatened leads you into psychotic breaks (on the political cognitive plane, that is, and just maybe in other realms too). Not to mention that your baseline politics is based in mythology about American demographics, science, economics, ethics etc. You spoonfeed each other in the...

Missing the Mark With Religion, Part 4 Again I pose the same question, but with slight variation: Do religion and morality have a place in public policy, public law, and public education – or are they to be scorned, shunned, and silenced? Finding the answer to that question in lieu of the hot battle between 21st Century Compassionate Conservatism on the one hand, and 20th Century Modern Liberalism (and its twin sister on moral and religious issues – Libertarianism) on the other, is a quest worthy of our full attention. As I've already stated without apology, the unspoken consensus –...

Rodney Stark's latest book, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Random House, 2005), is scheduled for publication next Tuesday. It's a useful corrective for folks in Austin, Boston, and other blue spots who think of Christianity and rationalism as opposite historical forces and philosophical concepts. The veteran Baylor professor discussed with WORLD how the Christian sense of progress led to political, technological, and economic advances. WORLD: How is Christianity unique in emphasizing the idea of progress? STARK: The other great faiths either taught that the world is locked in endless cycles or that...

In 1920, Winston Churchill spoke of a group of Enlightenment conspirators who had produced a system of morals and philosophy "as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible." He observed that this malignant worldview "has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century. This worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality has been steadily growing." (Zionism versus Bolshevism) This malevolent system of warped morals and anti-human philosophy entered into...

Without any obvious planning by a higher power, the emergence of Michael Ruse as the foremost philosopher of evolutionary theory now seems scientifically confirmable. Even before his newest book, works such as "The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw" (1979); "Monad to Man: The Concept of Progress in Evolutionary Biology" (1996); "Mystery of Mysteries: Is Evolution a Social Construction?" (1999); "Can a Darwinian Be a Christian: The Relationship Between Science and Religion" (2001); and "Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose?" (2003), suggested an innate reluctance to adapt to other subject matters. The consequence -- a formidable...

On Sunday, October 16, a truly unique political event will take place. Teaming up with the legendary rock group U2 for a one-night only appearance will be Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.). The thousand-dollar-a-seat concert has been put together by Sean and Ana Wolfington and will take place at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia in support of Santorum’s re-election, reports NewsMax's James Hirsen. U2 front man Bono is no stranger to Washington, D.C. He has come often to the nation’s capital to network with politicians on behalf of his many causes. Story Continues Below Santorum met Bono earlier this year, having...

Following a week-end attending a Worldview Conference, I came home with my mind full of the many directions we have taken since we first became a sovereign nation based on Godly principles. It is very easy to see the forces coming against our nation and many of them are coming from within...and we have given them our permission. If other worldviews are to flourish, it is imperative that the Christian Heritage of our nation be destroyed. I brought home numerous books and pieces of information and as I read through them, it is not difficult to see how Christianity has...

Well I hope we are all here. I'd like to have this discussion out: space, taxes, future, the anwser to all things space and tax related. We have had a lot of talk around here about the future of NASA and government expenditure as compared to civilian or corporate expenditure on space programs. Some of us would like to see more spending, some less. I'd like to get the arguments of both and have this be a long lasting thread to all those whom are interested on the topic. So Long and thanks for all the fish!

A federal court of appeals ruled yesterday Wisconsin prison officials violated an inmate's rights because they did not treat atheism as a religion. "Atheism is [the inmate's] religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being," the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said.

The church today finds itself assaulted without--and even within--by a culture and worldview of untruth, anti-truth, and postmodern irrationality. In fact, researchers increasingly report that a majority of evangelicals themselves reject the notion of absolute or objective truth. The seductive lure of postmodern relativism has pervaded many evangelical pulpits and countless evangelical pews, often couched as humility, sensitivity, or sophistication. The culture has us in its grip, and many feel no discomfort. The absence of doctrinal precision and biblical preaching marks the current evangelical age. Doctrine is considered outdated by some and divisive by others. The confessional heritage of the...

Radio evangelist Chuck Baldwin, WorldNetDaily, and Whistleblower magazine have recently revisited findings by Christian opinion researcher George Barna that only 9% of born-again Christians have a Biblical perspective on life. “The problem with America’s Christianity today is that, for the most part, it doesn’t exist!” Baldwin said, in a June 1 broadcast. We should revisit these figures too. They first appeared in a Barna Update December 1, 2003: “A Biblical Worldview Has a Radical Effect on a Person’s Life.”[1] Barna defined a Biblical worldview as belief in eight propositions: Absolute moral truths exist. The Bible defines moral truth. Jesus Christ...

[Selections excerpted from Whatever Happened to the Human Race. These words were written in 1979.] ...from pages 111-112... Let it never be said by historians in the latter days of this century that - after the Supreme Court decided on abortion in 1973 and the practice of infanticide began - there was no outcry from the medical profession and no outcry from many outside this profession. Let it never be said that the extermination program for various categories of our citizens could never have come about if the physicians of this country had stood for the moral integrity that recognizes...

The smart IBM boys want to dump their troubles on to, and make better use of, the Chinese, but their bright strategies seem very strange to some politicians in Washington. Now, these politicians raise the big weapon: the national interest.

Herbert Marcuse, of the Marxist/Nietzschean Frankfurt School, which is credited with devising political correctness, extrapolated upon Marxism so as to include homosexuals among the "oppressed groups." The research findings of Alfred Kinsey, sadmasochistic- homosexual-pedophile were incorporated into a larger ideology which eventually came to be known as 'queer liberation' theory. ... the queer fairytale claim that biology and physiology play no role in what an individual wishes to believe he is {sexually} at any given moment; that in fact, mankind is gender-neutral. In "Intellectual Morons" Daniel J. Flynn wrote, at the end of the chapter entitled, "Therefore we will be...

What are we to say about a human condition in which "Nature red in tooth and claw" rears up on its massive hindquarters, and hurls a 30-foot wall of water against the lowlands of eleven of the poorest and most populous nations on earth, including some playgrounds of the rich of Europe and America, and crushes, chokes, and twists away the lives of going past 150,000 human beings? "Nature" is not the way the Greens picture it. Nature batters human beings. Nature has annihilated tens of thousands of other species, why not the human species? Most of the public voices...

How do you teach youngsters about truth in a culture that says there is no truth? It's not easy—as I know from experience. Over recent months, I've taught worldview to groups of bright young students. With each group, I had the same distressing experience. When I presented a classic example of a self-refuting moral proposition, they just didn't get it. An example: The late Christopher Reeve, in his wheelchair with a breathing tube, was testifying before a Senate committee. Reeve dismissed moral objections to embryonic stem-cell research, claiming that the purpose of government is "to serve the greatest good for...

The Postmodern World View is schizophrenic. It is split in two and the two parts contradict one another. Francis Shaeffer taught us to think of it as a house with an upper story and a lower story. There is no stairway to connect the two stories. The upper story and the lower story are walled off from one another. In the lower story is scientific materialism which dogmatically asserts that the world is be a closed system which consists of nothing but matter and energy which is subject to the laws of cause and effect. A second dogmatic assertion follows...

A researcher has revealed some disturbing trends regarding the sets of beliefs Christian students in public schools have about the most important issues in life. Dan Smithwick is the founder and president of the Nehemiah Institute, a group that provides a biblical worldview testing and training service to Christian educators. He is the developer of what is called the "PEERS test," a tool to assess the worldviews of young people, and says the majority of public school students from evangelical Christian homes consistently score in the "socialist" category on the test. According to Smithwick, this outcome should come as no...

I have a friend who has a friend who is a teacher in Russia. She sent him the following: Subject: Excerpt from a Romanian newspaper We rarely get a chance to see another country's editorial about the USA. Read this excerpt from a Romanian Newspaper. The article was written by Mr. Cornel Nistorescu and published under the title "C"ntarea Americii, meaning "Ode To America") on September 24, 2002, in the Romanian newspaper Evenimentulzilei ("The Daily Event" or "News of the Day"). ~An Ode to America~ Why are Americans so united? They would not resemble one another even if you painted...

WASHINGTON - When George W. Bush accused John Kerry this week of approaching the world with a pre-Sept. 11 mind-set, it was - to the president's way of thinking - the ultimate put-down. But in many ways that view captures the stark differences separating the two men, not only in how they define themselves, but also in their visions for America's role in the world. Both candidates have settled on foreign policy as their preferred campaign workhorse for distinguishing themselves from each other. It is Sept. 11, 2001, and the broad issues emanating from that day - national security, terrorism,...

When is it “OK” for an innocent bystander to be brutalized at the whim of a common thug? Amid the collection of worldviews we endeavor to rationalize in our pluralistic cultural, brutalizing ones neighbor and stranger alike is still repugnant to most. Who among us, whether atheist, Christian, or secular humanist will praise and commend the actions of a judge who in the name of love and understanding does not penalize the lawbreaking thief, rapist, and murderer. Why is it so difficult for the average person to apply this simple example of reality to God? If the Creator God...

What do you say? By Bill Burkett Online Journal Contributing Writer March 19, 2003—I've sat in total grief for the past three years, watching the institutions of America being spent as if they were lottery winnings. I don't want to say it, "But I told you so." In January of 1998 and what seems like a full lifetime ago, I was stricken by a deadly case of meningoencephalitis. I was returning from a short duty trip to Panama as a team chief to inspect the hand over of Ft. Clayton to the Panamanians. I had been 'loaned' from the senior...

My Dear Wormwood: I have just returned from our weekly meeting of the Infernal Lowerarchy* where before my peers I was utterly humiliated to report that that educator “patient” of yours has registered for a conference on Christian education. For hell’s sake, how could you let that happen? He was supposed to go on a cruise that week. You are on the verge of letting that man slip through your scaly fingers. At that gathering, they plan on addressing things we have been working assiduously to establish in the Western consciousness for centuries, things like privatization, compartmentalization, and various Endarkenment...

A clever blogger at beautifulatrocities.com has done the homework to compile these side-by-side reviews of Gibson's and Moore's films:A.O. Scott, New York Times: F9/11: Mr. Moore's populist instincts have never been sharper...he is a credit to the republic. Passion: Gibson has exploited the popular appetite for terror and gore for what he and his allies see as a higher end.Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: F9/11: Received both the first prize and the longest continuous standing ovation in the history of the Cannes Film Festival and it wasn't because of some cliched French antipathy to America. Passion: Lacks artistic and even spiritual...

(Ventura, CA) - Any objective social analyst would conclude that the United States faces its fair share of moral and spiritual problems. A new research study from the Barna Research Group'suggests that a large share of the nation's moral and spiritual challenges is directly attributable to the absence of a biblical worldview among Americans. Citing the findings from a just-completed national survey of 2033 adults that showed only 4% of adults have a biblical worldview as the basis of their decision-making, researcher George Barna described the outcome. "If Jesus Christ came to this planet as a model of how we...

The US military suffered its worst monthly death toll since the end of major combat in Iraq, losing 79 soldiers in November mostly in enemy attacks. Casualties like Sharon Swartworth are commemorated in the media But the cries to pull troops out have not grown louder and indeed both public and politicians seem prepared to accept the setbacks as part of a longer-term battle which needs fighting. Some pundits and media observers seem keen to find similarities between the ongoing operation in Iraq and the Vietnam War which dragged on amid mounting public opposition until the US decided nothing more...

Pollster George Barna, one of the most astute observers of the evangelical scene today, is in the midst of a nationwide tour conducting seminars for ministers and church leaders. One of the things he discovered that disturbed him most, he said, was that so few born-again Christians have a biblical worldview. According to one study, 91 percent do not have a worldview. And this, Barna concluded, is one of the reasons the Church is so weak. At BreakPoint and the Wilberforce Forum, we're trying hard to do something about that. Daily broadcasts on radio stations nationwide tell you how to...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. At BreakPoint, we believe and, as a father of six, I can attest that one of the best gifts a graduating high school senior can receive prior to college is a solid understanding of worldview. And that's why we were so encouraged to hear about the recent opportunity BreakPoint Managing Editor Jim Tonkowich had to speak to the senior class at Covenant Life School in Maryland. It was part of their annual Christ and Culture Week. Each spring, the seniors at this Christian school are challenged to use their...