Posted on 05/01/2011 7:24:18 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
The squabble between Darwin lobbyists who openly hate religion and those who only quietly disdain it grows ever more personal, bitter and pathetic. On one side, evangelizing New or "Gnu" (ha ha) Atheists like Jerry Coyne and his acolytes at Why Evolution Is True. Dr. Coyne is a biologist who teaches and ostensibly researches at the University of Chicago but has a heck of a lot of free time on his hands for blogging and posting pictures of cute cats.
On the other side, so-called accommodationists like the crowd at the National Center for Science Education, who attack the New Atheists for the political offense of being rude to religious believers and supposedly messing up the alliance between religious and irreligious Darwinists.
I say "supposedly" because there's no evidence any substantial body of opinion is actually being changed on religion or evolution by anything the open haters or the quiet disdainers say. Everyone seems to seriously think they're either going to defeat religion, or merely "creationism," or both by blogging for an audience of fellow Darwinists.
Want to see what I mean? This is all pretty strictly a battle of stinkbugs in a bottle. Try to follow it without getting a headache.
Coyne recently drew excited applause from fellow biologist-atheist-blogger PZ Myers for Coyne's "open letter" (published on his blog) to the NCSE and its British equivalent, the British Centre for Science Education. In the letter, Coyne took umbrage at criticism of the New Atheists, mostly on blogs, emanating from the two accommodationist organizations. He vowed that,
We will continue to answer the misguided attacks [on the New Atheists] by people like Josh Rosenau, Roger Stanyard, and Nick Matzke so long as they keep mounting those attacks.Like the NCSE, the BCSE seeks to pump up Darwin in the public mind without scaring religious people. This guy called Stanyard at the BCSE complains of losing a night's sleep over the nastiness of the rhetoric on Coyne's blog. Coyne in turn complained that Stanyard complained that a blog commenter complained that Nick Matzke, formerly of the NCSE, is like "vermin." Coyne also hit out at blogger Jason Rosenhouse for an "epic"-length blog post complaining of New Atheist "incivility." In the blog, Rosenhouse, who teaches math at James Madison University, wrote an update about how he had revised an insulting comment about the NCSE's Josh Rosenau that he, Rosenhouse, made in a previous version of the post.
That last bit briefly confused me. In occasionally skimming the writings of Jason Rosenhouse and Josh Rosenau in the past, I realized now I had been assuming they were the same person. They are not!
It goes on and on. In the course of his own blog post, Professor Coyne disavowed name-calling and berated Stanyard (remember him? The British guy) for "glomming onto" the Matzke-vermin insult like "white on rice, or Kwok on a Leica." What's a Kwok? Not a what but a who -- John Kwok, presumably a pseudonym, one of the most tirelessly obsessive commenters on Darwinist blog sites. Besides lashing at intelligent design, he often writes of his interest in photographic gear such as a camera by Leica. I have the impression that Kwok irritates even fellow Darwinists.
There's no need to keep all the names straight in your head. I certainly can't. I'm only taking your time, recounting just a small part of one confused exchange, to illustrate the culture of these Darwinists who write so impassionedly about religion, whether for abolishing it or befriending it. Writes Coyne in reply to Stanyard,
I'd suggest, then, that you lay off telling us what to do until you've read about our goals. The fact is that we'll always be fighting creationism until religion goes away, and when it does the fight will be over, as it is in Scandinavia.A skeptic might suggest that turning America into Scandinavia, as far as religion goes, is an outsized goal, more like a delusion, for this group as they sit hunched over their computers shooting intemperate comments back and forth at each other all day. Or in poor Stanyard's case, all night.
There's a feverish, terrarium-like and oxygen-starved quality to this world of online Darwinists and atheists. It could only be sustained by the isolation of the Internet. They don't seem to realize that the public accepts Darwinism to the extent it does -- which is not much -- primarily because of what William James would call the sheer, simple "prestige" that the opinion grants. Arguments and evidence have little to do with it.
The prestige of Darwinism is not going to be affected by how the battle between Jerry Coyne and the NCSE turns out. New Atheist arguments are hobbled by the same isolation from what people think and feel. I have not yet read anything by any of these gentlemen or ladies, whether the open haters or the quiet disdainers, that conveys anything like a real comprehension of religious feeling or thought.
Even as they fight over the most effective way to relate to "religion," the open atheists and the accomodationists speak of an abstraction, a cartoon, that no actual religious person would recognize. No one is going to be persuaded if he doesn't already wish to be persuaded for other personal reasons. No faith is under threat from the likes of Jerry Coyne.
Do you know believe God's Word IS The Final Authority
I know believe God is the final authority. Most particularly: I believe your meaning of God's Word is your personal interpretation of Holy Scripture - and that this is no one's final authority except, as evidenced by your posts, yours.
and cast aside doctrines of men that the RCC teaches?
Never.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Whatever you realize it to be, I realize you avoided the question:
the least you could do is say what denomination, confession, etc. you belong to or follow - without identifying city, etc. - out of fairness for corresponding comparison and criticism. I think most, if not all, on here have done so. Are you willing to do that?
Are you?
Several Catholics obsessively misquote and misrepresent the OPC doctrines
Gee, that never happens to Catholic doctrines. /s
I will not provide ammunition nor cooperate with that kind of attempts are fomenting sectarian infighting.
Except against Catholics.
There are not a lot of individual churches of the denomination which we attend in this area. Even mentioning that would provide enough information to narrow it down enough to find out who I was.
I find that very hard to believe. I live in the hard core Baptist area, few Catholic Churches here. I attend the Cathedral. I have no worry of anyone knowing who I am from this information.
I have stated before that my overall doctrinal positions are closest to those of the likes of Billy Graham, or Chuck Swindol.
That's a start.
Are you, and is your church, Calvinist?
we teach that Jesus Christ is Lord, GOD and Savior. Why don’t you believe that? It’s there in the Bible that your posts say you read. Why don’t you acknowledge Jesus IS God?
why doesn’t your cult, pnsm, give up the doctrines of men and why doesn’t your cult accept that Jesus Christ is God?
Chucks soteriology appears to be Easy Believerism:
Simply through believing the good news that Christ died for his or her sins and then rose from the dead, a person can be forgiven of all sin, declared righteous by God, reborn into new life, and guaranteed eternal life with God.Agree with Chuck on this?
Source.
Then who or what created evil? Or has it existed for eternity along with God? No, I am comfortable with not judging God. I accept that what he says is true. The potter makes a vase, but that does not make the potter a vase nor does he have the qualities of the vase.
Leaving out 'Word' - you leave Jesus out…
Jesus is God.
Your posts are examples of how far from the Christian faith some can go when they reject His Church, developing their own doctrines on their own authority.
I did give you a doctrinal position.
Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
Read the link and listen to some of what Swindol has to say. I could attend his church with no problems. Likewise I could attend a Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Assemblies of God, Baptist, or independent church, find fellow believers and worship with them, and I have.
What kind of hair splitting doctrinal issues are you looking for?
I am not a Calvinist.
I am a follower of Christ, not a man.
1Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. 4For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
5For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. 6But the righteousness based on faith says, "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) 7or "'Who will descend into the abyss?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8But what does it say? "The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); 9because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11For the Scripture says, "Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame." 12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. 13For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
Yes, the gospel message is simply and easy to believe. It is easy to be saved, easy enough for a child to do it.
Living the Christian live, not so much.
I guess that depends on whether you think moral evil and sin are created things.
God is omnipotent and created man with free will. He is perfect goodness; we are not:
“But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.The potter and the clay:
…Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour? And for this reason, that He Himself makes this or that. For He is Himself alone the Maker of all things; yet it is not He Himself that fashions noble or ignoble things, but the personal choice of each one.And this is manifest from what the same Apostle says in the Second Epistle to Timothy, In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth: and some to honour and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work.
And it is evident that the purification must be voluntary: for if a man, he saith, purge himself. And the consequent antistrophe responds, "If a man purge not himself he will be a vessel to dishonour, unmeet for the master's use and fit only to be broken in pieces."
Wherefore this passage that we have quoted and this, God hath concluded them all in unbelief, and this, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, all these must be understood not as though God Himself were energising, but as though God were permitting, both because of free-will and because goodness knows no compulsion.
St. John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith
I do not have a problem with the translation in that passage. God created the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the middle of the Garden of Eden (Gen 2). Satan is also a created being whose behavior is part of the unfolding story of our redemption (Genesis,Job,Jude)
For example, is there no need for repentance in your beliefs?
As you, a human, interpret it on your own authority.
Christ did not teach that we should be individuals following our own individual understanding of inspired writing. If you follow Christ, you are not His Church by yourself on your own authority.
The thief on the cross demonstrated it.
The tax collector at the temple demonstrated it.
Luke 18:9-14 9He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.' 13But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!' 14I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
Throwing yourself on the mercy of the court is not hard.
Men make it too complicated.
Simply through believing the good news that Christ died for his or her sins and then rose from the dead, a person can be forgiven of all sin, declared righteous by God, reborn into new life, and guaranteed eternal life with God.So it doesn't matter what one believes about Jesus's divinity, the Trinity, etc., one can be a Unitarian, LDS, pagan…? And one need not repent, be Baptized, reject Satan and sin… I see nothing here but Easy Believerism.
Not according to Chuck.
Men make it too complicated.
Your and his Easy Believerism is simple - and wrong.
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