Posted on 09/20/2013 4:29:03 AM PDT by spirited irish
“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
“And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit." (Rev. 9:1)
In his Concise Commentary Matthew Henry identifies falling stars as tepid, indecisive, weak or apostate clergy who,
"Having ceased to be a minister of Christ, he who is represented by this star becomes the minister of the devil; and lets loose the powers of hell against the churches of Christ."
John identifies antichrists, in this case clergy who serve the devil rather than Christ, sequentially. First, like Bultmann, Teilhard de Chardin, Robert Funk, Paul Tillich, and John Shelby Spong, they specifically deny the living, personal Holy Trinity in favor of Gnostic pagan, immanent or Eastern pantheist conceptions. Though God the Father Almighty in three Persons upholds the souls of men and maintains life and creation, His substance is not within nature (space-time dimension) as pantheism maintains, but outside of it. Sinful men live within nature and are burdened by time and mortality; God is not.
Second, the specific denial of the Father logically negates Jesus the Christ, the Word who was in the beginning (John 1), was with God, and is God from the creation of all things (1 John 1). In a pre-incarnate theophany, Jesus is the Angel who spoke “mouth to mouth” to Moses (Num. 12:6-9; John 9:20) and at sundry times and in many ways “spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all…” (Hebrews 1:1) Jesus the Christ is the incarnate Son of God who is the life and light of men, who by His shed blood on the Cross died for the remission of all sins and bestowed the privilege of adoption on all who put their faith in Him.
Therefore, to deny the Holy Father is to logically deny the deity of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, hence,
“…every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist . . . and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:3).
According to Peter (2 Peter 2:1), falling stars will work among the faithful, teaching damnable heresies that deny the Lord, cause the fall of men into unbelief, and bring destruction upon themselves:
“The natural parents of modern unbelief turn out to have been the guardians of belief.” Many thinking people came at last “to realize that it was religion, not science or social change that gave birth to unbelief. Having made God more and more like man---intellectually, morally, emotionally---the shapers of religion made it feasible to abandon God, to believe simply in man.” (James Turner of the University of Michigan in “American Babylon,” Richard John Neuhaus, p. 95)
Falling Stars and Damnable Heresy
Almost thirty years ago, two well-respected social science scholars, William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark found themselves alarmed by what they saw as a rising tide of irrationalism, superstition and occultism---channeling cults, spirit familiars, necromancers, Wiccans, Satanists, Luciferians, goddess worshippers, 'gay' shamans, Hermetic magicians and other occult madness at every level of society, particularly within the most influential--- Hollywood, academia and the highest corridors of political power.
Like many scientists, they were equally concerned by Christian opposition to naturalistic evolution. As is common in the science community, they assumed the cause of these social pathologies was somehow due to fundamentalism, their term for authentic Christian theism as opposed to liberalized Christianity. Yet to their credit, the research they undertook to discover the cause was conducted both scientifically and with great integrity. What they found was so startling it caused them to re-evaluate their attitude toward authentic Christian theism. Their findings led them to say:
"It would be a mistake to conclude that fundamentalists oppose all science (when in reality they but oppose) a single theory (that) directly contradicts the bible. But it would be an equally great mistake to conclude that religious liberals and the irreligious possess superior minds of great rationality, to see them as modern personalities who have no need of the supernatural or any propensity to believe unscientific superstitions. On the contrary...they are much more likely to accept the new superstitions. It is the fundamentalists who appear most virtuous according to scientific standards when we examine the cults and pseudo-sciences proliferating in our society today." ("Superstitions, Old and New," The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. IV, No. 4; summer, 1980)
In more detail they observed that authentic ‘born again’ Christians are far less likely to accept cults and pseudoscientific beliefs while the irreligious and liberalized Christians (i.e., progressive Catholics, Protestant emergent, NAR, word faith, prosperity gospel) are open to unscientific notions. In fact, these two groups are most disposed toward occultism.
As Bainbridge and Stark admitted, evolution directly contradicts the Bible, beginning with the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo. This means that evolution is the antithesis of the Genesis account. For this reason, discerning Christians refuse to submit to the evolutionary thinking that has swept Western and American society. Nor do they accept the evolutionary theism brought into the whole body of the Church by weak, tepid, indecisive, or apostate clergy.
Over eighty years ago, Rev. C. Leopold Clarke wrote that priests who embrace evolution (evolutionary theists) are apostates from the ‘Truth as it is in Jesus.’ (1 John2:2) Rev. Clarke, a lecturer at a London Bible college, discerned that evolution is the antithesis to the Revelation of God in the Deity of Jesus Christ, thus it is the greatest and most active agent of moral and spiritual disintegration:
“It is a battering-ram of unbelief---a sapping and mining operation that intends to blow Religion sky-high. The one thing which the human mind demands in its conception of God, is that, being Almighty, He works sovereignly and miraculously---and this is the thing with which Evolution dispenses….Already a tremendous effect, on a wide scale has been produced by the impact of this teaching---an effect which can only be likened to the…collapse of foundations…” (Evolution and the Break-Up of Christendom, Philip Bell, creation.com, Nov. 27, 2012)
The faith of the Christian Church and of the average Christian has had, and still has, its foundation as much in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis, the book of beginnings revealed ‘mouth to mouth’ by the Angel to Moses, as in that of the person and deity of Jesus Christ. But how horrible a travesty of the sacred office of the Christian Ministry to see church leaders more eager to be abreast of the times, than earnestly contending for the Faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). It is high time, said Rev. Clarke, that the Church,
“…. separated herself from the humiliating entanglement attending her desire to be thought up to date…What, after all, have custodians of Divine Revelation to do making terms with speculative Biology, which has….no message of comfort or help to the soul?” (ibid)
The primary tactic employed by priests eager to accommodate themselves and the Church to modern science and evolutionary thinking is predictable. It is the argument that evolution is entirely compatible with the Bible when we see Genesis, especially the first three chapters, in a non-literal, non-historical context. This is the argument embraced and advanced by mega-church pastor Timothy J. Keller.
With a position paper Keller published with the theistic evolutionary organization Bio Logos he joined the ranks of falling stars (Catholic and Protestant priests) stretching back to the Renaissance. Their slippery-slide into apostasy began when they gave into the temptation to embrace a non-literal, non-historical view of Genesis. (A response to Timothy Keller’s ‘Creation, Evolution and Christian Laypeople,” Lita Cosner, Sept. 9, 2010, creation.com)
This is not a heresy unique to modern times. The early Church Fathers dealt with this damnable heresy as well, counting it among the heretical tendencies of the Origenists. Fourth-century Fathers such as John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Ephraim the Syrian, all of whom wrote commentaries on Genesis, specifically warned against treating Genesis as an unhistorical myth or allegory. John Chrysostom strongly warned against paying heed to these heretics,
“…let us stop up our hearing against them, and let us believe the Divine Scripture, and following what is written in it, let us strive to preserve in our souls sound dogmas.” (Genesis, Creation, and Early Man, Fr. Seraphim Rose, p. 31)
As St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote, higher theological, spiritual meaning is founded upon humble, simple faith in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis and one cannot apprehend rightly the Scriptures without believing in the historical reality of the events and people they describe. (ibid, Seraphim Rose, p. 40)
In the integral worldview teachings of the Fathers, neither the literal nor historical meaning of the Revelations of the pre-incarnate Jesus, the Angel who spoke to Moses, can be regarded as expendable. There are at least four critically important reasons why. First, to reduce the Revelation of God to allegory and myth is to contradict and usurp the authority of God, ultimately deny the deity of Jesus Christ; twist, distort, add to and subtract from the entire Bible and finally, to imperil the salvation of believers.
Scenarios commonly proposed by modern Origenists posit a cleverly disguised pantheist/immanent nature deity subject to the space-time dimension and forces of evolution. But as noted previously, it is sinful man who carries the burden of time, not God. This is a crucial point, for when evolutionary theists add millions and billions of zeros (time) to God they have transferred their own limitations onto Him. They have ‘limited’ God and made Him over in their own image. This is not only idolatrous but satanic.
Additionally, evolution inverts creation. In place of God’s good creation from which men fell there is an evolutionary escalator starting at the bottom with matter, then progressing upward toward life, then up and through the life and death of millions of evolved creatures that preceded humans by millions of years until at long last an apish humanoid emerges into which a deity that is always in a state of becoming (evolving) places a soul.
Evolution amputates the entire historical precedent from the Gospel and makes Jesus Christ unnecessary as the atheist Frank Zindler enthusiastically points out:
“The most devastating thing that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a saviour. And I submit that puts Jesus…into the ranks of the unemployed. I think evolution absolutely is the death knell of Christianity.” (“Atheism vs. Christianity,” 1996, Lita Cosner, creation.com, June 13, 2013)
None of this was lost on Darwin’s bulldog, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1985). Huxley was thoroughly familiar with the Bible, thus he understood that if Genesis is not the authoritative Word of God, is not historical and literal despite its’ symbolic and poetic elements, then the entirety of Scripture becomes a collection of fairytales resulting in tragic downward spiraling consequences as the Catholic Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation makes clear in part:
“By denying the historical truth of the first chapters of Genesis, theistic evolutionism has fostered a preoccupation with natural causes almost to the exclusion of supernatural ones. By denying the several supernatural creative acts of God in Genesis, and by downplaying the importance of the supernatural activity of Satan, theistic evolutionists slip into a naturalistic mentality which seeks to explain everything in terms of natural causes. Once this mentality takes hold, it is easy for men to regard the concept of spiritual warfare as a holdover from the days of primitive superstition. Diabolical activity is reduced to material or psychological causes. The devil and his demons come to be seen as irrelevant. Soon ‘hell’ joins the devil and his demons in the category of antiquated concepts. And the theistic evolutionist easily makes the fatal mistake of thinking that he has nothing more to fear from the devil and his angels. According to Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of Rome, there is a tremendous increase in diabolical activity and influence in the formerly Christian world. And yet most of the bishops of Europe no longer believe in the existence of evil spirits….To the Fathers of the Church who believed in the truth of Genesis, this would be incredible. But in view of the almost universal acceptance of theistic evolution, it is hardly surprising.” (The Difference it makes: The Importance of the Traditional Doctrine of Creation, Hugh Owen, kolbecenter.org)
Huxley had ‘zero’ respect for modern Origenists and received enormous pleasure from heaping piles of hot coals and burning contempt upon them, thereby exposing their shallow-reasoning, hypocrisy, timidity, fear of non-acceptance, and unfaithfulness. With sarcasm dripping from his words he quipped,
“I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history; the identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. If the covenant with Abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifices were not ordained by Jahveh; if the “ten words” were not written by God’s hand on the stone tables; if Abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus; the story of the Deluge a fiction; that of the Fall a legend; and that of the creation the dream of a seer; if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than have the stories of the regal period of Rome—what is to be said about the Messianic doctrine, which is so much less clearly enunciated? And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who, on this theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legendary quicksands?” (Darwin’s Bulldog---Thomas Huxley, Russell Grigg, creation.com, Oct. 14, 2008)
Pouring more contempt on them he asked,
“When Jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that "the Flood came and destroyed them all," did he believe that the Deluge really took place, or not? It seems to me that, as the narrative mentions Noah’s wife, and his sons’ wives, there is good scriptural warranty for the statement that the antediluvians married and were given in marriage; and I should have thought that their eating and drinking might be assumed by the firmest believer in the literal truth of the story. Moreover, I venture to ask what sort of value, as an illustration of God’s methods of dealing with sin, has an account of an event that never happened? If no Flood swept the careless people away, how is the warning of more worth than the cry of “Wolf” when there is no wolf? If Jonah’s three days’ residence in the whale is not an “admitted reality,” how could it “warrant belief” in the “coming resurrection?” … Suppose that a Conservative orator warns his hearers to beware of great political and social changes, lest they end, as in France, in the domination of a Robespierre; what becomes, not only of his argument, but of his veracity, if he, personally, does not believe that Robespierre existed and did the deeds attributed to him?” (ibid)
Concerning Matthew 19:5:
“If divine authority is not here claimed for the twenty-fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, what is the value of language? And again, I ask, if one may play fast and loose with the story of the Fall as a “type” or “allegory,” what becomes of the foundation of Pauline theology?” (ibid)
And concerning Cor. 15:21-22:
“If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive “type,” comparable to the profound Promethean mythus, what value has Paul’s dialectic?” (ibid)
After much thought, C.S. Lewis concluded that evolution is the central, most radical lie at the center of a vast network of lies within which modern Westerners are entangled while Rev. Clarke identifies the central lie as the Gospel of another Spirit. The fiendish aim of this Spirit is to help men lose God, not find Him, and by contradicting the Divine Redeemer, compromising Priests are serving this Spirit and its’ diabolical purposes. To contradict the Divine Redeemer is the very essence of unfaithfulness, and that it should be done while reverence is professed,
“…. is an illustration of the intellectual and moral topsy-turvydom of Modernism…’He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of God,’ claimed Christ of Himself (John 3:34), and no assumption of error can hold water in the face of that declaration, without blasphemy.” Evolutionary theists are serving the devil, therefore “no considerations of Christian charity, of tolerance, of policy, can exonerate Christian leaders or Churches who fail to condemn and to sever themselves from compromising, cowardly, shilly-shallying priests”---the falling stars who “challenge the Divine Authority of Jesus Christ.” (ibid)
The rebuttals, warnings and counsels of the Fathers against listening to Origenists (and their modern evolutionary counterparts) indicates that the spirit of antichrist operating through modern rationalistic criticism of the Revelation of God is not a heresy unique to our times but was inveighed against by early Church Fathers.
From the scholarly writings of the Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr. Seraphim Rose, to the incisive analysis, rebuttals and warnings of the Catholic Kolbe Center, creation.com, Creation Research Institute, Rev. Clarke, and many other stalwart defenders of the faith once delivered, all are a clear, compelling call to the whole body of the Church to hold fast to the traditional doctrine of creation as it was handed down from the Apostles, for as God spoke and Jesus is the Living Word incarnate, it is incumbent upon the faithful to submit their wills to the Divine Will and Authority of God rather than to the damnable heresy proffered by falling stars eager to embrace naturalistic science and the devil's antithesis--- evolution. But if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord,
“…you have your choice: choose this day that which pleases you, whom you would rather serve….but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15
YHAOS: I don’t take Evolution to be a big issue. I think some of the Theory’s more ardent advocates give it a mystique greater than it merits, but science is not the object here. Propaganda is.
Spirited: Actually, mystical natural science, evolution, and propaganda are of vital importance to Marxist Communism and it’s twin, socialism.
The first thing we need to grasp is that Marxist Communism is a form of mystical pantheism called by its’ inventers-—scientific socialism.
The ground of Marxist Communism is dialectical materialism, an evolutionary doctrine holding that dialectical (thinking) matter in motion continually attains to higher perfection by its own powers,
“… thanks to indwelling dialectic…the dialectical materialists attribution of ‘dialectic’ to matter confers on it, not mental attributes only, but even divine ones.” (Dialectical Materialism, Gustav A. Wetter, 1977, p. 58)
Dialectical materialism is the ancient concept of animism renewed and revamped for our age. In Star Wars it is called the Force, New Agers call it Christ-consciousness.
Enrico Ferri (1858-1926) a prominent socialist who for many years was the editor of Avanti, a socialist daily. In “Socialism and Religious Beliefs” he expounds on the miracle producing powers of the mystical thinking forces animating matter and nonliving ideological systems such as socialism and positive or natural science. He also makes clear the vital connection between Darwinism (evolutionary animism)and socialism. Imputing living forces to positive science Ferri observes that “living” natural science,
“…has substituted the conception of natural causality for the conception of miracles and divinity…I add that not only is Darwinism not contrary to socialism, but that it forms one of its fundamental scientific premises. As Virchow justly remarked, socialism is nothing else than the logical and vital outcome partly of Darwinism and partly of Spencerian evolution.” (www.marxists.org/archive/ferri/1894/religion.htm)
The essence of Darwinism constituting its’ particular nature is naturalism (materialism), a ‘truth claim’ positing the nonexistence of the supernatural living, Holy God, Heaven, hell, Imago Dei, angels, demons, immutable truth, moral law, meaning, and purpose resulting in a nihilistic order, an abomination of desolation in which a person is no longer a person but rather the conscious product of evolution, an aggregate of animated matter in human form.
In this light, it becomes clear why Darwinism is completely incompatible with the Bible and why evolutionary naturalists ridicule the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo and make war against faithful Christians.
Whoever can control the terms controls the debate. The capitalization of “Truth” to an proper noun for which no established definition exists is a gambit to establish control by introducing a term that you get to define.
I see BUT what has that got to do with the question asked?..
BY BETTY BOOP?....
What has science got to do with TRUTH?..
That's the "load" in the question.
What’s the difference between “truth” and “Truth”? Why is “Truth” capitalized?
Certainly "conventional wisdom" is not always correct, nor is it always wrong.
But, having achieved a certain status as "conventional wisdom", it begins to require some rather strong evidence to disprove it.
In this particular case -- as is your usual M.O. -- you've blasted "conventional wisdom" with strong accusations, but provided us with no supporting evidence.
Therefore, I find your words unconvincing.
spirited irish: "Though BroJoeK has been doing his best to disguise his real stance behind a mask, rather than opaque his mask is both transparent and porous, meaning that telling statements keep slipping through:..."
Your accusations here are false.
spirited irish: "...the real issue, the truth of the matter implied by BroJoeK’s clumsy sophistry is that, like a long line of evolutionary materialists (naturalists)before him, he is in rebellion against the God of Revelation."
This accusation is false.
spirited irish: "As one who prefers the word of fallen man over the Revelation of God, BroJoeK is the intellectual heir of a way of thinking that from the beginning..."
This accusation is false.
spirited irish: "Wiker writes that as far back as the Renaissance the strong impulse to throw off the restraints of the personal God and Christianity was already at work in certain Churchmen and intellectuals, hence their eventual embrace of materialism (naturalism, Darwinism, empiricism, methodological naturalism, reductionism):"
As I pointed out from the beginning the distinction was first drawn by St. Thomas Aquinas between super-natural revelation based on scripture, and natural revelations beginning with input from our senses.
Aquinas did not consider them to be in conflict, but in historical fact, from the Renaissance on, they were sometimes in violent opposition.
But it remains a fact that until fairly recent times, nearly all scientists considered natural-science to be within the context first provided by Aquinas -- as just one element of God's higher Truth.
***note to tacticalogic and betty boop: when I post "truth" I mean philosophical-truth, when I post "Truth" I mean higher theological-Truth.***
Various Renaissance conflicts arose (i.e., Galileo Galilei) when the Church found discoveries of natural-science to be in conflict with scriptures, and attempted to suppress the discoveries.
Then, over the centuries the Church made its peace with Galileo, but now along come other scientists, with new theories which seem to contradict scriptures.
One such was Charles Darwin.
This time the Church did not immediately condemn Darwin, indeed, the Church kept officially silent for a hundred years, before finally agreeing that:
In short: according to the Catholic Church and most Protestant churches, natural-science is not in "rebellion against God", and research into evolution does not constitute some kind of pact with the Devil.
spirited irish: "Rebels against the personal God are in league with antitheists such as Karl Marx, who though not the devil, did his work for him."
I don't dispute your description of Marx, but no posters on this thread, as near as I can tell, match it.
However, Ms irish, I do understand your deep-felt need to relieve your personal anxieties by throwing around such accusations at somebody -- anybody willing to serve as a compliant punching bag for you.
And since yours truly, BroJoeK, is only here to serve, I accept your false accusations with good humor and take no personal offense.
I just hope it truly makes you feel better to describe me with false accusations, FRiend.
spirited irish: "The Satanic revolt, like supernatural Christian faith is a movement of spirit having its taproot and energy in Satan, the father of naturalism, heresy, lies, sophistry and envy, the author of rebellion, and the revelator of secrets contrived to damn unto hell."
Thankfully, most churches do not agree with your description of natural-science.
spirited irish: "Thus it proclaims the reign of negation (of God’s Revelation, His Truth, His Moral Law, soul/spirit, Heaven, and hell), though a negation nevertheless pregnant with the expectation of fulfillment in the revelation, and finally the actual presence, of evil personified....the dark Lord of this world."
Thankfully, most churches do not agree that natural-science itself is in a Satanic rebellion against God.
That some scientists may be so is obvious and understood, but science itself is not a matter of theological dispute in most churches.
spirited irish: "An “agenda?” Yes.
My “agenda” consists in opposing lies and sophistry, be it clumsy or otherwise, with truth to the best of my ability in the hope that readers of this thread will not be led astray by sophistical liberal naturalists in their unholy quest 'to snatch believers from Him.'
Sadly, most of the "lies and sophistry" (clumsy or otherwise) on this thread are coming from you, Ms irish.
Your problem is, as I've described here before, that you take a high-powered intellectual vacuum cleaner to every conceivable "ism" you find distasteful, sweep them all into the same dirt-bag, label them all with some dramatic name -- in this case now "Satanic" -- and condemn them all to h*ll, regardless of their individual merits or demerits.
Thus, your practice may fairly describe some people & ideas, while on others, not so much.
spirited irish: "By your own admission BroJoeK, you prefer the damning errors and sophistry of naturalism to the Revelation of God.
This is why you insist on God’s “so-called” Revelation being subordinate to natural science..."
Sorry, but in fact my post said nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- about "subordinate to natural science".
I merely pointed out the obvious fact (recognized since at least Aquinas) that super-natural revelations do not qualify as "natural-science".
Of course, we all here believe the super-natural to be primary, essential and ultimately superior to the natural realm, because that is what our Faith teaches, and indeed is the basis for Faith.
But, like Aquinas, we never confuse one with the other.
spirited irish: "Beware your choice, your abuse of free will, ‘FRiend,’ for at some unknown, unperceived moment it will become eternal. Heaven is real. So is hell."
FRiend, I don't think that people who knowingly lie and make reckless false accusations are going to Heaven.
You need to start repenting of your own sins here, Ms irish.
Thank you, FRiend, for using the correct term: "theistic naturalists".
It is a fancy term which, along with "philosophical naturalist" and "metaphysical naturalist" means nothing more than: atheist.
So far as I can tell, there are no "theistic naturalists" posting on this thread, and you do us a disservice to falsely accuse us of it.
Sure, but when have you ever answered even one of my many "simple, straightforward questions"?
betty boop: "What relation, if any, does "natural science" have to Truth?"
In two words: separate & subordinate.
When we speak of natural-science, we cannot talk of "truth" or "Truth", because science only deals in lesser matters such as "facts" (defined as: confirmed observations), laws (defined as mathematical descriptions of physical processes), hypotheses (defined as natural explanations for natural processes) and theories (defined as confirmed hypotheses).
Science itself can never reach the levels of truth or Truth because, first, that's not its mission, and second, nothing in science is ontologically certain enough to be considered "true".
The word "truth" refers to higher philosophical truths based on consistent systems of logic and observations from the great philosophers beginning with the likes of Plato & Aristotle.
The word "Truth" refers to God's Truth, derived from the Bible and other recognized theological thinkers.
At least that's my understanding.
Do you disagree?
“So far as I can tell, there are no “theistic naturalists” posting on this thread, and you do us a disservice to falsely accuse us of it.”
Spirited: As you have repeatedly championed one-dimensional naturalism and evolution, then a naturalist you are.
I've never seen a thread or poster on FR whose purpose was "to attack and disparage Christianity".
All the "attacking and disparaging" I've seen comes from supposed Christians (i.e., YHAOS, spirited irish) against people whose only purpose is to defend natural-science against false and unwarranted accusations.
Nor have I seen any serious liberals posting here.
Everybody here falls into at least the top 20% "most conservative" in the country.
Our real problem is that those in the top 1% "most conservative" (i.e., YHAOS, spirited irish) delight in mocking and falsely accusing others who don't meet their own 1% standards.
I personally don't think that's such a good way to win FRiends and influence people for conservatism.
YHAOS: "What I also take exception to is the pretense that issues not in dispute somehow answer issues avoided (for example, see post # 1275)."
In fact, in post #1,272 Ms irish did indeed dispute my distinction between science and theology, rather strongly.
Also, if fact, I've avoided no issues raised by Ms boop, nor refused to answer any questions, though she does refuse to answer my questions.
YHAOS: "And finally, I ask of Darwinians as I have before: Which do you consider the greatest threat: Christians on this forum with whom you disagree? or the Socialist louts who so obviously intend to hijack America?"
First of all, as I've pointed out before: "Darwinians" exist only in the warped fantasies of anti-evolutionists.
In reality, there are no such critters.
Instead, there are people who accept the findings of natural-science, and those who don't.
Second, it is the anti-evolutionists who have declared war on science, and who come to these threads with quivers full of insulting arrows for fellow FReepers.
You accuse us of everything from bad-science to being allies of the Devil!
All we hope to do is point out certain errors in your reasoning.
Third of all, the "Socialist louts" don't log on Free Republic, but many who wish to escape them do.
So, will they find a happy-home here, or will they suffer condemnation as useful-idiots of science and tools of the Devil?
I suggest we make them feel welcome.
YHAOS: "questions, requiring nothing more than the most simple of answers.
Yet all this forum gets is subject changing and attempts at intimidation."
All of the subject changing and attempts at intimidation are coming from your side, FRiend, some even from you.
Bro: The word “truth” refers to higher philosophical truths based on consistent systems of logic and observations from the great philosophers beginning with the likes of Plato & Aristotle.
Spirited: The beams of truth expounded upon by Plato and Aristotle originated in Egypt, the repository of sacred knowledge regarding ultimate questions. Thus for Plato, daemons for example, were the evolving spirits of the godlike men who lived during the Golden Age (antediluvian world) and during Plato’s time served as messengers from the gods. This is the basis of ancestor worship.
Apart from Biblically informed thought, the prevailing concept of being has been that being is one and continuous, hence as above, so below, according to Hermes Trismegistus.
This means that Chaos (primordial matter) and the gods, man, and all of the universe are all aspects of one continuous being, the ground of being, to use Plato’s terminology.
Degrees of being may exist so that a hierarchy of gods, daemons, heavens and hells exist (Great Chain of Being)but all nevertheless consist of one, undivided and continuous being. Creation then is not ex nihilo but an emergence from being, in short, an evolutionary process of being.
Elsewhere betty remarked that if Plato had learned of Jesus Christ he most likely would have become a Christian. I agree. Plato was one of a handful of nature philosophers interested in true truth as opposed to myth and vanity.
So theres a difference in truth and Truth to you?..
Isn't that called sophistry(or Sophistry)?..
Because it damn well looks like an evasion to me..
At the very least a diversion... (masked).....
Simply.... Do you believe "something" can be true OR false?...
(That it is possible for these two states to exist?..)
Maybe. I haven't seen a formal definition of Truth yet, so I can't say for sure. I can say that capitalization can be very important, semantically. For instance, there are these people calling themselves Republicans, and they do not appear to be particularly republican at all.
Isn't that called sophistry(or Sophistry)?..
No, sophistry is when you try to obscure different meanings of the same word, not clarify them.
First of all, I never used the term "special revelation" until after you introduced it through a quote in your post #1,261.
Then, as I responded in post #1,271:
Yes, the definition of your term "special revelation" was never spelled out, but I challenge you: there is no definition you can devise which qualifies as "natural science".
Again, your own "special revelations" may be entirely true and valid, but by definition, they are not scientific.
betty boop: "I gather that when BroJoeK defines science as "natural explanations for natural phenomena," all non-sensory experiences are banned.
But a consistent application of this principle would mean that all products of non-sensory experience — such as the very idea of physical or natural law, or the various scientific theories — must also be banned."
You see, Ms boop, you are indeed very clever, so clever you can argue yourself right out of existence, if you so wished.
Therefore, I don't buy the idea that your apparent inability to grasp a simple concept -- like the distinction between "natural" and "super-natural" is anything other than a deliberate pose.
You don't wish to acknowledge it, and therefore pretend not to understand it, right?
The truth of this matter is that your argument here is sheer sophistry, and you well know it.
In fact, the word "science" is defined as "natural explanations for natural processes" and so by definition, scientific facts, laws, hypotheses and theories are all part of science.
So, the real question here is: why would you even attempt a way-too-clever argument against science?
betty boop: "For it seems that "the human mind" is not detectible by means of sense perception:
It "naturally" belongs to the "non-sensory realm" — which BroJoeK seems to suggest is none of science's business."
Indeed, for centuries that's exactly how the human mind was considered -- as outside the realm of natural-science.
Today, some of that same sense still remains, albeit science has studied the human brain every which way conceivable.
So today science can tell us quite a lot about the human brain, though the question of what, exactly, is "mind", is, so far as I've ever seen, as unanswered as it ever was scientifically.
betty boop quoting: "...Rational argument could not prevail because the partner to the discussion [that would be you, dear BroJoeK and dear tacticalogic] did not accept as binding for himself the matrix of reality in which all specific questions concerning our existence as human beings are ultimately rooted...."
Ms boop, I'll say to you as I have to Ms irish and YHAOS, it's a sin in any religion to make false accusations, and much as it thrills & excites you to do so, by that same degree will you suffer in eternity for it.
You need to stop.
betty boop: "Sounds like the Devil's work to me!!!"
Lying and false accusations are the Devil's work.
So why are you doing it, FRiend?
Thankfully, neither the Catholic Church, nor most Protestant churches, nor even Eastern Orthodox churches (meaning well over 90% of all Christians) teach that science in general, or evolution in particular, is "incompatible with the Bible".
So your views, Ms irish, represent a small minority of Christians, who ridicule the rest of us and make theological war against otherwise faithful Christians.
FRiend, that's my doing.
I'm simply trying to help distinguish between "science", which deals only in facts, laws and theories, versus philosophy which tries to reason out higher "truths", versus theology, which deals with the most ultimate "Truths."
Please, don't take my use of these terms as some cynical ploy.
I'm only hoping to make the distinctions clear.
No, sophistry is when you try to obscure different meanings of the same word, not clarify them.
OK.. that’s exactly what you’ve done... glad you cleared that up..
You’ve not added to the discourse you’ve subtracted from it..
No clarification from you on what truth might be or could be..
You seem to have stirred the water into a muddy mess..
I’m open to what you think (a)truth might be (pick a subject)..
Looks like you know No truth... maybe you do, but havn’t stated it.
I’m open that you know NO truth at all... like betty stated (Pilate)..
If you know some truth.. any truth spit it out grasshopper..
Enlighten me.... even if you know none.. as a fact..
Sorry, my mistake, confusing "theistic naturalism" with "philosophical naturalism" or "metaphysical naturalism".
The first is not the same thing as the others.
But regardless, none of them are what we've discussed here.
All of "science" by the very definition of the word is "naturalism", but specifically "methodological naturalism" which simply means: a working assumption of natural explanations for natural processes.
"Methodological naturalism" does not imply either atheism or some weird tree-hugger religion.
It simply means that: regardless of our religious faith, we will look scientifically for natural explanations for natural processes.
So, you cannot be a scientist without being a methodological naturalist.
But a scientist can hold whatever religious beliefs she/he choses.
Ms irish, if you oppose methodological naturalism, then you oppose all of western civilization's scientific enterprise of the past 600+ years.
That would put you in the same category as some of our more notorious Islamic "fundamentalists".
Is that really where you want to be, FRiend?
A truth is as I see it.... most republicans are in fact democrats..
because they believe in democracy as a system not republicanism..
They are all mostly democrats.. with a very vague idea of what a republic is.. or should be..
especially the unique and special model the American Republic is..
Which is completely different than any other republic ever invented..
Democracy always demands central givernment..
thats why it is the source of socialism.. the antithesis of a republic.. with sovereign States..
Was a brilliant move by democrats to STOP teaching civics and history in public schools..
SO that the people would NOT know what democracy was and is..
Democracy is a lie... NO democracy has ever yet been democratic.. or can/could be..
The majority RULES.. with an Iron Fist..
I would put any "sacred knowledge" into the category of theology or religion rather than philosophy.
I think Ms boop has gone out of her way to praise both Plato and Aristotle, as philosophers, and that was traditional amongst many ancient Christian theologians.
But Ms Irish, you have also frequently decried the ancients' beliefs in "theistic nature" and just so we're clear: I agree with you on that.
“neither the Catholic Church, nor most Protestant churches, nor even Eastern Orthodox churches (meaning well over 90% of all Christians) teach that science in general, or evolution in particular, is “incompatible with the Bible”.
Spirited: And if they teach that the man in the moon is compatible with the Bible will you swallow that whole as well?
It’s true that certain Catholics, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox embrace Darwinism. Many embrace the Hindu-pantheism of the Hermetic alchemist Teilhard de Chardin and tout the self-avowed spiritist Alfred Russel Wallace as the co-discoverer of Darwin’s theory. Of course Darwin received the idea from his pantheist grandfather Erasmus, a high-ranking Free Mason involved in the overthrow of the Church.
All of this is heresy reframed as science and evolution, and when syncretized with the Bible results in paganized Christianity. It will not get you to heaven.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.