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
He is just one of many. Why consistently choose him? He is well published, so there are many quotes to choose from. Why is that specific quote repeated over and over?
” Why consistently choose him? He is well published, so there are many quotes to choose from. Why is that specific quote repeated over and over?”
Spirited: Why? Because the task of uncovering and exposing to the light the interconnected matrix of lies and hatred of the Triune God and humanity undergirding modern “scientism” it makes great sense to use the unwitting confessions of the frauds themselves.
That’s why.
So, it's about religion.
So, it’s about religion.
Spirited: It’s always been about the Triune God but Jesus Christ God Incarnate in particular. This was true of Renaissance mystics such as Swedenborg on through to Enlightenment deists, Karl Marx, Bakunin, Darwin, Nietzsche, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, theological liberals, eugenicists, and all of the original adherents of spontaneous generation (abiogenesis)just as it is still true of Lewontin, Dawkins, Sagan and too many other ‘scientists,’ atheist philosophers and apostate theologians to name.
It’s about the Triune God but Jesus Christ God Incarnate in particular.
Trolls and disruptors attempt to interfere with this arrangement and make coherent communication impossible, producing confusion and disagreement.
True.. so very true... and true to my calculus always or almost always from progressive or liberal sources..
I have not determined these people believe in anything..
But if they do, they hold on to it.. very lightly.. regrettably..
Re-defining words is the least of their offenses but may be the most damaging..
“Betty, it appears that it really is about religion.”
Spirited: No in your case, it’s about how you absorbed a superstitious, paranoid fear of religion osmotically, second, or third-hand, from educators, publications and companions.
It’s also about how when you were presented with two choices, A: superstitious, paranoid fear of religion or, B. walking away from such stupidity, you chose A.
No dictionary does that. Dictionaries do not define "lists." They define words.
My favorite dictionary, the Oxford English [because it preserves memory of the history of words, and gives historical usage examples], defines "sophistry" as: the use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.
But your Century Dictionary, dearest sister in Christ, looks trusty-true to me. Of particular note in its definition of sophistry is this item:
Greek sophistes came to mean "one who gives intellectual instruction for pay," and at Athens, contrasted with "philosopher," it became a term of contempt.Well, it might have become a term of contempt at some time in the past. But sophistry itself certainly has come roaring back in recent times. [Certainly one could say that a Harvard professor might be described as a "sophist" because he is "one who gives intellectual instruction for pay."]
It's nice to have definitions. But it seems to me that, until and unless you can plug the definition into an historical context, you never really do understand the meaning of the word.
So the method of my madness is to go back to the original historical context, to Athens — to the great classical, that is to say pre-Christian experience epitomized by Socrates/Plato.
If anyone wants to understand what "sophistry" is, IMHO there is no better guide on earth than Plato's Gorgias.
Before we get to Gorgias, some hopefully helpful background info.
Plato distinguished between the philosopher — the "lover of wisdom" — and the philodoxer — the "lover of opinion." He clearly places the sophist in the latter class.Anyhoot, a brief synopsis of the Gorgias: Socrates and his friend, Chaerephon, show up late for a gathering at the house of Callicles, where the renowned sophist Gorgias, Callicles' revered teacher, is staying — holding forth, giving "exhibitions" of his brilliance, and promising to answer all questions or disputations posed to him.The objects and the methods of the philosopher and the philodoxer radically differ. The philosopher seeks the truth of reality, relying on dialectical reasoning towards that end. The philodoxer is primarily interested in advancing the interests of man (or at least of some men), relying on rhetorical tools toward that end.
Now Gorgias is a man who makes his living by "instructing" for a fee up-and-coming young men of the aristocratic class in "how to get ahead in politics." (It really does boil down to that.)
His opponent in the dialogue is Socrates, the great Athenian "gad-fly" who relentlessly exposed the fallacies so dear to the the intellectual/political class of Athens (and managed to make implacable enemies in the process), a proud Athenian citizen and gentleman farmer who just happened to like hanging out in the Agora — the "public square" — of Athens.
Socrates made himself a serious thorn in the side to many august members of the intellectual/ruling class simply by asking them questions. And their answers would inevitably entail them in self-contradictions, once Socrates got done with them. Many powerful or would-be powerful men of Athens were chastened, and OFFENDED, by "losing the argument" to Socrates.
But I think Socrates always had the upper hand: He was faithfully engaged in the search for Truth. They were about "what works" — which inevitably translates into "what works for me."
Anyhoot, Socrates arrives at the party, and he encourages his friend Chaerephon to ask Gorgias a question: "Ask him who he is."
Which instantly perplexes his friend: What is meant by such a question?
What Socrates was getting at (I think) is that no man can readily tell you who he "is"; but he can tell you what he "does." And Socrates gives several examples of what he means; e.g., ask a shoemaker who he "is," and he would likely tell you that he is "a maker of shoes."
But ask this same question of a sophist: Of what is he the "maker?"
Gorgias has a handy reply: He is the maker of
That good, Socrates, which is truly the greatest, being that which gives to men freedom in their own persons, and to individuals the power of ruling over others in their several states.... What is greater than the word [i.e., rhetoric] which persuades the judges in the courts, or the senators in the council, or the citizens in the assembly, or at any other political meeting? — if you have the power of uttering this word, you will have the physician your slave, and the trainer your slave, and the money-maker of whom you talk will be found to gather treasures, not for himself, but for you who are able to speak [i.e., using more rhetoric] and to persuade the multitude."Does any of this sound familiar???
Anyhoot, though time does not permit full details here, Gorgias eventually retreats into total silence, seeing that Socrates has "whupped his *ss" in the dialectical reasoning department. Whereupon Gorgias' utterly stupid student, Polis, takes over the sophist side of the discourse and proves himself a total ass.
Meanwhile, loitering in the background, boiling with rage one supposes, is Callicles. [One really ought to read this Platonic dialogue as a stage play to get a sense of the characters and their dynamic relations, and what that means for the quest of truth.]
When Polis is shot down, Callicles steps in, and makes a great case (in his own mind) for the doctrine of "might is right."
Socrates successively destroys his argument. Which leads to some highly nasty statements from Callicles, including a not-so-veiled threat to Socrates that if he were to continue on his regular course of contentious engagement with the rich and powerful of Athens, his life would be in mortal danger.
Here's the relevant exchange:
Callicles: How confident you are, Socrates, that you will never come to harm! you seem to think you are living in another country, and can never be brought into a court of justice, as you very likely may be brought by some miserable and mean person.Callicle's threat was made good; see Plato's Apology.
Socrates: Then I must indeed be a fool, Callicles, if I do not know that in the Athenian States any man may suffer anything. And if I am brought to trial and incur the dangers of which you speak, he will be a villain who brings me to trial — of that I am very sure, for no good man would accuse the innocent. Nor shall I be surprised if I am put to death.... I am very sure that you would not find me repining at death. For no man who is not an utter fool and coward is afraid of death itself, but is afraid of doing wrong. For to go to the world below having one's soul full of injustice is the last and worst of all evils.... Death, if I am right, is in the first place the separation of one from another of two things, soul and body: nothing else....Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same.
Must sign off for now. I hope this backgrounder on "sophistry" might prove helpful to my dear friends here at FR.
Thank you ever so much for writing, and for your research into this vital question, my dearest sister in Christ!
Does attacking people because they don’t have exactly the same religious beliefs you do make your feel righteous?
Interesting screed on sophisty... especially the part introducing “the philodoxer — the “lover of opinion” to the mix...
Must be all them people that dearly love POLLS...
Amazing how the gospel sorts all this stuff out. The intangible good becomes tangible. It has to be lived before it can be seen that no, there is not “just another religion” here. Here is a God that makes good on a claim to be the master of all creation.
Also there is great freedom in the gospel because it isn’t tied to what people think, though it can un-selfconsciously lower itself to speak in the terms that people happen to be thinking in.
Religion doesn’t stand alone. It always has a referent. In a way it is like the term “travel” is meaningless unless you say what you are traveling to, or at least through.
In Greek there is a term, eusebia, which has a broad meaning of devotion, worship, godliness, religion. It has to do with a positive relationship with a supernatural entity deemed worthy.
Is there something that truly deserves religion (if we have to use that oft-tainted word)?
Judaism, and the Christian faith which followed on, has boldly posited a candidate that has met with good consequence. This is a God which is not angrily throwing dice in a corner to see who ought to be lucky, but seeking that mankind, which He has made in diverse kinds, should be better off yet allowing it a choice to destroy itself.
We ought to be able to agree on the referent, at least. Then we can meaningfully discuss details about the referent. If he is for Jesus and she is for Zeus, there isn’t any discussion to be had.
That would be one kind of philodoxer, though using a system that didn’t exist in ancient Greece. Instead of polling, rumors would be listened to.
I can say that philodoxy is something I’ve deeply been guilty of in the past. It’s a proud trust in cleverness as though it could stand alone. Here is where I am unabashedly Christian about it and say yes, when we think we are standing on our own stuff, we aren’t. We’re standing on the devil’s stuff. It’s the Garden folly here. And if it weren’t for a gracious, forgiving, saving God, it could only take us to hell. But if God’s power to save prevails, it only ends up being some very useful lessons in retrospect.
If I decide "referent" means something completely different that what you understand it to be, then we haven't really come to any argeement, and whatever discussion we had was meaningless.
Well, because it gets to the very gist of the problem we are discussing here.
Why do you find that troubling?
Also there is great freedom in the gospel because it isn’t tied to what people think, though it can un-selfconsciously lower itself to speak in the terms that people happen to be thinking in.
Just beautiful, dear brother in Christ! So much so, that I had to quote you entire. And I agree with you entirely.
Thank you ever so much for "weighing in!!!"
That we're subjected to a dog-and-pony show about how it's "not about religion" when everything about it is about religion.
People who rely on public opinion polls are people who have surrendered their natural-born privilege of actually thinking for themselves. (I imagine in many cases nowadays, such folk don't even have a clue how to do that.)
Such people are so "uninformed" about the world around them, in which they are "embedded," and from which they cannot "escape" — these are the people who need to be "guided" — and these days, steered into a box canyon, like cattle, who, once in the canyon, are expected never to be able to escape from it ever again.
The above paragraph is really bad grammar. But I am sure, my dear brother 'pipe, that you understand me perfectly well.
Mega-HUGS to you, dear one!!!
Have you considered, dear tacticalogic, that you may be the only person around here who sees it that way?
Not to say you are "wrong." Just to say, you must feel "lonely" at times.
Maybe that has something to do with your understanding of "religion."
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