Remonstrance

This comes from our Cell Wednesday night 1/18, Joe’s Teaching from “More Than a Carpenter,” chapter 1.

Why must postmodernists be so dogmatic and judgemental? It is an amazing and glaring hypocrisy which somehow escapes the enlightened scrutiny of the postmodern world. (The most difficult weakness to see is personal weakness, no matter how glaring.)

Joe found a blog where some postmodernist was raging with the usual pretense of great enlightened inclusiveness, and Joe asked the guy for one simple clarification (a fair question) about the guy’s postmodern dogma, and behold! What a stream of vindictive rhetoric he drew! All the marvels of enlightened inclusiveness is so very fragile and skin-deep, if anyone scratches the surface what bloody wrath suddenly gushes out! Postmodernism reminds me of early Nazism which engulfed the most educated nation of its day, with all its sloganeering and intolerance–aimed now at Christians, not Jews.

Jesus is sometimes tauted as the prototypical postmodernist because he taught on love and acceptance. But to actually talk about Jesus will get a postmodernist pretty heated. Why? Even a scant look at the historical record quickly torpedoes the fantasy-Jesus endeared by postmodernists. Consider these:

“I and the Father are one.”
The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him.
Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?”
The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” John 10:30-33

And then:

The high priest stood up and came forward and questioned Jesus, saying, “Do You not answer? What is it that these men are testifying against You?”
But He kept silent and did not answer. Again the high priest was questioning Him, and saying to Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”
And Jesus said, “I am; and you shall see THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and COMING WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.”
Tearing his clothes, the high priest said*, “What further need do we have of witnesses?
“You have heard the blasphemy; how does it seem to you?” And they all condemned Him to be deserving of death. Mark 14:60-64

Why get so caught-up in such rage? It happened then, and still today, despite our many millenia of enlightened thought. If Jesus is a fraud, so what? Why fear such a fool? Does Jesus take any money or expect anything in return? No, in fact it is His clear and simple message:

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Mark 10:45

Now what is so threatening about that?

Andy teaches next Cell Group.

Everybody needs to know about the Cell Group retreat in one week from Saturday night. It begins at 4 pm.

Filed under: truth by kmcc
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Tags: apologetics, persecution, postmodernism

Why do the heathen rage?

Well there’s an interesting question, I suppose. Granted, it’s phrased perhaps a little harshly, or maybe it’s just language we’re not used to. In fact, it’s a quote from the Bible in good old King James English. It actually reads “Why do the nations rage?” (”Heathen” was common parlance for “nations” back then, I guess.)

Still, it’s a pretty weird picture coming out of the scriptures:

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? Psalms 2:1

I would never really think about things this way. But God does. And He says why it happens:

The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
“Let us break Their bonds in pieces And cast away Their cords from us.” Psalms 2:2-3

If Jesus isn’t God, then is he a liar?

Why would Jesus perpetrate a hoax among the Jews, where it would be the hardest to sell? Why not in Egypt, which was polytheist at the time and would find it much easier to adopt another “god” into a pantheon of gods?

Perhaps he’s crazy?

Consider Jim Jones: he had a lot of people die for him. How do we know Jesus isn’t crazy as well?

The answer is obvious: Jones was wild-crazy, ranting and raving in the most ludicrous and incoherent manner. Not so for the teachings of Jesus. His teachings are considered a great model of emotional health by psychologists and even great secular thinkers up to the modern era–Jesus taught essential factors that build successful relationships. All this from a lunatic?

Making Sense of Jesus Christ

Consider this option:

but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name. John 20:31
Jesus said* to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how canJohn 14:9

You say, ‘Show us the Father’? Jesus could be just precisely that: God the Father Himself, just as He claims.

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Tags: apologetics

PBS.ORG recently aired a 3-part infomercial on the virtues of the religion of atheism, which the producer calls “disbelief” because:

“I’m reluctant to use the word atheist to describe my disbelief, giving that conviction a special title which dignifies that which I deny… This series is a tribute to those who’ve won the right to stand up and be counted.”

He declares all this with the snobbish disdain of the English Gentry (hey, I can do that too). Without the pretentious airs and refined English accents, A Brief History of Disbelief is little more than another profane infomercial from “the Colonies”. (Does he snort Snuff?) In the spirit of such low-budget, late-night dramas, he surrounds himself with a self-congratulating, adoring cast noticeably absent of skeptics or naysayers. He then presumes to speak for Christianity, then dismantles his depictions with the erudite ease of a superior intellect. Ironically, he censures Christianity for censorship while he censors all Christian response.

A

He launched this series in response to 9/11, a tragedy which depicts “the danger inherently present in the world’s three monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam,” he claims. But then he launches a three-hour diatribe exclusively against Christianity. How very droll, I daresay! How did we get here again? 9/11 suicide bombers and Christianity…? It is an odd connection.

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Tags: apologetics, atheism, best of, documentaries, reviews, television

From abcnews.com

I’m sorry I missed it, but apparently Kirk Cameron (child star in Growing Pains) and his evangelist friend Ray Comfort pledged to prove the existence of God, indisputably:

“We’d like to show you that the existence of God can be proven, 100 percent, absolutely, without the use of faith… the number one reason that people don’t believe in God is not a lack in evidence, but because of a theory that many scientists today believe to be a fairytale for grownups.” (see Does God Exist? The Nightline Face-Off)

Their evidence was the classical Teleological (argument-by-design) and a few other standard raps, which are decent arguments, and their presentation sounds reasonable enough, but it was more inductive logic, not deductive. You can’t claim 100% proof through inductive logic.

They also have a few (irrational) quirks:

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Tags: apologetics, atheism, television, witnessing

Imagine reading a headline like that in your local newspaper. Christians and non-Christians alike would be outraged. But upon reading the article, you discover that ‘Christian Freedom’ is the name of an organization engaged in a nation-wide smear campaign against atheists, and some atheist organization responded by denouncing the activities of the ‘Christian Freedom Organization’.

Now, read this headline which actually appeared in today’s BBC News:

‘Free Thought Takes on Organized Religion’

It sounds like “Freedom of thought stands up against organized repressors” at first glance, but actually it’s an organization called “Free Thought” which is engaged in a national ad campaign against faith. They’re putting up billboards that look like this:

wonder if it read ‘imagine a world without atheists’ …?

What I find astonishing is not the billboard campaign (even though–sniff! sniff!–it’s about Columbus, my beloved hometown), but rather the reporter which gave this campaign a good publicity headline for what can only be described as a venomous attack against religious faith. ‘Free Thought’ is attacking, not being attacked!

The reporter (and his editor) made the amateurish mistake of reporting what the “Spin Doctors” at FFRF.ORG wanted reported. In Journalism school way back in the early ’80s they taught us that Public Relations people will often name their organization in such a way that provides free, good publicity whenever the press refers to the organization. The press fell for it! Headlines are especially vulnerable to this free publicity, because space is limited, and some editor, not having enough space for “Freedom From Religion Foundation” simply condensed the essence of the title to fit the space.

I just thought you’d be interested in what they teach you in journalism school.

Also, I wanted to blog this quickly before my good friend Joesnake blogged it, because it’s actually Joe’s discovery, and a good one at that. Thanks Joe! I love you, man!

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Tags: apologetics, atheism, humor

In researching the popular Richard Dawkins crusade against (primarily) the Bible, I ran across this amazing video in which Dawkins displays a rather mean-spirited attack against some poor college girl for asking the question: “What if you’re wrong?”

Why didn’t he answer the question? I’ve asked myself if I’m wrong. Someone can ask me the same. Is it forbidden?

He displays the dogmatism of the Dark Ages: dare not ask if I might be wrong! Geesh. The Vatican dealt with Galileo this way.

The crowd’s reaction was scary: they loved his hatred! It was reminiscent of Adolf’s crowd-pleasing outbursts at Nuremberg. He degrades the girl (was she a Christian as he claimed?), and then he rails angrily against the “the joo-joo monster” and “flying spaghetti monster”, but it wasn’t scientific reasoning. It was an incoherent outburst against imaginary beasts. Hitler employed this tactic against Jewish people: lashing out against monsters he labeled “Jews” which don’t exist in the real world.

Just FYI: it’s called the “Straw Man Argument” which is an crude logical fallacy, but it’s also mean-spirited. He pretends the silly “joo-joo monster” is in the Bible, which is unreasonable. It is the classic language of racism.

Filed under: folly by kmcc
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Tags: apologetics, atheism, dawkins