gordo said:
"I never ever said that atheism as proposition was a worldview, but if you have projected that misreading, all else follows, down to the gratuitous (though relatively subtle) ad hominem."
And:
"So, madam, let me be direct, I explicitly deny — having warranted it yet again — that I am: promoting the libel that atheists (or “evolutionary materialists) are dangerous amoral nihilists"
If I remember correctly, they're both from this thread:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/atheism/church-burning-video-used-to-promote-atheist-event/
He sure does like to play deceptive word games, as is apparent in the "as proposition" crap.
Let's take a look at some of the things that gordo has said about evolutionary materialism/materialists, atheism/atheists, wordlviews, etc.:
"Athism in disguise:On the further absurdity that evolutionary materialism ands functional atheism do not constitute atheism, the word “tantamount” is as good a rebuttal as any.
Let’s see:
(a) atheists affirm they know there is no God and so any reference to God is based on delusion.
(b) as a major force in modern intellectual thought, references to God are ruled out a priori, by appeals to the incredibility of such, or by appeals to the rule of methodological naturalism.
Why is (b) imposed, in contexts where in fact theistic worldviews are plainly live options, and where comparative diffiulties across live options are the only way to get out of question-begging? Elementary, my dear Watson: it is atheists who hold power in critical institutions and are imposing their beliefs by exerting censorship. The case of Sternberg and especially the chilling effect on others who had at any time expressed theistic leanings is a telling illustration in point."
"In short, science redefined in terms of MN becomes a game played by evolutionary materialist — or more bluntly atheist’s — rules, with no reference to seeking to discover and discern truth."
"Evolutionary Materialism as a [quasi-]religion: When the core of the concept, “religion,” is provisionally identified, evolutionary materialism turns out to be, functionally equivalent to a traditional religion, thougfh of course not a theistic one. This observation will be hotly contested, but it is plainly true and goes to the heart of the contradictory decisions and arguments that come from secularists, most recently as highlighted in the Dover decision. Thus, some serious soul-searching is in order for those who, through the fact that secularism is not a theistic religion, are in fact de facto establishing their quasi-religion as the state church of the united states, complete with the atheist’s veto on public policy, censorship on education and what can be viewed in the public square, and a question-begging redefinition of science as, in effect, the best evolutionary materialist explanation of the cosmos from hydrogen to humans."
"And BTW, evolutionary materialistic systems are equally amoral, as they have only survival, not morality save as a convenient, culturally relative, social fiction."
"On Judaeo-Christian monotheism [theism for short], the morally virtuous Creator-God is the IS who grounds OUGHT in his character. that is the cosmos and especially that aspect where mind enters the picture, has morality built-in, AND morality is reasonable not an arbitrary, capricious imposition. So, it is improper to try to extend the Euthryphro dilemma to such theism."
"Thus we may see in outline — notice onlookers how the objectors protest ever so loudly when a detailed exposition is either developed or linked — why it is that Judaeo-Christian redemptive theism is a solid ground for morality. We also see why pagan and neopagan altenatives and skeptical evolutionary materialistic — which last, on the testimony of Plato in the Laws Bk X, go back to 400+ BC and men like Alcibiades — alternatives are inherently amoral, thus the pattern of moral disintegration of Rom 1"
"So, let us understand: we live in an ideologised, deeply polarised age dominated by ideologues influenced by avant garde evolutionary materialism and related ideas, which are inherently amoral and both personally and socially destructive."
"We must therefore pause to say that we have a Dominical warning to those who would put up such misleading that can deceive the innocent and naive: ’twere better that a millstone be put around their necks and that they would then fall into the deepest sea."
"This is of course precisely a case in point of diverting the naive reader from being critically aware on a significant and dangerous possibility for abusing science for indoctrination in various avant garde schools of thought that are often precisely capital examples of propagandistic advocacy, misleading or outright deceptive manipulation and indoctrination. And, given the painful and at points horrendous history of Social Darwinism, the eugenics movement and several other claimed scientific schools of thought over the past 100 years, this is inexcusable. In our day, the self-referentially incoherent and amoral worldview of evolutionary materialism often operates under the false colours of "Science," even seeking to redefine science to suit its agenda."
"I find it rich that in a context where atheists demand to make a definition of atheism that conveniently allows them to duck the challenge of warranting a worldview on comparative difficulties –across factual adequacy, coherence, and explanatory power on first principles of right reason and warranted, credible first truths — they wish to project a loaded definition on design thought.
But then, self-servingly loaded definitions now seem to be a standard rhetorical device of evolutionary materialists: for science, for atheism and for design theory."
"In short, the common observation of angry and disrespectful atheism so common online, is linked to some plausible psycho-social dynamics. (For those struggling with the problem of evil, deductive, inductive or existential/pastoral, I suggest this may help at a first response level."
"Darwinist objectors to design thought, your side has crossed the nuclear threshold here, to outright criminality, and your side has now underscored the nihilistic amoral bankruptcy of what all too many on your side have been doing and the implications of the inherent amorality of evolutionary materialistic factionalism, as Plato warned against in The Laws, Bk X, 2,350 years ago."
"Thus, secularist, materialistic philosophies, science and technology — both Marxist and Capitalist — have proved themselves to be spiritually barren, and too often environmentally devastating, economically impotent, corrupt, unjust and morally bankrupt. Further, as the current fears over environmental degradation, global warming and genetically modified foods and organisms show, science and technology have now lost their heroic stature in the popular mind."
"We must seize the initiative in the battle of ideas. In spiritual warfare we "demolish [deceptive] arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." [2 Cor. 10: 5.] Let us take the Christian case to the campus, the school, the media, the Internet, business, institutions, the man in the street and people in their homes. The recent issue in Barbados over a proposal to use the Sai Baba Book of Human Values for School Assemblies is only the tip of the iceberg."
"the evolutionary materialist worldview is, sadly, evidently and demonstrably:
1] Blatantly factually inadequate to account for the origin of the cosmos, life, mind and morals relative to explanations that infer to a Cosmogenetic Designer.
2] Absurdly reduces mind to delusion and morals to contests of power.
3] Resorts to questrion-begging ad hoc assertions and prejudiced rules of reasoning, such as the one cited above: functional atheism, and its cognate in scientific circles, methodological naturalism.
In short, it is high time that the dominant status of evolutionary materialism in the hearts and minds of many of the educated across western culture was seriously re-examined."
"Further to that, B’s gutter tactics illustrate the point that the evolutionary materialist worldview’s censorship of theistic thought and even of entertaining the possiblity that empirical evidence supports that intelleigent agency is at work in the origin of life and the cosmos, is unjustified, question-begging censorsip designed to protecyt a view that cannot stand the scrutiny of comparative difficulties on the actual merits."
"My own interst in this thread is that through Scalia’s review of Smith, we again see the reductio ad absurdum of evolutionary materialism and its handmaiden functional atheism."
"That is, he pointed out the inherent amorality of evolutionary materialism, which BTW is one way ti reduces itself to self-refuting absurdity."
"It further documents a pattern of irrationality: making a self-refuting epistemological claim on the begetter of knowledge, confusing a question-begging censoring a priori imposition of materialistically redefined science for a self evident truth about the world and accessing truth about it, imposition of a censoring a priori."
"For many, the acceptance of evolutionary materialism is organically linked to their rejection of GOd."
"Second, evidentialism [the underlying point in the Sagan quote], is plainly logically incoherent, through self-referential inconsistency, and arguably so is the wider evolutionary materialist project. In short, these are credibly rejected by rational people as IRRATIONAL systems of thought."
"this pattern extends across man other issues raised in this blog over the past several months, during which skeptical and evolutionary materialist commenters have almost invariably ducked the issues of comparative difficulties, and tried to shift the burden of proof, often resorting to red herrings, strawman fallacies, ad hominems [sometimes tot he level of slander] and other rhetorical stratagems used by those whose core case is weak."
"Indeed, your just above is a turnabout rhetorical attempt, in which your hinted-at subtext is that I habitually accuse people of the trifecta rhetorical pattern without foundation." (YOU do exactly that, CONSTANTLY, gordo)
"The trifecta combination fallacy: distractive red herrings dragged away from the track of truth and led out to caricatured strawmen soaked in (implicit or explicit) character-assassinating ad hominems and ignited to cloud, confuse, polarise and posion the atmosphere for discussion" (See what I mean?)
"It is high time we move the discussion on beyond malicious caricatures.." (YOU FIRST, gordo)
"Deal with the issue on the merits, rather than attacking people as if they were threats." (Wow, your hypocrisy and lack of self awareness are ASTOUNDNG, gordo)
"The evidence in hand increasingly inclines me to the view that I am seing a hysteria driven by rhetorical manipulation and propaganda pushewd by a dominant secularist elite who see their view under threat." (Buy a fucking mirror gordo, you paranoid, deranged douchebag!)
"Then, he has compounded the crime by wishing to adopt a policy of indoctrination in evolutionary materialism, in the name of science education.
Sorry, I am not a propagandist, nor will I entertain such deception." (gordo, that last sentence could very well be the most dishonest and WRONG statement I've ever read)
"I am NOT open to going along with bigotry. Period." (Then, gordo, why do you hate and bash gays, and anyone else who doesn't agree with EVERY word you spew?)
"That is, it is a cheap, guilt by association rhetorical trick." (You mean the rhetorical trick that YOU use CONSTANTLY and dishonestly, gordo?)
"Of course, that is on the assumption that one has a respect for . . . the truth." (Well, it's ABUNDANTLY clear that YOU have NO respect for the truth, gordo)
"Plainly, you don’t get it: JUDGES AND LYING PHILOSOPHERS – who HAVE to know better — AND PHILOSOPHICALLY AND HISTORICALLY IGNORANT SCIENTISTS DO NOT GET TO DEFINE SCIENCE, BY PLAYING LAWYER GAMES IN COURTROOMS." (Oh, but IDC lawyers and you LYING IDiotic bible-thumping armchair judges DO get to define science?)
"Radical skepticism refutes itself, and evidentialism-rooted selective hyper-skepticism -- as we saw -- is just as bad."
"This sharpest edge of the blade of the problem of the one and the many cuts clean across today's evolutionary materialism and other monist views that simplistically reduce reality's diversity to just one essence or entity. Indeed, it is also a deep challenge for pantheism and panentheism. (Redemptive Trinitarian Monotheism has a complex not a simple unity at the core of reality, successfully integrating unity and diversity in the heart of its worldview. [For a discussion of he related problem of evil, in light of Plantinga's Free Will Defense, cf here.])"
"I have pointed out, on evidence:
1: just how evolutionary materialist atheism is inescapably self-contradictory and necessarily false.
2: just how it is inescapably amoral and so cannot ground OUGHT in a foundational IS, so it undermines rights and justice.
3: how a step by step analysis of credible worldview options leads to the conclusion that generic ethical theism is the soundest worldview option.
4: how the specific, Judaeo-Christian worldview and tradition is grounded in the historic evidence that undergirds the gospel as truth that brings us hope for redemption and transformation under God.
5: just how destructive and willfully, slanderously unfair is the attempt to smear Bible-believing, gospel-teaching Christian disciples with the false accusation that we are in effect the same as Al Qaeda's terrorists, would-be theocratic tyrants and general menaces to liberty, progress and democracy.
Unfortunately, this commenter, TWT (the same who threatened my family mafioso-style some months ago), amply underscores just how hateful, recklessly irresponsible, angry, and potentially dangerous -- please, listen to the podcast, here -- are all too many of today's new atheists." (The ONLY thing you've pointed out on evidence, gordo, is that you're a LYING, insane piece of SHIT)
"Mr Dawkins has also been caught on video tape unable to ground opposition to infanticide, or for that matter Hitler's holocaust; unsurprising given the inherent and inescapable amorality of evolutionary materialism; which likes to dress itself up in a lab coat in our day, claiming the prestige of science for what is an ancient worldview long since exposed as inherently self-refuting and inescapably amoral, i.e. it is intellectually and morally absurd."
"Will Hawthorne, similarly as a sampler, unerringly puts his finger on the sore spot on inherent amorality:
Assume (per impossibile) that atheistic naturalism [[= evolutionary materialism] is true. Assume, furthermore, that one can't infer an 'ought' from an 'is' [[the 'is' being in this context physicalist: matter-energy, space- time, chance and mechanical forces]. (Richard Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these assumptions.)
Given our second assumption, there is no description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer an 'ought'. And given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is. It follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there's no description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer that one ought to refrain from performing that action.
Add a further uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if it's not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that action . . . [[We see] therefore, for any action you care to pick, it's permissible to perform that action. If you'd like, you can take this as the meat behind the slogan 'if atheism is true, all things are permitted'.
For example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was permissible. Many atheists don't like this consequence of their worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being logical at the same time.
Now, we all know that at least some actions are really not permissible (for example, racist actions). Since the conclusion of the argument denies this, there must be a problem somewhere in the argument. Could the argument be invalid? No. The argument has not violated a single rule of logic and all inferences were made explicit.
Thus we are forced to deny the truth of one of the assumptions we started out with. That means we either deny atheistic naturalism or (the more intuitively appealing) principle that one can't infer 'ought' from [a material] 'is'."
"Secularist thinking is explicitrly post-christian and apostate, and it has set the basis
for the rise of neopagan trends."
"It is only through Christ's work of redemption,
renewal and reformation that people, families, communities and their institutions can make real progress."
"The Secularists and neopagans frame the issues and decide what are issues."
"First, early twentieth century Christian thinkers had to reckon with the impact of evolutionary materialism (the atheistic philosophy often adopted by those who accept Darwin’s picture of the origin of life on earth)."
"The underlying rejection of the biblical view that God acts supernaturally in creation, redemption, healing, prophecy and judgement, which owes more to debatable atheistic philosophies and associated skeptical assumptions than to established facts."
"That is, godliness and commitment to righteousness are non-negotiables." (Eat shit gordo, you two-faced bastard)
"In short, those who would isolate the gospel and godliness from the affairs of day to day life at once deny the Lordship of Christ, and fall into deepest heresy."
"Red herrings, led away to strawmen soaked in vicious ad hominems [the false charge of support for genocide fairly drips with the implied accusation, Nazi] and ignited through incendiary gotcha rhetoric are rhetorically very effective. But hey come at a terrible price: clouding the issues, poisoning the atmosphere, polarising it, and stirring hostility that all too soon becomes hate and scapegoating, leading on to violence, overt mob violence or covert violence by abuse of the power of law and policy and institutional dominance.
Those are the tactics that Dawkins et al have been indulging for decades, and it is high time that they were called to public account for that.
That will not happen if we keep on following red herrings and cheering on the burning of ad hominem soaked strawmen." (Could you be any more two-faced, gordo?)
"Likewise, a secularised, apostate and neopagan Gentile world needs to hear again that message: this same Jesus God has raised up and vindicated. he is the One who shall judge us all at the Last Day. In token of this, for two thousand years, we have had a church that has borne witness, worked miracles in his name and even now calls all men to repent.
And so does the Islamic world."
"Is it coincidence that Islam is to hand as an
instrument of chastisement against the decadent, secularist neopagan and apostate west?"
"The Declaration is the birth certificate of a movement, not only to respond directly to the Islamic tidal wave now hitting our region, but also to address the underlying core cultural issues that are being manipulated by the Islamic advocates/strategists and also by the even more dangerous secularist-neopagan-apostate tidal wave. The latter, as fifth columnists in our own communities, are all the more dangerous."
"Several lines of action emerge:
Studying and responding to the Islamic (and allied secularist-neopagan-apostate) arguments and agendas that are intended to undermine the credibility of the church, the Gospel and the Bible"
"Taking specific action on the threats we face, and the global challenge to be witnesses to Christ, including in the lands of the 10/40 window and in the now secularised and paganised apostate, formerly Christian countries of Europe and North America. The recent sodomy issues in the USA and Canada just serve to underscore this." (The "sodomy issues" gordo is referring to is gay marriage)
"Thus, we need to go beyond just shoring up defences against the Islamic and Secularist-Neopagan-Apostate tidal waves now battering the region. While we need to study and equip our people to respond to misleading arguments and agendas that seek to block the true knowledge of God, we also need to see ourselves strategically: a potential major Mission Force in the world, to carry the Gospel of the Kingdom to all nations."
"Sadly, in Literary Arts secvtion, The SunDay Magazine, Jamaica Observer, p.2; a Ms Peta-Gaye Stuart has published a naive gush piece on the Pride Week events in Toronto, where "same sex marriages", so called, have been ever so unwisely recently given standing under the colour of law. That is, we see evidence that the "normalising" of perversion is happening among the Caribbean's upper and middle classes, who are most vulnerable to fashionable trends in secularist, apostate and neopagan thinking."
"Insofar as "evolution" here means the philosophy of
evolutionary materialism (which often and deceptively disguises itself as "science""
"July 1925. Dayton, Tenn. It was one of the first battles in a cultural war that continues today. On trial was 24-year-old John Scopes, who admitted teaching evolution in the classroom. Leading the prosecution was William Jennings Bryan, who believed that any explanation for how man was created, other than the Book of Genesis, was the end of
religion as we know it. "If evolution wins, Christianity goes," huffed Bryan. Insofar as "evolution" here means the philosophy of evolutionary materialism (which often and deceptively disguises itself as "science"), Bryan was, and is, right. Those who accept an atheistic world-picture and have been taught that it is "scientific fact" -- in a context where "unscientific" is tantamount to irrational -- are most unlikely to think that theistic views are credible; without having first addressed the relevant criteria: comparative difficulties of philosophical worldviews [cf. my brief introduction: http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Intro_phil/toolkit.htm ] . Indeed, the attempts over the past 25 years to redefine science as the best current naturalistic explanation of phenomena we observe in
the world thereby demonstrate the vicious philosophical circle at work: instead of laying on the table the alternative philosophical start-points that have been adopted by great men of science over the years, and allowing the differences and difficulties to be compared on a level playing field, one view is suddenly imposed as THE scientific
worldview, period. That foreclosing before the fact begs the question and abandons the search for truth; which is supposed to characterise true science. Bryan was no scientist or theologian, but he surely and accurately understood the ultimate issue at stake: unless we are the
creation of God, we have no proper basis for claiming an inherent value that can demand rights from others and most of all the state, including what underlies this case: a right to be told the truth about science and the nature of man. That is the context for the "self-evident" truths asserted in the 2nd paragraph of your 1776 DOI: we know of an intuitive moral certainty that we have rights; as C S
Lewis was fond of highlighting, that is why and how we quarrel. Otherwise plausible views that imply that we do not have such rights beyond rhetorical and power games thereby directly reduce themselves to absurdity. The implications of the triumph of Darwin are everywhere visible: how many of the 44 million unborn babies slaughtered in the US since 1973 have been slaughtered in part based on the discredited,
fraudulent Haekelian argument that embryos at a certain stage are not truly human as they are recapitulating a fish or a reptile or something like that? What about the underpinnings of Nazi racism and extermination camps, or the Marxist gulags and killing fields: 100+ millions slaughtered in the name of evolutionary progress! FOR SHAME!!!!!!!"
"Rather, macroevolution -- as opposed to microevolution -- is an attempted explanation of various phenomena, reinforced by the dominance of Naturalistic thought in our time among the academic, educational and media elites. This is being challenged by the ID theorists, and as with the ecclesiastical elites of C17, rhetorical tricks and institutional power is being resorted to, rather than an
honest assessment of the evidence."
"It seems to me that if the Cobb Board wishes to help students see that, they are aiding rather than undermining true science as opposed to evolutionary materialistic
scientism, a philosophical wolf that is often fond of hiding under the sheepskin of science."
"In fact, thought-through morality is based on worldviews, and all worldviews have theological components [even atheists believe that there is no God, and draw out implications.] You cannot but have some worldview foundation for thinking, and that includes ethics."
"we should pray about the direction western culture is taking: for, truth – like healthy vegetables -- is an acquired taste, and truthfulness and sound thinking, like a healthy lifestyle, are very much acquired habits." (Well, you certainly haven't acquired a taste for the truth, gordo)
""But, you cannot legislate morality!"
This is a popular saying nowadays, but it is simply wrong."
"Self-evident truths: If you reject them, you end up in
foolishness. For instance, Psalm 14 points out that it is fools who say to themselves "there is no God" – for they thus become morally and intellectually bankrupt. Current events in North America and Europe provide abundant proof – e.g. contrast the rhetoric and the reality of counterfeit, so-called "same sex marriage." [Cf. Rom 1:16 – 32, 1 Cor 6:9 – 11, Eph 4:17 – 24.] Equally sadly, many of our brightest people in the region have also lost sight of the fear of God; which Prov. 1:7 highlights as the first point of wisdom."
"after all, in many an atheist's opinion, Christian faith is merely a discredited, damaging superstition and only the weak-minded cling to it. There is another word for such prejudiced, arrogant contempt: BIGOTRY. For, in fact
God has shown that he will judge all men with perfect justice, by raising Jesus from the dead: with over 500 eyewitnesses -- there is convincing proof of the truth of the gospel, if only we would humbly listen. Moreover, if one is honest, s/he will also have to admit that all of us are a strange mixture of the glory and the shame; the wise and the stupid; the good and the bad – this simply shows that while God made us in his glorious image, we are ALL fallen sinners
who need to repent and be reformed." (YOU are CERTAINLY a FALLEN SINNER, gordo, and a BIGOT, and stupid, and bad, and weak-minded, and arrogant, and prejudiced, and a shame on the human race)
"selective hyperskepticism: once one rejects the credible truth, one is forced to accept incredible myths as a substitute.
And then when one uses belief in what is patently false to judge what one accepts, one ends up rejecting the objective truth."
"There ARE angels who are glad to accept worship: fallen angels, i.e devils or demons."
"PS: And, remember just what you are mucking around with when you start to play footsie with pagan gods.
[And on this subject the real authority is Jesus of Nazareth; the risen Christ. he took demons very seriously and he has the resurrection from the dead with 500+ witnesses to prove that he know what he was talking about. Acts 19:8-20]
PPS: My recommendation is that you go find yourself a solid pastor who knows what he is dealing with, if you have been playing footsie with pagan gods. No joke!"
"5 –> Thus, it is no surprise that mockers would come, to distract us from that hope, and to lead us into the ways of the world; in the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye and the pride of life. [1 Jn 2:15 - 17.]
6 –> And, one anchor to their materialism, their this-worldliness, is that they try to twist the blessings of science into a story that ignores the warning of Job 38: we were not there when the foundations of the world were laid, so we do not and cannot know the deep past by our own speculations on what we see. But, soon, instead of listening to and heeding the counsel of Him who was there [for he is our Creator-Sustainer] such men would darken God’s counsels by words without knowledge; falsely presented as SCIENTIA — literally, “knowledge.”"
"8 –> And, in the face of the chaos caused by our sins and permitted by God to stir us and remind us to reach out to him, however blindly [Ac 17], such men make up a different eschatology: progress to paradise on earth, by science, by technology, by clever political and bureaucratic messiahs; now in a unified global Babylon-ish world system."
"11 --> Only a small remnant was saved then [only 8 out of millions! so stubborn were men's hearts and so closed were their minds], and relatively speaking the same may yet happen. That is, we must beware!"
"PS: Remember the awful significance of shutting one’s eyes to the truth one knows or should know — as the prophesied mockers of 2 Pet 3 do — as discussed also in the Deception thread, Dec 15, here. Resemblance to some of what has been going on at BU for months is NOT coincidental. So, mockers, take heed; and, repent before it is too late! Eternally, too late . . ."
"the Bible is in major respects — both OT and NT — historical record, and abundantly confirmed as good record too."
"Further, since what God does, says and decrees will be good, creation is good at its root."
"Morality is not anterior to God--logically prior to Him--as Bertrand Russell suggests, but rooted in His nature.
As Scott Rae puts it, "Morality is not grounded ultimately in God's commands, but in His character, which then expresses itself in His commands."[9] In other words, whatever a good God commands will always be good . . . ." (Like genocide, gordo?)
"the scripture cannot be broken"
"17 –> For, God is gracious and has given us many points of evidence whereby we may see just how credible and authentic — thus trustworthy and authoritative (even as as a top class dictionary is trustworthy and authoritative) — is the witness of the Scriptures, NT and OT."
"As we turn to the OT, it is worth noting again that we have some rather direct authentication in hand, from the Lord of truth Himself."
"So, we have now laid out a framework for the authenticity of the Scriptures, anchored in the resurrection of Jesus, but with ample corroboration and a system for understanding why we can trust the record.
That is important in an ate where just as peter predicted in 65 AD or so, mockers would come, dismissing the testimony of the said scriptures.
But, only to their own self-deception and the misleading of those unwise enough to take them seriously.
A word to the wise . . . "
"As Kupelian pointed out, the idea and strategy in marketing evil and deception as ideology and “truth” or”rights” is to :
(1) desensitise us to the evilness of evil through oversaturation and sympathetic portrayal, to
(2) jam out those who object by making hem look bad [using turnabout false accusation tactics] and to then
(3) induce conversion and support through manipulating guilt and perceived peer pressure of a manipulated “consensus” or similar strong emotions and socio-psychological forces.
[Notice, anticipating yet another turnabout slander, how such tactics NEVER teach us to use critical thinking, help us escape selective hyperskepticism, never help us learn principles of warrant for claimed facts, nor help us analyse worldviews and show us how to select one in a world of diversity, error and deceptive rhetoric. All of which I have made freely available in this thread -- having taught the principles at High School and College levels, and even in public (guess why NGO and CBO ZOPP-twisting advocates?)-- and have taken time to explain and apply.]
How else do you think we have reached a pass where people who know the obvious implications of maleness, femaleness and the requirements of sound nurture of children can look you in the face and call you a bigot or worse for suggesting that the novelty that Adam can “marry” Steve and Eve can “marry” Sue is obviously a distortion of marriage? (Go back and read George Orwell’s 1984, folks, and compare with what now obtains!)
So, let us understand: we live in an ideologised, deeply polarised age dominated by ideologues influenced by avant garde evolutionary materialism and related ideas, which are inherently amoral and both personally and socially destructive."
"Credibility: Intellectually, the world is dominated by the
post-/hyper- modern mood of Western Secularised thought. So, while there is a more open attitude to the possibility of the
supernatural, those who stand in prophetic witness to truth or right [cf Ac 17:16 - 34] are immediately suspected of wishing to impose a narrow, intolerant agenda on the public in support of potentially violent so-called "fundamentalist" agendas. Consequently, the more welcome types of spiritual expression are neo- (or even paleo-) pagan, relativistic and welcoming of "diversity" – i.e. immoral, personally and socially destructive lifestyles. The inner inconsistencies (and even hypocrisies) of such post-/hyper- modern thinking need to be exposed, so that the evidence for the gospel
can be heard on its own merits."
"In a global world with at least three major contenders for
the global mindset and agenda, we dare not neglect the intellectual challenges to the credibility of our Faith, neither here in the Caribbean nor globally. This requires that we study, assess and respond to: (a) post-/hyper- modern secularist thought, (b) neo- pagan trends, and (c) the Islamic Dawah; recognising valid concerns but also highlighting key fallacies that demonstrate the fundamental
intellectual and spiritual failure of these systems, and calling for appropriate action in response to the truth and the right. For, in spiritual warfare, we are to "demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and . . . take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." [2 Cor. 10:5.]
Similarly, as we listen to and then address local, regional
and international issues, we must discern the underlying agendas, assumptions and worldviews that are the root of the persuasiveness of proposals for action. For, secularists, neo-pagans and islamists alike seek to promote their goals through exploiting current issues to advance and institutionalise their agendas"
"We will also need to focus on a well thought through regional and global intellectual and cultural response to
other global agendas, most notably the Islamist and the post-modern secularist-neopagan.."
"It seems, the underlying problem is the blinding influence of the hedonistic, secularist and/or neopagan worldviews that are now a rising (and arguably damaging) influence in our society."
"Clearly, there is need for a serious re-thinking of our current rush to embrace hedonistic secularism and/or neopagan worldviews, lifestyles and agendas that play to our proclivities rather than our better angels."
"I guess it is time to again note the situation we face
in the Caribbean, now that the US is ever so plainly
on a race to Gomorrah.
About ten years back, i saw that by about y2k, we
would face inundation by two tidal waves: one from the
N, the other from the E. I believe God was then
opening my eyes to see the dynamics that have now
played out:
1] As cable Tv, education [so called] and other forces
have accelerated secularisation and paganism in the N,
this has begun to flood into our region."
"That is why we cannot accept the same-sex family. It serves no public purpose."
"From the North, There is a massive wave of dechristianisation, as many "post-moderns" now eagerly seek to dismiss and forget the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus of Nazareth, resenting him as an oppressor instead of remembering and thanking him for being our loving Father who has so richly blessed us."
"In short, there is an intuitively recognised core of conscience-guided reason and awareness of the creation-based, morally conditioned nature of reality that leads us to God; if we would but listen. Sadly, we are instead tempted to suppress this as it is often inconvenient to our desired agendas, profits and pleasures. If we do so, we have no excuse and find ourselves victims of darkened understandings, benumbed consciences and out-of-control, sometimes perverted passions -- leading to massive social disruption and disintegration. In turn, when anarchy reaches a critical point, as Germany in the 1930s showed convincingly, the public will accept tyranny on the hope that it will restore order. In short, once we ignore the moral context of liberty, it becomes suicidally self-destructive."
"Similarly, it is plain that the fact that so-called same-sex marriage is a novelty with serious moral questions and concerns that there are major harmful socio-cultural impacts attaching thereto is simply passed over in silence in the rush to accuse Christians who take say Romans 1 - 2 seriously, of hatred for homosexuals. [A pause to address the Christian principle of opposing sin while loving sinners would have made a difference, especially if joined to actually tracking down those who are dealing with this issue on the ground. Likewise, a reflection on recent cases where Gay activists and their supporters are moving to censor or persecute Christians for making a fundamental objection to the promotion of homosexuality as a desirable norm, should be looked at. For, there is a recognisable and material difference between Adam and Eve, and Adam and Steve; one that has at least potentially serious consequences. [Cf here Matt 19:3 6 for Jesus' view on the matter of marriage.]"
"So, on historically and legally proper grounds, Judge Moore was right -- but the usurpation of the words and intent of the First Amendment have turned it into almost the opposite: quasi-establishment of the secular humanist philosophy, which functions as a religion substitute."
"Thus, our region is plainly at kairos. For, on the one hand, we are increasingly a part of the ongoing bewitching and captivity of the Christian West by those riding on a tidal wave of secularism, apostasy and post-modern neo-paganism."
"Science, therefore, is not the only discipline giving us true information about the world. It follows, then, that naturalism as a world view is also false."
"Men like Mr Dawkins are highly confident that they are not going to be publicly called on their philosophical blunders in a way that will discredit them, because they know that the public has been long since indoctrinated in evolutionary materialism under the label "science" and that the public is woefully ignorant of and despising of philosophy."
"Likewise, few will know that there are excellent works on Bible difficulties that give quite good answers to the sort of questions that used to be a favourite tactic of the resident village skeptic/atheist/idiot. [Cf here for a good start, at the CARM web site. Archer's Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties is a good first resort as a print resource.]"
"This is all of a piece with Mr Dawkins' longstanding, notoriously village atheist level claim that those who reject the neo-darwinian, evolutionary materialist account of origins are "ignorant, stupid, insane . . . or wicked." (Dawkins was apparently thinking of you when he said that, gordo)
"And, BTW, on what rational basis does an evolutionary materialist thinker assert moral -- as opposed to self-servingly rhetorical -- claims?" (ALL of your rhetorical claims are self serving, gordo)
"Now, if the secularist progressivist, evolutionary materialist wing of western culture is so polarised and so often slip-shod in assessing worldview level issues, can it long survive?"
"Finally, liberty is about establishing jusrice, which in turn protects our rights. But, a right, properly, is a moral claim we make on others based on our inherent nature as creatures under God fulfilling the purpose set for us by our Creator -- no other sustainable basis for rights exists. Indeed, the evolutionary materialist alternative [the relevant competing view] in the end boils down to this: might makes right, i.e power substitutes for rights; thence its absurd relativism and skepticism about rights, which wreaks havoc in the community, especially through manipulating institutions of power and law; it is a sign of the disintegration of Western culture as it seeks to forget God [Deut 8:17 - 20]. No wonder, then, that those caught up in a culture dominated by that self-referentially inconsistent worldview [follow up the links to see why I say that!] seek to undermine sexual morality and family life."
"I do not pretend to perfection, or to having in hand perfect answers." (What a steaming crock of shit, you LYING butt chunk)
"That is an ever more pressing concern, as we see an emerging tripolar global age: the West caught between dechristianisation, moral disintegration and and demographic decline, the rising Islamist challenge from the Middle East, and the impact of the now century-old Southern Christian Reformation.
For instance, there is the issue that the West is in an internal cultural clash between the remaining legacy from the last reformation [and let us note that the Catholic church was renewed itself in reaction to that, so the reformation also impacted that church] with the secularising and apostate and even pagan forces. The balance in Europe is much farther along in dechristinisation than in the US, which seems to be roughly 50-50 now so that relatively small shifts in public sentiment driven by the rhetoric of rage and fear dramatically tip elections. [NB: Notice how the US Mainstream Media did not say much about "negative campaigning" now that it was Democrats who were mostly doing it! No prizes for guessing why.]
Through the West's domination of the mass media and the academy, surges from this struggle have surged forth all over the world. Here in the Caribbean, this has added force to the currents of moral disintegration from within that have long characterised our culture, as a legacy of slavery. So we desperately need to very carefully reflect on what would otherwise be dry academic matters, issues such as evolutionary materialism, the engine of the secularisation of the West"
"Worldviews and world-agendas: Religions and philosphies of life, as well as the associated characteristic psychologies, are actually examples of worldviews and their associated agendas; which implies that there can be clashes of both ideas and agendas for society."
"In the end, materialism is based on self-defeating logic, and only survives because people often fail (or, sometimes, refuse) to think through just what their beliefs really mean.
As a further consequence, materialism can have no basis, other than arbitrary or whimsical choice and balances of power in the community, for determining what is to be accepted as True or False, Good or Evil. So, Morality, Truth, Meaning, and, at length, Man, are dead. . . . In Law, Government, and Public Policy, the same bitter seed has shot up the idea that "Right" and "Wrong" are simply arbitrary social conventions. This has often led to the adoption of hypocritical, inconsistent, futile and self-destructive public policies.
"Truth is dead," so Education has become a power struggle; the victors have the right to propagandise the next generation as they please. Media power games simply extend this cynical manipulation from the school and the campus to the street, the office, the factory, the church and the home.
Further, since family structures and rules of sexual morality are "simply accidents of history," one is free to force society to redefine family values and principles of sexual morality to suit one's preferences.
Finally, life itself is meaningless and valueless, so the weak, sick, defenceless and undesirable — for whatever reason — can simply be slaughtered, whether in the womb, in the hospital, or in the death camp."
"Indeed, instead, he doubled down on false accusations and slanders, playing the Hitler card."
"Sorry, I am not a propagandist"
---------------
That is just a small sampling of gordo's lunacy, LIES, and hypocrisy.
kairosfocus (gordon e mullings of Montserrat) is simply a TERRORIST, and is as insane and amoral as any other terrorist. If anyone is dangerous, it's gordo
"I never ever said that atheism as proposition was a worldview, but if you have projected that misreading, all else follows, down to the gratuitous (though relatively subtle) ad hominem."
And:
"So, madam, let me be direct, I explicitly deny — having warranted it yet again — that I am: promoting the libel that atheists (or “evolutionary materialists) are dangerous amoral nihilists"
If I remember correctly, they're both from this thread:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/atheism/church-burning-video-used-to-promote-atheist-event/
He sure does like to play deceptive word games, as is apparent in the "as proposition" crap.
Let's take a look at some of the things that gordo has said about evolutionary materialism/materialists, atheism/atheists, wordlviews, etc.:
"Athism in disguise:On the further absurdity that evolutionary materialism ands functional atheism do not constitute atheism, the word “tantamount” is as good a rebuttal as any.
Let’s see:
(a) atheists affirm they know there is no God and so any reference to God is based on delusion.
(b) as a major force in modern intellectual thought, references to God are ruled out a priori, by appeals to the incredibility of such, or by appeals to the rule of methodological naturalism.
Why is (b) imposed, in contexts where in fact theistic worldviews are plainly live options, and where comparative diffiulties across live options are the only way to get out of question-begging? Elementary, my dear Watson: it is atheists who hold power in critical institutions and are imposing their beliefs by exerting censorship. The case of Sternberg and especially the chilling effect on others who had at any time expressed theistic leanings is a telling illustration in point."
"In short, science redefined in terms of MN becomes a game played by evolutionary materialist — or more bluntly atheist’s — rules, with no reference to seeking to discover and discern truth."
"Evolutionary Materialism as a [quasi-]religion: When the core of the concept, “religion,” is provisionally identified, evolutionary materialism turns out to be, functionally equivalent to a traditional religion, thougfh of course not a theistic one. This observation will be hotly contested, but it is plainly true and goes to the heart of the contradictory decisions and arguments that come from secularists, most recently as highlighted in the Dover decision. Thus, some serious soul-searching is in order for those who, through the fact that secularism is not a theistic religion, are in fact de facto establishing their quasi-religion as the state church of the united states, complete with the atheist’s veto on public policy, censorship on education and what can be viewed in the public square, and a question-begging redefinition of science as, in effect, the best evolutionary materialist explanation of the cosmos from hydrogen to humans."
"And BTW, evolutionary materialistic systems are equally amoral, as they have only survival, not morality save as a convenient, culturally relative, social fiction."
"On Judaeo-Christian monotheism [theism for short], the morally virtuous Creator-God is the IS who grounds OUGHT in his character. that is the cosmos and especially that aspect where mind enters the picture, has morality built-in, AND morality is reasonable not an arbitrary, capricious imposition. So, it is improper to try to extend the Euthryphro dilemma to such theism."
"Thus we may see in outline — notice onlookers how the objectors protest ever so loudly when a detailed exposition is either developed or linked — why it is that Judaeo-Christian redemptive theism is a solid ground for morality. We also see why pagan and neopagan altenatives and skeptical evolutionary materialistic — which last, on the testimony of Plato in the Laws Bk X, go back to 400+ BC and men like Alcibiades — alternatives are inherently amoral, thus the pattern of moral disintegration of Rom 1"
"So, let us understand: we live in an ideologised, deeply polarised age dominated by ideologues influenced by avant garde evolutionary materialism and related ideas, which are inherently amoral and both personally and socially destructive."
"We must therefore pause to say that we have a Dominical warning to those who would put up such misleading that can deceive the innocent and naive: ’twere better that a millstone be put around their necks and that they would then fall into the deepest sea."
"This is of course precisely a case in point of diverting the naive reader from being critically aware on a significant and dangerous possibility for abusing science for indoctrination in various avant garde schools of thought that are often precisely capital examples of propagandistic advocacy, misleading or outright deceptive manipulation and indoctrination. And, given the painful and at points horrendous history of Social Darwinism, the eugenics movement and several other claimed scientific schools of thought over the past 100 years, this is inexcusable. In our day, the self-referentially incoherent and amoral worldview of evolutionary materialism often operates under the false colours of "Science," even seeking to redefine science to suit its agenda."
"I find it rich that in a context where atheists demand to make a definition of atheism that conveniently allows them to duck the challenge of warranting a worldview on comparative difficulties –across factual adequacy, coherence, and explanatory power on first principles of right reason and warranted, credible first truths — they wish to project a loaded definition on design thought.
But then, self-servingly loaded definitions now seem to be a standard rhetorical device of evolutionary materialists: for science, for atheism and for design theory."
"In short, the common observation of angry and disrespectful atheism so common online, is linked to some plausible psycho-social dynamics. (For those struggling with the problem of evil, deductive, inductive or existential/pastoral, I suggest this may help at a first response level."
"Darwinist objectors to design thought, your side has crossed the nuclear threshold here, to outright criminality, and your side has now underscored the nihilistic amoral bankruptcy of what all too many on your side have been doing and the implications of the inherent amorality of evolutionary materialistic factionalism, as Plato warned against in The Laws, Bk X, 2,350 years ago."
"Thus, secularist, materialistic philosophies, science and technology — both Marxist and Capitalist — have proved themselves to be spiritually barren, and too often environmentally devastating, economically impotent, corrupt, unjust and morally bankrupt. Further, as the current fears over environmental degradation, global warming and genetically modified foods and organisms show, science and technology have now lost their heroic stature in the popular mind."
"We must seize the initiative in the battle of ideas. In spiritual warfare we "demolish [deceptive] arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." [2 Cor. 10: 5.] Let us take the Christian case to the campus, the school, the media, the Internet, business, institutions, the man in the street and people in their homes. The recent issue in Barbados over a proposal to use the Sai Baba Book of Human Values for School Assemblies is only the tip of the iceberg."
"the evolutionary materialist worldview is, sadly, evidently and demonstrably:
1] Blatantly factually inadequate to account for the origin of the cosmos, life, mind and morals relative to explanations that infer to a Cosmogenetic Designer.
2] Absurdly reduces mind to delusion and morals to contests of power.
3] Resorts to questrion-begging ad hoc assertions and prejudiced rules of reasoning, such as the one cited above: functional atheism, and its cognate in scientific circles, methodological naturalism.
In short, it is high time that the dominant status of evolutionary materialism in the hearts and minds of many of the educated across western culture was seriously re-examined."
"Further to that, B’s gutter tactics illustrate the point that the evolutionary materialist worldview’s censorship of theistic thought and even of entertaining the possiblity that empirical evidence supports that intelleigent agency is at work in the origin of life and the cosmos, is unjustified, question-begging censorsip designed to protecyt a view that cannot stand the scrutiny of comparative difficulties on the actual merits."
"My own interst in this thread is that through Scalia’s review of Smith, we again see the reductio ad absurdum of evolutionary materialism and its handmaiden functional atheism."
"That is, he pointed out the inherent amorality of evolutionary materialism, which BTW is one way ti reduces itself to self-refuting absurdity."
"It further documents a pattern of irrationality: making a self-refuting epistemological claim on the begetter of knowledge, confusing a question-begging censoring a priori imposition of materialistically redefined science for a self evident truth about the world and accessing truth about it, imposition of a censoring a priori."
"For many, the acceptance of evolutionary materialism is organically linked to their rejection of GOd."
"Second, evidentialism [the underlying point in the Sagan quote], is plainly logically incoherent, through self-referential inconsistency, and arguably so is the wider evolutionary materialist project. In short, these are credibly rejected by rational people as IRRATIONAL systems of thought."
"this pattern extends across man other issues raised in this blog over the past several months, during which skeptical and evolutionary materialist commenters have almost invariably ducked the issues of comparative difficulties, and tried to shift the burden of proof, often resorting to red herrings, strawman fallacies, ad hominems [sometimes tot he level of slander] and other rhetorical stratagems used by those whose core case is weak."
"Indeed, your just above is a turnabout rhetorical attempt, in which your hinted-at subtext is that I habitually accuse people of the trifecta rhetorical pattern without foundation." (YOU do exactly that, CONSTANTLY, gordo)
"The trifecta combination fallacy: distractive red herrings dragged away from the track of truth and led out to caricatured strawmen soaked in (implicit or explicit) character-assassinating ad hominems and ignited to cloud, confuse, polarise and posion the atmosphere for discussion" (See what I mean?)
"It is high time we move the discussion on beyond malicious caricatures.." (YOU FIRST, gordo)
"Deal with the issue on the merits, rather than attacking people as if they were threats." (Wow, your hypocrisy and lack of self awareness are ASTOUNDNG, gordo)
"The evidence in hand increasingly inclines me to the view that I am seing a hysteria driven by rhetorical manipulation and propaganda pushewd by a dominant secularist elite who see their view under threat." (Buy a fucking mirror gordo, you paranoid, deranged douchebag!)
"Then, he has compounded the crime by wishing to adopt a policy of indoctrination in evolutionary materialism, in the name of science education.
Sorry, I am not a propagandist, nor will I entertain such deception." (gordo, that last sentence could very well be the most dishonest and WRONG statement I've ever read)
"I am NOT open to going along with bigotry. Period." (Then, gordo, why do you hate and bash gays, and anyone else who doesn't agree with EVERY word you spew?)
"That is, it is a cheap, guilt by association rhetorical trick." (You mean the rhetorical trick that YOU use CONSTANTLY and dishonestly, gordo?)
"Of course, that is on the assumption that one has a respect for . . . the truth." (Well, it's ABUNDANTLY clear that YOU have NO respect for the truth, gordo)
"Plainly, you don’t get it: JUDGES AND LYING PHILOSOPHERS – who HAVE to know better — AND PHILOSOPHICALLY AND HISTORICALLY IGNORANT SCIENTISTS DO NOT GET TO DEFINE SCIENCE, BY PLAYING LAWYER GAMES IN COURTROOMS." (Oh, but IDC lawyers and you LYING IDiotic bible-thumping armchair judges DO get to define science?)
"Radical skepticism refutes itself, and evidentialism-rooted selective hyper-skepticism -- as we saw -- is just as bad."
"This sharpest edge of the blade of the problem of the one and the many cuts clean across today's evolutionary materialism and other monist views that simplistically reduce reality's diversity to just one essence or entity. Indeed, it is also a deep challenge for pantheism and panentheism. (Redemptive Trinitarian Monotheism has a complex not a simple unity at the core of reality, successfully integrating unity and diversity in the heart of its worldview. [For a discussion of he related problem of evil, in light of Plantinga's Free Will Defense, cf here.])"
"I have pointed out, on evidence:
1: just how evolutionary materialist atheism is inescapably self-contradictory and necessarily false.
2: just how it is inescapably amoral and so cannot ground OUGHT in a foundational IS, so it undermines rights and justice.
3: how a step by step analysis of credible worldview options leads to the conclusion that generic ethical theism is the soundest worldview option.
4: how the specific, Judaeo-Christian worldview and tradition is grounded in the historic evidence that undergirds the gospel as truth that brings us hope for redemption and transformation under God.
5: just how destructive and willfully, slanderously unfair is the attempt to smear Bible-believing, gospel-teaching Christian disciples with the false accusation that we are in effect the same as Al Qaeda's terrorists, would-be theocratic tyrants and general menaces to liberty, progress and democracy.
Unfortunately, this commenter, TWT (the same who threatened my family mafioso-style some months ago), amply underscores just how hateful, recklessly irresponsible, angry, and potentially dangerous -- please, listen to the podcast, here -- are all too many of today's new atheists." (The ONLY thing you've pointed out on evidence, gordo, is that you're a LYING, insane piece of SHIT)
"Mr Dawkins has also been caught on video tape unable to ground opposition to infanticide, or for that matter Hitler's holocaust; unsurprising given the inherent and inescapable amorality of evolutionary materialism; which likes to dress itself up in a lab coat in our day, claiming the prestige of science for what is an ancient worldview long since exposed as inherently self-refuting and inescapably amoral, i.e. it is intellectually and morally absurd."
"Will Hawthorne, similarly as a sampler, unerringly puts his finger on the sore spot on inherent amorality:
Assume (per impossibile) that atheistic naturalism [[= evolutionary materialism] is true. Assume, furthermore, that one can't infer an 'ought' from an 'is' [[the 'is' being in this context physicalist: matter-energy, space- time, chance and mechanical forces]. (Richard Dawkins and many other atheists should grant both of these assumptions.)
Given our second assumption, there is no description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer an 'ought'. And given our first assumption, there is nothing that exists over and above the natural world; the natural world is all that there is. It follows logically that, for any action you care to pick, there's no description of anything in the natural world from which we can infer that one ought to refrain from performing that action.
Add a further uncontroversial assumption: an action is permissible if and only if it's not the case that one ought to refrain from performing that action . . . [[We see] therefore, for any action you care to pick, it's permissible to perform that action. If you'd like, you can take this as the meat behind the slogan 'if atheism is true, all things are permitted'.
For example if atheism is true, every action Hitler performed was permissible. Many atheists don't like this consequence of their worldview. But they cannot escape it and insist that they are being logical at the same time.
Now, we all know that at least some actions are really not permissible (for example, racist actions). Since the conclusion of the argument denies this, there must be a problem somewhere in the argument. Could the argument be invalid? No. The argument has not violated a single rule of logic and all inferences were made explicit.
Thus we are forced to deny the truth of one of the assumptions we started out with. That means we either deny atheistic naturalism or (the more intuitively appealing) principle that one can't infer 'ought' from [a material] 'is'."
"Secularist thinking is explicitrly post-christian and apostate, and it has set the basis
for the rise of neopagan trends."
"It is only through Christ's work of redemption,
renewal and reformation that people, families, communities and their institutions can make real progress."
"The Secularists and neopagans frame the issues and decide what are issues."
"First, early twentieth century Christian thinkers had to reckon with the impact of evolutionary materialism (the atheistic philosophy often adopted by those who accept Darwin’s picture of the origin of life on earth)."
"The underlying rejection of the biblical view that God acts supernaturally in creation, redemption, healing, prophecy and judgement, which owes more to debatable atheistic philosophies and associated skeptical assumptions than to established facts."
"That is, godliness and commitment to righteousness are non-negotiables." (Eat shit gordo, you two-faced bastard)
"In short, those who would isolate the gospel and godliness from the affairs of day to day life at once deny the Lordship of Christ, and fall into deepest heresy."
"Red herrings, led away to strawmen soaked in vicious ad hominems [the false charge of support for genocide fairly drips with the implied accusation, Nazi] and ignited through incendiary gotcha rhetoric are rhetorically very effective. But hey come at a terrible price: clouding the issues, poisoning the atmosphere, polarising it, and stirring hostility that all too soon becomes hate and scapegoating, leading on to violence, overt mob violence or covert violence by abuse of the power of law and policy and institutional dominance.
Those are the tactics that Dawkins et al have been indulging for decades, and it is high time that they were called to public account for that.
That will not happen if we keep on following red herrings and cheering on the burning of ad hominem soaked strawmen." (Could you be any more two-faced, gordo?)
"Likewise, a secularised, apostate and neopagan Gentile world needs to hear again that message: this same Jesus God has raised up and vindicated. he is the One who shall judge us all at the Last Day. In token of this, for two thousand years, we have had a church that has borne witness, worked miracles in his name and even now calls all men to repent.
And so does the Islamic world."
"Is it coincidence that Islam is to hand as an
instrument of chastisement against the decadent, secularist neopagan and apostate west?"
"The Declaration is the birth certificate of a movement, not only to respond directly to the Islamic tidal wave now hitting our region, but also to address the underlying core cultural issues that are being manipulated by the Islamic advocates/strategists and also by the even more dangerous secularist-neopagan-apostate tidal wave. The latter, as fifth columnists in our own communities, are all the more dangerous."
"Several lines of action emerge:
Studying and responding to the Islamic (and allied secularist-neopagan-apostate) arguments and agendas that are intended to undermine the credibility of the church, the Gospel and the Bible"
"Taking specific action on the threats we face, and the global challenge to be witnesses to Christ, including in the lands of the 10/40 window and in the now secularised and paganised apostate, formerly Christian countries of Europe and North America. The recent sodomy issues in the USA and Canada just serve to underscore this." (The "sodomy issues" gordo is referring to is gay marriage)
"Thus, we need to go beyond just shoring up defences against the Islamic and Secularist-Neopagan-Apostate tidal waves now battering the region. While we need to study and equip our people to respond to misleading arguments and agendas that seek to block the true knowledge of God, we also need to see ourselves strategically: a potential major Mission Force in the world, to carry the Gospel of the Kingdom to all nations."
"Sadly, in Literary Arts secvtion, The SunDay Magazine, Jamaica Observer, p.2; a Ms Peta-Gaye Stuart has published a naive gush piece on the Pride Week events in Toronto, where "same sex marriages", so called, have been ever so unwisely recently given standing under the colour of law. That is, we see evidence that the "normalising" of perversion is happening among the Caribbean's upper and middle classes, who are most vulnerable to fashionable trends in secularist, apostate and neopagan thinking."
"Insofar as "evolution" here means the philosophy of
evolutionary materialism (which often and deceptively disguises itself as "science""
"July 1925. Dayton, Tenn. It was one of the first battles in a cultural war that continues today. On trial was 24-year-old John Scopes, who admitted teaching evolution in the classroom. Leading the prosecution was William Jennings Bryan, who believed that any explanation for how man was created, other than the Book of Genesis, was the end of
religion as we know it. "If evolution wins, Christianity goes," huffed Bryan. Insofar as "evolution" here means the philosophy of evolutionary materialism (which often and deceptively disguises itself as "science"), Bryan was, and is, right. Those who accept an atheistic world-picture and have been taught that it is "scientific fact" -- in a context where "unscientific" is tantamount to irrational -- are most unlikely to think that theistic views are credible; without having first addressed the relevant criteria: comparative difficulties of philosophical worldviews [cf. my brief introduction: http://www.angelfire.com/pro/kairosfocus/resources/Intro_phil/toolkit.htm ] . Indeed, the attempts over the past 25 years to redefine science as the best current naturalistic explanation of phenomena we observe in
the world thereby demonstrate the vicious philosophical circle at work: instead of laying on the table the alternative philosophical start-points that have been adopted by great men of science over the years, and allowing the differences and difficulties to be compared on a level playing field, one view is suddenly imposed as THE scientific
worldview, period. That foreclosing before the fact begs the question and abandons the search for truth; which is supposed to characterise true science. Bryan was no scientist or theologian, but he surely and accurately understood the ultimate issue at stake: unless we are the
creation of God, we have no proper basis for claiming an inherent value that can demand rights from others and most of all the state, including what underlies this case: a right to be told the truth about science and the nature of man. That is the context for the "self-evident" truths asserted in the 2nd paragraph of your 1776 DOI: we know of an intuitive moral certainty that we have rights; as C S
Lewis was fond of highlighting, that is why and how we quarrel. Otherwise plausible views that imply that we do not have such rights beyond rhetorical and power games thereby directly reduce themselves to absurdity. The implications of the triumph of Darwin are everywhere visible: how many of the 44 million unborn babies slaughtered in the US since 1973 have been slaughtered in part based on the discredited,
fraudulent Haekelian argument that embryos at a certain stage are not truly human as they are recapitulating a fish or a reptile or something like that? What about the underpinnings of Nazi racism and extermination camps, or the Marxist gulags and killing fields: 100+ millions slaughtered in the name of evolutionary progress! FOR SHAME!!!!!!!"
"Rather, macroevolution -- as opposed to microevolution -- is an attempted explanation of various phenomena, reinforced by the dominance of Naturalistic thought in our time among the academic, educational and media elites. This is being challenged by the ID theorists, and as with the ecclesiastical elites of C17, rhetorical tricks and institutional power is being resorted to, rather than an
honest assessment of the evidence."
"It seems to me that if the Cobb Board wishes to help students see that, they are aiding rather than undermining true science as opposed to evolutionary materialistic
scientism, a philosophical wolf that is often fond of hiding under the sheepskin of science."
"In fact, thought-through morality is based on worldviews, and all worldviews have theological components [even atheists believe that there is no God, and draw out implications.] You cannot but have some worldview foundation for thinking, and that includes ethics."
"we should pray about the direction western culture is taking: for, truth – like healthy vegetables -- is an acquired taste, and truthfulness and sound thinking, like a healthy lifestyle, are very much acquired habits." (Well, you certainly haven't acquired a taste for the truth, gordo)
""But, you cannot legislate morality!"
This is a popular saying nowadays, but it is simply wrong."
"Self-evident truths: If you reject them, you end up in
foolishness. For instance, Psalm 14 points out that it is fools who say to themselves "there is no God" – for they thus become morally and intellectually bankrupt. Current events in North America and Europe provide abundant proof – e.g. contrast the rhetoric and the reality of counterfeit, so-called "same sex marriage." [Cf. Rom 1:16 – 32, 1 Cor 6:9 – 11, Eph 4:17 – 24.] Equally sadly, many of our brightest people in the region have also lost sight of the fear of God; which Prov. 1:7 highlights as the first point of wisdom."
"after all, in many an atheist's opinion, Christian faith is merely a discredited, damaging superstition and only the weak-minded cling to it. There is another word for such prejudiced, arrogant contempt: BIGOTRY. For, in fact
God has shown that he will judge all men with perfect justice, by raising Jesus from the dead: with over 500 eyewitnesses -- there is convincing proof of the truth of the gospel, if only we would humbly listen. Moreover, if one is honest, s/he will also have to admit that all of us are a strange mixture of the glory and the shame; the wise and the stupid; the good and the bad – this simply shows that while God made us in his glorious image, we are ALL fallen sinners
who need to repent and be reformed." (YOU are CERTAINLY a FALLEN SINNER, gordo, and a BIGOT, and stupid, and bad, and weak-minded, and arrogant, and prejudiced, and a shame on the human race)
"selective hyperskepticism: once one rejects the credible truth, one is forced to accept incredible myths as a substitute.
And then when one uses belief in what is patently false to judge what one accepts, one ends up rejecting the objective truth."
"There ARE angels who are glad to accept worship: fallen angels, i.e devils or demons."
"PS: And, remember just what you are mucking around with when you start to play footsie with pagan gods.
[And on this subject the real authority is Jesus of Nazareth; the risen Christ. he took demons very seriously and he has the resurrection from the dead with 500+ witnesses to prove that he know what he was talking about. Acts 19:8-20]
PPS: My recommendation is that you go find yourself a solid pastor who knows what he is dealing with, if you have been playing footsie with pagan gods. No joke!"
"5 –> Thus, it is no surprise that mockers would come, to distract us from that hope, and to lead us into the ways of the world; in the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye and the pride of life. [1 Jn 2:15 - 17.]
6 –> And, one anchor to their materialism, their this-worldliness, is that they try to twist the blessings of science into a story that ignores the warning of Job 38: we were not there when the foundations of the world were laid, so we do not and cannot know the deep past by our own speculations on what we see. But, soon, instead of listening to and heeding the counsel of Him who was there [for he is our Creator-Sustainer] such men would darken God’s counsels by words without knowledge; falsely presented as SCIENTIA — literally, “knowledge.”"
"8 –> And, in the face of the chaos caused by our sins and permitted by God to stir us and remind us to reach out to him, however blindly [Ac 17], such men make up a different eschatology: progress to paradise on earth, by science, by technology, by clever political and bureaucratic messiahs; now in a unified global Babylon-ish world system."
"11 --> Only a small remnant was saved then [only 8 out of millions! so stubborn were men's hearts and so closed were their minds], and relatively speaking the same may yet happen. That is, we must beware!"
"PS: Remember the awful significance of shutting one’s eyes to the truth one knows or should know — as the prophesied mockers of 2 Pet 3 do — as discussed also in the Deception thread, Dec 15, here. Resemblance to some of what has been going on at BU for months is NOT coincidental. So, mockers, take heed; and, repent before it is too late! Eternally, too late . . ."
"the Bible is in major respects — both OT and NT — historical record, and abundantly confirmed as good record too."
"Further, since what God does, says and decrees will be good, creation is good at its root."
"Morality is not anterior to God--logically prior to Him--as Bertrand Russell suggests, but rooted in His nature.
As Scott Rae puts it, "Morality is not grounded ultimately in God's commands, but in His character, which then expresses itself in His commands."[9] In other words, whatever a good God commands will always be good . . . ." (Like genocide, gordo?)
"the scripture cannot be broken"
"17 –> For, God is gracious and has given us many points of evidence whereby we may see just how credible and authentic — thus trustworthy and authoritative (even as as a top class dictionary is trustworthy and authoritative) — is the witness of the Scriptures, NT and OT."
"As we turn to the OT, it is worth noting again that we have some rather direct authentication in hand, from the Lord of truth Himself."
"So, we have now laid out a framework for the authenticity of the Scriptures, anchored in the resurrection of Jesus, but with ample corroboration and a system for understanding why we can trust the record.
That is important in an ate where just as peter predicted in 65 AD or so, mockers would come, dismissing the testimony of the said scriptures.
But, only to their own self-deception and the misleading of those unwise enough to take them seriously.
A word to the wise . . . "
"As Kupelian pointed out, the idea and strategy in marketing evil and deception as ideology and “truth” or”rights” is to :
(1) desensitise us to the evilness of evil through oversaturation and sympathetic portrayal, to
(2) jam out those who object by making hem look bad [using turnabout false accusation tactics] and to then
(3) induce conversion and support through manipulating guilt and perceived peer pressure of a manipulated “consensus” or similar strong emotions and socio-psychological forces.
[Notice, anticipating yet another turnabout slander, how such tactics NEVER teach us to use critical thinking, help us escape selective hyperskepticism, never help us learn principles of warrant for claimed facts, nor help us analyse worldviews and show us how to select one in a world of diversity, error and deceptive rhetoric. All of which I have made freely available in this thread -- having taught the principles at High School and College levels, and even in public (guess why NGO and CBO ZOPP-twisting advocates?)-- and have taken time to explain and apply.]
How else do you think we have reached a pass where people who know the obvious implications of maleness, femaleness and the requirements of sound nurture of children can look you in the face and call you a bigot or worse for suggesting that the novelty that Adam can “marry” Steve and Eve can “marry” Sue is obviously a distortion of marriage? (Go back and read George Orwell’s 1984, folks, and compare with what now obtains!)
So, let us understand: we live in an ideologised, deeply polarised age dominated by ideologues influenced by avant garde evolutionary materialism and related ideas, which are inherently amoral and both personally and socially destructive."
"Credibility: Intellectually, the world is dominated by the
post-/hyper- modern mood of Western Secularised thought. So, while there is a more open attitude to the possibility of the
supernatural, those who stand in prophetic witness to truth or right [cf Ac 17:16 - 34] are immediately suspected of wishing to impose a narrow, intolerant agenda on the public in support of potentially violent so-called "fundamentalist" agendas. Consequently, the more welcome types of spiritual expression are neo- (or even paleo-) pagan, relativistic and welcoming of "diversity" – i.e. immoral, personally and socially destructive lifestyles. The inner inconsistencies (and even hypocrisies) of such post-/hyper- modern thinking need to be exposed, so that the evidence for the gospel
can be heard on its own merits."
"In a global world with at least three major contenders for
the global mindset and agenda, we dare not neglect the intellectual challenges to the credibility of our Faith, neither here in the Caribbean nor globally. This requires that we study, assess and respond to: (a) post-/hyper- modern secularist thought, (b) neo- pagan trends, and (c) the Islamic Dawah; recognising valid concerns but also highlighting key fallacies that demonstrate the fundamental
intellectual and spiritual failure of these systems, and calling for appropriate action in response to the truth and the right. For, in spiritual warfare, we are to "demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and . . . take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." [2 Cor. 10:5.]
Similarly, as we listen to and then address local, regional
and international issues, we must discern the underlying agendas, assumptions and worldviews that are the root of the persuasiveness of proposals for action. For, secularists, neo-pagans and islamists alike seek to promote their goals through exploiting current issues to advance and institutionalise their agendas"
"We will also need to focus on a well thought through regional and global intellectual and cultural response to
other global agendas, most notably the Islamist and the post-modern secularist-neopagan.."
"It seems, the underlying problem is the blinding influence of the hedonistic, secularist and/or neopagan worldviews that are now a rising (and arguably damaging) influence in our society."
"Clearly, there is need for a serious re-thinking of our current rush to embrace hedonistic secularism and/or neopagan worldviews, lifestyles and agendas that play to our proclivities rather than our better angels."
"I guess it is time to again note the situation we face
in the Caribbean, now that the US is ever so plainly
on a race to Gomorrah.
About ten years back, i saw that by about y2k, we
would face inundation by two tidal waves: one from the
N, the other from the E. I believe God was then
opening my eyes to see the dynamics that have now
played out:
1] As cable Tv, education [so called] and other forces
have accelerated secularisation and paganism in the N,
this has begun to flood into our region."
"That is why we cannot accept the same-sex family. It serves no public purpose."
"From the North, There is a massive wave of dechristianisation, as many "post-moderns" now eagerly seek to dismiss and forget the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus of Nazareth, resenting him as an oppressor instead of remembering and thanking him for being our loving Father who has so richly blessed us."
"In short, there is an intuitively recognised core of conscience-guided reason and awareness of the creation-based, morally conditioned nature of reality that leads us to God; if we would but listen. Sadly, we are instead tempted to suppress this as it is often inconvenient to our desired agendas, profits and pleasures. If we do so, we have no excuse and find ourselves victims of darkened understandings, benumbed consciences and out-of-control, sometimes perverted passions -- leading to massive social disruption and disintegration. In turn, when anarchy reaches a critical point, as Germany in the 1930s showed convincingly, the public will accept tyranny on the hope that it will restore order. In short, once we ignore the moral context of liberty, it becomes suicidally self-destructive."
"Similarly, it is plain that the fact that so-called same-sex marriage is a novelty with serious moral questions and concerns that there are major harmful socio-cultural impacts attaching thereto is simply passed over in silence in the rush to accuse Christians who take say Romans 1 - 2 seriously, of hatred for homosexuals. [A pause to address the Christian principle of opposing sin while loving sinners would have made a difference, especially if joined to actually tracking down those who are dealing with this issue on the ground. Likewise, a reflection on recent cases where Gay activists and their supporters are moving to censor or persecute Christians for making a fundamental objection to the promotion of homosexuality as a desirable norm, should be looked at. For, there is a recognisable and material difference between Adam and Eve, and Adam and Steve; one that has at least potentially serious consequences. [Cf here Matt 19:3 6 for Jesus' view on the matter of marriage.]"
"So, on historically and legally proper grounds, Judge Moore was right -- but the usurpation of the words and intent of the First Amendment have turned it into almost the opposite: quasi-establishment of the secular humanist philosophy, which functions as a religion substitute."
"Thus, our region is plainly at kairos. For, on the one hand, we are increasingly a part of the ongoing bewitching and captivity of the Christian West by those riding on a tidal wave of secularism, apostasy and post-modern neo-paganism."
"Science, therefore, is not the only discipline giving us true information about the world. It follows, then, that naturalism as a world view is also false."
"Men like Mr Dawkins are highly confident that they are not going to be publicly called on their philosophical blunders in a way that will discredit them, because they know that the public has been long since indoctrinated in evolutionary materialism under the label "science" and that the public is woefully ignorant of and despising of philosophy."
"Likewise, few will know that there are excellent works on Bible difficulties that give quite good answers to the sort of questions that used to be a favourite tactic of the resident village skeptic/atheist/idiot. [Cf here for a good start, at the CARM web site. Archer's Encyclopedia of Biblical Difficulties is a good first resort as a print resource.]"
"This is all of a piece with Mr Dawkins' longstanding, notoriously village atheist level claim that those who reject the neo-darwinian, evolutionary materialist account of origins are "ignorant, stupid, insane . . . or wicked." (Dawkins was apparently thinking of you when he said that, gordo)
"And, BTW, on what rational basis does an evolutionary materialist thinker assert moral -- as opposed to self-servingly rhetorical -- claims?" (ALL of your rhetorical claims are self serving, gordo)
"Now, if the secularist progressivist, evolutionary materialist wing of western culture is so polarised and so often slip-shod in assessing worldview level issues, can it long survive?"
"Finally, liberty is about establishing jusrice, which in turn protects our rights. But, a right, properly, is a moral claim we make on others based on our inherent nature as creatures under God fulfilling the purpose set for us by our Creator -- no other sustainable basis for rights exists. Indeed, the evolutionary materialist alternative [the relevant competing view] in the end boils down to this: might makes right, i.e power substitutes for rights; thence its absurd relativism and skepticism about rights, which wreaks havoc in the community, especially through manipulating institutions of power and law; it is a sign of the disintegration of Western culture as it seeks to forget God [Deut 8:17 - 20]. No wonder, then, that those caught up in a culture dominated by that self-referentially inconsistent worldview [follow up the links to see why I say that!] seek to undermine sexual morality and family life."
"I do not pretend to perfection, or to having in hand perfect answers." (What a steaming crock of shit, you LYING butt chunk)
"That is an ever more pressing concern, as we see an emerging tripolar global age: the West caught between dechristianisation, moral disintegration and and demographic decline, the rising Islamist challenge from the Middle East, and the impact of the now century-old Southern Christian Reformation.
For instance, there is the issue that the West is in an internal cultural clash between the remaining legacy from the last reformation [and let us note that the Catholic church was renewed itself in reaction to that, so the reformation also impacted that church] with the secularising and apostate and even pagan forces. The balance in Europe is much farther along in dechristinisation than in the US, which seems to be roughly 50-50 now so that relatively small shifts in public sentiment driven by the rhetoric of rage and fear dramatically tip elections. [NB: Notice how the US Mainstream Media did not say much about "negative campaigning" now that it was Democrats who were mostly doing it! No prizes for guessing why.]
Through the West's domination of the mass media and the academy, surges from this struggle have surged forth all over the world. Here in the Caribbean, this has added force to the currents of moral disintegration from within that have long characterised our culture, as a legacy of slavery. So we desperately need to very carefully reflect on what would otherwise be dry academic matters, issues such as evolutionary materialism, the engine of the secularisation of the West"
"Worldviews and world-agendas: Religions and philosphies of life, as well as the associated characteristic psychologies, are actually examples of worldviews and their associated agendas; which implies that there can be clashes of both ideas and agendas for society."
"In the end, materialism is based on self-defeating logic, and only survives because people often fail (or, sometimes, refuse) to think through just what their beliefs really mean.
As a further consequence, materialism can have no basis, other than arbitrary or whimsical choice and balances of power in the community, for determining what is to be accepted as True or False, Good or Evil. So, Morality, Truth, Meaning, and, at length, Man, are dead. . . . In Law, Government, and Public Policy, the same bitter seed has shot up the idea that "Right" and "Wrong" are simply arbitrary social conventions. This has often led to the adoption of hypocritical, inconsistent, futile and self-destructive public policies.
"Truth is dead," so Education has become a power struggle; the victors have the right to propagandise the next generation as they please. Media power games simply extend this cynical manipulation from the school and the campus to the street, the office, the factory, the church and the home.
Further, since family structures and rules of sexual morality are "simply accidents of history," one is free to force society to redefine family values and principles of sexual morality to suit one's preferences.
Finally, life itself is meaningless and valueless, so the weak, sick, defenceless and undesirable — for whatever reason — can simply be slaughtered, whether in the womb, in the hospital, or in the death camp."
"Indeed, instead, he doubled down on false accusations and slanders, playing the Hitler card."
"Sorry, I am not a propagandist"
---------------
That is just a small sampling of gordo's lunacy, LIES, and hypocrisy.
kairosfocus (gordon e mullings of Montserrat) is simply a TERRORIST, and is as insane and amoral as any other terrorist. If anyone is dangerous, it's gordo
