While China Takesover Space, NASA Panders To Muslims

Lessons In Apologetics #2: Rationalism & Fideism

The next epistemological methodology is rationalism.  Of rationalism, Geisler writes, "Rationalism is characterized by its stress on the innate a priori ability of human reason to know truth.  Basically, rationalists hold that what is knowable or demonstrable by human reason is true (29)."  To the rationalist, the mind takes precedence over experience and the information acquired through the senses as a foundation for truth and knowledge.

In a rationalist methodology, there exists  in  the  mind  a number of innate ideas or principles that allow the individual to arrive at an understanding of the universe.  These include principles of logic such as the law of noncontradiction.  It is from contemplation upon ideas generated through reflection upon such foundational principles that the thinker is able to postulate systems of truth in a manner reminiscent of mathematics and geometry.

For example, in his system, Descartes started from his "cogito, ergo, sum (I think, therefore I am)" as his ability to doubt was the one thing he could not doubt.  From here, Descartes built a theistic proof.

Descartes begins this with the admission that, since he lacks knowledge, he is imperfect.  However, to realize one is imperfect, one must have knowledge that perfection exists.  Yet perfection cannot arise from within the imperfect.  Therefore, there must be a perfect mind from which perfection originates and this is God (31).

An apologetic utilizing the rationalist approach possesses a number of strengths as well as drawbacks.  As to its strengths, the rationalist method stresses a consistency of reality.

It follows that a rational God would create a universe that regularly operates in accord with verifiable laws that we as His creations would be able to arrive at through deliberative contemplation.  As rationalists posit, the mind to an extent must possess some kind of mental architecture to process the jumble of sense experiences the individual is bombarded with almost constantly.   Even  Scripture  indicates   that  part  of   man's knowledge regarding God and His character is innate as Romans says that even the Gentiles, who were not formally given the Law in the same direct manner as their Hebrew counterparts, still had many aspects of the Law written upon their hearts.

Despite the strengths of the rationalist approach to apologetics, the methodology is not without drawbacks.  The foremost is the acknowledgement that it can be argued that the rationally consistent does not always translate into the realm of necessarily actual and does not provide the bedrock certainty its advocates claim. For example, regarding the ontological argument, Geisler notes, "But it is not logically necessary for a necessary Being to exist anymore than it is for a triangle to exist...But the point here is that there is no purely logical way to eliminate the 'if' (43)."

Of the next religious epistemology, fideism, Geisler writes, "In view of the fact that empiricism led to skepticism...and that rationalism cannot rationally demonstrate its first principles, fideism becomes a more reliable option in religious epistemology.  Perhaps there is no rational or evidential way to establish Christianity (47)."  Thus fideism holds that truth in religious matters rests on an accepting faith rather than a critical scrutiny.

As with the other methodologies, fideism comes in a variety shades. On its more moderate side, one finds Blaise Pascal.  At the more extreme end of the spectrum, one would find the likes of Karl Barth.

As a fideist, one might find Pascal a bit subdued.  Though one would assume reason had no place in fideism, Pascal did not dismiss rational appeals outright.  He just did not build his foundation or case upon them.  Of Pascal's position, Geisler writes, "A proof at best may be the instrument by which God places faith in one's heart (49)."

Thus, the real difference between Pascal and the rationalist was basically a differing estimation in what each thought reason could achieve.  To the rationalist, the thinker is able to deduce their way to a logically irrefutable foundation for a belief in God.  To Pascal, such proofs were not absolutely conclusive and the chasm separating doubt and certainty had to be crossed by a bridge of faith.

Since at best, in the mind of Pascal, the individual is left with a fifty/fifty chance regarding the existence of God, the matter did not come down to a dispassionate calculation but rather to a matter of personal existential destiny best summarized by his famous wager (49).  According to this wager, if the odds as to whether or not God exists are about even, one is better off believing God exists and then be proven wrong since upon death you would merely pass out of existence than to say God does not exist and then be proven wrong upon death as then one would end up in Hell.

At the other end of fideism's spectrum stands the Neo-Orthodox such as Karl Barth.  According to Barth, God is "wholly other" in that God can only be known through faith in revelation.  Geisler summarizes Barth's position as such: "We do not know the Bible  is  God's  Word  by  any  objective  evidence.   It  is  a self-attesting truth (54)."  Thus to the Barthian, the accounts contained in the Bible transpired on a plane beyond the parameters of objective, investigative history.  One either accepts them by faith or one does not.  Therefore, the believer does not have to answer and is immune from those such as the Higher Critics claiming to apply the rigors of scholarship to the scriptural texts in the hopes of either authenticating or discrediting these documents.

As with rationalism, fideism has both strengths and drawbacks.  Fideists are to be commended for holding that the God of the Bible is much more than the God of mathematics.  Though there is merit in the attempt to prove that belief in God does not violate reason and logic, there is a great danger in reducing God to the level of a distant first cause not all that interested in how human beings live their daily lives.  Fidesits are also correct that ultimately, no matter how much evidence one might collect or how many syllogisms one might be able to deduce, one has to make a leap of faith over those gaps of doubt that remain no matter how small they might be.

Yet despite the strength of their methodology, it has shortcomings as well.  Foremostly, fideism makes it very difficult to engage in a debate or discussion with someone holding to another worldview if one must accept a comprehensive system of faith solely by faith without evaluating between them with some agreed upon criteria.  Geisler writes, "...either a fideist offers a justification for his belief or else he does not.  If he does not,  then  as  unjustified  belief  it  has  no rightful claim to knowledge (63)."

Source:

Geisler, Norman. "Christian Apologetics". Baker Academic, 1988.

by Frederick Meekins

Was pointed out on this week's MacLaughlin Group that eventually Social Security cards will be required to contain finger prints and retinal scan. Why not include an anal smear as well? Interesting how Americans will be forced to comply with this but the nation is on the verge of a civil war simply because one state has enacted a law requiring those apprehended by police produce documentation proving they are in the country legally.

Was a hardbutt vet on NatGeoWild's "Swamp Men". Didn't tell the wildlife refuge rescuer that the owl was put down until after the fact without consulting them. Since the government, especially the Obama Administration, doesn't see you as much above an animal, once his healthcare reform kicks into high gear, that's the way doctors and medical bureaucrats are going to treat our loved-ones and elderly.

The American Bar Association has denounced the Arizona Immigration Law as "racist". Isn't it logically inconsistent for this group of lawyers to come out in opposition to a statute saying who is allowed to be in America and what documentation validates that status while that guild promulgates regulations saying who can practice law and the paperwork governing such?

The American Bar Association has denounced the Arizona Immigration Law as "racist". Isn't it logically inconsistent for this group of lawyers to come out in opposition to a statute saying who is allowed to be in America and what documentation validates that status while that guild promulgates regulations saying who can practice law and the paperwork governing such?

An Asian literally hacked in my informant's face today. No wonder most strains of deadly pestilence begin as epidemics in that part of the world.

Wonder Woman's Patriotism Diminishes Along With Her Exposed Cleavage

Are Welfare Payments Being Swiped Against Strippers G-Strings?

McLaren is a nut. In his interview on Issues Etc, he characterized purchasing food in a grocerry store as being complicit in cultural accomodation. Though his Burtonsville compound is in what was once the more rural suburbs of the DC area, it doesn't exactly look to be self sustainining nor McLaren a burly agricultural type.

Obama insists borders and fences do not ensure national security. Then why is there an exceedingly tall one around the White House along with snipers and concrete barricades surrounding assorted government buildings in Washington?

Into The Heart Of Darkness, Part 2

In "Into The Heart Of Darkness, Part 1", I examined the Black liberation theology of Jeremiah Wright and how the leftist radicalism at the heart of this worldview serves as the foundation of the belief system of President Barack Obama and forms the basis of many of his policies. And even though Obama claims to have renounced his connections to his former pastor Jeremiah Wright, since Obama sat under this pastor for nearly 20 years and continues to advocate these kinds of policies, it is obvious Obama has not distanced himself from sociopolitical radicalism to the extent he claims he has.

Even if Obama is successful in tossing under the rug the insinuations of having embraced Afrosupremacist theology, he has gone out of his way repeatedly to let the world know he spent the early years of his career as a community organizer. Obama supporters would have average Americans believe that this position involved little more than getting the plumbing fixed in rundown apartments or organizing senior citizens outings to the local supermarket for the elderly without their own transportation.

While these are laudable undertakings, these tasks do not encapsulate the true purposes and intents of community organizing. These are just the bait to lure the needy yet unsuspecting into deeper levels of manipulation.

Though Barack Obama looked to Jeremiah Wright to provide a theological foundation for his ambitions and life's work, the danger the President represents goes beyond even the vile message propagated by his religious mentor. For despite his egregious faults, one has to hand it to Jeremiah Wright that at least he is upfront about what he believes and speaks his mind.

Obama's apostles have tried to place their liege's hallowed past beyond the realm of critical scrutiny by insinuating it is now racist to look into what exactly community organizing is and that Jesus Himself was one. However, it is anything but holy and norhing whatsoever to do with race.

At its heart, community organizing is about Communist agitation. In a National Review article titled "What Did Obama Do As A Community Organizer", Byron York defines community organizing as "the practice of identifying a specific aggrieved population...and agitating them until they become so upset about their condition that they take collective action to put pressure on local, state, or federal officials to fix the problem often by giving the affected group money."

It sounds like such an approach is morally neutral as it doesn't differ on the surface all that much from the tactics employed by any group along the political spectrum. However, in the case of Barack Obama, this strategy would be used to implement the kinds of things he learned from Jeremiah Wright and the other acolytes of perdictious revolution.

The school of activism with which Obama aligned himself employed such tactics in pursuits of obviously radical leftist ends. Obama's employer the Calumet Community Religious Conference embraced the doctrines of Saul Alinsky.

Alinsky's magnum opus Rules For Radicals is dedicated to none other than Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness. Thus, if Obama was mentored by those who in turn took their inspiration from the devil, by definition, doesn't that make Obama none other than Satan's intellectual grandchild?

The original purpose of the Church was to use its resources to assist the individual to get their lives straightened out in the name and power of the Lord Jesus Christ. However, under the rubric of social organizing, we are to no longer view ourselves as responsible for ourselves but instead as part of a COMMUNITY and with docility take commands and instructions from those that have set themselves up as the vanguard of the proletariat who are not bound by the restrictions placed upon we lower breeds of humanity.

This is seen in terms of the denigration of American icon John Wayne. In most of his films, John Wayne portrayed characters that looked to their own moral wherewithal or their families to solve their own problems. Such thinking that is nowadays mocked used to be admired as self-reliance. In the worldview of Barack Obama, we are to have both our guns and our God wrest from us and are instead to look to the state for purpose and to solve our problems as epitomized by his remark that he wanted to “make government cool again”.

Though he may not say it directly, but by examining what Obama says and in analyzing it in light of its implications and how he himself lives, one can legitimately conclude that this would-be messiah thinks that you exist for the benefit of the state and those like himself better than you. For example, at the cornerstone of Obama’s social philosophy is the plan to reduce the standard and quality of life for the vast majority of Americans. In May 2008 in a speech in Oregon, Obama said, “We can’t drive our SUV’s and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times.”

Does the average American really comprehend the level of control being proposed here? Why in the name of perdition does anyone want a president that thinks it is his place to tell you what to drive, what you can eat, and how warm you can keep your house? For any government that can tell you what you can and cannot do in your own home to that extent will eventually no longer permit you to live in your own home for reasons of national security, environmental sustainability, or whatever other bogus excuse will be bandied about the day the mass roundups start.

Even worse, Obama does not live by the standard he thinks out to be imposed upon you. For while you are not to eat anything not on a government approved menu or go anywhere beyond the radius one can travel by unicycle or pogostick, Obama does not sit home in the dark, shivering with a blanket draped over his shoulders, munching on saltines.

The environment is no where near the point of collapse that he wants you to be duped into believing. One of the places Obama vacations is the U.S. Virgin Islands. Though some esteem Obama with an almost messianic aura and he has come close to applying such rhetoric to himself in prattle about turning back the seas and such, I some how doubt he walked to that particular destination.

Yet it is not enough for Obama that your life comes to a screeching halt to assuage the environmental consciences of big shot liberals such as himself and Al Gore (who has obviously been eating whatever he wants since leaving the Vice Presidency). Obama also wants your life regimented and under close government scrutiny.

According to the sacred Barack, it is not enough for the average citizen to mind their own business and take care of one’s own family. Rather, one must surrender oneself to the will of the group or the COMMUNITY.

As the next stage of the liberation theology he sat under for nearly 20 years in the church overseen by Jeremiah Wright, Obama postulated in a commencement address at Wesleyan University in June 2008 that “our individual salvation depends on collective salvation.” This is quite revealing as to the underlying religious orientation of this particular president.

In traditional Biblical theology, salvation is a state of grace or unmerited favor imputed to the INDIVIDUAL pardoning one from the penalty for sin because it the individual that must believe in Jesus as the only begotten Son of God who lived the perfect life we could not, died, and shed His blood as the penalty for our sins and rose from the dead that we have eternal life. However, to Barack Obama, salvation is not about an eternal reward for loving Jesus with one’s mind, body, and soul; rather salvation to Barack Obama is about conformity to the group. You, as a distinct consciousness, do not matter all that much.

This is evident in both Obama's policy proposals as well as in his disdain for the behavioral principles underlying the moral code based in Scripture that prevents some of man's tendencies from degenerating into tyrannical anarchy or collectivism if these desires become unshackled from the realist perspective that man is a sinner and still hears sin’s siren call even when forgiven and redeemed through the shed blood of Christ.

To prevent the masses of the Biblically illiterate from being swept away by Obama’s rhetorical manipulations, Dr. James Dobson spoke out against some of the secular messiah’s misinterpretations of the Good Book. Falling for some of the hype that he’s the best thing since Jesus Christ and actually the Lord’s replacement in the hearts of many, Obama has proceeded to inform the rest of us which parts of his “predecessor’s” Word may apply in the new “AB” era, as some have suggested all of history now be divided between before and after Obama.

Without a more careful exegesis into and research of the Biblical text, the holy Obama concluded that, if one thinks that prohibitions against homosexuality still apply today, than those against the consumption of shellfish still apply as well. In response, according to a 6/24/08 Associated Press article titled “Obama: Dobson Is Making Stuff Up With Bible Criticism”, Dobson dared to say of Obama’s assertion, “I think he’s [Obama] deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.”

Dobson’s opinion is actually closer to the historic Christian position. Most denominations and theologians claim that the majority of Israelite dietary guidelines do not apply to the Church composed of both Jews and Gentiles because these restrictions were not reiterated in the New Testament and in fact were set aside in various passages.

For example, in Matthew 15:11, Jesus Himself assures that that one is not defiled by what goes into one’s mouth but rather by what comes out of it. And in Acts 10, the Apostle Peter is told in a vision to deliberately eat of an animal said to be ceremonially unclean. If the act of eating a particular kind of animal was in and of itself immoral and sinful, would the God of the universe have given instructions to have done so?

The same cannot be said of homosexuality. Nowhere are the Old Testament injunctions labeling the practice as wrong rescinded in the New and in fact they are reemphasized in passages such as Romans 1 and included in a list of offences barring their perpetrators from entering Heaven if one does not seek forgiveness for them through the shed blood of Christ.

And contrary to all the sissies in a hissy over Rick Warren offering the inauguration prayer because Warren did not endorse the notion of gay marriage, insisting that this lifestyle is wrong does not mean that those falling into this temptation will be rounded up and sent to prison (though a percentage would probably enjoy that) or be put to death. It could be argued that Jesus softened the penalty for the transgressions of the lustful flesh.

Though Jesus was merciful He nevertheless retained the position that what the women at the well did was sin by telling her to sin no more. Today, those wanting to air their dirty laundry with pride rather than keeping it between only God and themselves as those with a tender conscience would prefer, vociferously insist that what they have done isn’t even sin.

And in the eyes of mystical humanists such as Obama and his ministerial supporters in the Order of the Scarlet Woman, this is the area in which Dobson has done something unforgivable. Dobson has held on to the notion that sin, in its most basic form, is an individual act.

According to Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell, who basically endorsed Obama for no other reason than that Obama is Black as before Caldwell supported George W. Bush, said Dobson was “a bit over the top”, and “crossed the line”. More importantly, Caldwell admonished, “There has been a call for a higher level of politics and politicking. So to attack at this level is inappropriate and I think unacceptable and we at least want to hold everybody accountable.”

Ladies and gentlemen, what is being called for here is an abridgement of the fundamental constitutional liberties of anyone daring to disagree with or even question the new messiah. For while Dr. Dobson has been told to essentially sit down and shut up, a cabal of leftwing clerics of which Cadwell has been numbered established a website called JamesDobsonDoesntSpeakForMe.com. Examining the groups fundamental principles is quite instructive regarding the new social gospel that elevates the group above the individual.

For example, the website proclaimed regarding Dobson, “He doesn’t speak for me when he uses religion as a wedge to divide.” Let’s look at this for a moment.

Aren’t Obama, his false prophet Jeremiah Wight, and lesser luminaries such as Rev. Caldwell each riding the coattails of each using religion to divide? For crying out loud, the Black liberation theology expounded by Jeremiah Wright thinks God doesn’t even love you if you are White.

Furthermore, who says religion is not meant to divide? While Scripture tells us that God is not willing that any should perish, there are just as many other passages informing us that Christ came to separate the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff.

Also, interesting, isn’t it, how in the coming together in unity that it is those holding to a traditional understanding of Biblical morality that are to compromise their standards rather than those who fall short of these principles and from then on strive to elevate their conduct?

As the declaration points out, “What does speak for me is David’s Psalm celebrating how good and pleasant it is when we come together in unity.” That is true, but in order to unite, there must be considerable agreement as to what principles one is going to unite around. Of those with whom one disagrees considerably, the Bible commands, “Come from out among them and be ye separate.”

The declaration continues, “James Dobson doesn’t speak for me when he uses the beliefs of others as a line of attack; He doesn’t speak for me when he denigrates his neighbors’ views when they don’t line up with his.”

As noted earlier, by criticizing Dobson’s criticizing, aren’t they themselves guilty of criticizing? Did not the holy Barack partake of the same act?

What if Dobson's neighbor was a vile skinhead that plucked the eyes out of newborn kittens? Is Dobson just suppose to sit their and not say anything about this ethical transgression as well if we are to take the mutated uncontextualized version of judge not to its ultimate conclusion?

Contrary to the Obamaist declaration, Dobson does not confine the values of faith to two or three issues. First off, Focus on the Family is not a church.

Thus, the organization does not necessarily have the same spiritual mandate to address to the same extent the totality of existence of life that God's sacred assembly has been called to. Yet that said, Focus on the Family addresses a wider array of issues and concerns than these liberal Black churches that have for the most part confined their message to propagating the blame Whitey mentality of whom Republicans and Conservatives rank their primary targets.

From the tone of the declaration, Dobson stands accused of not seeking justice, encouraging the oppressed, or defending the cause of the vulnerable. Yet when Dobson rises to do so, these collared hypocrites accuse him of reducing the faith to two or three issues and not working to restore what is broken in our communities. If the efforts of Focus on the Family have been reduced to two or three issues, it is only because that apostates like Obama and his supporters have focused their war against Christ and the Bible towards a few central cultural pillars in the hopes of causing the entire edifice of our heritage of liberty to implode in upon itself.

Unable to speak or act on their own behalf, who is more than the unborn that the babykillers can’t wait to hack apart with their meat cleavers? What institution is more vulnerable than the contemporary family with the assorted threats out to achieve its abolition through easy divorce, its dilution through its alleged recognized extension to homosexuals, and through the proliferation of government programs that make parents of both sexes feel either redundant in the case of men as providers or obsolete in the case of work at home mothers.

Leftist clergy drone on and on about the beauty of religious unity and cooperation. However, if they are going to embrace practices such as infanticide and sodomite nuptials as good and positive things, one might as well toss the Bible in the paper shredder and sleep in Sunday morning. Under such a worldview, nothing is wrong anymore and you might as well do whatever the Sheol you please.

Under the Obama regime, while your obligation to God might be diminished, don’t think you are going to slide by on easy street in terms of guilt being toned down. Rather a whole new litany of demands will be placed upon an otherwise productive citizen.

In commencement addresses given in both 2008 and 2009, Obama repeatedly called for a renewed spirit of national service. To most Americans accustomed to working for what they have, on the surface this may sound like little more than what they are already doing. However, the plans go much shockingly further.

In the free market economy of the United States, the individual offers some kind of commodity --- be it labor, a tangible good produced, brainpower, or time --- in exchange for monetary compensation. And though the system is not perfect, the higher the participant rises in the system, the greater the rewarding compensation one is able to accrue.

However, that may come to a screeching halt if our Seigneur and Chief gets to have his way. For in his worldview, no longer will it be enough to strive within the rules to get the things one wants. Rather in a manner not unlike a medieval manor, if the New World Order advocated by a succession of presidents each in their own way with distinctive emphases comes to pass, you will be bound to the same occupational station and residential area not until you as a free person decides to change it but rather until those higher up the system decide to amend such biographical characteristics.

In his 2008 commencement address, Obama said, “There’s no community service requirement in the real world; no one is forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things our money, culture says, you should buy. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live your life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s.”

Obama cites as precedent his own case where he took a position as a community organizer making $12,000 per year while driving a $2,000 car. But whereas you are suppose to remain content at a life of minimal toil, since Obama has always been in his own mind the man who would be king, he was always entitled to possess so much more.

According to an Investor’s Business Daily article posted at Yahoo News on 6/2/2008 titled “Living On Obama’s Collective Farm", Obama made over $4 million that year. But I guess that’s what it takes to keep a ball-and-chain like Michelle in $500 athletic shoes far uglier than my $20 K-Mart ones and $5000 handbags (a good used automobile doesn’t cost much more than that).

From comparing these dichotomies, one can conclude that Obama does not really care so much about the poor. Rather, in true Alinskyite fashion, he sees those in such circumstances as pawns to agitate into a froth through which to seize power and advance his own status. If it had meant a life of toil and anonymity as it does for most dedicating their lives to uplifting the poverty-stricken, would Obama have even pursued this path in his early career?

As to whether or not Obama will allow participation in national service to remain an individual choice is open to interpretation. In the 2008 address, Obama went on to say, “On the big issues that our nation faces, difficult choices await. We’ll have to face some hard truths, and some sacrifice will be required --- not only from you individually, but from the nation as a whole.” But in light of $5000 handbags, weekend jaunts onboard Air Force I to Broadway plays, and pizza chefs flown in from the Midwest to appease a gastronomical hankering, that call does not apply to his highness of course.

Often, those without an inclination towards politics shrug their shoulders at these grandiose pronouncements and go about their business thinking that those in authority won't go much beyond the stage of public elocution. However, this time around such disengaged citizens might not be so insightful.

The President's ball-and-chain Michelle said in a campaign speech, "Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone...Barack Obama will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

Listen up, you battle ax, I'll be as cynical as I want to be. Your hubby might have been a Professor of Constitutional Law, but apparently he was as dedicated to that occupational station as he was to his seat in the Illinois State House, where he regularly and decisively voted “present, and to the U.S. Senate, where his attendance was shoddy at best as he merely used that office to campaign for the presidency and to pull down a hefty paycheck while doing it.

The First Amendment protects the rights of the individual to believe whatever they want and to enunciate their opinion as to the actions and motivations of the nation’s leaders. This includes saying that these politicians are little more than frauds. Any legislation or executive order to the contrary is an infringement of this Constitutional protection.

And as to being isolated and in one’s “comfort zone”, so long as one pays their bills and stays to themselves, they have the right to be every bit of a hermit as they want to be. Until any President can lock down the border and prevent illegal aliens from violating the territorial integrity of the United States, the Chief Executive has so failed in his fundamental responsibility that he ant those that work beneath him should have no spare time whatsoever to be concerned with how I spend my own time.

Though the discerning might have to weave the disparate fragments together into a complete tapestry, the minions of despotism and iniquity are so full of themselves that they cannot resist scattering crumbs and often wholesale cognitive meals detailing their intentions to destroy liberty and reduce the population to the level of modern day serfs. Shame is, the election of Barack Obama is proof how a significant percentage of the American people would rather ignore the harsh realties staring them right in the face.

by Frederick Meekins

If an organization is going to promote the notion that Lincoln was a tyrant for holding the Union together because it is believed that each state is a distinct legal and political entity, on what grounds does a spokesman for that organization then deem it proper to advocate that a hardline Puritanism be imposed on all the states when not all states trace their founding directly to that particular interpretation of Christianity?

Bureaucracy Prevents World Largest Oil Skimmer From Getting To Work

Seems more and more that the Coast Guard is the most sissifed of the armed services.

Famed Atheist Stricken With Cancer

Does Krogers Harbor Islamofascist Sympathies?

Rep. Pete Stark needs to be reminded that illegal aliens have murdered numerous Americans whereas neither the Tea Party movement nor the Minute Men have physically harmed a single person.

Obama's Troll A Book Banner

Is Ergun Caner A Fraud?

One sermon of his I remember listening to seemed devoid of any serious content whatsoever.

I saw a piece of chewed gum stuck to the stairwell wall. You’d think by the university level of education the proper disposal of gum wouldn’t need to be an explicit component of the core curriculum.

Though they profess to stand for the U.S. Constitution, Christian Reconstructionists could actually undermine the United States if not watched with discernment. For if they ever ascended to power, they would likely undermine the basic liberties of those not agreeing with their particular brand of Calvinism.

If they ever ascended to power, wonder how long until the Christian Reconstructionists implemented their dictatorship and began their persecution of those of us they’d classify as “Arminian devils”. As postmillenialists, most Reconstructionists believe that the Church (not Christ) will implement the Millennial Kingdom. Any human movement promising to establish Heaven on Earth or a near perfect society always ends inflicting mass bloodshed.

If it is wrong to “twist Jesus into a middle class image” according to David Platt on the 6/10/10 Boundless podcast, wouldn’t it be just as wrong to warp the Messiah into a “proletarian social justice Jesus” as well? Dr. Dobson needs to get a grip on the young Emergent Church Marxist-types infiltrating Focus On The Family.

Are Sea Turtles Being Set On Fire?

Now Fully Clothed, Will As Many Fantacize About Being Tied Up By Wonder Woman?

Niether does she seem as alluringly shapely as in the past.

For attempting to sell a pair of leather electrical gloves, an associate was mocked and berated as a carnivore for his robust physique by a Hindu. I notice this filthy heathen migrated to the land of carnivores rather than remain in his enlightened hell-hole of a country.

If a teacher is opposed to the Pledge of Allegiance, they shouldn't be teaching in a public (i.e. government) school.

John Boehner wants Social Security age raised & means tested. If we regular Americans are to have our retirements snatched from us, lets abolish benefits for elected leaders at the same time. It is argued that most Americans are working longer anyway; however, unlike most of us, these Congressmen aren't stuck in positions that drain the life out of them & make them feel like Alzheimers is setting in prematurely.

If the Swansonites lay down the law on the qualifications a young man must fulfill before they can marry a young woman, how about listing a number of demands that a young woman must fulfill before she's worth marrying.

Hezbollah Forms Alliance With Druglords

Homeschool advocate Kevin Swanson laments that 70% of young men aren't grown up by the age of 30. Actually, contemporary females are little more desireable with statistics likely somewhere around the same. However, very few have manhood enough to point this out.

Obama Surrenders US Space Program To China

Cronkite & Donahue Soviet Stooges

Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano insists that the border is as secure now as it has ever been. Perhaps being abducted by druglords would convince her otherwise. But who would want to play tie-up games with her anyway?

Tips For Times Of Upheaval: if while in your car you find your self beset by a homicidal mob such as the world trade protesters, floor the accelerator. While you will likely die, at least you will have taken out a few of those intending to kill you and destroy your property anyway.

If Bin Ladin really wants to toss a wrench into things, the moment he gets caught, he ought to shout into the news camera there to record his surrender that he's accepted Jesus. Then wouldn't the all sins are equal crowd among Christians have to argue that he be pardoned and how it is an act of self-righteousness to insist that he pay for his crimes?

Evangelical Christians can't have it both ways. If they are going to hold to the idea that all sins are equal, let's cut out the drawn out testimonies that drone on and on reliving past debaucheries.

If all sins are equal, I should soon be getting a $10,000 speaking fee for memorizing the answer key to those asinine Accelerated Christian Education workbooks. Frankly, a kid should be beat if they can’t memorize the answers

Dobsonians Need To Focus Less On Existential Nonessentials

Contrary to the Dobsonian propaganda on the 3/26/10 Boundless podcast, providing that they behave themselves and that they work, there is nothing in the Bible about what age a young person is to leave home.

Interesting how the hosts enunciated a double standard that it's OK for young women to remain at home but not acceptable for young men.

Any woman that holds to such a position is basically a gold-digger.

These standards were justified as holdovers of Jewish culture.

However, unless I'm allowed to carry an Uzi down the street, our society is not a Jewish culture to that extent.

What about Isaac remaining at home until his 40's or do we only invoke those aspects of the Old Testament that fit the preconceived notions the psychologist paying the weekly check?

By Frederick Meekins

Senator Lieberman has articulated an admiration for China's internet security system. As a Jew, maybe he'd like to get acquainted with that dictatorship's system of prison labor camps.

At a Chicago Theological Seminary seminar, Jeremiah Wright has denounced Martin Luther King's nonviolence. By default for those without the conceptual capacity to read between the lines, that means Wright advocates violence against White people.

Minority Students Bribed To Read Over Summer

Bet if the majority of the students in the county in question were White, they wouldn't get a single penny.

Sales For Concert Tour Named For Adam's Psudoepigraphical Demonic First Wife Heading To Hades

If all sins are supposedly equal with none worse than any other, don't turn around and heep additional accolades and attention on those that have committed the "biggies" in the past. Force them to remain nothing more than pewsitting collection plate fillers like everyone else that didn't necessarily lead the lives of carnal debauchery that most of the extended testimonies seem to be filled with.

Interesting how Focus On The Family minions are silent about Bristol Palin milking notoriety as an unwed parent. Where is Dobson operative J. Budziszewski with whom I clashed years back over his appalling insistence that mothers not wedding the sirers of their illegitimate offspring be compelled to put their children up for adoption?

Jesus told the adulterous woman He saved from being stoned to go and sin no more. He did not offer her a lucrative speaking deal and TV cameos essentially glorifying her past deeds.

UK Police Vow To Prohibit Human Anger

Is There A War Pending Between Humans & Artificial Intelligence?

Leftist Suburbs Surrender To Urban Livestock Movement

If so many towns weren't being overrun by foreigners refusing to comport themselves according to American standards of sanitation and hygiene, no urbanites would be allowed to propagate these creatures.

Will Government Use Oil Spill As Excuse To Seize Beach Front Property?

Is Pelosi crying over the violence at the G20 Summit or is that pathetic display only reserved for Tea Partiers that behave themselves?

Too bad the tolerancemongers don't pay as much attention to the border as they due Governor Brewer's exercise of free speech.

Saw an academic journal with the words "Black Heritage" printed on it. Since the "B" was capitalized, are the tolerancemongers on the social bookmarking sites going to ask if there is a racial chip on the shoulder of whoever wrote that, call into question the quality of the person's scholastic credentials, and insinuate that the author's First Amendment rights should be revoked?

If Glenn Beck seems bent on highlighting the forgotten Black heroes of history in the name of accuracy, is he also going to expose the Black villains that preyed upon innocent Whites?

Wildlife Refuge Issues Evasive Statement Saying Portions Of It Still Closed: Rush Falls For It As Being Open

White House Hires Consultant In Shariah Finance

Handout Mentality Grips Soccer Players Writhing In Feigned Agony

If the federal government is going to boycot Arizona, isn't this defacto reverse sesession?

Mel Gibson Files Restraining Order Against His Russian Concubine

Jews Have Gas

Half Of Detained Illegals Likely Jihadists

Contrary to Bannon Howse of Worldview Weekend, though one may question Alex Jones appearance on Russian television, there is nothing in Scripture bringing the sincereity of one's Christian faith in question if one aggrees with a number of positions advocated by Alex Jones.

Illegals Importing Whooping Cough Into The United States

Airline Forces Girls To Ditch Turtle

The claim is that reptiles can't be allowed onboard because they potentially spread salmonella. The creature is no filthier than the foreigners and sodomites on the flight or the street vermin and illegals we all come in contact with day to day.

Beck Denounced For Exposing America's Socialist Elites

Rescued Dolphin Dies

Cloth Bags Harbor Pestilence

Obama Appoints "Sanctuary City" Advocate To Undermine Immigration Law

Apparently California Needs Arizona More Than Arizona Needs California

Are Whales Being Poisoned To Death?

Parks To Eliminate Outhouses

And then the enviromentalists will wonder why folks will be downloading in the bushes. One imbecile couldn't even aim his strafing run with a provided target, his bombing deliberately going off course onto the restroom floor.

Welfare Spent In California Casinos

Theoretically, one should track back who was given what card and cut their benefits since it is obvious they do not need the assistance for necesities such as food, shelter and utility bills.

The Future Of Conservatism

In a cspan interview regarding his book "To Save America", Newt Gingrich applauds Frau Obama's obesity efforts. I don't think the former speaker has missed too many meals or in between snacks for that matter.

Sarah Palin Speaks To The Susan B. Anthony List

"To Save America" with Newt Gingrich

Regarding the massage therapist claiming Al Gore came onto her, what do you think is going to happen when you start rubbing all over a 3/4's naked man in his hotel room?

Contrary to what Albert Mohler insinuates, why is it the fault of men these days that uppity women are so materialistic that they won't marry someone that they look down their noses at along the occupational hierarchy? Interesting he never has any guilt to load upon women thinking they are too good to work within the home.

Val Kilmer Loses Spines & Apologizes For Failing To Enunciate Communally Enforced Delusions

He should have told them all to go to Hades.

These anal retentive Internet commenters that find it logical to invalidate an essay based on a handful of spelling errors overlooked by a chronically tired eye are the same ones that celebrate the mush-mouthed grunts of Black ghetto youth as a beautiful dialect or insist that Hispanic illegals be allowed to fill out welfare applications in their native Spanish.

Beck to have special Friday on "Black Heroes". Is there to be a special on "White Heroes"? Since Beck seems intent on exposing the racist backgrounds of organized labor and Communism, while he's at it, maybe he should expose the Marxist ties of Martin Luther King.

If Glenn Beck likes cheap undocumented labor so much, maybe Fox will replace him with a coolie.

And once pensions and social security are abolished, is Glenn Beck going to help provide for the elderly without large Mormon strings being attached to the assistance?

Solstice Yoga Blocks New York Walkways

Dredging Operations To Cease

Mexico Joins Lawsuit Insisting Arizona Immigration Law Is Unconstitutional

Third Word slum regimes have no business dictating to the United States what our own constitution means, especially when Mexico's own record on human rights is less than exemplary.

Contrary to an unnamed website where I have been badmouthed all day, I am not obligated to appear when summoned.

Perhaps the schools I've attended haven't been top of the line. However, the Ivy League has been more of a hindrance than a help to the spiritual state of this nation for at least the past few decades and it could be argued for nearly a century now.

Maybe what I write is riddled with typographic errors. Maybe if these grammar fetishists had only a single, partially functioning eye strained by the end of the day, perhaps their own columns wouldn't be quite so pristine. O, wait, they don't write any. They only nitpick the technicalities of others.

I guess the Blacks that conspire to have Whites (am I racist for capitalizing both names) fired from their jobs don't have "a racial chip on their shoulders".

I guess for not enthusiastically embracing polytheism, I have been accused of talking like a toaster. I suppose that was a Battlestar Galactica reference since toaster was slang for a Cylon. For the record, I think I am more a Gauis Baltar. He said, "Just because I might be crazy doesn't mean I'm not right."

Maybe if Obama didn’t have a teleprompter, we’d all see what a “stupid asshole” he is also.

I might be the “stupidest asshole” out there, but given what has been let into the White House this past election, I don’t see how my lack of intelligence disqualifies me from posting whatever I please on line. I might as well be the best “stupidest asshole” I can be.

Interesting how Blacks and Hispanics can capitalize the first letter of their respective racial designation but I have been labelled as “a stupid racist asshole” for extending the same respect towards the word “White”. Don’t like my use of a mild profanity? I am just letting you know the disdain out there for WHITE Americans.

Mexican Terrorists Threaten Texas Water Supply

Mexican Drug Dealers Occupy Arizona High Ground

Frank Schaeffer Bent On Destroying Biblical Christianity

Frank Schaeffer Veers Deeper Into Apostasy

Town Heralds Pedophile As Model Citizen

Lessons In Apologetics, Part 1: Introduction & Agnosticism

For anyone pursuing a degree in Apologetics that was given a dollar for every time they were asked "What is that, learning how to say you are sorry" upon answering the question of what it is that they study so many times, many would have financed a considerable portion of their academic pursuits. Unfortunately, such ignorance as to what exactly this theological discipline entails symbolizes the neglect the defense of the faith has fallen into in the contemporary church and is one of the reasons that everywhere the believer and student of religion turns today they find Christianity losing considerable ground both within and without its boundaries to a wide variety of opponents and adversaries. To the serious student of this field of study, one of the best tools around which to build a fundamental understanding of the discipline's ins and outs is "Christian Apologetics" by Norman Geisler, one of the field's foremost living practitioners.

Basic to any academic discipline is the approach or methodology which scholars and researchers apply to the subject matter. The field of Apologetics is no different. Geisler lists the methodologies to knowledge in general and about God in particular as agnosticism, rationalism, fideism, experientialism, evidentialism, pragmatism, and combinationalism. In the course of his analysis, Geisler evaluates each in terms of their epistemology regarding religious matters and how these approaches stack up under the weight of being scrutinized by their own criteria.

The first approach to knowledge of God is agnosticism. Coined by T.H. Huxley, the term agnosticism means "no knowledge" and thus contends one is unable to know anything about God (13).

Agnosticism is itself divided into two branches. The one holds that not yet enough conclusive evidence pointing in one direction or the other regarding the existence of God has been gathered. The other holds that God is not knowable.

Of the agnostics that claim God is not knowable, this claim is based upon their understanding of the nature of knowledge. Drawing upon David Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and A.J. Ayers' Language, Truth, & Logic, these agnostics have divided the tree of actual knowledge into two branches.

The first variety of valid statements are analytic statements meaning they are valid by the terms of their definitions. For example, all bachelors are unmarried. The second type of valid statements are known as synthetic and are what we would refer to as matters of fact as they are about empirically gathered data (17).

Geisler writes of the agnostic views regarding talk about God, "For the term 'God' is neither analytic nor synthetic; that is, it is neither offered by the theist as an empty contentless definition corresponding to nothing in reality nor is it filled with empirical content since 'God' is allegedly a supraempirical being. Hence, it is literally nonsense to talk about God (18)."

To the aspiring apologist hoping to present an objective case for the Christian faith beyond how warm and fuzzy Jesus makes their innards, it may seem that the agnostic methodology has struck an early and potentially crippling blow to this noble effort. However, a bit of careful reflection may even the scales once more between the agnostic and the Christian.

The lofty sounding name given to this epistemology of language is the Verification Principle. If the Christian turns the Verification Principle back on itself, one sees it is self-referentially incoherent as the concept cannot live up to its own criteria as the Verification Principle is neither purely definitional or merely a statement of fact.

Thus to remain consistent, the agnostic must admit that, since our knowledge of the empirical and metaphysical realms is limited, by definition of man's own finitude, this understanding cannot be totally comprehensive. Of those unwilling to admit God may exist in those reaches man cannot fully fathom, Geisler writes, "And there is simply no way short of omniscience that one can make such sweeping and categorical statements about reality...Hence total agnosticism is only self-defeating. Only an omniscient mind could be totally agnostic and finite men do not possess omniscience (27)."

By Frederick Meekins

Source:

Geisler, Norman. "Christian Apologetics". Baker Academic, 1988.