Wonder if most conservatives know that one of the primary spokesman of the Institute on The Constitution seems to believe that the answer to nearly every offense is the death penalty and a "barefoot and pregnant" sociology in that women should be denied the right to vote.

Indians On Warpath Over Bloomberg Comment

Is The Government So Controlled By Perverts That It Won't Take A Stand Against Prison Rape?

Given that her skirts off barely cover her rear, wouldn't that make Ann Coulter a bigger whore than Joseph Farah?

Was Yuri Gagarin Murdered?

American Teen Duped Into Being North Korean Pawn

Obviously, this urchin's parents are stupider than he is.

Pat Buchanan Embraces Ground Zero Mosque

Court Grants Right To Lie About Military Service

Just don't get caught praying about the matter in front of an abortion clinic.

Arab Media Mogul Admits Ground Zero Mosque Would Be Monument To Terrorism

Prince Charles condemns commoners soaking in the bath tub while he owns four estates, four luxury cars and his mother is known to keep at least ten dogs. Guess those don't need a bath or to be washed.

Lessons In Apologetics #4: Pragmaticism & Combinationalism

The next theory of truth and religious knowledge is pragmatism. Developed initially by Charles Sander Pierce and expanded by William James, pragmatism is the theory that truth is not determined by what one thinks, feels, or discovers but rather by what works.

Christians may instinctively recoil from this initially. However, the proper response to this epistemological methodology needs to be more nuanced than the believer might originally suspect.

Providing in part an alternative to the early 20th century viewpoint promoted in large part by Sigmund Freud that belief in God was psychologically harmful, in works such as "The Varieties Of Religious Experience", James believed religion should be judged by its results in the life of the individual. Overall, James concluded that, "In a general way...on the whole...our testing of religion by practical common sense and the empirical method leaves it in possession of its towering place in history. For economically, the saintly group of qualities is indispensable to the world’s welfare (109).”

However, any alliance the Christian apologist may make with William James is tenuous at best. For example, James categorized the pantheistic outlook of Mediterranean paganism as healthy and those emphasizing the need to be “twice born” as epitomizing a Germanic dourness characterized by an obsession regarding man’s fallen nature and need to be saved by God (105).

Though few in number, Christian apologists have adapted pragmaticism to the defense of the faith. Foremost among these is Francis Schaeffer.

Schaeffer’s method might not be considered solely pragmatic by the methodology’s purists as he does not allow a worldview’s viability to determine whether or not it is true but rather to show how the Christian worldview is the most consistently livable. Schaeffer refers to this test as an experiential teleological argument (110).

In a Schaefferian apologetic, one takes the propositions of a particular worldview and projects them onto the movie screen of life. For example, Schaeffer noted how the materialism of Jackson Pollock drove the artist to suicide and how musician John Cage did not adhere to the philosophy of chance that categorized his music when it came to picking potentially deadly mushrooms

The next epistemological methodology is combinationalism. Throughout this discourse thus far, it has been observed that, while each methodology contributes something to our understanding of God and knowledge, none of these approaches is sufficient enough to stand alone as the only way through which to obtain an understanding of reality. But instead of falling into a state of solipsistic dismay that nothing can be known since each approach falls short, combinationalists suggest that the insights of each method ought to be knit together in order to produce the most comprehensive understanding possible.

One such apologist utilizing this approach is Edward J. Carnell. Carnell combines rationalism, which he defines as a “horizontal self-consistency so that all of the major assumptions of the position can be so related together that they placate the rules of formal logic” and evidentialism, which he categorizes as “a vertical fitting of the facts” in that one’s assumptions must cohere with the “real concrete facts of human history (122).” Together, these elements make up systematic consistency.

However, even combinationalists must proceed with caution. As Geisler points out in “the leaky bucket argument”, if the other methodologies are insufficient on their own, these do not necessarily hold the epistemological water any better when they are combined together (129). Furthermore, often when one proceeds to evaluate a worldview, it can be very easy to fall into the trap of presupposing the worldview before it has been established or the facts are spun in such a way to fit into the worldview.

For example, Geisler uses the example of Christ's Resurrection. Geisler writes, "An apologist...cannot legitimately appeal to the miracle of Christ's resurrection as a proof for the existence of God (129)." This statement, shocking on its face value, means that God is already presupposed if the event is categorized as miraculous in terms of its explanation. Geisler reassures, "On the other hand, grant that God already exists, then the resurrection may very well be a miraculous way of confirming that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God (129)."

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

By Frederick Meekins

If Nancy Pelosi thinks everybody has the right to express their religious beliefs on their own property, is she going to come out as enthusiastically in support of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church as she has the Ground Zero mosque?

If Nancy Pelosi thinks everybody has the right to express their religious beliefs on their own property, is she going to come out as enthusiastically in support of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church as she has the Ground Zero mosque?

Eyescanners To Turn World Cities Into Virtual Police States

Pentagon Castigated For Noticing Chinese Military Expansion

Billionaires Minding Their Own Business Shouldn't Have To Explain Why They Haven't Taken The Oath To Give Away 1/2 Their Fortunes

Only those that drone on about giving back to the COMMUNITY or how we mere commoners have too much should have this matter rubbed in their faces.

Establishmentarian Headshrinkers Denounce Superheroes As Sarcastic & Insufficiently Communal

Mind-controlling Parasites

If no independent photojournalists were permitted to accompany him, how can it be verified that those were Gulf waters that President Obama was frolicking in?

Farah & Coulter Spat Over Homocon

Is Ray Bradbury A Totalitarian Libertarian?

Government Attempts To Censor Glenn Beck's Kennedy Center Prayer

Liberals Falling All Over Themselves Over What To Call Terrorist Compound

Tolerancemonger media in an uproar if the disputed NYC structure will be a mosque or an Islamic Center Guess their is no such quandry regarding news coverage of Saudi Arabia or Iran since those regimes allow neither churches nor public expressions of Christianity.

A Harris Poll laments women treated with less chivalry. Maybe it's because fewer of them act like ladies. Why should you go out of your way for someone with an earring in their nose and their bosom falling out of their low-cut blouse who doesn't even have the decency to cover over their tramp stamp?

Obama Literally Inflicts Pain Upon The American People

According to the Riverdale Park Town Crier's July 2010 edition, at the 90th anniversary celebration of the town charter a speaker highlighted the town's "strong ties" to the Hispanic community reaching back to the municipality’s “earlier years”. Was mention made of White folks or are we just expected to pay the increasing tax bills and to keep our mouth’s shut?

Dr. Laura Surrenders To The Thought Police

Why should she have to apologize for merely reporting what she heard?

Julia Roberts Renounces Christ, Embraces Hindu Paganism

Hopefully, the filthy swami seated next to her of every penny she has.

Someone ought to invite them over for burgers sometime.

Granted, his is not the most informative program in the lineup. However, the fact that Huckabee has a show on Fox News rather than pastoring a church is a bit of a stretch as credible evidence that he has walked away from God. Who is to say that God has not called him to this change during this season in his life? More importantly, isn't the assumption that formalized professional ministerial positions are superior to other vocations one of the reasons why culture is now such a fetid cesspool?

The P.G. County board of education has permitted the group 100 Black Men of MD to establish a charter school. Would the same opportunity be extended to the Tea Party Movement or, more importantly, a group called "100 White Men"?

The Hallmarks Of Eco-hypocrisy

Brits Told To Take Abuse From Foreigners

U.S. Government Financing Mosque Repair & Upkeep

Welfare Deadbeats Rampage

Just see what the TSA would do to you if you grabbed two beers and deployed the escape chute no matter how justifed your actions were.

Apparently Jennifer Anniston Comprehends Neither Biology Nor Social Sciences

The actress claimed that women no longer have to "fiddle with a man" in order to have a child.

If there is no "fiddling" involved, from where are the necessary gametes acquired?

More importantly, if women don't need any assistance from men in raising children, don't let them look towards a fat uncle named Sam either in terms of handouts nor to strongarm the deadbeats fathering these youngsters.

Seems Elton John is as prominently featured as the bride along with Rush Limbaugh's wedding pictures posted on Facebook.

If passengers have to remain quiet & pliant at the hands of abusive airline staff & security out of fear of terrorism charges, shouldn't airline staff also have to take the beration from irrate passengers as well?

UN Attempts To Seize Control Of Public School System

Audio: Olympics Subtly Lure Tots Into Paganism's Embrace

Olympics Subtly Lure Tots Into Paganism's Embrace
- Watch more Sports Videos at Vodpod.

Liberals are having the vapors that Fox News has an insufficient number of African American viewers. Are these multiculturalists also going to toss a hissy over the very name of Black Entertainment television alienating Whites? Instead of blaming Fox News for not appealing to Blacks, maybe Blacks should be chastised for not liking Fox News as such is likely an indication of preferring a life of indolence and government dependence.

Judge Rules Muslims Permitted To Beat Women

Sodomite Matrimony Penetrates Deeper Into Conservative Movement

Obama's Expect You To Toss Your Elderly Into The Garbage While They Mourn Their's With Lavish Iberian Vacations

Palin Is Correct: Some Teachers Need An Eyerolling

Contrary to leftist press, teachers deserve no more adoration than any other profession and, in the case of the public school system, have been at the forefront of collapsing the republic.

State Department Finances Muslim Missionary Trips

Haggard Insists Gay Marriage No Different Than Being Overweight Or Taking An Aspirin

Hispanosupremacists Denounce Deportations

Will Oil Contaminate Food Supply?

Anne Rice Renounces Christianity

Aren't the competing worldviews she claims are given the shaft by Christians actually bigger burs in the world's backside than organized Christendom?

Government Forbids Collecting Rainwater Falling On Your Property

Won't be long until they claim the fruits of your vegetable garden and supplies in your food pantry as well as a COMMUNITY resource.

The Obamas should sit their rearends home like just about everyone else. Sick of these spineless pundits going on how they don't "begrudge" the New Lord his recreation. Yet it must be remembered it was Il Duce that condemned the rest of us for daring to eat what we want, driving SUV's, and keeping thermostat on 70 degrees.

Doubt Magic Johnson ever had AIDS or HIV. Would he have been allowed to play basketball with a President of the United States where there might have been an accident where this pestilence could have been transmitted? But I guess Johnson no more disease ridden than the members of the gay bathhouse Obama is said to be a member of.

Hawking Urges Galactic Colonization

Scottish Priest A Terrorist Sympathizer

Jill Biden Accused Of Insufficiently Brownnosing Michelle Obama

NYC Ground Zero mosque imam told WorldNetDaily's Aaron Klein that "terrorism is a complex issue" and that he is a "bridge builder". That is essentially a veiled confession that he is a terrorist frontman.

Will China Achieve Naval Superiority?

Bloomberg says it's not place of government to vet clergy and everyone is entitled to their opinion. Thus, would he welcome Pat Buchanan or David Duke establishing offices in NYC?

Parents Lose Custody Of Tot Named Hitler

The justification is domestic violence.  Guess if you snatched all the kids named Muhammad where wife beatings took place, you'd not have enough orphanges to house all the foundlings.

Crazed Chinamen Continue Pupil Slaying Rampages

Neither secular statists nor religious theocrats can blame this one on too much freedom.

Did a carnival game where players could shoot foam darts at a figure resembling Obama get the attention of authorities for threatening the President or for insinuating the influence non-terrestrial intelligences might have over government and policy?

Will Positive Thinking Hokem Get Tony Robbins Back On The Air?

NYC Christ-Despisers Rush To Build Mosque But Drag Feet Regarding Church

Wonder if that booze Obama swills, the cigs he puffs, and the cocaine he use to snort were all locally grown.

Candidate Exposes Globalist Efforts To Use Environemtnalism To Destroy Liberty

If Government Videotapes Citizens, Citizens Should Videotape Government

So ashamed of me in the virtual world that you deny knowing of me, perhaps you should consider doing the same in the actual one."

Is Obama Attempting To Rewrite History Of WWII?

Leftist Evangelicals Equate Illegal Aliens With Biblical Patriarchs

Bloomberg Celebrates Islam But Censors Christmas

Batman & Wonder Woman Wed

If the Muslims take over, hopefuilly Mayor Bloomberg and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman will be the first Jews rounded up for the new concentration camps.

FBI Distorts Law To Coerce Compliance

Alabama Authorities Illegally Destroying Private Property

Nuns Applaud Scumbag Illegal Killing On Of Their Own

Wonder what a liberal New York Jew like Bloomberg would think about a Skinhead group setting up a visitors center outside of Auschwitz

A nun was killed in a carwreck by an illegal alien. Though a tragedy, maybe the Catholic Church might reconsider it's lax and even embracing attitude towards illegal aliens. More importantly, would this sad story have even made the headlines if the victim had been a Baptist church lady rather than a Catholic worker?

Bitch At Communion: But Is It The Dog Or The Priest?

Hispanic Impregnates 13 Year Old

Multiculturalism for you.

The girl's parents are probably as much human scum as her violator and probably barely speak audible English.

Guess there are some that would claim this filth shouldn't have to show police their ID's or immigration papers.

Let's hear what the immigration status of all parties involved just happens to be.

Obama's Mama's Passport Records Conveniently Destroyed

A theonomical Christian Reconstructionist has theorized that the only valid marriages are between Christians. Unless this statement is clarified, this means that the children born to non-Christians would be illegitimate bastards & that should Reconstructionists come to power, they would deny basic civil and contractual rights to those not members of their Calvinistic churches.

Lessons In Apologetics #3: Experientialism & Evidentialism

The next methodology is experientialism. Though fideism strives to make faith alone the justification for religious knowledge or belief, Geisler observes that this faith is ultimately justified in terms of an experience had by the individual (65).

To the experientialist, God or the Ultimate is not so much something to be understood or comprehended but rather felt. Stretching all the way back to the Neoplatonist Plotinus, experientialism views what the believer refers to as God as "the one beyond all knowing and being (66)."

In fact, God is so far beyond what the finite mind is capable of comprehending that to really say anything about God is highly inaccurate as to do so would be limiting God. As such, the best the individual can aspire to is an intuitive mystical union with the universal by turning inward through an ascetic detachment from the physical world around us in pursuit of a metaphysical unity.

Friedrich Schleiermacher provided for a more accessible apprehension of the cosmic or divine by equating religious experience not so much with monastic solitude but rather with the feeling of absolute dependence we all feel from time to time. According to Schleiermacher, this feeling is actually the World Spirit reaching out to us and actualizing within each of us.

To experientialists, dogmas and doctrines are not that important (that itself actually a doctrine though) as these conceptual formulations are merely shadows or echoes of the deeper experience. While experientialists are correct that the individual must have some kind of encounter with God beyond that often referred to as "book knowledge", one begins to trod upon dangerous ground when the experience becomes the ultimate criteria for judgment by positing that those having more intense experiences are somehow more in touch with the cosmos as in the case of certain meditation cults.

If experience itself is made the highest standard, the individual will end up not knowing whether or not he is being led into deception. I John 4:1 tells us to test the spirits to see if they are from God.

The next apologetic methodology is evidentialism. Rationalism, fideism, and experientialism are largely inwardly focused approaches to knowledge of God with both fideism and experientialism also being highly subjective as well. Evidentialism tends to be more objective as it points to evidence existing independently of an individual's internal emotional or intellectual states to make a case for the existence of God.

While experientialism stresses the importance of a personal acquaintance with what we categorize as the divine, evidentialism provides an anchor to prevent such hypothesizing from meandering off into exceedingly esoteric or individualized speculation by providing a basis for belief any interested party is free to investigate at their own leisure. The primary forms of proof offered by evidentialists are nature and history.

Nature is probably the form of evidence best used when the individual being appealed to is not yet even a theist. This proof for the existence of God is known as the teleological argument in that it holds that the intricate structures found in the world point to the need for a designer.

This idea is expressed in terms of the Watchmaker Hypothesis formulated by William Paley. Paley contended that, if one found a watch in the woods, one would from the intricacies of its parts working together in tandem for a purpose assume the contraption would need a designer. Likewise, since the world is no less complex and actually even more so, it is only logical to conclude that the physical universe around us would also require a designer.

Having lived from 1743-1805, Paley himself did not face the Darwinian onslaught. However, others since then have tweaked the argument to make it stronger against criticisms such as those of John Stuart Mill. Mill argued that the watchmaker analogy was weak because we know things like watches have watchmakers and, without a perspective beyond which a finite human being is capable, Hume's speculation of organicism with the world growing like a vegetable could very well be correct.

To counter the Darwinian and Humean notions that given enough time a number of elements could be reshuffled enough to fortuitously result in the world we see around us, A.E. Taylor and F.R. Tennat have argued that the world around us shows too much adaptation and anticipation to have been the product of random chance. For example, Taylor notes how the body’s need for oxygen is anticipated by biological structures such as membranes and organs. Geisler writes, “In fact, mind or intelligence is the only known condition that can overcome the improbabilities against the development and preservation of life...In short, the order evident in natural development of life is evidence of God (90)."

While this brand of evidentialism is vital in convincing the atheist or agnostic that God exists, it is not enough to bring someone to a saving knowledge of Christ as many of the world's religions such as Judaism, Islam, and even apostate forms of Christianity are full of theists barreling down the road to Hell. An evidentialist approach emphasizing history directly confronts the unbeliever with the decision he will have to make to decide his eternal destiny.

One of the aspects of Christianity that sets it apart from many of the other religions and belief systems is its historical nature in that the validity of its claims ultimately rest upon the veracity of actual events. II Peter 1:16 says, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty?"

Since these events took place within the flow of normal time, by utilizing research methods similar to those used to investigate the past such as the examination of ancient documents, one can construct an intellectual framework reasonably assuming that Christ did indeed exist. Prominent evidentialists utilizing history would include John Warwick Montgomery and Lee Strobel.

Despite the strength of evidentialist apologetics, its efforts to elevate religious dialogue beyond one's internal feelings (the burning in the bosom referred to by the Mormons which could very easily be indigestion), the approach is not without drawbacks. For while facts can indeed exist as objective realities, the individual can often go to great lengths to put a spin on them that fits them into an individual’s preconceived worldview.

For example, those inclined to marvel at the world around them can more easily be persuaded that everything was created by a wise and loving God than those who view the world through a survival of the fittest mindset focusing on the violence, bloodshed, and disease that often characterizes both the human and animal realms. Evidentialists will counter that often the theistic interpretation turns out to be the most credible rather than naturalistic ones that stretch plausibility such as the Apostles absconding with Christ’s body or Jesus being revived in the cool of the tomb.

Source:

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

By Frederick Meekins

Three homicidal maniacs escaped from a prison in Arizona. If apprehended by police, would it be wrong for law enforcement personnel to ask to verify their ID's?

If Charlie Rangel can't be bothered to remember owning property at a luxury resort, then why should business owners be expected to remember every purchase over $600 that now has to be reported to the IRS?

The Secretive Aldi's Empire

Hispanosupremacists Rampage Despite Ruling In Their Favor

Jordan River Baptism Not Worth The Trouble

Obama labels Blacks a "mongrel people". Can you imagine the hell that would bust loose had Bush said such a thing? What makes Obama's statement any less offensive than something David Duke might have said in his robe wearing days?

If there are no possessions, religion, heaven, or hell as John Lennon's song "Imagine" insists, on what grounds does Yoko Ono oppose the parole of her husband's killer?

If Dispensationalism in a sinful heresy, shouldn't John Lofton condemn his employer Michael Peroutka for selecting Chuck Baldwin as his 2004 Vice Presidential running mate?

Apparently Neal Boortz Is A Sodomite Stooge

Is Staten Island Being Surrendered To Mexican Forces?

Shouldn't the blame for a 16 year old Dallas girl getting fangs put in be put on the parents and dentist rather than the author and producers of Twilight?

If illegal aliens can't be compelled to carry ID & prove who they are, isn't it a form of tyranny to require that of actual legitimate Americans?

Illegals Infiltrate Military Intelligence

Honestly, I can barely tell the difference between Islamists and Christian Reconstructionists. Just saw a post by one hoping the entire East Coast of the United States be destroyed.

Arizona Surrendered To Hispanosupremacists

Fairy Demands Ferry Discount

Interesting how Calvinistic, theonomical Christian Reconstructionists will not directly answer the claim as to what they intend to do should they ever come to power with Christians that profess what this variety of theology would brand heresy.