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Post by Vyckie D. Garrison on Aug 12, 2010 2:46:48 GMT -5
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Post by nikita on Aug 12, 2010 3:43:21 GMT -5
This is it in a nutshell for me. This idea that everything we do is part of some grand scheme or spiritual warfare and that if we could only divine what we were to do at each and every interval of our lives -- even the smallest decisions get lumped in that pool -- then we would know for sure that God was pleased with us. It's completely wrong-thinking but is very prevalent in the Christian church world today. We look for signs and wonders in our own lives to tell us if we are on the right path instead of using the reason and the intelligence God gave us to make life decisions. We put fleeces before God and expect Him to act like a circus ringmaster in our lives. It's really presumptuous. I remember the day when it dawned on me that sometimes getting a flat tire was simply getting a flat tire. It wasn't a 'trial', it wasn't a 'message', it wasn't to keep me from dying in an accident up the road or to make sure I ran into Susie at the store that day. It was just a flat tire. It was like someone had given me oxygen after a long period of not being able to catch my breath. I felt so free, so at peace with the world finally. Life was what life was and that's all I had to know about it. I could let it happen or try to move mountains, whatever fit my needs and my life's plan. But I was no longer a puppet being controlled by God in everything I did. I was free to worship Him without doing the Christian equivalent of 'throwing bones' to divine my correct life course. I still believe He works in my life and sometimes stuff does happen just so for a reason. But I don't plan my life around it and I don't agonize over what it might be at any given time. It's an 'after the fact' recognition of patterns and circumstances, not a burdensome message to be discerned. As for the confirmation bias problem, we all have that. But I think it is especially problematic for true believers in anything because they have given up asking questions at that point. They believe they have the answer and anything that challenges it is a problem to be overcome not a question to be answered. And in the QF/P/Fundamentalist world right now questions and outside influences seem to be hard to come by. They wall themselves off from outside influences and those who disagree or would challenge them. They guard the answers they have come up with jealously and tend to only talk to each other. But slowly light is penetrating, and they will come out of it I think. Once you have nineteen children and a TV show celebrating your perfect Christian family, though, it would be hard to admit you made a wrong turn back there in 1995 or whatever. It might be very hard to admit that to yourself or to the world at large. I guess we will see, won't we? Maybe if the kids grow up and start writing tell all books about how they hate religion now or don't ever want children of their own due to their upbringing. That might do it. Maybe. There's a Calvinistic argument here which name I can't recall right now, about arguing from presuppositions or something. It's the idea that until you have established the rightness of an interpretation of scripture then you refuse to argue the point with anyone, that you only discuss it when the rightness of the interpretation is admitted. I wish I could remember what it's called or describe it better but it's late. But I think that kind of thought process also interferes with anyone being able to penetrate the fog of true belief that the Quiverfull/Patriarchy camp has enveloped itself in. Hope this makes sense. It is very late here...
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Post by nikita on Aug 12, 2010 4:05:24 GMT -5
Presuppositional apologetics!! That was the term I was going for. It's pretty much a Reformed Theology type of apologetics and it doesn't leave much room for other interpretations of scripture or thought. I think that is why it is so hard to reason with people who are being taught in these kinds of Christian groups. Not reason with them about whether God is God, but about anything scriptural or spiritual at all. They know it because they know it. Evidence to the contrary and other interpretations aren't admitted or taken seriously. It's a real problem. Whew. I feel better now.
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Post by km on Aug 12, 2010 8:04:33 GMT -5
Here is what I have never understood: It's this idea that God wants Christians to prove their love and obedience by taking up suffering just for the hell of it. Because they are supposed to love God's will for their lives... And I see it in regular old evangelical Christianity just as much as I see it in Quiverfull. It seems to me to set people up for an abusive relationship with the deity whom they understand as God--and the church too. I have a normal evangelical friend (who is politically liberal) living in China who is...not one of the Bible hand-out people (She says China has more Bibles than it could possibly ever need as a result of misguided Western missionaries.). But she is evangelical, and she has a husband who recently cheated on her. In response to this, she says that God promised her some of her "highest highs and lowest lows" as a result of marrying him. My question: Who wants this? Why would anyone voluntarily take on the "lowest lows" of her life? And is this supposed to be a "witness" to "the world"? Because this particular worldly woman just thinks it's self-destructive. And also... She recently had a child. She is college educated (from a prestigious college, no less) and capable of earning more than enough money to support a small family in China. But... But she says she's always felt called not to work while raising her child, and so this leaves her husband--a Chinese factory worker without even a high school degree--to support the family. And, again, I'm thinking... Why? Why does this kind of faith lead people to make decisions that defy common sense but that can also be incredibly harmful? Who would voluntarily choose poverty in China when she has the skills to do otherwise? And why would anyone ever follow such a mean, spiteful, and petty God? I sincerely wish that evangelical Christianity would address this gaping problem with the idea that, "God gives us the tools to be discerning, and one of those tools has to do with making good choices and not blindly trusting in His 'rewards' when we do self-destructive things. Because, damnit, self-destructive choices have consequences. And God doesn't want us to hurt ourselves or our families in order to experiment with the possibility of a 'miracle.'" /*end rant*
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Post by hopewell on Aug 12, 2010 9:23:18 GMT -5
What if He’s embarrassed by the poor witness to ”the World” which only sees irresponsible and narcissistic parents building their own little fiefdoms? What if God thinks Quiverfullers put too much emphasis on the “be fruitful and multiply” part of the Dominion Mandate and not enough on stewardship and “tending the garden”? What if God (gasp!) actually values women for more than just their ability to get pregnant and have babies? What if the Lord cares about little baby Josie ~ and wants her to have all the benefits of her mother’s loving, undivided attention? Let the Church say AMEN!!!!!!!!!!! GREAT POST that the TODAY SHOW should have you on to discuss! I would add, too, what if God is mad at the way they MISUSE their older daughters as unpaid servants slave laborers and MISTRUST their kids to the point that they can't even go out and serve Him on a Mission Trip alone [with a group of other like-minded believers]?? Perhaps God is VERY displeased that his "precious little gifts" all go running for "Jill" and not "Mama"!!! How about how this insanity TURNS AWAY seekers who can't fathom having endless numbers of children?? How about the way it ALIENATES single moms and working moms?? How about the terror it must inflict in the hearts of men who love having a JOB with benefits and who are terrified of trying to earn a living on their own? I haven't yet seen this week's episode of "19 Kids" but I too am surprised the Today show didn't feature a pregnancy from either Michelle or Anna [Mrs. Joshua Duggar]. I do think we DID actually see a little true terror in that 911 call and in Michelle NOT going to Big Sandy for the conference. But not "enough" apparently. After Jennifer or Jordyn I felt we saw much more of a "we're done" attitude. I think Josie's struggle revived the feelings they had after the miscarriage--that they "caused" it. Maybe it was their "sin" in feeling they were "done" having children and ready to just be grandparents and then God "showed them" by giving them Josie to remind them of who is in charge. Just my 2 cent opinion on all this, but I think they are at least actively trying to get pregnant [force of habit? lol ] in order to "show" God they are his willing and obedient servants. I also wonder if attending a Church that contradicts Mr. Gothard's teachings by allowing "movement" and music with "rhythm and beat" could be guilting them--as well as allowing John David to bring an electric guitar into the house and letting friends play very upbeat bluegrass as well as letting John David say on tv that he "watched a western" etc etc [i.e. that they have too many kids to be really in control of them all].
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Post by amyrose on Aug 12, 2010 9:31:43 GMT -5
The "satan attacking" explanation of bad things is preferable to the theology I was exposed to in the Christian school. The majority of the people there were invested in varying degrees in the prosperity gospel. So bad things, problems, stubbed toes, colds, pollen allergies, broken lawn mowers, great-grandma dying in her sleep at 98.....anything not perfect was God punishing them personally for having sin in their lives or not having enough faith. That is way more damaging than believing you pissed off Satan. At least they've been taught that Satan is evil.
I also found it to be remarkably self-centered. For some 20 something to believe that God killed her great-grandma because she had "an unresolved sin in her life" is truly believing that the workings of the entire universe revolve around her. And the guilt this girl felt as a result was huge--a few of us who were sane tried to explain to her the quite obvious fact that people who are 98 die, that that's a fact of life and it had nothing to do with her. But she would not be deterred from blaming herself. And several people in her church and at the school went along with it and tried to help her find and resolve the sin that killed great grandma.
This stuff is horribly damaging to people.
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Post by km on Aug 12, 2010 10:04:33 GMT -5
The "satan attacking" explanation of bad things is preferable to the theology I was exposed to in the Christian school. The majority of the people there were invested in varying degrees in the prosperity gospel. So bad things, problems, stubbed toes, colds, pollen allergies, broken lawn mowers, great-grandma dying in her sleep at 98.....anything not perfect was God punishing them personally for having sin in their lives or not having enough faith. That is way more damaging than believing you pissed off Satan. At least they've been taught that Satan is evil. I don't know. I sorta see them as two sides of the same coin. Even if hard times are seen as an "attack from Satan," they are also seen as a "test from God" within this mindset (i.e., Vyckie understood her own struggles like those of Job--as tests.). Now, would I rather that God punish me for some alleged wrong, or would I rather he play fucked up mindgames with me by allowing horrific things to happen just so I can have a chance to prove my worth? I think they're equally indsidious ways of understanding God, and it doesn't really make sense to make comparisons about one being worse--or better than--the other.
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Post by nikita on Aug 12, 2010 10:33:11 GMT -5
But the prosperity gospel (and I really hate that belief system) says that God wants good things for you and it is only your own sin and Satan that prevent life from being pretty perfect. You must name it and claim it, etc. While the one belief system says that God will send trials and tribulations your way to test you, prosperity doctrine blames you for absolutely everything that happens in your life. If you are not healthy and wealthy and happy then there is something wrong with you, you have sin in your life, you are letting Satan have dominion over you because otherwise God would ensure that things are perfect for you. It's 'blame the victim' mentality turned up to eleven. There are no saintly poor people, no godly sick people -- those are people who simply lack faith and sanctification. It sets itself up as a doctrine of blessing and hope but in reality it is a doctrine of blame and torment, because few people have perfect lives. Like that twenty year old who thinks she is the cause of a 98 year old woman not being immortal. It's absurd, but prosperity doctrine feeds into self-blame in that way. Satan attacking you (in the sense that bad things happen to you) in the prosperity doctrine means that you simply lack faith and are not right with God.
What Vyckie was talking about was the belief that when you do good Satan will attack you even stronger in a bid to defeat you, discourage you, and affect your faith. In that belief system attacks of Satan and bad things happening to you prove that you are on the right path, because he wouldn't bother you otherwise. He wants you fat and happy and not really paying attention to God or to His work for you. So when you are most faithful that's when he gets mad and stirs things up.
They are total opposite ways of looking at adversity and illness. Like I said, the epiphany of realizing that a flat tire is just a flat tire was the most liberating feeling in the world to me at the time. It changed the way I reacted to absolutely everything in my life, for the better. But trying to spread that news was impossible. No one I knew could comprehend it, they were so indoctrinated into seeing everything as a sign or a prompt or a punishment for something. 'No coincidences'.
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Post by Sierra on Aug 12, 2010 10:34:38 GMT -5
The "satan attacking" explanation of bad things is preferable to the theology I was exposed to in the Christian school. The majority of the people there were invested in varying degrees in the prosperity gospel. So bad things, problems, stubbed toes, colds, pollen allergies, broken lawn mowers, great-grandma dying in her sleep at 98.....anything not perfect was God punishing them personally for having sin in their lives or not having enough faith. That is way more damaging than believing you pissed off Satan. At least they've been taught that Satan is evil. I also found it to be remarkably self-centered. For some 20 something to believe that God killed her great-grandma because she had "an unresolved sin in her life" is truly believing that the workings of the entire universe revolve around her. And the guilt this girl felt as a result was huge--a few of us who were sane tried to explain to her the quite obvious fact that people who are 98 die, that that's a fact of life and it had nothing to do with her. But she would not be deterred from blaming herself. And several people in her church and at the school went along with it and tried to help her find and resolve the sin that killed great grandma. This stuff is horribly damaging to people. The two worked hand-in-hand in my church. Satan was directly responsible for the suffering, but he could do nothing if God did not first 'allow' it. And God was likely to 'allow' something to happen if you had 'unconfessed sin' in your life, etc. But I used to be traumatized by the idea that I could be responsible for someone else's death as well, because I didn't want that kind of importance. It also made me perpetually fear for my life because God was supposedly going to make my father suffer to 'get his attention' - so I might be on the list of casualties in the name of saving his soul.
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Post by rosa on Aug 12, 2010 10:40:20 GMT -5
It's such a diminished view of God, too. That any random person has the power to prevent God from doing what He wants- whether it's by using a condom, or hiding sin, or listening to wrong music, or just failing to use the exact magical "name and claim" language and thought patterns.
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Tor
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Post by Tor on Aug 12, 2010 11:08:14 GMT -5
"We think we believe, as long as we can interpret the signs in any way that we wish."
That was the kind of view I was raised with as well. I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and everything that happened was a sign from God, everything bad that happened was an attack from the enemy or because we had sinned and weren't "relying on God."
I started to get disillusioned when I couldn't stand the idea that God would be involved in some minor detail of our life ("God told me to buy this particular food at the grocery store!") but apparently wasn't big enough, or wasn't willing enough, to stop the abuse in our family. And my mother's explanation "well, I just wasn't relying on God for that" makes it even worse, because it basically says that unless God has the faith of people, he cannot or will not, do anything for them.
I can understand the need to believe it - it's a safe faith, one that wards off the unknown. Nothing happens without a reason or explanation, there is nothing that cannot be understood. It creates the delusion that if you just trust God enough, follow Him enough, then all those good things will happen - and if the bad *does* happen, then that's just Satan. You're exempt from any responsibility of your own choices.
I'm slowly moving away from "God is not my personal genie" to "sometimes things just happen because life happens and people make choices" but it is hard to stop looking for signs of God everywhere, hard to stop believing that when things go wrong, either Satan is looking for a way to destroy me, or God is just so ticked at me for not believing in his personal genie power that he's messing with my life and screwing with my head just for kicks.
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Post by amyrose on Aug 12, 2010 11:27:10 GMT -5
The two worked hand-in-hand in my church. Satan was directly responsible for the suffering, but he could do nothing if God did not first 'allow' it. And God was likely to 'allow' something to happen if you had 'unconfessed sin' in your life, etc. But I used to be traumatized by the idea that I could be responsible for someone else's death as well, because I didn't want that kind of importance. It also made me perpetually fear for my life because God was supposedly going to make my father suffer to 'get his attention' - so I might be on the list of casualties in the name of saving his soul. And that's something else that bothers me immensely with this theology--that if you swallow it completely, the logical outcome is that you might die because someone in your life needed punished. My college roommate was starting to lean in that direction and I pointed that out to her. And besides, when a person dies, how do we determine who is "being punished"? I remember asking her that, too. Her defense then was that we should learn about faith from every event. Well, that's a totally different thing than "God killed my friend because I lied to my boss to take a sick day" or whatever. I've found that people who live in this theology are really miserable. If you have to find spiritual meaning in every single thing that happens to you all day--it becomes obsessive and a burden. A friend from high school moved to Colorado Springs and left Catholicism for an evangelical mega-church. On Facebook, she is constantly posting how miserable, upset and unhappy she is. Right now, they have a van that keeps breaking down. The thing is 15 years old and has many miles on it, but she's asking away on her FB status questions about what they need to change in their life, their family, etc...so that God will stop making their van break down. It's a full blown spiritual crisis. Car repairs are bad enough without turning them into that.
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Post by nikita on Aug 12, 2010 11:28:03 GMT -5
"We think we believe, as long as we can interpret the signs in any way that we wish." That was the kind of view I was raised with as well. I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and everything that happened was a sign from God, everything bad that happened was an attack from the enemy or because we had sinned and weren't "relying on God." I started to get disillusioned when I couldn't stand the idea that God would be involved in some minor detail of our life ("God told me to buy this particular food at the grocery store!") but apparently wasn't big enough, or wasn't willing enough, to stop the abuse in our family. And my mother's explanation "well, I just wasn't relying on God for that" makes it even worse, because it basically says that unless God has the faith of people, he cannot or will not, do anything for them. I can understand the need to believe it - it's a safe faith, one that wards off the unknown. Nothing happens without a reason or explanation, there is nothing that cannot be understood. It creates the delusion that if you just trust God enough, follow Him enough, then all those good things will happen - and if the bad *does* happen, then that's just Satan. You're exempt from any responsibility of your own choices. I'm slowly moving away from "God is not my personal genie" to "sometimes things just happen because life happens and people make choices" but it is hard to stop looking for signs of God everywhere, hard to stop believing that when things go wrong, either Satan is looking for a way to destroy me, or God is just so ticked at me for not believing in his personal genie power that he's messing with my life and screwing with my head just for kicks. There are some really pretty pure prosperity churches out there but I think most are some combination of prosperity versus 'attacks of Satan'. And it has been decades since I 'believed' those things but I have never been able to shake the idea that somehow my imperfection will cause bad things, even death, to happen to the son I had while I was still in the cult. 'If you leave God will smite your children' was a common threat. I know intellectually it's nonsense but it took root in my gut and I can't shake it. These are such damaging beliefs to instill in people.
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Post by hopewell on Aug 12, 2010 11:45:57 GMT -5
I finally got to see this week's episode. I wonder how having only one child to focus on, plus peace and quiet, might affect Michelle? She talked about it being like having her first child. Maybe, just maybe it might give her a peak at what the many many kids between # 1 and # 19 have missed?
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Post by rosa on Aug 12, 2010 12:15:01 GMT -5
Amyrose, have you tried suggesting that God is punishing them for not budgeting for car repair/replacement, and the way to fix that is to have a better budgeting process as a weekly routine of "being right with God in my financial life"? I'm only half joking - I'm working with a friend on making her life less chaotic and talking to her about budgeting in spiritual terms (committing to paying all your bills on time is an act of honesty and faith in the future) has really helped her in a way that I would *never* have thought would work.
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Post by cindy on Aug 12, 2010 13:43:32 GMT -5
In defense of presuppositional apologetics:
Lots of these angry young Ersatz Calvinists claim to be following presuppositional apologetics, and I don't think that most of them know them if the bit them.
I suspect that many of you who responded here found presuppositional apologetics distasteful because you were exposed to people who claimed to know all about it and didn't understand the first thing about it. It is one thing to debate or defend your beliefs, allowing people to come to their own conclusions. Francis Schaeffer (not a perfect individual with a bit of a cultic following which I don't think he discouraged) explained what he called "taking off the roof."
Essentially, when you discuss things, you let truth do the work by asking questions that allow people to see the holes in their own belief system. It's not any kind of authoritarian process and it doesn't involve force. The truth is its own best defense, and you kind of sit back and let truth do its work.
But the way a person validates truth also comes into play. If you are neoplatonic about things, and real truth exists in an ideal world of axioms, it is different if you think that the natural, materialistic world is just as real as the abstract, axiomatic world. This is why Van Til and Clark (from these two different ways attributing truth within presup. apologetics) had such a controversy.
Van Til believed that the empirical and tangible world was just as real as the spiritual world. Clark said that truth could only really come from the ideal world of abstracts and axioms (Biblical Truth). Clark accused Van Til of selling out truth and called him a materialist. (Materialism means naturalism which means ..... rejection of God's truth.) Both of these men handled the conflict badly, and they refused to really listen to the other party. They each had valid points, but I think they were both too arrogant and were not committed to coming to a place of respect for one another. They were only concerned with winning.
Most of these guys in QF claim to follow Van Til, but they are actually more like Clark. Everything gets saddled with a "Biblical" modifier or some other description of virtue. Everything has some deep spiritual significance. Especially concerning gender and reproduction and family, these things are venerated and treated like sacraments. The only thing of value can be based on their idea of axiomatics.
If an atheist would tell some of these folks the time or the temperature outside, many would say that you can't even trust this much -- very banal and simple non-spiritual things -- because they are not connected with the source of truth. This isn't really presuppositional apologetics but rather is more like milieu control of spiritual abuse.
I'm waiting for people to start selling Biblical toilet paper and Biblical guides for fixing plumbing. Everything is spiritual, right?
But this is not presuppositional apologetics at all. Yet another thing that these people have hijacked and ruined!
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Post by km on Aug 12, 2010 14:01:41 GMT -5
Essentially, when you discuss things, you let truth do the work by asking questions that allow people to see the holes in their own belief system. It's not any kind of authoritarian process and it doesn't involve force. The truth is its own best defense, and you kind of sit back and let truth do its work. This is just the Socratic method.
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Post by amyrose on Aug 12, 2010 14:03:01 GMT -5
I'm waiting for people to start selling Biblical toilet paper and Biblical guides for fixing plumbing. Everything is spiritual, right? You don't need a Biblical guide for plumbing. You just need a Christian plumber: www.anglersplumbinginc.com/This is just one of many if you google "christian + plumbing". Didn't check about Christian toilet paper.
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Post by km on Aug 12, 2010 14:06:20 GMT -5
I'm waiting for people to start selling Biblical toilet paper and Biblical guides for fixing plumbing. Everything is spiritual, right? You don't need a Biblical guide for plumbing. You just need a Christian plumber: www.anglersplumbinginc.com/This is just one of many if you google "christian + plumbing". Didn't check about Christian toilet paper. Who is it who writes about how Dominionists have their own shadow economy that props up this kind of belief system? The guy who wrote the book about Blackwater, maybe? Or the one who wrote Christian Fascists? I'm not in a place where I can look them up at the moment, sorry. ETA: I think it's in the book about Blackwater/Erik Prince. "Shadow economy" not in the sense of secret conspiracy, but... More the sense that Dominionists have their own versions of everything, and it's quite possible to boycott anyone who isn't Dominionist and get through life. And this is how a lot of these people make their money. They have very very loyal customers.
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Post by amyrose on Aug 12, 2010 14:21:53 GMT -5
ETA: I think it's in the book about Blackwater/Erik Prince. "Shadow economy" not in the sense of secret conspiracy, but... More the sense that Dominionists have their own versions of everything, and it's quite possible to boycott anyone who isn't Dominionist and get through life. And this is how a lot of these people make their money. They have very very loyal customers. Have you seen the Christian Business Directories? They are published in large cities around the country. We were provided with a new one in our mailboxes once a year at the "Christian" school, so we could find Christian dentists, optometrists, tow trucks, appliance repairs, salons... you name it. Most people there considered it sinful to not use "Christian" services and companies.
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Post by cindy on Aug 12, 2010 14:32:54 GMT -5
Essentially, when you discuss things, you let truth do the work by asking questions that allow people to see the holes in their own belief system. It's not any kind of authoritarian process and it doesn't involve force. The truth is its own best defense, and you kind of sit back and let truth do its work. This is just the Socratic method. It's Socratic method with the added idea that matters of faith can't be proven in the empirical world. We don't know about the intangible world in terms of the empirical world, but we all start from some kind of assumption. (What is faith and how do you prove it?) To say that you have a position on whether that there is a God or not, you had to start with some assumption. They are matters of faith, whether that faith is faith in science, the natural world, human intellect, the goodness of mankind, karma, the universe, or the tenets of religion. It is a kind of circular reasoning, but ideally, it doesn't make logical errors in the execution of that circular reasoning. It also doesn't start out with the desire to demean or demoralize your opponent. You can then say that presuppositional apologetics adds to Socratic method the presupposition that you have to believe in something as a starting point.
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Post by km on Aug 12, 2010 15:03:48 GMT -5
Oh, yes, I've seen the Christian directories. Never been pressured to use them exclusively, but I've seen them around.
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Post by km on Aug 12, 2010 15:08:47 GMT -5
This is just the Socratic method. It's Socratic method with the added idea that matters of faith can't be proven in the empirical world. We don't know about the intangible world in terms of the empirical world, but we all start from some kind of assumption. (What is faith and how do you prove it?) To say that you have a position on whether that there is a God or not, you had to start with some assumption. They are matters of faith, whether that faith is faith in science, the natural world, human intellect, the goodness of mankind, karma, the universe, or the tenets of religion. It is a kind of circular reasoning, but ideally, it doesn't make logical errors in the execution of that circular reasoning. It also doesn't start out with the desire to demean or demoralize your opponent. You can then say that presuppositional apologetics adds to Socratic method the presupposition that you have to believe in something as a starting point. This isn't un-Socratic. Socrates saw the state as the foundational element in the very same way in which you are positing Christian faith as a kind of foundation. I think it would be more accurate to argue that this is the Socratic method as interpreted by conservative Reformed Christianity. By the way, is this a Dominionist doctrine? Do these people see the state as foundational in any way?
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phatchick
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Post by phatchick on Aug 12, 2010 15:14:19 GMT -5
Have you seen the Christian Business Directories? They are published in large cities around the country. We were provided with a new one in our mailboxes once a year at the "Christian" school, so we could find Christian dentists, optometrists, tow trucks, appliance repairs, salons... you name it. Most people there considered it sinful to not use "Christian" services and companies. I find them very useful, let's me know what businesses to avoid. {wry grin}
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jeb
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Post by jeb on Aug 12, 2010 15:38:38 GMT -5
Deborah said~~That was the kind of view I was raised with as well. I grew up in a Pentecostal church, and everything that happened was a sign from God, everything bad that happened was an attack from the enemy or because we had sinned and weren't "relying on God." Well, here's the way it really works, eh? ;D maneggs.com/2007/08/29/gods_buttons/
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