The Emergence Movement is a recent (post 1970's) movement lead by America's young libertarian Christians. (and yes the title of this post is what they title themselves as) The Emergence Movement is in multiple countries and even continents today; North America, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. Using a postmodern viewpoint the emphasis is driven away from the Bible and more toward the fellowship and the society around the "church" (I put quotation marks because it's mostly a house meeting or a gathering) I am not going to describe a typical Emergent Church, because they don't have an exact definition, the society around them or the group's own traditions is what defines their own church.
The Emergence Movement beliefs range from a Trinitarian based values; imitating the life of Jesus, transforming society, emphasizing communal living, and to lead without control to Post-Christendom, where the focus is on good works and social activism. In theory this idea is more of a Christian Communism (the good kind, not the red commies or anything) but is misleading with their teachings. So in closing, interesting concept, wrong values.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
TBN, Televangelists, and Purple Hair
For an assignment to one of my classes I had to watch an hour of the TBN, (Trinity Broadcast Network) one of the world's largest Televangelist outreach. WARNING: The following contains boring accounts of the TBN history, if you're interested read on, if not, skip to next paragraph. The TBN was founded by Paul and Jan Crouch, and Jim and Tammy Bakker in 1973 from Ontario, California. The network didn't take off until the 1990's, having almost filed for bankruptcy on multiple occasions. Now they are stretched across the USA, and even reaching across the world.
Now, for the actual blog part, I will attempt to review the TBN from the hour I stumbled through it. One reason I say stumbled, the ads. As soon as I started watching I was assaulted with many different ads and donate buttons everywhere. I could smell the prosperity gospel from a mile away, (it was probably the Psalms perfumes they were selling) however due to problems with the website I wasn't able to watch the entire thing, and what I did get from it wasn't anything extraordinary. It was teachings from the Christian Bible (as much as I knew) and worship had "God-centered" songs, but I was left more with a lukewarm feeling than anything, a bad sermon leaves a bad taste, a good sermon gets one excited, but a lukewarm sermon just feels like "ehh" more like a classroom with a teacher drilling mindless facts into your head. Now, they did have professional preachers and the whole shebang, but it just felt like another televangelist, and nothing more. I'm not pointing the finger at those who run the TBN, nor those who watch it, but I am saying is I felt like it was just another marketer in the whole televangelist scheme.
Now, I know y'all were interested in the purple hair comment I made in the title, and that's because of this. Jan Crouch, the woman who co-founded it had a magnificent head of comically purple hair (which is quite scary if eyes are exposed to it for a long period of time) :P
Now, for the actual blog part, I will attempt to review the TBN from the hour I stumbled through it. One reason I say stumbled, the ads. As soon as I started watching I was assaulted with many different ads and donate buttons everywhere. I could smell the prosperity gospel from a mile away, (it was probably the Psalms perfumes they were selling) however due to problems with the website I wasn't able to watch the entire thing, and what I did get from it wasn't anything extraordinary. It was teachings from the Christian Bible (as much as I knew) and worship had "God-centered" songs, but I was left more with a lukewarm feeling than anything, a bad sermon leaves a bad taste, a good sermon gets one excited, but a lukewarm sermon just feels like "ehh" more like a classroom with a teacher drilling mindless facts into your head. Now, they did have professional preachers and the whole shebang, but it just felt like another televangelist, and nothing more. I'm not pointing the finger at those who run the TBN, nor those who watch it, but I am saying is I felt like it was just another marketer in the whole televangelist scheme.
Now, I know y'all were interested in the purple hair comment I made in the title, and that's because of this. Jan Crouch, the woman who co-founded it had a magnificent head of comically purple hair (which is quite scary if eyes are exposed to it for a long period of time) :P
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Sages and Logic and Divinity Complex and Logic and Stop My Brain Hurts
Well... For school I had to read an excerpt from a book titled Between Heaven and Hell by Peter Kreeft. The premise is simple enough, Kreeft is proving Jesus is God using logic (and C.S. Lewis, Kennedy, and Huxley) to do it.
The three men I mentioned are caught in limbo (in between heaven and hell) and have a lively discussion (or debate) Kennedy (who's a catholic) makes a point that Jesus was a good moral teacher but not the Son of God. Lewis refutes with simple connect the dot's logic
Simple right? Jesus can only be 4 things, he can be the Son of God, or he can be a raving lunatic (the Divinity Complex) or he is just a bad man, or he is a good man. The only logical one he cannot be is the 4th, and if you think he is the 2nd or 3rd you are not a Christian. The reason he was not the 2nd or 3rd is that he is someone considered a Sage. What the Sages were, were men who had spiritual insight or wisdom into the human heart or character. They were considered the wisest and best men who ever lived. Examples are: Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses, Socrates, etc. Everybody can be summed up into 4 classes of people. The normal men: the average Joe, The Sages: see above, The normal men who claimed to be God: AKA lunatics, and The Sages who claimed to be God: Jesus. It's easy to see that the bad men and lunatics are all on the normal people side, whereas the Sages were the holy or wise ones. This makes Jesus a good man and a sane one. Therefore: if Jesus existed, he must be the Son of God, and we already have records and things of Jesus existing :)
Bam: Logic
Bam: Logic
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, For Tomorrow You Die
Life is strange, to be able to think and feel, to run and act, why can we do this? A technical definition by Google is: "the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic
matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional
activity, and continual change preceding death." However this definition includes animals and plants, and I'm only talking about humans, or sentient life. Sentient just means: "Able to perceive or feel things." Because humans can think for themselves we have obviously raised questions. What are we doing here? Why? Are we super products from evolution? Is there an extraterrestrial being who made us? Just about every single answer that could exist has been spoken, but there are 4 basic forms of the answer to this question.
1. Man has no control over his fate, because it is controlled by the universe.
2. Man has complete control over his fate, because he controls the universe.
3. Man's fate is determined by chance.
4. Man is created by God with a purpose.
Answer 1. This is one of the most socially accepted answer today, used by some evolutionists and relativists. They believe that our fate is determined by evolution and natural occurrences in the universe. However, man has a free will, we can think and act on our own power. This in itself changes our fate, if only slightly.
Answer 2. This one was more popular back in the Greek and Roman times. Although they believed in gods, They believed that man controlled his fate while the gods watched on. However if man controlled fate, why isn't it screwed up by now? Man makes mistakes, if man was in control, the world would be a wreck. (now, there are arguments that it is in a wreck, but illogical wreck, the world is in a logical wreck)
Answer 3. This one is used by the majority of evolutionists and relativists. There is no fate or God or destiny, only random chance. However if life was left up to random chance, how can we be here? The odds of you sitting in front of your screen reading this by random chance (true random chance, not that I have a low SEO.....) is so astronomically low that it simply couldn't happen. You can't leave such a delicate thing as a human life up to chance, Evolution is a stretch, but at least it's better than chance.
Answer 4: This one is used by those who follow religion, and to me, the only logical one. How can you have a universe so large it blows our minds to think about it, and a cell so small and detailed that each can support itself without a God? Chance cannot come up with life, nor can evolution or the universe. Life is a creative force, needing care and a designer.
Now, lets clear some things up here. I do believe in God, but that still doesn't answer the question to is man completely free? Does man have a free will, or does God lead him on like a horse? My answer is that man has free will, you can lift your finger, you can turn right instead of left, that's free will. By your will you turned right, it wasn't destiny or chance. Now, that example seems to not be that large of an action, or so small that destiny wouldn't care if you turned right or left. But when you look at the majesty of life, no action is too small, everything that you can do is a miracle.
Until Next Time,
Conner
1. Man has no control over his fate, because it is controlled by the universe.
2. Man has complete control over his fate, because he controls the universe.
3. Man's fate is determined by chance.
4. Man is created by God with a purpose.
Answer 1. This is one of the most socially accepted answer today, used by some evolutionists and relativists. They believe that our fate is determined by evolution and natural occurrences in the universe. However, man has a free will, we can think and act on our own power. This in itself changes our fate, if only slightly.
Answer 2. This one was more popular back in the Greek and Roman times. Although they believed in gods, They believed that man controlled his fate while the gods watched on. However if man controlled fate, why isn't it screwed up by now? Man makes mistakes, if man was in control, the world would be a wreck. (now, there are arguments that it is in a wreck, but illogical wreck, the world is in a logical wreck)
Answer 3. This one is used by the majority of evolutionists and relativists. There is no fate or God or destiny, only random chance. However if life was left up to random chance, how can we be here? The odds of you sitting in front of your screen reading this by random chance (true random chance, not that I have a low SEO.....) is so astronomically low that it simply couldn't happen. You can't leave such a delicate thing as a human life up to chance, Evolution is a stretch, but at least it's better than chance.
Answer 4: This one is used by those who follow religion, and to me, the only logical one. How can you have a universe so large it blows our minds to think about it, and a cell so small and detailed that each can support itself without a God? Chance cannot come up with life, nor can evolution or the universe. Life is a creative force, needing care and a designer.
Now, lets clear some things up here. I do believe in God, but that still doesn't answer the question to is man completely free? Does man have a free will, or does God lead him on like a horse? My answer is that man has free will, you can lift your finger, you can turn right instead of left, that's free will. By your will you turned right, it wasn't destiny or chance. Now, that example seems to not be that large of an action, or so small that destiny wouldn't care if you turned right or left. But when you look at the majesty of life, no action is too small, everything that you can do is a miracle.
Until Next Time,
Conner
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Knowledge Is a Finicky Thing
What is knowledge? Google defines it as "the facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through
experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a
subject. Is that all to knowledge? No, Google only used the empirical sense of the definition. What's that? Empirical means knowledge learned through experiences, such as "Stoves are hot, or "Sound is a wave," things you would learn from experience or education. That's not all that knowledge is. It can be what's called Cognitive - knowledge that you already know, such as how to cry, or how to eat, things that you're born with. The last one is Revelation - this is knowledge that God would allow you to see about himself. Seeing as the last one does not relate to the immediate physical world, the majority of this world does not recognize it. This lead the first two parts of knowledge to be separated from Revelation into two distinct parts, the Upper Story - dealing with Revelation and spiritual matters, and the Lower Story - dealing with Empirical and Cognitive knowledge and the material world. The line between the two is called the Line of Despair, I'm not joking, it's described as a Line of Despair because of the trouble it caused philosophers trying to relate the two.
So you know how you know something, but how much do you know? 4 Greek philosophers attempted to answer this question. The first was Herodotus. He mused that the world was ever changing, you could not step in the same stream twice, people grow old, seasons change, basically the entire world is in flux, it's impossible to know anything, let alone everything. Parmenides had a completely different viewpoint. He believed that the world was static, that it never changed, and it was our senses that made people believe things were changing. He believed to find knowledge you must rely on reason and not the senses. Socrates believed that you couldn't learn anything, that those who believed they had knowledge were fools. Plato, a student of Socrates, believed that there were two sides of the world, one in which we perceive with our senses, and then a base layer made of the things that were in constant flux. Lastly is a student of Plato, Aristotle. He believed that Plato's base layer is connected with the sensible layer, thus allowing us to gain knowledge from observing with our senses.
These philosophies dominated man's thinking to about 1200 AD, when a man named Thomas Aquinas came around. He came up with the story model I gave above, the world having an Upper and Lower story. There are only 3 ways man can think according to this, 1. Focus on the Upper Story with a diminish on the Lower, 2. Focus on the Lower Story with a diminish on the Upper, and 3. Acknowledge the fact that they both exist and treat each equally (unified field of knowledge). Up until the Renaissance period, man focused on the 1st option. This is where the Church was a head of the government, paintings featured heavenly hosts rather than man, etc. In the Renaissance, around 1200 AD the thinking switched over to the 2nd option, this is where governments started taking root, artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci, and Michelangelo came around. It wasn't until the Reformation that the Upper Story was recognized again, but the leaders of the Reformation (Martin Luther, John Calvin, etc.) kept the Lower Story in view as well, creating a balanced sense of knowledge. Luther wrote about the Reformation: "If you read all the annals of the past, you will find no century like this since the birth of Christ. Such building and planting such good living and dressing, such enterprise in commerce, such a stir in the arts, has not been since Christ came into the world. And how numerous are the sharp and intelligent people who leave nothing hidden and unturned: even a boy of twenty years knows more nowadays than was known formerly by twenty doctors of divinity."
Why am I telling you this? Because it's a good thing to know where the philosophy of the day, the arts, and culture come from. Using the Upper Story - Lower Story scale you can determine someone's worldview easier and be able to make judgements about your own. One of the reasons Christianity and Atheism is so different is a different focus on the scale, Christians have more of a balanced view, whereas Atheists only pay attention to the Lower Story.
Until Next Time,
Conner
So you know how you know something, but how much do you know? 4 Greek philosophers attempted to answer this question. The first was Herodotus. He mused that the world was ever changing, you could not step in the same stream twice, people grow old, seasons change, basically the entire world is in flux, it's impossible to know anything, let alone everything. Parmenides had a completely different viewpoint. He believed that the world was static, that it never changed, and it was our senses that made people believe things were changing. He believed to find knowledge you must rely on reason and not the senses. Socrates believed that you couldn't learn anything, that those who believed they had knowledge were fools. Plato, a student of Socrates, believed that there were two sides of the world, one in which we perceive with our senses, and then a base layer made of the things that were in constant flux. Lastly is a student of Plato, Aristotle. He believed that Plato's base layer is connected with the sensible layer, thus allowing us to gain knowledge from observing with our senses.
These philosophies dominated man's thinking to about 1200 AD, when a man named Thomas Aquinas came around. He came up with the story model I gave above, the world having an Upper and Lower story. There are only 3 ways man can think according to this, 1. Focus on the Upper Story with a diminish on the Lower, 2. Focus on the Lower Story with a diminish on the Upper, and 3. Acknowledge the fact that they both exist and treat each equally (unified field of knowledge). Up until the Renaissance period, man focused on the 1st option. This is where the Church was a head of the government, paintings featured heavenly hosts rather than man, etc. In the Renaissance, around 1200 AD the thinking switched over to the 2nd option, this is where governments started taking root, artists such as Leonardo Da Vinci, and Michelangelo came around. It wasn't until the Reformation that the Upper Story was recognized again, but the leaders of the Reformation (Martin Luther, John Calvin, etc.) kept the Lower Story in view as well, creating a balanced sense of knowledge. Luther wrote about the Reformation: "If you read all the annals of the past, you will find no century like this since the birth of Christ. Such building and planting such good living and dressing, such enterprise in commerce, such a stir in the arts, has not been since Christ came into the world. And how numerous are the sharp and intelligent people who leave nothing hidden and unturned: even a boy of twenty years knows more nowadays than was known formerly by twenty doctors of divinity."
Why am I telling you this? Because it's a good thing to know where the philosophy of the day, the arts, and culture come from. Using the Upper Story - Lower Story scale you can determine someone's worldview easier and be able to make judgements about your own. One of the reasons Christianity and Atheism is so different is a different focus on the scale, Christians have more of a balanced view, whereas Atheists only pay attention to the Lower Story.
Until Next Time,
Conner
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Worldview, What is it? Why do I need one?
The sad reality is that most of America has not developed, cared, or even realized their worldview. They go along the assumption that they're right and everyone else (except those who share their views) are wrong, but why do they think their view of existence is right and others are wrong? The answer is their worldview. A worldview is a makeup of facts, opinions, and observations that a person uses to perceive the world around them including Man, God, and Existence. Now because it revolves on opinions and observations each worldview is going to differ from person to person, this means that a worldview is dynamic and personal. The way someone sees the world around him is going to differ from his religious neighbor. You don't need a worldview, you have one if you like it or not.
Considering the fact that everyone has a worldview, what makes yours? Why would worldviews be different if we all live in the same world? Most of a persons worldview is made up of their experiences as a child. If one is raised in a church, they would grow up having a religious worldview. this is different opposed to the child raised in an atheist setting. However it's very common for someone to change worldviews, so it's not just your childhood experiences. The three areas of worldview are what ultimately determine how someone sees the world. Man, why are we here? How did we get here? Are we ultimately good or evil? All these questions show how someone interprets the Man portion of their worldview. The next one is Existence, with questions such as; Is anything real? Is there life after death? These questions make up part of the Existence portion of someones worldview. The last part is God, whether you like it or not everyone has an opinion of God. Is he real? Does he interact with the world? Is he a loving or vengeful God? All these make up someones worldview and ultimately how they interpret the world around them.
Seeing as it's answers to questions such as these that make up a worldview, which one would be the most important? The answer is going to change for every worldview, but I believe it is "Who is God?" The reason I choose this is because the reason there are so many religions (and anti-religions) is all because people interpreted this question differently. Christians believe he is the Trinity, Buddhists believe there is no God, Deists believe he is God, but apart from this world. The reason worldviews change drastically is because of this question.
However, most people aren't going to be paying attention to all this, they'd rather pay attention to the immediate circumstances around their person. This is called a Life Picture, and it is right in the center of a worldview. The reason is that each person is going to be interpreting their Life Picture based off of their worldview, whether they know it or not. A Life Picture consists of situations such as Family, Work, Education, Money, and material things that their physical being comes in contact with most often. You might be able to determine a worldview from a Life Picture, but the latter does not affect the former as much as the questions do. However how a person sees Work is going to determine a lot more about the persons vision on the world more than the others will. The reason? Same as last time, the reason that we have different groups of people, whether it be churches, political parties, or entire government systems all hinge loosely off of what each group interprets as Work.
I did not go into much detail about each of these in this post, but I hope that it leaves you with an overall sense of what a worldview is, and why it's important. For if you can understand worldviews and why someone is answering the way they are, it is going to help you understand people and situations better.
Until next time,
Conner
Considering the fact that everyone has a worldview, what makes yours? Why would worldviews be different if we all live in the same world? Most of a persons worldview is made up of their experiences as a child. If one is raised in a church, they would grow up having a religious worldview. this is different opposed to the child raised in an atheist setting. However it's very common for someone to change worldviews, so it's not just your childhood experiences. The three areas of worldview are what ultimately determine how someone sees the world. Man, why are we here? How did we get here? Are we ultimately good or evil? All these questions show how someone interprets the Man portion of their worldview. The next one is Existence, with questions such as; Is anything real? Is there life after death? These questions make up part of the Existence portion of someones worldview. The last part is God, whether you like it or not everyone has an opinion of God. Is he real? Does he interact with the world? Is he a loving or vengeful God? All these make up someones worldview and ultimately how they interpret the world around them.
Seeing as it's answers to questions such as these that make up a worldview, which one would be the most important? The answer is going to change for every worldview, but I believe it is "Who is God?" The reason I choose this is because the reason there are so many religions (and anti-religions) is all because people interpreted this question differently. Christians believe he is the Trinity, Buddhists believe there is no God, Deists believe he is God, but apart from this world. The reason worldviews change drastically is because of this question.
However, most people aren't going to be paying attention to all this, they'd rather pay attention to the immediate circumstances around their person. This is called a Life Picture, and it is right in the center of a worldview. The reason is that each person is going to be interpreting their Life Picture based off of their worldview, whether they know it or not. A Life Picture consists of situations such as Family, Work, Education, Money, and material things that their physical being comes in contact with most often. You might be able to determine a worldview from a Life Picture, but the latter does not affect the former as much as the questions do. However how a person sees Work is going to determine a lot more about the persons vision on the world more than the others will. The reason? Same as last time, the reason that we have different groups of people, whether it be churches, political parties, or entire government systems all hinge loosely off of what each group interprets as Work.
I did not go into much detail about each of these in this post, but I hope that it leaves you with an overall sense of what a worldview is, and why it's important. For if you can understand worldviews and why someone is answering the way they are, it is going to help you understand people and situations better.
Until next time,
Conner
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