TOPICS
- Deconstruction - Discernment - Dominionism - Iconoclasm - Judging - Masturbation - Materialism - Pornography - Scientism - Worship -
deconstructionism
Faith deconstruction, also known as deconstructing faith, evangelical deconstruction, the deconstruction movement, or simply deconstruction, is a phenomenon within American evangelicalism in which Christians rethink their faith and jettison previously held beliefs, sometimes to the point of no longer identifying as Christians. It is closely related to the exvangelical movement.
Hip-hop duo Grits speak out on faith deconstruction in Christian music, issue challenge to next generation
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Christian hip-hop duo Grits weighed in on their Christian music colleagues who have deconstructed and left the faith in recent years and challenged the next generation of musicians to stand firm on the Gospel amid cultural changes. Stacey "Coffee" Jones and Teron "Bonafide" Carter, who have been on the Christian music scene since 1995, spoke to The Christian Post on the red carpet of the 2023 GMA Dove Awards about their fellow artists who have publicly renounced Christianity despite having successful careers in CCM. (Leah Klett/Christian Post 10/24/23)
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Christian hip-hop duo Grits weighed in on their Christian music colleagues who have deconstructed and left the faith in recent years and challenged the next generation of musicians to stand firm on the Gospel amid cultural changes. Stacey "Coffee" Jones and Teron "Bonafide" Carter, who have been on the Christian music scene since 1995, spoke to The Christian Post on the red carpet of the 2023 GMA Dove Awards about their fellow artists who have publicly renounced Christianity despite having successful careers in CCM. (Leah Klett/Christian Post 10/24/23)
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What Is Deconstruction?
On a base level, the idea of deconstruction is when we root down into revisiting long-held beliefs and rethinking them. It is also asking the question: What do I believe? Whether you grew up in the church or found faith later, this process can be a wider part of our restoration. The goal of tearing our preconceived beliefs down is so that they can be built back up better. American priest Richard Rohr breaks down deconstruction into three different stages: construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. If we assume construction is our coming to faith and reconstruction establishes our faith, where does deconstruction fit in? The end goal should always be to have a more holistic understanding of our beliefs to reconstruct around. --Andrew Grissom/Christ Church
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On a base level, the idea of deconstruction is when we root down into revisiting long-held beliefs and rethinking them. It is also asking the question: What do I believe? Whether you grew up in the church or found faith later, this process can be a wider part of our restoration. The goal of tearing our preconceived beliefs down is so that they can be built back up better. American priest Richard Rohr breaks down deconstruction into three different stages: construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction. If we assume construction is our coming to faith and reconstruction establishes our faith, where does deconstruction fit in? The end goal should always be to have a more holistic understanding of our beliefs to reconstruct around. --Andrew Grissom/Christ Church
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discernment
Discernment 101: How to separate fact from fiction
Pontius Pilate asked a question two thousand years ago that Christians should be asking more often today.
“What is truth?” (John 18:38 NIV) As Jesus stood before him, awaiting judgment, Pilate seemed more concerned with political expediency than the answer to his question. But today’s Christians need to be able to discern the truth in a world that becomes more perplexing by the day.
(Steve Yount/Denison Forum 10/31/23)
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Pontius Pilate asked a question two thousand years ago that Christians should be asking more often today.
“What is truth?” (John 18:38 NIV) As Jesus stood before him, awaiting judgment, Pilate seemed more concerned with political expediency than the answer to his question. But today’s Christians need to be able to discern the truth in a world that becomes more perplexing by the day.
(Steve Yount/Denison Forum 10/31/23)
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Steve Yount
The importance of distinguishing between truth and lies becomes clear in the first few pages of the Bible. When Eve told the serpent that God had said she and Adam would die--become mortal—if they ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the serpent responded: “You will not certainly die. . . . For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4–5 NIV).
Ever since then, the devil has used lies in spiritual warfare. Jesus said there is “no truth” in the devil: “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44 NIV). And that, John Mark Comer asserted in Live No Lies, leads us to a fundamental truth: “Jesus sees our primary war against the devil as a fight to believe truth over lies.”
But there are practical things we can do to avoid being duped.
--Steve Young; Denison Forum; Discernment 101: How to separate fact from fiction 10.31.23
Ever since then, the devil has used lies in spiritual warfare. Jesus said there is “no truth” in the devil: “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44 NIV). And that, John Mark Comer asserted in Live No Lies, leads us to a fundamental truth: “Jesus sees our primary war against the devil as a fight to believe truth over lies.”
But there are practical things we can do to avoid being duped.
--Steve Young; Denison Forum; Discernment 101: How to separate fact from fiction 10.31.23
dominionism
What is the basic premise of Kingdom Theology?
[M]an lost dominion over the earth when Adam and Eve succumbed to Satan's temptation in the Garden of Eden. God "lost control" of the earth to Satan at that time, and has since been looking for a "covenant people" who will be His "extension," or "expression," in the earth and take dominion back from Satan. This is to be accomplished through certain "overcomers" who, by yielding themselves to the authority of God's apostles and prophets for the Kingdom Age, will take control of the kingdoms of this world.
Kingdom Theology and deliverance/spiritual warfare prayer stem from the New Apostolic Reformation/Dominionism (NAR/DOM). I've covered NAR/DOM in other articles that can be read here. The purpose of this piece is the SWM, as this false teaching has spread through Charismatic and Pentecostal churches like a wildfire on a gusty day and it's rearing its ugly head in conservative churches.
Many spiritual warfare prayer warriors are sincere people who believe what they're doing is serious work, thus they don't enter into it lightly and are very cautious when they engage in intercessory prayer. They also admit that they're still learning the process of warfare prayer. The process they go through to rid the "client" of demons is called "therapy." A person who's cleansed of "cosmic beings" is deemed a "survivor."
Some in the deliverance ministries put their focus on so-called demon possessed people. As I said, many of them are serious sincere people who do not take exorcism lightly — but the fact remains that they're involved in an unbiblical practice.
Marsha West; Christian Research Network
[M]an lost dominion over the earth when Adam and Eve succumbed to Satan's temptation in the Garden of Eden. God "lost control" of the earth to Satan at that time, and has since been looking for a "covenant people" who will be His "extension," or "expression," in the earth and take dominion back from Satan. This is to be accomplished through certain "overcomers" who, by yielding themselves to the authority of God's apostles and prophets for the Kingdom Age, will take control of the kingdoms of this world.
Kingdom Theology and deliverance/spiritual warfare prayer stem from the New Apostolic Reformation/Dominionism (NAR/DOM). I've covered NAR/DOM in other articles that can be read here. The purpose of this piece is the SWM, as this false teaching has spread through Charismatic and Pentecostal churches like a wildfire on a gusty day and it's rearing its ugly head in conservative churches.
Many spiritual warfare prayer warriors are sincere people who believe what they're doing is serious work, thus they don't enter into it lightly and are very cautious when they engage in intercessory prayer. They also admit that they're still learning the process of warfare prayer. The process they go through to rid the "client" of demons is called "therapy." A person who's cleansed of "cosmic beings" is deemed a "survivor."
Some in the deliverance ministries put their focus on so-called demon possessed people. As I said, many of them are serious sincere people who do not take exorcism lightly — but the fact remains that they're involved in an unbiblical practice.
Marsha West; Christian Research Network
- grace -
iconoclasm
A Christian Reflection on Religious and Secular Iconoclasm
First, religious iconoclasm, the destruction of icons for religious reasons, was a rare phenomenon that only came about during certain times in the two-thousand-year history of the Christian church. The leaders during those periods were inspired by the second of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (Exodus 20:4-5). Second, the most important form of iconoclasm today, however, is what I would call secular iconoclasm. It is motivated not by religious teaching but by a form of secular moral purity. I contend that Christians should resist both the first and second forms of iconoclasm for similar reasons.
(Robert Herron/Christian Scholars Review 1/27/23)
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First, religious iconoclasm, the destruction of icons for religious reasons, was a rare phenomenon that only came about during certain times in the two-thousand-year history of the Christian church. The leaders during those periods were inspired by the second of the Ten Commandments: “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (Exodus 20:4-5). Second, the most important form of iconoclasm today, however, is what I would call secular iconoclasm. It is motivated not by religious teaching but by a form of secular moral purity. I contend that Christians should resist both the first and second forms of iconoclasm for similar reasons.
(Robert Herron/Christian Scholars Review 1/27/23)
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- Idolatry -
Judging
masturbation
cs lewis
The evidence seems to be that God sometimes works such a complete metamorphosis and sometimes not. We don’t know why: God forbid we should presume it went my merit.
He never in my unmarried days did it for me. He gave me–at least and after many ups and down, the power to resist the temptation so far as the act was concerned. He never stopped the recurrent temptations, nor was I guarded from the sin of mental consent. I don’t mean I wasn’t given sufficient grace. I mean that I sometimes fell into it, grace or no.
One may, I suppose, regard this as partly penal. One is paying for the physical (and still more the imaginative) sins of one’s earlier life. One my also regard it as a tribulation, like any other. The great discovery for me was that the attack does not last forever. It is the devil’s lie that the only escape from the tension is through yielding.
… Disgust, self-contempt, self-hatred–rhetoric against the sin and (still more) vilification of sexuality or the body in themselves–are emphatically not the weapons for this warfare. We must be relieved, not horrified, by the fact that the whole thing is humiliating, undignified, ridiculous; the lofty vices would be far worse.
Nor must we exaggerate our suffering. We talk of ‘torture’: five minutes of really acute toothache would restore our sense of proportion! In a word, no melodrama. The sin, if we fall into it, must be repented, like all our others. God will forgive. The temptation is a darn nuisance, to be born with patience as long as God wills.
On the purely physical side (but people no doubt differ) I’ve always found that tea and bodily weariness are the two great disposing factors, and therefore the great dangers. Sadness is also a danger: lust in my experience follows disgruntlement nearly always. Love of every sort is a guard against lust, by a divine paradox, sexual love is a guard against lust. No woman is more easily and painlessly abstained from from, if need be, than the woman one loves. And I’m pretty sure purely male society is an enemy to chastity. I don’t mean a temptation to homosexuality: I mean that the absence of ordinary female society provokes the normal appetite (CS Lewis, Yours, Jack, 307-308).
He never in my unmarried days did it for me. He gave me–at least and after many ups and down, the power to resist the temptation so far as the act was concerned. He never stopped the recurrent temptations, nor was I guarded from the sin of mental consent. I don’t mean I wasn’t given sufficient grace. I mean that I sometimes fell into it, grace or no.
One may, I suppose, regard this as partly penal. One is paying for the physical (and still more the imaginative) sins of one’s earlier life. One my also regard it as a tribulation, like any other. The great discovery for me was that the attack does not last forever. It is the devil’s lie that the only escape from the tension is through yielding.
… Disgust, self-contempt, self-hatred–rhetoric against the sin and (still more) vilification of sexuality or the body in themselves–are emphatically not the weapons for this warfare. We must be relieved, not horrified, by the fact that the whole thing is humiliating, undignified, ridiculous; the lofty vices would be far worse.
Nor must we exaggerate our suffering. We talk of ‘torture’: five minutes of really acute toothache would restore our sense of proportion! In a word, no melodrama. The sin, if we fall into it, must be repented, like all our others. God will forgive. The temptation is a darn nuisance, to be born with patience as long as God wills.
On the purely physical side (but people no doubt differ) I’ve always found that tea and bodily weariness are the two great disposing factors, and therefore the great dangers. Sadness is also a danger: lust in my experience follows disgruntlement nearly always. Love of every sort is a guard against lust, by a divine paradox, sexual love is a guard against lust. No woman is more easily and painlessly abstained from from, if need be, than the woman one loves. And I’m pretty sure purely male society is an enemy to chastity. I don’t mean a temptation to homosexuality: I mean that the absence of ordinary female society provokes the normal appetite (CS Lewis, Yours, Jack, 307-308).
We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say, of a lustful man prowling the streets, that he “wants a woman.” Strictly speaking, a woman is just what he does not want.
“He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. How much he cares about the woman as such may be gauged by his attitude to her five minutes after fruition (one does not keep the carton after one has smoked the cigarettes).
“Now Eros makes a man really want, not a woman, but one particular woman. In some mysterious but quite indisputable fashion the lover desires the Beloved herself, not the pleasure she can give.” --CS Lewis; The Four Loves
“He wants a pleasure for which a woman happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus. How much he cares about the woman as such may be gauged by his attitude to her five minutes after fruition (one does not keep the carton after one has smoked the cigarettes).
“Now Eros makes a man really want, not a woman, but one particular woman. In some mysterious but quite indisputable fashion the lover desires the Beloved herself, not the pleasure she can give.” --CS Lewis; The Four Loves
The true exercise of imagination, in my view, is (a) To help us to understand other people (b) To respond to, and, some of us, to produce art. But it has also a bad use: to provide for us, in shadowy form, a substitute for virtues, successes, distinctions, et cetera which ought to be sought outside in the real world — e.g., picturing all I’d do if I were rich instead of earning and saving.
Masturbation involves this abuse of imagination in erotic matters (which I think bad in itself) and thereby encourages a similar abuse of it in all spheres.
After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little, dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison (CS Lewis, Yours, Jack, 292-293).
Masturbation involves this abuse of imagination in erotic matters (which I think bad in itself) and thereby encourages a similar abuse of it in all spheres.
After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little, dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison (CS Lewis, Yours, Jack, 292-293).
During masturbation, the body releases hormones; namely dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin, testosterone, and prolactin; which collectively produce a boost in pain relief, positive mood change, and sex drive.
Over time, this “feel good” feedback loop trains our bodies and minds to crave this direct self-gratification as a quick fix for our biological urges, anxiety, boredom, and stress. Dopamine is the hormone behind the brain’s pleasure-reward system that reinforces our cravings and leads us to seek out the same rewards in future. Endorphins reduce pain and boost pleasure, resulting in a feeling of well-being. Both have significant roles to play in fostering addictions.
Regardless of what people may say about being able to choose when and where they masturbate, the fact is, masturbation is addictive.
Over time, anyone with a pattern of masturbating will notice a gradual increase in their compulsions to:
--Teaching Humble Hearts
Over time, this “feel good” feedback loop trains our bodies and minds to crave this direct self-gratification as a quick fix for our biological urges, anxiety, boredom, and stress. Dopamine is the hormone behind the brain’s pleasure-reward system that reinforces our cravings and leads us to seek out the same rewards in future. Endorphins reduce pain and boost pleasure, resulting in a feeling of well-being. Both have significant roles to play in fostering addictions.
Regardless of what people may say about being able to choose when and where they masturbate, the fact is, masturbation is addictive.
Over time, anyone with a pattern of masturbating will notice a gradual increase in their compulsions to:
- Turn to masturbation whenever they feel stressed, lonely, upset, angry, hurt, frustrated, or unable to sleep
- Masturbate even when there are no sexual urges
- Think about masturbation, and become aroused by remarks that are not intended to be sexual in nature
- Seek out more and more sexual stimulation, at times resorting to using objects
- Masturbate outside the home, in public places
- Impulsively touch their private parts, even in the presence of other people
--Teaching Humble Hearts
Self-abuse, noun
1. Abuse of oneself or one’s abilities.
2. Masturbation.
1 Corinthians 6:18 (NIV) further confirms this, saying that unlawful sexual relations defile our own bodies: “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.”
Isn’t it still better to masturbate than to commit fornication?
The easy answer to this question would be, “Yes, it is better to masturbate, because at best it corrupts only one person. It certainly is the lesser of two evils.” However, why would a loving, holy, all-powerful God abandon you to a situation in which you have to choose any evil, whether it be “lesser” or “greater?” To really answer this question, we must again go back to God’s original plan for sex.
First of all, masturbation will not truly relieve the sexual pressure that one may feel. It may for a short moment, but in the long run it only creates a deeper desire and capacity for sex, which will lead to more masturbation. If you let yourself become enslaved to a sexual high, you will find that you need to go to increasingly extreme acts to maintain the same degree of excitement. There are even ungodly sex therapists who recommend masturbation as a way of increasing sexual desire, not lessening it. This creates a vicious circle, like the junkie who craves a “fix,” but is only temporarily satisfied. The more he indulges in his dependency, the more ensnared by addiction he becomes. This is the nature of all sin. That is why Jesus declared that all who sin become a slave to sin (John 8:34).
Furthermore, masturbation usually involves fantasy, visualization, and often pornography. The Bible is very clear as to what God expects of us in these areas of fantasy and lust. It teaches that we must not look lustfully at each other nor should we behave in such a manner as to entice others to lust after us.
I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust upon a girl. I know full well that the Almighty God sends calamity on those who do. Job 31:1-3 (The Living Bible)
You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5:28
While the above verses refer to men lusting after women, all women know that it can very easily be reversed to apply to themselves as well. Men may be more easily visually stimulated than women, but women can be just as vulnerable to sexual fantasy in the emotional realm. Both are sin in God’s eyes, and both can be brought into subjection by controlling our thoughts through Christ’s power. --What the Bible Says about Masturbation
1. Abuse of oneself or one’s abilities.
2. Masturbation.
1 Corinthians 6:18 (NIV) further confirms this, saying that unlawful sexual relations defile our own bodies: “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.”
Isn’t it still better to masturbate than to commit fornication?
The easy answer to this question would be, “Yes, it is better to masturbate, because at best it corrupts only one person. It certainly is the lesser of two evils.” However, why would a loving, holy, all-powerful God abandon you to a situation in which you have to choose any evil, whether it be “lesser” or “greater?” To really answer this question, we must again go back to God’s original plan for sex.
First of all, masturbation will not truly relieve the sexual pressure that one may feel. It may for a short moment, but in the long run it only creates a deeper desire and capacity for sex, which will lead to more masturbation. If you let yourself become enslaved to a sexual high, you will find that you need to go to increasingly extreme acts to maintain the same degree of excitement. There are even ungodly sex therapists who recommend masturbation as a way of increasing sexual desire, not lessening it. This creates a vicious circle, like the junkie who craves a “fix,” but is only temporarily satisfied. The more he indulges in his dependency, the more ensnared by addiction he becomes. This is the nature of all sin. That is why Jesus declared that all who sin become a slave to sin (John 8:34).
Furthermore, masturbation usually involves fantasy, visualization, and often pornography. The Bible is very clear as to what God expects of us in these areas of fantasy and lust. It teaches that we must not look lustfully at each other nor should we behave in such a manner as to entice others to lust after us.
I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust upon a girl. I know full well that the Almighty God sends calamity on those who do. Job 31:1-3 (The Living Bible)
You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5:28
While the above verses refer to men lusting after women, all women know that it can very easily be reversed to apply to themselves as well. Men may be more easily visually stimulated than women, but women can be just as vulnerable to sexual fantasy in the emotional realm. Both are sin in God’s eyes, and both can be brought into subjection by controlling our thoughts through Christ’s power. --What the Bible Says about Masturbation
materialism
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Mar 13, 2023: Christian World Review: Materialism and The American Soul
One of the most impactful paradigm shifts I have ever lived through would undoubtedly have to have been during university. I went to a small Christian School that was very focused on the Bible and mission work at large. Throughout my first year of study, I felt as if I was in the center of God’s strategy room, surrounded by giants of the faith. At the time, I took whatever they said as the Gospel truth. Consequently, you may be able to imagine my surprise and confusion when I overheard the school’s president talking about the best way to keep homeless people off the property. |
Materialism has even wormed its way into the culture of Christianity in the States at large. The most in-your-face example is undoubtedly the unreasonable prominence of the prosperity gospel. Another good example is the way Christmas is generally celebrated. Although the holiday is about the birth of Christ, the big focus of December 25 is typically the things we bought each other, even in Christian households. Culturally, it’s more of a time to give one another the things we’ve wanted all year; then, a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus. In its more subtle forms, it reveals itself in the way wealth is often associated with church position. For example, have you ever seen a church leader (elder, priest, deacon, or pastor) whose lifestyle is below their community’s standard of living? Even in poorer neighborhoods, they tend to be near the top. After all, no matter how little people possess, having a nearly homeless religious leader would just be unbecoming. 3.13.23 |
pornography
CBE International: Porn and Patriarchy: A Study in Power 9.7.22
Jan 12, 2022: Christian Post: Promise Keepers leader denounces porn use: 'God didn't create you to be that way'
Promise Keepers Chairman and CEO Ken Harrison spoke at the 2022 Promise Keepers Marriage Summit’s two-hour virtual kickoff event, which was live-streamed on Monday.
Promise Keepers Chairman and CEO Ken Harrison spoke at the 2022 Promise Keepers Marriage Summit’s two-hour virtual kickoff event, which was live-streamed on Monday.
“God didn’t create you to be that way. God created you to have an intense longing for your wife. For the two to become one flesh. Sin created that same longing for every other woman. The Bible didn’t tell you to flee from lustful desires when it couldn’t actually happen. You can’t get there in your flesh, you can’t get there by trying harder, you can’t get there by feeling guilty, but you can get there by giving your life over to Christ.”
“The Bible says we must flee from sin. It’s an action. It’s a running in terror from it, because it will separate us from God, from our kids, from our wives.”
Ken Harrison; Promise Keepers
“The Bible says we must flee from sin. It’s an action. It’s a running in terror from it, because it will separate us from God, from our kids, from our wives.”
Ken Harrison; Promise Keepers
Scientism |
Scientism is an illusion, a bizarre fantasy that makes of science something it can never be.
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Scientism does not exist, it is a strawman created by occultists and wizards whose arguments are five hundred years out of date."
Here is the truth about scientism, from an atheist philosopher of science: "Let’s… call the worldview that all us atheists (and even some agnostics) share ‘scientism.’ This is the conviction that the methods of science are the only reliable ways to secure knowledge of anything; that science’s description of the world is correct in its fundamentals; and that when ‘complete,’ what science tells us will not be surprisingly different from what it tells us today.” – Alex Rosenberg, from his book The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions |
" Seemingly the paradigm of rationality, it is in fact incoherent, incapable in principle of being defended in a way consistent with its own epistemological scruples. It should go without saying that this in no way entails any criticism of science itself. For a man to acknowledge that there are many beautiful women in the world does not entail that he doesn’t think his own wife or girlfriend is beautiful. Similarly, to say that there are entirely rational and objective sources of knowledge other than science does not commit one to denying that science is a source of knowledge. Those who cannot see this are doubly deluded – like a vain and paranoid wife or girlfriend who thinks all women are far less attractive than she is and regards any suggestion to the contrary as a denial of her own beauty. Worse, like an already beautiful woman whose vanity leads her to destroy her beauty in the attempt to enhance it through plastic surgery, scientism threatens to distort and corrupt science precisely by exaggerating its significance." --Edward Feser
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worship
- January 29, 2022:
Before I became a Christian my dominant interest was in music. Not as a musician..but just the powerful meaning and energy involved with music. Though I tried, I could not play a tune on a guitar if my life depended on it. I have battled with issues of being bi-polar as long as I can remember. Music calmed my soul and seemed to help me get by. But that was all it did: Help me get by. No direction...no real practical value ....but a placebo just to help me get by in a life that was a struggle. My dad had died, my mom had nervous breakdowns all the time, and I forged her name to a check to buy food for me and my brother while she was in the hospital...and I only mention that because that brought me to the attention of authorities. As a 17 year old I saw the inside of a jail cell for the first time. An experience I never wanted to repeat (and something I rarely, if ever, talk about). Having memorized the words to "Hold Your Head Up" or other songs had no long term value. I started to wonder if there was a God and if He is there....where is He? I was philosophically stupid but intellectually stimulated and, being bored, I quit high school early and got scores high enough to get me into a Tech college. When my high school class was graduating I was finishing my first semester of college. My pursuit of the God who is there began.
In the end, worship is a response to what we value most. And whatever it is that we worship will change us. Remaining somewhat skeptical.... but walking away from atheism was a life changer for me. Lots of great things happened after that...but, so as to not paint an unrealistic picture of reality, life is often loaded and layered with problems. That which we worship is what we turn to during those times. Power, money, sex, etc have been warring against mans relationship with God since Eden. We have such a short time here on earth to face and deal with these things.
It was Mother Teresa who once said: "You will never know God is all you need until He is all you have." Amen