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For many women today, on a personal level, the problem is not male dominance so much as male desertion.
A worldview is not the same things a formal philosophy, otherwise it would only be for philosophers. Even ordinary people have a set of convictions about how reality functions and how they should live. Some convictions are conscious while others are unconscious but together they form a consistent picture of reality.
The word 'tolerance' once meant we all have the right to argue rationally for our deepest convictions in the public arena. Now it means those convictions are not even subject to rational debate.
The whole point of building theoretical systems is to explain what humans know by pre-theoretical experience. That is the starting point for any philosophy. That is the data it seeks to explain. If it fails to explain the data of experience, then it has failed the test. It has been falsified.
When people commit themselves to a certain vision of reality, it becomes their ultimate explainer. It serves to interpret the universe for them, to guide their moral decisions, to give meaning and purpose to life, and all the other functions normally associated with a religion.
Atheists often denounce Christianity as harsh and negative. But in reality it offers a much more positive view of the human person than any competing religion or worldview. It is so appealing that adherents of other worldviews keep free-loading the parts they like best.
To adapt a phrase, idols have consequences.
Materialists try to live in the lower story NON-MATERIAL WORLD Subjective, Superstitious, Mental Constructs MATERIAL WORLD Objective, Scientific, Knowable Facts
Yet church youth groups rarely teach apologetics, majoring instead on games and goodies.
Modern secular thought has its own dualism: It treats only the physical world as knowable and testable, while locking everything else - mind, spirit, morality, meaning - into the realm of private, subjective feelings. The so-called fact/value split.
But things that are intrinsically good can also become idols-if we allow them to take over any of God's functions in our lives.
Only a God of love is fully personal. Thus the Trinity is crucial for maintaining a fully personal concept of God. As theologian Robert Letham writes, 'Only a God who is triune can be personal.... A solitary monad cannot love and, since it cannot love, neither can it be a person.Ђќ Therefore it 'has no way to explain or even to maintain human personhood.
Mitchell claimed that her materialist view leads to 'humbleness.Ђќ But it is not humbling; it is dehumanizing. It essentially reduces humans to robots.
Clearly, Enlightenment thinkers were seeking a God substitute.
Darwinism has become our culture's official creation myth, protected by a priesthood as dogmatic as any religious curia.
Public education grants secular worldviews an exclusive monopoly in the classroom.
Competition is always a good thing. It forces us to do our best. A monopoly renders people complacent and satisfied with mediocrity.
The only way to drive out bad culture is with good culture
Christians must go beyond criticizing the degradation of American culture, roll up their sleeves, and get to work on positive solutions. The only way to drive out bad culture is with good culture.
The sense of all stylistic change is that the underlying view of the world changes.
Artists are often the barometers of society.
Morality is always derivative. It stems from one's worldview.
In every historical period, the religious groups that grow most rapidly are those that set believers at odds with the surrounding culture.
In many churches, the message of justification- how to get right with God- is preached over and over again. But much less is said about sanctification- how to live after you're converted.
The best organizations regard the nurturing of their employees as a spiritual mandate.
The Rosetta Stone of Christian social thought is the Trinity.
We need to understand enough of modern thought to identify the ways it blocks us from living out the Gospel the way God intends, both in terms of intellectual roadblocks and in terms of economic and structural changes that make it harder to live by Scriptural principles.
When the only form of cultural commentary Christians offer is moral condemnation, no wonder we come across to non-believers as angry and scolding.
A merely symbolic religion does not threaten the ruling regime of materialistic science.
Redemption is as comprehensive as Creation and Fall. God does not save our souls while leaving our minds to function on their own. He redeems the whole person. Conversion is meant to give new direction to our thoughts, emotions, wills and habits.