Saturday, December 22, 2007
Highlights from CMI and AIG
Sorry I haven't been around. The combination of huge projects at work and seminary have taken me away. Seminary is done for the semester, but the huge projects still have a few weeks on them. Anyway, in the interim, here are some highlights from CMI's blog:
AIG's blog also has an interesting postings:
- Tas Walker gives us some reasons why empirical observations should shorten our view of how long certain things take to happen
- Another living fossil
- The Destructive Power of Cavitation and Noah's Flood
- An Article on Paleokarsts which I have not had time to read
- Several examples of rapid petrification and stalactite formation.
AIG's blog also has an interesting postings:
Sunday, December 02, 2007
Moralizing Non-Believers
This post is a little off-topic, but the site I was hosting this at may go offline soon, and I need a place to stick it. In any case, here it is:
The Problem of Moralizing Non-believers
Jonathan Bartlett
6/20/2002
Why moralizing non-believers doesn't advance the Kingdom of God even one inch.
Many Christians today are really missing the boat when it comes to doing Christ's work. It seems that the ministry that God has called us to, the Great Commission, has been degraded to the Great Moralization. What I mean is that Christians have essentially given up trying to bring lost people to Jesus, and instead have focused on simply berating them for the way they live their lives.
This seems to me, well, backwards. Isn't living in sin what nonbelievers do? I'm not saying that believers don't sin, just that it's no longer something were bound into doing, it's just something we do because we're idiots. With believers they don't have a choice. Sure, they can stop one sin, but only to replace it with another. The best one can hope for in trying to moralize a non-believer is that the person in question will give up one life of sin for another - and what good is that?
It seems that we are fighting battles which need not be fought. One of my favorite examples of this is the assertion from non-believers that people are born homosexual. Now, I don't really believe it myself, but I hardly see the harm in it. What you have is non-believers coming out in agreement with the Christian doctrine that we are all born with a sinful nature. The fact that they are being specific about their sinful nature isn't that important. Why Christians are so combative about this argument is beyond me.
I've also heard many people, especially creationists, getting all up in arms because people who don't believe in God aren't believing in God being the creator. Well, what do you expect them to believe? It's not a conspiracy, people. People who are
aren't Christians don't act like Christians, and they shouldn't be expected to do so. In fact, I'm rather glad they don't, because it makes it more obvious who needs Jesus. When you see someone who is a murderer, a prostitute, a rapist, a homosexual,
a cheater, or whatever, God's instructions are to simply view them as people who need Jesus. After all, if we fix those things first, what have we really gained? We have someone who is still just as lost as they were before, just lost in a different jungle.
The people who are trying to change the world to Christian principles without first having them know Jesus is to both mock Christ and deny His power. You are mocking Him because you are belittling the importance of a relationship with Him. You are denying His power because your actions imply that you can lead a godly life without God. How dare you.
The Problem of Moralizing Non-believers
Jonathan Bartlett
6/20/2002
Why moralizing non-believers doesn't advance the Kingdom of God even one inch.
Many Christians today are really missing the boat when it comes to doing Christ's work. It seems that the ministry that God has called us to, the Great Commission, has been degraded to the Great Moralization. What I mean is that Christians have essentially given up trying to bring lost people to Jesus, and instead have focused on simply berating them for the way they live their lives.
This seems to me, well, backwards. Isn't living in sin what nonbelievers do? I'm not saying that believers don't sin, just that it's no longer something were bound into doing, it's just something we do because we're idiots. With believers they don't have a choice. Sure, they can stop one sin, but only to replace it with another. The best one can hope for in trying to moralize a non-believer is that the person in question will give up one life of sin for another - and what good is that?
It seems that we are fighting battles which need not be fought. One of my favorite examples of this is the assertion from non-believers that people are born homosexual. Now, I don't really believe it myself, but I hardly see the harm in it. What you have is non-believers coming out in agreement with the Christian doctrine that we are all born with a sinful nature. The fact that they are being specific about their sinful nature isn't that important. Why Christians are so combative about this argument is beyond me.
I've also heard many people, especially creationists, getting all up in arms because people who don't believe in God aren't believing in God being the creator. Well, what do you expect them to believe? It's not a conspiracy, people. People who are
aren't Christians don't act like Christians, and they shouldn't be expected to do so. In fact, I'm rather glad they don't, because it makes it more obvious who needs Jesus. When you see someone who is a murderer, a prostitute, a rapist, a homosexual,
a cheater, or whatever, God's instructions are to simply view them as people who need Jesus. After all, if we fix those things first, what have we really gained? We have someone who is still just as lost as they were before, just lost in a different jungle.
The people who are trying to change the world to Christian principles without first having them know Jesus is to both mock Christ and deny His power. You are mocking Him because you are belittling the importance of a relationship with Him. You are denying His power because your actions imply that you can lead a godly life without God. How dare you.
