Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Parenting & Education, tagged abortion, creation, evolution, origin, worldview on November 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Every idea has a consequence.
“Man is descended from a hairy-tailed quadruped, probably arboreal in his habits.” (Charles Darwin)
“Children are sexual beings.” (Alfred Kinsey)
“The entire culture war is being fought over the issue of sex.” (Phillip Johnson)
“Sexual liberty has become the ultimate virtue in American life.” (Charles Colson)
Should we be surprised to hear:
“Aborting my baby is the ultimate sacrifice I have to make for myself.” (American woman)
Posted in Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged behavior, Charles Darwin, creation, creator God, critical thinking, education, evolution, faith, God's Word, intelligent design, moral choices, Richard Dawkins, science, values on June 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »
In his article, “Are We Dumb and Getting Dumber?,” Regis Nicoll writes, “Distinguishing between science and faith is problematic, given that there is more than a little measure of faith in science; especially, materialistic science:
Nicoll continues, “Similarly, discriminating conventional wisdom from actual wisdom is difficult-to-impossible, given their considerable overlap. The conventional wisdom that ‘what goes up, must come down,’ is congruent with the actual wisdom of Newton’s laws. In the same way, conventional beliefs about things like murder, cruelty and rape accord with the universal conviction of their actual immorality.”
Nicoll notes that, “Our real challenge is not discerning between such false dichotomies but discerning science from science fiction and truth from falsehood. When a frog-turned-prince tale is dismissed as myth until the time frame is changed from a bibbidi-bobbidi-boo instant to 150 million years, it signals a discernment deficit. When the time frame is extended to a few billion years to spin a neutrino-turned-prince tale, it signals a discernment crisis.”
Who are the “gatekeepers” of truth? Nicoll recalls a NOVA special featuring an astrophysicist who stated, “We’re descended from neutrinos!” Then, after a reverential pause, he added, “They’re our parents.” (This… from an astrophysicist? He’s joking, right?) Nicoll writes, “The gatekeepers have spun many an imaginative yarn about how the universe came to be and how matter ‘went live.’ But despite the intellectual charm of creative neutrinos, cosmic inflation, multiverses, emergence, abiogenesis, and the like, their ever-inventive tales remain, and will always remain, just that: tales with no more claim to truth than those of a court astrologer.”
I came across Nicoll’s article in Breakpoint (5-6-11) while trying to respond to my agnostic friend. He’s the one who threw into the “hopper of our discussion” the quote from William Inge (see Part I, previous post). I explained to my friend that I am a builder of relationships. I am a woman who, because of both facts and faith, accepts and finds joy in my defined role of “helper.” My Biblical worldview defines my role in Genesis 2:18. “The the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.’ ” (The Hebrew word for “helper” is ezer, which elsewhere in Scripture also means “assistant” or “ally.” Thus, my blog name ezerwoman. In no way do I find “helper” to be inferior; rather, I find order, sanity, and hope in a chaotic, insane, and hopeless world.) As a builder of relationships and a “helper,” I could have been blessed with a brain that easily processes scientific data and enjoys doing so. But, no. Such a brain belongs to my husband and sons. Nevertheless, I do possess reason and logic. My reason and logic agrees with Nicoll when it comes to these “gatekeepers of truth.”
Nicoll writes, “The idea that ‘in the beginning were neutrinos’ that went bump in the cosmos to form intelligent beings is as fantastic (more so, really) as the Mayan account that ‘in the beginning were only Tepeu and Gucumatz . . .[who] sat together and thought, and whatever they thought came into being.’ ”
Are we witnessing an intentional change in education? Isn’t the proper goal of education to teach students how to think, not what to think?
“Intelligent design and Darwinism,” writes Nicoll, “are controversial theories that enjoy wide currency in the marketplace of ideas. Teaching one theory to the exclusion of others, and without presenting its weaknesses along with its strengths, is indoctrination, not education.”
Posted in Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged archeology, authority, Bible, chaos, creation, evolution, faith, God, God's Word, history, intelligent design, order, Richard Dawkins, science, truth, values on June 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »
“Science . . . contemplates a world of facts without values,” wrote William Inge, but “religion contemplates values apart from facts.”
What is “religion?” Doesn’t everyone have a “religion,” a worldview upon which they stand? True to their “religion” or worldview, don’t they practice it “religiously?” My worldview determines how I see and respond to everything. Faith in my worldview compels me to study and weigh facts. It also compels me to set higher standards (values). Together, these facts and values determine how I think, live, and treat myself and others.
My worldview tells me that science/facts and “religion” (faith)/values are not exclusive of one another. The atheist and I both put our faith in something; then we, true to our faith, practice it. The atheist doesn’t want to believe in an authority higher than himself. I, however, have discovered that when I place myself on the throne of “authority,” I put myself and others at risk.
Facts are necessary. Facts include more than science but also history and consequences of behavior. My faith in God’s Word of Scripture, for example, is not without fact. The Bible is fact. It is recorded history. It is eye-witness accounts. Father telling son or Jew telling Gentile. The Bible is backed up by facts. Archeological evidence and scientific documentation abound. My worldview impresses upon me the need for such facts over and above feelings and opinion. I cannot trust my feelings. They change with mood and circumstance. My opinion is biased. The law of gravity, on the other hand, is fact. So are history and experience. So, while I may feel like jumping off the roof of my house, it serves me well to remember that when my dad jumped off the roof of a barn, he broke his arches. The law of gravity, together with history and experience, are beneficial to me. Faith enters in for both the atheist and myself as a Christian, most especially when something happens that we didn’t see or can’t explain. Both the atheist and I will act as people of faith: faith in something. I didn’t see my dad jump off the barn. I didn’t hear his cry. Even though I can’t explain exactly what happened, I have faith in what my dad told me. Faith in his words prevents me from a foolish (and painful) jump.
Let’s assume, as Richard Dawkins insists, that there is no creator. No creator of all that ever has or ever will exist; no creator of persons (bodies, minds, and souls); no creator of boundaries for the function, care and protection of those persons; no creator of conscience; no creator of all things right, honorable, merciful, and true. In such a world, I become the “authority” of my life and Dawkins becomes the “authority” of his. But, what values do we harmoniously work with for the benefit of community? My values will be shaped by my “god” (me) and his will be shaped by his “god” (him).
Let’s be honest… and willing to expose our core faith.
Someone like Dawkins doesn’t want to acknowledge the Creator God who brings order out of chaos. He resists the valid conclusion of both faith and science that Someone higher than himself exists. Yet, in reality, he’s putting his faith in something. Himself! His core faith is himself! He may claim to wrap himself in science and demean those of faith. Nevertheless, he is practicing his faith. And his values, like all values, flow out of his faith: whatever he believes in.
Science and facts divorced from faith and values? No. All are interrelated. The more I study God’s Word and the more I am informed by facts — of biology, anatomy, archeology, and history, the more I recognize God at work. Intelligent and orderly design. “For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20).
At the end of his life, Charles Darwin reflected on his work and confessed, “I was a young man with unformed ideas. I threw out queries, suggestions, wondering all the time over everything; and to my astonishment the ideas took like wildfire. People made a religion of them.”
Louis Pasteur declared in one of his lectures, “Science brings man nearer to God.”
Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Relationships, tagged brights, consequence, creation, despair, evolution, forgiveness, hope, human life, immorality, Jesus Christ, logic, moral living, origin, purpose, secular naturalist, sin, worldview on May 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »
How does the world turn? By chance, proclaims the secular naturalist.
By the hand of God, proclaims the Biblical Christian.
During a Titus 2 Retreat, the answers to a number of simple questions are followed to their natural conclusion.
If I evolved by chance from primordial soup; if my only purpose in life is self-fulfillment; if I’m not responsible for my own messes; if I rely on myself or science to perfect the world; and when I die, well, that’s all there is… how do you think I will live my life? What will the consequences be?
On the other hand, if I was created by God to be a woman quite different from man, and certainly not an animal; if my purpose is to be in a relationship with God and glorify Him with my behavior; if the world and every person in it is sinful because Adam and Eve disobeyed God; if I am responsible for my own messes; if I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and rose victorious over evil; and when I die, I will not stay dead but be raised to stand before God… how do you think I will try to live my life? What will the consequences be?
It all seems reasonable and quite simple. Follow secular naturalism to it’s logical conclusion and we find devaluation of human life by abortion, “mercy killing,” and school shootings; broken relationships; abuse; tyranny and terrorism; racism and hopeless, human misery.
But, follow Biblical Christianity to it’s logical conclusion and we find value in every human life; restored relationships; kindness and mercy; forgiveness; and hope for the human family.
That’s how my world turns.
Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Relationships, Sexy or holy?, tagged " homosexuality, Alfred Kinsey, Charles Darwin, church, creation, evolution, family, hope, Jesus Christ, Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood, sex education on March 23, 2011| 3 Comments »
Sexual gratification rules. Sex — any type, any time, with anyone — is the ultimate freedom. Sex rules the marketplace, classroom, court of law, and military. Sex is the one “right” above all others. Why? Because Kinsey said so. “Children,” said Kinsey, “are sexual from birth.” In other words, according to Kinsey and his followers, we are animal-like beings captive to sexual desires, urges, and feelings.
Progressive people everywhere already knew they were “animal-like.” Why? Because Darwin said so. Anyone feeling inhibited by a Creator God now had “license” to do as they pleased. Piggy-backing (how animal-like!) on the theory of Darwin, Kinsey plunged into “scientific” study with the goal of breaking down all sexual inhibitions Kinsey’s “scientific” study has been exposed as fraudulent and criminal. (You can discover why by reading “Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences” or visiting Dr. Judith Reisman.) Nevertheless, a psychologically twisted and sexually deviant Kinsey was granted “license” to move a culture away from guarding innocence and protecting boundaries of modesty to educate in all manner of sex. The animal circus went on the road.
Progressive and enlightened Christians filed God’s Word on sexual purity under “religious myths” and joined the animal circus. Willingly, or unwillingly, they became “animal trainers.” If you really cared about a child, parents and educators were told, you would help a young, “evolving” conscience become “comfortable” with sexual desires, urges, and feelings. At least four generations have been educated in all manner of sexual behavior, but left clueless about what it means to be male or female.
We’ve been too long at the animal circus. The evidence explains why.
We’ve been too long at the animal circus. Darwin, Kinsey, Margaret Sanger (Planned Parenthood), and others who’ve wanted to re-wire the minds of our children have trained long enough. Their education has mentored boys and girls to be sexual, not relational; all about me, rarely about others; empty, not filled; hopeless, not hopeful.
The church — the Body of Christ — stands guilty. To be more attractive to the world, we adapted the ways of circus trainers. As long as Jesus was part of sex education, our sons and daughters would be all right — or so we thought. But, Jesus does not wrap Himself around worldly ideas. (See post of October 1, 2010 in the ezerwoman archives.)
Is there hope? Yes. Away from the animal circus.
God didn’t create us to be “sexual beings.” That is not our identity. He created us to be human beings who reflect His glory by living life as male or female. According to His design, male and female are equal, but different. Our “plumbing” is different. The way we think, love, and communicate is different. God’s Word explains the meaning and purpose of the two genders/sexes. His Word explains why we need each other and how to treat each other. Then, when the time is right, God “fits” a man and a woman together in the faithfulness of marriage. Through the act of procreational sex, God brings new life into the world.
We are not animal-like beings captive to sexual desires, feelings, and perceived “needs.” We are, by creation, persons of great worth with minds, hearts, and souls able to control emotions and feelings.
Away from the animal circus, we are better able to see children as God sees them. Sons and daughters… on their way to a future of hope as men and women. Husbands and wives. Fathers and mothers. Grandparents.
Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, tagged biology, Christianity, decadence, decency, evil, evolution, hope, morality, purity, society, wrestling on March 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Did I get carried away with too many blogs about girls and wrestling? Just when I was beginning to think so, I received a surprising e-mail from a man I’ve never met. This gentleman (I’ll call him Bill) has a PhD in biology. Apparently he pays close attention to any and all discussions of boys and girls on the mat. Somehow, he found ezerwoman.
It’s important that you hear from this gentleman, not only because he agrees that “equal” does not mean “the same,” or that he encourages me to continue mentoring Biblical manhood and womanhood, but because he proves that Christians help build bridges for the benefit of the human race when we ask questions that help people think. When we enter into dialogue on moral and ethical issues. When we appeal to what was once called “common sense.”
This gentleman wrote, “I am an arrant agnostic — a self-styled poet-philosopher-canary-priest-with my spiritual roots in nature. But I could not agree more vigorously with your objections to the decadence — as in Roman — of allowing (or more accurately) of forcing boys to wrestle girls. I have been following this issue for at least ten years.”
It was obvious that Bill had carefully studied the most physically intimate of all contact sports. He offered many sane and sensible reasons why boy/girl wrestling is a terrible idea. He is concerned that civilization is wounded by such foolishness. He wrote, “I believe in self-sacrifice for others, in kindness, in consideration for others before myself. I remember the mantra of our YMCA boys’ camp: God first, others second, me third. Today, as we watch boys and girls in violent combat on wrestling mats, that mantra seems to have become ‘Me first, me second, me first.'”
Then, he really caught my attention. “The values you mention in your blogs are simply ignored in our modern culture,” wrote Bill. “Even as an agnostic biologist, I think your Christian values are essential to any civilization that wants to live above the animal level of material-sensual gratification.”
I thanked Bill for taking the time to write me. He responded with a second e-mail, explaining that he had become a writer after leaving the scientific community. But, after some time passed, he wanted to get back in touch with biologists. For a few months, he subscribed to the blog of an evolutionist. Bill found the site “instructional in professional matters,” but disappointing in its Christian bashing. “Christianity was dismissed as sheer stupidity without any redeeming value.” Bill explained to me that he felt “uncomfortable in this steady current of arrogant meanness,” so he unsubscribed. He didn’t agree with such hatred being poured upon an institution (Christianity) “that embraced all of life, from birth to death, from reason to faith, from beauty and goodness to ugliness and evil.”
Then, wrote Bill, “this wrestling incident occurred, and because the young man cited his Christian faith, it catapulted the small, cloistered world of wrestling into the national spotlight and presented to view the grotesque, distorted values that have evolved there. It seems like a microcosm of society at large and the moral decadence we have enshrined as moral good. And against all this, the best aspects of Christianity began to emerge from the smoke — the dignity, the calm, the pure, measured decency of 2000 years of Christian ‘evolution’ (can’t help myself!). Anyhow, just wanted to express this to you.”
Thank you, Bill. You remind me that Christianity is needed in this hurting world as much today as yesterday. I’m so sorry that we Christians do such a poor job of following Jesus Christ and are more easily influenced by false teachings.
But, I am encouraged to stay the course by a secular biologist who sees that good and evil, right and wrong, morality and decadence really do exist. Each rises from a core belief. Each has a consequence.
Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Relationships, tagged creation, creator, evidence, evolution, Jesus Christ on December 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »
“In the beginning, was the Word.” In six days, the Word spoke the universe into being. Is there proof? Yes!
The Word came to dwell with His creation.
The God who spoke the universe into existence and, with His hands, created male and female at different times, in different ways and for different purposes — came to live among us.
The God who saw man and woman fall into sin came to be the Savior for all people. The Word spoke… and acted.
Jesus is the Word (John 1:1-5; 14). The Word is all that He says about Himself.
Jesus is God. “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
Jesus, the Creator of the world, did what we can not do for ourselves.
Jesus — the Word come to dwell among us — is the Witness and testimony of His own creative work.
He is God. Creator. Savior. Father, Son and Holy Spirit among us. Lord of all.
Or liar.
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | ||
Ezerwoman's Blog 
Where Government Replaces God Suicide Increases
Posted in Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Life issues, tagged abortion, despair, emptiness, evolution, Jesus Christ, promiscuity, repentance, sin on October 11, 2012| 3 Comments »
It would be easy, notes Farah, to blame the suicide epidemic on the economy. But, that’s not how he sees it. People may be struggling financially, but they’re not ending their lives because they lack food and shelter or toys and gadgets.
“I believe the trend reflects a deep and growing spiritual emptiness in a culture that is more depraved than ever before,” writes Farah. “Too many people just don’t find any meaning in life.”
We should all, as Farah advices, “think about it.” He continues:
Thank you, Joseph Farah. It is a privilege to reprint a portion of your column. May it be used to spark dialogue in families, neighborhoods, schools, places of business, law offices, and congregations.
Joseph Farah is a nationally syndicated columnist.
I excerpted from his commentary,
“What happens when government replaces God”
which appeared in October 1 edition of The Washington Times
Read Full Post »