Religious Education
My wife and I home school our children, and we do so openly teaching the Christian faith. Our children are receiving a religious education.
I too received a religious education. I was taught for 12 years that man is the measure of all things. I was subtly taught how to look at the world and history without ever thinking about God. I was taught that there was no such thing as an absolute truth.
My religious school was the Public School.
By God's grace and intervention I became a Christian. Thank you Lord!
posted by Dale Callahan at 12:53 PM
14 Comments:
Do your children a favor and send them to public school where they can get a religion-free education rather than an indoctrination. If God has pre-ordained them to be Christians, you don't need to go to all the trouble of homeschooling them. If not, it's a waste of time anyway.
You are mistaken on two fronts.
The one believing that humanism is not religious.
And two of not rightly understanding God's predestination.
You should read your opponents arguments a little more carefully.
God predestines the "end" [a man's salvation or damnation] and he predestines all the events in life leading up to the end.
If I want my children to be raised to interpret life with no thought at all of God then I should send them to Caesar to be trained.
But this would be sending them to the very gates of hell.
Humanism is NOT a religion. It has no creed, no diety, no worship services, no holy books - nothing. It also is much less prevalent than rabble-rousing preachers would like you to think.
If God predestines all the events of life, then what is the point of trying to influence someone else on the point of religion? God has already decided, right? It's not going to change because you get involved, so what's the point? Enlighten me.
If you can't keep your children in your religious tradition if they are exposed to countervailing facts and ideas, then maybe you need to examine your religion instead of calling the public schools the "very gates of hell".
What would they learn in school that would cause them to leave Christianity? Science? History? Math? Literature?
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"Humanism is NOT a religion"
Beg to differ. It has a lot to say about who is the center of the universe (call it god, call it man....)
"It has no creed".
Really? Because "It has no creed, no diety, no worship services, no holy books - nothing" sounds an awful lot like a creed. A poor one, but a creed still. The other side of humanisms creed might include what it DOES offer.
"If God predestines all the events of life, then what is the point of trying to influence someone else on the point of religion?"
If by God you mean some other God, then who knows. But if you mean the Christian God, well then things cohere. What is the point? Because He called us to, and He, being that kind of God, is to be humbly obeyed...what else can you do with a God like that? The Bible says His Church has precisely that place in creation now, to spread His word, to raise up children in the way they should go. So we do. Take it or leave it, it is how He has ordained it. Besides, if I try and influence you, well then that too was preordained wasn't it? Do we think that somehow we are going to escape God?
Psalm 139: Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night", even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day,for darkness is as light with you."
You simply won't find another creed higher than the authority of God that can tell you whether actions are good or evil, right or wrong, predestined or not. It starts and stops with this kind of God only.
As for keeping Christian children schooled in Christian education, it is precisely because Christian education makes sense of the secular world that we educate them this way. Without a Christian foundation one can not even see how humanism attempts to sweep aside the truth and substitue a lie. But teaching people to do what Christ commanded has rewards "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Knowing the truth, therefore, has conditions. We seek to fulfil those conditions. All else is bondage. Some are preordained to remain in bondage (reminder how Christ did not respond to Pilates question, "What is truth?")
What would they learn in (secular) school? That all those things you mention exist without God sustaining them, as if God's involvement is another theorem to be considered by the mind at the center of the universe, your own.
Consider math. In a godless universe of random chance particles in fluke motion, where do immaterial, immutable laws like "1+1=2" come from? How do they stay the same and not change with the randomness? What, in a humanistic world, accounts for such timeless, spaceless, changeless, immaterial law?
Barry,
I will try to hear you in spite of your much speaking. Humanism has nothing whatever to say about who is the center of the universe. The Council of Secular Humanism declares that "Secular humanism is not a dogma or a creed. There are wide differences of opinion among secular humanists on many issues. Nevertheless, there is a loose consensus with respect to several propositions. We are apprehensive that modern civilization is threatened by forces antithetical to reason, democracy, and freedom."
You say that "...Christian education makes sense of the secular world that we educate them this way. Without a Christian foundation one can not even see how humanism attempts to sweep aside the truth and substitue a lie." In fact, the opposite is true. A "Christian foundation" in the sense you mean, sweeps aside the truth of science and reason and substitutes a myth. What you really mean is that you fear that exposure to rationality and reason will lead your children to reject some of the mythology you have substituted for Jesus' teaching in forming your religious view.
You render your own argument precariously close to incomprehensibility only because you do not take your presuppositions seriously.
What humanism does to education is to make it subjective declaring basically that what it's net can't catch isn't fish. It says that whatever fact we know we know because we have defined it that way. A fish is not really a fish. It's only a fish because man has described and defined it thus. The problem with that is that if this "reasoning" follows its natural course philosophically (I hesitate to explain how so I might not blather too much, but will assume you see it?) it cannot account for any fish whatsoever. Man does not define what fish are by describing and defining fish. These things are not just "facts" as defined by humans. They are facts outside of humans. Much like "reason" and "rationality". Such things have already been defined by God and we, creatures in His image, are able to think analogously. That is, we think Gods thoughts after Him. That is what Newton declared when he discovered the gravitational constant and that this constant was the same throughout the universe, though he had not been much down the street never mind to Mars or Pluto. Truth is not created it is discovered and once we have the right presupposition we are truly free to explore reason and rationality without succumbing to futile "rationalism". Christians not only have nothing to fear by learing more about reasoning about the universe, or about any fact, rather we are granted that very privelage of exploring Gods universe and all the laws He wrote to govern it.
Anyone without such a presupposition is hard pressed to suggest any alternative and remain consistent.
Basically, you err in assuming that Christianity is another invention the way Plato invented the demiurge as a mythical cop out of his humanistic philosophy. In the end all humanistic approaches to reason or rationality must appeal to subjective sources of authority for its worldview. Plato simply failed to ground his philosophy, as humanism does, on a right presupposition.
Myth, false religion, and vain philosophy in the end succumb to the same thing; nothing, vanity, poof.
By the way, "The first Humanist Manifesto spoke openly of Humanism as a religion. Many other Humanists could be cited who have acknowledged that Humanism is a religion. In fact, claiming that Humanism was "the new religion" was trendy for at least 100 years, perhaps beginning in 1875 with the publication of The Religion of Humanity by Octavius Brooks Frothingham (1822-1895), son of the distinguished Unitarian clergyman, Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham (1793-1870), pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Boston, 1815-1850. In the 1950's, Humanists sought and obtained tax-exempt status as religious organizations. Even the Supreme Court of the United States spoke in 1961 of Secular Humanism as a religion. It was a struggle to get atheism accepted as a religion, but it happened. From 1962-1980 this was not a controversial issue." http://home.aol.com/Patriarchy/definitions/humanism_religion.htm
In a universe of random-chance matter in motion, how can a humanist account for the very laws of logic that define right reason? (if you try to answer, please avoid "because they're there")
(you're right...I am long winded. But I enjoy this stuff so....)
Barry DL can't seem to understand that God predestines the "means" as well as the "end".
If you live a life of unbelief and rebel against God then you shouldn't expect to get to heavens gates...have God look into the book and hear the words...oh look here is your name DL in the book of life.
If God has predestined you to salvation that he will also predestine you to finally drop your foolish unbelief, and all of your self deception, trust in Christ and follow Him.
But God's word says that predestination is a part of "the secret things" the revealed things are repent and believe in Christ.
Ah yes, the secret things only revealed to the believers. I believe that was the primary feature of the Gnostic heresy, was it not?
Fear of retribution after death is not a good reason to develop a spiritual life or embrace an ethical framework. What you seem to be doing is placing your belief in the inerrancy of the entire Bible above the teaching of Jesus himself. You're confusing the God concept of the ancient Hebrews with that of Jesus. They are not the same - theological contortions notwithstanding.
You need to read some mainstream New Testament scholarship and learn more about the development of the gospels and the communities that produced them. You might learn something.
No, DL, "the secret things" are things that nobody of a finite mind knows. It is reasonable, though on your presuppositions not believable, that an infinite God may think things not known by finite minds. Like why I am saved. Scripture says Gods choice was for reasons of His own, but that it is sufficient to know that I was for eternity past a chosen vessel of honour, and not a vessel made for destruction (Ephesians 2).
"Fear of retribution after death is not a good reason to develop a spiritual life or embrace an ethical framework." Drop by for breakfast and exercise your free will in an offering of either cheerios and milk, or live scorpions and milk. One is healthy, one kills. Not hard to suggest that it is the fear of death, of pain, that motivates your choice. If embracing an ethical framework were the right choice, that too is what we would do. God, however, is not an ethical framework nor is spiritual life developed. Jesus said no man can (ie regarding possibility, not permission) come to him except the Father draw him. You do not embrace or create any spiritual life, true spiritual life is granted to you. That is what Dale is saying when he says both the means and the end are predestined.
Jesus, being a Hebrew, had the same concept of God that His ancient prophets had, noting that Abraham was glad to see His (Christs) day. Jesus life and death and resurrection were the fulfilment of Old Testament law, not the annihilation of it.
Only your position on Christ, ("Who do you say that I am?") counts in the final judgement.
Barry,
Certainly any reasonable concept of God would have to surmise that God is smarter than we are. What is at question is whether the conception of God you have is reasonable or not. You use an interpretation of biblical passages to support your concept, but one can just as easily find other passages to support different concepts. They prove little.
The choice of a religion or to be religious or not is not a choice between cheerios and scorpions. You say that God is not an ethical framework or the development of a spirituality. Fine, then what you're really saying is that one has to accept your concept of God which rests on salvation from hell - it's a circular argument.
The idea that Jesus' life, death and resurrection were the fulfillment of OT law was a concept that developed after Jesus' death among those groups that were trying to convert the Jewish community. The idea of a final judgment brings us right back to the fear of hell argument again.
What we have here is a God that one is scared into believing in. Hardly the God that Jesus spent most of his time talking about.
" You use an interpretation of biblical passages to support your concept, but one can just as easily find other passages to support different concepts."
Given that the Bible is the only authority on revealing God, it could not have such contradictions or it simply could not be the Bible we speak of and therefore God not the God we speak of. But since I am not speaking of other gods, but this God only, then I can know the Bible contains no contradictions. We can reasonably show it, if you care to quote any contradictions. Not that reasonableness makes it believable, but it spares it from the kind of irrationality you impose.
"They prove little." They prove everything that is. Even your doubt. The Bible does cohere and thus proves the very kind of God I am talking about. Not a God whose words self-contradict.
"what you're really saying is that one has to accept your concept of God which rests on salvation from hell - it's a circular argument.
"
No, you do not have to accept this concept of God. It says it is impossible for you to accept this concept of God in your thinking. Impossible. Camels will walk through the eyes of needles before you do. Unless you are chosen by him and drawn.
While it may be unacceptable to you, it is not circular. It does not say "God saves because God saves." The Bible says that there is ultimate and perfect (holy) justice only in this kind of God which must mean we may not approach him. The Bible says we may not approach Him. In our rebellion, we take the scorpion and die. That is not an unreasonable dogma given the Christian doctrine of God, the holy, wise, almighty, all knowing all present Trinity.
Otherwise, please illustrate for me circularity in Christian soteriology (doctrine of salvation). You saying it is circular does not make it so.
"The idea that Jesus' life, death and resurrection were the fulfillment of OT law was a concept that developed after Jesus' death among those groups that were trying to convert the Jewish community. "
Jesus said "Abraham was glad to see my day." It was Jesus who taught that he was the fulfillment. "I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it." I spend a little time on this on my blog with "Atom Bombs and the Law of God at www.tulipman.blogspot.com if you're interested.
And it was Jesus who was trying to convert the Jewish community:
37"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! 38See, your house is left to you desolate. 39For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"
"What we have here is a God that one is scared into believing in."
Scared to believe in? You have no idea the depth of your own fear of this God:
Isaiah 33:14
The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
"Hardly the God that Jesus spent most of his time talking about. "
Luke 12:5, the words of Jesus:
But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
A trembling fear becomes a respectful fear at conversion. The Psalms and Proverbs are full of a right kind of fear of God, meaning a respect and awe.
This is no god of man's creation, no self-help deity "out there" who pops in and out of our secular life to be summoned by our own autonomous demands.
With this kind of God it is clear that he does not need us whatsoever but we desperately need Him. Yes, even in our school curriculum.
Barry,
Take a look at your logic:
"Given that the Bible is the only authority on revealing God, it could not have such contradictions or it simply could not be the Bible we speak of and therefore God not the God we speak of. But since I am not speaking of other gods, but this God only, then I can know the Bible contains no contradictions."
You start by stating a presupposition that has no possible rational basis. God is certainly capable of self-relevation through other means than a book compiled by bishops hell-bent on retaining their power base and favor with the Roman Empire.
Then you state that if the Bible were the only authority, it could contain no contradictions. That's certainly dubious since the books were created over a period of over a thousand years by a variety of authors and translated by amateurs and copied thousands of times by hand. A few errors here and there would not alter the authoritativeness of other parts of the book.
You then state that if there were contradictions, it would not be the Bible you speak of or the God you speak of. Exactly. It has contradictions and errors and therefore is not the Bible you speak of and your interpretation of it leads you to a concept of God that is also convoluted and erroneous.
Start by making no presuppositions and examining the evidence. You might reach different conclusions.
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