This type of language is very typical around evangelical circles and something that irritates me to no end. Which is not to say that necessarily disagree with the underlying point, but it is stated in such a way as to be divisive and sound arrogant.

The idea here is that false belief (obviously, this "false belief" is in relation to what the Christian believes to be true) is ultimately caused by a heart not being correctly aligned with God. If all were perfectly and correctly aligned with God no one would be deceived- we would all agree on the truth. It is our continual seeking after self rather than God which causes false belief. The (I believe) correct notion is that a sinful heart will continue to seek untruth as a means of not dealing with the truth that convicts us of our sin.

Now having said all of that, as much as I agree with the principal, I think it is judgmental to attribute this cycle of untruth to someone specifically or to a group of people over a given issue. The thing is, while everyone (believer and non-believer) struggles with this, from the outside you do not know what is going on in someone's heart- if the motive is "truth avoidance", it is probably buried deep and talking about it will simply make you sound ignorant and judgmental. And worst case, YOU yourself are the one avoiding the truth and the other person is actually correct- you can't see it because you are too busy focusing on yourself and your own self-important ideas.

Basically, I don't like it when people judge motives (and plenty of non-Christians are quick to judge the motives of Christians just as easily and offensively)- in most cases you do NOT know what drives another person to take action. It's one thing to look at someone's action and be able to say if it is harmful, but quite another to judge the reasoning behind it. We are ALL laboring under a cloud of ignorance in some way or another, and grace recognizes that if you are in ignorance at this moment, I might be in the next. Better to discuss issues on a sure footing of what has been said and done rather than on a speculation of motives.

Currently thinking about this on-line public school

http://www.connectionsacademy.com/indiana-school/our-school/home.aspx

Opinions

I understand what you're saying, and it makes sense from your point of view, but the fact of the matter is that I never think about God or religion at all, except in the face of external influence.

Okay, I clearly don't understand the concept of "public schools" as they seem to exist in Indiana.

Seeing that this “Outsourced Public School Service Provider” no doubt wants a bigger slice of the public school budget perhaps they would do a good job. At least they have a direct motivation and are expanding.

Hopefully the teachers speak good English

Some are pissed off and are throwing hissy fits……

http://www.theindychannel.com/education/27874079/detail.html

Sure- I think the broader principal outside of religion and God is that I don't like it when people try to expose the "hidden" motives of others. Motives are complex and subtle things, often not understood by the person taking the actions in the first place.

I'm fine at "I don't think about God or religion", full stop. Trying to explain to you WHY you are that way seems futile at best and arrogant at worst.

I feel this way about politics as well- who knows what is really going on inside the individual attempting to garner our support? But we can look at the results of their actions and judge whether or not they are doing things we can get behind.

I am 100% with you on this:-)

As a first approximation, it's "What actions do I need to take to get re-elected."

tanstaafl.

I'm going to have to throw my support behind Jeff here. I'm hitting this thread very late, or I would have chimed in far earlier. Thus far, everything Jeff has put forth as the tenets of Christian faith are spot on.

I have to admit that I used to believe in theistic evolution, but the more I read and studied the more convinced I became that there was an intelligent creator that very specifically designed our world and all its inhabitants. The universe we inhabit is simply too beautifully perfect to have happened by nothing more than random chance. The most basic of cells are still mind-bogglingly complex. I feel that it takes more faith to believe that all this around us just random bits of matter bouncing around randomly in a void making pretty patterns.

Here's the thing. I have yet to be convinced evolutions is actually happening. Adaptation, sure. What I am not seeing in the fossil record is any merging of different species. Only whole, distinct species. My understanding of evolution is that there are extremely small changes that slowly diverge into distinct species or fork and one group changes and one stays the same. I don't see any evidence of this.

That's a main factor indicating the opposite in my mind. It's too perfect to have been created by a singular entity.



You have to take it on faith absent the physical proof.

Ahem.... Cute.

The voucher battle is heating up here in Pennsylvania as well, with big money rolling in from the same backers who are pushing it in Indiana.

Perfect? I look around, and see all kinds of "design" choices that are asinine. For example, why does the food path share any part of the breathing path, when breathing is such a critical function that interruption for an extended period is certain death?

I agree the universe and contents are incredibly beautiful, but perfect, they are not.

That's because it didn't.

There is nothing random about evolution. Each incremental modification is the result of dozens, hundreds, thousands of changes that failed to provide a survival advantage, or more likely proved to be counter-survival, and went nowhere. A tiny percentage did prove advantageous, and these are the changes that drive evolution. It is NOT random, it is virtually inevitable.

tanstaafl.

Evolution can't explain everything. What about the chances that earth is in the Goldilocks Zone? We didn't even discover an exoplanet that may be in a Goldilocks Zone until Sept 2010. Or that our Sun isn't a Red Giant or White Dwarf? All kinds of little things need to be perfect to even get to the point where evolution has a chance.

Well given that we've only recently had the technology and technique to even look for planets in the Goldilocks Zone, that is hardly surprising. And we have only surveyed a tiny, tiny portion of the sky for them so far.

All the little things can end up being "perfect" as there are an unimaginably large number of stars in the universe and billions of years to wait for the right combination.

Darwin's theory of evolution doesn't attempt to. All it is is an explanation of the origin of species.

On that particular subject, though: the universe is big and has been around for a while. Even infinitesimally unlikely events are going to happen given those assumptions.

Broad arguments that the universe had an Intelligent Designer, which is what some appear to be arguing recently in this thread, do not contradict evolution, as theistic evolution certainly falls under the broad definition of Intelligent Design. It is only when you get to Biblical Creationism that you run into issues with the creation of man through evolution. While I believe the notion that observation of the world around us leads to the conclusion that there certainly was an Intelligent Designer, I do not believe those arguments say anything about evolution. The claim of ID is actually quite moderate- only that to get the Universe we have we must have had an Intelligent Designer (it doesn't even claim anything about the morality of said designer, much less that He is the God of the Bible). Now if the argument is for Biblical Creationism then I'm all on board with denying evolution as a mechanism for creating man; however, proving ID does not mean you've proven Biblical Creationism. Christians and other ID proponents need to be careful about this because supporting pure ID as an alternative to evolution lacks credibility- it is one thing to argue what we can tell about our Creator through scientific observation; it is another to try and use those observations to get Creationsm in through the back door.

To say it differently, I do not need science to tell me Biblical Creationim is true, nor do think that is really within the scope of what scientific observation can illuminate for us. ID is neat as far as it goes, but it does not make big claims and what it does claim is clear enough to all believers anyway. What it proves to an unbeliever is of small value in my mind, as you still have a long way to go to get from 'There is an Intelligent Designer' to 'Jesus Christ is the solution to my sin problem'. I agree that it might serve as a nice first step toward arguing for faith, but if we use it to try and backdoor Biblical Creationism into science class, we have overreached its claims and likely destroyed any value it may have in our evangelistic efforts.