Re: [asa] Theological Naturalism - 'The Nature of God' = Naturalism

At 08:16 AM 7/24/2007, Iain Strachan wrote:

>On 7/24/07, Michael Roberts
><<mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
>wrote:
>I totally agree with George here. Brief and to the point. Perhaps
>Gregory's test is the noise people make rather than what they say.
>
>Both ID and YEC make me ashamed to be a Christian.
>Don't you think "embarrassed" would be a more appropriate word than
>"ashamed"? Yes, it was surely embarrassing, when I found my atheist
>colleagues had stumbled upon the Kangaroo article in "Conservapedia"
>and laughing heartily at the statement that the kangaroo's legs were
>"designed by God for leaping". But that very incident led me to a
>position where I could talk about my faith with one of them - by
>saying that it was all highly embarrassing that fundamentalists come
>out with this kind of talk, but not everyone took it that literally.
>
>If I'd been "ashamed", I guess I'd have just curled up in a corner
>and not said anything. Isn't the nature of the Gospel that our
>shame has been taken away by Christ's sacrifice?
>
>Iain

@ If God has chosen the foolish of the world specifically in order
to confound those who think they are wise, it would appear that he
isn't ashamed OR embarrassed of any of his redeemed. He's never
been ashamed or embarrassed by elitist Pharisees who misrepresent
Wisdom, either. He knows it's a given that they will misrepresent
Him, and illustrates many of the ways they do it.

For instance, the individual in the story of "The Good
Samaritan" used his own time and his own hard-earned resources to
give effective short-term help to an individual God brought into his path.

In contrast, the group who made a wide berth around that unworthy,
embarrassing individual - (that God brought into their path first -
before TGS came along) - was used by Wisdom to illustrate the
difference between those whose ways He justifies and those whose ways
He condemns.

The stark difference between the emotional and spiritual maturity
of the individual known as The Good Samaritan and that of the group
of religious legalists known as The Pharisees is still evident today,
proving that we will always have such morally stunted cases of
arrested development in the church.

When today's do-gooder Pharisaical groups decide to assuage their
collective conscience, and show the world that "they care", they will
go out looking to see if they can find any victims (preferrably
-"victim groups") that they deem worthy of being helped.

When they find them, they confiscate -- through the strong-arm
secular government they've done their best to set in place for that
very purpose - the hard-earned resources of others -- (the "selfish"
who have too much, don'tchaknow) and use that to provide
ineffective, long-term "help from a distance" for victim groups.

God (and others with discernment) notices that these victim groups
are deemed by elites to be too [fill in the blank] to make it
through life without elite groups to take care of them, but they
aren't so stupid as not to know how to vote in order to stay on the
life-time gravy train.

Many of God's elect live their whole lives according to the example
of "TGS" yet are "dopy YECs" because unlike Satan, they don't know
exactly how to interpret Genesis 1 and 2.

That tells me that it is more important to Wisdom that his elect have
the proper interpretation of the Scriptures regarding The Good
Samaritan, than the proper interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2.

~ Janice .. offering a critique of "Post Normal Science":
http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/search?q=Let+There+be+Verticality%21+%28Or%2C+How+High+Does+Your+Lo+Go%3F%29+

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Tue Jul 24 11:04:25 2007