I am often annoyed when people complain that Christians are always “pushing” their beliefs on people, when they are so obliviously doing the same thing. It is probably because religious people in general like to think in categories and why organizing ones doctrine into a systematic theology for Christians is so appealing.
This is a little outline of atheist / secular materialist thought, showing it for what it really is - a religion with its own doctrines. Just because you don’t believe in God and don’t go to church does not mean you are not religious (see for a good outline of court cases endorsing atheism and secular humanism as religions see here at http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/07/for_first_amend1087481.html).
- Theology Proper: Study of God
- Existence of God
- Atheism - There is no God
- Agnosticism - God cannot be known ie Effectually no God
- Man as God
- Scientism as the ultimate arbiter of truth
- Creation
- Evolution
- Cosmologic, chemical, and biological
- Materialism - Only the physical world exists
- Morality
- Relativism
- Autonomy as the highest form of morality
- Anthropology: Study of Man
- Man as a created process from evolution
- Distinctions between human life, beings,and persons
- Implication on abortion and euthansia
- Sexual norms - LGBT Normalization
- Unique definition of marriage to include homosexual unions
- Separation of gender and (genetic) sex
- Eschatology: Study of Last Things
- Green revolution
- Global warming
- Earth will ultimately be destroyed with the destruction of the sun
- Soteriology: Study of Salvation
- In education
- In the expression and allowance of individual freedom
- Ecclesiology: Study of the Church
- Anti-organized religion
- Separation of church and state
- Interpreted to mean no influence of church on state
4 comments:
This is John Park, right. I was reading an article of yours https://carm.org/early-church-and-faith-alone. And when I clicked on the references most of them were out of date (I realize the internet is maybe not as stable as people believe it might be). Anyways I am a Catholic and have be looking at the various arguments in Christianity (a friend of mine seems to hate the Catholic church), but I keep seeing Catholicism as the most logical (on the eucharist, faith alone, baptism, holy orders, etc). So I decided to go back to the church fathers and read their statements directly, but I wanted to do it from non-Catholic sources (to try to look at it as objectively as possible). Anyways I am looking through http://www.biblestudytools.com/history/early-church-fathers/ right now (I don't think it is a Catholic source), but if you have any other interesting sources or sites, I would love to know. Another interesting thing I have noted is most Catholic apologetic's speakers seems to read the bible as if they were a Jew of the first century (and it seems this is a large disconnect between Catholic interpretation and Protestant interpretation). How do you see understanding Christianity through Judaism (or have you seen that before?)?
PokeTeeHee,
This is a real busy time in my life right now and your questions deserve more time than I can give. Here are two good website that may answer some of your questions. These actual point out the differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestansim, more than early church father references. The early church stuff is more on the christian truth website (see their early church fathers and sola scriptura material)
http://www.christiantruth.com/articles_roman_catholicism.php
http://thecripplegate.com/the-gospel-according-to-the-church-fathers/
http://vintage.aomin.org/Roman.html
I gave you 3 good websites not 2 - Bonus!
Thank you very much for the response (I was uncertain as to whether or not you were still keeping up with the blog). I have yet to look through the websites you have provided, but hopefully they will help me understand more fully the crux of this division ( from strong proofs, as opposed to the final statements like, faith/alone or +works) between our viewpoints and the validity of the Protestant view point. I may come back to your blog and post here again, but hopefully it will be after a week or two of reading. If you can give insight to my statements or questions that would be greatly appreciated. And hopefully I will not burden you too much.
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