Pictures of Christians dancing wildly while holding a rattlesnake in the hills of West Virginia make a bold statement. Muslims chanting loudly while beating themselves across the back with various instruments sends another clear message. For every person the pictures create a consciousness that says many things. The two scenarios that I described send this message to me.
We can be emotionally aroused by FALSE IDEAS!
Spinoza wrote, “To know anything, the mind of man must KNOW God, because man’s mind, being a fragment of the Mind of God, to know one’s own mind is to know God, or that portion of him.” When I look around the religious landscape of Christianity in particular, there’s no wonder that the world is in such a mess. It was when the church closed the Platonic Academies, shed philosophy and rational thinking, that we began the fall into what’s historically called the Dark Ages.
Why is that so hard to see?
Why can’t we see that religion and spirit can’t be separated from sound thinking- rational behavior?Is it any wonder that Voltaire wrote, “Men will continue atrocities as long as they continue to believe absurdities”. Hello, is anyone thinking? As long as the Christian church continues to believe the world is only 6,000 years old, that Adam and Eve is a literal story, that the Bible is inerrant, and that Christianity is the only true religion in the world, atrocities will continue.
And, they have and are!
Besides, the “Christianity” that is being practiced today (violence and killing) is not the same as the Kingdom of God that Jesus taught. Alvin Boyd Kuhn put it this way, “A vast gulf has been created between the heights of philosophical rationalism and unintelligent religionism”. I would offer that the only solution is for Christian to lay down their doctrinal pride and pick up the practice of UNCONDITIONAL LOVE of the Creator of the universe.
Let’s embrace the “Kingdom of God”, regardless of which religious title you embrace.
“It was when the church closed the Platonic Academies, shed philosophy and rational thinking, that we began the fall into what’s historically called the Dark Ages.”
Why is the above fact so hard for us to realize. It still applies today and their is little to prevent another “dark age” from taking place once again.
Don: I would assume it’s because we’re still lving in EGYPT along side DE-NIAL!
When I was in a Baptist Christian high school, (if I may piggy-back on Don) I distinctly remember touching on the Dark Ages and Renaissance. But all I recall is the fact that when we covered the material on those periods, we REAALLLLY glossed over the actual CAUSE of the Dark Ages…the oppressive church of the day! I was shocked to learn later on in college what was actually going on in those days. I was bummed out, and then realized several other things that the church has done in the past (heck, and still in the present) that were all done in the name of Christ. Sad stuff. When I got into discussions about those facts with folks at church it was all disregarded. “Well, those atrocities were committed by the CATHOLIC church, not us.” Oh well then, all was good…at least I thought so at the time.
I watched a BBC documentary yesterday on the Westboro Baptiast Church in Kansas with Pastor Phelps, the church that pickets gays, military funerals, Jews and Muslims, etc. Wow, I’ve never seen so much hate in my lifetime…all in the name of God! Ouch! Choose love, people!
Jared: And unfortunately he’s from my home town in Topeka. Until Christians begin to “own up” to the reality that God is bigger than any ONE religion (in our case Christianity), we’ll continue to be divisive and reaffirm to those watching why they want nothing to do with our religion.