My final's essay

“Everything Old is New Again.”
By: Carpenter

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, ‘Look! This is something new’? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.” -Ecclesiastes 1: 9-10


King Solomon knew that "everything old is new again." There are no new thoughts; no new worldviews (Christianity grew from Genesis when God promised a Messiah). So, if these worldviews have been around forever, what’s a world view and where can I get one? A brief explanation would see a worldview as a comprehensive sense of personal relationship to the world surrounding us. It allows a person to understand how the world functions and how it is structured. "World" here means the totality, everything that exists around us, including the physical universe, the earth, life, mind, society and culture. Every person is an important part of that world. Therefore, a world view should include the basic question: "Who are we?" It is the bias through which we see and judge everything around us. Like a pair of colour-tinted sunglasses can let you see the whole world in a different colour, a world view let’s you view the whole world in a different way. Because of one's worldview, one sees life's elements differently. For example, if one views human life as nothing but "matter" then there is nothing wrong with destroying that bunch on non-descript cells via abortion. If one views the jihad of Islam as fighting against anything contrary to the Muslim thinking, then it can justify any violence or war against infidels. To understand the many conflicting cultures, societies and worldviews on this great planet of ours, we must examine each of the major worldviews and their thinking through the different tenets of theology, ethics, philosophy, and biology.


CHRISTIAN worldviews originated from the beginning of time when God created the world and man therein. It became more specific after the death and resurrection of Christ 2,000 years ago. And the Christian worldview has been evident all through the history of Western civilization. It has been advanced by people throughout history; from Thomas Aquinas to Galileo; from the Pilgrims to Sir Isaac Newton; to most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence; and all the way up to former President George W. Bush. The Christian World view affirms theism, the belief in the existence of a supernatural God.


The foundational beliefs, or theology, can all be found in the bible. When one accept Scripture as the Word of God, the teachings and events described in the Bible become the most important basis for understanding all reality.
“For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20)


Christians believe that Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6) But more than this, Christians believe that God exists (Heb. 11:6), God created everything that exists (Gen.1:1), He is the standard by which we measure everything else, everything is held together by Him (Col. 1:17), the Bible is God's divinely inspired Word, revealed to mankind (2 Tim. 3:16). Christians believe that mankind chose to rebel against God in the Garden of Eden and because of that act of rebellion, sin and death entered the world (Rom. 5:12-14), we believe that the fullness of God came to earth and lived in the human body of Jesus Christ of Nazareth 2,000 years ago (Col. 1:19), and we believe that believing in (John 3:15-19, 5:24), and obeying (Luke 8:21, John 3:20, John 14:21, 23-24), Jesus Christ is the only way to have eternal life or to be reunited with God (Acts 4:10-12). Because God created all of mankind, it is the most inclusive worldview – No one is excluded because all people are equal before God and all have the ability to come into the family of God through faith in Jesus. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” yet all can be redeemed. A person’s personal relationship and belief through salvation in Jesus Christ and belief in the existence of a creator affects their view of every thing in the world from biology to psychology.


Philosophy takes a natural flow from theology “Faith correctly viewed is that illumination by which true rationality begins” –W. J. Neidhardt The Christian philosophy may be the most rational of all worldviews and may require less “faith” than any other worldview. For the Christian, philosophy and science need not be the enemy. Those who view the world from a Christian perspective founded modern science. For the Christian, the mind existed before matter and brought matter into existence. Christianity views the mind dualistically—as both physical (the brain) and spiritual (the soul). Everything in a Christian philosophy worldview always points to the existence of God and his inner action with us whether it’s through Science or through the mind and that all Christian philosophy is consistent with the Bible. Christian philosophy always points to a meaningful, purposeful, God given life.


The task of Christian ethics is to determine what conforms to God’s character and what does not. We as Christians know that God’s ethical order is the only true source of morality. C.S. Lewis said, “The human mind has no more power of inventing a new value than of imagining a new primary colour, or, indeed of creating a new sun and a new sky for it to move in.” Christian ethics in one sense is simply an expansion of a moral order that is generally revealed to everyone. If we wish to please God and prevent sin from separating us from Him, we must act in accordance with His moral order. Christians are assured of this truth about God’s nature and judgment as a result of special revelation. Christians are called to follow the Ten Commandments as well as other commands in the Bible given to us. Commands such as “love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27) implies that Christians have responsibilities. The highest good that there is, is the glory of God. And to please God, we must follow his ethical code.


The study of biology was generally thought of in terms of God's creation. But, since the onslaught on Darwinist thinking arrived on the scene in the late 1800s, Christians have been conflicted between their religious belief with the origins of man and the Darwinist view. The Christian knows how life was started and is stated in its most simplicity in Genesis. “In the beginning God. . . ” (Gen. 1:1) – meaning that in the beginning, before anything else God was. The Christians believe that everything started with God, and that He created the land the sea, the waters, the birds the animals, and finally man. "God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a human being." (Genesis 2:7) It is important to know that man is the only living thing with a spirit and a conscience. Of God’s creation, Christians can distinguish between the two aspects of evolutionary theory; microevolution, and macroevolution. Microevolution being the small changes that occur within any species. “No science is ever frightening to Christians. Religious people don’t need science to come out any particular way on IQ, or AIDS or sex differences, anymore than they need science to come out any particular way on evolution. If evolution is true, then God created evolution.” – Ann Coulter. The Christian view of biology answers the questions of purpose, intentionality, and why. While it seems that science and Christian faith are always at war, in the end one will ultimately win.... and it will be God.


ISLAM presents a different worldview even though some of the history is similar to Christianity. Christians and Muslims believe that God exists, that he revealed His will through prophets and that all humans are accountable to Him. But the similarities largely cease here. One major difference is that the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ lived a sinless life and the founder of Islam, Muhammad, had many sins and flaws. Muhammad was born around 570 A.D. He believes that the angel Gabriel came to him in 610 A.D. He thinks he was the chosen bearer of the divine message and began proclaiming the oneness of God. His new religion, Islam, means “Submission to God”. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the last prophet of God. Islam follows the guidelines written in the Qur’an and the Hadith. The Hadith record the teachings, rulings and actions of Muhammad as recounted by his early associates. The Qur’an, according the Muslims is the Holy book of God, or Allah . There are six pillars of Islam that they are to follow in order to escape judgment. Some add a 6th pillar, that of Jihad, which has two facets. The first one is the battle against temptation and sin for the sake of self-control, and the second is the battle against any and all who oppose Islam. Approximately a 5th of the world’s population is now Muslim, roughly a billion people.


The are central beliefs in the theology of Islam are Unitarian Theism – The belief in one God in one person Capping off the central beliefs of Islam is the Day of Judgment, a day when every human being will face a weighing of deeds, both good and evil. Only if the weight of one’s good deeds surpasses that of one’s bad deeds can each person hope to enter into paradise rather than descending into Hell. Monotheism is the belief in one God and the belief that Muslims embrace. Though God has ninety-nine names in the Qur’an, every Muslim affirms monotheism. It is encased in their fundamental creed. “There is no God but God (Allah) and Muhammad is his prophet.” Muslims believe that theirs is the original faith, the faith of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, John the Baptist, and Jesus. They’ve distorted that Jesus is the Son of God, because they can’t believe that God would have let his son die in such a horrible way. He is simply a prophet. Muslims deny the Trinity, viewing it as one of the greatest of sins. They also believe that Christians have distorted and denied that original faith, especially in revelation to the doctrine of the Trinity. The Qur’an denounces the Trinity in no uncertain terms. Muslims also deny that Jesus was crucified Only Muslims are accepted by God. “If anyone desires other than Islam, never will it be accepted of him; and in the hearafter he will be in the ranks of those who have lost.”


In Islam's philosophy,: Muhammad taught that three things can continue to help a person even after death: charity, to which he is given; knowledge, to which he has taught; and prayer, on their behalf by a righteous person. Islam permits fighting, in self-defense, or in defense of its religion. Muhammad impressed his followers with a profound belief in the values of blood shed as opening the gates of Paradise.


The Muslims worldview affirms Ethical absolutes. Muslims derive their ethical behaviors from the Qur’an and the Hadith. These contains commands and laws that Muslims must obey and “the exemplary human chrematistics” which Muslims must imitate in all respects. Muslims see the Prophet Muhammad as an exemplary human being whom all people should seek to imitate. The foundation of Islamic ethics are the five pillars of practice. Muslims are motivated to practice ethical behavior because of their anticipation of the final judgment.
Islam sets down clear guidelines as to when war is ethically right, and clear guidelines as to how such a war should be conducted. In brief, war is permitted: in self-defense; when other nations have attacked an Islamic state; or if another state is oppressing its own Muslims. Also, the 6th Pillar of Islam which states that the Muslims should battle any and all who oppose Islam also adds to the guideline for war, and can be considered a “defensive move” becausee the Muslims are defending Islam. In the year 2004, Theodore Van gogh, a European filmmaker, made a documentary on the shameful abuse of Muslim women by Muslim men in Europe. He was murdered in broad daylight by a Moroccan Muslim man bent on Jihad. Van gogh had taken his freedom of expression for granted but, the Muslims, felt this was an assault on Islam and so felt justified to kill him.


In biology, Muslims believe that God created the universe and that God is above and beyond his creation. “The basic Islamic concept is that the entire universe is created by God… He is the Lord of the Universe which he alone sustains.” – Khurshid Ahmad God has always existed and he set everything in order. According to the Qur’an, God created the universe in either six days or eight days. Islam denies the significance of the fall of Adam and they reject the view that God “cursed” the ground after the fall. Throughout history Muslims have not made any significant advances in the area of modern science. Most scientific advances have come from countries, which traditionally hold a biblical Christian view. The majority of Muslims reject evolutionary theories on both religious and scientific grounds. Those who have adopted the evolutionary theory have done so by the influence of those in the west.


SECULAR HUMANISM honors the tradition of atheism. They also reject supernaturalism, and seek man’s fulfillment in the here and now of this world. Secular humanism, according to Dr. James Dobson has now become the prominent way of thinking in most of the power centers of society. It has invaded every aspect of not only the institutions in the US but has spread to most western countries as well. For over a century, Secular Humanists have been replacing Christian moral values with their own atheistic ideas – focusing on human development in social progress. Sadly, they have “methodically” run over Christianity in the past couple of generations, in every aspect of life. :


The theology of the Humanist is unshakeable in its dogmatic belief that the supernatural – including God, Satan, angels, demons and souls – does not exist. ‘Humanism is the belief that humanity is the highest of all beings and truth and knowledge rest in science and human reason. “Humanisms…. considers all forms of the supernatural as myth” –Lamont and “Humanism in its most accurate philosophical sense, implies a worldview in which nature is everything, in which there is no supernatural.” The bottom line on Humanism is that "faith" is placed on humans and their abilities instead of God and his. Remember that when he was still in the heavens, Satan declared he could live without God. And, for that he was thrown out of heaven by God. Luke 10:18, "Jesus said, 'I beheld Satan fall like lightning from heaven." A person's fate will be the same with the Secular Humanist belief system.


Humanist Manifesto lays out the Secular humanists views – the central themes is the elaboration of a philosophy and value system which does not include the belief in God. – Ultimately it is of little importance whether the denouncing God or the deification of man is a humanist's theological. The foundation of their theology still remains anti-God. Unfortunately for the Humanist, this theology often strips him of all sense of purpose in life. One of the leading past proponents of the humanist worldview was John Dewey. Dewey was an educator and spent much of his time indoctrinating children through the public school system. He did this by discrediting biblical Christianity and replacing it with secular humanist ideas. For Dewey, “Science and the scientific method have exiled God and the supernatural to the dust-bins of history.” Many children of the 1950s until present times have been forced to endure this brainwashing.. Secular Humanism has spent so much value and work denying God that is has become a religion of it’s own.


Philosophy: of the Secular Humanists is based on their philosophy on science, specifically naturalism. Naturalism is the belief that reality is composed solely of matter and that all phenomena can be explained by natural causes. Science is a way thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Secular humanist have no need for a God in order to explain the Cosmos. They believe that the physical universe came into being by accident and that’s all that exists. They believe that matter spontaneously generated life, and ultimately the human mind through evolution. They believe that the physical universe is all that exists and Science is our only source of knowledge. Carl Sagan even says that “Science has it’s self, become a kind of religion.” According to Secular humanists, there’s no distinction between the physical body and human conscience ness. Therefore there is a denial of life after death.


Some would argue that ethics in Secular Humanism should be “interpreted as a moral point of view”. Paul Kurtz argues that Secular Humanists have no specific foundation for ethical principles. However, they believe in a limited number of basic values and principles. (So as not to go against the desires of anyone . . . In short, it’s all about them). There is a lack of consensus about the foundation of ethics which is problematic for the whole concept of Humanist ethics.
Lamont says that as long as we pursue “activities that are healthy, socially useful, and in accordance with reason, pleasure will generally accompany us; and happiness, the supreme good, will be the eventful result.”


Humanists desire is to wed ethics to biology – this view allows Darwin’s concept of the struggle for existence to become the absolute on which all moral decisions are based. “The only religious belief driving opinions of evolution is atheism. God can do anything, including evolution, but the value of Darwinism for atheist is that it is the only way that they can explain why we are here (It’s an accident). If evolution doesn’t work out for them, they’ll have to expand on theories about extraterrestrials or comets, bringing life to earth.” – Ann Coulter; Godless: The Church of Liberalism.


Their foundation is based solely on Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and is crucial to the humanists world view. They believe that man is a part of nature and man emerged by continuously evolving. According to humanists, then, we have not finished evolving and must be in a state of lower life form. Secular humanists believe that evolution is a fact, not a theory, although they can’t base this on the scientific method because it’s still a theory. They believe whole-heartedly in Darwin’s conclusions in microevolution and macroevolution. Secular humanists embrace the mechanism proposed by Darwin of natural selection. Which states that, through competition, only those life forms best suited to survive can live and reproduce. This is also known as "survival of the fittest". In conjunction with natural selection is the idea of eugenics. Eugenics began in the mid 1800s by sir Francis Galton – cousin of Charles Darwin – who theorized that if talented people only married other talented people. They would produce measurably better offspring. As his ideas were imported into the United States, it took on a more sinister theory. Eugenics was determined to wipe away all human beings deemed “unfit”. This began a national policy of force sterilization, segregation laws, and restricted ‘marriage between races’ law. “Elitist and utopians fused their race fears and class biased with their desire to make a better world.” -- The horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics. Their intent was to populate the earth with their own superior kind and less of everyone else. They alone were fit to in inherit the earth. Hitler took this concept of eugenics and applied it to his Nazi regime. Secular humanists rely on evolution much more than a theory on the Origins of Life. They believe evolution to be the foundation of every individual’s worldview.


MARXIST-LENINISTS take the rejection of God even further and adamantly declare – "God, whether known as a Supreme Being, Creator, or Divine Ruler, does not, cannot, and must not exist." The Communist Manifesto This rejection of God and all religions is the basis for all the tenets of this worldview.


In denying God's existence, Karl Marx said, “Man is the highest being for man.” Marx explains that this view signals the demise of all religion: “The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest being for man.” For Marx, then, humanity is God. We created God in our own image. We created religion in order to worship ourselves. Because Marx believed that we are God, he also believed we must seize control of reality and shape it to our specifications. “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways,” says Marx. “The point however is to change it.”


The main philosophy of Marxist/Leninist (Marxism) is that of Dialectical Materialism – Everything has a thesis and an anti-thesis and both will ultimately clash, and the resulting struggle is a synthesis. Their philosophy is that all matter is real and not from God, so they deny God’s existence in every facet of their philosophy. Knowledge, according to the Marxists, can only be applied to the material world. Marxists state that we can never have belief in the supernatural because this belief cannot be tested scientifically so we can only determine our true beliefs via our speculations of the material world because only these can undergoe a systematic investigation. Everything is changing to the Marxists Leninist, because the thesis's are constantly changing. What we suspected 20 years ago has been proven wrong today. And what we know now will be proven wrong in the future.


Marxists ethics is routed in Dialectical materialism and the class struggle. Their moral standard is their own. Their ethical standard is for the "advancement" of the society as a whole, not for the benefit of an individual. For Marxists, morality is conduct that is in harmony with history as it flows in the direction of a classless society and beyond. It is this Marxist morality that gave us Joseph Stalin, who killed more than 20 million of his own countrymen. It’s this Marxist morality through which the Chinese government has forced abortions on millions of women. “In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State.” -- Alexander Solzhenitsyn


Marx and his followers embrace a theory of biology that makes God unnecessary for the origin of life. Marx believed that Darwin’s evolutionary theory could be extended naturally to answer questions about human society. “Darwin’s origin of the species is very important and provided me with the basis in natural science for the class struggle in history.” Karl Marx – Marxists believe that the most important aspect of the evolutionary theory is spontaneous generation; the belief that life arose from non-life. This allows Marxists to forsake God completely. However, Marxists also affirm Punctuated Equilibrium; the belief in Punctuated evolution which allows for rapid change and chance in the evolutionary process.

"You shall have no other gods before me." Exodus 2-:3
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” --1st John 4:1


COSMIC HUMANIST take these biblical absolutes and completely disregard them. Most commonly referred to as the New Age movement. Becausee it disdains dogma, this worldview is even more vaguely defined than the others (except perhaps Postmodernism). Some might say that this worldview “has no religious doctrine or teachings of its own.” Jonathan Adolph sums up this worldview “In its broadest sense, New Age thinking can be characterized as a form of utopianism, the desire to create a better society, a 'New Age’ in which humanity lives in harmony with itself, nature and the cosmos.” This is a worldview that has spread throughout the globe. It is clear that Cosmic Humanism; a transplant from the East is becoming a presence throughout the Western hemisphere.


Cosmic Humanists believe that the Bible is no more the word of God than is the Qur’an or the teachings of Confucius. The Cosmic Humanist see Christ’s life as important only in the sense that it showed humanity to be capable of achieving perfection, even godhood. “The Significance of incarnation and resurrection is not that Jesus was a human like us but rather that we are gods like him – or at least have the potential to be.” Cosmic Humanist believes that we and God are ontologically one. That is why anyone can hope to achieve such a divine consciousness – because everyone is a part of God. Cosmic Humanists have this “all is one” mentality and they believe that humanity can become attuned to all the powers of its godhood by achieving unity of consciousness. The concept of humanity’s unity tends to support the theological concept of reincarnation. Almost every “orthodox” adherent of the New Age movement believes that each individual’s soul was present in other material forms earlier in history and that it will manifest itself in still other forms after it’s present body dies. The body may be dead, but the soul will continue its quest for perfection. Reincarnation is not the only logical consequence of a theology based on the unity of God and man and the concept that all is one. If we cannot delineate between God and ourselves, how can we be certain that we can delineate between other living or dead things and God? If all is one, then is everything that exists God? And so it is, leaves and trees are God, water, stars, and the whole earth is God…. everything is God. This belief is called Pantheism – the belief that God is everything. Ultimately, every person will achieve a godhood, and total unity will be restored. New Age theology, like fairy tales, guarantees a happy ending for everyone!


The philosophy of many Cosmic Humanists embraces Zen Buddhism, which believes that enlightenment can be attained through meditation and self-contemplation., or self-actualization. “From a very early age I was aware of an extra dimension or presence to the world around me which as I grew older came to identify as a sacred or transcendental dimension.” –David Spangler If the spiritual aspects of life lead to a higher consciousness and inner truth, we should view all reality (Pantheism) from a supernatural perspective. And it is this perspective that leads Cosmic Humanists such as David Spangler to a philosophy of non-naturalism – nothing is natural, everything is supernatural. The Cosmic Humanists believes the whole universe is a living organism., according to the Gaia hypothesis. In Cosmic Humanism, ultimate reality is spiritual rather than material. “This worldview encourages us to treat all things not only as ourselves, as the holistic view would see it, but as honored and precious manifestations of God.” -David Spangler –Emergence Cosmic Humanists emphasize the importance of getting in touch with their inner, higher selves. When they get in touch with the God-force within, they can intuitively know truth without limits. However this is not truth as is commonly understood. New Age truth is based solely on emotion. Each person creates his own truth according to the principle ‘if it feels like truth to you, it is’. Joseph Campbell asks, in one of the New Age movements most influential books, “What’s the meaning of the universe? What’s the meaning of a flea? It’s just there. That’s it. And your own meaning is that you’re there. We’re so engaged in doing thing to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget that the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it’s all about.”


The Cosmic Humanist ethical standards of morality come straight from its belief in pantheism and philosophical monism. If each person is God, then final authority resides in each person and they must seek the freedom to act in harmony with their inner truth. Individual self-rule places the authority for judging values squarely within the soul of each human being. They must not acknowledge outside boundaries – especially the boundaries of the Ten Commandments, which are the external authority. As such, they hinder our evolutionary growth. The Cosmic Humanist, due to moral relativism, cannot distinguish between good and evil. The lines are all blurred together. What may appear evil in this life could be reversed in another reincarnated one. This concept is what Cosmic Humanists refer as Karma – ‘the total effect of a person’s actions and conduct during each phase of existence, determining the person’s destiny.’ In the end, New Age followers pick and choose from the multitudes of options in each area of life according to personal preferences.


Cosmic Humanist biology is based on a belief in positive evolutionary change over time. This approach focuses more on emphasizing humanity moving upward toward an age of higher consciousness. The evolution suggests a theory that not only includees individuals but also collective development. This sort of evolution is called Cosmic Evolution. The belief says that not everyone will evolve at the same rate toward higher consciousness; rather when enough people achieve higher consciousness, others will be absorbed into the enlightened collective consciousness. Even the“blind” followers of Christ need only to witness the evolution of one soul that has been ascended, and we will see the truth. It is easy to understand why Cosmic Humanists have a dislike for science. They view science as only having one purpose—to control nature (which according to pantheism is God). For New Agers, the next evolutionary step is a “New World Order”. Instead of further human physical evolution, determined by geography, environment, and natural selection, Cosmic Humanists believe evolution is psychological. This psychological evolution guides humanity to this “New World Order”. Once collective higher consciousness is achieved, humanity will be at one with itself in collective godhood.


POSTMODERISM probably began back in the Old Testament. Judeges 21:25 "Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." But our more modern version was developed in the mid-1900s. The basic premis is 1) a commitment to realitivism; 2) and opposition to rationalism, and 3) promotion of culturally created realisms . They believe (if they actually believe in anything) they should deconstruct humanity itself..... along with the death of God, truth, and reason, humanity.
“Great joy is had in the endless invention of turns of phrase, of words and meanings, the process behind the evolution of language on the level of parole. But undoubtedly even this pleasure depends on a feeling of success won at the expense of an adversary – at least one adversary, and a formidable one: the accepted language, or connotation.” Jean-Francois Lyotard


Postmodernists have a perspective, more or less on all the disciplines. Their perspective on ethics is relativistic. Their perspective on biology views humans as merely clever animals.
Historically speaking, we would expect Postmodernism to be something that came after the modern era. However, many Posmodernists find their roots in thinkers such as Nietzsche and Marx. One of the more descriptive definitions of Postmodernism is this: “Truth is a short-term contract here...... You can no longer look to ideas like morality, justice, enlightenment or human nature and expect them to form a globally agreed basis for your own point of view. It is impossible to draw up a complete map of the world in such a way that everybody would be able to recognize it as representing their own knowledge and experience...”


Since atheism is the backbone for the Postmodernist belief as well as the secular humanist and the Marxist-Leninist it sometimes feels like an oxymoron to discuss theology. But there is a theology within this worldview. The Postmodernists embrace such atheists as Frederick Nietzsche who famously stated; “God is dead, we have killed him.” By this Nietzsche means that we have gone past an ignorant belief in God, and that God is no longer necessary.
While Postmodern atheism has been around for over a century, it increased exponentially in the 1960s and 1970s. During that time, Postmodernism promoted the idea that religion did not need to invoke ‘God’ in the area of theology. While the postmodernists promote a godless society, they also promote religious pluralism. “Religious pluralism is the belief that one must be tolerant of all religious beliefs because no one religion can be true.”


The philosophical ideas of postmodernism have infiltrated every corner of academia; from science, engineering, and math to humanities. They believe there is no universal truth and/or absolutes, and definitely no right or wrong. The Postmodernists adheres to the idea of "subjective truth;” everything is subjective and dependent upon different societies, groups or individuals. There are no standards of truth beauty or goodness. The Postmodernist loves the phrase, “It’s just your interpretation.” And they view documents that adhere to absolute truth, such as the Bible and the U.S. Constitution, as “living, flowing changing” documents that are open to whatever interpretation one wants to give them.


Postmodernism ethics are based on this same subjective, ever-changing, philosophy that is open to interpretation. Since their ethics are not based on moral absolutes, and because they deny the existence of God, their ethics also change from culture to culture. This is commonly called “Cultural Relativism”, which is the belief that truth and morals are relative to one’s own culture. Each community governs the moral choices its members are allowed to make. Of course, this can create conflict between cultures. For instance, when a Muslim community within the United States of America, practices “honor killings” and doesn’t think this should be under the jurisdiction of the United State’s judicial system. In their culture, it’s perfectly all right to have honor killings.


Postmodernism, like Marxism and secular humanism, denies the existence of a Creator and thus denies a creation event. They tend to shy way from endorsing the classic Darwin theory of origins and evolution, because they can’t come to a consensus on what it means. The evolutionary theory in itself is a grand tale, and postmodernists traditionally reject such grand tales. Each metanarrative s is a creation of each culture. However, they do have a propensity toward Darwinism because they believe that evolution was merely chance, and that human beings are the ultimate goal of evolution.


Humans are not just a chance element. We were made specifically and purposefully by God – that makes you feel proud, doesn’t it? For the Christian, we follow God’s absolutes. Man’s absolutes are always and ever-changing, but God’s are set forth in the Bible and will never change. The Bible is the true word of God, and the instruction book of how we should live our lives. 1 Thessalonians 1:5 says, “Because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.” Every other worldview discussed leaves man without any means of redemption. Either because there are no eternal, bad consequence for his actions or because there is no way to be redeemed. Christians DO have the only road to redemption and that is through Jesus Christ. Christianity encourages us to live holy lives in accordance with each other and with God. According to the Bible, there can only be one true worldview. King Solomon knew that there is nothing new under the sun; "everything old is new again." There are no new thoughts; no new worldviews (even Christianity grew from Genesis when God promised a Messiah). We as Christians must learn to be well equipped to counter the worldviews of Islam, Marxism/Leninism, Secular Humanism, Cosmic Humanism, and Postmodernism. This begins with learning how each worldview, views Theology, Philosophy, Ethics and Biology. Romans 2:5 “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”

“Only a fool says in his heart, there is no God.” Psalms 14:1




To God Be The Glory,
-Carpenter





5:22 PM on the 16th of February in the Year of Our Lord 2009