Tag Archives: Religious Pluralism

Videos

Public school bus driver blasts little girl for discussing Christianity

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From Lone Wolf Archer. (H/T Neil Simpson’s latest round-up)

Story is here. (This link also has a video with more of the audio of the bus driver)

Excerpt:

After the girl was dropped off, Zimmer said a bus camera showed Campbell telling the students, “If you can’t believe in tolerance toward one another, you don’t belong here. You belong in a parochial, church school.”

Zimmer also claims the bus driver questioned another student about whether Rachael ever said anything racist to him.

“If she says anything racial to you, I want to know about it, because I am going to eat her alive,” Zimmer said Campbell can be heard saying on the tape. “You’re a smart guy. Rachael is a stupid little bigot.”

Zimmer said Campbell then came back to the girl’s home after all of the children had been let off the bus and brought Rachael and her older sister, who were home alone at the time, onto her empty bus, berating Rachael about her opinions on gay marriage.

“Say we’re a gay couple …and we go to China … and she would adopt a child. She comes back, and if she dies, that child isn’t mine. You can’t keep that kid,” Zimmer said Campbell is heard saying on the tape. “Or I’m filthy rich and she is not, I die, she does not inherit my money. That’s what this is all about.”

When he asked the school district why Campbell wasn’t disciplined, Zimmer said he was told she was working within the scope of her employment.

Notice that the father is forced to pay for these government schools through mandatory taxation. And also note that the school’s only response was to deny that anything was wrong. That’s why public schools are EVIL. We need to have vouchers so that parents can get their money back and send their children to schools they actually want. I think that my fear is that we as Christians are not really serious about protecting our children. We want to have marriages, and families, and children, but we are not really willing to learn about the problems that our children will face from anti-Christian public schools.

If you want to understand what people who are on the other side think of what was done to that little girl, then go to this atheistic blog and read the comments. Warning: there is vulgar language. Atheism is an amoral worldview. And it’s the worldview that is increasingly present in the Democrat party, which is hostile to public expressions of Christian faith.

My plan at this point is homeschooling for kindergarten through grade 6, then private schools all the way on from there. I wish I could get my money back from the government for these public schools, health services, and pensions that they are providing to everyone else, but oh well.

Polemics

How can you prefer a moral standard from one religion vs another?

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Here’s a reply to my extremely mean recent post about atheism’s difficulties making moral behavior rational.

Llama wrote:

Why is Christian morality correct? Why not Islamic morality?

And I replied like this:

Great question. You can’t settle it by comparing moral specifics. You have to appeal to some sort of testable claim.

For example, you mentioned Islam. Islam thinks that Jesus never actually died on a cross (Surah 4:157). Are the Muslims correct in saying this? It’s a historical claim, so to history we must go.

There is no credentialed historian of any stripe (atheist, agnostic, Jewish, etc.) who doubts the crucifixion. In fact, prominent atheist scholar E. P. Sanders of Duke University puts it on his list of almost indisputable facts about the historical Jesus.

E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). Sanders lists eight “almost indisputable facts” which he takes as his starting point (p. 11):

1. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist.

2. Jesus was a Galilean who preached and healed.

3. Jesus called disciples and spoke of there being twelve.

4. Jesus confined his activity to Israel.

5. Jesus engaged in a controversy about the temple.

6. Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem by the Roman authorities.

7. After his death Jesus’ followers continued as an identifiable movement.

8. At least some Jews persecuted at least parts of the new movement . . . .

See now also E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993).

And prominent Jewish Professor of Religion Paula Fredriksen of Boston University says in this paper that “The single most solid fact we have about Jesus’ life is his death. Jesus was crucified. Thus Paul, the gospels, Josephus, Tacitus: the evidence does not get any better than this.”

Sanders and Fredriksen are probably two of the best scholars on the historical Jesus in the world, and they are NOT Christians – they have no axe to grind. So Islam is false as false can be. The Koran cannot contain any errors – Muslims claim it is inerrant and its moral authority is lost if any error is found. But we’ve found a BIG ONE.

Regarding Christianity, if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then Christian morality should not be taken seriously either. Even Paul says that if the resurrection did not happen then Christianity, and Christian morality, is WORTHLESS. See 1 Corinthians 15:17-19. 1 Corinthians is one of the most early and reliable books in the New Testament. It is authored by Paul in 55 AD – and no scholars denies that. It’s genuine Paul. The creed in 1 Cor 15:3-7 is dated within 1 to 5 years of the Cross. By ATHEIST scholars like James Crossley.

My advice is to watch some DEBATES between Christian and non-Christian scholars on the topic of the resurrection. You’ll find some linked in this post.

Or just look here:

Debates are a fun way to learn

Three debates where you can see this play out:

Or you can listen to my favorite debate on the resurrection.

Not that I don’t think you have to be an inerrantist in order to be a Christian, so long as your claims of error are on solid historical ground. (I am an inerrantist – you don’t have to be to be a Christian – you just have to accept the classical creeds of Christendom)

Hope this helps. Come on – I typed all this in. At least listen to the William Lane Craig versus James Crossley debate. Please?

Every religion makes truth claims about the word, and you can choose a religion by testing those claims. Wouldn’t it be neat if Christians learned to argue for their worldview using facts supplied by non-Christian experts? That’s how I try to argue.

Commentary

Interesting exchange with Modern Christian Spinster

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I think everyone’s noticed Modern Christian Spinster’s frequent comments disagreeing with me on many things, especially politics, economics and feminism. I am conservative across the board (social, fiscal and foreign policy). I also believe in chastity and traditional marriage.

In another thread, we were discussing traditional morality (e.g. – chastity, sobriety, individual charity), as compared with the new morality (e.g. – recycling, yoga, vegetarianism, same-sex marriage, socialism). She seemed to be very hesitant about making moral judgments, which I take to be central to Christianity because of the whole concept of sin. Suddenly, I began worry that Modern Christian Spinster was not a Christian at all. So I asked her some questions to get her views.

So I wrote this:

Do you think that people who do not believe in Jesus are resurrected to eternal life?

Do you believe in a place called Hell, which is a place of eternal separation from God where people who do not know God in Christ go on the day of Judgment?

Do you think that a conscious, sincere profession of faith in Christ’s atoning sacrifice for sin is a necessary and sufficient condition to be resurrected to eternal life?

And she wrote this in reply:

I believe that life is eternal, the way I believe in mathematics. If you add 2+2 and for you it equals 5 then the principles of mathematics are still in effect, even if you get the wrong answer. So I believe that life is eternal on principle. If you were a miserable SOB in life, dying won’t resolve that for you. You will continue to work out in the afterlife what you didn’t work out on earth. As for people who don’t believe in Jesus, I am constantly surprised by the number of people who DO believe in him. They might be Buddhists, they might be Muslims, but Jesus is actually very well respected among people I talk to, even those of other faiths. So I wouldn’t venture to say whether or not they’re resurrected. I mean, the fact is, after someone is gone, we just don’t know what their journey is. I will say, however, that most people I talk to very much identify with what Jesus stood for, even if they don’t necessarily identify it that way.

I do not believe in a place called hell: I do believe it is a state of consciousness, just as “the kingdom of heaven is within you.” But it’s not a physical place apart from where we already are. I see heaven in places where many other people see purgatory. God to me is everpresent; therefore, I try not to let what my eyes tell me blind me to the fact that he is with me, even in desolate places. I also believe that we cannot ever be separated from God. We may think we are separate, but what we need to handle isn’t real separation but the erroneous belief that we are separate. LIke the story of the Prodigal Son.

I do not share your belief in Christ’s atoning for sin. I don’t see Christ dying for my “sin,” I see his death and resurrection as proof that sin and death can be overcome through complete obedience to God. I’m not sure if that is the same thing as you are saying. But I do not believe man is inherently sinful. However, humanly speaking, there does appear to be a lot of sin in the world. However, it is something not natural to us. Part of the human condition, sure, but I believe that our spiritual identity is our true identity. Not sure if that answers your question. It’s certainly a different point of view.

I thought this was very interesting. She disagrees with me on these three questions. I am not saying this to judge her, she knows where to find me if she wants to talk about it. My advice to her is to take a second look at the Bible and pick a good book on theology, like this one by Wayne Grudem.