Christianity has much competition from other beliefs. Atheism is a belief, as is scientism, communism, and Islam. Agnosticism is not an enemy because it is the suspension of belief, but agnostics lean more toward scientism than Christianity. Like doubting Thomas, they need something they can see before they can believe.
Evolutionists believe in scientism although the Bible explains reality better. Why? Because to them the Bible ain’t science! Their belief is scientism and it is in competition with Christianity. If the scientific method cannot be employed or it can’t be predicted by quantum mathematics, then it is questionable at best and most likely false. That is their belief. That is who they are.
To borrow a liberal phrase, why can’t we all just get along? Accept the fact that the energy behind everything, Einstein’s unifying force, is God and then let the scientists satisfy themselves with discovering what he did it. They can never understand how, only what.
Science can’t explain the abstracts that give meaning to existence. The Bible can. Science can’t even explain existence other than to accept that “it is” and then attempt to explain the mechanics, chemistry, etc., of that which exists. If science can accept existence, a leap in faith from the very beginning, why can’t they accept the Bible’s description of the beginning and of man’s importance to God in His creation?
I gonna tell you why! Competing world views become so engrained, so personal, that the destruction of a world view destroys the essence of those who hold it. It threatens their very existence. Hegel and his Dialectical Materialism, on which Marx and Engels based their philosophy, must reject Christianity in order to be true. So does Islam. So does scientism. So does atheism. To those who hold those views they are central to their lives.
Most of us don’t hold any of those world views to the extent I am describing. We just go along to get along. Yet, once a view gets broad acceptance in a society it gets incorporated into our basics belief about reality. It becomes us. Christian principles get incorporated into the everyday life and the laws and mores of a Christian society whether one is a Christian or not. The same with the others.
An interesting point in all this is that Christianity is rather passive. It depends on a sincere desire of a person to know about Jesus and the Trinity before God reveals Himself to them through Grace. Once that is granted, then Love, the Truth, the Light appear and the real world is revealed. That cannot be imposed by some firebrand preacher or massive movement. It has to be personally sought. Yet, once achieved, it destroys all the other beliefs. Salvation is a personal thing. It is not a collective thing like the others.
Evolution? Who cares? Big Bang? Who cares? It is all God’s creation. Is that begging the question? Who cares? It is still the simplest and most reasonable explanation, and look at all the fringe benefits! Joy, happiness, peace, a feeling of self worth and many more.
Let the scientists busy themselves with uncovering the details of God’s magic. Many worthwhile things have come from that with many more still to come.
Let the philosophers ponder. They enjoy it and occasionally great societies grow from their ideas, but only those ideas based on the principles explained in the Bible. I am not saying that all successful societies were based on the Bible but rather on the principles expressed in the Bible.
Oh so very true, dear Mind-numbed Robot!
The one commonality behind all these worldviews is that they make "man the measure" of reality. Thus all are, in a sense, unreal. For finite man cannot be the measure of that of which he is "merely" a very part-time part and participant. In fact, the great German-American philosopher Eric Voegelin has convincingly (to me) argued that all such worldviews are actually examples of alienation from the universal order of the world. They betoken a resistance on the part of man to acceptance of the human condition as it actually is; rather they are projections of their adherent's desires and need for relief from acute existential anxiety....
You suggested that "only those ideas based on the principles explained in the Bible" actually work out in actual reality. You added, "I am not saying that all successful societies were based on the Bible but rather on the principles expressed in the Bible." Truly I agree with you here. On this point, we are not talking about "religion" at all. We are talking about the fundamental structure of reality, of what "works" and "doesn't work" in the universal order — physical and moral — that God made, Alpha to Omega. The Holy Scriptures are God's truthful (but not exhaustive) revelation to us of the order of the world He created. As such, they are preeminent to, and stand quite independently of religious dogmas of all descriptions.
I'll go even further and say that all the doctrines (worldviews) you mention are falsifications of Reality. And being that, they cannot work.
But a man like Richard Dawkins cannot grasp this point — for in his fulminating hatred of God and religion, he prohibits himself from even "going there." He prefers to be "a god" unto himself....
He is a fine example of Heraclitus' "dreamer," who rejects the Logos that is "one and common to all," withdrawing into into his own "private world" as if a man asleep, dreaming his dreams which are "no reality" at all.
Thank you so very much, dear MNR, for your most eloquent and insightful essay/post!