TITLE: Responding to the Secular Myth - PowerPoint Presentation

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TITLE: Responding to the Secular Myth

TEXT: Acts 1:6-8, Daniel 2:21

THEME: The believer should trust and obey God in that He alone knows the direction of history.Slide3
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Carl Sagan on “Cosmos”

“The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” Slide5

An Ancient Christian doxology

“As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.” Slide6
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Giordano Bruno (1548-1600)

Bruno was a renegade Dominican friar executed in 1600 for persistently preaching heretical theological views about a wide variety of core Christian doctrines. Cosmos makes Bruno out to be a martyr who died heroically in the defense of early modern science

.Slide8

Giordano BrunoSlide9
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I. The Premise: The Secular Myth- Mankind is progressing from

oppressive

religious superstition to enlightened freedom.Slide11

The Secular Myth

Proponents of this myth constantly remind us that Christianity is a thing of the Dark Ages; that "science" and "reason" have swept its superstitions away, and that sociology, psychology, neurology, and most of all evolution, have delivered us from such bondage? Slide12

Allen

Chapman,“Slaying

the Dragons: Destroying the Myths between Science and Faith.”

“This monumental double-think - a double-think of Orwellian proportions - constitutes one of the biggest myths of the age in which we live: a myth that derives its style of thinking from perversions or scientific thinking…” pg. 10Slide13

The Story of Galileo- Allan Chapman

“Many factors came together in the Galileo affair, including frictional politics between the Roman Catholic religious order…And perhaps to top it a as Galileo's love of academic rough-and-tumble, name-calling, and rival-ridiculing, which were just about permissible when directed against conservative Aristotelian philosophers in Padua, but could have horrendous consequences when indulged in throughout high ranking in international ecclesiastical circles.” (pg. 106)Slide14

The “Flat Earth” myth- Allan Chapman

“… let us be clear about one thing: no medieval scholar of any worth thought the earth was flat, and no educated person in 1492 believed that Columbus or the other early navigators would fall off the edge of the earth.” Virtually everyone believed the earth was a sphere. pg. 61Slide15

The “Salem Witch Hunts”- Dinish D’souza

“The Salem witch trials constitute the best-known example of religiously motivated violence. However, fewer than 25 people were killed in the trials, falling far short of the ‘perhaps hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions’ that the late antitheist Carl Sagan wrote about. (“What’s so Great about Christianity?” p 207)Slide16

Recommended Book

“Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion,” by Ronald L. Numbers (Editor). Slide17

Recommended Book

“Flight from the Absolute: A Heavyweight Look at the Negative Impact of Modern and Postmodern Philosophies,” by Paul

GosselinSlide18

The Danger of Historical Analogies

Historical analogies

are often particularly loaded because our age is characterized by chronological snobbery and a self-congratulatory sense of our maturity and progress. Framing the church's response to Galileo as misguided, reactionary, and backward, does two things—before any "evidence" is ever put on the table.Slide19
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II. The Problem

A.

Their historical narrative is

wrong.

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II. The Problem

A.

Their historical narrative is

wrong.

1. The church did not suppress knowledge any more than we do today.

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II. The Problem

A.

Their historical narrative is

wrong.

1. The church did not suppress knowledge any more than we do today.

2. Secularists have

rewritten

history to fit their narrative. Slide23

Stephen Toulmin

“Looking back at the ‘received view’ of Modernity after fifty years my inclination is to retort, “Don’t believe a word of it!” From the start that story was one-sided and overly-optimistic and veered into self-congratulation… we need to balance these truths against the major errors of history and interpretation. Slide24

Stephen Toulmin

“The defects become more evident with each year that goes by… the worst defects in the standard account, however, are not matters of philosophy but of straight historical fact. The historical assumptions on which it rested are no longer credible.” (Cosmopolis, pg. 16)Slide25

II. The Problem

A. Their historical narrative is

wrong.

1. The church did not suppress knowledge any more than we do today.

2. Secularists have

rewritten

history to fit their narrative.

3. They claim credit for advancement of knowledge which they have no

exclusive

claim too. Slide26

II. The Problem

A. Their historical narrative is

wrong.

B. Its own track record has significant issues.

C. There is no place for God in this secular narrative.Slide27

SETI (Search for Extra TerrestialsSlide28
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Biosphere 2Slide31

Biosphere 2Slide32

II. The Problem

A. Their historical narrative is

wrong.

B. Its own track record has significant issues.

C. There is no place for God in this secular narrative.

D.

Chronological Snobbery Slide33

C.S. Lewis "chronological snobbery"

“the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited. You must find why it went out of date. Was it ever refuted (and if so by whom, where, and how conclusively) or did it merely die away as fashions do?”Slide34

C.S. Lewis "chronological snobbery"

“If the latter, this tells us nothing about its truth or falsehood. From seeing this, one passes to the realization that our own age is also "a period," and certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those widespread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.”Slide35

II. The Problem

A. Their historical narrative is

wrong.

B. Its own track record has significant issues.

C.

There is no place for God in this secular narrative.

D. Chronological Snobbery

E. The secular narrative cannot provide a basis for

objective

morality. Slide36

Question

Is it wrong for a 40 year old man to rape a 12 year old boy? If there is no God then it is simply a subjective feeling, or it is the societal evolution that creates the instinct of morality. But why should I care what society or evolution or you or anyone else “feels” what is wrongSlide37

Problem:

We have rejected the foundation for

the

values of the past with nothing to replace

it

with. In the framework of this secular myth history has nothing to teach us unless it can be confirmed by modern methods.Slide38

William Tammeus

“You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around—and why his parents will always wave back.” Slide39

Plaque

“Christ is the head of this house, the unseen guest at every meal and the silent listener to every conversation.” Slide40
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III. The Biblical Response: Daniel 2:21, Romans 8:28, Acts 1:7

A.

God is in

control

of the course of history. Daniel 2:21Slide42

Daniel 2:21

“He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.”Slide43

III. The Biblical Response: Daniel 2:21, Romans 8:28, Acts 1:7

A.

God is in

control

of the course of history. Daniel 2:21

B. God assures the believer that he has our ultimate good in mind. Romans 8:28Slide44

Romans 8:28

“All things work together for good for them who love God and are called according to his purpose.”Slide45

III. The Biblical Response: Daniel 2:21, Romans 8:28, Acts 1:7

A. God is in

control

of the course of history. Daniel 2:21

B. God assures the believer that he has our ultimate good in mind. Romans 8:28

C.

It is best to trust and

obey

God since the future is His to direct- Acts 1:7-8Slide46

Acts 1:6-8

“6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. Slide47

Acts 1:6-8

“ 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”Slide48

Robert

“I listened intently and followed every single instruction as carefully as I can. My life depends on it.”Slide49

Imagine what would take place in our lives; we listened to and obeyed the Word of God with the same earnestness. Blessings and our life depends on it.Slide50
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APPLICATION

The popular secular myth that history is moving in the direction of

enlightened freedom

and that if you don’t go with it you are on the wrong side of history.

Don’t Believe It

.

Obedience to God can never be on the wrong side of history

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Robert P. George

"I do not believe in historical inevitability …. No good cause is permanently lost. So my advice … is to stay the course. Do not be discouraged. Do what the pro-life movement did when, in the 1970s, critics said, 'The game is over; you lost; in a few years abortion will be socially accepted and fully integrated into American life ….' Speak the truth in season and out of season …..”Slide54

Robert P. George

"civility, always in a gracious and loving spirit, but firmly. If you are told that you are on 'the wrong side of history,' remember that there is no such thing. History is not a deity that sits in judgment. It has no power to determine what is true or false, good or bad, right or wrong. History doesn't have 'wrong' and 'right' sides. Truth does. So my message to everyone is that our overriding concern should be to be on the right side of truth.”Slide55