Why are American kids experiencing so much anxiety, depression, and suicide these days? It’s not because they experience hardship and difficulties. They have it easier than any previous generation. They have money, gadgets, and plenty of leisure time. Kids in other countries have a way more difficult life than American kids, but experience less anxiety, depression, and suicide. So finances are not the issue. Suffering is not the issue. What is it, then?
Worldview
Archived Posts from this Category
April 24, 2023
Apologetics and theology curricula for kids
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Theology, Worldview1 Comment
Many parents would like to educate their kids in Christian theology, apologetics, and worldview, but don’t know where to start or where to obtain good resources. If you are looking for a curriculum for kids age 4-14, check out http://www.foundationworldview.com. It’s on online curriculum using videos, worksheets, and parent resources. There are four courses:
1. Worldview (ages 4-8)
2. Comparative Worldview (ages 8-12)
3. Studying the Bible (ages 8-12)
4. Careful thinking (ages 10-14)
Ratio Christi has also put together a list of resources by education level:
• Elementary school
• Middle School
• High School
Finally, check out a video I recorded a few years ago showcasing the theology and apologetics resources I have used with my kids over the years.
February 8, 2022
Is Atheism a Religion?
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Atheism, Religions, Worldview[46] Comments
It’s not uncommon to hear some people characterize atheism as a religion. Is it? It depends, in part, on how one defines religion. That’s a tricky subject that does not have widespread agreement. Be that as it may, I think most people would say atheism can’t be categorized as a religion because religions worship deities, and atheism explicitly denies the existence of any deity. However, that’s not accurate. Most forms of Buddhism could be categorized as atheist or agnostic. There is no worship of any deity, and yet Buddhism is properly categorized as a religion.
That said, I don’t think atheism should be categorized as a religion. There are no “cult” practices, for example. There is no set of moral principles that atheists are bound to. Atheism is just an answer to a single question: Does God exist? A point of view on a single issue does not constitute a religion. It is not robust enough. And while it’s true that this question is properly categorized as a religious question, that doesn’t mean that every answer is a religious answer or constitutes a religion. Atheists answer the question in the negative. They do not think God exists. So atheism is a negative claim about what does not exist. How can a claim about what does not exist constitute a religion? Surely religions make positive claims about what does exist, not negative claims about what does not. As a meme I once saw expressed, if atheism is a religion, then “off” is a TV channel.
October 29, 2020
People’s perception of Christianity is often shaped more by their church experience than by Scripture. If your experience of Christianity was in a Catholic church, you may think of Christianity as solemn and reverent, but ritualistic and largely irrelevant to daily life. If your experience of Christianity was in a Baptist church, you may think of Christianity in terms of moral behavior and Bible study. If your experience of Christianity was in a Pentecostal church, you may think of Christianity as wild and crazy, where emotions and the supernatural are top priority. Whatever your experience may have been, that is what you associate with “Christianity.” For you, that IS Christianity.
So when you invite a former Christian to rekindle their former Christian faith, they will naturally think you are trying to convert them back to the same church experience they had in the past. And for many people, it was their church experience that caused them to leave the faith. Why on earth would they ever want to go back?!
That’s why it’s a good idea to ask them about their church experience. What was their church community like? What did they believe? What were their negative experiences? It’s also good to ask them what they think Christianity is all about. In my experience, most people’s understanding of Christianity is very thin, if not warped. Once you know more about their view and experience of Christianity, the better you will be able to share with them the true gospel. Once they see the difference between what they came from and what you are inviting them to, they might be willing to give Christianity – the real Christianity – another shot.
February 19, 2016
The Story of Christianity from Beginning to End: Putting the Pieces Together
Posted by Jason Dulle under Bible, Christology, Ecclesiology, Eschatology, Hamartiology, Hell, Mosaic Law, Nature of God, Resurrection, Soteriology, Spiritual gifts, Theology, Theology Proper, Worldview[125] Comments
Much of the Bible is written in narrative form. It tells a story – a true story, but a story nonetheless. There is a lot of information in the Bible to digest, and it’s easy to get lost in the details and miss the big picture. So how does one put it all together? What is the essence of the Biblical story? What is the basic story line from Genesis to Revelation? Various attempts have been to condense the major themes and events in the Bible into a coherent, terse story line. Here is my attempt to arrange the puzzle pieces into a clear picture, such as it is. I hope it will tie together some loose ends that may exist in your mind and offer you a bird’s-eye view of the greatest story ever told: (more…)
June 24, 2009
Nancy Pearcey described a worldview as a mental map that helps us effectively navigate our world. The better our worldview, the more effectively we ought to be able to navigate reality with it. Faulty worldviews are easy to spot because they always run contrary to our pre-theoretical experience of reality at one point or another. For example, scientific naturalists claim the material world—working according to natural processes—is all there is to reality. There is no God, there are no angels, and there are no souls. All that exists is what we can put in a test-tube. This creates a problem for the concept of free-will, which in turn creates a problem for the concept of moral responsibility.
If there is no God everything is purely material, including ourselves. Material things do not make decisions, but respond in determined ways to prior physical events. They don’t act, but simply react to prior physical factors. For any particular event there exists a series of prior physical causes that not only results in the event, but necessitates it. Life, according to scientific naturalism, is like a series of falling dominoes. When you ask “Why did domino 121 fall?” it will be answered, “Because domino 120 fell.” Domino 121 could not decide to not fall when acted upon by domino 120. It must fall. If man is just physical stuff, then our “choices” and “knowledge” are like falling dominos: nothing but necessary reactions to prior physical processes. There is no free will. Scientific naturalists admit as much. Naturalistic philosopher, John Searle, wrote, “Our conception of physical reality simply does not allow for radical freedom.”[1] He admitted that there is no hope of reconciling libertarian freedom with naturalism when he wrote:
June 15, 2008
Isn’t it ironic that those who espouse to Darwinian evolution are also the least likely to have multiple children and most likely to support and/or obtain abortions. They are supposed to believe in survival of the fittest. Only those who reproduce stand a chance at survival, and those who reproduce the most stand the greatest chance for survival and subsequent evolution. Apparently Darwinian liberals are not fit to survive!
In all seriousness, I think this reveals the cognitive dissonance of liberals. They cannot consistently live out their worldview. In fact, given the maxim that people behave in accordance with their beliefs, I tend to think most adherents of Darwinism do not really believe it. They may give intellectual assent to it, but they don’t live it. All that matters is that God is out of the picture.
May 27, 2008
I am told that Christian apologist, Os Guinness, thinks we should replace religion-speak with worldview-speak in the public square. The reason? Religion is something you may or may not have, but everyone has a worldview. Some worldviews simply have a supernatural element to them while others do not.
The advantage of worldview-speak over religion-speak is that it prevents non-religious folks from claiming the high ground of rational neutrality; as though we are hopelessly biased by our religious presuppositions, but they remain objective. Are religious people biased? Of course, but so are non-religious (secular) folks. No one is epistemologically neutral. We all bring certain presuppositions to the task of knowing, and use them to interpret the world. Having a religious worldview makes us no less objective than those with a secular worldview. We can no more dispense with our worldview than can the secularist, and indeed, we need not do so. While it is wise to consider a question from the perspective of a worldview different than your own, we are not required to do so in order to be rational.
I think Mr. Guinness is onto something.
August 23, 2007
“The classic Christian worldview affirms that a supremely powerful and personal God created the world ex nihilo (from nothing) and maintains it; humans may attain knowledge of God through Scripture, sensory perception and introspection; human beings are moral agents subject to God-given immutable moral laws that are as fixed and universal as are physical ones; and human beings are sinful, fallen and in rebellion against God, but they reflect a distorted image of God and are divine right-bearers.
“In contrast, the secular worldview (also called naturalism) denies the existence of God or his personal character; considers creation the result of random events and a battle of the fitters persevering out of biologic selfishness; believes knowledge is limited to sensory perception; believes human beings create their moral order for convenience and enforce it solely through public coercion; and consider human beings different from, but not necessarily more important than, creation except to the extent that our sentience or affinity for the arts distinguishes us.”[1]
[1]Nathan Adams IV, Ph.D, J.D., “An Unnatural Assault on Natural Law” in Human Dignity in the Biotech Century, Charles Colson and Nigel Cameron, eds. (InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove, IL, 2004), 165-6.
July 26, 2007
Quote of the Day: How Naturalism and Postmodernism Strip Meaning from the World
Posted by Jason Dulle under Quote of the Day, WorldviewLeave a Comment
“Western culture is pervaded with scientific naturalism and with postmodernism. The first of these strips the world of spirit, the other of knowledge. Both take away the hope of ultimate, transcendent meaning. Naturalism denies there is anything more to life than what we can touch and see, and postmodernism says there is almost nothing beyond ourselves that we can truly know.”
—Tom Gilson, in his review of J.P. Moreland’s Kingdom Triangle, available at http://www.thinkingchristian.net/C2031585454/E20070625223226/
Thinking to Believe 