(OKLAHOMA CITY) In a story from the Washington Post by Kathleen Parker (http://tinyurl.com/4nmvyt) about how our founding American principal of separation of church and state is failing, we read that Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, where presidential candidates are vetted as to what their pillow talk with Jesus might be, thinks one's faith is the same as one's worldview.
So Warren thinks faith is a worldview?
I have no faith in gravity, but I have a worldview and the evidence that demonstrates gravity works.
I have no faith in airplanes, but I have a worldview and evidence that the air-foil design of wings will lift a plane into the air.
I have no faith in numerology and its predictions, but I have a worldview and evidence that arithmetic is consistent.
Faith is believing in something--past, present or future--for which there is no evidence that such a wished-for event or action actually happened, might happen, or will happen.
I have a worldview that is based on historical fact backed up with evidence. If the fact is disputed, it can be investigated and discussed without the threat of an eternal punishment in a mythical lake of fire and brimstone. My worldview doesn't depend on the the endless repetition of myths and fables intended to coerce the thoughts of children and blackmail the actions of adults.
Indeed, a good many of our American Founding Fathers would lose if they were to campaign using their Colonial experiences in today's capitalist, theocratic, historically illiterate country.
The passage of time has removed us from direct knowledge of the insidious torture, witch-burning, and browbeating that was common in Europe from where the first 17th- century immigrants to North America came. The Founders were only one or two generations removed from theocratic governments such as what present day bible-pounders would like to return.
Early Colonial history is full of strife brought about by demands from the several state legislatures that only a select few of their citizens could hold office, purchase property, marry, and reside depending on which religious sect they belonged to.
This history of what happens when church/faith and state/politics are allowed to mate and breed mongrels of exceeding ferocity is why our Founders wrote the First Amendment allowing religion to be exercised separately from the exercise of the civil legislature.
If only the fundamentalist bible-pounders who so fervently rejoice in the myths of the Old Testament--their founding document--would treat the Constitution--America's founding document--with the same intensity of scrutiny and scholarship our country would be much farther along on the road to achieving our goals of a just social society
So Warren thinks faith is a worldview?
I have no faith in gravity, but I have a worldview and the evidence that demonstrates gravity works.
I have no faith in airplanes, but I have a worldview and evidence that the air-foil design of wings will lift a plane into the air.
I have no faith in numerology and its predictions, but I have a worldview and evidence that arithmetic is consistent.
Faith is believing in something--past, present or future--for which there is no evidence that such a wished-for event or action actually happened, might happen, or will happen.
I have a worldview that is based on historical fact backed up with evidence. If the fact is disputed, it can be investigated and discussed without the threat of an eternal punishment in a mythical lake of fire and brimstone. My worldview doesn't depend on the the endless repetition of myths and fables intended to coerce the thoughts of children and blackmail the actions of adults.
Indeed, a good many of our American Founding Fathers would lose if they were to campaign using their Colonial experiences in today's capitalist, theocratic, historically illiterate country.
The passage of time has removed us from direct knowledge of the insidious torture, witch-burning, and browbeating that was common in Europe from where the first 17th- century immigrants to North America came. The Founders were only one or two generations removed from theocratic governments such as what present day bible-pounders would like to return.
Early Colonial history is full of strife brought about by demands from the several state legislatures that only a select few of their citizens could hold office, purchase property, marry, and reside depending on which religious sect they belonged to.
This history of what happens when church/faith and state/politics are allowed to mate and breed mongrels of exceeding ferocity is why our Founders wrote the First Amendment allowing religion to be exercised separately from the exercise of the civil legislature.
If only the fundamentalist bible-pounders who so fervently rejoice in the myths of the Old Testament--their founding document--would treat the Constitution--America's founding document--with the same intensity of scrutiny and scholarship our country would be much farther along on the road to achieving our goals of a just social society
