The Way of the Worldviews (Part 9): Christianity in Ancient Rome–The True Counter-Cultural Movement

In my last post, I took a brief look at life in ancient Rome. Simply put, despite the impressive monuments we love to “ooh” and “ahh” over, the fact is that daily life in ancient Rome for the majority of the people was harsh, cheap, and brutal. Rampant pornography and promiscuousness, the subjugation of women…

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The Ways of the Worldviews (Part 8): Early Christianity within Roman Society–When in Rome (prepare for a horrible life!)

As the apostles of Jesus made their way out into the pagan world, they preached and lived out something entirely new that would ultimately change the world. Now one thing must be made clear: Christianity’s impact on the Greco-Roman world was not revolutionary. There was no catastrophic revolt or upheaval within the Roman Empire because…

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Ray Comfort, Answers in Genesis, and Baraminology…It’s Kinda Ridiculous, Exegetically and Scientifically!

About a week ago in one of the “creation/evolution debate” Facebook groups I am in, a young earth creationist (I’ll call him “Bob”) asked the question, “Can anyone point any example that proves evolution can change one kind of animal into another kind?” I have heard this question (or variations of it) many times before….

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The Ways of the Worldviews (Part 7): Early Christianity–a Fulfilled Judaism

It was into this world of Greek philosophy, Roman imperial might, and rampant paganism that Jesus of Nazareth was born. Of course, the “genesis-point,” if you will, of the Jesus movement was in backwater Palestine…Galilee to be specific. This Jewish Messianic movement that emerged around Jesus of Nazareth eventually grew beyond its Jewish roots and…

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The Ways of the Worldviews (Part 6): Ancient Rome (and how the USA is its reincarnation)

With the rise of the Roman Empire, there is yet another aspect to the ancient world that is relevant to understanding our world today. It was within this world dominated by the various Greek philosophical schools that the ancient Republic of Rome began to expand, grow, and eventually develop into the Roman Empire. Now, even…

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The Ways of the Worldviews (Part 5): Classical Greek Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, and Cynics…Oh My!

The philosophy of Plato and Aristotle ended up having a great deal of significance throughout Church history (as we will eventually see). Yet our understanding of the philosophical outlook of the Greco-Roman world would be dreadfully incomplete without at least a few brief words about Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Cynicism. As should be obvious, no society…

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The Ways of the Worldviews (Part 4): Classical Greek Philosophy: Aristotle–Finding the Universals in the Particulars

Aristotle was Plato’s student, just as Plato had been the student of Socrates (He’s the guy in in blue, in the middle of the picture, pointing downwards). Yet, even though he was originally a disciple of Plato (the guy on the left, pointing upwards), he ended up disagreeing with Plato on the most fundamental of…

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Answers in Genesis Really Doesn’t Like Peter Enns: Accommodation and…Apollinarianism?(Part 2)

Yesterday, we began to look at an AiG post from 2012 about Peter Enns and his book, The Evolution of Adam. Today, we will conclude our look at AiG’s post. We are now at the point in the post where AiG finally gets around to fleshing out the title: “Was Jesus Wrong? Peter Enns says…

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Answers in Genesis Really Doesn’t Like Peter Enns: Supposed Liberalism and the Documentary Hypothesis (Part 1)

A few weeks ago, I wrote a couple of posts that discussed the way Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis have misused the term “heresy.” At the time, I mentioned there was one more blog post AiG had written, particularly about Peter Enns, that further illustrated some rather odd (and downright false) claims by AiG….

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The Ways of the Worldviews (Part 3): The Philosophy of Classical Greece: Plato’s Academy…Virtues, Forms, and What’s Really Real

Alfred North Whitehead famously stated that the Western philosophical tradition “consists in a series of footnotes to Plato.” This statement is perhaps a bit simplistic, but is still nevertheless generally true. Plato was a student of Socrates, and the man who preserved Socrates’ teachings. After witnessing the unjust sentence of Socrates carried out in 399…

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