World View

Chapters 27-28

Written by Charles Colson and Nancy Pearsey

Presented by : David M. Hasz

The Drama of Despair

• “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless” - Steven Weinberg - Nobel Prize Winner

Science and Hostile Universe

• Science reveals we live in a “overwhelmingly hostile universe”

• Where does that leave us?

What is the choice now?

• The alternative to the Christian message …. is a free fall into pessimism and despair.

• What happened to the utopian dreams of the past two centuries?

World War

• They crashed in the convulsions of two world wars and the naked evil of the 20th century.

Existentialism

• What is it? Basically the belief “you are your life, and that’s all you are.”

No Higher Purpose

• There is no higher purpose or goal or meaning to life.

• Where does this belief lead?

The 1960’s

• If naturalistic science leads to the conclusion that there is no ultimate meaning to life - then why not seek alternative sources of meaning in sensual pleasure and mind altering drug experiences?

Upheaval and the End

• This was an intellectual and cultural upheaval….end of optimism, intro to despair!

Mix Existentialism with Darwinism

• When existentialism leads to pessimism and pessimism takes on a Darwinian cast where do we go?

Driven to Compete

• All life-forms are driven to compete for the next rung on the evolutionary ladder, leaving the weakest behind.

Sociobiology

• Or evolutionary psychology.

• Sociobiologists conclude that evolution requires ruthlessly selfish behavior.

Bye Bye Love

• Love and altruism are illusions

• There is “no hint of genuine charity”• I Cor. 13:13 - the greatest is charity

What do they teach?

• Everything you do in life is programmed by your genes. Thus every action you make is selfish.

Your actions not your fault

• Your actions are all based on what your genes are doing to “survive”

• This is a religion and worldview

Worldview?

• Where did we come from?

• What went wrong with the world?

• How do we fix it?

No FIX

• Even though no fix it still debunks conventional religion and morality.

You don’t think so??

• Excerpts from page 259.

• Banish God, find no meaning in the universe, conclude therefore there must be no God.

Death Defying… why not?

• Death Defying and why not?• Hemingway the ultimate conclusion.

New Age Religion

• How many of you detected you have been involved?

• Differences between the West and the East.

• PG263

• It is everywhere.

Where have we seen it?

• 7 years in Tibet.

• Matrix

• Richard Gere, Steven Segal,

• The Secret Garden

• Schools, churches, universities

What is New Age?

• The escalator myth in spiritualized form.

• It is a religion that blends Hinduism, Buddhism, and the west. We can become gods, actually we are gods.

• We are also making God better.

It is pervasive

• Stanford

• PUMSY - I can handle it, I can make it happen, I am me and I am enough.

Self Worship, not Self Esteem

• Teaching self worship not self esteem!• Beware of the self esteem argument.

New Age is a worldview

• Pg. 268:

• Not individual dignity but rather a loss of the individual.

Perfect as you are

• New age says you are perfect exactly the way you are, when you accept that, life works

Pantheism

• Pantheism underlies all New Age thinking, it is according to CS Lewis the religion we naturally fall into. It is “the only real formidable opponent” to Christianity.

Re-imaging Conferences

• Re-imaging conferences in churches holding worship services to “Sophia”

The Danger

• More and more Christians regard religion as therapy.

• We lower our defenses against world views that appeal to our emotions.

Christianity makes demands

• Christianity makes stringent moral demands, it requires something from us.

• PG 271.