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What strikes me is that there is no sign of the unity we felt in the immediate aftermath. Too bad our leaders aren't wise enough to know how to negotiate among themselves and find compromises that work well.

And I have to wonder, now that we have some time for perspective, how many people might be willing to consider the notion that religion might be the single most powerful factor that exascerbates all of the problems between America and the Middle East?

it's all about 'timing'. the guy who bought the new shoes and wore them that day on his way to the wtc, he had to stop at the drug store to buy band-aids for his feet....that saved his life. life and death are only seperated by a millisecond, yet we often live our lives as though we are immune to death. seeing the wtc's fall that day made me wonder how many of those people did not know Jesus Christ as their savior, it made me think how many had been in church the previous sunday and they felt their heart strings tugged upon by the Spirit of God, encouraging them to make a committment, yet maybe they were embarassed or too shy or too self conscious to acknowledge Jesus on that day....

seeing the towers fall reminded me of God's mercy, the mercy He shows to those who have chosen to believe His Word and ask for eternal life thru His Son Jesus.

but i guess what it reminds me mostly is how depraved mankind is and has become. eric points out that religion is probably the agent which exacerbates the issues between u.s.a. and middle east - but my heart says it is not 'religion' that is the culprit as much as it is 'sin'. sin seperates us from the love of God and that leads us to seperations from each other.

for the Christian families of those lost 5 years ago today, it is a bittersweet day....they mourn those they lost (who were in Christ) yet they have the hope and peace that surpasses human intellect, knowing and are confident that Jesus was the first fruit and that we and they will follow in His glorious resurrection on that day.

for those families without Christ, they struggle and are empty and void of the power of God to overcome this world. i mourn with them................

their are times when i post here that i want to strangle eric (and others) but most of the time i feel sorry that their choice concerning Jesus Christ has an everlasting bad consequence and that otherwise apparent intelligent people have such hard hearts. the best i can do for them is to continue to demonstrate my faith thru these blogs and hope and pray that 'their' millisecond does not occur before making a better choice.......

"their are times when i post here that i want to strangle eric"

Ah -- it appears that my mission is succeeding. {;-)

Cheers, Buz!

It is not “religion” alone that is behind the competing worldviews; there are, of course, cultural, nationalistic and economic factors that drive the jihadist death machine. These we are aware of to some extent - perhaps not enough. But I’m appalled at how naïve we are to think that Islam, as a religious system, is good for our nation, or any nation. As a unifying force it was able to tap into both Persian and Greek cultural wealth to produce an admirable civilization – but so had Southeast Asian nations from Indian culture, or Japan from Chinese culture, and many others across the centuries. Islam’s legalistic and atonement-less nature nevertheless remained, despite the wealth and hegemony that it enjoyed by virtue of its military conquests. Unfortunately, Christianity was going through some debilitating growing pains during much of the rise of Islam and thus could only endeavor to resist the aggression of the Islamic juggernaut. Historic cultural achievements are somewhat fluid and independent of religion.

Eric, I continue to be amazed at your simplistic antipathy toward “religion.” It wasn’t religion that drove Soviet subversion and conquest, or Hitler’s nationalistic dreams. Buz is right in citing sin as the causative factor. Religion is a necessary component of any nation or people group. Humanism is a religion, as is atheism and communism. Religion is the inevitable belief aggregate that orders the organizing values and aspirations of any culture. To undermine the regnant religion of any people threatens the very fabric of their existence – thus, the intensity of their response and resistance.

There WILL BE religion. The question is: which one? Will it be a rigid law system with a fatalistic theology, a godless, man-centered relativism or a grace-oriented religion based on atonement and love?
The problem in the West is that we have abandoned the glorious Gospel in favor of a godless system that is leading us into a cultural cesspool of immorality and social decay. The Muslim knows that to abandon spiritual Law is to become like the decaying, post-Christian West. I can understand their horror at our media and social depravity. But unfortunately Sharia is NOT salvific, merely ordering and sin-stifling. But the root is not dealt with. Only the atonement of the cross can do that by changing people by the power of the Holy Spirit, who then keep God’s law, not out of outer compulsion, but out of liberated love. Not only have we rejected the Gospel in our nation, but we have come to despise God’s Law, exposing ourselves to all the debilitating and disgraceful effects of such disobedience.

Our problem is that, because of our secularization, we are unable to see that the great conflict in the world today IS INDEED a religious or spiritual one. However, it’s not merely between two civilizations or religions, but between the Gospel and human counterfeits, be they secular or religious, communism or Islam. We need a great awakening of mammoth perportions; not of superficial, feel-good, TV religionism, but of the true, intelligent Biblical Faith “once delivered to the saints.”

"There WILL BE religion. The question is: which one?"

Who's doing the simplistic thinking here, Nikos? Do you really think there will ever be a time where there will be one religion? After all the religious wars that humanity has endured over the ages, has any of them really been a "success"?

True, there will always be religion. But do we as humans always have to give in to the terrible results it can lead so many to seek? I would hope not.

eric,
i have never thought to ask you...is it only Chritianity that you abhor or is it any religion other than atheism ?

"But do we as humans always have to give in to the terrible results it can lead so many to seek?".....

i find some irony in this statement...it is in fact the 'giving in'(i.e. submitting to)to one's belief that determines the success or failure of that believe. so don't we by virtue want to give in ?
you've 'given in' to your God doesn't exist belief.
and i should point out that the results aren't always terrible as you state. no question that Christianity suffered under the rcc (and others) in times of old (even possibly today) but to say all the rcc (and others) efforts turned out to be a terrible failure would not be true,imo.

the proof of my (or your) belief will be proven in that millisecond where we pass from physical death to either eternal life or eternal damnation.....In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
but as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to those that believe on his name.

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as [they were] from the beginning of the creation.

you see this is the condition of man that walks by sight and depends on what his five senses dictate.

i know you believe that some Christians do good things b/c you recently said you would contribute $$ to their human relief efforts if they would not evagelize those receipients. heck you might even like me if you met me (then again we're both pretty much knuckleheads).....................

"i have never thought to ask you...is it only Chritianity that you abhor or is it any religion other than atheism?"

Buz, what bothers me most are religions that do not lead people to lead lives of civility and peace. I don't consider Christianity or any other religious grouping to be so conformist that you can say "all Christians" have this or that attribute... everyone has a somewhat different take on the totality of their religion. I know many Christians who are absolutlely lovely people; but there are a good number of them that scare the daylights out of me.

"you've 'given in' to your God doesn't exist belief."

OK, but has that led to any harm to my neighbors here in Greensboro? That was the point I was getting at. There have been countless Christians who have bombed, murdered, tortured and so forth, all of them convinced that such was what God wanted them to do. The same can be said of Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews... you name it. Unless a person's faith leads toward a better life for a person and those around him, what good is it?

"heck you might even like me if you met me (then again we're both pretty much knuckleheads)...."

Well, I believe you're right on both counts, most likely. Later, mon!

" Unless a person's faith leads toward a better life for a person and those around him, what good is it?"

i completely agree.............

A powerful program was re-aired on PBS tonight: "Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero". It's in the Greensboro Public Library system, too. Highly recommend it.

What buz may be missing here is that atheism/agnosticism and its daily working-through is not a "belief", but a practice of vigilant rational inquiry. I do not consider my own questioning to be over and done with. Were some reliable evidence available and presented to me supporting the certain existence of some god, my commitment to a vigorous investigation of philosophical and scientifically-verifiable truths would dictate I consider the ideas raised. I do this many times every week or month. Thus far, since my repudiation of Catholicism and later of Buddhism's tenets of reincarnation (a college whim), I have encountered no absolutely compelling claim to accept a god.

Religions are social clubs. They also reflect regional preferences and are "inherited". The possibility also may be that some "transcendence-experienec" gene is part of our brains/bodies.
None of these things lend any direct support for religion or its attendant beliefs in the supernatural.

Seeing people jump from the towers in particular had a strong influence reinforcing my lack of false hope in some redemptive supernature. It was nowhere on the scale of the Holocaust, but it shares similarities as to confounding people's acquiescence to a formerly "benevolent" or simply "benign" greater being or destiny.
The only possible "good" which came out that day was in one human helping another to safety, or one holding hands with a stranger as they both took the leap. Do we require a god to feel such compassion for our fellows? Buddhists don't. Secularists don't, either. Our connection is through shared, mutually vulnerable pain, anguish and longing. Consider this: it isn't whether one lives after death; it's the living now that demands of us our conscientious best, in the ways Existentialism speaks of it. "Faith" a sin "good faith" is still required, but not faith in unprovable myth. It is the extension in "good faith" of one's commitment to conscience, to sharing the load of human suffering, to being open to love and loss.

"Religions are social clubs."

Well, churches are, at any rate.

"They also reflect regional preferences and are "inherited". The possibility also may be that some "transcendence-experienec" gene is part of our brains/bodies."

There are several books available on this subject. The best one I've found so far is "Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origin of Religious Thought" by Pascal Boyer. It's a layman-level look at a theory of natural explanation of human religiou experience. And I found it a well-documented and very readable book.

i'm getting the urge to strangle someone......only kidding :-).

" but a practice of vigilant rational inquiry. I do not consider my own questioning to be over and done with.".........................
i hope you are not implying that i have stopped my inquiry. i study the scriptures daily, seeking new revelation in order to be a better servant. irrespective of what you say, you still have a "belief" that God does not exist. i assume you believe this b/c you have never seen God or have never seen His handiwork. God is like gravity, both are unseeable but both have very real effects. when you walk by sight, there is much that you really don't "see", imo.

buz, I didn't mean to imply you or other absolutists had not stopped reading and studying; but if one only is open to reading and studying and asking questions that do not challenge the basis for one's beliefs, one isn't doing the kind of inquiry demanded by critical analysis and scientific method. It can certainly still be intellectually admirable, but it stops short of the struggle I find I most respect in non-believers and those who still profess belief in god(s).

I do not harbor an absolutist brand of non-theism. That would be inconsistent with the committed application of reason, as you point out. The theories (yes, there are a few, all quite similar but with surprising variation nonetheless) of gravity are testable, repeatable and verifiable, even if the "cause" is "invisible". Many forces in the universe are not visible to human eyesight, but they are not therefore, ipso facto, untestable. We have developed and will continue to invent tools to extend the range of our inquiry and evidentiary record.

The very construction of the concept of an all-powerful, unknowable god beggars the imagination...any veriable proof could not hold up, and we are told that's exactly why such a god exists...circular reasoning and begging the question.

FN,
i understand your argument about expanding ones research beyond reading only scripture...i just don't agree that's all. the issue for me is that i believe the scriptures are inspired by God and hold all truth(s). i in fact read other materials, however always keeping in mind that these materials are subject to human error (whereas scriptures are not).for me it would defeat sound logic to read/study material written by the creation (i.e. man) that's sole function is to discredit the creator.
God grades on the cross, not the curve (of human intellect).....wishing you could believe that.

buz, do you see how by accepting uncritically the belief that your collection of biblical stories and verses (others use others) and saying to us and yourself that they are inerrant because they are the word of a god, you set yourself up: you have granted these words and your own or borrowed interpretation of them complete and total truth-value, with no opportunity to question their premises or conclusions? You use your vaunted "free will" and potentially free human mind to put on an intellectual staightjacket.

How can you claim to have truly considered the verity and likelihood of what is in your bible if you don't take into account alternative arguments in an objective way? You sound as if you start from the absolutist stance that nothing can or will ever contradict your already-chosen or inherited beliefs, so why bother (in fact, why take the risk)?

fn,
my first question is, from whom did i borrow my intepretations ? and how would you presume to know ? you make it sound as though YOU can figure stuff out but I cannot ? ( i confess i do have help with this stuff, i know him as the Comforter )....
i guess i'm comfortable in my straightjacket, it's my fashion statement. perhaps i'm simple minded. but i suspect that if my simple minded appproach to God and His word is a reality and that all it teaches is true, then i have lost nothing and gained everything. you on the other hand let your intellect blind and plug your spiritual eyes and ears, but this is no surprise for the word spoke this about you.
i see nikos as an intellectual (this is a compliment) who has met the risen savior and does not allow that intellect to overspeak what he hears the Holy Spirit whispering.
i am not so much an intellectual as i am one who seeks to know God and trust and believe His word. call me what you wish but i have peace and comfort and if by some possibility the scriptures were a joke then in my opinion i lived a life desiring to serve God. and for that i have no apology.........
finally, fn you seem to have "outsmarted" yourself - your pursuit of intellect has led you on a path away from God....did you notice that when Jesus hung out with people it was generally not with the 'intellectuals '........ he preferred smelly ole fishermen, prostitues, diseased and dispised tax collectors and the like............go figure :-)
and if in the future you wish not to blog with me b/c i am not your intellectual peer, i'll understand........

Buz, the assurance that the Spirit gives his beloved ones is a most precious gift indeed: a testimony to the amazing grace of God. I have no antipathy toward those who reject and malign the one true and living God, only His love; for I once did so myself, and remember just how miserable I was; though I would never admit it. I gave every Christian I encountered such a hard time, trying to smash their infantile assertions.

The inward assurance and certainty of faith comes only with regeneration and the filling of the Spirit. It’s what compelled St. Paul to travel the ancient world, suffering humiliation, stonings, beatings, and finally death for the Faith; likewise for all the martyrs. Paul did not trust in his brilliant mind, but considered all the trappings of his previous religious posturing “dung” (earthy KJV) “for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Phil. 3.8)

In fact, it is really an affront to the nature and person of God to seek to “prove” the authority and verity of His Word. We can only declare the truths therein. This is called presuppositional apologetics, and must be our apologetic starting point. The unbeliever has his or her own set of working truths, even if they are in process. It is not small or narrow minded to embrace the moral and spiritual verities of the living God; for there are none higher or more excellent.

Like Paul we confidently say, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” (Rom. 1:16) He also said, “For I know that in me (That is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.” (Rom. 7.18) To trust in a mind twisted and corrupted by self and sin is the ultimate folly, but to trust fully in the living God and His infallible Word is the supreme wisdom – the “mind of Christ.”

It is you, Freddy, who have “set yourself up” for both the temporal and eternal judgments of God. God has provided a way out – the atonement of His Son; but only by becoming a little child in heart and disposition can one enter the Kingdom – no pretense or intellectual back talk. This offends human pride and self-sufficiency, but service in the “army“ of the King does not require doubt and debate, but love and obedience. This is not to say that the mind then becomes a useless appendage, but rather a finely tooled gift from the Creator to further discern his truths, to study the universe in humility and grace, and to study ways to serve the good of all people.

No Buz; we declare unequivocally that apart from Him we have no wisdom, we have no truth, we have no meaning or purpose. And, with the Apostle, we declare, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Call me closed minded and biased and all the rest of your pejorative lingo, but my mind is utterly free and serene in the arms of faith. As for argumentation, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” Thanks be to God.

You will note the words I used were denigrating anyone putting on an "intelectual staightjacket", which is to say, I myself do not want everything to be "intellectualized" nor am I especially fond of hanging about with solely "bookish" types. Art, the real passion of my life, is hardly just "intellectual". My own father, forexample, is eminently enjoyable company, and he is an honest, hard-working blue collar owner of his own construction company. He is also highly skeptical and no gull in matters religious. There's no membership card for the club of open questioners who don't stoop to submit to pre-ordained and pre-packaged "truth".

I cannot see how giving absolute, uncritical credence and power to any one book, any one point of view is healthy for a growing human mind seeking knowledge.

As for the continuous predictions of my impending damnation, please save such annoying and superfluous inanity for some other context. As I understand it, this blog is not for prosletyzing nor pseudo-intimidation via supernatural threat.

P.S. buz- I distinctly wrote that the interpretations were "your own or borrowed". If you believe them all to be your own, terrific. I left the possibilty you might reflect and see some were, in fact, at least strongly influenced by others.

And I hardly have "it all figured out", and hope I never do. The day any of us knows it all, is the day it isn't worth bothering to think and wonder.

And Nikos, if the supposed supernatural being somehow forbids or resists being proved to exist, are there other things that are meant to remain "forever" out of human ken? I suspect this same argument was thrown at many scientists for many thousands of years. But they kept asking questions and finding a surprising number of plausible explanations that required no divine presence. All the attempted "Daddy-talk" to quell "intellectual back talk" didn't keep Kepler from his discoveries. Nor Galileo. Nor the great atheist researchers of the more recent past: Francis Crick, et al.

A belief in a god does not need to stop intellectual inquiry, even the kind that may threaten to shake one's faith; but an absolutist insistence on undeniable singular "truth" will and does.