Bushbred,
Alas, history is always written by the winners. That is, our history is written by the secularists and they give it their own slant of lies and propaganda. The use of “dark ages” to describe the time between the light of Greek thought and the 17th Western “Enlightenment” says it all. This is a judgment based entirely our obsession with natural science and technology. In fact, it was the church that preserved the light of the gospel during the barbarian invasions and they were not dark times at all but a flourishing of theology and art. As far as theology goes, the Enlightenment should be called the Endarkenment since so much was lost, again due to our preoccupation with the physical world. Alasdair MacIntyre’s parable of lost knowledge at the beginning of “After Virtue” is instructive. We now live in a time beyond the cataclysm of the “Enlightenment” in which we have lost the language of virtue and find our selves confused and directionless. I commend it to you.

Brushbred

I can only echo Keith's sentiments - balanced, rational and fair are just a couple of words I could add to describe your informative post. Only the tragically prejudiced could take issue with your words.

Thank you

To quote Bertrand Russell:

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."

Bushbred,
Bravo and hear, hear! I for one would nominate you for our national leader any day…

Philo – so you are denying the Inquisition – what next – denying the holocaust?

As for “It is interesting to note how atheists and secularists try to deny the Church of Christ a role in society. Their ill informed views of what the gospel of Christ is”

What you seem to miss is the “Church of Christ” is, in fact one of any number of diverse and competing religious sideshows which proclaim their own omnipotence whilst decrying the role of their commercial adversaries.

I notice you have ignored my observation that

“We can each find our own way to God without the intercession of religions or the religious.”

Is that because you consider “secularists”, as would, I suspect, the many Church Leaders, both uneducated and unauthorised to express opinions or more the Catholic view, that such disclosure is heresy?
Do you consider it a travesty that excommunication does not mean a thing anymore?

Reason – the content of your post reflects your logon name.

Scout – and the forms of blackmail used by the “religious” has, in the past been of the most depraved and despicable nature.

t.u.s. agree – I might observe the “Churches” have fallen from grace because of the public displays of corruption by the leadership of many churches in their capacity to favour and protect the priesthood at the expense of their congregants and their congregants children.

Well said bushbred

Sells “Alas, history is always written by the winners. That is, our history is written by the secularists and they give it their own slant of lies and propaganda.”

Of recent disclosures to the history of depraved and predatory actions by clerics of several denominations and the associated “cover-ups” by other religious leaders, are at last being written by the “victims”.

Such disclosure being long overdue!

As for “we have lost the language of virtue and find our selves confused and directionless”.

I take it you refer to the “religious” or part thereof and have not included unconfused and focused “secularists” as part of the collective "we"?

Col Rouge,
The truth of the Gospel of Christ is often very different to the life lived by people calling themselves "Christian". You will note most of the letters written to Churches, after Jesus was present, were dealing with problems of people in the Church going off the track from the Gospel. This is the nature of humanity, even Carl Marks would agree with those supposedly following his principles.

The cultural principles of Christianity have public expression like "love your neighbour as yourself" this is not a private matter. It affects other people and it is cultural. To deny Christians their cultural expresion is absurd and is an afront by secularists imposing their values on Christians. Christianity is not a personal supression of one's mind, a mere internalising of ones belief, that atheists want it to be. Christians will speak out when their cultural values are violated. They value all life especially the weak and vunerable that is why they act to protect the unborn child whose mother wishes it destroyed by hacking it to peices in the womb for undignified disposal.

It was the Church that initiated a home for unwanted children but as is the case with some humans they may call themselves Christian, but do not adhere to the Gospel. This behaviour by some does not negate the truth of the Gospel, "love and forgive your enemy".

Peter

Best wishes for the new year, and thank you for another fine contribution to a fundamental issue for humanity’s way forward.

I do not agree with you that Bushbred’s comments on the Dark Age’s saw him jump from the Classic Greeks to the Enlightenment. He made reference to the Muslim scholars and indeed, St Thomas Aquinas, though not factual.

Aquinas, did not “accept” the Aristotelian reasoning of the Muslims; he celebrated it and went on courageously expounding and expanding it to take them on, respectfully, in philosophical and theological debate. One of his key positions was the particular focus on the uniqueness of each human being impressed in the image of God, with their own power of reason and intellect for which they are individually responsible, as opposed to the prevailing Islamic thought of an intellect residing solely in God and which we share. This is a fundamental intellectual proposition based on a profound spiritual revelation. Of course, our Age of Enlightenment has seen the intellectual truth separated from the spiritual truth - imago dei.

Bushbred may also be enlightened to know that a model of western commerce and systemized industry came out of the monastic enterprises that saw their origins in the “Dark Ages”. In that model for centuries, there was a focus on freeing man for God in service to man, as opposed to the systems of Industrial Age Enlightenment that still see man freed from God, to go and exploit and manipulate man as an individual pursuit of personal power, and in some quarters, the blessing of God..

So dark is not necessarily dark; and the Enlightenment is certainly not that of the “light that darkness could not overcome” ( Prologue of St John’s Gospel) - It is in the process of being darkened