Sunday, April 17, 2005

Accident

I recently finished reading Nietzsche's The Gay Science and he made an interesting statement I have been thinking about for a while. In the debate between Creationists and Evolutionists, one common statement comes up that humanity is "an accident of nature." However, this is not consistent with their philosophy. Accident is defined in distinction from purpose; if there is no purpose there is no accident.

Two observations: First, this does not necessarily grant humanity meaning, it is rather nihilistic. Man may not be an accident of nature, but he is not really anything else. Second, Christian apologetics must be ready to respond to this reasoning. While there is greater emotional punch in the term "accident," the same emotional appeal can be made by with this logic. If men and women are uncomfortable being an accident, how much more if they are nothing?

Saturday, April 09, 2005

What Denomination are You?

Here is an interesting link I found on my buddy Justin's blog Copying other people's ideas is great!

I was not surprised by the top category being Reformed. However, some of the others surprised me a lot more. I thought Reformed Baptist would have ranked higher than UCC, but oh well. Here are the result for me:

1: Presbyterian/Reformed (100%)
2: Congregational/United Church of Christ (83%)
3: Baptist (Reformed/Particular/Calvinistic) (75%)
4: Anglican/Episcopal/Church of England (71%)
5: Lutheran (68%)
6: Eastern Orthodox (67%)
7: Roman Catholic (51%)
8: Church of Christ/Campbellite (42%)
9: Methodist/Wesleyan/Nazarene (39%)
10: Baptist (non-Calvinistic)/Plymouth Brethren/Fundamentalist (29%)
11: Seventh-Day Adventist (28%)
12: Pentecostal/Charismatic/Assemblies of God (18%)
13: Anabaptist (Mennonite/Quaker etc.) (9%)

One comment on this survey, it is very general, and could have gotten a lot more specific to more clearly distinguish some of the theological nicieties involved in all these different views. On a few it was hard to chose which one I agreed with, not because I was not sure, but I did not like the phrasing of any of the choices. Just one note if anyone is interested in taking this test, be sure to chose both your doctrinal conviction, and also your ranking, the results are very different if you do not rank your priority. Enjoy!