Sunday 14 May 2017

i) Lesson 6 HUMANISM’S METASTORY – The Story that is Shaping Western Cultures

Session 6
                     Read pages 130 - 156  

1) Is there validity to the way I have presented this meta-story or is it a caricature?
       Are these as significant / as “impossible” an event as the Big Bang itself?
               The Big Bang - the expanding cosmos - formed out of ???
               The Biological Big Bang - Life
               The Anthropological - Homo Sapiens
               The Psychological - Search for meaning / purpose / truth / justice etc
               The Bio-technological - human partnership with evolution
               "Deification" - Mankind perfected
 
2) Discuss the two key assumptions that this story makes?  Does our culture recognize / acknowledge these assumptions? How can we create awareness of these assumptions?  page 147
           - It’s all by chance (by implication - no god)  billions and billions of years
           - Truth is discovered only through reason working through the scientific method.
                   All answers to Life's Ultimate questions arise out of these two
3) How is this meta-story shaping western culture and its soul?
        Think through these institutions:
             - education, health care, judicial system, politics (the progressive agenda), etc
        Think through these life issues:
              - Life meaning / purpose, what is a human, our sexuality, ethics - right or wrong,
         Think through these rites of passage rituals
              - birth, adolescence, marriage, retirement, death, birthdays,
        The Meta-story suggests the possibility of extinction (page 145 - 146).
                        How does this impact our lives?

5) Wrap up         Romans 1:18-32        Atheism and Cultural Genocide - 10 Steps
         Do we see this moral slide in our “god - less” culture?
                Identify the current cultural stages of this slide as described in this passage.
                     A possible commentary on this passage.

         1) Not responding to the whispers of our conscience

         2) Not acknowledging / affirming God’s existence – Hebrews 11:6

         3) Not giving thanks, not worshipping Creator

         4) Pride – intellectual “games” to rationalize our “god-less” perspectives

         5) Elevating created things / ideologies to be the primary focal points of our lives

         6) Crossing Sexual boundaries. Cheapening sex.
               - using it to manipulate others rather than to celebrate covenant relationship.

         7) Men slide first / women fall next - women the last vanguard to protect
            cultural purity / integrity / moral strength.

         8) Increasing sexual perversion

         9) Complete breakdown of family and society - loss of civility

        10) Wholesale approval of evil, wholesale disapproval of the good

Understanding Sexual perversion from a Biblical Perspective.   Please read page 203 last paragraph (and following) to understand how I am using the term idol in these next four points for discussion.

         • Satanic attack on the Image Bearer, the idol - Genesis 1:27

         • Not merely destroying the temple.       Destroying the idol itself

         • The ultimate assault on the One who is represented by that Image / idol
                Satan cannot attack God directly so he focuses on the idol.

         • Our sexuality / marriage is the best illustration we have of what God is like.
             True love, covenant faithfulness, intimate knowing, unconditional acceptance
                  unlimited joy in, and jealous passion for the other (ie mine and mine alone), 
                    etc.
                        Ephesians 5:22- 33 especially verse 32

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