Understanding The Face Of Christianity

God did not create the world. The world created itself years ago. Secular humanists believe in Darwin’s Theory. Life was beautifully created with chemicals and mutated cells and over time, organism change physical appearance to adapt to the environment. Christianity, on the other hand, believes that life was created by God. Genesis 1:1 states, “God created the heavens and the earth.” Yes, thing do change overtime but that is not how things are created. (88)

The question of Origin asks, “Where did I come from?” In Genesis, Christians believe that mankind was created by the one and only sovereign God. (Open Bible, 2015) Based on my reading, which also was in the book of Genesis, Christians worldview maintain that

Christianity is one of the dominant religions on the planet, and Christian Theism has played a major role in shaping the development of Western culture. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Christian missionaries, Christian doctrine has even influenced the views of non-Christians. Nevertheless, the contemporary world is a pluralistic and diverse one, and postmodern perspectives have arisen to challenge the wide-ranging influence of Christian Theism. The purpose of this paper is to show how a belief in Christian Theism can help one understand the nature and meaning of life, and this paper will show evidence that this belief brings both uniformity and order to everything.

Christianity is one of the most influential religions on both ancient and modern Western society, with the religion based on the teachings of the prophet Jesus Christ who lived approximately between the years of 5 BC and 33 AD. It is claimed that Christ was the son of God whose spirit was embodied and sent to Earth as a human being to bring peace and prosperity to the less fortunate, and absolve the world of its sin. Jesus preached a doctrine of a supreme monotheistic god who ruled over the universe, as well as ethics and morals especially centred on the concept of faith and forgiveness. If one was to live their life in accordance to the Will of God and the teachings of Christ found in the written word of the Holy Bible, one would be absolved of their sin and ascend to the spiritual realm of God, known as Heaven, after their physical death.

Christian Beliefs in the Origins of the World “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” A Description of Christian Beliefs About the Origins of The World Christians believe that God created the universe.

The theist, therefore, appears to be faced with a choice between a view which implies a kind of moral chaos and a life of moral immaturity, and one which belittles an Almighty God. One attempt to resolve this dilemma turns on the distinction

(Diffey, 2014) Humanity was created to know and worship God. Being made in His likeness means that humans have been created with both spirit and body, also possessing many of God’s attributes. Some of these attributes are creativity, love, logic, reason, and a sense of right and wrong. God also gave humanity the privilege to care for and have dominion over earth, which gave humanity value and a higher purpose. (Herring, 2008) Soon after God’s perfect creation, sin entered the world, bringing about the Fall and introduced pain, suffering, and death to the world. (Gen. 3: 6, 14-19) The Fall is the root cause of human problems and caused humanity’s departure from God’s wisdom. (Diffey, 2014) Humanity has the capability to love because we are made in the image of Christ, however, humanity’s nature is flawed and sinful by nature. (Diffey, 2014) All of humanity has sinned, and fall short of God’s glory. (Romans 3:23 NIV) It is because this that we need a Savior.

A new way of learning was starting to be utilized and the study of the bible was beginning to be treated like any other classical piece and with the study of it came the realization of corruption in the church. The humanist movement came at a time when faith in the church war growing weak and educated men were growing bored with the old fashioned way of learning. The return to the study of the classics led to feelings of restless and a need to learn about the world around rather than the blind faith in the supernatural beliefs that Christianity was based. The extremist on both sides blamed each other, the church was leery of any teachings that came from pagan sources, and humanist, encouraged by their scientific discovery’s, were questioning long held

David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion provide conflicting arguments about the nature of the universe, what humans can know about it, and how their knowledge can affect their religious beliefs. The most compelling situation relates to philosophical skepticism and religion; the empiricist character, Cleanthes, strongly defends his position that skepticism is beneficial to religious belief. Under fire from an agnostic skeptic and a rationalist, the empiricist view on skepticism and religion is strongest in it’s defense. This debate is a fundamental part of the study of philosophy: readers must choose their basic understanding of the universe and it’s creator, upon which all other assumptions about the universe will be made.

In this report I will be both contrasting and comparing the religious view of Catholicism and the world view of Secular Humanism. The three questions I will be analysing through the religious view of Catholicism and the world view Secular Humanism include:

Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit;

In Consider, the authors list Naturalism, Pantheism, and Theism as the three main primary classifications of worldview. From a Christian worldview perspective, the universe was created from a supernatural design and ruled by a monotheistic God. Other classifications of worldview discredits this design phases, and many feel as though the universe was conceived by an “impersonal force” (pantheists) or a scientific creation through evolution (naturalists). Secular humanists supports naturalism however believes God is a figment of human’s imagination and “that man is created good and thus can will himself to being better” (Hindson, 2008, p.47).

The Existential questions which are important to ask are, Why do we suffer? What happens after we die? and does god exist? Many religions will have answers for these questions, however the comparison between the Catholic viewpoint and the Secular Humanist viewpoint will be argued in this report.

A key distinction between naturalistic "secular humanism" and Christianity would be the view of life after death. "Secular humanism," being limited to this world, would not acknowledge

As stated by Groothuis (2011) “But Christianity, on the contrary, depicted God as a rational, responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being and the universe as his personal creation, thus having a rational, lawful, stable structure, awaiting human comprehension” ( p. 102). All that is in the universe, except for God Himself, is God’s creation. Therefore, my Christian worldview begins with the existence of a God who is the personal and creator of everything we survey. Knowing that God is the cause for creation, brings perspective to my life. It establishes the place of a great being that took time, out of time and space to create the world in which I exist. A world meticulously designed to work as one connected string. How can a world be fine-tuned with irreducible complexity, without a designer?