Monday, June 25, 2007

Presuppositional Humor and The Rise of the Risible Theological Dictionary

Presuppositionalism – a form of apologetics often resulting in extended, atheistic vacations, which systematically undermines all unbiblical propositions within a fifteen foot radius of any such speaker.

Evidentialism – A form of Christian apologetics for which there is no persuasive empirical evidence, which emphasizes the importance of vindicating Christian faith-commitments in light of empirical evidence.

Dispensationalism – A form of theological reasoning that divides the history of salvation into several consecutive epochs. In the last of these, the New Testament era, everything else got Left Behind. Books added to make up for the missing 39 (from prior eras) include the Frank Peretti series, and works by Tim La Haye and Hal Lindsey. Apocalyptic interpretations common among such groups show strong influence from the L.A. Times. Early proponents included Marcion and Montanus.

Theonomy - A form of theological, ethical and juridical wisdom for nations and governments who have absolutely no idea what they’re doing. Theonomists have discerned from a careful study of the Bible that this, at present, includes all of them.

Calvinism - a systematic form of theological reasoning adhered to by people who could not have done otherwise once God made the choice.

Arminianism - a freely-chosen form of theological reasoning which helps keep presuppositionalists employed, whose adherents often affirm simultaneously that future events like the Rapture are foreordained, while holding to a view of God, man, and salvation which would render this suggestion entirely impossible. The most famous early proponent of this view was Pelagius.

Postmillenialism - The only remaining form of Christian teaching about the future by the year 2030. Its central tenet affirms that the strange and foreign concept of "losing" remains a Bultmannian myth (called "Lindseygeschichte"), which developed over time by legendary growth, yielding countless Premillenial redactions.

Amillenialism: A form of Christian teaching about the future, for disillusioned people who equate our present mess with "the Millenium," a thousand year period lasting about 2,000 years so far. They’ve given up on math too.

Premillenialism: A form of theological reasoning about the future scheduled to flee earth in the twinkling of an eye, leaving postmillenialists in charge.

Watchtower Theology: A form of theological reasoning for people who cannot multiply 1x1x1


Framework hypothesis: A form of exegetical interpretation and theological reasoning regarding the literary structure of Genesis for people who loathe watches, preferring instead to take life one eon at a time.

Evolution, Theory of: The biological theory that humanity descended from less complex life forms by natural selection, adaptation, and mutation, over millions of years. The gradual evolutionary process occurs so slowly that it doesn’t actually happen, so it isn’t observable.

Moreover, this important theory bears the ethical implicate, that since humans are merely animals, they have zero ethical obligations, including the alleged academic obligation to believe in biological theories that don’t actually happen.

Ockham’s Razor: A philosophical and theoretical principle which teaches that, in the marketplace of competition for ideas, the simpler people are actually smarter than the other guys.

Russell, Bertrand: A twentieth-century, British philosopher and logician responsible for major advancements in the logical mechanics of set theory, occasioned by his posing mysterious dillemmas to his Spanish barber.

Godel, Kurt: A twentieth- century, American philosopher and mathematician responsible for the now-famous "incompleteness theorem," which proposes that no axiomatically closed system can ever justify all its most basic postulates, leaving the system in question theoretically incom

Martin, Michael: A 21st century philosopher, and professor of philosophy at Boston University, and self-described Atheist, responsible for the publication of many books, articles and debates allegedly invalidating "the theistic premiss." He nearly debated the late Dr. Greg L. Bahnsen, and now occupies his time prosecuting that same premiss aggressively with all Christian persons who are not the late Dr. Greg Bahnsen. He aims to show thereby, in allegedly refuting all members of the set naming "persons who are not Greg Bahnsen," that he could have (or has) refuted all the members of the complementary set, "persons who are Greg Bahnsen." According to this new logic, by the year 2040, he will have refuted everyone by actually refuting no one.

Jones, Douglas M.: Notorious Idahoan Satirist and Presuppositionalist responsible for the invention of the phrase, "Body-piercing community" and other unreasonably funny jabs.

Socrates: A 5th century Greek philosopher and teacher of Plato, responsible for promoting a dialectical form of teaching, challenging the epistemological adequacy of the Greek mythology then popular, advocating educational access across economic classes, and testing (and finding) the ideological tolerance limits of Athenian democracy. Athenians pronounce, " ideological tolerance limits" as "hemlock."

Paedocommunion: A theological conviction and doctrine regarding Christian communion, in the form of bread and wine, which teaches that small people, whether or not they have the slightest notion what they do, should be allowed freely to engage in an exercise demonstrably at times more dangerous than skydiving. Still others are considering lowering the driving age to six.

Jesus Seminar, the: A small group of what is now some 200 scholars of ancient history and "Historical Jesus" studies, founded in Berkeley, California in the 1980's. Having published many books and articles that aim to discern the "historical core" of the sayings of Jesus from the canonical Gospels, this group strategically employs the flimsiest set of "historical criteria" known to mankind, casting votes as "multi-colored beads" – to affirm or deny what 100 million Evangelicals in their country already know – that the Gospel sayings of Jesus are authentic and historical (ipsissima vox).

Kant, Immanuel - A German philosopher of the 18th century and contemporary of philosopher, David Hume (who liked backgammon), who sought to "rescue science" from the acid criticisms of Mr. Hume, when he was, "awakened from his dogmatic slumbers." Famous also for his maxim, "These two things amaze me, the starry skies above [i.e. science] and the moral law within [i.e. ethics]" Kant sought a new way to view human perception, so as to preserve objective knowledge by affirming that we know things according to perceptual categories that come prepackaged – like spam.

He called these 4 basic categories, "quantities, qualities, modalities and relations." He learned about these from his senses - which means his senses told him all about his senses. Very sensible. Then he also postulated an unknowable "noumenal" part of the world, which he told us all about in writing, so we would know all about things we can’t know anything about.

This was supposed to rescue science from Hume, who admittedly couldn’t answer his own charges, leaving each to admire the other’s failed philosophy, and with a great deal of backgammon to play, and timely walks to take. People kept on at the sciences anyway since they can do fun things and give us outrageous toys. Quite a few not-so-clever people who read Kant felt he had resolved Hume’s problems, while later philosophers balked at this idea.

This crisis in philosophy was supposed to teach them that the sciences are for taking dominion as God commanded, and that it makes no difference if any theory is supposedly "true" or false since both kinds help us take dominion as commanded. False theories - the vast majority of all theories - can do really cool things too. So they missed the point with surprising finesse, the way Arminians "understand" Calvinism, because this was the "Enlightenment," and the ministry of truth had not approved theoretical instrumentalism of this kind since the Bible – revelation from God which is not theoretical in nature – actually teaches it.

This means that Kant’s whole project was worthless in the first place because science didn’t need any rescuing. Only if you understand it as a truth-acquiring substitute for the Bible does its theories need to be true. Since it is not that, but a dominion-taking enterprise for better controlling our environment, and elevating our standard of living to the glory of God – more tithing too (let’s be practical) – it needed no rescuing, and it continued on without Kant’s help for quite some time. Most scientists are not very philosophically inclined anyway, but tend to be specialists in their choice of empirical domain and inquiry. All that time and effort, and he could have been reading more Ecclesiastes.

Pope, the. This term refers to the extra- and post-biblical "papal office" manufactured by Rome, which dates from around the 5th or 6th centuries A.D. Though a counterfeit office from the get-go, adherents reportedly find it "great fun". This "Bishop of Rome," gets elected by others ( holding a second phoney office) called "cardinals." This term actually refers to a mediocre baseball team from St. Louis, and this practice in our country would be analogous to a group of people belonging to the Lions Club getting together to appoint their favorite guy "king of America" by popular vote. The "pope" wears a big, pointy, white hat, and travels in a bulletproof "popemobile."

In 1543, at the Council of Trent, the "church," headed by this man, officially cursed in the Name of the Lord anyone teaching that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone (which is the truth, of course). Ironically, the current "pope" named himself, "Benedict," or blessing. Later popes said Protestants were but "straying brethren," while yet affirming the infallibility of that "church." What they will say next week is anyone’s guess.

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