Meeting #1
2/19/05
The inaugural Garage Scholars meeting was held in the home of the absent Robert Grange, on a sunny and brisk Saturday morning. Below are notes on preliminary conversation and then discussion of the talk we listened to.
Agenda
• Discuss mission statement
• Create name for group
• Listen to Glenn Sunshine, “How We Got Here: Medieval, Pre-Modern, Modern and Post-Modern Worldviews"
• Discuss
Present: Mike, Chris, Karl, JD
I asked what the guys were looking to get out of this group.
-Better understanding of different worldviews.
-Understand the world around us through discussion and argument.
-Creating a knowledge base of worldviews.
Group Names:
• Super Cool and Secret and We Know Things and We Don’t Tell Anybody
• Bad-Ass M-F'ers (But We’re Christians)
Discussion of Sunshine talk:
-Mike said it was good.
-Karl said it was a good overview, and makes sense how one view leads to another.
-Chris said, “Ummm, I don’t know,” and started to say that there might be some merit to saying each person can have their own ideas. He also said he has heard a lot of different definitions of post-modernism.
“We don’t live in a Christian world, and with that I think that…well my brain’s kinda fuzzy right now. I just think that since we live in a fallen world, there is certain things that are right for these people, that they’re going to do, and it’s just part of living in a fallen world. I’m not sure what I think about saying that…I don’t know.”
Mike said, you can find things in it that are good. Chris said it can help you understand other cultures, other perspectives. “It makes you look at all these different angles.”
Mike: “People look at anything that’s dogmatic as wrong. The church has made its mistakes…The church has done a lot of good, but non-Christians are not going to talk about that. They’re going to talk about the Salem Witch Trials, and the Crusades…If you’re dogmatic about something, you’re simpleminded and you’re being led, or you’re trying to lead other people and that’s dangerous.”
Chris: “I kind of see post-modernism, it’s not really new…I just look at it as our human nature outside of pursuing God. We want what’s best for ourselves…The thing I didn’t agree with is that meaning’s up in the air.”
Mike: He definitely is like, they’re the bad people…He kicked some stuff that wasn’t true. Like, Newton was not a Christian. He did not believe that Christ was divine. I hate it when Christians do that.
Debated whether the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation.
Mike: Christians say things that come out as stupid to people who are historically informed.
He recommended that we listen to Sproul’s overview of philosophical history.
Karl talked about the fact that everybody assumes that people in the past when things were closer to a Christian worldview had better morals…There’s nothing new under the sun.
Karl wants progressive Christians. Mike said there have always been progressives and conservatives.
Karl wants to see them use “a progressive mentality to spread the truth…Use what the progressives are using to spread the truth.”
Mike: Liberals, what they believe right now, I don’t believe that’s progress.
Chris: Progress as I understand it is the more immoral you can become. Used the example of Rome and their ascent of power and then into degradation, decay and eventually destruction.
I made the point that to know what truth is, you have to look to the past, and to know how to
Mike: You can be a Christian and be an existentialist. It’s a philosophy of existence. Kierkegaard: If you take God out of it, what you have is…not much different from postmodernism. It’s all about me. All of life is where I’m at, how I feel. There is no God, no next life. Enjoy what you can get.
Mike: It’s been hard for me for a while to figure out what I believe about social matters…It’s like I can’t generate the belief.
The inaugural Garage Scholars meeting was held in the home of the absent Robert Grange, on a sunny and brisk Saturday morning. Below are notes on preliminary conversation and then discussion of the talk we listened to.
Agenda
• Discuss mission statement
• Create name for group
• Listen to Glenn Sunshine, “How We Got Here: Medieval, Pre-Modern, Modern and Post-Modern Worldviews"
• Discuss
Present: Mike, Chris, Karl, JD
I asked what the guys were looking to get out of this group.
-Better understanding of different worldviews.
-Understand the world around us through discussion and argument.
-Creating a knowledge base of worldviews.
Group Names:
• Super Cool and Secret and We Know Things and We Don’t Tell Anybody
• Bad-Ass M-F'ers (But We’re Christians)
Discussion of Sunshine talk:
-Mike said it was good.
-Karl said it was a good overview, and makes sense how one view leads to another.
-Chris said, “Ummm, I don’t know,” and started to say that there might be some merit to saying each person can have their own ideas. He also said he has heard a lot of different definitions of post-modernism.
“We don’t live in a Christian world, and with that I think that…well my brain’s kinda fuzzy right now. I just think that since we live in a fallen world, there is certain things that are right for these people, that they’re going to do, and it’s just part of living in a fallen world. I’m not sure what I think about saying that…I don’t know.”
Mike said, you can find things in it that are good. Chris said it can help you understand other cultures, other perspectives. “It makes you look at all these different angles.”
Mike: “People look at anything that’s dogmatic as wrong. The church has made its mistakes…The church has done a lot of good, but non-Christians are not going to talk about that. They’re going to talk about the Salem Witch Trials, and the Crusades…If you’re dogmatic about something, you’re simpleminded and you’re being led, or you’re trying to lead other people and that’s dangerous.”
Chris: “I kind of see post-modernism, it’s not really new…I just look at it as our human nature outside of pursuing God. We want what’s best for ourselves…The thing I didn’t agree with is that meaning’s up in the air.”
Mike: He definitely is like, they’re the bad people…He kicked some stuff that wasn’t true. Like, Newton was not a Christian. He did not believe that Christ was divine. I hate it when Christians do that.
Debated whether the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation.
Mike: Christians say things that come out as stupid to people who are historically informed.
He recommended that we listen to Sproul’s overview of philosophical history.
Karl talked about the fact that everybody assumes that people in the past when things were closer to a Christian worldview had better morals…There’s nothing new under the sun.
Karl wants progressive Christians. Mike said there have always been progressives and conservatives.
Karl wants to see them use “a progressive mentality to spread the truth…Use what the progressives are using to spread the truth.”
Mike: Liberals, what they believe right now, I don’t believe that’s progress.
Chris: Progress as I understand it is the more immoral you can become. Used the example of Rome and their ascent of power and then into degradation, decay and eventually destruction.
I made the point that to know what truth is, you have to look to the past, and to know how to
Mike: You can be a Christian and be an existentialist. It’s a philosophy of existence. Kierkegaard: If you take God out of it, what you have is…not much different from postmodernism. It’s all about me. All of life is where I’m at, how I feel. There is no God, no next life. Enjoy what you can get.
Mike: It’s been hard for me for a while to figure out what I believe about social matters…It’s like I can’t generate the belief.
posted by stan at 12:52 PM
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