A Person's Philosophy Has an Effect Upon How He Thinks and Acts.

During the Medieval Era, the Catholic Church thought they had found quite an intelligent man in Aristotle, so they made him their science authority. Then, when Copernicus and Galileo came along attacking Aristotle's science, everyone then and since thought it was a direct attack upon the Church. It wasn't, but it illustrates the foolishness of God's People tying their doctrine to anything as changeable as science (just look at all the "astounding" discoveries that have drastically changed evolution in the last ten years).

Then came the Reformation in Northern Europe and the Renaissance in the South. For Reformation Man, respect for God and His orderliness dominated the arts and encouraged scientific study (respect for God's use of cause and effect promised order in the midst of a chaos of ignorance). The effect on the men holding this philosophy was dramatic. The British Bloodless Revolution (1688), the American Revolution and Civil War were models of compassion and healing of wounds after the conflict.

For Renaissance Man, observation and majority rule were king. The French and Russian Revolutions were dominated by Renaissance philosophy producing the French bloodbath that eventually killed off the original executioners, and the Russian Communists killed off 60 million of their own people.

But a nation's Christian heritage has a limited effect in not strengthened by periodic revival. Look at Germany, the birthplace of the Reformation. Just before World War II, drugs, hippies and evolution were the rage.

And in the US we have declared war on the babies. In all U.S. wars (Revolutionary, Civil, WWI, WWII, Korean and Vietnam), less than 1.2 million servicemen killed. U.S. abortions have killed over 30 million. While committed Christians risk freedom and carreers to try to stop the slaughter of the innocents, many avant garde denominations defend the women who kill their babies. Many Jews today believe that German Christians sent them to the gas chambers. Will the historians of the future wonder why the Christians condoned the slaughter of 30 million babies...?

Look at other philosophies and their effects: When modern science moved to only cause and effect, God died. When the social sciences and psychology moved to only cause and effect, man died (there were no longer any bases for morals or love.) Social Darwinism justified survival of the fittest in society:

Spencer said, "The poverty of the incapable... starvation of the idle... and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong... are the decrees of a large, farseeing Benevolence."

Heinrich Himmler (head of Gestapo) preached that the law of nature must take its course in survival of the fittest.

J. D. Rockefeller stated, "The growth of large business is merely a survival of the fittest."

Andrew Carnegie spoke of his conversion to evolution, "Light came in as a flood and all was clear. Not only had I got rid of theology and the supernatural, but I found the truth of evolution."

The Bible said, "As a man thinketh, so is he".

Einstein lamented, "We are mental giants and moral midgets".

When asked on T.V. why evolution was accedpted so readily, author Aldous Huxley responded, "the reason we accepted Darwinism even without proof is because we didn't want God to interfer with our sexual mores."

Sir Arthur Keith said, "Evolution is unproved and unprovable. We believe it because the only alternative is special creation, and that is unthinkable."

D. M. S. Watson (University of London) said, "Evolution is accepted... not because it has been observed... but because the alternative, special creation, is clearly incredible."

Julian Huxley stated, "Divine interference ... is both unnecessary and illogical." and "We cannot discover a purpose in evolution."

George Simpson, "Man is the result of a purposeless and materialistic process that did not have him in mind. He was not planned."

Clarence Darrow argued in the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, "[it is] bigotry for public schools to teach only one theory of origins."

Does your philosophy make a difference in how you act? You tell me.