God, Aliens, and Other Stuff

A sophistry is something that looks good, feels good, and sounds really good...so good that it becomes an absolute truth for long periods of time, deeply impacting culture, before people realize that it's just wrong and they have to let the idea go. A sophistry stops all progress until it is exposed. One example in our own history in the U.S. is that black people are not fully human, so it's OK to buy and sell them on the open market. One of the biggest sophistries in the world today is promoted by the global Christian church. It is the evangelical belief that the Bible is inerrant, that there is no error in the Scripture, that all ideas expressed are those of God Himself. The belief that there can be no human content or cultural bias in the writing of the Bible is just wrong. To continually aver that the Bible is perfect, inerrant, and always reflects God's current view of the world sounds so good, so pious, so holy, so heroic...and is always rewarded with amens and "...

One of my favorite characters in Church History is St. Jerome. He was born in the mid-fourth century (300's AD), wrote in the latter quarter of that century and the early part of the 400's. He died around 420, having produced a vast body of literature, including letters, biblical translations, biblical commentaries, and essays refuting heresies. No one had higher praise or love for the intelligent, ascetic virgins of his day. They were his dear friends. He sobbed unabashedly when they died. These women were admired when they didn't bathe or fix their hair. Some fasted frequently and wore hair shirts. They also were adept at Latin, Greek, and (with Jerome's help) Hebrew. He lived in the early era of papism. Presbyter and bishop were basically the same office, the difference being a reference to age. These offices had at that time full ecclesiastical status; marriage was not yet forbidden to the clergy. The church made a difference between a catechumin and someone who had...

According to the dictionary, a sophistry is a kind of reasoning that is misleading or unsound, but it sounds clever and plausible. Paul talks about such reasoning in Colossians 2:23, "Such regulations (Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!) indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility, and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence." Note, 'appearance of wisdom' and 'false humility' do not a perfect Christian make. In 1 Cor. 11 we have two ways of looking at the woman question. One is born of the Spirit and the other is a sophistry. Verses 2-10 present the picture of the first century attitude toward women: a. It is positively disgraceful if she does not cover her head. As a Catholic in my youth we wore hats, scarves, or doilies to Mass on Sunday. It was sinful if you didn't do so. But that is NOT what Paul is requiring. Tertullian gives us the real ancien...