The Great Faith Debate

Exciting Changes!!

2011-12-02T15:57:00.001-05:00

Hi everyone,

I am pleased to announce some exciting changes! I have merged this blog into a wordpress blog!! This new location of GreatFaithDebate is a bit more professional looking! Here is a link...all of my previous articles are on this site and this is where I will continue to blog!! I will also continue to post articles here as well! The wordpress site will be an engaging point for a more secular audience...I will be deleting certain posts in order to facilitate a more general readership! So the system will look a bit like this: this blog will remain more of a general info apologetics blog while the wordpress site will be more of a detailed and controversial debate ground! Please keep me in your prayers as I seek to build up the church as well as dialogue with the rest of the world.

Also, I have started another blog called JazzFaith! This blog consists of unconventional perspectives on God, Christianity, Scripture, the Church, etc.! If you come on this site, be prepared to be challenged, encouraged, and engaged, etc.! This blog-spot blog will probably continue to be small but I'm convinced that JazzFaith and the wordpress site GreatFaithDebate will probably grow much larger! Again, I am very excited about the future of GFD...please comment and let me know what you think!!!

I'm Back!!!

2011-12-01T14:26:00.001-05:00

Hi Everyone, I realize that has been quite awhile since I have posted. I decided that I need to share with you, my readers, a bit of what has been happening in my life.

In July of this year, I attended the Lamplighter Guild for Creative Disciplines. You can read about it here. Basically, I received instruction from Mark Hamby (founder of Lamplighter Ministries), John Fornof, Tod Busteed, and John Campbell (from Adventures in Odyssey), Philip Glassborow, and several other teachers. I studied Christian theology, script writing, music composition, sound design, voice acting, and entrepreneurial studies! The experience was life-changing in so many ways!!!

When I got back from the Guild, I started an internship with Lamplighter ministries. This has grown into an almost full-time internship: I am helping to write study guides, I am writing devotionals, I am helping Mr. Hamby do dissertation research, and I am working on a non-fiction book on storytelling! In addition, I have been blessed with the opportunity to write the next Lamplighter audio drama with several other students as an apprentice under the guidance of John Fornof! As you can imagine, my life is very jam-packed! In addition, I am almost positive that, unless God leads me in a different direction, I will be working with Lamplighter ministries (my internship is leading into a paid position at some point down the road) for the rest of my life!!!

I am going to be revamping this blog! Please bear with me as I make these exciting changes.! At this point, my writing has matured and I am ready to transform Great Faith Debate into an exciting blog that surpasses my earlier attempts at blogging!! I am so excited about the future of Great Faith Debate and I hope that you will fall in love with the new Great Faith Debate!

Historical Adam (Is He Neccesary)

2011-06-13T17:28:00.002-04:00

In the post-christian culture in which we live, many evangelicals are compromising on the literal history of Genesis (especially the first few chapters). The new debate is whether there was a historical Adam or not. According to modern theories of genetics, the complexity of the human genome required an inital population of about 10,000. Sadly, many Christians are accepting this false doctrine.

So what is at stake? Here is a direct quote from Christianity Today.
"The entire story of what is wrong with the world hinges on the diosbedient exercise of the will by the first humans. The problem with human race is not its dearth of insight but its misshapen will."

Another problem with this theory is that it undermines the redeeming work of Christ. Why is there sin in the first place? If there was no Adam and Eve, how did sin enter the world? Is there such a thing as sin?

The final problem is that it undermines scripture itself. If we can pick which Biblical heroes we want to acknowledge and which we choose to say didn't exist...the door is opened for the next generation to deny many more people than just Adam (how about Moses and Daniel or Luke and Peter?) No...the Bible is clear: the literal historical account of creation affirms Adam and Eve as the first humans!

I

2011-05-17T17:34:00.000-04:00

Easter Week (Series)

2011-04-20T20:00:00.000-04:00

Since Sunday is Easter, I thought I would do an Easter-related series. In this series, I will share my thoughts and feelings regarding the life/work of Christ.

Today's perspective will be on Christ's ministry. Instead of recounting well known scripture regarding His ministry, I will instead, relate what His ministry means to me personally.

Christ was the ultimate servant...and through His servanthood, divine power was manifested in ways unknown to man. Indeed, as we serve, when we serve, to empower our serve, the Holy Spririt manifests itself in us: thus we are equipped to face the challenges of life, equipped to serve and nourish the Body of Christ and to evangelize the lost. The amazing thing (something that is beyond comphrension)is that every single act of Christ was an act of unselfish serving. Of course Christ did things to perserve His life (eating, drinking, etc.) but even these acts were acts of obedience to the will of God (His death was appointed and thus He had to live until that time arrived). Are you getting this picture? A man (fully man and subject to the selfishness of man) who overcomes all selfishness from the beginning and continues to be unselfish IN ALL THINGS until His death (the ultimate act of unselfishness).

To take this idea even further is to apply it to our lives! (I am writing this but I'm no where near as unselfish as I need to be). This idea of total and complete servanthood has challenged me and convicted me. It comes down to this...how close to unselfish can I become. How much of my selfishness can I divorce. I believe that the difference between Heaven and Hell is this: in Heaven we are free from self (free to glorify God). The feeling of doing good feeling good. In hell, we are forever stuck with our sin, our self. We cannot be free and thus we are disgusted with our own pitiful existence.

Another thing that this Easter season has revealed to me is this: the ultimate act of love is laying down our life for a friend. But this is easy in a circumstance where you act on the spur of a moment. (jumping in front of a bullet). Christ knew that he was going to die to save us, from birth and he had to live with that and instead of wallowing in self-pity (a response that I probably would especially as the time grew nearer)...He was unselfish!

Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God?

2011-04-04T18:04:00.003-04:00

I must say, this was not a topic that I expected to post on. The reason I decided too was because of an article on Christianity Today. In this article, an author was reviewed and his ideas, introduced. According to this man's beliefs, Muslims and Christians both worship the same god. So do Muslims and Christians worship the same God? Let's look at this in a little detail!

Let's pretend that muslims and christians worship the same God. This could potentially be possible, the author argues, because many of the same attributes are present in both religions. For instance in both religons: God is one (monotheistic), God is just, merciful, and loving, God reveals His will through prophets and scriptures, etc. Okay I can concede the fact that the description of God is similar in both religons.

Serious problems arise, however, when we look at the distinct approaches to God (salvation, worship, etc.) The Bible teaches that Christ is the ONLY way to Heaven (which I believe) and muslims teach that to get salvation, one must follow the ordinances of Islam (the five pillars, etc.) When it comes to the scriptures of the two religons, the scriptures are cleary non-compatible! Thus which set of scripures is correct? Dangerous waters to swim in...! Or perhaps muslims and christians scriptures are both wrong? Or perhaps we just don't understand them? Ultimately it comes down to this: (a) muslims and christians worship the same god and one set of scriptures is right (the other is incorrect). (b) muslims and christians worship the same god but one group doesn't worship properly. (c) muslims and christians worship different gods.

This flawed line of thinking is one step away from complete relativism (all roads lead to Heaven). The only difference is this one condition that the author mentions in the text: all religons worship the same god as long as they are mono-theistic. So what if I worship myself? Or perhaps my monotheistic god is a cult leader. In any event...I'm going to heaven right? Um...no!!! There is only one true way. As a christian I belive in Christ. I can love and respect muslims but I don't believe that we are on the 'same page' and I think they would agree that our religons are radically different.

Should Christians Drink Wine Part 5

2011-03-31T14:04:00.007-04:00

First of all, I apologize that it's been forever since I posted (I was extremely busy!) This is the last part of the series. In this post we will look at the effects of alcohol on the brain.

When you drink, the alcohol works its way from the front of the brain to the part of the brain that connects with the neck. Long before visible signs of drunkness show (stagger, slur, etc) the affects of alcohol are working in negative ways.

We will look at the journey that the alcohol takes (I studied this in Psychology class a few months ago which is what prompted this series). The first thing that the alcohol affects your higher thinking skills. The skills needed for thinking logically are located in the very front of your brain so your thinking skills are the first to succumb to the alcohol. Is this a problem if your in the privacy of your home or with a group of guys watching football? No. But is it a problem if your drinking BEFORE you sign an important contract or make a high level business deal. BIG PROBLEM. The next thing that alcohol affects is your inhibitions. Why do people do things when their drunk that they wouldn't do if they were sober? The alcohol nullifies your inhibitions which creates big problems. The alcohol targets your speech and language skills next. Causing you to stutter and limiting your ability to express yourself.

Not that long after, your motor skills will be affected and you will stagger. If you keep drinking, you will pass out which is a built-in body defense. Without that defense, you could continue to drink causing your heart to stop beating.

This series has hopefully educated in the pros and cons of consuming alcohol. I could discuss the health benefits of wine but since the medical field is still not conclusive in that area, I will not. I am not endorsing one side over the other. Will I drink alcohol? No. But will I judge you if you do? Not as long as you are responsible and intelligent in this area.

Should Christians Drink Wine Part 4

2011-03-10T16:21:00.002-05:00

To start this post, let us look at a passage from the New Testament.

Romans 14:20- (New International Version, ©2011)

²⁰ Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble.²¹ It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.

This is not the only passage that talks about not consuming food or wine that will cause a brother to fall. It is a big issue that we need to be aware of. A good rule of thumb is to ask people if it is okay if you drink in their presence before you do so.

Another thing to consider is this: are you providing a temptation to a recovering alcoholic? Perhaps someone will see you drinking, say 'he's doing so why can't I' and then become an addicted. THINGS TO THINK ABOUT.

Remember, we are to be salt and light!

Should Christians Drink Wine Part 3

2011-03-08T16:48:00.003-05:00

In this post we will look at two more factors of this complex issue: individual and environment.

Individual

At the end of this series you can form your own opinion about whether or not you should drink but one thing is crystal clear: THERE ARE THOSE WHO SHOULD NEVER DRINK. Why? Because of genetics. If you have an alcoholic in your family tree (grandfather, father, great-grandfather, etc.) then drinking is a really bad idea. Studies in genetics show that those with alcoholics in their family tree are more prone to become addicted to alcoholic beverages even if only a small amount is consumed. Another individualistic factor to consider is whether or not you have a medical condition that would conflict with the consumption of alcoholic beverages. It's almost a no-brainer except for all of the people that visit the ER because they drank when they had a medical condition.

Environment

Environment should play a huge part in the to drink/or not to drink debate. Should you drink a glass of wine or (worse) a bottle of beer in front of young children-probably not. Should you drink in front of teenagers? Again maybe not the best idea. Can you drink with your wife at a fancy restaurant? Sure why not! But drinking at your business meeting where key decisions need to be made? Perhaps you should wait till the contract has been signed to touch your glass of champagne. Again, this is just common sense-but it's often overlooked. This is important. Just because you can drink in one setting, doesn't mean you should drink in every setting.

Conclusion

In order to conclude this post, I will give an introduction to my next post. One other factor in the Environment category is 'will I cause another to fall'. This concept will be explored in depth in my next post!

Should Christians Drink Wine Part 2

2011-03-01T17:22:00.002-05:00

This short post is a direct response to the previous one. First of all, I read several articles for and against the view that the wine Jesus drank and created in his first miracle was not fermented and here is my view.

The idea that the wine was fermented is illogical. Look again at the account of the first miracle-water to wine. The guests comment that this wine was finer then the previous wine. Do you honestly believe that this wine was grape juice? Secondly, the word study on the words for wine prove that the wine in question was indeed alcoholic. Form your own opinion but suffice it to say that more than likely the wine Jesus drank was indeed alcoholic.

So Christians can/should drink wine because Jesus did? Not exactly. Another factor to consider is the alcohol percentage. The alcohol content in the wine of Biblical times would have been around 1-5%. We know this because in order to get high levels of alcohol content, the wine would have had to go through more than one fermentation cycle which is not what is implied by Scripture. Modern day wine has an alcohol content percentage around 10-15%! Big difference. Also, our water is sanitary so we don't have that excuse.

Conclusion to this post: we will continue to examine this issue in the posts to follow. Our quest for answers will take us through the jungles of ethics, the mountains of morality, the plains of psychology, and the, lighted path of Scripture!

Should Christians Drink Wine Part 1

2011-03-01T16:40:00.004-05:00

This series will be controversial...I promise you that! But this series will also be educational. It goes past the typical arguments: Jesus drank wine, low alcoholic content in Biblical wine, wine is healthy, anti-Biblical, etc.

To begin we will look at the historical background (aka, the Bible) The following is an excerpt maintaining that the wine that Jesus created and consumed was grape juice and not fermented.

Jesus and Wine

Did Jesus turn water into “alcoholic” wine at a party?

Did Jesus drink alcoholic wine? It is assumed by a great many that He did. Let’s examine this for a moment. Do you know how much wine Jesus made during His first miracle at the wedding feast of Cana? He made 6 firkins, or about 150 gallons. Now, of course, the New International Version (NIV), which never changes anything of significance (yea, right), says by implication that Jesus did this “after the GUESTS had too much to drink”. You do understand that Jesus was a GUEST don't you??? So, let me understand this correctly, Jesus was at a party where the guests were drinking to excess, Jesus was one of the guests, and He supplied a few extra kegs to liven things up a bit after they had already drank to excess. Is that your Jesus?

Jesus Sinned?

The King James Bible (KJB) rendering which states they had "well drunken" (had plenty to drink) is the correct one. The New American Standard Version and other literal modern versions agree with the KJB here, leaving the NIV alone in its radically liberal paraphrase. Even if you take the rendering in the KJB, which I do, you have to conclude the guests had drank their fill of wine. If this wine was alcoholic then it is likely that they would not be ready for another 150 gallons of alcoholic wine. Think about it. How many glass of wine would this be? If you figure 4 ounces to a glass, 128 ounces to a gallon, you get 32 glasses of wine per gallon and a grand total of 4,800 glasses of wine. Now I do not know how many people were at this feast, but surely 500 would be a large number for such an event at this time. If this wine was alcoholic then Jesus did cause all who were there to drink to excess. This is clearly a sin in the Old Testament. Not only would His excessive drinking have been a sin, but causing others to do so is also a sin. Every Jew present at this wedding, and they were undoubtedly all Jews, would have known Him to be a sinner because of this verse, and many others:

Habakkuk 2:15 Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also,.......

Now my liberal (apostate) friends are quick to assert that Jesus drank alcoholic wine, as a tea totaler of course, but are often shocked by the implication this has in John 2. Some have suggested that Jesus didn't drink any, and that the guests did not have to drink all that he made. These are interesting thoughts, but I think it is clear from context that the guests had drank their fill and were now given a great deal more to drink. I think it is also abundantly clear from context this was not alcoholic wine.

Biblical Word Wine and Its Usage

The word "wine" is mentioned 231 times in the King James Bible. In the Old Testament there are 3 Hebrew words that are all translated as “wine”.

YAYIN: Intoxicating, fermented wine (Genesis 9:21).
TIROSH: Fresh grape juice (Proverbs 3:10).
SHAKAR: Intoxicating, intensely alcoholic, strong drink (often referred to other intoxicants than wine) (Numbers 28:7).

The New Testament, translated from Greek, uses the word “wine” for both fermented and unfermented drink. There are 2 Greek words for wine the New Testament.

OINOS: Wine (generic) - Matthew 9:17 -- unfermented, Ephesians 5:18 -- fermented.
GLEUKOS: Sweet wine, fresh juice (Acts 2:13).

The context reveals the type of wine as in Proverbs 20:1, ”Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise”. If grape juice is substituted for the word wine, the verse doesn't make sense.

The Bible is full of prohibitions about using alcoholic wine. It was forbidden for priests and for those who took the Nazarite vow. It was forbidden for kings and princes (Proverbs 31:4-6) and pronounced woe upon anyone who provided his neighbor alcoholic wine and made him drunk (Habakkuk 2:15). It would be inconsistent for the Bible to speak against alcoholic wine and then have Jesus ignore it. (Here is the link to the whole article)

Before I post an excerpt to a rebuff, here is a thought. Wine was drunk in Bible times because it was more sanitary then a lot of the water. But this wine was more sanitary because of the alcohol.

Question: "Did Jesus change the water into wine or grape juice?"

Answer: John chapter 2 records Jesus performing a miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. At the wedding, the hosts ran out of wine. Jesus' mother, Mary, asks Jesus to intervene, and He does so, reluctantly. Jesus has the servants bring six jars filled with water and then instructs the servants to give it to the overseer of the celebration. The water miraculously turns into wine, and the overseer declares that it was the best wine he had ever tasted. In this account, Jesus performed an amazing miracle, actually altering the molecular composition of the water, changing it into wine. The point of the account is summarized in John 2:11, "He thus revealed His glory, and His disciples put their faith in Him." Usually, though, when this passage is studied, a side issue becomes the main issue. Did Jesus transform the water into wine (fermented, alcoholic) or into grape juice (non-alcoholic)?

Throughout the passage, the Greek word translated "wine" is oinos, which was the common Greek word for normal wine, wine that was fermented/alcoholic. The Greek word for the wine Jesus created is the same word for the wine the wedding feast ran out of. The Greek word for the wine Jesus created is also the same word that is used in Ephesians 5:18, "...do not get drunk on wine..." Obviously, getting drunk from drinking wine requires the presence of alcohol. Everything, from the context of a wedding feast, to the usage of oinos in 1st century Greek literature (in the New Testament and outside the New Testament), argues for the wine that Jesus created to be normal, ordinary wine, containing alcohol. There is simply no solid historical, cultural, exegetical, contextual, or lexical reason to understand it to have been grape juice.

Those who oppose the drinking of alcohol, in any quantity, argue that Jesus would not have turned the water into wine, as He would have been promoting the consumption of a substance that is tainted by sin. In this understanding, alcohol itself is inherently sinful, and consumption of alcohol in any quantity is sin. That is not a biblical understanding, however. Some Scriptures discuss alcohol in positive terms. Ecclesiastes 9:7 instructs, “Drink your wine with a merry heart.” Psalm 104:14-15 states that God gives wine “that makes glad the heart of men.” Amos 9:14 discusses drinking wine from your own vineyard as a sign of God’s blessing. Isaiah 55:1 encourages, “Yes, come buy wine and milk…” From these and other Scriptures, it is clear that alcohol itself is not inherently sinful. Rather, it is the abuse of alcohol, drunkenness and/or addiction, that is sinful (Ephesians 5:18; Proverbs 23:29-35; 1 Corinthians 6:12; 2 Peter 2:19). Therefore, it would not have been a sin for Jesus to create a drink that contained alcohol.

A second, related argument is that by creating alcoholic wine, Jesus would have been promoting drunkenness, which the Bible clear identifies as sinful. This is not a valid argument. Was Jesus promoting gluttony when He multiplied the fishes and loaves far beyond what the people needed? Of course not. Creating a substance that can be abused does not make one responsible when another person foolishly chooses to abuse it. Jesus creating alcoholic wine was in no sense encouraging drunkenness.

The belief that Jesus created alcoholic wine is definitely more in agreement with the context and the definition/usage of oinos. The primary reasons for interpreting it as grape juice, that alcohol is inherently sinful or that the creation of alcohol would have been encouraging drunkenness, are unbiblical and invalid. There is simply no good biblical reason to understand John 2 as anything other than Jesus performing an amazing miracle by turning water into real wine. Is drunkenness sinful? Absolutely! Is addiction sinful? Definitely. Would Jesus turning the water into alcoholic wine in any way violate God's standards regarding the consumption of alcohol? Absolutely not!
(This excerpt can be found here).

The Story of Valentines Day

2011-02-14T16:15:00.001-05:00

Valentine's Day started in the time of the Roman Empire. In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honour Juno. Juno was the Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the Feast of Lupercalia.

The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, one of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl's name from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the girl whom he chose. Sometimes the pairing of the children lasted an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry.

Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. He believed that the reason was that roman men did not want to leave their loves or families. As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. The good Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of Claudius II. He and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples, and for this kind deed Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270. At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honour of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.

The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavoured to do away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints for those of maidens. And as the Lupercalia began about the middle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's Day for the celebration of this new feaSt. So it seems that the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for the coming year, arose in this way.

(From http://www.pictureframes.co.uk/pages/saint_valentine.htm)

The God Delusion: A Review by John Oakes, PhD

2011-02-02T14:21:00.002-05:00

Richard Dawkins is arguably the best-known evolutionist and atheist today. He
has written a number of books explaining modern discoveries as they relate to
the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution. Some of his better-known works include The Selfi
sh Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, River out of Edenand Unweaving the Rainbow. These books,
as their titles suggest, offer a mixture of solid evolutionary science and polemic
against those who do not accept the full implications of the atheistic theory
of evolution. In using the phrase atheistic theory of evolution, I do not at
all mean to imply that all evolutionists are atheistic or that evolution is
necessarily even an atheistic theory. I am applying this label to those who teach
two ideas: 1. It is a fact that all life on the earth today originated by random,
natural processes from inorganic matter to the original life form to all the
variety of life observable today. 2. This fact is evidence that there is no creative
or supernatural force as an underlying cause to what we observe in nature today.

With his latest addition to his resume as an author, Dawkins has thrown down
the gauntlet. The God Delusion is really not about evolution at all. It is a bold attack
on the very spirit of religion itself. Dawkins is not trying to convince his
reader of the evidence supporting organic change by mutation and natural selection
(although there is some of this in the book). He is trying to stake the claim tha
t belief in God is the most dangerous and pernicious force in the world today. I
t is the evil behind virtually everything bad which happens in human society. Dawk
ins makes the point that religion is the natural enemy of all those who seek
for truth and human justice. It is no wonder that this book has aroused a significant
response. In order to give the reader a flavor for the tone of this book, let us look
at the first sentence. ?As a child, my wife hated her school and wished she could leave.?
?This sentence gives us a hint of what is to come. This book is laced with anger,
vitriol and hatred against religion on every page. To summarize the book, the title
should have been, ?Why I hate religion and all religious people.? Dawkins pretends
to be an unbiased observer, yet when one reads this angry diatribe, it becomes
immediately obvious that this can not be farther from the truth. This is just about
the most biased, unfair attack I have ever read by any author.

A few more quotes and examples from the book will illustrate the bitter and
unbalanced tone of the book. On page one, he mentions the BBC documentary about
religion, The Root of All Evil? Dawkins says he does not believe religion is the
root of all evil, but he then proceeds to undermine that statement in the book
by basically stating that it is in fact the root of all evil?at least all the
evil he can think of. Another quote he praises (p. 5) is as follows (taken from
Robert Pirsig) ?When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. Whe
n many people suffer from a delusion, it is called Religion.? Dawkins claims that all
those who are religious are in a sense insane. He believes they suffer delusions. These are
fighting words. They are not used by accident. He calls religion a vice (p. 6) ?The God of
the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction.? (p.
31) Is Dawkins speaking as a scientist here? Is he speaking as a literary critic? No, he
is speaking as a bitter opponent of belief in a Creator and in absolute moral
truth. He calls belief in God silly (p. 36). He calls the Christian God a psychotic
delinquent (p. 38) and a monster (p. 46) Is this evidence of what Dawkins claims
to offer, which is carefully reasoned argument? He calls believers weird (p. 53) Agai
n and again in this book, he mentions how he is ?amused? by the things ?religionists?
do. We see him ridiculing and laughing at his enemies. He says that we should reject
Deuteronomy ?as all enlightened moderns do? (p. 57). Well, by definition, anyone
who accepts the historical accuracy of Deuteronomy is not enlightened or modern.
The list of those who do accept Deuteronomy will show the bias of this statement. He
?calls his opponents (i.e. all believers) unworthy (p. 57) He calls attempts to
test the viability of prayer pathetic (p. 61) He calls those who believe in evolution
but also believe in God members of ?The Neville Chamberlain School of Evolutionists.? (p.
66). You get the idea. This is a sampling from the first 20% of the book. Believe it or
not, the tone actually gets worse as the book proceeds. To illustrate, on p.
321 he says that he regrets the doctrine of hell is not true, because part of
him wishes the nuns he knew when he grew up could go there. He makes this point more
than once. He argues (p. 317) that being influenced by the Catholic Church is more
harmful than being sexually abused. I am not kidding!

I teach a course on the history and philosophy of science. As part of this course,
we cover logical fallacies and marks of pseudoscience. It is ironic, that Dawkins uses a
wide variety of those techniques which the scientific community have determined
to be absolutely unacceptable for scientific practice. Marks of pseudoscience found
in The God Delusion include;

1. Argument by analogy. This is trying to prove one claim to be true (despite a lack
of evidence supporting it) simply because it is similar to another claim which
is known to be true. Dawkins claims that Darwinism proves that complicated systems
can be created by natural forces. Never mind whether this is proven or not, he then
proceeds to argue, by direct analogy, that there will certainly be a Darwinian
equivalent to explain how the universe was created. This is simply not a scientific
argument, yet Dawkins uses it to explain away the fact that the universe was
created with laws unimaginably fine-tuned to allow life to exist.

2. Claims of suppression. Dawkins argues for atheism by constantly referring to how vigorously
he has been persecuted. He makes the patently false statement that atheistic
scientists are persecuted for their beliefs. I am a scientist myself. I can testify that
in scientific circles it is the belief in God which is far more likely to be
subject to ridicule, to the point that there are a number of documented cases
of professors being fired or refused tenure for their religious beliefs. Such never
happens to atheists, at least as far as I know. If Dawkins gets persecuted, and
I believe he has received some unwarranted hate-filled attacks, it is at least
in part because of his own actions in making personal, vitriolic attacks on
Christianity.

3. Quoting other scientists out of context. Dawkins complains, not without cause, that
many creationists abuse those they quote, making them say things which they
clearly do not believe in at all. This is a standard technique of pseudoscientists. The problem
with this is that Dawkins is a blatant perpetrator of this technique as well. T
ime and time again in The God Delusion he abuses those from whom he quotes.

4. Bogus use of statistics to create a false case for an argument. Dawkins tries to
imply cause and effect where there is mere correlation?a tactic unworthy of
those who use the scientific method. He states (p. 229) that the more religious states
in the United Stateshave higher crime rates, implying that the greater amount of religion
in those states is what leads to their higher rate of violence. This is very
bad science indeed. Bogus use of statistics is found in several places in
The God Delusion (p. 237, 255, 257 and others).

5. Appeals to mysteries and myths. A common technique of pseudoscientists is to
refer to as evidence obviously mythological beliefs of ancient peoples or unsolved
mysteries about the past. Dawkins is blatantly guilty of this non-scientific argument.
For example, he tries to argue by analogy to the work of Julian Jayne, The Bica
meral Mind. Interestingly, this is one of the case studies I use in my section
on pseudoscience. The bicameral mind is a completely unsupported effort to explain
the (supposedly) sudden increase in human knowledge about 2000 BC as being due
to some sort of sudden change in human brain chemistry. Dawkins uses this in his completely
unfounded attempts to explain how human beings acquired the universal tendency
toward believing in absolute moral truth and in a spiritual dimension to life.

This list is not comprehensive. When I teach about pseudoscience, I tell the students that
if something quacks like a duck, it may not be a duck, but if it looks like
a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck. The point
is that if a scientific claim is accompanied by one or two marks of pseudoscience,
perhaps we ought to withhold judgment, but if one finds several, as is the case
with Dawkins? book, then the conclusion is straightforward. The God Delusion is obvious pseudoscience.

Dawkins is guilty of blatantly poor reasoning on almost every page of this book.
Some of the logical fallacies I teach about in my Intro to Scientific Thought
course include the following?used extensively by Dawkins.

1. Ad Hominem. When making some sort of an argument, if one has a relatively weak
case, it is common to resort to attacking, not the argument of your opponent,
but your opponent. The quotes above are sufficient to show that Dawkins does this repeatedly.
?He brazenly and unfairly attacks the character and motives of believers in
the book. He calls Mother Theresa a sanctimonious hypocrite (p. 292). Dawkins uses words
such as barking mad (p. 253), sado-masochistic (p. 253), viciously unpleasant
(p. 253), and infantile (363) to describe Christians? belief in God in general. Th
is is not the sort of technique used by people who have a solid, convincing
argument to make.

2. No True Scotsman. This fallacious argument goes something like this. No true Scotsman
would do such and such. Person A does such and such. Therefore, person A is not a Scotsman.
?Dawkins repeatedly states that no true scientist will accept even the possibility
that God?s finger somehow has intervened in the course of nature. The implication
is that it is not scientific to believe in such things and that those who do
so are not true scientists. If this is true, then Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Lord Kelvin
and an almost unlimited list of the most eminent scientists are not good scientists.

3. Begging the Question. Begging the question involves assuming the answer to a question
as a precondition to asking the question. Dawkins reasons that anyone who believes
in a supernatural force is, by definition, not scientific, and therefore, science
proves that there is no supernatural force.

4. Straw Man Argument. This involves creating a completely exaggerated and unrealistic
picture of what your opponent believes or stands for and then arguing against
the ?Straw Man? rather than against what your opponent is actually saying. It is a
great way to avoid facing the actual questions at hand. On almost every page of T
he God Delusion Dawkins describes the worst cases of Religious closed-mindedness and
hypocricy. Admittedly, there are a good number of extremely bad things which have been
done in the name of religion. Admittedly, there are some in the young earth creationist
camp whose ?science? is completely insupportable. Dawkins tries to paint all
believers as being either like this or one slippery slope step away from being
like this. He literally does not concede a single positive contribution to human society
or culture from religious people. Even the most hardened enemy of Christianity, if
he or she is honest, will admit that people of faith have made positive contributions
to humanity as a result of their having faith.

I could continue, but hopefully the case is made. As an atheist friend of mine admitted,
?Dawkins creates a lot more heat than light.? In fact, even the great majority
of famous atheists and agnostics have either distanced themselves from Dawkins
or outright repudiated him for his ungracious and unscientific attacks on faith. For examp
le, Steven Weinberg, an avowed atheist and no friend of religion panned The
?God Delusion:
http://tls.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25349-2552017,00.html Atheist philosopher
Thomas Nagel is unimpressed as well if the quote from him below is any indication:

?Richard Dawkins, the most prominent and accomplished scientific writer of our
time, is convinced that religion is the enemy of science. Not just fundamentalist
or fanatical or extremist religion, but all religion that admits faith as a
ground of belief and asserts the existence of God. In his new book, he attacks
religion with all the weapons at his disposal, and as a result the book is a
very uneven collection of scriptural ridicule, amateur philosophy, historical
and contemporary horror stories, anthropological speculations, and cosmological scientific
argument...? - Thomas Nagel

Alister McGrath provides one of the most cogent critiques of The God Delusion. He
is a former atheist who became an Anglican.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=433628&in_page_id=1770

Andrew Brown, a British reviewer and sympathizer with the anti-religious movement
is unimpressed:

?Incurious and rambling, Richard Dawkins's diatribe against religion doesn't
come close to explaining how faith has survived the assault of Darwinism.? [1]

Having given the reader an idea of the tone of the book, I will now consider
the basic line of reasoning of The God Delusion. Essentially, Dawkins? argument is
that Darwinism has provided solid, irrefutable evidence that the incredible
order, variety and complexity of life, which some have seen as evidence for
a Creator, can be explained, by a random, natural process. It is not my intention in
this essay to disprove this contention (some material is found in my book I
s There a God? www.ipibooks.com). Let us, for the sake of gracious argument, concede
the point (although I do not believe this for a moment). To be honest, Dawkins has
provided some strong arguments against certain points made by the Intelligent
Design camp. The man is a very accomplished scientist, whose grasp of the evidence
for evolution a serious Christian apologist ought to at least give good attention
to.

The problem with his argument is that Dawkins proceeds to conclude that he has
thus, by analogy, proven that science can explain all the order in nature, as
well as the admittedly (even by Dawkins) amazing coincidence of all the important
constants of nature being perfectly tuned so that life can exist. As all atheists
do, he argues for the infinite universe theory, hoping that some sort of Darwinism
of universes has acted to produce such a finely tuned universe for us to live
in. I am not exaggerating. Dawkins proposes some sort of Darwinian natural-selection-like
theory of how our universe was created. One thing is clear. He is outside his area of expertise.
?Another thing is clear. Dawkins is out on a very long speculative limb here. His argume
nts against the Strong Anthropic Principle (the idea that the universe we live
in shows strong evidence that it was designed so that advanced life forms can
exist) are rambling, speculative and completely unconvincing, at least in my
opinion.

It is interesting that Dawkins proposes an analogy to Darwinism for cosmology,
but he chooses to absolutely ignore what is probably the strongest argument
of all for a Creator, which is the existence of life. His silence on how life itself
came about by random chemical events is deafening. There is a reason for this. To propose
a theory that natural selection of chemicals might have the ability to produce
a living thing is nothing short of ludicrous. Even Dawkins does not have the audacity
to propose an analogy to Darwinism as a means to create life from inorganic
matter. Because he cannot mount a workable argument, he simply ignores the issue of
the creation of life. I can only suppose that he hoped we would not notice this
gaping hole.

After providing what is, at least for me, an unsatisfactory explanation of the
fine tuned universe and completely ignoring the creation of life, Dawkins simply
declares his job done. God does not exist, and anyone who does not agree is deluded,
infantile, unenlightened and so forth. This leads him to his second thesis, which
is clearly why he has written the book. Dawkins argues that not only is religion
wrong on the existence of God, it is the single most destructive element ever
introduced into human culture. It is an unfortunate by-product of the evolution of
the human brain. He proposes that the tendency to believe in a purposeful life, in
a higher power, in an absolute moral good, is simply the by-product of evolutionary
forces in human brain development. At this point, Dawkins brings to bear a number of dubious
pseudoscientific explanations of brain evolution. He concludes that the idea of belief
in an absolute moral standard (such as it is wrong to lie or evil to kill another
human) is just an artifact, and a dangerous one at that. He argues that the only
way to arrive at a correct ethic is to use the scientific method. He also contradicts
himself again and again, because he calls religionists evil. There is no absolute
moral law, except the one that belief in an absolute moral law is immoral.

Dawkins lives in a Pollyanna world in which scientists will make us better and
better. Human beings are slowly but steadily evolving to a more enlightened state
in which they will reject all ideas of good and evil, yet will treat one another
more and more humanely. As evidence, he provides a litany of the evils perpetrated by
religion. He reserves a particular vitriol for Roman Catholicism. To be honest, his list of the
evils done in the name of religion include a number of examples of some of the
worst of human behavior, which has indeed been motivated by religion. What he does,
though, is completely ignore even the possibility that human belief in God has
produced any good in the world. He has the gall to imply that anyone who does not
completely disavow God is part and parcel with Hitler (who he claims, by the
way, was a Christian), the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This absolutely irresponsible hate-mongering
on the part of Dawkins is what made it extremely difficult to even read the
book to the end.

To summarize, I have always been an advocate of people reading works by those
with whom they do not agree. I am not in accord at all with those who would impose
a sort of spiritual censorship. In fact, I believe that it may even be worthwhile for
people to read some of Dawkins? other works. The God Delusion is a book which a lot
of people are reading. It has been a huge success in Europe and is making its way to
the United States. Normally, I would therefore suggest that believers acquaint themselves
with the book so that they can make a reasoned defense. However in this case I make
an exception to my own personal rule. This book is so poorly argued; it is so full
of hatred and bitterness, that I suggest we not even read this book.

Dealing with Doubt Part 3

2011-01-26T12:36:00.002-05:00

Now that we have established what doubt and what it is not, we will examine the steps we must take to deal with doubt.

Step 1. BE HONEST with God. Share your doubts and feelings, your questions and concerns. In the Psalms, David is always honest with God even when he is angry with God. When Thomas doubts Christ's bodily resurrection, he shares that doubt with Christ and is honest about how he feels. Remember, God knows every part of us and loves us anyway.

Step 2. CONFESS. Any disbelief or distrust must be confessed before you can properly deal with doubt.

Step 3. IDENTIFY the root of your doubt. Doubts come in many shapes and sizes: doubts about God's existence, doubts about God's love, doubts about whether or not God will provide, etc. Before your doubts can be dealt with, you must identify what type of doubt they are and where they stem from.

Step 4. SEEK wise counsel. Many times doubts can be easily doused by the words of those who are wiser than you. Wise counsel can include parents, pastors, teachers, etc.

Step 5. ASK God for His guidance. Ask him to intervene on your behalf. To put your doubts to rest, to answer your questions, to give you peace. This step is often overlooked-but it is by far,the most important.

Step 6. READ scripture and mediate. Often God answers questions through His Word. Also, read articles, books, etc. by strong Christian leaders. This will serve as an encouragement and may answer some questions and concerns.

Step 7. BELIEVE-even when it is hard. Remember, believing is seeing NOT vice versa. Some times, doubts can serve as tests. God watches and sees how we react to adversity. If we continue to believe, God will bless us. It may not be easy but it is well worth the effort.

Step 8. HOPE-even when the outlook is bleak. Remember, God is beside us every step of the way. He won't reject us simply because we have doubts. When we have hope, we have strength to combat the doubts that rage in side of us. This goes hand in hand with believe!

Step 9-TRUST that God will give you His peace. Sometimes God answers our questions and concerns, sometimes He gives us signs that serve as encouragement, sometimes He gives His peace that surpasses all understanding. No matter what, you must trust Him, believe that he will provide, hope in things unseen, and trust that God will take care of you.

Step 10-PRAISE-when God delivers you from your doubts, praise Him! Rejoice in your freedom and PRAISE the Lord.

Dealing with Doubt Part 2

2011-01-18T14:47:00.002-05:00

To start of this post, I decided to finish my testimony (so as not to leave you hanging).

I have already shared how I had shipwrecked, so now I will continue with my story. In desperation I prayed to God and said something along the lines of "if you want me to continue loving you and to not walk away from my faith, then your going to have to work a miracle in my life". I was honest with God and shared my feelings with Him. Almost immediately (that same week), the Lord brought books and articles and radio sermons, etc. into my life and my questions were answered! And then, even better than the answers themselves, God gave me a glorious peace. Since that time, I have grown stronger and stronger in my faith.

Now I thought we should look at two Biblical examples! First of all we will look at the 'king' of doubting-Thomas the Disciple!

When Jesus appeared to the disciples, Thomas doubted! Did he sin? Well let's look at Christ's response. Christ allows Thomas to feel His hand and side (quelling is doubts) and then Christ says "Blessed are they that believe and have not seen" (paraphrased). Christ did not rebuke him for doubting or condemn him for his skepticism. Instead He gave Thomas peace of mind by answering his doubts. In my opinion, that blessing that Jesus gives simply means that He understands that some of us believe with our heart but need assurance in our minds but "blessed' are those who don't need that mental assurance.

The second example is Zechariah (as in Elizabeth's husband). When God told him that he would have a son (John), he too doubted and he was punished for it. So what is the difference between him and Thomas? The reason is that Zechariah not only doubted, but he disbelieved. When Mary is told that she will conceive she asks 'how can this be since I am a virgin' but when Zechariah is told he responds in disbelief. "How can I be sure of this?" "How can I be certain that this will happen". This moves beyond doubt and skepticism and crosses over into disbelief.

So in conclusion. We see that the in order to deal with doubt we must first choose to belief regardless of whether we have doubts or not! When we doubt-we aren't sinning. When we disbelief-we are sinning! If you are struggling with doubt, make a conscious effort to continue to belief (it will me hard). It's like choosing to love when the emotions aren't there.

Dealing with Doubt (Part 1)

2011-01-14T16:38:00.002-05:00

What is doubt and how do we deal with it? This series will deal with this crucial issue that affects everyone.

First of all let's addresses what doubt is not. Doubt is not sin. Reread that. Doubt is not sin! Let me clarify what I mean. Doubt is a mental state of skepticism that arises in us because we are programmed to be logical. When we have doubts, it's because something seems to contradict our logic. If your friend told you that he climbed Everest over the summer break, you would naturally doubt his claims (not necessary disbelief him). Is that wrong. If we excepted everything at face value we would be taken advantage of. However...

Doubt can lead to sin. When we choose to distrust or disbelief God we cross the line from doubt to sin. Let me give you an example: my testimony.

I was born and raised in a Christian home and became a Christian at an early age. Around the age of 12/13 I started to struggle with doubt. To be completely honest, I shipwrecked in my faith. I wrestled with philosophical and theological questions and doctrines-especially the Problem of Evil. Part of my struggle was on the issues of free will, predestination, foreknowledge, etc. Even though I struggled mentally, I continued to worship God and read His word (though I was almost completely devoid of emotional love for God). At this time of complete struggle, I continued in my belief in Christianity though my logical mind cried foul. In the next post I will finish my testimonial story.

So with my testimony as a framework, let's explore the two statements in bold (I will use scriptural examples later in this series). My doubt was the result of seeming contradictions regarding God's nature. If He predestined, then how could that be just. Was I serving an unjust God? How could God be sovereign yet man have free will ,etc. Even in the midst of my doubt, I continued to serve God and church. I did not let my doubt lead to sin. I did not reject my beliefs (though I questioned them), I did not reject Christianity (though I was confused).

In conclusion: We have seen that doubt is not sin but can lead to sin. However even though doubt isn't sin, it can still be dangerous. How do you overcome doubt? How do you appease the questions that can nag you, the worry that can assail you, the doubts of God's providential care? Are all doubts the same? Where do you draw the line between doubt and unbelief? I will answer these questions in my next post!

Conclusion to Outside of Time

2011-01-10T17:02:00.002-05:00

This series has been a fun 'waste of time' pun intended. Because I'm studying psychology right now, I think it would be fun to comment on the scenario described in the previous post. However, I realize that this might not interest all my readers. Therefore I have decided that any discussions on this scenario will take place in the comment section of this post!

My next series will be on Dealing with Doubt. In this series I will share my testimony (in depth) and use it as a springboard for this series. Stay Tuned!

Response to Outside of Time Part 2

2011-01-07T18:14:00.000-05:00

So hypothetical experiment. If someone was raised inside with no accesses to the sun and outside (but was exposed to artificial light and dark) would they think in terms of time?

So let's take a closer look at this hypothetical theory. (And this could end be a multi-part thing shared between Bart and myself, who knows)

Here's the scenario I've come up with:

So lets say that from the moment of conception, we take a child and have him live in a cube. (Let's name this baby Hugo) So let's say the mother who is carrying him also lives in the cube, like I said, since she had conceived. So she has him in the cube, and then leaves. So the cube is lit, and at 5 pm the lights turn off, to turn on again at 5 am.
He has to be fed of course, so lets that he is fed breakfast at 6, lunch at 11, and dinner at 4. He is fed by a young woman. Again, to ensure that he has no concept of time, there is a different young woman every day. (As the young woman would grow older and eventually die) This is how he will be cared for until he is 12 months old. He will then be taught while he eats, the rest of the time he will have toys to play with. But when he is taught, he is merely taught how to speak and understand, but concepts of time, day and night, nature, and death are left out. So for now, we'll focus on his first year or so of development. Comment below what you think will happen to him in regards to this scenario.
I'll talk to Bart and we'll see about maybe making this a weekly feature. Exploring Hugo's life.

Outside of Time Part 2

2011-01-07T17:28:00.003-05:00

Okay this is Bart here following up on this interesting series. I have now decided to refine my theory.

Okay so if time is only the measure of astronomical movement than time doesn't exist. Let's follow it through to it's logical conclusion: time is an abstract concept. Yeah except for the fact that God created night and day which means He created time right? Well maybe not. When we see a shooting star, do we say oh that means three years have past? Of course not. Bear with me, I'm about to play with your mind!

In this theory, time would be an abstract concept not principle. In other words, time would be a figment of our finite imagination. Think about it: what was the number one change after the Fall of Adam and Eve. DEATH. They would have lived eternally. Thus time is not a factor in the Garden of Eden because without the fall life would have continued eternally. So time is just a fancy countdown to death! Make sense?

So what is eternal? In my opinion, eternal doesn't designate a period of time. It designates the non-existence of time. We have time only because we have death.

So hypothetical experiment. If someone was raised inside with no accesses to the sun and outside (but was exposed to artificial light and dark) would they think in terms of time? A thought to think on!

In response to Outside of Time

2011-01-05T22:14:00.001-05:00

This is in response to Bart's article entitled Outside of Time. If you haven't read that, I recommend you go read that one first before I confuse you.

The measure of time itself is a ridiculous notion. Time is relative to an individual. For a human being, time begins at the moment they are aware of the world around them. And it ends with their last breath. However, throughout time, we have sought to unify our perception of this so called time, and decided to use various methods to measure it. Such as the sun, grains of sand, a pendulum, and electronics. But all this does is puts chains on time.
Our measure of 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 52 weeks in a year, is sorely inaccurate. Rather, all it does is constrain our lives.

Now enough of my complaining about the nature of time, and on to the theology of it. As I said, I don't believe time is like a flowing river, more that we are like rain drops being projected from a cloud at different points. And the time between our being shot out and crashing onto the ground is time. Everyone starts (here on earth) at the same point, and ends at the same point. But the time it takes to hit the ground may take longer or shorter.
Now in light of that, I will approach how God create a beginning if he is timeless.

Well for fear of getting into a major debate, I will simply ask where in the Bible does it say that God is timeless? Where does it say He sees the future? Not that I dispute those long held traditions, however I only wonder where it says that.
But that was my point here. My point was that if time is merely an individual's perception of the length of his life, then all that starting time meant was shaping the mind of man to perceive their world through a concept called.

So getting away from philosophy, here is my theory (being a differing opinion from Bart's).
I believe that God knows the exact motion (past present and future) of every thing in nature he has created. (Every thing that does not have a form of intelligence)
In other words, since he created the universe, he knows intimately the exact movements of every planet and galaxy, and the effects they will have on every tree, molecule of air and water. But this all comes from an obvious knowledge of perfect projection.
However, as I do not believe that He has preordained every thought that we will think, I believe that in some ways, He is like a master game designer. He has designed in detail the way everything will take place and set humans in it. Now don't get me wrong, I believe he can at anytime work miracles and wonders. But I also believe that because of that intimate knowledge of the way everything works, he can make a precise plan that will be able to already work with the natural order he has ordained.
Also, this is not me saying that I believe he doesn't know our every thought. I believe he does, and because of this, can accurately judge every choice we're going to make, without having to predestine it.

But that's just my belief.

Outside of Time

2011-01-05T17:11:00.003-05:00

Every once in a while (okay more like every other day) I get in the mood to ponder time, space, theology, and other things that mess with my brain. Today I'm going to share some of these crazy thoughts so bear with me!

Okay so it all began when I began thinking (duh). Since God must exist outside of time so therefore I wonder what how God views the world in terms of time. The world is bound by time. We have past, present, and future. So to exist outside of time is to see the world not in past present and future but...what? This would all be very easy if man had no free will and thus man's course was already mapped out. But since we have free will, how does God see the future and the present correctly? It is illogical to say that God knows the future and that man can change the future occurding to his actions? Right? What if God vision of the future is refreshed every second. In this way every new action by man effects the future and man keeps his free will. But then the problem is that God is limited in vision and power which is contrary to scripture.

So my idea is this: God views the world as past, present, and future, all at the same time (impossible to imagine because of our finite minds). And so when God interacts with Creation, he subjects himself to the laws of time-namely in the person of Jesus Christ. This explains the 'begetting' of Jesus! I always wondered how Jesus could be begotten yet eternal in the Trinity. But since God exits outside of time then it is only when Jesus is entered into the world that he is begotten which bears no amount of time outside of Earth.

So I have three remaining questions. How did God create a beginning? What is the difference between the timeline of the Garden of Eden (day and night) and the time-line after the fall. And if the above theory is correct, what would be the consequences in terms of doctrine (ie., free will, predestination, etc.)?

Please comment with thoughts and opinions and remember this is just a mental exercise to try and understand and toy with ideas! Of course we can't ever understand everything because we are human but it is fun to try!

The Latest 'Explanation' for Design? Pure Luck. by Brian Thomas, M.S. *

2010-12-15T17:12:00.000-05:00

The idea of evolutionary descent with modification holds that all the various kinds of living organisms arose through some natural step-by-step process—a concept that many have believed since Charles Darwin popularized it in 1859. That story has become less believable, however, since scientists discovered molecular machines.

The existence of these vital machines, each with its complement of necessary interacting parts, has proved too tough a hurdle for 19th-century concepts of evolution. Even modern researchers have difficulty explaining the machines' specified complexity within a completely naturalistic context. Since all their parts are needed in order for the organism to function, they could not have developed gradually over time. So, some scientists have suggested that Darwin's idea of "natural selection" does not answer how molecular machines came about.¹

Publishing in Science, a team of international researchers wrote, "For the addition of some of these proteins, selection probably did drive increased complexity, but there is no basis to assume that this explains all, or even most, of the increased complexity of these machines" (emphasis added).¹ One big problem is that, although natural selection is assumed to generate new features, there have been few rigorous studies to pin down exactly which new traits have "emerged" as a result of which environmental factors.

The results of even those few studies have been equivocal. Also, "increased complexity" is not observed to occur in nature, even among populations of fruit flies and bacteria that are purposefully stressed in genetic experiments.² The flies never sprout incipient infrared detectors or flippers, and the bacteria never generate new molecular paddles or motors, regardless of what selection may or may not be involved. So, if "selection" is out, then what is in?

In the recent Science report, the researchers proposed as an alternative that the various parts of molecular motors assembled together "fortuitously" by chance.¹ Thus, two proteins came together and formed an initial bond. Afterward, the genes for the two new protein partners supposedly developed mutations that permanently linked them together. Then, since it is likely that mutations would occur in places other than just the initial linkage point, further mutations would add more attachment points for other proteins.

But how likely is it that just the right protein fragments happened to link by accident, that further accidents caused them to bond more tightly, and that even more accidents linked just the right additional protein parts together to eventually build the protein machines which the cell would have needed all along?³

The researchers referred to this "process" as a one-way ratchet, which they propose would explain the interdependence between two or more protein machine parts. They wrote, "Much of the bewildering intricacy of cells could consist of originally fortuitous molecular interactions that have become more or less fixed by constructive neutral evolution."¹

"Neutral evolution" is the idea that just the right parts happened to get together and stay together, even in the absence of the environmental pressures that Darwin invoked to explain the origin of new traits.⁴

The study's authors speculated that some molecular machines "might" have been assembled by an "accident" that happened between proteins. Though originally used for one task, the new accidental arrangement was "fortuitous" because it led to the assemblage of a new protein complex that could now perform a different task.

However, there is no evidence of this occurring in the past or present! It is merely the logical consequent of a list of assumed premises, including the assumption that life was not created by God. Now, without "natural selection" to rely on, big-picture evolution must rest on the foundation of "fortuitous" accident.

With each passing month, new scientific investigations reveal unforeseen functionality for cellular machine parts that had been erroneously considered superfluous. If this trend of discovery continues, eventually there will be no nonfunctional parts or inefficiency found anywhere inside the cell. And that would leave no setting for the imaginative story of "neutral evolution" to even take place.

And that would lead to the most natural conclusion of all—that the design evident in life must have originated from a Designer.

References

Gray, M. W. et al. 2010. Irremediable Complexity? Science. 330 (6006): 920-921.
Thomas, B. 2010. No Fruit Fly Evolution Even after 600 Generations. ICR News. Posted November 6, 2010, accessed December 1, 2010.
Thomas, B. 2009. ATP synthase: majestic molecular machine made by a mastermind. Creation. 31 (4): 21-23.
Thomas, B. 2009. Preadaptation: A Blow to Irreducible Complexity? Acts & Facts. 38 (11): 15.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Article posted on December 2, 2010.

A Tale of Two P's

2010-12-08T16:44:00.000-05:00

This is an unusual post that is not apologetic in nature. However I do believe that it fits the context of this blog so I will post on it. (Beings how this a topic on everyone's lips).

This post is a response to the invasive pat downs/scans that have caused such an uproar. Why am I addressing this issue on my blog? Because it is a crucial issue that has the power to change our lives forever.

The first P stands for privacy. In the end, that is the value that is at stake. Machines will never 'see' everything, nor will probing hands find everything. While these security devices are somewhat effective, they are not invasive enough to detect everything. As a result, innocent people are forced to undergo security procedures that aren't even 100% certain to work. As privacy get's neglected and abused, people have a right to be concerned. This is an issue of give and inch give a mile. How much of our privacy will we eventually lose. This is an attack on freedom, this is an attack on privacy. Is it a necessary (albeit uncomfortable) inconvenience-us losing our dignity and privacy? That brings me to P number two.

THE SAFEST airline in the world, it is widely agreed, is El Al, Israel's national carrier. The safest airport is Ben Gurion International, in Tel Aviv. No El Al plane has been attacked by terrorists in more than three decades, and no flight leaving Ben Gurion has ever been hijacked. Does this airline (of a country that is the target of Islamic militancy) use invasive pat-downs and full body scans? Absolutely not. Their secret revolves around the dirtiest word known to American Government. Profiling. Yes that's right, profiling! You see, the Government/Supreme Court decided that it's not politically correct to profile potential passengers. After 9/11 you'd think Airport Security would especially focus on the Arab population and profile potential fliers from Middle East countries, right? Wrong. Instead airports were sued when attempting to profile. But it's not just no profiling Arabs...profiling of any kind is severely prohibited.

In conclusion, I understand that a change had to be made after the attempted underwear bombing. However any loss of privacy that is not needed is a direct threat to this nation and it's people. So let's take a lesson from Israel. Interview all potential fliers, profile fliers from hotspot countries. Scrutinize those who raise flags, etc. Who cares if the ACLU doesn't like the word profiling. Most Americans would rather be profiled then stripped of their dignity and privacy.

The Children of Men (Book Review)

2010-12-02T16:20:00.003-05:00

Recently I read the fiction book-The Children of Men by P.D. James. I decided that because it was such an interesting/unusual read, that I would review it!

Basic Storyline: The book is set in Europe and in the future. The main premise is that males are infertile and thus, at the time the story takes place, it has been many many years since the last birth. The last generation of Children-called the Omegas have reached adulthood but the males are still infertile dispensing all hope for mankind. The main character Theo Faron is approached by a group of five that want him to help them 'change the world'.

Major Themes-this books is alludes to a number of modern problems including the liberal approach to life in general and examines the road that society is on. The book alludes too illegal immigration and alien workers in Europe, liberal legislation, devaluing of human life, liberal parenting (ie., pamper instead of discipline), lust-based love as opposed to Biblical love, etc. It is a stark reminder of what a world without God would look like.

Positive Points-this book had many positive things about it. In addition to the themes discussed above, this book also paints Religion (generalized) as beneficial to mankind. It builds up the ideals of community, sacrifice, duty to society, etc. The book is enthralling and keeps you turning pages.

Negative Points-there is some bad language spread throughout the book (the language is limited and mostly minor with one exception). Also one part is somewhat scary/violent not majorly but it's there. There are some 'thematic elements' not suitable for grades 7th and below.

Worldview-The worldview is not entirely Christian although there are some good profound points. The book made excuses for sin near the end and made man inherently good. This book is one that you must 'read with a sieve' because the value of it's morals balance out it's flawed views.

Conclusion: I found this book to be an interesting and challenging read. I would recommend it for those who like books like: 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, etc. Books that are allegorical of society and that warn the reader to be aware of the direction that culture is flowing. This book is appropriate for High School and maybe Junior High?

Genomes Have Remarkable 3-D Organization by Brian Thomas, M.S.

2010-11-29T16:24:00.002-05:00

Almost every nook and cranny of living cells investigated by scientists has yielded a new level of unforeseen and complicated organization. For example, before it was discovered, who would have suspected that DNA contains volumes of coded language with all the essential features of human language?¹

Now, a new study reveals that the physical structure of DNA itself is an important component of how genes interact. Based partly on what appear to be three-dimensional organization schemes in the nuclear DNA of mammals, a team of scientists from the Wistar Institute directly measured the overall 3-D genome layout in the lab-friendly organism known as fission yeast.²

In their report published in Nucleic Acids Research, researchers wrote, "Our study suggests the presence of a global genome organization in fission yeast."³ This organizational structure plays a key role in how genes work together within a cell.

Inside any cell nucleus, long strands of DNA are unspooled and might appear to be curled and wadded randomly, like a bowl of spaghetti noodles. But working within the space around each strand, protein machinery can access the DNA like robotic librarians to "read" its vital information. And what the researchers confirmed is that the volumes in the yeast "library" with the same "subject" content were grouped together three-dimensionally. For instance, even though the genes that are used for a particular task (like processing sugars) might be located on different chromosomes, zones containing those genes were near to one another.³

Thus, while the cell is performing all its normal daily activities, the DNA is looped and gathered in such a way that the data required for certain functions are grouped together. This way, when that function needs to be executed, all the information is nearby, ready to be copied and put into play.

The researchers also found that routinely accessed data are located near the outer edges of the mass of DNA and protein, near the transcriptional machinery that is associated with the nuclear membrane. This makes the tasks of accessing and copying more efficient.

Evolutionary biologists, expecting cells to contain at least some random features from an imagined long history of evolutionary chance developments, have repeatedly been foiled by the continual discoveries of high-order specified complexity in cells. "Non-coding" DNA regions that had been confidently labeled "junk DNA" have proved to be just the opposite―highly expressed regulatory DNA.^4,5 Similarly, long and repetitive stretches of DNA called transposons had been thought to be useless leftovers from ancient viral infections, but evidence continues to grow regarding their usefulness to genomic functions.⁶

Now joining the ranks is the discovery of a three-dimensional structure for the yeast genome―another example of remarkable design that is best explained as the work of an even more remarkable Designer.

References

Oller, J. 1981. Words: Genetic and Linguistic Problems for Evolution. Acts & Facts. 10 (2).
Is the Shape of a Genome as Important as its Content? The Wistar Institute press release, October 29, 2010.
Tanizawa, H. et al. Mapping of long-range associations throughout the fission yeast genome reveals global genome organization linked to transcriptional regulation. Nucleic Acids Research. Published online before print October 28, 2010.
Thomas, B. Study Shows 'Junk' DNA Builds Visible Traits. ICR News. Posted on icr.org May 4, 2010, accessed November 9, 2010.
Thomas, B. Another Setback for 'Junk' DNA. ICR News. Posted on icr.org October 18, 2010, accessed November 9, 2010.
Thomas, B. 2010. Evolution's Best Argument Has Become Its Worst Nightmare. Acts & Facts. 39 (3): 16-17.

This Article is from Institute for Creation Research.

Thanksgiving and Our First President

2010-11-23T14:54:00.003-05:00

On October 3, 1789, George Washington made the following proclamation and created the first Thanksgiving Day designated by the national government of the United States of America:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness. Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be. That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks, for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation, for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war, for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed, for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed, to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord. To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us, and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best. Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.^{Happy Thanksgiving to you all and may God richly bless!}

Forest from the Trees

2010-11-10T15:52:00.002-05:00

Have you ever heard the old theoretical question: if a tree falls in the middle of the forest and no one is their to hear it fall, does the tree make a noise? Of course we all say yes the tree still makes a noise. But as always, you have the one rebellious one that says 'but we don't know that cause we're not there!' And you respond: 'yeah but we have heard trees fall in the past and we can logically infer that the tree made a noise because the trees in the past have made noises.

What's my point? Well in the end: neither person could prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt. After all, neither person was there. However, they could logically deduce the answer based on external evidence (in this case-the experiences of the past).

So now I will apply this story. The scientific method says that in order to make a scientific law, one must test, retest, observe, re observe, and then document. Therefore neither Creation or Evolution can be satisfactorily proven via science. Just like the tree example, none of us we're their at the beginning of the world. None of us observed and we can not repeat Creation. But just like the tree example, we can make logically deductions based on outside evidence.

In the end, only Creation has evidence to support outside the realm of science. We have a book (the Bible) as well as historical. cultural, and philosophical, support for the theory of Creation. My point with this series is that, from a scientific perspective, Creation and Evolution are just theories. Thus neither can be proven (only supported) by science.

How Could a Loving God Send Someone to Hell?

2010-11-05T12:02:00.002-04:00

One of the major questions raised by atheists and agnostics is: how could a loving God send people to hell? The answer is a little bit easier to grasp when the mindset and viewpoint of the person asking is changed. I will answer this question in three parts.

1. Different Perspective: How could a loving God not punish evil? Think about it for a little. Since people can and often do get away with crimes, since people are often left without the opportunity for just retribution. If God did not punish the wicked how then could we call God just. And if God was not just, then he could not love. True love without justice is impossible.

2. When it comes down to it, this supposed stumbling block is really a stepping stone to a greater truth. Christianity is the perfect example of love. Since everyone is at one time or another wicked, then in one sense, we all deserve hell. But the free gift of Christ is salvation for all, salvation that is not dependent on our merit/good works but rather on our willingness to accept Christ.

3. Building on point 2 we see that: God does not send anyone to hell (it is our choice whether or not to accept Christ and thus we-not God-are responsible.) In addition, God gives us the chance to spend Eternity in Heaven out of His perfect love for us.

In conclusion: God is a loving God who does not want anyone to perish. We have the opportunity to accept His free gift of salvation. If we don't, it is our own fall, not the fault of God.

Halloween

2010-11-02T14:26:00.005-04:00

Should Christians participate in Halloween? Should we let our children go trick or treating? Does dressing up as Cinderella disobey Biblical teaching. This is a big controversy with heated debate on both sides. This post will explain why participating in Halloween is a direct disobedience to the decrees of scripture.

First of all a little bit of history is necessary.
Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, whose original spelling was Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in)".^[1] The name is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end".^[1] A similar festival was held by the ancient Britons and is known as Calan Gaeaf (pronounced Kálan Gái av).
The ancient Celts believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through. The family's ancestors were honoured and invited home while harmful spirits were warded off. It is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits led to the wearing of costumes and masks. Their purpose was to disguise oneself as a harmful spirit and thus avoid harm. In Scotland the spirits were impersonated by young men dressed in white with masked, veiled or blackened faces.

This brings me to point number 1. Halloween has always been a pagan holiday centered around evil. Activities such as dressing up are based on pagan ideas and practices (just research the basis for jack-o-lanterns and other practices and you'll see my point). Therefore if Halloween has always been pagan what makes you think it's not pagan anymore? Are we not to stay far away from paganism or has that Biblical principle become out-dated?

Point number 2. Philippians 4:8 tells us to think of what is good, admirable, noble, pure, etc. As your child goes around trick or treating, as your child see's the 'decorations' adorning houses and stores, do you think that your child is thinking of good? Is he praising God as he receives candy or are his thoughts on things a bit more dark? Perhaps you have explained to your 4 year old that Halloween is just for fun, but your 4 year old is still going to think about demons, skeletons, Satan, and evil; C.S. Lewis once wrote something along the lines of: Demons like when we deny their existence or are fascinated by them. Is Halloween teaching God's sovereignty and the danger that we face from sin and evil?

Point number 3. Satan exists as do demons but that does not mean we should relish them or have fun impersonating them, or interacting with pagan ideals. Halloween is not an innocent holiday and if you want your kids to have candy, I'm sure Walmart carries their favorite candy bar.

(Comments are welcome as are differing views.)

Breaking the Da Vinci Code Part 2

2010-10-18T11:16:00.000-04:00

Christian History Home > 2003 > Breaking The Da Vinci Code

Breaking The Da Vinci Code

So the divine Jesus and infallible Word emerged out of a fourth-century power-play? Get real.

Collin Hansen | posted 8/08/2008 12:33PM

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In addition, pre-Nicene Christians acknowledged Jesus's divinity by petitioning God the Father in Christ's name. Church leaders, including Justin Martyr, a second-century luminary and the first great church apologist, baptized in the name of the triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—thereby acknowledging the equality of the one Lord's three distinct persons.

The Council of Nicea did not entirely end the controversy over Arius's teachings, nor did the gathering impose a foreign doctrine of Christ's divinity on the church. The participating bishops merely affirmed the historic and standard Christian beliefs, erecting a united front against future efforts to dilute Christ's gift of salvation.

"Fax from Heaven"?

With the Bible playing a central role in Christianity, the question of Scripture's historic validity bears tremendous implications. Brown claims that Constantine commissioned and bankrolled a staff to manipulate existing texts and thereby divinize the human Christ.

Yet for a number of reasons, Brown's speculations fall flat. Brown correctly points out that "the Bible did not arrive by fax from heaven." Indeed, the Bible's composition and consolidation may appear a bit too human for the comfort of some Christians. But Brown overlooks the fact that the human process of canonization had progressed for centuries before Nicea, resulting in a nearly complete canon of Scripture before Nicea or even Constantine's legalization of Christianity in 313.

Ironically, the process of collecting and consolidating Scripture was launched when a rival sect produced its own quasi-biblical canon. Around 140 a Gnostic leader named Marcion began spreading a theory that the New and Old Testaments didn't share the same God. Marcion argued that the Old Testament's God represented law and wrath while the New Testament's God, represented by Christ, exemplified love. As a result Marcion rejected the Old Testament and the most overtly Jewish New Testament writings, including Matthew, Mark, Acts, and Hebrews. He manipulated other books to downplay their Jewish tendencies. Though in 144 the church in Rome declared his views heretical, Marcion's teaching sparked a new cult. Challenged by Marcion's threat, church leaders began to consider earnestly their own views on a definitive list of Scriptural books including both the Old and New Testaments.

Another rival theology nudged the church toward consolidating the New Testament. During the mid- to late-second century, a man from Asia Minor named Montanus boasted of receiving a revelation from God about an impending apocalypse. The four Gospels and Paul's epistles achieved wide circulation and largely unquestioned authority within the early church but hadn't yet been collected in a single authoritative book. Montanus saw in this fact an opportunity to spread his message, by claiming authoritative status for his new revelation. Church leaders met the challenge around 190 and circulated a definitive list of apostolic writings that is today called the Muratorian Canon, after its modern discoverer. The Muratorian Canon bears striking resemblance to today's New Testament but includes two books, Revelation of Peter and Wisdom of Solomon, which were later excluded from the canon.

By the time of Nicea, church leaders debated the legitimacy of only a few books that we accept today, chief among them Hebrews and Revelation, because their authorship remained in doubt. In fact, authorship was the most important consideration for those who worked to solidify the canon. Early church leaders considered letters and eyewitness accounts authoritative and binding only if they were written by an apostle or close disciple of an apostle. This way they could be assured of the documents' reliability. As pastors and preachers, they also observed which books did in fact build up the church—a good sign, they felt, that such books were inspired Scripture. The results speak for themselves: the books of today's Bible have allowed Christianity to spread, flourish, and endure worldwide.

Breaking the Da Vinci Code Part 1

2010-10-14T11:45:00.002-04:00

(Article from Christianity Today)

I guess Christians should be flattered. Who knew the Council of Nicea and Mary Magdalene could be this hot? Thanks in large measure to Dan Brown's fictional thriller The DaVinci Code, early church history just can't stay out of the news.

If only a more worthy work could have prompted such attention. Brown first grabbed the headlines and prime-time TV in 2003 with his theory that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. But The DaVinci Code contains many more (equally dubious) claims about Christianity's historic origins and theological development. It's left to the reader whether these theories belong to Brown's imagination or the skeleton of "facts" that supports the book.

Brown claims "almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false." Why? Because of a single meeting of bishops in 325, at the city of Nicea in modern-day Turkey. There, Brown argues, church leaders who wanted to consolidate their power base (he calls this, anachronistically, "the Vatican," or "the Roman Catholic church") created a divine Christ and an infallible Scripture—both novelties that had never before existed among Christians.
Watershed at Nicea

Brown is right about one thing (and not much more). In the course of Christian history, few events loom larger than the Council of Nicea in 325. When the newly converted Roman Emperor Constantine called bishops from around the world to present-day Turkey, the church had reached a theological crossroads.

Led by an Alexandrian theologian named Arius, one school of thought argued that Jesus had undoubtedly been a remarkable leader, but he was not God in flesh. Arius proved an expert logician and master of extracting biblical proof texts that seemingly illustrated differences between Jesus and God, such as John 14:28: "the Father is greater than I." In essence, Arius argued that Jesus of Nazareth could not possibly share God the Father's unique divinity.

In The Da Vinci Code, Brown apparently adopts Arius as his representative for all pre-Nicene Christianity. Referring to the Council of Nicea, Brown claims that "until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless."

In reality, early Christians overwhelmingly worshipped Jesus Christ as their risen Savior and Lord. Before the church adopted comprehensive doctrinal creeds, early Christian leaders developed a set of instructional summaries of belief, termed the "Rule" or "Canon" of Faith, which affirmed this truth. To take one example, the canon of prominent second-century bishop Irenaeus took its cue from 1 Corinthians 8:6: "Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ."

The term used here—Lord, Kyrios—deserves a bit more attention. Kyrios was used by the Greeks to denote divinity (though sometimes also, it is true, as a simple honorific). In the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint, pre-dating Christ), this term became the preferred substitution for "Jahweh," the holy name of God. The Romans also used it to denote the divinity of their emperor, and the first-century Jewish writer Josephus tells us that the Jews refused to use it of the emperor for precisely this reason: only God himself was kyrios.

The Christians took over this usage of kyrios and applied it to Jesus, from the earliest days of the church. They did so not only in Scripture itself (which Brown argues was doctored after Nicea), but in the earliest extra-canonical Christian book, the Didache, which scholars agree was written no later than the late 100s. In this book, the earliest Aramaic-speaking Christians refer to Jesus as Lord.

Gnosticism and Christianity Today

2010-10-09T13:23:00.002-04:00

(The following excerpts are from Christianity Today )

Why the 'Lost Gospels' Lost Out

Recent gadfly theories about church council conspiracies that manipulated the New Testament into existence are bad—really bad-history.

by Ben Witherington III | posted 6/01/2004 12:00AM

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But was there really no such thing as "orthodoxy" before the fourth century? Is it really the case that Gnosticism was harshly suppressed without being given a fair trial?

First, there is no strong evidence to suggest that gnostic Christians vied with the orthodox from the beginning. Even what is probably the earliest gnostic document, the Gospel of Thomas, seems to have come from a period after the New Testament books were already recognized as authoritative and widely circulated.

The Gospel of Thomas, in fact, draws on most of these documents, adding some new ideas about Jesus and about the faith. All other major gnostic texts—like the Gospel of Truth, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Gospel of Mary, and so on—are clearly written in the second and third centuries.

Church Fathers Irenaeus and Tertullian addressed Gnosticism in the second century in works titled Against Heresies and The Prescription Against Heretics. And the Muratorian Canon (a list of New Testament writings from late second century) says this: "There is current also an epistle to the Laodiceans, and another to the Alexandrians, both forged in Paul's name to further the heresy of Marcion, and several others which cannot be received into the catholic Church. For it is not fitting that gall be mixed with honey." In other words, it is historically false to say that the councils of the fourth and fifth centuries invented or first defined "heresy."

Revisionist historians like Pagels also argue that there was no core belief system, later called "orthodoxy," in the first century. This is a strange claim, because anyone who has read the letters of John, for example, knows that discussions about orthodoxy and heresy were heating up in the New Testament period. Paul's letters, too, show distinctions being made between truth and error. By the time we get to the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus), there is a strong sense of what is and is not sound doctrine, particularly in terms of salvation and the person of Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, the early church viewed the Old Testament as both authoritative and inspired, as 2 Timothy 3:16 shows. This is an important point in regard to Gnosticism. The earliest churches had already recognized the Hebrew Scriptures as canon, a set of authoritative and divinely inspired texts. Notice how much of the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament books—all written to edify churches across the ancient world. Gnosticism fundamentally rejected Jewish theology about the goodness of creation, and especially the idea that all the nations could be blessed through Abraham and his faith. When the church accepted the Hebrew Scriptures, it implicitly rejected Gnosticism before it had a chance to get started. Thus we are already at a watershed moment in the development of early Christianity, one that could not allow Gnosticism to ever be regarded as a legitimate development of the Christian faith.

New Testament scholar Pheme Perkins points out how rarely the Gnostic literature refers to the Old Testament: "Gnostic exegetes were only interested in elaborating their mythic and theological speculations concerning the origins of the universe, not in appropriating a received canonical tradition. … [By contrast] the Christian Bible originates in a hermeneutical framing of Jewish scriptures, so that they retain their canonical authority and yet serve as witnesses to the Christ-centered experience of salvation."

Gnosticism and the Gospels

2010-10-06T10:40:00.001-04:00

Posted by Darrell L. Bock on 12 Jun 2006

Share1

Today we have some strange claims being made about Gnsotic texts. Some are arguing Gnjostic texts are simply Christian texts. They shoudl be called Christian gospels How is this being done? One direction is to claim that the name Gnostic is no longer usable. The argument is that no one can clearly define the term, so it should fall out of use. This is a dodge of historical facts. Gnostics existed and the name is a short one for identification of a movement that combined neo-Plationism from Greek philosophy with Christian symbolism in a particular way with a certain emphasis on creation. Key to the philosophical element was a dualism that said creation was evil from the start and tied the creation to underling emanations from God known as demiurges (term means artisans). Both the recent Gospel of Judas and the Apocryphon of John relate such a creation account. The Apocryphon of John was obviously a major Gnostic Christian text. Four manuscripts of it were found at Nag Hammadi. Irenaeus described it in his work from AD 180. This creation account stands at the head of the theology of Gnostic Christians, for out of it comes the idea that matter is evil and unredeemable. It also explains why many such texts argue that Jesus occupies a body but was not incarnate. It also explains the denial of a bodily resurrection. This creation story is why these texts should not be called Christian. In Judaism and Christianity, God creates directly and that creation is good from the start. The Gnostic creation story denies this theological starting point. No Christian accepting the creation as it was beleived in Judaism would see the Gnostic story as true or credible. Another way to say this is that Gnostic trexts were both anti-Christian and anti-Jewish. This feature also explains why such texts never were seriously considered as candidates for the canon of the New Testament.

Gnosticism (basic beliefs)

2010-10-02T15:17:00.001-04:00

What is Gnosticism?

by Matt Slick

Gnosticism is a philosophical worldview that stresses special knowledge. The word comes from the Greek ‘gnosis’ meaning knowledge. Gnosticism was prevelant in the first century during and after the time of Christ. It maintains that matter is evil and spirit is good. Because matter is bad human souls, in a sense, are trapped in a material world.

Gnostics maintained that they had special knowledge about God which enabled them to understand the human condition as it relates to the world. This helped them to deny the world, by asserting that the good human spirit need not be restricted by the evil material world.

Early Gnostics taught that God was so perfect that he could not have anything to do with the physical world -- including its creation. Therefore, God made a demiurge, a lesser God through which the world was created. Gnostics considered themselves superior to early Christians and believed that this lesser God was the God of the Old Testament.

Gnostics believed that spiritual knowledge is the key to attain salvation.
Gnostic leader Carpocrates believed that the soul needed to experience many lifetimes before attaining salvation, thus suggesting a belief in reincarnation.
Both male and female images for the supreme God was common.
Women, like Mary Magdalene, played an important part in writing the Gnostic texts.
Duality in the concept of God - Gnostics believed that there is a true God who is the essence of every living and non-living creation and a false God or creator God, who created the flawed world.
According to the Gnostics, humans mirrored the duality found in the world - they are in part flawed from the creation of the false creator and yet also contain the light of the true God.1

1. http://gnosticism.suite101.com/article.cfm/what_is_gnosticism
article from http://carm.org/gnosticism

Defining Gnosticism

2010-10-01T15:43:00.002-04:00

One difficulty in understanding gnosticism is that it is so hard to define. What is gnosticism? How did it start? There are no clear answers to these questions. For the purpose of this series, we will look at the relationship between gnosticism and Christianity.

Whereas Gnosticism has been considered by scholars to originate as a branch of Christianity, alternate theories have proposed traces of Gnostic systems existed some centuries before the Christian Era, thus predating the ^{birth of Jesus} The movement spread in areas controlled by the Roman Empire and Arian Goths ^[12], and the Persian Empire; it continued to develop in the Mediterranean and Middle East before and during the second and third centuries. Conversion to Islam and the Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229) greatly reduced the remaining number of Gnostics throughout the Middle Ages, though a few Mandaean communities still exist. Gnostic ideas became influential in the philosophies of various esoteric mystical movements of the late 19th and 20th centuries in Europe and North America, including some that explicitly identify themselves as revivals or even continuations of earlier gnostic groups. (paragraph from Wikipedia).

How could Jesus be Virgin Born?

2010-09-29T12:59:00.000-04:00

This is a common issue that plagues many scientists and unchristian people. For someone like me, who grew up in a Christian home, and excepted Christ at an early age, this concept always made sense to me. The answer was easy: God did it.

As I've gotten older, that faith hasn't wavered. What has changed is my believe that things just happen. I believe that even in miracles, God does not disobey the laws he has preordained (physics, biology, chemistry, etc). But He being all knowing he obviously knows a few of the shortcut keys.

This was an idea, now this may be come as a surprise, that was esspecially impressed upon me by Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. If anyone plans on reading this, I will warn you that spoilers will follow.

In Angels and Demons, the plot follows a Harvard Symbolism Professor who is caught up in a conspiracy involving the return of the evil Illuminati. Well it turns out the Illuminati never came back, it was just a grand plot orchestrated by a Catholic priest who felt that an event such as the murder of the pope and prime candidates for the papacy would bring the world closer to God. Well, he was kind of right. But this post isn't a review of Angels and Demons. See, it turns out that this priest felt betrayed by the pope, who had been his mentor, so he killed him. Well one of the higher up priests tells him that he basically killed his father. It turns out that as a young man, the late pope had fallen in love with a nun. Obviously because of certain rules, they weren't allowed to pursue their feelings, but apparently they both really wanted a son. So they used In Vitro Fertilization to have a son, but still stay chaste. The priest explains to the now torn up son that he was actually virgin born.

That's when it hit me. That was the answer. I began learning about the processes of cloning, and found that their is a process of cloning (one that in my opinion is similar to In Vitro) called Nuclear transfer. You may have heard of it, one very popular sheep was cloned this way. Essentially the nucleus, which contains the DNA to be cloned, is injected into an oocyte (an unfertilized egg). Its that simple. Well, not really the DNA part, but after its injected, all the egg needs is an, for lack of a better word, incubator. It will then grow naturally into as any baby would.

So what does this have to do with Jesus' virgin birth? Well it means that to have virgin conception, all that is necessary is to have an egg fertilized outside of the body. So God simply had to drop the DNA into the egg, and Houston we've got a savior. Knowing that, you could even go so far as to say that it wasn't even Mary's egg, but one fashioned and fertilized by God, making Mary only a surrogate mother of Jesus. Just like Joseph was his surrogate father.

Kinda says something about Mary's supposed divinity doesn't it?

(c)Renddslow, 2010

Gnosticism and Christianity

2010-09-27T20:44:00.002-04:00

With books like the Davinci Code, many people are confused on issues like Mary's relationship to Jesus, etc. I am now starting a new series which looks at the roots of gnosticism. This series will examine the so called gnostic gospels and compare them to the new testament canon.

Questions and comments are welcome. Hopefully this series can clear up many of the myths and misconceptions of our modern day culture.

Evolved?

2010-09-24T14:14:00.003-04:00

Evolution can not answer this question: Why has the supposed evolution stopped. Why do monkeys stay monkeys instead of evolving to humans.

Evolution supposedly took place over many millions of years. Humans have been on the scene for at least 2000 years. So why do humans stay humans. After all, humans are only advanced in their logic and intelligence not their physical abilities. Thus if evolution were true, humans should be evolving further to become better.

Creation, which teaches that God created the different kinds, has no problems explaining the fact that humans are not perfect. Our defects our the direct result of sin.

Mosque at Ground Zero

2010-09-02T13:37:00.001-04:00

I am beyond furious!!

Near Death Experiences

2010-08-24T11:14:00.000-04:00

Can Near Death Experiences Prove There is Life After Death?

By: Jennifer Brost

While psychology has long employed the scientific method to help determine cause-and-effect relationships, the experience of near death may not be so easily studied. For many, the chief question of near death experiences is whether there is part of us that is distinct from the body. Questions about the spiritual world, life after-death, and the existence of a “soul” become a proved reality in the minds of some near death survivors. Yet, some scholars continue to wonder, question, and explore whether the near death survivor’s experience is valid or simply the result of sedation or expectation. Those who favor verifiable proof might use the scientific method by forming a hypothesis and then using one or more techniques to test the hypothesis: 1) naturalistic observation, 2) systematic assessment, and 3) experimentation.

Clearly, the use of naturalistic observation cannot be used in the study of Near Death Experiences (NDEs). For obvious reasons, there is no means by which an experimenter can simply observe what occurs inside the head of one undergoing a NDE. However, it might be feasible for one to watch what is occurring in the body of the one experiencing a near death. Even if data about the body is obtained, it is unlikely that a researcher would be called to the scene when a NDE is expected. This is due to many factors, not the least of which is the fact that it may be impossible to predict who will experience near death.

Information about NDEs has been gathered through a form of systematic assessment called case histories. Case histories, also known as case studies, are collections of detailed information about an individual’s past and present life. From gathering stories about NDEs, four core elements have been identified as being characteristics of NDEs: 1) the person hears the news of his or her death, 2) he or she departs from the body, 3) he or she encounters significant others, and 4) an ultimate return to the body. Russell Noyes and Roy Kletti have distinguished three stages in the typical near-death experience: 1) resistance or struggling against the impending danger 2) life review characterized by remembering past events and 3) transcendence, a calming of the mind with detachment from one’s individual existence. The usefulness of these case histories lies in determining similar patterns and experiences so that understanding of the topic is increased. While case histories tell us what the person believed occurred to them, this information cannot provide proof that such spiritual, or “out of body” experiences actually happened. Those who insist upon hard numbers and tangible proof may find case histories lacking the kind of concrete evidence that either proves or disproves the validity of claims of those who say they have seen the “otherside.”

Certainly, information about the near death experience can be gathered through surveys, another form of systematic assessment. Through such surveys, a researcher can measure people’s attitudes and activities by asking near death survivors about their experiences. However, the questions used in such surveys must be carefully crafted in order to control bias. For example, the question, “What did you experience during the time in which doctors thought you were dead?” would be a biased question because it contains assumption. (“What did you experience?” implies that the person must have seen or heard something.) If administered properly, a survey on NDEs will be a collection of responses from a representative sample of individuals; one would therefore expect a wide variety of answers. For example, while some might assume that all NDEs would be pleasant (i.e. a warm bright light and seeing loved ones), NDE research has discovered that some NDEs are frightening and have been termed “hellish” or “incomplete” near death experiences.

Standardized tests, another form of systematic assessment, might be used to gauge the mental and emotional well-being of near death experience survivors; this information might be useful in determining whose experience can be most trusted. For example, if 100 people responded that they saw a bright light and heard the voice of God, and all 100 people were known to suffer from psychosis, we might hesitate to accept their experiences as fact. Projective tests, like the Rorschach test or Thematic Apperception Test can help researchers understand near death survivor’s personalities. This could assist them in interpreting the data collected from near death experiences.

A third approach to testing hypotheses is experimentation. Unfortunately, this option essentially off limits for near death experience researchers. It would certainly be unethical to nearly kill someone simply to study what happens. One might imagine a sci-fi depiction of administering a potentially lethal injection of a drug while the subject’s brain is hooked up to medical devices to determine brain activity. Even if such experiments could provide a TV screen picture of what the subject was viewing in his or her brain, questions of validity would persist. Evidence that another world exists would still be lacking scientific grounding for we would continue to be limited to the report (even if we could see what the near death survivor saw in his or her head). For ethical and practical reasons, this approach cannot be used. In determining the meaning of NDEs, some point to the need for study to go beyond the lines of the normal scientific method. For reasons already discussed, NDEs cannot be studied in the same straight forward manner in which one measures the thickness of a blade of grass.

When it comes to explaining why some near death see a bright light, embrace dead loved ones, or watch their bodies while floating above them, there is plenty of room for disagreement. Some attribute the phenomena to the reality of the after-life while others chalk it up to mind-altering drugs that may have been given (for medical purposes) before the near death experience occurred. Still others insist that those who believe in an after-life experience another world because that is what they expected to see. However, Karlis Osis and Erleundur Haraldsson report that, “’neither medical, nor psychological, nor cultural conditioning can explain away deathbed visions.’” They make this conclusion based on their observation that some deathbed visions do not match what the experiencer believed to be true about the after-life. For example, some children have reported feeling surprised that the angels they saw did not have wings. According to Osis and Haraldsson, the evidence points to the existence of an after-life.

As a Christian, I believed (and still do) in the existence of an after-life. When I “coded” in 1999, I was without the influence of any medication or drugs. Being that I so believed in Heaven, I was surprised that I did not “see the light” or anything unusual. For me, my spirit did not hover above my body; instead, I felt like 1000 hands were holding my spirit into my body. As the nurses yelled, “No pulse!”, I struggled, at first, to tell them I was alright. However, it wasn’t long until I realized that I could not speak, open my eyes, or move. I was frightened at first, but not for long. Soon I realized that I was dying. I began to think about my husband and the child that would soon die in my body as the result of my death. (I was pregnant). I thought, “So this is what death is like,” as peaceful Christian music played through my head like a radio. When I woke up on life support, I was surprised by my recovery.

Unlike the above experience, I did have a “bright light” episode while in my teens. I had just had my wisdom teeth surgically removed while in the hospital. I was on plenty of medication when I decided to get of bed and go to the bathroom. My mother found me passed out on the floor and woke me from what seemed like a near death experience. Although I have no reason to believe that I was near death, I did see a bright light while I was unconscious. It was warm and not frightening. I was, however, under the influence of medication.

Being a Christian, I would like to report that my true near death experience provided evidence or clues about the after-life. However, I simply lack such a story. Yet, I do not doubt that others have seen more than I did. In my mind, all experiences should be valued—even if they are imagined, for we lack the ability to prove that there is no after-life.

Failing to see “the light” or hear God’s voice during my NDE has not in anyway detracted or lessened my faith in God. In fact, what I did walk away “knowing that I know that I know” is that there is a part of me that is not physical. When all else shut down, I was still there. It seems irrational to me that we are only flesh and blood, and if there is “more than meets the eye” in terms of our composition, then it makes sense that when our bodies give out, there is a place for what remains to abide.

However, no matter what evidence might be turned up regarding NDEs, it will always be a matter of faith—faith to believe that what one reports is true or faith to explain away the multitudes who report knowing, firsthand, that there is life after death.

Article Source: http://www.articles.narrowisthepath.com

Jennifer Brost is an author, Pastor's Wife, and near death survivor. Her many trials led to a spiritual crisis, suicidal depression, and eventual recovery. All profits from her book, "How I Suffered From My Theology: and regained my faith" are given to charity (www.deliverancepublishers.com). She is currently working on her M.S. in Grief Counseling through Breyer State University. She lives in Iowa with her husband and two sons.

The Nephilim

2010-08-17T10:20:00.000-04:00

Who were the Nephilim in Genesis chapter 6? That is a question raised fairly often. The Nephilim are mentioned in Genesis 6 and again in Numbers 13. The passage in Genesis 6 is especially intriguing because of its account of the "sons of God" going in to the "daughters of men." Someone wrote to ask whether the Nephilim "were simply human or the off-spring of angels (demons) mating with human women."

Let's begin with the passage itself. Genesis 6: 1-4 reads:

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

In considering the identity of the Nephilim, one must also answer two other questions: the identity of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men," and the significance of the passage relative to that which precedes it and that which follows (its context). "In most cases," says John Sailhamer, "the interpretations [of this passage] have arisen out of the viewpoint that these verses introduce the story of the Flood."{7} Some commentators, however, think otherwise.

First, who are these "sons" and "daughters"? One view holds that the "sons" were kings and the "daughters" were lower class women who made up the harems of such kings.{8} The "sons" were guilty of polygamy in taking more than one wife from among the "daughters of men." This was at least part of the reason God brought judgment. This view has real possibilities, for it provides a bridge between the genealogies of Cain and Seth in chapters 4 and 5, and it serves as an explanation of the judgment to follow. A weakness of this view is that "while both within the OT and in other Near Eastern texts individual kings were called God's son, there is no evidence that groups of kings were so styled."{9}

Another view is that these "sons of God" were angels or demons who united with human women, and so corrupted the race that God had to bring judgment. It seems highly unlikely that this is the correct interpretation. First, Jesus said that angels don't marry, and in Genesis 6:2 the word for "married" means just that, and not fornication. If good angels don't marry, why would God grant sexual powers to demons? Second, if demons were taking advantage of human women, why was mankind judged? The Interpreter's Bible Commentary offers this view, but relegates the story to myth. If we aren't prepared to think of Genesis as being mythological, we need to look for another option.

A third view is that the "sons of God" were descendents of godly Seth, while the "daughters of men" were descendents of ungodly Cain. Although "sons of God" is used in the Old Testament to refer to angels (see Job 1:6, 2:1 in the NASB), godly men are also called "sons" as in Psalm 73:15 and Hosea 1:10.

This view provides a bridge between chapters 4-5 and chapter 6. Chapter 4 lists some offspring of Cain, chapter 5 those of Seth, and chapter 6 brings them together. According to this view, says commentator Victor Hamilton, "The sin is a forbidden union, a yoking of what God intended to keep apart, the intermarriage of believer with unbeliever."{10}

Jesus said in Matt. 24:38, "For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark." Seth's godly descendents had shifted their focus from God to the things of the flesh and were simply carrying on with their lives, but not in accordance with God's will. That the primary focus of God's wrath is against the union, rather than the offspring of it, is the fact that God's displeasure is announced after mentioning the marriage unions but before mentioning the offspring.

So, then, who were the Nephilim? The Holman Bible Dictionary says the word "probably derived from the root 'to fall' and meaning either 'the fallen ones' or else 'ones who fall [violently] upon others.'"{11} Hamilton translates it "those who were made to fall, those who were cast down." If this is correct, then the Nephilim are certainly not to be identified with the "heroes of old, men of renown" in verse 4.{12} Old Testament commentators Keil and Delitzsch believe Martin Luther had it correct when he said these men were tyrants. "They were called Nephilim," they say, "because they fell upon the people and oppressed them."{13}

Were they the offspring of the "sons of God" and "daughters of men"? Apparently not, for the verse says they "were on the earth in those days--and also afterward"; in other words, they were contemporaries of the "sons" and "daughters."

It's hard to be dogmatic about the interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4. But my vote goes with this last view.

Article from this site.

City on a Hill: The Idea of Freedom (An essay I wrote).

2010-07-28T15:31:00.003-04:00

In his 'city on a hill' sermon, John Winthrop said, "God almighty in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some most be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in submission." But was Winthrop correct? Is the idea of political and religious God's idea or man's idea.

We can start to answer these questions by referring to genesis 1-3. The Garden of Eden shows us several things: 1. God gave man authority over creation; 2. God has authority over man. The fact that God forbids them to eat from a certain tree shows us that God has authority over man. From the beginning, and extending to all times we see that authority has always separated groups into classes based on the levels of authority.

Has God decided that some should be rich and some poor? No, instead we (the church)are commanded time and again to help the poor, widows, and orphans. In fact, in Acts 5 we see that all the believers shared their possessions (verse 32) and that "there were no needy people among them (verse 34). Thus we see that it is not the desire of God that there should be rich and poor. Ultimately, the poor are the responsibility of the church, not the government or even the community.

So what about political and religious freedom, is it a God-given right? That is what President Bush claimed (in order to justify the war on terror).
First of all, everyone does have religious freedom in that in their own heart they can worship whomever they choose. It is the outward religious adherence that is being adressed and thus it falls under political freedom.

No scripture promises us or even grants us a right to political freedom. Instead we see countless examples of people like Moses, Paul, and even Jesus who are denied political freedom. God has not given us the right to political freedom. Bush had no scriptural support for the war on terror.

In conclusion, we have learned that: God had indeed decreed that some people should have authority over others. God has not decreed that certain people should be rich and others poor. God has not granted us the right to political freedom. Political freedom (while good) is man's concept.

Book Review (Premonition)

2010-07-21T17:37:00.002-04:00

I don't normally review books on this blog but I just have to mention this book.
Premonition by Randall Ingermanson is the best historical fiction book that I have ever read. A word of warning: this book is the second in the series (the first is called Transgression) however the first book is very much sci-fi and only a little historical. If you like time travel, physics, etc read Transgression-otherwise you can just start by reading Premonition.

Premonition is set in 57 A.D. "Jerusalem teeters on the brink of revolt against Rome. James-the brother of Jesus and the leader of the Jewish-Christian community has an enemy in high places..."

This book entertains while teaching. Through the book, you learn firsthand the cultures and customs of the Jewish people, you see the interaction between Jewish Christians and Rome, in essence, you are transported back in time to an age right (and I mean right) after the death of Yeshua (Jesus). Historical figures like King Agrippa, Haanan ben Hanan, Nero,Felix, Festus, and many others are brought to life with historical honesty.

This book explores how many modern Jews reject Christianity because of the persecution that Jews had by the hands of Christians. This book shows how as a Christian we can impact the world around us. And, there are many deep philosophical and theological questions that are raised and uniquely answered in this book.

In conclusion I would like to point out that I have read 500+ books and for me to say that this is the best historical fiction book is pretty impressive. So don't delay-you must read this book it will be well worth your time. (And prepare to have your preconceived notions shook up).

Why isn't there other evidence of the massacre of the babies?

2010-07-16T12:57:00.000-04:00

Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent and slew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its environs, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the magi," (Matt. 2:16)

If Herod really did slaughter all the male babies in Jerusalem, why isn't there any mention of it in historical accounts outside the Bible such as the Jewish historian Josephus or some other Roman historians? Since we find none, doesn't that mean that it didn't happen or at the least cast doubt upon the validity of the event? After all, killing a town full of babies is something that would have been recorded.

First of all, not having any evidence outside the Bible of the slaughter of the babies, does not mean it didn't happen, especially since the Bible does record it and the Bible has already been proven to be historically accurate.

Second, Bethlehem, as far as the Romans were concerned, was an insignificant and very small town located about five miles south of Jerusalem at around 2500 feet elevation. It probably had a population of no more than 500 - 600 people. Micah 5:2 it says, "But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.” Notice that Micah (written around 500 B.C.) prophesies that from Bethlehem, a small town, Jesus will be born. If there were as many as 600 people in Bethlehem, how many children would have been under the age of two? Ten, twenty, thirty? Whatever the number, it would not have been hundreds. It would have been relatively few. Add to this the fact that Herod was known for committing horrendous crimes against people and you could see why this event in an insignificant village in the Jewish area, might be ignored.

"But it is not surprising that he [Josephus] and other secular historians overlooked the death of a few Hebrew children in an insignificant village, for Herod’s infamous crimes were many. He put to death several of his own children and some of his wives whom he thought were plotting against him. Emperor Augustus reportedly said it was better to be Herod’s sow than his son, for his sow had a better chance of surviving in a Jewish community."1

Third, there were more "important" things happening in the Roman Empire which would occupy the details of historical writers. Take a look at the chart below and notice that at the time of Christ, some major events were taking place. Undoubtedly, Roman historians would have focused on issues more appropriate to the Empire.

Year	Event Roman Empire	Israel
20 B.C.		- Herod begins remodeling of the Temple
12 B.C.	- Beginning of war between the Pannonians and the Romans.
9 B.C.	- Pannonians are defeated.
7 B.C.	- Rome is divided into 14 regions. - Herod executes his son.
4 B.C.		- Herod burns alive 40 Jews who destroyed a golden eagle. - Possible date of the slaughter of the babies
3 B.C.		- Archelaus (Herod's son) kills 3000 Jews in the Temple
- 0 -	(Note that the chronology of Jesus' birth is probably 4 years too late. Therefore, Jesus was probably born around 4 B.C.)
1 A.D.	- War in Germany
2 A.D.	- Peace made with Persia
3 A.D.		- Roman decree permitting Jews to follow their religious customs
4 A.D.	- Tiberius subdues Germany
6 A.D.	- Pannonians revolt. - Herod Archelaus deposed by Augustus	- Judea is absorbed into the Roman Empire

We must remember that the Bible has demonstrated itself to be reliable and accurate countless times. It may very well be that some inscription is waiting to be uncovered which will, like many inscriptions in the past, validate yet another biblical event. In the meantime, we can trust the Bible to be the accurate document of historical record that it is.

1. Walvoord, John F., and Roy B. Zuck, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, Wheaton, IL: Scripture Press Publications, 1983, 1985.

Yoga and Christianity

2010-07-03T15:34:00.002-04:00

For this post, I have selected an article from Jeremy Butler who earned a M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

What is Yoga?

Yoga is a practice that has become very popular in the United States. According to a 2008 study, there are 15.8 million Americans who practice Yoga.1 Before we can answer whether Christian’s should practice yoga or not, we need to define what Yoga is. We must first understand that yoga is taught within all sects of Hinduism, in which it is taught as a means to have salvation.

There are different types of yoga, but what they all have in common is they are a way to earn salvation. There are several practices within Yoga. These include, but are not limited to meditation, repeating the divine name, breathing exercises, performing acrobatic exercises, trying to put one’s own body in difficult postures. Meditation is central to all forms of Yoga. Meditation helps its practitioners to be able to find release from the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth.2 “Yoga is a method of spiritual training whose purpose is to integrate or unite the self. A physical exercise, its goal is nonphysical-uniting with God. Yoga teaches that people should attempt to yoke the individual spirit to God, to atman-the individual soul or essence of a person-and to Brahman.”3 So we see that Yoga is essentially physical exercises in which one tries to work his or her way to God.
So Should Christians Practice Yoga?

It is not recommended that Christians practice yoga since the intention of yoga is a path in order to attain salvation. Some Christians do practice yoga and say that all Christians can practice yoga. So let us answer a few basic objections.

Can a Christian practice yoga without getting caught up in the religious aspects of it?

The problem is that yoga is religious in nature. The point of the practice of yoga is to unite oneself with God. Take this quote from the Yoga Journal: “Connecting the mind, body, and breath helps us to direct our attention inward. Through this process of inward attention, we learn to recognize our habitual thought patterns without labeling them, judging them, or trying to change them. We become more aware of our experiences from moment to moment. The awareness that we cultivate is what makes yoga a practice, rather than a task or a goal to be completed. Your body will most likely become much more flexible by doing yoga, and so will your mind.”4 As one can see, Yoga is more than just a physical exercise. We as Christians do not want to make our mind more flexible. We do not want to leave our mind open to false teaching.

If there are medical benefits from practicing yoga, then why should Christians not be able to practice yoga?

With any physical fitness, there are going to be some positive medical benefits. There are many other great physical fitness programs that are out there with great benefits. So why take the chance in meddling with something that comes from, and is associated with, a false view of salvation? Why do we feel like we have to use an exercise that has religious values from a false religious system? Yoga is different than other exercise system because it is more than just exercise. The point of yoga is to combine body, mind, and soul together.

There are a few reasons why I discourage Christian’s from practicing yoga.

1. Jesus is the only way in order to have salvation. Salvation is not found in any other religious system, practice or founder.
1. Jesus told us that he was the only way to the Father in John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
2. Acts 4:12: “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
2. We are not saved from any works that we can do ourselves. It's all by grace through faith in Jesus Christ as our Saviour.
1. Ephesians 2:8-10: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
1. So we see by this passage that we are not saved by our good works. Our good works are a result of our salvation, but they do not cause our salvation. Our salvation is to bring glory and honor to God, not to ourselves.
3. We as Christians are to be different than the world. We are not to do things the same way as the world.
1. Romans 12:1-2: “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
1. As Christians we are not to be conformed to this world. We are to be different and set apart from the world. When we try and use the methods of the world in order to get to God, then we are in direct disobedience to God. Even if a Christian can practice yoga without any of the religious practices getting involved, would you want to take the chance of hurting your witness with Hindus or those of the New Age who think that Yoga is religious in nature?
4. As Christians we are to meditate only on God and His Word. We are not to focus on ourselves or to clear our minds. The Bible never gives us a prescription to free our mind. The prescription that the Bible gives us is to only meditate on God and His Word.
1. Psalm 1:1-3: “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water. Which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers.”
2. Psalm 63:6: “When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches.”
3. Psalm 119:15: “I will meditate on Your precepts and regard Your ways.”
4. Psalm 119:23: “Even though princes sit and talk against me, Your servant meditates on Your statutes.”
5. Psalm 119:27: “Make me understand the way of Your precepts, so I will meditate on Your wonders.”
6. Psalm 119:48: “And I shall lift up my hands to Your commandments, which I love; and I will meditate on Your statutues.”
7. Psalm 119:97: “Oh how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.”
8. Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”
1. When one clears his mind, he is opening himself up to demonic powers. We are to only let our minds dwell on Godly things and meditate on Scripture. Again, we are not to clear our minds, empty ourselves and open ourselves up to anything but God.

1. 1. http://www.yogajournal.com/advertise/press_releases/10, accessed June 6th, 2010.
2. 2. Kenneth Shouler, Ph.D. and Susai Anthony, The Everything Hinduism Book, F&W Media, Inc.; Avon, MA; 2009; page 10.
3. 3. Ibid, page 10.
4. 4. http://www.yogajournal.com/basics/820.

Five Years Later: 9/11 Attacks Show No Lasting Influence on Americans’ Faith

2010-06-23T14:56:00.000-04:00

“The study shows that despite an intense surge in religious activity and expression in the weeks immediately following 9/11, the faith of Americans is virtually indistinguishable today compared to pre-attack conditions.”

“The study shows that despite an intense surge in religious activity and expression in the weeks immediately following 9/11, the faith of Americans is virtually indistinguishable today compared to pre-attack conditions. Barna’s tracking surveys looked at 19 dimensions of spirituality and beliefs. Remarkably, none of those 19 indicators are statistically different from the summer before the attacks. (This means that the small gaps in percentage points – when they exist – are not larger than the random differences that might be expected because of using a sample of Americans rather than a census.)”

“In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, half of all Americans said their faith helped them cope with the shock and uncertainty. The change most widely reported was a significant spike in church attendance, with some churches experiencing more than double their normal crowd on the Sunday after the shocking event. However, by the time January 2002 rolled around, churchgoing was back to pre-attack levels, and has remained consistent in the five years since.”

“Less publicized was the fact that several religious beliefs shifted right after the attack. But these changes were also short-lived, returning to pre-9/11 conditions by early 2002. For instance, October 2001 data showed that Americans were less likely to feel a responsibility to share their faith; they were less willing to reject the notion that good works can earn salvation; they were more likely to believe that the devil is merely a symbol of evil; and they were slightly less likely to believe God is the perfect, all-powerful creator who rules the world. These shifts in beliefs went against conventional wisdom that Americans’ were flocking to orthodox biblical perspectives. Instead, throughout the period of emotional insecurity many adults became increasingly skeptical of traditional religious views. Nevertheless, even this skepticism quickly faded to the status quo by January of 2002.”

“One of the most interesting aspects of this stability is that the percent of American adults who identify themselves as Muslim has not changed since before 9/11. Adherents to Islam account for just one-half of 1% of the U.S. adult population. Osama bin Laden’s objective of using the attacks to spur conversion to Islam has not been realized.”

“Americans’ intensity of commitment to their faith did not change at all – either right after the event or since. Just months after the attacks, Americans were no more likely to be ‘absolutely committed’ to the Christian faith, to say that their religious faith is very important, or to described themselves as ‘deeply spiritual.’”

“The director of the Barna study, David Kinnaman, put the findings in context. ‘Many Christian leaders predicted that terrorism on U.S. soil would catalyze a spiritual awakening in the country. The first few weeks were promising. But people quickly returned to their standard, faith-as-usual lives: within a month, most of their spiritual fervor was gone. Within 90 days, surprisingly few people were pursuing important questions about faith and spirituality. Now, five years removed from that fateful day, spiritually speaking, it’s as if nothing significant ever happened. People used faith like a giant band-aid – it helped people deal with the ugliness of the event but it offered little in the way of deep healing and it was discarded after a brief period of use.’”

(“Five Years Later: 9/11 Attacks Show No Lasting Influence on Americans’ Faith,” The Barna Update, August 28, 2006, www.barna.org)

A New Generation Expresses its Skepticism and Frustration with Christianity

2010-06-18T12:39:00.000-04:00

“A decade ago the vast majority of Americans outside the Christian faith, including young people, felt favorably toward Christianity’s role in society.”

“A decade ago the vast majority of Americans outside the Christian faith, including young people, felt favorably toward Christianity’s role in society. Currently, however, just 16% of non-Christians in their late teens and twenties said they have a ‘good impression’ of Christianity.”

“Only 3% of 16- to 29-year-old non-Christians express favorable views of evangelicals. Today’s young non-Christians are eight times less likely to experience positive associations toward evangelicals than were non-Christians of the Boomer generation (25%).”

“Among senior pastors, half content that ‘ministry’ is more difficult than ever before because people are increasingly hostile and negative toward Christianity.”

“Common negative perceptions include that present-day Christianity is judgmental (87%), hypocritical (85%), old-fashioned (78%), and too involved in politics (75%) – representing large proportions of young outsides who attach these negative labels to Christians.”

“The most common favorable perceptions were that Christianity teaches the same basic ideas as other religions (82%), has good values and principles (76%), is friendly (71%), and is a faith they respect (55%).”

“Even among young Christians, many of the negative images generated significant.

Source

Indecencies

2010-06-18T12:01:00.000-04:00

Mark Twain once wrote, "Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them."

When we think about it, that is very true. We don't see animals running around in clothing and worrying that they may something that is not "politically correct".
So where did indecency come from?

Well, we are told in Genesis 2:25 that "the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame."
However later after the fall, the man and his wife felt shame upon eating the forbidden apple. It says in Genesis 3:7 that "then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked..."

So what is the point of this. Am I saying that clothes are sinful? Certainly not, in fact, the first blood (as far as we know) that was shed in this world was shed by God to make clothing for the man and the woman.

But my point in all this is about being politically correct. The definition of indecent is something that is offensive to good taste, or publicly held moral values. And we all know that most will consider it offensive to talk about Christ and about the truth. A pastor who speaks out against homosexuality can find himself in legal trouble. And a teacher who tries to share her beliefs to a class can find herself fired.*

Paul asked the Church in Ephesus to "pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should." (Ephesians 6:19-20)

So let us be encouraged to fearlessly serve God. To not fear the constraints of "public decency." Because as Mark Twain said, "Nature knows no indecency" and indeed, the Bible asserts that "if [we] keep quiet, the stones will cry out." (Luke 19:40)

*I realize this was a bit of a generalization and that these events don't always happen, I just wanted to show how drastic things can get in our society.

Why Today's Kids Just Don't Get It

2010-06-16T16:39:00.001-04:00

Taken from The National Study of Youth and Religion interview with Dr. Christian Smith, professor of sociology at UNC – Chapel Hill.

“Smith: Teenagers are highly, highly, conversational when it comes to religion. The vast majority are happy to just go along with however they were raised. It is not a contentious area of life – it’s not something in the foreground that they’re paying too much attention to.”

“Smith: Very little spiritual seeking among teens – I mean teenagers who are ‘spiritual’ but not religious. Most think that anybody can practice whatever they want, but they themselves want to practice religion the way they were raised…however they were raised is good enough for them.”

“Smith: Well, the impression you get from the media is that there is a massive tidal wave of spiritual seeking – that there are a lot of questors out there, including very young people. We found that is just not the case. The other reason it is surprising is because in our culture adolescence is synonymous with rebellion, and we expected to hear a lot more fighting and resistance and rebellion and unhappiness around religion. And that wasn’t the case.”

“Smith: They could not explain what they believed – hardly at all. They had extreme difficulty in explaining how it affected their lives. It seems like religion operates in the background – it’s just part of the wallpaper, part of the furniture.”

“Smith: They [teens] very much are shaped religiously and spiritually by their parents and reflect what their parents look like religiously. The best rule of thumb for adults or parents trying to figure out how their teens are going to turn out religiously is ‘we will get what we are.’”

“Smith: So a pastor can be just great at the pulpit, but it’s just there, if parents don’t bring it home and express it to their teens – ‘This is important in my life; here is what I believe’ – then the teens pick up on that and say, ‘Well this is just a one-hour-a-week thing, so what’s the big deal?’”

(Rick Lawrence, “Why Today’s Kids JUST DON’T GET IT,” Group Magazine, January/February 2005, pp106-108.)

Source

Kids and Religion

2010-06-16T16:31:00.000-04:00

“The results of this comprehensive review are presented in two companion products: a research brief, ‘Educating America’s Youth: What Makes a Difference,’ and ‘What Works,’ that summarizes key research and evaluation findings.”

“While available research on this topic is largely limited to Christianity and Judaism, it nevertheless shows:”

“Involvement with a religious institution is associated with lower adolescent drug and alcohol use and delays in sexual activity.”

“There is a connection between younger teens’ religious participation and more altruistic attitudes and behaviors, presumably reflecting both religious teachings and opportunities for participation in religious-related service activities.”

“Parents’ religious beliefs and practices were associated with risk-taking among teens, even when other influences were controlled.”

“A connection was found between parental religious participation and lower levels of child behavior problems and with higher levels of adolescent social responsibility.”

“Religious institutions may play a role in providing physical and emotional support to individuals and groups in need and exerting social controls over adherents’ behavior, particularly in neighborhoods where other sources of social support, opportunity and control have broken down.”

“(The brief is available online at: www.childtrends.org/PDF/ReligiousityRB.pdf.)(www.childtrends.org/n_religiosity.asp)”

“Percentage of teens…who are not only born again, but also believe in the accuracy of the Bible, personal responsibility to evangelize, believe in salvation by grace alone, and possess orthodox biblical views on God, Jesus and Satan – have declined from 10% in 1995 to just 4% today.”

“…a similar drop among adults: 12% were evangelicals in 1994, but just 5% fit the criteria today.”

(www.barna.org/cgibin/PagePressRelease.asp?PressReleaseID=111&Reference=B)

Hardwired to Connect

2010-06-15T10:21:00.000-04:00

"What are the main findings of this report?

“Human beings are biologically wired to form relationships. Thus our title, hardwired to connect. The capacity for attachment is structured in our biology and brains and neurotransmitters. And the infant’s brain cannot develop in a vacuum; the developing brain requires devoted human attachment. Infant development on a biological level requires what another human being offers in a sustained, reliable, responsive love relationship. A mother’s love, hallowed through the ages, is being rediscovered by scientists as the bedrock of human personality development. Of course I mean a permanent devoted caretaker, who may not be the biological mother.”

“Scientists can demonstrate that brain circuitry and gene transcription, the biological core of the developing individual, respond to the quality of mothering relationships in a permanent, brain-based way.”

“If we want to help children flourish, we need to pay heed to the earliest experiences that have profound and life-long effects on their well being.”

“Parenting matters in measurable behaviors. Probably you are familiar with the question of nature versus nurture as an approach to understanding problem youth – was that darn kid just born that way, or is it how he was raised? Our commission has resolved this dilemma as a reciprocal, mutual interaction. We know that individuals differ biologically at birth. Some are bold, and some are nervous wrecks. But in scientific experiments we find that young animals that carry a heritable trait for anxiety can be rehabilitated if they are transplanted at birth into the care of especially nurturing mothers. Studies have found that children with a predisposition to excessive reactions to the environment could become either especially vulnerable or especially resilient, depending on the context in which they are raised. The same genetic trait that is especially troublesome when the child is raised in an inadequate family structure can be an unusual strength when the same child is given supportive surroundings.”

The plasticity and flexible potential of the spectrum of human traits present at birth is thus a reason for optimism. Science is showing us how the vast majority of children have tremendous potential to flourish intellectually, emotionally, practically, and spiritually if they are given home environments that are responsive, responsible, and nurturing.”

“‘Male and female’ has far-reaching meaning in childhood and adolescence, and that the biological systems that govern gender at work on the level of brain circuitry, endocrine function, and physical organs are profound influenced by social systems. Children typically begin to speak in sentences at the age of two, but the child’s sexuality is well entrenched by that time, and throughout the child has been involved in a consuming search for understanding – who am I? Am I like Mommy and Daddy? And how do they relate together? The process of attaining gender identity is not only physical and physiological, but familial, social, and psychological. These discoveries – the toddler’s exploration of his or her own body and its potentials, and the bodies of people in the family – are part of the child’s growing capacity to understand the most fundamental polarities of human destiny: of love and hate, of birth and death, of man and woman.”

“Science now recognizes some of the biological mechanisms underlying the normal teenage craving for stimulation, for risk-taking, and pleasure-seeking. The teenager’s heedless drive to go forth and conquer the world, a source of both pride and worry for parents, is based in part upon developmental alterations in brain structure and function. Here too is a lesson for policy makers – that the teenager’s brain is prompting him to seek novel and more intense interests, pleasures, and excitements. It behooves us therefore to consider how our families and communities support our adolescents, and indeed what kind of preparation should have taken place in a youngster’s character before the transformations of puberty. How do we help families understand how quickly children will need to rely upon their inner resources of good judgment, and to foster these resources? How do we provide for the needs of older youth to participate in society in ways that are sane, responsible, and fulfilling? These are not simply questions of policing reckless and floundering teenagers, but of preventing their floundering to start with – of renewing our social landscape so that fledgling adults can participate in the real world as a genuine opportunity for growth.”

The science of child development informs us that trust, hope, and ideals first arise in the earliest mutual devotion between the parent and infant. We must not forget the love the infant feels for the parent – even babes in arms try to feed their mothers and become upset if the parent is upset. The infant’s empathy for the parent – however primitive it may seem – is the origin of concern and conscience. The child’s innate selfishness is constrained by his concern for those he loves. It is his concern with the feeling and well being of others that later becomes the child’s capacity for self-discipline and self-criticism. The child’s morality is the consequence, over time, of having been loved. The values and ideals that the child finds later in life in teachers, coaches, civic and religious organizations – the values he finds in the world of ideas and the empathy he feels for people remote from him – all have their origin long ago in the immeasurable value that he placed upon his parents, and the immeasurable value they place upon him.”

The dearth of connectedness among adults and the incessant commercialism that characterize our society threaten to reduce our children to material winners and material losers in a landscape increasingly devoid of human empathy and meaning. As we look to the family as the most fundamental source of attachment, the fundamental ‘Authoritative Community’ we must look as well to our social fabric as a whole and address its many woes.”

(www.americanvalues.org/html/hardwired-berger.html)

New Series

2010-06-15T10:02:00.002-04:00

For those of you that are still waiting for posts from the Great Faith Debate, I'm happy to announce that I'm back. I will be sharing a series of articles written by Josh McDowell that examine teens and their relationship to God and the church. This series will better equip us in witnessing to young people and those coming from broken families.

Earth Sciences Part 1

2010-04-06T17:10:00.003-04:00

The Fossil Record. The evolution of a single‑celled organism into all the creatures that ever lived during hundreds of millions of years would have produced an enormous number of transitional forms. Our museums should have on display vast numbers of undoubted transitional forms. But as predicted on the basis of creation there is a systematic absence of transitional forms between basically different kinds of plants and animals. For example, the fossils of a vast array of complex invertebrates ‑ clams, snails, jellyfish, trilobites, sponges, worms, brachiopods, etc. ‑ abruptly appear in the fossil record. Billions times billions of fossils are in the rocks. Nowhere on the earth has anyone found fossilized ancestors for a single one of these creatures. Each appears fully formed. Supposedly one of these invertebrates evolved in fishes, believed to be the first vertebrates. Some believe this would have required 100 million years. We should have billions times billions of fossils of the transitional forms between invertebrate and vertebrate. We don't have one. Every major kind of fish appears fully formed with no trace of ancestors or transitional forms linking one kind to another. These facts alone are sufficient to demonstrate that evolution has not occurred on the earth. This evidence on the other hand is exactly as predicted on the basis of creation.

Sensational claims are frequently made concerning alleged intermediates between ape and man. But all such claims are questionable and disputable. For example, Lord Solly Zuckerman and Charles Oxnard assert that "Lucy" and her fellow australopithecines did not walk upright, were not intermediate between ape and man, and certainly were not human ancestors. Evolutionists have a sorry track record here Piltdown Man was a fraud, Nebraska Man was a pig's tooth, Ramapithecus is now said to have been essentially the same as a modern orangutan, and Neanderthal Man is now classified Homo sapiens, fully human.

This article was found here.

Introduction to Earth Sciences

2010-04-02T20:46:00.002-04:00

The next section of my creation/evolution series will focus on earth sciences. We will explore evidence for a global flood, the fossil record, and other fascinating material. These posts will not be as complicated or technical as the astronomical science section.

This section will also include evidence from Answers in Genesis and Institute for Creation Research. It may contain information from other sources as well.

Conclusion to Astronomical Science.

2010-03-31T20:31:00.003-04:00

11. Hot Moon- surprising amount of heat is flowing out of the Moon from just below its surface, and yet the Moon's interior is relatively cold. Because it has not yet cooled off, the moon seems much younger than most people had guessed.

12. Young Comets-as comets pas near the Sun, some of their mass vaporizes, producing a long tail and other debris. comets also fragment frequently or crash into the Sun or planets. Typical comets should disinterested after several hundred orbits. For many comets this is less than 10000 years. there is no evidence for a distant shell of cometary material surrounding the solar system, and there is no known way to add comets to the solar system at rates that even remotely balance their destruction. Actually, the gravity of planets tends to expel comets from the solar system rather than capture them. consequently, comets and the solar system appear to be less than 10000 years old.

In this section we identified several key arguments that prove A. There was a Creator, and B. The earth is relatively young (which counters Evolution.)

Astronomical Sciene Part 3

2010-03-15T11:40:00.002-04:00

7. First Law of Thermodynamics-states that the total energy in the universe, or in any isolated part of it, remains constant. It further states that although energy can change form it is not now being created or destroyed. Countless experiments have verified this. As a result, natural processes cannot create energy. consequently, energy must have been created in the past by some agency or power outside and independent of the natural universe. Furthermore, if natural processes cannot produce mass and energy-the relatively simple inorganic portion of the universe-then it is even less likely that natural processes can explain the much more complex organic/living portion of the universe.

8. Interstellar Gas-Detailed analysis indicate that neither stars nor planets could form from interstellar gas clouds. To do so, either by first forming dust particles or by direct gravitational collapse of the gas, would require vastly more time than the alleged age of the universe. An obvious alternative is that stars and planets were created.

9. Stellar evolution-is assumed in estimating the age of stars. These ages are then used to establish a framework for stellar evoultion. This is circular reasoning.

10. Star Births-If star evolve, star births should about equal star deaths. Many star deaths are bright and sudden events called supernovas. Similarly, star births should should be accompanied by the appearance of new starlight not present on the many photographic plates made decades earlier. Instruments which could detect dust falling nto and forming supposedly new stars have not done so. Actually, the stars some astronomers believe are very new are expelling matter. wE have never seen a star born, but we have seen hundreds of stars die. There is no evidence stars evolve, nor are there any sound scientific explanations for how they could evolve.

Astronomical Science Part 2

2010-03-11T16:09:00.001-05:00

4. Origin of the Moon-Naturalistic theories on the origin of Earth's moon are highly speculative and completely inadequate. The moon did not spin off Earth, nor did it form from the same material as Earth, because its orbital plane is too inclined. Furthermore, the relative abundances of its elements are too dissimilar from those of Earth. The moon's nearly circular orbit is also strong evidence that it was never torn from, nor captured by, Earth.

Some claim the moon formed from a Mars-size impactor. If so, many small moons should have formed. Even if only one moon formed, the glancing-blow- impact would either be too slight to form our large moon, or the impact would be so violent the Earth would end up spinning too fast. If the moon formed from particles orbiting the Earth, other particles should be easily visible inside the moon's orbit.

The fact that the moon exists points to a creator. Nothing else can explain its existence.

5.Space, Time, and Matter-No scientific theory exists to explain the origin of space, time, or matter. Because each is intimately related to or even defined in terms of the other, a satisfactory explanation for the origin of one must also explain the origin of the others. Naturalistic explanations have completely failed.

6. A Beginning- Heat always flows from a hot body to a cold body. If the universe were infinitely old, everything should have the same temperature. Because temperatures vary, the universe is not infinitely old. Therefore: A the universe had a beginning and B there is a creator (since Evolution requires millions of years.)

Astronomical Science Part 1

2010-03-10T16:31:00.003-05:00

The following is a list of evidence for Creation based on astronomical science.

1. If Earth was formed by gravitational accretion (the infalling of meteoritic bodies), heat released by these impacts would have made the entire earth molten. Had earth ever been molten, dense, nonreactive, chemical elements such as gold would have sunk to earths core. Because gold is almost twice as dense as lead and is found at the earth's surfaces, the entire earth was never molten and it did not evolve by gravitational accretion.

2. Evolving Planets- Contrary to popular opinion, planets should not form from the mutual gravitational attraction of particles orbiting the Sun. Orbiting particles are much more likely to be scattered or expelled by their gravitational interactions than they are to be pulled together. Experiments have shown that colliding particles almost always have shown that colliding particles almost always fragment rather than stick together.

Despite these problems, let us assume that pebble-size to moon-size particles somehow evolved. Growing a planet by small collisions will produce an almost non spinning planet, because spins imparted by impacts will be largely self-canceling. All planets spin, some much more than others.

3. Planetary Rings-Planetary rings have long been associated with the evolution of planets. Supposedly, after planets formed from a swirling dust cloud, rings remained, as seen around Saturn, Jupiter, and Neptune. Therefore, some believe that because we see rings, planets evolved. Actually, rings have nothing to do with a planets origin. When comets and meteors hit a tiny moon orbiting a planet, they kick up debris. often that debris escapes from the moon because of the moon's weak gravity and the giant planet's gigantic gravity. The debris then orbits the planet as a ring. These rings disintegrate quickly, again showing that they are not connected with planet's origin. Because a planet's gravity pulls escaped particles away from its moons, particles orbiting a planet could never form moons-as evolutionists believe.

Conclusion to Life Sciences

2010-03-04T11:16:00.001-05:00

This concludes the life science section. Next we will take a look at Astronomical and Physical Science. These sections tend to be more technical in nature but will be simple enough to grasp the basic concepts. If they get to technical-let me know.

Life Sciences Part 3

2010-03-04T11:01:00.003-05:00

9. Symbiotic Relationships-Many different forms of life are completely dependent upon each other. Examples include fig trees and the fig gall wasp, the yucca plant and yucca moth, many parasites and their hosts, and pollen-bearing plants and the honeybee. Even members of the honeybee family, consisting of the queen , workers, and drones, are interdependent. If one member of each interdependent group evolved first (such as the plant before the animal or one member of the honeybee family before the others), it could not have survived. Because all members of the group obviously have survived, they must have come into existence at essentially the same time. In other words, Creation.

10. Sexual Reproduction-If sexual reproduction in plants, animals, and humans is a result of evolutionary sequences, an absolutely unbelievable series of chance events must have occured at each stage.

The amazingly complex, radically different, yet complementary reproductive systems of the male and female must have completely and independently evolved at each stage at about the same time and place. Just a slight incompleteness in only one of the two would make both reproductive systems useless, and the organism would become extinct.
The physical, chemical, and emotional systems of the male and female would also need to be compatible.
The millions of complex products of a male reproductive system (pollen or sperm) must have an affinity for and a mechanical, chemical, and electrical compatibility with the eggs of the female reproductive system.
The many intricate processes occurring at the molecular level inside the fertilized egg would have to work with fantastic precision-processes scientists can describe only in a general sense.
The environment of this fertilized egg, from conception through adulthood and until it also reproduced with another sexually capable adult (who also accidentally 'evolved) would also have to be tightly controlled.
This remarkable string of 'accidents' must have been repeated for millions of species.
Finally evolution theory predicts nature would select asexual rather than sexual reproduction. But if asexual reproduction evolved before sexual reproduction, how did complex sexual diversity arise or survive?

Life Sciences Part 2

2010-03-03T20:05:00.002-05:00

6. Languages-Children as young as seven months understand grammatical rules. Furthermore, studies of 36 documented cases of children raised without human contact (feral children) suggest that language is only learned from other humans. Apparently humans do not automatically speak. If this is so, the first humans must have been endowed with a language ability. There is no evidence that language evolved. Even the apes and other primates that have learned to communicate have limited vocabulary and do not pass/teach their communication skills to their offspring.

7. The First Cell-If, despite virtually impossible odds, proteins arose by chance processes, there is not the remotest reason to believe they could ever form a membrane-encased, self-reproducing, metabolizing, living cell. there is no evidence that any stable states exist between the assumed naturalistic formation of proteins and the formation of the first living cells. No scientist has ever demonstrated that this fantastic jump in complexity could have happened-even if the entire universe had been filled with proteins.

8. Extraterrestrial Life-No verified form of extraterrestrial life of any kind has ever been observed. If evolution had occurred on earth, one would expect at least simple forms of life, such as microbes, would have been found by the elaborate experiments sent to the Moon and Mars.

Life Sciences Part 1

2010-03-01T12:01:00.003-05:00

The following list contains evidence for Creation by disproving Evolution.

1. The Law of Bio-genesis-Spontaneous generation (the emergence of life from nonliving matter) has never been observed. All observations have shown that life comes only from life .

2. Mendel's Laws-Mendel's laws of genetics and their modern-day refinements explain almost all physical variations observed in living things. Mendel discovered that genes are merely reshuffled from one generation to another. Different combinations are formed, not different genes.

3. Natural Selection-Natural selection cannot produce new genes; it only selects among preexisting characteristics. As the word selection implies, variations are reduced, not increased. While natural selection explains the survival of the fittest, it does not explain the origin of the fittest.

4. Altruism-Many animals, including humans, will endanger or even sacrifice their lives to save another-sometimes the life of another species. Natural selection, which evolutionists say explains all individual characteristics, should rapidly eliminate altruistic individuals. How could risky behavior that benefits only another ever be inherited, because its possession tends to prevent the altruistic individual from passing on its genes for altruism? If evolutions were correct, selfish behavior should completely eliminated un selfish behavior. Furthermore, cheating and aggressiveness should have weeded out cooperation. Altruism contradicts evolution.

5. Mutations-Mutations are the only known means by which new genetic material becomes available for evolution. Rarely, if ever, is a mutation beneficial to an organism in its natural environment. Almost all observable mutations are harmful: some are meaningless; many are lethal. No known mutation has ever produced a form of life having greater complexity and viability than its ancestors.

Introduction to Scientific Creation Series

2010-02-19T11:11:00.003-05:00

I am pleased to announce that I will be posting a series of posts on Creation vs Evolution. These posts will be broken into three groups:

Life Science (Biology)
Astronomical and Physical Science
Earth Sciences.

Each group with consist of 3 to seven posts. The main text for this series will be In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood (by Walter Brown, PhD.)

This series will then be followed by another series which will show that Evolution and Christianity are not compatible.

A New Look For My Blog!

2010-02-12T11:46:00.002-05:00

This is a new look for my blog. I think it makes it look nicer and is easier to read. Please comment and let me know if you like the new look. Thank you.

Conclusion to What If Jesus Had Never Been Born

2010-02-11T09:38:00.002-05:00

For this final post in this series, I would like to quote again from the book. This post is on what atheism leads to.

"The frightening thing about a humanist and atheistic state is that there is nothing beyond man to which one can make an appeal. The founders of this country said that men have been created equal and have been endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Therefore, our rights are not given to us by the State, which can extend or withhold them as it pleases, but rather they have been inalienably given to us by God. We have an appeal beyond man, beyond the State, to God Himself, whereas in the humanist state there is nothing but man. The humanist state inevitably leads to tyranny and despotism. As Dostoevsky said, 'if God is dead, then all things are permissible."

I would like to point out that for all the sins and shed blood caused and preformed by the church, the numbers are no where close to the amount shed by atheistic and immoral societies up and continuing in the 21st century. This not even counting abortions (which would triple the blood spilled by atheistic societies as compared to the blood shed of the church.

What if Jesus Had Never Been Born Part 3

2010-02-04T14:01:00.002-05:00

For this post (which concentrates on Christ's impact on Civil Liberties) I am going to quote directly from the book What If Jesus Had Never Been Born.

"The irony of the civil libertarians who are carrying on the 'American Inquisition' against any vestige of the nation's Christian heritage is that civil liberties are a by-product of the Christian faith. You find them only in the countries that began with a Christian base. In modern America, Judeo-Christian beliefs are often held up to ridicule and disdain by the media. How ironic that the free speech forum that they utilize is ultimately a gift of Christianity-a fact that you could easily miss on Larry King, David Letterman, or Oprah.

If you went to Saudi Arabia, you'd never hear a talk show discussing whether Muhammad was really the prophet of Allah. Muslim converts to Christianity are summarily executed in Muslim lands. At last check, Salman Rushdie (author of Satanic Verses) was still in hiding. If you went to Israel, you wouldn't hear a broadcast discussing whether Jesus was the Christ. Messianic Jews have even been expelled or threatened to be expelled from Israel. If you were in India, you wouldn't hear an open discussion on whether sacred cows should be eaten. And if you were in China, with it's atheistic base, you wouldn't hear a discussion on whether citizens should be allowed to leave or return to China at will. We enjoy free speech and civil liberties precisely because of our Christian heritage.

What If Jesus Had Never Been Born Part 2

2010-01-30T14:29:00.003-05:00

A very interesting result of Christianity was the preserving of Judaism.

At a time when: 1 many of the people where not satisfied with the Jewish leaders and Judaism in general, 2 divisions within Judaism itself waged philosophical and theological wars against each other, 3 pressure from Rome confined the practices and beliefs of the Jews, it was the spread of Christianity that ultimately preserved conservative Judaism.

Christianity did several things to support Judaism.

It provided fierce competition to Judaism (consequently sharpening the beliefs of Judaism).
It provided a scrape goat for the fury of Rome (allowing Jews to escape Nero's wrath).
It established itself as a branch-off of Judaism (therefore not undermining Judaism).
It allowed the different divisions of Judaism to unite in a common cause.

This is not to say that Christianity and Judaism are one and the same. But it is interesting to think how Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law (the Old Testament) not undermine or replace the law. Likewise, Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism with Jesus being the connection between the two religions.

What If Jesus Had Never Been Born Part 1

2010-01-22T15:04:00.002-05:00

In this post I will do a quick overview of the positive effects Christianity has had over the centuries.

Hospitals, which essentially began during the Middle Ages
Universities (the oldest schools such as Oxford and Cambridge were Christian)
Literacy and education for the masses.
Capitalism and Free Enterprise
Representative Government
Separation of political powers
Civil liberties
The abolition of slavery in ancient times as well as modern.
Modern Science
The Discovery of the New World
The Elevation of women
Benevolence and charity; the good Samaritan ethic.
The elevation of the common man.
The condemnation of adultery, homosexuality, and other sexual perversions.
High regard for Human Life
The civilizing of many barbarian and primitive cultures.
The codifying and setting to writing of many of the world's languages

(Info came from D. James Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe-authors of What If Jesus Had Never Been Born).

What if Jesus had Never been Born?

2010-01-21T16:03:00.000-05:00

Over the next week or so, I will be posting on the effects that Christianity has had on history and our culture based on the book (What If Jesus Had Never Been Born.) These posts will serve as good discussion starters and can help in witnessing.

Important Video

2010-01-20T16:32:00.000-05:00

Did God create parasites?

2010-01-18T14:51:00.002-05:00

Creation, Corruption, and Cholera
by Frank Sherwin, M.A.

The creation model continues to take shape as contributions from various scientific fields are analyzed from a more rewarding non-Darwinian perspective.

Creation scientists suggest the pathogenic bacteria and parasites of today were in fact beneficial or at least neutral in the pre-fallen world. Consider the sometimes harmful, but otherwise beneficial bacteria in our large intestine known as E. coli. This complex organism (see Back to Genesis No. 146) helps to produce vitamins and even prevent disease. There is also a thread-like worm called Strongyloides stercoralis that has both a free-living stage and parasitic stage. In other words, the worm does fine in the environment removed from man, but it can also infect people with devastating results. It is suggested that parasite infection and disease-causing bacteria were the result of the Fall and universal curse.

The bacterium Vibrio cholera causes the human intestinal disease cholera. The infection is deadly because of the toxin the bacteria secretes. What if -- prior to the Fall -- this toxin had an alternative function? A very similar toxin is produced by V. fischeri, a curious light-emitting symbiotic bacterium found in the Hawaiian bobtail squid.1 The creature uses the luminescent properties of the bacteria to evade predators in the clear water where it feeds. Although the squid are good hunters, they make a tasty snack for large, nocturnal predators. Seen from below, the dark squid would ordinarily be framed against the moonlight, making an easy target. But the bottom (ventral) side of the squid contains a light organ containing V. fischeri surrounded by an ink sac that operates much like a camera's diaphragm. Light from the bacteria plus a reflector, is radiated downward in a way that counters the moonlight, putting the squid in a "stealth mode." When the bacteria get hungry, they secrete the cholera-like toxin that doesn't sicken the squid but rather informs it -- they need food, which the squid then provides. Indeed, one evolutionist suggested, "Maybe when we've been studying cholera pathogenesis we've been studying an aspect of a normal conversation that's gone wrong."2 Creation scientists would suggest this may be a result of the curse.

This brings us to a creation theory proposed by biologist Joe Francis. He views the world of viruses and microbes from a creation perspective. "Microbes were created as an organosubstrate; a link between macro-organisms and a chemically rich but inert physical environment, to provide a substrate upon which multi cellular creatures can thrive and persist. . . ."3 Indeed, many bacterial cells communicate and function as a symbiotic community,4 and a growing number of these relationships are constantly being discovered. Pathogenesis may thus be a divergence from the original creation intent. The V. fischeri and V. cholera microbes are examples.

1.http://whyfiles.org/022critters/light2.html
2.Ibid.
3.Francis, J. "Organosubstrate of Life," The Fifth International Conference

Is Apologetics Necessary?

2010-01-15T19:01:00.003-05:00

Apologetics is often criticized because many people believe that it undermines the faith and cause one to doubt anything in the Bible that cannot be proved. However I find that the exact opposite is true.

In Doug Powell's book (Christian Apologetics, page 10) writes; "The results of training in apologetics are boldness, security, and a lack of defensiveness. Apologetics enables the believer to engage the world without acquiescing to it and without compromise".

Apologetics does not undermine the faith, rather it strengthens it and gives credibility to the faith. More to the point, apologetics doesn't isn't just reassuring to the believer, it also gives a strong intellectual foundation for which to witness to unbelievers.

With that being said, it is important to believe the Bible on all things (whether they have been 'proven' or not). Apologetics encourages us by showing us the evidence for Christianity and by confirming Biblical data, however apologetics does not determine whether something in the Bible should be believed or not.

In conclusion I would like to quote 1Peter 3:14-16; "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you for the reason for the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander".

Does Genesis Address the Time of Creation, or Just the Fact of Creation?

2010-01-06T15:53:00.005-05:00

Does Genesis Address the Time of Creation, or Just the Fact of Creation?

Click on the title text to read ICR article.

A must see video for our Nation

2010-01-01T11:42:00.001-05:00

Christmas Apologetics

2009-12-29T10:25:00.003-05:00

This post will highlight some key apologetic-related material in regards to the birth of Christ.

1. In the past, secular scholars and historians claimed that Caesar Augustus never issued a decree for a census. But archaeologists have discovered two bronze plaques "The Acts of Augustus" that list his 35 greatest achievements. No. 8 on the list are 3 censuses that he authorized.

2. Some have questioned why did Joseph even have to go to Bethlehem? Discoveries have been made of other recorded Censues (48AD, 10AD) in which it was mandatory that all the men living outside their districts return to their homelands to register. This confirms the Gospel account.

3. Roman Historians Tacticus, Seutonius, and Dio Cassius, all wrote about Quirinius (Cyrenius), placing him as governor of Syria in 6-7 AD. (14 years to late). But evidence has been found (E.M. Blaiklock) that shows that Quirinius was in Syria for an earlier tour of duty, in some leadership capacity, "was governing" right around the time that Jesus was born. Also, the Roman historian Tacticus mentions that Quirinius was appointed by Augustus to be advisor to his young son Caius Caesar in Armenia well before 6 AD.

Contrary to common tradition, Jesus was probably not born in December. It is highly unlikely that shepereds would be in the fields with their flocks in midwinter.

(Thanks to Sonrise Christian Fellowship for gathering the information in this post.)

Merry Christmas

2009-12-22T09:13:00.002-05:00

I might not have the chance to post again until after Christmas, so this post will serve as my merry Christmas greeting to you my readers.

I would like to point out that amidst the busyness of the Christmas season, it is a joy to take time to read the real Christmas story about the birth of Jesus. So I would like to point some things about the impact of Christ's birth.

Christ's immediate impact

Christ's birth had such an immediate impact (unlike most famous people), that Shepperd's either left their flocks (which was unheard of because to guard their sheep was there job-so leaving the sheep put there jobs in danger) or they took there flock with them (again unheard of-again risking there jobs). The Shepperd's then ran all over town telling people about the birth.

Wise men journeyed hundreds of thousands of miles following a star. They gave expensive gifts that the baby couldn't even appreciate for several years.

So even as a baby-Jesus was already making a global impact that just spread and increased as Jesus aged. To the point where today-all over the world-Jesus continues to have an impact on the lives of countless thousands and even millions. Jesus's birth was truly miraculous.

Jesus and Santa

2009-12-21T20:37:00.000-05:00

Roman Catholic/Protestant Part 3

2009-12-15T16:12:00.002-05:00

In this concluding post on catholic/protestant, I will explain why I am a Protestant and not a Catholic.

I am a Protestant because...

1. I believe that Christ is the head of the church-not the pope.
2. I believe that Christ and Christ alone can forgive for sins-not priests.
3. I believe in prayer to Christ not prayer to Mary.
4. I believe that the Bible is sufficient and understandable (interpreted by the holy Spirit.
5. I believe that souls go immediately to Heaven or Hell.

(I used the book Why I Am a Nazarene (by C. William Fisher) as a reference for this series.

Roman Catholic/Protestant Part 2

2009-12-11T19:49:00.002-05:00

What Roman Catholics believe about...

Salvation-Catholics do not believe in direct access to God. They believe that they must go through the church, the priests, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. Salvation is gained by observing the sacraments and church attendance. The seven sacraments being baptism, confirmation, Eucharist, penance, extreme unction,, matrimony, and ordination. Protestants believe that salvation comes by belief in Jesus Christ and the confession of sins to Jesus.

Purgatory-Catholics believe that purgatory (which has no Biblical references) is a place where believers must work of some of the minor sins of this life. This is a holding place before entering Heaven. Protestants do not believe in purgatory.

The Future-Roman Catholics believe in four places that soul can go after death. Purgatory, Limbo, Heaven, Hell. Limbo is the place where the saints have gone and where infants (who have not been baptized) go. (Again there is no scriptural reference.)

Roman Catholic/Protestant Part 1

2009-12-09T11:05:00.003-05:00

This post will show the key differences between the catholic beliefs and protestant beliefs. This post is meant to be informative not persuasive.

What catholics believe about...

The Church-They believe that there is only one church, the roman catholic church. They also believe that the protestant denominations are wrong and that anyone who is not a catholic will not go to Heaven.

The Pope-In the Catholic church, the pope is the head "the vicar of Christ" and when he speaks "ex cathedra" on matters of faith and morals, his word is infallible. Protestants do not recognize the pope as the head of the church and believe that many times the pope is wrong. (ie.the story of Galileo)

Mary-The catholic church believes that Mary was born sinless and thus they elevate her to sainthood. Roman catholics even go so far as to pray to her to intercede with Jesus. Protestants believe in the virgin birth but they believe that Mary was born sinful (like any other human) and that it was the work of the Holy Spirit that caused Jesus to be born sinless. Thus we do not raise Mary above any other human.

The Bible-Roman Catholics believe that the Bible cannot stand alone and that it needs to be interpreted by the church before it can be properly understood. The catholic church believes that it is dangerous to read the Bible without first learning the teachings of the church. Protestants believe that the Bible is infallible and can be understood by peasant and scholar.

A request for a post

2009-12-07T10:37:00.002-05:00

A follower of my blog has requested me to post on the differences between Catholic and Protestant beliefs. I will be researching this topic in depth and will post on the topic very soon. Thank you for your suggestions and comments.

2009-12-03T16:24:00.002-05:00

A letter from Christianity Today

2009-12-02T10:12:00.003-05:00

My Pastor came across this letter written to the editor of Christianity Today. I thought that it would be a good follow up to my last post on liberal "Christianity."

"Some philosophers have casually dismissed Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens because of their inferior philosophy and straw-man arguments. Yet this is the very discourse that sustains popular culture. Many are drawn to the New Atheism's critical narratives of human suffering and religious hypocrisy, despite any rational arguments to the contrary... Rather than scratch our heads and ask why the masses fall for this nonsense, the task of 21st century Christian thinkers is to engage our culture with the truth and rationality of God's existence, while taking seriously the reasons (however flawed) for why a new generation of unbelievers has become influential."
-Matt Koschmann (Prof. Univ. Colorado).

I think Matt has hit the nail on the head with this letter. In my debates with an atheist, I came across that very thing; the irrational arguments that defied all logic. In many cases, atheists do not use logic because it contradicts what they want to believe. In this quote, Matt shows us that instead of using complex arguments to defend the faith, this generation needs to see the witness of Christians through upright and righteous lifestyles. In D.C. Talks song What If I Stumble, they point out that "the Christians that acknowledge Jesus with their lips but deny them by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world finds unbelievable." Apologetics is a very important part of evangelism but it can not replace the work of the Spirit and the example set by us.

Liberal Religion

2009-12-01T10:43:00.002-05:00

For most Christians, the virgin birth and the death/resurrection of Christ, are the fundamental beliefs that shape our worldview and define Christianity. But there are people that call themselves Christians (even pastors, priests, and bishops) that believe that the virgin birth is a myth, that miracles never happened, that Jesus never rose from the dead. These people believe in a god but they believe that he is unreachable and is not involved in our lives. In this post I will respond to these false teachings.

1. I want to make something perfectly clear. If the virgin birth and Resurrection never occurred-then all is in vain. Christianity becomes meaningless and a waste of time. Instead you would be left with a fallen cult based loosely on Judaism but different and without purpose. (This is obviously not the real Christianity because Jews turn to Christ everyday, and no Jew would choose the liberal view of Christianity.)

2. C.S. Lewis's famous argument (Liar, Lunatic or Lord) proves that this liberal view of Christianity is not logical or possible. After all, Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or He is the Lord. So what would the liberals say that Jesus was. Was He a liar (if so then Christianity is a lie), a lunatic (if so Christianity is crazy) or the Lord (in which case the liberal view must be wrong.) So at this point, the liberal "Christians" either have a faith based on a lie or crazy lunatic.

3. Based on the arguments in point 2- the liberals are left with either a wrong set of beliefs or a faith that is entirely separated from Christianity and Judaism or both. Either way, this so called faith is not Christianity. It is a cultish faith that is condemed by God, by the Bible, and by historical and logical evidence.

Joel C. Rosenberg

2009-11-25T10:21:00.002-05:00

I'm in the process of reading Joel C. Rosenberg's books. These books (starting with The Last Jihad) are excellent books that you simply must read. They are like the left behind books but these books are more current and more accurate. Joel C. Rosenberg is a communications strategist based in Washington D.C., for over fifteen years, he has worked with some of the world's most influential and provacative leaders, including Steve Forbes, Rush Limbaugh, Natan Sharansky (former deputy Israeli prime minister) and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Check this guy and his work out because it just might affect you in ways you never thought possible.

P.S. The first page of The Last Jihad, put readers inside the cockpit of a hijacked jet, coming in on a kamikaze attack into an American city... but it was written nine months before September 11, 2001. As the book unfolds, the United States finds itself in a war with Saddam Hussein over terrorism and weapons of mass destruction... but it was published five months before the actual war with Iraq.

In his second book (The Last Days), there is an attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy heading into Gaza, the death of Yasser Arafat, and radical Islamic terrorists trying to take over the west Bank and gaza. Two weeks before it was published, a U.S. diplomatic convoy was attacked in Gaza... thirteen months after it was published Yasser Arafat died... and then Hamas seized control of the West Bank.

In the third book (The Ezekiel Option), a dictator rises to power in Russia, an Iranian leader vows to annihilate Israel, and Russia and Iran form an unpreccedented military alliance. On the very day the novel caome out, Iran elected a new president vowing to accelerate his county's nuclear program...four months later, he vowed to "wipe Israel off the earth".. and two months after that, Russia agreed to sell Iran $1 billion worth of fighter jets, missiles, and naval warships.

Reality in Perspective

2009-10-05T15:16:00.006-04:00

When we think something is real it is because we either saw it, heard it, felt it, etc. However we only ever know something is real when it is verified by one or more person(s). This is because since our nerves tell our brain what we feel (our eyes tell our brain too) then if the brain [which controls the nerves and eyes, etc.] is tricked into thinking something is real when it's not, something is truly real only when two or more brains agree on it. An example of this would be a hologram which looks real but is actually fake. In a more weird example, people have literally froze to death (in normal temps) because they were convinced that they were freezing. This is because the brain (thinking that the body was freezing) went to great measures to try and save the person which ultimately lead to the person's death (raising body tempature to the point of heatstroke.)

My point is when Jesus talks about a "wolf in sheep's clothing" this is the extreme to which we can be deceived. If we can be that fooled by a hologram and physical related things, how much more than can we be deceived by matters of the heart and soul. Fooled by fancy tricks, smooth lies, and false messages. Beware of the "wolves in sheep's clothing"-and always stay on guard.

Evidence for Life After Death (2)

2009-09-28T19:40:00.002-04:00

Article by J.P. Moreland

The case for life after death consists in empirical (observable) and non empirical (theoretical) arguments. The empirical arguments are two; near death experiences (NDE's) and the resurrection of Jesus. A sufficient body of evidence exists for the view that people have died, left their bodies, had various experiences, and returned to their bodies. Attempts to explain NDE's as natural phenomena fail in those cases where the disembodied person gained knowledge about things miles away (e.g., conversations of family members). One must be cautious about theological interpretations of NDEs but their reality is well established. Some argue that, even if true, NDEs provide evidence only for temporary existence beyond death. Strictly speaking, this is correct. However, if biological death does not bring the cessation of consciousness, it is hard to see what could do so after death.

Jesus's resurrection is defended in layers of evidence that is beyond the scope of this article but that is easily researched and is present in most apologetics related books.

The non empirical arguments divide into theistic-dependent and theistic-independent ones. The former assume the existence of God and from that fact argue for immortality.

The first is two-pronged and argues from the image and love of God. Given that humans have tremendous value as image bears and God is a preserver of tremendously high value, then God is the preserver of persons. Moreover, given that God loves his image bears and has a project of bringing them to full maturity and fellowship with him, God will sustain humans to continue this love affair and his important project on their behalf.

The second argument, based on divine justice, asserts that in this life goods and evils are not evenly distributed. A just God must balance the scales in another life and an afterlife is thus required.

Is there Evidence for Life After Death (1)

2009-09-08T13:02:00.002-04:00

Philosophical naturalists (including most evolutionists) believe that death is the cessation of being. In their view, humans are merely bodies and brains. Though they reject metaphysical realities such as the soul, there are convincing reasons to believe that humans have an immaterial aspect to their being that transcends the material and thus can continue to exist after death.

From a legal perspective, if human beings were merely material, they could not be held accountable this year for a crime committed last year, because physical identity changes over time. We are not the same people today that we were yesterday. Every day we lose millions of microscopic particles. In fact, every seven years or so, virtually every part of our material anatomy changes, apart from aspects of our neurological system. Therefore, from a purely material perspective, the person who previously committed a crime is presently not the same person. Yet a criminal who attempts to use this line of reasoning as a defense would not get very far. Such legal maneuvering simply doe not fly even in an age of scientific enlightenment. Legally and intuitively, we recognize a sameness of soul that establishes a personal identity over time.

Finally freedom of the will presupposes that we are more than material robots, If I am merely material, my choices are a function of such factors as genetic makeup and brain chemistry. Therefore, my decisions are not free: they are fatalistically determined. The implications of such a notion are profound. In a worldview that embraces fatalistic determinism, I cannot be held morally accountable for my actions, since reward and punishment make sense only if we have freedom of the will. In a solely material world, reason itself is reduced to the status of conditioned reflex. Moreover, the very concept of love is rendered meaningless. Rather than being an act of the will, love is relegated to robotic procedure that is fatalistically determined by physical processes.

(This article was by Hank Hanegraaff).

Playing with Fire-Playing with Evil

2009-09-01T13:34:00.002-04:00

C.S Lewis once commented, "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. (C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters-Preface).

In Understanding the Occult, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart write "Playing around with the world of the occult can lead to serious repercussions, both psychologically and spiritually. There is a difference between knowing intellectually that taking poison will kill you and actually taking the poison to experience what you already knew to be a fact."

Playing with fire could result in getting burnt-playing with evil can burn you too. This is the main reason that I am opposed to vampire, magic, sorcery, evil, and horror fiction. The occult is not something to mess around with.

Is Apologetics Necessary?

2009-08-21T10:53:00.002-04:00

In Doug Powell's book Christian Apologetics (pg. 10) he says:
"The results of training in apologetics are boldness, security, and a lack of defensiveness. Apologetics enables the believer to engage the world without acquiescing to it and without compromise"

1Peter 3:14-16 says "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander."

Knowing-Alien or Bible

2009-08-17T15:51:00.002-04:00

Many have seen the movie Knowing (starring Nicholas Cage). It has raised many questions in my mind-none of which were answered by the movie itself. This post will examine the movie from the inside out.

While there are many resemblances to the book of Ezekiel (Biblical Prophecy) there are many other things that allude to aliens or there equivalent.

1. The Whisperer People could be seen as either aliens or angels. However why would "angels" be scary, speak only to children, drive someone to overdose on drugs, speak in unintelligible terms etc. In fact, the only actual way you could see them as angels is if (ignoring the points I already showed) you reflected on there vehicle (the wheel/spaceship) and on there number (5) which corresponds with the angels of the first chapter of Ezekiel.

2. The Calling of the children has me confused on two accounts. On the one hand, while the Whisper people choose the children, the children must also choose them. On the other hand, why would the Whisperer People only choose the children? How is that Biblical? (Other then the "child-like" faith-which is not limited to children.)

3.The destruction of the earth does not mesh with the teaching of Left Behind and other such teaching by prominent scholars.

4. The violence and language in this movie were brief but I understand why the movie is PG13.
In accordance with this post, I recommend this movie to teens and adults. However, if you want a movie that is firmly rooted in Christian beliefs, then this movie is not for you. This movie can be used as a witnessing tool and it requires much thought.

Problem of Pain and Suffering Part 2

2009-08-01T10:12:00.002-04:00

Why is there pain and suffering? Why is there natural disaster. Why do atheists dwell on this one question in light of the evidence against there own evolutionary ideas? Why did Christ have to die?

Hidden Faces of Aids

2009-07-29T11:49:00.001-04:00

This is a powerful, powerful video!

Some Christian Apologists Past and Present

2009-07-24T15:43:00.002-04:00

Justin martyr (100-165 AD) Apology (153) and Dialogue with Trypho

Irenaeus (?-200) Against Heresies

Origen (185?-254) Against Celsus

Augustine (354-430) Confessions, City of God

G.K Chesterton (1874-1936)

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Van Til

Josh McDowell

Jay Smith ( works in Hyde Park, London0

Alister mcGrath

Ravi Zacharias

And many many many more.

Reliability of the New Testament-Gospels

2009-07-21T15:47:00.002-04:00

The Gospels are the key point to understanding the life and purpose of Christ. The Gospels compliment each other, they show authenticity, they show God's ultimate plan.

The following from the book Adventuring through the Bible (Ray C. Stedman)

"In Matthew, the Gospel of the King, we see many evidence of His kingship: The book opens with Christ's genealogy, tracing His royal line back to David, king of Israel, and to Abraham, father of the nation of Israel. Throughout the book, He speaks and acts with kingly authority: Moses said to you so and so but I say to you such and such. To the Jews, Moses was the great authority, so for Jesus to supersede the authority of Moses was to act as a king. He demonstrated the authority to dismiss evil spirits and command the sick to be healed.

Mark, the second Gospel, pictures Christ as the Servant and as you would expect, Mark does not provide any genealogy for Christ. After all, who cares about the genealogy of a servant? Again and again in this Gospel, we see the word immediately. That is the word of a servant, isn't it? Whereas both Luke and Matthew are filled with parables, Mark the Gospel of the Servant, contains only four parables and each of them is a parable of servant-hood.

Luke shows us Christ as human. Here we see the perfection of His manhood the glory beauty strength and dignity of His humanity. Luke records a genealogy. In Luke we see Jesus weep, healing the ear Peter cut off.

John's gospel presents Christ as God. The very first verse is "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.The Gospel contains seven "I Am's" In John 20:30-31 John writes "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God, that that by believing you may life in his name.

What do you want me to post on?

2009-07-14T16:43:00.002-04:00

I decided to open up the next few posts on what the readers want. If you have any idea of a post you want me to do, then please comment on this post (telling me your idea) or email me.
This is to try to give you information that you need or want.

Communal Nutrition in Ants: Strong Evidence for Creation

2009-07-08T13:25:00.006-04:00

For this post I am directing you to Institute for Creation Research. This is excellent evidence for Creation. Follow this Link Institute for Creation Research

The Trinity

2009-07-04T10:34:00.002-04:00

The Trinity has long been scoffed at by the secular world. Many have been confused by the idea of three in one. The Trinity is what is called an antimony. An antimony is two things that can't be true together but that are true non the less. An example of this is that light is both a particle and a wave.

One of the best illustrations to help you understand the Trinity is a three leaf clover. God the Father, God the son, God the holy spirit They are one like the the clover but have three parts like the the three leaves.

The Trinity will never be fully understand by man because it is unlike anything we have ever seen or heard. However this does not discredit it, it only adds mystery to it.

The Trinity is paradox and an antimony. Many things are not understood by man but since the Bible is reliable in everything else we accept the Trinity as true on the authority of God and the Bible.

What is the meaning of History

2009-06-29T16:24:00.002-04:00

Many times you will hear people say that history repeats itself and that it has no real meaning. So what is the real meaning of history and is it's study important?

For the Christian, history is a collection of events through which God is active in church, media, government, education. It is the story of Christianity through the ages. It tells us of man's creation, his fall, his redemption through Christ. Answers in Genesis says that Origin+Destination=Route. In other words the past (history) plus Destination (referring to judgement heaven and hell) equals how we will live our lives.

History does seem to repeat itself. However, this does not mean it will repeat itself for eternity. Instead, we must always remember that life is leading to the final judgment and destruction of the earth. See the book of Revelations for details. So then, we should picture history like concentric and overlapping circles. While on the surface, it appears to be repeating, it will eventually come to a final and concluding end.

Now of course, our souls will live forever in Heaven or Hell but the earth itself will be destroyed.

Vampires and the Occult

2009-06-23T15:35:00.002-04:00

There is no doubt in my mind of the reality of vampires. Likewise I can attest to the fact that historically the rite of drinking blood was evident in pagan cultures. However, the Biblical and historical presentation of vampires is not the propaganda that is displayed by books-movies.

Historically, "vampires" were women called maenads. These maenads were followers of the cult of Dionysus. Throughout the year, the maenads had special festivals in which they got drunk, got into a frenzy, killed a young child, and drank the child's blood.

In the Biblical context we are commanded on several occasions not to eat an animal with it's blood still in it. The Luke account of the demoniac at the tombs hints to the presence of maenads. People who drink blood have a strong demonic presence in their life. In fact, vampires themselves are satanic and their behavior in that way is unnatural and evil. (Many times the "vampires" are demon-possessed or are heavily involved in witchcraft and devil-worship.

Philippians 4:8 says "whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, praiseworthy, think about such things". Yes demonic influence or possession has people drink blood. But that doesn't and shouldn't be entertaining to us. Specifically through satanic propaganda like "Twilight" (which is not even accurate.) Would you read a book where the main character falls in love with a demon?

For more info- read "Madman" by Tracy Groot. (A christian and historical book.)