Tag: truth

Archeological/Geological Response to Atheist Part 1 of 5

The list that follows is copied and pasted from a comment in a small debate with an atheist. Though science wasn’t the original topic of the feed, rather it was the hopelessness of atheism, this list was presented as a sound refutation of why creation and the flood couldn’t possibly be realities.  I thought rather than get into a tit-for-tat debate in someone else’s comment feed, which tends to by highly unfruitful, I would address the list here. Less emotion, less noise, and a teachable moment for anyone following, that much of the criticisms fired at Christianity are not proofs against it, but are assertions based on the presupposition that their world view is correct, i.e. “there is no God”.  In this way, maybe bible believing Christians can be edified by knowing that regardless of the other side’s presumption, there has historically been great reason to hold fast to the truth of the word. Since “there is no God” must be true for an atheist, everything they observe in nature must not support the bible, or the biblical world view, but only materialism, which means an evolutionary explanation. Out of respect for the atheist and his list, I would state that I am not implying his list was exhaustive, and I am quite sure there is a rebuttal for each comment made. The point here is to realize evidence must be interpreted based on world view.

Admittedly, I have similar biases, for all that I see in nature screams loudly that there is in fact a God, and that the Bible’s history is accurate down to minute detail. I am a firm believer that people are saved through the hearing of the gospel, and the Holy Spirit moving in or softening their hearts. But this doesn’t exclude facts, logic or reason. How could it if God is the creator of our organized reality? My faith in God and His word is the filter through which I see the observable world. One thing biblicists will admit, and which is an obvious truth, is that “scientists don’t say anything – scientists do.” What we then observe, based on presupposition,  is our interpretation of hard facts. Let’s explore!

I’ll put atheist comments in Green, and my responses in Black:

Here’s a very incomplete list of things that cannot be explained by your flood or fit into the young earth creationist’s timeline:

Varves, the Green River Formation,

What the heck are varves?! Varves are sedimentary rock formations, ripples, or laminae that are thought to be annual deposits. At the Green River, geologists can see millions of these varves, and it is often pointed to in much of evolutionary literature as proof the world is very old. When clinging to the presupposition of uniformitarian thinking, an evolutionist would certainly try to claim these must be annual. The truth is, in field observations and in labs, varves have been seen to form very quickly, especially in storms and unusual conditions (aka. a global deluge). In many observations, multiple ridges form instantaneously! Plus at Green River, we find a great many perfectly fossilized fish with great detail preserved in the varves, down to the eyeballs, scales and the like. More than even this, we find a great many fossils there from different ecosystems; plants, and birds (shore birds all the way to forest birds all in the same formation). We know, again from observation that fish rot and are consumed by nature quickly upon death. If we cling to the millions of years to form the Green River Formation theory, we must try to explain how these fish didn’t rot long enough over the millions of years, to form such detailed fossil samples, or why there are fossils at all. Using common sense, I believe we can safely deduce a great catastrophic event not only caused these sedimentary rock formations, but also buried life from a wide area in this one place. Most geologists don’t cling to the idea that each varve equals 1 year.

ice cores,

This theory of annual ice rings has been smacked down like a jump shot defended against by Lebron James. The best and most obvious example is the famous lost squadron. It is worth researching yourself and is a fascinating tale, but to make a long story short – A WWII squadron was lost in 1942 over Greenland. These planes were recovered in 1988, only 46 years later. Due to the shifting in ice, and to the great surprise of the search teams, the squadron was finally located 250 feet down below the surface, and through hundreds and hundreds of ice rings in the mere 46 years. Rings are formed during hot and cold, and are not a product of deep time.

the sheer amount of buried biomass,

This argument is unfortunately due to ignorance of the creation model. Creationists do not have issue  with the huge amount of biomass (oils, coals, natural gases) found in the earth’s crust, but evolutionists think we do. This is because there is great misunderstanding as to what the pre-flood world looked like. Again, blinded by the present-being-the-key-to-the-past assumption (an unscientific one), if one imagines all the organic material on the earth today being used to form coal, we would fall desperately short of what is in the earth’s crust currently.  And that would of course be correct. The problem is evolutionists assume the present land area of the earth is the analogous to the creation model’s pre-flood world. They assume every and all creationists believe in a Pangaea arrangement of continents, and that, like today’s world, the earth back then was only habitable on about 3% of its surface area. But God’s word clearly teaches that not only was the original design supposed to be conducive for man to spread out and subdue it, as well as enjoy its bounty and ability to provide longevity, but also that the post-flood world dramatically changed the earth, as evidenced by plummeting ages, fossil records, and plant material even under the icecaps. In a proper understanding of the pre-flood world, one that fits with the evidence, we would have a surface covered with land, springs underneath (as described in the Garden of Eden [different hydrological cycle], and plentiful biomass, which easily explains the amount of coal and oil in the earth’s crust without resorting to billions of years of assumption. Imagine a world where 65% of the earth is habitable?  With better growing conditions, denser atmosphere, and higher magnetism, we have the potential for a great amount of biomass, much of which would have been buried in the earth’s crust quickly. In other words, this criticism of the bible is based on assumption, an observation of what we see today pushed through the filter of an evolutionary world view. Biomass does not pose a problem to the creation model at all.

ocean sediments,

A surprising factor for an atheist to present in my opinion. Ocean sediment is a factor that fits much more comfortably in the creationist model. Here is what we observe:  Water and wind erode 24 billion tons per year. The sea floor should be choked, but average height of sea floor sediment is only 1300 ft
Therefore the limit based on current erosion rates is 12 million years (much shorter when catastrophic events are factored in) not in the billions.
North America should have been leveled in 10 million years if erosion has continued at the average rate. Mathmatically, and again based on observation, a height of 150 kilometers (93 miles) of continent would have eroded in 2.5 billion years
crumble the concept of ancient mountains. Now of course the evolutionist will counter by saying uplift replaces that which is eroded. But if this were true, uplift from the earth’s crust would not carry with it fossils, or sedimentary rock layers. Therefore after 10 million years, we should no longer find these “old” rock layers on any of the earth’s continents, especially the fossils we find in mountainous regions.

river deltas,

Again, a surprising factor to be presented. River deltas are the fanned out erosion formations at a river’s termination point. The flood accounts for a wide variety of erosion rates, depending on the type of rock and mud in an area, and current river flow in the last 4500 years, but more importantly, the river deltas we do see should be way larger than current sizes if the world was millions of years old. This is another limiting factor. The most striking example of this is the Grand Canyon, a huge evidence for a global catastrophe. This giant spillway has left relatively no river delta from the over 1000 cubic miles of earth that has been removed. If this is slow time, the base of the Colorado River should be the most epic river delta the world has ever known. It is simply not there. The rock and mud has been washed out of this enormous spillway, leaving a great many evidences of catastrophe.

caves, coral reefs,

I am not sure how to address “caves”, as they typically do not present a geological conundrum for creationists. Regarding reefs though, we can look at The Great Barrier Reef, which is dated by greatadventures.com to be 18 million years old. Livescience has it at both 500,000 years old, and 8000 years old. News.com.au has a writer who says it’s 25 million. Now, we could get in to the weeds on this topic, but for the sake of brevity, science has observed its growth patterns, which vary widely, depending greatly on how much fresh water runoff there is from the continent. There are of course, newer and older segments of it, and where it is thickest, The Great Barrier Reef reaches a thickness of 55 meters! Now, growth of coral has been clocked at 5 mm per year and at 25 mm per year, with an average rate of approximately 15 mm. This means that despite its vast size and impressiveness, the reef in its entirety could have been formed in only 3700 years.  The new parts being clocked now, are only about 660 years old. This is not a factor that is a friend of evolutionists.

fossilized forests,

Like a broken record, I question the wisdom of using this factor as anything but proof for a world wide deluge. The obvious response is to point out the many polystrate fossils, or trees that pass through more than one geological layer. Some of these pass through rock, then coal, then rock again, and still others are fossilized upside down, clearly pointing to catastrophism. The obvious question would be, how does one imagine a tree standing upside down for millions of years so that sediment can slowly cover it? If the evolutionist asserts that fossilization of these forests must have happened slowly, I would suggest examining the quick and complete fossilization of many modern objects, such as hats, boots and pickle jars, which would shed  light on it. Plus, again via observation, I would suggest examining the fallen trees of today on a hike or some such thing – take a second grader, not an evolutionary scientist. You will most likely get better observations. (I kid). Then examine these fallen trees, rotting, full of mushrooms and fungus, brittle and decomposing, and try to imagine how given enough time, they might slowly become fossilized. You can do this observation experiment with many fossils. Then see if God’s explanation, or man’s seems like truth to you.

 

To be continued in Part 2

 

 

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The Feelings That Drive Us

In studying forgiveness this week, we delved in to Luke 17:

3 Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you,[b] saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”
5 And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

6 So the Lord said, “If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. 7 And which of you, having a servant plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and sit down to eat’? 8 But will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare something for my supper, and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk, and afterward you will eat and drink’? 9 Does he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. 10 So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”

The interesting thing about forgiveness is that here Christ commands it, as a duty, which is especially noteworthy in a society that cultivates self-gratification, the fulfilling of emotional desire, and the alleviation of consequence from duty or action. The pleas for help against the strength of emotion are not merely a product of today, but of the weaknesses of all mankind, and is illustrated here by the apostles themselves, when they ask Jesus for increased faith. They wish for a greater faith to overcome the emotions set against forgiving others. It is as if they are saying, “no one can forgive someone over and over on their own!”

Jesus’ response? It is your duty. Don’t hem and haw and finally decide to forgive, so that you may then turn around and ask for praise and adulation for simply doing what is commanded. If you follow me, if you love me, then you will forgive, because that is what I have done for you. It is your duty.

Society will absolve guilt and duty with phrases and mantras such as:

“You shouldn’t have to apologize for your feelings,”

“We can’t control our emotions,”

or even

“We should allow for our feelings to guide us in our decisions.”

I admittedly am an emotional person, given to highs and lows, and do struggle with the discipline of not letting un-caged emotion drive my decisions. However, we must remember that we are Christians because it is true, and there is hope in truth. Yes it is emotional, but God has also provided a great many evidences, not the least of which is the reality of a resurrected messiah.

John MacArthur has said, “Pertaining to the bible, its prophecies are fulfilled. Its miracles are true and attested to. It is scientifically flawless and accurate. Its history and archaeology are verifiable to the smallest detail.”

He goes on to assert, “The basic task of the church is to teach sound doctrine. It is not to give one pastor’s opinion, to recite tear-jerking illustrations that play on emotions, to raise funds, to present programs and entertainment, or to give weekly devotionals.”

When it comes to forgiveness, it is described as a duty that should supersede emotional qualms. This also implies that forgiveness is not waiting on the emotion to join the intent, but instead is action taken despite emotion. But what action?

Forgiveness is simply releasing the right for revenge. The action of not disparaging a person who sins against you. To not gossip about them. To even speak well of them. To not seek or hope for their demise, or punishment, or just desserts. These are actions. These can rise above emotion.

Put another way, the act of forgiveness can be carried out as a duty until the emotions match the actions. If however, we wait on the emotion, the weakness of our flesh, to entice us to follow God’s command, would it ever happen?

Another instance of an emotionally driven construct of today is the transgenderism issue, a delicate one, and one that not only defies God’s will for us based on emotion, but also defies very real and understandable science and genetics. Scientifically stated, there is no such thing as transgenderism. It is  a construct of our society. We see similar psychological disorders with anorexia and the like, a person who perceives reality and the biology of their body differently than what is real. Consider this denial in who you are, this rebellion against how you were made, total denial in the identity of yourself. This is akin to suicide, the end of your life as what you were designed to be. Couple that with the mutilation of one’s body to fulfill the emotional desire to not be oneself, and you have not only physically harmed the body, but have harmed chances of a marriage, of having your children with a spouse, to connect with people of the same and opposite sexes on a meaningful level in many ways. This is why those in the transgender world are 19 times more likely to commit suicide than other people groups. A group forever forced to adopt the persona of what they are not.

Dr. Paul R. McHugh, is the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, and is the author of six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical articles. He states that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.

“This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken – it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.” Regarding his willingness to reassign gender through surgery, he said this: “And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a ‘satisfied’ but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.”

We could go on and on with this subject, discussing an “everything is normal sex education”, child abuse, etc. But the point here and of this article is, we must be aware that truth and morality are objective things. They are verifiable things, and therefore, we must make a choice not to fall into the tempting pattern of blaming and cultivating emotions not anchored to truth, in order to absolve ourselves from reality.

Especially with the support of society, it can be easy to simply blame emotion for all of the situations we find ourselves in, but those not squarely rooted in God’s will tend to leave people in tumult, whether it be in anger, or anxiety, or depression. As we mature in Christ, it should become clearer that the discipline of our actions define who we are. Galatians lists fruits of the spirit in chapter 5, one of which is self-control. Ephesians 4:14 says, “Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” We must ask ourselves, when society plays on feelings and emotions to convince us that reality is false, do we consult the word for truth, or succumb to the continued and pervasive relativity of popular opinion and PC pressure. If we allow our emotions to be victorious over reason, what do we gain? What do we lose?

Infighting: Young vs Old Earth

Subject Article: Why I Reject A Young Earth View: A Biblical Defense of an Old Earth. 

One of my favorite apologists is Frank Turek. I have really grown to love and respect him, and his methods. He is intelligent, articulate, and charismatic, and it is clear he loves the Lord, and does so with great courage. Frank has written a couple books that I have read and enjoyed, and would highly recommend.

Stealing from God, and Not Enough Faith to be an Atheist.

They are both thought provoking and amazing, and the concepts are very helpful.

Frank also runs www.crossexamined.org, a terrific apologist site. It seems as though everyone involved with this ministry is quite brilliant, and quite talented, and it is with trepidation that I butt heads with them on any issue, simply because I am quite outmatched, both intellectually, and regarding resources.

That being said, I have watched Frank’s responses to the young earth creation theory  very closely during his question and answer sessions, and have just recently read  Jonathan McLatchie’s article again from 2011, Why I Reject A Young Earth View: A Biblical Defense of an Old Earth.  Based on these, I continue to find myself at odds with their conclusions. I do however agree that though this issue should continue to be examined and explored, it should not cause division among Christians. 

I say this humbly, and from experience, because due to my passion for the subject, I have certainly allowed what I believe is the truth of God’s word to cause rifts, heated debate, and even anger between me and other christians. The intentions of my interactions are always out of love, and out of a desire to illustrate the amazing truths we can find in the word, thereby teaching how trustworthy the word of God is. How we are completely justified in our faith as Christians. But of course, the very human, and very fleshy part of me will often surface, and cause me to have less grace than I should, usually to the detriment of the conversation, and I am afraid, also to the detriment of people’s general view of me as a person and a christian. This is something I continue to try and work on in my own life.

I also acknowledge McLatchie’s conclusion in the subject article that the bible does indeed allow for a more literal interpretation for the Genesis days, though he does go on to say it doesn’t demand it. I have addressed this issue several times and in several ways. For more of what I have written, please click here:

“Why do we care?”

“Satan’s Fall”

“Total Opposite”

I have heard Frank state in his answer sessions that he does not believe in macro-evolution, based on evidence, and has therefore stipulated in his answer sessions that man was created in his present form (barring micro-evolutionary changes, or natural selection over time). I agree.

Yet, in another answer session, he will go on to stipulate that he believes based on the laws of physics and the Big Bang’s apparent reality (I disagree, but again, am not a scientist), the universe is/could-be very old.

If we examine the article in question, McLatchie further complicates matters by stating the myth that it could have been a local flood in Noah’s day, which is not only refuted by a simple reading of the biblical text, but also a simple surveying of the millions of drown fossils buried all over the earth among other obvious geological evidences. Genesis 7 assures us “all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.” Being fans of science, I would challenge any apologist

2016-6-18-bill-j
pic from answersingenesis.org

 to explain how water rose 15 feet above all the highest hills, and somehow remained “local”. 2 Peter 3:5-6 continues to support the global event; “But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.” We can see from the many examples of great sea fossils buried upon the dry land of every continent that this was so. Andrew Snelling has done great work examining this.images (1).jpg

In regards to the days of Genesis 1, these have been addressed by YEC time and time again. But I would at least quickly point out that the day itself is literally defined in the verse as “there was evening, and there was morning, the first day.” Since it is the first one, God goes ahead and describes it for us, a daylight portion and a nighttime portion seem to make up a day. Literally defined. I would also ask, how many “first days” are there?

We are (or should be) familiar with day-age and gap theory, but specifically the gap theory seems to be the one Frank refers to in his answers, though he does so quite tactfully (and I don’t want to presume to speak for him), as he mentions the space potentially between verse one and two of Genesis. For reference, Thomas Chalmers invented the Gap Theory in 1814, saying that great time could exist in the beginning verses. He was a Scottish minister, professor of theology, political economist, and a leader of the Church of Scotland and of the Free Church of Scotland. He has been called “Scotland’s greatest nineteenth-century churchman”. Unfortunately, he was also reacting to the pressure of man’s idea of uniformitarian theory, and the “great chain of being” theory, which are the precursors of evolutionary thinking.

McLatchie says in his  article, that “… as a scientist, the arguments for an ancient earth seem to be very compelling (needless to say, when it comes to Darwinian evolution, it is a very different story).” So it would appear that both he and Frank are convinced the earth is quite old, yet are also both convinced that Darwin’s theory of evolution is “on its heels right now,” as Mr. Turek had stated. This would mean, unless I am misunderstanding, that both of these  men believe that it is possible, if not probable, that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, that the earth is potentially 4 billion years old, and that mankind was created less than 100,000  years ago (Frank’s date) in his present form.

This would mean that man, whom God made in His image, to subdue the earth, and rule it, has lived here 0.00073% of the time the universe has existed, and during only .0022% of the earth’s history. This would also mean that Jesus lied when He said God made them male and female in the beginning, being off by 99.9988%. So for reasons unknown, time would have been invented unnecessarily, for no one, to run on for ages upon ages without anyone but God to observe it’s passing, which would beg the question, why invent it?

It would further require a theory, since Darwinian molecules-to-man is not stipulated by either apologist, about when the rest of the animals were created. If it was long before man to account for an ancient fossil record, then we are now moving away from a Gap Theory, and trying to mold it in to a day-age theory, where each day is theoretically millions or billions of years. This throws day six into great confusion.

Confusion also arises when  the article addresses the “planting of the garden” taking longer than a day. If someone stipulates that God created light, and stars, and the sun from nothing, and then tries to convince me that planting a garden would take this person great time, it doesn’t sit right with me logically. In fact, Frank himself states; “The greatest miracle in the Bible is recorded in the first verse: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. If that miracle is true, then every miracle in the Bible is at least possible.” I would emphatically agree.

Another factor addressed by McLatchie is the death before sin problem. He states that the first few verses do not definitively say there was no death prior. However, our bible does say: “The wages of sin is death” – Rom 6:23

and

Rom 5: 12 ‘Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned…
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses…
17 For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one…”

If one were to make the case that animals can’t sin, and therefore their deaths for millions of years are irrelevant, you still have to deal with the thorns, cancers, tumors, and various curse-caused issues of the fossil record, a written punishment of Genesis following the fall.

McLatchie tries to use some assumptions about carnivores causing animal deaths here, and goes so far as to mention the lion’s obvious “violence” – the very animal the bible uses to prove that when the curse is lifted, shall be so gentle, a child can lead them:

Isaiah 11:6 – “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.”

Since undoing the curse that took place is the theme and scope of the bible entire -Revelations 22:3, And there shall be no more curse –  I feel it is safe to assume the lion could easily be imagined as non-violent in the garden of Eden, since we have a promise it will be so again in the future.

So much internal evidence is thrown askew when the bible is forced to fit man’s theories (e.g. the theory of molecules to man evolution, or cosmic evolution). I would point out that in doing so, we are, like our christian brother Mr. Chalmers did, bending to the will of those who campaign furiously against God, and the redeeming power of Jesus Christ.

In the words of Luther, and despite my shortcomings, “I can do no other.” I will have to continue to support YEC, as I feel it is backed by scripture, and is quite readily corroborated by observable science. But I will also agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Turek that the Lord will not be caring about what we believe the age of the earth is when we arrive to meet him in heaven, but will instead be examining our hearts regarding Jesus instead. It is paramount. My fear though, is that with the bible’s foundation thrown into a confusing obscurity, will it damage the faith of others? I fear it already has.

All this aside, I agree with Mr. Frank Turek and his team of apologists on nearly everything else, and will continue to look to them as a wonderful resource for me, my family, and my church, and recommend them to anyone who finds this article. Since I am so small, and he is out there crushing it, it is unlikely that he or Mr. McLatchie will ever come across this small little blog page. But if that ever happens, I look forward to getting absolutely toasted by a scientist and a doctor. But in closing I will say that it is a blessing to have the education, and the printed bible in my language at all, that would even allow Mr. Turek and I to form opposite opinions on some theology points. There was a time when the word was kept from being studied by all but the clergy,  and someone like me would not have had the privilege to ever read it in my own language, much less the freedom to disagree with my superiors. For this I am grateful. As Tyndale said, “…if God spare my life, I will make a boy that driveth the plough know more of the Scripture than thou dost.” With that purpose having been achieved, we all now have the blessing of studying these mysteries for ourselves, and determining our own salvation… as well we should… with fear and trembling.

 

Law of Non-Contradiction

The law of non-contradiction states that contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e.g. the two propositions “A is B” and “A is not B” are mutually exclusive. The principle was stated as a theorem of propositional logic by Russell and Whitehead in Principia Mathematica. This is an important part of apologetics, as many people will state, “that is true for you, but not true for me”.
If there is an absolute truth, it behooves us to seek it, and to know it. As an example, in Christianity, we state that Christ died according to the scriptures, and was raised from the dead on the third day according to the scriptures. In Islam, they state that Christ never died on the cross.
(Similarly we have a huge contradiction regarding the deity of Christ (God vs god)).
One can plainly see that these two statements cannot both be true simultaneously. Yet, from a great many who are offended by the gospel message, in a New Age world of anything goes, they will state that Islam is true for them, Buddhism is true for them, and Christianity is true for you, and who are you to say otherwise? But in this case, it is impossible for truth to be relative. Either one is true or the other is. Ignoring that will not make it go away.
In a similar instance a couple years ago, Oprah indicated that there are many names that one might give to that which she calls “God”, including “energy,” “consciousness” and “life”; at the same time she famously stated that Jesus Christ was merely a symbol, and that clinging to the “Old Rugged Cross” was a “mistake”. These beliefs  are in stark contrast to the statements of God’s word,  and have very different consequences than those referred to in scripture, if one applies them to a world view. Therefore the two worldviews are incompatible. Either the bible is lying to you, or Oprah is wrong. There is no logical third option.
In this attempt to be accepting to others, we deny that all these ideas have very contrasting beliefs. One simply cannot believe that every viewpoint is possible and remain honest. But it can become much easier to base belief on feelings as opposed to truth, because of the consequence (social pressure, fear of losing friends). What we must ask is this: is it truly loving to not seek truth in order to protect feelings? If salvation is a reality, and there is one way to attain it, is it kind to not share it for fear of retribution?
C.S Lewis says, “…it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
He offers this advise:
“The great difficulty is to get modern audiences to realize that you are preaching Christianity solely and simply because you happen to think it true; they always suppose you are preaching it because you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort. Now a clearly maintained distinction between what the Faith actually says and what you would like it to have said or what you understand or what you personally find helpful or think probable, forces your audience to realize that you are tied to your data just as the scientist is tied by the results of the experiments; that you are not just saying what you like. This immediately helps them realize that what is being discussed is a question about objective fact — not gas about ideals and points of view.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
I continue to work on discipling others and spreading the good news of Christ as best I can, and in love as I am able, but with full knowledge that a) I am utterly imperfect, and b) that God and His truth are utterly perfect. We should all be grateful the morality and truth of God’s word are not malleable. What a terrible thought! But the consequence of a perfect and immovable God is that He is inexorably a God of order, and reason, not a God of confusion, and His nature and the truth of His ways and plans are fixed, all above our wishes and ways.
Again, C.S. Lewis states: “If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.”
The law of non-contradiction is an ugly truth to wrestle with. It shouldn’t be, as it is a plainly obvious law. I am all for debating which perceived truth is correct, and making a decision based the data at hand. But when someone emphatically states there are many truths, that all truth is subjective, and relative, what progress can be made? This is an emotional standing, upon which one feels that he or she is safe. Safe from offending friends, offending God, and incurring consequence. It is interesting to note that the most heated contestations with someone who thinks all world views are acceptable is when you assert that truth is not subjective, but absolute. “That is your truth, not my truth!” It is deemed an imposing of one’s will upon another, rather than a stating of natural, created order. We are at that point asking a person to accept a reality based on objective truth, and objective morality, contrary to what they wish to perceive. This can be a scary and emotional transition.
Boiled down, we are talking about introducing the reality of Law into the worldview of society. This is anathema to naturalism, atheism, and New Ageism. We know we are not saved by the law, but by grace. However, Romans 7:7 says, “What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.””
This is compounded by, James 2:10  “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”
This is the introduction of consequence to a worldview, which convicts the heart, and forces one to try and reject the reality of God, or instead to humble themselves before Him.
In relative truth’s simplest form of defeat –  saying truth is not absolute is itself an absolute statement. It is self-defeating.
In conclusion, based on the bible, Christians are admittedly narrow-minded in this truth – Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” –  John 14:6
_____________________________
This is the case with Creation vs evolution debate as well, two contradictory world views which once logically considered, cannot be simultaneously believed (for more on that click here).

Our Amazing Moon

In studying Picture1and familiarizing myself with more “Goldilocks” factors, or factors necessary for life to exist on this planet, I am reminded of some basics, considerations I was amazed and entertained by in my youth, but have since forgotten or dismissed. I remember leafing through science books about oceans, and volcanoes, and animals, endlessly looking at pictures and enjoying all the wonders of nature. One of my favorite science books was the one on our solar system; our sun, our nine planets (Pluto wasn’t under the scrutiny it faces these days), and our amazing moon.

Genesis 1:14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

There are so many studies we could do on Genesis chapter 1, but one interesting thing to note is that many critics of the bible levy a charge against it that it simply borrowed creation accounts from other ancient cultures, such as Babylonian. I recommend studying that charge, as it is pretty easy to debunk. But note that those other stories from other peoples use terms for the sun and moon.

Babylon names them Shamash (sun) and Sin (moon). If we go farther back, to the Sumerians, their references to the moon-god are Sin, and Nanna. The sun was Utu, and Venus was Iananna, and since these were moon worshipping cultures, the writings say that these two objects were the children of our moon.

Clearly these ideas could not have given rise to our Genesis account, and any attempt to accuse such can be dismissed with a simple reading of the text. But note that at this point in history, these objects in our sky had already been named. It is intriguing to me that in our account, it simply states, “a greater light” (maor gadol) and “a lesser light” (maor qaton). It states they are there, made, and simply describes them. Genesis does not name either the sun, or the moon, because when that portion of Genesis was written, they had not yet been given names!

The names of these celestial bodies were given long after, by the Sumerians post-flood. The bible does not use names for them until Genesis 15 -Shemesh, the Babylonian name- and Genesis 37 – Yareah, a Canaanite name. This is great literary evidence that the first chapter of Genesis was written long before the myths of pagan cultures.

Our moon is a compass, a clock, a calendar, and a nightlight. Its distance and size is designed perfectly to provide a gravity that interacts with Earth’s, and regulates her tilt. It also keeps our oceans healthy, and regulates biorhythms. It is easy to understand how such a wonderful creation could be misunderstood and idolized by primitive peoples. But as Romans 1:25 tells us, mankind still falls into this trap today:

“Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the created things more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”

The moon is 238,900 miles from Earth, a particular distance that allows it, on its particular Picture2orbit to do something extraordinary, create eclipses. I say particular because typically satellites orbit around their planet’s equator. Since our earth is tilted at approximately 23.4 degrees, this would send the moon up and down rather than along the same plane as the sun. Instead, God had it orbit in perfect alignment with the earth’s orbit around the sun, regardless of the earth’s tilt.

It also has a particular size. The sun is 400 times larger than the moon, while the sun is exactly 400 times farther away! The result is that from Earth, they appear to be the same size. And when its orbit around Earth takes the Moon directly between Earth and the Sun, the Moon blocks our view of the Sun in what we call a solar eclipse. Considering the enormity of these bodies, and trying to fathom their perfect timing, size, and placement, that allows us on earth to appreciate their splendor that much more, I would be a fool as a cosmologist to not believe in an all-powerful creator God.

Psalms 19:1
The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands

Unfortunately though, that is precisely what many cosmologists are doing. The evolutionary mindset of many sciences has blinded them into thinking that despite all this perfect order, what they see is nothing more than blind chance, accidental, coincidental luck.

They cling to the dying theory of molecules-to-man evolution so faithfully that it forces the prevailing theories on the moon’s origin to be laughable. This is NASA’s theory as it stands today. This is literally what they believe, or try to believe, and condone teaching to students. This is what hoping there is no God looks like:

“The leading theory of the moon’s origin is that a Mars-sized body collided with Earth about 4.5 billion years ago. The resulting debris from both Earth and the impactor accumulated to form our natural satellite 239,000 miles (384,000 kilometers) away. The newly formed moon was in a molten state, but within about 100 million years, most of the global “magma ocean” had crystallized, with less-dense rocks floating upward and eventually forming the lunar crust. ” – NASA, (http://moon.nasa.gov/about.cfm)

Did you get that? A planet sized body collided with ours and formed a molten moon from the accumulating debris of an impact, in its perfect position, a perfect distance away, and didn’t destroy the earth in the process. And people laugh at my biblical beliefs!

Aside from the insurmountable ridiculousness of our leading cosmology theory, we run into another problem called lunar regression. It has been ascertained that the moon is slowly drifting away from the Earth at a rate of about 1.5 inches per year. Now, if we consider this drift from the presupposition that the bible’s chronology is accurate, after 6000 years or so this equates to moving the moon only 250 meters. Not a big deal.

However if, like NASA is declaring, the moon was blasted out of the Earth and somehow ended up in orbit 4 billion years ago, was it drifting the whole time? If we reverse the 1.5 inch drift over a period of  only 1.5 billion years (I say only, due to the vast ages applied to evolutionary theory) we reach what scientists refer to as “Roche’s Limit”. This puts the moon only 11,500 miles from the Earth, at which point, Roche calculated that the gravity of the two bodies would rip each other apart. This does not bode well for the theory that the moon could survive being blasted off the side of our planet. It also does not bode well for the moon’s age, which is purported to be 4 billion years old. This limiting factor of 1.5 billion years continues to baffle those who hope our beautifully arranged solar system has come about by mere chance.

In addition to this Roche Limit, it was also calculated (to further complicate the scenario) that the closer the moon was to the Earth, the faster the lunar regression would be, due to the Earth’s gravitational pull and spin ‘flinging’ the moon away faster. This means that we now have to account for even more regression in the past, and two bodies that cannot be too close.

And one final consideration. If Lunar regression puts the moon insanely close to the Earth a billion years ago -95% closer! –  and somehow scientists can bypass the reality of Roche’s Limit, what would gravity do to the tides of the oceans? Would the moon’s gravity flood the earth twice a day via global catastrophic flooding in a constant, destructive, never-ending, muddy, violent, perpetual water event? We already know evolutionists don’t believe in a global flood, right? (snicker snicker). But we would somehow have to explain how life not only came about and survived in this harsh environment, but also how it continued to thrive and evolve into more and more complexity.

I am glad it is not my challenge to solve, as I comfortably rest on the truth of God’s word. I can look up at the night sky, and feel blessed to look upon the heavens, and our amazing moon, and know that despite my sin, He loved me anyways.

Romans 8:37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Goodnight Moon.

 

Shall We Travel to Other Worlds?

I have recently been setting up and teaching apologetic classes for my church, and as I grow my curriculum, I am getting more and more excited about the future of my ministry, in whatever form or capacity God may use it. But after gearing up for an amazing class for the high school kids this past Wednesday, I was derailed by threats of weather, which shut down the whole town, and sent the locals running for milk and bread.

The post script to this “storm of the year” was that it rained a little, but I digress.

Since I have been so amped up to rattle off some amazing facts, and have as of yet been unable to, I thought I would share a bit about space travel. The reason? TRAPPIST-1 of course. The observation of some planets passing in front of a star approximately 39.5 light years away. This news, although interesting in the sense that we can discover more about space and our galaxy, is being used as a catalyst to create space-exploration fever. TRAPPIST-1 has its own website now, and chatter about the planets have been mentioned far and wide, picked up by NASA, space.com, and a myriad of other such science based programs. The issue is, with each report comes the suggestion, sometimes implied, sometimes outright affirmed, that we are a step closer to exploring life on other planets, discovering life in the universe, and even traveling to them for a meet and greet in the near future.

This is an  intellectually dishonest position, and I am of the belief that these scientists know it. What they have observed is simply that planets orbit a dim sun 232,210,000,000,000 miles away. Now, of the seven observed, they push the insinuation repeatedly that 3 of these 7 are within the “habitable zone”. This of course implies that life like ours could potentially live on all three of these planets, which will be the idea perpetuated heavily and with as much vigor as possible. Why? The all-mighty dollar. This will insure attention, clicks, interest, comments from world leaders, write ups in magazines, PBS specials, and most importantly, an influx of money promised to be earmarked for further discoveries of such ‘magnitude’.

Why this assumption that life must be out there waiting for us to discover it? Evolution! The pre-supposition is firmly set within the minds of academia, and through this lens is how they observe the universe. It stands to reason that if we evolved here, then judging by the size of the universe, many other such life forms in various states of evolution must have done the same all over. We just need to locate where!

Of course if they believed we were a special creation, and that God stretched out the heavens (said over 17 times in the old Testament) to speak of His glory, we would not expect evolution, a most unscientific theory anyway, to have done much with any of the stars we see in the night sky.

SETI – the search for extraterrestrial intelligence –  believes as Sagan, Tyson, and Dawkins do, that we are not special, and so they have spent hundreds of millions since 1960 in order to discover absolutely nothing.

This is a huge topic, but 2 things we must consider:

  1. Carl Sagan said that only 2 factors were needed to sustain life, (ironically the same two factors that have been highlighted in all these articles). A sun like ours, and a planet in the habitable zone of said sun. This was stated by him in 1966, but since then we have learned of many more requirements for life to exist, or Goldilocks factors. Water, thickness of crust, large gas planets, size of sun, moon, electromagnetic core, and on and on. If we take just 20 of these factors, and give each a 1 in 10 chance of occurring at some particular star, say Trappist, the chances would be 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000  that it could happen. Based on the number of stars we think the universe has, this is a one star for every billion out there. Here’s the kicker. There are now over 200 factors identified! Hugh Ross, astrophysicist has named 200+ Goldilocks factors, and that number brings our chances up to 1 chance in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000! This cannot happen, and is beyond nature’s ability to create by chance. Furthermore, this ignores the life-from-non-life problem that evolution already has.
  2. If we consider actually traveling to find these places, we must take in to account that the nearest star is 25,671,957,738,631 mi away, Alpha Centari. Nearest galaxy, about 2.5 million light years. And as of now, we cannot get even close to traveling at light speed. Mass increases as speed increases, therefore as we get a shuttle to approach the speed of light, lets say 90% of the speed, it would take the energy of 73 million atomic bombs to move the mass. The same amount to slow it down. And one touch from a pea sized piece of debris would impact said vehicle like two atomic bombs, according to Gary Bates of CMI. This is an unrealistic goal.

There is much more on this topic, and I wrote this article, UFO’s and God some time ago for you to check out. The bottom line is, yes science and discoveries are wonderful, but space exploration, like the “discoveries” from anthropology, are often used for money, grants and prestige, not for truth.

If Jesus Doesn’t Know the Hour, Is He God?

Question posed to me by students studying apologetics:

“This is a question a lot of Muslims ask because they don’t believe in the Trinitarian attribute of our God and like to use Matthew 24:36 to “prove” that the Son and the Father are not one, but completely separate. So the question is, after reading the verse, how can Jesus the son be God the Father if God is omniscient and all knowing but Jesus does not know the hour and God knows the hour?”

This is how I answered:

The answer is based in what scholars have dubbed “the hypostatic union”, whereby Jesus Christ was both fully God and fully man. He walked and talked as a man, mourned as a man, suffered as a man, yet as God He was prayed to, worshiped, etc. We could certainly do a trinity, or deity of Christ study if need be, using John 1:1 (theos en ho logos), or in John 8 (before Abraham was I am) or Isaiah 7 (Emmanuel meaning God with us). In Micah He is called the everlasting father, etc.

But the emptying of himself on earth is described in Phil 2 “Who, being in very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death.”

Another example is in Hebrews 2 it states that “He was made for a little while lower than the angels.” We can infer from all this that Christ, during His earthly ministry, healed and did miracles by the father’s power, or the power of the Holy Spirit rather than His own. Therefore, having to live a perfect life as a man, He did this so perfectly or “fairly” may be a better term, that He did not know the day nor the hour.

If you are looking for a less intense, down and dirty answer, we’d simply refer to Revelations, which is a go-to place to witness to Mormons as well as those who practice Islam, since the deity of Christ is often attacked.

Ask, who is this that says in Rev 1:11 , “I am the alpha and omega, the first and last.” The Mormon, or Muslim will say that refers to God (or Allah they may say). Then ask, what about here in Rev 21:6, “I am the Alpha and Omega, beginning and the end.” Who is that? They will say, God.
Then we refer to rev 1:17-18. “I am the first and the last, He that liveth, and was dead, and behold I am alive forever more.” Who is this? They will say, that is God, to which you reply, “When did God die?”

Also, on a side note, The Quran of Islam states that God departed the law and inspiration to the bible’s profits, that he sent down the law of Moses, and the Gospel of Jesus, (Sura 2:87; 3:3; 4:163; and 5:46),  and that the word of God cannot be altered (6:34, 6:115). However, most Muslims will state that the bible has been corrupted and that the Quran must be trusted over the Christian bible. The real question is how can the Muslim trust the Quran, if in its very text it states to trust the gospels, and Allah’s words cannot be changed. Another way to state this is in a simple proof which the text bears out:

1 – If the Bible is true than the Quran is false
2 – If the Bible is false, than the Quran is false
3 – Therefore, the Quran is false

Please feel free to comment, and let me know if you have any additional thoughts in regards to this question.

If you are interested in my Christian Fiction, The Last Saint, please check it out here or on Amazon. 

Genetics and Evolution

With molecules to man evolution hanging on the possibility that despite the complexity of DNA, mutations must somehow add to the genetic make up of an organism over time, the theory is truly struggling. Genetics is NOT a friend to evolutionary theory. Ignoring the magic elixir of “time” that evolutionists add to the mix in order to devise an acceptable probability ratio, we must conclude firstly that enough mutations will slowly (or quickly) transform one kind of animal into another (I sometimes can’t even believe this still needs to be discussed).

A couple of short points: You have heard of a gene pool, yes? This is an invention, a constructed idea of early population geneticists who were dedicated to Darwinism. The problem they faced is that most genetic mutations aren’t catastrophic in nature. They instead degrade, and interact with other nucleotides, to create a long term minimal effect. Genes are poly-dimensional, working many different ways as a language. Imagine a book that could be read forwards, and backwards, and using every other word, and using a cipher. This is the type of complexity we encounter. It is well known in genetics that one nucleotide, since it doesn’t affect enough of the whole organism, would not be enough to be selected or mutated beneficially to bring about a change. Rather, we know that several nucleotides would have to be changed productively at once. The gene pool constructs a visual that sells well, promoting the idea that out of this “pool” nucleotides can be mutated to change the overall composition of the organism over time without consideration for those other nucleotides it affects.

In other words, the ripple effect from being a multi-purposeful nucleotide would create so much “noise” and would affect the overall organism so little, that there is almost no correlation between that one nucleotide changing, and the betterment of the animal as a whole. You are talking about an almost atomic level of change.

We must therefore conclude that large “chunks” must change to create any real progress. So we must analyze this possibility.

Mutations within the human genome have been scrutinized and analyzed, and it has been found that most of the mutations are not “noisy” enough by themselves (changing a letter in a DNA strand, like a typo in a book) to be selected by mother nature to pass on, whether good or bad. These mutations are neutral, or un-selectable, and therefore cannot occur with enough impact to change the organism, regardless of time. Geneticists realize that most are neutral, and that because of this there would be no reason for  this information to be passed on to further a species up the evolutionary chain.

Furthermore, if we consider the ratio of beneficial to non-beneficial mutations, the vast majority are on the negative side. One experiment reviewed 10,000 mutations, and could only list 4 beneficial ones, which later all proved to be a net loss of information. Any that are actually considered beneficial mutations are usually in the neutral range anyway! This even further reduces the chance of benefit occurring, and being passed down.

Remember, evolution requires a high rate of beneficial mutations over time to succeed. This is not observably the case on any level.

There is so much more we could discuss, but this is a blog, and I just want to offer a sense of the trouble actual genetic science delivers to the evolutionary theory. Two more final notes. One is that considering that all of these nucleotides are multi-functional, if you do actually come up with a beneficial mutation that helps the organism in one way, there is no possibility that that change has also somehow benefited the way it is used in all of its other ways. It would disrupt how the information was read in all of its other variable forms, and therefore would only be beneficial in one sense, but damaging in all others.

Secondly, genetics ignores in its models the very real, and very detrimental concept of “fitness valleys”. Consider this: If 99.9996% of all mutations are either bad, or neutral, and those are occurring all the time, can you suppose a timeline whereby the positive ones somehow surpass the overall effect of all the negative ones to essentially make the organism healthier and more complex?  Food for thought.

Quick Warning on New Ageism

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I am seeing this a lot lately. A feel good platitude. A slogan. A new age, anything goes, faux-zen-enlightened bumper sticker. Upon close examination, it doesn’t hold water. I hope those who consider their salvation can think past this, and truly don’t hang their eternal souls on the slogans of new age inclusiveness. Especially since this mess of a poster violates the law of non-contradiction about six ways from Sunday. Unfortunately, most people will grab such slogans, like “the bible was just written by men”, or “God can’t make a stone so big He can’t lift it”, or “separation of church and state”, and compile them as a world view. They will then comfortably walk through life, believing wholeheartedly in a world view they spent no time investigating. H.G. Wells said this about our contemporary lives as it concerns people’s resounding inaction regarding the preciousness of life:

“But in these plethoric times, when there is too much coarse stuff for everybody and we struggle for life takes the form of competitive advertisement and the effort to fill your neighbor’s eye, there is no urgent demand either for personal courage, sound nerves or stark beauty, we find ourselves by accident. Always before these times the bulk of people did not overeat themselves, because they couldn’t, whether they wanted to or not, and all but a very few were kept “fit” by unavoidable exercise and personal danger. Now, if only he pitch his standard low enough and keep free from pride, almost anyone can achieve a sort of excess. You can go through contemporary life fudging and slacking, never really hungry nor frightened nor passionately stirred, your highest moment a mere sentimental orgasm, and your first real contact with primary and elemental necessities the sweat of your deathbed.”

If we research, even lightly, the veracity of this poster’s statement, we will find it severely lacking in truth. Without even addressing the glaringly obvious, commandment-breaking image of putting one of the million false Hindu gods on an even plane with Jesus Christ, God and Lord, creator of all things, we will ask were they all merely teachers of love? Does this discount the necessity of judgement, and offer only pleasure with no recognition of sin, and therefore render our desperate need for grace and Christ moot?  There is a flood to square with, as well as the destruction of Sodom, and the Canaanites, and the existence of hell. Does escaping the reality of a promised judgement for sin require us to simply pick a teacher/deity we like, and try to be loving?  And if you have been following along on my series, you know by now that other gods, other religions, don’t come close to the loving God of the bible. For more on that, please read through that, but one quick example for you is in the year 627; Muhammad decapitated 900 Jewish men in front of their families, and ordered troops to rape women, and enslave them. This was the last Jewish tribe in Medina. Ransoms and beheadings were common place. So judging by these actions, as well as other conquests in the name of Allah, to say nothing of polygamy, and the consummation of a marriage with a 9 year old, was Muhammad a teacher of love, like our feel-good poster suggests? Or were his actions self-serving?

What about Buddhism? Very zen and peaceful, yes? The value of human beings must be quite high in their thinking, right? An interesting story, since we are on the subject, has to do with the killing fields of Cambodia. The maimed and injured were pouring in to medical camps run by Christian missionary volunteers. The country was filled with Buddhists, but Christians were there in droves helping the wounded, ministering to the sick and dying. The Christians asked the local doctor why the Buddhists, considering their peace-filled worldview,  weren’t here helping any of the refugees, and why was it only European and American Christians. He said it was because in Buddhism, it is believed that karma determines your fate, and that these suffering people must have earned these troubles in a past life. It was their Karmic fate that brought them to this, not the sin of a fallen world. So they felt no obligation to help or “love” as our poster suggests.

Perhaps we can find love of people in a place that favors Hinduism, such as India? India, where rats swarm crops, decimating sometimes up to 50% of the food grown for the citizens there. The result of course is famine, and the poor health of India’s massive population. But in years past, they have continually chose not to exterminate these rats. Why? Because in their religion, these rats may be the reincarnated ancestors of peoples’ families, so their lives are important as well. As we zoom out and logically consider this world view, we can ascertain that these rats are being given equal consideration and worth as the human beings in Hindu culture. Even at the expense of their lives.

Does this reflect the same love as our Creator God? A love so great that He declares He knows every hair on your head? That He made you in His image? He came to earth to die for you? Do you sense your value as a son or daughter of the Lord, as compared to other world views? It is interesting that for all the bumper sticker slogans we have, when you get down to it, there is one God of love, and there is the harsh reality of other religions, and how much they devalue life. In these others, upon actual examination, you will find the worth of people on par with animals (Hindu), left to the fate of the universe (Buddha), solely dependent upon the whim of a conquesting god (Islam), or completely fluid based on moral relativism (New Age). The truth is much more beautiful, and hopeful, and yes, loving, then the slogan. But, this does not dismiss us from having to consider the truths of a holy God. That with perfect love, we must also examine perfect judgement. Both infinite attributes of a perfect Creator. So again we say, “determine your salvation with fear and trembling” – Phil 2:12

I’m a Fanatic, or a Hypocrite

I have previously defined myself as a biblicist. This means that I Believe the bible from cover to cover, a rarity, and absolute foolishness to most. Some would retort, “How can you take literally that which was intended as metaphor, or poetry?” The response is of course, I don’t. I realize that different styles of writing are utilized to unfold the entirety of biblical canon. Dr. Floyd Nolen Jones puts it this way:

“The word [biblicist] connotes one who, while taking both the immediate and the remote context in to account, interprets and believes in the bible literally.”

He goes on to say that despite continual biblical criticism, the biblicist believes the promises and concepts therein, and also recognizes the rarity of such a belief, even among pastors, priests, and seminary professors, a shame in my opinion. But we can rest assured that this doesn’t mean I am so dense that I don’t understand prose and allegory are used.

Some other critic might say, “But how can you trust what was written over 2000 years ago!” A great question, not for this article, perhaps, but one that every believer and non-believer needs to answer for themselves. My studies have led me to believe in the truth of the word for many reasons, such as fulfilled prophecy, expert eye-witness accounting, corroboration with history and archaeology, just to name a few. Despite being amazingly unique in its circulation and teachings, it has been preserved better then any ancient book, the next closest being Homer’s Illiad. Just to clue you in to how much better the Bible is preserved, we possess 643 ancient copies of the Illiad, while we possess over 25,000 of the new testament. John Warwick Montgomery said this: “To be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament books is to allow  all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity…”

For more on this subject and others regarding the text, try reading Josh Macdowell’s “New evidence that Demands a Verdict.” The first 200 pages of this book alone will change your world.

Regardless of how I answer critics, the point is that I always do, and zealously so, usually leaping from a sketchy foothold of slight coolness or quiet reserve, (which admittedly is very little to begin with) into an emotional soap-box diatribe, that causes any listener I may have to regard me thereafter with caution. If they don’t know me well, they will say I am a Fanatic, way too zealous and over the top, a bible-beater, a Jesus freak, a literalist who needs to relax because I take ‘religion’ way too seriously.

If the person does know me, then I fear in their hearts, they regard me as a hypocrite. Anyone who believes the word of God so fervently, they must think themselves righteous beyond reproach; a Christian who knows he is better then those he preaches to; a saint among sinners. I must seem so false to those who know my struggles, because the fact is, I fail every day, and they know it. They have seen me stumble, they have seen me fall. They have seen a filthy mouth, and a worse mind, a heart that fights darkness, and a mind that fights anger. They have seen my insecurities cause me to act out in hopes of public approval. They have seen me weak with drink, with words, and with action. They have seen my life, and all of its failures, and they know intuitively that this is not a saint that stands before them. This is not a so-called ‘good christian’. This isn’t a person who should be preaching to anyone. They must watch me wax on and on about my favorite subject, sometimes hotly, sometimes over too many glasses of wine, sometimes after trying to fit in, and they must immediately chalk me up as a fraud. A Hypocrite.

And they are right.

But also, they are not.

It is my favorite subject, because of how beautiful the mosaic is. How intricate the history of redemption is, and how it offers endless study that leads you deeper and deeper into awestruck wonder as you go. And at the bottom of it all, when all is said and done, if the conversation will allow and anyone is left to listen, they will find I am not judging, but just excited. They will find the whole reason that it is my favorite subject is indeed because I am so broken, and so imperfect, and so sinful. It is precisely because of the unique grace offered to us, and that I recognize I need it, that I drone on and on beyond what social protocol dictates. I do not mean to. I just love the material.

So yes, I am a hypocrite, because I am quite imperfect and am preaching. But I am not, because I recognize my imperfection, and therefore recognize my absolute need for grace. This makes me fanatical.

To address fanaticism, let us consider the bible. In it, God claims to have made the very world you stand upon. literally, the ground beneath you. Not only do you draw each breath by His grace, but every beautiful thing you have ever smiled at, ever enjoyed, ever felt, was because of Him. Not only that, He continued to love you, despite your sin, and offered you the inheritance of His son, Jesus Christ, who made all things. It says every single thing, the universe, everything was made… for Him. Even you.

It says this. There is no getting around it. It says fear the Lord, and work out your salvation with fear and trembling. It promises one of two results upon death, either the judgement seat of Christ, or the white throne judgement. If you don’t know which one you will be present for, it should scare you. Why am I fanatical? If it is not true, and is just a religion like all the others, to appease the weakness of man, and lessen the reality of death’s sting, then to be zealous would be foolishness. But being a Christian is hard. Why would we put ourselves through it, when we could instead fill our days with carnal pleasure, self-service, and indifference? There wouldn’t be a need to bother others with our beliefs, and persecution would be someone else’s problem. So why then, if it is so counter-intuitive to be Christian, do we allow God to be Lord over our lives?

Because it’s true.

And I for one would rather live a difficult truth, even with all its problems, then live a comfortable lie, and face the reality of God’s holiness when I die. Upon studying the Bible, to be honest, I find it hard to believe we all aren’t fanatics. I know one day I will wish I had been even more so.

So if I get excited talking about it with you, please know, I’m just a flawed person trying to love you, because God loved me first.

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