Where Were You…?

This past year I have read some unbelievers posts depicting their tiredness of being asked this question when it comes to creation. I am tired of their tiredness because this is an important question to ask unbelievers when they trumpet their supposed evidenced for an alternative origin of the universe and life.

In Job 38:4 we find that God is the first one to ask this question

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?’ (NIV 1984)

Another form of that question is: ‘Were you there…?’ and both questions expose the ridiculousness of the arguments made by unbelievers. Despite the arguments of the unbelieving part of society, God can look around and see who was there and who was absent at the time he created all things.

Strangely enough the unbelieving scientist were markedly absent. In fact a lot of time had to elapse before modern scientists could even arrive on the scene. What makes their arguments ridiculous is the fact that archaeologists have a very difficult time in recovering any evidence from 2,000 years ago while other scientists claim that evidence for their origin theory is in pristine condition after hundreds of million years (or hundreds of thousands of years or for billions of years).

If true, that is an extraordinary feat. Also if true, then archaeologists should find all the evidence they seek for the past 10,000 complete and untouched; which would make finding Noah’s Ark intact a very great possibility.

That’s how ridiculous secular scientists’ claims are. They are relying upon their own ideas based upon supposed evidence that has gone undetected, unmoved, unaltered,  and just laid here waiting to be discovered for thousands, millions and billions of years. That assumption alone makes their conclusions untenable.

The reality of the supposed evidence produced by secular scientists is that their arguments are more ridiculous and requires far more faith than the unbeliever claims the creationist argument is or requires. If people stopped long enough to view the whole picture instead of being blinded by the word ‘science, , they two would see the ridiculousness of the secular position.

We also need to ask why take some stranger’s word for something over the eye-witness account when the stranger was nowhere near the incident in question when it took place? This of course brings up the argument that eye-witness accounts are untrustworthy but that argument only works for events that are traumatic to the eye-witness.

It does not work for events of celebration, construction or some other non-traumatic experience. professors are great at using traumatic events in their classrooms to undermine the argument that eye-witnesses are the most reliable account we can obtain. Yet that is only a manipulation as they do not attempt the same experiment under more appealing conditions.

What also helps eye-witness accounts is that interviews are made when the eye-witness is still very upset and not thinking correctly. Sometimes, people need to be given time to calm down and space to think the event over before providing the information law enforcement officials need.

How does this apply to creation? God is the only eye-witness and he would not be influenced by any traumatic event and creation was not a traumatic event. It was a joyful, willful one which means that there was no undue influence present and to alter God’s perception of what he did.

It was a willful and enjoyable event that would leave a very clear picture of what took place. This means that there would be nothing interfering with God’s recollection of events when he revealed it all to Moses. Moses would be able to understand what God said, because God made ancient man as intelligent and understanding as modern man and there would be no need for God to lie to Moses and give him one set of details when he did something else.

That last sentence is a referral to the evolutionists’ (any variety) argument that ancient people would not be able to understand the evolutionary process. It is a dumb argument which we won’t get into right now but suffice it to say it is a weak attempt to explain the difference between the biblical account and secular science’s.

An eye-witness account, even at a traumatic event, is far more accurate than the account made by someone who studies the scene at a very long distance. The latter has to try to discover evidence for the chain of events even though that chain has links that will not survive past the moment the experience took place.

This lack of information renders useless any conclusion the long distance analyst may come to because they have no hope in discovering all the evidence they need to construct their theory. It is gone.

But that is only part of their problem. Their other major concern would be to prove that any event actually took place as they claim. With no ability for real-time observation, the long distance analyst has no clue on how the event transpired and no hope of showing that their alternative was the correct sequence.

This is what makes eye-witness accounts so valuable. they provide real-time observation on how the event actually occurred. They were there and they saw it take place. Now of course humans are fallible and make mistakes for a variety of reasons when they describe what took place BUT Moses wasn’t an eye-witness, he got his information from the eye-witness who wasn’t human, fallible or able to make mistakes.

This is why we can trust the Bible. It is a revelation by the one person who was there at all of the events recorded and who is not influenced by traumatic events, is not human and he also does not make mistakes.

Thus the question, ‘where were you…’ is a vital question posed by the believer for it puts the alternative arguments in perspective and allows the believers to see where the fallible humans error in their theories. Modern dating techniques, modern scientific equipment and other modern scientific tools are all included in this exposure for they are constructed by long distance analysts influenced by their lack of belief in the biblical eye-witness and are very limited in their ability to gather all the data needed to reconstruct past events.

Just because the unbeliever is tired of the question doesn’t mean that the believer stops asking it. They just need to learn follow-up questions to help guide them to the truth and see the lies of the alternatives.

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2013 in review–Thank You

A Word of Thanks for all those who took the time to read this blog this past year. I appreciate it.

I removed the link to the detailed report as that is not as important as the message this site is bringing. I simply put this here to say thank you to the readers

 

 

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,100 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

 

 

Ancient Mariners

As we have seen, the flat earth thought did not originate from the common people, as they had the ancient sailors to set them straight, but rather that thinking came from the secular scientist who should have known better.

Many archaeologists and scholars have long derided the idea that ancient sailors traveled more than a few miles from the Mediterranean shores.  Given the amount of evidence that is being compiled this idea can barely stand up any more.

What will follow here, in a few sentences, is a look at two modern attempts demonstrating the  credibility of the idea that ancient sailors and people traveled the oceans long before medieval explorers took the risk.

There are two things to remember before we look at those examples. First, there were not two creations. In the beginning God did not make ancient man unintelligent, lacking curiosity, and ability then turn around and recreate modern man with a different set of abilities and more intelligence than their ancient counterparts.

Ancient man was as intelligent and possessed the same abilities as modern man. We see this, not only in the ancient remains we come across but also in Genesis 4 as it describes the descendents of Cain.

²⁰ Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. ²¹ His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. ²² As for Zillah, she also gave birth to Tubal-cain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron; and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. (NASB)

Ranching, music and metalworking originated in the pre-flood world letting us know that ancient man had knowledge and intelligence. Then we see the knowledge of shipbuilding in Noah and his sons (Gen. 6 & 7) which means that the ancient world post-flood would have been taught all those skills long before modern man came into existence.

Second, our evidence for ancient shipping does not come from a horde of manuscripts describing how the ancient civilizations built their ships nor does it come from many examples of surviving boats in which we can examine thoroughly.

Our knowledge of ancient shipping comes from the few shipwrecks we are fortunate enough to discover and examine. In other words, we do not know the extent of ancient shipping, we only get small glimpses and that is not enough to say that the ancients did not brave the watery unknown.

Also, we have to keep in mind that ancient shipping took place 2-5,000 years ago and it would be unrealistic to think that we would be able to discover a host of ships and manuscripts detailing what the ancients did on the water. For the Romans we only have 1 or 2 ships that made it to South America, apart from the evidence of those voyages we have no idea how many Romans sailed to North or South America and made it back safely or how many died trying.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1038045/posts

Amongst my most notable discover[ies] was that of a 2nd century BC Roman shipwreck in the Bay of Guanabara, near Rio de Janeiro. This is a discovery that has received little to no examination, much less validation, from the realm of mainstream archaeology, no doubt in part because Marx is not a Ph.D. archaeologist. Scouring the web for more information about this finding, I did find a reference to the discovery in an article from Dr. Elizabeth Lyding Will, an expert on Roman amphoras (clay vessels used to store and ship goods during the Roman era). Dr. Will apparently has a piece of an amphora recovered from Marx’s Brazil discovery. Of it, she says:

Now let’s turn to the modern examples demonstrating ancient shipping.

#1. http://www.kon-tiki.no/E-Heyerdahl.php

I came across Mr. Heyerdahl’s ocean voyages via his book Aku-Aku in which he says:

And there, on the coral reef in the Tuamotu group, we had landed with the Kon-Tiki raft, and learned that even the salt sea has its unceasing treadmill, the route from South America out to those distant islands. However lonely the islands were, they all lay within the natural range of the Inca Indians’ old balsa rafts. (pg. 10)

The whole voyage is documented in Mr. Heyerdahl’s book ‘The Kon-Tiki Expedition’. But this isn’t the only voyage that Mr. Heyerdahl duplicated. The  link above records the different sea adventures Mr. Heyerdahl undertook using ancient craft. You will need to scroll down to see them all.

During the expedition to Easter Island in 1955-1956, Heyerdahl became interested in reed boats and their seagoing properties. The archaeologists’ excavations had uncovered pictures of large reed boats with masts and sails engraved in the buried statues and painted on flagstones in prehistoric houses. It soon became clear to Heyerdahl that not only balsa wood rafts, but also reed boats, with pre-Incan sailors could have carried the earliest South Americans out over the open Pacific Ocean. (The Ra Expedition)

In 1947 the balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki was launched. It was named after a legendary seafaring sun-king common to both the old Inca kingdom and the islands of Polynesia. The raft hoisted sail outside the port of Callào in Peru with 6 men onboard. With Thor were 4 other Norwegians, Herman Watzinger, Knut Haugland, Torstein Raaby and Erik Hesselberg, and a Swede, Bengt Danielsson. (The Kon-Tiki expedition)

#2. http://www.phoenicia.org.uk/

This is just the first website mentioning the modern demonstration of an ancient Phoenician ship.

In 2008 – 2010 Phoenicia successfully recreated the first circumnavigation of Africa, believed to have been accomplished by Phoenician mariners in circa 600BC. This website is the historical record of the expedition and those who took part in it.

http://pioneerexpeditions.com/phoenicians/

This is the second website on this ship which looks to explore the idea that the Phoenicians beat Columbus to America by over 2000 years

Three years after building the replica Phoenician ship “Phoenicia” and circumnavigating Africa a new expedition is being planned. This time to sail Phoenicia from the Mediterranean to the Americas to illustrate that the Phoenicians (as the greatest ancient seafarers) had the capabilities and skills to cross the Atlantic two thousand years before Columbus. Crossing the Atlantic is an ambitious challenge as the Atlantic winds and storms are powerful and unforgiving for any sailor. However, it is a quest that demands to be attempted in order to answer one of history’s most important questions: who were the first sailors to discover the Americas?

It is very possible that the ancients traveled further than most modern scholars give them credit. I am inclined to think that sea travel was a regular occurrence and not some rare feat by a few daring souls.

The ancient Minoans were well-known sailors who traveled far and wide, from Egypt to Britain and if they made it to Britain it is highly possible that they went a lot further

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/features/sinking-atlantis/the-fall-of-the-minoans/61/

The Minoans were excellent ship builders and sailors, and their maritime empire was so vast, it rivaled that of the ancient Egyptians.

Since we know that metalwork had very ancient origins, Genesis 4, it is no stretch of the imagination that shipbuilders had the material to make their ships  sturdy enough to meet the challenges of long ocean voyages. I doubt that they were limited to the small vessels Mr. Heyerdahl replicated. I am sure each civilization had a variety of styles and sizes to meet the different needs a civilization has.

The only problem is we will probably never know because time has removed almost  all evidence of ancient shipping. We just have to remember that God made ancient man the same as modern man and they had abilities that helped them accomplish great things and that would include ocean exploration.

 

Understanding Evolution

James McGrath has a cute graph on his website depicting the supposed problem creationists have with the evolutionary theory. You can see it here, it is the giant red ball

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2013/12/five-awful-reasons-to-teach-creationism-in-schools.html

The accusation made by evolutionists towards those who reject their theory is a common one and it is their go to defense when they are stymied by real arguments which expose their theory as unworkable.

The problem for the evolutionist is that the Christian does understand evolution and they understand it quite thoroughly. Evolution is a lie and it is wrong. The can dress it up however they like– Theistic Evolution, Progressive Creation, Evolution or whatever they like,— it will not change the fact that the alternative to Genesis 1 is wrong.

It also doesn’t matter what ‘science’ they throw behind it, their supposed evidence is just window dressing to make their ugly lie look pretty. But it is all show as I will explain. If you look above the graph, you will see 5 points that McGrath addresses and it will be point number 5 that will be addressed here.

5) Evolution is bad science: See the first point. Wellman just adds more false claims to the ones he offered in his first point, because he doesn’t actually have a fifth point.

That last phrase is a really bad rebuttal because in reality evolution is not scientific at all. It doesn’t matter which scientist he points to because none of them have done one scientific experiment replicating one historical claimed point of evolution.

When I say the words ‘historical claimed’ I am talking about the history of the actual process of evolution evolutionists have said has taken place to develop life forms. Modern scientific experiments do not even come close to what evolutionists have said. Modern evolutionary scientists have taken fully developed life forms and added fully developed chemicals and other ingredients to the former and have said a few magic words then declared that evolution was true.

BUT that isn’t how evolution took place and not ONE scientific experiment has been able to replicate one instance of how the process of evolution supposedly did its work. Let’s start with the easiest one. There is no randomness in evolutionary science. All experiments are well thought out by outside intelligence forces or beings, using specific materials and placed together in an orderly and pre-determined fashion.

The presence of beings who have thoughts, intelligence, presuppositions, direction, emotions, knowledge etc. immediately disqualifies these experiments as evolutionary or evidence. The process of evolution is thought to be unknowing, unthinking, unintelligent, lacking direction, emotions, morals and so on which contradicts what is taking place in the science laboratory today.

Then, we are told by evolutionists that the environmental conditions present while evolution did its major life development is much different from it is today. Well evolutionary scientists have no idea what those conditions were, how much they have changed during the development process and cannot replicate any of them for their modern experiments.

No original or continuing original environmental conditions means that evolutionists are not conducting their scientific experiments in the evolutionary fashion. They are cheating.

Next, we are told that previous life forms transitioned over time. Well there have been hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of scientific evolutionary experiments conducted over the past 150 years or so YET not one has replicated one of those historical claimed transitions.

The evolutionist may say that they do not have previous life forms to work with but they do not know what those previous life forms were or even looked like. They take a few fossils and say ‘here is one’ but they do not know what those life forms evolved into. They do not know which of those fossils is a common ancestor of which modern animal or animals.

There is no historical track record to see the full development in action, the evolutionist only has a few fossils from one time period to work with. But there is more.

The evolutionist also has no idea which one-celled life form was the original ancestor of all  living things nor do they know how the original transitions took place, which genes or DNA did the trick and on it goes. Thus they cannot do one scientific evolutionary experiment–they do not have the right materials to work with to provide the evidence they need.

Now many evolutionists claim that they have proven evolution true by using the fruit fly and different genetic materials as operators of change to show that evolution is true. What they really have done is demonstrated a chemical reaction nothing more.

Their fruit fly work and other supposedly scientific evolutionary experiments have done nothing to provide evidence for the validity of evolution. The evolutionist has worked with nothing evolutionary nor in the right order to make their point.

So as it stands, it is the Christian creationist who does understand evolution after all and it is the evolutionist who does not understand their own theory or how to produce evidence for their ideology.

There is nothing scientific that supports the evolutionary theory and the theory of evolution remains a lie and untrue having no evidence to support it.

 

Tolerance

It is a word that is tossed around a lot these days and usually by those who want to practice alternatives to what is traditionally accepted as and is really normal.  Yet over the years I have found that those who demand tolerance from the normal people are the least tolerant of all.

Here are some definitions of the different variations of the word ‘tolerance’ and they come from an old dictionary. I like using old dictionaries because they usually are very accurate in their definitions of words. I find that today, there has been so much distortion of vocabulary definitions that it is hard to get back to the basics and see what words really mean.

 TOL´ERANCE, n. [L. tolerantia, from tolero, to bear.]
The power or capacity of enduring; or the act of enduring.
Diogenes one frosty morning came to the market place shaking, to show his tolerance.      Bacon.
[Little used. But intolerance is in common use.]
TOL´ERANT, a. Enduring; indulgent; favoring toleration.
TOL´ERATE, v. t. [Fr. tolerer; L. tolero, from tollo, to lift; Ch. דול to lift or raise. Class Dl. No. 3, and see No. 6. 7. 18. 20. 28. 32.]
 To suffer to be or to be done without prohibition or hinderance; to allow or permit negatively, by not preventing; not to restrain; as, to tolerate opinions or practices. The protestant religion is tolerated in France, and the Roman Catholic in Great Britain.
Crying should not be tolerated in children.      Locke.
The law of love tolerates no vice, and patronizes every virtue.      G. Spring.
TOL´ERATED, pp. Suffered; allowed; not prohibited or restrained.
TOL´ERATING, ppr. Enduring; suffering to be or to be done; allowing; not restraining.
TOLERA´TION, n. [L. toleratio.] The act of tolerating; the allowance of that which is not wholly approved; appropriately, the allowance of religious opinions and modes of worship in a state, when contrary to or different from those of the established church or belief. Toleration implies a right in the sovereign to control men in their opinions and worship, or it implies the actual exercise of power in such control. Where no power exists or none is assumed to establish a creed and a mode of worship, there can be no toleration, in the strict sense of the word, for one religious denomination has as good a right as another to the free enjoyment of its creed and worship.

Webster, N. (2006). Noah Webster’s first edition of An American dictionary of the English language. Anaheim, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education.

Now I have put key words or phrases in bold print to highlight the important parts of the definitions but feel free to read them all.

At present there are two very vocal groups, there maybe more but I am focusing on two as an example, who demand tolerance from Christians and others yet they are the least tolerant when it comes to criticism of their ideologies or preferences.  There is an old saying that goes– ‘They that cry the loudest are guiltiest most of all’– and this would apply to these two groups.

The first group is, of course, the homosexual community (HC). In their inability to take ‘no’ for an answer they have somehow acquired the mantle of the medieval inquisitors and have mounted their version of the inquisition.

If a group of people vote ‘no’ to their proposals, the HC goes and finds a homosexual judge to overturn the democratic process and institute their demand by decree. If a member of the HC is turned down by a business because the proprietors of the business disagree with their lifestyle then the members of the HC raise a big stink and get the government or private lawyers to legally bully the business owner into submission.

The amount of intolerance shown by the HC goes far beyond those two examples.

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/duck-dynasty-reversal-glaad-tells-e-not-put-143129050.html

http://www.thewrap.com/jesse-jackson-calls-duck-dynasty-dad-offensive-rosa-parks-bus-driver/

http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/TV/2013/12/18/GLAAD-denounces-Duck-Dynasty-star-for-remarks-about-gays/UPI-40111387390590/

Gay-rights advocates called Robertson’s remarks “vile.”

A spokesman for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Wilson Cruz, said in a statement Robertson “and his family claim to be Christian, but Phil’s lies about an entire community fly in the face of what true Christians believe. He clearly knows nothing about gay people or the majority of Louisianans — and Americans — who support legal recognition for loving and committed gay and lesbian couples.”

“Phil’s decision to push vile and extreme stereotypes is a stain on A&E and his sponsors who now need to re-examine their ties to someone with such public disdain for LGBT people and families,” Cruz said.

These are but a few more examples of the intolerance shown by the HC as they deny their sinful status and the reality that their sexual preference is abnormal.

The second example I will use to demonstrate the lack of tolerance among those who demand tolerance from others comes from the evolutionary group. These people refuse to allow alternatives to their ‘theory’ in the science classroom and will do almost anything to keep the monopoly they have acquired over the previous few decades.

I am banned from many pro-evolutionary websites because I do not agree with their ideas and post the truth–God created in 6 24 hour days. That is what I believe and that is the truth yet evolutionists refuse to be tolerant and allow dissenting thought to grace their presence and websites.

One example of this is James McGrath. He is a progressive creationist who regularly bashes creationists. He routinely places numerous anti YEC posts on his website yet if you disagree with him, this is the message you are eventually given:

You do not have permission to post on this thread

This intolerance is not limited to just his website. The same intolerance extends to others besides me and many people have lost their careers and jobs when they dare to oppose evolutionary thinking. The documentary Expelled is one media presentation that documents this intolerant behavior of evolutionists.

The book ‘Slaughter of the Dissidents’ by Dr. Jerry Bergman is another.  We do not have to look very far to see the intolerance of the evolutionist. If evolution were really true and if they were really tolerant , then the evolutionist, any variety, would have no problem in having competing ideas taught in the science classroom.

It would be no problem for the evolutionist to show where the alternatives to evolution fail. But they aren’t and they can’t. Their theory is so false that the evolutionist must get a monopoly upon the science classroom in order to teach their lies to children In this post

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2013/12/five-awful-reasons-to-teach-creationism-in-schools.html

McGrath says this:

It does cover Wellman’s freedom to blog falsehood, and even parents’ freedom to indoctrinate their children with the same lies, but thankfully we put additional safeguards in place in the interest of providing children with teaching that bears some semblance of truth.

The only people lying to children , and to students, are the evolutionists. They are not presenting one shred of truth to anyone, let alone children. If the evolutionist was tolerant then the children, and students, would be able to receive the truth honestly and be allowed to make up their own minds.

As it stands, the intolerance of the evolutionist requires that they brainwash the unwary and vulnerable. They have no alternative but to do those things because their ideology is wrong and a great lie.

NOW what does Jesus have to say about this topic?

³³ But whoever ^[a]denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.

³⁴ “Do not think that I came to ^[b]bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; (MT. 10 NASB)

The word ‘peace’ here is not talking referring to the ‘peace that passes all understanding’ that comes with believing in Jesus. it is talking about the ‘peace’ that means there is no physical conflict.

What that passage is telling us is that there is not going to be any real tolerance in the world. Why? Because those who reject the truth of the Bible do not want the truth to be seen or taught. They do not want to be reminded that they are sinful, wrong and practicing evil.

The HC tries hard to be taken as ‘normal’, ‘natural’ and okay but no matter how hard they try, their preference will always be sin, wrong, unnatural and abnormal. Doesn’t matter how many judges, politicians, corporations side with them, their status in God’s eyes remains unchanged and his opinion is the only one that matters.

The same for the evolutionist. It doesn’t matter how many judges, politicians, teachers and educational institutions agree with their ideology, their theory remains false and a lie and those people are false teachers. Again it is God’s opinion alone that matters here.

The Bible also tells us:

¹² Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. ¹³ But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (2 Tim. 3 NASB but read the whole chapter for context)

Persecution is not tolerance. It is hypocrisy as those who want alternatives to the Bible demand one thing but refuse to give the same in return.  The believer needs to stand on the word of God and preach the truth whether they receive tolerance or not.

We do not change the message because sinners demand it nor do we tolerate sin because they want to disobey God. If there is no sin, then there is no need of repentance and no reason for Jesus to die on the cross.

But there is sin and there is a need for repentance thus the believer must find and preach the truth without compromise. The truth is found in the Bible not the alternatives.

 

 

Much To Talk ABout- 22

#1. What Is Philosophy-2: From  ‘A Brief History of Thought’ by Luc Ferry

I have only read the introduction, the First Chapter and the Conclusion of this book and in the conclusion we read these words:

As you will have guessed, I love philosophy…I think it permits us to create a theoria which gives the necessary space for self-reflection, an ethics which is open to the globalised world with which we are going to have to deal with from now on, and also offers us a post-Nietzschean doctrine of salvation (pg. 265)

One of the problems we see in this quote is the word ‘ethics’. Philosophy in and of itself does not come with a self-originated standard of ethics or morals. Philosophers have to pick and choose the ethics and morals they like from outside their field of study.

This means they have to choose those ethics and morals from the one area philosophers oppose and try to avoid–religion.  More specifically they have to choose from God’s standards which are found in the bible and Christianity. All morals and ethics come from God as he has set the ultimate standard by which we are all judged.

We also do not have to ‘deal with philosophical ethics’ as they are very subjective and not the ultimate standard for the world to follow. The only ethics or morals we have to deal with are those that God had created to guide his creation to holy living. Philosophy does not provide any salvation to anyone because it is a field constructed by fallible humans in need of a Savior themselves. They  and philosophy can no more offer salvation to humans than animals can.

#2. Duck Dynasty Update: http://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/2013/12/27/ae-will-include-phil-robertson-in-the-duck-dynasty-series-when-it-resumes-filming/

I disagree with West’s assessment of the strategy involved in this whole issue but one cannot disregard the tremendous amount of free publicity this controversy has generated for A&E and the Duck Dynasty show.

The lessons that need to be learned from this whole charade are two-fold. First, believers should not be influenced by public trends or cultural fads or popular trends. The believer should look for what is right and stick to it no matter the backlash or unpopularity of the decision.

Second, the believer needs to learn how to make ‘their yeah’s yeah and their no’s no. Flip flopping is not a godly trait or characteristic. The believer also needs to learn to think things through before making a decision and apply wisdom, understanding and knowledge  to their decision-making process. They should not  allow the majority rule to alter their decisions but stick to the truth and what is right.

#3. Jesus’ Wife: http://ntweblog.blogspot.kr/2013/12/skepticism-about-jesus-wife-papyrus-in.html

The Chronicle of Higher Education has an article on the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife.  The news is that there is no news:

First, I object to calling this a ‘gospel’ for it is merely a small fragment with a few words on it. It is not a large manuscript providing credible and inspired details the real gospels left out. In reality it is an out-of-context remark that provides nothing to Jesus’ life and it is written not by a disciple of Jesus but some unbeliever a century or two after his life.

Second, just because someone mentions the words ‘Jesus’ wife’ doesn’t mean that the person has any insight on Jesus’ life. Most likely the source is a person who disagrees with the Bible and has decided to write his own beliefs about Jesus, altering the details to fit his unbelief. This is done all the time and no one should expect the ancient world to be any different.

Not everyone in the ancient world was a believer in Jesus nor accepted the apostles writings thus it stands to reason that they would put their own spin on Jesus’ life. Jesus had many enemies and they would work to hide the truth and cloud the issue in order to confuse future listeners of the gospels.

Third, Just because a fragment of manuscript is ancient doesn’t mean it is telling the gospel truth. We have to remember that the devil was at work in ancient times and he would get unbelievers to present false tales in order to deceive unwary people.

False teaching was alive and well in ancient times as it is now. We cannot leap to any conclusion that the ancient manuscripts or fragments we discover were written honestly or without ulterior motives.

#4. The James Ossuary: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2013/12/james-ossuary-in-the-news-again.html

It shouldn’t be necessary to emphasize that the finding of an accused forger not guilty is not the same thing as the genuineness and authenticity of an artifact being adequately demonstrated.

Nor does it mean ‘guilt by association’.  In other words, just because someone is accused of being a forger and is acquitted does it mean that his product is an actual forgery. It is faulty logic because as it is often said, ‘even liars tell the truth sometime’.

These words are just an excuse to dismiss evidence for the historicity of Jesus and the truthfulness of the Bible.

And in the absence of such test results, the fact that the artifact is of unknown provenance and came to light not through professional excavation but on the antiquities market, means that we have to assume its inauthenticity.

This is an elitist attempt to censor authentic discoveries. It is impossible to have every artifact and manuscript, etc., to come with a verifiable pedigree (provenance). It is an unrealistic demand made by professionals who really want to control every archaeological activity and be the ones to pronounce judgment upon each discovery.

Another unrealistic demand is the ‘ it must come from a professional excavation’ ideology. That is laughable as there are not enough professionals to conduct excavations and the majority of major discoveries come from accidental amateur finds.

Two examples of this fact are the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library. This professional only ideology may stem from jealousy or some other negative character trait but it is ruining the field of archaeology.

It is nothing more than a power grab  in hopes of controlling the information dispersed to the public. This type of activity helps the unbelieving archaeologist, bible scholar or researcher to tilt the playing field in their favor  as they point to the supposed discoveries and say ‘see archaeology disproves the Bible.’

I do not agree with the push to accept discoveries via only proven provenance , nor do I agree with the idea that every discovery needs to be uncovered by professionals. What these ideas do is restrict the flow of information to those who need it most–the public.

Years ago I participated in a professional archaeological discussion forum and we were told that professional archaeologists did not want to participate because they did not want to be challenged in their views. That is a dangerous attitude to have as it means the professional does not want to hear that they are wrong.

Whenever someone wants to censor who can participate in an activity red flags should go up and one should ask, what is their motive? or What are they trying to hide?. Among other questions.

#5. The God Beyond God: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2013/12/the-god-beyond-god.html

A variety of traditions, including Christian mysticism and modern existentialist theology, have spoken of the “God beyond God.” This is the very ancient idea that, beyond any sort of anthropomorphic deity that we may think of and tell stories about, there must be an even greater reality that transcends our ability to comprehend and describe.

This is the basic ‘Who created God?’ argument but in a different dress. Only unbelievers think about this and create mysterious gods because they cannot accept that the fact that The Most Holy God would communicate to his creation and do it so simply.

God was not created by another being, he has always existed and the best way to describe why he created us is very simple: he wanted to.

#6. Apostle Paul: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/12/did-the-apostle-paul-or-god-believe-in-a-literal-adam/

My argument in the second half of The Evolution of Adam is that Paul did indeed understand human origins in the way that you would expect ancient people to, namely an original first pair…

the issue is what we can reasonably assume of Paul as an ancient person thinking about human (and cosmic) origins.

I find this type of thinking very insulting to ancient people and to God. There are several reasons for this. First, it is saying that the ancient people were incapable of knowing the truth. Second, that the ancient people’s intellectual prowess were quite limited. Third that God was incapable of telling the truth to his own writers and creation.

Such ideas about the ancient people are absurd and are used by those who cannot believe God to insert their own ideas into the Bible. We see Peter Enns doing that by saying he can read Paul’s mind and declaring that Paul didn’t know the truth and either was deceived about Adam or didn’t believe Adam was a literal person.

That is pure heresy. Paul believed Adam was a literal person and wrote like it and since the ancients were intelligent people they were capable of knowing the difference between truth and error. There is another message being said by that quoted way of thinking–that no one was saved until the modern age when the truth would be found out.

Such a conclusion is ridiculous and goes against the every nature of God and his purpose in sending his son to die on the cross. Why have Jesus die if the biblical writers didn’t/couldn’t write the truth let alone recognize it?

If Paul thought Adam wasn’t literal then why have the resurrection literal? Paul spoke of the resurrection as well so if we toss out a literal Adam how can we keep a literal resurrection? Peter Enns just doesn’t realize how badly he is being burned by his playing with spiritual fire.

Nor does he realize the problems he is causing in the lives of Christians and that is not an enviable position to be in. Adam was a literal person and he and Eve were the first humans created and the original parents of all. Without that there is no God, no Jesus, no salvation and no hope. Peter Enns is leading people to hell and he is very wrong.

 

What Is Philosophy?

The title of this article is taken from the title of the first chapter of Luc Ferry’s book, ‘A Brief History of Thought’. I can’t change the title for as Dr. Ferry answers that question in his own way with his own answer so I must answer it with God’s answer.

When I read the following verse, I always wondered what harm could philosophy bring to the believer.

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. (Col. 2:8 NASB)

My own philosophy classes in undergrad school did NOT provide an answer to the question posed above and it was a Christian school. Most philosophers and others always made the argument that philosophy allowed a person ‘to think.’ And that the study of philosophy was a pursuit of knowledge, though both can be done outside the realm of philosophy.

The following look at a few select quotes from the first chapter of that book, will hopefully bring God’s answers for those struggling with questions and wonder where they can go for answers.

#1. The question ‘What is philosophy?’ is unfortunately one of the most controversial…and one which the majority of philosophers still debate today, without finding common ground. (pg. 1)

In other words, there is no real answer as every philosopher has their own opinion of what philosophy really is. If the question is ‘controversial’ then it is only amongst philosophers and it is not a question debated by the average person or even the non-philosophical professionals.

The lack of ‘common ground’ also tells us that there is no clarity in that field and no unchanging framework to guide those who want to ‘philosophize’. One of the ‘guiding’ rules I was given by my professor in my Christian Theism class went like this: You cannot assume the definition of the words used by the philosopher are the same as the definitions you know. Philosophers choose their own words and use them in their own manner.

That is the gist of what was told us and basically all he was saying was, we had to guess at the definition because the philosophers we were studying were long dead and no one could ask them what definition they meant when they penned their words. So basically what our professor was telling the class was, philosophical works are very subjective and depended upon the reader and how they ‘felt’ the philosopher meant his words.

Not very good for understanding what the philosopher was actually saying.

#2. Think about this word- ‘salvation’. I will show how religions have attempted to take charge of the questions it raises. Because the simplest way of starting to define philosophy is always by putting it in relation to religion. (pg. 3)

He will show us? Hmmm… a little arrogant since the word ‘salvation’ doesn’t belong to philosophy or philosophers. Religions , and I am being general here and not specific to Christianity, offer a way out for people who are lost in unbelief. Philosophy has nothing to offer anyone thus the word ‘salvation’ is misplaced here by Dr. Ferry.

Philosophies differ between philosophers and they are no better than the myriad of false religions who compete for adherents. They are all human constructs based upon human ideas created by humans who reject the Bible and Jesus. Doesn’t matter if it is philosophy or false religions each variation are the same and they have one common aspect–they do not like God or what he says–especially about repenting from sin.

The very starting point Dr. Ferry wants to use casts the light that demonstrates how philosophy fails in providing an alternative to God and his way of salvation.

#3.  Which is where philosophy comes in. Death is not as simple an event as it is ordinarily credited with being. It cannot be merely written off as ‘the end of life.’ (pg. 4)

Philosophy doesn’t illuminate any new aspect of death. It merely debates it and the subject of what happens after it occurs. No Christian has ever said that ‘death is the end of life’, for we preach eternal life for both believers and unbelievers. The former going to heaven and the latter to hell.

Life after death, also, didn’t originate with the secular philosophers as David in the Psalms spoke of it:

The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. (9:17 NASB)

Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them. (55:5 NASB)

For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. (86:13 NASB)

No person needs philosophy to learn about death or that there is more to it than ‘an end of life’. The Bible has been doing teaching about it for thousands of years.

#4. Unable to bring himself to believe in a God, who offers salvation, the philosopher is above all one who believes that by understanding the world, by understanding ourselves, and others as far our intelligence permits, we shall succeed in overcoming fear,, through clear-sightedness rather than blind faith. (pg. 6)

Here we start to get a clear picture of what philosophy attempts to do. That whole sentence can be reduced to a simple–‘philosophy uses rational thought instead of faith’ to get its point across. It is a thinly disguised attack on Christianity and God’s requirements for salvation.

The quote is telling us that the unbelieving philosopher, who is deceived and blind,  is able to determine how to overcome fear even though they have nothing to offer anyone and no answer to give those who do fear. Their philosophizing doesn’t remove death from taking place and it does not remove the fear of death many possess.

The very God they reject does offer a relief from that fear and it is quite simple and easy to understand:

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. (1 John 4:18 NASB)

The person who loves God does not need to fear death at all for they know that death i snot going to stop them from being with God and eternal life in heaven. Death. for right now, is the only way for the believer to be with God and that is a joyous thought, not a fearful one.

#5. For a dogmatic theologian, philosophy is the devil’s own work, because by inciting man to turn aside from his faith, to exercise his reason and give rein to his enquiring spirit, philosophy draws him imperceptibly into the realm of doubt, which is the first step beyond divine supervision. (pg. 9)

Dr. Ferry errs in his assessment of the believer. He assumes, along with every other unbeliever, that the religious, especially the Christian, does not have an enquiring spirit nor exercises reason.

It takes a lot of reason to follow Christ and it takes a very strong enquiring spirit to find out what one must do to live that new life correctly. One cannot doubt Christ or the Bible for doubt is unbelief and if one does not belief, then they do not have faith. Without faith we cannot please God and on it goes.

Dr. Ferry thinks that being without divine supervision is a good thing but without the holy Spirit we cannot understand what the Bible says or even know what we are to do in our lives as believers. We need divine guidance or we are just simply the blind stumbling around in the dark with no idea which direction to go in and which direction is the correct one.

Thus Dr. Ferry wants to bring the believer down to his level and entrap them in the blindness the believer escaped from by their decision to repent of sin and believe in Jesus. Peter speaks on this in his second epistle:

¹⁸ For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, ¹⁹ promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. ²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. (2 Peter 2 NASB)

#6. All philosophies, however divergent they may sometimes be in the answers they bring, promise us an escape from primitive fears. (pg. 10)

No they do not do that and you can re-read the passage from 2 Peter again to see this. Philosophy brings no escape from fear because it offers people no alternative. If one follows philosophy, they have no God waiting for them, no heaven to reside in and no hope. Philosophy just offers the same things that atheists and evolutionist offer–not one thing.

They remove God from the picture and all he offers leaving the world with empty promises and words.

#7. For two crucial reasons, which lie at the heart of all philosophy. First, and foremost, because the promise of religions…is too good to be true. (pg.11)

That is a very weak reason to disbelieve God and the Bible. Maybe cults and false religions and their promises are too good to be true but God’s aren’t. God’s promises require us to live as he commands which means that we will have to endure persecution and that is not too good to be true.

#8. And if religion calms anguish by making death an illusion, it risks doing so at the price of freedom of thought. (pgs. 11-12)

First, Christianity and other religions do not make death an ‘illusion’. Christianity keeps death very real and something the believer cannot avoid.  Second, we now see one of the real reasons why philosophers like philosophy–they do not want their thoughts restricted. They want to think sinful ideas and in sinful ways which is quite contrary to biblical teaching:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (Phil. 4:8 KJV)

So in other words, philosophers reject God’s way of thinking simply because the philosopher wants to do things his or her own way.

#9. The first task of philosophy is that of theory, an attempt to get a sense of the world in which we live….Any philosophy therefore takes as its starting point the natural sciences which reveal the nature of the universe…(pg. 14)

So philosophy starts with the secular and goes from there. The philosopher follows the blind secular world in hopes of producing answers to questions that the Bible already answers. Philosophy is simply the same blind secular thinking we find in evolution and atheism and other natural sciences that do not look to God for help. It is just put in a different dress.

So to answer the question, what is philosophy?, we can say that philosophy is false teaching created by false teachers who have rejected the only source of truth and seeks to find their own answer to the questions that plague mankind.

This is why God warned his followers not get caught up in philosophy because there is no truth nor anything of God in its realm. Dr. Ferry ends the chapter with the following words:

#10. You must understand that philosophy is an art not of questions but rather of answers…this being a crucial promise of philosophy, because it is not religion,because it is not answerable to the truth of an Other…(pg. 16)

He is wrong of course as you can see that Dr. Ferry and possibly all philosophers have set their ‘science’ up to be above God and greater than he. It is as arrogant as evolutionists and evolution as philosophers claim that the answers to life lie outside of God and the Bible.

What we also can see is that philosophers do not want to humble themselves to God and follow his teachings. They want their own way, their own reality and their own answers and that is a recipe for disaster.

What do Christians do? They are allowed to think as long as they follow God’s rules and use their intellectual prowess to discover and expose the false teachings of philosophers and other unbelievers in order to help the other members of the body of Christ to avoid the dangerous and enticing words of those who do not want God.

Follow God and his word as you think in order to not be led astray as well. Look for God’s guidelines and implement them in your thinking to protect yourselves as you explore the cunning unbelievers’ words that may damage yours and other believers souls and their chance at eternal life with God.