Archive for March, 2009

Does the Bible Really Contradict Everything?

Monday, March 30th, 2009

Deepak Chopra was arguing his position during the recent “Does Satan Exist?” debate, when he said, “The Bible is in total contradiction with everything that we know about cosmology, evolution, biology, mathematics, physics, and about everything that allows us to understand who we are.  Let’s consider just a few historical facts in the Bible-Science debate that would seem to prove Chopra wrong: 

 – Science has shown the benefits of the dietary laws in Leviticus 11. 

 – On many occasions, science has claimed that the Bible was in error on certain points, only to have history and archaeology demonstrate just how accurate the Bible’s truths are. 

 – Job 26:7 reveals God’s omnipotence in His knowledge of the earth being suspended in space.

 – Albert Einstein once said, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” 

 – Sir Isaac Newton (physicist, mathematician, and astronomer, who was one of the most influential men in human history) said, “Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done.”

It would appear that Chopra’s confusion is a result of his ignorance, not only about science, but also about the very book about which he a self-proclaimed expert.

Is Belief Just a Cover-Up For Insecurity?

Monday, March 30th, 2009

During the recent “Does Satan Exist?” debate, I heard Deepak Chopra say, “Belief is a cover-up for insecurity.”  This also reminded me that Jessie Ventura once said that only weak people need religion.  Should believers be offended by such remarks? 

Well, such comments are intended to offend us, but I think that the appropriate response is to closely examine what these men are saying.  Could the Christian faith really be for people who are weak and insecurity?  Doesn’t sin cause us to be insecure?  Don’t we fear that sin could cause us to be eternally separated from God?  Aren’t we insecure, weak, and helpless to fix this problem ourselves?  We know from the book of Romans that God exists, and that we need Christ the savior to intervene for us. 

Also, isn’t the Christian faith all about humility?  Before we can even become Christians, we have to humble ourselves, acknowledging that we’re incapable of fixing the problem of sin.  It’s easy for us to concede that we’re not as strong or as secure as God the Father, or Jesus the Son.  It’s even easy for us to admit that we’re not as strong as Jessie Ventura thinks he is, or as secure as Deepak Chopra thinks he is.  I submit that it’s Chopra’s own insecurity that causes him to make the kind of statements that he does.  We should acknowledge our insecurity, and thank God for our weakness, because it’s these kind of humbling traits that allow us to be drawn to Christ.  We should simply pray that those like Chopra and Ventura will acknowledge their insecurities and turn to Christ as well. 

The Collapse of Evangelicalism?

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

There have been numerous articles in the Christian media recently that have predicted the coming collapse of the evangelical movement. I think that this is a real possibility. As a society, we seem to be becoming quite soft in our virtues and morality; and, as evangelicals, we seem to be less willing to stand up for our values. There are just fewer people who are willing to talk about Christ, and witness about their faith. In Matthew 10:32, Jesus said, “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.”

Science vs. the Bible

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

The Gap Theory suggests that the six-day creation in Genesis was actually a re-creation of a previously created earth. Could we reconcile what science (fossils, rock layers, radiometric dating, etc.) tells us about the age of the earth and evolution, with a literal interpretation of the “days” in Genesis 1 as being six 24-hour days as shown below?

– 14 billion years ago (bya) – God created the universe (a big bang?).
– 4.6 bya – God created a perfect earth.
– 3 bya – God created an oxygen-rich atmosphere.
– 475 million years ago (mya) – God created plants.
– 400 mya – God created insects (by evolution?).
– 300 mya – God created amphibians and reptiles.
– 200 mya – God created mammals (dinosaurs?).
– 150 mya – God created birds.
– 2 mya – God created anthropoids–primates (primitive man?).

At some point in the last 2 million years, Satan rebelled against God, and God cast him and his angels out of Heaven and they inhabited the earth (Revelation 12:7-9).

Satan and his angels sinned and ruined the earth.  In anger, God removed light from the earth, the Ice Age ensued, and the prehistoric animals and primitive men died (Jeremiah 4:23-29).  This is the scene in Genesis 1:2–“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”  (“The earth was formless and void” (Genesis 1:2) can be translated, “The earth became formless and void.”)  Also, Isaiah 45:18 says: “For this is what the LORD says–He who created the heavens, he is God; He who fashioned and made the earth, He founded it; He did not create it to be empty, but formed it to be inhabited–He says: ‘I am the LORD, and there is no other.'”

About 4000 B.C., God recreated the earth in six 24-hour days:
— Day 1  Light
— Day 2  Sky (Atmosphere?)
— Day 3  Plants and Seeds
— Day 4  Sun and Moon, and the rotation of the earth
— Day 5  Sea Animals and Birds
— Day 6  Land Animals and Man
— Day 7  Rest

By this thinking, our discoveries of prehistoric men are those primitive men who lived on the earth before Satan ruined it, and before it was re-created. Perhaps the intelligence of the man and woman (Adam and Eve) created later was in contrast to the primitive men who had evolved from lower cell forms.

Here’s another possible way to reconcile evolution with creation: www.christiandataresources.com/uniquecreationtheory.

Worse than Earmarks

Monday, March 9th, 2009

I found an item in the federal budget that’s even worse than earmarks and pork-barrel spending. It’s the $91,000,000,000.00 spent each year for pensions and medical benefits for retired federal government employees. Government employees do deserve retirement benefits just as much as employees in the private sector, but this line item is disturbing on several levels:

– It’s hidden. After hours of reading reports about President Obama’s proposed federal budget for 2010, I finally discovered that it’s one of those items, like Social Security, that’s either “off-budget” or a “mandated program.” Apparently, this means that it’s not included in the President’s budget proposal, because it’s just assumed that we’re going to spend the money for this item (due to laws from previous years, etc.). So, although the budget is some $3.6T, the sum of all of the items in the President’s budget is only about $1.9T. The difference (almost half of the budget) is made up of all of these other off-budget and/or mandated items, and our federal government seems to intentionally make it difficult to find and isolate these items in the budget. After a few hours of digging, most people just give up trying to reconcile all of the spending.

– The sheer size of this item reflects what’s wrong with government philosophy. If we’re spending $91B just on pensions and benefits for retired federal employees, then we have way too many federal employees. This reflects the monstrosity of the federal government. Our (off-budget) spending for Social Security is some $700B, so for every $7 in Social Security benefits for retirees from the private sector, we’re spending about $1 in pensions and benefits for retirees from the federal government. This is aside from the salaries and benefits for the millions of current federal employees.

For more on the biblical (and constitutional) role of government, please see: www.christiandataresources.com/government.htm.

Reconciling Evolution with Creation

Monday, March 9th, 2009

I’ve always leaned toward a literal interpretation of the Biblical story of creation in Genesis 1 – 3, taking a Young Earth Creation (YEC) view.  However, I’ve also been influenced by what science has revealed, including the Old Earth Creation (OEC) view, as well as Francis Collins’ Theistic Evolution view.  In the past century, scientists have finally settled on a general consensus of the age of the universe (about 14 billion years old), and the age of the earth (about 4.6 billion years old), with only small margins of error.  Also, to scientists, the evidence for evolution is so strong and apparent, that many are now referring to evolution as a fact.  However, they do agree that the process of evolution is still unexplained, although they offer certain theories for this.

It occurs to me that many intelligent scientists feel as strongly about evolution as many intelligent Christians do about their interpretation of the Biblical account of creation.  This causes me to consider various possibilities for the reconciliation of these varying views of creation.  Here’s one way to possibly reconcile evolution with creation: www.christiandataresources.com/uniquecreationtheory.