Category: Philosophy

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EMBRACING DIVISION

If you’re interested in truth you belong to a rare breed in today’s world. In fact, truth is so out of style that a large number of individuals and organizations are intentionally working at avoiding it, and in preventing you from finding it…

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Who checks the so-called “fact checkers”? Where did they get their diplomas in absolute truth and neutrality? The answer is that they didn’t: the claim of neutrality is itself a lie, a deception. Even judges are making rulings according to their political and social biases. The Supreme and only Judge will one day call them to account. So-called “news” media and social media corporations are intentionally working hard to influence and sway millions of people-entire nations, both here in the US, and in my country of origin, the United Kingdom, and doubtless around the world.

The expressed desire of some that we should “all just get along” is, unfortunately, redundant, because “getting along”, and “uniting”, and “coming together” has to be done under their political, religious and social viewpoints and moral standards. There’s no more genuine debate to find genuine middle ground or to find the best way. There’s no more desire to go half way, or to compromise, or to come to an understanding of truth: we are all, whether we ever wished to be or not, of necessity taking sides.

This taking of sides was an unavoidable outcome of events which have transpired particularly in recent years. When you are publicly shamed or fired from your job because of a view you have, the concept of freedom is severely under assault. The time has come to either fold and go along with the pagan crown and the tide of godless secularism, or to take a stand and say, “No more”. If your nation is just about to be sold out to globalism and Marxism, the time has come to either give it up to the revolution, or to take a stand and do something to stop it while there’s still anything to be done.

And in the Christian world this division is also taking place. Pardon my duality, but to shrink the entire issue to nutshell size, on the one hand we have those who believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, and on the other side, those who don’t. Behind all of what is taking place in politics and in society and in the church is the choosing of sides: do we want to live according to our Creators standards, or do we want to rebel and go our own way? People in the Christian world who have cut themselves adrift of the finality of scripture are really throwing in their lot with the political and social rebellion. To support my assertion, we can go to Scripture itself. If you profess to have faith but that idea offends you, be aware that you may really be travelling or at least loitering on that broad road which ultimately leads to destruction.

Of course, if the Bible is not your ultimate guide; if your favorite super-wealthy minister has got it more correct than God did; if your guide is your belly or your favorite activist or your sexual proclivities, what I have to say here will mean nothing to you. For the rest of us-those on the narrow road which alone leads to Life, be aware that Jesus Christ said this:

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10:34).

Read the rest of that chapter and there can be no mistake: the world of people is not going to all get along, and there will be no peace until He returns. More than that, it’s God’s intention that the world of men be divided. Some professing Christians deny this fact. They are among those who reject the truth of scripture, except to use parts of it to promote their own ideas. The entire concept of the final judgment is as stark a reminder as can be that there are saints, and there are aints, and there is nothing in between. There is a heaven and there is a hell, and there’s no neutral part of the universe-God’s universe- where the agnostics and the uncommitted and the rebellious can retire to. There is no middle ground. There is no “salvation for all” from the wrath of a holy, almighty God apart from Jesus. There will be no world-wide revival and turning to God as some Charismatics claim, according to the testimony of scripture concerning last day things. Instead there will be a “falling away”, or “rebellion” (2 Thessalonians 2:3). And God himself has called us out of the world marching to destruction:

“Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins have piled up to heaven…” (Revelation 18:4).

 

 

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INFINITE SCIENCE: INFINITE GOD

MAY 2012 to JULY 2013 158

A couple of hundred years ago the atom was thought to be like a tiny ping-pong ball. In 1911 Rutherford’s experiments led to the realization that the atom is made of even smaller component parts. Now we know that those component parts are so small, particularly the electrons, that each atom is almost entirely space alone: it is held together only by electrical forces. If not for these forces, we would fall through our chair (which couldn’t exist anyway) and into the core of the earth (which also could not exist).

Over the past fifty years scientists found that atomic particles are in turn made of even smaller particles named “quarks”, and in modern “String” theory, it is believed that those particles are not really little lumps of solid matter-they consist of loops of energy which pose as different particles depending on how they are vibrating. However, strings haven’t yet been observed, because, it is believed, they are up to a billion billion times smaller than the atom itself. So if strings really are the basic building blocks of matter, the structure of the atom is even more empty than was thought before strings came along. The study of quantum physics-the behavior of the tiniest particles up to molecule size- has produced such seemingly illogical and fantastical results, dumbfounding the most brilliant scientists, that the nature of reality, even in the twenty-first century, presents numerous profound mysteries to boggle the mind.

One human body consists of roughly forty to a hundred trillion cells. In numbers, that’s 100,000,000,000,000. Each one of those cells, consisting of one hundred trillion atoms,  is staggeringly complex, containing and employing for its survival and maintenance more machines than all of the factories of the industrial world combined. And of course DNA is almost beyond our imagining, being the blue-print for making me and you, and present in every single cell. Yes indeed, we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

I’ve documented before, from the mouths of top secular scientists and professors, that there is no evidence we can observe of how life arose from non-life by evolution. I’ve shared that there is no fossil evidence confirming the belief that the biological cell which facilitates photosynthesis-and so plant life-evolved from the proposed marriage of a bacteria and inorganic molecule. Intelligent Design proponents are brilliantly demonstrating that information can only come from information-not randomness. The vast volume of information required to make the simplest so-called “simple” cell easily discounts the notion that life came from non-life by chance.

I’ve heard from the mouths of secular scientists that they are mystified as to why so many of the constants of nature are the way they are-for example, the strength of electromagnetic force, and the mass of the electron in relation to protons and neutrons. If any one of dozens of these constants were just a little bit different, they say, stars could not exist, planets could not exist, and we could not exist.

Move the moon away from the earth just a little, and our oceans would die and so would we. Move it a little closer, and the tides would overflow the continents. Take it away and there would be no tides to preserve life on earth. Remove the electro-magnetic field around the earth and all our water would be blasted away by the fierce solar wind.

I have personally seen nothing evolve-have you? In answer to this question the uninformed go to the observance of supposed bacterial evolution, not considering that what they are left with is bacteria: just what they started with. It simply adapted to its environment. The potential for such adaptation was built into life, so that the potential variety of each kind of life is enormous. But bacteria remains bacteria, horses remain horses, pigs remain pigs and roses remain roses. That’s the way it’s meant to be.

There are so many impossible, incredible facts about the make-up of life and the universe that were scientists to have another thousand years of freedom to study it, we probably could not come to the bottom of it all.

So I for one am not being swayed by any atheist or agnostic away from my faith in an amazing Creator. Science and God are not antonyms: they are synonymous. God is The Scientist and Mathematician. But more than that, I see from my own limited understanding of the universe around me that God must indeed be infinite. His power is limitless, as is His intelligence, His beauty, His glory, His character, and His imagination. He has to be eternal. He has to transcend all of the physical universe and the unseen world also. He has to be greater than the universe itself. He must possess information even beyond what we observe in nature, along with the ability to process it.

If, or since, God is so great, He is also able to pass to us a simple but profound message, though we already have one written within nature itself, and within our own being. That message is called the Bible, and the first verse of the Bible says this:

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”.

Glory to God for ever and ever!

 

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The “F” in England

Searching the web last night for current British comedy I came at last upon someone who was very funny…for the first forty-five seconds…when the “f” words began to fly.

Just a word, you say? Is it really “just a word” which can be accepted as readily as any other word, and “everyone uses it anyway?” That’s an odd view, because if you just try using the word “sin” in England (or the US) a barrage of scorn will come your way: How could you be so offensive and so arrogant? Society has become upended, without much of a fight from anyone.

Try using words like “Jesus saves”, and all kinds of accusations will fall upon you. But after all, they are only words…right? To be sure, the “f” word and many others have been street and gutter language for as long as the language has existed (around six hundred years). But in the land which once produced some of the greatest literature, the “f” word is now king of expression.

Where do we go next? How do we express ourselves to any greater degree now that the “f” word is commonplace? If your most powerful linguistic weapon of expression is in perpetual use, and your vocabulary has decayed to its lowest common denominator, how are you verbally going to make your feelings known in any stronger, let alone eloquent way? How frustrating that question must be in the minds of the Effers.

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Sanity In An Insane World

Does it ever seem to you that the world has gone crazy? Here’s the antidote to insanity…

I spent the first part of my life trying to escape reality in many ways, most notably and notoriously through alcohol and drugs. To me the world was an ugly, lonely, dark and boring place, and every opportunity I had to ignore it and turn in on myself and my own personal world I took. I would sleep until twelve or one or two. I would avoid work as much as possible, and I would avoid people who had their feet planted firmly in the real world.

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Decades later I can see why I was that way, because, without doubt, the world of humanity really can be for many people lonely, frustrating, hurtful, harmful and even disgusting. But now I sometimes feel like I’m one of the only people attempting to see the world as it really is. Escapism rules, in many forms.

However, what’s far worse than widespread escapism is that the Western world has largely cut itself off from its moral and spiritual roots, so that what was once unthinkable has become acceptable or at least up for serious discussion. Our world has embraced immorality-even to the point of infanticide and giving children sex changes-and a potent mixture of voluntary spiritual confusion. Logic is also “out the window”, so that a majority are happy to believe that we evolved from soup, even though, as I’ve documented before, the evolutionist can show you no evidence whatsoever for that idea. I suppose you could call it paganism run amok, and political correctness defends and champions paganism in any form your little heart may desire: anything which dismantles traditional values and commonly-held truths and standards.

The result of rejecting the truths our Creator established can only be error: confusion, faulty living, mistakes, blunders, disasters, and a battle for the supremacy of ideas.

Unfortunately, the problem of the rejection of truth and so the rejection of sanity and peace extends into a large part of the professing Christian Church. And here is the nub of the problem. If those “leading” the church fall into the ditch, will not the church fall into the ditch with them? At least, those who don’t think for themselves will.

The rejection of our founding beliefs and truths is actually an attack on the Church of Jesus Christ, and therefore a spiritual attack. When a minister promotes his own views or those of others above what the Bible tells us, or even if he just ignores Scripture as being irrelevant or “elastic”, he is in fact denying the Faith once delivered to the saints. He’s leading his flock into confusion, insanity, and paganism.

Our hope in eternal life is built on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and on what he taught. If it isn’t truth, then we’re all adrift on an ocean of uncertainty and confusing and conflicting ideas. But what does scripture claim? It claims that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). So when your minister or your church or you yourself deny or ignore that claim, you may as well throw out your hope in eternal life, and in the forgiveness of your sins. If some of it is wrong, all of it is wrong, because it consistently confirms itself. If it’s wrong it has become just someone’s opinion as to how to be raised from certain death, and how to be accepted by whatever or whoever is beyond it, if there is anyone or anything beyond it.

Jesus Christ, according to the apostle John, said “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). If you don’t want to accept that statement as being factual, you’re calling John and Jesus Christ liars, and you’re flushing away any certainty of eternal life. Not only that, but you’re also flushing away the teaching of Scripture as to what is right or wrong. Truth is then up for grabs, for anyone who can win elections and force their views of right or wrong on everyone else. Man has then become the measure of all things, as Protagoras claimed, and you are at the mercy of whoever gains the upper hand, whether it be by force, trickery, lies, semantics, abuse, flattery or bribery.

Jesus Christ, in the synoptic gospels, quoted Old Testament Scripture and declared it to be the Word of God, to be obeyed above any other alternative (Matthew 4:4). Denying Old Testament truths such as Creation ex-nihilo is to deny God and to call the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit liars and incapable of speaking truth. You’re on very shaky ground if that’s your view. In fact, cutting yourself off from the foundations of the free world, as imperfect as it is, can only lead ultimately to either virtual insanity or tyranny, or both. Atheists argue that they can be as rational and moral as any religious person, and so they can, but only because they have the benefit of being raised in the afterglow of a society based loosely on the principles of God. A multitude of alternative societies in the past and the present holds the value of life and liberty in contempt.

Some of God’s actions as recorded in the Bible were confirmed by Him with an oath. “God did this so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure (Hebrews 6:18-19).

Would you rather live life and approach death and eternity embracing those promises, in which case you have nothing to lose and everything to gain: or rejecting them? In the latter case, you have everything to lose. Have faith in God, and in His Word.

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MEDITATION FOR THE CHRISTIAN

Millions of people around the world meditate-why don’t Christians? My guess is that, apart from the sheer business of our existence, many Christians consider meditation to be an occultic, suspicious practice reserved for those wrapped up in Eastern religions: something the good Christian should steer well away from.

The truth is that meditation is something we can and most definitely should engage in, with great benefits to our physical, mental and spiritual well-being, and at the same time honoring God and doing exactly what He wants us to do! But what exactly is meditation?David, a “man after God’s own heart”, wrote in the Psalms about meditating on God (example Psalm 63). The word “meditate” is translated “think” in the NIV:

On my bed I remember you;
    I think of you through the watches of the night (verse 6).

The meaning of the word includes, according to Strongs, “The act of thoughtful deliberation with the implication of speaking to oneself-meditate”.

Jesus Christ said that we are to love God with our whole being, including our minds (Luke 10:27). God tells his people to “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10).

We’re all busy trying to further our lives, and working to make things happen, and we forget that Christ…God…is not only in our life but is our life (Colossians 3:4). Without our God there is no life. Isn’t it a good idea, then, to think about Him?

In Eastern meditation the goal is generally (I confess I am no expert) to lose oneself, and to abandon your individual self and your connection with the world around you. I can see physical and emotional benefit in this. However, God instructs us to love Him with our minds, and as in the case of David, the goal and the focus is not to forget self, but to seek God, to know Him, and to consider deeply who and what He is and who we are in relation to Him.

At least once a day, get comfortable, get quiet, turn the TV and the phone off, and think about God. It’s not about what we want Him to do for us (although He cares). It’s not about us being “spiritual” or babbling to Him. It’s not even really, as some say, about us “listening” to hear what God has to say, except through His written Word. It’s about us knowing that He is there, that He is amazing beyond our comprehension, that He is our creator and sustainer, and that our life is entirely His.