The Warfare Is Mental

The Time Is Short

October 17, 2012

Lately I’ve used the phrase “The time is short” on a few occasions. Crude asks:

…what prompted this? You seem to have had a drastic change in tone recently. Now, if you meant “time is short” in the sense that I can get hit by a car tomorrow, certainly I understand. I don’t think I’m deluded at all, but I do understand the importance of taking this seriously. But I’m getting the impression off you that “time is short” means, “you suddenly think the world is ending within a certain frame of time.” You certainly didn’t have this attitude last week.

It is true that “the time is short” can be applied in the first sense. Even without getting hit by a car, life goes fast. That’s not the meaning impressed on my heart. Please note, though prompted by Crude, this is not written directly to Crude. I don’t know where others stand. It is for each of us to decide whether this applies or not. It is a message for all who have ears.

Fulfilling The Prophecies

October 16, 2012

From Yahoo news, 6 Ways Social Security Will Change In 2013:

Paper checks will end. The U.S. Treasury will stop mailing paper checks to Social Security beneficiaries on March 1, 2013. All federal benefit recipients must then receive their payments via direct deposit to a bank or credit union account or loaded onto a Direct Express Debit MasterCard. Retirees who do not choose an electronic payment option by March 1 will receive their payments loaded onto a pre-paid debit card. Most people already receive their benefit payments electronically, and new Social Security recipients have been required to choose an electronic payment option since 2011.

He who has ears, let him hear!

Hitler Was Anti-YHWH

October 14, 2012

For some, the message of today’s short post doesn’t need restating. I apologize for wasting their time. However, I’m always amused when people trot out the “Hitler was a Christian,” or “Hitler was a Catholic” tropes. These are just as inaccurate as the “Hitler was an atheist” trope. Such canned statements show ignorance of history and naïveté in general. It behooves any powerful leader to pander to the religious ebb and flow of his day. Constantine did it, and the Roman Catholic Church was the result. Remember the photos of Bush 43 donning a Kipa and praying at the Wall? Hitler used religion. He tried to destroy mainstream churches. Jews weren’t the only ones consigned to concentration camps: priests, nuns and Jehovah’s Witness were, too. Hitler youth were indoctrinated in blasphemy from the ground up. Consider the following “children of Hitler” chant from the 1934 Nuremburg Party rally:

No evil priest can prevent us from feeling that we are the children of Hitler. We follow not Christ but Horst Wessel. Away with incense and holy water. The church can go hang for all we care. The swastika brings salvation on Earth. (Grunberger, The 12-Year Reich, p.442)

There was a Nazi rendition of “Silent Night” that was mandatory in state-run orphanages. The Nazis also had their own marriage and baptismal rites. This was anti-YHWH pagan occultism, plain and simple. Next time you hear somebody trot out the tropes, educate them.

The Atheist’s Built-In Assumption

October 13, 2012

Kwon Mega inquires,

Wondering if you saw Is The Christian Evolutionist An Oxymoron?, by Bruce Charlton, and your thoughts on the matter.

We recently touched on this at Dangerous Idea. The answer depends on what one means by “evolution.”

Question #7: No Evidence For A Global Flood?

October 10, 2012

Though partly tongue-in-cheek and meant to convey a humorous little insight I occasionally chuckle at, there is an element of seriousness behind today’s question. Simply put: if water covers over 70% of Earth’s surface to this day, what are we to make of the skeptic’s demand for “evidence” of a worldwide deluge? I can’t help but return to the humorous proposition implied in Asteroids, Cathode Rays and Requisite Knowledge, wherein a skeptic standing in Tin Bider mocks Aristotle’s hypothetical claim about “huge, flying rocks in space.”

Digital Homology

October 9, 2012

I’ve always thought of the “evolution / creation” thing in programming terms. When I write a program, then desire to write another program, I often invoke code from the first to create the second. It’s an efficient process, and I would expect God to operate efficiently. If you view the source code of the websites I’ve created over the years, you’ll notice recurring code snippets, a sort of “digital homology” if you will. Does the fact of code re-usage—analogous to Darwin’s homologous resemblance—necessarily entail the conclusion that one website “randomly mutated” into the others? Of course not. Rather, the fact of re-usage is precisely what we would expect from a supra-intelligent Creator creating with respect for efficiency. Though there is a fact of the matter one way or the other, what we believe WRT evolution is all in the color of our lenses. Evolutionists typically view the evidence through atheist-colored glasses, then attempt to usurp the evidence as supportive exclusively of their preferred metaphysical conclusion. But that’s not right. In the words of that great character, Sherlock Holmes:

Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing… It may seem to point very straight to one thing, but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something entirely different… There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.

Question #6: Why Do You Believe In Evolution?

First allow me to clarify: I’m not asking why you believe that ill-suited organisms tend to die off, leaving better-suited organisms to survive. I’m not asking why you believe in homologous resemblance across species or kingdom. I’m not asking why you believe in variations of alleles. I’m asking—well, I’m asking three questions, actually—and the first one is: in your own words, why do you believe that all of biology is the result of unguided anagesis and/or cladogenesis operating over billions of years? The latter is what I refer to when I use the phrase, “conventional evolutionary narrative.” The second question is: in your own words, what are the strongest challenges to the conventional evolutionary narrative? The third question is: what would it take to make you lose faith in the conventional evolutionary narrative?

Why You Should Be Skeptical Of John W. Loftus (Index)

October 5, 2012

1. Why You Should Be Skeptical Of John W. Loftus

2. Inconsistency & Personal Attacks

3. Egregious Special Pleading

4. False Claims

Why Was Man Such A Rare Creature?

October 2, 2012

I came across a copy of Jim Marrs’ Rule By Secrecy the other day. Towards the end of the book, the author makes passing reference to an interesting question that may or may not have implications for the conventional evolutionary narrative. Since I’m neither an “evolutionist” or “YEC”, don’t interpret this as an attack on the former or an endorsement of the latter. When it comes to the evolution vs. creation debate, the only thing I hold to is that God created. I don’t know how, or how long it took—and unlike the staunch supporters on either side, I won’t pretend to know. That said, Marrs writes:

The National Academies? Or Gnu Atheists? Who Do You Trust?

September 28, 2012

As is often the case when challenging their sacred dogmas, I’ve been battling an entire gaggle of Gnu atheists, led by Richard Wade over at Hemant Mehta’s blog. It all began when Wade left the following comment that, to me, perfectly articulates the central pillar of Gnu atheism. When I challenged Wade’s assertion that there is “no evidence” for God and asked him to define “evidence” for me, he said:

← Newer Posts | Older Posts →