Tag: Beliefs

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Why Creation Science Fails

This must seem a strange title for an article on a creationist website. However, the issue here is not with the science, which is ever more strongly behind the existence of an intelligent Creator and a recent Creation, but with other factors that have far more impact on popular thinking. (If you are not convinced that evolution is fake science, please spend some time studying the science links in the Menu. Also two introductory articles on this site – see end of article.) There are at least five powerful reasons why Creation Science fails and will continue to do so.

1 The media consistently portrays evolution as an established scientific fact supported by ever-increasing amounts of “evidence”. If you were to watch TV solidly for ten years you would be exposed to thousands of positive references to evolution, but would probably not see even one fair reference to Creation.

2 The education system also teaches evolution as fact, which impacts children especially in the High School years. Only a tiny handful of pupils escape this through homeschooling or whatever, but even in those cases any creationist understanding they receive rarely survives the buffeting from mainstream evolutionism much beyond their teens.

3 The churches support evolution. Their support is perhaps the greatest asset the evolution promoters have. Intuitively, people feel that if there were even just a scrap of evidence somewhere that evolution were not true, the churches would be shouting it from the rooftops. The fact that one almost never hears churches objecting to evolution provides people with what is entirely lacking in the science: that is, evidence for evolution! The role of the churches in maintaining belief in evolution can never be overstated; the nearest churches ever get to Creation Science is normally Creation Silence.

4 People do not understand science. Even worse than simply not understanding it, they imagine that they do. This is partly because we live in a highly technological society, and people use technology every day. They think using technology makes them “scientific”; but the relationship between science and technology is essentially the same as that between a cow and its milk. You don’t have to understand biology or agriculture to drink milk; and you don’t have to understand science to use the technology it creates. All that most people have is an unfounded, and therefore self-deceiving, belief in their own scientific understanding. Further, when it comes to things like the Periodic Table or the Second Law of Thermodynamics, both of which are absolutely fundamental to any rounded understanding of how the Universe works, most people’s minds are a virtual blank. Further still, when it comes to understanding what does or does not constitute valid scientific evidence, the necessary knowledge, for the vast majority, is completely missing. This is not necessarily their fault; the fault lies primarily with the education system and those who run it. But whatever the reason, the result is that trying to change people’s minds with science is mostly a non-starter. They don’t understand the arguments and cannot retain them.

5 Most people have a deep internal bias in favour of evolution, because the obvious alternative is a Creator God to whom they would naturally owe some responsibility. “The fool says in his heart ‘There is no God’”. And there is no lack of foolishness out there. Whatever powers of reasoning people do actually possess, they don’t want to use them if that may lead to a conclusion they don’t like.

So, in summary, Creation Science faces all the barriers posed by people’s educational conditioning, the illusions spun by the media, the false witness of the churches, people’s lack of comprehension of science, and their unwillingness to accept the truth.

If this analysis does not make the impossibility of success clear, then it is well to consider some of the history. Firstly, Darwin’s famous book, “The Origin of Species”, is mainly a set of excuses for, and acknowledgements of, the lack of evidence for his theory. The fact that it was so rapidly adopted is proof that it has a perverse following wind, more accurately perhaps a following gale; something that Creation Science spectacularly lacks. That lack of any following wind for Creation is demonstrated by the fact that the Evolution Protest Movement, set up in the 1930’s, and presided over by none other than Sir Ambrose Fleming, the Father of modern electronics, made no progress. Also, it is now almost sixty years since the publication of Whitcomb and Morris’s tome “The Genesis Flood”. This book was and is scientifically streets ahead of Darwin’s convoluted reasoning; and every single church leader, every bible college lecturer, every allegedly Christian author active today, has lived his or her entire life of church leadership while that book has been available. Yet most people, be they atheists, churchgoers or anything else, have never even heard of it, or its evidence, or its conclusions. To call this a “lack of progress” would be charitable. It is actually decades of failure, with the same dynamics that caused such a failure still firmly in place today.

This is not a happy conclusion, but it’s the reality, and we are always better off facing the truth than pretending things are otherwise. The only possibility for progress is for Christians who understand Creation to do what they can personally. This means knowing some science themselves, and having some internet references to hand, which may convince a few. And it means using that information to draw people to the Gospel of Christ and a relationship with Him; not using it to draw people into any particular Church, or Calvinism, or Christian Zionism, or anything else. However, even with the best efforts and intentions, given the problems outlined above, any progress will be slow at best.

(Evolution articles on this site are Darwin Exposes Himself, Darwinian Evolution is Bunk and Geology: The Rocks Cry Out. Also see links to many other science sites here.)

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Can You Get to Heaven if You Never Knew About Jesus?

An argument often used against Christianity is that, since Jesus is the only “Name by which men are Saved”, people who never hear about Jesus must go to Hell, and on that basis Christianity is unfair. However, Paul makes clear in Romans the role conscience plays in guiding our behaviour. This is not as great a means of Salvation as that which comes through Jesus, since there is no benefit in this life, only in the next. But it is, never the less, a clear route to Salvation.

The anti-Christian argument put forward on this “Jesus Only” basis misses its mark, apart from the reason given above, because by definition it is put forward by those who have heard about Jesus. What they are doing is citing an alleged injustice against people they do not even know, in order to justify their own rejection of Christ. It is a classic piece of anti-Christian rhetoric based on ignorance of the Bible.

Just to be clear, there is no justification in this for following conscience rather than Jesus. The conscience route exists for people with no knowledge of Jesus. Those who know about Jesus but reject Him in favour of their own conscience are making a fatal error.

See also Why We Don’t Normally Give Chapter and Verse Bible References.

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Free Will and Predestination: No Contradiction!

The Free Will/Predestination problem has taxed the minds of many, and still does. Frequently a fruitless debate between Calvinism and Arminianism takes place. I believe the answer can be found with a little exercise in thinking through, with the usual caveat that our understanding of God is never perfect because His intelligence and knowledge are so far above our own.

Some key points that must be incorporated into any rational understanding of the supposed dichotomy here are as follows:

1  Men must be accepted as having Free Will, because God is just and cannot possibly punish men for something they have no choice about.

2  The Bible talks about Predestination, so in some sense Predestination must occur.

3  God has foreknowledge.

4  Men have a body and a spirit. The body is locked into time, but the spirit is eternal, unless destroyed in Hell . For the period that we live our spirit is effectively locked into Time because it is locked into our mortal body. When our body dies, the spirit is released.

5  What a man really is, is his spirit. It is the spirit that has Free Will. The body is only so much clothing around the spirit, with no Will, although its natural needs and desires may well prove a temptation for the spirit.

Most of the points above are not controversial, and those that are have at least been debated at times. The next points I wish to raise, however, are rarely considered. Where does a man’s spirit come from? How is it given? When is it made? There is something a little strange here. Considering the general acceptance of a person’s spirit being released back to God when we die, how is it that we never seem to ask how it gets into the body at birth?

From our simple human perspective there are only a limited number of possibilities here. The spirit, which we accept is God-given, may come into the body at conception, or at birth, or perhaps sometime in between, or even shortly after birth. And the spirit might be made at that time, or may have been made earlier. Finally, a particular spirit may come into a particular body by chance, through some sort of celestial lottery, or it may be placed specifically by God into a particular body.

For our purposes here, we need not consider the first point. We can just accept that the spirit enters around the time of conception or birth. Regarding the time when the spirit itself comes into existence, Scripture gives no clear indication. I take the view that it is pre-existing in eternity. This is at the very least a possibility, and fits with the thesis I am presenting here. Regarding the issue of lottery or choice, I opt firmly for the latter, and given all that we know about God I’m sure many will readily accept this is likely the correct choice.

Some other issues need to be discussed before making a synthesis of these points. One is that God gave Dominion over the Earth to Adam and his descendants; this dominion is given in the very first chapter of Genesis. If we acceppt Free Will, which as pointed out at (1) above is scripturally  necessary, God cannot know every detail of what will happen in advance. The idea that God knows everything and nothing happens outside of his Will is false. It should be obvious that a very great many things happen which are outside of his Will, so He is clearly not taking control. If He did, all those bad things we see would  not happen, and God would not be fulfilling his decision or promise in Genesis to give Dominion over the Earth to Man. You can’t give a child the responsibility to walk to school on his own, and also put him on a lead and walk behind him with a big stick, hitting him whenever he departs from your constant and precise instructions. You give responsibility, and the power that goes with it, or you don’t. God gave us both.

In view of the above, it might be asked how anything called Predestination can happen. But consider people born in different places, at different times in history, into different classes or castes. We can see even as mere humans that much of what happens to people is effectively predestined. If we know people half-way through their lives, such that we also know their level of intelligence, their motivations, their particular skills and shortcomings, all in addition to the human and physical environment they live in, we can know with a fair level of accuracy what they will do next year. That does not mean knowing if they will have beans or egg on their toast next Wednesday; it means knowing the general direction of their life. We cannot predict everything, for as the Bible itself says, time and chance happen to all men. But the general progression is normally pretty clear.

Now try to see the same thing, but from God’s viewpoint. He understands far better than us any particular human environment. When He places a spirit in a baby, He already knows the inclinations of that spirit. He can see them far more clearly than we ever can, not only because He is God, but also because He looks upon the spirit He has created before it is clothed in a human body.  There are no outward appearances to deceive him, even if that were possible.  This is His foreknowledge. When he chooses where to place that spirit He knows not only the Human environment it will grow up in; He also knows the parents intimately; He also knows the precise DNA makeup of the new person, which includes whether it will be male or female. There’s a lot of predestination in all of that; yet the spirit, from the moment of its creation, has Free Will, and retains that Free Will throughout its life in a human body. It reacts to the situation it finds itself in according to its inclinations, be they loving or aggressive, rebellious or obedient.

Has your life been predestined? To a large extent it has. God chose where you would live, at what time in history, with which parents, and with what DNA. But within those limits you show your Free Will by the way you respond to the situation God has chosen for you. Free Will and a very significant degree of Predestination are not contradictory.

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Why Does Evolution Stick, When it Stinks?

The title here makes evolution sound like something unwanted that got stuck on your shoe, which is not so far from the truth. But the serious question is this:  why is evolution a core belief – possibly the core belief – of people in the UK, including most church-goers? It’s a little hard to understand when the scientific evidence behind it is so deficient. However, there are reasons for evolution’s capture of the popular imagination, which are discussed in the articles at the end of this post.

For those not clear that evolution is false, we offer three articles on this site and a large number of links to Creation Science resources:

Darwinian Evolution is Bunk

Darwin Exposes Himself!

Geology: The Rocks Really do Cry Out!

Science Page

And reasons why evolution sticks:

Why Creation Science Fails

Evolution Page

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Evangelical Really Means Zionist?

The root of the word “Evangelical” is the Greek euangelion meaning “Good News” or “Gospel“. One’s natural assumption therefore is that people described as Evangelical would have a primary interest in the Gospel: a passionate interest in adhering to it, promoting it, and proclaiming it to the unconverted. The reality is that Evangelicals, particularly in America, have been and continue to be the main proponents of Christian Zionism. Thus we may take note that Evangelicals do not have such a great concern with the Gospel at all. And that when America opened its new Embassy in Jerusalem the media talked about how Trump had strengthened his position “among Evangelicals”. Indeed, even though one of the speakers at the Embassy opening was John Hagee, arguably the World’s leading Christian Zionist, the phrase “Christian Zionism” hardly came through in the press reports.

Since Zionism is inextricably connected with the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple and restoration of animal sacrifice, it stands in complete contradiction to the Sacrifice of Christ that is central to the Gospel. A lack of enthusiasm for the Gospel is therefore to be expected of Christian Zionists; and using the word “Evangelical” to describe them is a piece of linguistic deception even greater than the equivalence attributed to the words “church” and “christian”.

See also Christian Zionism is a Contradiction in Terms.

 

 

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You Don’t Understand God? Of Course You Don’t!

It is sometimes said that God moves in mysterious ways. To us His ways must be, since His intelligence, knowledge and power are as far above ours as our own is above a cat. It is mere pride that makes us think we should understand Him perfectly, and the worst kind of pride and rebellion to use that lack of understanding to reject God or His ways.

Do you really understand how the Big Bang is supposed to eventually create Human Beings? Do you know what Gravity is, rather than merely what it does? Do you know how an electron changes from a particle to wave? Do any of these or other shortages of understanding on your part, cause you to reject mainstream science?

The idea that in the 21st Century there is no more mystery is a fallacy. There is no perfect, logical and complete understanding in any world view, scientific or otherwise. The argument that something is invalid because it falls outside of our perfect comprehension is one that could be used against any belief system. Such an argument fails in every case, since it is equivalent to saying, for example, that computers can’t exist because you don’t know how they work. The fact that this argument is most often used against Christianity is a sign of the times; the thing to know is that it is just as defective when used against Christianity as when used against any other belief.  

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“Church” is a Mistranslation.

People frequently discuss which are the better Bible translations. There is a significant group that holds to the Authorised Version as the best. It may well be, but even the Authorised Version, also known as King James Version or KJV, has a dire mistranslation that almost all other versions have followed.

The issue here is the word “Church”, which is used to translate the Greek word ecclesia. The meanings are not the same. Ecclesia only has the sense of a group of people with a common purpose. It can even refer to a rioting mob. There is no sense of hierarchy, buildings, rituals, connection with state power and the like which are associated strongly with the word “Church”. Significantly, William Tyndale, who burned at the stake for his groundbreaking Bible translation, translated ecclesia as “congregation”, emphasising, particularly in the language of the day, a group of people. But when King Jame’s authorised a translation for use in English Churches the translators were not given a choice about the word “Church”. The King insisted, indeed commanded. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the KJV is that it was a deeply political publication, and can only be called “Authorised” because it was authorised by the King, the Head of State, not by any group of Christians. The saving grace for the KJV is that it was heavily based upon Tyndale’s translation, and Tyndale was not in the game for personal advantage or power. He always knew his life was on the line, and had no interest other than accuracy.

Sometimes in the Greek New Testament ecclesia is clarified as ecclesia theon, meaning “People of God”. The sense here of people who come together in fellowship, because of a common commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, is almost entirely lost in the word “Church” today. But the Churches find it very convenient, to say the least, in maintaining the idea that Christianity and Church are one and the same.

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Westminster Confession of Faith – Violence is Built-in!

I was first alerted to the corrupting nature of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) when planning a series of Church talks on Creation. At some point during the planning I was asked if I accepted the WCF. My reply was that I had never read it, was unlikely to do so due to its length, and took the Bible, which I had read cover to cover, as the ultimate Authority for Christians. I was accused of being a heretic and the Creation talks never took place.

At the time I was unaware of just how long the WCF was. With all the included proof texts, it’s the thick end of one hundred thousand words. The Bible is seven hundred and fifty thousand, so to read the WCF is a significant effort, at least bearing some comparison with reading the Bible itself right through. The difference is that the Bible is the Authority, while the WCF is just one more post-Biblical writing which lacks the Authority of Scripture. Would not reading the Scripture itself be an obviously better use of time? And why would people want to pin their faith on the WCF rather than Scripture?

It gets worse. WCF is a thoroughly Calvinist document, and as explained elsewhere on this site Calvinism is actually blasphemy. See Predestination 101. Further to that, as you will see below, the WCF was written as a legal document, and legal documents need to be read with great care. Even an experienced solicitor would baulk at digesting a legal document of that length. Does anybody really know what they are signing up to when they subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith?

Finally, here’s the killer. The WCF was drawn up during the English Civil War. Cromwell was fighting against the King in England, and the Calvinist Covenanters in Scotland were literally up in arms as well. An alliance between the two was a natural outcome, but since these wars were largely about doctrine, Cromwell and the Covenanters needed a doctrinal basis for their military alliance.  The WCF was created to provide that basis. This means that whatever the Confession says or doesn’t say about the use of violence is irrelevant; the reason for its creation means it has violence built in.

It’s interesting also that the one hundred and fifty or so “Divines” who wrote the Confession, supposedly after a most thorough searching of the Scripture, do not appear to have noticed the requirement to love, and specifically to love enemies, in the New Testament; nor the many pointers in the Old Testament to the utter foolishness of killing the King. Something Cromwell and his associates went on to do in the most premeditated fashion.

The best part of the WCF is perhaps its title. Westminster is the epicentre of politics and power in England. The Confession is not called the Christian Confession of Faith, but the Westminster Confession of Faith. Quite appropriate.

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Why We Don’t Normally Give Chapter and Verse Bible References

The Bible is a book, and the normal way to read a book is to start at the beginning and read through to the end. The Bible also needs to be read in this way. Constant quoting of chapters and verses very easily leads to a habit of reading only small parts of the Bible, often inevitably out of context, and also of building doctrine on just a few verses chosen from the full seven hundred and fifty thousand words of Scripture. We believe this to be dangerous. Any truly Biblical belief must conform with the whole of Scripture, and it is not possible to have a sense of whether any particular belief does unless one has actually read the whole of Scripture at least several times. It is important also that this reading does not use some “guided” scheme, unless it’s a straightforward Read in a Year Bible that takes you through the Old and New Testaments over 365 days. Other schemes may have their own notes or bias, which is exactly what you should be seeking to avoid.

It might be that we could convince more people of what is said on this site if we quoted chapter and verse fully. But anyone who followed this site on that account would actually be following this site rather than the Bible. That would be foolish as this site is yet another post-biblical source which, like all others, lacks the Authority of Scripture. Reading the whole Bible is vital, and we do not believe that anyone who has not read it, or is not in the process of reading it fully for themselves, is ever likely to arrive at a proper understanding. We therefore discourage the looking up of particular verses unless it is accompanied by full reading, and affirm full reading as the more important of the two.

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Predestination 101

 

Yes, You have a spirit!

But how did you get it?

Predestination? Let’s start from a different angle:

The belief in the existence of a Human Spirit in each one of us is widely held across many belief systems, and, of course, is also Biblical. Ideas about the Spirit after death are also commonplace. But what about before birth? How does the human spirit come in to a human body? Where, if anywhere, was it before? These are obvious questions, but questions which nobody seems to ask, never mind answer.

All agree that the Spirit is eternal. For our purpose here it is enough to accept that “eternal” means beyond time and beyond the material world.

Logically, there are only a limited number of possible answers to the questions above :

1 The spirit existed before it became part of a person

2 The spirit came into existence when the person did.

3 People’s spirits attach to them randomly.

4 People’s spirits are placed in them by God’s decision.

The answers here have a powerful bearing on what the Bible says about Predestination. Calvin’s views on this are widely accepted by Churchgoers and Atheists alike, and naturally used by the latter to portray God as an ogre. But Calvinistic views are blasphemous – they present God as cruel and unjust, when the Bible makes it clear that though He may ultimately punish, He is overwhelmingly loving, patient and forgiving.

I am certain that answers one and four above are correct and provide a proper understanding of Predestination; that is, the Spirit existed before it became part of a person, and people’s spirits are placed in them by God’s decision. Firstly, the Scripture tells us that God has “foreknowledge”. This is often taken to mean that He knows exactly what will happen in all cases ahead of time. In reality it simply means that he knows each spirit in much the same way that we know other people. We cannot predict exactly what they will do and when, but we have a good idea of the sort of thing they will do; we know if someone is honest or dishonest, whether they are selfish or generous, and so on. Given our knowledge of their motivations and thinking, we have a fair idea of what they are likely to do in any given situation. Because of God’s infinitely greater understanding, and because He sees the “naked spirit”, not clothed and camouflaged in a human body, His ability to predict future actions is streets ahead of ours. Notice that this analysis is completely compatible with Free Will. The fact that God has foreknowledge of a spirits’ inclinations before He places it in a human body in no way effects that spirit’s Free Will.

The debate about whether men have Free Will or not should never have taken place in a Biblical context. Since God is both Just, and also punishes men for wrongdoing, the conclusion that men must have Free Will is unavoidable. Those who do not accept Free Will must deny that God is Just. They are making an error that is roundly condemned by almost the oldest book in the Bible, the Book of Job. It is a long and difficult book, but those who take the time to read it properly will discover that it has a very strong message: Do not ever question the Justice of God.

The second part of the answer, that God chooses the Spirit for each new-born, completes the understanding of Predestination. God not only has deep knowledge of each individual spirit, but he also chooses the time and place that it will live on Earth. This does not mean that every single act or incident is either laid down or known in advance; but that the particular desires of each person/spirit, added to the particular environment in which it lives, makes for a highly predictable path through life.

This also explains how God justly punishes the sons of God-hating fathers to the third and fourth generations, while showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Him. For those who love God, part of the blessing is to have descendants who will receive God-loving spirits. For those who hate God, part of the punishment is to have descendants who will receive rebellious spirits. Thus everybody (every spirit) ultimately receives punishment for their own wrongdoing; there is nothing of naturally righteous people taking a beating because of what Great-Granddad did. However, because the love descends for thousands of generations, it seems a lot of rebellious spirits will be blessed on Earth in ways they don’t deserve.

See also Free Will and Predestination: No Contradiction!