Friday, February 20, 2009

Yikes!



I don't know any pastor who doesn't use good material where he can find it, but I've always tried to be very careful not to put myself in the story like I was there or it happened to me. This is why! That's embarrassing...I actually feel for him.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Probably?



These are the advertisements that an atheist group have purchased to display on the sides of buses somewhere in Europe. Would you like to bank your eternity on the fact that there probably isn't a God?

Idiot #1 - "Hey, some people say that if you point this gun at your head and pull the trigger it will kill you."

Idiot #2 - "Do you think it will kill me?"

Idiot #1 - "Probably not."

Friday, February 13, 2009

Here's a good one...

My apologies for my absence. I'm afraid that Facebook has been my downfall. I will post this for your perusal. Stuff like this always interests me because they actually ask a pretty good question, but the mob mentality against Christianity reminds me of arguments I would have in the 6th grade: "Oh Yeah? So!Well, you're stupid!" You know- stuff like that. How do we answer this without being equally snarky back at them? Let's see if you can figure it out...Have at it!

UPDATE: Here is someones response

Not bad, but not satisfying enough for me either...the question I have is, although some people inexplicably are spared while others inexplicably die, does that really make the argument that God doesn't exist? At the MOST, we could say that we don't understand or like the way he works and we would not want to serve that kind of God. But to deny his existence would mean that we:

1) Are smart enough to understand everything there is to know about spiritual things. And we can explain how over a billion universes came to be and how this one universe has life, and incredibly complex life at that, but it was all by chance. I guess there are just millions of people who have done the theorems and worked out the mathematical odds on their kitchen tablecloth and know for certain, with no wavering or doubt, that there is absolutely no God. Wouldn't an intelligent honest person have to admit that there is no way to know that for sure? Isn't it, at best, a hunch?

2)We would have to believe there isn't a God, but yet believe that nature can think. This random Cosmic belch that we live on, has the amazing ability, without any design whatsoever, to recognize what needs to change about itself in order for it to survive. It's interesting that they don't claim the changes are by accident, just life itself. Yeah, that makes total sense. Isn't that belief attributing god-like qualities to nature? So, you'll believe in a mother nature kind of god, but not a God that could make mother nature?

3)We would have to believe that there is no meaning to life. No purpose. We are born, we disturb the gravel on earth for about 80 years, and then we die. Is there any thought more depressing than that?

Yes, it may seem that we are taking events that are bound to happen sooner or later, and ascribing them to a God that we have never seen. But the alternative for us is untenable: despite a world around us that points to design, and planning, and creativity, and complexity beyond any man's ability to create - we will stubbornly deny that He exists. We cannot do it. There is just too much evidence to the contrary.

As obvious as it seems to them that there isn't a God, it's just as obvious to us that there is.

And so, we choose to give him credit when good things happen (because the Scriptures tell us to), and we pray to Him for help when bad things happen (because the scriptures tell us to do that, too). We don't fully understand Him. We don't have definitive answers to their statements. But just because we don't have an answer doesn't mean that there isn't one - and someday God will let us in on it all.

Until then, we choose to believe, and trust. People like Heather Macdonald may think it is naive and silly, but I feel comfortable in my belief, because Miss Macdonald has a lot more to lose than I do if I'm right, than if she is.

UPDATE #2 - MORE BY HEATHER MACDONALD

She is responding to all of the uproar over her post. This is part of what she said:

“The bus ads suggest a utilitarian reason for skepticism: you’ll enjoy life more. The only touchstone that I can possibly imagine for deciding whether or not to adopt any particular belief is its truth, in this case: Does the evidence of human experience support the claim that we are attended to by a loving, personal God? Even if the conclusion that we have no ‘Friend’ in the sky leads inevitably to melancholy or dissatisfaction, it is better to live unhappily in truth than happily in delusion, in my view. (As I have written before, however, I am puzzled by the claim that life would be meaningless without God. Schubert wrote some 600 songs, nearly every one of them a gem of lethal beauty and exquisiteness. You want something more?)”
You can read more of her opinions at www.secularright.org

Ray Comfort adds:

Comfort added, "I will donate $10,000 to him, or give it to any children's charity he names. All I ask is that he goes into a studio and gives me 20 minutes on why there is no God and why evolution is scientific. Then I will give 20 minutes on how we can know God exists and why evolution is nothing more than an unsubstantiated and unscientific fairy tale for grownups. Then we both will have 10 minutes to respond.

You can read the rest of his article here.

This is interesting too“The truth is, however, that if you go to South America, you will find a huge number of conversions to Protestant Christianity. If you go to Korea, you will find Christian churches with 100,000 members. If you go to China, you will find 100 million Christians. And if you go to Africa, you’ll find that countries whose populations were only five percent Christian 100 years ago are now 50 percent Christian. These trends have not gone unnoticed by historians, who are startled by them and have attempted to explain them away, and they are the empirical basis for my claim that God is doing very well in this world. What’s important to understand is that the New Atheism is not a triumphant cry of success, but rather a bitter reaction to the success of religion.”

You can read the rest of that article here. This guy debates athiests too.