Iliad Vs Bible

I found an interesting post on the internet where the writer seems to think that the Illiad parallels the Bible way too closely. I decided to write against each point raised. My comments are in blue.

I've been reading - well, listening to the audiobook of while commuting - The Iliad this week. The Biblical parallels are striking, and I'm wondering whether there's really a distinction here at all. Dig it:

* Zeus, son of Cronos, "keeps his gifts to men in two great barrels, one for miseries, one for blessings", and hands them out in response to prayers. Obvious Jehovah/Jesus parallel. When Zeus is in a cranky mood, watch out, he's going to stomp you like the OT Jehovah. Murder In Peckham stuff. But when he's feeling loving, hoo-boy, it's new testament time!

This is an over-simplification of the character of the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible does not relate to people based on just responding to their actions - prayers and sacrifices.  The God of the Bible relates to people on His own terms not ours.

* Zeus/Cronos has a whole bunch of lesser deities in wings and flowing robes wandering around doing his bidding. Now I know you're going to quibble and tell me angels aren't "lesser deities", but if you can distinguish the difference you're doing better than me. Heck, Wtf Are Angels?

Angels are not deities. They are not gods. They do God's bidding. His messengers. They are spirits...not ghosts, but an entirely  different class of being. Equating angels to lesser deities like the Olympian gods shows he knows nothing about what the Bible teaches about angels.

* If you want to receive favors from Zeus, you have to show up to the usual rituals. Sure, they sacrificed goats and bulls rather than donating pocket change, but the priest game is exactly the same.

In the Bible, sacrifices are offered to God to worship Him for who he is not to get anything from Him. He deserves our worship. No way to equate the two.

* Mortals have free will right up until the time Zeus and friends decide to screw around with fate, whereupon the usual gaggle of miracles and melodramas beset the puny humans. As per any other religion it looks a lot more like humans using gods as excuses for natural disasters and diplomatic lapses than it does the deep planning of superhuman intelligences.

The Bible does not teach that we have free will or that God has to do anything we want the way we want Him to do it. The Bible teaches that God has intervened in time to put every human being who has ever lived and will ever lived in the context that will accomplish the purpose He has...not what we want.

More to come, but you get the point. The game's the same, only the players change.

I sure hope he does  better than this.

There's an analogy with the Hindu patheon, too, I think (my ignorance shames me). My limted understanding of the Hindu faith(s) is that there is the cosmic soap-opera style stuff with the extra arms and suprising skin colours and so on, much in the style of the Iliad, but that's really incidental to the serious business of God who is one supereme deity.

I think that is dangerous to think that you can draw really close parallels with classical Hinduism. From what I've studied it just doesn't measure up well. I think you can make a case for Olympian gods paralleling the gods of Egypt because the Greek stole much of their ideas, science, and technology from Egypt. And the Romans got much of their culture from the Greeks.

Interestingly, some classical Greek writers distinguish between the gods and God, too. -- I asked my Latin teacher about this one, and she had said the distinction is something translators typically introduce, but not one present in the original writing. Also note that Zeus is not actually in charge, beyond being the strongest and so first among equals. There are a few powerful Gods - Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo - who are comparable in strength and so will not go up against each other directly, but instead act through deception.

There is no analogy to this in Christianity. God is one being and alone. No one is greater than He. No one can challenge Him.

Contention alert: I'd also suggest that they way many Catholics behave towards the Saints is very similar to the treatment that "minor deities" get in other systems. In fact, some 'local saints' are actually older gods.

I agree with this statement because I know that is how Voodoo and Catholicism coexist in a lot of cultures as well as some South American cultures. This is how a lot cultures were Christianized but that's not  how Christianity as we know it developed but how it has affected other cultures.

Does anyone know how the various Norse gods were supposed to relate to one another? Is Odin (after whom the farm upon which I grew up was named, insignificantly enough) God, while Thor and the rest are merely gods, or what?

Odin and Thor's relationship is close to the relationship of Zeus and say like Apollo - father and son - same as on human standards.

In a nutshell, the ancient greek and ancient norse mythoses are so similar there's no question of their having a common origin. The basic layout of gods is extremely similar - Zeus/Odin, Prometheus/Loki, Apollo/Balder, Hermes/Hermod, and so on. Both explain the origin of the Gods through the lineage of still more fantastic creatures - Gaia and her Titans for the Greeks, and Ymir and his Frost Giants for the Norse.

I don't see how they can be completely common.  Norse gods come from the northern Europe and the Olympians from the Mediterranean.

Odin/Zeus aren't necessarily capital-G God to the lesser gods, but they're certainly the fathers and kings of their respective pantheons. Both are the offspring of the elder Gods, who are themselves the result of intercourse between heaven and earth. Mortals are created by miscegenation, and generally considered either recreational fun or an unfortunate nuisance depending on the gods' moods.

Completely unlike the Bible.

The apparent distinction between these mythoses and the judaic God(s) is the notion that the original creator of the universe, rather than her/his creatures, constructs and is vitally concerned with the affairs of humans. In other words, monotheism. But then we have angels and seraphim and messiahs and devils and so on from the woodwork, and it gets higgledy-piggledy again. --Peter Merel

This is a major distinction. And the Judeo-Christian God is one god - not several - angels and seraphim and messiahs and devils are no where on the same level and they are completely subservient to God. He calls the shots. 

Actually gods mucking around with people's fates isn't really the way Greeks looked at things. Give me some time to come back to this, because there's a very interesting parallel to be made there.

The Bible does say that God is in control of all's fate. There is nothing that He doesn't know. There is a predetermination before the universe is even created. It's not mucking around....He is the source and deserves all praise and worship.

Iliad Vs Bible

Human Evolution? - Exploding The 99% Similar Myth - posted by bornagain 7777777 (bornagain7777777) - tangle.com

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I found this video monsths ago, but I'm not sure if i ever got around to blogging it. It addresses the question as to how similar really are apes and humanity. I also like the description that goes with the video so i have included it.

Chimpanzee?
10-10-2008 17:12 | Dr Richard Buggs

http://www.refdag.nl/artikel/1366432/Chimpanzee.html

From 1964 to 2004, it was believed that humans are almost identical to apes at the genetic level. Ten years ago, we thought that the information coded in our DNA is 98.5% the same as that coded in chimpanzee DNA. This led some scientists to claim that humans are simply another species of chimpanzee. They argued that humans did not have a special place in the world, and that chimpanzees should have the same 'rights' as humans.

Other scientists took a different view. They said that it is obvious that we are very different from chimpanzees in our appearance and way of life: if we are almost the same as chimpanzees in our DNA sequence, this simply means that DNA sequence is the wrong place to look in trying to understand what makes humans different. By this view, the 98.5% figure does not undermine the special place of humans. Instead it undermines the importance of genetics in thinking about what it means to be a human.

Fortunately (for both the status of human beings and the status of genetics) we now know that the 98.5% figure is very misleading. In 2005 scientists published a draft reading of the complete DNA sequence (genome) of a chimpanzee. When this is compared with the genome of a human, we find major differences.

To compare the two genomes, the first thing we must do is to line up the parts of each genome that are similar. When we do this alignment, we discover that only 2400 million of the human genome's 3164.7 million 'letters' align with the chimpanzee genome - that is, 76% of the human genome. Some scientists have argued that the 24% of the human genome that does not line up with the chimpanzee genome is useless 'junk DNA'. However, it now seems that this DNA could contain over 600 protein-coding genes, and also code for functional RNA molecules.

Looking closely at the chimpanzee-like 76% of the human genome, we find that to make an exact alignment, we often have to introduce artificial gaps in either the human or the chimp genome. These gaps give another 3% difference. So now we have a 73% similarity between the two genomes.

In the neatly aligned sequences we now find another form of difference, where a single 'letter' is different between the human and chimp genomes. These provide another 1.23% difference between the two genomes. Thus, the percentage difference is now at around 72%.

We also find places where two pieces of human genome align with only one piece of chimp genome, or two pieces of chimp genome align with one piece of human genome. This 'copy number variation' causes another 2.7% difference between the two species. Therefore the total similarity of the genomes could be below 70%.

This figure does not take include differences in the organization of the two genomes. At present we cannot fully assess the difference in structure of the two genomes, because the human genome was used as a template (or 'scaffold') when the chimpanzee draft genome was assembled.

Our new knowledge of the human and chimpanzee genomes contradicts the idea that humans are 98% chimpanzee, and undermines the implications that have been drawn from this figure. It suggests that there is a huge amount exciting research still to be done in human genetics.

The author is a research geneticist at the University of Florida.

======================================================

Human and chimp genomes differ by more than one percent

http://www.creationwiki.org/(Talk.Origins)_Human_and_chimp_genomes_differ_by_more_than_one_percent

excerpt:

If you measure the number of proteins for which the entire protein is identical in the two species, humans and chimpanzees are (only) 29 percent identical.

=======================================================================

Chimp genome sequence very different from man

by David A. DeWitt, Ph.D.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0905chimp.asp

excerpt:

However, assuming they did for the sake of analyzing the argument, then 40 million separate mutation events would have had to take place and become fixed in the population in only ~300,000 generations' a problem referred to as 'Haldane's dilemma.' This problem is exacerbated because the authors acknowledge that most evolutionary change is due to neutral or random genetic drift. That refers to change in which natural selection is not operating. Without a selective advantage, it is difficult to explain how this huge number of mutations could become fixed in the population. Instead, many of these may actually be intrinsic sequence differences from the beginning of creation.

========================================================

To dramatically underscore the fantasy land Darwinists live in, even evolutionists agree that the vast majority of mutations are not beneficial (They say that most mutations are neutral, which is of no use to a Natural selection scenario, whereas Sanford, Spetner, Behe and others hold that all mutations studies at least have a "slightly negative effect)!!! (Genetic Entropy; Sanford 2005). Thus how in the world can you get from ape to man if you have no scientific demonstrated mechanism in which to do so? It is incredible that crushing facts as these are simply brushed aside as if they do not matter by evolutionists. To put it mildly this is not rigorous science, but rampant psuedo-science supported by your tax dollars!

Genesis 1:27 And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Human Evolution? - Exploding The 99% Similar Myth - posted by bornagain 7777777 (bornagain7777777) - tangle.com

Hijacked By Jesus - Television Tropes & Idioms

Whether or not you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you must concede that Jesus and Christians have taught about him for 2000 years have dominated western civilization. This is an interesting article about how many myths have been changed - "christianized".

Whenever a fictional story involves a non-Christian mythology, a western adaptation will emphasize the elements most familiar to followers of Christianity. At times, they will be totally rewritten to turn all of the members of the religion into direct analogues of Christian figures.

I like the article and I agree. I think that Christianity has influenced our thinking of everything even how we think of the Greco-Roman, Hindu, Egyptian, and Norse gods. The article is well done. Take a look.

Hijacked By Jesus - Television Tropes & Idioms

Dwindling In Unbelief: Collision: Are Douglas Wilson's beliefs good for the world? Part 2

I came across a blog article attempting to systemize the "cultic" beliefs of Doug Wilson. I like Doug Wilson and I have been blessed to hear some of his lectures and debates and I am quite impressed. The writer of this particular article is not impressed or happy in the slightest regrading what Dr. Wilson stands for. I'd like to respond to this writer because I want to affirm that about a great many things Wilson is correct. This second post deals with Doug Wilson's stance on: On the Law, Homosexuality, and the Sin of Pity". My comments will be in read, the writer of the original article's words will be black.

On the Law, Homosexuality, and the Sin of Pity

The entire legal system would depend on one book: the Bible.

Let's pretend, just for a moment, that we could have it our way. The great revival we have been praying for has occurred, and every executive, legislator, and bureaucrat in the capital has just been saved. Knowing they ought to begin applying Scripture in their jobs, but not knowing how to go about it, they come to you and your church for advice. What will you tell them? How should they apply God's law?

Looking at the Bible with an eye toward applying it in the civil realm, several things become apparent. First, it is pretty small. … [O]n the average, a little over 1,000 pages. Think of the money governments will save on printing and shelf space!

If biblical law is to be biblically applied, then the biblical punishment must be used.
. . .

Of course, there would be laws enforced against certain crimes which are currently ignored, such as homosexuality.

The list of crimes punishable by death would be a long one, and would include witchcraft, adultery, homosexuality, and cursing one's parents. Most people today would consider this cruel, but that's because they are guilty of the sin of pity. We should kill our family and friends, without pity, by stoning them to death if they believe in the wrong God. And we should cut off a woman's hand if she touches a man's private parts while defending her husband in a fight. And our eye must not pity her.

The civil magistrate is the minister of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer (Rom. 13:4). God has not left his civil minister without guidance on how to exercise his office. The Scriptures set forth clear standards of judgment for many offenses. Capital crimes, for example, include premeditated killing (murder), kidnapping, sorcery, bestiality, adultery, homosexuality, and cursing one's parents (Ex. 21:14; 21:16; 22:18; 22:19; Lev. 20:10; 20:13; Ex. 21:17).

In contemporary American jurisprudence, none of these offenses is punishable by death, with the occasional exception of murder. The magistrates have dispensed with God's standards of justice. Some Christians believe this is an improvement. They would be horrified to think that the "harsh" penalties of the law should still be applied. Sometimes this is the result of the mistaken belief that the Old Testament has no further application after the advent of Christ. This is an exegetical problem. Too often, it is the result of a sinful view of the criminal. This sin is called pity. … Why is pity a sin?

First, pity is not always a sin. But neither is it always good. … God included in the law specific prohibitions against the exercise of pity in meting out punishment.

If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and serve other gods,". . . you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him; but you shall surely kill him . . . (Deut. 13:6-9).

If two men fight together, and the wife of one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of the one attacking him, and puts out the hand and seizes him by the genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; your eye shall not pity her. (Deut. 25:11, 12).

God commands the judge to evaluate the crime rather than the criminal. If the crime is one for which God requires death, then death must be the punishment. Your eye shall not pity. … Thus, the Bible teaches that pity is not an option where God has decided the matter. The magistrate, God's minister, is to faithfully execute justice according to God's standard, not man's

I agree with Wilson. The only way you  can't is if you disagree with God. Theses crimes are so horrific to God that it demands final and complete punishment because if it was allowed then it would spread like a cancer to all the society. I mean people who disagree with this today are in fact saying that witchcraft, adultery, homosexuality, and cursing one's parents isn't really that bad - certainly not deserving of a death penalty.If you notice that these crimes addressed so harshly condemned for Ancient Theocratic Israel are no longer thought today to be wrong and has been allowed and encouraged in our society today. These same things have become pervasive in our culture along with all the negative consequences that go with them. Those laws were designed to spare God's people of those consequences.  We've got abortion, juvenile delinquency, broken families, generations of children sans mother and/or father, and the occult masquerading as a legitimate faith. Of course our world is broken. We broke it because we disobey God. We deserve what we have. Which why pity was and will be withheld.

As for trying to apply theses standards today....I see no reason to assume that the standard is no longer valid because it shows God's character and that does not change. However we are not told to implement the punishments that were in place in theocratic Israel and I see nothing in Doug Wilson's theology that says we should only that if we re-instituted God's standards we would all be better off.  Wilson is right!

Dwindling In Unbelief: Collision: Are Douglas Wilson's beliefs good for the world?

Is there a Connection Between Jesus and Alexander the Great?

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One argument against Jesus and Christianity is that we borrowed our ideas of  who Jesus is from Alexander the Great. This contention rests on the fact that people thought of  Alexander as being a

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demi-god - half human and half god - Zeus' own son  no less. In Egypt, Alexander was proclaimed to be son of the head of the Egyptian pantheon  (no surprise given the heavy influence of Egypt on Greece). People ask why are Jesus' claims more valid than Alexander's? I have two reasons.

1. Is there anyone out there who believe Zeus and the Olympian gods exists? If they don't then no way could Zeus be Alexander's the great father.
2. The Hebrew Bible predicts the fall of Alexander's empire and it came true perfectly. The Hebrew also perfectly predicts Jesus in fine detail. If it was right about ASlexander, io'm sure it's true about everything it says about Jesus.

I also found a great poem comparing Jesus Christ and Alexander the Great. Jesus is greater!

One lived and died for self; one died for you and me.

The Greek died on the throne; the Jew died on a cross

One’s life’s triumph seemed; the other but a loss.

One led vast armies forth; the other walked alone

One shed the whole world’s blood; the other gave His own.

One won the world in life and lost it all in death,

The other lost His life to the win the whole world’s faith.

Jesus and Alexander died at thirty three.

One died in Babylon; the other in Calvary.

One gained all for self; one Himself He gave.

One conquered every throne; the other every grave.

The one made himself God; the God made Himself less.

The one lived but to blast; the other but to bless.

When died, the Greek forever fell his throne of swords.

But Jesus died to live forever Lord of Lords.

Jesus and Alexander died at thirty three.

The Geek made all men slaves; the Jew made all men free.

One built a throne on blood; the other built on love.

The one was born of earth; the other from above.

One won all this earth to lose all earth and heaven.

The other gave up all, that all to Him be given.

The Greek forever died; the Jew forever lived.

He loses all who gets –and wins all things who give.

Mixed-Race TV Contestant Ignites Debate In China : NPR

I just heard about an interesting story out of China. They have their own version of American Idol and one of the contestants is black. Okay, I know that there is controversy about calling mixed-race people black if one of their parents is black is becoming unfavorable, but if a person is dark enough to receive the same racism I get, that makes one black. Lou Jing is mixed - her mother is chinese and her father is African-American so that means she is probably Native American, Caucasian, and who knows what else. In the country with the largest population on Earth, it's amazing to realize how unique she is. Some of the Chinese viewers are so unfamiliar to seeing people who look like her in person and on television, Lou has seen more racisim that she had ever seen in her 20 years. What is also interesting to me is that I know several people who look like her. If she was walking around her I doubt anyone would realize she was half-Chinese until she started speaking Chinese. The other thing is I am amazed that she lived for 20 years without really having deal with racism. i mean most people in America see it much earlier than that. I gather that her mother was able to shield her from a lot. It's just unfortunate that now she must learn how to deal with it - in public. She is having such a rough time that she no longer feels welcomed in China, like it's no longer her home. I'm sure many African-Americans can relate to that.


Here she is on stage


Mixed-Race TV Contestant Ignites Debate In China : NPR

Alleged pre-Christian parallels to the Jesus story

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I really like honest people, even when they disagree with me. Here is a post written by someone who is not a believer in Jesus but has come to the same conclusions that anyone comes to when they honestly consider the evidence that against Jesus that what he know about him is stolen from pagan sources. Anyone interested in this subject should look at this article. As my own research has shown the position is not just tenable.

Alleged pre-Christian parallels to the Jesus story

Math Teacher Owns Student in Pokemon Battle

I think that this is how a teacher should handle the following:  Getting a test where a student drew a pokemon character (Charizard) because he could not figure it out. The teacher responds by drawing a water-type pokemon the opposite type that Charizard is). This teacher knows more than linear algebra! I'd like to know what kind of school this is where its college level mah and the student signs his name with just his first? Could be hoax....albeit a funny one!.

Math Teacher Owns Student in Pokemon Battle

Why Doesn't Adultery Sting Anymore?

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Has anyone else been following the story of Senator John Ensign having an affair with the wife of his co-chief of staff? I'm amazed and appalled. I'm not just upset with how he cheated on his wife and Mrs. Hampton cheated on her husband. It's worse than that. Our society has really deteriorated to the point that the adultery does not seem that bad anymore as long as you don't get caught. Our laws seem more concerned that Ensign may have paid off that Hamptons to keep them quiet about the affair then they are about his broken marriage vows. Yes, the cover-up was wrong and unethical, but look at where the emphasis is placed. The message being sent is not that Adultery is wrong and evil and will destroy you and your family. The message is "don't get caught".

I think clearly Doug Hampton wants Ensign to pay. I don't blame him.

Hampton makes clear through the interview he isn't going away quietly and believes Ensign abused his power in pursuing the affair. Ensign's legal team has said it's confident that all laws and ethics rules were followed in the case, which includes Ensign helping Hampton gain employment with a lobbying firm as well as Ensign's parents providing the Hamptons with a payment of nearly $100,000 that they described as a gift.

I want to know why faithfulness to one's marriage is not part of those "laws and ethics" in our government and society? It used to be that cheating on your spouse brought condemnation and shame, not congratulatory "hi-fives". I like to put this in the perspective that God so hates adultery that in a theocratic ancient Israel, adultery carried the same penalty as murder. You and the one you cheated with were executed. I'm not advocating that we go back to those penalty just to those attitudes of abhorring adultery.

watch the interview

Senator's Affair Revealed in Text Message

Apologetics 315: Apologetics Podcasts Worth Your Time

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If you need to find good Apologetic podcasts to listen to, Brian, on Apologetics 315, has posted a birilliant summary of some of the best content out there...and how to subscribe!

Apologetics 315: Apologetics Podcasts Worth Your Time

Gospel According to "Supernatural" Redux

I like them show Supernatural a lot. I like the action and dialogue and even the twists and turns on mythology and legends. Unfortunately, it's take on Christian theology and the Bible is completely wrong.

Angels
The show talks about angels almost the same as demons in that angels must interact with reality by possessing a human being - with human consent. Demons don't apparently need permission to possess a human. The problem is that there is no where in scripture that tells us this about angels.

Lucifer
Lucifer made the demons and Lucifer is an angel. The Bible tells us that Lucifer and the demons are all fallen angels.

Anti-Christ
The show represents the anti-christ as one half-human and half-demon. The show even goes as far as saying the Bible is wrong that the anti-christ is Lucifer's son. No where does the Bible say anything about the anti-christ being half demonic.

Aside from a couple of miracles, the show doesn't address God at all. And Jesus is never mentioned. The show casts God as an absent father who cares nothing about his Children. He makes no intervention as the events of the show gets worse and worse - as if he never existed and even characters - humans, angels, and demons say as much. I think the show's creators are saying important things about free will and how they see who God is. It's a world view that is shared by our culture.

Responding to Netzarim - Part 3

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There have been a couple of links that have placed on this blog pointing visitors to the site Netzarim (Hellinized "Nazarene"): Orthodox Israeli Jews, Ra'ana, Israel. I'm all for this blog being open to all viewpoints including idea counterposed to my own. This is why I keep the comments sections open and do not censer the comments. This particular web sites makes claims against Christianity that I do not agree with. I would like to have a dialog on the issues that are brought up on the site. Let me list the claims that I think should be discussed in more detail. The site attempts to make its claims starting from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic perspectives and then bringing them into a single argument. My problem is that the site misrepresents what I, as Christian, believes. Here are a few more of the statements I have issue with. I will be writing this response in 3 parts. This is the 3rd part and my comments are in red..

5. No one can follow two polar-opposite masters — the authentic, historical, pro-Torah 1^st-century Ribi from Nazareth and the 4^th-century (post-135 C.E.), arch-antithesis anti-Torah apostasy developed by the Hellenists (namely the Sadducees and Roman pagans who conspired to kill Ribi Y^әhoshua, displaced his original followers and redacted the NT).

There is no proof Jesus' message was changed by anyone or the the New Testament was redacted in any way. All the NT texts predate 135 AD and not a single example at Netzarim is givcen to show how any  of the textual variations change anything of what the NT says and teaches.

6. NT wasn't even written until 4 centuries after the death of Ribi Yehoshua. (The few fragments of Greek papyri from the 3^rd century were likely either Roman Hellenist paraphrases from Hebrew Matityahu or Roman Hellenist syncretisms.) Even then, only the Roman Hellenists, who had separated from the original Jewish followers by 135 C.E., accepted them.

This simply is not true. We have fragments and references to texts of the NT well before 200 AD. 

7. There are thousands of redactions in the earliest extant source manuscripts of NT.

This true, but that doesn't mean that you can't tust what the manuscripts say and nor does it say that we don't know what the NT says.

8. Easter wasn't celebrated until several centuries after the death of Ribi Yehoshua… and then it was syncretized from the festival for the pagan goddess I*sh*t*a*r / A*sh*t*o*r*e*th by the Roman Hellenists who had separated from the original Jewish followers by 135 C.E.

According to Acts, the first Christians celebrated Jesus' resurrection every week! So what if it only began being called Easter when it was merged and supplanted a pagan festival? It does not matter.

9. Sunday wasn't celebrated until several centuries after the death of Ribi Yehoshua… and then it was syncretized from the day dedicated tothe sun-god by the Roman Hellenists who had separated from the original Jewish followers by 135 C.E.

I sense either dishonesty or ignorance st this point. Sunday was the first day of the week and Bible clearly says that it was common practice for Christians to meet the first day of the week...even prior to 70 AD!

¹Now about the collection for God's people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. ²On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made. ³Then, when I arrive, I will give letters of introduction to the men you approve and send them with your gift to Jerusalem. ⁴If it seems advisable for me to go also, they will accompany me. 1 Corinthian 15:1-4

Apologetics 315: Terminology Tuesday: Naturalism, Natural Theology

 I love this series! This time "Naturalism" and  "Natural Theology" are defined. It's a good to know. Not completely Biblical, but still interesting.

Apologetics 315: Terminology Tuesday: Naturalism, Natural Theology

YouTube - Atheisms Negative Effect On History(Richard Dawkins Response)

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Well since Dawkins will not debate in public anyone with the ability to meaningfully engage him, people are force to make videos like this one. This one counters Dawkins and Hitchen's argument that the worst atrocities in history can be laid at the feet of the Christian Church. Consider that canard refuted.





YouTube - Atheisms Negative Effect On History(Richard Dawkins Response)

Atheism is Dead: iTheism

Here is another great post from Mariano. I fully agree with him. Atheism is true "man-centered" at best and "I-centered" at worst. It is denying our personal responsibility to our creator and instead of worshiping (ascribing ultimate value) to the one who deserves the honor and glory we instead give it ourselves. Mariano is right...it was for this that Lucifer was dropped kicked out of heaven. Thanks, Mariano, another great essay.

Atheism is Dead: iTheism

He Lives: Sproul chapter three: Free Will

On his blog a while back, David Heddle reviewed a lesson on Free Will by RC Sproul. Heddle wrote:
Sproul presents the classic, libertine, Calvinistic model of free will:

We not only can do whatever we want most at a give instant, we must do whatever we want most.

I agree. Then it follows that if we do not desire God, we cannot choose to serve God and accept Jesus as Lord and savior.  I really liked the way Heddle put this:

If free will operates as Sproul describes (and I believe it does, at least to first order) and if we have no desire for God in our fallen state, then we are in deep, deep kimchee. If nothing intervenes to change the desires of fallen men, then nobody would choose God with their vaunted free will, and nobody would be saved. Jesus would have died in vain.

This lack of desire for God, which precludes our wills from choosing God, is nevertheless not an abdication of free will. It is what Jonathan Edwards called a moral inability.

I always give the same example—not perfect but I think it works. A mother of sound mind sits at the kitchen table holding her baby. Though possessed with a free will, she is morally incapable of making the choice to place her baby in the microwave and turning it on. Her free will is not violated—yet she does not have the liberty to make that choice—because her morality will not permit her. Likewise, in this model, though we have a libertine free will, we lack, in our fallen state, the liberty to choose God.

In the reverse of the usual grammatical correction: It is not that we may not, but rather we can not.

 Many Arminians (not all)  argue that we have the ability to accept Jesus or reject Him but given several scriptures I can't get that idea to fly. I think Sproul and Heddle are correct in how they are defining free will  John 6:44 reads:

"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day."

The Greek text literally reads that we are unable to come to Jesus - we do not have the ability! 

He Lives: Sproul chapter three: Free Will

Atheism is Dead: Burning Cross and El Zorro (…aster, that is)

Here is a post from Mariano concerning research he has done on Zoroasterianism. It's important because this is a pagan religion that some critics of Christianity use as an example of a religion from which Christianity stole some its teachings. This is not true of course. Reading this post will help you further undestand why. This is extremely important.

Atheism is Dead: Burning Cross and El Zorro (…aster, that is)

YouTube - ACORN Philadelphia Prostitution Investigation Part I

This video is a little scary considering the stories being told in the media now. I think the only reason an issue is being made out of this is because people want to link Acorn to Barack Obama.






YouTube - ACORN Philadelphia Prostitution Investigation Part I

Truthbomb Apologetics: Resurrection Research Links

Here is a great resource listing books, audio, and video regarding why it is tenable to believe that Jesus Christ really rose from the dead and that tomb was empty Easter morning.

Truthbomb Apologetics: Resurrection Research Links

Christian Apologetics - Life and Doctrine: Trinity : Who Forgive Sin?

Here is Mariano's next part of his series on the Trinity just hit the Atheism is Dead blog. This time the question being evaluated is "Who Forgives Sin?" Most people would agree that only God has the right to forgive sin, therefore if someone is in scripture can be shown forgiving sin, He is God. Thereby showing the Trinity. You can see the list of scriptures showing that Father and Son have the right to forgive sin.


Christian Apologetics - Life and Doctrine: Trinity : Who Forgive Sin?

Apologetics 315: Sunday Quote: C. Stephen Evans on the God Question

 Here is another great quote from the Apologetics 315 blog. Thanks, Brian.

"The question about God is not merely a question about another entity but a question about the character of the universe as a whole. The rejection of the cosmological argument implicitly carries with it a commitment to a rival metaphysical view, such as pantheism or naturalism. Ultimately, the question is not, 'Can God's existence be proved?' but 'Which metaphysical view is most plausible?'"

- C. Stephen Evans

Apologetics 315: Sunday Quote: C. Stephen Evans on the God Question

Responding to True Paradigm: Corporate versus individual election

Image by Brent Nelson via Flickr

Now this is what I'm talking about. Brennon posted an exegesis on Romans 9 and I posted a response, and now bethyada has posted a response. bethyada and I have gone back and forth a little bit in comment, but I thought that it would help to respond to his latest response giving it the space and time it deserves. My words are in red. Please read the above links with comments to follow what has been said already. The issues I have been discussing with bethyada and Brennon are important and will affect how one sees God, witness, and live but neither position make one more pleasing to God or  less saved.

Hi Marcus. What we mean by freewill is not complete absolute freedom to do absolutely anything, it means the ability to make choices that are ours.

I agree that free will means that we are able to make choices that ours that we are responsible for. MY argument is that left to ourselves the only choices we can make are disobedient to God.

We are best to make them in line with God's will and God may aid us in this, but we can make decisions, at least some of the time, against what God wills for us. That is we can choose to disobey God even while God wills us to obey him. And that choice is ours, it is not some second will of God's. Essentially freewill says that exhaustive determinism is not true.

I also agree that God holds us accountable for our acts of disobedience and evil because we are responsible we disobey because we want to disobey not because God makes us disobey. The question is - is the opposite true - can we obey God without God helping us and prompting us? Since no one does good and all sin and no one measures up - I have to answer "no". Romans 3:23

This does not mean we act completely without God. For Christians much of what we do is with God's help, he strengthens our spirit to do what we know is right, even while our flesh entices us otherwise. But we still have the choice to align our behaviour with what the Spirit is doing in us, or not.

Where does the Bible say we have the choice to obey or not to obey. The Bible tells us its a choice to obey and we do choose. If there is such thing as free will as Brennon and bethyada have defined it, then we can choose to go to Christ without God doing anything but on our own. John 6:44 disagrees.

Next, the inability to do good does not mean we are determined by God. If we were determined by God then we will be doing good. Rather one is choosing various wrongs. Hebrews 11? Are you referring to verse 6? I don't know how you are reading this. I don't see pleasing God as exactly the same as doing good. And claims about no one doing good I read as doing everything good. Of course people do some good. And all good done by everyone is with God's help. Unbelievers do some good things which we can trace to God's workings in this world.

Not everyone is determined by God to do good. It's a gift. Not everyone gets it. I was referring to Hebrews 11:6...it's impossible to please God without faith.  If an unbeliever does good...it is inadvertent. They aren't trying to please God  and don't even realize that God gets the credit. God even uses the evil that people do to bless His people and carry on his purpose.  Think of Joseph's brothers...what they meant for evil God intended for good!

Acts 17 does say that God does a lot. But freewill does not say God does nothing. God does heaps! But identifying many things God does is not proving we have no will and I am an automaton. Romans 1 shows we make choices.

I surely would not argue that any born-again Christian, as I know Brennon and bethyada are, could be described as an automaton. Romans 1 does say we make choices, Romans 9 shows that aside from the power of God there is no other choice a sinner can make.

God does work on the corporate level and the individual level. But these are categorically distinct.

God doesn't leave man to himself. He works on men's hearts but still lets them make the choice whether or not they wish to join his kingdom.

How can we say that God works on our heart and then say that we can choose to join the kingdom. Jesus told his disciples "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." John 15:16  Do we really think the same is not true for us?  bethyada must be saying that if a person can choose to join the kingdom then we can get choose to leave it if we decide, right? I don't know if that is what bethyada is saying but it seems the  logical conclusion.

You are pushing freewill to far. It seems that you see the 2 options as

1. God controlling absolutely everything including our thoughts and actions (exhaustive determinism)

2. God doing nothing and humans being able to make any decision and do anything.

But a denial of 1 does not entail 2.

I admit being told that I push free will too far is funny to me, given that I am arguing that God has true completely free will and we as humans don't. A synergistic gospel seems to deny Ephesian 2:8-10

⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We have several scriptural examples of how God sent one nation to judge and punish Israel and then God judge and punished the nations whom God sicced on Israel in the first place. God judged the nations because of their heart. In our churches we don't talk about Habbakuk much be we should because it covers this very issue.

True Paradigm: Corporate versus individual election

YouTube - Debunking William Lane Craig

Image via Wikipedia

Um, where is the "A" material? I was expecting something hardcore that would make me sit up and notice. The video's argument basically is that neither matter nor energy can be created or destroy therefore God could not have created the universe out of nothing. It further asserts that the Quantum Wave function of the universe points to high probability that the universe formed uncaused.

Here are my problems:
1. There is a distinct presupposition that there can be no supernatural explanation and that the laws of matter/energy conservation have always held. He offers no proof.
2. Current science does point to the universe sprang out of nothing, leading to two possible explanations: multiple universes with all possible physical constants and laws being present and actualized in each universe, or one universe in which someone set everything up for life and reality as we know it. Take your pick? Which one is more plausible?
3. The arguments concerning the quantum wave function was too much hand-waving. I took a year of Quantum Mechanic at UC Berkeley and I would have rather have seen some equations showing how he is getting numbers of his probabilities for the universe springing forth uncaused.

William Lane Craig is far from debunked...insulted maybe....but not beaten by any stretch of the imagination.






YouTube - Debunking William Lane Craig

Atheism is Dead: Bart Ehrman’s Millions and Millions of Variants, part 2 of 2

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Here is Mariano's second piece in his two-part essay about how Bart Ehrman is guilty of more errors than he  accuses the Greek New Testament of having. Check out the second part!

Atheism is Dead: Bart Ehrman’s Millions and Millions of Variants, part 2 of 2

Pharyngula::Berlinski: I can't believe I'm wasting time on this guy.

I've recently began reading some material and interviews of David Berlinski and I am impressed. I like him. I have not yet heard him claim to be a Born-again follower of Jesus Christ, but he is asking the right questions. He obviously has struck a nerve to have so many bitter attackers. I found this following scathing blog post from PZ Meyers, who is an atheist and backs evolution no matter how silly his defense is. This is an old post but I think it might be fund to see if his criticisms have any merit. My comments will be in blue. He quotes Berlinski and then responds.

David Berlinski is babbling against evolution again (an abridged version has been published in the Wichita Eagle), and it's dreadful. This is a guy who is a competent mathematician with a degree from Princeton, and all he can do is whip out creationist lies in a lather of fury against Darwin. I've tried to dissect it as well as I can, while trying to choke back the nausea induced by such putrid arguments.

So your arguments are better?

The defense of Darwin’s theory of evolution has now fallen into the hands of biologists who believe in suppressing criticism when possible and ignoring it when not. It is not a strategy calculated in induce confidence in the scientific method. A paper published recently in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington concluded that the events taking place during the Cambrian era could best be understood in terms of an intelligent design – hardly a position unknown in the history of western science. The paper was, of course, peer-reviewed by three prominent evolutionary biologists. Wise men attend to the publication of every one of the Proceeding’s papers, but in the case of Steven Meyer’s "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories," the Board of Editors was at once given to understand that they had done a bad thing. Their indecent capitulation followed at once.
Publication of the paper, they confessed, was a mistake. It would never happen again. It had barely happened at all. And peer review?
The hell with it.
“If scientists do not oppose antievolutionism,” Eugenie Scott, the Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education, remarked, “it will reach more people with the mistaken idea that evolution is scientifically weak.” Scott’s understanding of ‘opposition’ had nothing to do with reasoned discussion. It had nothing to do with reason at all. Discussing the issue was out of the question. Her advice to her colleagues was considerably more to the point: "Avoid debates."

There is a serious question of strategy here, and I go back and forth on it myself. Creationism is nothing but nonsense, and it has no legitimacy to debate. So should we debate it or not? Giving them a reasonable forum gives them more credibility than they deserve. Ignoring them allows them to shriek unanswered. I don't know which is worse.
We've been all over the Meyer affair. It was a bad paper snuck into a journal with the collusion of a fellow traveler in the ID game. Every scientist has had papers rejected; you patch up the flaws and resubmit. I think the Discovery Institute knows this particular paper is irreparable, so all they can do is assume a martyr's pose and whine about it.

Interesting. Meyers claims the creationist and Intelligent Design proponents have no proof and no evidence yet all we have is his word for it! If he won't debate and discuss the evidence with people of different ideas how can he be so sure he is right. Conflict is how science moves forward.

Everyone else had better shut up.
In this country, at least, no one is ever going to shut up, the more so since the case against Darwin’s theory retains an almost lunatic vitality.

Don't be humble, David: I'll grant that it is a completely lunatic vitality.
Now Berlinski cranks up the gait and breaks into the traditional Gish Gallop of all creationists, rattling off garbage at a pace that's hard to match, when one is trying to be honest. It really is no fair that creationists do not have the handicap of being accurate or truthful.

Prove that Berlinski and scientists that agree with him are being inaccurate and lying. Alleging garbage without proof is way more audacious than being willing to debate and discuss.

Look – The suggestion that Darwin’s theory of evolution is like theories in the serious sciences – quantum electrodynamics, say – is grotesque. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to thirteen unyielding decimal places. Darwin’s theory makes no tight quantitative predictions at all.

We do not measure the validity of a theory by how many decimal places can be calculated for some arbitrary formula within it. Berlinski has a childishly naive view of how science works.

"...arbitrary formula..."? Now who is being "childish" and "naive"? Berlinski's point is that quantum elctrodynamics is precisely quantifiable. What kind of predictions can the theory of evolution make about how human life, or any of the current forms of life, will evolve or what the next mutation is?

One piece of crap we should get out of way immediately is this "Darwin's theory" nonsense. We are not dealing with "Darwin's theory" anymore, but a much greater body of knowledge and concepts that has accumulated in the past century and a half, which includes one huge revision (the incorporation of genetics and population genetics) in the past, and which is being constantly updated right now. It is absolutely idiotic to criticize modern biology on the basis of one's misunderstanding of a preliminary proposal published in 1859. But this is the strategy that the IDiots have taken. It is insane.
This complaint that results in evolution have too few significant digits is also insane. One of the things even (especially?) physicists learn early in their training is to use an appropriate level of accuracy; using more digits than is warranted by the accuracy of one's measurements is unscientific. When you are dealing with a population of 10⁶ individuals, it would be ridiculous to use the Hardy-Weinberg formula to estimate gene frequencies in the next generation to 1 in 10¹³, and it would also require ignoring the noise and statistical properties of what we are measuring.
There's also a serious problem in the logic of his argument. Meteorologists also deal with complex phenomena and can't predict the weather for more than a few days in advance. This does not mean it is not a science, nor does it lend credibility to the idea that lightning is caused by the anger of Thor.

Berlinski is certainly not suggesting that Thor causes lightning. And I know he would agree with the argument about significant figures. That's true about all sciences. The issue with evolution, I've got is how do you use math to make predictions of new mutations that would move people forward.

Look – Field studies attempting to measure natural selection inevitably report weak to non-existent selection effects.

Why shouldn't evolutionists debate creationists? Because creationists say things that are this stupid, that are wrong on multiple levels. If I were standing on a podium with Berlinski, at this point I'd be tempted to pick up a book (something massive, like Gould's Structure of Evolutionary Theory) and throw it at him.
On one level, this is not a damaging observation at all. We do not expect everything to have a strong selection effect, and we expect most phenomena to be selectively neutral. This is like criticizing physicist's understanding of gravity because we weigh less on the moon, and we aren't all crushed into a thin pulpy layer of slime by the force of Earth's gravity.
Another problem is that it is a fucking lie.
Strong selection effects have been measured, for example in bacteria in response to antibiotics, and in insects in response to insectides, for instance in measurements of the frequency of allelic variants of the acetylcholinesterase gene in mosquitos.
So what should I do in a debate with some sleaze like Berlinski, who pulls this kind of dishonest crap? Spend 20 minutes teaching the audience about Hardy-Weinberg, pull up the results of a half dozen studies, and get all technical and detailed? Or walk across the room, beat him unconscious with any one of hundreds of readily available books that demonstrate his dishonesty, and kick him until he pukes? The latter is very tempting.

Dishonest? First you said Belinski is right but it doesn't matter. Then you said he lied.Which is it? Do you expect strong selection effects or not? A violent response from Meyer is only tempting because that is all he has.

Look – Darwin’s theory is open at one end since there are no plausible account for the origins of life.

It's open at the other end, since we don't know where life is going, either. And there are all kinds of gaps in the middle, because we aren't omniscient. So?
Science makes no claim of completeness. This is true of not just biology, but also physics, chemistry, geology, psychology, sociology…you name it.
And once again, in addition to completely missing the point, he's lying again. There are plenty of plausible theories of abiogenesis. The problem is in resolving which is the most likely, working out the details, figuring out how chemical evolution links up with biological evolution, and testing many of the ideas. All of the ideas coming out of the chemistry labs pursuing abiogenesis are far more robust and more productive and more plausible than the silliness hatched out of the Discovery Institute.

"Abiogenesis"? Really? Richard Dawkins disagrees with you. As for life being opened at both ends is wrong. We know if things continue as they everything dies in heat death. Sure there are gaps.Berlinski's point is that evolution does not explain why there is consciousness or life. Dodging the question by saying we don't know how it ends is silly. Most physicists agree that heat death is inevitable.

Look – The astonishing and irreducible complexity of various cellular structures has not yet successfully been described, let alone explained.

Give me a break. Irreducibility has been thoroughly debunked as a property that would invalidate evolution.

Not everyone agrees.  There is such thing as irreducible complexity everyone agrees with that. The question is how does evolution account for that. It's unavoidable that if macro evolution is true that some natural mechanisms could not have evolved slowly in pieces but came as one piece.

Look – A great many species enter the fossil record trailing no obvious ancestors and depart for Valhalla leaving no obvious descendents.

Name one.
It's not surprising that many leave no descendants: we expect that on a branching bush, many will be terminal twigs. But he will not be able to name a single species that has been studied that does not show deep, fundamental relationships to all other species.

Okay which is it. Either there are descendants or there aren't. Why do we only find twigs and no species that we can prove bridge 2 species  alive today. I'd like to see Meyer to name one.

Look – Where attempts to replicate Darwinian evolution on the computer have been successful, they have not used classical Darwinian principles, and where they have used such principles, they have not been successful.

This is precisely backwards. The major complaint biologists have about successful simulations, such as Avida, is that they rely too much on Darwinian selection. Berlinski's complaint here simply does not make sense.

Okay, so can Meyer name other successful simulations that also rely on classical Darwinian principles? Berlinski may have been referring to other principles rather than selection.

Look – Tens of thousands of fruit flies have come and gone in laboratory experiments, and every last one of them has remained a fruit fly to the end, all efforts to see the miracle of speciation unavailing.

For a mathematician who likes to babble about the importance of 13 significant digits, he sure likes to pull bogus numbers out of his butt. In my little genetics class at a small, out-of-the-way university, we rip through 10,000 fruit flies in a single semester, easily.
And, as we have come to expect in this little essay, Berlinski combines both egregious misconceptions and outright lies in his claim. We do not expect fruit flies to become anything other than fruit flies in the mere century of research we have carried out. What does he expect, flies to give birth to cats?
Of course speciation has been observed. Multiple times. In nature and the lab.

"speciation" is a lot different than an amphibian turning into a reptile. Who is being dishonest? It's not Berlinski.Fruit flies still say fruit flies. Evolutionists expect us to believe give enough time one species gives birth to cats and flies. And they call Berlinski crazy.

Look – The remarkable similarity in the genome of a great many organisms suggests that there is at bottom only one living system; but how then to account for the astonishing differences between human beings and their near relatives – differences that remain obvious to anyone who has visited a zoo?

Similarity is not identity.
It really is that simple, Mr Berlinski. Are you that obtuse that this simple concept evades you?
Human and chimpanzee genomes are very similar to one another, but there are significant differences. Human and chimpanzee genomes also have some distant similarities with the Drosophila genome, but the differences are much greater.
Human and chimpanzee morphologies are very similar to one another, but there are significant differences. Human and chimpanzee morphologies also have some distant similarities with Drosophila morphology, but the differences are much greater.

Ooohh...another straw man!

But look again – If the differences between organisms are scientifically more interesting than their genomic similarities, of what use is Darwin’s theory since it’s otherwise mysterious operations take place by genetic variations?

What the hell…?
This doesn't even make sense; all I can imagine is that Berlinski, sitting in his little fantasy bubble, imagining how biology works without ever consulting reality, has drifted off into some bizarre alien plane where he is now warring with his own misconceptions.
The differences are interesting. The similarities are interesting. The differences and similarities are maintained and generated by evolutionary mechanisms (please, not "Darwin", who didn't even have a theory of genetics).
Does anyone understand what Berlinski is chittering about here? Is it possible that clouting him over the head with Gould's mega-book has caused brain damage?

Meyer is  the one who quoted and responded. I don't understand the point that Meyer is trying to make other than to insult another human being.

These are hardly trivial questions. Each suggests a dozen others. These are hardly circumstances that do much to support the view that there are “no valid criticisms of Darwin’s theory,” as so many recent editorials have suggested.
Serious biologists quite understand all this. They rather regard Darwin’s theory as an elderly uncle invited to a family dinner. The old boy has no hair, he has no teeth, he is hard of hearing, and he often drools. Addressing even senior members at table as Sonny, he is inordinately eager to tell the same story over and over again.
But he’s family. What can you do?

Who is Berlinski to speak of "serious biologists"? I know many serious biologists. All take evolutionary biology quite seriously, and understand it quite well as a substantial, powerful tool.
And only gibbering creationists make this foolish mistake of yammering about "Darwin's theory" when they are talking about the whole of modern biology.
Berlinski has convinced me. Eugenie Scott is right and public, formal debates with these cretins should be avoided. I look at the strings of lies he'd be shitting out on the stage, and I don't see why I should subject myself or an audience to that kind of revolting spectacle.
And yes, I am angry. This is what us American biologists have to deal with?

Meyer calls the above pontification an argument. I do not. I know serious biologists who disagree with Darwin. Meyer has said in this post I'm pointing that  It is absolutely idiotic to criticize modern biology on the basis of one's misunderstanding of a preliminary proposal published in 1859. So Meyer does not agree with Darwin either as Darwin proposed his original theory. Wonders of Wonders...agreement. And Meyer is yammering without exsplaining why he is right.

---

Sweet galumphing Jebus. It has just been pointed out to me that Berlinski's latest book, The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky, is a defense of astrology. Now I feel even worse about wasting time on this clown.

Last I checked, Vaulted Sky is fiction.

Pharyngula::Berlinski: I can't believe I'm wasting time on this guy.