Atheist Review of How to Know God Exists (by Steven J.).

REVIEW Is Evolution Scientific (Part One) Chapter 3 of How to Know God Exists is a mess of confusions. The very least of these is the conflation of the Big Bang, abiogenesis, and evolution into a single category Ray calls "evolution."

He does, after all, consider the three as more or less separate problems. The real problem is that abiogenesis is the only one of these that Ray does even a half-passable job with. As he notes, there isn't any detailed theory of abiogenesis. Thus there's so much less for him to get wrong. Yet he does his best to get wrong what he can. He quotes Fred Hoyle's calculations for the likelihood of abiogenesis, without considering, first, that abiogenesis does not imply the assembly of a complete living cell from simple chemical precursors.

He considers neither Jack Szostak's theories on "RNA world" nor the success of University of Lancaster researchers in synthesizing RNA from simple molecules nor the success of Scripps Institute researchers in assembling strands of RNA that can self-replicate without the aid of other complex molecules. He doesn't consider that there may be many possible combinations of amino acids that can do the job of a particular enzyme, or part of that job: Hoyle was computing the odds of getting a particular sort of modern cell, rather than any self-replicating system whose complexity could increase through reproduction, mutation, and natural selection.

Now, all of the above points that Ray fails to consider don't constitute, put together, a theory of abiogenesis or proof that it is possible. So even if Ray had considered them, his conclusion would not have been affected, since, as in the previous chapter, Ray wants to prove God by finding gaps God could hide in. Ray, confusing certainty with evidence, assumes that every question has an obvious answer, and have it today, and if the obvious answer isn't "naturalistic," it must be supernatural creation. And again, one must wonder why today is so much more special than past times when scientists could not explain, e.g. how embryonic development occurred, or why it rained. "Science doesn't know (yet)" is not "scientific proof of God."

AUTHOR REBUTTAL: All that, to say that you have no idea as to human origin or a reason for our existence. That's a state that the Bible calls "lost." You are quite happy not to know, hoping that science will shed some light in the future, but I wanted to know the truth, and I found it the moment I repented and trusted in Jesus Christ (see John 8:31-32).

Your explanation of things (including the "evolution" of thousands of completely different eyes) reminds me of the Evolution Museum I visited in Paris some time ago. I took a camera-crew to try and gather some information on the subject of evolution. After an hour of searching, we found a glass case with Origin of Species in it, and a stuffed monkey with a "Lucy" sign on it. The rest of the Museum of Evolution was packed with examples of God's creation. It looked like Noah’s ark--animals lined up two-by-two.

Here is the impasse. You don't know what caused everything in the beginning, but you do seem to know that it wasn’t God. I know that it was God. You say that I can’t know that, and you say this because you don’t know God. You only know about Him, and you don’t like what you hear, so you say that He doesn’t exist.

The theory of evolution cannot be proven. It is just a theory, and those who fully embrace it have made a conscious decision to have faith in what they see as "evidence." However, knowing God is more than simple faith in evidence. It is attestable.

The usual comeback is to say "Moslems say the same thing." But they don’t. Their deity is distant and unknowable. Christians (those who know God) have the privilege of calling Him "Father," because of such an intimate relationship.

If you repent and trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, you too will come to know God. Rather than do that and find everlasting life, you prefer to argue about mutations, bacteria, moths, gnathostomes and Cephalopods, and say that I misrepresent biological evolution.

Go ahead contending, but keep in mind that every day you resist the gospel is another day closer to your death. That's not a scare tactic; reality. Steve J. I am not out to win an argument. I just want to see you in Heaven. It's as simple as that.

Atheist Book Review of How to Know God Exists

REVIEW--by Steven J. (chapter 2 part 1) The title of chapter 2 of How to Know God Exists might be considered a self-evaluation of the chapter itself: a description of evolution that (continuing a theme from chapter 1) ignores natural selection entirely and insists that evolutionary theory attributes every feature of living things to "blind chance." From time to time I have the thought (it is not original with me) that Ray is engaged in an elaborate hoax, the grandest demonstration of Poe's Law ever attempted. At least, I suspect that his understanding of evolution is not quite so abysmally bad as some of his statements suggest.

An example: Ray states that "this marvelous design [of the eye] occurs not just in humans, but in all the different creatures: horses, ants, dogs, whales, lions, flies, ducks, fish, etc. Think about what the theory of evolution claims: the eyes of all these creatures slowly developed over millions of years. Each of them was blind until all the parts miraculously came together and interrelated with all the others, because all the parts are needed for the eye to function." Does Ray really believe this is an accurate statement about evolution? All of these animals except for flies are vertebrates (and if Ray has ray-finned fish in mind when he writes "fish," they are all gnathostome vertebrates).

According to evolutionary theory, all inherited box-camera eyes from a common ancestor; their last blind ancestor was Precambrian. Flies, for their part, inherited eyes from the insect common ancestor (which in turn inherited eyes from an arthropod common ancestor). Nothing very like a whale or a fly ever existed with partially-formed eyes. On the other hand, some living species do have eyes that are "partially formed" with respect to other eyes in their phylum. Cephalopods (octopuses and squids) have box-camera eyes superficially similar to the vertebrate type, but the chambered nautilus has a simpler eye without a lens.

Still simpler eyes, mere cups or funnels (retinas without lenses or proper apertures) exist in limpets. Structurally similar eyes occur in the lancelet or amphioxus, a primitive chordate similar to the common ancestor of vertebrates. Eyes -- functional for their possessors -- exist in forms ranging from a tiny light-sensitive cluster of nerve endings (the planarian) to highly complex box camera or compound eyes in vertebrates and some trilobites respectively.

AUTHOR'S REBUTTAL: Steven J. said, "Flies, for their part, inherited eyes from the insect common ancestor (which in turn inherited eyes from an arthropod common ancestor. Nothing very like a whale or a fly ever existed with partially-formed eyes..." How do you know that? I would think that you merely believe it to be so.

It's not only the formation of the eye that is your problem. The entire human body system is interrelated and makes no sense if it evolved over a massive period of time. The brain, the lung, the eyes, the nervous system, etc., are not independent. They work together.

Please explain how breathing, blood flow, the heart, the brain, and the blood vessels worked while they were evolving. Explain why the heart evolved when there was no blood? Or do you believe that they evolved together? Why and how did the blood evolve when there was no heart to push it through the body? Did the blood know that the heart was evolving and would eventually push it around the body (which hadn't yet evolved)? How did the blood flow when there were no blood vessels? Did the blood vessels know that blood was evolving and would therefore need vessels to take it along with oxygen that had evolved, along with lungs that were evolving to supply oxygen for the blood?

I'm accused of misrepresenting the beliefs of the modern evolutionary theory. However, I don't believe that I do. There are millions who know nothing of populations and mutations. They just believe that evolution happened. They have never thought too deeply about how and why eyes evolved, and when challenged about the fact that every single eye of every dumb dog is breath-taking in complexity of design, they abandon the stupidity of evolution.

Those who don't, have a hidden motive for embracing such craziness, and I believe I know what it is.

Atheist Book Review

Review of, How to Know God Exists (review by Steven J.)

(Chapter 1 part 2) Ray argues, in the opening chapter of How to Know God Exists, that we have no reason to ascribe a cow to evolutionary processes if we can't, ourselves, make a cow (out of nothing, furthermore). But his hypothetical stone-age tribesman could not make a skyscraper, out of nothing or even out of dirt and vegetation. That does not mean that the skyscrapers were not made by beings very like the builders and designers that the tribesman had known. By the same token, our inability to explain or duplicate every detail of naturalistic origins does not imply that we are wrong to seek explanations in terms of observed, natural causes, from gravity to natural selection.

Ray offers one further argument in this introductory chapter (of which, to be sure, fully developed arguments should not be expected; that's what the rest of the book is for): atheists are a minority. In much of the world, even people who accept evolution and a natural origin for stars and worlds are a minority. How likely is it that non-creationists are right when so much of the world is wrong? Of course, this argument has its problems: four hundred years ago, heliocentrists were a minority, and ten or fifteen centuries before that, people who thought the Earth was ball-shaped rather than flat were a minority. Evidence, not mere numbers giving uninformed assent, is relevant here. Ray varies the appeal to the wisdom of the masses with an appeal to the wisdom of geniuses: Einstein, he assures us, believed in God. Not necessarily a personal God, not a God Who inspired an inerrant Holy Bible, and especially not a God Who judged and forgave us, but Something that Einstein thought was not quite the same as the universe itself (Einstein did not want to call himself a pantheist). Oddly, Ray doesn't present us with Einstein's arguments for God (or perhaps this is not so odd, as Einstein didn't actually present such arguments), but appeals to the authority of cosmologists as he appeals to the authority of popular opinion.

AUTHOR REBUTTAL:
You said, "By the same token, our inability to explain or duplicate every detail of naturalistic origins does not imply that we are wrong to seek explanations in terms of observed, natural causes, from gravity to natural selection." How did you make a leap from the creation of everything from nothing, to "our inability to explain or duplicate..."?

I didn’t challenge anyone to "duplicate" nature like some sort of photocopy. I said that we cannot "create" something from nothing. Go ahead, make me a living, breathing, thinking, flying, reproducing, singing bird, or a croaking leaping frog, or a colorful growing flower or a tree. Make a seeing eye linked to a thinking brain, or even a tiny singular grain of inanimate sand--from nothing. No, you can't use creation to start with. Do it from nothing. You can’t. The combined intellect of ten thousand Einstein’s couldn’t do it. We don't know where to begin. So how intellectually dishonest is it for you to presume that all this incredible creation came into being by itself?

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ATHEIST REVIEW of, How to Know God Exists by Steven J.

Ray starts out How to Know God Exists with some self-deprecating humor, describing himself (with examples) as a "klutz" and inviting us to wonder why we should heed the opinion, on a question of such high import as the existence of God, of someone who apparently can't perform simple household chores without risking death or maiming.

My own problem, of course, is wondering why we should trust someone who assumes that "chance" is the only possible alternative to "design" as an explanation for biological complexity and adaption. Ray's answer to either question is that the answer really, really matters to us ... which doesn't, of course, have any terribly obvious bearing on the question of whether his particular answer is true. Note that "design" is not just Ray's answer to why we have eyes and ears and livers and (presumably) why we plantaris tendons and GULO pseudogenes and erector pili muscles. It's his explanation for why we have refraction (and hence rainbows), gravity (and hence oceans and air -- since he's arguing that the planet itself was intelligently created, he doesn't consider gravity an explanation for why we have, e.g. planets and stars in the first place).

Ray repeats some familiar arguments in this chapter, with some familiar problems. He argues that we wouldn't expect a Coke can to form spontaneously, metal sheeting and labeling assembling spontaneously from simple molecules, and therefore shouldn't expect a banana or the person who eats one to originate that way. He doesn't really consider the implications of the fact that Coke cans are manufactured and cannot reproduce themselves (so cannot evolve by mutation and natural selection), whereas bananas and humans had ancestors and do experience evolution. He complains (or at least notes) that this argument was mocked, but doesn't seem to quite grasp why it was mocked (one hint: bananas themselves, as we know them, are results of human selective breeding).

In other cases, Ray does incorporate responses to arguments he's presented before. He notes, when making the "a building implies a builder, hence creation implies a Creator," that we have indeed seen architects and building contractors and carpenters and plumbers, and haven't actually seen a Being capable of making buildings (or bananas) out of nothing by sheer intellect, with no physical mechanism. But he moves blithely and confidently on: even a stone-age tribesman, he argues, would see that skyscrapers were manufactured and designed things. This might well be the case, though it would still imply an analogy between making mud huts and making skyscrapers; this would seem to me to strengthen the case for ascribing biological complexity and diversity to observed processes like reproduction, inheritance, mutation, selection, and drift.

AUTHOR REBUTTAL: You said "My own problem, of course, is wondering why we should trust someone who assumes that 'chance' is the only possible alternative to 'design' as an explanation for biological complexity and adaption." I'm not asking anyone to trust me (see Psalm 146:3). Why would I do that? All I'm asking is that you are reasonable in your thinking, and think outside of the presumptions of atheistic evolution.

Charles Darwin had a tremendous imagination, and nothing epitomizes that more than the idea of natural selection. However, my belief is that if any animal, fish, bird, or plant has adapted to its surroundings, it's not because it did so over incredibly long periods of time, but because God gave it the ability to adapt.

The salamander "adapts" from water to air in about six weeks because God gave it the ability to do so. It was its Creator that gave the little caterpillar the ability to adapt butterfly wings for flight, and it does take millions of years. It goes through four stages of life: egg, larva (the caterpillar stage), pupa (the chrysalis phase), to the adult, and it takes only 30 to 40 days.

The smaller ears of the Indian elephant are smaller than the ears of an African elephant because God made them that way. They didn’t end up smaller because of Darwin's natural selection. Bird's have long beaks because God made them long so that they could get food from long stemmed flowers that He created. The giraffe has a long neck, not because it adapted to reach food in tall trees that God made, but because He created the animal with a long neck to reach tall trees that He made.

Modern natural selection sits on the crumbled foundation of the hoax of the peppered moth. Yet, if you Google "peppered moth" you will find a mass of naive believers in natural selection citing it as gospel-truth, when it's not:

"And all those still photos of moths on tree trunks? One paper described how it was done dead moths were glued to the tree. University of Massachusetts biologist Theodore Sargent helped glue moths onto trees for a NOVA documentary. He says textbooks and films have featured 'a lot of fraudulent photographs'."

Someone who believes in adaption looks at the billions of pairs of eyes of animals, insects, fish, birds and human beings, and sees them as the end result of natural selection, all coincidentally maturing to a point of being fully-functional at this point of time. On top of that, they believe that there was no designer, that all the eyes were unplanned, not created, nor made. They just are. Evolution-did-it.

Atheists also believe in "common descent," but they don’t know what all the animals, birds, fish, insects and human beings commonly descended from, in the beginning. They just did. Evolution-did-it. They believe with all of their heart. I don't have such unwavering blind faith in the idea. I don’t believe it for a second.

I could perhaps believe that an ocean wave could carve an image of a musical note on a shore. With billions of waves going back and forth, I suppose it could randomly happen, given enough time. I would be extremely hard-pressed to believe that a wave could carve a four note tune in the sand.

But you would have me believe that waves produced, not only Beethoven's 5th with its four movements, but every work he wrote, including his symphonies, operatic works, piano sonatas, string quartets and ballets, all randomly carved in time into the sand, by the action of mindless waves. You go even further, and want me to believe that the ocean and the sand produced itself, before it miraculously created the brilliant musical works on the shore. To even consider believing this is foolish talk, and I wouldn't bother to even go there, except that I care for you and where you spend eternity.

Two other points. You said, "He doesn't really consider the implications of the fact that Coke cans are manufactured and cannot reproduce themselves (so cannot evolve by mutation and natural selection), whereas bananas and humans had ancestors and do experience evolution." Can you give me just one example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome? If you can’t give me one authentic example, it points to the fact that the original information must have been at an optimum at some point in the past and has since been "running down." That is special creation. So how can you possibly believe that any Darwinian evolution take place?

And your comment "bananas themselves, as we know them, are results of human selective breeding" is bogus. See http://raycomfortfood.blogspot.com/2009/10/archeology-and-banana.html
It's just not true. Your belief that it is, is misguided. Prove me wrong.

Welcome to the Atheist's Church

"And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Fear not; from henceforth you shall catch men. And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him" (Luke 4:10-11).

Simon (Peter) had gone into business with the Zebedee brothers in the fishing industry. But God had another plan. They were going to "catch men" (mankind) for Him. The fishermen were part of a group of people on a small planet in the universe, who were a dying race. However, their Creator had decided to show them mercy and grant them everlasting life, and the way that He was going to herald the good news of this salvation was through the preaching of men. These three lowly fishermen were going to learn how to cast a net into the world and bring men and women into the everlasting Kingdom of God.

Those who read the Scriptures regularly will know to "interpret Scripture with Scripture." This is because any text taken out of context can easily become a pretext. It would seem to the untrained eye that as soon as Jesus spoke to these men, they dropped everything and followed Him. However, when we read the harmony of the gospels, we see that six weeks earlier, two of the disciples had spent a day with Jesus, and one of them had introduced Peter to Jesus (see John 1:35-40). So Peter at least had time to think about his first experience with Jesus of Nazareth and when he followed him, he had already weighed the issues.

You too are being called to follow Jesus. You too are being called to forsake your own life and become a fisher of men; and you too should weigh the issues. You can either carry on with sin’s pleasures, end up being swallowed by death and be justly damned in Hell, or you can forsake your sins, follow Jesus and have everlasting life. That shouldn't take too long for you to figure as to which is the more sensible way to go.

Jesus told the story of a prodigal son, who found himself desiring the filth that pigs were eating. The Bible said that he came to his senses, got up out of that dirty pigsty and went back to his father. That is a picture of salvation. Leave the pigsty of sin, and run to the God who gave you life, and the Bible says that He will give you "abundant mercy," then join us and become a fisher of men. There’s no higher calling.

Too Busy to Stop...

Human beings like to watch each other. One of the keys to the success of our television program has been the inclusion of interviews on the street. It’s fascinating to see how people react, and hear their perspectives, especially when it comes to God and the afterlife.

There is another interesting aspect of human beings. It is that we keep repeating history. Every four or so years, we become disgruntled with our leaders and vote in some new and exciting selected few with their new concepts. Four or so years later, we become disgruntled, and repeat the same process.

We are like a man who insists on trying to chop down a tree, with a blunt axe. All he is doing is bruising the bark but he refuses to stop his futile efforts and sharpen the axe, because he’s too busy chopping down the tree.

Think about our national problems. We are astronomically in debt, plagued with floods, droughts, fires, hurricanes, and tornadoes. Cancer is killing millions. Mass shootings are commonplace. Our prisons are full to overflowing. Millions have lost their homes and are unemployed. Disease is in our soil and food. We are fighting wars we cannot win, have sleeper-cell terrorists, illegal aliens, bugs in our beds , bugs in baby food, and wood-eating bugs destroying our homes. Bees are getting in short supply. Wild animals attack people, and national TV has become one big advertisement for drug companies, revealing how sick this nation has become. The churches are filled with adulterers, pedophiles and hypocrites, and businesses are filled with corruption.

All these things are the result of a blasphemous nation that has turned its back on God. We have lost His blessing. Calls for political change are nothing but a blunt axe. We need to stop as a nation, and sharpen the axe by turning to God--through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Atheists will stop at nothing...

When I published my book, Nothing Created Everything—the scientific impossibility of atheistic evolution I was called a liar by many professing atheists, and was challenged a number of times to produce a list of credible scientists who believed such lunacy. It’s understandable that I was challenged in such a way, because only a fool would believe that nothing created everything. It is a scientific impossibility.

Then came physicist extraordinaire, Stephen Hawking's admission that he believed that nothing created everything. That was hard on the heels of Professor Richard Dawkin’s admission of the same belief. That put faithful followers in a quandary. The twin popes' of atheism made public their theology, and if the faithful didn’t follow their lead, they would find themselves excommunicated from the religion of atheism.

When I wrote recently that the disciples put down a net to try and catch some fish, they caught "nothing," meaning that they didn't catch any fish, I made a remark that when the Bible says "nothing" it means nothing. One replied:

"Are you asserting that the disciples pulled up pristine, dry nets -- that their endeavors had not accumulated a single drop of water, a single leaf or floating twig, etc.? That would be considerably more miraculous and noteworthy than someone on the shore being able to see a shoal of fish that was not visible from the boat itself! Even in the Bible, 'nothing' is a relative term: the disciples caught no usable fish. It does not mean that they hauled up an absolute vacuum in their net, much less an ontological nullity with even less to it than a vacuum. Pointing out that 'nothing' has a range of meanings is neither a rhetorical trick nor a peculiarity of 'atheist' cosmology."*

He was asserting that when leading atheists say that nothing created everything, they don’t mean the insanity of "nothing;" they mean something. Hawking and Dawkins would be fools to really believe that nothing created everything, and that is the important point I have been making all along.

When a thinking atheist is pushed into a corner and challenged on this point, he will agree that it is unscientific to believe that there was no initial cause--that nature made itself. Such a thought is lunacy, because nature would have to pre-exist before it made itself, to make itself. So the professing atheist believes that something made everything, and the Christian goes one further and says that that “something” was the eternal God.

So let's make it clear once more. If you are a professing atheist, and you believe that nothing created everything, then you must come out from behind the skirts of science. What you believe is unscientific lunacy. If you say that something created everything, you have come to your senses, and you are no longer an atheist. Good for you.

* Steven J.

Upcoming Book Review

I'm honored that Steven J. is reviewing my book, How to Know God Exists. I have decided to give him the profile he deserves with this, by putting his reviews up as posts (unedited), and then giving my rebuttal to his review.

We will do this until either he finishes the book, or it becomes tiresome to either Steven, myself, or yourselves. I think it will be interesting. The reviews will begin this Monday.

Something to Think About:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

Free copies of, How to Know God Exists

Due to demand for the book, we are out of stock. More have been ordered. Thanks for your patience. Scroll to Sept. 14th post for details (to date, 166 atheists have requested copies).

Number One Favorite Smell...

Barbeque is the number one favorite smell, on most people's smell list. It brings instant salivation. The top favorite color is blue. That makes sense, because blue gives us a sense of well-being. Who doesn’t appreciate a clear blue sky? What are some of the every day pleasures you enjoy? Good music? How about the first bite of a tender steak, or some liquid that hits the spot on a really hot day? Imagine losing all of those pleasures. Imagine if you found yourself in a place where a terrible thirst could never be quenched.

I don’t need to "imagine" such a place. I am 100% convinced that Hell exists; and Hell is a place where there is no pleasure. No friends. No parties. I believe this because I know that a Creator exists, because creation exists: It is...therefore He does. As mocking atheists say, "Goddidit." It doesn't take too much thought.

I know intuitively that the Creator is good, because I am part of a "moral" creation. No animal has concerns about justice and truth. Only man. If God exists and is good, He therefore must care about justice. Billions feel as I do. Simply ask any human being what God requires of them, and they will say that He expects us to "live a good life," etc. From there, common sense dictates that murderers and rapists will ultimately be punished. That's a given. But what most of humanity doesn't understand is that the standard of goodness that God has is infinitely higher than ours. That means that on Judgment Day His justice will be infinitely more demanding.

To believe that God doesn't exist--that there is no absolute morality, no ultimate justice, and you can live as you wish, is to have all your eggs in one broken down basket, with a loose handle. If you are guilty on Judgment Day (and remember that lust is adultery in God’s eyes--Matthew 5:27-28), you will give up all of life's wonderful pleasures.

Think about what "damnation" actually means. Crying out "I’m so sorry, I was wrong, God help me!" will mean nothing. The door of mercy will be closed. You laughed at His servants, you mocked His gospel, you blasphemed His name, you were ungrateful for the life he gave you, and lived in a way that was abhorrent to Him. Now you must face the music. Justice will have finally caught up with you, and there will be Hell to pay.

For the Christian, Hell has already been "paid." Justice has been satisfied through the suffering death of the Savior. We can leave the courtroom. We will have pleasure for evermore, on a new earth...one without tornadoes, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, disease, pain, suffering, death, etc. God hasn't even begun to show the pleasures He has in store for those that love Him (see 1 Corinthians 2:9). We have instant salvation the moment we call upon Him, and eternal salivation awaiting us.

So what's holding you back from repentance, and faith in Jesus? We both know the answer to that, don’t we? It's two-fold. Your pride, and your love of your sin. Maybe the next time pleasure comes your way, you will consider these sobering thoughts. I hope so.

What a Blind Man Sees...

In Scripture a Christian is called a "believer." Yet, before my conversion, I believed in God. I believed that Jesus was the Son of God, and I believed that He rose from the dead. But I was not a believer in the biblical sense. This is because a believer is someone who has trusted Jesus for his eternal salvation. I hadn’t taken that step of faith. A sky-diver can’t rightly be called a sky-diver until he takes a leap of faith out of the plane, and a sinner can't be called a believer until he entirely puts his faith in Jesus Christ, through the new birth.

An unbeliever is called an "unbeliever," not because he doesn’t believe in the existence of God, but because he lacks "saving" faith. He lives in what the Bible calls the "natural" world. He is like man who was born blind, who is reading a brail book called, Amazing Color! As he runs his fingers over the raised lettering, he whispers the words he is reading:

"The sky is a beautiful blue. Luscious green grass fills the landscape as far as the eye can see. Two color-filled gardens on each side of the grass area. On one side bright yellow flowers burst with wonderful color, and on the other side vivid red roses explode with amazing energy, each one cupped in a cradle of wonderfully intense green leaves. The recent refreshing rain has left drops on the plants sending streams of white light in different directions. A stunning rainbow, with its amazing seven colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, arches in all its glory across the massive blue heavens."

The blind man closes the book and thinks, "This makes no sense? I believe in science. I believe in logic and what can be proven, not in this thing called 'color.' I don’t believe it exists, and anyone who does, is a fool."

He is right. His world does lack any semblance of color, so what could you say to such a closed-minded man? You could tell him that color exists, no matter what he does or doesn't believe about it. Reality isn’t dictated by his belief. Then you could explain what color looks like. But how would explain "blue" or "red"? You can’t say that blue looks "like" anything because the blind man hasn’t anything in his mind to which he can compare it. What he needs is something you can’t give him. He needs light and that would take a miracle.

The Bible says that the unbeliever is blind. He is enclosed in his own "natural" world-view. He cannot see, and he will often mock any thought of another dimension: "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Every unbeliever is "alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart..." (Ephesians 4:18). And there's nothing you can do to help him to see, if he is not willing to be honest. He needs the "light":

"For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life" (Proverbs 6:23),

"In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them" (2 Corinthians 4:4).

If he is prepared to look at the Ten Commandments with an honest heart, they will illuminate him to his need and help him to understand the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. Jesus is the One who said, "I am the light of the world: he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12). There's the miracle.

The Years from You to Me

Your hair waves once more when I weep. With the blue of your eyes

you lay the table of love: a bed between summer and autumn.

We drink what somebody brewed neither I nor you nor a third; we lap up some empty and last thing.

We watch ourselves in the deep sea's mirrors and faster pass food to the other:

the night is the night, it begins with the morning, beside you it lays me down.

P.C.

Stop hiding...

Welcome to the Atheist Church

"Now when he had left speaking, he said to Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering said to him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at your word I will let down the net. And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fish: and their net brake. And they beckoned to their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fish which they had taken..." (Luke 5:4-9).

The theme that runs through the entire Bible is the subject of "trust." Our entire lives are built on trust. It is the glue by which a marriage stays intact. An economy breaks down when people lose trust in the economic system. Banks won’t lend if they lose trust in those seeking loans. People won’t entrust their savings in a bank they don’t trust. When we fly by plane we trust unseen pilots. When we have an operation, we trust the surgeon’s skill. When we eat food prepared at restaurants, we trust the cooks we often don’t see. We entrust our lives to elevators, taxi drivers, and even to other drivers who we trust will stay on the other side of a yellow line.

In this portion of Scripture, Peter makes a rational decision to trust Jesus of Nazareth, despite his past experience of not catching fish. They had toiled for the whole night and caught nothing (when the Bible speaks of "nothing" it means just that--nothing). But Peter ignored his life experience, and said, "Nevertheless at your word I will let down the net."

As a result, he proved Jesus to be true to His word. He found that He was trustworthy, and the implications of the catch of fish were obvious. Not too many know what lies under the sea. This Man was obviously supernatural, and if this Man was from God, Peter immediately acknowledged his sinful nature. This was because he was a Jew, and Jews have a great advantage over the Gentiles, because they have knowledge of the Law of God (see Romans 3:1-2).

The Scriptures tell us that the Law is a schoolmaster that brings us to Jesus Christ (see Galatians 3:24), and it did just that with this sinful fisherman. The moment any sinner comes to Jesus Christ and trusts in Him, he is "justified" (made clean) in the sight of a holy God, and granted the gift of everlasting life. Forget your life experience, and trust Jesus Christ today. He will change everything.

M. Parish wurden...

... = ...

Bruce the Atheist...

Last Saturday, I was delighted to find that a group of atheists from "Backyard Atheists" in Orange County, California, got out of their back yard and showed up at Huntington Beach.

While I was conducting an interview with a member of his team (a likeable scientist named Gus), my friend Bruce snuck up behind me and began filming:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVG_n2GIfxA

Free Book for Atheists

Thanks to the kindness of a generous Christian, we can mail atheists free copies of, How to Know God Exists (finalist, 2009 Retailers Choice Awards). This offer is only for atheists.

Note: We have given away books and dinner vouchers to hundreds of atheists, and never once have we followed up with literature or a visit (why would we do that, when I can say what I want to you on this blog?). Please state if you would like the book signed.

Simply email your name and address (formatted as you would on an envelope--three lines, caps and lower case) to request@livingwaters.com/ Please do not ask for books to be sent to atheists who haven’t requested a copy. This is a limited offer. We will send books to countries outside of the United States.

Atheism: Religion of Deceit

There is a popular atheist poster which says, "Atheism: Good enough for these idiots." The "idiots" pictured in the poster are icons of history--from top left: Ernest Hemmingway, Abraham Lincoln, Carl Sagan, Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and of course, Charles Darwin.

This poster epitomizes the deceit of those who say that they believe that God doesn’t exist. Look at the real beliefs of their "atheists":

Thomas Jefferson said, "I have ever thought religion a concern purely between our God and our consciences, for which we were accountable to Him, and not to the priests." He wasn’t an atheist.

Albert Einstein lamented the fact that atheists continually lied about his beliefs: "In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views."

The brilliant and witty Mark Twain despised organized religion, but he wasn’t an atheist. He said, "None of us can be as great as God, but any of us can be as good."

Benjamin Franklin loved the God who gave him life--"It is that particular wise and good God, who is the author and owner of our system, that I propose for the object of my praise and adoration."

Charles Darwin was disillusioned with Christianity, but he was far from being an atheist. He said, "When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist."

President Abraham Lincoln revered God, and when addressing troops said, "While we are grateful to all the brave men and officers for the events of the past few days, we should, above all, be very grateful to Almighty God, who gives us victory."

The famous American astronomer and author, Carl Sagan, who was tragically struck with cancer, went to meet his Maker on December 20, 1996. Neither was Carl Sagan an atheist. He said, "An agnostic is somebody who doesn't believe in something until there is evidence for it, so I'm agnostic." He admitted that he didn’t know if God existed.

There is one genuine atheist in the poster--Ernest Hemingway. He was the American author who wrote fiction, and made the profound statement, "All thinking men are atheists." He is said to be "A hero to atheists everywhere." Sadly, he was an alcoholic who became so depressed with life he "put the end of the barrel into his mouth, pulled the trigger and blew out his brains." On seeing the poster, one honest atheist said, “Ugh, I don't think Hemingway is a good advertisement for atheism due to his alcoholism and suicide. Surely we could find people with lives that ended happier than his for this poster?"

Another remarked, "If you sat down and really talked with those guys, I'm sure they'd all admit to 'atheism’ in restricted senses of the word though..." Sure.

So there you have it. The one poster-boy for atheism is a pretty pathetic advertisement. And you can't blame the poor man for killing himself. He had no idea where he came from, what he was doing on earth, or where he was going when death eventually came.

All unthinking men are atheists, and when it comes down to it there really aren’t too many of them. It’s a small religion, but it makes big money for the few men at the top. As Sir Isaac Newton so wisely said, "Atheism is so senseless and odious to mankind that it never had many professors."

Notes:
To Mrs. M. Harrison Smith, 1816. ME 15:60, http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1650.htm
Statement to German anti-Nazi diplomat and author Prince Hubertus zu Lowenstein around 1941, as quoted in his book Towards the Further Shore : An Autobiography (1968)
Mark Twain's Notebook, 1902-1903
Franklin's Works, Vol. ii., p. 2.
Darwin 1958, pp. 92-93.
Response to a Serenade on May 9, 1864 (CWAL VII:334)
http://machineslikeus.com/news/why-carl-sagan-considered-good-atheist
Meyers 1985, p. 560
"Widow Believes Hemingway Committed Suicide..." By Harry Gilroy, New York Times,
August 23, 1966
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/an_inspirational_poster.php
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/an_inspirational_poster.php
Brewster, Sir David. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton Edinburgh, 1850.

Welcome to the Atheist Church...

"And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret, and saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets. And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship" (Luke 5:1-3).

God was manifest in the flesh and walked the shores of a lake in Israel. Never in the history of humanity was there a human being like Jesus of Nazareth. His words were with power. Truly, "Never a man spoke like this Man." When people touched Him, power flowed from His body. The crowds that gathered to hear him were so large that, at times, He couldn’t even enter into a city.

As He stood on the edge of Lake Gennesaret, a mass of people pressed upon Him. They weren’t there just to see this preacher, they were there to hear the word of God.

Some people wait to a point where one foot is in their grave before they understand that God is life, and that if they want to keep their life they have to somehow connect with God. That’s why people press in to hear what God has to say.

As an ex-surfer, I think I know why Jesus got into a boat to teach the people. One reason was to separate Himself from the throng. That's simple common sense. The second reason may have to do with the volume of His words. I know that if I address a crowd of more than 500 people in the open air, without amplification, the people at the back are not going to hear a word I am saying.

However, calm water amplifies sound. There have been times where I have sat on the calm ocean waiting for a wave, and I have been able to hear other surfers talking to each other, half a mile away. This may happen because the flat water is neither absorbing nor is any object hindering the sound. And that’s how it must begin with those who want to live forever. Don’t let any objection stop you from clearly hearing the Word of God.

I hope you have a great week.

Picture from:

http://www.mythfolklore.net/lahaye/

Very Slow Driver...

A woman tells the story of her husband driving home, when he saw the flash of a traffic camera. He figured that his picture had been taken for exceeding the limit even though he knew that he was not speeding. Just to be sure, he went around the block and passed the same spot, driving even more slowly, but again the camera flashed. Now he began to think that this was quite funny, so he drove even slower as he passed the area once more, but the traffic camera again flashed.

He tried a fourth and fifth time with the same results and was now laughing as the camera flashed while he rolled past at a snail's pace. Two weeks later, he got five tickets in the mail for driving without a seat belt.*

Such is the case with the skeptic. He is so sure that he has the Law of God figured, that he laughs at it. How could God send him to Hell for not believing in Him! How could He damn anyone to eternal torture for petty little sins? And he is right on both counts. God will not damn anyone for not believing in Him, and no one will go to Hell for petty little sins. Like the silly husband who was so confident that he was in the right, they are making a huge mistake. They think that the Law of God only judges actions.

In their willful ignorance they don’t realize that it also focuses on the secret thought-life: "Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another; In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel" (Romans 2:15-16). No one will get away with the slightest violation of the Law of God, and there is nothing "petty" about any sin against God.

He doesn't require an intellectual acknowledgment to His existence. He requires obedience to His command. Nothing is hidden from His all-seeing eye, and as with the slow-brain and ignorant husband, every time anyone sins--in thought or deed, he stores up the wrath of the Law that will be revealed on the Day of Judgment. Get the picture?--The ticket is in the mail. Yet, for those who obey the gospel, the ticket was paid in full on a cross 2,000 years ago, such is the mercy of God.

* This story is probably no more than a joke.

The Amazing Filthy Fly

I hate flies. They are annoying, and so hard to hit unless you have a good fly-swat and a very fast hand. But as much as I hate the fly, I marvel at how incredibly well it is made, from its amazing compound eyes that can see the slightest movement, to its tiny brain that is connected to the eyes and tells the fly to move because it is in danger.

The common housefly is more complex than our most sophisticated air plane. It has a heart that pumps blood through its tiny veins*, feet that have the ability to suction its body upside-down on a roof, and an agility that makes our most maneuverable aircraft look like a fat and slow-moving dinosaur. It has instincts to mate, to eat, to sleep, and to reproduce with its own kind. It is fearfully and wonderfully made.

To the untrained eye, flies are extremely clean little creatures. They land on the side of your dinner plate and immediately begin to cleanse themselves. With their front legs they clean their eyes, then with their back legs they carefully clean their wings and abdomen. Yes, very clean is the fly. But follow the little beast and you will find out what his appetites are really for.

To the untrained eye, mankind is extremely clean. He’s always washing himself, with his baths and showers, his many soaps and shampoos; and his deodorants to make him smell nice and clean. Yes, very clean is man. But follow the little beast and you will find what his appetites are really for. The Bible likens him to the dirty little fly by calling his spiritual father, Beelzebub -- "Lord of the Flies."

The Scriptures say that even the heavens aren't clean in God's sight, but "How much more abominable and filthy is man, who drinks iniquity like water?" (Job 15:16). The Bible adds, "The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that does good. God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God. Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that does good, no, not one" (Psalm 53:1-3).

Yet, despite our moral filthiness, God is rich in mercy and willing to cleanse us, change our appetites, and grant us everlasting life. But before that can happen, we must acknowledge our sins, repent and trust the Savior, and that rarely happens until we have taken an honest look at ourselves in the light of the Ten Commandments.

* Experts on flies kindly informed me that they don't have a heart or veins. They also have a collection of nerves called the Cerebral Ganglion instead of a brain, as some humans have. Instead of lungs, they have an open circulatory system--tiny holes in their exoskeleton called "spiracles" that allows air to pass though the body. How incredible God is...

STOP PRESS! Flies do have hearts. Dale Jackson sent this: Yes, "flies have hearts, at least nine of them; one principal heart and eight accessory hearts. In some ways they are similar to your heart - a muscular pump that moves blood around the body. But in most ways, the hearts and open circulatory system of insects are bizarre and very different from ours. The principal heart is a muscular tube running down the middle of the fly under the skin on top of the abdomen. The tube is closed at the back end and extends forward through the thorax to open behind the head. The tube has six slits in the abdominal portion. When the muscle relaxes, blood flows through the slits into the tube. When the muscle contracts, flaps inside the tube close over each slit and blood is forced out the front end of the tube into the head. The heart then relaxes and the tube fills with blood again. It beats like this about 370 times per minute, which is much faster than the 60 or so beats per minute of your heart. (CCMR Ask a Scientist) "The fly's heart is a 1 mm long muscular tube that runs along the dorsal side of the abdomen, and contains a number of intake valves. At the anterior end of the abdomen, nearest the fly's waist, the heart narrows and becomes the aorta, which travels through the fly's thorax and opens up in the head. Haemolymph is pumped out of this opening into the body cavity, where it travels backwards through the fly's body and is taken up into the heart again via the intake valves." (Journal of experimental biology HOW FLY HEARTS BEAT BOTH WAYS by Laura Blackburn) You are correct, flies do not have veins or arteries as humans do. Though the term "vein" is used by scientists to describe the cell border patterns on the wings.

I Hope this Lightens Your Day...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtFbtQiFRcI

À Lost history

More on the Law

There is something else in criminal law that is extremely important to understand. It is Ignorantia juris non excusat--from the Latin "ignorance of the law does not excuse." It's the legal principle which says that even though a person is unaware of a law, they are still liable for its violation. They are guilty even though they weren’t aware of the law’s demand.

If you drive through a country town at 70 MPH, ignorant of the fact that the law of the town says that 50 MPH is the maximum speed, you are still guilty of violation of the law and held accountable.

Being held accountable for violating a law of which you had no knowledge may seem unreasonable, because there is no way any one person could be aware of every law on the books. However, the purpose of this principle is to ensure that "willful blindness" cannot become the basis of a plea of innocence.

Such is the case with the willful ignorance of atheism--"I didn’t believe therefore I am guiltless." The Law still condemns its violators, despite what the Bible calls "unbelief."

However, a good judge will take genuine ignorance into account. This is the case with God. Even though you have intuitive knowledge that adultery is a violation of God’s moral Law, you may be ignorant to the fact that God’s considers lust to be adultery (see Matthew 5:27-28). Or, even though you may think it is okay to have a personal conception of God (either as an image of wood, or as an image in your mind), you may not be aware that this is a violation of the Second of the Ten Commandments:

"You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them" (Exodus 20:4).

When the Apostle Paul arrived in the city of Athens, the Bible tells us that he was grieved because the city had given itself to idolatry. In their ignorance, they had done what most civilizations do, they had made God to be as they imagined Him to be. Paul said,

"Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.'" (Acts 17:24-28).

How foreign these words are even to modern "traditional" Christianity. Many whisper when they enter a building that they call a "church" because the assume that that is where God dwells. But the Scriptures tell us "God does not dwell in temples made with hands." He is as much in your home as He is at places we assume are holy, and He is nothing like we conceive Him to be.

Then the Apostle gave them the good news that even though they were guilty of violating the Second of the Ten Commandments, God would overlook their ignorance:

"Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead" (Acts 17:29-31, italics added).

If you have suddenly realized that you have also been guilty of creating a god in your own image, the Bible has the same message for you. You must repent because God has appointed a fearful Day of Judgment, and the only way to be safe on the Day is to trust in the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Criminal Law

There is something in criminal law called mens rea. This is "An element of criminal responsibility, mens rea is Latin for 'guilty mind.' Must be established to prove criminal liability."[1] In other words, if a man committed rape or murder, did he know at that time that what he did was wrong? If so, that establishes a case for his guilt.

Who of us doesn’t have a "guilty mind" when it comes to lying, stealing, adultery, and murder? This was because "the work of the Law" is written upon our heart and mind. The effect of the presence of the knowledge of right and wrong, is that the conscience will accuse us of guilt. Speaking of the ungodly, the Amplified Bible puts it this way:

"They show that the essential requirements of the Law are written in their hearts and are operating there, with which their consciences (sense of right and wrong) also bear witness; and their [moral] decisions (their arguments of reason, their condemning or approving thoughts) will accuse or perhaps defend and excuse [them]" (Romans 2:15).

For many, the feeling of guilt is nothing more than an annoyance to be shaken off like some sort of bug that is sitting on the flesh of your arm. Bug us though it may, the function of the conscience is similar to that of a smoke detector, and guilt is its alarm.

The sound of a smoke detector’s alarm is annoying, but we appreciate it because of its function. Its purpose is to be annoying, because it wants to alarm me to imminent danger.

That's the function of the alarm of the conscience. Each time you hear it, it's saying there is imminent danger, and that danger is the Day of Judgment when the fire of God’s indignation will rage against all wickedness. If you remove the batteries from a smoke detector because you don’t like the annoying alarm, and the consequence is that you lose your life in a fire, people will say that you were a fool.

The tragedy is that often entire families perish because of an irresponsible father. The same case applies to the salvation of God.

Notes: [1}.public.findlaw.com/library/pa-criminal-law.html

KC

Welcome to This Week’s Atheist Church.

Today's sermon continues to be from the Gospel of Luke:

"Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, You are Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ. And when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place: and the people sought him, and came to him, and stayed him, that he should not depart from them. And he said to them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent. And he preached in the synagogues of Galilee" (Luke 4:40-44).

The Bible tells us in another place that "power" flowed from Jesus, and when people knew what was happening, they carried sick loved ones to Him so that he could touch them and be healed.

The imagination has the power to put pictures into the mind, so that we can mentally experience certain things. Imagine God healing your mom or dad of Alzheimer's instantly, or your blind cousin suddenly seeing for the first time in his life. Or imagine an amputee getting new limbs or a dead person being raised. Of course, all this is just imaginary, and not reality, but it would give us a sense of the excitement that must have been around when miraculous power flowed from the body of Jesus of Nazareth.

Recently, some twisted woman threw a cup of acid into the face of a pretty girl. It seems that the pretty girl was a Christian, who spoke of the fact that she had put on sunglasses just 20 minutes before the incident (when she normally didn’t wear sunglasses). She attributed that fact to a "miracle" from Jesus. Such a thought is open to serious conjecture. A "miracle" would have been the perpetrator's arm being paralyzed just as she was about the throw the acid into her face. A true miracle would have been divine protection from the acid. Still, it was very fortunate that it didn’t go into her eyes and cause blindness. For that she should rightly thank God, and perhaps that was all she was trying to do.

Whatever the case, the greatest miracle that any of us can experience from God, isn't physical healing. It's when God proves Himself to us through the new birth of John 3:3-6. The experience is as radical as the first time you were born, and it will mean that you can freely talk of the reality of divine miracles, because you have personally experienced one.

I hope you have a great week.

BTW. Thank you for asking about my relatives in Christchurch New Zealand, where they just had a huge earthquake. They are all shaken, but okay. There's nothing like an earthquake, to remind us who is in control.

Nah ya

The Problem of Divine Law

A private Christian school in Dallas, Texas, refused to enroll a child into the school because the child's parents were lesbians. In a statement, authorities at the school said,

"We regret the disappointment the mother feels, but also do not understand why she would want to enroll her child in a school that would undercut her own personal values at home."

Surprisingly, the mother of the child agreed with the school. She said,

"I absolutely would not want her to partake in a school where they did not believe or condone the relationship that we have together."

The school had previously rejected an applicant who came from a homosexual household, fired an unmarried teacher who became pregnant and removed a man "from leadership roles in the school" after he left his wife for another woman. The lesbian mother said that said she was raised in a Baptist home, and she had thought that the school could give her child a good education and impart "the basic Bible teachings ... follow the Golden Rule, the Ten Commandments, be kind to your neighbor." But she added, "The God that I know and the God that I love will love me and love my children no matter what."

If you don’t like God's standards, make up your own god. Homosexuality and every other sin that plagues this nation, is only a symptom of idolatry. This was always Israel's problem right down through history. They strayed from God's Law into idolatry, then into sexual sin, then into judgment.

How foolish is it to believe that God changes and His Law disappears, simply because we imagine Him to be something more congenial. And how much more foolish is it--to pretend that He doesn't exist, and that the entire universe magically appeared billions of years ago, with no Maker.

No Fire here...

Hawking Breaks Atheist Rules

According to professor Stephen Hawking, God didn’t create the universe. Instead, nothing created everything. However, Hawking has violated the basic laws of science. In an extract of his latest book, The Grand Design, was published in Eureka magazine in The Times, the professor said:

"Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist."

It is embarrassingly unscientific to speak of anything creating itself from nothing. Common sense says that if something possessed the ability to create itself from nothing, then that something wasn't nothing, it was something--a very intelligent creative power of some sort.

Hawking has violated the unspoken rules of atheism. He isn't supposed to use words like "create" or even "made." They necessitate a Creator and a Maker. Neither are you supposed to let out that the essence of atheism is to believe that nothing created everything, because it’s unthinking. It confirms the title, You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, but You Can’t Make Him Think. Nor should an atheist speak of gravity as being a "law," because that also denotes the axiom of a Law-giver. Laws don’t happen by themselves. But look at how careless the professor was, with his, "The Big Bang was the result of the inevitable laws of physics and did not need God to spark the creation of the Universe."

It seems that Professor Hawking has changed his mind about the need for God. Back in 1988, in his book A Brief History of Time, he said, "If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God." Einstein said that he wanted to know the mind of God. Both men could have easily found the mind of God and through it have seen how we were created--"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth," something of which we were reminded when the first manned mission to moon read from Genesis chapter one. We need to read it again.

Poor Willie

Let me tell you about Willie, a non-Christian friend
How his heckling of my preaching, came to an end
He said if God was real, he'd spit in His face
When Willie was angry, I would always give him space.

There were times I would think that he had no brain
Or at least I thought, he must be partly insane
He would look at the heavens and yell "God strike me dead!"
Because if God did exist, He would do what he said.

One day God graciously answered his prayer
And I have to tell you, that Willie's no longer here
It wasn't lightning that came from the sky
But an attack on his heart, that caused Willie to die.

He was just a young man when death came his way
And if he could speak now, I know what he’d say
Where Willie went I really don't know
But I do know there's a place you don’t want to go.

If he didn't trust Jesus, please don't follow Willie
He would tell you to listen and not to be silly
Maybe you peeked behind the atheist door
And you widened your eyes at what you then saw.

There was lust, and sex, and a whole lot of porn
So much pleasure, you thanked God you were born
You think about life, and your longing to sin
And you think about Heaven and your chance to get in

You think about God, the Bible and Hell
You think about Willie and what he would yell
You think about Jesus and what He did for you
You think about the things you'd so love to do.

What a big problem you have with your sin
What a dilemma you find yourself in
What can you do, so you won't feel so bad?
What can you do to make your heart glad?

There's an easy solution, if you just want this life
But it's kind of like cutting your throat with a knife
You would simply believe that everything evolved
You just have to stop thinking, and the problem is solved.