Sunday, September 19, 2010

Science and Faith: How the new Atheists get it wrong

It is quite common today to hear atheists saying that Science gives us all the explanations, all the answers we need in life. Indeed they quite often say that Science and Religion are separate concerns and must be kept separate. But this is just a naive bias that they have towards "Religion" and in particular Christian theism.
What they don't understand is the connectedness of Biblical theism with Science and the foundation that Biblical theism gives to Science, indeed how the Christian faith provides justification for the basic presuppositions of Science that Science itself cannot provide.
Donald M MacKay many yeas ago wrote about all this in a very thoughtful and clear way. He pointed out a long time ago that Science and Faith are connected as a root and it's fruit are!
Further he showed just how reasonable the Christian Faith is to the endeavour of Science. He also spoke of how reasonable the Christian Faith is. He said "I doubt very much whether any argument can do more than prove the Christian position to be not unreasonable."
Is this not what Alvin Plantinga has done in the last century of philosophical endeavour?
MacKay further wrote the following: "let us suppose we are meeting a human friend. 'A mass of pink protoplasm rises to a height of five feet and begins to pucker and wobbler up and down noisily. - but of course, that's the wrong language. I should say "He rises to his feet wreathed in smiles and greets us heartily.' Why should I? because we came to meet as persons, not as a thing."
So it is with meeting Jesus, God in the flesh.

Peace
Gary

Thursday, September 16, 2010

The nonsense of Rhonda Byrne's The Power

Rhonda Byrne is at it again - making a fortune off the gullible and those wanting what they don't have in life. Her book 'The Power' is a sequel to 'The Secret' and contains just more of the same nonsense.
In it as Tim Challies says on his blog she effectively says
Want it, love it, get it. It couldn't’t be easier. And she provides lots of stories and not a shred of evidence) to prove her case.
Check out his blog for a full critique.
Again Tim points out:
Not surprisingly, Byrne spends a good bit of the book discussing the three things people want most: money, love and health. In every case, you can have it all as long as you believe it and love it enough.
And isn't this the opposite of the Gospel. We don't love self by focusing upon these things, rather we love Jesus the Christ and seek first His Kingdom as the number one priority and focus in our lives. What a remarkable contrast? And what a tragedy if Christians don't realise this.

God Bless
Gary

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Wacky stuff - wanting to burn the Koran

The Pentecostal minister Terry Jones of Gainsville perhaps could understand better the power of the Gospel, via the Word of God which is the Sword of the Spirit to combat the forces of darkness, however it seemed telling that the vision we see of Hilarly Clinton denouncing the coming bonfire was that she was standing in front of a sign saying "Council of Foreign Relations'. How subliminal was that!

We in Australia however need to understand, but not condone the emotions of Americans in regard to Muslims and 9/11.

And further, understand how tragic is the failure of the media to deal critically with Islam. Many are just intent on dealing superficially with the teachings of Islam, and more pointedly the Koran. They have not ever tried to understand Islamic hermeneutics when it comes to the Koran where the later verses in the Koran override the earlier, which negates all the quotes about the tolerance and the peacefulness of Islam. What this tells us is that just like there are professing Christians who never read the bible or do so superficially ( let alone obey the Lord God ), likewise there are Muslims who do exactly the same.

If we are going to impact the world with the gospel message we do well to take these things into account and recognise that while there are indeed lovely caring Muslims all around us, still Islam is false.

Something to ponder.
Gary