Friday, July 16, 2010
Temple Invasion
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Ravi Zacharias' answers to atheists
Steps to debunk Darwin’s Evolution Theory regarding the Existence of God.
1. However you section physical reality, you take the physical universe as you see it, however you slice it down to its minutest form, the fact of the matter is you end up with a physical entity or quantity that does not have reason for its existence in itself. Ultimately, the physical universe reduced in any form cannot explain its own origin. It has to find its explanation outside of itself which means the FIRST explanation of the universe as we see it has to have something NON-PHYSICAL (Spiritual) as a first cause. So, you have something like a “haunted” universe without knowing what the FIRST cause is.
2. Next you come to the argument not from design but TO design. If you walk into a planet and come across a McDonald’s wrapper or letters of the alphabet, you immediately know that there is information there. Logic tells you that when you see information, you assume that prior to that information is a mind. You don’t just think that Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus accidentally came together, or the dictionary developed because of an explosion in a printing press. There is sequence to the whole thing. If you take just the composition of the enzyme in the human component, which is the building block of the gene, which is the building block of the cell, the possibility of the human enzyme coming together by random says Vic Ramsinky professor of applied mathematics in Cardith, Wales, the possibility of that happening by chance is 1/10 to 40,000!! That’s more than the number of atoms of the whole universe! It is, time-wise and mathematically impossible! So I say to you no.1 the physical quantity cannot explain itself number two, there’s intelligibility which assumes there is a prior mind… so the first case there something non physical, second case there is something intellectual, and
3. …third, in the history of society, human experience, and history itself you begin to realize that the moral issues, the social issues and just human intercourse, demands the explanation of a moral reality. So you have a FIRST CAUSE that is spiritual, a FIRST CAUSE that has a mind, and a FIRST CAUSE that needs to explain morality. You take these three struggles, and pause with me for a moment here, there are four fundamental questions in life: ORIGIN, Meaning, morality and destiny. You take these four questions, and these three explanations needed, and only GOD is big enough to explain this universe!
QUESTIONS from an atheist student regarding the existence of God:
Student: How can you talk about the existence of an all- loving and all-powerful God when there is so much moral and gratuitous EVIL in the world? Doesn’t that strike you as contradictory?
Ravi: Stay with me for a moment, because I have questions for you: When you say there’s such a thing as evil, aren’t you assuming there’s such a thing as good?
Student: Yes, I accept.
Ravi When you say there is such a thing as good, are you saying there exists a moral law, so as to differentiate between something good and something evil?
Student: I accept that as well.
Ravi: So if you pose that there is a moral law, then you should suppose there is a moral LAW GIVER, but that is what you were trying to disprove and NOT prove!
If there is NO law giver, then there is no moral law, if there is no moral law, there is no such thing as good, if there is no good, then there is no way to define evil, so WHAT IS YOUR QUESTION?
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Asking God How to Die
We often ask that huh? Many times I think of these morbid thoughts, as I know that our “time” is inevitable. Yes, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but we all have to die. Generally, we all dread the thought of dying. Some of us don’t, because we’ve accepted the fact, but we dreamily hope we die a peaceful death.
Why am I talking about this anyway? Well to begin with, I am surrounded by dying people, some have gone, some are going, and some are facing the certainty of death. I fear to lose my loved ones in a painful death, such as cancer, or cruelty, or in the hands of evil people. I pray that I don’t die of cancer myself! I often pray to God, in all of the ways of going, I would certainly like mine to be meaningful, not pathetic. I hate it when we die because of some drunk kid driving and runs us over. Or because we were too busy talking to someone on the phone we get run over by a bus. I also hate to die of sickness. I know its going to be painful. Hope and worth dwindles as you see people around you move on with life and you don’t make a difference anymore. I dread that.
I often envision myself dying for God, for His cause, or sacrificing my life for my country, for fellow men, or protecting my loved ones… all those noble ways of dying. And how we’re going to be remembered and honored on our eulogies. People might erect a remembrance of your heroism, or name a hall or classroom in your honor. And then we smile and say, that would be an awesome death.
But, as often as I forget my stuff when leaving, I am again smacked in the head with reality. I remembered how my mom died, how many great people in my life passed on, and their mode of death wasn’t as glorious as most of us would like. They died unexpectedly, in the prime of health, or with a sickness they thought they would never have.
Then God moved my heart and I realized IT’S NOT HOW WE DIE, BUT HOW WE LIVED. We cannot choose(well some of us can) how and when we die, but we can all choose how and when to LIVE for God. This made me stop thinking of having a glorious death, when we can live a glorious life! We can stop thinking of how many people would think I am a hero when I die, when we can be appreciated by helping people around us now while we are alive!
So, with that said, whether we live or die, our lives must be guided by the words of the Apostle Paul: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”