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Interpreting Prophecy: A Time When it is Best to be a Monday Morning Quarterback

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  I wouldn't want to be a Cossack / headed for that Palestine Road / Thinking about what's written in the Word of God /About the things that he's foretold  No, I wouldn't want to be there, down Jerusalem way No, I wouldn't want to be there, headed for my grave   I wouldn't want to march with the comrades / when they enter Israel / Headed straight into the fiery wrath of God /And finding no escape from, well   I wouldn't want to be there, down Jerusalem way No, I wouldn't want to be there, headed for my grave.  ~ Love Song, “ The Cossack Song ”  Back in the late 70s or early 80s, I played drums in a Christian rock band. While we had fun and played a few coffee houses and youth group gatherings, we didn’t come close to hitting the big time. One of the songs that we performed was “ The Cossack Song ” by Love Song – a song that played on the theory then in vogue that the army of the Soviet Union would invade Israel leading to the battle in

Answering the Legacy belief Argument

Pixie has often and repeatedly made an old argument used by internet atheists, that religion in general and Christianity in particular are primarily believed by people because their parents handed it down to them, This serves two functions, it allows  him to assert that the intellectual content of reasons for faith are weak (aka no rational warrant) and this will lead to decline of the belief. As Pixie has put it:  Personally, I think it [level of commitment to Christianity] can only go down, as the primary reason for believing in Christianity is that you were raised in a Christian culture. As the culture becomes less Christian, less Christians will be raised...The evidence for this is very clear; Hindus come from Hindu families, Muslims come from Muslim families, Christians come from Christian families. People do not follow a religion because of the evidence, they follow it because they were told it was true from an early age...Sure, there are other factors. Clearly Christianity got

Advent, Getting into the Spirit of Christmas and the Arrival of the Now but Not Yet Kingdom

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  What exactly is this thing that we call “the Spirit of Christmas”? We’ve all heard of it, and most people certainly try to get into the Spirit of Christmas (or the Christmas Spirit) as we head into Christmas. We know that Scrooge knew how to keep Christmas all the year round, which is presumably the Spirit of Christmas, but what exactly is it that he kept? G.K Chesterton tried to define the Spirit of Christmas in his book, The Thing: Why I am a Catholic , but found it was easier to describe how people falsely try to create the Spirit of Christmas by keeping the externals while ignoring the essentials. I have rather rashly undertaken to write of the Spirit of Christmas; and it presents a preliminary difficulty about which I must be candid. People are very curious nowadays in their way of talking about “the spirit” of a thing. There is, for example, a particular sort of prig who is always lecturing us about the spirit of true Christianity, apart from all names and forms. As far as

is Religious Belief in Decline?

this is a repeat of an article I wrote a few years ago in answer to the same question: is increase in "no reloigous affiliation" a sign religion is in decline? It is true the figures in this essay were from five years ago. But atheists have been doing this same trick sine 1998 when I got into apologetics on the net. Every few years they dust off these numbers and try to make a big thing of a 3% decline. Atheism is not increasing as of Nov 2015 By Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) - November 29, 2015 The atheists propaganda machine is at it again. Another spate of articles based loosely upon a Pew study talking about Christianity is in decline. As I write it is Nov. 3,2015. They are still failing to distinguish between affiliation and belief in God. The Pew Study says belief in God is holding steady what is declining is affiliation with organized religion. The amalgamation none as "none" (as in religious affiliation: none) is what is growing and while those do incl

When we Teach our Kids that God is Irrelevant, Expect them to Believe It.

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  Let’s face it: secularism is growing in the United States. There, I said it. I don’t like it, but even a casual glance at the religious landscape over the course of my lifetime demonstrates that the number of people attending worship services on Sunday mornings (or alternative days) has declined from the 1960s or even the 1970s. While the increase in “no religious affiliation” is real, it is my belief that it is unlikely that the rise in the “no religious affiliation” crowd is due to some overwhelming acceptance of atheism. While there are some atheists who make reasonable arguments against theism, most of the fare available on the Internet are rather humdrum arguments that have long ago been answered. An in-depth evaluation of these arguments may convince the already committed, but would have little impact on someone seeking truth. Rather, it seems to me that the real cause for the increase of the “no affiliation” crowd is the rise in a general indifference about religious bel

Argument from causal Necessity

This is an argument I recently had on a atheist web site, Here"You" is the atheist AndyF2. Dialogue with AndyF2 aka"you"   https://oncreationism.blogspot.com/2020/06/hinmans-cosmological-argument.html my argument 1. Something exists. 2. Whatever exists does so either because it exists eternally or because it's existence is dependent upon some prior cause or set of circumstances. 3.If all things that exist are dependent for their existnece there is no actual explanation of causes 4. Therefore, there exists at least one  eternal thing 5. The  one eternal thing is the logical explanation for all causally dependent things 6.Any eternally existing cause of all things is worthy of the appellation "God." 7. Therefore God exists. The False Dichotomy: YOU: "The first issue is that 2 is a false dichotomy. For example, it may be that the universe appeared spontaneous. Joe objects to this because there is no precedence for things appearing spontaneous

Let us heal after the election

I am going to violate the agreement and speak of politics. I think it is in the best interest of the group that I do this. I have a friend, I wont say who he is. He is a Christian, a conservatove republican, he accepts the notion that the election was stolen, he is now ready to be killed by bands of vengeful liberals who he says are demonic communists; he thinks  Biden ,one of the finest men in American politics, is a demonic satanic Hitler. This guy thinks the shooting war i ready to start and liberals are going to come and wipe out his neighborhood.  Nothing even remotely like this is going to happen, This is insane, those of you who think this way have been brainwashed you are in a cult. you need to deprogram yourself now. I speak the truth. When I think of the drug part of my life the people who did drugs were more rational than you are being right now. Republicans are so used to winning they can't accept losing now. Liberals have won before and we did NOT wipe anyone out.

Fine Tuning Argument: the data

I wanted doiffis t read the lin becaiseIhaeto do BR BR BR alper this pages grrrrrrrrrrrrr!! The argument says simply that the universe must be structured in very exact ways to produce life. It's so exacting as to be totally improbable. Because it's so improbable that gives us a good reason to think the game is fixed. This differs from the ordinary design argument because we have something to compare it to, all that is not the target level, A. Universe Displays purposive order Max Planck (1858-1947), Nobel Prize winner and founder of modern physics. 5 "According to everything taught by the exact sciences about the immense realm of nature, a certain order prevails--one independent of the human mind . . . this order can be formulated in terms of purposeful activity. There is evidence of an intelligent order of the universe to which both man and nature are subservient." ......(1)laws have simplicity and elegance. "The equations of physics have in them incredib

Puddle v Fine Tunning

A poster on YouTube calling himself "Genetically Modified Skeptic''(GMS) defends the "Puddle argument." [1] This is an atheist refutation of design arguments and just says we mistakenly think the world is designed for us because we fit into it;s scheme so well. Why "puddle?" The oringal version says an orgnaism crawls out of a puddle and sees how well it fits into the world. Christian apologist Frank Turek argues the fine tunning arguent (FT) He is  making a basic istae with the argument. GMS reduces the argent to one issue, perspective. Huge mistake because that is not it.FT does not take the same perspective as a regular design argument. GMS wants you to think it does; he even says this "just the old Palley argument." The difference is profound. The old argument did not have target levels that quantify the probability each target being met. FT only takes fitedness as a basic assumption but it does not stop there.  It says we have numbers

Atheist reduction of knowledge to science part 1

The Scientistic movement cuts across many boundaries. It includes, but is not limited to, atheism. One major facet of its ideology which has been especially important to atheism is the transformation of knowledge to technique. I refer to Barrett’s concept of the illusion of technique, of which I spoke in chapter one. The first move is a reduction of knowledge from a multiplicity of forms to one thing only, scientific knowledge. Then scientific knowledge lends itself to the working of technique in shaping our understanding by manipulating reality and thus truth. This reduction of knowledge to scientific data, is reflected on the popular internet site answers.com. One such question asked: “is science the supreme form of knowledge?” The answer it gives us is, “Science is the only form of knowledge. There is no way to know something without it being scientific in some way.” [1] It goes to ask “what is science knowledge the answer is “science knowledge is the understanding of everything ar