Agree with much of what you say, Daniel. We often love people in spite of what they have done, just as God does love us in spite of us sometimes. But, loving God seems to me a bit different, because maybe I'm wrong, but all of God's names indicate what He has done or is doing, yes? God has identified himself to us by what he has done. His divinity, personality, and identity cannot be fathomed without his actions. Even God loving us while we were still enemies in sin, is part of who God is. Our desire to love God, is part of who we are.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that what we do is inseparable from who we are, as it is for the God in whose image he created us.
It would be interesting to see an explanation of what it means that elders should have the ability to teach others. As scripture indicates is a required characteristic for elders. Do we agree with scripture on this?
I wonder if we come from a tradition of not asking enough questions, and for that reason, sometimes do not know how to respond to questions. I've often seen questions not as questions, but as someone's challenge to scripture, or challenging God, or challenging authority. Questions truly asked, vs rhetorical questions asked in anger are different.
When asked questions, perhaps it would be good for us to ask questions in return?
But I don't think you should say you are not sure about the answer unless you are really not sure. Lying about that will not give you your internal credibility in trying to understand another.
To know that Christ died and suffered as a result of God's love, is to understand the depth and breadth of His love. But we often have a very shallow understanding of love. The epistles of John say much more about this.
Who loves more: the mother who says her son in prison for theft and vandalism is a "good boy", or the father who brings his son to the police because he has stolen a car, and trafficked in drugs? God's standards indicate that His love is not a nicey, nicey smiley feeling, but a steadfast faithfulness to his promises and demands. His love for the repentant sinner comes with the expectation of repentance and change. Our love for each other is tied to God's love for us. This is not an unconditional love, but it is a forgiving love. " 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin... 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." "2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world."
"II John 1: 5 And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands."
God's love was shown in the Ten commandments (and some other commands) he gave, as well as in the promise of the Messiah. The commandments were the way people were to demonstrate love to each other. Our failures were covered by Messiah's payment. Our desire to follow these commands demonstrates our love for God and each other. Our lack of desire to follow these commands indicates our lack of desire to love one another. Let us walk in the light, and confess our sins, and be purified from unrighteousness, and have fellowship with one another.
You are to be commended for using the latest technology for your energy needs. Much of this technology is also presently being evaluated for use in large livestock barns and working shops on farms. I also had heard that the LED lights from China were almost one third the cost, and seemed to be as good. They needed to be direct ordered; I believe PayPal works for that.
1. treat somebody or something as deity: to treat somebody or something as divine and show respect by engaging in acts of prayer and devotion 2. take part in religious service: to take part in a religious service 3. love somebody deeply: to love, admire, or respect somebody or something greatly and perhaps excessively or unquestioningly
It would seem that you could take part in a worship service without actually worshipping God (due to inattention, lack of devotion, lack of faith, etc.). Or you could you could worship God while driving your car, cutting your grass or washing your dishes.
Some people call the team that leads the singing in church the worship team. So they consider only active adoration to be worship, I suppose. Even listening to sermons might not be worship if it is done only to learn or to evaluate... rather than to honor God.
What is the difference between worship and religion? All of life is religious?
Theoretically, God could employ whatever method He wants to create. If he had chosen to employ evolution, then he could direct it or undirect it any way he wants. With God all things are possible. But speculating on that without considering the ramifications or without considering the inconsistencies, seems rather useless and perverse. I would say to the contrary that thereisa meeting of the minds on the point that if God had used evolution to create, that it would have theological implications. The theological implications are those that I have already raised, and to which you have not yet responded... in other words, if God did not create the world good, then why does it need to be renewed, and what does it need to be saved from? On what basis does God ask us to do things against our natural inclinations with which he created us in the first place?
There are numerous other theological implications, such as what is the meaning of the references to Genesis 1 that we find scattered throughout the new testament, if Genesis 1-3 is a mere fabrication? How can Jesus be a second Adam if there was no first Adam? etc., etc.
You might tackle the question as to why Charles Darwin, his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, Richard Dawkins and numerous others find so much atheistic joy in believing in evolution?
You ask the question, but do not seem to understand the consequences of what directed maco-evolution would be. In what way would it be directed? Like God directing the weather? Like God punishing David for his sin of adultery? Like God sending Israel into captivity? Is it merely directed by God-created natural laws, or by God's direct intervention to make evolution possible. You see, natural laws, and the evidence of fossils, population genetics, observable rates of deleterious mutations, probability theory, all seem to indicate that evolution of microbes to microbiologists is not what we would naturally expect. So if it happened, it would have required dramatic intervention to cause the specific types of mutations necessary for "onward and upward" evolution to take place, as well as divine intervention for abiogenesis. However, this type of evolution is dramatically different from the general theory of evolution postulated and taught in schools and universities today, which postulates the parameter of randomness, and assumes that processes in the past were similar to those observed in the present. This is why I asked you earlier if you believed in God of the gaps... in other words do you believe that whereever evolution theory falls short, that God must have created the circumstance necessary to allow evolution to continue?
Since you are not a scientist, it remains for you to answer the theological question: Why would God redeem us from the very death and destruction that was used as a process to create man? Why would God redeem us from all the natural inclinations to profligate sex, thievery, lying, cheating, etc., which are simply part of our evolutionary survival mechanisms (if evolution is true)? Is God being consistent by asking us to behave differently than the way he created us? Finally, could you say theologically that evolution was now complete and finished, or that it is still continuing? Did God really rest from his creating work, or did he not?
There is also the moral and ethical question of speculating on something that is not true. In other words, if evolution is not likely, or not probable based on scientific problems, then is it morally legitimate to speculate on what we would have to change in our theology as if evolution really was true? Seems to me its a lot like dating other women while married, in order to decide who to marry when your wife dies.
Roger, I see you have still not provided any actual examples of recent discoveries that make evolution more possible. Okay, it seems philosophical generalities work better for you. But you are maligning and slandering to say that I disregard all evidence that would counter a non-evolutionist approach. Rather, I watch how others deal with this evidence and scrutinize it. For example, I have just read another chapter in "Evolution's Achilles Heels", the 20 page chapter on radiometric dating, by Dr. Jim Mason, who received a PhD in Experimental Nuclear Physics from McMaster U, Canada. He was employed in the defense industry, and was VicePresident of Engineering. He became a christian at the age of 40, and became a biblical creationist several years later.
In most of my years, I have always wondered about radiometric dating for age of rocks and fossils, because it seems so "scientific". It's outside of my areas of experience, although I have dabbled briefly with trace N15 isotope in looking at nitrogen cycling when fertilizer is added to soil, but that was a long time ago. At that time, it was thought that C14 (carbon dating) could reliably give radiometric dates up to about 40,000 years old. We now have equipment that can measure smaller amounts of radiation accurately, and so apparent ages up to 90,000 years can be determined with carbon dating. So is this a problem for young earth? Not according to Jim Mason. He points out that the K-AR (potassium-argon) method of dating said that a Mt. Ngauruhoe 1949 volcanic eruption and a 1975 eruption were either less than 270,000 years or 1 million years old. The method indicated that a 1954 eruption was less than 270,000, or 0.8 million, or 1.3 million, or 3.5 million years old. The accuracy is to 200,000 years. These tests were done in 2003. A method that indicates one million years of age for a 50 year old rock formation, seems to be a bit of a problem for the accuracy of the method. At minimum, it should indicate 200,000 years or less.
What about Mt. St. Helen's volcanic rock? The lava dome formed in 1984 had measurements done on it, both on whole rock and on constituent rock types. Whole rock was dated 350,000 years, while rock components ranged from 340,000 years (Feldspar) to 2.8 million yrs(Pyroxene). That's about 100,000 times the real age. And some rocks are dated as 8 times as old as other rocks in the same formation. Do you think that makes the method reliable? The excuse given by old agers are that the recent rocks have some original Ar in them. Okay, that makes sense, but why does that not also make sense for rocks they consider "old". Only a small amount of original argon in the "old" rocks would give false ages, and would make a 6,000 year old rock date as 18 million years old.
The isochron dating methods applied to Mt. Ngauruhoe rocks, finds dates of 133 million years for Rb-Sr (Rubidium-Strontium method), 197 million years for Sm-Nd, and 3.9 billion years for Pb - Pb (lead-lead). This does not seem accurate. The methods do not corroborate each other, and all ages are dramatically wrong. Some rocks from the Grand Canyon were dated using the isochron method of radiometrics, and Pb/Pb method dated the rocks as 600,000,000 years older (about 50% older) than the Rb/Sr method, even though experimental error is determined to be only 80 million years or less. That is a huge difference... more than half a billion years. Does that sound accurate to you? Is that a way of dating differences between layers of rock?
Some examples which might be easier to understand are carbon based. Mass spectrometers can measure much more accurately than the old geiger counters, and it would take a dating of more than 90,000 years old (15.6 half lives) before the C14 would be undetectable. In 2003, ten coal samples were analyzed. They had been dated at from 37 million to 318 million years old. If they were that old, the equipment should not detect any C14. However, they all contained C14. By C14, they were dated at 45,000 to 60,000 years old. What a vast difference compared to millions of years! Seven diamond samples were also tested. Diamonds had previously been dated at 1 to 3 billion years old. However, they still had C14 in them. By C14, they were dated at about the same age as the coal. So which method is accurate then?
Dr. Mason then goes on to explain that even 50,000 years is too old for a young earth. But again, what assumptions are being used? He says if the ratio of C14/C12 was much smaller at the time the vegetation was buried than it is today, then it would be much younger than it appeared by uniformitarian theory. If there was less solar activity, and there was more C12 in the atmosphere, then that would have lowered the ratio of C14/C12. Intense volcanoes at the time of burial would also have increased the amount of C12 at time of plant burial/coal formation.
Finally, radiometric dating using helium gives a different picture. Helium is a byproduct of U/Pb degradation. It diffuses out of rocks such as zircon crystals at a constant rate after being formed, so that will give a clue as to how long the process has been going on, when combined with the U238/Pb ratios. The diffusivity rates mesh really well with predicting a zircon age of about 6000 years. These zircon crystals have an alleged age of 1.5 billion years. So which dating method is right?
None of this information comes from 4 or 5 five pages in the Bible. It comes from the book of nature, which we consider also the revelation of God in nature.
Well said, Roger. You have stated well your perspective, and the perspective of many about christianity and scripture. One sentence however, caught my attention: where you quote, "why does God blame people for not responding? Haven't they done what God made them to do?" Paul responds that we do not have the right to question God in this regard. As humans, we have no right to blame God, nor our parents, for our own sin, or for our own rejection of God. It is still we who reject God, isn't it? We know that people accept God, and follow Christ. Is it physically and mentally impossible for humans to follow Jesus? Obviously not. So why would we blame someone other than ourselves? It is our tendency to blame someone else that reveals our sin and our rejection of God. But at the same time, if we love God and accept Jesus as Saviour, it would be a denial of our sin to suggest that we could do this on our own. In all cases, we give God the credit for our salvation and for the gift of faith, and realize that in our failures it is we, not God who is to blame.
Suppose you were trusted with your parents money, but then stole it, and your father brought you to justice, and you went to jail. Now your father pays the bail, and you get out. If you refuse to leave the jail, is it now your father's fault? Is it your father's fault that you stole because he trusted you with his money? Is your father unjust because he brought you to court?
Infralapsarianism is where man's responsibility is determinative, while supralapsarianism relates to God's responsibility being greater. While these are interesting perspectives, it is better not to over-doctrinalize too much and simply live our lives, and not try to live God's life for Him, If God gave us the choice to follow him, and we discover that without God's grace and gifts, we would always reject him, we find that our free choiosing always makes the wrong choice by itself, and makes the right choice by God's grace. In trying to take credit for making the right choice by yourself, you might simply be making yourself your own god. On the other hand, be thankful when you follow Christ.
"Heb 6:10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."
At the risk of overloading Edwin, and of getting Jolanda concerned, I am pasting a quote from Philip Westra from another thread on this topic, which Edwin has never responded to directly. I would love to hear his response.
"About the article itself: 1) The author (Walhout) frames the whole thing in a reading of history that is simply inaccurate. Purgatory, indulgences, relics, etc. did not form the "backbone of Christianity" 500 years ago. When these became too important, the Reformation happened. To put creation, sin and salvation (think Apostles Creed) on par with these is simply wrong. 2) Apart from the concluding blurb from a synodical report, Walhout fails to mention anything about how the church has already been wrestling with these issues for the past 150 years. This includes the various ways Genesis 1 has been interpreted well before Darwin came along, the numerous scholars who have described Adam and Eve as the representative head of the human race, and the work of scholars today in wrestling with these questions (i.e. books and articles by the Haarsmas at Calvin College). 3) This article lacks helpful distinctions, such as the difference between evolution and naturalism, which help us ask and answer the important questions. 4) He does suggest evolutionary theory calls for a reworking of doctrines like creation, sin and salvation. About sin, he says, "We will have to find a much better way of understanding what sin is, where it comes from, and what its consequences are. Theologians will have to find a new way of articulating a truly biblical doctrine of sin and what effect it has on us." In other words, evolutionary theory will enable theologians to be true to the Bible in our theological articulations. The implication being that now we will really understand the Bible. I think the problems in this are obvious. I am a bit floored that anyone in this forum might suggest that sin and salvaiton are not core doctrines of the Christian faith. 5) The author makes a prediction about the future, a prophetic claim, if you will. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that we humans with our best sciences cannot predict the future. Unless Walhout received this from God himself (including being from Scripture), he should not put this forward as something that will inevitably happen. Being a false prophet is a serious matter in the Bible."
Posted in: Grateful for What...or Whom?
Agree with much of what you say, Daniel. We often love people in spite of what they have done, just as God does love us in spite of us sometimes. But, loving God seems to me a bit different, because maybe I'm wrong, but all of God's names indicate what He has done or is doing, yes? God has identified himself to us by what he has done. His divinity, personality, and identity cannot be fathomed without his actions. Even God loving us while we were still enemies in sin, is part of who God is. Our desire to love God, is part of who we are.
Anyway, I just wanted to point out that what we do is inseparable from who we are, as it is for the God in whose image he created us.
Posted in: A Bar Too High: Unrealistic Expectations of Church Leaders
It would be interesting to see an explanation of what it means that elders should have the ability to teach others. As scripture indicates is a required characteristic for elders. Do we agree with scripture on this?
Posted in: Questions - How Do We Respond to Them?
I wonder if we come from a tradition of not asking enough questions, and for that reason, sometimes do not know how to respond to questions. I've often seen questions not as questions, but as someone's challenge to scripture, or challenging God, or challenging authority. Questions truly asked, vs rhetorical questions asked in anger are different.
When asked questions, perhaps it would be good for us to ask questions in return?
But I don't think you should say you are not sure about the answer unless you are really not sure. Lying about that will not give you your internal credibility in trying to understand another.
Posted in: God Is Love
To know that Christ died and suffered as a result of God's love, is to understand the depth and breadth of His love. But we often have a very shallow understanding of love. The epistles of John say much more about this.
Who loves more: the mother who says her son in prison for theft and vandalism is a "good boy", or the father who brings his son to the police because he has stolen a car, and trafficked in drugs? God's standards indicate that His love is not a nicey, nicey smiley feeling, but a steadfast faithfulness to his promises and demands. His love for the repentant sinner comes with the expectation of repentance and change. Our love for each other is tied to God's love for us. This is not an unconditional love, but it is a forgiving love. " 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin... 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." "2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world."
"II John 1: 5 And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. 6 And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands."
God's love was shown in the Ten commandments (and some other commands) he gave, as well as in the promise of the Messiah. The commandments were the way people were to demonstrate love to each other. Our failures were covered by Messiah's payment. Our desire to follow these commands demonstrates our love for God and each other. Our lack of desire to follow these commands indicates our lack of desire to love one another. Let us walk in the light, and confess our sins, and be purified from unrighteousness, and have fellowship with one another.
Posted in: Creation Care at Meadowlands Fellowship CRC (Ancaster, ON)
You are to be commended for using the latest technology for your energy needs. Much of this technology is also presently being evaluated for use in large livestock barns and working shops on farms. I also had heard that the LED lights from China were almost one third the cost, and seemed to be as good. They needed to be direct ordered; I believe PayPal works for that.
Posted in: All of Life is Worship - Really?
wor·ship
[ wúrship ]
1. treat somebody or something as deity: to treat somebody or something as divine and show respect by engaging in acts of prayer and devotion
2. take part in religious service: to take part in a religious service
3. love somebody deeply: to love, admire, or respect somebody or something greatly and perhaps excessively or unquestioningly
It would seem that you could take part in a worship service without actually worshipping God (due to inattention, lack of devotion, lack of faith, etc.). Or you could you could worship God while driving your car, cutting your grass or washing your dishes.
Some people call the team that leads the singing in church the worship team. So they consider only active adoration to be worship, I suppose. Even listening to sermons might not be worship if it is done only to learn or to evaluate... rather than to honor God.
What is the difference between worship and religion? All of life is religious?
Posted in: My Banner Article
So tell us what you think, Jolanda. :) <- this is my poor immitation of a smile emoticon....
Posted in: My Banner Article
Theoretically, God could employ whatever method He wants to create. If he had chosen to employ evolution, then he could direct it or undirect it any way he wants. With God all things are possible. But speculating on that without considering the ramifications or without considering the inconsistencies, seems rather useless and perverse. I would say to the contrary that there is a meeting of the minds on the point that if God had used evolution to create, that it would have theological implications. The theological implications are those that I have already raised, and to which you have not yet responded... in other words, if God did not create the world good, then why does it need to be renewed, and what does it need to be saved from? On what basis does God ask us to do things against our natural inclinations with which he created us in the first place?
There are numerous other theological implications, such as what is the meaning of the references to Genesis 1 that we find scattered throughout the new testament, if Genesis 1-3 is a mere fabrication? How can Jesus be a second Adam if there was no first Adam? etc., etc.
You might tackle the question as to why Charles Darwin, his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, Richard Dawkins and numerous others find so much atheistic joy in believing in evolution?
You ask the question, but do not seem to understand the consequences of what directed maco-evolution would be. In what way would it be directed? Like God directing the weather? Like God punishing David for his sin of adultery? Like God sending Israel into captivity? Is it merely directed by God-created natural laws, or by God's direct intervention to make evolution possible. You see, natural laws, and the evidence of fossils, population genetics, observable rates of deleterious mutations, probability theory, all seem to indicate that evolution of microbes to microbiologists is not what we would naturally expect. So if it happened, it would have required dramatic intervention to cause the specific types of mutations necessary for "onward and upward" evolution to take place, as well as divine intervention for abiogenesis. However, this type of evolution is dramatically different from the general theory of evolution postulated and taught in schools and universities today, which postulates the parameter of randomness, and assumes that processes in the past were similar to those observed in the present. This is why I asked you earlier if you believed in God of the gaps... in other words do you believe that whereever evolution theory falls short, that God must have created the circumstance necessary to allow evolution to continue?
Since you are not a scientist, it remains for you to answer the theological question: Why would God redeem us from the very death and destruction that was used as a process to create man? Why would God redeem us from all the natural inclinations to profligate sex, thievery, lying, cheating, etc., which are simply part of our evolutionary survival mechanisms (if evolution is true)? Is God being consistent by asking us to behave differently than the way he created us? Finally, could you say theologically that evolution was now complete and finished, or that it is still continuing? Did God really rest from his creating work, or did he not?
There is also the moral and ethical question of speculating on something that is not true. In other words, if evolution is not likely, or not probable based on scientific problems, then is it morally legitimate to speculate on what we would have to change in our theology as if evolution really was true? Seems to me its a lot like dating other women while married, in order to decide who to marry when your wife dies.
Posted in: My Banner Article
Roger, I see you have still not provided any actual examples of recent discoveries that make evolution more possible. Okay, it seems philosophical generalities work better for you. But you are maligning and slandering to say that I disregard all evidence that would counter a non-evolutionist approach. Rather, I watch how others deal with this evidence and scrutinize it. For example, I have just read another chapter in "Evolution's Achilles Heels", the 20 page chapter on radiometric dating, by Dr. Jim Mason, who received a PhD in Experimental Nuclear Physics from McMaster U, Canada. He was employed in the defense industry, and was VicePresident of Engineering. He became a christian at the age of 40, and became a biblical creationist several years later.
In most of my years, I have always wondered about radiometric dating for age of rocks and fossils, because it seems so "scientific". It's outside of my areas of experience, although I have dabbled briefly with trace N15 isotope in looking at nitrogen cycling when fertilizer is added to soil, but that was a long time ago. At that time, it was thought that C14 (carbon dating) could reliably give radiometric dates up to about 40,000 years old. We now have equipment that can measure smaller amounts of radiation accurately, and so apparent ages up to 90,000 years can be determined with carbon dating. So is this a problem for young earth? Not according to Jim Mason. He points out that the K-AR (potassium-argon) method of dating said that a Mt. Ngauruhoe 1949 volcanic eruption and a 1975 eruption were either less than 270,000 years or 1 million years old. The method indicated that a 1954 eruption was less than 270,000, or 0.8 million, or 1.3 million, or 3.5 million years old. The accuracy is to 200,000 years. These tests were done in 2003. A method that indicates one million years of age for a 50 year old rock formation, seems to be a bit of a problem for the accuracy of the method. At minimum, it should indicate 200,000 years or less.
What about Mt. St. Helen's volcanic rock? The lava dome formed in 1984 had measurements done on it, both on whole rock and on constituent rock types. Whole rock was dated 350,000 years, while rock components ranged from 340,000 years (Feldspar) to 2.8 million yrs(Pyroxene). That's about 100,000 times the real age. And some rocks are dated as 8 times as old as other rocks in the same formation. Do you think that makes the method reliable? The excuse given by old agers are that the recent rocks have some original Ar in them. Okay, that makes sense, but why does that not also make sense for rocks they consider "old". Only a small amount of original argon in the "old" rocks would give false ages, and would make a 6,000 year old rock date as 18 million years old.
The isochron dating methods applied to Mt. Ngauruhoe rocks, finds dates of 133 million years for Rb-Sr (Rubidium-Strontium method), 197 million years for Sm-Nd, and 3.9 billion years for Pb - Pb (lead-lead). This does not seem accurate. The methods do not corroborate each other, and all ages are dramatically wrong. Some rocks from the Grand Canyon were dated using the isochron method of radiometrics, and Pb/Pb method dated the rocks as 600,000,000 years older (about 50% older) than the Rb/Sr method, even though experimental error is determined to be only 80 million years or less. That is a huge difference... more than half a billion years. Does that sound accurate to you? Is that a way of dating differences between layers of rock?
Some examples which might be easier to understand are carbon based. Mass spectrometers can measure much more accurately than the old geiger counters, and it would take a dating of more than 90,000 years old (15.6 half lives) before the C14 would be undetectable. In 2003, ten coal samples were analyzed. They had been dated at from 37 million to 318 million years old. If they were that old, the equipment should not detect any C14. However, they all contained C14. By C14, they were dated at 45,000 to 60,000 years old. What a vast difference compared to millions of years! Seven diamond samples were also tested. Diamonds had previously been dated at 1 to 3 billion years old. However, they still had C14 in them. By C14, they were dated at about the same age as the coal. So which method is accurate then?
Dr. Mason then goes on to explain that even 50,000 years is too old for a young earth. But again, what assumptions are being used? He says if the ratio of C14/C12 was much smaller at the time the vegetation was buried than it is today, then it would be much younger than it appeared by uniformitarian theory. If there was less solar activity, and there was more C12 in the atmosphere, then that would have lowered the ratio of C14/C12. Intense volcanoes at the time of burial would also have increased the amount of C12 at time of plant burial/coal formation.
Finally, radiometric dating using helium gives a different picture. Helium is a byproduct of U/Pb degradation. It diffuses out of rocks such as zircon crystals at a constant rate after being formed, so that will give a clue as to how long the process has been going on, when combined with the U238/Pb ratios. The diffusivity rates mesh really well with predicting a zircon age of about 6000 years. These zircon crystals have an alleged age of 1.5 billion years. So which dating method is right?
None of this information comes from 4 or 5 five pages in the Bible. It comes from the book of nature, which we consider also the revelation of God in nature.
Posted in: Check, Check, Checkmate!
Good article!
Posted in: My Banner Article
Well said, Roger. You have stated well your perspective, and the perspective of many about christianity and scripture. One sentence however, caught my attention: where you quote, "why does God blame people for not responding? Haven't they done what God made them to do?" Paul responds that we do not have the right to question God in this regard. As humans, we have no right to blame God, nor our parents, for our own sin, or for our own rejection of God. It is still we who reject God, isn't it? We know that people accept God, and follow Christ. Is it physically and mentally impossible for humans to follow Jesus? Obviously not. So why would we blame someone other than ourselves? It is our tendency to blame someone else that reveals our sin and our rejection of God. But at the same time, if we love God and accept Jesus as Saviour, it would be a denial of our sin to suggest that we could do this on our own. In all cases, we give God the credit for our salvation and for the gift of faith, and realize that in our failures it is we, not God who is to blame.
Suppose you were trusted with your parents money, but then stole it, and your father brought you to justice, and you went to jail. Now your father pays the bail, and you get out. If you refuse to leave the jail, is it now your father's fault? Is it your father's fault that you stole because he trusted you with his money? Is your father unjust because he brought you to court?
Infralapsarianism is where man's responsibility is determinative, while supralapsarianism relates to God's responsibility being greater. While these are interesting perspectives, it is better not to over-doctrinalize too much and simply live our lives, and not try to live God's life for Him, If God gave us the choice to follow him, and we discover that without God's grace and gifts, we would always reject him, we find that our free choiosing always makes the wrong choice by itself, and makes the right choice by God's grace. In trying to take credit for making the right choice by yourself, you might simply be making yourself your own god. On the other hand, be thankful when you follow Christ.
"Heb 6:10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them. 11 We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. 12 We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."
Posted in: My Banner Article
At the risk of overloading Edwin, and of getting Jolanda concerned, I am pasting a quote from Philip Westra from another thread on this topic, which Edwin has never responded to directly. I would love to hear his response.
"About the article itself: 1) The author (Walhout) frames the whole thing in a reading of history that is simply inaccurate. Purgatory, indulgences, relics, etc. did not form the "backbone of Christianity" 500 years ago. When these became too important, the Reformation happened. To put creation, sin and salvation (think Apostles Creed) on par with these is simply wrong. 2) Apart from the concluding blurb from a synodical report, Walhout fails to mention anything about how the church has already been wrestling with these issues for the past 150 years. This includes the various ways Genesis 1 has been interpreted well before Darwin came along, the numerous scholars who have described Adam and Eve as the representative head of the human race, and the work of scholars today in wrestling with these questions (i.e. books and articles by the Haarsmas at Calvin College). 3) This article lacks helpful distinctions, such as the difference between evolution and naturalism, which help us ask and answer the important questions. 4) He does suggest evolutionary theory calls for a reworking of doctrines like creation, sin and salvation. About sin, he says, "We will have to find a much better way of understanding what sin is, where it comes from, and what its consequences are. Theologians will have to find a new way of articulating a truly biblical doctrine of sin and what effect it has on us." In other words, evolutionary theory will enable theologians to be true to the Bible in our theological articulations. The implication being that now we will really understand the Bible. I think the problems in this are obvious. I am a bit floored that anyone in this forum might suggest that sin and salvaiton are not core doctrines of the Christian faith. 5) The author makes a prediction about the future, a prophetic claim, if you will. If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that we humans with our best sciences cannot predict the future. Unless Walhout received this from God himself (including being from Scripture), he should not put this forward as something that will inevitably happen. Being a false prophet is a serious matter in the Bible."