What’s Your Highest Value – Truth or Being Right?

An interesting post at Uncommon Descent today (it can be seen here). The contest winner answers the question of "Why does Earth's unique situation for science discovery threaten many?" Writer Bruce David asks the interesting question, what is your highest value? There are "those whose highest value is truth, and (also) those for whom being right is more important than anything else." And so, my question to all of us is this – what's more important to you, truth or your being right?

Now you may think I am taking a shot at the atheists out there with this question. But I think it applies at least equally, and perhaps more so, to Christians out there as well. I know I have had (many) times in my life where I wanted to prove someone else wrong (I'm speaking to you Tom L. and Ed, and others), rather than leading us both into a better understanding of what is true. If truth be told, I began reading the Bible just for the purpose of showing my older brother Bill that he was wrong (and that I was right) with his understanding of Christianity. And I am guessing I am not the only one out there to have preferred being right over truth. And so, Mr. David's article raises an important question, why do we fight so hard to show that we are right, especially when the evidence is against us?

Here is the rest of Mr. David's article:

…Imagine that you have grown up into a smug atheist, secure in your beliefs, looking down your nose with benign condescension on those benighted souls who, being either ignorant, stupid, insane, or (dare I say it) wicked, persist in believing in that ancient superstition, the existence of a Creator. Now imagine that suddenly, without warning, science itself has begun to turn on you–cosmology has determined that the Universe had a beginning, the fundamental constants of physics and cosmology are turning out to have been incredibly fine tuned to support the existence of life, the stunning complexity and sophistication of the cell beggars any naturalistic explanation of its origin, and the neo-Darwinian synthesis is being called into question by unanswerable attacks on its explanatory power.

In such a situation, if you are one of those for whom being right is your highest value, one who has identified yourself as a member of the elite who know the obvious truth of things, all this evidence for the existence of a Creator will not just be a threat to your beliefs, it will be a threat to what you imagine is the very core of your being.

And now Guillermo Gonzalez adds fuel to this blaze by providing powerful evidence that the earth itself, the home of and support for human life, is in a highly improbable position perfect for the pursuit of scientific inquiry. Is it any wonder that this is a threat?

The great thing about Antony Flew is that his life has been devoted to a genuine search for truth, and he has always respected those with whom he disagreed. Thus, he had no emotional stake in the outcome of his inquiries, and when the evidence became overwhelming for the existence of a Creator, he happily changed his mind. He is one of my heroes.

I hope this article has caused you to pause for a moment and think about the importance of truth in your life. And so my take away is that we should all embrace truth wherever it is found. Yes, sometimes there can be misreporting of evidence, and untrustworthy sources to be careful of, but I think most of us now what is true when we see it. And how we handle truth when it challenges our long-held beliefs is a good measure of a person's character. Therefore, let us go seek that which is true. Thanks.

More Americans for the First Time Are Pro-Life

Hi y'all,

 

An interesting new Gallup Poll (here) shows that for the first time Americans now identify themselves as Pro-Life rather than calling themselves Pro-Choice. A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves "pro-life" on the issue of abortion and 42% "pro-choice." This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995…

 

Americans' recent shift toward the pro-life position is confirmed in two other surveys. The same three abortion questions asked on the Gallup Values and Beliefs survey were included in Gallup Poll Daily tracking from May 12-13, with nearly identical results, including a 50% to 43% pro-life versus pro-choice split on the self-identification question.

 

I don't know why this would happen, but it looks like a good change. Just in time for our next Supreme Court Justice to be nominated. May God bless your week. /s/Tom

Odds n’ Ends (15)

Technut News (link here) has some very interesting news recently. Here are some of their recent stories:

1). Create a Brain Using a Silicon Chip - An international team of scientists in Europe has created a silicon chip designed to function like a human brain. With 200,000 neurons linked up by 50 million synaptic connections, the chip is able to mimic the brain's ability to learn more closely than any other machine.

Although the chip has a fraction of the number of neurons or connections found in a brain, its design allows it to be scaled up, says Karlheinz Meier, a physicist at Heidelberg University, in Germany, who has coordinated the Fast Analog Computing with Emergent Transient States project, or FACETS.

The hope is that recreating the structure of the brain in computer form may help to further our understanding of how to develop massively parallel, powerful new computers, says Meier…

Tom's Comment: OK, this computer chip simulating a human brain has 200,000 neurons linked up by 50 million synaptic connections, and this is "only" a fraction of what the human brain actually contains. When the brain is so obviously designed, that even the best minds of today can only do a small partial design of it, isn't this telling us something? The human brain continues to be a slam-dunk example of a Higher Mind designing and having been Created, with the naturalists only response being Darwinism's mechanism of unguided mutation? Game, Set, Match, to Intelligent Design;

2.) Personal Supercomputer is Coming! Within the next three to four years, most PC users will see their machines morph into personal supercomputers. This change will be enabled by the emergence of multicore CPUs and, perhaps more importantly, the arrival of massively parallel cores in the graphical processing units.

In fact, ATI (a division of Advanced Micro Devices) and Nvidia are already offering multiple programmable cores in their high-end discreet graphics processing platforms. These cores can be programmed to do many parallel processing tasks, resulting in dramatically better display features and functions for video, especially for gaming. But these platforms currently come at a hefty price and often require significant amounts of power, making them impractical in many laptop designs.

But preliminary steps are being taken to make these high-end multicore and programmable components available to virtually any machine…

3.) Engineers Make Quantum Leap in Developing Faster Computers. The researchers have created components that could one day be used to develop quantum computers - devices based on molecular scale technology instead of silicon chips and which would be much faster than conventional computers.

The study, by scientists at the Universities of Manchester and Edinburgh and published in the journal Nature, was funded by the European Commission.

Scientists have achieved the breakthrough by combining tiny magnets with molecular machines that can shuttle between two locations without the use of external force. These manoeuvrable magnets could one day be used as the basic component in quantum computers.

 

And from Gene Veith's blog, he asks the following:

4.) Is President Obama's 'New Foundation' built on rock or sand? More in our ongoing series on the language of the new administration. . . .FDR had the New Deal. JFK had the New Frontier. Now President Obama has a phrase for his economic program: The New Foundation. The metaphor raises the question: Is this new foundation being built on a rock or on sand?

My wishes that you enjoy this beautiful weather in Minnesota. I pray that the Lord bless you with blessed friendships, more laughter and the Lord's joy in being a new creation, and peace that only comes from the Prince of Peace, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen.

The Good News

Happy Easter to you. The Good News is what the elect thinks about during this time of year, the Holy Week. The Good News is that all of us make mistakes and do even worse things like when we hurt ourselves and others with our thoughts, words and deeds. Yet God has commanded everyone to be perfect in our lives (Matthew 5:48). Perfection is the standard we must keep, and yet none of us can keep it. When we do not act perfectly, this is called "sin". And our sin is what separates us from our Creator.

 

OK, be patient, I'm getting to the Good News. So how has God made it so that we can bridge this separation between our "sinful" imperfect lives and a Holy, righteous God? He came to Earth, taking the form of a humble Servant – this is the Son of God, the Messiah named Jesus. And by this Righteous Man's sacrifice on the Cross, God has reconciled the "sinful" world to Himself. But the Gift of Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the Cross can only be received in one way: through repenting of our "sinful" life and through trusting that Jesus' sacrifice was made in full payment of your sins. Yes, once this precious Gift of Jesus' sacrifice is accepted, you should be baptized into your New Life in Christ. And so, I hope you see that Jesus gave His life, so that you may have life – a new life in Christ where 'sin' no longer has control of you. Will you accept Jesus' sacrifice today?

 

And so, this is the Best News the world has seen – that a sinful person like you and me can be in relationship with the Holy Creator of the Universe. And this is only possible through the sacrifice made by Jesus the Messiah, the only perfect man to have lived. Through Jesus' righteous life, those who have repented and put their trust in Jesus now receive eternal life. Praise God the Giver of eternal life in heaven! And God has shown that Jesus is the Son of God through His Resurrection after being dead for three days and coming back to life on Easter morning, that beautiful Sunday morning almost 2,000 years ago today. This is the joy of Easter, our Lord Jesus defeated death and came back to life. He is risen, He is risen indeed!

 

Happy Easter to you all.

Some Questions for Mr. Oleander (Accountability)

Hey Edward Oleander,

In this post, I wanted to raise some direct questions that I hope you will take the time to respond to. Initially, let me bring up the topic of Justice and Accountability.

1. Let me start this by again quoting Psalm 58:10-11
   

   The godly will rejoice when they see injustice avenged.
   

   They will wash their feet in the blood of the wicked.
   

   Then at last everyone will say, 'There truly is a reward for those who live for God;
   

   Surely there is a God who judges justly here on earth.'
   

Do you rejoice when you see injustice "avenged", when a wicked person's blood is spilled? Let me see if I can draw this out further with an illustration.

Suppose there was a country named Amerika. It is led by President Shrub, who has used the mighty Amerikan army to invade innocent countries, causing the loss of many innocent civilians' lives, and causing the rest of the world to hate Amerika. Given that Amerika is causing so much wickedness in the world, wouldn't you want God to step in and judge this imaginary country, to at least stop it from causing more evil in the world?

2.    You have raised in your previous comments the topic that God should never judge "innocent" people / children. Let me see if I can flesh this out through a story Jesus used to describe God the Father. This story is told in Luke 15.11-32. Would you please read this story and answer the following questions:

a. Describe the younger son.

b. Considering that the father most likely knows his son's character and lifestyle, why does he honor his son's request to be given his inheritance immediately?

c. Why does God allow us this same kind of freedom?

d. How does Jesus describe the younger son's change of heart?

1. What does Luke 15:20 tell us about the father?
   

   f. What does the father's response to his son reveal about God's attitude toward you?
   

g. Could the father have done anything without the Prodigal son having turned back to his father?

3. 3. My final question is this: why is it that an animal is never put on trial?

Thank you Ed for the time you put in and setting out your thoughts. I hope the Lord blesses all of my readers with a weekend where you grow in Christ, and use your gifts and talents to serve the Body of Christ. I ask this through my faith and the righteousness of Jesus. Amen. /s/Tom Wolff

Memorizing Scripture, Part 2

 

We are going through a pretty miserable Spring Break vacation here in Burnsville. I started out the week by recovering from having a shard of glass removed from the bottom of my foot. The funny line from the Podiatrist was when he told me that it is going to really hurt and burn for about thirty seconds. "But real men can handle it." (My thought was well, if you find a real man, I'll be the one sitting next to him!) And then Peggy was in the Emergency Room Tuesday after she had an episode where she was totally off-balance, including falling down our stairs (only minor damage to her though). It looks like she is suffering from vertigo, and it came on her in a completely sudden way. But the medication they've given her have helped. But, our poor children are stuck in our home with it raining/snowing for three days now. Add in the mixture of three CRAZY puppies (woops, now only two) and three CRAZIER cats, and I think right now I'm ready to pack my bags for anywhere else.

 

OK, enough venting, and allow me to get back on topic: Memorizing Bible verses. I have not found a more helpful and useful practice than memorizing Scripture. It helps me to think more about these verses, and thereby have a better understanding of what is written. And it also helps me to meditate on these verses during those times when I am awake at night. The program I am using now is 'Memorize His Word' (here's a demo.) It has a free period to download the program and try it out. What I like best about this program is that you can et up any verse or set of verses to memorize. I even put in Elijah's Cub Scout oath in, and it worked well. It is very flexible, let's you choose whatever Bible translation you prefer, and it's cheap. The other program I have tried is Memlok. This is easier to use, and provides a very helpful, simple picture to help you remember how to start the verse. And starting the verse is half the battle. The follow-up is pre-scheduled, so even if you have many verses you are memorizing, it maxes out at 6 daily verses. The only problem was that there are "only" 700 verses to memorize. But both programs are great – so give them a try!

 

So why should I study and memorize Bible verses, and are there any good tips to help out? I'm glad you asked. Take a look at an article on Pastor John Piper's blog (here). In the article the writer provides 18 tricks to help in memorizing Scripture. Here is a portion of what he wrote:

…But one of the most compelling reasons for memorizing Scripture I found in John Piper's sermon If My Words Abide in You: memorizing Scripture shapes the way I view the world by conforming to God's viewpoint.  

So, whether you want to memorize one verse or an entire book, try these strategies to help you remember more. 

1. Read it repeatedly. Did you know you can memorize Scripture during your morning devotion? Instead of zipping through your reading for the day, pause and camp on one verse for a long time. You won't regret it.

2. Pay attention. Sounds obvious, but often ignored. Simply forcing yourself to be aware of what you are reading can help you internalize the words. Repetition will make the mind wander. What you have to do is bring it back. 

3. Visualize what you are reading. Take Psalm 1:1 for example. "Blessed is the man who does not walk with the wicked nor stand in the way of the sinner nor sit in the seat of the mocker." Your first tasks is to see the three actions here: walking, standing and sitting. If you can see the three main actions, then you can start to memorize the surrounding words….

 

The article has some great suggestions, so I hope you will check it out. God's blessings upon you and yours. /s/Tom Wolff

Odds n’ Ends (14)

Here are some recent stories that have caught my eye:

1. Final Fulfillment of Pentecost Set as being May 31^st. As times grow more stressful, we see the oddballs start coming out more frequently. Here is a link to one site which has set May 31^st as the final fulfillment of Pentecost: http://rogershermansociety.org/pentecost.htm. At least person provides his Biblical reasons for believing this. He makes one interesting conclusion, the "land of unwalled cities" described in Ezekiel 38:10-11 could be America. And the countdown clock is a nice touch!
   

 

1. NASA Launches Earth Hunting Satellite. On Friday, NASA's new Kepler space telescope into orbit, the mission stands to potentially change the way we look at the universe. Kepler is designed to turn its eye on thousands of stars in our own Milky Way galaxy and look for signs of Earth-sized planets orbiting in a region conducive to supporting life.
   

I believe NASA states the following - Theory, data, and experiments suggest that life requires (in decreasing order of certainty):

• A thermodynamic disequilibrium;
  
• An environment capable of maintaining covalent bonds, especially between carbon, hydrogen, and other atoms;
  
• A liquid environment; and
  
• A molecular system that can support Darwinian evolution.
  

Earth abundantly displays life that uses solar, geothermal, and chemical energy to maintain thermodynamic disequilibria, covalent bonds between carbon, water as the liquid, and DNA as a molecular system to support Darwinian evolution. Life with those characteristics can be found wherever water and energy are available.

Tom's Thought: It seems the second part of the above-list would be the most difficult to find. Earth has the right temperature, the right gravity, the lack of extreme conditions for most of the planet and so can support life, an atmosphere that protects from cosmic attacks, and a large moon to provide tides that are helpful for life to form. It seems this is an incredible waste of time and money, but as long as its being sent up let's sees what turns up.

 

1. Religion Losing Ground in America.
   Article on Religion Losing Ground. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone living in America, but it seems there are more people who say they have no religion, and all religious Churches are shrinking. The article says: These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.
   

   
    

   "More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, 'I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself,' " says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.
   

   
    

2. One World Government/One World Religion? There is a segment of the Christian culture that is especially wary of there being a Global government and one world religion. I never understood if there was solid Biblical support for their fear, and this past week I received an email newsletter from a Minnesota group Olive Tree Ministries that provided its reasons why they believe this will take place as part of the Pre-Trib understanding of the end-times. Here is a portion of what they wrote:
   

   
    

   I read an article recently that began with these chilling words, "The Institute for Health Freedom (IHF) warns that the economic stimulus bill mandates electronic health records for every citizen without providing for opt-out or patient consent provisions." …
   

   
    

   God has told us in His Word that during the Tribulation there will be a one-world religious system (Rev. 17), a one-world economic system (Rev. 13:16, 17 & Rev. 18:1-19), and a one-world government (Rev. 13:1-10 & Dan. 11:36-39). The pieces would seem to be falling into place with increasing speed. We can sit back and watch as God's Word is fulfilled!
   

    
    

   Terrifying, you say? Well, no, because God keeps all of His Word and His promises! And what does He promise His beloved bride? "Let not your heart be troubled . . . if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may be also"
   (John 14:1, 3), and, "Because you have kept my command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial, which shall come upon all the world, to test those who dwell on the earth" (Rev. 3:10).
   

    
    

   A favorite Bible teacher of mine often says, "When you see the Christmas decorations going up in the local department stores, you know that Thanksgiving is right around the corner!" As we see all the signposts in preparation for the seven-year Tribulation going up, we know it's almost time to go Home! (Heidi Swander for Olive Tree Ministries)
   

   
    

   I found this helpful to provide for me a better understanding of why the Pre-Tribbers have this understanding of the end-times, and why they so strongly oppose anything that smells of One World Government/One World Religion. I will let you judge whether or not they are properly interpreting these verses.
   

   
    

3. Wolff Girls Audition for 'Ash Girls' Play. Asia and Maggie have auditioned for a jr. high play that deals with the 7 deadly sins. It will be interesting to see how the play handles this! More details on the parts they received and the play dates are forthcoming.
   

Lord please bless those who stop by with health, Your provision, and freedom from sin that only a life in Christ can provide. In Jesus' name, Amen.