The Apple Of God's Eye

February 25, 2010

A Credible Religious Answer To Evolution!

Mankind has a long history of seeking God, but it now appears that human intellect is in a rush to eliminate Him. Supposed superstition, ignorance and fear is said to give way to intelligence in order that human civilization may be brought fully into being.

And no wonder. The gods of some nations have been carved by men’s hands out of wood, stone, or other existing material. The gods of some religions and individuals have been carved out of human imaginations and faulty human reasoning. Some have worshiped the sun, or other inanimate objects of nature. All these gods are merely the created—most of them formed and fashioned by man, therefore inferior to man.

But He who did the creating—He who brought everything that exists into existence, including all else falsely called God—He who created all matter, force and energy, who created all natural laws and set them in motion, who created life and endowed some of it with intelligence—He is God! He is superior to all else that is called “God.” He, alone, is God! (more…)

February 23, 2010

Keep Love In Marriage Alive

Filed under: Marriage — melchia @ 11:00 pm
Tags: , , , , ,

greetings.ellamey.com

How many people today treat a marriage partner like a roommate – as disposable. The flame goes out and years of marriage, perhaps children, love, sweat, toil and heartache, all for a piece of paper that says “divorced.”

Marriage is like a hot coffeepot placed on a cold stove — it soon cools off. Unless we take precautions, that can happen. But cooled-off love can be rekindled, and relationships can be restored.

1.   “Remember” is the first step. God gave us memories. We must live in the present, but we dream of the future and we learn valuable truths from the past.

2.   “Repent” is the second step. Love includes being able to say you’re sorry and really mean it. When was the last time you said “I’m sorry”? Forgiveness is an integral part of every good marriage. We can easily wrong others — even the one we love most intimately.

We need to change — to constantly strive to improve. Sometimes even little habits can greatly annoy our mate. We should be sensitive and willing to adjust. Some, when offended, react with resentment and punishments. They hold grudges. They want to get even — even if only by sulking. Anybody can act that way. Remember: God will forgive our trespasses only as we forgive those who have wronged us (Matthew 6:12). So don’t let the sun go down on your anger (Eph. 4:26). (more…)

February 22, 2010

Where Did The Devil And His Demons Come From?

apod.nasa.gov

One of the great mysteries in religion is the origin of Satan the devil and his demons. But it doesn’t have to be a mystery, since the Bible explains all to us.

John 1:1 states: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That is the very earliest prehistoric record. It could have been millions or thousands of millions of years ago. The two eternally living Spirit Personages, (God who later became the Father and the Word who became Jesus Christ) together constituted the ONE God family and were alone in empty space. There was no physical universe-yet!

But, even as man thinks, and designs and plans before making-so did God conceive the plan and design to create angels-immortal spirit beings, composed wholly of spirit. God created angels before creating the earth. We know they had been created prior to the earth because they sang together and shouted for joy at earth’s creation (Job 38:4-7).

Angels were the first thinking, reasoning, separate entities created by God. They were created with minds-ability to know, reason, make choices. But their creation could not be a finished creation until character-either good or evil-was developed in them. God initially instructed them in His way-that of righteous character. It was the way of God’s spiritual law-the basis of God’s

Apparently God placed a third of the angels He had created on earth. They were given opportunity to share in God’s creating activities by finishing the earth-working in and with its many elements, improving, beautifying, completing it. But instead of improving, beautifying and completing the earth, however, the angels rebelled and brought it to desolation and ruin (tohu and bohu) – Gen. 1:2. (more…)

Where Did John The Baptist Get The Ceremony Of Baptism?

One of the greatest miracles of the Old Testament was a forerunner and type of what true baptism pictures today. It was the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt.

In I Corinthians 10:11, God reveals that these Old Testament events occurred to be examples to Christians. Now read verses 1-2: “Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, and were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”

The word here translated “baptized” means “immersed” or “plunged into.” Let’s understand the full meaning of this event.

Israel had just come out of captivity in Egypt. God said that He was going to bring them up out of that land of oppression — that pagan land of strange customs and evil ways. So God sent Moses to deliver them from their bondage in that land of sin.

Israel was in sin, living the wrong way. And God set His hand to deliver them.

After Israel’s Exodus from Egypt, God brought them to encamp “beside Pi Hahiroth, before Baal Zephon” (Exodus 14:9). To Israel’s amazement, they found themselves trapped, with the Egyptians closing in on them. The only way of escape was through the Red Sea. (more…)

How Did Noah Build The Ark Large Enough For All The World's Animal "Kinds?"

Think for a moment. Would God assign a job like building the Ark to someone without being sure the person could get the job done?

Many people assume that the account of the building of the Ark is a myth. They conceive of Noah as a sort of old, bearded hermit who had little or no education, and who certainly must not have had proper tools to build a ship as large as the Ark.

True, Noah may not have had computers, gasoline-powered saws, hydraulic lifts, rivet guns or micrometers. But to assume that Noah had no nails, bolts, saws, axes or hammers, along with other needed tools and supplies and the necessary technical knowledge, is simply naive.

Most fail to grasp the tremendous size of Noah’s Ark because they have not figured out its capacity based on the measurements given in the Bible (Genesis 6:14-16).

Bible commentators do not all agree as to the specific size of the cubit used in building the Ark. Some suggest an 18-inch cubit, others a 21-inch cubit. On the basis of a 21-inch cubit, Peloubet’s Bible Dictionary states, “The ark would be 525 feet in length, 87 feet 6 inches in breadth and 52 feet 6 inches in height.” (more…)

Retaliation In Anger Is Hatred!

Filed under: Hatred — melchia @ 3:11 am
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Allowing our temper to fester, or holding a grudge, could turn into hatred for the other person. This would be breaking the spirit of the Sixth Commandment (Matthew 5:21-22). None of these responses would do anything but hurt both you or the other person.

Your goal should not be to prove that you are correct, that the other person is wrong or that you are treated fairly in the future. If these are your goals, you will be unsuccessful in dealing with your anger. You must have a goal of getting rid of your angry emotions and improving your relationship with the other person.

Don’t allow yourself to act or speak before you think. Remember to stay in control of your emotions. Begin talking to the other person calmly and rationally. Let him know what he has done that has hurt you and angered you.

Name-calling and insults will only worsen the problem. Express how you feel and try to build upon common characteristics. This will require tact and self-control on your part. Ask God to help you to grow in these character traits.

Even if the other person started the problem and is completely wrong, you must swallow your pride and be willing to forgive. Try to look at things from his point of view. Give him the benefit of the doubt, and don’t judge him too harshly. Follow God’s example of being slow to anger (Nehemiah 9:17) and willing to forgive (1 John 1:9).

February 18, 2010

What Is Blasphemy Against The Holy Spirit?

Only three places in the Bible mention “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit”: Matthew 12:22-32, Mark 3:20-30 and Luke 12:10. The Greek word in these verses means “to speak abusively, defame, vilify.” Certain people of Jesus’ day blasphemed the Spirit by attributing the power and works of God to the devil — by saying Jesus cast out demons by an unclean spirit.

Blasphemy against the Spirit of God is not pardonable. The reason is this: We can come to repentance only when the Holy Spirit convicts us that our ways have been wrong and that God’s ways are right. If we reject, by not repenting, the Holy Spirit and the works it does, we are rejecting the only channel through which we could qualify for God’s gift of grace. The unpardonable sin is the one unrepented of.

Falling away after once having the Holy Spirit is also unpardonable (Hebrews 6:4-6). Falling away means turning from God’s way of life after sincerely embracing it, or rejecting Christ’s sacrifice, which makes it possible for humans to receive God’s Spirit after repentance and baptism (Acts 2:38). It is possible, as I Thessalonians 5:19 shows, to quench the Spirit in us.

Many have worried needlessly about this question. No one who has blasphemed the Spirit of God wants to do the works of God. He hates them! But as long as one is truly repentant, wants to live God’s way of life and strives to overcome, he or she has not committed the unpardonable sin.

What Is The Biblical Definition Of Sin?

Many religions speak of sin, but they don’t know what it is! What is this thing we must all repent of? Some teach that card-playing, gambling, going to movies and dancing are sins. Some say sin is going contrary to your conscience. Others say sin is whatever harms you or others.

But there is no reason to wonder about it. God plainly tells us what sin is. Here is the Bible definition of sin — the only definition that counts: “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law” (I John 3:4, Authorized Version).

But what law? The apostle James explains: “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ also said, ‘Do not murder.’ Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law” (James 2:8-11).

Yes, that’s the same law so many denominations want to get rid of, and nail to the cross -though they are confused as to what was REALLY nailed to the cross. The law that tells us what sin is has points — and if we break one of those several points, we are guilty of all. Two of the points James mentioned say do not commit adultery and do not kill.

Now do you know of a law in the Bible that has points and that says don’t commit adultery and don’t kill? Of course! The Ten Commandments! The Ten Commandments define what sin is. They tell us what we should and should not do.

Therefore when we repent of sin, we repent of breaking God’s law — we repent of transgressing or breaking the Ten Commandments! The first four commandments tell us how to love God, and the last six show us how to love our neighbor. That’s why James called it a “royal law” that is summed up in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

When we break one of the Ten Commandments, we commit sin. And Jesus Christ said that unless we all repent of our sin, we are doomed to perish (Luke 13:3, 5). Perhaps it is time you asked yourself if you have really repented in God’s sight of what God defines as sin.

How Does A Christian "Bless" God?

God rules the universe supreme! He owns everything that exists. Yet each of us can bless God and bring Him pleasure, delight and joy. How? If we examine the context of the passages that instruct us to bless God, we find exactly what this term means. Notice Psalm 34:1: “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

To bless God, therefore, means to praise Him. But why do we praise God? Just because He tells us to? No. The true, wholehearted praise God desires is the praise of sincere thankfulness and appreciation for all the blessings He first gives us: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits” (Psalm 103:2).

The awesomeness of God is worthy of continual praise:

“I will extol You, my God, O King; and I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, and I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable” (Psalm 145:1-3).

Psalm 96 shows us that God is also blessed in song and worship, and by declaring His salvation to all the world. Psalm 100:4 shows that we bless God by coming before Him in worship, praise and thanksgiving. This attitude of reverence, fear and respect for God and the laws He has given carries over into our daily lives as we obey Him and become living sacrifices for Him (Romans 12:1). God wants us to be living witnesses to others around us of the true way of abundant Christian living (Matthew 5:16). In this way we set an example and bear fruit, which glorifies God (John 15:8).

Jesus said there is great joy in heaven over every sinner who, being called by God and seeing the good example of true Christians, repents and begins on the way to salvation and membership in God’s own Family (Luke 15:10).

God created humankind to ultimately become His children (Revelation 21:7). The greatest blessing we can give God is to fulfill our purpose in life — yield to God, overcome and qualify for salvation — become a child of
God!

Seven Proofs Of God’s True Church, Part 4

Filed under: Church - God's — melchia @ 8:16 pm
Tags: , ,

This Article Is Proof # 4 Of God’s True Church.

PROOF FOUR: GOD’S POWER

Man has the capability to produce awesome power. Explosion of an atomic bomb. Take the atomic bomb. Upon explosion, there is a brilliant flash, brighter than the morning sun, and an awesome, mushrooming cloud begins to form, instantly rising several thousand feet. Then, moments later, a huge rumbling, ear-splitting shock starts emanating outwards with physical force, just like a blow from some superhuman hand.

This type of atomic blast is only a tiny bomb though, a mere “pip” compared to the giant multimegaton hydrogen bombs of today. Actually, it takes the explosive force of an atom bomb to set off a hydrogen bomb. An atom bomb is just a “match” to ignite a hydrogen bomb.

Air Force planners have considered developing a “Trilloton” H-bomb, named for being equivalent in destructive force to one trillion tons of TNT. Do you grasp what a trillion tons of TNT really is? One million is a thousand thousand. But it takes one thousand million to make a billion. A trillion is one thousand billion!

If one hundred ten-ton trucks had been laboring mightily, dumping their maximum load of TNT once each minute since the time of the birth of Jesus Christ, over 1900 years ago, there would still not be a pile of TNT big enough to represent the destructive force contained in just this one bomb. (more…)

February 16, 2010

Is The Catholic Church the Original Church Of God?

blogs.reuters.com

Jesus Christ did not found many denominations! Christ said, “I will build my Church.” He did built it! One Church, commissioned to preach and to publish His Gospel — the very Message He brought from God — to all the world!

But what do we find today? Hundreds of different and disagreeing sects, all founded by men, each professing to teach the truth, yet contradicting and disagreeing with all the others — a modern religious Babylon!

But what is a “sect”? According to Webster, it is “a group that has broken away from the established Church.” Who established the Church? — Christ! Today’s host of sects or denominations have broken away from that established parent Church — they teach different doctrines and observe different practices!

The religious sects of Jesus’ day were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, the Samaritans. They had broken away from the true parent Old Testament Church established by God through Moses. Jesus joined none of them. On the contrary, He called His disciples out of them! The Greek word “ecclesia,” translated “Church” in English, has the meaning of “called-out ones.” (more…)

February 15, 2010

Seven Proofs Of God's True Church, Part 3

This is part 3 of our seven part series of proving the true Church of God.

PROOF THREE: THE TRUTH ABOUT PAGAN DOCTRINES

Look at the superstitions around you. In the modern world, we seemingly take for granted the various bizarre “doctrines” and “beliefs” of the many religions. We’re not even especially alarmed at the almost fantastic varieties of “belief” held by the average passersby on the streets of our modern cities.

A Plethora of Paganism

Some believe in “going to heaven.” Others believe there is no God — that evolution is true. Still others believe in various interpretations of pantheism, polytheism, deism, dualism, theistic evolution, and, give or take a few hundred, about a thousand more shades and colorings of “belief.” Fast friends in many social circles believe widely different things about religion.

Sitting across from each other at the bridge table may be one person fully expecting to be “raptured” away secretly some day — while another believes there is no living Christ. One thinks only his body dies, and his “soul” goes off to heaven, while another believes he will reappear in the form of a gnat, or a mosquito. (more…)

Seven Proofs Of God's True Church, Part 2

Seven Proofs Of God’s True Church, Part 2

PROOF TWO: THREE DEFINITE SIGNS

This second major proof of God’s true Church is composed of three important sections.

1. Section one concerns the true name of the true Church
2. Section two is the understanding and observance of God’s seventh-day Sabbath
3. Section three is the understanding and observance of God’s annual Holy Days.

Section 1 — the True Name of God’s Church

Wherever Almighty God speaks of His true Church, identifying it by name — that name is almost always the same.

Jesus prayed, “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world [but not of the world], and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are” (John 17:11). Jesus prayed the Father to keep His own true people in and through a particular name! Jesus prayed that name would be the name of the Father. (more…)

February 13, 2010

Seven Proofs Of God's True Church, Part 1

Filed under: Church - God's — melchia @ 8:09 am

Jesus said, “I will build my church”! And He did build it! No one in the Christian world denies there is a true Church of which Jesus Christ is the Head somewhere on this earth right now! Many imagine that Church is to be found in the hearts and minds of multiple millions who may represent dozens of different “faiths.” Others claim it is one great organized and political body. Others may feel it is a tiny sect with heavy emphasis on charismatic practices. Many churches claim to be “number one,” meaning they claim to be the true Church! But can you prove which church is the true Church? This series of articles presents the seven major proofs which represent incontrovertible evidence of where God’s true Church, of which Jesus Christ is the literal living Head, is working on this earth today!

Jesus warned of a great deception to arise soon after His death and resurrection, but He also said, “I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18), and promised He would be with that Church always — it would never die out! (Matt. 28:20.) It doesn’t seem to enter the minds of most of the people of this world today, as they gullibly pursue the religion of their youth, that there really could be only one true religion — and that all others are false.

Jesus warned: “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ [saying that Jesus is the Christ — not that ‘they’ are Christ]; and shall deceive many” (Matt. 24:4-5). (more…)

Was Pope Pious XII Really Pious?

Editors Comment: Some claim vigorously that Pope Pious XII saved thousands of Jewish lives in secret at great personal cost. But in 1948 the new state of Israel, eager for international recognition, gave the Vatican leverage to get Israeli diplomats and politicians to quote extravagant figures for the Jews rescued by Pius XII. There is a thoroughly discredited statement of Pinchas Lapide, who estimated that Pius ‘was instrumental in saving at least 700,000 but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands. More here – Concordatwatch.eu. This despite it being generally acknowledged that “with few exceptions, he intervened actively only to save baptized Jews”. [Arthur Hertzberg, “The Catholic-Jewish dispute that won’t go away”, Reform Judaism, November 1999].

Indeed, to soften the blow of this man’s actions many decades later reveals that most don’t understand how the Catholic Church thinks. The big picture reveals a church with leaders that have sanctioned two thousand years of official Church anti-semitism which had fueled the pogroms and the Holocaust, as well as the the murder of millions of lives during the Middle Ages.

Rather than Biblical admonition and guidance, the Roman Catholic church circumvents the sayings of Christ when convenient, showing that it cares first and foremost about its own interests. Not only have there never been pious leaders in the Catholic church, there is STILL none pious at the helm.

Read the article below from the Trumpet.com to understand the subject more deeply.

—————————————————————————————————————————

From the March 2010 Trumpet Print Edition

Hitler’s pope is one step closer to sainthood. In December 2009, Pope Benedict xvi issued a decree proclaiming the “heroic virtues” of the 20th century’s most controversial pope. Prior to World War ii, the cardinal who later became Pope Pius xii successfully negotiated the Reich Concordat with Adolf Hitler in 1933, which effectively removed all political opposition to the growing Nazi movement in Germany.

During the war, Pius turned a blind eye to Hitler’s barbarous campaign to exterminate Jews. In October 1943, Hitler’s SS troops entered Rome’s old ghetto and rounded up more than a thousand Italian Jews to be transported to death camps. Before their deportation, these Jews were held captive for two days in a building located less than half a mile from the Vatican. Pope Pius was one of the first to be made aware of the Jewish arrests. Yet he did nothing to prevent them from boarding cattle cars bound for Auschwitz.

Even after the war was over, Pius intervened personally to help Nazi criminals go “underground” in order to escape punishment.

Today, Pope Benedict has placed Pius on the fast track to sainthood. By issuing a decree on his virtues, Benedict moved him closer to beatification, which is the first major step toward sainthood. But this should not in any way be seen as a “hostile act” toward Jews, said Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi a few days after the pope’s move.

The Jews, of course, disagree, especially since the decree was made several weeks before the pontiff visited Rome’s synagogue. Jewish organizations and historians have led an effort over recent years to stop the beatification process—to no avail. (more…)

February 11, 2010

Is Genesis 1 The Original Creation?

derek4messiah.wordpress.com

The Hebrew words for “without form and void” (Gen. 1:2) are tohu and bohu. Translated into English they mean chaotic, in confusion, waste, empty. Why would God create the earth in disorder and then have to straighten it out? That wouldn’t make sense! The Hebrew word for “created” used in Genesis 1:1 implies that the creation was a perfected work. It implies order and system, not chaos or confusion! In I Corinthians 14:33 we read that “God is not the author of confusion.” God is the author of peace. He is the author of law and order. God told Job that the angels shouted for joy when the earth was created (Job 38:7). This is further indication that when God created the earth, He created it useful and beautiful. Conclusive proof is found in Isaiah 45:18. Notice: “For thus saith the Eternal that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain…”

“In vain” is an inappropriate translation. The original Hebrew word is tohu. This is the same identical Hebrew word used in Genesis 1:2 meaning “confusion” or “emptiness” or “waste”-a result of disorder, a result of violation of law. Thus, this verse is a plain statement that when God created the earth it was not tohu-in a state of confusion and disorder. It became that way long before the seven day “creation week,” which actually begins in verse 3.

An added point of evidence is verse 2 of Genesis 1. Here the English word translated “was” is from the Hebrew word hayah. This word is translated “became” in Genesis 2:7, 9:15 and 19:26. In the first three chapters of the Bible, and many other places where you find the Hebrew word hayah, it denotes a condition that was different from a former condition. In other words, the earth “became” chaotic. It had not always been that way. (more…)

How Old Is God?

Filed under: God — melchia @ 10:11 pm
Tags: , , , , ,

meds.queensu.ca

We are used to living in a limited world. Everything around us has limitations-beginnings and endings. We are aware of infants being born, of grandparents dying. We observe animals, plants and insects beginning life. We see their lives come to an end. We speak of the birth and the death of civilizations, of storms, volcanoes and comets. We are accustomed to seeing things get old. Clothing and furniture wear out. Automobiles fall apart. Buildings deteriorate. Our bodies become wrinkled and slow. To mortal man everything has a beginning, a period of usefulness and an end. We mark this progression of events on our clocks and calendars.

To us, only what is measurable by hours, days and years seems to have real significance. So when we hear that God is eternal, that He always has been and always will be, our minds balk. The words tend to be meaningless because we have nothing familiar to relate them to. And that is just the problem: we are trying to relate what cannot be related in physical terms. We are trying to apply the limitations of the physical existence we know to the unlimited spiritual plane on which God lives. The two cannot be compared. Our minds can encompass an hour, a century, a millennium, but we cannot grasp past eternity. They are not big enough to fully comprehend spiritual existence. We can’t even fully comprehend the physical universe! As an illustration, let’s consider for a moment what God has created.

Astronomers estimate that 100,000 million galaxies each with 100,000 million stars dot the universe. And who knows how many planets and moons? God says He counts and names them all (Ps. 147:4). Now if we allow God one full second by our reckoning of time to count and name each star in the heavens, do you know how long it would take Him to name them all? Working nonstop, by our clocks and calendars, it would take more than 300,000 billion years just to count and name them. How long must it have taken Him to design and create all those stars? To us these figures are inconceivable. But not to God. God is eternal. One of His names in Hebrew is Yahweh-the “Everliving One.” The Creator is not bound by the laws of space and time as we are. While men are able to theorize about time warps and the relation of energy to the speed of light, God masters it all. To Him, according to His wishes, “one day … is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (II Pet. 3:8). God “inhabits eternity” (Isa. 57:15). That is to say He comfortably dwells in what we might think of as beginningless and endless time. Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 show that at whatever point in the past we wish to consider as the beginning-no matter how far back we try to stretch our finite minds-God already existed. “In the beginning God…” Where did God come from? He didn’t “come from” anywhere. He was always there!

Who Wrote The Book Of Genesis?

The Jewish community, which has the responsibility of preserving the Hebrew Old Testament (Rom. 3:1-2), ascribes this book to Moses. There can be no doubt that Moses is the author of Genesis as well as the rest of the Pentateuch (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy). Jesus said to certain religious leaders of His day, “Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my works?” (John 5:45-47). Here is Jesus’ own personal testimony that Moses wrote scripture.

But what part? Jesus gave the division of the Old Testament in Luke 24:44: All things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms…” A little earlier, Jesus, “beginning at Moses and all the prophets… expounded unto them (the disciples) in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (verse 27). Jesus began with Moses because it was Moses who wrote the first five books of the Bible. This does not, however, preclude the fact that Joshua and later prophets added further comments to the law as Moses wrote it. See Deuteronomy 34:5-12 for the account of Moses’ death. Also Genesis 14:14 where the later name Dan is used instead of Laish (Judg. 18:29).

February 10, 2010

Valentine's Day: A Millennia Old Fertility Rite With A Little Magic To Boot!

listverse.com

When we were small children, we’d often use the word “why”—usually in the form of a question, directed at a person older than us. And each answer, it seemed, triggered another question—another why. But as we grew older, our curiosity began to wane. We stopped asking why so frequently. What was the reason? Was it because we thought we knew everything at that point? No, we became comfortable with the status quo. Most of us began to accept things the way they are—without question.

And so it is with the holiday we are fast approaching on February 14, 2010 – Valentine’s Day — a day which supposedly celebrates love and affection between couples by giving flowers and sending greeting cards.

But since there’s no biblical basis for its observance, we must look to secular history to determine its origin.

Centuries before Christ, the Romans celebrated the evenings of February 14 and 15 (named “Lupercalia)” as an idolatrous and sensuous festival in honor of Lupercus, the “hunter of wolves.” This pagan free-for-all was to be done away with when Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, but the general public would have none of it, and so only the more grossly sensual observances were toned down.

Modern tradition says that this holiday is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD. But the fact is that by this time, the holiday had BECOME a “Christian” custom, appropriating the name St. Valentine in place of Lupercus (Lavinia Dobler, Customs and Holidays Around the World). (more…)

February 6, 2010

Climategate, Amazongate, Himalayan Data Goof: Global Warming Unravelling At Lightning Speed!

The following is an editorial from the Canadian paper, The Province. It really puts into perspective the false notion of global warming and how it is now unravelling at the seams. I mention the topic on this blog because man wants to trust in man, but God says this is a bitter painful way to go on living. He gives us an eternal, universal truth—summarized starkly by the Prophet Jeremiah: “Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man.”

Yet, judging by the euphoria built over this global warming god, it is clear that our nations have yet to learn this lesson. The trust in man is as alive as ever. What will it take before we accept God at His word? We are cursed if we do so.

———————————————————————————————-

Science Is Far From Settled On Global Warming Issue

The Province

February 01, 2010

seeker401.wordpress.com

I can’t recall the wheels coming off the bus of any expert-driven hysteria as quickly or as completely as they are now coming off the global-warming scare.

I suppose they must have came off faster from Y2K. At 12:00:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2000, when airliners didn’t fall from the sky and power plants didn’t shut down spontaneously or computers didn’t freeze up all over the world, the air came out of the Y2K scare instantly. Billions had been spent on preventing that disaster-that-never-was up until midnight on the final day of 1999, then almost not a penny afterwards.

That is faster than the wheels are coming off the climate-change bus. But AGW — anthropogenic global warming — is a very close second.

News of the manipulations, distortions and frauds perpetrated to advance and preserve the environmentalists’ cause celebre are so numerous and coming so fast, it’s hard to keep up.

First, of course, there were the emails and computer files leaked from Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) — one of a handful of climate-research centres around the world that are the pillars of the United Nations’ claims about impending climate doom. The CRU leaks showed many of the world’s leading climate scientists discussing how they could torque their research to show more recent warming than there has been, conceal their “tricks” from other scientists and government investigators and pressure scientific journals not to publish reports by dissenting scientists.

Then a couple of weeks ago came the news that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s climate-change arm, had based its most recent findings on Himalayan glacier melt on an old study that had never been peer-reviewed or even published and which was based entirely on the speculation (not research) of a single Indian scientist who now works at the environmental think-tank run by the head of the IPCC, economist Rajendra Pachauri.

This by itself wouldn’t be devastating, except that the scientist in charge of the glacier chapter of the IPCC’s latest assessment report ( AR4) admitted he had known the melt estimate was wrong but had included it any way because “we thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.”

That’s not climate science, it’s environmental activism, pure and simple — using misleading figures to whip up alarm and bring about political action.

Another revelation of malfeasance this week was the discovery that the chapter on Amazon rainforests in the IPCC’s AR4, the one that included the often-repeated claim that 40 per cent of the forest is under imminent threat from climate change, was written not by climate scientists but by a policy analyst who works for environmental groups and a freelance environmental author.

Like the glacier chapter, it was written not to present the latest dispassionate scientific data but to present a propaganda case that would produce the policy outcome the UN and the IPCC want. It confirmed that the UN is a player for one side in the climate debate, not the source for object facts.

In all, so far, at least 16 major claims made in AR4 (the report for which the IPCC won a Nobel Prize) have been shown to have originated with environmental groups rather than scientists, including the claim that climate change is already making tornado, hurricanes, forest fires and floods worse.

This week, we also learned that NA SA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) may have been playing fast and loose with its own calculations of global average temperature. Among the four main repositories of global temperature records, GISS is the only one to show the Earth still warming during the past decade. Now two American climate researchers — Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts — believe they know why: Scientists at GISS may have been cherry-picking the weather stations they take their records from to increase global averages artificially.

The pair write that there was a “major” decline in the number of stations GISS scientists were taking readings from “and an increase in missing data from remaining stations, which occurred suddenly around 1990 . . . a clear bias was found toward removing higher elevation, higher latitude and rural stations — the cooler stations — during this culling process.” The pre-1990 temperature records, though, continued to include these cooler stations. These changes tended to make temperatures before 1990 appear extra-cool and those after 1990 extra-warm.

This probably shouldn’t surprise — GISS is run by James Hansen, the scientist who first set off the global-warming scare in 1988 and who is an adviser to former U.S. vice-president Al Gore.

Hansen has testified in court on behalf of eco-vandals charged with damaging a British power plant, insisting they are guilty of no crime because they were acting in defence of humanity, and he has called coal trains “death trains” and coal-fired power plants “factories of death.”

Again, those are the words of an activist, not a scientist.

Does all this prove global warming is a hoax?

I believe it does.

Further reading:

Himalayas glacier data goof

Amazongate – new evidence of the IPCC’s failures

Next Page »

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.