Very cool Christmas surprise for the children of a woman on an unexpected Christmas leave from a tour in Iraq
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Rick Warren will give the invocation for Barrack Obama. I’m not a huge Warren fan. He makes some good points but takes verses out of context too much and has too much social gospel vs. too little real Gospel for my tastes.
What is interesting is that not only are conservatives upset that Warren is doing this for the radically pro-abortion Obama, but lying false teachers don’t like Warren because he has the audacity to be pro-life and pro-traditional marriage. What an awful, awful message for a Christian pastor to send, eh? Apparently “mainstream Christianity” now means “doesn’t take the Bible seriously,” so you wouldn’t want a pastor who even hints at being a Bible believer.
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More proof that academia has lost its mind — some of the worst academic abuses of 2008. Here’s a sample:
1. The free speech “zone.” A student at Yuba College in California was sent an ultimatum by the school’s president: discontinue handing out gospel booklets or face disciplinary action and possibly expulsion. That’s right—gospel booklets. Ryan Dozier, the 20-year-old student, had the audacity to distribute Christian literature without a school permit, which restricts free speech to an hour each Tuesday and Thursday. Yuba College even directs students to where on campus they are allowed to exhibit free speech. In this case, it’s the school theater. Campus police threatened to arrest Ryan if he didn’t comply with the “free speech zone,” oblivious to the fact that students don’t need permission to exercise the First Amendment’s free speech and religious clauses.
2. Transgendered activists in, pro-life speakers out. Liberal administrators at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic institution in Minnesota, censored the appearance of prominent pro-life speaker Star Parker because campus officials felt “uncomfortable” and “disturbed” by previous conservative speakers at the school. The University’s mission statement claims it values “the pursuit of truth,” “diversity,” and “meaningful dialogue.” Except, not really—or better yet, as long as the said “pursuit” doesn’t offend leftist predilections. Meanwhile, within the past year, the same school hosted Al Franken, the bombastic liberal comedian, and Debra Davis, a transgendered activist who believes God is a black lesbian. Realizing they had a public relations disaster on their hands, the head honchos at St. Thomas eventually reversed the ban on Star Parker.
6. You can’t pray here! The First Amendment, is it a bestowed right given from above and protected by our government or a meaningless, antiquated concept to be disposed of? If you’re the folks at the College of Alameda in California, you’d pick the latter. How else do you explain their threatening to expel a student who prayed on campus? It all started when a student, Kandy Kyriacou, visited her professor to give her a Christmas gift. But when Kandy saw that her teacher was ill, she offered to pray for her. The professor agreed. That’s when Derek Piazza, another professor, walked in and freaked out that a prayer—gasp, a prayer—was occurring on college premises. “You can’t be doing that in here,” Piazza purportedly barked. Kandy received a retroactive “intent to suspend” letter from the administration, claiming that she was guilty of “disruptive or insulting behavior” and “persistent abuse of” college employees. Further infractions would result in expulsion, the letter read.
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Here’s a good video overview of the Kalaam Cosmological Argument (Whatever begins to exist has a cause and the universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe had a cause.)
It is interesting that the authors of the Bible knew all along that it was created out of nothing, even when many believed it had always existed. Just a lucky guess, I suppose, sort of like how Genesis notes that there are as many stars as there are grains of sand, unlike the ancients who thought there were roughly 1,000 stars.
People like Richard Dawkins like to attribute the accuracy of the Biblical account that the universe came into existence to the mere luck involved with a 50/50 chance, as if the authors flipped a coin and got it right. But if you actually read the Bible you’ll note that the authors are confident throughout that they are speaking for God, and they do so unapologetically.
Eternity Matters 
I don’t get the Slice people or anyone else who feels it is there job to be the church police. How many people have the Slice of Laodicea folks led to Christ this last year? If ever?
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Hi Kevin,
My guess is that they have led quite a few. Check with them if you like.
I don’t agree with everything Ingrid says, but I do think that discernment ministries are important. There are more than a few passages about the importance of sound doctrine – http://www.4simpsons.com/doctrine_counts.htm
Warning people against false teachers is a good and loving thing to do.
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“But if you actually read the Bible you’ll note that … ”
Well, if you actually read the Bible (Genesis, e. g.) you will realize how flawed the whole account is.
Quite astonishing that there are still people who take this literally. They not o nly have a closed mind they also walk around with their eyes tighly closed from reality.
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Hi Cameron,
Thanks for visiting and commenting.
Your premise is flawed. I have studied the Bible extensively and noted that it corresponds with reality, whereas all other worldviews and religions do not.
I came from a position of strong skepticism and viewed it with an open mind. Sorry to have to torch your straw man argument.
The ones with the eyes tightly closed are those who deny God. They may be fooling themselves but they are not fooling him.
Romans 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
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I for one am happy for church police…..I desperately need discernment….I think Paul and John epitomized the concept. While I may not agree with everything Slice has to offer, they are another valuable resource like CARM, Ravi, McDowell, Piper, Edwards and many others…..I use them all to check my own understandings of theology.
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I would suggest that Cameron not stop at Genesis…try reading the whole thing straight through 😛
Think that will keep him busy? The Bible reaffirms itself of anything you may think is contradictory you just have to keep reading.
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Good point, Mizclark. But Cameron is too smart for the rest of us. He thinks I’m lying about doing an authentic search for truth.
And of course he thinks it is a serious problem that I delete his comments. I assume he is quite consistent in his views and was outraged against the media bias against McCain/Palin and that the media is 90%+ radically pro-abortion, etc., and isn’t just worried about whether one little blogger deletes silly, unsubstantiated personal attacks.
And, of course, like most materialists he does not live consistently with his worldview. If the universe really came into being from nothing, and life came from non-life “evolved” to what we see today, then those processes led to the Bible and our religious beliefs. We are just bags of chemicals who don’t have any real free will. People like Cameron have no reason for pride and they are being illogical in thinking they are being logical, because there would be no such thing. Their “reason” and “morality” would not be grounded in anything. Such is the thinking of those in rebellion to God.
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Another link you will withhold from your readers since it blows apart your worldview:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081218213634.htm
“Specifically, this study demonstrated how ancient RNA joined together to reach a biologically relevant length.”
So that is another question about the origin answered. And the answer is not to the liking of anti-evolutionists. I can already hear them howling in utter despair.
Another nail in the coffin of creationist hogwash.
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Uh, yeah, that sure explains how the universe came into existence and how life came from non-life and evolved to what we have today. And since I control 100% of the mainstream media, I use my evil genius powers to withhold this damning evidence from everyone.
But wouldn’t you know, some awful Intelligent Design website went and ruined things by linking to that very article this morning – http://www.uncommondescent.com/biology/rna-getting-lengthy/ . What were they thinking? I guess they have given up and become Darwinists. Now how will my little blog be able to hide the truth?
Remember, if the universe really came into being from nothing, and life came from non-life and “evolved” to what we see today, then those processes led to the Bible and our religious beliefs.
So your beloved materialistic Darwinism is responsible for my faith! What irony. By some unbelievably bizarre sequence of coincidences, we ended up with loads of cosmological, teleological, moral, historical, archeological and other “false” evidence that makes my brain “think” that Jesus really lived, died and rose again. It has “fooled” virtually all historical scholars, including skeptics, into thinking that a person named Jesus really lived and was killed on a Roman cross, that his followers believed he rose from the dead and that a man named Paul went from persecuting the faith to spreading it, and that he wrote most of the letters attributed to him in the Bible (among other things).
So we are just bags of chemicals without have any real free will, doing what comes “naturally.” People like you have no reason for pride and they are being illogical in thinking they are being logical, because there would be no such thing. Your “reason” and “morality” would not be grounded in anything.
Such is the thinking of those in rebellion to God. Your worldview has no logical explanation for mine, but mine has been explaining yours for thousands of years:
Romans 1:18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
P.S. It’s been fun, but to be kind I must caution you not to spend too much time typing more comments. I may post them for grins but it isn’t likely. If you were interested in real dialogue and not just insults I’d be glad to visit with you, but the pearl holding / dust shaking commands compel me not to spend time with people so hostile to the truth. Just didn’t want you to be surprised.
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Yuba College eh? I’ve got a piece of paper from them, or at least one of their subsidiaries. Woodland Community College where I attended for several years is part of the Yuba College District.
It is indeed a place of silly administration and senseless education, as is much of higher and lower education today.
Kudos on finding that admin bit in WordPress admin. I’ve been using it a while, and while I don’t ever get near the traffic you do, it’s nice knowing that I don’t have to worry about random spam, targeted functional illiteracy, or deluded logic sullying the pages without my prior perusal.
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Thanks for this post Neil. I’ll be using it for my high school ministry apologetics class. the Craig/Strobel video is great and the comments from Cameron and your responses are very good as well.
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Thanks, Edgar. You should have seen what Cameron wrote that didn’t make it online. I’m usually not a matchmaker, but I think that he and Cinnamon would make a terrific couple.
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