Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from September, 2017

Asking Questions to Reveal Answers

While it is helpful for someone to give his or her viewpoint in detail, the good stuff comes after they've finished a presentation. This can be seen in formal debates during what is sometimes called the "cross examination" period ( here is one example ), and audience questions after a press conference or something similar. Credit: Pixabay / Gerd Altmann Most of us don't commence to speechifyin' or debating very often, so how about questions in a more personal setting, without the crowds? Much better. People can ask questions to clarify meanings and positions, and even get to know the other person a little better. On social media, it gets difficult to have a good discussion with someone unless it's in private messages, else other people chime in. Greg Koukl has something he calls the "Columbo Tactic", based on the television detective, that helps you (and often the other person) get to the heart of a discussion. Two short articles on the subje

Those Dying Leaves

In my neck of the woods — well, North America — it's autumn. (I reckon some folks call it fall because that's what leaves do.) This time of year has been used in many songs, often denoting sadness. Others are fond of this time of year, even planning to drive through areas on "color tours". You might want to consider taking route 209 which comes up here to Kingston, NY and runs down past Port Jervis into Pennsylvania. Kind of a difficult two-lane road, though. How about going off 209 into Ellenville, then onto Route 52 past Cragsmoor and into Pine Bush? You'll clip some of the Shawangunk Ridge State Forest , see some Catskill Mountains, and get lasso yourself some colored leaf viewing. Image credit: Pixabay / pixel2013 I kind of wandered a mite. So, what about those leaves? People like looking at them, but get irked when having to rake their yards and clean the gutters by their roofs. We agree that they're dead leaves. Or are they? Death came into the wor

The Biblical Response to Racism

Bigotry exists in many forms, and people have had fear, suspicion, and even hatred of those who are different in some way. It can even be based on geographical locations. (I've been snubbed by people in the Southern United States for being a "Yankee" — I knew an American of German ancestry who detested people in France! Strange.) The most common form of antipathy toward people who are different is commonly called racism , and I believe that both skin color and cultures are distinguishing characteristics to make it easier to hate people of other "races". The race issues will be the limiting factor for this post. Credit: Pixabay / Rhythm_In_Life Today's politically-charged climate brings racism to the fore in ways that are unprecedented, many times with loaded terms and false accusations leading to violence. The racism issues seem to be either excessively complicated or oversimplified, often prompted by people having political and cultural "tunnel v

Handcuffed by Evolutionary Indoctrination

Darwin's disciples have done an excellent job in promoting their materialistic viewpoint, with the conflation of  evolution with science  as one of their main tools. This provides these owlhoots with an emotional manipulation tool, since people do not want to be seen as "science deniers" when they reject minerals-to-misotheist evolution. The propaganda is everywhere we turn, whether textbooks, television documentaries, entertainment... A scene in the 1977 movie High Anxiety  has Dr. Richard H. Thorndyke (Mel Brooks) giving a lecture and saying, "...that each patient is a supreme individual endowed with those qualities that distinguish the human being from the slime from which he emerged". Even Bugs Bunny used it when he was told to start at the beginning: "...in the beginning, there was no life. The earth was forming..." To appear intelligent and sciencey, add evolution. Just keep your eyes and ears open and you'll see what I mean. Credit: P

Heresies, Modern Thinking, and Evolutionism

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen People who want to slap leather with biblical Christianity may think they have some new concepts, but they are actually reworking old false teachings. This applies not only to those things that have been condemned as heresies, but the remarks of mockers and "skeptics" are often rehash hoary thinking from past centuries. Fausto Sozzini (Faustus Socinus) was cracked Derived from a public domain image at Wikimedia Commons Before I go further, I must say that I'm doing something I've done before: taking material from smarter people and adding thoughts that pertain to my own areas of study. This article was heavily influenced by Phil Johnson's series on five major heresies (linked below). I hope you'll ride the trail with me and you'll see how some things come together. There have been several times in Christian history when the faith appeared to be on its way to becoming hopelessly corrupted. God raised up faithful men to uph