oddXian: Challenge the Consensus

Christian Skepticism wants to say "Thank You" to our readers as we celebrate another milestone of over 55,000 site visits and as we will soon surpass over 100,000 page views !!! Soli Deo Gloria!

In Federal judge refuses to dismiss 'Day of Prayer' suit it's been determined by a judge that a case filed by an atheist group suggesting the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional may have it's day in court. Suggesting that for lawmakers to ask Americans to pray is unconstitional (based on separation of church and state) ought to be an uphill battle not only as you look at the practice of those who framed and adopted the constitution but the theistic references in our forming documents. I look forward to perhaps a thorough review of Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists being revisited again, for while the popular culture is often misled today by the media and revisionist history by secularists, surely (???) he courts will not be, for what one will find in reading the letter is that it does not call for a secular state, nor does it suggest a wall of separation of church and state such that either prayer is unconstitutional by the state or it is unconstit...

Parking Issues or Assembly Issues or Kingdom (/Religious) Opposition & Freedom Issues? This is certainly a story worth following...

Atheists themselves ought to be ashamed and humiliated by this wreckless spewing forth of uneducated and/or unsubstantiated claims. 1. Lots of attempts to slander God as being cruel and violent without any reference to context or the nature of the individuals or actions he opposed. 2. Lots of unsubstantiated opinions without grounds or supporting logic (i.e., God "not capable of creating a single radish let alone the entire world", God is "afraid of new ideas", God's eagerness to be worshiped shows he is "an extremely shallow individual", God has a "quickness to violence", God is "stupid", God is "our child", etc.) 3. Lots of ignorance in stating God spawned three religions which absolutely hate each other. (i.e., Blaming God for current Judaism and Islam is equivalent on one level to suggesting modern science spawned those who fail to believe man has visited the moon). 4. Lots of lack of discernment in suggesting God ...

The "Ida" rage is quickly becoming quite an embarrassment. I wonder if the History Channel will still air it's May 25 propaganda piece . Here are a few nuggets from two magazines hardly known for Creationism. From Time magazine Ida: Humankind's Earliest Ancestor! (Not Really) "Ida is intriguing because she has some characteristics of both branches, which suggests that she could be a transitional animal that gave rise to the anthropoids and, ultimately, to us. " How transitional it is," says Novacek, "is a matter of debate and further study. I expected that from the beginning. The ratio of vertebrate paleontologists to actual specimens is high, which makes for a lot of theorizing." A specimen like this will reduce the theorizing, but in the end it may not settle anything at all." From National Geographic "MISSING LINK" FOUND: New Fossil Links Humans, Lemurs? "But there's a big gap in the fossil record from this time per...

Well that didn't last long... Mark Henderson, the Science Editor of The Times, has written an excellent piece examining the fanciful claims surrounding Ida . Unfortunately, I don't expect to see any retractions from the History Channel anytime soon. "Darwinius masillae is not a direct ancestor of both lemurs/lorises and apes/monkeys. It seems to lie on the ape/monkey branch, after the last common ancestor of both groups, and it may well be a direct ancestor of nothing at all that exists today ." Next???

NT Textual Sources - Good Summary from this thread (I have added some additional notes and emphasis)   1. Over 5,700 manuscripts of the Greek NT existing are referred to as Byzantine . Given the quantity, they are also referred to as the " majority ". 2. Sometime in the 19th century two Egyptian manuscripts were found:    2.1 Sinaiticus - also called Aleph , named after the monastery location of the discovery    2.2 Vaticanus , also called B , and both these documents are commonly assumed to be dated around the 4th century.    2.3 These manuscripts are also referred to as the Alexandrian manuscripts. Hence, in these sort of discussions we often find there are two basic camps, Byzantine and Alexandrian. 3. Erasmus, in 1516, published a version of the NT using six of the Byzantine texts available to him at the time. From this comes the " Majority Text " translation label. (my note - actually, I believe this is considered as the Te...

Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution "The experts concluded Ida was not simply a lemur but a 'lemur monkey', displaying a mixture of both groups, and therefore putting her at the very branch of the human line ." Don't we first have to estabish monkeys or lemurs as a branch on the human line before we can come to this conclusion?

At the height of what many called a revival, WORLD asked Bentley to talk about the healings, like Fogle's, and asked for a list of people who had been healed at the services. His associates told me Bentley was out of the country and a list could not be produced. But six weeks and more than a dozen requests later, the ministry eventually sent a list of 13 names. Fogle was No. 12 on the list, along with this note: "Healed through the Outpouring and is back to fishing." That was on Aug. 8, 2008. There was just one problem. Two weeks earlier, on July 22, Christopher A. Fogle—according to his obituary in the Keokuk (Iowa) Daily Gate City, "left this life . . . after a courageous battle with cancer." Good article in World Magazine about the Lakeland Outpouring Type your summary here ...... Type rest of the post here ......

Edited: I am moving toward peadobaptism, so I may argue against this. Why we can dedicate, but not baptize babies: This is a high level thesis - I'll add some "meat to the bones" later. In the OLD covenant, the outward signs of membership into God's earthly kingdom (Israel) was birth (or adoption) and circumcision. In the NEW covenant, the outward signs of membership into God's earthly and SPIRITUAL kingdom are confession of RE-birth and water baptism. (John 3:2-8, Romans 10:8-10, Romans 6:4, Colossians 2:12,1 Peter 3:21) Babies cannot confess, so we do not baptize them.  Thus, I have also nailed why I am a credo-baptist - hallelujah! (With all due respect to my peado-baptist brethren.) Soli Deo Gloria!

A few days ago Christopher Hitchens caught my attention when in an interview in his typical bold form stated he thought President Obama was "one of them" and pointed to Obama's quoting Thomas Paine in his inaugural address "without any reference to who he was." This especially gained my attention when listening to the president deliver his graduation address to Arizona State University and hearing him quote Thomas Paine again and reference his Confessions without reference to the man. Paine, though he grew up in a Quaker context, became a professing DEIST. In the second part of his Age of Reason, he wrote: The opinions I have advanced . . . are the effect of the most clear and long-established conviction that the Bible and the Testament are impositions upon the world, that the fall of man, the account of Jesus Christ being the Son of God, and of his dying to appease the wrath of God, and of salvation, by that strange means, are all fabulous inventions, disho...

In Sweden allows gender-based abortion it seems increased knowledge (of the gender of a baby in the womb) is now being used in selective childbearing / childkilling. ... a step in the direction of (or a form of) eugenics , ... or just selfishness (putting one's own pleasures and/or desires even over the life of another)?

Several short responses to NYTimes article Chemist Shows How RNA Can Be the Starting Point for Life [Similar article at Fox News entitled: Scientists May Have Found How Life Began ) 1. Another attempt of unbelievers to set forth an alternative to creationism. 2. The work simply takes the issue one step further (deeper) from DNA to RNA (or more precisely from RNA to the RNA reactions) .... yet leaves leaves many questions unanswered and on some levels adds to difficulty of believing in naturalism. 3. It should be noted that while the title of the article provides for ambiguity (Chemist Shows How RNA Can Be the Starting Point for Life) such that the phrase "can be" could suggest to uncritical readers that (1) it "could be" a possibility or (2) it actually "can be" (as in actually been shown and proven not only chemically, but existing resources found in necessary proximity, etc.) the starting point of life; ... that at the same time it has not been comple...

The Interview may be found here: http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=1121355844 Brief Response 1. Hitchen's comments on quitting smoking are interesting but not surprising ("My children kept saying they couldn't stand it"... "I was getting less and less pleasure out of it and more and more fear" ...It's the perfect self-administered micro-drug ... it's the little glowing friend that never lets you down... All the while it's being your best friend, it's being your worst enemy."' ...does not his description of the addiction match that description of sin in the Bible? 2. Hitchens makes the point on water boarding that U.S. soldiers vow to uphold the constitution which forbids cruel and unusual "punishment", but fails to address distinctions as to whether the practice was being used for reasons of "punishment" or otherwise. 3. Hitchens admits he was wrong before as he has begun to see evil exists (and random ...

It's encouraging to see examples of those who profess faith rather than submitting to political correctness.

A common phrase being passed around in ministry circles (both among the clergy and laity) points to the hesitation and perhaps the putting on hold the building of God's house because of "the economy". For this reason, Haggai is a good study for our day. Haggai wrote during days when the harvest was producing low yields (i.e. poor economy, low morale, etc.) and at a time when many additional excuses could be given for not proceeding with building the Lord's house (i.e., the order for them to stop building as result of the actions of the trans-Euphrates kings; recent return from exile and the need to provide for their families, their future, etc.) In addition, there had been a change in government and power such that King Darius was seeking to shore up his base of power including his relations with distant regions. Haggai, however, saw the current crisis as an opportunity for the people of God to begin the work again and even to petition King Darius (who in shoring u...

It's my impression that at times Christians may live in fear when it comes to the marketplace rather than living in the fear of the Lord. At times, it's even our temptation when working for those who either do not practice or look favorably upon Christianity (or perhaps even outright antagonize or persecute individuals for their Christianity) to flee rather than remain and stand steadfast even in the face of troublesome times or strenuous situations. Obadiah was one who in 1 Kings 18 served as one in charge of King Ahab's palace even during a time when Jezabel (Ahab's wife) was "killing off the Lord's prophets". As one put it, while Obadiah did not convert Ahab, at the same time he neither compromised his faith nor was led astray by Ahab and his beliefs. It appears that in this situation, Obadiah was able to serve in his position of leadership even though he did was not a participant of Ahab's religious persuasion. The significant factor seen in Ob...

With all the past emphasis in the courts on routing out Christianity, it's noteworthy to see one which is not opposed to addressing the other side. For more, read Judge: Teacher violated kids' rights by calling creationism 'nonsense'

Another good resource: AllAboutScience Apparently, it's already gaining quite a bit of attention .

The pluralistic view of God is a backwards attempt to make man the ultimate authority. For example, the pluralist will argue that God is simply too big for the finite human mind to comprehend. Of course, this is a self-defeating argument, for if it were true, we would have no way of know it to be true, since that "bigness" of God would be a attribute that our "finite human minds" could not comprehend. While there is some truth in that statement (we can never know everything about God), we are responsible for knowing that which God Himself has revealed to us ( Deut. 29:29 ). Oddly enough, however, it is the finite human mind and it's subjective experiences that become the ultimate authority that the pluralist uses to approach God, even if each approach is different or even contradictory. This can be illustrated by the ancient Hindu tale of the blind men and the elephant in a room. In order to determine what is in the room with them, the blind men resort to their ...