I love funny stories and funny authors. Here's a list of famous and not so famous authors of humor throughout American literature. Just a note of caution--some can be raunchy, especially the modern ones. My favorites on this list include Woody Allen, Dave Barry, Washington Irving, Garrison Keillor, Groucho Marx, Will Rogers, David Sedaris, James Thurber, Mark Twain (the best), and Tom Wolfe. Enjoy!


Woody Allen
Russell Baker
Regina Barreca
Dave Barry
Robert Benchley
Ambrose Bierce
Roy Blount, Jr.
Erma Bombeck
Christopher Buckley
George Carlin
Bill Cosby
Nora Ephron
Fannie Flagg
Benjamin Franklin
Alfred Gingold
Margaret Halsey
Joel Chandler Harris
Lynn Harris
Bret Harte
Joseph Heller
O. Henry
Marietta Holley
Langston Hughes
Washington Irving
Molly Ivins
Bel Kaufman
Garrison Keillor
Jean Kerr
Alan King
Ring Lardner
Fran Lebowitz
David Ross Locke
Merrill Markoe
Groucho Marx
Jackie Mason
H. L. Mencken
Ogden Nash
P. J. O’Rourke
Dorothy Parker
S. J. Perelman
Will Rogers
Rita Rudner
David Sedaris
Henry Wheeler Shaw (“Josh Billings”)
Jean Shepherd
Frank Sullivan
James Thurber
Mark Twain
Judith Viorst
Kurt Vonnegut
Frances Miriam Whitcher
E. B. White
Tom Wolfe

Bible Mysteries

I love a good mystery. Because so many people have read the Bible and it has played such an important part of Western culture, many people find mysteries in it. I have included several here for you. Email me if you'd like more details since what I have here is sketchy.



Apocrypha -- different from Apocalypse
disagreement among Christians
Catholics include 8 plus extra Daniel/Esther
Orthodox church adds two more
composed between 200 B.C. and 100 A.D. when Jews rebelled
not ever included in the Hebrew Bible
was included in the Septuagint (Greek translation)
Protestants rejected it -- Jesus and apostles never quoted from it
Maccabees good history

Ark of the Covenant -- sacred portable chest; mercy seat/cherubim; four feet by two feet by two feet; located in Holy of Holies
inside -- Ten Commandments, manna, rod of Aaron
Philistines captured it/returned it; David brought it to Jerusalem
disappeared when Nebuchadnezzar/Babylon destroyed Jerusalem 586 B.C.

Bible code -- involves equidistant letter sequences (els)
example "all of our avenues are wide" (eliminate spaces; start with second letter; skip the next three letters) – spells “LOVE”
scientist and mathematician in 1994 found names of 34 famous Jewish people
book called The Bible Code by Michael Drosnin popular
found in the Torah; in Genesis skip every 50 letters, spells Torah
skeptics say you can do the same in Moby Dick -- predict assassinations
Hugh Ross says probability high for using any skip method
web sites –biblecodedigest.com and skepdic.com/bibcode.html

Cain -- where did he get his wife? Asked at the Scopes trial/Carl Sagan in Cosmos
got his wife from his sisters -- Genesis 5: 4
law against marrying a close relative didn't start until Moses (Lev 18 -- 20 )
Abraham married half sister in Genesis
not as many accumulated genetic mistakes then

Creation -- Bible says matter/space/time/energy had a start
big bang theory -- transcendent start to the universe
ten total dimensions at the start of the universe
Bible indicates stretching of space (balloon) --Job 9:8, Isaiah 40:22, Psalm 104:2

Dead Sea Scrolls -- found in 1947, Qumran (northwest Dead Sea)
Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code) says references to Jesus -- no
Essenes in time of Jesus; Old Testament only; no gospels
entire Hebrew Bible except Esther
oldest copy of Hebrew Bible had been from 1000 A.D.


Egypt and the Israelites -- late Bronze Age, major social migrations
references to harsh brickmaking; quotas
references to low class people as “Apiru” or “Habiru”

Exodus and the Red Sea crossing -- around 1400 B.C.
nothing in Egyptian records (no king ever records failures)
a stele of a later pharaoh says he encountered Israelites in Canaan in 1225 B.C.
Red Sea? Reed Sea? Winds pile up the water

Flood -- probably local
flood stories in other cultures -- Babylon, Mesopotamia (Gilgamesh)
Genesis 7:19 -- 20 says covered the mountains; "covered" can mean "running over" or "falling upon"
to cover Mount Everest -- would need over four times the water we have today
only meant to wipe out people who lived in one area
Noah sent out a dove -- came back with olive leaf; olive trees grow low
Genesis 8:1 -- wind used; would work in flat area like Mesopot.

Garden of Eden -- recent scientific agreement one place for start of human race
two of the four rivers are missing today; radar shows rivers under the surface

Gospels -- Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code) says many other gospels; especially emphasizes Gnostic gospels (Nag Hammadi) including Gospel of Thomas
No-- these were written later; Jesus not human in them
the four gospels we have are best record of Jesus

James and the bone box -- inscribed "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"
unusual to name brother
after 70 A.D. few ossuaries (bone boxes)
argument over its authenticity

Jesus -- birth: confusion over the star/date
not a comet, meteor, supernova
conjunction Venus and Jupiter (king of planets) in the constellation of Leo (tribal sign of Judah) near the star Regulus (king); "stood over" – retro- grade motion united
resurrection: much indirect evidence -- empty tomb, Paul's testimony in 1 Corinthians, discovery by women, disciples proclaiming resurrection in Jerusalem, appearances after death, tomb not venerated as a shrine, huge change in beliefs of disciples (no resurrection in history, God as single deity), changed day of week to worship (Sunday)

Jericho—walls fall in??
Collapsed walls; dated 1400 B.C.? 1250 ??


Jonah—whaler recovered having been swallowed by whale in 1800s
Ninevah had history of repenting

Life spans -- other cultures had lengthy ones too (Sumer, Akkad)
recently astronomers found cosmic rays from recent, nearby supernova (Vela)
1300 light years away, 20-30,000 years ago -- bathed earth in radiation

Lost tribes of Israel -- Assyria captured north in 721 B.C., resettled people
Samaria -- intermarriage
British Israelism in 1800s; helped British be pro-Israel (Balfour)
Worldwide Church of God

Mt. Sinai -- location? Traditionally, south central Sinai peninsula;
mother of Constantine said it was there in the fourth century
but Galatians 4:25 says "Arabia"; Exodus 3:1 says in Midian (Saudi Arabia today)
may be Jabal al Lawz – see Base Institute

Number of Israelites -- Exodus 38:26 indicates 600,000 men, Numbers 1 and 2 also
if 2 million walking two feet apart, 10 wide -- 75 miles long
maybe 45,000 is 45 families/groups/tents (total around 20,000)
maybe the dead are counted along with the living -- all names in genealogical tables; Exodus 18:21 -- thousands?
Jordan River crossing -- 40,000? Joshua 4:13
Numbers 3:40-43 census of firstborn -- 22,000 (total 120,000)

Parables -- done to illustrate and to hide? Luke 8:10

Paul -- did he hate women? Is Christianity anti-woman?
Women treated badly in first century -- inferior to husband

1 Timothy 2:11 -- 12, but see verses 18 -- 10 (cultural)
"learn in silence" okay -- good attribute/rabbinic, okay for women to learn!
"I presently permit " correct verb (learn first before teaching)
"authority" -- odd word; "usurp" authority
closer translation -- "I am not presently permitting a woman to teach in a manner of usurping authority over a man"

1 Corinthians 14:34-35 -- keep women silent?
But see 1 Corinthians 11:5 -- okay for women to pray and prophesy
hard passage

See Galations 3:27 – 28 Magna Charta for women

Plagues of Egypt
blood in the Nile -- Red sediment late summer from Ethiopia
frogs -- abandon the river; bacterial algae polluted river
gnats -- frogs died; gnats bred in flooded fields late autumn
flies -- same as above
livestock -- flies carried anthrax
boils -- skin anthrax
hail -- January or February
locusts -- March or April; east winds bring in young, hungry locusts
darkness -- blinding sand storms blow in spring

Prophecies --
Isaiah 44:28, 54:1 -- written in 700 B.C.; Cyrus in 530 B.C.
Daniel 9:25 -- decree of Artaxerxes 444 B.C. (Nehemiah 2:1-8)
with 360-day years, goes to 33 A.D.
Ezekiel 26 –Tyre: Nebuchadnezzar laid siege, people moved to the island (585 B.C.); Alexander (333 B.C.) tore Tyre down and built mole
Micah 5:2 –Bethlehem
Isaiah 49, 50, 52 -- Jesus
Psalm 22 -- crucifixion

Revelation –apocalyptic writing a popular genre with particular characteristics
several ways to interpret –preterist (most prophecies referred to 70 A.D.), future, symbolic
666 -- many suggested

Shroud of Turin -- single piece of linen, 14 ft by 3 ½ ft
mentioned in 544 A.D., French knight displayed it in 1356 A.D.
early paintings of Jesus have similar face
first photograph 1898 -- a negative
tests show real bloodstains, no paint
1989 -- carbon 14 dating placed it as medieval
new carbon dating shows 2000 years old (first dating from area mended with newer cloth)
some natural evaporative process?

Sodom and Gomorrah -- location at south end of Dead Sea
part of Jordan Rift Valley, earthquakes
bitumen (asphalt) and petroleum deposits there; also sulfur and natural gas
natural gas could be exposed by earthquake and lit by fires in the city

The Missing Link--Ida??

This week we have been bombarded with news of a "missing link" that has finally proven evolution. If you go to reasons.org, you will find a lengthy interview with a biochemist, Dr. Fuz Rana, who discusses this fossil find. Essentially, he says this is a case of hyped reporting. Rana makes a good point by saying that if the fossil record is so clear in proving transitional forms, why are many hailing this latest find? He says the fossil record is not evidence for evolution and that this record is not incomplete. Rana reports that the record indicates repeatedly this pattern--explosive appearances, stasis (no change), followed by extinctions. That's not what evolution predicts--there's no gradual evolutionary transitions. Anyhoo, listen to him if you have the time.

The Global Warming Scare--How It All Started

Thought some of you might be interested in this account by a local weatherman who started weather.com years ago. Global warming deserves a critical look--not too long ago we were told there would be global cooling. Hmmm . . .


The Amazing Story Behind the Global Warming Scam

By John Coleman, January 28, 2009
The key players are now all in place in Washington and in state governments across America to officially label carbon dioxide as a pollutant and enact laws that tax we citizens for our carbon footprints. Only two details stand in the way, the faltering economic times and a dramatic turn toward a colder climate. The last two bitter winters have lead to a rise in public awareness that CO2 is not a pollutant and is not a significant greenhouse gas that is triggering runaway global warming.
How did we ever get to this point where bad science is driving big government we have to struggle so to stop it?
The story begins with an Oceanographer named Roger Revelle. He served with the Navy in World War II. After the war he became the Director of the Scripps Oceanographic Institute in La Jolla in San Diego, California. Revelle saw the opportunity to obtain major funding from the Navy for doing measurements and research on the ocean around the Pacific Atolls where the US military was conducting atomic bomb tests. He greatly expanded the Institute’s areas of interest and among others hired Hans Suess, a noted Chemist from the University of Chicago, who was very interested in the traces of carbon in the environment from the burning of fossil fuels. Revelle tagged on to Suess studies and co-authored a paper with him in 1957. The paper raises the possibility that the carbon dioxide might be creating a greenhouse effect and causing atmospheric warming. It seems to be a plea for funding for more studies. Funding, frankly, is where Revelle’s mind was most of the time.
Next Revelle hired a Geochemist named David Keeling to devise a way to measure the atmospheric content of Carbon dioxide. In 1960 Keeling published his first paper showing the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and linking the increase to the burning of fossil fuels.
These two research papers became the bedrock of the science of global warming, even though they offered no proof that carbon dioxide was in fact a greenhouse gas. In addition they failed to explain how this trace gas, only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere, could have any significant impact on temperatures.
Now let me take you back to the1950s when this was going on. Our cities were entrapped in a pall of pollution from the crude internal combustion engines that powered cars and trucks back then and from the uncontrolled emissions from power plants and factories. Cars and factories and power plants were filling the air with all sorts of pollutants. There was a valid and serious concern about the health consequences of this pollution and a strong environmental movement was developing to demand action. Government accepted this challenge and new environmental standards were set. Scientists and engineers came to the rescue. New reformulated fuels were developed for cars, as were new high tech, computer controlled engines and catalytic converters. By the mid seventies cars were no longer big time polluters, emitting only some carbon dioxide and water vapor from their tail pipes. Likewise, new fuel processing and smoke stack scrubbers were added to industrial and power plants and their emissions were greatly reduced, as well.
But an environmental movement had been established and its funding and very existence depended on having a continuing crisis issue. So the research papers from Scripps came at just the right moment. And, with them came the birth of an issue; man-made global warming from the carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.
Revelle and Keeling used this new alarmism to keep their funding growing. Other researchers with environmental motivations and a hunger for funding saw this developing and climbed aboard as well. The research grants began to flow and alarming hypothesis began to show up everywhere.
The Keeling curve showed a steady rise in CO2 in atmosphere during the period since oil and coal were discovered and used by man. As of today, carbon dioxide has increased from 215 to 385 parts per million. But, despite the increases, it is still only a trace gas in the atmosphere. While the increase is real, the percentage of the atmosphere that is CO2 remains tiny, about .41 hundredths of one percent.
Several hypothesis emerged in the 70s and 80s about how this tiny atmospheric component of CO2 might cause a significant warming. But they remained unproven. Years have passed and the scientists kept reaching out for evidence of the warming and proof of their theories. And, the money and environmental claims kept on building up.
Back in the 1960s, this global warming research came to the attention of a Canadian born United Nation’s bureaucrat named Maurice Strong. He was looking for issues he could use to fulfill his dream of one-world government. Strong organized a World Earth Day event in Stockholm, Sweden in 1970. From this he developed a committee of scientists, environmentalists and political operatives from the UN to continue a series of meeting.
Strong developed the concept that the UN could demand payments from the advanced nations for the climatic damage from their burning of fossil fuels to benefit the underdeveloped nations, a sort of CO2 tax that would be the funding for his one-world government. But, he needed more scientific evidence to support his primary thesis. So Strong championed the establishment of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This was not a pure climate study scientific organization, as we have been lead to believe. It was an organization of one-world government UN bureaucrats, environmental activists and environmentalist scientists who craved the UN funding so they could produce the science they needed to stop the burning of fossil fuels. Over the last 25 years they have been very effective. Hundreds of scientific papers, four major international meetings and reams of news stories about climatic Armageddon later, the UN IPCC has made its points to the satisfaction of most and even shared a Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.
At the same time, that Maurice Strong was busy at the UN, things were getting a bit out of hand for the man who is now called the grandfather of global warming, Roger Revelle. He had been very politically active in the late 1950’s as he worked to have the University of California locate a San Diego campus adjacent to Scripps Institute in La Jolla. He won that major war, but lost an all important battle afterward when he was passed over in the selection of the first Chancellor of the new campus.
He left Scripps finally in 1963 and moved to Harvard University to establish a Center for Population Studies. It was there that Revelle inspired one of his students to become a major global warming activist. This student would say later, "It felt like such a privilege to be able to hear about the readouts from some of those measurements in a group of no more than a dozen undergraduates. Here was this teacher presenting something not years old but fresh out of the lab, with profound implications for our future!" The student described him as "a wonderful, visionary professor" who was "one of the first people in the academic community to sound the alarm on global warming," That student was Al Gore. He thought of Dr. Revelle as his mentor and referred to him frequently, relaying his experiences as a student in his book Earth in the Balance, published in 1992.
So there it is, Roger Revelle was indeed the grandfather of global warming. His work had laid the foundation for the UN IPCC, provided the anti-fossil fuel ammunition to the environmental movement and sent Al Gore on his road to his books, his movie, his Nobel Peace Prize and a hundred million dollars from the carbon credits business.
What happened next is amazing. The global warming frenzy was becoming the cause celeb of the media. After all the media is mostly liberal, loves Al Gore, loves to warn us of impending disasters and tell us "the sky is falling, the sky is falling". The politicians and the environmentalist loved it, too.
But the tide was turning with Roger Revelle. He was forced out at Harvard at 65 and returned to California and a semi retirement position at UCSD. There he had time to rethink Carbon Dioxide and the greenhouse effect. The man who had inspired Al Gore and given the UN the basic research it needed to launch its Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was having second thoughts. In 1988 he wrote two cautionary letters to members of Congress. He wrote, "My own personal belief is that we should wait another 10 or 20 years to really be convinced that the greenhouse effect is going to be important for human beings, in both positive and negative ways." He added, "…we should be careful not to arouse too much alarm until the rate and amount of warming becomes clearer."
And in 1991 Revelle teamed up with Chauncey Starr, founding director of the Electric Power Research Institute and Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service, to write an article for Cosmos magazine. They urged more research and begged scientists and governments not to move too fast to curb greenhouse CO2 emissions because the true impact of carbon dioxide was not at all certain and curbing the use of fossil fuels could have a huge negative impact on the economy and jobs and our standard of living. I have discussed this collaboration with Dr. Singer. He assures me that Revelle was considerably more certain than he was at the time that carbon dioxide was not a problem.
Did Roger Revelle attend the Summer enclave at the Bohemian Grove in Northern California in the Summer of 1990 while working on that article? Did he deliver a lakeside speech there to the assembled movers and shakers from Washington and Wall Street in which he apologized for sending the UN IPCC and Al Gore onto this wild goose chase about global warming? Did he say that the key scientific conjecture of his lifetime had turned out wrong? The answer to those questions is, "I think so, but I do not know it for certain". I have not managed to get it confirmed as of this moment. It’s a little like Las Vegas; what is said at the Bohemian Grove stays at the Bohemian Grove. There are no transcripts or recordings and people who attend are encouraged not to talk. Yet, the topic is so important, that some people have shared with me on an informal basis.
Roger Revelle died of a heart attack three months after the Cosmos story was printed. Oh, how I wish he were still alive today. He might be able to stop this scientific silliness and end the global warming scam.
Al Gore has dismissed Roger Revelle’s Mea culpa as the actions of senile old man. And, the next year, while running for Vice President, he said the science behind global warming is settled and there will be no more debate, From 1992 until today, he and his cohorts have refused to debate global warming and when ask about we skeptics they simply insult us and call us names.
So today we have the acceptance of carbon dioxide as the culprit of global warming. It is concluded that when we burn fossil fuels we are leaving a dastardly carbon footprint which we must pay Al Gore or the environmentalists to offset. Our governments on all levels are considering taxing the use of fossil fuels. The Federal Environmental Protection Agency is on the verge of naming CO2 as a pollutant and strictly regulating its use to protect our climate. The new President and the US congress are on board. Many state governments are moving on the same course.
We are already suffering from this CO2 silliness in many ways. Our energy policy has been strictly hobbled by no drilling and no new refineries for decades. We pay for the shortage this has created every time we buy gas. On top of that the whole thing about corn based ethanol costs us millions of tax dollars in subsidies. That also has driven up food prices. And, all of this is a long way from over.
And, I am totally convinced there is no scientific basis for any of it.
Global Warming. It is the hoax. It is bad science. It is a highjacking of public policy. It is no joke. It is the greatest scam in history.

Is Science At War With Christianity?

Some believe Christianity has always been at odds with science, that faith clashes with reason. But this is not true. The following is an outline for a presentation I have given. If you'd like more details, let me know.



1. Christianity has done many things for the world -- sanctity of life, regard for women, emphasis on charity/poor, health care, education, free enterprise/work ethic, American democracy, individual freedom/autonomy.

2. Modern science arose out of Christianity -- observation, experimentation, verification

3. Due to Christian worldview
rationality of God vs. Greek gods
relationship of God to the world vs. animism
nature of the physical world vs. Eastern religions
nature of people as rational vs. Islam
view of progress and the future vs. ancient world

4. Medieval times -- start of science
farming, inventions, medicine [plow, crop rotation, iron tools, blast furnace, windmills, waterwheels, . . . ]
universities

5. Galileo -- not church vs. science
he was a critic of the Italian academic establishment (Aristotle)
enemies used the church to defeat him
he saw no breach between science and theology

6. Growth of science during the Reformation [rejected old theories, Royal Society]

7. Many of the early scientists were Christian [Mendel—genetics, Vesalius—anatomy, Kepler—astronomy, Newton—physics, Descartes—math ]

8. The Enlightenment -- start of naturalistic science

9. Today, Christianity still relevant in regards to science
big bang theory
fine-tuning of the universe (anthropic principle)
intelligent design
multi-dimensional reality (allows for miracles)

10. Problems with science today
not objective
science has limits -- some scientists have rejected rational realism, current theories can change (1861 French Academy of Science publication)
science has many presuppositions that must be accepted by faith [universe understandable, naturalism, . . . ]
scientists sometimes speak out of area of expertise (Carl Sagan)
some scientists claim only things verified by the scientific method are valid -- self refuting


11. Outside of science there is an entire other world
laws of logic
morality
emotions
truth
language
numbers
mind/soul

12. Conclusion: unfair split between science and Christianity
[two separate realms?? ]
[Science used to be seen differently—go where evidence took you.]
[ Many views can blend the two –near-death/ Big Bang. ]
[ Creationists can use science. ]
[Evolution has religious significance]

Solution—goal of science should be truth—old tradition; like medical examiner (natural causes? foul play by an intelligent agent?—universe may be result of an agent!!)



Resources

6 Modern Myths About Christianity (P. Sampson)
7 Myths About Christianity (D. and S. Larsen)
arn.org
The Case for a Creator (L. Strobel)
Christianity on Trial (V. Carroll and D. Shiflett)
The Creation Hypothesis (J.P. Moreland)
Darwin on Trial (P. Johnson)
Darwin’s Black Box (M. Behe)
equip.org
The Fingerprint of God (H. Ross)
The Genesis Question (H. Ross)
icr.org
Icons of Evolution (J. Wells)
Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (S. Barr)
Of Pandas and People (P. Davis and D. Kenyon)
Origins of Life (H. Ross and F. Rana)
The Privileged Planet (DVD)
reasons.org
str.org

Tackling Some Myths

Christianity is under attack today. Many myths about it are floating around, and we need to know the truth. So here are six myths as explored in a recent book you might enjoy.


Summary of 6 Modern Myths About Christianity and Western Civilization by Philip J. Sampson


1. “Galileo was a hero of science, harassed by the Christian church for his scientific beliefs.”

The story is that Galileo stood against the church, was tortured, condemned as a heretic, and wasted away in a prison. But here is the real story. Western Europeans got their idea of the universe from Aristotle, who pictured the earth at the center. This was no compliment to the earth because that was considered the lowest place in the universe. The Christian church largely accepted Galileo's conclusions even though it clashed with Aristotle's beliefs. The important point to notice is that Galileo opposed Aristotle, not the Bible. A major part of the church intellectuals were on his side, while the clearest opposition to him came from secular individuals. Galileo put out a book which mocked the pope and got himself in trouble. He was detained but was given his own rooms and servants. He was allowed to return to his own home with his pensions from the church intact. He had been condemned not because the Bible conflicted with observation but because he differed with the church over what authority should be used to interpret it. Christianity was not opposed to science. In fact, it was the basis of modern science because it did not deify creation itself, it emphasized dominion involving the growth of technology, it recognized reason in God's creation, and it trusted in God's covenantal faithfulness that would suggest there were laws governing the world.

2. "Charles Darwin came up with a theory of evolution which has replaced the Christian view of creation."

Darwin said evolution happens by means of random mutation and natural selection. In the United States there was a famous "monkey trial" which supposedly showed the superiority of evolution. This trial produced a well-known film Inherit the Wind. In this trial John Scopes was supposedly an innocent victim of an anti-evolution law and his defenders, including William Jennings Bryan, were stupid bigots. However, Scopes, at the urgings of the American Civil Liberties Union, volunteered to test a law against the teaching of evolution. Bryan was not a big it were stupid. As far as Darwin’s theory, Christians did not all oppose it bitterly; there were mixed responses. In addition, not all scientists supported Darwin. Today, criticism of Darwinism has grown because of a lack of proof in the fossil record and the reducible complexity of organisms. The most skeptical scientists today are mathematicians and physicists. Evolution was well received by liberals and radicals because it offered a scientific foundation for ideas of progress and political change. Many used it to push unrestrained capitalism and colonialism. Evolution also justified distinction between the races, suggesting some were lower than others. Opponents of the women's movement used Darwinian arguments to argue for the subordination of women. Darwinism also influenced a belief in eugenics, the scientific, rational control of human breeding. Darwinism also played an important part in Nazi ideology.

3. "Christianity has encouraged exploitation and destruction of the environment."

Supposedly, Christianity bears a huge burden of guilt for ruining the environment. Not the idea that nature exists for us to use comes from Aristotle, not the Bible. The Bible teaches that all things were not made for us; they were made by and for Jesus. The apostle Paul says created things revealed to us the very Godhead. Environmental exploitation is not a particularly modern phenomenon, nor is it a unique feature of Western culture. Neolithic and Bronze Age people deforested much of northern England, and fire-drive hunting techniques had serious effects on ecology of pre-Colombian North America.. There was a great deal of cannibalism and pre-Colombian America because many animals had been hunted to extinction. Around 50,000 years ago early settlers in Australia used fire to clear land, significantly reducing plant cover in the interior and disrupting a sensitive ecosystem to produce the desert we see today. Much of Imperial China was deforested in a Buddhist religious context. Many church fathers and medieval theologians taught that Christians have a duty of responsible stewardship toward creation. They noted that the Bible's authors emphasize human beings are dependent creatures, not masters of everything. The Mosaic covenant forbade the exploitation of natural resources to extinction (Deuteronomy 22: 6-7) and not even warfare justified deforestation (Deuteronomy 20: 19- 20). Animals and the land are included in both the weekly and seventh year Sabbath. Later, Martin Luther claimed that our mistreatment of animals will have eternal significance for which we will have to give account. In England and through figures such as Jonathan Edwards in the United States, a deep sensitivity toward creation emerged, leading to arguments opposing animal cruelty. Puritans were known for their opposition to animal cruelty. For them, God's care for his creation extended beyond individual animal welfare to what we would now called the ecosystem.

4. “Christian missionaries have oppressed native cultures.”

The unfair picture is of idealized natives who are exploited and forced to convert by Christian missionaries as part of Western colonialism. However, it was Darwinism that suggested there was a division between “higher” and “lower” races. Christian missionaries believed that native peoples are made in God’s image and thus treated natives often with more respect that national governments and fellow citizens of the area. Church opposition to slavery began shortly after the systematic enslavement of the New World began in the last fifteenth century. Slavery was justified not from the Bible but from the works of Aristotle. Missionaries were often expelled so they would be unable to tell of atrocities or help natives against government attacks. It was common for there to be conflict between missionaries and trading or colonial interests. These traders and colonialists tried to stop missionary activity because they believed conversion would help natives gain the resources of the Western world. Many missionaries forged alliances with native people. The image of happy, peaceful, idyllic natives before the coming of missionaries is incorrect. Natives were often cruel to each other, held slaves, and collected enemy heads long before any whites showed up.



5. “Christians feared and suppressed anything about the human body.”

True Christian teaching, based on the Incarnation, says the physical body will be resurrected, hardly an attitude of disgust toward our physicality. Genesis says the body, not the spirit, was created first. The Greeks were patriarchal, but Christianity shows no favoritism for males since both had the image of God. Recent scholarship has shown that the medieval period, often said to be obsessed with the sinfulness of the flesh, actually established areas of female power. During the Reformation, celibacy was rejected as the highest ideal. Equal rights for wives in divorce cases were legally enforced in Geneva, home of John Calvin.

6. “Christians persecuted witches throughout Europe and America.”

First, the number of witchcraft prosecutions has often been highly exaggerated, and we now know that the Inquisition tended to moderate rather than incite them. Recent estimates put the number of executions at 150-300 people per year throughout all Europe and North America. Most of the proceedings were by the state, not the church. Put that in comparison with the estimate that Aztecs put to death about 15,000 each year from a far smaller population base. In addition, the state was far more harsh in its verdicts than church courts were. Church courts required a higher standard of proof. Secondly, the accusation of witchcraft was not primarily from the church. People of that time period commonly appealed to witchcraft and magic to explain tragedies and misfortunes or to gain power over neighbors. One study of witchcraft found that most of those bringing charges were women, not men. Of course, people want to bring up the Salem witchcraft story as proof of the church’s harshness. However, only 20 people died, and it was the clergy that were from beginning to end the chief opponents to the events in Salem. The violence and persecution in today’s world is far worse than what happened to people accused of witchcraft.

Worldview Thinking

There's a lot to say on the issue of worldviews. Christians often compartmentalize their faith--their Christianity is important on Sunday but not the rest of the week. That's not to say they act like pagans all week, but they often don't think their faith has anything to say about their job, leisure time, finances, friends, etc. We need to see our faith as all-inclusive, acting on all that we do and think. Here are some interesting statements on worldview thinking.

“The culture war is not just about abortion, homosexual rights, or the decline of public education. These are only the skirmishes. The real war is a cosmic struggle between worldviews.” (Chuck Colson)

“Nothing short of a great civil war of values rages today throughout North America. Two sides with vastly differing and incompatible worldviews are locked in a bitter conflict that permeates every level of society.” (Dr. James Dobson)

“The church’s singular failure in recent decades has been the failure to see Christianity as a life system, or worldview, that governs every area of existence.” (Chuck Colson)

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:4-5)

C. S. Lewis and the Geneticist

Francis Collins is a big name in genetics. He was the head of the Human Genome Project, which mapped the human genome. A couple of years ago he wrote The Language of God, in which he set forth evidence for the existence of God. But he didn't start out a Christian theist. He was an atheist, but one day someone shook up his world. The following is part of the story in his own words. You can see the rest in his book.



Perhaps the books that have changed my life most profoundly are a couple of books written by the Oxford scholar, C.S. Lewis. Not about science, actually, about faith. When I was 27, I was a medical intern, I was a pretty obnoxious atheist at that point. I began to realize that while in other parts of my life I didn't make decisions without accumulating data and then looking at it, I hadn't really done that when it came to this very important decision about, "Do you believe in God, or not?"

Because I had no real grounding for that, I discovered in college that I couldn't debate those who said, faith was just a superstitious carry-over from the past and we've gone beyond that. I assumed that must be right, and I promoted that same view. And at 27, particularly as a medical intern, watching so many tumultuous things happening around me -- young people dying for terrible reasons that shouldn't have come to pass -- you can't avoid noticing some pretty scary questions that don't seem to have answers. So I decide I'd better resolve this.


Somebody pointed me towards C.S. Lewis's little book called Mere Christianity, which took all of my arguments that I thought were so airtight about the fact that faith is just irrational, and proved them totally full of holes. And in fact, turned them around the other way, and convinced me that the choice to believe is actually the most rational conclusion when you look at the evidence around you. That was a shocking sort of revelation, and one that I fought bitterly for about a year and then finally decided to accept. And that's a book I go back to regularly, to dig through there for the truths that you find there, which are not truths that Lewis would claim he discovered for the first time, but he certainly expresses them in a very powerful way to somebody who is not willing to accept faith on an emotional basis, and I wasn't.

America's New Sweetheart and Her Religion

I can't help myself. I made the mistake of reading the Parade insert in the Sunday paper and came across another dopey comment like last week's by Hugh Jackman. This time it was by Amy Adams (star of Enchanted), who was asked if she still holds to her childhood religion of Mormonism. Here's her answer: "Well, I certainly hold on to a definite sense of right and wrong. I try to live by the golden rule." Wow. Another bold, in-depth, carefully thought out belief. Who doesn't carry a sense of right and wrong? That's relativism, isn't it? I don't hear anything about a set of scriptures to study, an authority she is willing to follow, any spiritual disciplines. Pretty typical today--do what you feel is right; depend on your own abilities to get by.

A new book by Chuck Colson

I just finished reading a new book by Charles Colson called The Faith. Here the author covers major doctrines of the Faith including the existence of God, the fact that He has spoken to us, the Fall and original sin, the incarnation, the cross and the atoning death of Christ, the bodily resurrection, God's sovereignty, the Trinity, the church, and Christian living. That's a lot to tackle in just over 200 pages, but Colson does an excellent job. I wanted to share with you a few of his thought-provoking comments:

"... contrary to the public misconceptions about Christianity today, the Christian Church and the truth that it defends are the most powerful life- and culture-changing forces in human history."

"Critics say we're trying to impose our views on American life -- that we want to create a theocracy, or a government run by the church. But this is absurd... Christianity gave the very idea of separation of church and state to the West."

"The challenges of anti-theism and radical Islam could not come at a worse time for the church, because most Christians do not understand what they believe, why they believe it, and why it matters."

"Christians must see that the Faith is more than a religion or even a relationship with Jesus; the Faith is a complete view of the world and humankind's place in it. Christianity is a worldview that speaks to every area of life."

"Evidence that points toward the intelligent design of the universe increases the probability that God is."

"I would ask Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, and company [noted atheistic writers], if this book [the Bible] is so evil, how has it survived all of these years? Why has it been the bedrock of forming the most humane civilization in history? How does it continue, if it is mean-spirited, to spread love around the world and turn hard-hearted criminals into gentle lambs? How could reading it have resulted in such people as Augustine and St. Francis? Why would the Chinese, in the midst of atheistic madness, turn to it as their refuge?"

"Richard Dawkins was asked in an interview... whether good and evil have no meaning. Dawkins replied, 'even the question you’re asking has no meaning to me. Good and evil -- I don't believe there is hanging out there anywhere something called good and something called evil. ' The attacks of 9/11 are not intrinsically evil, and bringing relief to tsunami victims is not intrinsically good? Preposterous."
"If evangelicalism has fallen into the trap of cultural Christianity, replacing truth with therapy and creating a feel-good belief, it is no surprise it has lost the drama of the greatest event in human history. The answer isn't to discard doctrine, however; it is to revitalize it."

"Without a basis for morality, no moral consensus can be reached, which is why we are in an ongoing and increasingly strident culture war."

"If people are not guided by conscience and self-restraint, government inevitably becomes increasingly coercive to stave off chaos. That's why our laws are proliferating as never before."

"Human responsibility is misunderstood, chaos results, and human hubris leads to tragically flawed utopian experiment."

"The revolutionary nature of God's invasion of our world is far more significant than all the other invasions of history taken together."

"All through human history... kings, princes, tribal chiefs, presidents, and dictators have sent their subjects into battle to die for them. Only once in human history has a king not sent his subject to die for him, but instead, died for his subjects."

"We find it [the Trinity] baffling. But many concepts we encounter in life are baffling and yet valid. Just think of higher mathematics and the complexity of very advanced physics. Since we're talking about the nature of God, how could a true understanding not present similar difficulty?"

"We have two divinely authorized commissions. The first is well-known, the Great Commission... but the second is equally important. It is to bring the righteousness of God to bear on all of life, to take dominion, to carry out the tasks we are given in the first chapters of Genesis, to bring a redeeming influence into a fallen culture. I called this the Cultural Commission."

"How often have you challenged people to come to Christ and heard them say, ' But I'm not good enough. ' This is yet another form of pride -- our lurking suspicion that one day we will be good enough."

"True Christianity is countercultural. It means death to self, giving up self-control -- and personal autonomy, as we know, is the thing postmodern thought prizes more than anything else. True faith means putting the cause of Christ and the needs of others ahead of self."

"The church is seen as the conveyor of various commodities, a spiritual retailer, God's Gap. Christians need to change our whole vocabulary. We can't talk about the church is a building or a place we go. We are the church."

"Harvard professor Robert Putnam is alarmed over the loss of community in American culture... Putnam observes that the best example for assimilation in community today is being achieved by evangelical megachurches, where there is ethnic and cultural diversity in one community. Once again, Christianity rises to the challenge of strengthening culture."

"Daily we hear the hue and cry about conservatives wanting to impose their views on an unwilling society... that fearsome phrase goes back to the 1860 political campaign when Lincoln's opponents charged he was trying to impose his will upon slaveholders. We can be grateful he did and freed the slaveholders as well as the slaves from a morally corrupt and corrupting institution ... Christians do not impose; they propose a vision of a culture of life."

"The secularist view reduces the body to a machine that's to be judged by its usefulness... it's a short step from there, at least logically, for the powerful to say that people whose bodies are of no use to them or society should be discarded."

"Without a biblically based set of ethics rooted in the sanctity of life, without the established natural order clearly expressed in law and practice, we are left to the tender mercies of those in authority. And we embrace that at our certain peril."

"Professor Peter Singer argues for infanticide and euthanasia as good things... and if life has no inherent worth, he's logically correct. So why don’t we get rid of these burdensome kids? Because the truth about life is understood – the imago Dei is in us, even when we don't want to acknowledge it."

"So how in the world do so many people these days talk about the Christian faith and its doctrines as being dry and brittle?... one answer is found in the church’s failure to teach what the faith is... Second, we have become so self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and materialistic that we’re blind to what makes life worth living... Third, many Westerners today, I believe, are intimidated by cultural pressures.... Fourth, our culture exalts progress -- newer is better... Finally, in this liberal, enlightened, tolerant age, all religions are seen as alike."

"Anyone who goes through life fearful of offending his neighbors or being labeled an extremist will never have the joy of knowing that he has contributed to the transformation of another's life. He'll never experience the incredible excitement of knowing that the God who created him has His hand upon him and His Holy Spirit within him, that he's being empowered to carry to the world the most exciting story ever told."

"Christianity created Western civilization -- the most dynamic culture the world has ever known. Monasticism played a role in the development of capitalism... both Eastern fatalism and Islamic theocracy under a central spiritual leader kept the East and the Islamic Middle East from creating truly dynamic economic systems... The belief of Christians in reason also drove the scientific revolution... Christian influence led to the establishment of the first universities... The common moral standards that Christianity engendered in Western culture were crucial."

"Europe has lost its ability to employee reason against reason’s enemies [Islamic terrorists] because it has lost the authority for reason, that is, its faith. It is left with nothing but the tattered remains of the belief in the rationality of humans. But reason alone, without faith, cannot deal with today's clash of civilizations... the problem in Islam is that it is a blind faith that neither supports reason nor is informed by it... so we have a dilemma: in the West, reason alone without faith leads to chaos; in Islam, faith alone without reason leads to tyranny... This is why orthodoxy matters, for a renewal and strengthening of the orthodox Christian faith can provide not only joy and meaning for Christians but a bulwark of sanity and reason against barbarism."

"The orthodox Christian faith is the one source that can renew culture because it relies on a wisdom far beyond humankind’s own that can yet been known by reason. It constantly calls people to the practice of virtue and charity guided by this greater wisdom."

"Christianity does not seek to impose, it proposes. The Gospel is the great proposal: come to the wedding feast, one and all -- black, white, rich, poor, East, West, Muslim, Jew, Christian -- all are welcome, and it’s never too late."

Listening to Christian Works

Yesterday I met some great people connected with Christianaudio. This company has become a leading audiobook publisher and digital provider of Christian audiobooks. I can't believe how many books I can knock off in one year if I listen when I can't read--in the car, around the house, in the yard, on my bike (Yes, I keep the volume down so I can hear emergency vehicles). Christianaudio has so many good authors like Gary Smalley, Dallas Willard, John Piper, R.C. Sproul, Chuck Swindoll, John MacArthur, John R.W. Stott, and others. They have both fiction and non-fiction, classics and hot-off-the-press items. Check them out at christianaudio.com.

Can We Trust the Gospels?

Last night our apologetics group met and went over the attached outline regarding the trustworthiness of the gospels. Since this is just an outline, feel free to contact me if you'd like clarification in any area.


Can We Trust the Gospels?

A. Standards to judge old documents: how do the Gospels match up?

1. How close to original – gospels only a few years after events

2. How many copies – over 5,000

B. Did Matthew, Mark, Luke, John really write the Gospels?

1. External evidence -- by 100-200 A.D. all four were identified [Irenaeus]
2. Internal evidence -- if fake, why name two after inconsequential people?

C. When were they written?

1. External evidence -- we have papyrus manuscripts 100-200 A.D.
2. Internal evidence -- fall of Jerusalem/destruction of Temple 70 A.D.,
Luke/Acts/Paul timeline

[key—these are closest to time of Jesus, unlike other “gospels”]

D. What sources did the Gospel writers use?

1. Luke 1:1-2
2. 1 Corinthians 15:3-5

E. Is oral tradition reliable?

1. Gossip/telephone game [terrible analogy]

Oral tradition important then—memorizing a lot

2. Jesus spoke in ways that made it easy to remember
3. Strong motivation to remember
4. Not made up later by church -- Jesus doesn't say much about church issues
5. Jesus spoke in public, not secretly (like telephone game)

F. Why don’t the Gospels look as accurate as modern historical writings??

1. Not interested in the exact wording -- Matthew 3:17, Mark 1:11 slide
2. Events are not in the same order -- temptation of Jesus

G. Why do we have four Gospels?

1. Matthew, Mark, Luke--synoptic
1. Good for various viewpoints – Matthew/Jews, Luke/Gentiles;

[compare to portrait painting—not photograph]

H. Does anything outside the Gospels validate the story of Jesus?

1. Romans –Pliny, Suetonius, Tacitus
2. Jewish sources –Talmud [rabbinical writings], Josephus
3. The Pilate inscription
4. The Dead Sea Scrolls
5. Various references to places unknown after the destruction of Jerusalem

I. Did the Gospels get put together by the church later in a power grab?

1. No -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, John all show Jesus very human
2. No -- the four Gospels show the disciples in a bad light
3. No -- by late 100s A.D. a list of accepted texts existed w/four Gospels
4. Standards for inclusion -- old, wide-spread usage, connected to apostle

J. Key question--are the Gospels unreliable since they include miracles?

1. No problem if there is a God
2. The Resurrection of Jesus—are there reasons to believe it?
a. his death [swoon? Crucifixion, spear in side—p. 203 Strobel]

b. the empty tomb [no other burial story; theft? Jews said empty]

c. appearances after death/ burial [1 Cor. 15:8; hallucin.?]

d. change in the lives of the disciples [willing to die]

e. conversion of skeptics [James, Paul]

f. changes in Jewish beliefs/practices
[anim. sacrif.,laws, Sabbath, monotheism, Messiah polit. leader]

g. new religious practices [communion, baptism]

L. For further information

1.Books—
The Case for Christ (Lee Strobel)
Can We Trust the Gospels? (Mark D. Roberts)—basis for this presentation
Jesus Under Fire (J.P. Moreland, editor)

2. Web sites
answers.org [many articles in all areas of the Christian faith]
str.org [Greg Koukl’s site with a lot of resources on many topics]
evidenceofgod.com