And from the back cover:

With unflinching openness and intellectual honesty, Hitchens describes the personal loss and philosophical curiosity that led him to burn his Bible at prep school and embrace atheism in its place. From there, he traces his experience as a journalist in Soviet Moscow, and the critical observations that left him with more questions than answers, and more despair than hope for how to live a meaningful life. With first-hand insight into the blurring of the line between politics and the Church, Hitchens reveals the reasons why an honest assessment of Atheism cannot sustain disbelief in God. In the process, he provides hope for all believers who, in the words of T. S. Eliot, may discover ‘the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’

This should prove interesting.

It got me thinking:  If there are universes out there where every potentiality is a reality, then there must be universes where evolution happened the way “science” believes it did.  There are also universes, then, where it didn’t.  There must be universes, then, where there is not only a God, but a God which created the world in 6 days (and others in which He created the world in six “periods” of indeterminate length).

I, however, fail to accept that there are any universes in which Calvinism is true; the premise of multiverse theory is that the realities must have potentiality in the original universe. (It’s a joke … think about it.)

If multiverse theory is correct, this means that:

• Ours may not be the original universe, but a “splinter” reality only moments old. How would we know?
• If the God of one universe is, in fact, infinite, omnipotent and omnipresent, then He is outside of all universes.
• If an omnipotent God exists in one universe, then He must exist in all universes.
• Atheism, then, is not a potential reality in any universe.
• There are no universes in which God does not exist.
• If there is a God in one universe, the potential for universes in which evolution and atheism are true ceases to exist.
• Multiverse theory would seem to collapse with the potential that God exists.
• Therefore, it seems that multiverse theory has failed, leaving only this universe in which God exists.

So, in the event that multiverse theory is correct, multiverse theory is impossible.

It would seem, that multiverse theory is either incorrect, or impossible.  What does this mean for LOST, Fringe and Star Trek?

Today on the way to church I had stopped on a certain station that I was not familiar with, so when I got back in the car this station was still on, and I caught this pastor (I’m assuming – there was no identification of either the speaker or church when it was over) in mid-sentence.

The speaker was going on about the pagan origins of Easter, which is nothing I haven’t heard before, and which I am still not impressed by.  He went on to criticize the early church (Eastern Orthodox), the Roman Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists.  He then went on to say that Yeshua did not have a people; there were hundreds of denominations, but no “one people.”

Now, it began to get interesting.  He explained that the only way for there to be “one people” was for everyone to start following the Torah.  And, just to make sure that I hadn’t misheard him or misinterpreted what he said, he made sure that this was understood; Christianity was a Jewish religion, and following the Jewish Law confirms that we are indeed followers of Yeshua.  This also sets us apart from “the world.”  Indeed.  He rattled off a list of feasts and holy days we should be observing, but failed to mention where to find spotted goats or sheep for sacrifices…

When I got home I did a bit of research, trying to find out more about this guy. I figured he was some sort of Messianic Jew, due to his continued use of Hebrew names, etc.  The station turned out to be an “all Christian” station based here, whose purpose is “to network people, resources, needs, news, events, fellowships and ministries and  businesses in order to combine and multiply our resources, efforts and prayers.”

Or so they say.  Reading further, the website states,

We especially want to welcome those who are still fellowshiping in Christian churches who are seeking a deeper walk with Yahweh, the God of the Bible. Our theme verse is Rev. 12:17 – those who keep the commandments of Yah and the testimony of Yahshua/Jesus.

Alrighty, then.  I should mention that a number of non-Hebrew-oriented churches and ministries have shows on the station, or have placed ads on the site, or are otherwise mentioned somewhere on this site.  (It’s a really bad website design, too… but that’s another issue.)

I wonder, do they realize that this group’s (I still don’t know who they really are) goal is to Judaize Christian churches?  That is, they mean to convert grace-believing Christians into followers of the Torah. Or, at least those seeking “a deeper walk with Yahweh, the God of the Bible” (as opposed to the God of where?).

I wonder if these new Judaizers have ever read Galatians, or any of Paul’s other letters.  Let me quote from Galatians 1:

⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! ⁹As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

So what do we say then about these very helpful, well-meaning folks?  What about “After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort (Gal 3:3)”?  Or, “All who rely on the Law are under a curse (v 10)?”  Paul challenges us to take a stand on the Gospel, and send false teachers packing down the road to Perdition.  It really bugs me that Christians think they are so holy when they quote, “don’t judge,” but they’ll stand by and watch the Gospel being flushed down the toilet.

You foolish Galatians!

Here’s the bottom line that Paul drew in his letter to the Galatians: If you add anything to Jesus – that is, any laws or traditions or eating kosher – you haven’t just missed the Gospel, you’ve trashed it completely! There is no middle ground, no “tolerance” when it comes to grace.

Now, you can going ahead and do all kinds of good works, because they’re good things to so.  Just don’t think you’re earning grace because of them. You are “good Christians” because Jesus was good, not because you are.  Think of it this way: Grace produces good works, works do not produce grace.

This little sermon today is the most blatant attack on the Gospel that I can recall hearing, and it makes me angry.  I’ve got a book about to be published (sometime this summer), tentatively called Free, that explains all this in far greater detail.  Check back in a month or two for more information on the book.

In the meantime, read Galatians, and be Free.

We all agree that bad conflict is destructive.  An apparent lack of conflict is also destructive, because there really is no lack of conflict. It’s either open and obvious, or it’s hidden; and hidden conflict is, in my opinion, far more destructive.  How many people disappear from churches for no apparent reason?  Truth is, there’s always a reason, and typically it’s an issue of unresolved conflict (although certainly that’s not always the case).  As someone once said, “wherever two or more are gathered, there is conflict.”  Conflict is a fact of life, as long as we are imperfect beings. Rather than ignore this fact, as many churches tend to do, the best case scenario would seem to be to put conflict front and center, but make it good conflict rather than bad.

Read the whole post here.

I suspected that my laptop had a stuck right arrow key, but when I got home, it worked normally.  When I went back to Starbucks, it flaked out again.  In a different Starbucks.  So, I googled everything I could think of, but no one mentioned a problem like this, except to say that some kind of signal interference can do weird things.

After a few weeks, it seemed to stop. Except for today.  Once again, my cursor began it’s march to the right, making it hard to do anything.

Then, it occurred to me that I was sitting in a spot I didn’t usually sit, in a little alcove by the huge Starbucks sign in the window.  I picked up my stuff and moved to the other side of the room, and viola!, the cursor behaved itself.

So, apparently the huge green mermaid sign was somehow hijacking my laptop.

Mystery solved… I think.

But as Henry Kissinger described academia, the battles are so fierce because the stakes are so small. From the outside the conflict between atheist evolutionists and theist evolutionists is rather meaningless. For the atheists, in spite of all their bluster, are no different than the theists in their religious beliefs. They call themselves atheists, but their convictions about god are as strong as anyone’s. (see examples here and here).

So yes many evolutionists are atheists, but as usual the theology rules. Evolutionists are either theists who hold strong religious convictions or atheists who hold strong religious convictions. Either way the science suffers. I guess you could say there is a conflict between religion and science after all.

Interesting perspective.  But does the science have to suffer?  I’m not necessarily convinced.

He also states (earlier in the post),

… a recent poll showed that a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power. And that is up from the 42% who responded similarly almost a century ago in 1914.

The problem is not so much that religion conflicts with science as it co-opts science.

Again, interesting perspective – and I’ll let it go at that.

So, when I see something like this, my response is merely, “Give me a break…”

I’ll be writing more on this topic in the days to come, but Loftus’ ridiculous post spurred me to introduce the concept now. In the meantime, read a couple of really interesting articles on this issue here.  It’s discussed as it relates to conflict resolution, but the principles are universal.

C. Michael Patton, who writes the Parchment and Pen blog, has posted a rather brave piece on the issue entitled Why Women Cannot be Head Pastors.  His primary argument is that women should not be head pastors because women are not as capable as men at handling confrontation, which is a requirement of a head pastor in dealing with church issues and confronting error.

Boy, I can think of a number of women who’d just love to confront him on this error.

Without getting into the issue of women in leadership (wisdom again prevails), I will quickly address Patton’s main point.  I know a little bit about this issue. While men may typically be more aggressive and confrontational, and used to confrontation, this is not a universal truth.  We’ve all heard the “men are hunters, women are gatherers” thing, and know that young boys tend to play aggressive, warlike games while young girls tend to play relationship-oriented games.

However, relationship is just as much about conflict and confrontation as war is.  Aggression is often an avoidance technique.  I know a whole lot of men – in fact, a whole lot of pastors and managers – who avoid confrontation like the plague.  Many men would never deal with issues if they didn’t have a wife standing behind them pressuring them to take charge.

Some conflict experts have identified five basic styles of dealing with conflict, all of which are appropriate in different situations. We all have our default styles, but that doesn’t mean we can’t step into other styles when need be.   Whether we are the confronter or are responding to confrontation, we will err if we always fall back on the same style. This goes for men as well as women.  In fact, Proverbs 15:1 says, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”  Who better to give a gentle answer than a women?  Perhaps this makes women more equipped to be pastors (assuming this is the main criteria)?

There are many good arguments to be made on both sides of the “women as pastors” issues, but I don’t think this is one of them.  And, that’s all I have to say about that.

But, if you feel brave (or if any of you lack wisdom…), feel free to share your thoughts.

Believers in inerrancy, I think, find themselves putting more faith in inerrancy than they do in the Gospel; however, the 1st Century Christians didn’t, for the most part, even have the Bible. Yet, it is clear from Paul’s epistles that they had “the Word of God.”  I suspect that the real issue underlying inerrancy is that these Christians have become trapped in modernistic thinking, where propositions must meet certain criteria in order to be “true.”  In this way, it seems that those requiring that the Bible be inerrant actually suffer from a lack of faith – one of the unfortunate consequences of modernism – rather than having a greater faith, as they would have us believe.

Yesterday Stephen at Undeception posted The Bible and the need for proof, makes some good points about why we don’t need to believe in “inerrancy” in order to believe the Gospel.  He asks at the conclusion, “why is it logically necessary, rather than merely preferable for one reason or another, that the Bible be entirely true through and through?”

My question, just because I’m curious, is “What do you believe about the Bible, and why?”

The author is John L. Moseman, who from comments in the post, was Eastern Orthodox prior to becoming a confessional Lutheran.  The Orthodox, of course, do not hold to sola scriptura, due to their stand on Tradition.  John shares that it was the book of Galatians that challenged his belief in Tradition, and converted him to sola scriptura.

Here’s the body of his post, a shot commentary on Galatians:

“PAUL, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead),” 1:1

This here in the first verse of this epistle is something that gets repeated, why? It is fundamentaly important that our faith is not handed down by men but God. What does this mean? That God can come into us and by his Word lead us in faith and direction. For the longest time I was hung up on Apostolic succession but it is not the men but the Word of God that propels the Church. RCC and EO would stress that their bishops were given the Holy Spirit but as Paul goes on to say that this is not the litmus test for teachers of the true faith.

” I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ” 1:6,7

It is so evident here that false doctrine was coming from within the Church and that when these teachers turned from Christ on the cross they started making new doctrines. To me this stresses the importance of maintaing true doctrine found in the Gospel.

‘But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. ” 1:8-10

Right here it is expresses that even if it is an Apostle, an angel, priest, pastor, bishop or any other in the church that with they are not preaching THE WORD that they are not from God. To me this is where Sola Scriptura comes in with a bang, that it is not the pastors but the Holy Spirit, which comes from the Word. Without the Word of God we are hopeless as he goes on to explain that even the Apostles where confused. When they went on their own, when they relied on their authority and not on the Word. Here it is evident that in the Word we do have the authority of God. It makes it clear that if one is not in the Word or preaches the Word in truth that they are not of God. It becomes false doctrine. Also is it me or does he in a off shot way give creedance to Sola Scriptura when looking in the Scriputures to make his point?

“But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.
For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” 1:11-14

Here it is simple though we have to hold true to the traditions and they have their place. Without the Word of God behind it, breathed in it, it is not of God. This was evident to Luther. So here we see that Sola Sciptura is not isolating the traditions only the ones not adminstered by God breathed in by his Word. So how can Mr. Hahn seriously hold that the Bible does not teach Sola Scriptura when it is clear right here that the Apostles authority directly comes from the Word and the Word alone.

I suggest everyone to read the entire epistle. Later on in it you start to see St. Paul correct and say that the Apostles had been in error suggesting that they where confused when the failed to keep the Gospel in perspective. The basic truth is that RCC and EO are right about some things. They error when they put the infalliable authority of God in man’s hands and not in the Word. This why even some of our Lutheran pastors error they are corrected by the Word.

Some interesting things to think about.  However, there are a few other things to consider:

1. The New Testament that we have today is a product of Tradition.
2. The Gospel Paul talks about is the Apostolic message that the EO believe has been passed down through Tradition.
3. The question is, is Tradition the Apostolic message, or merely the traditions of men?  Perhaps a combination?

Any other thoughts?