Archive for the 'God' Category

Humanist Bus Campaign

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on November 14, 2008
in God
. 0 Comments

Hello and welcome to RayFowler.org. If you are new here, be sure to subscribe by email or feed reader so that you don't miss any future posts. You can also check out the Top Posts page to get a feel for the site. Thanks for visiting!

humanist_bus_campaign.jpg
                (Photo: American Humanist Association)

Last month it was the Atheist Bus Campaign in England. Now there is the Humanist Bus Campaign in the United States. From the Christian Post:

A group of humanists announced this week plans to plaster over 200 buses in Washington D.C. with ads bearing its “godless holiday” message.  Ads proclaiming, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake,” will appear on the outside and inside of DC Metro buses starting next Tuesday and will run throughout December. Newspaper versions of the ads ran in The New York Times and The Washington Post this week.

The advertising campaign is part of an effort by the American Humanist Association to reach out to like-minded individuals around the nation’s capitol and elsewhere who might be interested in humanism. The atheistic group espouses the belief that one can live a moral life apart from a belief in a god or the afterlife.

Three Bible passages come to mind:

Jesus answered, “No one is good — except God alone.” (Mark 10:18)

The apostle Paul wrote: “There is no one righteous … there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12)

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23)

Oh well, let me wish a Merry Christmas to all my humanist friends anyways!

Related post: Atheist Bus Campaign

Atheist Bus Campaign

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on October 21, 2008
in God
. 5 Comments

The London Times reports on the new Atheist Bus Campaign sponsored by prominent atheistic writer Richard Dawkins.

“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” That is the cheery message London buses will be carrying if Richard Dawkins, the atheist, can raise enough cash.

The slogan is to be daubed across 30 Westminster buses in retaliation for a series of bendy-bus Christian messages. CBS Outdoor, the bus advertising company, said that it would run the atheist ads in January. “Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride,” said Dawkins, who will match donations up to £5,500.

I would have to say that I worry less and enjoy life more knowing there is a God than I would if there wasn’t a God. Now compare Dawkins’ bus slogan to the closing words of Ecclesiastes and decide which is true wisdom.

“Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

Related post: Humanist Bus Campaign

Who Makes the Wind Blow?

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on July 31, 2008
in God and Science
. 0 Comments

The Bible says, “[God] makes His wind blow” (Psalm 147:18). How do we interpret this in light of modern science? Vern Pothyress explains:

Many people believe that some kind of God exists. But to them He seems remote. For practical purposes science, they think, has replaced God. The wind blows because of differences in air pressure. The nightly weather report explains it. And what the nightly weather report doesn’t explain, the expert scientists could explain and explain in massive detail until your eyes glazed over.

So was it just a primitive mentality when the Bible said that God made the wind blow? No. The scientists still deal with the same God, the God who rules the wind. What the scientists investigate is the regularity and faithfulness of the way in which God makes His wind blow. He is so faithful and so consistent that you can write mathematical equations to describe it. And of course the mathematical equations come from man’s mind being in tune with God’s mind, and having the privilege of thinking God’s thoughts after Him.

From the article: He Makes the Wind Blow (HT: Between Two Worlds)

An Absentee God?

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on July 28, 2008
in God
. 2 Comments

Christian author Dinesh D’Souza debated prominent atheist Christopher Hitchens last October in New York. During the debate Hitchens raised a point for which D’Souza had no immediate answer.

Here’s what Hitchens said. Homo sapiens has been on the planet for a long time, let’s say 100,000 years. Apparently for 95,000 years God sat idly by, watching and perhaps enjoying man’s horrible condition … Then, a few thousand years ago, God said, “It’s time to get involved.” … Here is the thrust of Hitchens’ point: God seems to have been napping for 98 percent of human history, finally getting his act together only for the most recent 2 percent? What kind of a bizarre God acts like this?

D’Souza recently found a satisfying answer put forth by Erik Kreps of the Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research.

An adept numbers guy, Kreps noters that it is not the number of years but the levels of human population that are the issue here. The Population Reference Bureau estimates that the number of people who have ever been born is approximately 105 billion. Of this number, about 2 percent were born in the 100,000 years before Christ came to earth.

“So in a sense,” Kreps notes, “God’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect. If He’d come earlier in human history, how reliable would the records of his relationship with man be? But He showed up just before the exponential explosion in the world’s population, so even though 98 percent of humanity’s timeline had passed, only 2 percent of humanity had previously been born, so 98 percent of us have walked the earth since the Redemption.”

It is amazing to think that 98% of all humans who have ever lived were born into this world after Christ came. But however you crunch the numbers, the Bible insists that God sent his Son at precisely the right time. “When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5)

HT: Challies

God’s Providence in the World

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on July 25, 2008
in God
. 1 Comment

John Piper provides the following sample of scriptures bearing witness to God’s complete providence in governing the world.

  • “I have commanded the ravens to feed you there” (1Kings 17:4)
  • “The Lord God appointed a plant and made it come up over Jonah” (Jonah 4:6).
  • “God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered” (Jonah 4:7).
  • “I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants” (Exodus 8:21).
  • “He summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread” (Psalms 105:16).
  • “He gave them hail for rain” (Psalms 105:32).
  • “He spoke, and the locusts came” (Psalms 105:34).
  • “The Lord will whistle for . . . the bee that is in the land of Assyria” (Isaiah 7:18).
  • “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord” (Proverbs 16:33).
  • “Even the wind and the sea obey him” (Mark 4:41).
  • “He removes kings and sets up kings” (Daniel 2:21).
  • “Even the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (Mark 1:27).
  • “He upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3).

What a comfort it is to know that God governs all things in the world, both big and small.

Where Is God Joke

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on June 27, 2008
in Fun, God and Sermons
. 0 Comments

I don’t usually begin my sermons with a joke, but last Sunday I did. Here it is in case you missed it.

There were two brothers, ages 8 and 10, who were getting into a lot of trouble. Their mother brought them to see the pastor to see if he could help straighten them out. The pastor talked with the younger brother first. He looked at the young boy and asked him, “Where is God?” The boy’s eyes opened wide, but he didn’t answer, so the pastor asked again, more forcefully this time, “Young man, where is God?” The boy began to squirm in his seat, so the pastor asked yet another time in a very loud voice, “Young man, answer me, where is God?” At that, the boy leaped out of his seat and ran out the door right past his brother who was waiting to go in next. The older brother chased him down and asked him, “What’s the matter?” To which the younger brother replied, “We’re in big trouble this time. God is missing, and they think WE did it!”

From the sermon: Losing God in Religion - 1 Samuel 4:1-22 (The ark’s capture)

Top Three Questions UF Students Would Ask God

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on April 21, 2008
in God
. 0 Comments

Earlier this year, Campus Crusade students surveyed 1,000 University of Florida students on what one question they would ask God. Here were their top three responses (in order):

    1) the meaning and purpose of life,
    2) the problem of suffering, and
    3) the existence of God.

What one question would you ask God?

HT: Stand to Reason

A John 3:16 Valentine Message

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on February 14, 2008
in God and Love
. 0 Comments

My parents emailed me this neat little valentine this morning, so I thought I would pass it along to you.

For God so loVed the world
      That He gAve
            His onLy
            BegottEn
                  SoN
                      That whoever
        Believes In Him
              Shall Not perish,
        But have Eternal life. (John 3:16)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Thoreau and Ryken: Quotes on Contentment

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on July 19, 2007
in God and Quotes
. 0 Comments

We have had some good discussion and comments over at this week’s Sunday Morning SoundBytes. So I thought I would share a couple of the quotes that I shared at church during Sunday morning’s message on contentment.

The first quote is by Henry David Thoreau from his masterful journal, Walden; or, a Life in the Woods. Although Thoreau was not a Christian (and could be quite smug about it at times), he puts most of us to shame in this book when it comes to living simply and doing without. Here is his definition of what it means to be rich.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone. (Henry David Thoreau; from Walden)

There is a contrarian viewpoint for you. A man is not rich according to what he has but according to what he does not need. Thoreau understood that contentment does not require more things or stuff. But he missed out on the deeper secret of contentment - which is finding your satisfaction in God. Philip Ryken, pastor at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, PA, fills in the rest of the picture for us:

As long as we base our sense of contentment on anything in the world, we will always find some excuse to make ourselves miserable. Our problem is not on the outside–it’s on the inside, and therefore it will never be solved by getting more of what we think we want. If we do not learn to be satisfied right now in our present situation–whatever it is–we will never be satisfied at all. . . .

The truth is that if God wanted us to have more right now, we would have it. . . . If we were supposed to be in a different situation in life, we would be in it. Instead of always saying, “If only this” and “If only that,” God calls us to glorify him to the fullest right now. . . . Contentment means wanting what God wants for us rather than what we want for us. The secret to enjoying this kind of contentment is to be so satisfied with God that we are able to accept whatever he has or has not provided. (Philip Ryken, Exodus: Saved for God’s Glory, pp. 673-74)

Contentment is not found in things but in God. If only we could all learn this lesson well.

Tony Dungy: Asking ‘What’ Instead of ‘Why’

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on July 12, 2007
in Death, God, Quotes and Sports
. 11 Comments

Here is a great quote by Tony Dungy from his new book, Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices & Priorities of a Winning Life. Tony lost his 18-year-old son, James, back in 2005.

Why do bad things happen? I don’t know. Why did Jamie die? I don’t know. But I do know that God has the answers, I know he loves me, and I know he has a plan – whether it makes sense to me or not. Rather than asking why, I’m asking what. What can I learn from this? What can I do for God’s glory and to help others?

Tony Dungy is head coach of this year’s Super Bowl winning Indianapolis Colts.

Related articles:

God, Quantum Mechanics, and Chaos Theory

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on June 28, 2007
in God and Science
. 8 Comments

Mr. Dawntreader has another excellent post today in his series of articles on the book, Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? by Dr. C. John Collins.

Whereas quantum mechanics and chaos theory both suggest randomness in the world, the Bible reveals a sovereign God who is in control of the universe. So how does one reconcile the findings of quantum mechanics and chaos theory with a sovereign God?

My own hunch - and it is not much stronger than that - is that quantum mechanics is a model, and that it shows what the world acts like at its lowest level; but that we may well have reached the limits of our ability to know things with more precision than quantum mechanics allows.

But in any case quantum mechanics in itself . . . does not undermine the traditional Christian picture of the world with knowable natural properties behaving in a predictable and understandable way, under the rule of a wise and holy Creator. This is true for at least two reasons.

First, however spooky quantum theory may sound, it is highly mathematical: and this shows that the world is still intelligible, since that is just what mathematics is for.

Second, we experience the world at a much larger scale than the one quantum mechanics describes. And at this level, “ordinary physics” - Newton’s laws and all that - describes everything quite well. So we experience the world at a level that combines the tiny quantum effects, and all the goofiness gets washed out. (Collins, Science & Faith, p.223)

Mr. Dawntreader then goes on to discuss chaos theory using weather as an example.

It is terribly difficult to predict weather. There are simply too many factors. The initial condition is far to difficult to measure. The output is nonlinear. Weather is therefore a chaotic system. Hence we use predictions based on probability instead of knowing exactly what will happen based on natural laws.

Does this undermine a biblical worldview?

Hardly. This is nothing more than a math problem that is too difficult for us to solve at present. Nothing more, nothing less. If we could precisely measure the initial conditions and every single factor, we could precisely say what tomorrow’s weather would be.

In conclusion, neither quantum theory or chaos theory presents a serious challenge to a biblical worldview.

I encourage you to read the full article at the Dawn Treader site.

Related post: God’s Providence and Scientific Investigation

God’s Providence and Scientific Investigation

Published
by
Ray Fowler
on June 25, 2007
in Faith, God and Science
. 4 Comments

I am enjoying reading Mr. Dawntreader’s articles on the book, Science & Faith: Friends or Foes? by Dr. C. John Collins. Dr. Collins is an Old Testament professor at Covenant Theological Seminary. He has his undergraduate and first graduate degrees in engineering from MIT, and a Ph.D. in lingusitics from the university of Liverpool. He is also an expert in Hebrew.

I especially liked this article on the topic of God’s involvement in this world and its effect on science.

In theological terms, this falls in the area of study called providence. How involved is God in the natural world? If he is heavily involved, does it make the study of science pointless?

Collins unpacks God’s involvement in the world by stating the classic Christian understanding of God’s providence. God created real things with real properties (i.e. natures) each with the possibility of causing things. God ceased creating but goes on maintaining and governing. That is, he keeps his creation doing what it is supposed to be doing …

This raises a question. Does God do everything?

In a sense, yes. In a sense, no. God directly governs this world. His purposes are holy, wise and thoroughly good; and he sees to it, that in the end, his purposes stand. The reason the laws of physics work is because God keeps them working day after day. They serve his purpose. So God is directly involved in all of creation daily. However, God created a universe with a web of cause and effect and things that have natures … and one of the properties of those natures is to cause things. In that sense, God did not write this blog post. Mr. Dawntreader did …

Is it still possible for Christians to study and learn about the natural world if God is so involved in it? Of course it is, and we should learn as much as we can. In fact, it is because God sustains this world and gives it order that forms the basis and foundation for studying it.

I encourage you to visit the Dawn Treader site to read the full article, plus the earlier articles on the book as well. This looks like an excellent book on science and faith, and I have added it to my “books to read” list.

Related post: The Bible is to Theology as Creation is to Science