Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Ideas to liven up a dull Christian life group

Here are a few questions for life/lively group discussion that roll around in my mind.

How much of what you believe about God, Jesus, the Christian life is based on KNOWING or revelation to you from the Word  . . .either Logos or Rhema . . .? and how much of what you believe is because you were taught that from the pulpit, family, friends, etc?

If you are taught something from a leader in the church who has many initials after his name are you more likely to believe it as true?   Do you ever hear your own leader say something and think to yourself "mmmmm.  He's off base on that".    

If you think your leadership is "off base" do you feel the freedom to just go up to them and tell them you think they are in error?

How does your world view influence your Christianity view?
How much does your Christianity view influence your worlds view?

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the most anxiety . .
what is your immediate level of anxiety at the thought of considering some that some/part/all/most of what you believe might be "not true"?

Is it faith shattering or faith building to question what you've been "taught" versus what you know/feel/sense in your heart?

Does God care if you're wrong about doctrine?
Does God care about doctrine?

What would/could you get a group of ten or 20 Christian friends to sit down with you and write a short "confession of faith" of what things you all collectively KNEW to be true.

Of all the sects/denominations in Christianity today, are you "in" your particular sect/denomination because
you have determined it is the most likely to be doctrine correct?

Martin Luther was a catholic priest.   How much of what he believed did he decide was just taught to him and incorrect?   He didn't seem to object to the idea of many doctrines of the Catholic church.   Just the idea of sanctification.   So was he in error?

When ML reached a point of deciding that much of what he believed was wrong . . .why did God choose him to be a singular voice to raise the 95 points instead of putting it on the minds of the leadership of the church?

What if ML had decided that he could not question points of his "faith" because it would be heresy and did he say to satan "get behind me"  when he first began to have idea he might have been in error?

How did ML know that it was not satan but the Holy Spirit directing him?

If the Catholic church then/now was in deception . . .and ML decided he had seen a revelation of truth and correction . . . how likely then could it be that something truthful could come out of any other organization
that the church today believed in error?   In other words, might a new revelation for the church today come from a Catholic priest or did the Catholic use up their one free "get of Jail free" card with ML?

And then of course . . .if ML was deceived why did he not know it before he did?   What was his illumination?

Does/would/might God still be in the business of illumination?

Am I/you/others open to the idea that illumination might come from a prophet of any source?  Or would we as "enlightened evangelical protestants . . only be receptive to a Word that came forth from another "enlightened evangelical protestant".   '

would the church today be open to the idea of a prophecy coming forth from a donkey for instance?   Why not perhaps me?  Or you reading this?  Is the church today open to the idea of some one person being a modern day Luther?   

Do we attend a fellowship because we believe it is doctrine pure?

And lastly, do you feel very uncomfortable inside of you right now considering these questions?

final note.   might not be a good idea to try and bring up ALL these points in one single night of life group?  :-)

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

my ideas about where God is and the Kingdom of God

I believe the institution of the church has gotten it all backwards about where God and His Kingdom is.

God is not outside of all.  He is at the center of all.

Even Jesus said "the Kingdom of God is within".

He lives within Us, His Church.  His Body.

I believe it looks like this:




Wednesday, February 17, 2016

44 Reasons why the theory of Evolution is just a cute fairy tale

44 Reasons why the theory of Evolution is just a cute fairy tale for adults and people wanting a job teaching “science” or getting government grants.

The theory of evolution is false.  It is simply not true.  Actually, it is just a fairy tale for adults based on ancient pagan religious philosophy that hundreds of millions of people around the world choose to believe with blind faith.  When asked to produce evidence for the theory of evolution, most adults in the western world come up totally blank.  When pressed, most people will mumble something about how “most scientists believe it” and how that is good enough for them.  This kind of anti-intellectualism even runs rampant on our college campuses.  If you doubt this, just go to a college campus some time and start asking students why they believe in evolution.  Very few of them will actually be able to give you any real reasons why they believe it.  Most of them just have blind faith in the priest class in our society (“the scientists”).  But is what our priest class telling us actually true?  When Charles Darwin popularized the theory of evolution, he didn’t actually have any evidence that it was true.  And since then the missing evidence has still not materialized.  Most Americans would be absolutely shocked to learn that most of what is taught as “truth” about evolution is actually the product of the overactive imaginations of members of the scientific community.  They so badly want to believe that it is true that they will go to extraordinary lengths to defend their fairy tale.  They keep insisting that the theory of evolution has been “proven” and that it is beyond debate.  Meanwhile, most average people are intimidated into accepting the “truth” about evolution because they don’t want to appear to be “stupid” to everyone else.
In this day and age, it is imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves.  Don’t let me tell you what to think, and don’t let anyone else tell you what to think either.  Do your own research and come to your own conclusions.  The following are 44 reasons why evolution is just a fairy tale for adults…
#1 If the theory of evolution was true, we should have discovered millions upon millions of transitional fossils that show the development of one species into another species. Instead, we have zero.
#2 When Charles Darwin came up with his theory, he admitted that no transitional forms had been found at that time, but he believed that huge numbers certainly existed and would eventually be discovered
“Lastly, looking not to any one time, but to all time, if my theory be true, numberless intermediate varieties, linking closely together all the species of the same group, must assuredly have existed. But, as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth?”
#3 Even some of the most famous evolutionists in the world acknowledge the complete absence of transitional fossils in the fossil record. For example, Dr. Colin Patterson, former senior paleontologist of the British Museum of Natural History and author of “Evolution” once wrote the following
“I fully agree with your comments about the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them …. I will lay it on the line – there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.”
#4 Stephen Jay Gould, Professor of Geology and Paleontology at Harvard University, once wrote the following about the lack of transitional forms…
“The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution.”
#5 Evolutionist Stephen M. Stanley of Johns Hopkins University has also commented on the stunning lack of transitional forms in the fossil record…
“In fact, the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another.”
#6 If “evolution” was happening right now, there would be millions of creatures out there with partially developed features and organs.  But instead there are none.
#7 If the theory of evolution was true, we should not see a sudden explosion of fully formed complex life in the fossil record. Instead, that is precisely what we find.
#8 Paleontologist Mark Czarnecki, an evolutionist, once commented on the fact that complex life appears very suddenly in the fossil record…
“A major problem in proving the theory has been the fossil record; the imprints of vanished species preserved in the Earth’s geological formations. This record has never revealed traces of Darwin’s hypothetical intermediate variants – instead species appear and disappear abruptly, and this anomaly has fueled the creationist argument that each species was created by God.”
#9 The sudden appearance of complex life in the fossil record is so undeniable that even Richard Dawkins has been forced to admit it…
“It is as though they [fossils] were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. Needless to say this appearance of sudden planting has delighted creationists. Both schools of thought (Punctuationists and Gradualists) despise so-called scientific creationists equally, and both agree that the major gaps are real, that they are true imperfections in the fossil record. The only alternative explanation of the sudden appearance of so many complex animal types in the Cambrian era is divine creation and both reject this alternative.”
#10 Nobody has ever observed macroevolution take place in the laboratory or in nature.  In other words, nobody has ever observed one kind of creature turn into another kind of creature.  The entire theory of evolution is based on blind faith.
#11 Evolutionist Jeffrey Schwartz, a professor of anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh, openly admits that “the formation of a new species, by any mechanism, has never been observed.
#12 Even evolutionist Stephen J. Gould of Harvard University has admitted that the record shows that species do not change. The following is how he put it during a lecture at Hobart & William Smith College
“Every paleontologist knows that most species don’t change. That’s bothersome….brings terrible distress. ….They may get a little bigger or bumpier but they remain the same species and that’s not due to imperfection and gaps but stasis. And yet this remarkable stasis has generally been ignored as no data. If they don’t change, its not evolution so you don’t talk about it.”
#13 Anyone that believes that the theory of evolution has “scientific origins” is fooling themselves.  It is actually a deeply pagan religious philosophy that can be traced back for thousands of years.
#14 Anything that we dig up that is supposedly more than 250,000 years old should have absolutely no radiocarbon in it whatsoever.  But instead, we find it ineverything that we dig up – even dinosaur bones.  This is clear evidence that the “millions of years” theory is simply a bunch of nonsense
It’s long been known that radiocarbon (which should disappear in only a few tens of thousands of years at the most) keeps popping up reliably in samples (like coal, oil, gas, etc.) which are supposed to be ‘millions of years’ old. For instance, CMI has over the years commissioned and funded the radiocarbon testing of a number of wood samples from ‘old’ sites (e.g. with Jurassic fossils, inside Triassic sandstone, burnt by Tertiary basalt) and these were published (by then staff geologist Dr Andrew Snelling) in Creation magazine and Journal of Creation. In each case, with contamination eliminated, the result has been in the thousands of years, i.e. C-14 was present when it ‘shouldn’t have been’. These results encouraged the rest of the RATE team to investigate C-14 further, building on the literature reviews of creationist M.D. Dr Paul Giem.
In another very important paper presented at this year’s ICC, scientists from the RATE group summarized the pertinent facts and presented further experimental data. The bottom line is that virtually all biological specimens, no matter how ‘old’ they are supposed to be, show measurable C-14 levels. This effectively limits the age of all buried biota to less than (at most) 250,000 years.
#15 The odds of even a single sell “assembling itself” by chance are so low that they aren’t even worth talking about.  The following is an excerpt from Jonathan Gray’s book entitled “The Forbidden Secret“…
Even the simplest cell you can conceive of would require no less than 100,000 DNA base pairs and a minimum of about 10,000 amino acids, to form the essential protein chain. Not to mention the other things that would also be necessary for the first cell.
Bear in mind that every single base pair in the DNA chain has to have the same molecular orientation (“left-hand” or “right hand”)? As well as that, virtually all the amino acids must have the opposite orientation. And every one must be without error.
“Now,” explained Larry, “to randomly obtain those correct orientations, do you know your chances? It would be 1 chance in 2110,000, or 1 chance in 1033,113!
“To put it another way, if you attempted a trillion, trillion, trillion combinations every second for 15 billion years, the odds you would achieve all the correct orientations would still only be one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion … and the trillions would continue 2755 times!
“It would be like winning more than 4700 state lotteries in a row with a single ticket purchased for each. In other words…impossible.”
#16 How did life learn to reproduce itself?  This is a question that evolutionists do not have an answer for.
#17 In 2007, fishermen caught a very rare creature known as a Coelacanth.  Evolutionists originally told us that this “living fossil” had gone extinct 70 million years ago.  It turns out that they were only off by 70 million years.
#18 According to evolutionists, the Ancient Greenling Damselfly last showed up in the fossil record about 300 million years ago.  But it still exists today.  So why hasn’t it evolved at all over the time frame?
#19 Darwinists believe that the human brain developed without the assistance of any designer.  This is so laughable it is amazing that there are any people out there that still believe this stuff.  The truth is that the human brain is amazingly complex.  The following is how a PBS documentary described the complexity of the human brain: “It contains over 100 billion cells, each with over 50,000 neuron connections to other brain cells.”
#20 The following is how one evolutionist pessimistically assessed the lack of evidence for the evolution of humanity…
“Even with DNA sequence data, we have no direct access to the processes of evolution, so objective reconstruction of the vanished past can be achieved only by creative imagination.”
#21 Perhaps the most famous fossil in the history of the theory of evolution, “Piltdown Man”, turned out to be a giant hoax.
#22 If the neutron were not about 1.001 times the mass of the proton, all protons would have decayed into neutrons or all neutrons would have decayed into protons, and therefore life would not be possible. How can we account for this?
#23 If gravity was stronger or weaker by the slimmest of margins, then life sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would also make life impossible. How can we account for this?
#24 Why did evolutionist Dr. Lyall Watson make the following statement?…
“The fossils that decorate our family tree are so scarce that there are still more scientists than specimens. The remarkable fact is that all of the physical evidence we have for human evolution can still be placed, with room to spare, inside a single coffin!”
#25 Apes and humans are very different genetically.  As DarwinConspiracy.com explains, “the human Y chromosome has twice as many genes as the chimpanzee Y chromosome and the chromosome structures are not at all similar.”
#26 How can we explain the creation of new information that is required for one animal to turn into another animal?  No evolutionary process has ever been shown to be able to create new biological information.  One scientist described the incredible amount of new information that would be required to transform microbes into men this way
“The key issue is the type of change required — to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content, from over half a million DNA ‘letters’ of even the ‘simplest’ self-reproducing organism to three billion ‘letters’ (stored in each human cell nucleus).”
#27 Evolutionists would have us believe that there are nice, neat fossil layers with older fossils being found in the deepest layers and newer fossils being found in the newest layers.  This simply is not true at all
The fossil layers are not found in the ground in the nice neat clean order that evolutionists illustrate them to be in their textbooks. There is not one place on the surface of the earth where you may dig straight down and pass through the fossil layers in the order shown in the textbooks. The neat order of one layer upon another does not exist in nature. The fossil bearing layers are actually found out of order, upside down (backwards according to evolutionary theory), missing (from where evolutionists would expect them to be) or interlaced (“younger” and “older” layers found in repeating sequences). “Out of place” fossils are the rule and not the exception throughout the fossil record.
#28 Evolutionists believe that the ancestors of birds developed hollow bones over thousands of generations so that they would eventually be light enough to fly.  This makes absolutely no sense and is beyond ridiculous.
#29 If dinosaurs really are tens of millions of years old, why have scientists found dinosaur bones with soft tissue still in them?  The following is from an NBC News report about one of these discoveries…
For more than a century, the study of dinosaurs has been limited to fossilized bones. Now, researchers have recovered 70 million-year-old soft tissue, including what may be blood vessels and cells, from a Tyrannosaurus rex.
#30 Which evolved first: blood, the heart, or the blood vessels for the blood to travel through?
#31 Which evolved first: the mouth, the stomach, the digestive fluids, or the ability to poop?
#32 Which evolved first: the windpipe, the lungs, or the ability of the body to use oxygen?
#33 Which evolved first: the bones, ligaments, tendons, blood supply, or the muscles to move the bones?
#34 In order for blood to clot, more than 20 complex steps need to successfully be completed. How in the world did that process possibly evolve?
#35 DNA is so incredibly complex that it is absolutely absurd to suggest that such a language system could have “evolved” all by itself by accident…
When it comes to storing massive amounts of information, nothing comes close to the efficiency of DNA. A single strand of DNA is thousands of times thinner than a strand of human hair. One pinhead of DNA could hold enough information to fill a stack of books stretching from the earth to the moon 500 times.
Although DNA is wound into tight coils, your cells can quickly access, copy, and translate the information stored in DNA. DNA even has a built-in proofreader and spell-checker that ensure precise copying. Only about one mistake slips through for every 10 billion nucleotides that are copied.
#36 Can you solve the following riddle by Perry Marshall?…
1) DNA is not merely a molecule with a pattern; it is a code, a language, and an information storage mechanism.
2) All codes are created by a conscious mind; there is no natural process known to science that creates coded information.
3) Therefore DNA was designed by a mind.
If you can provide an empirical example of a code or language that occurs naturally, you’ve toppled my proof. All you need is one.
#37 Evolutionists simply cannot explain why our planet is so perfectly suited to support life.
#38 Shells from living snails have been “carbon dated” to be 27,000 years old.
#39 If humans have been around for so long, where are all of the bones and all of the graves?  The following is an excerpt from an article by Don Batten
Evolutionists also claim there was a ‘Stone Age’ of about 100,000 years when between one million and 10 million people lived on Earth. Fossil evidence shows that people buried their dead, often with artefacts—cremation was not practised until relatively recent times (in evolutionary thinking). If there were just one million people alive during that time, with an average generation time of 25 years, they should have buried 4 billion bodies, and many artefacts. If there were 10 million people, it would mean 40 billion bodies buried in the earth. If the evolutionary timescale were correct, then we would expect the skeletons of the buried bodies to be largely still present after 100,000 years, because many ordinary bones claimed to be much older have been found. However, even if the bodies had disintegrated, lots of artefacts should still be found.
#40 Evolutionists claim that just because it looks like we were designed that does not mean that we actually were.  They often speak of the “illusion of design”, but that is kind of like saying that it is an “illusion” that a 747 airplane or an Apple iPhone were designed.  And of course the human body is far more complex that a 747 or an iPhone.
#41 If you want to be part of the “scientific community” today, you must accept the theory of evolution no matter how absurd it may seem to you.  Richard Lewontin of Harvard once made the following comment regarding this harsh reality…
We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism. . . . we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.
#42 Time Magazine once made the following statement about the lack of evidence for the theory of evolution…
“Yet despite more than a century of digging, the fossil record remains maddeningly sparse. With so few clues, even a single bone that doesn’t fit into the picture can upset everything. Virtually every major discovery has put deep cracks in the conventional wisdom and forced scientists to concoct new theories, amid furious debate.”
#43 Malcolm Muggeridge, the world famous journalist and philosopher, once made the following statement about the absurdity of the theory of evolution…
“I myself am convinced that the theory of evolution, especially the extent to which it’s been applied, will be one of the great jokes in the history books of the future. Posterity will marvel that so very flimsy and dubious an hypothesis could be accepted with the incredible credulity that it has.”
#44 In order to believe the theory of evolution, you must have enough blind faith to believe that life just popped into existence from nonlife, and that such life just happened to have the ability to take in the nourishment it needed, to expel waste, and to reproduce itself, all the while having everything it needed to survive in the environment in which it suddenly found itself. Do you have that much blind faith?

For years, I have been looking for someone that can explain to me the very best evidence for the theory of evolution in a systematic way.  My challenge has been for someone to lay out for me a basic outline of the facts that “prove” that evolution is true.
Perhaps you believe that you are up to the challenge.
I’ll even get you started…
A)
#1
#2
#3
B)
#1
#2
#3
C)
#1
#2
#3
If you think that you can prove that evolution is true, please leave a comment below with your best shot.
Or if you would like to discuss additional evidence for why you believe that the theory of evolution is false, please feel free to share it by posting a comment below.
For those that would like to learn more, there are a couple of videos that I would recommend.  One is entitled “Evolution vs. God“…

- See more at: http://www.thedailysheeple.com/44-reasons-why-evolution-is-just-a-fairy-tale-for-adults_012014#sthash.9E9pG7SU.A4LJGwBE.dpuf

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Did I read that right? Funny signs and newspaper headlines!



“TOILET OUT OF ORDER.   PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW.”

AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES:   PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT.

BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS...

WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN.

AFTER TEA BREAK, STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD.

WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING - BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS...
ELEPHANTS, PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR.

FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN'T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR.

THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.

IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS.

WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD ON THE DOOR - THE BELL DOESN'T WORK.)

MAN KILLS SELF BEFORE SHOOTING WIFE AND DAUGHTER

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over

Miners Refuse to Work after Death

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

War Dims Hope for Peace

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges

Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks

Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors



Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Libya. The wholesale, full scale destruction of a country.

The wholesale destruction of the economy of Libya.  A country that 40 years ago was considered the poorest country on the face of the earth.
Libya and Mohamar Gadaffi reigned for 42 years.   He was not a nice man in many ways.   But I believe he gave his nation much more than we have today in 2015.

1951 Libya was officially the poorest country in the world.  By 1979 Libya had a per capita income and standard of living that exceeded that of Italy and the U.K.
They were enjoying a quality of life to be had greater than the us after the credit crisis.
No mayors senators or legislature.   Every Libyan had the same vote and power.
They enjoyed benefits that are only dreamed of in America.
Bank loans to all citizens at 0%
50% subsidy on cars.
Everyone had a house.   Because houses were considered by Gadaffi as a human right.
Each month every family received $400.00 from the sale of Libyan oil.
Education from kindergarten through post graduate school was free.  As was all healthcare.
If a graduate could not find a job after graduation, they were given unemployment compensation equal to the average salary of the person’s profession until employment could be found.
Literacy jumped from 25% in the pre-Gaddafi era to 83% today.
25% of Libyans had a university degree
If a Libyan would take up a career in farming, he would receive the farm, including land, house, equipment, seeds and livestock, all for free.  It was an incentive Gaddafi used to move the country toward agricultural independence.
The price of gasoline was 53 cents per gallon.
15 cents would buy 40 loaves of bread.
Electricity and water also considered human rights by Gadaffi and were also free.
At the time of Gadaffi’s death he had a 90% approval rating from the Libyan people.
Libya had no debt and boasted some of the largest surpluses of any county in the world, and enjoyed one of the very lowest crime rates.
The country was known regionally as the Switzerland of North Africa.
Gadaffi’s most ambitious project was the digging of hundreds of deep fresh water wells, and building an aqueduct system that was hailed by many as the 8th Wonder of the world to reclaim 100’s of thousands of acres of Sahara dessert into production farmland.  Libya was thought to have enough fresh water underground to last 6,000 years even with agricultural use.
The government owned 144 tons ofgold which was the second largest amount of any nation in Africa. That’s about 20 times more per capita than the U.K.
Gadaffi successfully formed the African Union a political bloc of 54 nations with a combined population of nearly 900 million people.
Gadaffi was about to launch the first fully gold-backed currency to grace the globe in over 78 years.   And was proposing to trade oil in that currency and not the $$$$$.
I wonder why the U.S. was so intent on seeing him overthrown?