God's Questions

Matt Dillahunty Meme 1

Wishful Thinking Dawkins

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Dawkins claims that the religious are wishful thinkers but his "faith" in biological and chemical evolution is vastly misplaced. and no amount of wishful thinking will change the truth that life could not evolve nor diversify as it has or the truth that the actual scientific evidence does not support Darwinian theory. But don't take my word for it - or Dawkins. Read the journals yourself! Here is the link to the full cited article: Discovery org article

Of course Dawkins would probably rather have you read your Bible than articles like this!

Sam v Saunders Meme

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Sam Alex Meme

Angry Kitten Meme

Hitch-slap

Aristides Meme

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Foundations Meme

One Does Not Simply Meme

Forsaken Meme

Impossible 3

The Gerasene Meme

Only through Jesus can we be found seated, clothed and in our right mind. Other people will fear this, wanting none of it or they will focus on the worldly losses (like a drowned herd of pigs), they will cast Jesus out of the lives but we will be left among them to tell them about the Lord's mercy and some of them will yet be amazed.

Mark 5 is rich in symbolism. What chains of false religion are attempting to shakle you? What chains of self improvement have you torn up in moral failure? What tombs have you been hiding in? will you come to the Lord of glory even now to ask for his aid?

Impossible 2

Impossible

Hitchens Meme

Why do I think this?

Well here is a famous Russian thinker speaking about the consequence of atheism on his country...

“Men Have Forgotten God” – The Templeton Address
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

More than half a century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
Since then I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.
What is more, the events of the Russian Revolution can only be understood now, at the end of the century, against the background of what has since occurred in the rest of the world. What emerges here is a process of universal significance. And if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God.

The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century.

The failings of human consciousness, deprived of its divine dimension, have been a determining factor in all the major crimes of this century. The first of these was World War I, and much of our present predicament can be traced back to it. It was a war (the memory of which seems to be fading) when Europe, bursting with health and abundance, fell into a rage of self-mutilation which could not but sap its strength for a century or more, and perhaps forever. The only possible explanation for this war is a mental eclipse among the leaders of Europe due to their lost awareness of a Supreme Power above them. Only a godless embitterment could have moved ostensibly Christian states to employ poison gas, a weapon so obviously beyond the limits of humanity.
The same kind of defect, the flaw of a consciousness lacking all divine dimension, was manifested after World War II when the West yielded to the satanic temptation of the “nuclear umbrella.” It was equivalent to saying: Let’s cast off worries, let’s free the younger generation from their duties and obligations, let’s make no effort to defend ourselves, to say nothing of defending others-let’s stop our ears to the groans emanating from the East, and let us live instead in the pursuit of happiness. If danger should threaten us, we shall be protected by the nuclear bomb; if not, then let the world burn in Hell for all we care. The pitifully helpless state to which the contemporary West has sunk is in large measure due to this fatal error: the belief that the defense of peace depends not on stout hearts and steadfast men, but solely on the nuclear bomb…
Today’ s world has reached a stage which, if it had been described to preceding centuries, would have called forth the cry: “This is the Apocalypse!”
Yet we have grown used to this kind of world; we even feel at home in it.
Dostoevsky warned that “great events could come upon us and catch us intellectually unprepared.” This is precisely what has happened. And he predicted that “the world will be saved only after it has been possessed by the demon of evil.” Whether it really will be saved we shall have to wait and see: this will depend on our conscience, on our spiritual lucidity, on our individual and combined efforts in the face of catastrophic circumstances. But it has already come to pass that the demon of evil, like a whirlwind, triumphantly circles all five continents of the earth…

By the time of the Revolution, faith had virtually disappeared in Russian educated circles; and amongst the uneducated, its health was threatened.

In its past, Russia did know a time when the social ideal was not fame, or riches, or material success, but a pious way of life. Russia was then steeped in an Orthodox Christianity which remained true to the Church of the first centuries. The Orthodoxy of that time knew how to safeguard its people under the yoke of a foreign occupation that lasted more than two centuries, while at the same time fending off iniquitous blows from the swords of Western crusaders. During those centuries the Orthodox faith in our country became part of the very pattern of thought and the personality of our people, the forms of daily life, the work calendar, the priorities in every undertaking, the organization of the week and of the year. Faith was the shaping and unifying force of the nation.
But in the 17th century Russian Orthodoxy was gravely weakened by an internal schism. In the 18th, the country was shaken by Peter’s forcibly imposed transformations, which favored the economy, the state, and the military at the expense of the religious spirit and national life. And along with this lopsided Petrine enlightenment, Russia felt the first whiff of secularism; its subtle poisons permeated the educated classes in the course of the 19th century and opened the path to Marxism. By the time of the Revolution, faith had virtually disappeared in Russian educated circles; and amongst the uneducated, its health was threatened.
It was Dostoevsky, once again, who drew from the French Revolution and its seeming hatred of the Church the lesson that “revolution must necessarily begin with atheism.” That is absolutely true. But the world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that practiced by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions. Militant atheism is not merely incidental or marginal to Communist policy; it is not a side effect, but the central pivot.
The 1920’s in the USSR witnessed an uninterrupted procession of victims and martyrs amongst the Orthodox clergy. Two metropolitans were shot, one of whom, Veniamin of Petrograd, had been elected by the popular vote of his diocese. Patriarch Tikhon himself passed through the hands of the Cheka-GPU and then died under suspicious circumstances. Scores of archbishops and bishops perished. Tens of thousands of priests, monks, and nuns, pressured by the Chekists to renounce the Word of God, were tortured, shot in cellars, sent to camps, exiled to the desolate tundra of the far North, or turned out into the streets in their old age without food or shelter. All these Christian martyrs went unswervingly to their deaths for the faith; instances of apostasy were few and far between. For tens of millions of laymen access to the Church was blocked, and they were forbidden to bring up their children in the Faith: religious parents were wrenched from their children and thrown into prison, while the children were turned from the faith by threats and lies…
For a short period of time, when he needed to gather strength for the struggle against Hitler, Stalin cynically adopted a friendly posture toward the Church. This deceptive game, continued in later years by Brezhnev with the help of showcase publications and other window dressing, has unfortunately tended to be taken at its face value in the West. Yet the tenacity with which hatred of religion is rooted in Communism may be judged by the example of their most liberal leader, Krushchev: for though he undertook a number of significant steps to extend freedom, Krushchev simultaneously rekindled the frenzied Leninist obsession with destroying religion.

But there is something they did not expect: that in a land where churches have been leveled, where a triumphant atheism has rampaged uncontrolled for two-thirds of a century, where the clergy is utterly humiliated and deprived of all independence, where what remains of the Church as an institution is tolerated only for the sake of propaganda directed at the West, where even today people are sent to the labor camps for their faith, and where, within the camps themselves, those who gather to pray at Easter are clapped in punishment cells–they could not suppose that beneath this Communist steamroller the Christian tradition would survive in Russia. It is true that millions of our countrymen have been corrupted and spiritually devastated by an officially imposed atheism, yet there remain many millions of believers: it is only external pressures that keep them from speaking out, but, as is always the case in times of persecution and suffering, the awareness of God in my country has attained great acuteness and profundity.

It is here that we see the dawn of hope: for no matter how formidably Communism bristles with tanks and rockets, no matter what successes it attains in seizing the planet, it is doomed never to vanquish Christianity.

The West has yet to experience a Communist invasion; religion here remains free. But the West’s own historical evolution has been such that today it too is experiencing a drying up of religious consciousness. It too has witnessed racking schisms, bloody religious wars, and rancor, to say nothing of the tide of secularism that, from the late Middle Ages onward, has progressively inundated the West. This gradual sapping of strength from within is a threat to faith that is perhaps even more dangerous than any attempt to assault religion violently from without.

Imperceptibly, through decades of gradual erosion, the meaning of life in the West has ceased to be seen as anything more lofty than the “pursuit of happiness, “a goal that has even been solemnly guaranteed by constitutions. The concepts of good and evil have been ridiculed for several centuries; banished from common use, they have been replaced by political or class considerations of short lived value. It has become embarrassing to state that evil makes its home in the individual human heart before it enters a political system. Yet it is not considered shameful to make dally concessions to an integral evil. Judging by the continuing landslide of concessions made before the eyes of our very own generation, the West is ineluctably slipping toward the abyss. Western societies are losing more and more of their religious essence as they thoughtlessly yield up their younger generation to atheism. If a blasphemous film about Jesus is shown throughout the United States, reputedly one of the most religious countries in the world, or a major newspaper publishes a shameless caricature of the Virgin Mary, what further evidence of godlessness does one need? When external rights are completely unrestricted, why should one make an inner effort to restrain oneself from ignoble acts?

Or why should one refrain from burning hatred, whatever its basis–race, class, or ideology? Such hatred is in fact corroding many hearts today. Atheist teachers in the West are bringing up a younger generation in a spirit of hatred of their own society. Amid all the vituperation we forget that the defects of capitalism represent the basic flaws of human nature, allowed unlimited freedom together with the various human rights; we forget that under Communism (and Communism is breathing down the neck of all moderate forms of socialism, which are unstable) the identical flaws run riot in any person with the least degree of authority; while everyone else under that system does indeed attain “equality”–the equality of destitute slaves. This eager fanning of the flames of hatred is becoming the mark of today’s free world. Indeed, the broader the personal freedoms are, the higher the level of prosperity or even of abundance–the more vehement, paradoxically, does this blind hatred become. The contemporary developed West thus demonstrates by its own example that human salvation can be found neither in the profusion of material goods nor in merely making money.

This deliberately nurtured hatred then spreads to all that is alive, to life itself, to the world with its colors, sounds, and shapes, to the human body. The embittered art of the twentieth century is perishing as a result of this ugly hate, for art is fruitless without love. In the East art has collapsed because it has been knocked down and trampled upon, but in the West the fall has been voluntary, a decline into a contrived and pretentious quest where the artist, instead of attempting to reveal the divine plan, tries to put himself in the place of God.
Here again we witness the single outcome of a worldwide process, with East and West yielding the same results, and once again for the same reason: Men have forgotten God.

With such global events looming over us like mountains, nay, like entire mountain ranges, it may seem incongruous and inappropriate to recall that the primary key to our being or non-being resides in each individual human heart, in the heart’s preference for specific good or evil. Yet this remains true even today, and it is, in fact, the most reliable key we have. The social theories that promised so much have demonstrated their bankruptcy, leaving us at a dead end. The free people of the West could reasonably have been expected to realize that they are beset · by numerous freely nurtured falsehoods, and not to allow lies to be foisted upon them so easily. All attempts to find a way out of the plight of today’s world are fruitless unless we redirect our consciousness, in repentance, to the Creator of all: without this, no exit will be illumined, and we shall seek it in vain. The resources we have set aside for ourselves are too impoverished for the task. We must first recognize the horror perpetrated not by some outside force, not by class or national enemies, but within each of us individually, and within every society. This is especially true of a free and highly developed society, for here in particular we have surely brought everything upon ourselves, of our own free will. We ourselves, in our daily unthinking selfishness, are pulling tight that noose…

Our life consists not in the pursuit of material success but in the quest for worthy spiritual growth. Our entire earthly existence is but a transitional stage in the movement toward something higher, and we must not stumble and fall, nor must we linger fruitlessly on one rung of the ladder. Material laws alone do not explain our life or give it direction. The laws of physics and physiology will never reveal the indisputable manner in which the Creator constantly, day in and day out, participates in the life of each of us, unfailingly granting us the energy of existence; when this assistance leaves us, we die. And in the life of our entire planet, the Divine Spirit surely moves with no less force: this we must grasp in our dark and terrible hour.
To the ill-considered hopes of the last two centuries, which have reduced us to insignificance and brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can propose only a determined quest for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently spurned. Only in this way can our eyes be opened to the errors of this unfortunate twentieth century and our bands be directed to setting them right. There is nothing else to cling to in the landslide: the combined vision of all the thinkers of the Enlightenment amounts to nothing.
Our five continents are caught in a whirlwind. But it is during trials such as these that the highest gifts of the human spirit are manifested. If we perish and lose this world, the fault will be ours alone.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “Godlessness: the First Step to the Gulag”. Templeton Prize Lecture, 10 May 1983 (London).

Edison Meme

Daniel Radcliffe Meme

Comprehending Pink’s Commandments Part 31

Foreword:

The following exerpt is taken from The Ten Commandments  by Arthur W. Pink

(BAKER BOOK HOUSE, 1994 GRAND RAPIDS, MI)

In this blog series I will work through this very important article a paragraph at a time – asking my reader comprehension style questions at the end. I have been much convicted by the writings of Pink and I pray your walk will also be strengthened meditating on his teaching of scripture …

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT PART III

Secondly, let us observe our duties to rulers and magistrates whom God has set over us. These are God's deputies and vicegerents, being invested with authority from Him: "by Me kings reign" (Prov. 8:15). God has ordained civil authority for the general good of mankind, for were it not for this men would be savage beasts preying upon one another. Did not the fear of magistrates restrain those who have cast off the fear of God, were they not afraid of temporal punishments, we should be as safe among lions and tigers as among men. Rulers are to be honored in our thoughts, regarding them as the official representatives of God upon earth (Eccl. 10:20; Rom. 13:lff; Acts 23:5). They are to be revered in our speeches, supporting their office and authority, for of the wicked it is written, "they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities" (2 Pet. 2:20). We are to obey them. "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well" (1 Pet. 2:13, 14). We are to render "tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour" (Rom. 13:7). We are to pray for them (1 Tim. 2:1, 2).

1) Considering that Peter and Paul wrote these scriptures (referred to at the end of the exerpt) at a time when a truly ruthless man was ruling as Ceasar and was persecuting Christians in horrific ways – how much more should we obey when over us are placed (for the moment) far more benevolent rulers?

2) It has ever been God’s wonderful way that he would use imperfect mankind and imperfect men to achieve his Holy will. That he would use a man like me to be a messenger to the world offering the hope of salvation in Jesus is proof that God really can draw a straight line with a bent stick.  Therefore we should apply the same reasoning to following the edicts of those in authority over us even when these same are not Christians or are wicked in thought and deed. Again I ask, as I did in a previous enstallment of this series: what is the one exception to this rule? When must we (as Christians) disobey rulers and authorities of any kind over us?

3) Finally imagine a world without authority. Imagine the chaos. The book and the film: 'Lord Of The Flies' has this idea as one of its core themes and I encourage you to read or see it. In truth it is better even to have a terrible regime than none at all, for within the terrible regime there will be honest, empathetic and honourable people who crave order and stability. Satan can never have it all his way. Pray then for your leaders without ceasing.

Natalie Portman Meme

Comprehending Pink’s Commandments Part 30

Foreword:

The following exerpt is taken from The Ten Commandments  by Arthur W. Pink

(BAKER BOOK HOUSE, 1994 GRAND RAPIDS, MI)

In this blog series I will work through this very important article a paragraph at a time – asking my reader comprehension style questions at the end. I have been much convicted by the writings of Pink and I pray your walk will also be strengthened meditating on his teaching of scripture …

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT PART II

First let us consider the duties of children to their parents. They are to love and reverence them, being fearful of offending due to the respect they bear them. A genuine filial veneration is to actuate children, so that they abstain from whatever would grieve or offend their parents. They are to be subject unto them: mark the blessed example which Christ has left (Luke 2:51). "Children obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord" (Col. 3:20). After David was anointed for the throne, he fulfilled his father's appointment by tending his sheep (1 Sam. 16:19). They are to hearken to their instructions and imitate their godly practices (Prov. 6:20). Their language must ever be respectful and their gestures betoken submission. Though Joseph was so highly exalted in Egypt, he "bowed himself with his face to the ground" before his father (Gen. 48:12). And note how king Solomon honored his mother (1 Kings 2:19). As far as they are able and their parents have need, they are to provide for them in old age (1 Tim. 5:16).

1) How can we as parents foster a “genuine filial veneration” in our children and what do we sometimes do that would inhibit it?

2) Do our children properly understand what “would grieve or offend” us and have we made such actions clear to them and are our demands resonable and biblical and do we ourselves live by them?

3) Can you think of how Jesus fulfilled this commandment in his youth to Joseph and Mary, in his ministry to his Father in Heaven and finally again to Mary when he was on the cross? Does his example convict you?

Newton Meme

Hemmingway Meme

The importance of being ernest Ernest is that you need to be ernest about the truth. An author ought to know the power and importance of words like "all". Hemminway clearly needed to do more thinking.

Comprehending Pink’s Commandments Part 29

Foreword:

The following exerpt is taken from The Ten Commandments  by Arthur W. Pink

(BAKER BOOK HOUSE, 1994 GRAND RAPIDS, MI)

In this blog series I will work through this very important article a paragraph at a time – asking my reader comprehension style questions at the end. I have been much convicted by the writings of Pink and I pray your walk will also be strengthened meditating on his teaching of scripture …

THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT PART I

This commandment to honor parents is much broader in its scope than appears at first glance. It is not to be restricted to our literal father and mother, but is to be applied to all our superiors. "The end of the Precept is, that since the Lord God desires the preservation of the order He has appointed, the degrees of preeminence fixed by Him ought to be inviolably preserved. The sum of it therefore will be that we should reverence them whom God has exalted to any authority over us, and should render them honor, obedience, and gratitude.... But as this precept is exceedingly repugnant to the depravity of human nature, whose ardent desire of exaltation will scarcely admit of subjection, it has therefore proposed as an example that kind of superiority which is naturally most amiable and least invidious, because that might the more easily mollify and incline our minds to a habit of submission" (Calvin).

Lest any of our readers--in this socialistic and communistic age, when insubordination and lawlessness is the evil spirit of our day--object to this wider interpretation of the commandment, let us ponder the following considerations. First, "honor" belongs primarily and principaliy to God. Secondarily, and by derivation, it pertains also to those whom He has dignified and made nobles in His kingdom, by raising them above others and bestowing titles and dominion upon them. We ought to revere these just as surely as we do our fathers and mothers. In Scripture the word "honor" has an extensive application, as may be seen from 1 Tim. 5:17; 1 Pet. 2:17, etc. Secondly, observe that the title "father" is given to kings (1 Sam. 24:11; Isa. 49:23), masters (2 Kings 5:13), and ministers of the Gospel (2 Kings 2:12; Gal. 4:19).

"Wherefore it ought not be doubted that God here lays down a universal rule for our conduct, namely, that to every one whom we know to be placed in authority over us by His appointment, we should render reverence, obedience, gratitude, and all the other services in our power. Nor does it make any difference whether they are worthy of this honor or not. For whatever be their characters, yet it is not without the appointment of the Divine providence that they have attained that station on account of which the supreme Legislator has commanded them to be honored. He has particularly enjoined reverence to our parents, who have brought us into this life" (Calvin). It scarcely needs to be said that the duty enforced here is of a reciprocal nature, those of inferiors implying a corresponding obligation on superiors; but limited space obliges us to consider here only the duties resting on subjects to their rulers.

1) Those with responsibility must be given authority – discuss this statement in the light of Pink’s: “(the fifth commandment) is not to be restricted to our literal father and mother, but is to be applied to all our superiors”.

2) Restate the two quotes of Calvin in your own words.

3) In the current political climate, how do we fall short in honouring politicians? Do you need to repent of hatred and/or rebellion against those whom God has put in authority over you?

4) According to Scripture, when is the only time we should resist those in authority over us, be they parents, employers, politicians or even church elders?

Tim Minchin Meme

Ohhh Gwyneth

Comprehending Pink’s Commandments Part 28

Foreword:

The following exerpt is taken from The Ten Commandments  by Arthur W. Pink

(BAKER BOOK HOUSE, 1994 GRAND RAPIDS, MI)

In this blog series I will work through this very important article a paragraph at a time – asking my reader comprehension style questions at the end. I have been much convicted by the writings of Pink and I pray your walk will also be strengthened meditating on his teaching of scripture …

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT PART IV

This Commandment makes it clear that God is to be worshipped in the home, which, of course, inculcates the practice of family worship. It is addressed more specifically than any of the other nine Commandments to heads of households and to employers, because God requires them to see to it that all under their charge shall observe the Sabbath. To them, more immediately, God says, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." It is to be strictly set apart to the honor of the thrice holy God, spent in the exercises of holy contemplation, meditation, and adoration. Because it is the day which He has made (Psa. 118:24), we must do nothing to unmake it. This Commandment forbids the omission of any duties required, a careless performing of the same, or a weariness in them. The more faithfully we keep this Commandment, the better prepared shall we be to obey the other nine. Three classes of works, and three only, may be engaged in on the "Holy Sabbath." Works of necessity, which are those that could not be done on the preceding day and that cannot be deferred till the next--such as tending to cattle. Works of mercy, which are those that compassion requires us to perform toward other creatures--such as ministering to the sick. Works of piety, which are the worship of God in public and in private, using with thankfulness and delight all the means of grace which He has provided. We need to watch and strive against the very first suggestions of Satan to corrupt our hearts, divert our minds, or disturb us in holy duties, praying earnestly for help to meditate upon God's Word and to retain what He gives us. The Lord makes the sacred observance of His Day of special blessing; and contrariwise, He visits the profanation of the Sabbath with special cursing (see Neh. 13:17, 18), as our guilty land is now proving to its bitter cost.

"A Sabbath well spent, brings a week of content

And strength for the toils of the morrow;

But a Sabbath profaned, whate'er may be gained

Is a certain forerunner of sorrow."

1) As was correctly observed by my pastor at church this very Sunday: – the man is the spiritual leader of the home; in a sense the pastor of the home. It is therefore the duty of the man to see to it that he has a clear conscience about how he first and his family second follows the fourth commandment. If you are a man of God examine your own leadership of your home on Sunday. Do you fall short of the mark? What improvements can be made? How can Saturday be spent better so that Sunday is more holy?

2) “The more faithfully we keep this Commandment, the better prepared shall we be to obey the other nine.” What fraction of the week do we really owe to God? Half? Seven out of seven? A third? And what fraction does He merely ask us for? I keeping the day holy a box to be checked or an attitude of the heart that flows over into obedience in the other commanments?

3) We are all guilty to some degree of bringing some part of the week into our Sunday. How can we bring Sunday into every day of our week instead?

4) At what point does avoiding work on a Sunday become a work in of itself? How do we judge our use of the time rightly and what do we do when we suspect we have it wrong? Who is Lord even of the sabbath?

5) Finally reading Nehemiah below and thinking on why God instituted the Sabbath Law – can you identify the carrot (reward/blessing) and the stick.

"In those days I saw people in Judah treading winepresses on the Sabbath and bringing in grain and loading it on donkeys, together with wine, grapes, figs and all other kinds of loads. And they were bringing all this into Jerusalem on the Sabbath. Therefore I warned them against selling food on that day. 16 People from Tyre who lived in Jerusalem were bringing in fish and all kinds of merchandise and selling them in Jerusalem on the Sabbath to the people of Judah. 17 I rebuked the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this wicked thing you are doing—desecrating the Sabbath day? 18 Didn’t your ancestors do the same things, so that our God brought all this calamity on us and on this city? Now you are stirring up more wrath against Israel by desecrating the Sabbath.” (Nehmiah 13:15 – 18)

Anthony Bourdain

Atheist's Challenge