String Theory

Another ipod post

Doug — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 15:09:27 +0000

Just trying our my iPod and seeing of I have it working correctly

New Home page

Doug — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:43:04 +0000

Well, if you came here from my main page, Welcome.

Anyone that comes straight to the blog I have uploaded a new home page on the root URL. No it’s not fancy but it does get the job done.

Test

Doug — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:10:19 +0000

Test post from my iPod

Scrappy dog

Doug — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:15:43 +0000

Since it seems to be a mandatory thing, I am going to start writing about the crazy stuff my dog does. Well because everyone loves crazy dog stories!

New Goal

Doug — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:28:19 +0000

I am setting Firefox to open my WP dashboard everyday. I am going to get in the habit of writing something new every day.

Enjoy

Discussion 2 – Which of these three claims is most important?

Doug — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:38:18 +0000

Defense and Refutation Points

Assignment:

After reading the Doctrine of Truth documents in the Instructor’s Notes folder, answer the following questions:

a) Which three of these claims is most important to defend today, and why?
b) Which three of the claims to refute are most urgent?
c) Then choose one from each of your groups of three, and post a defense of the one and a refutation of the other

The three points that we must defend are:

1. The Bible is the inerrant Word of God.

a. We must defend this point because if the Bible is not true everything we believe is false and we have no hope.

2. Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, to peace with God.

a. We must defend this point otherwise Christians are fools because there are much easier ways to live than living as a Christian.

3. Mankind is a special creation of God, not the product of evolution or of impersonal forces in the universe.

a. If evolution were true then humans cannot express authority in any area of life because we would be no better than least of creatures.

The three points we must refute are:

1. All religions lead to the same god.

a. If this is true then Jesus is a liar and everything he said and did is irrelevant.

2. The Bible is a human book, a product of the religious experiences of one people.

a. This statement itself contradicts itself. While Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all have branching points, all three agree that the Old Testament is true.

3. We are the end product of evolution, the crowning achievement of the forces of nature.

a. This statement also refutes itself; if evolution is true there is no crowning achievement but rather simply a current placeholder to eventually be replaced.

Defend: The Bible is the inerrant Word of God.

There are two main reasons to believe that the Bible is God’s word. First there is the archeological evidence. Secondly are the references to the Bible is other literary works.

Archeologists often use the Bible as a source point for their research and digs. The Biblical references are found to be true sometimes overturning long held academic points. Also, many discoveries when cross-referenced line up with Biblical descriptions. One of the most recent and powerful examples is finding carved references to ‘the house of David’. Until this point there had not been ‘historical’ records of David.

As an English major part of my studies was the entomology of words and works of literature. The Bible is one of the few historical writings that can be completely reconstructed using only secondary resources. There are literally so many quotes from the Bible that are used in other writings, showing where they come from, that is every Bible on the planet vanished God’s word could be reconstructed in its entirety, intact, and placed in proper order. Only God could create a miracle that protects his Word in such a way that it could never be wiped out.

Refute: We are the end product of evolution, the crowning achievement of the forces of nature.

Evolution is the theory that science uses to explain the origins and development of humanity. Consider the concept: from nothing comes something. How can this be? Well no proof can be provided; we are told to just accept it, on faith. As Christians we cannot accept this theory as fact. The Bible says that Man was created in the image of God. If evolution were correct then our faith would mean that humanity is nothing because we are in the image of nothing.

Science itself refutes the concept of evolution. The ‘natural’ state of the universe is chaotic. The third law of Thermodynamics states ‘that without energy being put into a system it will breakdown to its component parts’. Another term for this is entropy; Christians know this as death. Evolution asks that one believe that major changes can be made to a system and it not fail. Clearly this is not true.

Even when there is the appearance of change it is not change. The best example of the appearance of change is the common dog. No matter the changes man has bred into the species it is still genetically a wolf. The DNA match between a poodle and a wolf is nearly 100%.

How does this apply to man? It shows that despite our racial looks and adaptations to local environmental conditions we are still humans. Evolution says that because of these differences we should be different species now. Yet we are not so clearly the theory of evolution is wrong.

Discussion 1 – The three most important reasons for including apologetics as a part of my ministry are…

Doug — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:37:09 +0000

The three most important reasons for including apologetics as a part of my ministry are…

1. A post-modern scientific method trained person needs the logic

I began my career as a teacher. I have taught at all levels of education from elementary to college. I have spent much time talking to students and have found that no matter the sophistication level of their education they had one thing in common: a brain structured around the cause and effect structure of the scientific method of learning. People today are taught to question everything with a post-modern mindset that says that if there is not an empirical proof of something then it doesn’t exist and often the existence is questioned because truth if any kind is considered personal.

Ironically this mindset of questioning grew out of the great minds of the Renaissance, most of who were practicing Christians, using their belief in God as the foundation that there was structure in the universe and because there is structure we could look and examine it. The Renaissance thinkers created the process that began to explain the physical laws of the universe because they felt that the spiritual laws were settled in Christianity.

Today this has lead people to not have ‘Truth’ in their lives because everything is open to question. By using logic and ‘if-then-else’ processes we are able to meet people at the mental training level they have received in school.

2. We need to equip people to provide answers to challenges presented to them

Because of the mindset talked about above, Christians need to be able to provide well reasoned presentations about how God influences life. We must have counter-arguments ready for “it works for you but not for me”. I was listening to a news story this week that said we are loosing our children to the world in middle school now specifically because the kids have no way to respond to the constant attacks they are under.

For most of my life I was taught that ‘getting saved’ was an emotional decision. I now believe that this is a false statement. I believe that it is a miracle to be saved. Yes, emotion plays a part as does logic. But if Salvation is left to them what do we have when logic and emotion fail? A parallel is love for a spouse – there will be times when we really don’t like them (perhaps even hate them) but God shows that love is so much more than the emotion – it is the commitment. Jesus did not go to the Cross for and emotion he went because he was committed to His Father’s will.

3. To reply and prevent false-teachings

Today we live in a multi-cultural world just as the early Apostles did. America and the world has become a place where religion is often the thought of the moment. We have parishioners who hang on every word that Oprah speaks and follow her as they would a prophet. The Apostles faced the same thing with the multi-culturalism of the Romans and Greeks . The Romans never met a religion they didn’t like. As was shown in the Bible Pilate executed Jesus as a political move not for any disagreement religiously.

False teaching come to our parishioners from the major world religions and from within Christianity itself. I have heard many Christians quote “Buddha says…”. Politically we are told that all religions are equal and are peaceful. Within Christianity we have false teaching coming in the forms of ‘prosperity’ and cults such as David Koresh. Finally there are false teaching from pseudo-Christian religions such as Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses that try to speak and act as Christianity.

Apologetics 500 – Opening Post

Doug — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:35:36 +0000

Welcome back to my seminary journey. I have had a few readers since I began posting these works. I look forward to reader comments.

I will post each assignment as I do it. The first comments will be from classmates and then I will open comments up to the public.

Doug

A New Idea to write about

Doug — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:03:21 +0000

I have been giving some thought on how to write about my hobby of comic book collecting and on here and this not just become another ‘fanboy’ space. I have decided to try to write about the things that make of comic book universes in a serious manner. I guess you could say that the classic ‘conceit’ of the project is that I am going to write as if I am a serious scientific and cultural research in these universes.

For my first project I have decided to look at the genus standing of the various Homo - species that exist in the Marvel Universe. I may do an article examining the differences between the power bases of the Marvel and DC universes to lay some groundwork as well.

I think this will be a fun project and could lead to some interesting things. I may put up a wiki to use with this work.

I hope you enjoy this. Let me know.

Charcol Roast

Doug — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:50:49 +0000

I cooked my first pot roast last night. Everything was going well and it smelled great.

I got a call from my Mom and she said she had made meatloaf and Kelly wanted to go out there when she heard.

I forgot to turn the oven off when we left.

*sigh*

There was nothing left but a charcolly cider when I got home. Oh well, I’ll try again.