2009-03-14

Josh Harris quotes Phil Ryken, who reminds us that Christians have, through the centuries of adversity, the church has held together in fellowship, prayer, and the apostles' teaching. Wherever they meet throughout the world, no matter what building, etc. they are worshipping, teaching, caring, and growing. This is exactly what we need as we enter the first post-Christian century in North America, and this culture needs what the church will do: To a relativistic culture, skeptical of meaning, the church preaches the truth of God's eternal Word. To a narcissistic culture, alienated by sin, the church issues an invitation to worship and fellowship. Philip Graham Ryken on the Church

Turretinfan responds to an obtuse Romanist objection that a Calvinist, to be consistent, must be an 'ecclesiastical relativist'. 1) God didn't leave 'an' institutional church but rather established to eldership model (carried over from the OT and modified somewhat). 2) The key characteristic of the church is truth. Truth is one, and believers are called to discern true churches from false churches. We are to test the churches by Scripture. 3) Calvinists are not relativists, in that they do not deny the existence of (absolute) truth. Calvinism doesn't explicitly speak to ecclesiology, but nevertheless it is by implication, as being identified chiefly with a monergistic view of salvation, predestination, and human responsibility, surely inconsistent with the idea that one church is as good as another. 4) Rome has in recent years tended towards ecumenical relations, calling Prots. separated brethren - they are becoming 'ecclesiastically relative!', although even those who think this still hold Rome to be the best way. Response to Jay Dyer on Calvinism (Part 9 of 13)

The WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) satellite was launched with the intention of mapping the very small anisotropies (temperature fluctuations) in the cosmic microwave radiation. On the basis of the WMAP analysis, many papers have claimed evidence for details of the big bang theory, such as the amounts of alleged ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’. An expert recently published two papers claiming that the analysis was flawed under standard radiological (analysis of radio waves) methodology. He argued that the maps contain no information of cosmological significance, certainly no information about the creation and history of the early universe. ‘the WMAP team must overcome virtually every hurdle known to imaging: foreground contamination and powerful dynamic range issues, low signal to noise, poor contrast, limited sample knowledge, lack of reproducibility, and associated resolution issues.' ''All of the cosmological constants which are presented by the WMAP team are devoid of true meaning, precisely because the images are so unreliable.’ http://creation.com/wmap-proof-of-big-bang-fails-normal-radiological-standards

This post from Genderblog brings some advice from a Mahaney book, Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God, providing a number of areas where a man and husband might ask, "Do you know how to surprise and delight your wife in specific ways in these areas? Understanding your wife's emotional welfare is very important, so he asks the question, "Do you know how your wife is faring in each of these areas?" and presents a list of areas. Intentional Manhood, Part III- Romance

John Walton points out that God's covenant with Abraham guaranteed that he would have an heir, despite their barrenness. Now, not only would barrenness be an obstacle to the covenant promise, but it would have been interpreted as divine judgment. An idea in ANE thinking was that a woman was a receptacle or incubator for the man's seed, so if she didn't get pregnant, she was a faulty incubator. "Sarai’s barrenness would have potentially resulted in a fragile marriage (since failure to deliver children to the family was the most common cause of divorce), in shame in society (since her condition was seemingly the result of having angered a god and she was therefore unable to fulfill her societal role), and in an uncertainty for the afterlife." It was common belief that the womb was always opened or closed by deity. These things set the stage for her pregnancy as being a most evident work of God. Backgrounds of Sarai's Barrenness

This post from AiG asks, Are mutations really the “key to our evolution”? Do mutations provide the fuel for the engine of evolution? It is credited as being the dominant mechanism for goo-to-you evolution. Mutations are primarily permanent changes in the DNA strand. The post draws an analogy to a corruption in a Morse code message, and then says that theoretically a mutation can cause two things: 1) loss of information. 2) Gain of new information. Virtually all observed mutations are in the category of loss of information. This is different from loss or gain of function. Some mutations can cause an organism to lose genetic information and yet gain some type of function. This is rare but has happened. In theory they could cause a gain of info, but this would have to equate to a gain in function or it would be useless (natural selection would be against it). There are point (e.g. cat to caa), inversion (e.g. the red to der eht), insertion ("the red car" to "the had red car"), deletion, and frame shift mutations. As to point, biophysicist Lee Spetner, “All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it.” As to insertions, they generally result in a protein that loses function. Frame shift mutations are usually detrimental to the organism by causing the resulting protein to be nonfunctional. Now, for molecules-to-man evolution to happen, there needs to be a gain in new information within the organism’s genetic material. Observations confirm that mutations overwhelmingly cause a loss of information, not a net gain, as evolution requires. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/wow/are-mutations-the-engine