No nation can continue to exist without both acknowledgment and devotion to God. “Righteousness exalts a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34). The Hebrew nation recognized God Almighty and observed great days of prayer and worship. Building on the religious understanding from the Bible, our Founding Fathers, from the beginning, set forth the role and importance of God and national days of prayer and thanksgiving. Such emphasis on God and prayer gives the nation’s culture a rich religious influence. Initially the citizens exalted God and observed these days with great solemnity and respect.
Read MoreImplications of the worldviews of Christian theism and antitheism are inferred from the first chapter of the New Testament Epistle to the Romans (Romans 1:18-32). A. T. Robertson wrote, “There people had already willfully deserted God. . . . The withdrawal of God’s restraint sent men deeper down. . . . [It is] the loss of God in the life of man” (330-31). They did not think it worthwhile (NIV), or did not see fit (NASV; ESV) to keep God in their minds. Vincent says, “They did not think God worth the knowing” (21). “[T]hey did not like to retain God in their knowledge” (v. 28, NKJV) means they “tested (Gk. dokimazo) God and made a decision about Him after a trial” (Rogers and Rogers 318). Lard says, “They preferred . . . to let the knowledge they had of [H]im perish from their minds. . . . They wished no farther acquaintance with [H]im” (62). This is the loss of God in human life that results from the loss of God in the belief system of the human mind.
Read MoreThe fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage of this army" (Federer 639). Those were the prophetic words of General George Washington, as he addressed his troops on July 20, 1776-—less than three weeks after the Declaration of Independence was signed. The General could not have known he was using a phrase that would, 226 years later, be declared un-American (i.e. unconstitutional) by a few highly placed but arrogant ingrates with an abysmal understanding and dearth of appreciation for the foundation on which the Republic rests.
Read MoreHistorians recognize that humans are constantly interested in the “perennial questions,” all of which have to do with man’s purpose on Earth and also his destiny. No questions loom larger than those having to do with (1) the existence of God, (2) the inspiration of the Scriptures, and (3) the Divine nature of Christ. These are indeed the big questions.
Read MoreI had rather believe all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind; and, therefore, God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because [H]is ordinary works convince it.
Read MoreIn the prosecution of the Nuremburg trials, following World War II, the German Nazis were tried for the heinous crime of torturing and murdering six million Jewish men, women, and children. In his closing address, Robert H. Jackson, a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and one of the Nuremburg prosecutors, argued that the Nazis were being tried by a “higher law” which “transcends the provincial and transient” (Warren and Flew 41).
Read MoreOne reason for using a dictionary is to know the meaning of a word. The Reader's Digest features a section titled, "It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power." I highly recommend that you be concerned about the meaning of words because they relate to all facets of life. What influence do the words of others have on me? What influence do my words have on others? What influence do the words of God have on us? A Christian ought to know words used to describe the various aspects of God's nature.
Read MoreThe Bible says, “While the [E]arth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease" (Genesis 8:22, English Standard Version). In his 1856 four-volume set, Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons, Henry Duncan wrote: “The changes of the seasons display, in themselves, a remarkable and beneficient arrangement; and the adaptations . . . during these changes, afford ample materials for a beautiful and striking exhibition of the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator” (Winter iii).
Read MoreA recent publication in the journal, The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Aug 11.) entitled; “Carbonaceous Meteorites Contain a Wide Range of Extraterrestrial Nucleobases,” has set off a firestorm of excitement among origin of life researchers and scientists looking to evolution for answers as to how living things came into existence. Why the excitement? NASA researchers at the Goddard Center for Astrobiology have analyzed a portion of 12 meteorites for carbon-based molecules.
Read MoreAlthough I do not agree with his endorsement of High Criticism’s approach to the Bible, the early 20th Century preacher and homiletics teacher in Yale Divinity School, Halford Luccock, was on target when he addressed the extravagant materialism and secularism of the early 1920s and the seemingly hopeless depression days of the 1930s. Luccock described “The Great Depression,” during which he was living and preach, in the following words
Read MoreIt is not without great significance that, as Christian philosophers and theologians wrestle with a recent great assault on faith in America made by a group of so-called New Atheists, economists wrestle with what many are calling the worst financial crisis during the past seventy-five years. In an essay published in The Chronicle of Higher Education (April 2007)
Read MoreThe problem of human suffering and moral evil in the world has been a vexing one for man down through the ages. From the time of Job men have struggled with this problem searching for a satisfactory solution. At least from the time of Epicurus, three centuries before Christ, men have used an argument based on this problem as their most potent weapon to attempt a logical proof against the existence of God. Charting the course of the argument still followed, Epicurus stated:
Read MoreIn his 2006 book, The God Delusion, which is a militant attack against belief in God, the British atheist-scientist, Richard Dawkins, suggests that “. . . the greatest of [the Founding Fathers of the American Republic] might have been atheists. . . . [T]heir writings on religion in their own time leave me no doubt that most of them would have been atheists in ours” (38-39). With such a palpably false statement one could only hope that Professor Dawkins is a better scientist than he is an historian.
Read MoreMarc Cooper is an Associate Professor of Journalism in the prestigious Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at University of Southern California. He is an award-winning journalist who serves as a contributing editor to Nation magazine and is director of USC
Annenberg Digital News. His expertise includes ethics, Investigative Journalism, and Political Journalism. In a May 4, 2010 article which he contributed to The Los Angeles Times, Cooper stated:
“You’ve been hearing, ‘We must keep separate church and state.’
When President Reagan dared to suggest that ‘religion and government are inevitably related,’
that remark was pounced upon by some as a ‘grave threat to the constitutional separation of
church and state.’
Let’s listen in on a conversation between a Christian (Thomas) and an atheist (Waldo).
They are discussing the possibility of God’s existence.
“Okay, if God really existed then why didn’t he create some fantastic work of art which would leave no possibility of human origin?” asks Waldo
Read MoreWhat does God know? Does His foreknowledge of future contingent events mean that they MUST come to pass? If so, and if some contingent events seem to trouble even God, does He CHOOSE not to know them? Can God’s power limit His knowledge, etc.?
In this essay we will study several things about God’s nature, with particular reference to God's omniscience. We will examine: (1) Some general information about God's attributes, (2) What the Scriptures say that God knows, and what are the implications, (3) How do we explain those human characteristics which are often attributed to God in the Bible?, and (4) What is the truth about God's foreknowledge and human freedom?
Read MoreAt first, it was called Decoration Day. It was established as a time for the nation to decorate the
graves of the war dead with flowers and to remember these fallen ones. Three years after the
Civil War, on May 5, 1868, Maj. Gen. John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic
declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. Some have suggested that this date was selected because flowers would be in bloom nationwide. By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day (as it is now more frequently called) involved annual ceremonies conducted throughout the country on May 30.
A Wisconsin federal judge has ruled that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb decided in favor of the Madison, Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation. Annie Laurie Gaylor is co-president of the Foundation that claims a
membership of 15,000 freethinkers, agnostics, and atheists. Following Judge Crabb’s ruling Ms. Gaylor said, “It’s an invasion of the freedom of conscience of Americans to have their president direct their prayers or tell them to pray” (qtd. in Johnson). If what Gaylor opines is the case then U.S. Presidents (as well as numerous other government leaders) have been guilty since the beginning of the nation.
I am amazed as I continue to study the anatomy and physiology of the body. The body reveals its secrets as I study it organ by organ and system by system. I stand in awe of its complexity and its organization. The more I delve into it, the more there is to know and understand. It is like reading God’s Word. The more one studies it, the more there is to be studied. As an example of the complexity of the human body, consider the human heart. The heart beats 35,000,000 times a year if the heart rate remained at 70-72 beats a minute.
Read More