The Best Commentary On The Bible Is The Bible Itself

	The Reflections Newsletter Monday, August 23, 2010 **In This Issue** Why Atheism Fails What Does the Bible Say About...?   Welcome to the Reflections Newsletter from Reflect His Glory.  RHG is a co-ministry with Creation Science Ministries.  Feel free to send this to your relatives and friends.   Why Atheism Fails When you read the titles of the most popular books of our time written by atheists, you get the impression that they are solidly confident in their beliefs.  Books like The Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism and Islam by Michel Onfray, Letter to a Christian Nation: A Challenge to Faith by Sam Harris, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. However, like all of the atheists before them, they still cannot answer the fundamental questions of origins.   Questions like, “What is the origin of the universe?”  How do you get matter and energy from nothingness?  “What is the origin of life?”  How do you get life from non-life?  How do you go from a rock to a tree to a frog? Then there are questions that are a little more difficult to answer; “What is the origin of the mind?”  How does a living thing become a self-conscious being?  How do you go from a tree, to an animal, to a human? And, of course, there is the real thought provoking question, “What is the origin of good and evil?”  How does an amoral being become morally aware?” Atheists answer all of these questions with essentially the same style answer.  “We know that God does not exist.  Therefore, since we are here, it had to have happened this way.  Thus, like the universe itself, life, mind, and morality all just ‘popped’ into existence out of nothingness.” I guess you could call their believe system, “The Four Big Pops”: 1.   Of Cosmological origins - The universe just “popped” into existence out of nothingness. 2.   Of Biological origins - Life just “popped” into existence out of something that was non-organic. 3.   Of the Psychological Mind - It “just popped” into existence out of a brain. 4.   Of the Moral Mind - Morality “popped” into existence out of amorality. For their many deliberately confusing words, atheist authors still have not advanced beyond the just “popped” thesis. Atheists like to attack religious people with how theism is so unscientific.  They also like to show how religious people are not very smart because they do not chair any departments in the hard sciences at “the right schools.” Atheists like to raise the issue of evil.  "How can an omnipotent, loving God allow evil?  Either God is not all powerful and cannot destroy evil, or He does not want to.  Either way there cannot be a God because evil exists."  However, they will not bring up the existence of good because it is too problematic.  Essentially, evil is nothing more than the absence of God. Finally, atheists go for the jugular with the ‘hypocrisy’ of religious believers.  They list “all the wars” found in history that were fought “in the name of religion,” not to mention “all the fallen pastors” and especially, “the religious founders owned slaves.”  No question about it… that kind of information serves only as a distraction. Atheists will not bring up the pesky problem of freewill either.  If atheism is true, if all that exists is mere matter and energy, then I do not have a brain.  I am my brain.  But if the brain is just a physical thing, then it is just as incapable of acting freely as a computer, or any other machine.  This is why the idea of Artificial Intelligence makes for such fun science fiction.  The more people believe that a computer can become a person, the less likely they will have need to believe they were created in God’s image.  Therefore, the more Artificial Intelligence, the less theism.  That is their game plan.  The same holds true with the search for Extra Terrestrials.  They believe if life can be found elsewhere in the universe, then Genesis can be dismissed, as well. But, above all, atheists avoid being cornered, and forced to answer the questions of origins.  Instead, they throw out lots of words that people cannot understand, talk over them, and/or blind them with ‘science’.  They talk about the details of the leaves on the trees, but do not answer the question, “How did the forest come into existence?”  They like to assert that only science deals with knowledge, and to distract believers with how science deals with the “what, where, how and when”, but not the “Who and the why.” Atheists will especially avoid people who have had training in the philosophy of science.  These trained people are dangerous because they see right through them.  Believers do not see the shimmering lab coats that atheists see.  They do not see any clothes at all.  They see through them, and just see the truth. Atheists have been asserting the same basic mechanistic worldview, and with roughly the same success, for centuries.  They sell books and win converts from time to time, especially among those gullible enough to buy into the “just popped” thesis.  Do not be gullible. For me, the real value of atheism lies in bolstering belief in God.  When I doubt, I can begin to doubt my doubts by returning to the Four Big Pops.  And, eventually, I go right back to the ‘Baseball Verse’, “In the beginning, God.”     What Does the Bible Say About...?       In this section of the Reflections Newsletter we answer questions that have been asked.  If you have a question that you would like ask, and do not mind having printed in the newsletter, (your name will not be mentioned), feel free to send your question in an email to me at biblequestions@reflecthisglory.org.  Of course, you may call me anytime by phone at 801.302-1111. The question for this issue is, "Does Isaiah 65:17 mean that in eternity we will lose all memory of what happened here on the present Earth?" This verse speaks of God's creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth in the future.  It says: "For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind."      Isaiah 65:17  KJV ER Some theologians take the position that this verse means that we will not know any of our friends or family in that environment.  However, since the verse speaks specifically about places rather than people, taking the Bible literally would limit the verse to that parameter.  The glory and splendor of the New Earth will so eclipse that of the Old Earth as to obliterate its memory. Think of this analogy: when we were babies, we probably enjoyed the love and care of our family members, not limited to mothers and fathers. We do not recollect any of those experiences now, because we were too young at the time.  However, the subsequent enjoyment of our families have not been hampered by the fact that we do not remember our babyhood.  Similarly, our experiences here on earth in relation to the New Heaven and New Earth will not be limited if we do not recall all of the details of our time in the here-and-now.     **MEMORY VERSE OF THE WEEK** I am He that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter; Revelation 1:18-19  KJV ER We solicit your prayers and support of this ministry. God Bless. If you received this email from a friend, you can get a FREE subscription by signing up at enews@reflecthisglory.org. You received this newsletter by request from Reflect His Glory, a co-ministry with Creation Science Ministries. Web site: http://www.reflecthisglory.org/ Online Store: TBA Email: questions@reflecthisglory.org For more information: info@reflecthisglory.org Subscribe online: enews@reflecthisglory.org Un-subscribe: nonews@reflecthisglory.org To change your email address in our database, please unsubscribe your old address and subscribe your new address.

"Then Jesus said to those Jews which believed on him,
"If you continue in My word, then are you My disciples indeed;
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

John 8:31-32