souls

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.
~C. S. Lewis

also, i posted more at the end of this post.

facts?

"There are no facts, only interpretations." ~Friedrich Nietzsche

I only have one question Friedrich, is that statement a fact?

It is so evident that the god of this world has blinded the minds of these men (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). Nietzsche supposedly had a good intellect. The amazing thing is, he did not realize that his statements (such as this one) were self-contradictory. You cannot factually say, "There are no facts, only interpretations." If you say so, you have just made your own statement null and void.

absolute

Another insight from Ravi Zacharias' podcast:

Here is a definition of atheism he quoted in the 12 of December podcast, "Is Atheism Dead? Is God Alive?":

Atheism is the deliberate definite dogmatic denial of the existence of God. It is not satisfied with appropriate truth or relative truth, but claims to see the ins and outs of the game quite clearly, being the absolute denial of the absolute.
~Étienne Borne

I think this is a good definition of atheism. The only problem is the last phrase: "the absolute denial of the absolute." The problem with that is simple: You cannot absolutely deny the absolute. The only way it is possible to make an absolute statement is if "absolute" exists. It would be like saying, "I don't exist." Well, how can you make that statement if you don't exist? You can't. Neither can you make an absolute statement declaring that there is no absolute. You have just contradicted yourself if you have done so.

It's like what Ken Ham says (This is not a direct quote, I just remember him saying something like this.), "How can you say that God does not exist? Have you been everywhere at once and looked under every rock and behind every tree and proven that He was not there? How can you, a finite being, prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God, an infinite being, does not exist?"

You cannot absolutely deny the absolute.

size and God

was sitting outside relaxing and enjoying God's creation when i saw what looked like a teeny-tiny bird. i believe it was simply a small piece of wood that looked like a bird from where i was sitting, but nevertheless it put me to thinking. i had thought about this idea a few times before and i think it's a cool insight so i'd like to share it.

so many times we will talk about how BIG God is and how great that is. He's so much bigger than us. i would question that statement. i like the story of the guy who was asked, "How big is your God?" and his reply was, "My God is both big and small. He is so big that He created the universe and is everywhere at once. Yet, at the same time, my God is so small that He lives inside my heart." I thought that was cool because God is not just some big God who made the universe, He is personal and "small".

But I took this idea a step further.

A few months ago I read the book "One Thing" by Sam Storms. I loved it. Storms took two chapters to describe scientific aspects about God's beauty. One was titled "Galactic Grandeur". In it he talks of the immense size of our solar system, our galaxy and the universe, the number of stars, the speed of light, and the one i remember best: one teaspoon of the matter of a neutron star weighs 3 billion tons! Yet our HUGE God controls ALL of it. The next chapter was "Microscopic Majesty" where Storms wrote about atoms and nuclei and quarks and neutrinos and about String Theory. These things are SOOOOO small yet God made those too.

That is when I first started thinking about this: Is God big or small? He's both. No, wait...He's neither. That's the conclusion I finally settled on: God is neither big nor small. Why? Because the words "big" and "small" imply measure. But God is beyond measure. We cannot measure Him. He is transcendent (i.e. He is above and independent of the material universe.). God even transcends size. (Just like God transcends time, but that's a whole other blog in itself.)

It's not like God grows really big and uses a lot of power and energy to create and sustain stars one moment and then the next moment He shrinks down in order to maintain or repair an atom. It's not like His fingers have to be extra nimble and dextrous in order to create smaller things. Or like we can compare Him to unimaginably large giants who work on the powerhouses of the stars.

We often times think that we are normal size and stars are big and atoms are small. This is only true when we measure things relatively. But imagine if you were God. Would certain things be "small" and others "big"? We say certain things are small and this indicates that maybe it is easier for us to handle or pick up (e.g. "The box of books was small and light, I could carry it easily."). We say that things are big to compare them to other things (e.g. "The bookshelf was big, I had to disassemble it before I could move it.") But God is not limited or constrained in such ways.

God is neither big nor small. God simply is...

definition of sin

I've been listening to Ravi Zacharias (Web Site | RSS Feed) lately. I'm really enjoying his insights and teachings.

On his "Just Thinking" podcast for November 21 (I must have listened to it 6 times already) he talks about John Wesley and how John Wesley's mother had defined sin to him when he was young in this way:

Whatever weakens your reasoning, impares the tenderness of your conscious, obscures your sense of God
or takes away your relish for spiritual things. In short if anything increases the authority and the power of the flesh over the spirit, that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself.

Wow. Memorize that and put it into practice and see how much it changes your daily living! I know it would change mine!

change

2 Timothy 2:13

no matter how much i change and stumble and fall and falter...
He remains steadfast, unchanging, strong, true, faithful...

how amazing and comforting is that?!?

science

I just read an interesting article (read it here). They plan to "smash together atoms and other particles at the highest speeds ever achieved on Earth, recreating the conditions of the Big Bang."

My question is still: When the Big Bang supposedly happened where did those atoms and other particles COME FROM? We know from the laws of Thermodynamics that entropy happens. Which tells us that matter is NOT eternal. We also know that matter cannot be created or destroyed. So the only explanation for the creation of all that exists is by supernatural phenomenon.

I'm wondering if they will be able to finish this project or if their language will be confused before they finish it.