Bully's Blog

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“Convergence is a simple word used to hide evidence for design.”

Last week, Peter Leithart commented on an interview with Professor Simon Conway Morris. I sent the link to my expert friend, Tas Walker, and he has discussed it a little less briefly:

Paleobiologist Simon Conway Morris, of Burgess Shale fame, says that examination of the fossil evidence demands a radical rewriting of evolution. Why so?

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Kerry Lewis recently posted this quote from George Grant on facebook:

There is a fundamental principle of dominion in the Bible:
dominion through service. This principle is understood well by the
modern welfare State. The politicians and planners recognize that
the agency that supplies charity in the name of the people will
gain the allegiance of the people. So, they “serve.” And so they
gain dominion…

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Tinpot Gods and Tinpot Men

“Idolatry is the Bible Matrix rendered impotent.”

You get out of life only what you put in, or so the saying goes. According to the Bible Matrix, you are supposed to get out more than you put in.

The single grain of wheat that dies is supposed to bring an abundant harvest. A life is given to God in the faith that He will take what is given and turn it into an increase. This is also found in the Covenant pattern: “Who’s the boss?; who’s His representative?; what do I have to do?; what do I get?; and, what’s next? Obedience brings plunder; disobedience brings plagues. [1]

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“Unlike YHWH of the Hebrews, the all-transcendent Allah does not stoop to make agreements with mere human beings.”

Having never been much interested in understanding Islam, it has been helpful to read David P. Goldman’s take on it. He is Jewish, (his glowing comments concerning modern Israel are a dead giveaway), but he is surprisingly objective concerning Christianity and Islam.

In the more circumspect of his recent books, he observes that the decisive difference between Judeo-Christianity and Islam cannot be found by arguing about the amount of violence in their respective histories. Their disparate characters are exposed somewhere closer to home:

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The Closing of the Muslim Womb

“Population decline is the elephant in the world’s living room. As a matter of arithmetic, we know that the social life of most developed countries will break down within two generations. Two out of three Italians and three of four Japanese will be elderly dependents by 2050. If present fertility rates hold, the number of Germans will fall by 98 percent over the next two centuries. No pension and health care system can support such an inverted population pyramid. Nor is the problem limited to the industrial nations. Fertility is falling at even faster rates—indeed, at rates never before registered anywhere—in the Muslim world. The world’s population will fall by as much as a fifth between the middle and the end of the twenty-first century, by far the worst decline in human history.” [1]

So writes David P. Goldman in the introduction to his recent book, How Civilisations Die (and Why Islam is Dying Too).

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or This Is Not An Evil Age

By evil age, I do not mean the “terrible twos,” or even terrible teens. Many Christians believe they are living in the “evil age” Paul refers to in Galatians 1. They are wrong. Continue reading

“The apocalyptists said, The world is coming to an end: Give up! The Biblical prophets said, The world is coming to a beginning: Get to work!”

Is it only me that has to restrain himself from violence when someone refers to the Revelation as “Apocalyptic”? I guess using a long word derived from Greek is a handy way of disguising the fact that you have little idea of what’s actually going on in the book.

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“There’s nothing like bones to remind you of your heritage.”

Further to the previous post, the structure of the declaration in Numbers 19 concerning contact with the dead seems to support the assertion that, since the fall, flesh is corrupt but clean bones are “bridal” memorials. Firstly, look at where the “bone of an Adam” appears in the structure:

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“Touching a bone made an Israelite unclean. Burning bones upon Jeroboam’s altars defiled them. This was not because bones were unholy but because they were already holy.”

Here’s a new chapter from God’s Kitchen (members only).

“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”
Genesis 2:23

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or A Nation of Nathans

Jeremy Myers has some words to say about Gregory Boyd’s and Walter Wink’s view that political power necessarily corrupts, even demonizes, the Church:

Is There Such A Thing As A Just War?

The “Just War” theory was originally developed by Augustine to defend the Empire’s actions of arresting and killing the Donatists, with whom Augustine was having a theological disagreement. He argued that in certain situations, a war is not wrong if it furthers the cause of Christ and advances the Kingdom of God on earth.

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