Fear and Trembling

My friend LP over at Extra Nos has a great post on one form of the cosmological argument for God's existence. He lays it out quickly, carefully, and winsomely.

I’ve been doing a little reading on Quantum Mechanics lately (see here , here , and here for interesting articles). There are many abstract concepts that do not have any reality behind them: randomness, chance, and luck, for example. These have no bearing in the real world because they are abstract concepts used to describe things we cannot understand yet. If we knew the causal relationships, we would not need a concept of chance or probability. I have no reason to believe in chance or randomness in the concrete sense because I believe that all events have a cause. I may not be able to identify the cause yet, but I have no reason to believe in an uncased event. Chance has no existence. It is not a thing, no-thing, nothing. It cannot cause anything since it has no existence in reality. It has no being, and hence no power. It’s similar to the idea of a negative number. We can never find a negative number of tangible things. This is one of the first rules I learned as an engineering stud...

For the record, I think Rick Warren did good: (Quote of Inauguration prayer from Between Two Worlds ) Almighty God, our Father: Everything we see, and everything we can’t see, exists because of you alone. It all comes from you, it all belongs to you, it all exists for your glory. History is your story. The Scripture tells us, "Hear, O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD is one." And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made. Now today we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time, we celebrate a hinge point of history with the inauguration of our first African American president of the United States. We are so grateful to live in this land, a land of unequaled possibility, where a son of an African immigrant can rise to the highest level of our leadership. And we know today that Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven. Give to our new president, Barack Obama, the wisdom to ...

An interesting Christianity Today article discusses why Darwin rejected Christianity, and the facts may surprise you. It may have been more of an emotional reaction than an unbiased reflection on the facts.

Just my favorite quote from the “I Have A Dream Speech :” “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” (Compare Isaiah 40:4-5.) Amen, Dr. King. We miss you.

I have been spending more time commenting on other blogs that posting on my own lately. Here are a few things I have found in other places that have caught my interest. Between Two Worlds gives links to interviews and commentary on N. T. Wright’s response to John Piper . We also find brief commentary, and an interesting discussion in the comments. In a newsletter, Lee Strobel notes reasons not to give up on evangelism when we become discouraged . Also, the site announces Lee Strobel’s upcoming blog . Apologetics 315 gives links to Rev. Todd Wilken’s review of The Shack . This is a very level-headed review. Extra Nos gives a link to a Utube video in which Richard Dawkins attributes the appearance of complexity and design in the world to “luck” and a system that makes the “luck” hold out. Why did I run out of time to carefully comment on the above? Long comments I typed for other blogs. I engaged in a running argument with numerous atheists over at Unreasonable Faith . I thought I ...

Check out a pointed post on Hamas from a guy who lives in Israel. He is an America, married to an “Arab girl,” and his opinion is worthy of respect. He has half a chance of being unbiased.

I have a new addiction. I am looking for a Twelve Step program , but it appears I may have to start one of my own. I got an iPhone 3G for Christmas (Thanks to several family members for giving me the money to do this!). The phone does almost everything I can think of doing in terms of internet access. The programs used to run the various functions on the iPhone are called “applications.” Some are installed on the phone when you get it, but some must be purchased. There’s an application for my Google Account, an application for Facebook, a great e-mail access application, and many more. One of the applications that I am growing to love is a maps function that uses the iPhone's GPS to locate your current location and then give directions to your destination address. I purchased the ESV Study Bible (ESVSB) from Olive Tree for my iPhone last week. The ESVSB is the best study Bible I have owned to date. Every question on the text that I have had so far has been answered in the volumino...