Quotations
Recalling Pascal's wager: without God we are either dead in sin, or
dead. Either way, we're dead. What's the risk of faith in God when we stand to
gain more than all this universe?
-John Oller,
Impact #287
A professor remarked to me:
If you are an intelligent person, you
will read the one book that has drawn more attention than any other, IF you are
searching for the truth.
-Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a
Verdict, Vol. I (San Bernardino, CA: Here's Life, 1972), p. 24.
...to be skeptical of the resultant text of the
New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into
obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested
bibliographically as the New Testament.
-John Warwick Montgomery (Josh
McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Vol. I (San Bernardino, CA:
Here's Life, 1972), p. 19.)
In other words, if you doubt that we have an accurate record of events in the New Testament, you might as well throw away every text on ancient history, and refuse to accept every writing by an ancient author that we have, to be consistent.
This Jesus of Nazareth, without money and arms, conquered more millions
than Alexander, Caesar, Mohammed, and Napoleon; without science and learning, He
shed more light on things human and divine than all philosophers and scholars
combined; without the eloquence of schools, He spoke such words of life as were
never spoken before or since, and produced effects which lie beyond the reach of
orator or poet; without writing a single line, He set more pens in motion, and
furnished themes for more sermons, orations, discussions, learned volumes, works
of art, and songs of praise than the whole army of great men of ancient and
modern times.
-Philip Schaff (McDowell, p. 24)
It seems strange that the text of Shakespeare, which has been in
existence less than two hundred and eight years, should be far more uncertain
and corrupt than that of the New Testament, now over eighteen centuries old,
during which nearly fifteen of which it existed only in manuscript... With
perhaps a dozen or twenty exceptions, the text of every verse in the New
Testament may be said to be so far settled by general consent of the scholars,
that any dispute as to its readings must relate rather to the interpretation of
the words than to any doubts respecting the words themselves. But in every one
of Shakespeare's thirty-seven plays there are probably a hundred readings still
in dispute, a large portion of which materially affects the meaning of the
passages in which they occur.
(A 19th century author, from McDowell, p.
20.)
From "Virus May Mute Athiest's Stark Message" Detroit Free
Press, The Way We Live section (G), 10/4/96, p. 1,3:
Yet Dawkins
sees in his science[sic] not just bleak hopelessness. Darwinism, he says, does
give humanity a guideline about how to live our lives, albeit in a negative way:
The
Darwinian law of the jungle really is red in tooth and claw. The world of
natural selection is a very unpleasant world in which to live. We can study
Darwinism as an awful warning of how NOT to order our society.
"We need
to fight against Darwinism in politics, just as we need to fight for Darwinism
in science."
!!! The article gave no reason why we ought to act in such a contradictory
fashion. As the latest issue of Creation Ex Nihilo says (East,
Elizabeth, "Recycled Humans," 18:4, p. 37):
If everything you
do can be explained by natural hormones, electric circuits and the like, it is
nonsense to talk about 'a mind of your own.'
Your mind is no more than the
workings of your brain, controlled by its physics and chemistry. There is no
real 'person' who is 'you' directing 'your' thoughts and actions, only a
collection of materials which must act in a certain way given certain
conditions...
Furthermore, this teacher began to realize, in this system,
where cruelty, disease and death have played a major part in the evolution of
living things, nature has always been 'cruel'. So, logically speaking, nothing
can or should be done to change it."
In asking us to believe in Darwinism but oppose the operation of Darwinism, Dawkins is asking us to bite the hand the feeds us, indeed created us according to his belief! One wonders why Dawkins would be so irrational as to suggest that we undermine the very process that has created us, an approach which would destroy any future potential for development.
Yes, Dr. Dawkins, there is a God and a standard of behavior He has instituted. It is good to see that you still recognize part of that standard, even if you deny the God who established it.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. (Proverbs 1:7)
The fool hath said in his heart, "There is no God." (Psalms 14:1)
Return to
Social Issues