“Destroying the scholarly subterfuge of institutes of higher indoctrination.”

     
 
News:

October 21, 2007  New article: Is Christianity a Religion of Guilt?

October 13, 2007  Updated! Questioning the Teachings...

September 7, 2007  First night out this semester

September 5, 2007  At PBU Ministry Fair--Sean and Jake are able to facilitate the official PBU ministry so ministry credit is once again available for weekly participants.
 
     

Reasons to Trust the God of the Bible:
Logical and Historical Reasons to Believe That the Spirit of Jesus is the Creator Spirit

Speculations on the age of earth or other history that seems to contradict the Bible may not take into account certain factors such as: The worldwide flood would have temporarily accelerated erosion to a catastrophic level that the world has never seen since; creation of a complete earth would rule out the uniformity required for atomic dating methods to work properly; the age of Egypt has recently been paired down due to overlap in northern/southern dynasties.

Layers of strata, even those in the Grand Canyon, are more consistent with flood geology than buildup over long periods of time.  Also, consider the fact that plants and animals are standing upright or sprawled out through layers of strata that popular scientific theory claims took "millions of years" to form.  If certain strata were caused by smaller catastrophic events, there is still no reason for them to require millions of years to form. (more)

Other religions and the most popular mainstream Christian denominations don't deal with sin. Jesus dying for you allows sin to be dealt with in a Judicial way (a full pardon).  Since Jesus is the only conceived son/incarnation of God, he is the only person with the real authority to make this offer.  People guilty of crimes don't get off by trying to be a good person (The Bible's only requirement is that you repent, which means to turn from sin and have a change of heart, and trust Jesus Christ as God's son and accept his death as the substitutionary payment for your sin as the Bible says in 1 John 1:9 "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.").

Spiritual phenomena is a universal experience in all cultures in all the world.

Belief in aliens or other theories that paint higher beings as equal to one another are much more crude and nonspecific than the records and explanations found in the Bible.

Other stories of "sons of gods", even if backed up by miracles, do not have the vast historical and prophetic context that surrounds Jesus. It is possible that if any of these other similar stories of "sons of gods" are true, that they are what the Bible calls "Nephilim" or fallen ones, which offspring the Bible attributes to fallen angels.

The fact that many Christian missionaries in the modern day are casting out demons in India is just one example that the creator spirit of the Bible, Yahweh, is more powerful and desirable than the spirits of other religions.  For other modern information you may want to read Spirit of the Rainforest by Mark Andrew Ritchie.

Ignoring spiritual experiences is evidence of blind belief in the materialistic caricature of reality that is promoted by current industrialized societies.  For example, evolution is a very unlikely creation myth, yet most people accept it since it is called "science" (which historically is merely the sum of current trends, especially due to the juggernaut effect that limits what types of conclusions are acceptable to publicize). (more)

Condemning God is not an effective venture, due to the vast scheme of existence and the limited nature of human experience, and since if he is the creator then he is the only possible standard for morality.  For example, one could justify God creating the world by saying that sharing His fellowship was the greater good in spite of the fact that most people would go to hell, and this alone would be an acceptable justification--since the dissenting human was actually originated by the creator and only has the ability to ponder the issue because he allowed it.  In addition, if the God of the Bible doesn't seem fair, there are several likely explanations: Your view of reality or justice is based on popular opinion or subjective feelings; your interpretation of the Bible is based on faulty assumptions; your understanding of who is in heaven and who will go/deserve to go to hell is incorrect and based on your own limited knowledge of those people; you are being arrogant and thinking you are better than God; you are trying to condemn or redefine God in order to feel better about being selfish or to avoid correcting personal problems. 

Modern claims of logical contradictions or historical incongruities in the Bible are usually easily explainable.  Many popular scholars who are proponents of anti-Biblical arguments are plagued with their own logical errors, historical errors, scientific fallacies, and personal distaste or bad experiences with religion, and often misquote the Bible or take it out of context in order to advance their personal quests. 

Problems with world religion give reason to distrust religious conglomerates, not God or the Bible.  The majority of Christians (i.e in history, TV, and the media) are likely not following the Bible, and therefore can't be used to attack Christ's message (Jesus prophecies in Mark 4 that the church will be plagued with demons and false teachers).

An infinitely wise and powerful God would be able to communicate exactly what we need to hear even using imperfect humans.  Clearly he could say exactly what he wants even when one author's perspective as written in the Bible is in fact incomplete, such as a count of people or string of events.  Also, in the case of strings of events, it is normal for witnesses (in the Bible or otherwise) to leave out events that aren't relevant to their theme, physical perspective during the events, or personal mindset.

Eyewitness accounts and history show that Jesus fulfilled the role of the prophecied Messiah, that he rose from the dead and was witnessed by hundreds of people, and that he did numerous miracles.  It is likely that Jesus is correctly described by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and the other canonical books of the Bible.  Generally, conspiracies are disproved/abandoned after their original conspirators die off.  Hundreds of the original witnesses of the events above were tortured and died holding to their testimony.  They didn't die just for a hope  of eternal reward or for a belief, as many do, but for an eyewitness testimony--if they made it up, they could have given up their story without giving up their beliefs.

Jesus is backed up by History (i.e. even Josephus, who was a non-Christian Jewish historian of the first century, says that Jesus did "many miraculous things") and prophecy (Christ fulfills hundreds of very specific prophecies of the Old Testament including timing and events that are impossible to plan [see the book More Than a Carpenter by Josh McDowell]) not just miracles and personal experience.









-Jake Gustafson

 
















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