There’s probably no God

“There’s probably no God.”  So billboards on buses will soon say in London, England.  The British Humanist Association (BHA) raised money to purchase the ad space, with a matching contribution from Richard Dawkins.  The entire slogan reads “There’s probably no God.  So stop worrying and enjoy your life.”  Read the full story here.  I must admit I’m surprised.

Richard Dawkins is one of the foremost leading voices for atheism alive today.  He is what Becky Garrison refers to as one of the New Atheists that is not just content to not believe in God, but has launched a war against all belief in God.   What surprises me is that Dawkins would settle for such a weak position.  “There’s probably no God” is not spoken with nearly the certainty with which Christians recite the Apostles’ Creed.  I’ve never sung a hymn nor heard a street preacher shout “There probably is a God.”  The slogan even allows the possibility the God may exist.  If all atheists were this soft, I probably wouldn’t give them such a hard time. 

*Click here  to read my review of Garrison’s book The New Atheists Crusaders, and their unholy grail.

Does anyone know who Jesus is?

I was watching this video on Who Jesus Is and one thought in particular came to mind.  It shouldn’t surprise us that many people have no idea who Jesus is, or even that they don’t know exactly what they believe.  Ask the typical person on the street about Jesus, and you’ll always get answers like “He was a pretty cool guy,” or “He was a wise teacher, but he’s not my savior,” or maybe even “I don’t believe there was any such person.”  Most people believe he existed, but not that he was the Son of God or even that he meant to start Christianity.  But like I said, we shouldn’t be surprised by any of these answers. Continue reading →

Catholic Vote 2008

No, I am not Roman Catholic.  CatholicVote2008.com has put together an excellent video to remind us all that it’s not as important who you vote for as it is that you vote.  I believe all Christians should be able to agree with the message of this film.  It’s a good way to spend the next 3 1/2 minutes. 

My video quit working, watch it here on InternetMonk. 

Pray for Mom

Please pray for my mother.  I don’t have a pic on my laptop.  In 2003, she had a massive heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery.  She went to the ER tonight, and the doctors did an EKG they didn’t like the look of.  At this time (Thursday evening, Oct. 16), she is in a room for observation waiting to see her regular cardiologist tomorrow.

UPDATE: Thank you everyone that prayed.  Mom is back at home, there seems to be nothing wrong.  She is visiting her regular family doctor on Tuesday.  It turns out she had not felt well for a few days, so her symptoms may have just been from her illness, not signs of a heart attack.  BTW, Mom is 68, so we think it pays to be careful.  She does have 4 heart by-passes, after all.  Thanks again for your prayers, I would appreciate you mentioning her in prayer from time to time.  (Her name is Ellen Bunch.)

The Greatest Commandment

In the Old Testament, God gave Moses the Law so that the Hebrews could be His people and He could be their God.  Most people are familiar with the 10 Commandments, but there were many others.  You can read page after page in Leviticus and Deuteronomy about what to do if your bull accidentally kills one of your neighbors sheep and other such unlikely events.  Many laws were simply about calling the Hebrews out to be different from the culture they lived in.  Every now and then, some well-meaning Bible teacher wanders into the Levitical law and comes out preaching a sermon about how God does not want us to eat catfish.  Some people make the argument that it’s all impossible to understand, and that we could never keep all of the law.  That conclusion would be exactly the correct one to reach. Continue reading →

Pornography and Masturbation

Mark Driscoll, of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, is publishing a book online about pornography and masturbation.  Each week a new chapter is added, which you can read online and/or download a PDF.  The first five chapters are already available at Porn Again Christian, where you can also read a table of contents that lists the dates of upcoming chapters.  Continue reading →

A Scriptural Perspective on Economic Collapse and Financial Bailout

We live in the richest nation on earth.  It may be borrowed money, and we may be about to pay the piper for it, but Americans are simply the wealthiest society ever in history.  We currently consume over half of the world’s natural resources.  The poverty line in the United States is higher than the per capita income of many nations.  My dog drinks cleaner water than about half of the world’s children.  We spent more money last year on ice cream than NASA spent in the entire space program.  That is the beauty of capitalism.  The revenues generated go back into fueling the system.  Carl Marx predicted capitalism would destroy itself, but you see, greed makes it work.  Our greed drives us to work harder, put in more hours, educate ourselves to get higher positions, etc.  And what do we do with all of that additional hard-earned cash?  WE SPEND IT, creating jobs and providing increasing salaries for our friends and neighbors.  So what went wrong? Continue reading →

Dry Spell?

I feel like I’m in some kind of a slump lately.  Maybe you call it a dry spell.  I don’t normally use this blog to talk about me and what’s going on in my life, but you may have noticed I haven’t used this blog lately for well, anything.  Is there a Christian writer’s block?  Continue reading →

New Page: The Best Of…

I set out to make a short list of essential posts, my list of personal and reader favorites from all the material found on The Master’s Table. Writing a “short list” almost proved too great a task for me. The new page “Best Of” is sort of an anthology of my work here on this blog. I don’t expect anyone to go back and read each post, but the 18 posts listed almost form a working theology of everything I believe. Some of these probably deserve a repost, and I will actually be looking over some of them as I prepare sermon material in the near future.

Come Visit Noah’s Ark

Well, sort of.  This is a full size replica of the ark based on the dimensions given in the Bible.  The ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 wide.  A cubit is about 18 inches.  Think of 2 cubits as 1 yard.  So an ark 150 cubits long would be about 75 yards in length, 2/3 the size of a football field.  A host of animals greet visitors as they enter, but the petting zoo is not quite finished on top.  (no joke)

To visit this ark, you will have to travel to the Netherlands.  Dutch architect Johan Huibers built the ark, and yes it appears to be floating in water.  Thank you Bethany Toranto for the story.  She has quite a few more pictures up as well.  Hey, I’d rather see the ark than the Creation Museum, but to each his own.