I have always been fascinated by the subject of Heaven and what it will be like. In the many times I have speculated on the nature of its substance I have imagined many scenarios as to what to expect. The problem is that all of them had flaws that suggested that they could not be accurate or it would eventually lead to some of the same problems we have in this life.

I finally realized that Heaven cannot be imagined in the mind of man because man himself is flawed and filled with psychological hang-ups that demanded that any utopian ideas of Heaven would only serve to satisfy those very human hang-ups. Because everyone has a different background of experiences and psychological needs, each of us would necessarily have different views of what would be a "perfect" environment.

One of my most disturbing speculations of heaven involved my facing God and asking "What is Heaven like?" and having Him ask me, "What do you want it to be like?" How would I answer a question like that? I know beforehand that any answer I give would be imperfect and that I would have to accept that vision for eternity. A person could inadvertently create their own version of hell in doing so. I'm glad that the final decision is in God's hands for that reason. Read more

Whenever you talk about Jesus and the time of the end, inevitably someone suggests that we are not to know when the time will be. They always quote the passage in Matthew 24:36, " But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of Heaven, but my Father only.", as "proof" that we will not know when the end will be. History is full of so-called "prophets" who claimed to know the day of the end of the age, and were wrong.

 It is true that no one will know the day or the hour, but what is ignored in such arguments is the fact that Jesus gave us 38 verses of what to look for  when the time is "near". Was His message to not look for the time or to ignore the signs.  Why would He give us the signs if He wanted us to ignore them? Whenever someone says "We are not supposed to know when the time is near", I think to myself, "Why did Jesus waste all those verses if he did not want us to be aware of when it is happening." True, many of the verses tell us to be aware of many deceptions and false predictions, and what to avoid in thinking when the time is near, but He did say "Watch therefore: for you know not what hour your Lord doth come".

 He was very specific about some signs that will suggest when  the time is near, such as earthquakes, famines, and pestilences, and calls them the beginning of sorrows. These have all happened to some degree throughout history and for Him to mention them here seems to suggest that intensity will be the difference. Read more

I am very selective of any product I watch coming from Hollywood (some call it UNHolywood), because of the liberal bias and antichristian sentiment prevalent with most of its leading spokespeople. Once in a blue moon they, accidentally, stimulate some of my neurons with a hint of a suggestion that there may actually be some truth hidden in one of their movies.

One of the latest, 2012, while it contained many falsehoods and much speculation, was based on predictions of a disaster of biblical proportions in 2 years and I wrote a post on its possibility.

 I was surprised by another recent product, Avatar, that I watched just last night, (mostly because it was so popular and I was curious), to find myself stimulated intellectually about one of its basic suggestions. The movie portrayed the warlike, materialistic, humans as the bad guys destroying the habitat of an innocent, simple, but morally sensitive, race of aliens who worshipped, and tried to preserve, the natural beauty of their planet. I found myself rooting for the aliens.

What I didn't expect to find was the premise and basis of how the leading character would interact with the aliens. That idea was what started my neurons firing.

I have long advocated that we are a physical body inhabited by a spiritual being that is not of this world, but of another place the bible calls the Kingdom of God. My theory of how this happens is that the spirit enters the physical realm by interacting with our body's brain at the quantum level where physical laws become blurred. It is there, that I believe the spirit enters the host, our body. Read more

Much attention is being given to the Mayan prophesy of the end of the world as we know it in 2012. Many Christians are re-reading their bibles to compare the predictions, and current events to the book of Revelation and other prophetic passages. Concern over world and government affairs fuel further speculation about if we are in the "last days", as predicted by Jesus and other passages of the Bible.

If it were just the Mayans who were predicting a catastrophic event in 2012 it would probably be ignored, but further research has revealed other sources that also predict some kind of world shaking event in the same period. What is the truth?

A movie was just released based on this prediction that while very imaginative and with spectacular special effects is wildly speculative about what will happen. First, it is not certain whether the Mayans predicted the end of the world or just a changing of the guard of an era. They divided the history of the world into cycles of approximately 5125 years each. The last cycle, or long count began on 11 August, 3114 BCE in the proleptic Gregorian calendar or 6 September in the Julian calendar (-3113 astronomical).   according to the  Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Read more

The first story in the Bible concerns man's place of origin, a place ideally suited for every need and supposedly ideal for the creation of other forms of life. It is a beautiful story of a paradise that was created, inhabited, and lost, by man, supposedly forever. Was it real or just an allegory, or beautiful story to convey a moral message?

 The Bible describes it as a real place and even goes so far as to give a description of its location. Readers sometimes misunderstand that the AREA of Eden is not the GARDEN of Eden. Genesis 2:8 clearly states that the Garden of Eden is in the EAST of the area or region of Eden. In Genesis 2:10 it says that "A river went OUT of Eden to water the Garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into 4 heads.

 A River went OUT of the land of Eden and watered the Garden of Eden, and from there it seems it was fed by 4 other rivers. Genesis 2:10 describes the Garden being watered by a single river that is fed by four other rivers, two of which we know, the Euphrates and the Tigres. A documentary of Eden was presented on the History channel lately that hypothesized that the garden was at the most eastern area of what is now  Iraq, and the area of the garden itself is now under water in the Persian Gulf because of the rising level of seas worldwide in the last 5000 years. Read more

The subject of the creation of the universe and everything that implies is divided into two camps, the scientific and the religious. Most Christians believe the book of Genesis describes how God created the universe, not in allegorical terms, but is specific in the details provided. Most scientists see it as simply a matter of science and would rather religion stay out of the issue. How about both camps recognizing that both groups are seeking the same thing, THE TRUTH.

I realized something while watching a documentary on the Big Bang and the Creation of the universe, that struck a neuron about the beginning according to God.

Most cosmologists and theoretical physicists now accept that the Big Bang started from a singularity. What is a "Singularity"? When a Black Hole collapses it creates an object in space in which all matter, space and time is compressed into a single 'point', a geometric point which has no size, only a place. What they are saying is that in the beginning all the matter, energy, light, and space/time of the universe was inside a huge Black Hole that somehow exploded. They can provide no explanation as to why it exploded because Black Holes are not supposed to do that. Read more

Two of the greatest mysteries of man: Does the soul exist and what is time?

 Are they related? I didn't think so until I began writing a paper on time and in the process of attempting to explain what time is I realized that I had stumbled onto evidence of the existence of the 'soul', or an entity that is separate from the physical body that we think of as "us". The argument for that hypothesis follows:

The basic assumptions for this "theory" are the following: Read more

The most controversial topic in the ongoing battle between fundamentalist Christians and the scientific community today is the validity of evolution. When Charles Darwin first published "On the Origin of Species" in 1859 it was welcomed by the science  community but was immediately attacked as anti-bible by members of the church and religious groups

Evolutionists:

Evolution is the theory that animal species are changed by genetic changes that are brought about through two forces, natural mutation of DNA, and nature's ability to 'select' the best example of a species through 'survival of the fittest'. Evolutionists advocate that animals that are better equipped for survival through genetic change, will more likely live to produce offspring that also have the 'survivability' genes of their parents. An animal that is ill-equipped, genetic-wise, will more often die before having offspring than those that have enhanced genes. Through this 'natural selection' of the best, over long periods of time, through sheer numbers, the species will change to be better adapted to the environment and its climate, and will live on. Read more

When God created the universe and the laws of physics, did He leave a 'connection' with all particles and forces within it?

 Biblical scholars and theologians are fond of studying events in the old testament that they call "types and shadows'.  These are events that are similar to, and are prophetic of, other events to follow at a later time. Joseph in Egypt was a 'type' of Jesus in saving his family and the world from the famine of that time.  Moses led the children of Israel out of bondage to the promised land, another 'type' of Jesus.

A definition of "types" and "shadows" is: Read more

 Did God fine-tune the Earth for life as we know it?

In my previous post on "Was the Earth Fine Tuned For Life?" I posted an equation for estimating the probability of another planet anywhere in the universe having life similar to earth's. The value that I calculated for that occurrence was approximately ONE occurrence in over a QUADRILLION. A commenter responded that I should compare my equation to Drake's Equation, formed in 1961 to determine how many planets we should detect in our galaxy with which we could communicate. I used the probability function for multiple events, each having a probability value, (estimated), and computing the overall probability that all events would occur at once on a given planet.

The values I gave for individual events which I consider critical for life on earth as we know it, are below: Read more

Was the Earth Fine-Tuned for Life?

The argument for Intelligent Design is based on the idea that the conditions necessary for life are too perfect to have occurred naturally, and the complexity of DNA is so great that there must be an intelligence behind the creation of the earth and all life.

Lets look at the earth and the variables involved that must be "just right" for life to exist, apart from the argument of how life began. I will offer some of the variables and the estimated probability that any planet would have that condition so that we can calculate the probability of ANY planet being so suited for life. These factors were chosen for a specific property and reason. Change any factor listed below significantly and life on earth could not exist. Read more

I confess that the idea for this post came from another post that I was commenting on, and I realized after it was frozen that there was an argument here that demands further scrutiny and an answer.

The evolutionists and atheistic biologists group have consistently written off life and DNA as an accident of nature that could have happened anywhere with similar conditions as the earth, and given enough time WOULD happen. 

I used to feel that the argument had some merit and was possible. I now have reconsidered my position and believe that there is enough evidence to say that all life, and DNA specifically, is evidence of, not an accident, but of deliberate design.

Why do I feel that there is design at work in the presence of life on this planet? Read more

There are Creationists, OEC"S, YEC's, Theistic Evolutionists, and just plain Evolutionists, as well as Atheists, but who are they really, and what do they believe. Pastors preach from the pulpit that you can't believe in Creationism and Evolution at the same time, but do they really understand the difference. This post, and following posts,are intended to clear up any misconceptions of what  the two groups believe and why.

There are two main groups of Creationists, The Young Earth Creationists and the Old Earth Creationists, and the difference between them is mainly over the age of the earth.

YEC's or Young Earth Creationists believe that the Bible is to be taken literally in its description of the Creation and that the 'days' mentioned are actually earth, and man-defined days. Its followers include both Christians and Jews. From calculations of the ages of the patriarchs from Jesus back to Adam it is not hard to compute the time when God began "The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth". I must give credit to an author named Frank R. Klassen for a comprehensive work in this area, and his book "The Chronology of the Bible", which makes clear, graphically, how long each of Adam's descendants lived and who their children were. Read more

I came across a news item in the USA Today website, dated August 18, that got my attention. It concerns "Dark Energy", the mysterious force that seems to be speeding up the expansion of the universe, that no one can find or explain. 

Two scientists say is doesn't exist now because of a "mathematical solution they have produced, that suggests it is a natural result of the Big Bang. Part of the article is reproduced here.

  Read more

I have always been fascinated by the subject of "light".  It was the first "substance" created by God. It is mysterious in that, science cannot explain what it is, except to say that it consists of a massless particle/wave called a photon, and always travels at the same speed. Einstein built his General Theory of Relativity around it, and his formula, E=MC2 contains it in the form of C, the speed of light.

I find it referred to many times in the Bible, in such passages as

Matthew 5:14 Ye are the light of the world. Read more

What Was The Forbidden Tree?

By Allen Epling

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Evolution is a process that appeals to many atheists as an explanation for how we got here because it seems to eliminate God from the process. When Darwin proposed it 150 years ago He initially meant only to explain scientifically the process of how animal species change in time to adapt to differing conditions that allow them to survive. As the theory  became accepted within the scientific community, people of faith realized that there was a conflict between his theory and the accepted biblical version of man's origin. Science and religion has been at odds ever since over this conflict.

 The major problem with evolution is not the process of adaptability and change, but the origin of life itself, and that is where evolution fails. Most people who are not biologists or geneticists view the theory as saying that the changes in animal and biological species within the last billion years or so, are the most important and hardest to explain, ignoring the origin of life itself. They fail to realize the complexity of the single cell as the real problem with evolution.

 Once the cell was formed in the distant past, and reproduction and survivability was assured, it continued to survive by changing and adapting to new conditions. It became a multi-celled organism, then developed the various organs necessary for survival, and finally became the first water and land animals that eventually evolved into the millions of species that we see today on our planet. Read more

There are Old Earth Creationists, Young Earth Creationists, and the scientists, all who have a different version of how the universe was made. Genesis 1:1 says "In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth". Is there any connection in the first passages of Genesis that could be interpreted as supporting the science view, which is "The Big Bang"?

 According to science, the beginning of all that we see and know, happened about 13.7 years ago in an event called "the big bang", as Sir Fred Hoyle sarcastically called it about 60 years ago. Their description begins with the universe bursting forth from a singularity, a point without any size, in an instant and expanding outward, continuing that expansion today. The universe at that point in time was infinitely dense and infinitely hot. There is an abundance of evidence that the scientific description of that event is accurate, and billions of dollars are being spent in an effort to further describe the process.

This event would have been followed by a tremendous burst of radiation and LIGHT. In the first few milliseconds of the event there was no matter, only plasma and radiation,  expanding outward at an unimaginable rate. As time continued, the radiation cooled and subatomic particles and atoms began to form, but there was no such thing as solid matter, only plasma and gasses due to the extreme temperature. Read more

WAS ADAM THE FIRST MAN?

By Allen Epling            

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                                                                                            Divided We Fall

By Allen Epling

Christians today are overwhelmed by the abundance of terms used to describe what began as a simple movement 2000 years ago. As a result of the attack of science on religious doctrine and beliefs begun 200 years ago, Christians have reacted, not as a group unified, but fragmented into a myriad of different outlooks competing with each other over the method to combat the science community, which they see as atheistic and bent of destroying their faith. Read more