Stormbringer's Thunder

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Although some sidewinders try to deny it, persecution of Christians is increasing in Western nations . Some professing Christians think that they are promised a life of giddy happiness, but we should expect persecution (1 Peter 4:12-14, Matt. 5:10-12, Matt. 24:9, John 15:20, 2 Tim. 3:12) , and we've had to deal with it since the beginning. Credit: Pixabay / Gerd Altmann Some of the persecution is nonviolent, having to do with having our rights to freedom of religion and free speech eroded. We also have to deal with bullying, defamation, misrepresentation, criminal cyberstalking, and so on. Reports of direct, personal violence against Christians, such as this one , are more frequent. Do you know the origin of the word persecution ? We got it from the French, who in turn got it from the Latin. It means to follow with hostility. Some make a point of following us on the Web, then lying about us on forums, weblogs, harassment on our own social media ac...

The bodily Resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the lynchpin of Christianity, because without it, our faith is in vain (1 Cor. 15:14, 19). The Creator of the universe (John 1:1, Col. 1:16) took on human form (he pitched his tent among us, John 1:14) and died on a cross for our sins (Phil. 2:6-11). Jesus defeated death by rising from the grave (Hebrews 2:14, Romans 1:4). Indeed, the entire Bible lays out God's plan of redemption of mankind from sin. Credit: Pixabay / acperez1 Some folks do not want to accept the historical narrative of the Bible. This is clearly from bias, not logic. Compare the Bible with legends and the sacred books of other religions, and there is a marked contrast: details. Other accounts are vague while the Bible gives specifics, many of which have been corroborated through archaeology and history. Mockers have attempted to come up with ways of dismissing the Resurrection, but those fail under scrutiny. The New Testament documents are abundant, the o...

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen Like many other people in these here United States, we became tired of the ever-increasing prices for cable TV, and decided to join the "cord cutters" revolution. This is the streaming video thing happening. We did not even know it was such a big deal! Cable Itself Became Expensive Sure, cable television is very useful, especially for specialized channels or for people who live in areas that do not have over-the-air broadcast variety of availability. The biggest complaint is that prices keep going up. Another complaint is that you can get hundreds of channels but nothing to watch, or the same movies on several channels. (Satellite TV is not an option for us, and that has its own set of problems.) We started with the company of many names, one of which was Time-Warner Cable. We got the package of three services that had phone, high-speed internet and television. Prices kept going up, and when Charter Communications bought Time-Warner Cable, it b...

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen There is a connotation of science  where scientists gather information, make a hypothesis, test it, revise as necessary, it becomes a theory, and eventually a law. Somewhere along the line the thing gets put out to pasture if the facts are recalcitrant. Such a view is not only naïve, but ignores human nature. Scientists are human, after all.  Scoffing at new material One expression I have encountered when discussing the origins controversy is that "science corrects itself". Aside from the reification fallacy ( science  is not a living thing, but scientists may correct themselves), this has been shown to be false — often in areas of technology. Great inventors were laughed at, such as Robert Fulton and the Wright brothers. It was said that if people move too fast (aside from dangerous acceleration, change of direct, and deceleration), they would have physical problems or even die. Scoffers were silenced by results. Some people attribute this ...

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen This is an important topic for any day, but even more so for Question Evolution Day . Western civilization has strong Christian roots which have, in turn, effected ethics. That is mighty helpful, since modern science was mostly founded because of the biblical worldview . Unfortunately, with postmodernism, Darwinism, and materialism galloping wild and free, ethical and moral concerns in science are fading into the background. One example is of scientists who want to keep human embryos alive even longer before killing them . Other countries do not have such ethical constraints from the get-go. China has been working on the CRISPR genome editing tool, and are "unfettered by rules". While we have ethical concerns , the ChiComs are materialists and force atheism on their people, so we know where their "morality" will lead.  In addition, China is moving forward with cloning, announcing that they have successfully cloned two monkeys. The co...

People who doubt the authenticity of the Bible, whether unbelievers or liberal "Christians", will occasionally appeal to archaeology in their attempts to reject God's Word and continue riding the owlhoot trail. However, they are showing massive ignorance as well as relying on fallacious reasoning. Although the Christian's faith is based on the Word of God , there is  evidence for our beliefs. Maybe I'm unusual, but I actually found the material I rounded up and presented below to be rather exciting. Credit: Pixabay /  Heather Truett Archaeology is a newer science when compared to some of the more established disciplines. The subject matter requires careful excavation of unoccupied areas. This is a huge reason that Jerusalem and other areas are left alone, as not only do people live there, but buildings are erected on much older foundations.  When some people claim that the Bible is historically inaccurate because certain things have not been discovered by...

by Cowboy Bob Sorensen So, some folks over yonder in the European Union think that robots should have rights, as they may develop self-awareness. Have they been smoking wacky tobaccy? This opens up a passel of problems from the get-go. First, they need to define robot . Some task-saving devices are called robots, so a definition for a robot may need certain advanced capabilities. Seems mighty subjective, though. Does it have to look human? Suppose "lower" robots decided they were discriminated against. It happened with blacks, Jews, and others who were considered less than human by other humans, you know. Can you imagine the social justice warriors pushing for legislation to protect robots? Then we have Mr. Gordons, who refers to humans as "meat machines" . Imagine this scene: a robot complains to a supervisor that it does not like to be referred to as a "robot", but prefers the title of electronic person. Also, a complain was filed because the te...