[[Heb 1:3/KJV]] Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
All things are sustained, held together, maintained by the Word. There is a day coming when everything will be destroyed by God and He will create a new heavens and earth. This decaying world will no longer exist.
Wont that be great.
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Second law of thermodynamics? LOL That is refusing to see the trees for the forest. The global increase in entropy does not equal a uniform increase in entropy. Life most certainly is not a losing proposition and the universe is filled with self-organizing processes. Because the equations governing most physical systems are non-linear you cannot conclude that fluctuations will average out and have no impact as Schodinger did in his book “What is life?” His conclusions before the advent of the science of chaotic dynamics have proven to be in error. Instead we have the butterfly effect where the smallest of fluctuations can be selectively amplified to alter the course of events on the largest of scales… like the red spot on Jupiter which is bigger than the entire earth. This is a consequence of mathematics and physics NOT an intervention of a supernatural being.
This is demonstrably incorrect. It can and has been demonstrated repeatedly in physical systems and computer algorithms. The fact has become a part of everyday medical practice as we see organisms becoming resistant to toxins and pathogens. An overall increase in the mathematical measure of entropy does not equate to “nothing getting more organized” – quite the contrary!
Yes a nearby star with a vast contribution to the increase in entropy is indeed required. It is quite correct that whole physical universe is not made to last. It is like a clockwork mechanism which is slowly winding down (very slowly). But none of this changes the fact that this clockwork mechanism is more than sufficient to power a rapidly growing technological civilization. And none of this justifies choosing death when God offers the choice. We most certainly can ignore the lame doomsayers and embrace the opportunity of life while it is there for us. We can dream. We can hope. We can build and create. And it is in these things which we will be like God not in any pointless prophesies of doom.
That is one sided BS is what it is. We will die and our children will live. Civilizations will rise from the ashes. New mountains will push themselves upward. And land becoming uninhabitable to some forms of life will be inhabited by other forms of life. And new stars and planets will form with new mountains on them, some with habitable land as well (even if we can never get to them). That is what the observation of nature is shows to the more objective evaluation.
Your god may be the poor carpenter that has to hold his poorly made tables and chairs together but the God I believe in is a true creator who makes things that stand on their own. To be sure it was made for a purpose which is not without end. But it is a womb for giving birth to children who will live in an eternal relationship with God long after the universe is nothing but cold and dark.
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Hi again, @Totti! Happy New Year!
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Have you ever heard Jonathan Cahn? You should listen to him sometime about the Harbinger and the Paradigm.
Remember any of this speech? FF to 3:30 if you want the short version. He is quoting Isaiah 9:10.
The problem is, that it is a statement of defiance, not against enemies, but against God’s judgment on the nation. If you read the OT prophets along with the NT and Revelation, you will see we are almost into the end times, when his wrath will fall on the world. Doom, indeed. And it’s inescapable.
The world was created by Yeshua (Jesus) and he holds it by his own power.
Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 1:15-17
And it will be destroyed.
Isaiah 34:4, 51:6, Matthew 24:35, 2 Peter 3:10-12, Revelation 6:14, 21:1
We won’t be going up to heaven. The new heaven and earth, eternal ones, are coming down to us.
Happy New Year! Good to be back here 
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I think you hit the nail on the head. If one is really going to look for a serious design flaw, then death is the ultimate one. However, God has the answer for this, Eternal Life in Jesus Christ.
Strange, Darwin focuses on the struggle for life, which for science/nature is limited, while ignoring God’s plan to fulfill God’s implicit promise in birth of eternal life for those who use this one justly.
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While the god you believe in cannot make things right the first time but has to hold them together and then do it all over again, the God I believe in did it right already, so what He made holds itself together with the laws of nature by which it serves the purpose for which He made it. It is only our part it which is messed up. God will indeed destroy the domination of the world by evil nations and churches of sinful human beings – worshipping power and hatred. He will put an end to our self-destructive habits and the world will become devoted to the goodness of love, freedom, beauty, honesty, and service to one another.
Close. Our service is to him as creator. But if we love God with all our hearts, souls and minds, then there is no place for hatred or contempt for others or for ourselves.
According to Jesus, our service to God is measured by our service to each other, and according to Isaiah chapter one, God doesn’t care about the religious stuff one little bit.
Matthew 25:31 “When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. 34 Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? 38 And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? 39 And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to thee?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me.’ 46 And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Again, very close. In Isaiah, God is talking to a rebellious people who have lost respect for him and his laws. He wants people of honor, to serve him and to serve others. The laws are just to show us what righteousness looks like. One day we won’t need the laws because we will know love for God and others.
Isaiah 1
16 Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; 17Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 18Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. 19If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
What is the greatest law? Matthew 22:37-40
He is talking to religious people just like Jesus was talking to in Matthew 23. …you know the type… self important… self-righteous… preaching to people… judging people… setting themselves apart from world as special and better than everyone else…
And how does God measure our obedience to that greatest law? Matthew 25:31-46 For some reason, he found tax collectors, sinners, and other riff-raff more to His taste than those putting on show of how much they loved God and believed in Him.
It is not religious people with all their ceremonies and study of the law which impresses God but those who show that the law of God is written on their heart (Romans 2:13-15) – just like those described in Matthew 25. It isn’t church meetings, ceremonies, offerings, talking God all day long, or calling “Lord, Lord” which matters to Him at all.
He told them clearly, he didn’t come for the whole, he came for the broken hearted. God never chose the best and brightest. He chose children and the imperfect to show his own power. And he has always valued the heart above the head or the wallet.
…you mean rather than those Jesus described as… hypocrites, child of hell, blind guides, blind fools, full of extortion and rapacity, whitewashed tombs, serpents, and brood of vipers? …the religious leaders. …thus making it pretty clear that Matthew 22:37-40 is not talking about what those people are doing.
To be honest knowing I couldn’t come up with something as awesome as a Stegosaurus helps strengthen my trust in God’s creativity and believing that he can speak to us through metaphor and figurative language as I believe He does in Genesis and then much more literally through Jesus reassures me that He speaks to us the way that we’re willing to be spoken to.
I don’t think God made Stegosaurus just so I would love Him but I’m still grateful He did that and let me have them because I love dinosaurs and also stories of the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel to teach me how I can be the human being He wants me to be in the world he made that also includes dinosaurs.
So yes, evolution affects my faith but it makes it stronger.
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It has increased my appreciation of God’s working in his providence. The awareness of God’s sovereignty has long been a significant part of my faith (I’m a septuagenarian) and my coming to accept the validity of evolutionary science has not hurt that at all. In fact, appreciating God’s sovereignty in providence is part of what helped me to accept it. So I wouldn’t characterize it as helping my faith and definitely not hurting it, but maybe rather as expanding it.
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