Vatican astronomer: If you're afraid of science, you don't have faith

"Those of us that are religious, will recognize the presence of God, but you don't have to make a theological leap to search for the truth," Br. Consolmagno said. "There are many things we know we do not understand. We cannot be good religious people or scientists if we think that our work is done."

The summit is also taking place in recognition of Fr. Georges Lemaître, the Belgian physicist and mathematician who is widely credited with developing the "Big Bang" theory to explain the origin of the physical universe.

Addressing common misconceptions surrounding the Big Bang, such as the idea that it did away with the need for a creator, Br. Consolmagno said the solution isn't just to put God at the beginning of things and call that good, either.

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Denisovans, Humans and the Chromosome 2 Fusion

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With that as background, we are now prepared to appreciate a new finding that comes from genomics work done on the Denisovan hominids, an archaic species that is more closely related to Neanderthals than to us, but that nonetheless interbred with some anatomically modern humans as they migrated out of Africa and populated the globe. (For those not familiar with the Denisovans, or the evidence for our interbreeding with them, both Darrel Falk and I have written on this previously, here and here). Recently, a more detailed understanding of the Denisovan genome was published, and nested in the new information is the discovery that the Denisovans share the 46 chromosome set with the same fusion that we have. This strongly supports the hypothesis that the fusion event predates the separation of our species. If we were to represent this on a phylogeny, we can now place this event with more accuracy than before ..

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Has the dark matter mystery been solved?

Unseen dark matter has been invoked several times to solve problems in astrophysics and cosmology. Historically the most significant problem has been the rotation curves of galaxies, particularly spiral galaxies. Using the Doppler Effect the speeds of the stars and gases in the disk regions of spiral galaxies can be measured. See Figure 1.

By now hundreds of thousands of galaxies have been measured this way. What is observed is that the speeds of the stars, and the gases beyond where the stars are observed, are much greater than it would appear Newtonian physics allows for. 

As a result it has been suggested that there is an invisible halo of cold non-interacting matter. This putative invisible halo has the needed gravitational effect on the stars and gases but it cannot be seen, hence it is called dark matter. Dark matter is alleged not to be normal atomic matter, made from protons and neutrons (which are known as baryons), but some sort of slowly moving (cold) exotic non-baryonic matter. Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) were suggested.

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Science of God Conference

The Professor and the Prophet in an exclusive exploration of the marvels of God….Join us in this discovery.

Looking at the vast expanse in the cosmos above or the depths of the blue oceans below, they speak volumes of the splendor of God who was directly involved in His creation. As humans we marvel at the enormous complexity which is breathtaking. God also gave us wisdom and an enormous capacity to explore His creation, which today tell us specific details of the "how" and "what" of His creation.

As he unleashes His love and shower His glory upon us, we obediently study His word, get closer to Him and adore Him day by day for this beauty and marvel of this creation.

Here is your opportunity to take a tour of the specific examples from the field of science , a deeper exposure to His word and a chance to bathe in His love and Glory

While we tackle issues, such as, the Big bang, expanding universe....

quantum theory, Fibonacci sequence, Uniqueness of His blood, DNA, Heart intelligence and more, you will also have adequate time to worship, release your addictions and hear from Him.......

Join us at Hotel Taj on 29 April

How to Fine-Tune Arguments for God’s Existence

One of the main points Bussey develops in his book is based on the following observation:

"At the very least, our own planet must be of a suitable kind, located in a suitable region of the universe, such that human life is possible on it. This is obviously true, and there are many planets for which it is not true, drawing our attention to the fact that not all planets can generate advanced life. Much more significant is the fact that for us to be here, the universe itself must have suitable properties. (...) This statement is normally called the "weak anthropic principle"' (p.94).

The emergence and continued existence of complex life in our universe is fragile. I believe this can trigger a genuine sense of wonder about Creation that can ultimately point to God. However, it appears to me that Bussey's way of presenting the argument is not "fine-tuned" enough to actually do the job.

For starters, we need to focus on the big picture. Together, the laws of nature form an integrated whole that sustains the complexity of conscious life. It's easy to get lost in the details by compiling a long list of properties of the universe that are precisely suitable for complex life on earth. Bussey writes: "With the complex history of the universe kept in mind, we are in a position to write a basic 'shopping list' of conditions that would allow a planet with advanced life to form" (p.96). He goes on to list about ten physical constants that are "right" within ranges that appear to be quite narrow.[1] I am sceptical of reliance on the narrow range of these physical constants. A hypothetical alien race in a hypothetical parallel universe might be wondering about completely different constants that were essential to its development. It is more relevant to emphasize the entire structure and pattern of our universe that sustains the complexity we observe. That beauty is essentially what triggers the "wow factor."

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Challenging the Standard Models of Science and Faith

As someone with a passion for understanding the relationship between science and theology, I've read innumerable books on the subject. In my experience, book-length introductions to the science and theology conversation often resort to surface-level tropes about the general relationship between the fields, rarely presenting the core debates in more than a cursory manner. Jim Stump's Science and Christianity: An Introduction to the Issues, on the other hand, presents the actual academic arguments in the key debates, and in a manner accessible to non-experts while still being scholarly enough to satisfy even the seasoned academic. The book covers topics as wide-ranging as young-earth creationism and Intelligent Design, cosmology, divine action, the soul, and the problem of natural evil. In other words, the book is remarkably comprehensive in the range of debates it covers, without sacrificing clarity and nuance. 

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Christmas Timeline of the Biblical Account

When December hits, many familiar questions surrounding the birth of Christ come to mind. For example, some ask about making Christmas sermons relevant, the origin of Christmas and if it was pagan, the star of Bethlehem, the "inn" where Jesus was born, and many others. Of course, these are important topics, but it is also important to understand the timeline of events surrounding the birth of Jesus.

The Christmas timeline of the biblical account is called into question by many skeptics. They claim the nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke do not line up, and therefore the accounts should be discarded. Sometimes they go so far as to say that few are even aware of the issues with the Christmas timeline.

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Is the Origin of Life a Scientific Question?

Science is supposed to be about things that are observable. That is, science can probe only things that we can detect with our five senses. Science also must be repeatable. This means that when an experiment or observation is repeated, we get the same results. These restrictions on science have led to what we call the scientific method, the general rules that we follow in doing science. The scientific investigation of the origin of life presents us with at least two problems. First, since life began before people were around, we hardly can observe the process. Second, since the origin of life appears to have been a unique event, we hardly can repeat it.

How do these four possibilities stack up? The fourth possibility doesn't really explain how life came about, but instead passes the question off to some other location. Many would object that the third option is unscientific and hence ought not to be considered. If we restrict the definition of "scientific" to questions that can be answered through the application of the scientific method to natural processes, then option three may be considered unscientific. However, what is the status of the other two options? Option one is the assertion of abiogenesis, the belief that life must have arisen from non-living things through a natural process. However, abiogenesis has never been observed. To the contrary, it has been shown numerous times that biogenesis is true, that only living things give rise to living things. That is, abiogenesis has been scientifically disproved. To persist in belief in abiogenesis, one must believe in something that clearly is unscientific.

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Why Does God Allow Bad Things to Happen?

A car crash claims the life of a Christian college student on her way home, a faithful pastor receives a cancer diagnosis, a family is away on vacation only to receive the call that their house was destroyed in a fire.

One of the most common questions believers and unbelievers alike ask is why a loving and all-powerful God would allow bad things to happen. When many believers are asked this question, they freeze, not knowing what to say. Or they weakly reply, "Well, we don't know why bad things happen, but we need to trust God." But those of us who start with the right foundation, God's Word, have a solid answer that is based in the history of God's Word. But those who don't start with God's Word have a difficult time providing a satisfactory answer to this important and often emotionally charged question.

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Assurance of Eternal Security

While the believer may gain assurance of his salvation and know that he has been saved, the question may arise concerning the permanence of his salvation. Once genuinely saved by trusting in the merit of Christ's death on the cross for sin, can the believer lose his salvation? Is there anything we can do to lose our salvation? The answer is NO! Why? Because Scripture clearly affirms the fact we are protected by the power of God through faith. Faith brings us into a grace relationship with God as a gift of God through the merit of His beloved Son. We are saved by His record, not ours.

1 Peter 1:5 who by God's power are protected through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Ephesians 1:6 to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son.

Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast.

The following seven approaches set forth the case for the believer's eternal security, "buckled up for safety" because of the power of God and the overwhelming sufficiency of the person and work of Christ.

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Hawaii’s Volcanic Origins—Instant Paradise

The biblical worldview changes how you see everything, even a "paradise" like Hawaii. If the Flood destroyed the earth, where'd these islands come from? Only catastrophic earth movements—a result of the Flood—can explain this string of jewels.

Mention Hawaii, and it conjures up thoughts of a tropical paradise. Pristine waterfalls, luxuriant creeping vegetation, and squawking, duck-like coots remind millions of annual visitors about the Creator's handiwork.

THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS' LANDSCAPE IS A PRODUCT OF CATASTROPHIC FORCES UNLEASHED BY NOAH'S FLOOD.

But red hot lavas slowly moving across fields and engulfing roads are never far away. Indeed, the Hawaiian Islands are a string of active and extinct volcanoes that hint at a catastrophic past. No Garden of Eden, this charming landscape is a product of catastrophic forces unleashed by Noah's Flood. This modern-day "paradise" speaks unmistakably of God's recent judgment.

If the volcanoes that formed Hawaii's eight major islands had been formed before or during Noah's Flood, the Flood would have deposited sediments on their flanks. But they have none. So we know the volcanoes must have erupted following the Flood.

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Advaita Vedanta and Quantum Physics

Mankind’s first forays into physics, the understanding of the physical world, has always been led by the desire to find the most fundamental elements from which all others can be derived.

The first forays into physics, the understanding of the physical world, were made by the Vaisesikas of India, who formulated the concept of ‘anu’, the atom. Pythogoras after his visit to India formulated a similar concept in Greece, the concept of the atom.

This concept continued unchanged into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries till Rutherford broke up the atom into nucleus and electrons.

This finally has been broken down by quantum physics. Unlike the previous theories, the quantum theory has a far more solid base. Its equations and theories have always been supported perfectly by experiments. There is hardly any other theory which has been experimented more and which has achieved such absolutely perfect results.

Quantum physics breaks down the protons, neutrons and electrons of the atom into further subdivisions, called sub particles. This arrangement of sub particles is called the ‘standard model’. The sub particles and their interactions in the standard model has been proven irrevocably by numerous experiments.

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Graham Oppy on the Kalam Cosmological Argument

Graham Oppy has emerged as one of the kalam cosmological argument’s most formidable opponents. He rejects all four of the arguments drawn from metaphysics and physics for the second premiss that the universe began to exist. He also thinks that we have no good reason to accept the first premiss that everything that begins to exist has a cause. In this response, I hope to show that the kalam cosmological argument is, in fact, considerably stronger than Oppy claims, surviving even his trenchant critique.

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Don’t Underestimate the Doctrine of Providence

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, conscious of the tension in the little room. I'd guessed this conversation was coming, since the people now sitting in front of me had seemed unhappy with my pastoral leadership for a good long time. I wasn't sure what would happen now, but I was afraid it might end badly, with hurtful words spoken and their bitter departure from our church. I mention this moment not because it's unusual in pastoral ministry—every pastor experiences such meetings sooner or later—or because it had a miraculous and uplifting outcome, but because I recall my own heart in that conversation. I claimed to be Calvinist, but I wasn't living like one. I was thinking little of God's role in this conversation—and much of the people sitting across from me.

A Doctrine to Cherish

In the years since, I've come to cherish the doctrine of God's providence and to draw strength and encouragement from it. I've begun learning what a difference it makes in the Christian life. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin underscored the high stakes of believing or rejecting this doctrine: "Ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miseries; the highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it."

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/dont-underestimate-providence#When:05:00:00Z

We are with Global Proclamation Congress-Come join in 2016 !!

Video: https://vimeo.com/127281918

What: The Global Proclamation Congress for Pastoral Trainers (GProCongress) connects, unites and strengthens pastoral trainers in order to better deliver training to the world's 2 million-plus undertrained pastors.

Who: The GProCongress, convened by RREACH, is for anyone involved in formal and non-formal pastoral training of any kind, anywhere. We expect attendance of up to 5,000 pastoral trainers working in 200 countries, including individuals, churches, organizations and institutions.

How: This specialized gathering will fulfill its purposes by providing opportunities to Build Community, Explore Opportunity, Discover Resources and Receive Encouragement. To carry momentum created by the GProCongress into the future, attendees will commit to training, on average, 25 pastors a year for the following four years (2016-2020).

Why: Pastoral health is systemically enhanced by better delivery of more pastoral training with coordinated follow-up. Healthy pastors lead healthier churches, and healthier churches are more able to reach their communities for Christ.

Anticipated Outcome: The measurable outcome is 100,000 connected, united, strengthened pastors and 20,000 more pastoral trainers ministering in 200 countries by 2020.

When: June 15-22, 2016 (follow-up: June 23, 2016-December 31, 2020)

Where: Bangkok, Thailand

Click to visit site

Alvin Plantinga's Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism

Plantinga's book is a semi-popular treatment of the conflicts, real or perceived, between science and religion, broadly construed. Because these disciplines are so broadly construed, the Christian who is interested in apparent conflicts between science and biblical Christianity will likely be somewhat disappointed in Plantinga's treatment. In the two chapters on "Evolution and Christian Belief," for example, one will find no engagement whatsoever with the biblical text; the discussion is restricted to the compatibility of theism with evolutionary biology. That is because Christian belief is taken to be what Lewis called "mere Christianity," which does not include any specific creation account. So while the Christian reader may be readily convinced of Plantinga's claim that no conflict exists between theism and evolutionary biology, he may still be left wondering how the biblical creation stories are to be properly interpreted and to what degree the evidence of evolutionary biology is compatible with that interpretation.

Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/where-the-conflict-lies-science-religion-and-naturalism#ixzz3ji62vd8H

China Sees Red: Christian Protest Puts Hundreds of Crosses Back in Public

Several churches held a prayer service outside a government office yesterday, holding up crosses and banners that read, "Can't remove the cross in our hearts," reports the Union of Catholic Asian News.

The cross dispute is "destined to become one of the 'pain points' in the history of the [Chinese] church's development," wrote Lude Wang in a Pushi Institute for Social Scienceanalysis highlighted by ChinaSource.

"At its core, the Zhejiang Cross Dispute has revealed that in light of the backdrop of a new society, neither the church nor the state has sufficiently prepared to enter into a mature and constructive dialogue; nor have they shown a readiness to settle their differences and conflicts on the basis if the rule of law," she wrote. "How the church will coexist within a community holding different values to itself is an urgent question."

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Pope Francis: Climate Change A 'Principal Challenge' For Humanity

Pope Francis today issued a sweeping 184-page papal letter, writing that climate change is a global problem with far reaching environmental and social consequences — especially for the poor. He blamed apathy and greed and called on developing countries to limit the use of nonrenewable energy and to assist poorer nations.

"Those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms," Francis wrote of the impact of climate change in the encyclical titled "Laudato Si," or "Praise Be."

He called on humanity to collectively acknowledge a "sense of responsibility for our fellow men and women upon which all civil society is founded." And he wrote that climate change "represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day."

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The Centrality of Doctrine and the Christian Faith

Last fall, LifeWay Research conducted a study commissioned by Ligonier Ministries to examine the theological views of Christians throughout the United States. The results were disconcerting for those of us who hold evangelical beliefs.

Americans who self-identify as Christians seem to believe in heaven, hell, and a little bit of heresy, likely without even realizing their error.

Biblical illiteracy is running rampant within many contexts. Fewer and fewer people know what the Bible actually says about key moral and theological issues, but more and more people know what they want the Bible to say on these issues.

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Roll Tide and Read Your Bible: Alabama Ranks No. 1 for Scripture Lovers

Southern states dominate annual list of Bible-minded cities.

The Bible Belt lived up to its name as Southern locales topped the American Bible Society (ABS) and Barna Group's annual list of Bible-minded cities, with Birmingham, Alabama, earning the No. 1 spot.

The rankings, based on a city's Bible reading habits and beliefs, come from a decade of interviews with more than 63,000 adults in the country's 100 largest metropolitan areas. While the study crowned a new winner (Chattanooga ranked first last year), manydemographic trends stayed the same, notes ABS:

As in past years, the Bible Belt performed strongly in the 2015 rankings, while East Coast cities once again brought up the rear of the list. Small cities also generally performed better than did large cities. Just one of the top 10 Bible-minded cities ranks in the top 25 media markets.

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