Magic or Miracles? Which will you choose?

God Said - Proverbs 19: 1-3

  Better the poor whose walk is blameless
   than a fool whose lips are perverse.
  Desire without knowledge is not good—
   how much more will hasty feet miss the way!
  A person’s own folly leads to their ruin,
   yet their heart rages against the LORD.


"Jon Woolf said...

"The Flood is a miraculous event in that God caused it."

As soon as you invoke magic or miracles, you're not doing science anymore."

Ah, here we are to the heart of the matter.   In point of fact you will find as you study origins that there is a necessity for one or the other; magic or miracles.   You must have one or the other.


Readers, I am seeking to share truth with others and find it for myself.   I have never wavered from my stance that I am a Christian and that Christianity is a worldview.   Everybody has a worldview.   What has done great damage to both science and society is the idea that Naturalistic Materialism is a fact rather than a worldview.  This great misconception has produced the bloodiest century in the history of mankind, the legalized slaughter of the most vulnerable of our citizens (helpless babies) and the moral bankruptcy of mankind in general.

Just tonight I discovered that MTV is producing a show rated 'MA' (so only adults are to watch it) about children having sex.  In other words, child pornography.   But MTV is not worried about whether the show will do harm to the public, encourage pedophilia or encourage underage teens to have sex, just about whether they will be prosecuted for breaking laws.  Nice.

NAMBLA is behind an initiative to teach grade school students about homosexual sex.  Homosexuals are trying to tear up and rebuild an institution as old as mankind, marriage.   Once God is removed from society, society becomes removed from God and chaos results. 

Ronald Reagan

In future posts I will discuss why the Bible is the most important and reliable book of the history of mankind with a huge amount of evidence for it's existence and it's historical accuracy.   The New Testament is the best documented literature in the history of mankind from the First Century AD.   The Old Testament is the best documented piece of BC literature.  There is no doubt that the Bible has been around from great antiquity and there is no doubt that its genealogical tables are in general agreement with those of cultures around the world.  I will be making the point that the Bible is the true historical record of mankind.

I have pointed out in the last couple of posts that there are only two ways to view science in relationship to the Bible.   To quote from my own blog, taken from Sarfati who had been passing on the reasoning of Martin Luther:

Martin Luther correctly distinguished between the magisterial and ministerial use of reason.1

The magisterial use of reason occurs when reason stands over Scripture like a magistrate and judges it. Such ‘reasoning’ is bound to be flawed, because it starts with axioms invented by fallible humans and not revealed by the infallible God. But this is the chief characteristic of liberal ‘Christianity’. It is refuted by Scriptural passages such as Isaiah 55:8–9
8 ‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord.
9 ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.’
Note that this does not say ‘My logic is higher than your logic’. If so, then if we believed 2+2=4, God could believe 2+2=5. What it does mean is that God knows every true proposition, while we know only a part. Another passage is Romans 9:19–21
19 One of you will say to me: ‘Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?’
20 But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’
21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
The ministerial use of reason occurs when reason submits to Scripture. This means that all things necessary for our faith and life are either expressly set down in Scripture or may be deduced by good and necessary consequence from Scripture.2

Science doesn't always have to acknowledge God to be pursued, but when scripture and scientific findings seem to be at odds, the wise Christian will choose scripture.   Man's knowledge continually changes and what is "fact" today is dismissed tomorrow.  But Truth never changes

I will say that there is no doubt that much science is done without a thought given to either Darwin or God. Operational science often just involves using the actual scientific method uncorrupted by Darwinists.  Here is a recent example:

Molecules as Traffic Cops     01/19/2011    
Jan 19, 2011 — One of the cutting-edge developments in cell biology and genetics is the realization that there are networks of molecules that are regulated by other molecules.  Some molecules stimulate growth while others repress it.  The dynamic interplay between signals, hormones, repressors and other processes somehow leads to “homeostasis” – a dynamic balance that is responsive to the environment and able to adapt to changing needs.

    Three papers in PNAS this week discuss these dynamic networks that are only slowly being understood. 

  • Plant growth:  High school biology students may have learned about auxins and gibberelins, plant hormones that students can observe affecting growth of roots and shoots in the lab.  Two papers in PNAS discussed gibberelins this week, teasing apart some of the complex interactions of genes and hormones that affect each other.  Zhang et al1 found that genes called DELLA act as repressors for growth-promoting gibberelins (GA), but are themselves repressed by another gene, SCL3.  “Our data further show that SCL3 and DELLA antagonize each other in controlling both downstream GA responses and upstream GA biosynthetic genes,” they said.  That means the two antagonists can not only affect the response of cells that get the gibberelins, but can turn up or down the upstream spigot – the genes that create the gibberelins.  “This work is beginning to shed light on how this complex regulatory network achieves GA homeostasis and controls GA-mediated growth and development in the plant.”

  • Working with the same genes and hormones, Heo et al learned a little more about how GA, DELLA and SCL3 work in root elongation and stem elongation in Arabidopsis plants.2  They noted that because plants cannot move, proper signaling is vital: “During plant development, because no cell movement takes place, control of the timing and extent of cell division and coordination of the direction and extent of cell expansion are particularly important for growth and development,” they began.  “The plant hormone gibberellins (GAs) play key roles in the control of these developmental processes.” 

  • Sense organ growth:  Signalling is important in animals, too.  Complex interplays of molecules and genes are involved in the formation of the complex structures of the inner ear.  It was only recently that molecular biologists noticed that scads of RNA pieces called micro-RNAs are involved in regulating genes.  Kuhn et al found that a micro-RNA acts like a traffic cop as the cochlea develops.3  Mutating one in particular, named miR-96, causes “widespread changes in the expression of many genes.”


  •     Parents who’ve held a newborn may want to reflect on the complexity of processes working in harmony to perfect a baby’s inner ears:
    We found that the physiological development of mutant sensory hair cells is arrested at around the day of birth, before their biophysical differentiation into inner and outer hair cells.  Moreover, maturation of the hair cell stereocilia bundle and remodelling of auditory nerve connections within the cochlea fail to occur in miR- 96 mutants.  We conclude that miR-96 regulates the progression of the physiological and morphological differentiation of cochlear hair cells and, as such, coordinates one of the most distinctive functional refinements of the mammalian auditory system.
    None of these papers mentioned evolution.
    1.  Zhang et al, “SCARECROW-LIKE 3 promotes gibberellin signaling by antagonizing master growth repressor DELLA in Arabidopsis,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online before print January 18, 2011, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1012232108.
    2.  Heo et al, “Funneling of gibberellin signaling by the GRAS transcription regulator SCARECROW-LIKE 3 in the Arabidopsis root,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online before print January 18, 2011, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1012215108.
    3.  Kuhn et al, “miR-96 regulates the progression of differentiation in mammalian cochlear inner and outer hair cells,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online before print January 18, 2011, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1016646108.
    These papers are mentioned briefly for the sake of readers who would like to delve further into the details.  If nothing makes sense except in the light of evolution, why wouldn’t the scientists saturate their papers with Darwinspeak?  Networks and signals are concepts of intelligent design, not evolution.  These are exciting times when scientists can begin to look into the black box and see elaborate interactions between molecules acting for all the world like robots or a well-organized city with security and traffic control.  The new paradigm should be, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of information technology.”

        Whittaker Chambers, the ex-communist spy who testified against high-level Russian spy Alger Hiss, explained in his book Witness one of the things that began turning his mind away from atheist materialism and toward faith.  He was watching his baby daughter eat, and took note of her “intricate, perfect ears.”  “The thought passed through my mind: ‘No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature (the Communist view),” he said in the foreward to his book.  “They could have been created only by immense design.’” (see full quote at Creation Tips).  What if he had learned about miR-96, too?  That would have been overkill against any materialist ideology.

    Next headline on:  Plants • Human Body • Cell Biology • Genetics • Intelligent Design • Amazing Facts
      Darwin missed the pink iguanas on the Galapagos (01/06/2009).  If he had seen them, the evidence in front of him for hybridization between land and marine iguanas might have shocked his evolutionary senses.  See the meaning of this explained in the film The Voyage that Shook the World (Resource of the Week for 09/19/2009).

  • Guard what was committed to your trust, avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge – by professing it some have strayed concerning the faith.
    I Timothy 6:20-21
     

    		•
     ~~~~~~~

    “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of information technology.”

    atheism

    I will remind one and all that not one Darwinist commenter could answer this question:  What is a natural source for information?
    They demanded that I change my definition of information from the dictionary definition to something else.  They hemmed and hawed and gave easily falsified examples.   They finally gave up.   To this day they have not been able to answer or find any naturalistic materialistic scientist or philosopher who could answer because information is transmitted intelligence and while it may be transmitted by material media (such as these letters being typed into Blogger) the information is not in the letters themselves.   There is no source in nature for information or intellect or life.   Furthermore, the material world could not have made itself as the Laws of Thermodynamics make perfectly clear.

    So when Darwinists begin to make up their just-so stories about how the impossible could have been possible, they are actually depending on magic.   When a Christian gives credit to God for creating them, he is referring to miracles.  It has become achingly obvious to scientists who study the organism at the molecular level, at the level of the coding mechanisms, when studying biochemistry, that organisms are intricately designed molecular machines and that they could not possibly have arisen by chance.   That idea is preposterous.   It is an appeal to magic.  But magic, where does it come from and how is it wielded, by what means or power?   

    Miracles, on the other hand, are a major part of the Christian faith.   Jesus' birth was a miracle and the prophecies about His birth were also therefore miraculous.  Many witnesses saw him turn water into wine, raise the dead, heal the sick and lame and blind and demon-possessed.   His death was the fulfillment of prophecy and the manner and means enabled Jesus to take the sins of the world upon Himself and take our penalty for us.   His return from the dead was also witnessed by hundreds and was the the first step on the road to eternal life for all who take Jesus as Savior and Lord.  A Jesus without miracles is no Savior, a God with no miracles is no God.

    God was understood to be the supernatural First Cause of the Universe and He proclaimed this in the Book of Genesis.  So miracles are simply an act of God that is beyond the rules of nature that God Himself established.   He is the owner of existence and has the power and right to do with it as He wishes.   He wishes mankind to flourish and learn to utilize the world and the things of the world as best they can.   Thus, He placed our solar system in a perfect location to view the Universe while still being protected from the common dangers of space.  Our Earth is fine-tuned to accommodate life.   Our solar system is fine-tuned to accommodate life.   In fact, the entire Universe has laws that must fit together just right for life to exist.  Our Sun is an unusual star that, by the way, like any other system, is finite.   By studying the life-cycles of stars we know that the Sun would not have been friendly to life hundreds of millions of years ago and that hundreds of millions of years from now life would not be able to survive on Earth.   We only know this because we have been placed where we can see and observe the Universe and learn from it.

    Now we have found that organisms are obviously designed and designed so very well that we have improved our lives by mimicry - biomimicry and biomimetics as examples of this.   Nano-technology is another example of man learning from the Great Designer.  It is such a shame that so many people go to University to learn great truth and wind up being propagandized and go to their graves believing in utter nonsense.   The teachers have the greatest blame.   

    Each of us have a choice, whether to believe in miracles or magic.   You will have to pick one or the other.   Will you acknowledge a Creator God or depend upon a *poof* by no one from no where by no means?

    Luke 17:1-2:  Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.  It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble."

    As I predicted, we are beginning to see scientists publishing findings without even mentioning Darwin, as Darwinism is of no use to scientific examination of the Universe on either the mico or macro levels.   If so much grant money was not coming with Darwinist strings attached then we would rarely hear Darwin mentioned at all except for those devotees who are continuing in the vain attempt to find a way that life can come from non-life or the vain attempt to establish common ancestry rather than common design of organisms. 


    Proverbs 3: 5-6:  
          Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
          And lean not on your own understanding;
            In all your ways acknowledge Him,
          And He shall direct your paths. 

    Proverbs 9: 9-10:  
    Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser;
          Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning.
           The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
          And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
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