About: My Life Recently

This was me up until tonight. Study, study, study.... and more study. After falling behind 4 weeks in my school, I worked way hard to get it all done and caught up in 3 days! I admit it... my brain is FRIED! I've worked, relationships almost neglected like poor Hobbes... But I'm done!
God is good!

Tomorrow's gonna be fun... :)


On a different note...

GOING TO SEE JOSH TURNER ON TUESDAY!!
Oh my goodness... I'm sooo excited :)
Wonderful voice! I highly recommend him. I also hope to get pics and post them soon :)

Ok, ok... enough totally randomness.
Goodnight and blessings!

About: EVOLUTION GETS RELIGION

...We could even say that Darwinism itself often functions as an alternative religion. In fact, that’s exactly what philosopher of science Michael Ruse does say. Ruse is a pugnacious and aggressive evolutionist, who testified in court against an Arkansas creationist statue back in 1982. While there, however, he had a conversation with the well-known creationist Duane Gish that brought him up short. “The trouble with you evolutionists is that you just don’t play fair,” Gish told him. You accuse us of teaching a religious view, he said, but “you evolutionists are just as religious in your way. Christianity tells us where we came from, where we’re going, and what we should do on the way. I defy you to show any difference with evolution. It tells you where you came from, where you are going, and what you should do on the way.” In short, evolution itself functions as a religion.

The comment rankled Ruse, and he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Eventually, he decided that Gish was right—that evolution really is “more than mere science,” as he put it in a recent article. “Evolution came into being as a kind of secular ideology, an explicit substitute for Christianity.” Even today, it “is promulgated as an ideology, a secular religion—a full-fledged alternative to Christianity, with meaning and morality.”

Ruse hastens to reassure his readers that he himself remains “an ardent evolutionist and an ex-Christian.” And yet, “I must admit that in this one complaint... the [biblical] literalists are absolutely right. Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.”

Ruse announced his new insight at the 1993 annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), where his presentation was met by stunned silence. A conference report published by an evolution advocacy group wondered, “Did Michael Ruse Give Away the Store?”

But Ruse wasn’t making wild allegations. He backed them up with solid examples, citing people like Stephen Jay Gould, who once claimed that evolution “liberates the human spirit.” For sheer excitement, Gould added, evolution “beats any myth of human origins by light years.” Since evolutionary history is entirely contingent, “in an entirely literal sense, we owe our existence, as large and reasoning mammals, to our lucky stars.”

“If this is not a rival to traditional Judaeo-Christian teaching,” Ruse comments wryly, “I don’t know what is.”

Ruse’s analysis certainly throws new light on the controversy over teaching evolution in the classroom. Critics typically accuse Intelligent Design supporters of trying to inject religion into the classroom. For example, during the Ohio controversy an editorial in a Columbus newspaper said, “The problem is that intelligent-design proponents wants to bring religion into science classes, where it doesn’t belong.”

The correct response is that religion is already in the classroom—because of naturalistic evolution is itself a religion or worldview. “The so-called warfare between science and religion,” wrote historian Jacques Barzun, should really “be seen as the warfare between two philosophies and perhaps two faiths.” The battle over evolution is merely one incident “in the dispute between the believers in consiousness and the believers in mechanical action; the believers in purpose and the believers in pure chance.” To promote one faith in the publich school system at public expense, while banning the other, is an example of viewpoint discrimination, which the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional in a wide variety of cases.

Nancy Pearcey: Total Truth, pg. 172-173

About: CHRISTIANITY OUT OF BALANCE

The task of identifying dualistic thinking can be somewhat tricky, because several different forms exist. However, the three-part grid of Creation-Fall-Redemption gives us a powerful tool of analysis. Throughout the history of the church, various groups have tended to seize upon one of these three elements, overemphasizing it to the detriment of the other two—producing a lopsided, unbalanced theology. For example, stressing the Fall too heavily tends toward pessimism and negativism, while overemphasizing Redemption can lead to triumphalism and complacency.
...Consider the typical evangelistic message: “You’re a sinner; you need to be saved.” What could be wrong with that? Of course, it’s true that we are sinners, but notice that the message starts with the Fall instead of Creation. By beginning with the theme of sin, it implies that our essential identity consists in being guilty sinners, deserving of divine punishment. Some Christian literature goes so far as to say we are nothing, completely worthless, before a holy God.

This excessively negative view is not biblical, however, and it lays Christianity open to the charge that it has a low view of human dignity. The Bible does not begin with the Fall but with Creation: Our value and dignity are rooted in the fact that we are created in the image of God, with the high calling of being His representatives on earth. In fact it is only because humans have such high value that sin is so tragic. If we were worthless to begin with, then the Fall would be a trivial event. When a cheap trinket is broken, we toss it aside with a shrug. But when a priceless masterpiece is defaced, we are horrified. It is because humans are the masterpiece of God’s creation that the destructiveness of sin produces such horror and sorrow. Far from expressing a low view of human nature, the Bible actually gives a far higher view than the dominant secular view today, which regards humans as simply complex computers made of meat—products of blind, naturalistic forces, without transcendent purpose or meaning.

If we start with a message of sin, without giving the context of Creation, then we will come across to nonbelievers as merely negative and judgmental. After an extended trip through Africa (described in Dark Star Safari), the writer Paul Theroux said one of the saddest moments in his journey was “hearing a young woman [missionary] tell me that she was heading for Mozambique and adding, ‘They’re all sinners, you know.’” Theroux concluded that missionaries only make people “despise themselves.” We need to begin our message where the Bible begins—with the dignity and high calling of all human beings because they are created in the image of God.

-Excerpt from Total Truth by Nancy Pearcy

**I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK!

About: Proverbs 31:30

Dear friends and readers,
I've been thinking alot about false beauty in our culture.
Thanks to a dear friend for bringing this to my attention!

(Guys take note: this is a post mostly directed towards ladies. You can read and comment if you want, but I'm writing it from a female's perspective to other females :)

(I also can't believe I'm posting this picture! haha... x.x)

ANYWAY!

Beauty. Female.
These two words almost always go hand in hand.
We as women want to look nice. Attractive. Beautiful.
But the question I want to pose tonight is:
Is that really what matters?

We do our hair. We makeup our faces. We dress as cute (and hopefully as modestly - completely different post :D) as possible.

Sadly, in our culture today, that's the extent of all to many a female's worries.
Well, that and "climbing the social and/or business ladder".

I want to point all females to Proverbs 31:30~
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

And I Timothy 2:9-10~
⁹ likewise also, that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, ¹⁰ but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. (italics mine)

I've been convicted of being too concerned with my looks personally. I've taken way too much time to get ready to some place. "What will people think of me?" or "How do I look?" have crossed my mind more times than necessary, I'm sad to say.

Now, I want to clarify one thing... just in case anyone out there is thinking what I think you may be thinking. :) I'm not against trying to look nice or lovely. I just don't believe it's right to focus too much on it.

God has been working in my life to concentrate more on glorifying Him... making a conscious decision to do so. He has been teaching me to live my life "with good works", striving to live for Him and being loving to family. (Saying none of this pridefully, but thankfully!)

I've been so changed in this area that I don't even mind sharing this below picture with you (too much ;) I posted this scripture on it because I want to tie it to my daily ritual of getting ready for the day.

1st picture, before makeup: 2nd picture, after makeup
Shocking, eh? haha

I pray that the Lord will continue this new work he's begun in me! (Philippians 1:6)
God is good in that he is faithful to complete it!

What are your thoughts on this issue?
Did I make sense? :)

Hope to hear from you.
Blessings~

About: Slobbery Kissies

I can only assume it happens when you're two ;)
Hope you enjoy these pics as much as I do!
Short and sweet, yes.

Alvederzane for now, y'all!