Don't Feed the Animals

If you tell them that it’s an impossible notion
That we come from God’s spit
Don’t be surprised when you start feeding lines
About how we descended from monkeys
And people start going ape-shit
Seeking more mayhem than Miller
A bunch of highly evolved gorillas
That spent the last four years in University
To become a more sophisticated killer

Tell me again why I should be elated
That the Simian is kin to me?
So what you’re saying is that Planet of the Apes wasn’t a movie…
It was actually a documentary
What a relief – I was starting to get perturbed
Because some Uber-geek says we’ll be cyborgs before 2043
But he’s a genius…and I’m disturbed?! I’m obsurd?!
Nerds…

It’s like Hannibal Lecter
Stepped down from a lectern
And started leading lambs to slaughter
Without even so much as a head turned
“Man can’t live on bread alone
Because it’s in his nature to be a cannibal.”
Ladies and gentleman:
Cesar has just left the zoo
So please resist the urge -
 DON’T FEED THE ANIMALS.

(cf. Genesis 2:7; John 9:6)

Soli Deo Gloria,
Shon

Posted via email from THE CENTER (ROOM 116)

Ground Zero: God & Mammon (Economics to the Glory of God)

In this installment, we take time out to address how the ideas of a nation's ecomnomic and political philosophies and policies are deeply rooted in its theological foundations (or lack thereof).

We also share a little bit from our heart about why we do what we do and why we feel the necessity to continue on our mission of the Great Commission...

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me."  - 1 Corinthians 15:10 ESV

 

Soli Deo Gloria,

Shon

 

Posted via email from THE CENTER (ROOM 116)

Everyday, Apocalypse.

 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
  

(John 1:1-5 ESV)

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for
  “‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
  as even some of your own poets have said,
  “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
  Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

 (Acts 17:26-29 ESV)

Everyday is an apocalypse…

From the cars on the street to the people that we meet

God is revealing…Himself.

 He is constantly letting us know that we are not alone.

Also, that we are not our own.

But still we press on.

We press on as if everything that has ever happened

In the course of our existence was nothing more than a random, happy little accident –

A very precise, everything just right…”accident”.

Nothing more than a big “Oops” or “Uh-oh” that brought about change.

From ooze to the zoo to you – we’re all the same

“You might be free, but your relatives swing from trees

And throw feces in cages…isn’t that amazing?!”

No, it’s scathing and seriously inconsiderate.

It’s akin to taking the Artisan’s work and using it in a birdcage to catch pigeon sh**.

Art without evidence is a scientifically manufactured illusion

To free us from the notion of Divine inclusion, or better yet intrusion

And yet, we ignore the body of work like a crime scene at the dinner table.

So Cain didn’t kill Abel…it was an “evolutionary process”.

“The survival of the fittest shows us how much we have progressed”.

What a mess; but it’s our best guess

That we feed to our sons and daughters

We’re ignoring the fact that chaos can only produce more chaos

And never produce order.

Creation’s primary goal is not to self-create or to replicate;

Creation resonates

It is the thumbprint of a Creator –

So let’s do away with just looking at scientific data

And all the other formulas to make us too scared to admit it

Ignore all you want, but the truth is you still need some dirt to play with…

Ex nihlo, nihlo fit –

Out of nothing, nothing comes

Yet still our textbooks read as if two zeros make a sum?!

But the only way that a zero can compute is with…One

The binary code of nature binds us to a Creator

But in a rebellion of thought mankind screams out:

“There is no God…and we hate him.”

Equating the concept of an almighty God to the Wizard of Oz

And yell at me to get off my yellow brick road

While clinging tightly to the curtain of “chance”

Trying not to reveal that it’s just fool’s gold

“Just click your heels three times to wake up from your dream

You’ll have all the answers you need if you simply believe…”

In what?! You know what the scarecrow, tin man and lion have in common?

They all have no chest, so they follow with no conscious

On the whims of a little girl’s dream, they reach the end of the road

Only to end up back in Kansas with nothing to show

But we behold Topeka it in its beauty; people of every tribe, tongue and nation

A place where wayward sons can stop along the journey to their final destination

Just one of the many havens that display the vast glory

Of a Maker who is benevolent

Who made Himself a God-send and not one of Maury’s guests

Never worry about second-guessing who our Father is

Because our DNA is the proof we need to show us that we are known to Him

None like Him, so there’s none like us

He is holy, wholly Other; so I’m wholly broken dust

Made whole again by the sacrifice of His offering

Of a Kinsman Redeemer’s love

Lisping to us in the spoken word

Healing us from the greatest lie we’ve ever heard

The hiss from the serpent’s lips

That has thrown the true origin of our species off course

And has left us an inheritance of a violent wind

And blindness as a curse

But our Creator heals the calloused eye

And He also masters the storm

So even if all around me were swept away

His eye is on the sparrow –

Amidst the turbulence, this is my calm

Remember this:

The Devil is only in the details

Because his Maker saw it fitting for him to exist

So, in other words, there are no “maverick molecules”…

Everyday is an Apocalypse.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Shon

Posted via email from THE CENTER (ROOM 116)

Q & A: General Revelation/The Substance of Atheism

These two questions are sort of linked together, so I decided to post answers to them at the same time...I'm sure there will be more elaborate post on these at another time. Hope you find these answers helpful. Enjoy!

Q: Why is general revelation insufficient for man's needs?

A: General revelation is able to point us to the fact that there is a God, but lacks the ability to communicate to us what the Lord requires of us. Things such as the knowledge of sin, salvation, repentance, the Gospel; these things can only be known through specific or special revelation as God reveals them to us.  In short, within general revelation we may come to know that God exists, but it is in special revelation that we discover what the Lord requires, the depth of our sins, and how God reconciles us to himself (Romans 1:19-23, 3:9-26).

Q: Is it theologically plausible to argue that there are no real atheists? If so, on what grounds?

A: We would have to say, yes, based on the evidence of Scripture given in Romans 1:21-25:

 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise, they became fools,  and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

 Therefore, the argument can be soundly made that Atheism is really just a delusion of a darkened mind that is bent toward idolatry. They may say that they believe in no god, but in fact are gods unto themselves, or they craft one of their choosing.

 “Atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man.”  - Francis Bacon

Hit me up if you have any discussion, questions, or comments.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Shon

Posted via email from THE CENTER (ROOM 116)

And Now...A Morey Moment: For the Love of God

I must confess something. I love Robert Morey. Some of my friends don't really care for him too much because they say that he's "crazy". I have to agree, but that's the very reason that I love him! He's crazy like a fox...I'm talking "Batman Crazy".

Here he is tackling the topic of the Love of God. Enjoy. I know I did...

Soli Deo Gloria,
Shon

Blessed Non-Assurance: The Truth About Atheism

"Science is nothing but perception." - Plato

I ran across this ad for the Atheist Campaign not too long ago. It intrigued me a bit, so I decided to click on the link to see what this was all about. As you would have guessed...it was about, well, nothing (get it - because they're atheists). These were the logos and buttons that could seen around the holidays in the UK and other places that have been designed to try to put the mind and soul at ease (as clearly seen by the slogan). Except for there is one small problem. We'll call it the "Problem of Probability".

How in the world could this set anyone's mind at ease?! If there IS no God, then there's no judgement, no wrath, and no accountability to him (Never mind the fact that the ramifications of such a proposal are horrendous, but we'll save that for another time). But they don't give a definitive answer; all they actually offer is a 'definite maybe'. You would have to be irrational to find comfort in something like that. Truth be told, what we have here is a tell-tale slogan. Most telling of all is the lack of surety, due to the fact that the statement isn't atheistic (no god); it is most certainly agnostic (no knowledge - or not sure of god). So, this leaves one to question:

Why so hesitant to pull the trigger?

Even with all of the popularity surrounding writers such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, no one seems to really be able to put a nail in God's coffin. Nietzsche tried. He failed. Even during the French Revolution, the leaders who abolished the religious structure because they believed in reason ended up making reason itself into a goddess because they realized that people needed something to worship. Why? Because it is intrinsic to human nature. Even when wrongly pursued, the fact still remains that we are inherently aware of the fact that something, someone greater than ourselves governs the order of things in the universe (Romans 1:18-25). This is why George Herbert is right when he says, "The devil divides the world between atheism and superstition".

So even though these New Atheists try to posture behind the guise of empirical scientific evidence and sound reasoning, the truth is that they are no closer to the truth than when they started. It's all word games, straw men, and ad hoc arguments...

Ben Stein Interview w/ Richard Dawkins

"Atheism is a disease of the soul, before it becomes an error of the understanding." - Plato

Soli Deo Gloria,

Shon