Favorite Bible Verses/Stories

Leviticus 11:44 For I am the LORD your God; sanctify yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.

1 Samuel 15:22 But Samuel replied: "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams.

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

1 Kings 18 - Elijah on Mt Carmel

Time

Time plays a major role in Christian Theology whether we realize it or not. For instance, one of the major reasons the church supports the Trinitarian view is because of time. The thought is that Jesus must have always existed because if he didn't always exist then there must have been a point in time where God thought to create him. However, God exists outside of time, so that cannot be true; ergo Jesus has always existed. There are other theologies that follow similar logic, so the notion of time, and God's existence outside of time, are large players in theology.

Recently, I was reading a book by Gregory Benford called Beyond Infinity. I can't say the book was all that good, but it brought to my attention the thought of multiple time dimensions. Scientists are still postulating what time really is, but there is no reason why there couldn't be multiple dimensions of time just as there are multiple dimensions of space. If that is the case, then there is no reason that God couldn't exist in his own temporal dimension that spawned ours, but still be entirely outside of ours. In that case, the days of Genesis could be completely literal for his time dimension and the idea that a day is like a thousand years could also be taken more literally.

I like the idea of God existing in his own time that is separate from ours. I think it solves a lot of tough theological problems in an elegant manner.

The fall

A couple of things I thought about recently in my quest to intertwine the Bible with modern Science. Perhaps more accurate would be modern pseudo-science: the science of the spirit.

First, I've been pondering how a fruit can embue humans with the knowledge that they are naked. I don't know of any substance that can give us that kind of awareness. However, I think there is another explanation. What if, when the serpent said that eating the fruit would make a human like God, he meant by the introduction of a concience - or a spirit. In other words, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, it signified that humans were ready to receive a spirit. No, slightly different. When humans displayed free will, God had to give us a spirit to help guide us. He had to embue us with part of himself, to make us strong enough to hold off against the hard choices that The Accuser would present to us. It was not the fruit itself that gave Adam and Eve their souls; instead it was a consequence of the choice.

Second, it is often said that Satan was thrown from Heaven because he wished to be God. He wanted to be in control. That makes sense, but usually there is a spark issue. Much like the death of Archiduke Franz Ferdinand "caused" WWI, I believe there was a "cause" to Satan's excommunication from Heaven. I believe that cause was possession. There are a number of cases of demonic posession in the Bible, but no cases of heavenly possession. Granted, the Holy Spirit can fill us, and we can allow it to work through us, but it does not control us. However, demonic posession manifests itself with the demon in control of the body. Perhaps the mention in the Bible where the Sons of God married the Daughters of Men had something to do with humans that were being controlled by soon to be Demons. God probably forbade this practice and Satan and his followers rebelled. They enjoyed humanly pleasures, they enjoyed the power of controlling a physical body. They did not want to stop, so God threw them out of Heaven and banished them to roam the Earth that they worshiped so much.

Good Series on David

I have to recommend Turning Point's current series The Tender Warrior. I've been listening to parts of it on the radio and hope to be able to purchase it soon. It is a great series about David and his conflicts with lust and pride. I know that I have personally been affected by this series and I think God could speak to you through it, too. We can all learn something from the way David failed and still remained a man after God's own heart.

Baptism

I was surfing the web for nothing in particular when I saw a web site that said "We believe in water baptism." To which, I thought: I do, too. Why? I know the biblical reasons why I believe in water baptism, but this blog doesn't explore that. This blog is to explore the scientific reasons behind the Bible's brilliance.

It seems that water has some interesting properties. It seems to take on the "energy" of what is around it. For instance, if you are full of bad energy, the water will crystalize poorly. However, with positive energy, the water, when frozen, will crystalize beautifully. Considering we are mostly water, this has some interesting implications. I believe it may also explain why we submerse ourselves in water. We are attempting to transfer the bad energy we have into the water, so we can emerge clean.

A couple of links
http://www.0disease.com/0emoto.html
http://www.pureinsight.org/pi/index.php?news=1519
http://www.lightconnectiononline.com/Archive/jan05_article1.htm

Wake Up!

A coworker of mine invited me to his church this Sunday (today). I thanked him and told him I would love to come visit. I have to say that I'm a habitual oversleeper, but I fully intended to take him up on his offer. I set my alarm clock for 8:00, which would give me plenty of time to get there before the service started at 10:00. I woke up when the alarm went off and turned the alarm off. I began thinking of excuses to allow me to go back to sleep. I thought of a good enough one and faded off into dream land.

At this point I have to make an aside. I talk to God. Many people talk to God, I imagine. Our prayers are designed to do that very thing. But, I may be a little odd because I believe God talks to me. Now, you are free to stop reading at this point, call me a lunatic, and move on. I won't hold a grudge. In fact, I'll offer up the opinion that it might just be my subconcious. I don't hear audible noices: the only words are in my head. Nevertheless, I hear the words and I feel they are from God. Your milage may vary.

Ok, back to the matter at hand. I was sleeping, perhaps a little restlessly after being woken up and running excuses through my subconcious, when God spoke to me. He said, very clearly in my mind, "My children don't go to Church at their convienence". The message was very clear. It was 8:35 AM. What was I to do? I got up, took a shower, got dressed, and went to my friends church. It was very moving - a very warm and friendly church. I look forward to taking my family there when they arrive from Arkansas. God is not always so blunt with me, so I appreciate the reminder that he still cares for me. I also hope I showed I still care for him.

Spiritual Science

I have been, unfortunately, stuck in a hotel room for the past two weeks. Hopefully, I will find a house to rent this week and I can move out of the hotel. But for now, I'm stuck with about 8 TV channels and a number of books I brought with me. I can only read for so long before my eyes start to give out and my ears start to yearn for another's voice. Last night, that voice came from Penn and Teller. Despite my hotel not having very many channels, it does have 3 channels of showtime. On this night, the first showtime channel was playing Penn and Teller: Bullshit! - Abstenance. In this show, Penn and Teller (well one of them, the other doesn't talk - not sure which is which) went through the virtues of sex and how the religious right were just crazed lunatics. They talked about the health benefits of sex and how schools should teach safe sex and masterbation instead of abstenance because statistics have shown 80% of those in abstinance only programs engage in pre-marital sex; therefore, those programs don't work. They brought out Jocyln Elders and Ph.D.'s in sexology and even some from abstinance only programmes (though they mainly just made fun of them).

In their defense, it was not meant to be "fair and balanced." It was designed to demonstrate that their viewpoint was the enlightened one, backed by the latest scientific evidence: instead of the crank religious right's viewpoint which is only backed by 5000 years of tradition and mysticism. I laughed at their arrogance and thier egotism. Their naivete at what they don't know is astounding. I fully admit that there exists a plethora of information that I'm not aware of. In a world where information is king, I am but a jester. I firmly believe that we only know a small fraction of what we could know and touting scientific studies as proof of anything is just lunacy.

The Bible is full of information on how to live your life, both physically and spiritually. It describes interactions in two very different worlds. It discusses how changes in the spiritual world greatly affect the physical. In our modern era of science and experimentation, we know those to be the ramblings of ancient and ignorant peoples. They could only explain the world they knew by creating a world they didn't know.

Recent superstring theory tries to unify gravity and quantum mechanics through the vibration of unfathomably small strings. If a string vibrates a certain way, it produces an electron, a different way would produce a neutrino, and so on for all the sub-atomic particles. According to their theory, our universe is a cosmic symphony. Being a music lover, I like that. I like to think that we are all working to produce a harmony. Currently, it is the leading theory in the push to find the GUT (grand unifying theory) and it is gaining quite a bit of momentum. But, there is one oddity to the theory. It requires spacetime to have not 4 dimensions, like we are used to (3 of space, 1 of time), but in fact 10 or 11 dimensions (9 or 10 of space, 1 of time). Scientists often pose thoughts as to where these spacial dimensions are, but no answer has been widely accepted. A common answer is that the dimensions are curled up into a ball so tiny that we cannot see them. We pass through them without even knowing it. Another common answer is that they dimensions are vast (like the 3 with live in), but we have no faculties for noticing them. They are all around us, a shadow world that we cannot see or touch. According to the latest scientific research there is a world all around us that we cannot hear, see, touch, or explore. And they call religious people mysics.

I know that the spiritual world is real. I wonder if it is somehow embedded in those extra 6 or 7 dimensions. If so, then the Bible is not just a guide for how to live in a world you understand, but also how to live in one you can't. Not only must we ask how something will affect our physical selves, but also our spiritual selves - selves that exist in dimensions that we can't penetrate. In the battle against abstinence, one can bring in tons of evidence on how sexual intercourse is medically benefiicial. I certainly don't deny it - nor would any other Christian. That is why sex is an important part of marriage. That is why Paul says not to withhold sex from one another in a marital relationship. It is how we were designed to operate in the physical world. But, we must also ask ourselves how we are to operate in the spiritual dimensions. Is there a spiritual version of an STD? How does marriage affect that portion of our selves? We understand the physical aspects of sex. We understand how nerves react to the stimulus. We understand how hormones affect us. We even understand how not to get pregnant. We don't understand the extra-dimensional properties of sex. What happens to our spirits when we engage in intercourse with another person? Is this food to the spirit? Is it recreation or procreation?

There are so many questions about the spiritual world: ones that are still veiled in mysticism. However, as science advances, so too might our knowledge of these extra dimensions and parts of us that extend into them. Perhaps learning to heal a soul in a spiritual dimension will help reduce the number of crimes in the physical world. I honestly don't know. I don't even know how to look. I can't even begin. I can only think. And dream.