A few days ago I posted an article on “famed” atheist Richard Dawkins’ recent comments on the Christmas holiday and tradition. Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote on this today, and here is why I respect him so much:

The sight of an avowed atheist joining in the Christmas chorus is a bit hard to imagine. At the same time, there is something comforting about the idea that even the world’s most famous atheist will move his lips to the songs that celebrate Christ’s birth. Perhaps those words will move from his lips to his head and his heart. We should pray that it might be so.

Look at Dr. Mohler’s heart. He sees a man so lost in his unbelief of Jesus Christ our Lord and what is his reaction: compassion. I am humbled. Please join Dr. Mohler in praying for Dr. Dawkins and all those he has had an influence on.

I have one of those electric toothbrushes. It’s actually a very nice one. An odd wedding gift, but an expected one when you invite dentists to your wedding. The other day, I thought it would be a good idea to talk to my wife while using my odd wedding gift. After mumbling through what I thought was a very clear and concise sentence, I looked up to see my wife just staring at me, wondering whether to laugh at my ridiculous attempt at communication or to be annoyed that I didn’t think it necessary to stop brushing before talking to her.

I think this is a common attitude to have while we communicate with others; we tend to think we are being clear but it’s really coming across as gibberish. When we’re on the receiving side of things we take that gibberish and try to translate it into what we, again, think we heard. How many conflicts in relationships start this way?

What can we do?

1. Stop. Think. Don’t worry about a pause in the conversation, think about what you’re going to say. Try to put yourself in the other person’s position of hearing what you are going to say. Does it make sense in the context of the conversation?
   

   Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger;
   James 1:19

2. Be short in speech. When conversing, typically the more words you use, the worse off you are. People tend not to process a lot of words when listening, they reserve this for their reading. So, try to cut out unnecessary words and be brief. Get to your point quickly.
   

   When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.
   Proverbs 10:19

3. Don’t assume anything. This always leads to trouble on the receiving end. Don’t assume that someone really meant something other than what they really said. Take the time to really understand what someone has just said rather than jumping to conclusions, which brings up the next point.
   

   Who is like the wise?
   And who knows the interpretation of a thing?
   Ecclesiastes 8:1

4. Ask questions. This is key. If something doesn’t make sense, ask them about it, don’t assume (see point #3). Asking questions shows the other person that you are interested in what they have to say and that you need some help in clarifying things. I’ve never met a person who didn’t love being asked questions.
   

   It is the glory of God to conceal things,
   but the glory of kings is to search things out.
   Proverbs 25:2

5. Avoid controversy. Debate is fun and it occasionally has its place. But let’s be honest, most normal conversations don’t need to turn into a debate so avoid it. The easiest way to do this is to avoid statements that cause the other to put up their defenses. People hear certain strong statements and immediately tune-out and begin thinking how they can defend themselves. Instead of using strong statements, pose them in question form. This way you still learn what you wanted to learn from the other person and it doesn’t make them feel like they have to defend themselves. People would rather answer a question than defend their case.
   

   Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil
   2 Timothy 2:23-24

6. Be encouraging. This is key…also. What would a discussion look like if both sides were encouraging in what they said? What would an argument look like if both sides were encouraging in what they said? This should be our focus in our communication, to encourage one another. People can get enough discouragement from the world, they don’t need anymore from us.
   

   Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
   1 Thessalonians 5:11

Now it’s your turn, what did I leave off this list? Or what are some lessons you’ve learned from bad conversations in the past?

After much pain on my part and patience on my wife’s part, I’m rolling out the new layout for the blog I’ve been working on.

I have to pass on a note of thanks to Tim Challies (www.challies.com) and his blog as it did inspire my design in a lot of ways and his CSS coding helped my ignorance.

Let me know what you think of the layout; criticism is ok…

Reformation Theology has a lengthy post titled “Knowing Our God”. I confess I haven’t read through the entire article yet given its length but what I have read through is fantastic.

While we’re on the subject of knowing God, I can’t recommend Packer’s book Knowing God enough.

Just a quick note; typically when I find long postings like these, I will save them away for my own research. A lot of work was put into studying the Scriptures and pulling out a lot of references and we can benefit from this work considerably.

I found an article Reuters has posted on current research into human evolution traits over time. John Hawks out of the University of Wisconsin has been looking into what specific physical traits have evolved in humans over the past few millions of years. I think the article can be summed up as quoted below

The central finding is that human evolution is happening very fast — faster than any of us thought

and, from the article

In fact, people today are genetically more different from people living 5,000 years ago than those humans were different from the Neanderthals who vanished 30,000 years ago

The traits this research focused on were not the physical traits (big forehead, lots of hair, big noses) that we typically think of when we think of the pictures of Neanderthals that saturate our museums and elementary school text books, but rather the less visible ones (ear wax, ability to digest milk, disease resistance, etc.). Therefore, this is not a case against the micro-evolution that most evolutionists hold to today since we are not talking about sweeping changes in human-body structure. But it is interesting to point out that this research seems to imply that the humans we are today came about very rapidly in the past 5,000 years; which is about the age of the earth if you ask someone who believes in a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis.

But There Are Still 30,000 Year Old Bones

The question still remains though, if we have human bones from 30,000 years ago we would have to throw out the literal Genesis account of creation, so how do we reconcile this? Let’s look at the method used to date these human remains.

Carbon Dating

Carbon dating will calculate the age of carbon in a specimen based on how much carbon is left when you find it. Since carbon decays at a known rate, you can calculate an age given the current amount found in a specimen. The rate at which carbon decays is based on the amount of C14 in the atmosphere during a specimen’s lifetime. This is where carbon dating breaks down. The amount of C14 in the atmosphere has not been constant over time. For instance, the amount of C14 doubled for a little while during the 1950’s and 1960’s (when atomic weapons testing was done above ground anywhere there was available space). Natural conditions affect the amount of C14 as well; climate changes, solar storms, amount of organic matter existing, etc.

Scientists have attempted to fix this issue by looking at items with known ages and measuring their amount of carbon and then calibrating based on these values. So, as an example, we can take a tree and count its number of rings and determine its age (1 ring = 1 year of life) and measure its carbon quantity and match up the age of the tree and the age of the bone. But again this method relies on a constant ecological environment during the tree’s lifetime. For example, during periods of rapidly changing climates, trees may grow faster or slower and hence would not gain 1 ring per year. Apart from the non-constant growth cycle, you have the bigger problem of taking two objects that did not begin their life-cycle together and attempting to base one’s age on the other’s. Let’s say I date a tree at 20,000 years old and then use that tree’s age to calibrate for a 10,000 year old bone, I cannot just assume that a tree’s previous 10,000 years would not have any effect on it’s aging characteristics for the next 10,000 years. I would have to calibrate using a specimen that began its life at the same time the bone (and whoever it was attached to) did. And even if I could do that, I would only be basing the bone’s age on the tree’s age, but the tree’s age is based on the bone’s age because I had to use a tree that was the same age as the bone’s. And so you have an iterative calculation method without a lot of specimens to choose from (we have about 270 samples which are older than 5,000 years).

The Variable Truth

In the end, what we have is methods which rely on assumptions to determine their results. What if the world flooded 4,000 years ago? Certainly something this massive in scale would throw off a formula which is based on things remaining fairly constant through-out their life-span.

The BBC News is reporting Richard Dawkins’ response to recent discussions in the UK about the political correctness of Christmas. Religious leaders are saying that pushes to make the Christmas holiday “safe” have taken a toll on the historical aspects surrounding Christmas and that Briton’s Christian culture will not survive if forced to appease everyone. Leaders claimed that the recent surge in anti-religious writings, conferences, and entertainment, if left unchecked, would leave the average Briton’s knowledge about their country’s history severely lacking.

One of the most vocal proponents of anti-religious materials has been Richard Dawkins. He responded in an unusual way given the typical tone of controversationalim (defined: using controversy for sensational purposes) he uses in his delivery. His response seemed to be a clarification of sorts:

This is historically a Christian country. I’m a cultural Christian in the same way many of my friends call themselves cultural Jews or cultural Muslims. So, yes, I like singing Carols along with everybody else. I’m not one of those who wants to purge our society of our Christian history.

Reading through any of his writings, you will find that his stated purpose is to purge society of all religious thought. I’m curious as to what would be left of Christian history when Christian thought is purged from the minds of a nation’s citizens. Why would we celebrate the miraculous birth of Jesus if there was no real miracle?

So, why do I bring this story up, it’s not really news-worthy if you think about it.

When you grow up in a Christian culture, you do certain things out of tradition, for instance, you sing Christmas carols repeatedly and you get fairly used to them. You don’t think about the words. And they are glorious! I sang these words hundreds of times as a child, but only now do I understand them:

O Holy Night
J.S.Dwight & A.C.Adam, 19th Century

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night divine, O night,O night divine!

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here came the wise men from Orient land.
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials born to be our Friend!
He knows our need, To our weakness no stranger;
Behold your King! Before the lowly bend!
Behold your King! your King! before Him bend.

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name!
Christ is the Lord, Oh praise His name forever,
His pow’r and glory evermore proclaim His pow’r and glory
evermore proclaim.

What would Christmas be where Christ is replaced with culture? You would go about singing “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth” and never feel your soul’s worth.

Publisher’s Weekly has a brief review of Tim Keller’s upcoming book: “The Reason For God”. The highly anticipated (by myself at least) book is due out on February 14th of 2008. Tim does not publish a lot of books so you might sit up and take notice when he actually does.

(HT: Reformissionary)

The Telegraph is reporting some statistics gathered from polls in the UK. Here are the questions asked and their responses:

1. According to the story in the Christian Bible, where was Jesus born?

• 73 per cent correctly said Bethlehem. Of the 27 per cent who were wrong, 10 per cent said Nazareth and 9 per cent said Jerusalem.

2. Who told Mary that she would give birth to a son?

• 73 per cent correctly said an angel. Of the 27 per cent who were wrong, six per cent said the wise men, five per cent said the shepherds and four per cent said Joseph.

3. Who was Jesus’ cousin?

• 48 per cent correctly said John the Baptist. Of the 52 per cent who were wrong, 12 per cent said Peter, six per cent said Luke and six per cent said James. 26 per cent said they did not know.

4. Where did Joseph, Mary and Jesus go to escape from King Herod when Jesus was a young child?

• 22 per cent correctly said Egypt. Of the 78 per cent who were wrong, 52 per cent said Nazareth, five per cent said Babylon and one per cent said Rome.

The most interesting part about these statistics is that they get worse as you narrow down the ages and only look at Britons aged 18 to 24. Statistics gathered from polls are always tricky to deal with given the randomness involved in polling. But I think these stats do point out a well-know fact in Europe; Christianity is on the decline.

As Christian adults, here is our challenge:

contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints
Jude 3
You shall teach them [God's Words] diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
Deuteronomy 6:7

How are you pouring into the lives of the young people around you so that they will know God’s Word?

Christ and Pop Culture provides their take on this movie/book series. Here is Al Mohler’s. The movie is generating a lot of buzz this week and I’ve found these two posts to be the most thought-provoking so far.

LiveScience has reported an unusual finding in the Bahamas:

Divers also found fossilized leaves, twigs, flowers, fruits, seeds, pollen and spores.

Don’t miss the key-word there, divers.

Leaves, twigs, flowers, fruits, etc. were found by divers in a sinkhole in an underwater cavern called a blue hole. Here goes the theory: During the Ice Age, limestone caves existed in various parts of the world, when the ice melted and the waters rose they covered the roofs of these caves and eventually the weight of the water caused the roofs to collapse creating a sinkhole effect, which is called a blue hole.

I would propose this theory: A few thousand years ago, God wanted to wipe out every living thing from the face of the earth so He caused the rains to pound the earth for 40 days and 40 nights and the fountains of the great deep to open up and together the two sources covered the earth with water such that no dry land was found anywhere. Any formation without a roof sturdy enough to withstand the weight of the massive amounts of water collapsed and preserved whatever was inside the formation at the time. Read the account here.

These blue holes could have been here when God created the earth or possibly they were caused when God did something so dramatic to our planet that it is difficult to predict the ramifications it had on our terrestrial structures. I would even venture to say the effect it had on this earth probably would look very similar to the effect huge glaciers of ice covering the earth melting away over time and causing the water levels to raise drastically would have had. What’s my proof? Also from the article:

The bones, ranging in age from 1,000 to 4,200 years old, were very well preserved in the deep, oxygen-free saltwater layer of the sinkhole, which is free of the bacteria and fungi that typically munch on bones.

The Bible dates the flood sometime around 2300BC. Which would be right around 4,300 years ago…