Philosophy's Achilles Heel

Chris Holland

It Is Written Canada

The Question

God's book, the Bible, still relevant in today's complex world.

It is written sharing messages of hope around the world.

¶¶ The North American moose, the largest species of the deer family.

Strong, majestic, yet mysterious animals.

Growing up, I didn't live in an area where there are moose.

I went camping with my parents and often camped in areas where moose should have been.

Later in life, when I married my wife, she shared stories of seeing moose.

It only increased my desire to see this animal all the more.

So I set out on a quest to see a moose in the wild.

I camped in 1 area that they said had moose.

I went to places where there should have been moose, but all to no avail.

I traveled another place with the guarantee that I would see a moose, but nothing.

Along the way, I saw statues, pictures, and even videos, but never a moose in the wild.

I even saw a statue of a moose with wings, but never a moose in the wild.

As I considered this situation, I began to doubt whether or not moose even existed.

I said in my mind, this is a fabricated story.

The pictures have been photoshopped and the videos edited.

Now, I know it sounds absurd, but that is really what I thought.

I wasn't able to see it, so it must not be real.

People are even distorting the picture with a flying moose.

Well, the course of all of that changed in 2013 when I traveled to Algonquin Provincial Park, where I was virtually guaranteed a sighting.

We came into the park on the west entrance and drove east.

But would I see this animal that was continually escaping me?

Well, as we traveled, we had almost arrived at the east entrance and hadn't seen anything.

I turned the car around and there it was.

I shot some pictures and even posted it on Twitter.

Even though I had settled the question of this moose's existence in my mind, I had a friend that said it was a tiny moose and therefore barely even a moose.

But just 1 year later, in Newfoundland, I saw 2 bull moose that left no doubt that moose are real.

My own experience with Moose reminds me of the struggle that some people have in knowing whether or not God exists.

And maybe it is a good question for us to ask.

It is perhaps a strange question for it is written to ask, yet a recent Canadian census reveals that the percentage of those who claim no religious affiliation grew from just 4% of the population in 1971 to almost 25% in 2011.

Yet at the same time, the percentages of those who represent the largest religious groups in Canada, namely Roman Catholics and Protestants, experienced significant decline.

The Roman Catholic Church decreased from 47% of the population to 39%.

The most significant and greatest decline occurred among Protestants, who were at 41% in 1971, but fell to only 27% of the population in 2011.

And while there may be a variety of causes for these statistics, we cannot rule out the possibility that for many Canadians, the question of God's existence constitutes the underlying reason for these trends that are revealed by the census.

The fact is that science, since the time of Charles Darwin, has led many to believe that this world is not the result of a special creation by a divine being, but rather is the result of a chance mixture of the right amino acids and atmosphere that eventually evolved through natural processes over millions, if not billions, of years.

Now Because of this, many scientists believe that random chance processes completely rule out creation and design by a divine being as an explanation for the origin of our world and the universe.

Thus, this approach has created an unbridgeable chasm between science on 1 hand and religion on the other.

And this has led many to question the very existence of God.

It is interesting to note that many of the pioneers of modern science, such as Kepler, Galileo, Boyle, Pascal, Linné, and Newton, all included the concept of God in their scientific outlook.

Author Ariel Roth points this out in his book, Science Discovers God.

They often spoke of him and they considered their scientific investigations as the continuing discovery of the laws that He had created.

Those intellectual giants demonstrated how science and an awareness of God can work together as we study nature.

And so, for those pioneers of science, the existence of God and scientific methods were not mutually exclusive of 1 another, but rather complementary.

And in light of the chasm that has been created between modern science and religion, it is even more interesting to note the percentage of scientists who believe in God, not only as a supreme being that creates and sustains nature, but also as a personal God to whom 1 may pray.

In the prestigious journal Nature, a survey was conducted and they picked 1, 000 individuals from the listing of scientists in the American Men and Women of Science.

The results revealed that about 40% of these scientists said they believed in the type of God that answers their prayers.

Interestingly enough, this survey, which was conducted in 1996, was principally the same survey as 1 done 80 years earlier with essentially the same results.

Yet for many Canadians, and for many people around the world, for that matter, they are still asking that question.

So for the next weeks and months, I would like to explore with you what some say is the ultimate question of life.

How can we be sure that God does in fact exist?

Do many who believe just operate under the assumption of God's existence?

Furthermore, does the evidence only lend itself to those who belong to some religion, or is there some criteria that 1 can apply regardless of whether 1 ascribes to religion or not?

In order to try to find an answer to these questions, and the big question of God's existence, we need to construct a test.

It must be a test that anyone can administer regardless of whether or not 1 is religious.

Now before we begin, we need to establish 1 important ground rule, and that is the importance of maintaining a proper attitude in answering this question.

Sabud Pandit, a scholar and researcher of world religions, each of us has a blend of 3 attitudes in us that we can switch to at any given moment.

Each of us are inherently either believers, skeptics, or inquirers.

And here is the major difference between them.

A skeptic decides against a claim prior to thorough investigation.

A believer, on the other hand, decides to accept a claim prior to thorough investigation, and an inquirer holds verdict until the investigation is done.

In addition, a skeptic focuses on the question to the exclusion of the evidence, whereas a believer focuses on the evidence to the exclusion of the question, while an inquirer focuses on the weight of the evidence.

All the while, a skeptic disbelieves in the face of reasonable evidence.

However, a believer believes while big questions remain.

An inquirer accepts reasonable evidence, even if some questions still remain.

So I must ask, which of these attitudes is the most critical to demonstrate in any given investigation?

Now of course, the answer is that of an inquirer.

Beginning with the attitude of the skeptic will lead to skewed results and understandings.

Yet in the same way, if I start with the premise of a believer, I will undoubtedly make flawed decisions of naivety.

By founding my attitude as an inquirer, it will lead to the best possible results of a decision based on the evidence establishing a well-balanced and grounded belief system.

So With that understanding of how important it is of having the attitude of an inquirer, we now need to describe the method we are going to use in order to analyze the question of God's existence.

In other words, we need to construct a test that only God Himself could pass.

The method we are going to construct must be able to examine 2 things.

And second, how can we determine whether our knowledge is certain?

From these 2 questions, we will construct the test and then apply it to the question of God's existence.

So then let's begin by asking that question.

It is 1 that philosophers have analyzed and scientists have assumed in their hypotheses.

And so let's first evaluate several sources of knowledge in order to determine whether or not we can use any of these sources in order to construct our method.

The first source of knowledge is that which is derived from our senses.

Anil Kanda

Ceres SDA Church

Healing the Land

Father, we just thank you so much for this time.

And Lord, our heart's desire is that you would bless us.

God, I have a very special prayer request in the midst of all these other prayer requests, and that is today, Lord, you would apply the balm of Gilead.

We pray for healing to take place today We ask that the Holy Spirit would be present and thank you Lord that the name you've given to the Holy Spirit is the comforter Because that's what he does And so Lord send the Holy Spirit the great comforter to bless us to invigorate us to empower us that by the time we leave The service today.

We know you have spoken to us personally in Jesus name.

Amen All right, ladies and gentlemen, what is the name of the sermon today?

Now, I'm going to tell you a very interesting story, true story took place.

And so I was out in nature and I was out hiking and I was in this very rocky area where nothing was apparently growing.

And so as I was walking around in this rocky area thinking to myself, this isn't really delightful.

I want to go to a place where there's more green where you can see trees that are growing and you can see some wildlife there but I was in this really rocky area And as I was passing and going through this really rocky area all of a sudden I came upon this cavern and As I look into that cavern, you know what I saw it shocked me what I actually saw was green grass at the bottom of this cavern.

And there was trees at the bottom of this cavern.

And there was wildlife feeding at the bottom of this cavern.

And it blew me away because I thought to myself, wait a minute, here I've been looking for something else, and I'm walking around in this really rocky area, and here when I finally stop and I look, I discover a very lush area.

It was this small parcel that was located there.

It was quite strange, but I never forgot as I was looking at that site all of a sudden a Bible lesson came to me The Bible lesson was this many times when we read the scriptures will read the New Testament even the Old Testament We oftentimes pass by stories that seem of no benefit to us.

And so we'll just pass it by, we'll just peruse by, and we'll think to ourselves, well that's just Old Testament teaching.

There's really nothing beneficial for me there.

Something strange was going on with the laws or judgments.

And so we'll look at some of these stories and we'll think to ourselves, yeah, I'm just going to go read something else like the Book of Psalms today.

Ladies and gentlemen, what you will discover As we continue going on with this Bible story and that is that is this that some of the most difficult Bible stories?

Contain the most purest kind of gold Are you listening to me church family?

That the most difficult kinds of Bible passages may contain the most valuable things.

And so what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be taking a good look at a very difficult Bible passage.

And there are certain nuances to this Bible passage that may not make sense when reading it, but what we want to hone in on is the primary points and what God is saying to us.

This is a very amazing story, powerful lessons that are here.

It's more than just some ancient experience that took place in the life of David.

Something unusual was taking place in 2 Samuel chapter 21.

If you've been noticing, we've been covering sort of a loose series on the book of...on David's life.

And so David had been king for some time and as he is king all of a sudden a certain problem Develops in the land take a look at what the Bible says in 2nd Samuel 21 starting with verse 1 Now there was a what?

David had been king, been king several years.

God promised special blessings upon the land of Israel.

It seemed the prophetic structure that brought David to the land of Israel seemed complete, but all of a sudden, something bad started taking place in the land.

Now, a famine may not seem like a big deal, but here's the thing.

This famine continued for How many years?

And David began to recognize, wait a minute, this is more than just some natural phenomena.

I never forgot, I used to own this Jeep Cherokee.

And I would drive this Jeep Cherokee, and 1 day, the steering pump exploded.

And I thought to myself, something's not right here.

Opened up the hood, and I would Always make sure all the fluids were topped off.

But as I began to do a diagnosis on the engine of my car, nothing seemed wrong with the vehicle.

The steering pump should not have broken.

As I began to do some analyzing, I discovered why the steering pump finally broke.

The reason why was because the alignment of the vehicle was off.

And when the alignment of the vehicle is off, you know what's trying to compensate all the time?

And what started happening was, because the alignment was off, because of these huge, gigantic tires, oftentimes I would just wonder to myself, why is the fluid completely being drained really quickly so I put more fluid in and I keep putting more fluid in.

I wasn't really thinking, recognizing the alignment was off and this was causing the steering pump to have to compensate and overwork itself.

Eventually to the place where it finally broke.

So what David begins to discover is, wait a minute, it's not that there is a lack of good fertilizer in the land of Israel.

Year 1, year 2, year 3, he begins to think, wait a minute, something is strange here.

Now there was a famine in the days of David for how many years?

The Bible says in Deuteronomy that if you were not faithful, God would withhold blessings.

Ladies and gentlemen, in our life, when we have problems that keep reoccurring and we don't seem to understand what is the root of that problem, we need to go to the Lord.

And what we will discover is that there is another issue here.

And so David began to realize, wait a minute, this isn't about fertilizer.

Jack Blanco

AudioVerse

Escaping Labor Camps and Finding God

Father in heaven, there's so many things in this world that we don't understand.

You know, we think back to World War I, World War II, Korea, whatever.

We're just going to be so glad when Jesus comes to put an end to wars and crying and sorrow and tears.

And so we ask that you will bless our meeting this afternoon, but first of all, Lord, bless the people there in Paris.

And then Father, draw close to us, all our lives, our families, and be with us in a meeting this afternoon, in Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, I'm going to mention a few things that are not in the book and that are not in the DVD, okay?

What I want to emphasize, you know when I was thinking about this, I really don't want to emphasize the war, Even though I'll mention it, okay?

I want to emphasize God's miracles in my life.

Because it's all about Him, it's not about me.

Well, my mother originally came from Germany, Bavaria, the area that opposed Hitler coming to power.

And they met here in this country in Chicago, planning to get married.

And you know, immigrants in those days when they came here to this country, I mean, yeah, they had to really work hard.

My mother used to work in the sweat shops of Chicago, the bakeries, and you know, work 08:10 hours a day and get home late, whatever.

Anyway, the point is they were planning their marriage.

So she would call them, you know, every evening.

They were not, that was before the days of cell phones.

You know, and you know, the long stem telephone with the hook on the side.

And you know, talk about the wedding and so on but 1 evening she called his apartment and there was no answer So she said well, you know, maybe something came up an appointment or whatever Okay, because he couldn't always get a hold of her.

She had to call him And so she called the next night and again there was no answer.

So she went over to his apartment and knocked on the door but there was no answer.

Oh, the landlady said he left a couple of days ago.

My mother felt abandoned Because I was on the way And You know What do you do?

When she has to work in all the sweatshops and here she's got a new 1, what does she do with them?

And I was a little preemie, born, I don't know whether I was born early, I must have been born early, maybe, you know.

Well she found, we lived in 1 of these high-rise buildings in Chicago, or I shouldn't say high-rise, but anyway, you got apartment buildings about 3 stories up, you know and and Steps going up the back, you know Wooden balconies, you know there in the back and so on and so yeah, she found a babysitter there And 1 day she came home a little early and the door was open and I was sitting in there in the corner crying.

And so she said, you know, how come he's sitting in there crying?

Well, they said we told him if he stopped crying we'd give him something to eat.

She said he's crying because he is hungry.

And then another day she came home a little early, walking up the steps.

In the meantime, I must have been About a year old or a year and a half.

And trying to get a broom loose that was under a rocking chair on the back porch.

And I pulled real hard and lost my balance and fell backwards and you know, you have the railing there, You know, what do you call them, slats or whatever?

But anyway, they were not very close together.

So a little guy, I pulled real hard and fell through those slats and on down, 3 stories down.

My mother was coming up the stairs and saw me fall and then she almost ran back down and almost lost her balance, whatever, running back down here.

I was on the ground and I was unconscious.

Fortunately, I hit the, you know, the lawn, not the cement.

But anyway, I was unconscious for about a week.

And I mean, God's intervention, you know, I mean Anyway, you know then Recovered and my Great aunt my mother's aunt my great aunt felt a little sorry for us and she Finds she took us in and that that was a relief more.

It was more regular family living, you know She had my great aunt of course had sons and my uncles, and of course, they were older, grown, and so on and so forth.

And so I grew up, and when I got to be, you know, school age, my mother was a faithful Catholic.

And so, you know, when I was, well, I should go back, when I was born, you know, shortly thereafter I was baptized, you know, obviously, a little baby sprinkled by the priest.

But anyway, when I got to be elementary school age, yeah, I went to school and the nuns, what I, 1 thing I remember about the nuns, they were very kind.

Really, I mean, they would come into the classroom and they would say, how many of you didn't have breakfast today?

You know, kids, we would raise our hand, and she'd say, come on back, take us back to the kitchen and feed us breakfast.

There are some very kind Mother Teresas out there.

And anyway, you know, then I got to be a little older, 7, 8, 9.

When I was about 10 years old, my mother said, well, she had been in this country for 17 years or so.

Well, she would like to go back and see her grandparents and, you know, my, I mean her parents, my grandparents.

She saved up some verification time so she could be over there for about 3 weeks or whatever.

And we went over, she saved money, and we went over on the ship.

I still remember the name of the ship, Columbus it was called.

It was making the regular trip between Bremenhaven in Germany and of course, you know, New York.

And so we went from Chicago to New York, got on a ship, went over there 8 days and Of course when we got there in Bremenhaven, we had to take the train down to Hohenberg in Bavaria, near Leipzig.

And of course my grandparents met us and all, they're glad to see.

My mother was glad to see her, you know, brothers and sisters, whatever.

And of course my grandfather owned a little farm that was in Hohenberg, not too far from Prague, Czechoslovakia, which of course Hitler later took over and You know being on the farm I want to tell you is a different experience than living in Chicago oh Inner city.

Oh, yeah, real animals, not just pictures of animals, you know.

Back to Menu

All Teachings

The Question

29m

Healing the Land

43m

Escaping Labor Camps and Finding God

1h 17m

5. Question & Answer

1h 2m

4. Faith & Fanaticism

48m

3. Fanaticism & the Latter Rain

52m

2. 2520 is Not the Problem

49m

1. How to Forecast Future Fanaticism

55m

John 17- Part 2

54m

John 17- Part 1

57m

Systematic Benevolence- Part 2

52m

Systematic Benevolence- Part 1

52m

Sound Doctrine