Sorry
Added pics of Eli at the Fair.
Sorry this doesn't get as much action. It takes more time to post here, so the
Tech Blog gets a lot more posts.
Starting a study in Romans with some people at work, so that should be good. Going to use John MacArthur's study through Romans as a base, but use supplemental stuff throughout. Going to start off with an intro to Paul and why he wrote Romans. Should be good!
Stem Cells We Can All Love?
Interesting stuff.
http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,68608,00.html?tw=rss.TOP So we don't need to create embryos just to destroy them after all? Funny what "not budging" on moral standards will drive us to discover...
New Text Message Website
Truthfully, the best way to get a hold of me if you need to is to send a TXT message to my cell phone. Why? Because if I'm not at my desk, I won't see your e-mail. If I'm in a meeting or am otherwise busy, I'll probably ignore your call and check the voicemail once I'm done. However, if you send me a text message with the subject of what you need to talk to me about, I get it immediately (my cell is almost ALWAYS on me and on) and I can prioritize when I need to get back to you. There are several ways to TXT message me. First, you can just e-mail aaron.horn@vtext.com. However, it's hard to know how many characters will come through when you do it that way. Therefore, I have created a new page that makes it VERY simple to send me a text message (it will even count the chacters and convert the message to be as short as possible for you):
http://text.hornit.net Check it out and just remember
text.hornit.net the next time you need to get a hold of me. And don't just send me a message that says "Call me" because it will be sent to the absolute bottom of my priority list. That goes for voicemails as well. :-)
An Intellect CAN Believe in Creation?
Ok, so OZ brought up an excellent topic to touch on in a comment on my last post and I was worried that if we pursued it in the comments section, people would miss out. So I'm going to post this response here and I want people to pay attention to the comments section following this post so that if this discussion continues on, it's not missed. If nobody really cares or disagrees, then there will be no comments. Why do I think that's unlikely? Maybe because there aren't that many people that probably read this Blog to tell the truth. :-)
So many of us have been raised to believe in Creation in Sunday School, but Evolution in Public School. Worse yet, some Christians try to "explain" evolution's "evidence" in the terms of the Bible and Christianity. Folks, please understand that we don't really need to "justify" our beliefs about Creation. We are looking at the SAME EVIDENCE as the evolutionists. They don't have some secret "facts" that we as Christians aren't aware of! Think about it: we all have the same earth, the same fossil layers, the same animals and plants, the same stars—the facts are all the same.
IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO INTERPRETATION OF THOSE FACTS! Am I right? As Christians, we start out with certain presuppositions. Presuppositions are things that are assumed to be true, without being able to prove them. These then become the basis for other conclusions. Evolutionists also start out with certain presuppositions. We then both take the SAME FACTS and mold them to support OUR presuppositions. So we aren't debating the facts, we're debating our interpretations of those facts based on our presuppositions.
I can't even begin to give you all of the interpretations of the evidence that would make one agree that the earth is the result of a Creator God. There are so many rational, intelligent, and well respected scientists that can look at the same evidence and show that Creation is the most logical explanation. (Don't get frustrated by my lack of supporting evidence here, you'll get more than you can digest at the end of this post.) I think the misconception is that it's "science" versus "religion." That's not true at all. Science definitely has it's place in religion.
God gave us science! I am a very rational person, and please don't take this as a weakness of faith, but I don't make it a habit to just blindly accept things because "the Bible says so" so don't even question it. Granted, there are some things I accept that I can't prove beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt, but I'm not an ignorant closed minded person. If the Bible teaches something, I PRESUPPOSE that it's true and accurate because I believe that God's Word is infallible, but that doesn't mean I stop there and presuppose you believe the same thing. I look at it from your perspective and try to understand your presuppositions so I can do one of two things. 1) Show you my point of view in relevance to your bias or 2) See the error in my thinking and take on your belief. However, I will say, that if your belief contradicts the Word of God, the odds are 1 in a trillion that I'll take your stance.
A presupposition that is making it impossible for me to see the "truth" because I'm blinded by religion? No, a presupposition based on faith, that I have yet to be convinced is not true. A presupposition making me totally closed minded? No, a presupposition that is different than yours when looking at the evidence, which isn't going to change unless some miraculous evidence is shown to me that I absolutely cannot ignore that totally abolishes my presuppositions. Wow, that was a big sentence.
If I have used the word presupposition too much, I apologize. I just can't think of a better way to say it. Ok, so I promised you some "interpretations" of the evidence that would support Creation and the Young Earth theory. What? You mean to tell me that you believe the earth is less than 10,000 years old? Yes, based on the same evidence you are looking at, but using different presuppositions about the existence of God (or the lack thereof for some people), I believe that the earth is NOT millions and millions of years old as we were so factually taught in school. Let Bill Mahr call me a moron. I don't care, I've thought worse about Bill Mahr. I pray for Bill Mahr, he is truly one of the most affected people I know. And not by the truth, but by the world's theology. If you don't know who Bill Mahr is, good for you. You're a better person for it. :-)
Sorry, I digress. I have spent some serious time at Answers in Genesis, which I am proud to cite as the basis for my rant here. Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry that equips Christians with the ability to defend their faith to skeptics. It's the kind of thing that a guy like me eats up. I love it and I could spend hours swimming in it. So I promised you some interpretations of the evidence that supports my views on Creation and the Young Earth. Here they are. I encourage you to spend some time at this site and just read through the evidence. It's really good stuff and will hopefully show you that Christians aren't just a bunch of thoughtless dolts that use God as a crutch.
I believe in a Young Earth: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/young.asp
My hat goes out to OZ for bringing up this discussion and letting me dig in a little bit about why you can't just blow off a Christian as a non thinker and why, as a Christian, you need to think. I hope we're in the same boat, brother, and if not, I'd love to fill up the Comment section of this post until we are.
1 Peter 3:15 "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and [be] ready always to [give] an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear"
Scientists vs. God
There's a story about a group of scientists who decided that humans could do without God. So one of them looked up to God and said, "We've decided that we no longer need You. We have enough wisdom to clone people and do many miraculous things."
God listened patiently and then said, "Very well, let's have a man-making contest. We'll do it just like I did back in the old days with Adam." The scientists agreed, and one of them bent down and picked up a handful of dirt. God looked at him and said, "No! You have to make your own dirt!"
