While there are several Christian approaches to the finer details of exactly how the Atonement restores our broken relationship with God, all agree that the Atonement involves God providing us with an opportunity to restore our broken relationship with Him through Christ.
The story of Christianity is naturally connected to the story of Christ. God’s plan of redemption is revealed in what Christ did for us. Known as the atonement, what Christ did for us provides the only way to resolve our broken relationship with God.
But before we get to that, let’s spend some time looking at who Christ is, His unique claims, and the reliability of the New Testament.
Who is Christ?
Christ is not actually a name, but a title. The Old Testament set the groundwork for a coming Messiah and “Christ” is the Greek translation of this word, meaning, “anointed one.” The Hebrews looked forward to the coming of the Messiah. Jesus Christ is a name combined with a title. He is Jesus the Messiah – the fulfillment of Old Testament expectations and the key to God’s plan to restore our broken relationship with Him.
The Claims of Christ
The question, “Who is Christ?” is significant. Even Christ asked his followers, “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15, Mark 8:29, Luke 9:20). [1] This question is still relevant to day, especially in light of the claims of Jesus.
Jesus made many extraordinary claims, leaving His listeners with very few options regarding His nature. For instance, He equated Himself with God – something even His contemporary critics understood. In John 10:32-33, we read the following: “Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’ ‘We are not stoning you for any of these,’ replied the Jews, ‘but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.'”
Earlier, in John 8:58, Jesus equated Himself with God, the “I AM” of the Old Testament (Exodus 3:14) when He said, “I tell you the truth … before Abraham was born, I am!” Again, His contemporaries understood what Jesus was suggesting and in the very next verse “they picked up stones to stone him.”
Jesus also claimed the ability to forgive sins. In Mark 2:5, for example, Christ says, “Your sins are forgiven.” In Mark 2:7 His critics said, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Christ also accepted worship – something reserved for God alone, particularly considering His Jewish background and cultural setting. Examples of Jesus accepting worship are found in Matthew 28:9, John 9:38, and more.
Was Jesus merely a man? Was He insane? C.S. Lewis answered these questions best when he wrote, “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic … or else He would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse …” [2]
The New Testament
The New Testament records that Jesus equated Himself with God, that His critics understood this, that He claimed to forgive sins, and that He received worship. He also said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
These are impressive claims. But how do we know that the New Testament record of Jesus is accurate?
As has often been stated, the New Testament documents are the most well attested of ancient history. These documents contain the four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – that provide the most information about Christ, His life, His ministry and so forth. There are more than 5,000 copies of the New Testament in existence and multiple thousands of fragments or portions of the New Testament.
Claims that the New Testament documents have been changed over time and with translation are simply not true, especially when one compares existing documents over the course of history (a field of study known as textual criticism). While there is room for slight variations in wording and minor copyist errors known as variants, none of these impact essential areas of Christian belief and are, in fact, inconsequential when it comes to Christ and His claims. [3]
In short, the New Testament documents are accurate. In addition, the period of time between the time of Christ and the writing of some early New Testament documents is short by historical standards. For instance, 1 Corinthians was written by the Apostle Paul in 55 A.D., about 22 years or so after the events recorded in the Gospels. This means that there was no time for legends to develop about Christ. It also means that many people who were alive at the time of Christ were still alive when much of the New Testament was written.
Moreover, 1 Corinthians contains passages that present the basic principles of the Gospel such as 1 Corinthians 15:1-8: “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living …”
Paul goes on to write about the cornerstone of Christianity – belief in the resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:12-20).
The Atonement
The Atonement is what Christ did for us through His death and resurrection. While there are several Christian approaches to the finer details of exactly how the Atonement restores our broken relationship with God, all agree that the Atonement involves God providing us with an opportunity to restore our broken relationship with Him through Christ as a result of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
John 3:16 is often quoted, but this does not diminish the fact that it contains the essential elements of God’s plan and the atonement: “For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
God has reached out to us. Christ has died for us. Christ lives again for us. We need only accept God’s grace humbly through Christ, turn away from the wrongs we have done, and receive Christ as our Lord and Savior. Then we are ready for the first steps in the Christian life.
The next in this series deals wit the the first steps in living for Christ.
For more information or reading materials, call 1-800-A-FAMILY (232-6459).
Robert Velarde is author of Conversations with C.S. Lewis (InterVarsity Press), The Heart of Narnia (NavPress), and Inside The Screwtape Letters (Baker Books). He studied philosophy of religion and apologetics at Denver Seminary and is pursuing graduate studies in philosophy at Southern Evangelical Seminary.
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New International Version of the Bible.
[2] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Macmillan, 1952), Book II, Chapter 3, pp. 55-56. For a fine contemporary explanation and defense of this line of reasoning see Kenneth Samples,Without a Doubt (Baker, 2004), chapter 8. Further evidence for Christ is provided in Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ (Zondervan, 1998).
[3] See, for instance, F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?(InterVarsity Press) and Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (InterVarsity Press, 2nd edition).
Like you I am a great admirer of John Stossell, Milton Friedman and Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute. I blog about these guys often at http://www.thedailyhatch.org. Since my son Hunter has been trying his hand at stand up, I also have been going to a lot of comedy clubs lately.
Hunter is always using just original material from his own life and that involves the constant study of life itself. The absurdities inside life are always being carefully examined.
Since I have lived and worked in Little Rock many years, I used to run into Bill Clinton quite a lot in downtown Little Rock. It was quite remarkable to me when he chose to emphasize that the small town of Hope was his home town even though he had only lived there 3 or 4 years. Of course, he did so because of the power of the word “HOPE.” I wanted to talk to you about three men and the subject of nihilism: You are the first man and the 2nd is the Bass player DAVE HOPE of the 1970’s rock band Kansas and King Solomon of Israel who wrote Richard Dawkins’ favorite book of the Bible which is Ecclesiastes. There is a thread of nihilism that can be compared in these three men’s stories. Ironically, nihilism is the opposite of HOPE and two of these guys have the word HOPE in their names.
From sex to religion, nothing’s off-topic for the fearless comedian. Posted December 12th, 2012, 1:12 PM by Andy Hunsaker
Last year, on Louis C.K.’s breakout hit series “Louie,” Doug Stanhope played Eddie, an old friend and peer of Louie’s who hadn’t found any success in comedy, nor any happiness in life. Sharing Louie’s low tolerance for bull$#!@, Eddie confided in him that he was just passing through town on his way to Boston, where he would do his final show before killing himself. Every argument Louie tries to muster to convince him otherwise is quickly and brutally shot down, and eventually, he has to just acquiesce to Eddie’s intentions and bid him farewell. With a strong performance from both men, they destroyed the common wisdom that suicide should never be a viable option.
The more viscerally affecting part of that episode is that Eddie doesn’t seem all that far removed from Stanhope himself, aside from the quality of his comedy. Stanhope’s stage persona is a nihilistic man who has to blind himself on alcohol and drugs to enjoy any small part of the bleak, unending hellscape of existence, but as he often says, he’s funnier when he’s drunk, which means he’s not blinding himself at all.
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Obviously you have already arrived at the nihilistic conclusion that many other atheists have reached in the past.
The late Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer sums up where the secular worldview has brought modern man:
So some humanists act as if they have a great advantage over Christians. They act as if the advance of science and technology and a better understanding of history (through such concepts as the evolutionary theory) have all made the idea of God and Creation quite ridiculous.
This superior attitude, however, is strange because one of the most striking developments in the last half-century is the growth of a profound pessimism among both the well-educated and less-educated people. The thinkers in our society have been admitting for a long time that they have no final answers at all.
Take Woody Allen, for example. Most people know his as a comedian, but he has thought through where mankind stands after the “religious answers” have been abandoned. In an article in Esquire (May 1977), he says that man is left with:
… alienation, loneliness [and] emptiness verging on madness…. The fundamental thing behind all motivation and all activity is the constant struggle against annihilation and against death. It’s absolutely stupefying in its terror, and it renders anyone’s accomplishments meaningless. As Camus wrote, it’s not only that he (the individual) dies, or that man (as a whole) dies, but that you struggle to do a work of art that will last and then you realize that the universe itself is not going to exist after a period of time. Until those issues are resolved within each person – religiously or psychologically or existentially – the social and political issues will never be resolved, except in a slapdash way.
Allen sums up his view in his film Annie Hall with these words: “Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.”
Many would like to dismiss this sort of statement as coming from one who is merely a pessimist by temperament, one who sees life without the benefit of a sense of humor. Woody Allen does not allow us that luxury. He speaks as a human being who has simply looked life in the face and has the courage to say what he sees. If there is no personal God, nothing beyond what our eyes can see and our hands can touch, then Woody Allen is right: life is both meaningless and terrifying. As the famous artist Paul Gauguin wrote on his last painting shortly before he tried to commit suicide: “Whence come we? What are we? Whither do we go?” The answers are nowhere, nothing, and nowhere. The humanist H. J. Blackham has expressed this with a dramatic illustration:
On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit.79
One does not have to be highly educated to understand this. It follows directly from the starting point of the humanists’ position, namely, that everything is just matter. That is, that which has existed forever and ever is only some form of matter or energy, and everything in our world now is this and only this in a more or less complex form.
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To sum up Schaeffer is saying, “If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.” (Francis Schaeffer in THE GOD WHO IS THERE)
HAS COMEDY PROVIDED YOU ANY ANSWERS? 3000 years ago Solomon pursued six “L” words in his search for the meaning of life and probing the area of LAUGHTER was one of his first places to start. In Ecclesiastes 2:2 he starts this quest but he concludes it is not productive to be laughing the whole time and not considering the serious issues of life. “I said of laughter, “It is foolishness;” and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” (2:2). Then Solomon asserted the nihilistic statement in Ecclesiastes 2:17: “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”
In the Book of Ecclesiastes what are all of the 6 “L” words that Solomon looked into? He looked into learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). IRONICALLY, YOU HAVE MADE ALL SIX OF THESE BUTTS OF YOUR NIHILISTIC JOKES!!!
Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.” This puts him in the same place that you find yourself.
You are an atheist and you have a naturalistic materialistic worldview, and this short book of Ecclesiastes should interest you because the wisest man who ever lived in the position of King of Israel came to THREE CONCLUSIONS that will affect you.
FIRST, chance and time have determined the past, and they will determine the future. (Ecclesiastes 9:11-13)
These two verses below take the 3 elements mentioned in a naturalistic materialistic worldview (time, chance and matter) and so that is all the unbeliever can find “under the sun” without God in the picture. You will notice that these are the three elements that evolutionists point to also.
Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 is following: I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.
SECOND, Death is the great equalizer (Eccl 3:20, “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”)
THIRD, Power reigns in this life, and the scales are not balanced(Eccl 4:1, 8:15)
Ecclesiastes 4:1-2: “Next I turned my attention to all the outrageous violence that takes place on this planet—the tears of the victims, no one to comfort them; the iron grip of oppressors, no one to rescue the victims from them.” Ecclesiastes 8:14; “Here’s something that happens all the time and makes no sense at all: Good people get what’s coming to the wicked, and bad people get what’s coming to the good. I tell you, this makes no sense. It’s smoke.”
Solomon had all the resources in the world and he found himself searching for meaning in life and trying to come up with answers concerning the afterlife. However, it seems every door he tries to open is locked. Today men try to find satisfaction in learning, liquor, ladies, luxuries, laughter, and labor and that is exactly what Solomon tried to do too. None of those were able to “fill the God-sized vacuum in his heart” (quote from famous mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal). You have to wait to the last chapter in Ecclesiastes to find what Solomon’s final conclusion is.
In 1978 I heard the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas when it rose to #6 on the charts. That song told me that Kerry Livgren the writer of that song and a member of Kansas had come to the same conclusion that Solomon had. I remember mentioning to my friends at church that we may soon see some members of Kansas become Christians because their search for the meaning of life had obviously come up empty even though they had risen from being an unknown band to the top of the music business and had all the wealth and fame that came with that. Furthermore, Solomon realized death comes to everyone and there must be something more.
Livgren wrote:
“All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”
Take a minute and compare Kerry Livgren’s words to that of the late British humanist H.J. Blackham:
“On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit. If there is a bridge over a gorge which spans only half the distance and ends in mid-air, and if the bridge is crowded with human beings pressing on, one after the other they fall into the abyss. The bridge leads nowhere, and those who are pressing forward to cross it are going nowhere….It does not matter where they think they are going, what preparations for the journey they may have made, how much they may be enjoying it all. The objection merely points out objectively that such a situation is a model of futility“( H. J. Blackham, et al., Objections to Humanism (Riverside, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1967).
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Both Kerry Livgren and the bass player DAVE HOPE of Kansas became Christians eventually. Kerry Livgren first tried Eastern Religions and DAVE HOPE had to come out of a heavy drug addiction. I was shocked and elated to see their personal testimony on The 700 Club in 1981 and that same interview can be seen on youtube today. Livgren lives in Topeka, Kansas today where he teaches “Diggers,” a Sunday school class at Topeka Bible Church. DAVE HOPE is the head of Worship, Evangelism and Outreach at Immanuel Anglican Church in Destin, Florida. IT IS TRULY IRONIC THAT TWO MEN WITH THE WORD “HOPE” IN THEIR NAMES HAVE SUCH DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO THE 3 PROBLEMS THAT MAN MUST FACE IN ECCLESIASTES.
YOU believe three things. FIRST, death is the end and SECOND, chance and time are the only guiding forces in this life. FINALLY, power reigns in this life and the scales are never balanced. In contrast, DAVE HOPE believes death is not the end and the Christian can face death and also confront the world knowing that it is not determined by chance and time alone and finally there is a judge who will balance the scales.
Solomon’s experiment was a search for meaning to life “under the sun.” Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”
I wanted to accomplish two things today. First, I wanted to point out to you that if you stay with the atheistic humanist worldview then the nihilism that you embrace is the only logical conclusion to come to. Second, I wanted to point out some scientific evidence that caused Antony Flew to switch from an atheist (as you are now) to a theist. Twenty years I had the opportunity to correspond with two individuals that were regarded as two of the most famous atheists of the 20th Century, Antony Flew and Carl Sagan. (I have enclosed some of those letters between us.) I had read the books and seen the films of the Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer and he had discussed the works of both of these men. I sent both of these gentlemen philosophical arguments from Schaeffer in these letters and in the first letter I sent a cassette tape of my pastor’s sermon IS THE BIBLE TRUE? (CD is enclosed also.) You may have noticed in the news a few years ago that Antony Flew actually became a theist in 2004 and remained one until his death in 2010. Carl Sagan remained a skeptic until his dying day in 1996.
You will notice in the enclosed letter from June 1, 1994 that Dr. Flew commented, “Thank you for sending me the IS THE BIBLE TRUE? tape to which I have just listened with great interest and, I trust, profit.” It would be a great honor for me if you would take time and drop me a note and let me know what your reaction is to this same message.
Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.
A Review of Stephen and Jane Hawking story THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING PART 10
The Theory of Everything Official Trailer #1 (2014) – Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – Keep Winding (2014) – Eddie Redmayne Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – You Don’t Know What’s Coming (2014) – Felicity Jones Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – My Name is Stephen Hawking (2014) – Eddie Redmayne Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – Blink to Choose (2014) – Felicity Jones Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Official Trailer #2 (2014) HD
I saw this movie the other day and I enjoyed it very much. I have posted many things in the past that refer to Stephen Hawking and his works. My favorite review had this quote below in it.
Much can be said about the brilliance of Stephen Hawking’s mind and how he has survived so many years with MND. Spiritually speaking, could it be that God is giving Stephen time? Time to come to know Him and that, beyond all Stephen’s theories, God is profoundly the Great I Am.
I wish Stephen Hawking to take time to read the work of Dr. Henry F. Schaefer. He speaks of Jane and Stephen in his work.
Below is a video clip with a review of THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.
The Theory of Everything (Starring Eddie Redmayne) Movie Review
Published on Nov 6, 2014
The Theory of Everything starring Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, and David Thewlis is reviewed by Alonso Duralde (TheWrap and Linoleum Knife podcast), Christy Lemire (www.ChristyLemire.com), and William Bibbiani (Crave Online).
Starring Eddie Redmayne (“Les Misérables”) and Felicity Jones (“The Amazing Spider-Man 2”), this is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde. Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could ever have dreamed. The film is based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, by Jane Hawking, and is directed by Academy Award winner James Marsh (“Man on Wire”). (c) Focus
Having read Stephen Hawking’s book, I thought John Lennox put into words what I would say about this book myself. This is not a book of hard science, as Dr. Hawking would have us believe, but rather a book of Philosophy (which Dr. Hawking ironically seems to feel is now useless) and Metaphysics. Far from giving us a definite Scientific explanation for how the universe created itself through the laws of physics (the book’s stated goal), it hypothesizes about many non-proven theories that are really speculative science-fiction, rather than observable science.
John Lennox demonstrates how the existence of the laws of Physics (Gravity for example) do NOT disprove the existence of God (as Stephen Hawking claims), but are rather evidence for Him. I am thankful for brilliant scholars like Dr. Lennox who are willing to challenge the intellectual elite and expose when they are merely promoting a presuppositional bias, rather than doing real Science.
I would also encourage you to watch this lecture by Dr. Lennox where he explains his objections to this book in more detail.
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The Theory of Everything Featurette – Eddie Redmayne’s Transformation (2014) – Movie HD
Eddie Redmayne gets critique from Stephen Hawking
Published on Nov 2, 2014
Rising British star Eddie Redmayne, who plays Stephen Hawking in the movie ‘The Theory of Everything’, recalls the nerve-racking meeting with Hawking himself and talks about the transformation he went through portraying the iconic physicist.
‘The Theory Of Everything’ Cast On Meeting Steven Hawking | TODAY
The Theory of Everything Movie Review – Beyond The Trailer
Published on Oct 18, 2014
The Theory of Everything movie review! Beyond The Trailer host Grace Randolph shares her review aka reaction today for this 2014 movie! http://bit.ly/subscribeBTT
The Theory of Everything Movie Review. Beyond The Trailer host Grace Randolph gives you her own review aka reaction to The Theory of Everything starring Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones as his wife Jane! Will this movie be a big contender for nominations at the 2015 Oscars?! Would you be wise to factor it into your predictions?! Should you see the full movie? Enjoy The Theory of Everything in 2014, and make Beyond The Trailer your first stop for movie news, trailer and review on YouTube today!
The Theory of Everything Movie Review – Just Seen It
Published on Oct 27, 2014
Stephen Hawking is studying to be a physicist when he falls in love with a student named Jane. But when he is diagnosed with a debilitating illness, his life is forever altered. But the power of love unlocks one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century.
Starring Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne, and Charlie Cox.
Directed by James Marsh.
Written by Anthony McCarten and Jane Hawking.
Produced by Tim Bevan, Lisa Bruce, Eric Fellner, and Anthony McCarten.
Genre: Biography, Drama.
Aaron, Salim, and Leah discuss the new biopic that tells the story of the brilliant Stephen Hawking and his wife, Jane.
Starring Aaron Fink, Salim Lemelle, and Leah Aldridge.
Directed by Erik Howell.
Edited by Stephen Krystek.
Produced by David Freedman, Cooper Griggs, Kevin Taft, Amy Taylor, Pedro Lemos, and Aaron Fink.
Sound Design by Aaron Fink and Andrew Grossman.
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The Theory of Everything Movie Review (Schmoes Know)
Kristian and special guest Alicia Malone discuss “The Theory of Everything”, the new Stephen Hawking biopic getting serious Oscar buzz for star Eddie Redmayne…how did the kids feel about the flick? Find out now and comment with your take!
In the book, THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. Sagan writes: The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal is an organization of scientists, academics, magicians, and others dedicated to skeptical scrutiny of emerging or full-blown pseudo-sciences. It was founded by the University of Buffalo philosopher Paul […]
_____________ THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. New York: Random House, 1995. 457 pages, extensive references, index. Hardcover; $25.95. PSCF 48 (December 1996): 263. Sagan is the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell University. He is author of many best sellers, including Cosmos, which […]
Richard Dawkins Interview Ricky Gervais About Atheism! _________ Antony Flew – World’s Most Famous Atheist Accepts Existence of God Uploaded on Nov 28, 2008 Has Science Discovered God? A half-century ago, in 1955, Professor Antony Flew set the agenda for modern atheism with his Theology and Falsification, a paper presented in a debate with C.S. […]
____________ Does God Exist? Thomas Warren vs. Antony Flew Published on Jan 2, 2014 Date: September 20-23, 1976 Location: North Texas State University Christian debater: Thomas B. Warren Atheist debater: Antony G.N. Flew For Thomas Warren: http://www.warrenapologeticscenter.org/ ______________________ Antony Flew and his conversion to theism Uploaded on Aug 12, 2011 Antony Flew, a well known spokesperson […]
____________ Jesus’ Resurrection: Atheist, Antony Flew, and Theist, Gary Habermas, Dialogue Published on Apr 7, 2012 http://www.veritas.org/talks – Did Jesus die, was he buried, and what happened afterward? Join legendary atheist Antony Flew and Christian historian and apologist Gary Habermas in a discussion about the facts surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Join […]
_________________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his […]
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]
Morality Presupposes Theism (1 of 4) Uploaded by philosophyreligion on Oct 15, 2010 Dr. Stephen C. Meyer argues that in order to make sense of morality you must presuppose the existence of God. Table of Contents:http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B324A88301858151____________________________ Below is more on the bio of Stephen C. Meyer: Dr. Stephen C. Meyer Stephen C. […]
RC Sproul Interviews Stephen Meyer, Part 1 of 5 Uploaded by LigonierMinistries on Mar 2, 2010 RC Sproul sits down with Stephen Meyer, author of the book, “Signature in the Cell”, and they discuss philosophy, evolution, education, Intelligent Design, and more. Below is more on the bio of Stephen C. Meyer: Dr. Stephen C. […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
_________ Jodie Foster’s mystical flight Contact Don’t read this review if you want to be surprised by the ending of the movie. My next sentence is discussing the end. Over and over in the movie Cooper (played by Matthew McConaghey) says “someone out there is helping us,” but instead of pointing to God who created […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
___ _________ Jesus’ Resurrection: Atheist, Antony Flew, and Theist, Gary Habermas, Dialogue Published on Apr 7, 2012 http://www.veritas.org/talks – Did Jesus die, was he buried, and what happened afterward? Join legendary atheist Antony Flew and Christian historian and apologist Gary Habermas in a discussion about the facts surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. […]
____________________ Making Sense of Faith and Science Uploaded on May 16, 2008 Dr. H. Fritz Schaefer confronts the assertion that one cannot believe in God and be a credible scientist. He explains that the theistic world view of Bacon, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Faraday and Maxwell was instrumental in the rise of modern science itself. […]
~A fan made slideshow~
***RAY MANZAREK 1939-2013***
Ray Manzarek, a great storyteller and an even greater musician, talks about the last sessions on LA Woman, Morrison’s departure to Paris and the eventual news of his death.
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I wrote of series of four posts on the conversion to Christ of Brian Walsh of the heavy metal band Korn and that was because my son Hunter told me about Walsh’s Christian testimony. Then I stumbled on the Christian testimony of Reggie “Fieldy” Arvizu of Korn. This subject has always interested me and I have written about Lou Graham of Foreigner, and Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope and their similar experiences. In all of these cases they convert to Christianity and give their lives totally to Christ and then they are delivered from drugs.
This biographical articleneeds additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful.(June 2013)
Prior to Arvizu’s time in Korn, he and Brian Welch, who would later become one of Korn’s two guitarists (alongside James Shaffer), had played together in a number of bands, having become friends while still at school. Upon their graduation from high school, Arvizu, Welch, Shaffer, and drummer David Silveria relocated from Bakersfield to Los Angeles and Arvizu, Shaffer, and Silveria formed L.A.P.D (the name first stood for “Love and Peace, Dude”, but this abbreviation was later changed to “Laughing As People Die”). Although L.A.P.D. did succeed in signing a record deal, their success was limited until the band hired singer Jonathan Davis and changed their name to Korn.
The name “Fieldy” is said to have come about as an inside joke. Originally, his band mates called him “Gopher”, due to his large cheeks. Gopher quickly became “Gar”, Gar became “Garfield” (based on the comic strip character of the same name), and eventually “Gar” was dropped and a “y” was added to “Field”, which became Fieldy.[2] His full moniker is “Fieldy Snuts”, which when spoken aloud sounds like “feel these nuts”.
He plays a five-string Ibanez model SDGR SR1305, named the K-5, which is his signature bass.
His playing style consists of slapping, standard finger-style plucking, and left-hand muting; his standard tuning is: A, D, G, C, F. He states Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers as being one of the main influences towards his playing style. He has also stated to have been influenced by Billy Gould from Faith No More.
Fieldy is also one of the main songwriters in Korn. The majority of his bass riffs are hip-hop inspired. He says he gets inspiration from anything hip-hop. On the business side of Korn, Fieldy is responsible for all Korn merchandise, its buying and selling. He will come up with a number of designs, shows them to the band and they either approve or disapprove.[citation needed]
In August 2012 it was reported that Fieldy would be taking a brief break from Korn as his wife Dena was expecting a child. Korn began touring through Eastern Europe, Russia and India throughout August and September 2012 with fill in Bassist Ryan Martinie from Mudvayne.
Fieldy married girlfriend Dena Beber on Tuesday, 16 May 2006. Korn’s guitarist, Munky played nylon guitar at the wedding. It is her first marriage and his third. Fieldy has two daughters, Sarina and Olivia Arvizu, from his second marriage from Shela Arvizu; he and his current wife Dena had a son in early 2007 and named him Israel. Following the death of his father, Fieldy became a born-again Christian.[3][4][5]
Fieldy has stated that his second album, Bassically, is still in the works. Originally intended to be a hardcore rap album, Fieldy has scrapped the original idea in favor of a jazz fusion style.[citation needed]
Fieldy is currently working with independent rap artist Q-Unique on a side project called StillWell. The song “Killing Myself To Live” can be heard on their MySpace page. Stillwell’s debut album, Dirtbag, is set to be released on May 10, 2011.
Fieldy was also working on his own clothing line Immanuel one twenty three; when asked about it while backstage at the West Palm Beach stop of the Mayhem Festival in 2010, he stated that it was “much harder than he had previously expected” to start a clothing line, and has moved on to the side project that he can “be more proud of, opposed to his first solo CD under Fieldy’s Dreams titled Rock’n Roll Gangster”
Got The Life: My Journey of Addiction, Faith, Recovery and Korn is a memoir Fieldy penned, which hit shelves March 10, 2009. His autobiography tells the story of how he found God, quit drugs, and found the better part of himself.[6]
Fieldy has a tattoo that was done by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst while he still worked in a tattoo parlour.
Jump up ^Arvizu, Reginald (2009). Got the Life: My Journey of Addiction, Faith, Recovery, and Korn. ISBN0-06-166249-6.Unknown parameter |middle= ignored (help)
Eric Blair of “The Blairing Out With Eric Blair Show“ recently conducted an interview with KORN bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu at this year’s NAMM (National Association Of Music Merchants) show, which was held January 14-17, 2010 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Watch the chat below.
KORN will top the bill on this summer’s Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival tour, which is scheduled to kick off on July 10 in San Bernardino, California.
The Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival will be the first major city tour for KORN in support of the band’s ninth studio album, tentatively titled “Korn III – Remember Who You Are”. The new album marks the return of producer Ross Robinson, who worked with KORN on their first two releases, “Korn” and “Life is Peachy”. Lead vocalist Jonathan Davis has said that the new material matches the pure raw emotion of KORN‘s early releases while the current touring band has never been tighter.
“We experimented with a lot of cool stuff on our last two records [2005’s ‘See You On The Other Side’ and 2007’s untitled effort], but we didn’t want to do another record like that,” Davis explained to Revolver magazine. “So we said, ‘Let’s strip it back again. Let’s do this as a four-piece and make it real raw like the old stuff.”
Eric Blair of “The Blairing Out With Eric Blair Show“ recently conducted an interview with KORN bassist Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu at this year’s NAMM (National Association Of Music Merchants) show, which was held January 14-17, 2010 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. Watch the chat below.
KORN will top the bill on this summer’s Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival tour, which is scheduled to kick off on July 10 in San Bernardino, California.
The Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival will be the first major city tour for KORN in support of the band’s ninth studio album, tentatively titled “Korn III – Remember Who You Are”. The new album marks the return of producer Ross Robinson, who worked with KORN on their first two releases, “Korn” and “Life is Peachy”. Lead vocalist Jonathan Davis has said that the new material matches the pure raw emotion of KORN‘s early releases while the current touring band has never been tighter.
“We experimented with a lot of cool stuff on our last two records [2005’s ‘See You On The Other Side’ and 2007’s untitled effort], but we didn’t want to do another record like that,” Davis explained to Revolver magazine. “So we said, ‘Let’s strip it back again. Let’s do this as a four-piece and make it real raw like the old stuff.”
KORN‘s forthcoming effort was tracked last October at the band’s studio. “We recorded everything on tape, just like we did in the old days,” said Davis. “And we didn’t stack four or five vocal parts like I usually do. I’m singing one part for every song, which was scary. It’s just me and the microphone, and you can really hear the emotion.”
Jim Morrison’s sad drug death was followed by Pamela Courson’s sad story!!! pamela courson/ jim morrison interview Interview with Jim Morrison’s father and sister Uploaded on Aug 9, 2010 This interview is from “When You’re Strange” DVD bonus material. I do not own this video and own no rights to it! Pamela Courson Uploaded […]
__________ NICO – I’m Waiting For The Man – (1982, Warehouse, Preston, UK) One of the top 10 songs from The Velvet Underground and Nico is the song “I’m Waiting for the Man I’m Waiting for the Man From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search “I’m Waiting for the Man” Song by […]
The life of Lou Reed (includes videos from 1960′s and 1970′s) ____________ Rock & Roll – Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground – Venus in Furs – Live 1) Lou Reed – Sweet Jane – live in Paris, 1974 Velvet Underground-”Sunday Morning” from “Velvet Underground and Nico” LP Lou Reed From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump […]
Jim Morrison’s relationship with Nico Nico Icon documentary part 1. Nico Icon documentary part 2. ______________ Jim Morrison at Andy Warhol’s Party.wmv (with Nico) Uploaded on Apr 26, 2010 From the Oliver Stone movie. The Doors. _______________________ nico discusses jim morrison. Uploaded on Jan 2, 2008 nico discusses jim, and how he impacted her […]
I really enjoyed the movie “Savannah Smiles” last night and afterwards I looked up what happened to Bridgette Andersen and where she is today. IMDB notes: Bridgette Andersen was born on July 11, 1975 to Frank Glass and Teresa Andersen in Inglewood, California and grew up in Malibu. She always considered it good luck to […]
Today I heard Tim Todd’s testimony about drugs. Related posts: Whitney Houston dead at 48, long history of drugs and alcohol February 11, 2012 – 8:31 pm Sad news about Whitney Houston’s death tonight. I have included some earlier posts about drugs and alcohol and rock stars. LOS ANGELES (AP) — Whitney Houston, who ruled as […]
I have written about the “27 Club” several times in the past and I have got a lot of hits in the last 30 days on these blog posts below that deal with Rock and Rollers and drugs. Keith Richards’ wife is a bible believing christian Pete de Freitas of Echo and the Bunnymen is a […]
I’m In A Rock ‘N’ Roll Band – The Singer (Part 1) Jim Morrison – books on tape – w subtitles Light My Fire – The Doors The Rolling Stones – Satisfaction ________________________ The Rolling Stones – The Breakthrough The Rolling Stones – Brian Jones The Rolling Stones- Paint it Black Nirvana – Smells Like […]
Amy Winehouse died last week and she joined the “27 club.” Pete de Freitas of Echo and the Bunnymen is also a member of the “27 Club.” This is group of rockers that have died at age 27. A tribute to the amazing drummer of one of our biggest influences, Echo & The Bunnymen. We […]
cc ‘Janis Joplin’ 2/5 from True Hollywood Story (Janis was having affair with Pigpen) Jerry Garcia (guitar, vocals), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan (vocals, harmonica), Bob Weir (guitar, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass), Mickey Hart (drums), Bill Kreutzman (drums). Grateful Dead “Don’t Ease Me In” Live @ Canadian National Exhibition Hall Toronto, CA June 27th, 1970 Grateful Dead […]
Amy Winehouse died last week and joined the “27 club” which is a group of rockers that died at age 27. Gary Thain also joined that same group long ago and I wanted to look at his life today. Uriah Heep – Wizard bb By Sean Nelson, Special to MSN Music , July 23, 2011 […]
Recently Amy Winehouse joined the “27 Club” when she died of a drug overdose. The “27 Club” is a group of rockers that died at age 27. Unfortunately Jimi Hendrix died at age 27 in 1970 and Janis Joplin did the same three weeks later. Today we are going to look at her life and […]
JIMI HENDRIX : FINAL INTERVIEW . The other day when Amy Winehouse died she joined the “27 Club” which includes other famous rockers who died at age 27. Most of them died because of drugs. Unfortunately Jimi Hendrix joined the club for the same reason. Something special for all music and Beat Club-Lovers on YouTube: […]
Amy Winehouse died at age 27 and unfornately joined the “27 club” which is made of famous rockers that died at age 27. Pete Ham was a member of Bad Finger which was one of my favorite groups that I followed. “Come and get it” was my favorite song of theirs. ___________________________________ Badfinger perform a […]
Brian’s Blues, Brian Jones on guitar in the early stones years. unreleased track Brian Jones died at age 27 just like Amy Winehouse did. I remember like yesterday when I first heard the song “I can’t get no satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. I immediately thought about Solomon’s search for satisfaction in the Book of […]
The Rise And Rise Of Kurt Cobain part 1/3 Amy Winehouse joined the “Club 27 the other day with her early death. I am going through the others one by one. Today is Kurt Cobain. 7. Kurt Cobain very rarely does an artist come along and not just upset the “apple cart” but drops […]
Pictures and Videos of Edie Sedgwick and the story of her losing battle against drugs and alcohol Part 2 Drugs and alcohol have taken the life of many people and I have posted many times about their unfortunate deaths. Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Gary Thain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain, and Jim […]
Pictures and Videos of Edie Sedgwick and the story of her losing battle against drugs and alcohol Part 1 Factory Girl – The Real Edie Uploaded on Aug 30, 2011 Friends and family of Edie Sedgwick discuss what the factory girl was really like, and the battles and relationships she went through _____________ Edie Sedgwick Excerpt […]
Around 4 years ago I was in Philadelphia and the local radio station had a talk show that was blasting Alice Walton for coming into town and buying the 1876 Thomas Eakins’ masterpiece “The Gross Clinic” which was hanging at the Jefferson Medical College. However, the people of Philadelphia were given 45 days to […]
Examining the Creation/Evolution Controversy in Light of Reason and Revelation
The Bible and Science (Part 05)
Why Can’t Morals Be Grounded In Society?
Published on Aug 31, 2012
Dr William Lane Craig was invited by the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Christian Union, London to give a lecture titled “Can we be good without God?” In this video Dr Craig answers a question about the objectivity of morality. Should we consider morals to be objective? If so, why can’t morals be “abiding” and objectively grounded in society?
The lecture formed part of the Reasonable Faith Tour in October 2011. The Tour was sponsored by Damaris Trust, UCCF and Premier Christian Radio.
(Samuel Beckett example: Life is meaningless, live in tension with reality)
(Modern man sees no hope for the future and has deluded himself by appealing to nonreason to stay sane. Look at the example of the lady tied to the railroad tracks in this above video as a example.)
I have discussed many subjects with my liberal friends over at the Ark Times Blog in the past and I have taken them on now on the subject of the absurdity of life without God in the picture. Most of my responses included quotes from William Lane Craig’s book THE ABSURDITY OF LIFE WITHOUT GOD. Here is the result of one of those encounters from June of 2013:
I wrote:
Doigotta you want some proof then check out these amazing facts concerning the Bible’s accuracy:
The discovery of the Ebla archive in northern Syria in the 1970s has shown the Biblical writings concerning the Patriarchs to be viable. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place names in the Patriarchal accounts are genuine. The name “Canaan” was in use in Ebla, a name critics once said was not used at that time and was used incorrectly in the early chapters of the Bible. The word tehom (“the deep”) in Genesis 1:2 was said to be a late word demonstrating the late writing of the creation story. “Tehom” was part of the vocabulary at Ebla, in use some 800 years before Moses. Ancient customs reflected in the stories of the Patriarchs have also been found in clay tablets from Nuzi and Mari.
•The Hittites were once thought to be a Biblical legend, until their capital and records were discovered at Bogazkoy, Turkey.
•Many thought the Biblical references to Solomon’s wealth were greatly exaggerated. Recovered records from the past show that wealth in antiquity was concentrated with the king and Solomon’s prosperity was entirely feasible.
•It was once claimed there was no Assyrian king named Sargon as recorded in Isaiah 20:1, because this name was not known in any other record. Then, Sargon’s palace was discovered in Khorsabad, Iraq. The very event mentioned in Isaiah 20, his capture of Ashdod, was recorded on the palace walls. What is more, fragments of a stela memorializing the victory were found at Ashdod itself.
•Another king who was in doubt was Belshazzar, king of Babylon, named in Daniel 5. The last king of Babylon was Nabonidus according to recorded history. Tablets were found showing that Belshazzar was Nabonidus’ son who served as coregent in Babylon. Thus, Belshazzar could offer to make Daniel “third highest ruler in the kingdom” (Dan. 5:16) for reading the handwriting on the wall, the highest available position. Here we see the “eye-witness” nature of the Biblical record, as is so often brought out by the discoveries of archaeology.
You should be motivated highly to check this info out. Pascal was a very brilliant scientist and he came up with “Pascal’s Wagner.
William Lane Craig discusses it below:
Pascal’s analysis of the human predicament leads up to his famous Wager argument, by means of which he hopes to tip the scales in favor of theism.5 The founder of probability theory, Pascal argues that when the odds that God exists are even, then the prudent man will gamble that God exists. This is a wager that all men must make—the game is in progress and a bet must be laid. There is no opting out: you have already joined the game. Which then will you choose—that God exists or that he does not? Pascal argues that since the odds are even, reason is not violated in making either choice; so reason cannot determine which bet to make. Therefore, the choice should be made pragmatically in terms of maximizing one’s happiness. If one wagers that God exists and he does, one has gained eternal life and infinite happiness. If he does not exist, one has lost nothing. On the other hand, if one wagers that God does not exist and he does, then one has suffered infinite loss. If he does not in fact exist, then one has gained nothing. Hence, the only prudent choice is to believe that God exists.
Now Pascal does believe that there is a way of getting a look behind the scenes, to speak, to determine rationally how one should bet, namely, the proofs of Scripture of miracle and prophecy, which he discusses in the second half of his work. But for now, he wants to emphasize that even in the absence of such evidence, one still ought to believe in God. For given the human predicament of being cast into existence and facing either eternal annihilation or eternal wrath, the only reasonable course of action is to believe in God: “for if you win, you win all; if you lose, you lose nothing.”6
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 5) TRUTH AND HISTORY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices once […]
The opening song at the beginning of this episode is very insightful. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 3) DEATH BY SOMEONE’S CHOICE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices […]
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” (Episode 2) SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis This crucial series is narrated by the late Dr. Francis Schaeffer and former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop. Today, choices are being made that undermine human rights at their most basic level. Practices […]
It is not possible to know where the pro-life evangelicals are coming from unless you look at the work of the person who inspired them the most. That person was Francis Schaeffer. I do care about economic issues but the pro-life issue is the most important to me. Several years ago Adrian Rogers (past president of […]
Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 16, 2012 | Derek Neider _____________________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how secular […]
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]
Ecclesiastes 6-8 | Solomon Turns Over a New Leaf Published on Oct 2, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 30, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series […]
Ecclesiastes 4-6 | Solomon’s Dissatisfaction Published on Sep 24, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 23, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider ___________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope […]
Overview of the Book of Ecclesiastes Overview of the Book of EcclesiastesAuthor: Solomon or an unknown sage in the royal courtPurpose: To demonstrate that life viewed merely from a realistic human perspective must result in pessimism, and to offer hope through humble obedience and faithfulness to God until the final judgment.Date: 930-586 B.C. Ecclesiastes 2-3 Published on Sep 19, […]
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]
Ecclesiastes 8-10 | Still Searching After All These Years Published on Oct 9, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 7, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _______________________ Ecclesiastes 11-12 | Solomon Finds His Way Published on Oct 30, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | October 28, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider […]
Anti Abortion Pro-Life Training Video by Scott Klusendorf Part 2 of 4
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Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
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Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR
Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race?)
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical flow of Truth & History (intro)
Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of History & Truth (1)
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – The Biblical Flow of Truth & History (part 2)
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I have gone back and forth with Ark Times liberal bloggers on the issue of abortion, but I am going to try something new. I am going to respond with logical and rational reasons the pro-life view is true. All of this material is from a paper by Scott Klusendorf called FIVE BAD WAYS TO ARGUE ABOUT ABORTION .
Max Brantley of the Ark Times Blog noted on 5-13-13, “KERMIT GOSNELL GUILTY VERDICT: The Philadelphiadoctor was convicted of murderfor killing living infants delivered during abortions. He could face the death penalty. Again,NARAL Pro-Choiceoffers a statement worth considering. Laws passed to restrict legitimate medical choices for women create an environment that encourages outlaws:
NARAL STATEMENT (just first paragraph)
“Justice was served to Kermit Gosnell today and he will pay the price for the atrocities he committed. We hope that the lessons of the trial do not fade with the verdict. Anti-choice politicians, and their unrelenting efforts to deny women access to safe and legal abortion care, will only drive more women to back-alley butchers like Kermit Gosnell.”
NARAL Statement is worth considering according to Max. Let’s break a few points down on it:
1. “Anti-choice politicians, and their unrelenting efforts to deny women access to safe and legal abortion care, will only drive more women to back-alley butchers like Kermit Gosnell.”
WE AGREE THAT GOSNELL IS A BUTCHER BUT WHAT ARE OTHER ABORTIONISTS WHO TAKE INNOCENT UNBORN BABY LIVES?
Many pro-choice arguments beg the question. So is the coat-hanger/back-alley argument, which states that women will once again be forced to procure dangerous illegal abortions if laws are passed protecting the unborn. Besides, we are told, the law can’t stop all abortions, so why not keep the practice legal? But unless you begin with the assumption that the unborn are not human, you are making the highly questionable claim that because some people will die attempting to kill others, the state should make it safe and legal for them to do so. Why should the law be faulted for making it tougher for one human being to take the life of another, completely innocent one? Should we legalize bank robbery so it is safer for felons? As abortion advocate Mary Anne Warren points out, “The fact that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not, in itself, show that the restrictions are unjustified, since murder is wrong regardless of the consequences of forbidding it.”32 Again, the issue isn’t safety. The issue is the status of the unborn.
(To digress for a moment, the objection that the law cannot stop all abortions is silly. Laws cannot stop all rape—should we legalize rape? The fact is that laws against abortion, like laws against rape, drastically reduce its occurrence. Prior to Roe v. Wade (1973), there were at most 210,000 illegal abortions per year while more conservative estimates suggest an average of 89,000 per year. Within seven years of legalization, abortion totals jumped to over 1.5 million annually!
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
The first post I did on Stuart Kauffman used the Fine Tuning Argument of Antony Flew against him among other things. In the second post, I put an article by Kauffman on the question Does science make belief in God obsolete?, and his article asserted, “No, but only if…” Then I posted right behind it a response by William D. Phillips. Phillips, a Nobel Laureate in physics, is a fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute of the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. In this article by Phillips he asserted, “Recently, the philosopher and long-time atheist Anthony Flew changed his mind and decided that, based on such evidence, he should believe in God.”
Antony Flew pictured below:
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In the third post today Dr. William Wharton, Professor of Physics, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL, reviews Kauffman’s book REINVENTING THE SACRED: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion, and he concludes, “What disturbs me most about this book is that Kauffman has a naive, faulty view of the God of the Bible. He subsequently hopes that he can get many fundamentalists to replace their personal Savior with a fully natural pantheistic god.”
Stuart Kauffman is one of the leading experts in complexity theory and emergence in the general area of the biosphere. The first ten chapters of this book are devoted to his specialty and present a strong, compelling argument for the existence of the sacred in nature. All ASA members should read these chapters. However, there are serious problems with the rest of the book, where he jumps out of his area of expertise.
Kauffmans motivation for this book is described on the first page of chapter 10:
What about all the aspects of the universe we hold sacredagency, meaning, values, purpose, all life, and the planet? We are neither ready to give these up nor willing to consider them mere human illusions. One response is that if the natural world has no room for these things, and yet we are unshakably convinced of their reality, then they must be outside of nature-supernatural, infused into the universe by God. The schism between religion and science is, therefore, in part, a disagreement over the existence of meaning. If meaning were to be discovered scientifically, the schism might be healed.
Both the content and method of Kauffmans presentation is much more palatable to the scientific community than are the attempts of the ID movement to use science to argue for design.
Kauffman, who studied philosophy at Oxford, uses his first four chapters to argue both scientifically and philosophically against the adequacy of reductionism. Reductionism is the belief that all explanatory arrows point downward to the most elementary constituents and fundamental laws. Among his many arguments, Kauffman considers Weinbergs dream of a final theory in which basic fundamental principles would explain everything, including the finely tuned constants of nature. He then points out that a more common approach is the so-called weak anthropic principle in which our universe, among endless multiverses, by chance has the right properties for life. Although the multiverse approach undermines the goals of reductionism, both approaches make the fine tuning meaningless. Kauffmans beliefs do not allow a search for meaning in the anthropic principle. The word scientifically in the chapter 10 quote refers to purely natural processes with supernatural agency excluded.
Nevertheless Kauffman can give many powerful arguments for the sacredness and meaning of nature. Whereas pure chance is the primary explanation for the weak anthropic principle, chance plays a more minor role in Kauffman emergence theories. Chapter 5, The Origin of Life, argues that there are emergent, spontaneous, self-organizing processes involving so-called downward causation in which a systems complexity creates constraints which are partially causal. This creates totally new phenomena beyond the explanatory power of natural laws of physics, but does not violate these fundamental laws. Chapter 6, Agency, Value, and Meaning, follows from Kauffmans discredit of reductionism. The teleological language refers to autonomous agents within nature. Kauffman believes agency arose in evolution. Chapter 7, Cycles of Work, digs deeper into the concept of agency, how one molecule instructs another. Kauffman also looks at the meaning of information.
Chapter 9, Nonergodic Universe, argues that all the happenings in our universe are not repeatable and that not everything that can happen will happen. Chapter 10 is a culmination of the first nine chapters, discrediting determinism (simple happenings) of physics and opening up the sacred. Here Kauffman makes a big issue of Darwinian pre-adaptations. These are incidental features of a complex system which turn out to have selective significance when their environment changes. He clarifies his case for causally anomalous happenings, not governed by natural laws and also not algorithmic (not formulated mathematically). For example, he considers Michael Behes so-called irreducibly complex bacterial flagellum as a pre-adaptation. He points out that one cannot use probability statements about pre-adaptations (not algorithmic) and therefore the important probability arguments used by the ID movement are in error.
In the second half of the book, Kauffman extends his ideas to areas in which he lacks expertise: the economy, mind, quantum brain, theodicy, ethics (where Kauffman has a strong philosophical background), and morality. Other issues are C. P. Snows two cultures, the humanities and natural sciences, that Kauffman wants to bring together through their commonality, and a global ethic dealing with the environment. The primary goal of this book is to heal the schism between science and religion. Kauffman sees the importance of religion in the history of civilization, but he is also obsessed with the evils of fundamentalism in religion. Elsewhere (www.templeton. org/belief) he says,
I believe that reinventing the sacred is a global cultural imperative. A global race is under way, between the retreat into fundamentalisms and the construction of a safe, shared space for our spirituality that might also ease those fundamentalist fears.
What disturbs me most about this book is that Kauffman has a naive, faulty view of the God of the Bible. He subsequently hopes that he can get many fundamentalists to replace their personal Savior with a fully natural pantheistic god. Setting this aside, I think we can learn from Kauffman about his deep insights into complexity theory, and gain a better understanding of how our personal God works in creation and possibly how we as humans have free will.
Reviewed by William Wharton, Professor of Physics, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187.
_____________ Thursday, April 15, 2010 Antony Flew – Feb. 11, 1923 – April 8, 2010 As an undergraduate philosophy major way back in the 1970s I read Antony Flew’s classic essay “Theology and Falsification.” There I met the “parable of the gardener,” a story meant to argue for atheism over theism. Then, many years later, […]
________ The Great Debate: Dinesh D’Souza v. Michael Shermer (part 1) Uploaded on Apr 26, 2011 In this debate on what are arguably two of the most important questions in the culture wars today — Is Religion a Force for Good or Evil? and Can you be Good without God? — the conservative Christian author […]
___ _________ Jesus’ Resurrection: Atheist, Antony Flew, and Theist, Gary Habermas, Dialogue Published on Apr 7, 2012 http://www.veritas.org/talks – Did Jesus die, was he buried, and what happened afterward? Join legendary atheist Antony Flew and Christian historian and apologist Gary Habermas in a discussion about the facts surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. […]
_________ Discussion (2 of 3): Antony Flew, N.T. Wright, and Gary Habermas ______________ 7News : Web Extra: Ricky Gervais on God Published on Mar 23, 2014 He’s not shy about sharing his opinion with 5 million social media followers so Ricky Gervais was happy to clear a few things up for us too. ______________ The Bible and Science […]
A Review of Stephen and Jane Hawking story THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING PART 9
The Theory of Everything Official Trailer #1 (2014) – Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – Keep Winding (2014) – Eddie Redmayne Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – You Don’t Know What’s Coming (2014) – Felicity Jones Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – My Name is Stephen Hawking (2014) – Eddie Redmayne Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – Blink to Choose (2014) – Felicity Jones Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Official Trailer #2 (2014) HD
I saw this movie the other day and I enjoyed it very much. I have posted many things in the past that refer to Stephen Hawking and his works. My favorite review had this quote below in it.
Much can be said about the brilliance of Stephen Hawking’s mind and how he has survived so many years with MND. Spiritually speaking, could it be that God is giving Stephen time? Time to come to know Him and that, beyond all Stephen’s theories, God is profoundly the Great I Am.
I wish Stephen Hawking to take time to read the work of Dr. Henry F. Schaefer. He speaks of Jane and Stephen in his work.
Below is a video clip with a review of THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.
The Theory of Everything Movie Review – Beyond The Trailer
Published on Oct 18, 2014
The Theory of Everything movie review! Beyond The Trailer host Grace Randolph shares her review aka reaction today for this 2014 movie! http://bit.ly/subscribeBTT
The Theory of Everything Movie Review. Beyond The Trailer host Grace Randolph gives you her own review aka reaction to The Theory of Everything starring Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones as his wife Jane! Will this movie be a big contender for nominations at the 2015 Oscars?! Would you be wise to factor it into your predictions?! Should you see the full movie? Enjoy The Theory of Everything in 2014, and make Beyond The Trailer your first stop for movie news, trailer and review on YouTube today!
I loved this article written about Hawking’s statement that we must make the most of this life because there is no heaven and that is why I posted it today.
Here is a quote that the article that really hits the nail on the head:
Hawking appears to believe that we have to choose between belief in heaven and belief in the value of our earthly actions. In this regard, Hawking misses something essential about the Christian understand of life beyond this life. Christians do not believe that we have to choose between heaven and earth. In fact, the promise of heaven becomes, for Christians, a strong motivator to live this life to the fullest…. For one thing, the New Testament affirms that in the life beyond this life our actions on earth will be judged. The vision of final judgment motivates many believers to seek to do what’s right in this life, no matter how seemingly insignificant their impact might be. Thus, many Christians feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoner, not only because of love for the needy, but also because we believe that in the last judgment, those actions will be recognized by God and received as acts of worship (see Matthew 25:31-46).
In yesterday’s post, I began to consider the “faith” of Stephen Hawking. He expressed this faith in a recent interview with the Guardian:
“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first,” he said.
“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark,” he added.
Hawking has faith that there is no heaven. This is not something he can know as a scientist. Rather, it is a matter of belief beyond evidence. In common English, it’s faith.
There is another element in Hawking’s faith that I heartily endorse. It emerges in this segment from the Guardian story:
In the interview, Hawking rejected the notion of life beyond death and emphasised the need to fulfil our potential on Earth by making good use of our lives. In answer to a question on how we should live, he said, simply: “We should seek the greatest value of our action.”
Hawking believes that we need to make good use of our lives on earth. This, I note, is also a matter of faith, or at last a matter of non-scientific knowledge. Science cannot dictate how we should live. That’s the realm of ethics, even religion, even, yes, faith. Thus, Hawking can affirm: “We should seek the greatest value of our action.” This “should” is not something that can be proved through science.
I don’t mean this as a criticism, mind you. In fact, I completely agree with Hawking that “we should seek the greatest value of our action.” I also believe that we need to make good use of our lives on earth. I can’t prove these convictions scientifically. Nevertheless, I take these matters of faith to be true in a way that is both reasonable and faithful.
Hawking appears to believe that we have to choose between belief in heaven and belief in the value of our earthly actions. In this regard, Hawking misses something essential about the Christian understand of life beyond this life. Christians do not believe that we have to choose between heaven and earth. In fact, the promise of heaven becomes, for Christians, a strong motivator to live this life to the fullest.
To be sure, some Christians have taken a different course, living for life after death and minimizing the value of earthly life. But this course misses the distinctive vision of the New Testament. For one thing, the New Testament affirms that in the life beyond this life our actions on earth will be judged. The vision of final judgment motivates many believers to seek to do what’s right in this life, no matter how seemingly insignificant their impact might be. Thus, many Christians feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoner, not only because of love for the needy, but also because we believe that in the last judgment, those actions will be recognized by God and received as acts of worship (see Matthew 25:31-46).
But, the Christian vision of the age to come (that which we often call heaven) offers more than the threat and promise of final judgment. It also includes a vision of life that is both beautiful and inspirational. In the closing chapters of Revelation, for example, the vision of a new heaven and earth includes God’s dwelling with people, wiping away every tear. All nations dwell together in peace as they walk in God’s own light. This apocalyptic vision stirs Christians to act today in light of the promise of the future.
Stephen Hawking and his supporters might well say that this sort of thing is unnecessary, that people can act with significance and compassion apart from belief in heaven. I agree, though I’ll find this argument even more persuasive when hospitals begin to be identified as “Atheist Memorial” rather than “Baptist Memorial,” and when the agnostic version of World Vision feeds millions of hungry children each day. But my point is not that one must believe in heaven in order to do good works. Christopher Hitchens has done many extraordinary good works in his life and he is not exactly a big advocate of the afterlife. Rather, my point is that Hawking misunderstands the Christian sense of heaven if he sees belief in heaven as somehow minimizing the value of this life. I would argue, in light of Scripture and my experience, that belief in heaven can, in fact, lead us to live on earth with more gusto and generosity.
This brings me back to Jesus and his teaching about the kingdom of God, which is sometimes rendered as the kingdom of heaven. Jesus proclaims the coming of God’s reign, not so that believers might neglect this life, but so that they might live today with greater purpose. Moreover, heaven serves as a model for how we are to live today. Thus, Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” If heaven is the place there the lion lies down with the lamb, where swords are turned into implements for farming, where divisions and conflicts between people have been abolished, then we are to pray for the presence of heaven on earth, at least in part. And what we ask for in prayer, we are to live out in our daily lives.
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The Theory of Everything Featurette – Eddie Redmayne’s Transformation (2014) – Movie HD
Eddie Redmayne gets critique from Stephen Hawking
Published on Nov 2, 2014
Rising British star Eddie Redmayne, who plays Stephen Hawking in the movie ‘The Theory of Everything’, recalls the nerve-racking meeting with Hawking himself and talks about the transformation he went through portraying the iconic physicist.
‘The Theory Of Everything’ Cast On Meeting Steven Hawking | TODAY
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The Theory of Everything Movie Review – Just Seen It
Published on Oct 27, 2014
Stephen Hawking is studying to be a physicist when he falls in love with a student named Jane. But when he is diagnosed with a debilitating illness, his life is forever altered. But the power of love unlocks one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century.
Starring Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne, and Charlie Cox.
Directed by James Marsh.
Written by Anthony McCarten and Jane Hawking.
Produced by Tim Bevan, Lisa Bruce, Eric Fellner, and Anthony McCarten.
Genre: Biography, Drama.
Aaron, Salim, and Leah discuss the new biopic that tells the story of the brilliant Stephen Hawking and his wife, Jane.
Starring Aaron Fink, Salim Lemelle, and Leah Aldridge.
Directed by Erik Howell.
Edited by Stephen Krystek.
Produced by David Freedman, Cooper Griggs, Kevin Taft, Amy Taylor, Pedro Lemos, and Aaron Fink.
Sound Design by Aaron Fink and Andrew Grossman.
The Theory of Everything (Starring Eddie Redmayne) Movie Review
Published on Nov 6, 2014
The Theory of Everything starring Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, and David Thewlis is reviewed by Alonso Duralde (TheWrap and Linoleum Knife podcast), Christy Lemire (www.ChristyLemire.com), and William Bibbiani (Crave Online).
Starring Eddie Redmayne (“Les Misérables”) and Felicity Jones (“The Amazing Spider-Man 2”), this is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde. Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could ever have dreamed. The film is based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, by Jane Hawking, and is directed by Academy Award winner James Marsh (“Man on Wire”). (c) Focus
Kristian and special guest Alicia Malone discuss “The Theory of Everything”, the new Stephen Hawking biopic getting serious Oscar buzz for star Eddie Redmayne…how did the kids feel about the flick? Find out now and comment with your take!
_____________________________ Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 3 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 3 of 3: ‘Is Woody Allen A Romantic Or A Realist?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, Crimes and Misdemeanors, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras.http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca ______________ I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 2 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 2 of 3: ‘What Does The Movie Tell Us About Ourselves?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras. http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca______________ I have gone back and f
3 of 3: ‘Is Woody Allen A Romantic Or A Realist?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, Crimes and Misdemeanors, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras.http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca ______________ I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times […]
________________________ Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 2 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 2 of 3: ‘What Does The Movie Tell Us About Ourselves?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras. http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca _________________- _____________________________ Discussing Woody Allen’s movie “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and various other subjects […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 Uploaded by camdiscussion on Sep 23, 2007 Part 1 of 3: ‘What Does Judah Believe?’ A discussion of Woody Allen’s 1989 movie, perhaps his finest. By Anton Scamvougeras.http://camdiscussion.blogspot.com/antons@mail.ubc.ca________________________ I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and […]
In the book, THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. Sagan writes: The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal is an organization of scientists, academics, magicians, and others dedicated to skeptical scrutiny of emerging or full-blown pseudo-sciences. It was founded by the University of Buffalo philosopher Paul […]
_____________ THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. New York: Random House, 1995. 457 pages, extensive references, index. Hardcover; $25.95. PSCF 48 (December 1996): 263. Sagan is the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell University. He is author of many best sellers, including Cosmos, which […]
Richard Dawkins Interview Ricky Gervais About Atheism! _________ Antony Flew – World’s Most Famous Atheist Accepts Existence of God Uploaded on Nov 28, 2008 Has Science Discovered God? A half-century ago, in 1955, Professor Antony Flew set the agenda for modern atheism with his Theology and Falsification, a paper presented in a debate with C.S. […]
____________ Does God Exist? Thomas Warren vs. Antony Flew Published on Jan 2, 2014 Date: September 20-23, 1976 Location: North Texas State University Christian debater: Thomas B. Warren Atheist debater: Antony G.N. Flew For Thomas Warren: http://www.warrenapologeticscenter.org/ ______________________ Antony Flew and his conversion to theism Uploaded on Aug 12, 2011 Antony Flew, a well known spokesperson […]
____________ Jesus’ Resurrection: Atheist, Antony Flew, and Theist, Gary Habermas, Dialogue Published on Apr 7, 2012 http://www.veritas.org/talks – Did Jesus die, was he buried, and what happened afterward? Join legendary atheist Antony Flew and Christian historian and apologist Gary Habermas in a discussion about the facts surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Join […]
_________________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his […]
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]
Morality Presupposes Theism (1 of 4) Uploaded by philosophyreligion on Oct 15, 2010 Dr. Stephen C. Meyer argues that in order to make sense of morality you must presuppose the existence of God. Table of Contents:http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B324A88301858151____________________________ Below is more on the bio of Stephen C. Meyer: Dr. Stephen C. Meyer Stephen C. […]
RC Sproul Interviews Stephen Meyer, Part 1 of 5 Uploaded by LigonierMinistries on Mar 2, 2010 RC Sproul sits down with Stephen Meyer, author of the book, “Signature in the Cell”, and they discuss philosophy, evolution, education, Intelligent Design, and more. Below is more on the bio of Stephen C. Meyer: Dr. Stephen C. […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
_________ Jodie Foster’s mystical flight Contact Don’t read this review if you want to be surprised by the ending of the movie. My next sentence is discussing the end. Over and over in the movie Cooper (played by Matthew McConaghey) says “someone out there is helping us,” but instead of pointing to God who created […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
___ _________ Jesus’ Resurrection: Atheist, Antony Flew, and Theist, Gary Habermas, Dialogue Published on Apr 7, 2012 http://www.veritas.org/talks – Did Jesus die, was he buried, and what happened afterward? Join legendary atheist Antony Flew and Christian historian and apologist Gary Habermas in a discussion about the facts surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. […]
____________________ Making Sense of Faith and Science Uploaded on May 16, 2008 Dr. H. Fritz Schaefer confronts the assertion that one cannot believe in God and be a credible scientist. He explains that the theistic world view of Bacon, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Faraday and Maxwell was instrumental in the rise of modern science itself. […]
In this episode “How to Stay Free” Friedman makes the statement “What we need is widespread public recognition that the central government should be limited to its basic functions: defending the nation against foreign enemies, preserving order at home, and mediating our disputes. We must come to recognize that voluntary cooperation through the market and in other ways is a far better way to solve our problems than turning them over to the government.”
In this episode Milton Friedman makes the point, “There was no widespread public demand for Social Security programs… it had to be sold to the American people primarily by the group of reformers, intellectuals, new dealers, the people associated with FDR. The Social Security is one of the most misleading programs. It has been sold as an insurance program. It’s not an insurance program. It’s a program which combines a bad tax, a flat tax on wages up to a maximum with a very inequitable and uneven system of giving benefits under which some people get much, some people get little.”
Pt 5
Lawrence E. Spivak: I know, I believe, I say I know, I think I know, but I’ll say I believe that you felt, you blame the government for the Great Depression of 1929 through 1933 and of course, you had to blame FDR for all he did, but most people feel that he saved this free economy of ours.
Friedman: Given the catastrophe of the Great Depression, there is no doubt in my mind that emergency government measures were necessary. The government had made a mess. Not FDR’s government, it was the government that preceded him. Although it was mainly the Federal Reserve System which really wasn’t subject to election. But once FDR came in he did two very different kinds of things.
Lawrence E. Spivak: Well, had the government made a mess by what it did or but by what it didn’t do.
Friedman: By what it did. By it’s monetary policies which forced and produced a sharp decline in the total quantity of money. It was a mismanagement of the monetary apparatus. If there had been no federal reserve system, in my opinion, there would not have been a Great Depression at that time. But given that the depression had occurred, and it was a catastrophe of almost unimaginable kind, I do not fault at all, indeed on the contrary I commend Roosevelt for some of emergency measures he took. They obviously weren’t of the best, but they were emergency measures and you had an emergency you had to deal with. And the emergency measure such as relief programs, even the WPA which was a make work program, these served a very important function. He also served a very important function by giving people confidence in themselves. His great speech about the only thing we have to fear is fear itself was certainly a very important element in restoring confidence to the public at large. But he went much beyond that, he also started to change, under public pressure, the kind of government system we had. If you go beyond the emergency measures to the, what he regarded as reform measures, things like NRA and AAA, which were declared unconstitutional, but then from there on to the Social Security system, to the …
Lawrence E. Spivak: Take the Social Security System for a minute. The people wanted that, they wanted that protection. They were frightened, they wanted welfare.
Friedman: Not at all.
Lawrence E. Spivak: When you said pressure, who, pressure from whom?
Friedman: Pressure from people who were expressing what they thought the public ought to have. There was no widespread public demand for Social Security programs. The demands…….
Lawrence E. Spivak: No demand for welfare with 13 million people …….
Friedman: There was a demand for welfare and assistance I was separating out the emergency measures from the permanent measures. Social Security in the first 10 years of its existence, helped almost no one. It only took in money. Very few people qualified for benefits. It wasn’t an emergency measure. It was a long term measure. And it had to be sold to the American people primarily by the group of reformers, intellectuals, new dealers, the people associated with FDR. The Social Security is one of the most misleading programs. It has been sold as an insurance program. It’s not an insurance program. It’s a program which combines a bad tax, a flat tax on wages up to a maximum with a very inequitable and uneven system of giving benefits under which some people get much, some people get little. So that Social Security….
Lawrence E. Spivak: Would you now abolish Social Security?
Friedman: I would not go back on any of the commitments that the government has made. But I would certainly reform Social Security in a way that would end in its ultimate elimination.
Lawrence E. Spivak: If you’re not afraid then of the free market under any circumstances, where cooperation which you find necessary which you believe all to come, fails to come, where competition becomes so fierce and becomes very frequently corrupt and where, all where it becomes stupid. Take for example what’s happening in today’s market, the conglomerates. Which have been seizing up all sorts of, we happen to live in a hotel that’s run by a conglomerate. Why should ITT, for example, run a hotel and how are you going to stop that.
Friedman: Well in the first place, once again,
Lawrence E. Spivak: Without government, without…..
Friedman: Once again, it’s government measures that have promoted the conglomerates. The only major reason we have conglomerates is because they are a very effective way to get around a whole batch of tax legislation. Let me ask a different question. Who is more effected by government regulations, by government controls?
Lawrence E Spivak: I thought I was supposed to ask the questions. But I was warned that you might turn these on me.
Friedman: Well tell me, whose more effected the big fellow who can deal with it or that have a separated department to handle the red tape, or the poor fellow?
Lawrence E. Spivak: The big fellow can always take care of himself under any system.
Friedman: Right, and therefore he’ll want a system which gives the big fellow the least advantage. And the system under which he can get government to help him out, gives him the most advantage, not the least. You say am I afraid of greed, of lack of cooperation. Of course. But we always have to compare the real with the real. What are the real alternatives? And if we look at the record of history, if we go back to the 19th century which everybody always points to as the era of the robber baron who strode around the land and ground the poor under his heel, what do we find? The greatest outpouring of voluntary charitable activity in the history of the world. This University, this University of Chicago is an example. It was founded by contributions by John D. Rockefeller and other people. The colleges and universities throughout the Midwest. If you go back and ask when was the Red Cross founded, when was the Salvation Army founded, when were the Boy Scouts founded, you’ll discover all of that came during the 19th century in the era of unregulated rapacious capitalism.
Lawrence E. Spivak: I’d like to go back for a minute to the question of conglomerates. Granted that what you say that the government policies concentration on central government if you will, or whatever you want to call it, are responsible for the growth of conglomerates. What would we, what should we do about them now? Government try to undue them? Or should anybody try to undue them?
Friedman: No.
Lawrence E. Spivak: Or should you just let them fail?
Friedman: You should let them fail, of course. I am strongly opposed to government bailing any of them out. You should let them fail. The best things you can do in my opinion, are first to have complete free trade so you can have conglomerates in other countries compete with conglomerates in this country. We may have only two or three automobile companies, but there’s Toyota, there’s Volkswagen, competition from abroad is effective. But in the second place…
Lawrence E. Spivak: When do you say complete free trade you mean all over the world?
Friedman: No sir. I mean the U.S. all by itself unilaterally should eliminate all trade barriers. We would be better off if all the countries did the same.
Lawrence E. Spivak: What do you think would happen if we just did it though?
Friedman: I think we’d be very much better off and a lot others would then follow our example. That’s what happened in the 19th Century when Great Britain in 1846 completed removed, unilaterally, all trade barriers so that…..
Lawrence E. Spivak: You don’t think this country would be flooded with goods of all kinds from all over the world, maybe cheaper in that we wouldn’t have great unemployment in this country?
Friedman: What would the people who sold us goods do with their money? They’d get dollars, what would they do with the dollars? Eat them. If they want to send us goods and take dollars in return, we’re delighted to have them. No. That’s not a problem as long as you have a free exchange rate. Because we cannot export without importing, we cannot import without exporting. You would not have a reduction in employment, what you’d have would be a different pattern of employment. You’d have more employment in export industries and less employment in those industries that compete with import. But go back to conglomerates, Larry for a moment. I just want to ask a very different kind of a question. Conglomerates are not very attractive, I would much rather have a lot of small enterprises. But there’s all the difference in the world between a private conglomerate and a government conglomerate. In general, the government conglomerate can get money from you without your agreeing to give it to him. You and I pay for Amtrak and for the postal deficit whether we use the services of Amtrak or the postal deficit or not. I don’t pay your conglomerate unless I rent one of their apartments. I get something for my money. So bad as private conglomerates are, they’re less bad than one of the alternatives.
Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 1-5 How can we have personal freedom without economic freedom? That is why I don’t understand why socialists who value individual freedoms want to take away our economic freedoms. I wanted to share this info below with you from Milton Friedman who has influenced me greatly over the […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Inside is the largest horde of gold in the world. Because the world was on a gold standard in 1929, these vaults, where the U.S. gold was stored, […]
George Eccles: Well, then we called all our employees together. And we told them to be at the bank at their place at 8:00 a.m. and just act as if nothing was happening, just have a smile on their face, if they could, and me too. And we have four savings windows and we […]
Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980), episode 3 – Anatomy of a Crisis. part 1 FREE TO CHOOSE: Anatomy of Crisis Friedman Delancy Street in New York’s lower east side, hardly one of the city’s best known sites, yet what happened in this street nearly 50 years ago continues to effect all of us today. […]
Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “What is wrong with our schools?” (Part 3 of transcript and video) Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 3 of 6. Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: If it […]
Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 2 of 6. Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Groups of concerned parents and teachers decided to do something about it. They used private funds to take over empty stores and they […]
Here is the video clip and transcript of the film series FREE TO CHOOSE episode “What is wrong with our schools?” Part 1 of 6. Volume 6 – What’s Wrong with our Schools Transcript: Friedman: These youngsters are beginning another day at one of America’s public schools, Hyde Park High School in Boston. What happens when […]
Friedman Friday” Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 3 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other […]
Free to Choose by Milton Friedman: Episode “Created Equal” (Part 2 of transcript and video) Liberals like President Obama want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are […]
Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan Liberals like President Obama (and John Brummett) want to shoot for an equality of outcome. That system does not work. In fact, our free society allows for the closest gap between the wealthy and the poor. Unlike other countries where free enterprise and other freedoms are not present. This is a seven part series. […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 3 OF 7 Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Inside […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. For the past 7 years Maureen Ramsey has had to buy food and clothes for her family out of a government handout. For the whole of that time, her husband, Steve, hasn’t […]
Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 1 of 7) Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave Abstract: Since the Depression years of the 1930s, there has been almost continuous expansion of governmental efforts to provide for people’s welfare. First, there was a tremendous expansion of public works. The Social Security Act […]
_________________________ Pt3 Nowadays there’s a considerable amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers between them are still very real. On this side […]
Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago, Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are […]
“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians […]
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]
A Review of Stephen and Jane Hawking story THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING PART 8
The Theory of Everything Official Trailer #1 (2014) – Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – Keep Winding (2014) – Eddie Redmayne Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – You Don’t Know What’s Coming (2014) – Felicity Jones Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – My Name is Stephen Hawking (2014) – Eddie Redmayne Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Movie CLIP – Blink to Choose (2014) – Felicity Jones Movie HD
The Theory of Everything Official Trailer #2 (2014) HD
I saw this movie the other day and I enjoyed it very much. I have posted many things in the past that refer to Stephen Hawking and his works. My favorite review had this quote below in it.
Much can be said about the brilliance of Stephen Hawking’s mind and how he has survived so many years with MND. Spiritually speaking, could it be that God is giving Stephen time? Time to come to know Him and that, beyond all Stephen’s theories, God is profoundly the Great I Am.
I wish Stephen Hawking to take time to read the work of Dr. Henry F. Schaefer. He speaks of Jane and Stephen in his work.
Below is a video clip with a review of THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.
With more romance than science, there’s real chemistry here.
Courtesy of Working Title Films
So you say you don’t quite have a handle on singularities, the mechanics of black holes, quantum fluctuations or the wave function theory of the universe? Well, not to worry, you don’t have to know any of that egghead stuff to watch “The Theory of Everything.” This new biopic detailing the relationship between famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking and his first wife, Jane, actually has precious little to do with the workings of the universe and much more to do with the workings of the heart.
That’s really no big surprise considering the primary source material for the screenplay comes from Jane’s memoirs rather than Stephen’s. The former Ms. Wilde mastered in European literature, after all, and not physics. That’s where the movie begins, with both Jane and Stephen in college, having a meet-cute at a social function.Jane has been dragged to the party by friends hoping to set her up with someone physically suitable, but she is immediately drawn to the more intellectually stimulating Stephen, a brilliant, though somewhat lackadaisical, science student.
Rather than engage in trivial banter, the two immediately begin to discuss more weighty matters, including the young Hawking’s insistence that there is no God, a belief that will become a lifelong point of contention for the staunchly Anglican Jane. The only thing cosmologists worship, Stephen insists, is the idea of discovering one scientific theory that will unify all things.
On the cusp of formulating his first major thesis regarding black holes, Hawking is informed by doctors that he has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and is given two years to live. Despite this seeming death sentence, Jane still insists on getting married, ignoring the protestations of family members and Stephen himself who, ever the scientist, insists her declarations of love must be a false conclusion.
The film moves rather briskly from there, hitting upon the highlights and low points of the pair’s thirty-year marriage. Even as Stephen’s fame increases, his body deteriorates, putting more and more of a strain on Jane as she takes on the burdens of being a wife, mother, nurse and secretary. Seeking some outlet of her own, Jane joins the church choir where she meets Jonathan Hellyer Jones, the man whom she will eventually develop romantic feelings for. The marriage finally dissolves when Stephen falls in love with one of his nurses.
It’s all pretty standard by-the-book romantic drama material, and with less capable actors, the whole affair could easily sink into Lifetime movie territory. Fortunately, Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones turn in career-making performances. Redmayne is a cinch for an Academy Award nomination, not only for perfectly capturing the tics and contortions that come with Hawking’s ailment, but also for managing to convey complex emotions with nothing but the movement of his eyes. Really, the only downside to his performance is that in the early scenes he distractingly looks like a young Austin Powers, but that passes quickly. In a just world, Jones would also earn a nomination for her portrayal of the heroically stoic Jane, but the performance is so understated, so very British, it may sadly pass beneath the Academy’s radar.
Alas, the performances can’t hide all of the film’s problems. Like most biopics of beloved pop culture personalities, “The Theory of Everything” polishes up some of the rough edges of its characters.Take Hawking’s evangelical atheism for example, which in reality displays the modern celebrity scientist’s arrogant dismissal of anyone whose ideas they feel are unworthy, but in the movie is treated as little more than a cute quirk.
“I have a slight problem with the celestial dictatorship premise,” Hawking says charmingly while conversing with Jane. In real life, the proper response to this would be, “Well, so does the Church.That’s why she’s never taught any such notion of God in the history of ever, which you would know if you actually took the time to study the topic instead of blithely dismissing it.” In the film, though, the comment simply gets a giggle and a roll of the eyes from Jane.The movie is as unwilling to confront the superficiality of Hawking’s atheism as it is to delve into the complexities of his scientific theories.
The relationship between the Hawkings is also spruced up a bit as well. It doesn’t take too much time on Google to learn that the breakup of their marriage was hardly the congenial affair depicted in the film. This isn’t a grievous an omission, though, as the alteration serves the movie’s determination to tell a story about the transcendence of love and respect in the face of overwhelming struggles. Which it accomplishes, more or less.
So, if you’re just interested in Hawking’s scientific theories and are looking for an exposition about gravity and worm holes and the like, you’d be better off skipping “The Theory of Everything” and going to see “Interstellar” instead. But if you’re in the mood for a beautifully acted gentle story about two people, one of whom just happens to be the world’s most famous physicist, in an unusual situation struggling to make a relationship work, “The Theory of Everything” might just work for you.
I am taking a slight detour from my series on the message of Jesus because of a fortuitous (providential?) coincidence. Yesterday, I asked: “Is the kingdom of God the same thing as heaven?” The answer, according to Jesus in the New Testament Gospels, is “No.” Heaven is encompassed within God’s reign, but the kingdom of God has as much to do with earth as with what we call heaven.
Today, heaven is in the news. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the absence of heaven is in the news.
In a recent interview with the Guardian, British scientist Stephen Hawking proclaimed what his fellow Brit, John Lennon, once encouraged us to imagine. Hawking confidently stated that there is no heaven.
“I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I’m not afraid of death, but I’m in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first,” he said.
“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark,” he added.
I have to admire Stephen Hawking’s courage, both in life and in his pending death. And I am certainly in awe of his intellect. But what I find curious is his faith. Yes, that’s right, his faith. Stephen Hawking has faith every bit as much as I do. Let me explain what I mean.
Hawking is a scientist, one who operates in the realm of the material and the testable. Now, much of his scientific theorizing goes far, far beyond what can be seen in a microscope or telescope. Testing in the disciplines of theoretical physics, astronomy, and cosmology is not something one can do in a home laboratory. Nevertheless, at least in principal, Hawking’s theories about nature can be tested within the complex theoretical framework in which he operates.
Yet there are many things Hawking cannot know as a scientist because they are untestable. For example, he can’t know as a scientist whether there is an afterlife or not. He cannot know as a scientist if there’s a heaven, and, if so, what it’s like. To put the matter differently, Hawking cannot know as a scientist that there is no heaven. The existence of heaven is beyond the scope of scientific knowledge, even for a man as brilliant as Stephen Hawking.
So, when Hawking affirms confidently that there is no heaven, he is not speaking as a scientist, but as a person of faith. He is expressing his belief that is not based on scientific evidence. Now, he has every right to do this. And he has every right to be taken seriously as a brilliant man with a courageous spirit. But we make a big mistake if we think that Hawking’s conclusions about heaven are a matter of science. They’re not. They can’t be.
“Oh,” you might object, “there is no real knowledge beyond science. The only things that can be known are those things that are determined by science.” The strange thing is that this very statement is itself unscientific. Science cannot prove that science alone is a reliable source of knowledge. So the one who makes this argument has already disproved the argument.
A defender of Hawking might respond by saying that I cannot know that there is a heaven. I would agree, if we’re talking about scientific knowledge. Heaven also cannot be known by means of history or sociology. But if there are other kinds of knowledge, if there is knowledge that transcends the empirical, then heaven might be knowable in that way.
“Ah,” my interlocutor might assert, “but now you’re in the realm of faith!” Yes, perhaps I am, just as Stephen Hawking is when he talks about heaven. But there is a kind of knowledge that interacts with, critiques, clarifies, and strengthens faith.
As you might expect, I believe Hawking is wrong about heaven. And, yes, I hope he’s wrong. But my zeal for heaven does not have to do with my fear of the dark, as he says. In fact, it has everything to do with another of Hawking’s faith commitments. I’ll weigh in on this tomorrow as I talk about what Hawking’s view of heaven misses.
The Theory of Everything Featurette – Eddie Redmayne’s Transformation (2014) – Movie HD
Eddie Redmayne gets critique from Stephen Hawking
Published on Nov 2, 2014
Rising British star Eddie Redmayne, who plays Stephen Hawking in the movie ‘The Theory of Everything’, recalls the nerve-racking meeting with Hawking himself and talks about the transformation he went through portraying the iconic physicist.
‘The Theory Of Everything’ Cast On Meeting Steven Hawking | TODAY
The Theory of Everything Movie Review – Beyond The Trailer
Published on Oct 18, 2014
The Theory of Everything movie review! Beyond The Trailer host Grace Randolph shares her review aka reaction today for this 2014 movie! http://bit.ly/subscribeBTT
The Theory of Everything Movie Review. Beyond The Trailer host Grace Randolph gives you her own review aka reaction to The Theory of Everything starring Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking and Felicity Jones as his wife Jane! Will this movie be a big contender for nominations at the 2015 Oscars?! Would you be wise to factor it into your predictions?! Should you see the full movie? Enjoy The Theory of Everything in 2014, and make Beyond The Trailer your first stop for movie news, trailer and review on YouTube today!
The Theory of Everything Movie Review – Just Seen It
Published on Oct 27, 2014
Stephen Hawking is studying to be a physicist when he falls in love with a student named Jane. But when he is diagnosed with a debilitating illness, his life is forever altered. But the power of love unlocks one of the most brilliant minds of the twentieth century.
Starring Felicity Jones, Eddie Redmayne, and Charlie Cox.
Directed by James Marsh.
Written by Anthony McCarten and Jane Hawking.
Produced by Tim Bevan, Lisa Bruce, Eric Fellner, and Anthony McCarten.
Genre: Biography, Drama.
Aaron, Salim, and Leah discuss the new biopic that tells the story of the brilliant Stephen Hawking and his wife, Jane.
Starring Aaron Fink, Salim Lemelle, and Leah Aldridge.
Directed by Erik Howell.
Edited by Stephen Krystek.
Produced by David Freedman, Cooper Griggs, Kevin Taft, Amy Taylor, Pedro Lemos, and Aaron Fink.
Sound Design by Aaron Fink and Andrew Grossman.
The Theory of Everything (Starring Eddie Redmayne) Movie Review
Published on Nov 6, 2014
The Theory of Everything starring Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, and David Thewlis is reviewed by Alonso Duralde (TheWrap and Linoleum Knife podcast), Christy Lemire (www.ChristyLemire.com), and William Bibbiani (Crave Online).
Starring Eddie Redmayne (“Les Misérables”) and Felicity Jones (“The Amazing Spider-Man 2”), this is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde. Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could ever have dreamed. The film is based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, by Jane Hawking, and is directed by Academy Award winner James Marsh (“Man on Wire”). (c) Focus
Kristian and special guest Alicia Malone discuss “The Theory of Everything”, the new Stephen Hawking biopic getting serious Oscar buzz for star Eddie Redmayne…how did the kids feel about the flick? Find out now and comment with your take!
In the book, THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. Sagan writes: The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal is an organization of scientists, academics, magicians, and others dedicated to skeptical scrutiny of emerging or full-blown pseudo-sciences. It was founded by the University of Buffalo philosopher Paul […]
_____________ THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan. New York: Random House, 1995. 457 pages, extensive references, index. Hardcover; $25.95. PSCF 48 (December 1996): 263. Sagan is the David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell University. He is author of many best sellers, including Cosmos, which […]
Richard Dawkins Interview Ricky Gervais About Atheism! _________ Antony Flew – World’s Most Famous Atheist Accepts Existence of God Uploaded on Nov 28, 2008 Has Science Discovered God? A half-century ago, in 1955, Professor Antony Flew set the agenda for modern atheism with his Theology and Falsification, a paper presented in a debate with C.S. […]
____________ Does God Exist? Thomas Warren vs. Antony Flew Published on Jan 2, 2014 Date: September 20-23, 1976 Location: North Texas State University Christian debater: Thomas B. Warren Atheist debater: Antony G.N. Flew For Thomas Warren: http://www.warrenapologeticscenter.org/ ______________________ Antony Flew and his conversion to theism Uploaded on Aug 12, 2011 Antony Flew, a well known spokesperson […]
____________ Jesus’ Resurrection: Atheist, Antony Flew, and Theist, Gary Habermas, Dialogue Published on Apr 7, 2012 http://www.veritas.org/talks – Did Jesus die, was he buried, and what happened afterward? Join legendary atheist Antony Flew and Christian historian and apologist Gary Habermas in a discussion about the facts surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Join […]
_________________ Antony Flew on God and Atheism Published on Feb 11, 2013 Lee Strobel interviews philosopher and scholar Antony Flew on his conversion from atheism to deism. Much of it has to do with intelligent design. Flew was considered one of the most influential and important thinker for atheism during his time before his […]
Ecclesiastes 1 Published on Sep 4, 2012 Calvary Chapel Spring Valley | Sunday Evening | September 2, 2012 | Pastor Derek Neider _____________________ I have written on the Book of Ecclesiastes and the subject of the meaning of our lives on several occasions on this blog. In this series on Ecclesiastes I hope to show how […]
Morality Presupposes Theism (1 of 4) Uploaded by philosophyreligion on Oct 15, 2010 Dr. Stephen C. Meyer argues that in order to make sense of morality you must presuppose the existence of God. Table of Contents:http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B324A88301858151____________________________ Below is more on the bio of Stephen C. Meyer: Dr. Stephen C. Meyer Stephen C. […]
RC Sproul Interviews Stephen Meyer, Part 1 of 5 Uploaded by LigonierMinistries on Mar 2, 2010 RC Sproul sits down with Stephen Meyer, author of the book, “Signature in the Cell”, and they discuss philosophy, evolution, education, Intelligent Design, and more. Below is more on the bio of Stephen C. Meyer: Dr. Stephen C. […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
_________ Jodie Foster’s mystical flight Contact Don’t read this review if you want to be surprised by the ending of the movie. My next sentence is discussing the end. Over and over in the movie Cooper (played by Matthew McConaghey) says “someone out there is helping us,” but instead of pointing to God who created […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
__________ “God and Cosmology” William Lane Craig and Sean Carroll – 2014 Greer Heard Forum Published on Mar 3, 2014 For more resources visit:http://www.reasonablefaith.org On Friday, February 21st, 2014, philosopher and theologian, Dr William Lane Craig, was invited by the Greer Heard Forum to debate Dr Sean Carroll, an atheist theoretical physicist. The topic […]
___ _________ Jesus’ Resurrection: Atheist, Antony Flew, and Theist, Gary Habermas, Dialogue Published on Apr 7, 2012 http://www.veritas.org/talks – Did Jesus die, was he buried, and what happened afterward? Join legendary atheist Antony Flew and Christian historian and apologist Gary Habermas in a discussion about the facts surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. […]
____________________ Making Sense of Faith and Science Uploaded on May 16, 2008 Dr. H. Fritz Schaefer confronts the assertion that one cannot believe in God and be a credible scientist. He explains that the theistic world view of Bacon, Kepler, Pascal, Boyle, Newton, Faraday and Maxwell was instrumental in the rise of modern science itself. […]
Courtesy of Working Title Films
