Saturday, July 20, 2013

The devil's most powerful tool: a lie

     People (including Christians) are often confused about what the devil wants to do or how he accomplishes his goals. His methods and modes of operation are not that complex and yet they have worked well for thousands of years.
      The devil's most powerful, effective, frequently used, and common tool for gaining ground in the battle for your mind/soul is to get you to accept a lie as truth. Especially if this lie is regarding a core, foundational concept that will forever impact your life.
      People see a horrible accident, or a tyrannical leader committing atrocities, or a family torn apart by bad choices and think of these things as evil and undesirable. We often want to fix things, so we approach the problem and do our best to influence future outcomes to be better and more positive. However, we generally attack the symptoms and not the root cause. More often than not, bad choices are caused by people who act on a belief that is in fact a lie. I think that most all undesirable human behavior can be tied directly to a corresponding lie which is often ingrained into the person deeply and they don't even know it.
        If we want to have a proper view of God, ourselves, others, and the world around us, then we must constantly evaluate our beliefs and our thoughts to see if we have believed a lie. Neglecting to do this can have disastrous results!

 Here is a very relevant quote:
"Telling a lie means you have aligned yourself with satan. Every time you lie you give Satan a piece of your heart. The more lies you tell, the more you give place in your heart to Satans lying spirit, until eventually you can't stop yourself from lying" -Stormie Omartian from The Power of a praying parent


Here is a list of dangerous lies that come to mind:

- God does not exist, so why waste time on  __________ .
- It will not hurt if I  _______ just once .
- I'll have time to look into whether or not God really exists later.
- I do not need _______ to have a good marriage .
- The bible isn't special it is just ______________ .
- If I lie a little bit on small things it won't hurt anyone. 
- ______ does not really love me.
- Letting selfishness get out of control (the world is not about you)
 

Can We Trust Science and is it Reliable?

      Often in a debate comparing two worldviews one side or the other will make a statement and back it up with some short of scientific study. Then they expect the other party in the debate to capitulate, because science is fact and you cannot argue with science. Often neither person capitulates and the debate continues anyways; sometimes, because the opposing party can produce a scientific study to support their side or they simply disregard the study. However, this raises a question: Are scientific studies absolute fact and is it illogical to disregard one?
   To answer this question we can look at how often inaccuracies and fraud have been detected in scientific studies, then we have to ask ourselves if we are detecting most of it or only a small portion? Since humans participate, analyze, and draw conclusions as part of a scientific study, and human behavior is somewhat predictable, we can safely say that a lot of invalid scientific studies (due to accidental errors or fraud) go undetected.

Consider this excerpt and read the whole article for yourself:
"As a result, fraud in science is considered by many to be endemic. Biological research is one of the chief areas of concern. Some conclude that over 10% of all researchers in this area are less than honest. Indeed, probably most researchers have quoted data that are fraudulent, or at least inaccurate. Few extensive research investigations on fraud under the present system exist (and the cases unearthed probably represent only the tip of the proverbial iceberg)."

Source: Science fraud epidemic
http://creation.com/science-fraud-epidemic