Q: We have been inundated with questions (emails, calls) about the flat earth theory. If you have not heard it, it is being propagated by certain "Jewish/Christian" ministries who are saying in the scriptures there is no evidence for the earth being round/globe. The bible, they say, calls for a flat earth, held by pillars etc. They claim the straight forward reading and using Jewish interpretation you have no choice but to believe in a flat earth.

Now, they are also making it a doctrinal issue regarding deception. Because they claim that if you believe in a round earth, you are being deceived by the world and you are not believing in the truth of God's word. Basically if you are being deceived in this fashion you will be deceived in other ways. This is taking a lot of believers captive by this.

- Sound believers are telling me that the arguments from the flat earth teachers is very compelling and able to stumble younger believers. Teachers such as Rob Skiba among other "Jewish" teachers are making the claim.

Our folks want to know how to deal with this and want your take on the subject. The issue is hermeneutical, how do we interpret Genesis, and passages in Job and Isaiah about the earth? Also scientifically how do we respond to science discoveries of a "round" earth.

We need help. Let me know if you can help us with this.I have linked the videos of Rob Skiba for you to see their arguments.

Rob Skiba: The Biblical Flat Earth from Genesis part 1

VOCATIV (Proprietary deep web data-mined media) [Mati Kochavi/New York-Tel Aviv] - By Joshua A. Krisch - March 21, 2016
The United States formally separates Church and State, but it's hard to deny that America is inundated with religious innuendo, from its controversial pledge of allegiance all the way down to its Judeo-Christian courthouse displays and faith-espousing legal tender. Yet fewer Americans pray or believe in God than ever before, according to a new study in the journal Sage Open.

Researchers found that the percentage of Americans who claim they never pray reached an all-time high in 2014, up five-fold since the 1980s. Over the same time period, belief in God and interest in spirituality appears to have similarly declined, especially among young adults.

The findings suggest that, "millennials are the least religious generation in memory, and possibly in American history," says Jean M. Twenge, psychology professor at San Diego State University and coauthor on the study, in a press statement. "Most previous studies concluded that fewer Americans were publicly affiliating with a religion, but that Americans were just as religious in private ways. That's no longer the case, especially in the last few years."

The notion that the U.S. is inching away from organized religion is nothing new. Throughout the 2000s, studies repeatedly found that many Americans had lost faith in religious institutions. But scientists suspected the shift was from organized religion, rather than spirituality-that Americans had stopped attending formal services, but that they still prayed and believed in private.

And it made sense. The Catholic Church's highly publicized sexual abuse scandals had shaken America's faith in religious leadership right around the same time that our faith in non-religious institutions was beginning to wane. One 2014 study found that Americans had grown skeptical of Church power in much the same way that they had grown suspicious of all major institutions, including the media, the medical establishment and Congress.

But this new study suggests that Americans have a problem with God-and that our spiritual issues run deeper than paltry mistrust of religious institutions.

For the study, researchers pulled 58,893 entries from the GSS, a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults. The results suggest a steep decline in the number of Americans who pray, believe in God, take the Bible literally, attend religious services or identified as religious-all factors that should have relatively little to do with America's skepticism of large institutions.

As of 2014, nearly one third of thirty-somethings who matured in the 2000s said they were "secular" and one fifth reported that they were not even "spiritual", suggesting a decline not only in religious affiliated but also in the core beliefs of Generation Y. "Decline in religious affiliation and participation has now extended to private practices and beliefs," the authors write.

The next generation, often referred to as iGen, is even more secular. By 2014, the number of 18 to 22-year-olds who reported no religious affiliation rose from 11 percent in the 1970s to 36 percent; the percentage who said they never pray rose from 4 percent to 28 percent. Belief in God and attendance at religious serviced declined by half while self-reported spirituality declined five-fold. "This suggests that iGen will continue the decrease in religious orientation rather than reversing it, even in spirituality," the authors write.

One odd quirk, however-Americans have become slightly more likely to believe in an afterlife, even as they are abandoning prayer, belief in God and rituals. This, too, is perhaps a telling sign of America's newfound relationship with old-time religion. "It might be part of a growing entitlement mentality," Twenge said. "Thinking you can get something for nothing."

Unedited :: Link to Original Posting
http://www.vocativ.com/news/299168/americans-pray-think-heaven-is-real

 

 

THE LOCAL Norway [The Local AB] - April 18, 2016
More people than ever are dropping their membership in the Church of Norway - could the approval of gay marriage be a driving force?
Figures from the Church of Norway show that 4,200 people have withdrawn their membership thus far in 2016, Dagen reported. The numbers are on the rise, as more people left the church through the first half of April than in any of the year's previous three months.

While an average of 900 people per month dropped their membership in January, February and March, 1,092 have already left the Church of Norway in April.
"I wouldn't call it dramatic, but every signal withdrawal is unfortunate and sad," church spokesman Ole Inge Bekkelund told Dagen.
The numbers indicate that 2016 could be a record year for withdrawals from the church. In 2014, roughly 9,000 people dropped their membership as the church debated, and ultimately shot down, the idea of gay marriage.

Now it looks like the Church of Norway's membership numbers will plunge further on last week's decision to approve church weddings for same-sex couples, although Bekkelund said that a direct link could not necessarily be made. ...
The church's decline in membership is being mirrored in Denmark, where an atheist society campaign has spurred thousands of Danes to withdraw from the Church of Denmark.

 

 

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When it comes to books devoted to eschatology in general and the Rapture specifically, they often either read like a formal academic argument written solely for the benefit of scholars or employ the use of fiction to avoid directly handling the underlying biblical text. As with Jacob's previous books and exhaustive list of sermons covering nearly every area of theology, Harpazo presents the doctrine of the Rapture and Resurrection in the strictest biblical sense possible, leveraging the handling of Scripture in the same manner as passed along to us by Christ through the Apostles and Early Church of the 1st century. ...